HELSINKI DRIFT
ALSO BY DOUGLAS BURNET SMITH
Thaw (1977) The Light of our Bones (1980) Scarecrow (1980) Living in the Cave of the Mouth (1986) Ladder to the Moon (1987) The Knife-Thrower’s Partner (1989) Voices from a Farther Room (1993) Two Minutes for Holding (1995) The Killed (2000) Chainletter (2001)
HELSINKI DRIFT
travel poems
DOUGLAS BURNET SMITH
Porcepic Books
an imprint of
Beach Holme Publishing
Vancouver
Copyright © 2002 by Douglas Burnet Smith
First Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from CANCOPY (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), Toronto, Ontario.
This book is published by Beach Holme Publishing, 226–2040 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 2G2. www.beachholme.bc.ca This is a Porcepic Book.
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and of the British Columbia Arts Council. The publisher also acknowledges the financial assistance received from the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for its publishing activities.
Editor: Michael Carroll
Design and Production: Jen Hamilton
Cover Art: Detail of Keitele by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. Oil on Wood. © National Gallery, London, England. Used with permission. Author Photograph: Bernice MacDonald
Printed and bound in Canada by AGMV Marquis Imprimeur
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Smith, Douglas, 1949–
Helsinki drift
Poems.
“A Porcepic book.”
ISBN 0-88878-429-5
I. Title.
PS8587.M526H44 2002 C811’.54 C2002–910163–8
PR9199.3.S55153H44 2002
CONTENTS
Arrival Lounge Anxiety Anti-Haiku
Lake District Rhyme, Stone Cottage
Clouds over Teignmouth (Keats’s Apparition Anti-Haiku)
Fiesole Lament
Tuscan Scorpion
III IN ANOTHER STATION OF THE MÉTRO
Foreign Hands
Bar les Pipos
Mona Lisa in the Louvre Anti-Haiku
In Another Station of the Métro
Dragon Tattoo and Piercing
Akhmatova’s Paris Recurring Nightmare Anti-Haiku
Playing Scrabble with Tristan Tzara at the Trois Maillets
Too Late for Stars
Place de la Contrescarpe (I)
Les Philosophes
Place de la Sorbonne
July 14
Place de la Contrescarpe (II)
Place des Abbesses
Haiku Double
Song of Syntax at La Chope
Medici Fountain, Luxembourg Gardens
Alésia
IV HELSINKI DRIFT
Helsinki Drift
Sophia
Quai Mimosa, Saint-Pierre
Waiting for the Anahitra
Shrine of Notre Dame, Modelled on Lourdes, L’île aux Marins, Saint-Pierre
Giotto in Colorado: Future Work, Shale Series
Night Trail, Home: Anti-Title Haiku
Ready to be anything in the ecstasy of being ever.
—Sir Thomas Browne
I’ve been things and seen places.
—Mae West