Escaping the Landscape
Alice Burdick lives in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. Born and raised in Toronto, she has also lived in Halifax, Espanola, Vancouver, and on the Sechelt Peninsula. In the early 1990s, she was co-editor of The Eternal Network, and assistant coordinator of the Toronto Small Press Fair. Her work has appeared in magazines including EVENT, Hava LeHaba, Two Serious Ladies, Dig, What!, subTerrain, This Magazine, and Who Torched Rancho Diablo? She is the author of many chapbooks and three full-length poetry collections, Simple Master (Pedlar Press, 2002), Flutter (Mansfield Press, 2008), and most recently, Holler (Mansfield Press, 2012). Her work has also appeared in Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (The Mercury Press), Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence (The Mercury Press), Pissing Ice: An Anthology of ‘New’ Canadian Poets (BookThug), My Lump in the Bed: Love Poems for George W. Bush (Proper Tales Press), and Rogue Stimulus: The Stephen Harper Holiday Anthology for a Prorogued Parliament (Mansfield Press).
How many landscapes
till they melt into the canvas?
The central idea is the location
for the patterns. Don’t smoke
them out—they’ll tell you when they’re ready
for discovery. I have no question
that popular voices in accounting
number in the days, each digit
digs into eyes. Teeth bared make me
an offer of refusal. A continual hope
to be read. I wish I cared,
but the odds are it will sweep
the table clear. Under clothes,
torn up and breeding teeth and air.
Over doodles that are deemed
high dudgeon for complaint,
the dainties. Modern Victorians,
itchy noses as usual.
I drink
big drinks.
I’m thirsty.
Hold onto your horsewhips!
One-level living in a small town—
everything hates stairs. Feet do,
sliding sideways. I’d like to join
the gravel crew, dig low rumbling
earthmovers, our assemblies
of glittering resentments. Endless meat
for tearing with hands and teeth, if feet
aren’t available in that way. I can’t
be stood up if I can’t stand up.
Yo-yo describes you, a wide arc
of changeable smiles and disintegration.
I put myself in the hands of face,
or fate, if you prefer the elements of words
to words themselves. Who cares?
Good question. Thanks. It’s funny,
the plugs are everywhere,
but mainly up high.
Ghosted by uniforms.
Alice Burdick lives in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. Born and raised in Toronto, she has also lived in Halifax, Espanola, Vancouver, and on the Sechelt Peninsula. In the early 1990s, she was co-editor of The Eternal Network, and assistant coordinator of the Toronto Small Press Fair. Her work has appeared in magazines including EVENT, Hava LeHaba, Two Serious Ladies, Dig, What!, subTerrain, This Magazine, and Who Torched Rancho Diablo? She is the author of many chapbooks and three full-length poetry collections, Simple Master (Pedlar Press, 2002), Flutter (Mansfield Press, 2008), and most recently, Holler (Mansfield Press, 2012). Her work has also appeared in Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (The Mercury Press), Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence (The Mercury Press), Pissing Ice: An Anthology of ‘New’ Canadian Poets (BookThug), My Lump in the Bed: Love Poems for George W. Bush (Proper Tales Press), and Rogue Stimulus: The Stephen Harper Holiday Anthology for a Prorogued Parliament (Mansfield Press).