Read Online The Ghosts of Jay MillAr by Jay Millar - Free Book Online Page B

moment:
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â feet first
    ______,
    ______,                                             ______,’                  ( SPEECH )
    ______,
    ______,
    The second takes on five things of its own
    Other times the third is
    away if it grows bored.
    Is time pure reason?: think;
    Think the fifth shy stick upon which
    birds sit in the present, singing of what is
    happening in that moment
    â€˜Each day the five, present
    after the other, grow into
    his eyes to find row after row
    of the mental creature
    one who moves along
    in sneakers, until I finally reach
    about where I am in the world
    that repeats after yesterday in
    changes are subtle, finding out
    where I was yesterday, or
    tomorrow, where ever one
    can see above their many heads’.
    And I might wake with a start:
    the morning. And, to boot,
    in such a way that some
    become something new.
    Critique of the Dying
    Of the fingers, or
    to find itself being meditated upon, great Death
    of the day, held or otherwise
    these various forms. Sometimes it has
    other times it is translucent
    but takes its own time to walk up and down
    And it grows bored. That fourth
    quite rare moment, a shy
    time lingers on and sings.
    prepare the self for one
    mental creature who has opened
    two windows, and here are discoveries
    designated to be alive at this time.
    Building quietly in a green shirt,
    what amount of understanding could be
    rearing itself in today? Alive,
    here to notice that the
    not that much different from
    will be tomorrow. And I will be
    another sky of rare
    things retreating in that order.
    Something to do will be again
    in always disappear
    (They may actually change
    be content in what I do.)
    His Face Looked Like Satie
Sounds
    Max could lie there for hours
    near the fireplace, then jump aside
    sideways and become someone else’s
    dog for the rest of the afternoon.
    Sometimes I liked it when he was
    my dog, other times I like to pretend
    I was borrowing him from the neighbours.
    During the winter we’d go running
    together through the night air around the
    block and I would run as fast as I could
    with him running the same speed,
    just ahead of me, and I would fall
    to the ground and let him pull me
    across the ice and snow by his leash.
    Sometimes I could slide 30, 40 feet.
    It was a stupid thing to do. Maybe
    I could have broke his neck, but he
    never complained or let out a yelp or
    anything. When we stopped moving
    he would always come back and sniff
    at me, making sure that I fell down
    because I wanted to. I knew lying
    there in the flat silence of winter that
    he liked making sure I was okay. One
    time his leash snapped, but I said
    he’d pulled too hard, excited by some
    bitch. He was a little crazy and we
    all knew it was possible. By 1990
    my parents realized that Max was a
    farm dog, so we moved to the country.
    Max was happy there, and he roamed
    about without the confusion of the
    maze-like suburban landscape he
    grew up in. It fit his brain better,
    and as his brain grew to a comfortable
    dog size, he kept to himself, running
    and running around the back wood
    lot, sniffing at everything to make
    sure it was all okay, until he came
    home one afternoon in 1992 limping
    and shaking, covered with mud and
    blood. Looking embarrased that
    the pack of stray dogs had gotten
    the better of him down by the creek
    again. And that night he died. It’s the
    look on his face I hallucinate from time
    to time, at moments of flat stillness
    against the light, a look somewhere
    between pain and shame, his head hung
    low as he comes in through the screen
    door at the back of the kitchen, shaking
    and amazed that all those assholes had
    been allowed into the world. We buried
    him in the back yard, just north of the
    garden, and Mom cried