I get up eventually. I’m happy. It is an incredibly bright day. I read. I think about Jack Spicer’s Martian in his brilliant lectures in The House that Jack Built (Wesleyan University Press, 1998), edited by Peter Gizzi. Spicer claims that poems are the product of a dance between the poet and a “Martian” re-arranging language furniture. I spend some time trying to think about the relation between this Martian and another Martian, Bron, who gives a lengthy explanation of metalogic and ordinary language’s extraordinary feats in Samuel R. Delany’s novel Trouble on Triton (1976). It happens in a chapter w/ an epigraph from the poet Robin Blaser talking about Spicer, so there’s something there. But it’s like a conjunction of planets, a syzygy, it doesn’t produce any particular insight the more I think about it, not today, not this morning. I go to the garden. The buttercups have gone wild. Aphids have congealed on several tall weeds. I pick these and compost them, aphids and all, then I watch a bee visit buttercups. I water some of the plants. We’re in a block of four maisonettes, and I bump into our downstairs neighbour, who talks about the ground rent and some issues with the agency who collect. I say, we haven’t been told we owe anything this year yet. She says theirs was sent months ago to the wrong person, and she worries ours went to someone else too. I say, well, they will need to bill me, I can’t pay if I’m not told. They know where I live. I smile. She says what if you get a late fee. I say, I’ll pay when they tell me. I can’t pay if I’m not told, and if they ask the wrong person that’s their mistake. But what if, she says. I say it isn’t late until they tell me and give me time to pay. I change the subject. I go back to our upstairs flat. Me and Nisha run to a nearby park and exercise, then we get an ice cream from an ice-cream truck. £5. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. We walk back. She leaves for Italy tomorrow for a month, and I’m avoiding thinking about that. I’ll miss her. We talk about dinner, the plan is maybe shumai, definitely bok choy, maybe tofu. We discuss rice and whether we should have some today. We’re both ambiguous. The fridge is quite full. We’ll decide later, but we get some of the ingredients for our unconfirmed options in Sainsbury’s. £6.65. Back at home, I re-arrange the fridge then I go into the attic. It is very hot up there. I take a screwdriver and complete a walkway to enable us to manoeuvre more safely between the joists. We have access but don’t own it. It doesn’t make much sense. I move some suitcases around. I come down, itchy from accidentally handling some insulation. I drink some water. Nisha is out in the garden now.
How to cite: Kiely, Robert. “Just Another Day: Robert Kiely” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 4 Jun. 2023, chajournal.blog/2023/06/04/robert-kiely.
Robert Kiely was born in Co. Cork, Ireland and is currently based in London. His poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in The Stinging Fly, Ludd Gang, Cambridge Literary Review, LONGITUDINES, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. His books include ROB (Broken Sleep Books), Gelpack Allegory (Veer), simmering of a declarative void (the87press), and Incomparable Poetry, an essay on the financial crisis of 2007-8 and Irish literature (punctum).
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