National Poetry Month : Zane Koss,

 

The East River
  after José Emilio Pacheco

 

The buildings face the harbour
         Above me a seagull
at the peak of the bridge
         It was dusk
The sun sank
         Into New Jersey

Perhaps this was the Plains of Abraham
          from here Louis Riel staged his rebellion
and someone
           signed the documents of Confederation
           a series of eleven numbered treaties

Of Canada only certain traces are left
           planted in the snow
like drunken pissholes

The seagull was found amidst the surface scum
           of the harbour
not cruising in the sunset
           In decomposition

The cod from the Grand Banks
          are poisoned:    pesticides    trash
micro-scrubbing beads

Over Brooklyn seagulls continue to fly
         Today the hipsters
are monsters lying on the beach

The Canadians believed that John A. MacDonald
           night by night
died in the form of Lester B. Pearson
           voyaged thru the Land of the Dead
to reappear the following day
           [fortified with human blood]
as Justin Trudeau in the middle of the sky

The Fathers of Confederation live
        in Bushwick and Greenpoint now
where Newtown Creek belches rank fluid
        from the industrial park
into the ebb tide

The East River joins and separates
           dry land and Canadian Heritage Moments
Margaret Atwood is dead
           like the promises of 1763
in conformity with equitable principles

In Bushwick and Greenpoint
            they are constructing three pipelines
The Coeur-de-bois
            operate the pipe facing and internal welding machines
for the Supreme Court of Canada

The seagull spirals down
            Has Justin Trudeau
drained the blood of the night?

 

 

 

Zane Koss is a poet, translator, and scholar. His critical and creative work can be found in tripwire, Asymptote, Jacket2, the Chicago Review, the /temz/ Review, and elsewhere. He has published four chapbooks of poetry, The Odes (incomplete) and Invermere Grids (above/ground, 2020 and 2019), job site (Blasted Tree, 2018) and Warehouse Zone (PS Guelph, 2015). 

National Poetry Month : Zane Koss

dance

you learn quickly

how two bodies

move together chest

to chest as one to

follow without push

ing the other over to

anticipate not react

on the sway toward

to maintain  that

hung by one hand

whole body of muscles

burning as the snow

machine cobras toward

the crest of the ridge

swaying side to side

throttle pinned fluttered

when i say bail you

fucking bail bud

Zane Koss is a non-resident alien currently living in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. He was raised on the traditional lands of the Ktunaxa (Kootenay) and Secwépemc (Shuswap) people. His critical and creative work can be found in the Chicago Review, CV2, Poetry is Dead, and elsewhere. He has two chapbooks of poetry, job site (Blasted Tree, 2018) and Warehouse Zone (Publication Studio Guelph, 2015). Zane is a doctoral candidate in the English Department at New York University, where he studies Canadian, Mexican and U.S. poetry in the 1960s and 1970s. web: https://wp.nyu.edu/zanekoss/