Ultra Blue, page 1
ULTRA BLUE
poems
Graeme Bezanson
Copyright © 2026 Graeme Bezanson
Published in Canada in 2026 and the USA in 2026
by House of Anansi Press Inc.
houseofanansi.com
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publisher.
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House of Anansi Press is an eBound Digital Certified Accessible publisher.
The ebook version of this book meets stringent accessibility standards
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Ultra blue : poems / Graeme Bezanson.
Names: Bezanson, Graeme, author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20250278286 | Canadiana (ebook) 20250278294 |
ISBN 9781487014063 (softcover) | ISBN 9781487014070 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCGFT: Poetry.
Classification: LCC PS8603.E938 U48 2026 | DDC C811/.6—dc23
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Cover design: Greg Tabor
Cover image: iStock.com/duncan1890
Text design: Alysia Shewchuk
Ebook Development: Nicole Lambe
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House of Anansi Press is grateful for the privilege to work on and create from the Traditional Territory of many Nations, including the Anishinabeg, the Wendat, and the Haudenosaunee, as well as the Treaty Lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit.
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We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada.
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For E
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What a mystery it is to be a boy, so close to death and birth
—Thomas Moore
* * *
The first time I left Geneva, I tried to chase after a galloping horse;
I threw stones at Mont Salève which was two leagues away
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
If the eye is small
And light dim
If with December the ragged
Horses graze
If in the morning’s blue-
Stained teeth
If the grass is
Dun and brittle
If the hilltops are like
Skinned knees again
If what you see
You can’t see clearly
If it was the shadow of
A black-mouthed kite
If what you are
Is with you now but
So is everything else
Let the dead wolf speak
Backing out of the night
As the bull’s horns rise
Let the moon shine through
The last translucent gods
No hard beds
For worn-out bodies
Slow volcanoes
On the horizon
These were not the first
Of our misfortunes
So the strangeness
Was filtered from them
Combing burrs
From a boy’s hair
Your name an arrow made
Fast to a tangled
Gust of wind
Inside the sky is a horse’s
Head her gashed cheek
Teeming with jewels and filigree
A plague of glittering flies
Sick disciples
Hot tears
Remove us
From our places
But never bring us
To another
Let this eye
Be a bronze wall
Against which you may
Exhaust yourself
Once there was a black foal
In the sky too
Beneath his mother
His outlines lost in mist
All night you could hear him
Chase the fleeing stars
Every boyhood is conditional
Gently empty yourself
Into the clashing
Of two birdsongs
A woodpecker
Knocks its face
Against the past
Overripe
Peaches smeared
Across the grass
Every day the trees bring death
Into your troubled imagination
How many swallows
Grieve the loss of seas
They’ve never visited
Who will become the water
If you build a boat
No good fathers
In the great myths
No longer seeing the ocean
We pass over it
A sailor stands before us
Dressed in faintest yellow
Using our language
But plainly
By his pauses and implications
Still speaking his own
Egg of the east
Apple of the west
The pharmacy’s doors are
Thrown open at daybreak
There’s a sun-stained
Note on the counter
Dear walker there
Is no road
The boy sets off
In search of a cave
Keeping to the left
Of the badger’s grave
Be not
Like me
Who struggled little
Against death
Someone keeps calling here
Looking for a butcher
The clouds tip over
Like whaleboats
Snap off the points
From all of your blades
Then a little snow fell
But not enough to
Make things new
Along the pathway
Interlacing
Trails of birds
A complicated set of
Movements explained under
Pledges of secrecy
A knot is never
Nearly right
Black branch
Black horses
White snow
The patterns show up
Mainly in legends
Where wounded men know
Something or are something
Dragging their guts behind them
When the poor were willing
To let there be rich men
The rich promised them
All the fat gold-coloured
Mushrooms that grow only
Between the roots of birches
They were crying
At not being wolves
Barefoot
Through all seasons
Eating the companions
Of their want
I did not give up
I did not hurry
Snap off the tips
Of your knives
Before you’re tempted
To use them
Waking into sunlight
Swallow-struck
If we cling to everything
A canoe drifts downstream
Between the bathing cattle
The flies can measure
Their own weakness
But do not suffer from it
At some point our boats
Became too heavy
To drag up on the shore
A ball soars through the open
Window golden as
The sun is
Waking from a dream you may
Linger a while in its collapsing
Interiors
Passing in and out
Of shadows
Some men exist only
Where they are absent
Your footsteps are the only road
Foam trails
On the sea
Bone and feather
On the doormat
Blood pools in the hallway
I’ve forgotten many names
Many I never knew
A pack of slender
Boys slips past
Built for speed not capacity
A knot is either perfect or
Hopelessly wrong
In every country the arms
Of men are worth more than their
Deep black lakewater
Sunbeam on a breastbone
The scent of clover
A ship that never sailed
Unwell as the stars are
Which consume themselves
You are beyond even
Your own understanding
Turn the great horse
From its shadow
Into the land that
No one promised
Through the grasses
No one grew
Tiny bonfires
Where the hooves fell
Hoof bone
Cannon bone
Coffin bone
Dust
The true word for horses is lost
Because for a long time everyone
Was too superstitious to use it
Light from the morning star
Is vague
Second-hand
Waves blooming within waves
The pond filling up
And spilling over
Into a succession of
Smaller ponds
With decreasing elevation
So that in the end there must be
A single droplet of water hovering
At the earth’s exact centre
They call this a pharmacological
Model of optimism
Fathers at least
Be strategic
When you disappoint
Horses lower themselves
Like poems
Below an icy edge of wind
This year nothing survives winter
Not even winter
Down by the water
A boy is visible
But not reachable
I have tried
To be genuine but remember that
In the half-light
Nobody’s hands are
Perfectly clean
The dentist looks upon
His garden in despair
His disobedient dog
Makes a water-rat perfect
By shaking
The rope is coiled at the
Base of a willow
What is this knot for
For someone else to undo
More people should have more
Self-doubt their hearts
Inequitable as in impossible
To traverse on horseback
Spent all morning collecting
Dead branches of the myth
Of redemptive violence
Two deer appear
At the edge of a clearing
Approach an arc of
Fallen chestnuts
You must not learn
To hate what you are
Not yet able to love
The words of fables
Are not fables
Just as the words of sons
And so on
Once the Venetians
With pomp displayed the treasure
Of Saint Mark for a Spanish
Ambassador who glanced
Beneath the tables
And observed that here
There are no roots
A comet plows on
Through the darkness
Foretelling triumph
And doom
Day opens as a long thin crescent
In the nearest village
They are conducting
Their own research
Heating up kettles
Scratching frost
From the windowpanes
Taking heroic doses of
Belgian pop music
Lost in the argument
Over whether it’s worse
To hate things
Or love them ironically
Is how we can still agree
Most of everything
Is bad
Anyone can take a little
Firewood from the municipal forest
But first you must confess
To the mayor’s adjoint exactly
How cold you have been
I’m trying here to be
As self-reflective as possible
A system of mirrors
Left behind
On the moon
I want to separate
The approach of death
From death
I want the ice to be
Here forever
But for it still
To be ice
Boys are wrestling themselves
Under a heavy orange sun
Into the electric fencing
The ticks in the tall grass
Are questing
Horses are the only survivors
Of the age of heroes
The very first words
Were addressed to them
So that the weak
Might struggle free
From muteness
The pond elects the heron king
The king then eats them all
*
imagine
a
clear
you
and
inside
everyone
sees
joy
belief
virtue
*
wake
every
morning
and
try
to
choose
your
own
coercing
ghosts
*
some
black
night
are
only
trafficking
reasons
not
to
live
*
cigarettes
push-ups
many
thousand
empty
paths
love
is
frustrating
for
everybody
*
sometimes
you
will
fall
before
the
wind
thin
incapable
this
too
is
fine
Fragment of light
Through the clouds
Fragment of a saint’s skull
We cycle down one side of a valley
And partway up the other
Each small sketch will be repeated
To highlight the sun’s progression
Whenever he sang psalms a blinding
White dove would circle and land
On young Aredius’s head causing him
Much embarrassment
This went on for centuries
Though the doves became darker
And his head much brighter
There is a buzzing
Parade coming into view
Just below the churchyard
For three years the potatoes failed
And we all learned very little
What if the passage
From real to symbolic
Does not make you freer
Wax floating on simmering water
Boys who when they come back
Bring violets
Some circumstances
Are impossible to paint
The farmers are lighting fires
In the orchards
To keep frost
At bay
Hard to put your faith
In the sad songs
You’ve never heard
Out of the black
Into the blue
Birch sap is holy
Because it was present
At both the beginning
And new beginning
Everyone loves the fire
But no one remembers to feed it
After it startles us
The snake pretends to die
Letting its tongue
Slip around freely
I carried it to the edge
Of the woods dangling
From a forked branch
Terminal scroll
Of the constellations
Soft ticking of the wood stove
Cooling
Can’t tell if we’re supposed to
Recognize the hooded figure
In the frosted morning logs
Spring open at the sight of
The axe’s glinting
To wake early
To get used to suffering
What is an alternative to
Cringing defeat
Can we live under this weight
Without having to succeed
Or fail at bearing it
I’m thinking here of
A third way of being
Or a kind of vaulted ceiling
Its purpose served
The dead snake
Returns itself to life
Pitch the stolen pears
Over the wire
Having barely tasted them
Every time the crow opens his mouth
He’s disappointed
The spot where the fox returned to us
The little toy cow
Should be enclosed
By a railing of gold
We clambered down into a chasm
That opened where the devil
Stamped his heel
Whenever a small boy
