The Vicinity

by David O'Meara

In The Vicinity David O'Meara gives us a new kind of cityscape, one that brings its unseen, and usually unsung, materials to the foreground. Brick, concrete (that "not-so-silver screen / our walk-on parts are posed upon"), glass, steel, they step boldly from anonymity into fresh focus, backdrops goaded into stardom. Full of casually worn wit and humour, often using intricate forms that deftly reflect their subjects, these poems probe our conventional attitudes while walking us down present or remembered streets ? ?Some-such Avenue / Rue Saint Whatever." A red brick wall, framed
in timber beams and mortar,
collects the last gold of November warmth
on this lit morning.
It hasn't rested, though idle all these years.
A brick wall is stoic toil.
Compare one to your mother. ?from "Brickwork" "'Let / how I loved to be here / not change,' David O'Meara says, almost under his breath, in one of the stirring, subtle cadences he is perpetually discovering. The Vicinity wanders and wonders, seeking a possible home, and along the road it notices, savours, questions and praises every sight and sound, from a steel vertex to an old poster for a long-gone ska concert. Paradoxically, in his 'fog of love, homelessness' O'Meara's innovative mastery of form and rhythm creates perfect, if fleeting, homes for the spirit at every step on these restless streets." -- A. F. Moritz

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 2003

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not
to
mention
the invention
by Elisha
S.
Otis

whose
levers
and ratchets
connected
operandi
to
modus.

- The Safety Elevator, pg. 14

* * *

Smoggy day. The sky's soft palm. Skyscraper
in it, so high, it unrolls a shadow blocks-long
and broken over rooftops. Gulls snicker up there;
say har-dee-har, haw haw haw.

Poor voyeur like us - nervous, a little turned on.
Is it the corner ledge's view, so tall and far,
and far, that knocks the breath right out of you?
A drop like that won't fit the body well.

Open wide, say ah. It's going to hurt a bit,
this fog of love, homelessness, a hundred floors of metal,
glass and carpet you're dropping past. Oh peripheral
nudge-aside being, count them as you fall.

- Poem for King Kong, pg. 33

* * *

I'm still here, sister.
You're there. I forgot.
You were the subject
we dropped all winter.

Talk is you're back,
you've been seen around.
They say the rate you're
going, you're bound

to burn up, burn out.
They want me to care.
That dark day, I'm
glad I won't be there

to see it happen,
or the terrible mess
you'll leave with your wake.
My selfishness then,

the trouble I'm turning
a blinded eye to. Still
sister, burn.
I will always look up to you.

- Sister, pg. 41