ditch,
the poetry that matters
Daniela Elza
Daniela Elza lives in Vancouver, BC, and is currently working on her first full length poetry manuscript and contemplating her doctoral thesis in Philosophy of Education at SFU. This year her work appeared in Verse Map of Vancouver, Press 1, Vallum, Matrix, qarrtsiluni, Poetic Inquiry (Sense Publishers, 2009), 4poets (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2009) and is forthcoming in educational insights, The Trumpeter, and The New Orphic Review. Her website is: http://strangeplaces.livingcode.org/
“We have to understand the artistic process not only as
an attempted solution of a paradox, but as the paradox itself.
What one knows, one cannot say, and once said
it is no more the same.”
from How Pictures Mean by Hans Hess
putting words in the mouth of a picture
the whole picture is just
part of a bird: how the
words hunger for
the image. where
black wings touch
at the shoulders the light
seeps through the seams
of feathers
and it looks
like a multitude of paths
we are each
taking.
but it is right now. right here
in this dark nugget of a crow’s
breast
this moment is a light
beam marking the exiled
green distance with blue
possibility.
I take breath
from feather to feather
from shaft to shaft. hang onto
each. while someone is
running their fingers over
the barbs interlocking prosaic
paths.
closing the arched
heavy
doors of our eyes.
“...when meaning holds still long enough
to get its picture taken, it is dead.”
—Jan Zwicky
symmetry
symmetry is where I will go
when I die. it pleases
the eye (but barely) in a way
regimented controlling what is
seen—
the way graves line up
precisely neatly. white
not to waste any time.
(to see is no challenge to the mind.
green not to waste any space.
so busy re-arranging the bones.
re-aligning them with the eye.
red to beautify what has been
regimented. ashes
so precise
it hurts (to know
this
is where we go.
“... even the philosophy of metaphor is inescapably metaphorical.”
—K. Simms
true or false (a triptych
in language) we become true
or false. in metaphor (we en.counter
the chaos) ensuing from
the flapping of a wing in the east.
stir.ring a tornado Nietzsche
thought science— the cemetery
of perception. Neil.s Bohr saw
the atom
as a drop of water. even
the philosophy of metaphor is inescapably
metaphorical
to define it is . to . see how close
we can get to a bird
before
it takes off. the measurement
ir.relevant. the pursuit left
in (the mouth open.)
negotiating with the dead
(at the Mountain View City Cemetery, Vancouver)
here the grass grows over words—
a dandelion past bloom a daisy.
I read: gone but not
(and have to move a clump of clover
to find) forgotten.
or in _______ memory
(and a tuft of grass leans gently over)
loving.
in the sun or shade of cedar
cherry
maple
each plaque sits like a closed book.
each numbered. here even the manhole
cannot be ignored—
craves its own cosmology.
*
a crow flies up claws the sound
of my startled breath.
such stillness spans 10 city blocks
and the traffic could be
the r u s h i n g
of a r i v e r.
another crow is spirited a w a y—
how does one speak with the dead?
apples on an altar? oranges? plantain?
incense? a ritual? ashes of offerings?
fresh flowers?
a special holiday?
what would I say to my grandfather if
I could visit his grave? would I come with a pail
of fresh water to this inverted city where
we the living are upside down. would I sit—
a shadow a silhouette and grow roots of light
right into the ground?
*
and what grief lies buried over there
under the rusty cedar. dry. a monument
or flame? we don’t say goodbye
in this library of lives
lest we forget are uncountable—
1949 1951 1953 this is not a private affair.
seven rows of 1950. four fields of honor
(remain)
among the cedar under cherry blossoms
under the fingers of maple leaves
that grip the ground with each fall
from the bee to the mountain view hold it
all.
as time rolls off a blade
of grass disappears
in the many years chiseled into stone.
tabula e rasa
over a bowl of tomatoes as big as two fists
roasted red peppers in vinegar and garlic
your philosophy— un-sliced
bread and white cheese.
under a walnut tree we sit
in the deep shade of summer
pull cold water out of a well
book knowledge growing weak in our hands.
in a courtyard lined with fig trees
the grammar of their leaves blooming on
white-washed walls. is it here
Locke saw his tabula rasa?
*
so what if we discuss Plato?
so what if we conclude he was unkind
to poets? we spread butter on bread
dip in roasted eggplant that melts in the mouth
and the breeze? the breeze here knows
how to play with loose hair how to tangle
the sleeves of shirts on lines of laundry.
what you touch knows what you think
even if you do not care about verse.
how you cut it serve it speaks
morsels of truth.
*
we turn to the news. all of a sudden
there is not much left to debate.
This War.
as if all is clear. as if
what more could be said?
there will be dead.
the sun a bright walnut caught
in the top of the tree
its light filters through
the leaves above our heads
and dances
on the edge of a plate of olives.
what more could be said?
blood_alley://interstital_syn.tax
(downtown Vancouver)
alleys(have no fixed addresses):
no front door stoops;
# shortcuts coding the city
# with their pragmatic and dirty
/* kind of beauty. an apothem's
relentless straightedge */
functions() of a hyperbolic map
where roads only turn right;
<the> alley fails a pi[d]geon-faced dealer
his bicycle navigating </crowds>
whoDwellBehind theNormals in
life. thisMetaspace of precariousCables;
dumpsters_and_bugs crashing
among-the-crows the-circuits
of old-benches where travellers
chalk their-secret-language
(on (the (underbelly (of) the) city)—here)
a thousand: kilometers of: short cuts
threading the: longest path: through
defeatingspaces
to {the | pharmacy} with {no | pain} killers
(a poem written in collaboration between Dethe Elza (http://livingcode.org) and Daniela Elza weaving programming syntax and vocabulary through the back alleys of Vancouver.)
acknowlegements
Some of these poems were originally published in dANDelion, Matrix, qarrtsiluni, and Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry (Mother Tongue Publishing Ltd., 2008) and 4poets (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2009). tabula e rasa won an Honorable Mention at the 17th SWiC Poetry Contest (2009).
Author photo by Frank Lee (flee.com)
