copyright © Ken Babstock, 2014
first edition
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LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Babstock, Ken, 1970-, author
On malice / Ken Babstock.
Poem.
ISBN 978-1-55245-304-9 (pbk.)
I. Title.
ps8553.a245o5 2014 c811'.54 c2014-904403-8
On Malice is available as an ebook: ISBN 978 1 77056 401 5
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for Samuel, who can bend time,
and for Laura
Yes, these are conquests from the castle. I washed
my neck and my main source of food. Unfortunately,
I also washed my supplementary animal.
I have just built a … There is a struggle between …
Stamp out all the frogs at evening. I like especially
death. This is not a waiting room for souls.
From this camp I abjure Time and expect Time
in its other body to spike through
the lateral. Rain accrues
on the motiveless and hungry.
If you can’t imagine being watched,
you can’t imagine how good I am.
1 September, 1970, plane leaving Alma-Ata for Tashkent. Incident reported at 23:50.
What one otherwise only dreams
signifies a flight, a flight
into the unwashed. The word
‘supplementary.’ That is from
the Christian religion. That is from
the battlements. It has to hit someone.
Yet all the just and wonderful smells
of air on earth. The beach swims forward.
The battlements under
mine eyes shift so. Build-up of wax,
oil, dermis, it flakes off fortune
and smells where you hit someone.
Incident on 2nd September, 1970, at 23:05, over Aldan. Plane in descent.
He has built a town in the garden.
Do unto others as you would.
It carried me away.
It carried me away –
that matter is required between creations.
You do and have done unto you
any number of jewelled, riverine shot
in cities built up in a garden.
The heat in the space you were.
The one bloom on the terrace
and the rip in the cirrus, many in bloom
and your body used up all night.
Incident west of Blagovashensk, altitude unreported, September 5, 1970.
As chum carries into waters lying south
or southeast. How would song
be considered everything and people
succumb? Most powerful ‘Is,’ or almost
one hour south in relation.
Yes, animals. This is not a waiting room
and the smell of tyranny detected
in spit, piece by piece, each a sign
for a kiss. It hit someone,
radio’s still ripe for abuse.
Camera in log. Camera in pen. Lens
of the loosened dust where a dress drops.
On September 7, 1970, at 22:15, incident over Baykrit, Krasnogorsk. Heavy rain.
Everyone thinks Lord in relation
to animals. Relation to substance, perhaps, often
for hour after hour. Eternal struggle
with him croaking and people there almost
with us. Now
I am thinking. How beautiful her true
form can become. Neither alone
nor fully with them, balanced
naked, wet and bruised.
Noisesome takeoff not helping me think
in mauve, rose and silvering blue.
The first star, wing light in the tagged mouth, sobs.
Night. Ten minutes after takeoff from Biysk, September 11, 1971.
Hardly ever showed it mixed up with
‘photograph.’ Who is that then?
A strange bandit with a tablecloth
behind her. Suppose it is he
whom she is courting, or
a ‘philosopher.’ Or gruesomeness …
None of it diminishing morning as such.
Thinnest film in the canopied air so animals
rut or flex fighting dissolution
as we say ‘Lord’ again, facing southeast.
Where ribbons the peach and violet
meteorological summa. My form bleats.
Incident reported over Chita Oblast, at 21:40. No other traffic.
You too are concrete, greensomeness, and no one
wants