GHOST OF HISTORY LIES DOWN BESDIE ME
The sign said: No Jews Dogs Negroes
Public bathrooms at the beach 1941
Toronto Rows of boys in classroom
London Ontario 1931 The one in the
back row Black hair blue eyes Sea of
blonde Runs & runs Some days outrun
Puts up dukes
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You’ll be dead again tomorrow, but in dreams
you live. So I try taking you back into morning.
Myth Natasha Trethewey 2006
Winter 2014
SAINT SATCHMO
White cathedral Black spires pierce
cobalt sky Wrought iron Crumbling
stone Chipped paint Jazz hounds
Lumpy tourists
Sun has set Light slanting No shadows
Circus barker dances Solitary girl Raggedy 21
Voice hollow tin can rings out over inky Quarter
There is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun
Feet walk in other direction LOUIS ARMSTRONG AIRPORT
Slight chop Bridge over Ponchartrain ends
Ice welcomes Colourful outfits fade Tinny voice
wakes me at 4 a.m. these days
I’m goin’ back to New Orleans To wear that ball and chain
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Deep Winter 2014
DON’T WANNA WALK IN MAGGIE’S SHOES NO MORE
Last night I walked a mile in a famous poet’s shoes
Now all wet & sullied She the first to publish me
So had my promise been muddied? Writing whimsy
& deadpan Genuflecting at the BIG BOXY BOOKSTORE
Oh how can I return the shoes? They will need to be dried
& polished And what about the soles now filled with holes
and crusty Or maybe I’ll just KEEP THEM
And in a perfect ruby-slipper world I will own her genius
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Late Winter 2014
EVIL ASSISTANT UPDATE*
She’s here again today but do my eyes
deceive me? A ratty dishabille now her
most prominent feature I have time travelled
She must be 33
Hair a matted bob not clean Skin pasty white
Hasn’t purchased Chanel lipstick since 2023
Worn camel coat Her mother such high hopes
Evil’s meanness no match for her 2nd husband’s
He kept 2 families like many a French President says she
I sit one table over now 73
And while: Most poets dry up at 50 (Mark Strand)
I remain somewhat moist & mostly chipper
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*(The Wild & The Innocent January 15 2014)
Late Winter 2014
THE WILD AND THE INNOCENT
She is blonde in several shades 17
Talking about Chanel lipstick & body size
She would be pretty but for a mean spirit
about the eyes Set the prom on fire if she could
Beautiful grey wool coat & shiny black boots
Aquascutum scarf Her mother bought tickets
for the Opera tonight: Cosi Fan Tutte
What will she be in twenty? Positively wreaks of evil assistant
Like the one who closed a bridge in New Jersey
killing one & stranding thousands Of course
there were signs It’s all in the eyes
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Late Winter 2014
ANGELOLOGY
Father Renzo Lavatori leading Catholic Church
Angelologist assures us that: Angels don’t have
wings neither do they look like cherubs However
they do exist So glad he cleared this up
Father Lavatori is also a Demonologist He feels:
The door is wide open for the Devil due to secularization
& materialism He does not mention fame-whoring or
terrorism
That is why you see queues outside the exorcists office in churches these days
I cannot help but think of the 3 or 4 wars & at least 2 genocides
in my lifetime (thus far) We have the Taliban who shoot girls
for attending school and in Syria Bashar al-Assad father of 3
favours chemical weaponry Clearly the Devil is in ascendency
What to do Father Lavatori?
The next time you feel the brush of wings at your ear or a shadowy
presence beside you Welcome The Messenger! (angelos in Greek)
Children who have not known a step-father’s fist or suffered a
fractured clavicle These are the immortal angelos!
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I looked over Jordan and what did I see
Coming for to carry me home?
A band of angels coming after me,
Coming for to carry me home.
(African American spiritual song 1909)
Late Winter 2014
HYBRID HIPSTER FROM THE EAST
Man who shovels snow: I am from the East
& I know WATER Ma’am Long hair scraggly
burning light in eyes 40 something lumber jacket
A carpenter by trade But hurt my neck glances at shovel
Begins long essay on WATER riveting East Coast Montaigne
You Don’t Want To Mess With Water Aprill (introductions made)
Once a hipster out of the Miramichi now down & out in Toronto
Can’t you see him gliding down our streets long hair glistening
Like that other carpenter from the East who walked on water
occasionally
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Late Winter 2014
NO GURU
I think too much feel too much
want too much hope too much
I ask you: Are we essential to eternity?
This has proven to be unlikely 21st Century
tsunami of un-hope in the air Little girl hops
by panda-hat strings fly strange fear in eyes
All of this ice looks like revenge
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Late Winter 2014
NICE GUYS ARE FINISHED
She left her mother on the floor hoping
she would snap out of the stroke Her eyes
glazed with Fear-of-God Would there be
retribution? Or just slow seeping of self-respect
Wolf at door of bad daughter’s psychic fortress
Fighting her absolutionist’s diatribe she cried:
No I Did Not Do The Best I Could
Human’s have the ability to self-anesthetize in
situations of extreme trauma One may leave the body
and hover near by My child clients often exclaimed:
I didn’t feel a thing Therapist
Humans who are missing this chip eventually go mad
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I met my mother walkin’ down the Jericho road
Tears in her eyes and her head hung low
And she was walkin’ down the Jericho road
Steve Earle Jericho Road 2007
Winter 2014
PACIFIC OCEAN BLUE
Last night I walked all the way to
a Pacific beach saw the water lapping
on the shore lap suck lap suck
Walked through the hinterlands with
a posse of girls behind me birth-gunked
and new A pilgrimage of sorts
An eccentric manalyst said: Bring this picture to life!
Does this foreshadow the Great Escape?
Or do I stay old & cold on the shores of
a polluted Lake?
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To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing,
be nothing. Elbert Hubbard 1856-1915
Late Winter 2014
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