pond (fall postcard)
by Sean Howard
bir-
ch, pose
held, whi-
te her-
on
wave (english poem, cape breton)
for mi’kmaw elder albert marshall
rum-
our, sto-
nes mur-
mur, un-
der the
ton-
gue
stopstart (drowned poem, highway 125)
traffic –
deer, gra-
zing ozone
stir
a point of rhyme anyway,
to split the screen –
apple & cinnamon,
break of day, two
million people
in prison
shadowgraph 66: the singing electrons
(poetry detected in igor y. tamm’s nobel physics lecture, 1958)
i
quantum –
koans in the
lab
ii
nucleus –
‘the whole small-
er than the parts’
iii
atoms –
para-
dice
iv
snatch –
pandora’s
box
v
electrons –
conducting
the dead?
vi
man –
soft
pawn
vii
drawing –
light set
in stone
viii
second eden –
‘the familiar
hissing’
ix
physics –
current
king
x
left –
the child’s waves
on the shore
shadowgraph 115: if we go on compressing
(poetry detected in subramanyan chandrasekhar’s nobel physics lecture, 1983)
i
india, pakistan, par-
titioning the stars. (earth
under fire.) dante: ‘time?
love cooling…’ the poetic
scenter of attention. light’s
aphorism. ‘citizens’; school-
ed assemblies. ‘vast interior’:
depression forming in the
gulf… ‘maturity’ – i do
not see, once we’re
compressed, how
we can ever
…
ii
dwarves: what humans mean
by themselves. (for mine is the
pressure & the density, saith
the law…) our distant relations
to the equations of state. haiku –
knowledge economy. global
eyes: everyone slowly/becom-
ing white. apollo’s final mis-
sion; ‘one day, men on
stars!’
iii
the man-
dala smash-
ers. (hiroshima:
‘explicit degene-
racy.’) neutral –
harmless enou-
gh?
iv
built-in incan-
descence. (atom:
wherein the world?)
suicidal vengeance;
dwarves manically com-
pressing the planet… (
sex – special relativ-
ity.) travelling light
in the realm of
time
BIO
Sean Howard is the author of Local Calls (Cape Breton University Press, 2009) and Incitements (Gaspereau Press, 2011). His poetry has been widely published in Canada and elsewhere, nominated for a Pushcart Prize in the US, and anthologized in The Best Canadian Poetry in English (Tightrope Books, 2011 & 2014). Sean is adjunct professor of political science at Cape Breton University, researching nuclear disarmament and the political history of 20th Century physics. His ‘Shadowgraphs Project’ has been supported by a creative writing grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.
