Steve McCabe - Hierarchy of Loss

Hierarchy of Loss

Copyright © text & drawings by Steve McCabe 2007
Published in 2005 by Ekstasis Editions Canada Ltd.
Box 8474, Main Postal Outlet
Victoria, BC, Canada
ISBN 978-1-894800-94-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-894800-94-5

Praise for Hierarchy of Loss ”Ice soft talons, the flash of feathers in the morning sun, dissolving sugar cubes, Steve McCabe’s poems to his lover melt on the page with the loneliness of hollowality, the loveliness of grief. These poems reverberate with the quality of myth and reverence for the goddess.” Jill Battson “In this deftly written collection of poems, Steve McCabe wields together past and present, loss and renewal, as he navigates us through a mythical journey that boldly blends such iconic giants as Route 66, Eve, the Lone Ranger, and ultimately culminates in a rich collage of personal folklore.” Laura Lush “In Hierarchy of Loss, McCabe embodies a Keatsian act of negative capability, lines of declarative intensity threading ecology, mythos, memory and the absurd into one giant leap for the poetic. Reminiscent at times of Moritz or Vallejo, McCabe’s philosophically surreal lyrics surge with salt, ghosts, and a fearless polyvocal life force.” Catherine Owen “Steve McCabe’s poems articulate those starry places of first attention & our upright quest for tendencies. In his Hierarchy of Loss, ravages of culture adhere to wild 20th century horizons and particles elegant enough for the brightly lit stuff of periods…his keen and compelling eye so noted.” Gill McElroy “Everyone has to navigate with death, with memories and with the future at one’s back. McCabe does it with colours that replace words, with canvases that replace deeds, with poetry that replace regret.” Corrado Paina “Incorporated like a stone inside the mosaic of a rebellious mode of living, McCabe’s poems seem like a celebration of the present as much as a celebration of the past. I bid a warm welcome to Hierarchy of Loss.” Goran Simic

Working with Colours in a New Way Two mornings and two afternoons Poured into the abstracted rose mug Glass without a mirror Someone departs late at night I clear the table of documentation Salt and childhood disappear I remember poetry that came from a book And a wedding dress from Spain Eyes shining like a river on Easter morning Saying her vows – How you cut my fingernails When I was a ball of fur And dipped me in disinfectant When I returned from the river How you ran for the salt Heating an iron Squinting in the afternoon beanfield sun Both of your eyes trailing ivy Lifting a bowl filled to the brim Traveling to Vancouver/ oil paints and butcher paper under my arm I read Letters to Theo Vincent said, “I’m working with colours in a new way” And postmarked that summer, “I’m sewing a yellow dress for a wedding” I’ll think of you – one eye curving free When the harvest moon sets to fall Thunder Under The craziness of the Tutankhamen project … a staircase destination Tombs whistling through the Red Sea Rising from the golden headdress smooth As a calf’s haunch Your calves kicking Legs splayed Below the fire-ferned sky … the night raining papyrus You’re sorry Inking your name on a stick to poke the fire … bells stringing your ankles Shoehorn the slippery forest drinking an Aroma Rest your head – forget everything … fit the night into a seashell Lumina A cat-scratch Lilith One Taj Mahal shoulder My fingers slipping Inside the silver belt Beneath her exotic See-through nipples I was a tourist Overstaying my welcome My desire a river Eyes wet as Adam discovering his first wife had run away Just as silent films became popular And the deepest quiet Burning around her eyes Would propel her into tragic roles Like a whisper that I saw in profile The candle lay a triangle of light on her shoulder She never wished to be my rib – Love is a temple of silence Infinite Divisibility (1942) Unseen dreams of tidal bliss and horror mirroring Yves Tanguy’s Surrealist seascapes And yet what is expected advances You have the disease and do not know it Cured without the antidote After the diagnosis/ A bucket of paint dropped to the ground Splashing, spattering, staining Naked feet noiselessly stepping into the green Of your eyes Destiny genetic The chill down your spine not necessarily The setting sun trapped in an elevator Plunging into cold Resisting the day/ An odd dark within holding The setting sun The woman walked on your back Her bare feet tenderizing your spine Loosening what you could not name And you found yourself floating through an Yves Tanguy seashore The same colour as your eyes Darker now/ An odd darkness Infinite Divisibility (1942) – a painting by Yves Tanguy		Hitchhike A ghost-wind blew into the mouth of Route 66 We inhaled the narcotic of springtime Night swallowed the red glow of cigarettes Headlights floated a white parade Premonitions roar within a pale cyclone You struggle against the wind in your blood Fleeing the sound of windows breaking The life you sought carries a scent The President of the United States Wants you The ghost-wind emits a lost goddess sigh Random wishes populate a night sky Go forth and multiply You will lose your mother Your father too/ dust to dust Skidding to a stop the driver tosses an empty can Scattering gravel The cast-iron peace symbol hanging on a leather shoelace Bounces against the dead sparrows in his chest “Where ya’ goin’?” A phantom breeze closes the door A figure rises tripping over spindly legs Keeps pace with the car An illusion to a delusion We drive into black-throated night The absence of light hunting its shell Our glowing cigarette tips pirouette: An underwater ballet The black-lunged night swallowing our silhouettes The zonked-on-acid, punctured owner of the shiny, late-model Ford Out of the army only weeks Fleeing his newlywed life Requisitioning another six-pack Mixing medicines on the run Dividing the night Hollowed out from the inside Pointing down a side road – A single sentry standing guard motions us through the gate The driver’s girlfriend rests her head on his vigilant shoulder And fiddles with the a.m. dial Late breaking news over the radio: Rotary blades whirl Slicing a wishbone down the middle flat beneath the ivory night Perimeter lights illuminate your birthday smile Blow out the candle. The President regrets to inform … A nation at war/ not at war The old die young The shadow of death carries a long-handled flashlight Searching the roadside for aluminum cans A silver antenna transfigures the black scar of night Echoing solitude The pilot’s helmet a scream in the dew – A mist falling over shadows Blows out the light Boys in uniform pile into a truck Coffins arrive nailed shut Pounding our fists on the long wooden table Hands with the slender wrists of youth Demanding the bones of revolution Lifting glass pitchers of watery beer Dropping quarters into the jukebox Proud Mary Rolling Proud Mary Rolling And later when we were as drunk as corn in the dew Hey Jude don’t be afraid Eve swam in the shadows/ young immaculate coral Seaweed twisted around her body The serpent said, “Eat of me your body will tremble” Adam found a rifle in the twigs He silences the purring engine beneath a flickering neon VACANCY* The emptied soldier fleeing his wife Needed a dream as big as an airplane He traded his paycheck for a blue bar of soap We thought/ we were/ a revolution The portable hi-fi plugged in Pearls Before Swine singing Suzanne Grainy lyrics causing memory to recall a Jesus we had never known Jesus was a sailor … and when he knew for certain … Sunday churches bought and sold for thirty pieces of silver A nation at war Only drowning eyes could see … The cocky maniac playing one-handed catch tosses car keys into the air: Goin’ back to Hard-Rock City A pristine sorrow litters the side of the road I stick my thumb into the void Where the snake-skin veil fallen off the moon Disappeared A ghost-wind spiraling around my ankles Truckloads of boys my age Green canvas fluttering above their heads – The earth closing over their bodies – Worship a god whose prophet wore a clip-on tie Opening the manual … Eve and the serpent copulating hard as a flattened wishbone On the page Thou Shalt Not Kill One or two flash me the peace sign One or two flip me the finger Maybe they swam in the pool where I thought I might drown I put one finger in the dry skin Crawling into a tunnel I swam without needing to breathe An officer sees my thumb Retreat is not a word in his vocabulary The blur of death hunting its shell Drinking us dry The past and present tossed onto the side of the road Later to swim in the future Where I learned to move my arms Swimming away Mother From the edge of the pool I held kicking Digging fingers into mud Swimming away Father Passing through hollows Touching my toes to the bottom Where I gulped for air Outside a grimy gas station A newspaper stained with oil Blurring the day’s editorial rage: Below the Northern Lights Reason and Baudelaire paddle a flowing line The ghost-wind parting trees; A hole blowing across Route 66 Hits the windshield
Celestial Noir You asked me a question Your upper lip curved in the candlelight Bright as lemon peel Sometimes in your palms Where in olden days a nail May have split the day open You feel it Scratching With sharpened carbon tips Just itching To get busy with recreating The universe Disappearing into the birth of night Your black hair signals the dusk Liquid night pulsates And you lay down your feathery figure I imagine existing outside of time Traveling to you in fossilized footprints Darkly invisible Driven hard by the moon – Desire nourishing the dark river underground Your hair thick as oil You asked me a question – Let us put our ideology on the table And clean it like a gun		Nureyev Sideways leaping a full half-century twisting foot sideways crushing packed snow delicately Nureyev deliciously cold feathers breaking a bird’s back the morning sun leaping out of a belly of snow opening its beak to release you underfoot feathers twinkle a garden of pre-strangulation jagged peaks jag a miniature Kilimanjaro your feet twist sideways heavy-footed slipping you were Nureyev for a moment promising yourself to only cross on green priest of springtime that you are penguin hands crammed in your pockets blinded by sunblown feathers walking backwards through black snow into an open beak your fingers find the contours of midnight the pink glow of sunrise lighting the fumes of an idling bus passengers pull vines from fragrant flowers a young mother plays beneath a waterfall her infant’s nostrils steam the window you are naked falling or leaping the sticky outline of dark trees fills you warm sky pushes into your lungs the string out of your belly unraveling your heels tiny like nostrils you were Nureyev for a moment

Lace Mantilla I have a small window where a brick dislodged – The conscious mind escaping Sometimes an artist needs to decompress planets Rising out of the watery grave Like a torn veil Writing down recollections with a bluesy headache to the tune of a Dylan song I got the blues traveling short bus rides Short compared to time And to a bird that passes it is not the shadow or the passing of day The passing of sadness your graphite enemy yes the graphite Across white papers or skin scratching To a bird that passes shadows all shadows passing clouds of the day Such a passing of the day shadows away not the shadows that pass from a bird I entertained rooms full of brightly dressed bullfighters Their eyes on me like I was the bull That’s when I got the blues And the woman I was with took off her veil to photograph windows The torn thumbtacked image of blank pages opening and closing Until I replace the brick Everything disappears except for the craft of pen to paper As I diligently reconstruct what I no longer recall		Endlessly Endless I gutted my bicycle today Pulling out the entrails the phlegm the detritus of ocean travel My arms wet to the elbow my crimson eyeballs heavy Memories of frost and trapped lifeboats It lay a mangled lifeless heap missing vital organs Blank eyes trapped in nowhere Alongside the forever I stand on A crest overlooking the world, this world of endlessness And yes I miss my bicycle my father Taught me how to pedal, steer, brake and balance Skills I use even with this wooden leg Below my knee Bent in praise You can sing in the open sea Wearing a heavy backpack Or you can slide the straps Off your shoulder Beneath your liquid form Rising I pedaled furiously at the full moon afraid my chain would slip pitching me forward into a blue ocean and the arms of a goddess whispering I was her baby as she picked blue glass out of my arm and I held her like she was a sixteen speed
		January 1 Warm with the blankets thrown away You wrapped within sheer black like a death priestess Twisting your feet like a Japanese novice And during the next to last song Held on to me like I was the greenest tree