All things written feel a little terrified at first
as though come to destroy us.
Mary Ruefle
A Rumour
ran through town on broken legs
that went something like thisโ
he veered off course
averted a school for boys
dropped his bombs into the Med instead
embroidered and embellished in each telling
they knew, their fatherโs fathers knew
he was the son of a local Jew
he chose the sea
embroidered and embellished with each shelling
to drop his bombs on a school of fish
good man, good man you, they said,
they said he was a Jew
embroidered and embellished with each telling
ย
Memory
has a room: a stand-in for the cinema
its leaders, Iโm told, are kind and gentle souls
who wouldnโt think to hurt a tank
even if it looked them right in the eye
I know what youโre thinkingโ
who would want to hurt a tank โ
but no, he says, not true, tanks, too,
have their Achillesโ heel
chinks in the armor
Aim for the turret, he tells me, aim for the eye
thatโs where youโll find
the projectionist
who makes it all come real
ย
Newsreel
a Saida hillside silently destroyed by bombs on film
projected from 120mm acetate
he ponders, is it plastic or plastique?
ย
A Voice Reads This
โOne week following Israelโs invasion of Lebanon in 1982, a pilot in the Israeli air force named HagaiTamir flew over the site of the Saida Secondary School for Boys and refused an order to bomb it.โ
(NegarAzimi,ย NY Review of Books, June 26, 2013)
ย
ย
Two Gloved Hands
there were no fingerprints on the last breath
of Antoine de Saint-Exupรฉry
as the cockpit existentialist crashed into the Med
hands sketch a rudimentary
school\house ย paper ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย air/plane
sepia-tinged eyes manipulate the said family photographs
all for the sake of having
gone to war
(and lifting weights the paper plane was shot into
receding frames of past and passing memories
until there was nothing left to tell but this to them
who lived to see it)
The Intimation of an Explosion That Approximates an Abstract Doughnut
like generous and meditative shots of shelling
visualizeโthe sound of drones
whistling Dixie
pictureโa nameless anxiety
a persistent half-memory, half-life, say,
a story
the camera lingers on the story
two humans either embracing
propping each other up
falling into each otherโs arms, or in slow-motion
punching pushing lunging fighting to the death
We Met in Rome
a dim-lit bar far from home: an interview of nothing but
afterwards, afterthoughts, matters of fact
he was an architect, of light and cloud perspectives
I said, I donโt much care for planes as war machines, besides
I said, Iโd rather be a bird
his hands flew off the page
ย
Considering
all I wanted was a poem
about something that was broken, about
something I wouldnโt have to rebuild, or put together in its place
I took aim and hit the dirt where there was nothing there but
a little tell
of broken bricks
Antony Di Nardo is a Canadian poet, editor, and teacher. He is the author of Alien, Correspondentย (Brick Books) and Soul on Standbyย (Exile Editions). His most recent collection of poetry, Roaming Charges(Brick Books), was launched in Beirut earlier this year. It continues his commitment to a lyric of โwry seriousness undercut by the slyly hilariousโ with the poet as a clear-eyed witness. His work appears internationally in journals and anthologies, has been translated into French and Italian, and can also be read in the inaugural issue of Rusted Radishes. As a former teacher of English literature at International College, he divides his time between Beirut and Sutton, Quebec where he is editor of Tibbits Hill Press publishing chapbooks and broadsides.
