Poetry Month 2012: Heather Haley - HANS

The Siren of Howe Sound, trailblazing poet, author, musician and media artist Heather Haley pushes boundaries by creatively integrating disciplines, genres and media. Her writing has been published in numerous journals and anthologies including the Antigonish Review, Geist, the Spoken Word Workbook and the Verse Map of Vancouver. Haley was an editor and reviewer for the LA Weekly and publisher of the Edgewise Cafe, one of Canada’s first electronic literary magazines. She is the author of collections, Sideways (Anvil Press) and Three Blocks West of Wonderland (Exstasis Editions), described as, “Fierce, racy, full of stiletto irony, verve-yet rife with sensitivity.” Haley has directed five video-poems, including Dying for the Pleasure and Purple Lipstick, official selections at dozens of international film festivals. A renowned performer, she has produced and toured two critically acclaimed AURAL Heather CDs of spoken word songs, Princess Nut and Surfing Season.

For more information, visit Heather at http://heatherhaley.com/.

HANS

Under the bridge a blanket rests,
Knave rising, tapping to a bush beat.
Static fussy, hearing reproach in birdsong,
Flak in the bending willows

He may see through concrete
But do not call him clairvoyant or infrared.
Merely tenacious, tenacious is he,
Tenacious as the wild life

Lured
From the ribbon of road
To flail
Against the vortex of personality.

All furious downhill from here.
Bloodstream
Engulfing triumph
One drop at a time.

I paid the toll.
Where is my protection? Favor.
Boat. Deliverance. Red tulip.
Simmer you, still. Still no loosening

Of your grip around our lovely, long Jane Doe necks.
Confinement has not freed
Nor contemplation illumined.
Are we not macerated into mash,

Pulp enough for paper? Fiction. Fusion
Of forms so 21st century, so now,
So damned imperative.
We aren’t about to quit abeyance, balking,

Irrupting or being pricks. Hiding, stalking, preying
upon squirts. Being obsolete. Polysyllable.
Anemic. Let it leak. Glow. Gush around your finger
in the hole. All the time in the world.

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