Richards, Peter

English

University of Montana

CutBank Volume 1 Issue 65 CutBank 65 Article 23 Winter 2006 from Helsinki Peter Richards Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cutbank  Part of the Creative Writing Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits you. Recommended Citation Richards, Peter (2006) "from Helsinki," CutBank: Vol. 1 : Iss. 65 , Article 23. Available at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cutbank/vol1/iss65/23 This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in CutBank by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact scholarworks@mso.umt.edu. Peter Richardsfrom  HelsinkiIn time I came to see death was the hay binding one soldier to another and my own death would appear partially lit as during a nighttim e operation the m oon barely attends whereas I w ith new density carry on as before again I go razing A tnana so plainly familiar to me that it does sit upon my own reflection and about me on deck where my double does well so the spoils and I can finally make it just this or that way for a while never m ind the snipers and charges and this lose cloud o f animal gadgetry eating air and chrom e alike until absent any ship garrison or wish to remain we set out with our lancets on idle com m and48I do remember as a small boy being brushed by a black man in the courtyard feeling the small of my back lightly brushed so that it sank deep into my imagination and partly the initial deathblow Helsinki prepared for my boyhood drawing an invisible orange line at the base o f my skull leading to this villa my parents shared between them each room holding a portrait o f one o f my parts and one room wrongly represents the cyst in my knee another captures my chin before it was mended a third stretches to the evil side of the room where this tear sits hard and white and so I think it must be cold so cold the cold outnum bers ice from when the ice was young no tear has taken its place so it must live beyond the great doors o f winter and sing as many flesh and blood songs as a frozen tear can sing49For gulls sitting a score at a time my m outh  carried a broad arcade and so rich was the slaughter afterwards nothing could imagine my body a late plentiful num ber saying would that I was your true cause to love your rose so deep was the torchlight in consultation with itself that dawn was that twice tied odious trum pet my tent did fetch itself a city and to his m ood I let out the gulls thinking it unnatural as his m outh sought out my fingers in the metals ribbons and bright hooks I undid50She came previous to herself and knocks those things in ignorance I spoke about questioning if she were the ghost at play in my dream and pressing leaves in a book so that I could observe them not shattering aging beautifully knowing they were oak leaves touching on violet but also tinges of falconry brown the hood that is or glove though by royal decree not the same leather for the hood there is thought to be endless with it’s own stars sanctums and fragrance and a darkness that collects on the finger in thick spirals of harrowing shade51H ow  did I actually become one o f them  choosing polar quarters is one thing I mean I’m hardly m oving here unruffled by the waves still I do feel other times m ight exist or at least another clearing o f equal deviation the animals seem familiar contiguous and at the same time my colum n stretches over a range about nine times the norm al range and released at the center o f the clearing gradually there should be no tapping for five days no interruptions no captures a few wild ones finding their way back if  I could just carry one and release it to a place very faithful laid in light growing older it moves about as another direction t h e  w h i t e n e d  s k y  yes but I just w ant to see one sleeping fathoms away from where it was done52

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\u3ci\u3efrom\u3c/i\u3e Helsinki

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