At Lake Scugog

Poems

Troy Jollimore

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780691149431
  9780691149424
• eBook ISBN:
  9781400838233
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

This is an eagerly awaited collection of new poems from the author of Tom Thomson in Purgatory, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was hailed by the New York Times as a "snappy, entertaining book." A triumphant follow-up to that acclaimed debut, At Lake Scugog demonstrates why the San Francisco Chronicle has called Troy Jollimore "a new and exciting voice in American poetry."


Jollimore is a professional philosopher, and in witty and profound ways his formally playful poems dramatize philosophical subjects--especially the individual's relation to the larger world, and the permeable, constantly shifting border between "inner" and "outer." For instance, the speaker of "The Solipsist," suspecting that the entire world "lives inside of your skull," wonders "why / God would make ear and eye / to face outward, not in." And Tom Thomson--a character who also appeared in Jollimore's first book--finds himself journeying like an astronaut through the far reaches of the space that fills his head, an experience that prompts him to ask that a doorbell be installed "on the inside," so that he can warn the world before "intruding on't."
______



From At Lake Scugog:
LOBSTERS


Troy Jollimore
?


tend to cluster in prime numbers, sub-
oceanic bundles of bug consciousness
submerged in waking slumber, plunged in pits
of murk-black water. They have coalesced


out of the pitch and grime and salt suspended
within that atmospheric gloom. Their skin
is colorless below. But when exposed
to air, they start to radiate bright green,


then, soon, a siren red that wails: I'm dead.
The meat inside, though, is as white as teeth,
or the hard-boiled egg that comes to mind
when one cracks that crisp shell and digs beneath.


Caress the toothy claw-edge of its pincer
and you will know the single, simple thought
that populates its mind. The lobster trap is elegance
itself: one moving part: the thing that's caught.

IV THE STARS, THE HIGHWAYS

WANT

Who’s to say I’m a poet? I fear I want
too much: to live a life like a song
that’s picked up by others’ lips when I find it
has passed from my own. A wandering kiss
my spirit will live in. Your house, even when it
is empty, yet speaks in a faltering voice,
like waves on the lakeshore we both know. My heart
grows younger with time, its slow, serene stammer
like waves on the lakeshore. We both know my heart
is empty, yet speaks in a faltering voice:
My spirit will live in your house even when it
has passed from my own, a wandering kiss
that’s picked up by others’ lips when I find it
too much to live. A life like a song?
Who’s to say? I’m a poet. I fear. I want.

GATE

Though everything on me had been scanned and cleared—
I had been pre-approved—still, I felt somehow impure.
A seraph with a clipboard sang, Hurry up and wait.
I wondered which memories they would let me keep.

I had been pre-approved. Still, I felt somehow impure,
like meat or milk gone bad. We longed for ascension.
I wondered which memories they would let me keep:
I had not thought debt had undone so many,

like meat or milk gone bad. We longed for ascension,
for grace, freshly aware of our burdensome weight.
(I had not thought debt had undone so many.)
We watched for the opening of the blessed gate,

for grace, freshly aware of our burdensome weight.
(Though everything on me had been scanned and cleared.)
We watched for the opening of the blessed gate.
A seraph with a clipboard sang, Hurry up and wait.

FREE RIDER

When did I first become aware of him? I remember standing before
a painting—was it something by Rembrandt, The Night Watch, perhaps?
—and turning to leave, and hearing the tiny interior voice: wait,
not yet. It is possible that this was the first time.

“Voice,” of course, being precisely the wrong word. It was a thought
that I heard, unspoken. As one hears one’s own, though knowing, in
this case, that it was not one of mine. Why? Because I did not intend
to think that? Because I did not agree with what it said? But this happens
all the time, my thinking things I don’t intend or don’t believe.
Many of my thoughts, perhaps most of them, are things that I don’t
think at all.

Like living for months on a small tropical island and one day coming
across a set of footprints on the beach, one size larger or smaller than
your own, and realizing to your surprise that you are not surprised.
Those bent twigs you kept seeing, those tiny sounds in the leaves beyond
the reach of the firelight—you, or at any rate some version of
you, had known for some time that you weren’t alone.

We are twins, conjoined not in body but in mind. Where is it that we
come together? What is the hinge, the joint? The idea of loss, perhaps.
Or the memory of some pain, some cruelty committed by a person we
trusted.

He likes art museums. As do I. I like looking at the art, and he likes
looking at the women who come to look at art. Admittedly, we sometimes
get bored and trade roles.

What must it be like, never having the power to decide, always
needing to plead, to file a request? I try to give him his way as much
as possible; I’m not unsympathetic. (He hates me for having written
that.) It could easily have been the other way around, after all. (If only,
I can feel him thinking.)

Do other people have this—this constant companion, this parasite?
(My god, he detests that word.) Why do they never talk about it? But
then again, why don’t I?

He doesn’t like the way I use my mouth. (Our mouth?) The way I
chew a piece of steak or taste a plum just off the tree. The way I kiss.
(Besides, he always thinks I pick the wrong women.) For the most part
I am able to ignore his attempts at backseat driving. What is that
irritating noise? I ask myself. Oh, it’s just the wind. It’s just a noisy
child some inconsiderate parent has brought to the restaurant where I
am trying to enjoy a quiet meal.

Do I behave better, knowing that he is watching? Doubtful. Sometimes,
it seems to me, I behave worse. If he is impressed by this, he has
not let on.

And am I really sure that he has no control? Surely there have been
things I said that were said by someone else. I’m not that cruel, or
honest, as much as I’d like to be. Or as much as I say I’d like to be. If,
that is, it’s really me saying that.

What happens if one of us dies before the other? He would be
trapped, I suppose. Paralyzed. Locked in. And I, if he died? One time
he retreated for over a month, falling into silence, to make me think
that he had gone for good. He intended to make me miss him. And, I
must confess, I did. The freedom to do what I pleased, with no one to
watch or judge—in the end, it was a little bit sickening.

I dreamed once that I was following a man, whom I intended to kill.
It was night, and I had a knife in my hand. I was going to slit the
man’s throat; there was no doubt as to what I planned, or that I would
have the will, when the moment came, to carry it out. I followed my
intended victim through the long poorly lit corridors of an abandoned
building, then out into a desolate street, around a corner and into an
alley, where I finally caught up with him. He screamed in terror as I
grabbed his arm, and turned—and my own face looked back at me.
Then I woke, shot like an astronaut into the black void of my
bedroom. I sat there for several minutes, breathing and letting the
peak of the panic subside, and then realized. That wasn’t my dream,
was it? I silently asked him. Some seconds passed before he answ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• I: Burn Bag
• II: Tom Thomson In Flight
• III: Imperceptibly
• IV: The Stars, The Highways
• Acknowledgments