Whirlwinds in a Jar by Nathan Lawr
In crawl spaces
loitering,
tucked below my magic fountains
are creatures in the dark
shaking their gums at each other,
gently gnawing and pecking away
at all my freakish memorabilia.
I want to warn them - “be careful what you find in those boxes.
Some memories bite when unearthed. Some slice.”
And when they are stuffed and cannot squeeze back through the openings
through which they came, I preside as the Empress of Egress,
she who stalks all escape plans and adjudicates
all reasons for living.
It is she who leaves trap doors ajar,
removes rungs from ladders.
It is she who shuffles well and quiet,
collides with colours mostly unseen on earth.
It is true we
take needless chances on love and aspire
into bottomless chasms.
Forever fall and tangle together like
whirlwinds
in a jar.
Nathan Lawr is a well-established musician, described as “an unsung indie
rock hero” who emerged during Toronto’s indie music heyday in the early
2000s alongside peers such as Feist, Jim Guthrie, and Owen Pallett. He has
worked with words and images for over thirty years. His body of work
includes fifteen albums’ worth of songs, as well as writing as a historian,
technical writer, and poet. He was born in Guelph, Ontario, and grew up behind
a chainsaw factory. His poems are ricochets and reflections of the world,
shaped through imagery, play, and absurdism. Influences such as Japanese
koans, Dylan’s Tarantula, Dennis Lee’s Alligator Pie, Mary Oliver, and
Gregory Corso, among many others, inform an approach built on unexpected
collisions of meaning and creative mashups, resulting in heartfelt stories of
heartbreak, passion, music, and activism.
