Sean Howard

Listenings

(to Etel Adnan’s To Be in a Time of War, 2005)

for Basma Kavanagh

Sean Howard

The rug is ticking, no? Listen, the

ocean became a road, paint the

back of the canvas with your

tears... The engine heads

for waves past roses, I-

raq is a crease in

their bright, sn-

apped nap-

kins

WAR’s breakers, authors sketch

the smash of surf, urgently phone

windows – “eat the key!” – but

these gates will never stop

opening: the wind is

beautiful because

of your

hair

III

The radio’s peek, on

America’s plate such

enormous horizons,

Clouds in the back-

pockets of mount-

ains, hands clean

as wounds

come &

stay

Garbage

& bells,

absurd

words

“con-

quest”:

Arabic

streaks

on the

pane,

just

think

the

blue

basket

again?

Eyeing the sun, sailcloth

of bay: unroll walls, Am-

ericans point to the stars

over Afghanistan, turn-

ed off like TVs – sand

pours from the shoes

of the dead for-

ever

The car Idols, in

this the extinguished

world of the gods, s-

pits of English in

the Tigris again:

embryos of

stars in

jars,

the

ven-

om-

ous

en-

gines

have

VII

The slightest

hand, Palestinians

on screen, stench of

erased features, screams

folded like shirts: history’s

shifts, changes of guard of

stars over the mountains (

irony ignored like a corner-

ed drunk): Gaza looks at

Iraq through its bars,

pieces of sky on

the table in the

cell, always

behind

VIII

Fog (not the ghost, the

machine): blue porcelain

wind dying. “Poetry…”

History’s yawn, never

waking to the agony it

takes to make us coffee,

chocolate! New York in

a taxi, always preparing

to take… War? Way

too simple: wind

turning people

to stone each

other

To cough disgusting words, free

world, Saigon shadows stirred in-

to takeaways, sad is not the word

either!, the mirror ashamed

of me, listening to poetry,

italics of cedar, olive

wind

Bandages for shadows, barely heat-

ed cries for the hungry: imagine being

a young dancer in Baghdad, just beg-

inning to die. Loose joint operations,

trying easy to forget: after slowsilver

smoke in jazz clubs (rings truer than

bells), woken under cherry trees

by traffic, beats pounding by

themselves

Snow in the room of evening, who is

“speaking of Rilke” any more? Pit my

mouth against the ghosts’: cruel to gaze

at the photos, cruel not. (Insomnia, look,

where the Towers…) Love is a quick st-

itch, tug at war, Michelangelo lends

a hand to Picasso, still paint-

ing Guernica over the

Sistine…

XII

Abolish rust, the park in the court-

yard so crowded! Angels sweep all

human junk before them: bored corp-

ses, posers. I heard the pictures still

pray (to us icons): Christ cross-

ed out, over by armies, in

the tomb flies

open his

eyes

XIII

Sold-

iers,

men

sleep-

ing –

bodies

gape

bath-

tubs,

seems

clean-

ing

souls

for a

living

didn’t

pay

XIV

Reality, seams, no match for our

‘resilience’? Statues, as they fall, st-

ill reach for the right Gesture: Sand-

hurst rain, palm trees hold the Brit-

ish again? All we ask: child-

ren, water the mountains,

seared dry as cut

throats

Unbroken news: war ages

the future prematurely, as

our bodies notice their own

meat more than the integrity

of vases, etc. Beirut curtains,

paper over pain, gigantic

suns

XVI

The new Rome’s barbarian

gates, wounds stream clear

of minds, these mournings

wearing next to nothing: to

flush butchery from the head,

where, into the Hudson? Arab-

ic soot, Baghdad roses scent

refugee trees moving slowly

under cubist planes: God just

got shot, riddle over! But

Cassandra still brushes

her hair into shadows,

over & over the

roar of the

dead

Sean Howard is the author of seven collections of poetry in Canada, most recently Overlays: Scored Poems (Gaspereau Press, 2025). His poetry has been widely published in Canada, the US (including at ē· rā/ tiō), UK, and elsewhere, and featured in The Best of the Best Canadian Poetry in English (Tightrope Books, 2017).