ditch,

Sean Moreland vacillates between Kingston and Ottawa, Ontario. His poetry has appeared in Bywords.ca, The Ottawa Arts Review, The Malahat Review, NoD Magazine, and The Peter F. Yacht Club. His chapbook, Lupercalia, is available from the Bywords Press, and Dalhousie Blues, a collaborative book with Christine McNair, Caleb Brassett and Jamie Bradley is forthcoming from Ex Hubris Press. He won the John Newlove award in 2007. He holds a PhD from the University of Ottawa.

Excerpt from What, Rough Beast?

From Section I, “Call to The First Aethyr”

Attributively: Enantiodramaqueen!
Alas, as alick into alice,
Il est hermaphrodisant
Neant

Giraa ta maelpereji, das hoel-qo qaa notahoa zodimezod, od
comemahe ta nobeloha zodien; soba tahil ginonupe pereje aladi, das vaurebes obolehe giresam.

...was the Grandame of what is, descending
the genetic starcase from ein soph, ascending
again the anal (let them!) starecase where what

white flowers spurt thru the sphincter of the tetra
-grammic Throne. What, Rough Beast, was left
when you did, admit it, invoking your own exit

after leaning into it, all the accusations
your stations of not quite the cross hanging
out amidst the straylights of the sephiroth

Casarem ohorela caba Pire: das zodonurenusagi cab: erem Iadanahe. Pilahe
farezodem zodenurezoda adana gono Iadpiel das home-tohe soba ipame lu ipamis: das sobolo vepé zodomeda poamal, od bogipa aai ta piape Piamoel od Vaoan!

Virile viral vowel syndrome, esoterotarot-man,
hurdygurder of hell in heaven, out of tune tu
-mescent hymen-hymnist himself, singer
of the triple six, sin, singe and the syringe,
self and its renunciation, crypto-sadean, magick maker

mr dressup, syrup of spectacle. Is this
mr, sinister, you as alice in her stemmed
slip, ripping off her lady’s deep evening

red(ress. I was Awaiz awise awhile
ah a wiseguy, was I, awake, a week of weakness
with stick wings etched on it and a glorious gown
an auto-erotic drag-hagiographer

METAPHONY A)        mo(u)thwosh*

wroth mouth, breath!
semanic expansor informs 
gnarls in dioxidic shrinkwrap

savage packages a world
reruthed par what we think
thru  rank contemp or aneity

dawn croaks of cray sky
wielding anxes, utter our

good buys in the market
dead pleasants, we wear
our ender’s drear

don cloaks of say whyse
welding anxious shtutter or

tearfully refrain
stalling combastic phremm
yawling emmm-frew metaphones

flinging blank prays, crotchy thongs
at drogy, wank-masked gods
buried under beaker rocks
chawing time til the ranks rearise
reave and maw man-herds
                                                        amongst rapevines.

Kantfish

Whiskered electricity
ichthyoid-ictus
in discursive hic
-ough lurks neath
unsure surface of senses

in rhythmus, ricktus
since space itself is
a liquid silence within
time itself is an abscess in
the stillness of space
itself outstripped
in a race against place
in a crime against time

aswim in sea of so-we-seem
not to move :           dim light of our deeming
      since we dream
space and time are of our minds

our minds a space not
of, but out of

time: our sense of ding
and such as sich

in dong, din cochlar
chora decry occipitted

assume a tune
beyond our duty to
desire a prurient a priori

crime under the firm
little German’s cool sub
-aquatic eyes.

Ekstatick Tentickles#

In the midst of slick

& deep, inseeking

kiss

this
contagious business

occurs to me:

I’m daydreaming

perversely of
Marilyn Chambers       
shuddering sweat

not sexually, exactly,
but frothing and spastic
on the bathroom floor
in Cronenberg’s Rabid.

But the image passes, and
just the kiss persists
like a beautiful fever
in its unhurried, luxurious

squirm. Its slither. The nomadic
hands that find us spread
Osiric across our bodily maps
waiting for the naked Isis of each
fingertip to scratch us up from the

dirt’s grip. We kiss. Until this urge
erupts, surging w/ Intestinal intelligence

Becoming word in verbal gore,
liquid syllables dripping

this
Word spurts up
my throat, sticking

sucking, up your ear.

At this word your
brain burns

black rain
eats at your
expression

At this word
your face balls
into a fist.

Your face seizes,
ready to throw itself
at me, wet pink stingray
with slick proboscis

the word glowers
over the room now,
palpable, a shady
off-purple presence:

a genital-swathed
gargantua clasps us
and moves our mouths
in viscous prayer –

our serrated tongues
suck punctured air.

Seek and slam

Dullgray aft’s rough drag with the stark
wake of the goner score, sores of the shaken
stir the streets aching to blacken the package.

Redeye keyed-out pack of dirty pilgrim
sweaters, the sniffling sneakered hunt
snouts out closed faces and cold concrete

until a happy alley spreads treasures
for their play-coloured tenders. Quick
now kids: brassy blues do the corner

the cluster ducks, hasting skirts, flock
back to a grimy public head. Unfazed by
blue lights, diviners of deep venation

they prep with quick breaths, with tremulous
brevity, tapping powder from plastic shells, crouch
of humid  forms exuding need, acrid anticipation.

Flint-fleck and rocketred glare. Amped  Bics
and arcing Zippos. Frothing cook-song of
familial spoons, steel’s black badge

convex bellies small, stainless pregnancies
the kids clutch maternally - syncopated
orchestra of grunts and small seeking stabs

flagging bulbous bloodflowers. Horses surge
the gates, heavy heartfalls and itch-hot crescendos
as they play,  violinists of the breaking veins.