Sinnett, Mark

Canada, (b. 1963)

At the track, or Dog chases rabbit

  1. Yesterday I had the most exquisite bridges built,
  2. great looping semantic spans that ran
  3. all the way from Jaffa
  4. cakes (over a dim maze of indifference
  5. to the infinite systems that collect us all together
  6. in a room where none of us know why
  7. we were invited
  8. —and yet dress as if expecting the queen)
  9. to the clear, thick juice that runs
  10. from a pig’s head
  11. when the saw blade nicks the tough sac
  12. that encases the brain for the first time,
  13. the awful smell
  14. that floods the room like a dye,
  15. sits heavy in the lungs like smoke.
  16.  
  17.  
  18. Today, most of those same passages are closed, seem
  19. like isolated mountain roads do in winter, just
  20. another part of the steep, mostly
  21. wooded slopes.
  22.  
  23. All access to this part of the world
  24. has disappeared in a snow so heavy
  25. they could be sawing bone up there
  26. in the clouds
  27. (though that is the only link I can find
  28. to the lucid trails
  29. I hunted along yesterday).

© Mark Sinnett. This poem originally appeared in Canadian Literature #157, Summer 1998, pg. 113.

About the Poet:

Mark Sinnett (b. 1963), is a Canadian poet, novelist and short story writer. Originally from England, Sinnett moved to Canada as a teenager.

Sinnett won the Gerald Lampert Award in 1998 for his poetry collection The Landing, and the Toronto Book Award in 2010 for his novel The Carnivore.

Poetry includes: The Landing (1997) and Some Late Adventure of the Feelings (2000); and fiction: Bull (1998), The Border Guards (2004) and The Carnivore (2009).

Sinnett is currently based in Kingston, Ontario, where he also works as a full-time real estate agent and says, “I’ve just started my third novel, but realistically, it’s going to be at least a couple of years before it sees daylight.”. [DES-06/14]

Additional information:

  • Mark Sinnett is currently working with Royal LePage to offer information and assistance with all real estate needs in and around Kingston, Ontario. He would be happy to help you buy or sell your home. Please contact him for more information.
  • Mark Sinnett at ECW Press

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