IS
AN AXE
Gary Barwin
$6
in the fable, there was a sad window
and a sad chair
I threw the chair through the window
and climbed out
§
sheep was a bird
and bird was a leaf
everyone was tulips
even the gun
we were forced to consider
what we didn’t want to consider
§
there once was a tulip
it was like a bomb but more gentle
boom, it went in the night
boom, it went at dawn
its red was blood if blood
didn’t mean dying
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
December 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
Gary Barwin is a writer, musician and multimedia artist and the author of 35 books including Scandal at the Alphorn Factory: New and Selected Short Fiction 2024-1984. His most recent novel, The Comedian’s Book of the Dead will be published by Book*Hug in 2026. He lives in Hamilton. garybarwin.com
This is Barwins’s ninth above/ground press chapbook, after “SYNONYMS FOR FISH,” STANZAS #26 (March, 2001), Seedpod, Microfiche (2013), Dust of the Wren: poems and translations (2019), the collaborative PLEASURE BRISTLES (with Alice Burdick; 2018), gravitynipplemilk anthroposcenesters (with Tom Prime; 2018) and SOME LEAVES (with rob mclennan, 2020), and SAYING “BOY” IN A WILDERNESS OF SONG (2021) and MY STRUGGLE WITH NOUNS (2024). He is also one of the collaborators in Kevin Spenst's Ghosted Under the Christmas Tree (2025).
To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com
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