Paul Perry
$5
To a Ghost
We sit in the room. We talk. It is my life you describe.
You say it is your own. Tell me again how it was.
The rain is lashing. Your handwriting uneven.
The other details you maintain are unimportant.
Talk about the moonlight then. In your childhood. It was thin as blood.
It was never there.
So sleep – whose kiss is this on your hot forehead?
Whose kiss?
So sleep –
There is a noise from downstairs. Imagine your mother baking.
It is not her. Or your father singing.
It is not him.
Downstairs, while you sleep or try to sleep, is something else.
It matters what you call it.
It matters that you can. So speak to me again of your life.
It is mine as well.
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
in part for the author’s participation in the TEXT/SOUND/PERFORMANCE: Making in Canadian Space conference at University College Dublin, Ireland, April 25-27, 2019.
https://textsoundperformance.wordpress.com/
April 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
Cover image: Bláithín de Poire
Paul Perry is the author of 5 full length collections of poetry including Gunpowder Valentine: New and Selected Poems, and two pamphlets of poetry. A recent recipient of the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship, and co-author to 4 Karen Perry best-sellers, including the Penguin published The Innocent Sleep. He is Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at UCD.
To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment