new from above/ground press: Stephen Brockwell's Impossible Books (the Carleton Installment)

From Metonymies: Poems by Objects Owned by Illustrious People

Stephen Harper’s Shoes

Long days holding up the country,

short nights breathing fresh air.

Each morning, a minion polishes away

a day’s accumulated scuffs

with matt black petroleum paste.

My burnished upper reflects the blurred image

of the face above but does not shine.

My heel grinds even the iridescent

beetle, silent, powerless, beautiful,

Into the Langevin asphalt. My steel

shank would never pass security

if the face did not control it personally.

The feet have no particular smell,

like winter air or snow. I complain

of the unguents, salves and balms, reeking of sulphur

that, despite all evidence to the contrary, will not

relieve the cracked and callused heels.

Impossible Books (the Carleton Installment)

by Stephen Brockwell

$4

published in Ottawa in an edition of 200 copies, and launched as part of the above/ground press 17th anniversary reading/party, September 3rd, at the Carleton Tavern;

to order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2 US) to rob mclennan, 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa Ontario Canada K1R 6R7

Stephen Brockwell's most recent book is The Real Made Up (Toronto: ECW Press, 2007). The first installment of his Impossible Books project was delivered at the Olive Reading Series in December 2007. Brockwell is trying to find a way to run a small IT company and write poems without going completely mad. Stephen recently moved to the charming Ottawa neighbourhood of Lindenlea just north of Beechwood Avenue.