•••••

•••••

poems byRob Budde

manmade creek

•••••

poems by rob budde

wink books 2007

Prince George

copyright © Rob Budde 2007 / 2010

manmade creek was printed in 10 & 11 pt Optima on Classic Laid text & cover stock

Published by wink books.

wink books265 King Dr.Prince George BCV2M 5R1rbudde@shaw.ca

manmade creek

manmade creek

the gold itselfbidding on semantics wherethe stocks are a wiki entryfor small stream near wells bcwhere art swells from the water table

the icon is stainlesssteel and repainted biannually

the car stop stanza breakis for a northern copy of acopy of false creekand its undoing

an invasive poetics would beaimed not at reshapingbut lack of vision

what else might be said passespast the ditch and embraces whatceases to exist

the deliberate culvert clogs springlyand willows are an american iconmade from an invader species

the photobidding on itself

neutrinos & semiotics

a clean site, set deepthe pure lines dottedwith tell-tale bursts of love

a deep site, a durationof darkness, granite-bound,an immobility sourcing the motion

the poem site, set in burstsof movement, a stillnessdotted with signs of something more

free radicals 2

the sources are certainty &fear but the outcome isregrowth--a market correctionwithout exchange value

complicity is breath suckingin the errant atoms’socket in an artlessmall kiosk and bad crack

a by-product dumped inthe love canal, the world the commodified word in the bloodstream is strainingto break the code of invention

other poems in other places

Could it be that it is quietudethat goes on without you? A kind ofsurface tension or phthalatesleeching from the waterbottles and how-to manuals. The lab testsneed a placebo control so why notpoetry? Only afterward does a poemregret not addressing itself, wishes fora less congenial fit into someelegant window display. Transparency neveris; a container that doesn’t. Only the languagebeyond the poets won’t betray them. New products are patented every day but shifts in semantic climate are rare. A poem dutifully voted but the referendum ballot lackedanything in the present tense and vexed mountainsheep tumbled from their folds. Now the poem nears carbon neutral anddisrupts the midday classeswith calm but guttural replies; a kindof homelessness not knowing where to start.

free radicals

oxygen in the air interacts with molecules in atoms with an odd (lonely,unfulfilled) number of electrons

this often occurs during childhoodand it is clear that instability is a matter ofsupport—who is around you

highly reactive radicals createa chain reaction, like dominoes and then the trees fall fasterand good old houses go and ethics leave

cells may function poorly or die if this occurs and this general malaise is called progress

but a defense system of antioxidantsoften identified by their distinctive colour and textures—the deep red of cherries and tomatoes; the yellow of corn, mangos, and saffron; and the blue-purple of blueberriesand a good poem—these create resistance to the unstable atoms and this defense is called community

in this context, oxygen in the air interacts freely, with a radical poetics,and cells maintain joy sustainably

re: packaging

like an aura but a hardermold or mould, it still comes aroundto an essence-betraying motioncalled ‘the name’

if it’s in cellophane, it’s not worth it

formulaic but habitual—a clammy handcagey because it’s been a rip-off all along

i wrestle with ambiguity—truth is non-recyclable, fast, & plays dirty

the image shimmers, the fact shatters andthe old poem is a coffin waiting for mourners, more memorials

a metacognition—googling google and assessing the order are pandemic responses to media studies

word counting when breaking the next line

being unaware of the story telling you

the unknown rolls over; the hill is me, over and over andthe lyric trans fats are left on the shelf

prosthetica

flesh/not flesh;air reaching for air, a closing inwhere skin does not stop, arcsinto plastic, fingers entombedergonomically, my eyes sunken into the dividing line we may have forgotten what truenakedness is under the paraphernalia of living—the streets teemwith those draped in culture, technologylike genetics modifying the body and howits habits break and how bigcan they breed it?

teeth soldered full, cellphones hooked up to waves throughcerebellum, make-uptoxins sink like skinned knees andpacemakers wonder how it is we give each other anything religiously glasses crease templesand the soles of shoes leave the earth not here but hooked in and thinking is a blackberry out of juice

on petroleum, plastics, preservatives, and pharmaceuticals

those ubiquitousstories of success and conquest:the beach, a quietude of sinking, cities drifting into a collective scholastic hum, harm harboured in the inorganic flood; words

are mortal, more cancerous than poetry, morerefined and they pull into sugary pondsof thought, populated or toxicthe poisons a lexicon of canon; stasis

is an etched cenotaph on newly unconsciousskin, but the land goes on, its bizarres, itsrites, its pogroms, its feeling aculture barely visible, the lensa word order caught in sunlight burning; bodies

blown up and colonized, a silver-pilledflag staked into DNA; the mindis an orient, looking for itselfin the wrong places; control