new from above/ground press: BLINDSIGHT, by Paul Perry

Blindsight
Paul Perry
$5

Love is a Decision


I was determined not
to be tricked into

using words.

He hit me:
what do I feel?

I was about to say pain,
but said nothingness.

The days went on.
I avoided the others,
stopped laughing.

At times, it drove me crazy
rattling in my brain
not allowed to think

of anything else.

I jump up and throw it out.

Other times,
I go down.
Down.
Down with it,
down beneath words

where my breath is gentle.

It’s like looking up
through a lake
and the surface is a sentence -


what it reads is nothingness.

What it says is love.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Paul Perry is the author of 5 full length collections of poetry including Gunpowder Valentine: New and Selected Poems. A recent recipient of the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship, he is also a novelist. He directs the Creative Writing Programme at UCD in Dublin, Ireland.

This is Perry’s second above/ground press chapbook, after The Ghosts of Barnacullia (2019).

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