by Kate Hall
The Certainty Dream
Kate Hall
Coach House Books | Toronto
copyright © Kate Hall, 2009
first edition
This epub edition published in 2010. Electronic ISBN 978 77056 257 8.
Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also appreciates the financial support of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit program and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Hall, Kate, 1977-
The certainty dream/ Kate Hall.
Poems.
ISBN 978-1-55245-223-3
I. Title.
PS8565.A44847C47 2009 C811'.54 C2009-904274-6
for Sarah Partridge
‘I have even lost the precise comprehension of what
I seek and yet I am engaged in the search.’
– Jean-Paul Sartre
CONTENTS
A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE SEA
DREAM IN WHICH THE DREAM IS SCALED TO SIZE
WE ARE BUSY WRITING ANIMALS
DREAM IN WHICH I APOLOGIZE TO THE BIRDS
VARIATION ON A THEME BY LYN HEJINIAN
QUICK TOUR OF THE CATHEDRAL
LITTLE ESSAY ON GENETICS
SURVIVAL MACHINE
THE SHIPPING CONTAINER
WATCHING A LEAF FALL I CANNOT SEE
MYNAH SPEAKS
AS THOUGH SEALED IN A GLASS JAR
HANDS
WATER TOWER, 1998–2000
MYSELF-IN-ITS-FORM
I. Soft Bathtub (Model) - Ghost Version, 1966
II. Clothespin, 1976
III. Bicyclette Ensevelie (Buried Bicycle), 1990
SPEAKING OF ORANGE TREES
THE LOST-AND-FOUND BOX
LETTER TO MY FATHER
I INVENTED THE BIRDCALL
REMIND ME WHAT THE LIGHT IS FOR
SUSPENDED IN THE SPACE OF REASON: A SHORT THESIS
I. Abstract
II. Introduction
III. Literature Review
IV.Methodology
V. Results
VI. Discussion
VII. Conclusion
INSOMNIA
STORY TO CRANBERRIES
SCHRöDINGER’S CAT
THIS IS A DREAM LETTER
PASCAL’S WAGER
POEM TO RENOUNCE MY RENOUNCING
ONLY IN SHORT SENTENCES
HYDRAULICALLY OPERATED
VITRINE
HEARING MYNAH I HEAR MYSELF
TIME
THE FACTORY FACTORY
DREAM IN WHICH I AM ALLOWED TWELVE ITEMS
MYNAH FLIES OFF
THE BIRDS ENJOY THEIR MORNING CUP
THE SUN LIBRARY
LOVE, MYNAH
THE CERTAINTY DREAM
DRESS-UP DREAM
ANTELOPE DREAM
DREAM IN WHICH I AM TOO BIG FOR MY MIND
ONE POINT OF REFERENCE
OVERNIGHT A HORSE APPEARED
MYNAH – LAST TIME
DREAM IN WHICH I AM SEPARATED FROM MYSELF
MYNAH DREAMS HIMSELF INTO A STATUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE SEA
The vastness of the sea is missing. It is called blackbird.
Blackbird recollects mast, rigging and hull floating out there intact.
Blackbird until a swarm of dragonfly-looking things.
Blackbird in the well.
Blackbird in a circle closes around and eyes a sandwich.
Blackbird, then the throat.
Blackbird loves the dog and hates the baby.
Blackbird misses the throat.
Blackbird sprays the eye and screams.
Blackbird appliquéd overtop and peeling back.
Blackbird gives way and the inside of the earth.
Blackbird like an unfinished basement.
Blackbird lives among the Vikings.
Blackbird holds up a bulldozer like a trophy.
Blackbird sums up the ending except for the guilt.
Blackbird is what blackbird wants.
DREAM IN WHICH THE DREAM IS SCALED TO SIZE
you have felt the world shrinking
all this time you
feel yourself growing into it you
let yourself be the shape of it yes
you are in the graveyard yes
it has gone too far the sky
has turned
into a replica of your mouth
and you are about to swallow
the whole world with you
in it you know
it was meant for you
when you dance with it
in the street you let it
lead and it takes your wrist
your hip ever so delicately your hip
you gather your small things
you have felt it coming
all this time you
have nothing to call it yes
you are in the bus station with
everything spread against the cold floor
yes you are scratching against the place
where no thing is yes you are
WE ARE BUSY WRITING ANIMALS
I looked at you looking at your miniature horses,
your model boat with its small captain’s wheel.
You must have gotten smaller to fit yourself
into that space. I must have. At some point
I was at the stern and you were alone
at the bow with your kaleidoscope.
We paraded too many living things
into that tiny vessel. Entirely new species could be made
through overcrowding. We were busy on deck,
afraid to lift that wooden door. The lions
could be the same old lions that populate every plain
and we were ready for something new.
We thought we saw land. We wanted land.
DREAM IN WHICH I APOLOGIZE TO THE BIRDS
who have been denied a tree semantics
who have been denied a sentence stop
who could just as well have been buffalo or ants
whose existence is insignificant in that sense
who must make something more of themselves also not birds
for whom there is weakness, exhaustion and disease
who are thus starting to understand the contextual use of despite
who are not conscious really
who are merely display just now are displaying
who are continuous but will not continue
those whom I collected objects are simple
whom I used for research pictures of facts
whom I forced into a small fragmented area the complex name
those whom I made
strings of words
featherless
VARIATION ON A THEME BY LYN HEJINIAN
‘In the gap between what one wants to say (or what one perceives there is to say) and what one can say (what is sayable), words provide for a collaboration and desertion.’
– Lyn Hejinian
Many blocks
of sentences
make a nice
castle
You can go on saying but you can never recover the pattern of small roses not even in the pattern of small roses. That’s the crack in the sidewalk you turned into a shape. So drop it. The window needs to be fixed; it’s gaping. Neurath decided the body of knowledge is a raft that floats free of any anchor. We have to stand somewhere. Repairs must be made afloat. Feeling of impending disaster: he liked detective novels and puzzles to
o. I scrabbled my name into your book. It became my life. That’s the beauty of it. Riddles are much heavier than tea leaves because they make points of intersection: ask and answer. We are not forgetting the patience of the mad, their love of detail. When you say it like that I cannot know if I’m really knowing. There are socks in the underwear drawer. Who can argue with that? Our mothers were both in the kitchen clanging pots, standing back to back so I could measure who was taller. Astigmatism makes me see double. Disaster in the bathtub: contained waves, small splinters of wood drift around you as you move. My life doesn’t make sense. There are always elaborate coffee grounds at the bottom. I thought of liver, kidneys and lungs as drying fruit. My autobiography unravels there. Only forty-five years. What happens at the end of the book? Tomorrow I won’t speak. I’ll walk everywhere and barefoot. If I can’t walk, I’ll swim. If I can’t swim, I’ll crouch pressing one hand into the dirt to steady myself. With the other, I’ll gather twigs.
QUICK TOUR OF THE CATHEDRAL
In dark churches, certain boxes
are locked. I’m one of those tourists,
when held back from the incorruptible
by an iron railing, jostles
for a peek at the small window
you can’t really see through.
There’s no one at the prayer candles.
We’ve lit all our wishes on fire
and they give off too much light.
On a commercial break I start wishing
the blue volleyball team will win.
When they do, the final point
is scored like this: the ball is a white streak
right down the line and no one
moves to receive it.
If they play again, it will not be today.
Today I have a lot to answer for.
Fifteen people are jumping but fifteen other people are crying
and only a fine webbing separates them.
I hope that something in the locked box
will make up for this. Is it a real heart?
A real heart would stink
and rot and fall apart. Behind us, fire
is sucking up wishes. It’s melting
the pillars they’re standing on.
LITTLE ESSAY ON GENETICS
It’s possible to love your mother
even though you’re genetically deficient
and she’s genetically deficient
and our deficiencies make a big hole
in the ground. Eventually each of us will have to decide
whether to get cremated or buried in a fancy casket.
Evolution is about the genes
manipulating the bodies they ride in.
Little girls wish for ponies
without realizing their parents
have already turned them into genetic horses.
We are encoded but we have not yet
completely broken ourselves.
Genes can turn on suddenly
like a light bulb. This is a cause of
cancer. God we are amazing
biological gadgets. They cross-bred
two strains of mice. The genes
are an instruction manual, an identity
machine. The rats are right; I am frighteningly
like my mother. We are hardly here.
SURVIVAL MACHINE
The container for water
and information. We drew on
rocks. We figured out the word
sea. We figured out the words
basin and submarine. I shattered
a glass washing the dishes. I banged it
against another and underwater
one of them had to give.
I used to be a great birdwatcher
until the kingfishers flew
away, and I missed them
and still understood nothing about flight
after examining the wing structure.
It’s a beautifully invented design.
It’s a consequence.
Extinction. Sea basin.
The kingfishers. Submarine.
In a dream disposable straws are used
to download and upload information –
a process involving invisible marine organisms,
soggy computer chips
and resurrected kingfishers which remain a mystery to me.
Evolution. You took off your black sweater
and went to bed naked.
It has never changed.
Right from the beginning
it has been what it is.
For water. The container.
THE SHIPPING CONTAINER
There must be a method of transport
because there are regulations about the movement
of dangerous goods. You made me
a photocopy. I’ve started worrying about getting
the proper transportation certificate
which requires the inspector’s signature,
which in turn requires believing there is
an inspector with the authority to okay me.
There are moments when a dog will hear
what you cannot. The bark is a warning
at ninety-two decibels. Because you hear nothing
moving out there, fear is vague and constant.
Quiet is a command that registers only seven decibels when
spoken aloud. I read your note about the beauty
of the immune system and the mathematics of the brain.
How would you like me to interpret
this love letter? It weighs next to nothing
and ends abruptly. It’s true, the container
has great aesthetic value but I was really hoping
for a free watch with a rechargeable battery or
at least a better kind of nothingness.
WATCHING A LEAF FALL I CANNOT SEE
At the market, the man with his hand
in the boy’s mouth is missing.
‘Where is my house
when I am here?’ I ask my friend.
All this is spoken in gestures
I am too tired to perform.
The boy will be mute
in a case this morning or left as fabric
strung over a kitchen chair.
I unfold the bed and lay myself across it.
I cannot find it in me to rise.
A bath towel I hung in the window
serves to block out light. Outside, there
is a crossing sign with a lever that rises
and falls in front of the metal rails.
If I could see the sign through the window,
I would go and stand under it. The metal contraption
that blows by would be out of date
and I would still watch it pass. While the rattling exists,
we are held back and saved. I am waiting
for the leaf to let go. The towel is left
in the window. The leaf is a gesture I cannot see.
I will not know when it falls or
what this might mean. The sound will not
be loud enough to hear. My friend wants to drop
coins into the case where the boy used to be.
She wants to drop coins when there is a hollow
where the boy is missing and the man
is moving the boy’s mouth. She believes
the boy can speak for himself or
the man can speak for him and she imagines
it is enough.
MYNAH SPEAKS
this conversation holds one bird
the bird sets off no alarm
only moves as his shadow might
flap across the snow
I tucked my tongue into him
I wound him with a handle
now say you hear the gears turning
now say you hear the sound of arrest
I set a bird in front of me
and a book in front of him
on the book, two hands performed
a gesture of continual separation
over the bird I threw a jacket
I wasn’t gentle enough
to save him I cannot
find the cavity where I left him
a crow-bird held another bird
I dropped them both
thirty feet onto stone
no gashes visible here – nothing
between the release and the impact
time sounds like a bird strung over an abyss
I tucked my tongue into him
he was flat, he was a tapestry
AS THOUGH SEALED IN A GLASS JAR
On a field in the mud something gives.
Bruce blew out his knee. He slipped and bent.
Lifeguards can identify
the injured because they’re holding themselves
instead of swimming. The surface seals over injury
and injured. It’s the water that kills.
During bathtub races, we’re never sure we’ll stay
afloat. Seawater comes in over the rim.
Sometimes it messes up our plans.
In my bathtub boat, I’m giving myself first aid.
If I reach the dock
I’ll puke seawater.
What comes out will look nothing like what went in.
I’ve thrown up in a lot of different places
in my life and I hate to think
I just had to leave it there. Because briefly
that part of the world was mine.
At the restaurant there’s a liqueur with a real pear
in the bottle. Bruce says they grow the pears within the glass.
When the doctor looked at Bruce he said
I’m going to give you a knee
better than the one God gave you.
There’s some kind of metal –
that metal was underground
