Hayden Marquardt-Grainer. Funerary for Syllables

“Oh, tell me a poem, a poem!” the boy cried, and I obliged: 

Where in the cool calm no-qualms do I wait? 

Hands’ palms aplomb waiting to— 

at 8:15 in the morning I left my house this morning 

going to the going by I thought I made the turn this 

way the dusky concrete already mauve gaudy 

shadow-worn the sun the sun my fatal fetal foe, 

who would call thee thine? Who would? I could 

not imagine dour days as they waylaid my haze, played 

coxswain to my riverbound I thought I made 

the turn this way maze the words I bleed 

have no more meaning 

dust falling from the faucet 

the words I need halve no more, leaning 

into their syllables yields only I thought I made the 

turn this way only—all fair fires fade, made to 

braid and burn in little pieces at a time 

all fair fires fade, made to braid and burn in little 

pieces at a time 

all fair fires fade …

made to … fires and burn … 

little pieces … fade I thought I made 

All the time the pages … splayed, and I … asked why. 

(and something, something the dark and the

light and the night confound and could form 

a brighter lighter night, a darker…) 

“Stop, please, no more.”

And the brighter the burn the farther the light and the hotter the night—

Humid mornings always follow their fairer dawns— 

And I said to her setting sighing sun, “Please, please.” 

But all the words came dancing and dissolving, 

Inching, asking, asking towards and never at. At the time, 

All the time the pages splayed, and I never asked why. 

My grounded pictures are 

just the buried ones 

the poem dreams and dream-poems 

float, castle and moat, towards the— 

it’s still 8:15 and I haven’t left the— 

dust falling from the faucet I thought  

I thought 

“Another, another! That one was dreadful.”

Hayden Marquardt-Grainer is a writer and linguistics student at McGill University. He has lived in Chicago, Prague, Ottawa, Maine, and now Montreal. He writes more than he should and has never been published before.