The Annihilation Fountain Issue #10 - Poetry by Richard Grove

DEEP IN THE DRAMA OF WINTER
DAWN WAS ATTEMPTING TO BREAK


Some twenty miles or so straight ahead
the road leapt the muddy river
and passed through
its sheltering fringe of bush
to strike out
over
the sheer waste of heath-like country side
covered with low, creeping trees - p. 15

The wind
which had been gently soughing through tree tops
had free sweep there
and was building into a fury.
An exceedingly fine dust of
powdery ice-crystals
began to fly.
One could hardly see the snow - p. 15
but it was there and growing.

The wind came in fits and starts,
out of the hollow of the north-west
with the engulfing dark
and ever thickening
granular shower of blinding snow. - p 16

The darkness was inky-black
but a faint luminosity in the clouds above
revealed the canyon and the swaying trees. - p.19

The crystalline snow
was falling
in ever denser waves.
A relentless wind
threw it sideways into one’s face.
The ground was covered now - p.16
deep in the drama of winter.

The sun was nearing the horizon - p.32

A dog struck up a dismal howl - p 19
from the invisible dawn.
Morning was attempting to break through
the illusion of, forever black.

A found poem from pages 15, 16, 19 and 32 of  “Settlers of
the Marsh”
 by Frederick Philip Grove a long lost adopted great uncle.

sough?ing (suffing) - To make a soft murmuring or rustling
sound.
By Richard Grove


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Accidental Collocations
Of Randomly Scattered Atoms
Man, are you the result of an accident of the fate of a few atoms? Are you the product of causes which had no prevision for the ends that atoms would achieve? Is man’s origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs nothing more than the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms? Are all the labours of the ages, are all the devotion, all the inspiration, are all the noonday brightness of human genius, destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system as it comes tomorrow, in how many billions of years to the theoretical inevitability of implosion? Is the human enterprise an accidental collocation of randomly scattered atoms that will come to an inevitable end as the reverse of the big bang collapses in on all? Must the whole of man’s achievement inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins? All these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are nearly certain. Is man’s life brief and powerless? Will sure doom fall pitiless and dark on him and all his race blind to good and evil, reckless with destruction, as matter rolls on its relentless way? No for nothing can thwart God’s purpose, man. Nothing can interrupt the inevitability of good as reflected and expressed in love through man. All matter based theories will though collapse in on them selves as predicted as truth comes to light and spiritual man comes to bare. By Richard Grove col?lo?cate ( k¼l“…-k³t”) v. tr. col?lo?cat?ed col?lo?cat?ing col?lo?cates 1. To place together or in proper order; arrange side by side. [Latin colloc³re colloc³t- com- com- loc³re to place; See locate ] %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
CEREUS
IN FIRST ORANGE LIGHT
OF MORNING

With a powerful force the cereus blossoms spewed heavy perfume into the first orange light of morning, luring the thousands of moths and flies as they whizzed by. The scent of the cereus with its two edges – one a vanilla-like sweetness, the other a curdling – so permeated the air that it could be tasted on the tongue as though it were lapped from a bowl. - p. 152 On this side of morning, the world seemed quieter, as though time had slowed down. The soil smelled damp and rich. There was the buzzing of insects, the flutter of wings and the sounds of a breeze circulating earthly odours. - p. 150 The grapefruit tree trembled. Cold dewdrops flew with the breeze like a sudden rain shower in the dim morning light of dampness. - p. 173 by Richard Grove Found poem from “Cereus Blooms at Night” by Shani Mootoo %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%5
5:20 PM TORONTO
An endless stream of people poured off the eastbound King Street car at University Ave. Everyone flushed down the subway stairs as if into a gutter. A current of undulating bodies created an undertow that no individual could resist. Bodies coursed to the subway through underground tributaries the arteries of the city bobbing bodies innocently drawn to their predetermined destinations. Captured trout in a can throbbing, not speaking hardly acknowledging each other’s body-pressed existence mute to the trauma of vulnerability numb to pure unquestioned anonymity. Faces refusing to smile, stared into the confines of close trying hard to ignore their self denial buried as deep as humanly possible in their private knowledge that they will sooner or later spill from the urban river into the comfort of their own pond. By Richard Grove %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
TREE FELLED: All is well that lands well.

Two men,
Tai and Bill, shall I call them,
with confidence chopped down
a tall, grey, dead tree in the country.
Damn,
it fell and hung on the hydro lines
that foolishly planted themselves in the way.

Calculations were poor.
Execution was worse.
Egos were only minorly bruised,
until woman friend stumbled on blunder,
and a passerby stopped in dusty black pickup,
to see what the city slickers had done.

A bit more,
this time red-faced, swift chopping
with the same, perhaps foolish, confident strikes.
Branches were freed.
Lines stayed up.
Egos renewed.
Male bonding strutting resumed.
All is well that lands well.

By Richard Grove