Moving Outward Andy Wainwright Edited by Ronald Tetreault and class-members of English 4010B (at Dalhousie University, January-April 1999) First edition, Toronto 1970 Ronald Tetreault and Vivien Hannon, chief editors and compositors Electronic Text Centre, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Reproduced electronically with permission of the copyright holder.

Edited from the copy of Moving Outward, Toronto 1970, in Saint Mary's University Library, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, March-April 1999.

Encoded in TEI-conformant SGML by Ronald Tetreault and class-members of English 4010B, with assistance from Vivien Hannon.

Moving Outward Andy Wainwright Drawings by Robert Markle new press/toronto/1970 My little girl is singing: 'Ah ah ah ah.' I do not understand its meaning, but I feel what she wants to say. She wants to say that everything ... is not horror, but joy. Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky After such knowledge, what forgiveness? T. S. Eliot: Gerontion for Edgar In the room the tables are set & the piano player is looking for chords the lovers are at the window waiting for the night I think I will buy this room the lovers & the night the piano player is not for sale When you ask me why I write my poems for you I do not know the answer I had thought a view of the lake and its gentle curve to oshawa would bring a sign or teach me explanations your trust is a simple thing what will I say when I no longer write my poems for you I want to use the telephone march into the night with a receiver in my hand and find my love in candelabra with best friends you will be there between the stereos carved from stone a maker of rafts is busy at your feet and I will lie beside you with my black mouthpiece as your belly gurgles to the desklamp and a kamikaze moth suddenly spies the moon. Mad shadows calling from the Gaspé Murphy touch football a picture of Verushka John Updike grass a world record for anything & mad shadows calling from the Gaspé I confess I am not a guitar player and that chords confuse me I confess virginity is a new thing to my squirming fingers which cry out for pain how can I explain to the studio that my poems are not yet ready and the translation may take years it takes that long to lose a secret language it takes that long to let confessions die Years later I have your photograph friend the same music still comes from the r&b stations and I think the same men still rule from ottawa in other words canada when you left sometime during the year of the myth you came to say goodbye did we finally admit our love for one another our embrace was so unique we wondered who had thought of hands before I will not survive the winter and several magazines want to buy the story they do not believe in you but I have the photograph Lines for <NAME TYPE="person">Leonard Cohen</NAME> I am the looking-glass man who had not travelled down your road before found at the crossroads myself at 32 and unable to hide behind the beard I did not grow assumed your serious mien 1966 Now at last I have seen bridges burning it was planned that years would pass and imaginations rise before the sky would turn to glass and teach the prone position but I have been mentioned in chapters the city is writing as one of those who claimed to lose his mind and loved accordingly I do not know if others know the truth or if the truth has ever mattered I only know that there are bridges burning and the sky reflects this change Poem for <NAME TYPE="person">J.</NAME> It has been months since I have written anyone but there were bear tracks around the cabin this morning and snow in the vermont woods twice I have borrowed an old jalopy and driven half-way to the city only to be stopped by frozen fuel-lines today I remembered the canoes come out in spring already I am planning to paddle to new york 1967 Hungry Angels They are coming yesterday I told my lover and she claimed me today I told my lover and he claimed me tomorrow I will tell no one and they will claim me poem for a saint the scar travels the length of your body i am watching you turn slowly in— (& somewhere there is music) to metaphor Poem on <NAME TYPE="person">Layton</NAME>'s Birthday Pass the word: say that cairo and tel aviv are almost gone say their young men do not look back nor their women ask for mercy say they are taking ten for every one and the streets are thick with blood speak briefly of this glory and return to your own cities teach your children to squeeze triggers teach them to have faith in killing but promise them nothing the mighty have fallen the desert wind moves through east and west Garage Incident Now you have done it you have broken the glass that replaced our mother just last spring it is not because you tried to spell my name with the pieces or because you cut your finger on the A that I rigged a time-bomb to your bicycle and beat myself to death with the chain 1967 for nicholas romanov Somewhere there is an old photograph of you wading into the black sea you have taken off all your clothes and you are being followed by your wife and children the water is up to your waist and you seem to be hesitating for a long time you remain in this position then slowly, unbelievably, you disappear your family frozen, unable to mark your passing When I was young I used to plant flowers for women like you I would meet your voice along telephone wires & refuse to hang up I would choose the hidden space behind your eyes and never leave I would scatter mist about my feet and dare you to ask me why now I suppose you have forgotten the one trickster among many now I suppose you have forgotten the reason for the final flower It was beneath James Bay that we rode out the storm caught in the morass of late spring our canoes made little effort to abandon us we sat until the search planes passed away to the south and in memory of those who had gone before called on the land to yield our sense of purpose 1967 Ceremony The embrace of a single figure the kiss of passion before the crowd sun— light under a spanish sky in the hills the shepherds turn I have a faded blue denim jacket that I wear it has no affinity with hippies it is not a spurning of anyone's values look, I offer it to you here are the buttons tomorrow I will sell by desert boots and get my hair cut I will speak less softly and play only baroque records on my self-made stereo there is no end to my talents did you know that I can vote in the next election did you know that I once lined my heroes up and shot them without warning I have already become a good tennis player and collector of locker-room jokes retired poet lover child has only 46 years until old age will perform three nights a week no weekends please. for <NAME TYPE="person">robinson jeffers</NAME> (unfinished) It would have been very good if we had talked watching the fourth or fifth wave curl and pound onto the beach at point sur I remember the sudden turning away from the narrow river valley and the hills onto a twisting rutted track that spoke and smelled of morass in the spring and half-way down the frame house of a dying family with a price upon their land . . . I retired to my father's balcony to erase simple deeds and calm desires a new play entitled you and I are dead was stopping the city in rush hour and holding encores back from the masses I thought first of high school rhythms and the speed coaxed from grey de soto engines during the long lulls of intermissions the final act was spent dispensing with my mind or with my lover Aristotle who has built his tragic theory from my style Metamorphoses For many years we lay together on the shore and sought the answer tonight you were a wave washing over my body of smooth flat stone This face which will be mine forever has lines that are far too deeply etched to be real they were painted on during storms and worn with grace despite the rumours its age is twenty-two it can now remember decades and will soon recall the century where it lived and died this face which will be mine forever walked with sylvia plath to the gas oven and felt very much at home have you ever kissed a corpse sylvia and I were lovers long before the war from the new england countryside we watched america heard the leaves of grass and wrote our own poems and when the war finally came there was only time to measure and a kind of loving to preserve we never knew what hit us . . . she is gone now of course we said goodbye in the kitchen and then I came upstairs and tried to imagine what it could have been like remembered things like the speed of open cars and the sun on northern rivers woke to read the newspaper headlines famous poet suicide so what I said so what said sylvia and I didn't bother to read any more it has been at least a year since that time and all my friends seem to think I will survive but survival is a measured thing full as someone said of sound and fury and yesterday I caught my face dying London, England July 1968 I have waited for many women to say goodbye sometimes a phone will ring in the night thinking that my mouth will open sometimes a letter will lie for days thinking that my eyes will see you did not know this voice is not my own you did not understand my passion for dark glasses you came armed only with a single word and you could not find me I have disconnected my phone I have forgotten my old address I am waiting for you to say goodbye for irving layton I am too young to call you brother I have no yiddish words of praise I do not think I shall deny you listen the cock is crowing brother Today it is raining and my cold is not any better where shall I nail the cause oh lord I don't believe that pain is an easy thing to own I want to know how many days I have spent like this I am writing my life story in these lines High Noon I used to be fast now everything is slowing down a year ago I would have takenthis room with style today my entire generation is a poet it travels in packs & word is spreading I am alone I found the saturday morning people on juniper street and thought somehow of the time I'd seen richard farina on a third-rate t.v. show and been moved by the words of bold marauder there was no england then or philadelphia as there is now to yield perspective only I have met before this stoney negro who shakes my hand and tells me of his blues and I have sat before in this independence square and watched these saturday morning people gather round as I stand to welcome the bombs like rain philadelphia march 1968 for leonard cohen I heard you just before the storm you went under singing everyone in the lifeboats agreed that you set a good example 1969 When your voice came to me in the night it was the cry of all my lovers when your body came to me in the night it was the flesh of all my lovers nobody warned me nobody spoke until I understood the cry until I longed for the flesh then one by one my lovers warned meone by one my lovers spoke I could not recognize the voices I could no longer claim the bodies oh lover who I tried to love do you consider the silence of the night? <NAME TYPE="person">Molson</NAME> Golden Rag (for robert markle) Well, spadina ave.and all that ethnic you perched there with your lady and your friends first saw you in '64 from a telephone boothon bloor streetweirdos abounding i thought and let you pass legends of big bikescareening over ont.countryside smoke between here and orangeville obscenities hurled froma yonge st. studio cum in u said & we talked for hours higher & higher all the way up to — hey the goddam leafs are losing& they fired punch again but next year. . . markle? he'll never finish that piece for you i'm working on it, man o.k. friend this is written for you our trips intersecting from time to time & a good thing too There is no soundin the meeting of light only colour (the comet slides gracefully behind the sun) everything concentrated at 186,000 miles per second into parabola and flame for a moment an entire universe is watching something moves in the darkness beyond is altered according to a plan another sleight-of-hand goes unnoticed the comet emerges we search for words of praise <NAME TYPE="person">Paul Simon</NAME> Memorandum I have sent telegrams and made wires hum between toronto and l.a. the midwest operators either breached the gap or sold themselves in mountain passes to caravans from the coast for though I rode each vowel to death and criticized the style of sandstorms my message was put to music by the circus band who in anticipation of my arrival erased the bonds of humour and left the centre ring forever Winter Solstice I am very aware of my smile when I was three years old my mother's friend seduced me in the garden and I have spoken softly since that time smiles cannot be heard in urban towns or seen in nightly passions and regrets but there are moments when the day is noticeably shorter and the arctic sun has set when we will ask for smiles and give you promises to remember it was during the creation of teeth that we showed you how to take children from the cradle and place them quietly in the sea I thought I would have to travel to find your beauty but I was surrounded before I left the city there are times I watch you watching the sky you should have wings Peter's ships are on the shore while henry's smile has asked for more edgar watches from the sky where shining answers seem to lie leonard has died on a highway sign and joni tells it all in rhyme I drown my lovers in the night with poems that I intend to write. May 20, 1968 for anna I sit in this room watching your profile and reading poems by purdy it is not enough when you take my arm I am thinking of another tonight I will think of you I cannot make promises I am tired of promises I cannot even meet your eyes the way they should be met when the moment comes I will remind you of this room I have many letters to write I turn on the radio & listen to classical music in April of 1800 beethoven was twenty-nine this is his first symphony where shall I begin the orchestration is similar to that of mozart this will be a letter to mozart the andante has always been admired dear wolfgang the instrumental swan-song of the 18th century I am 178 years too late Forgive me love while I ask you who you are I have never thought of any name and now my speechless mouth knows no sound to please your beauty Journey We drove all night towards laurentide park the wilderness was silence and the trees (black walls under the sky) seemed far away when morning came high above the lakes and rivers and the car moved in light I did not know your face the sunlight in my eyes a night without sleep and many explanations your people waiting for a. hitler Dachau is still standing in 1969 tourists gaze at rotting wood and wonder a thousand years, you said. Layton, in your apartment dreading the winter I give you steel-grey skies and cloud-mountains others cannot climb (like ghosts they circle everest) I give you women who will thaw out in spring and melt into your arms I give you a moment's stillness on somerled ave. and the strength of my twenty-three years come let us challenge the rapido and claim the distance between toronto and montreal let us call this country the south pole and walk into the storm Song You're like some faded god outside the laundromat staring at the white that will later be black and looking down you cannot turn back though you long to the words are the same in this miracle town he that is lost can never be found and your friends all say that they can't come around for it's wrong to and you remember the woman that you made your slave and you remember the man that you promised to save but you've forgotten the one that you wanted and gave your song to and throughout the storm you cling to your perch you've fashioned a religion out of your search but your disciples are gone for they've seen the church you belong to and now that it's over and now that you've died the children all ask you how was the ride but you don't know the answer for you don't know which side you have gone to letter for durrell faber gave me your address so I thought I would write there is nothing much to say except that I will soon be known as the old man of this city the greeks as you know have the bodies of gods (I discovered this soon after my arrival) but a mind for simple things they think this sea and sky will always be here & call the Turk a passing breeze I have finally read miller's book it is excellent but not worthy of the praise you give shelley blushed when I read him some passages & though you are well aware of my opinion of a good fuck I value shelley more but do send his other worksas my values fluctuate I dreamt of justine last night nothing came of it byron Old man, you are staring at my skull as others do wishing to kill orsimply possess bone ancestor, I am sacrifice   years from now they will say I died violently but I mean to learn your language I mean to describe moments like this Israel,I do not know your planes only your poets men who scorn the ovens and those who enter in men who proclaim their bordersand dare the world to cross overrefugees marching from the pages of many booksintent on sacrifice israel, the truth foryour smiling sons and daughters had abraham lived under meirnothing would stay the handand under dayan, joshuawould take the walls by storm It has stopped snowing the corner of bernard & st. georgeis marked by footprints an entire saturday has passed in a matter of hoursI wonder how much I depend on television and the spacebetween my lover's legs gradually I become certain that tomorrow is sunday it does not surprise me I listen to ravel on the radioand think about journeys for Shelia It is strange how another's beauty can make me doubt my own lovers in the turning of a corner poets in the turning of a phrase I have tried to straighten all the corners I have tried to erase all the poems I have admitted these failures to you The bay is so open so forbidding in the winter sun here is the cold freedom summer cannot give an hour passes and others are waiting as I turn to go the thin ice beckons Lake Huron February 1970 Everything in the universe is receding star-point from star-point between the suns we recede from the moment we are born the moment we die we recede from others quietly, unknown to our closest friends we are moving outward Acknowledgements

Some of thes poems previously appeared in:

Canada First Catalyst Writ Acta Victoriana Eye-Opener
illustrations and cover design: Robert Markle

new press gratefully acknowledges a grant towards the publication of this book by the Canada Council.

Copyright 1970. All rights reserved. The reproduction of all or part of this book by any means whatsoever, including photocopying or any other means of mechanical or electronic process, or storage or retrieval by information systems, is forbidden, except for brief quotations for review purposes only.

ISBN 88770-023-3
new press84 Sussex Avenue, Toronto Canada
design/Peter Maher