The Distance of Ducks

The Distance of Ducks

36 pages (2005)

trade paper, saddle-stitched

ISBN 1-891387-05-7

$7.00

About the Book

The poetic writings of Louis E. Bourgeois offer an exacting appreciation of personal tragedy, and of an infinitely larger world that embraces "the indifference of life to all things." With unwavering self-awareness, the poet defies universal authority, and challenges the reader's perceptions of passing events. His work is void of spurious hope, yet taunts us with a lingering sense of individual purpose.

Contents

The Old Man • Ducks • Distance • Slides of a Life in Blue Air • After 30, Life is Filtered in Black • On the Road to Pretoria • The Stone Lion • After the Wine Drunk • On a Hill with White Crosses • Sparrow Soup • Shooting Heroin on the Outskirts of Town • A Whisper of Childhood • Miriam • Mother • The Baby • An Old Wooden Skiff • October • Last Time I Saw Her Was a Year Ago • Clear Thoughts in the Middle of My 33rd Year • The Distance of Ducks • Whorl • The Geese Over the Suburbs • End of Fishing Season on Bayou Sauvage

Sample

After the Wine Drunk

All things make you sad.

The orange light

on the horizon, the black stone

underfoot,

the crosses on the hilltop,

the September wind blowing

against the granite tombs.

The broken gate in the photograph

is only where you were,

no longer is green

a destiny for you.

Lucidity of all things is haunting you.

The pines seem taller than they were --

the ochre in the sky seems painted.

You follow women into a night

of pure oblivion.

Transgression loses

its meaning in dirty light.

You succumb to all things at once,

as a bat leaving its cave

surrenders to the sky.

Gravity never seemed so

suffocating

or the dark woods

so dangerous.

A coldness moves up your chest

and your mind begins to ache.

You see the meaning in all things.

Everywhere an image

brighter than before,

the pigeons keep falling

into dark fields

then rising up again

into the emerald light.