new from above/ground press: The Charm, Jason Christie

The Charm
Jason Christie
$4

we're no longer speaking

we are no longer speaking.

terms in which we might

continue speaking include:

a bundle of wool sweaters,

trees recently felled --

get specific they say,

and who, i say, is they,

they say i say, and so

we are no longer speaking

in terms that reflect

our disposable coffee

cups, plastic bottles, and

pink hair curlers, our dirty

diapers, curdled milk, and

mountains of cigarette

butts, our empty graves

with all that mud piled

beside, and our rotten

carrot mound, packages

and packages of blanched

almonds we never knew

what to do with, and

our GPS device, old

flip phone, VCR, and

cassette tapes, fruit

flies, Pac Man T-Shirts

we barely wore, down

we stumble as our words

catch in our throats and

we realize we're no longer

speaking to each other,

only to the virtual assistant

hanging on our every pause.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
October 2015
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Jason Christie lives in Ottawa with his wife and toddler. He is the author of Canada Post (Snare), i ROBOT (Edge/Tesseract), Unknown Actor (Insomniac), and a co-editor of Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (Mercury). He has two other recent chapbooks from above/ground press, which were both nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award: GOVERNMENT (2013), and Cursed Objects (2014). He is currently writing poetry about objects.

This is his fourth chapbook with above/ground press, after 8th Ave 15th St NW. (2004), Government (2013) and Cursed Objects (2014) [currently shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook Award].

[Jason Christie will be launching The Charm as part of the pre-small press book fair reading at The Carleton Tavern on Friday, November 6, 2015, alongside Catina Noble, Michael e. Casteels, Claire Farley and Christian McPherson]

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com