Yesteryears
Took the fat family bible and tossed it
off the Lions Gate Bridge
Goodbye Toronto pre-Depression infant death
So long psalms of Edwardian fiscal failure
Hurled it the same as Cobden-Sanderson
into the Thames his blocks of type
so no one could come after
so no one could traffick in his lonely fight
Good riddance to fleshpress and letterpress
the antiquarian appetites of every cast
let the orca swallow the bile anvil
for a fibrillating sponge
and sound so deep
I’ll never hear the undertaker’s step
up concrete walk to rented stoop
or smell the sighing midwife’s sweat
as she wraps another swaddling corpse
in garlic breath and sentiment.
Limit the edition
to a run of naught.
Dropped it like a gargoyle cracked
by revolution off a parapet.
Dead weight of words and font
a typewriter not typed with
since the cease-fire of the Second War
engine block of a Molotoved car
who my people and their moments were
a ledger book of no account
to marauding tide and tireless neon
all the totems not yet poles
along the shore
one black eye for the sun –
no more to visit those dates
that everyone loses or keeps –
the cage with a dead shark
clamped to a dead limb
most impossible evacuation
the bone lifted from under the skin
future’s twin.
—from The Capital City of Autumn by Tim Bowling. Published by Wolsak & Wynn. © 2024 by Tim Bowling.
In the Capital City of Autumn by Tim Bowling (Wolsak & Wynn, 2024)
About In the Capital City of Autumn:
Tim Bowling is in top form in his latest collection of poetry, In the Capital City of Autumn. Threading through autumnal themes such as the loss of his mother and the demolition of his childhood home, his children growing and the inevitable passage of time, Bowling writes with rich lyricism and imagery. Sweet William and loosely woven woollen mitts for his mother, the moon as “an egg in the pocket of a running thief” for time, salmon for eternity. In the Capital City of Autumn, the characters of The Great Gatsby come to life, and three a.m. brings wisdom. These are masterful poems, lightened with a touch of whimsy, poems to sink into on a quiet evening.
Poet Tim Bowling. Photo credit: J. Baker.
About Tim Bowling:
Tim Bowling is the author of twenty-four works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. He is the recipient of numerous honours, including two Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund Awards, five Alberta Book Awards, a Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal, two Writers’ Trust of Canada nominations, two Governor General’s Award nominations and a Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of his entire body of work.