copyright © Ken Babstock, 2014
first edition
Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also cknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit.
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
Purchase of the print version of this book entitles you to a free digital copy. To claim your ebook of this title, please email [email protected] with proof of purchase or visit chbooks.com/digital. (Coach House Books reserves the right to terminate the free digital download offer at any time.)
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
