Jasper Glen

To Spar in a Dark Field

To spar in a dark field for I was alone
In a dark field again at night for that
Was commitment to poetry. Proxying,
To spar, meaning to stand in for its
Absence, all earth and forgettable body.
A death merchant, exchanging terms
Of green. For are you ready? Fight.
If not at the skin does speculation end
Somewhere? A far-out boat perchance
Or the linger of calm water; preparing,
Pep-talking the storm. Of course, a foray
Into talking crows too. Established 1991
The Blackbird, an illegal underground saloon.
I forgot my passport: blackbelt
For lying I never earned an officer’s badge.
I was in a car once too, and a kind of
Disturbance took over me.

Amur Cork Tree

The tree and its erratic shadow
On the sunlit grass. The anarchy
Of the abstract. I try to erase it;
Just make it darker, x-raying
The tree’s exoskeleton,
Its natural shade; crawling
In accordance with the sun’s
Movement; the serene plain
Of an orchard. Black, ragged
Limbs. The amply shaken
Tree; the dead fruit.

The Watershed

When did I enter the florist shop
astonished keeper of fine mirage

said what her beauty reflected was
a miracle calm, threshold of

fronds for asking space.
A floral arrangement preternatural ‘n pungent

-sporadical growth one here’s a hectic
scattering dendrite garden lending the soft spine-
veins snaking the various layers.

I pick a stamen, elevator at the one-limit multi-level mall
I present a vascular plantment, red cannister/dead-on bulb

and you’re looking in the one eye exact,
steroidally kept them alive by curtains.

To replicate an outcrop reaching natural capability.

Veridical
coniferous
rainforest.

Intoxicating green complex, phthalo green.
Catch them in real time perform telepathy
via spore communication.

To witness true friendliness:
Careful there, poison protected.

Thanks for the information packet.
That was really important information that.

Of perforations:

Them sense spores perform said telepathy forecast.
Popularizing the pathway/nature catwalk.

Take a photo of me I’m the first
purple flower > alert of spring

and a secret portal: Paris
Museum: what are flowers for but art décor?

Caught, not a natural mirror but furland.
I relate to real plants like fake house plants.

Tell Tarot

Can I dispel my ritual?
A pack of playing cards.

I can tell by hand-worn lines
The age of this practice.

A selection of trumps
On the table, bouffanic.

Occult- a typical pack
Queens, or Jacks

For a spike.
I can play a game with you:

Cartomancy.
Does it raise the dead?

You don’t understand
The residue.

It does raise afternoon curtains.
OK what links this universe,

And your astrology? The nervous
System, for example.

How can you tell the players
Resolve the absolute?

A crick in the neck;
I can just tell.

This is truth telling
By divination: you will have

A most horoscopic
Initiation: you will return to the old I

The one sitting here at the crooked table
Looking back to where it parallels:

There is a hidden wall,
And a mystifier,
And a globed crystal.

Pineal Gland Meditation

So then you go to the psychic
And the psychic says,

You’re anxious.
You were burned at the stake,

In the 17th century.
That’s why life is painful.

When you picture walking
Across the public square

Whole crowd watching:
See what you pick up

At the apothecary.
Cast judgment.

Rap about it:

A man who repaired his crushed
Spine with thought alone,

Said you can escape the old self
By accessing the body’s latent systems.

A break, so I believed I didn’t need
To be here any longer.

But if the body is practice,
Do I love this place?

Who knows I have a bad habit
Of asking why.

I keep looking for a way out,
For not showing up to practice

This vigilance.
Have an open focus.

Forget the body.
Divergent gate at the brain stem

For gamma to come dim.
Is a homonym I have heard

In these meditation circles.
Calcite crystals shimmerin’,

I have seen the futures.
In one, I become a survivalist.

I derive pleasure from stasis.
Staring,

Windows, doors, dimensional.
A little red bird.

We’ve taken blood from people at our events,
Watched changes in their brain scans.

In blood values I calculate
98% of my patients get better.

So tell me why,
Believing is just a hobby of mine

Oh prefect,
setting.

Jasper Glen is a poet from Vancouver, Canada. He holds a JD and a BA in Philosophy. Poems appear or are forthcoming in AGOTT, Amsterdam Quarterly, Poetry Pause, Rogue Agent Journal, The Wild Word, and elsewhere.
This entry was posted in Poetry and tagged , by Posit Editor. Bookmark the permalink.

About Posit Editor

Susan Lewis (susanlewis.net) is the Editor-in-chief and founder of Posit (positjournal.com) and the author of ten books and chapbooks, including Zoom (winner of the Washington Prize), Heisenberg's Salon, This Visit, and State of the Union. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies such as Walkers in the City (Rain Taxi), They Said (Black Lawrence Press), and Resist Much, Obey Little (Dispatches/Spuyten Duyvil), as well as in journals such as Agni, Boston Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Conjunctions online, Diode, Interim, New American Writing, and VOLT.