Appendix: texts
Ami Xherro
Benjamin de Boer
I see men riding bicycles along the trail by the water. I hear words whose meanings escape me. I recognize the tones. I smell sugar on the breeze. I see the refinery down the road. I look into the eyes of a woman passing. I see her frustration.
I hear mandarin coming from two mouths at the crosswalk. I brace myself as cars drive past. I look back at the group. We slowed. We stopped in thought. We saw stopping and thinking. We saw the light blink numbers. I examine a cross section of a factory on a demolition site to my left. Someone cut it right through. Bottles and building
A green shirt declares “I hate rubber boots”. I look at the legs of the man wearing this shirt. He is wearing rubber boots.
The heat from the afternoon sun warms my face. Every day is a new sun. I hear seagulls yelling to each other that they have found food. I hear them before I see them. I walk along the port across from the sugar refinery. I see countless gulls bobbing in the green water. I see just as many gulls flying in the air, circling. Sand shimmers under clusters of permanent umbrellas. The umbrellas are a light pink, bleached by many afternoon suns. I notice the diagonal line of shade on the water. In the shade float groups of geese. Floating amongst trash.
I watch the William Inglis as it crosses the harbour from Ward’s Island to the Ferry Terminal. Passengers crowd the top deck to look at the skyline. Yesterday, I was one of those passengers. Yesterday I read a book while taking the ferry to Ward’s Island. The book spoke, in the way that a book can speak of.
I lose myself silently to the shimmering wake. I stretch out on this rock. I trace the red lines painted on the rock with my eyes. I trace the red lines with my hand. The red lines are hot and smooth. I write notes on air. The air holds its own buoyancy. Distant engines hum to the rhythm of silver phosphenes dancing across the opposite page of my notebook as I write all this down. Some engines move closer, sound growing closer to wail. The engines penetrate my mind. This rock has no equal. This is not an evaluation. This is imitation, composite. Asymptote shape in my mind. Plotting. I hear the sound of childrens’ footsteps falling on rock. I see blonde lips move but cannot make out the words exchanged between the pair to my left. I look at the beach. I notice that everyone on the beach is arranged in pairs except for a group of teenagers smoking cigarettes.
The wind changes direction towards the lingering group. Geese begin to call out, louder than the flying gulls. I love the sentiment sea surface. I love the idea of harmony.
The shadow of a hand falls on my page. The shape resembles the five inlets on the bay north of here. A sleeping giant’s hand. Yesterday I looked at a map of this bay. Yesterday I looked at an aerial photograph of this bay. Yesterday I looked at two of the five inlets in person, on foot. Yesterday I watched rain drops. I saw the drops fall in delicate splashes into the water of the bay. I smelled the sand swell. This sand made me.
I try to listen to the conversations of beachgoers. I hear someone say last night. I hear that someone say self-labour. I hear someone else say fantastic. I hear the first someone say created by ants. Where is this sand from? I hear someone say see to it. The rock is asphalt shaped to appear as a boulder.
We stop on the brand new bridge. The bridge is white and yellow. The colours are bright and pure. Brand new colours. The brand new bridge carries two lanes of traffic to nowhere yet. The bridge allows for cyclists and pedestrians to cross. The pedestrians inhabit mainly the bridge itself, for its own sake. The bridge crosses a narrow body of water. Not yet a river. The not-yet-a-river leads from the harbour into a construction site. The construction sites look like the tilled land of a giant. I still hear the whirring of engines. There is a giant boat in the harbour. Its hull is scraped and rusty. The metal provides me with a wealth impression. NACC ALICUDI. A nautical flag I do not recognize.
I have to urinate. I have the same sun in my eye except at a different angle. The wind rustles my short facial hair. The child member of the group bangs a rock against the wooden handrail on the bridge. The child then bangs this rock against the metal fencepost. The bridge trembles whenever a car crosses.
There are yellow floating blockades in the water close to both shorelines. The blockades have worked together with the water to collect trash and leaves. The trash includes a blue Coleman cooler, two soccer balls, a sandal, three plastic water bottles, a chunk of quilted foam, at least seven crushed cans, unpieceable sludge
Large square rocks are piled up on the shoreline by a crane. The world does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. I am caught in this rhyme. Beside the crane, a plane cuts across the sky in gentle descent. I am unhoned. My senses are stuck on a banner depicting a watermelon. I remember eyes. I remember sunflowers around the pupils.
Catherine Parayre Ivanhoé Express --- Cars have to be thought of Where Toronto Starts white metallic roses ruderals behind a fence, a square patch 24 HR Parking --- Do you want to write with me? You never go to what you are going to find on the way back. A murmur. I hear the breeze; i hear because i don’t want to feel cold. Switching senses at leisure. Rock blocks by a port crane that looks like lace down the water on yellow rings taking us to the sun, the ephemeral sun. --- crystalized sand bits of silica pine trees’ poky orange spines octagonal shades by the umbrellas Where is the sugar factory? The kid is sledging down, brings back a sort of shiny sand, rolls it under his hand. The building across the water is so brown, dark; i cannot see its lines. It flattens against my blinded eyes. Three yellow diggers’ vehicles flying seagulls high above – manutention. People go silent in their Muskoka chairs. We hear D. talk. --- Five pine trees along Cherry Street – sticks; we like sticks. We walk into the wind. One day, this will be new land. We leave the lake along footprints deepened by the last rain. We walk on the streetcar tracks, look at circles, green, yellow trees constructing young space.
Lissa Paul Sun and sand at Sugar Beach. Not the Caribbean but still warm in its welcoming chairs and umbrellas inviting passers-by to linger fingering the day before winter’s fist closes the moment
Nicholas Hauck THE GO BACK AND GET IT RHIZOME (AJY/IJY) WPP? WIO? We need to stay together. Can we stay together? Now we can stay together. In this city, canned city, hay city, haecceity. Making the world a sweeter place When’s the chorus? How’s the burn? The 9-minute train, Maxus, I agree it Would be better that this sand. Copenhagen water, ferry time, optical Tractors, strip-walk, self-punchlines, None allowed on the neon green cruise. Byline, buy time, late morning bicycle seasweet, a light rustle, an early hustle Dug medium deep in my pocket. 25hr site. Respite. Episode. A change is proposed. Beltlink. Limberlost. Lumberlust. Woodness. Clearway. Helicopter music. Mmmm. Lafarge! Nacc aloud alicoud alioud! DSS Boonton, cooler, colder, warmer wind sweep, beep wet spider, thread thumb roll thumb nail, 88 balloons on point, reversible reversibility, invisible ability. How was dinner last? Ring, saver, orangeringed smokesaver, the ladder place, former pace, formed space climbing & streaming again, oh the river of it all! The black mounds waiting. Shaken, fluffs in the winds, pages & sugar burned & the gulls. Lay afield, fly a little more slowly, land less solid than expectation, or worse: the white convertible Rubicon.