Thou Poem (by A. F. Moritz)

Griffin Prize for Excellence In Poetry, The (2001 - 0)

Original Text

A. F. Moritz, The Sentinel: Poems (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2008). This poem is reproduced on the Griffin Prize Web Site (from the winning volume on the 2009 Canadian Shortlist).

1Thou poem of lost attention and half try,

2do you fear more the inner world or outer?

3I do not love the self less than the others,

4my name is legion and my mouth one cry.

5Thou poem of the unwell, of the dry well and doom,

6and the snake’s on your lip, in you the toad persists.

7Did we come here just to read of what exists?

8I champ at my winter bit to be in bloom.

9But what’s the difference between you, poem, and the flower?

10Don’t both break from the compost as long as it may be?

11You are the one who knows what metaphor

12and imposes it. Two dandelions are not similar to me.

13Thou song of all-powerful individuality,

14if only I could rest in you escaping me …

15You would never again be troubled by the nudity

16of the mother, or the Heart Fall’s killing roar

17as you slid toward it, catafalqued on the fluid

18descents of a new old world, shrouded in greenwood.

19Thou ignorant epic of half-knowing ever more,

20thanks in thought’s ruin for reminding me.

RPO poem Editors

Ian Lancashire

RPO Edition

2011