To thine own self be true

I was there
when we broke down
the rotting door

As we slugged
advancing roaches
with our rifle-butts

the old woman raved
on top of a
long-soiled bed

Stop please,
you’re killing
my friends

It must have been
Thursday evening
the hare tried
outrunning the 4 x 4
and lost–
left to die alone
unclaimed
as dawn lit up
the Looney Tunes carnage.

Driving past,
I thought the city
would be quick
to remove the
crushed cold body
later that day–
blood pooling under
its splayed back-legs.

Came Monday
Bugs was still there,
cars whizzing by
his now-flattened head–
bits of fur and testicles
scattered everywhere
rolling-pinned to pavement.

Shit, I said
to no one in particular,
I always pay my taxes.
Scrape that fuckin’ rabbit
off the road.

No–she never loved me truly: love is love forevermore.”–Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”

If each man kills
the thing he loves
then you are what is left
after the scalpel
scraped my heart.
A void the minutes make
whenever they laugh.

You are the note
I forgot to send today.
the lost fragrance
of some other time.
The nameless candle I burn
to cleanse a room.
The wax of despair
in a hearth of autumn.

You are the faith and dream
that did not work.
The eyes that shift
forever in mistrust.
You are the uncertainty
of our every meeting.
The reminder of what was
and the death of singing.

In you there is no tomorrow
only clouds and ‘could haves’.
You have built an altar
of self-inflicted rites.
Fled now my soul selects
its own society.
And you are just the end
of my new beginning, love.

Short, balding
never seen pushing a broom
pressing his nicotine-fingers
over a librarian’s eyes
a kidder–“Guess who?”
rubbing his paunch
against the backs of
unsuspecting schoolgirls:
a kind lecherous father.

But mostly just
sitting in the staffroom
at perpetual coffee
keys dangling beside
his half-open fly
holding court with a
trapped student-teacher.

“I remember one day
we were sent to take the bridge.
Jesus, the guns were pounding
See-see-see-see-see!”
Earnestly retelling
Korean scenes relived nightly
in the death-cold sweat
of 4 am pajamas
“Ya got no idea, kid
Ya got no idea…”

……………..

I’ve known a number of Hollywood janitors in my time. One even put on the dog enough to wear a large fur coat to impress the teachers!

When a believer in scientific fact is confronted with Victoria Beckham’s touted bird-poop facial fad.

“May I suggest we abandon connection technologies and reconnect with the living world whenever possible.”–Loreena McKennitt quoted in Maclean’s, January 12, 2015

The wind from the beach
howls up the fern-lined path

The gay cornet player
in a derelict hut
practises “Taps”
for a Canucks’ game

Crows hover above
to see if I’m still alive

The walk down to shore
below was not worth it:
rocks, rubbers &
spray-painted lighthouses

The view from this
mossy log is far better

Overhead the trees sigh
like surf-collapsed lungs
as a bottle-picker ascends the
pine-cone path of a Thomas Hardy novel

Here there is time enough to
give Beach Trail 3 back to the birds

porcupine corpses
strewn along the shoulder

a thousand green deaths
silent on the windshield

skeleton implements
rusting red on hot stubble

SaskTel lines hum high
cricketsong whine

gearjammers & Husky gas
flat can be ugly

……………….

A bit of a rebuttal to a slogan of a Saskatoon CCTE conference back in the early ’80s– which was “Flat is beautiful”. Poem was written on a family trip returning by station-wagon from Wpg one hot August evening. (William Carlos Williams meets SK.)

-1-

plot the
course of a
swallow’s arc:

clean &
self-assured

from firs
to
residence

-2-

lotus-land
a still-life

in timeless
green

only hear the
sound of breathing

(Union Station–built 1912,one of the few grand buildings left standing in Wpg.)

Like a pot of dry geraniums
in a North-End wartime window,
you cling to life though
your halcyon days are done.

Oh Winnipeg, your history is dead now.
Who remembers the Strike, the Blizzard, floods?
Who remembers your Indian Jack,
Gisele MacKenzie, Lenny Breau?

White with birdlime.
old banks and empty warehouses
stand silent in a row,
awaiting another fin de siècle boom.

Arcades and pawnshops
infect your once-proud avenues
where kings and queens passed flags
waved by caucasian throngs.

Like transit-riders stranded at 3 am,                                                                                    Riel and Golden Boy                                                                                                            ponder Assiniboine waters,                                                                                      wondering why Hull ever left.

Nothing else remains
but second-hand stores on William
selling spurs, quilts and memories
that no one really needs.

…………………

Notes:

pot of geraniums–allusion to John Marlyn’s 1957 novel Under the Ribs of Death, about a Hungarian-Canadian’s struggle for survival in Winnipeg’s North-End during the Depression

Strike–the famous General labor strike in the summer of 1919

Blizzard–which paralyzed Wpg Mar. 4, 1966; nothing was running and the city shut down

floods–especially the 1950 Red River Flood which flooded parts of the city

Indian Jack–Indian Jack Jacobs, a popular quarterback-punter for the Wpg Blue Bombers, 1950-52

Gisele MacKenzie–popular Wpg. singer who had her own American tv shows in the ’50s and ’60s

Lenny Breau–legendary jazz guitarist, considered to be the all-time best by many fans; mysteriously killed in L.A. in 1984

Riel–Metis hero; a sculpture-monument facing the Assiniboine River near the legislature is dedicated to him

Golden Boy–famous statue on top of the legislature, signifying prosperity

Hull–aka the Golden Jet, first superstar of the Wpg Jets, who signed the 1st million dollar contract in professional hockey, playing from 1972-79

William–William Avenue, seedy once-popular street running to Main Street