Scenes from a Restaurant in the Time Between Variants
the guys from finance hold their wine glasses by the stem and every now and again they do that swirl and sniff thing
the girl in the tight dress is two drinks away from feeling comfortable
a couple out on their first date have discovered too late that they have nothing to say to each other the long evening yawns before them
the bathroom door bursts open two bros wearing dark suits and built like refrigerators emerge, their eyes pulsing with guilty energy
it’s happy hour
cocktails are fifty per cent off and all the cocktails have jokey names Insane Moose Milantini Rogue Zamboni
nothing on the menu escapes description the Market Crashin’ IPA has a dry hopped finish with a touch of citrus the Failed Priest Sauvignon Blanc is full bodied with gooseberry and melon grace notes and that beet and feta salad we’ve ordered just happens to be a personal favorite of our waitress she loves that hint of sourness the cheese brings to the dish
she’s a dancer, by the way, lived for a while in Saskatoon.
a ghostly whoosh echoes down the open pipe a toilet flushing
in a neighbor’s house uphill yes, we are all connected.
I hardly ever do this but here’s a challenge to all you poets out there: write a poem about plumbing. There are no rules, write about anything – an ode to your favourite plunger, a sonnet about a dripping tap, a haiku about flexible hoses!
Link back to this post if you like, so I can read your poems.
At night, the rotund tourists roam the street below drinking light beer from plastic cups and watching the river flow.
And Chuck, he’s in a restaurant playing his guitar for the plaid shorts and polo shirts and salesmen at the bar.
And life is neither good nor bad it’s somewhere in between Chuck thinks that one day he should leave this river scene.
Time’s a slowly burning fuse time’s a disappearing muse in time you feel every wound time’s a slowly burning fuse.
Karla’s in the house again trying to catch his eye her hair is blond and crinkled makes Chuck think of frozen fries
and when he hits another chorus she stands upon her chair chugs back her mojito and punches the empty air
and he knows that in this deck of cards we all can’t be the ace and if you’re going to take a fall then try and fall with grace.
Time’s a slowly burning fuse time’s a disappearing muse in time you feel every wound time’s a slowly burning fuse.
Jane, the late shift waitress her husband’s out of town Chuck thinks that later he might ask her around
and he’ll forget about alimony and the rent that he owes he’ll forget just about every thing if Jane comes around.
Time’s a slowly burning fuse time’s a disappearing muse in time you heal every wound time’s a slowly burning fuse.
This is based on a short poem I had published in Cyphers magazine. There are other versions of it, even a sonnet, but I think it’s finally settled down.
Myron volunteered once as a caretaker on an island in the middle of a lake in the High Andes, North of Puno, the Altiplano.
The top of the island was as flat as an anvil and every day he would climb up there from his lake side cottage to study the funerary towers of Silustani over on the mainland, using his large binoculars.
It was never quite clear to Myron what exactly he was taking care of. He had a house, a dread-locked alpaca and three guinea pigs. The guinea pigs were housed in a wired compound, inside the compound was a miniature mud hut with a thatched roof and three open doorways which the guinea pigs retreated through every time he approached. He thought that, perhaps he was supposed to eat the guinea pigs it was clear that they thought this also.
Located close to the funerary towers were the remains of an Inca temple worshipping the Sun God, at that time in his life Myron was losing faith in atheism and the Inca worship of the sun god had a certain logic to it. Without the sun where are we? Where are we, indeed! He wasn’t overly keen on human sacrifice but he had to admit that the Incas dealt with the blood well, channels and drainage being an Inca thing, knowledge they acquired along the way. Subjugate, assimilate, and so it goes forever.
Myron thought he would use this time to write but mostly he sat looking at a blank page listening to the tinnitus in his left ear roar and in the absence of his fellow human beings he began to think that the alpaca was judging him, the way it stared at him from under its matted fringe and down its long nose.
One night he found himself shouting abuse at the alpaca.
The next day he left for Puno and got drunk on gassy lager in a pizzeria on the ragged, dusty town square
NaPoWriMo eleven days in and I have nothing to show last night I rummaged through abandoned shoeboxes in the dusty attic of my mind (I apologize for those last two lines) and there’s nothing there, bro there’s nothing there………bro I’m moving in slow mo I’ve lost my mojo my get up and go I have met my Alamo or is it Waterloo? I’m running on empty no quid pro quo NaPoWriMo NaPoWriMo nineteen days to go nineteen days to go.
In the city of Nha Trang, Vietnam at the National Oceanographic Institute among tanks cramped with circling neurotic fish (Hit the glass. Stop. Turn around)
there is a multi-colored specimen whose toxin, according to the description, renders its victims
“unconspicuous or even dead”.
Conspicuous behind glass further north in the Hanoi War museum
lie the dog tags of dead American soldiers
to a man young, buzzcut and hopeful.
This poem was written a number of years ago, after a visit to Vietnam. The news out of Ukraine this week, for some reason, made me think of that visit and what happens to a whole generation on either side of a conflict when leaders decide to go to war.
It appeared in Open Link weekend over at earthweal.
I’m sitting in a café smoking a Gitane yes, I’m sitting in a café smoking a Gitane I’m reading Jean Paul Sartre and wondering who I am.
Existential boogie do that existential thing you can do it in your armchair summer, autumn, winter, spring.
If you’re looking for an answer don’t ask Albert Camus yes, if you’re looking for an answer don’t ask Albert Camus that dude’s been dead a long time he can’t tell you what to do
Existential boogie do that existential thing you can do it in your armchair summer, autumn, winter, spring
And don’t talk to me about Immanuel Kant yes, don’t talk to me about Immanuel Kant well I know that you want to but you can’t
Existential boogie do that existential thing you can do it in your armchair summer, autumn, winter, spring
and some people like to quote Martin Heidegger yes, some people like to quote Martin Heidegger well, all I can say is go figure
Existential boogie do that existential thing you can do it in your armchair summer, autumn, winter, spring
Rene Descartes said I think therefore I am yes, old Rene, he said I think therefore I am well, I call that a beginning I sure don’t call that a plan.
Existential boogie do that existential thing you can do it in your armchair summer, autumn, winter, spring.
My poem “Driving Home with Leonard” has been included in David L O’Nan’s anthology, ” Before I Turn Into Gold”, a collection of poems inspired by the work of Leonard Cohen. That’s the cover artwork above by Geoffrey Wren and the book contains some very fine poems and more wonderful illustrations by Geoffrey Wren.
Thanks to David for including me. The book is available here on Kindle and in Paperback. Check it out.
Also check out David’s Fevers of the Mind Poetry and Art Bloghere.
And your gravity fails and negativity don’t pull you through….Bob Dylan
Know your gym……Slim Volume
Gravity, Don’t Fail Me Now
two geezers pink and steaming towelling down after a shower discussing gravity how it is not fixed how it decreases with distance from the earth’s core how, if one was to climb to the top of Everest, since weight is the product of mass and gravity one would weigh less at the top of Everest and Slim’s thinking this is one fucking erudite conversation and he wants a piece of it so he points out that one would regain that weight on returning to sea level and one of the geezers replies yeah but you’d probably burn 10,000 calories climbing up and down the fucking mountain and a nearby jock encased in breathable fabric says shit, I’d burn that in 40 minutes on the rowing machine and Slim fires back wryly keep telling yourself that and the locker room erupts in laughter and in that moment basking in the unbearable lightness of banter Slim defies gravity and levitates above the bacterial swamp that is the locker room floor.
“A man who is tired of the gym, is a man who has been to the gym”. Slim Volume
Two Bros
Two bros on a mat one on his back hands clasped behind his head legs bicycling like a capsized fly; the other, the one with the green hair and the tattoos of a religious nature is grunting weights . Fly bro, it appears, is having girlfriend problems and is experiencing some kind of vague existential crisis, green hair bro listens carefully to his tale of woe and after some reflection says: It’s life, man, stop trying to understand it, no one can and then, as if startled by his own profundity, he repeats: no one can. Out of the mouths of bros….
in the background a bearded jock in a tight black T shirt his muscles packed with powdered whey his eyes a steroid yellow is down on his hunkers knees akimbo moving sideways across the floor like a slow motion crab across packed sand at evening.
I’m on the bedroom floor doing some stretches, above my head in the blue rectangle of the skylight an eagle soars.
I’m thinking about an article a friend sent about “solo polyamory”.
I start a poem: he was a sensitive guy he didn’t have the armory for solo polyamory he wanted to marry settle down maybe do a bit of farmery somewhere far away from the clamor, the goddamery of big city life.
Well, they can’t all soar like an eagle.
Apropos of nothing I think about my recent technology issues. Last week I spent an hour talking to a nice guy from Apple Help, he was in Arizona, temperature in the low sixties down where Fahrenheit still rules, I had iPhone issues which he did not resolve, he could not meet my iNeeds but as a result my IOS updated and every time I turn on the phone it asks me about my iPreferences my preference would be to turn on my phone and be left alone but call it coincidence, serendipity, synchronicity because of the update my Spotify app does not work so I decide to delete the app because every time I use it I think of Joe Rogan spouting bollocks about freedom and if, and it’s a big if, I ever meet Neil Young I want to be able to look him in the eye. Now I’m algorithm free and I’m listening to music on a chunky old iPod I found in a drawer and you know what? It sounds good and I picked all the songs myself.
I think of an opening to a poem: he walked into the room his eyes like fugitives looking for a window,
I think of a song title: Stuck in E Minor Again
I think of a song chorus: born in the wrong key there was always something different about me until you came along and changed my song now it’s all sweet harmony. Sappy, yes, but is it sappy enough?
I think of that eagle I think, what is that eagle thinking? I think he’s thinking this: Man, these thermals are good I could stay here all day. Hang on a minute is that a mouse on that garbage bin in the laneway north of King Edward east of Dunbar, they don’t call them eagle eyes for nothing. Forget the mouse, I’ve got soaring to do, soaring to do before the day is done.
In Brendan’s excellent post over at earthweal, he posits, among other things, that “our brains themselves have been disrupted by digital media.” He also says:
The mind must feed on wild sources; greening is both invitation and surrender. Dogen, again: “Are you going to improve yourself or are you going to let the universe improve you?”
The Trucker Convoy Protesting Vaccine Mandates Crosses Burrard Street Bridge
as seen from the park below the trucks look like toy trucks driven by children which is partly true given that the logic of their rhetoric resembles that of a petulant child and I’m being hard on petulant children
the blaring horns sound like the dying groans of white male supremacy the Canada geese look puzzled the crows go crazy in the trees.
Taking part in open link weekend over at earthweal
Cyphers is a Dublin based print only magazine which has been in existence since 1975. They publish poets from all over the world, both new and established, and as you can see from the photo above I’ve been a fan of the magazine for some time. They have now updated their website and it’s well worth a visit. They have featured poems from their latest issue and a selection from back issues plus a selection of the art from previous issues. They also have a search function where you can enter an author’s name and get a listing of the issues in which they have appeared. For example if you put in “Seamus Heaney”, you’ll find Seamus Heaney was an early contributor.
And…I too have been a contributor. (That is called “reflected glory”, it’s like describing, in the pub, after playing a game of soccer where you were on the field when the winning goal was scored and your part, usually minor, in the scoring of that goal.)
Anyway, Cyphers was one the first magazines to publish one of my poems and the one that made me think that perhaps I could write poetry, so I am thankful to them!
Stopdraggingthepanda 