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The Obvious Flap
what if the rain
referred to something else?
and bowling
and shoes
were done with the mouth?
Sometimes language, thoughts, and emotions are a fixed structure like a warehouse. Sometimes they are fog, waves, light, or music. This is Language as a second English. English as a grammar of ghosts. Words as the snowfall of ideas.
The Obvious Flap is a musical, poetic flux of recurring and recursive images exploring language's luminous fringes of language. The text weaves a variety of thematic threads of humour, literary allusions, and narrative into a fabric that spreads into an open, proprioceptive linguistic environment. Gary Barwin and Gregory Betts have concocted a collaborative jam session for multiple larynxes and have made an obvious flap as they have fallen through the mirror into Plunderland.
not everyone is a poet
my dog for instance.
referred to something else?
and bowling
and shoes
were done with the mouth?
Sometimes language, thoughts, and emotions are a fixed structure like a warehouse. Sometimes they are fog, waves, light, or music. This is Language as a second English. English as a grammar of ghosts. Words as the snowfall of ideas.
The Obvious Flap is a musical, poetic flux of recurring and recursive images exploring language's luminous fringes of language. The text weaves a variety of thematic threads of humour, literary allusions, and narrative into a fabric that spreads into an open, proprioceptive linguistic environment. Gary Barwin and Gregory Betts have concocted a collaborative jam session for multiple larynxes and have made an obvious flap as they have fallen through the mirror into Plunderland.
not everyone is a poet
my dog for instance.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published May 30, 2011
About the author
Gary Barwin
48 books91 followersGARY BARWIN is a writer, composer, and multidisciplinary artist and the author of 21 books of poetry, fiction and books for children. His bestselling novel [Book: Yiddish for Pirates] won the 2017 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and was a Governor General’s Award and Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist and has recently been longlisted for the Leacock Medal. His latest poetry collection is No TV for Woodpeckers His work has appeared widely in journals, including Poetry (Chicago), The Walrus and the Paris Review blog. A finalist for the National Magazine Awards (Poetry), he is a three-time recipient of Hamilton Poetry Book of the Year, and has also received the Hamilton Arts Award for Literature. He is was Writer-in-Residence at Western University and the London Public Library and is currently Art Forms Writer-in-residence for at-risk youth and will be Writer-in Residence at McMaster University and the Hamilton Public Library in 2017-2018. Barwin lives in Hamilton, Ontario and at garybarwin.com
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 18, 2022
SIMILINES I
1.
the soft would
of lumber
the a of b
the 1 of 2
the men of you
2.
the window's trust
the sleeping door
the air of
definite fire
braiding smoke
with 1 or 2
of my fingers
angles linger
grammar of augury of
...
* * *
CHORA SEA
I.
I am not chora, I don't want chora. Here in hedra, there is the
movement between the chora, like the lisp of seas beneath
continents. I rush from song to the next, holding my breath.
I'm not choral, keep my hedra below the clouds, space up my
sleeve. In this place, gravity dims, Pangea words begin to separate
from my meaning.
what if the rain
referred to something else?
and bowling
shoes
were done with the mouth?
...
* * *
TAKE IT TAKE AWAY
...
* * *
THE OBVIOUS FLAP
It seems likely to me that the page and its article followed by the wind and its news then finally pressed against a bus where I'd sing and in my anthropomorphic understanding seem to operate on a cellphone.
A single roadside shoe lies down in the black feathers, I don't know, I admit that a new bus route on the level of logic and reference functions at various times to implode or explode, that is, through their semantic, material, and economic effect on a guy in an inner tube praying.
I think there's both a thinking component and an almost somantic component to my holiday home welcome. The maid says everything is ready for you to walk under the pillows as if I were a mountaintop and I too could sing a brick, the obvious flap of my mind as I waited for a thousand forgotten wedding invitations.
...
* * *
SIMILINES II
1.
logos, the nipple whispers
don't let them stifle me
with logos
don't let them
brand me
logo eccentric
the ration
state:
rhyme doesn't pay
meant:
my skin dog-eared
100% pre-consumer
a waste
don't let M
bran: Me
I go to L and back only
don't let M take us past to
enopicue
2.
the nipple of
Casa Loma
peaks
towers over and speaks to me
draws down the clouds
cascading infinitude
with the downshine
of nectar
how can castles
have words
words have casts,
broken, unhealing
arid and
brittle bones
3.
so it goes
logos like death
death like logos
she whispers
...
* * *
POETRY BE LIKE
...
* * *
A THIRSTY DAWN
1.
the sun arises
a super heated hero
the obvious flaps
energy
in the shape
the obvious flutter
a thought
a thousand ants all round the brain
the face heats in glory
teacher hit me with
at the end what is far away
it's bad enough but is made worsted by
as if somebody brushes against me in
...
* * *
BE AFRAID, CELLPHONE
1.
a somatic newness but who would choose
to unmother a mother
with a yes, a thousand forgotten bricks
but that is only talking
as if I were waiting for
(obsidian breathing) language
2.
let's make a difference
let's remove three words
(often we don't know what)
i for i
(for example)
would child a child's father
falling-down turtle doves in the suit
i placed a guide to happiness
told her daughter
yeah
it's okay to be afraid, cellphone
...
* * *
BLACKBIRD CLOUDS
I am not a blackbird, I don't want a blackbird. Here in Redwing, there is movement between blackbirds, like the loud wisp of c beginning clouds. I rush from one song to the next, holding my breath in migration.
I'm not a blackbird, keep my claw beneath the clouds, my red breath hidden between my wings. In this place, gravity is a silver dime where I stop, begin to separate me from my meaning.
...
1.
the soft would
of lumber
the a of b
the 1 of 2
the men of you
2.
the window's trust
the sleeping door
the air of
definite fire
braiding smoke
with 1 or 2
of my fingers
angles linger
grammar of augury of
...
* * *
CHORA SEA
I.
I am not chora, I don't want chora. Here in hedra, there is the
movement between the chora, like the lisp of seas beneath
continents. I rush from song to the next, holding my breath.
I'm not choral, keep my hedra below the clouds, space up my
sleeve. In this place, gravity dims, Pangea words begin to separate
from my meaning.
some kind of matrix
some kind of space
some kind
time
you go bowling?
yes
I go bowling with Apollo
a pair of guise
apologize
is that a first growth forest
or are you just happy
to be me?
my bowling eyes rolling
gutterball in the great beyond
paradise
what if the rain
referred to something else?
and bowling
shoes
were done with the mouth?
...
* * *
TAKE IT TAKE AWAY
A Grammatical
which of a grammatical
was tempted, washed empty
an abacus guided by an egg
buttons in less evil
there is no cloth
(the fact be an egg)
attack haiku*
Which Of A
which of a leaf
dawn of a wood
go dancing with an abacus
watch the ant raise
raspy thumbholes
raspberries, bus
hum bowls
...
* * *
THE OBVIOUS FLAP
It seems likely to me that the page and its article followed by the wind and its news then finally pressed against a bus where I'd sing and in my anthropomorphic understanding seem to operate on a cellphone.
on a circle a cycle
sing in the early
to become, hours, selectric
A single roadside shoe lies down in the black feathers, I don't know, I admit that a new bus route on the level of logic and reference functions at various times to implode or explode, that is, through their semantic, material, and economic effect on a guy in an inner tube praying.
only a circus
animus maximus
what i write: thank you for your thank you
I think there's both a thinking component and an almost somantic component to my holiday home welcome. The maid says everything is ready for you to walk under the pillows as if I were a mountaintop and I too could sing a brick, the obvious flap of my mind as I waited for a thousand forgotten wedding invitations.
inkling momentarily
the thought of an Ink king
keenly, stepping in. I step in.
...
* * *
SIMILINES II
1.
logos, the nipple whispers
don't let them stifle me
with logos
don't let them
brand me
logo eccentric
the ration
state:
rhyme doesn't pay
meant:
my skin dog-eared
100% pre-consumer
a waste
don't let M
bran: Me
I go to L and back only
don't let M take us past to
enopicue
2.
the nipple of
Casa Loma
peaks
towers over and speaks to me
draws down the clouds
cascading infinitude
with the downshine
of nectar
how can castles
have words
words have casts,
broken, unhealing
arid and
brittle bones
3.
so it goes
logos like death
death like logos
she whispers
...
* * *
POETRY BE LIKE
If It Was I
noise of i if it
was the conomic
wonder
of reading
outside
the
"
subject
and another
"
yet another
seems to haiku
*
two tunnels vision
the ayes believe
what they belie
of confusion
an economy
of sad forms
said forms
of my poetry
make a joyful noise
*
always leading
someword
*
which in the language
there is no
there is note
there is no denote
(nods here)
quietly
the raining poetry
the dark and cloudy eye
omnuminous*
If it Was II
noise
marooned sentence
marooned
an aged
angst
angst wished
marooned
a noise sentenced
a noise
*
noise
a
a
a
a
a
a
shh
...
* * *
A THIRSTY DAWN
1.
the sun arises
a super heated hero
the obvious flaps
energy
in the shape
the obvious flutter
a thought
a thousand ants all round the brain
the face heats in glory
gloryant peculiar
teacher hit me with
at the end what is far away
escapes
it's bad enough but is made worsted by
yarns
storms
documentaries
as if somebody brushes against me in
the shape of snow
...
* * *
BE AFRAID, CELLPHONE
1.
a somatic newness but who would choose
to unmother a mother
with a yes, a thousand forgotten bricks
but that is only talking
as if I were waiting for
(obsidian breathing) language
*
2.
let's make a difference
let's remove three words
(often we don't know what)
i for i
(for example)
would child a child's father
falling-down turtle doves in the suit
i placed a guide to happiness
told her daughter
yeah
it's okay to be afraid, cellphone
...
* * *
BLACKBIRD CLOUDS
I am not a blackbird, I don't want a blackbird. Here in Redwing, there is movement between blackbirds, like the loud wisp of c beginning clouds. I rush from one song to the next, holding my breath in migration.
I'm not a blackbird, keep my claw beneath the clouds, my red breath hidden between my wings. In this place, gravity is a silver dime where I stop, begin to separate me from my meaning.
some kind of May trick
some kind of spring
mother whispered that feathers
are the notebook of trees
time
turns you bold
yes
i'm an eagle
the c is gullable
the nest is history
is that a first burnt feather
or are you just happy
to leave me?
my balding eyes on the horizon
a few flaps below paradise
...
July 21, 2011
This book is nuts. And I feel like allowing the poets their nutness. I've read it through twice and it is a trip through mutation, bad jokes, crazy puns, moments of stunning imagery, and absence that's as important as presence.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews