 
### In the Tavern of Lost Souls

By Lenny Everson

rev 1

Copyright Lenny Everson 2014

Cover Design by Lenny Everson

Cover Painting by Casey Jozwiakowski

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Dedications

Dedicated to my wife, Dianne, who kept my soul from being lost, to my daughter, Anita, and to my friends, Al Daigen, Susan E. Smith, and Casey Jozwiakowski who encouraged this strange poetic madness.

****

Introduction

This is an entertainment. It does not claim to be anything else. Any connection to real life is coincidental and a lucky accident.

Lollie, Alf, Cal, and Blossom are products of my imagination, pure and simple.

****

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Lollie hesitated, looking up and down there street. She hadn't been in an awful lot of bars in her life, and this one didn't look particularly inviting.

An old beer parlour, she decided, looking up at the façade. Improved at some point, then let go downhill again, when business failed to pick up.

But the name and the address matched those on the mauve slip of paper in her hand. And it was cold outside, the October winds pushing a few leaves around. Lollie swung the door open.

There were maybe a dozen people in the room, scattered among twenty tables. Three television screens looked down on Formica tables, but one had nothing but colored lines waving like sea kelp in a riptide.

She paused. There was one guy at the bar and five middle-aged couples scattered around the room. The rest were sitting alone at tables. It was, Lollie, decided, time to go home. Right now.

She didn't quite get turned around before one of the men at a table waved to her, holding up the same mauve sheet of paper. Like a sick elephant, the sadness of the world stepped on Lollie's soul, but her hesitation lost her this battle. It became easier to go forward.

The man, short with dark scraggly hair, smiled a lopsided smile. "I'm Cal," he said. "Short for Calhoun. Welcome to the tavern of lost souls." He nodded at the woman beside him. "This is..."

"Blossom," she said. She was a small brown-skinned woman with a bright flowered dress and very short hair.

"Not her real name, I suspect," said Cal. "But that's allowed." He frowned. "Even encouraged." He brightened, returning to his lopsided grin. "Welcome again. You are?"

"Lollie,": she answered, truthfully.

"Obviously a made-up name. Sit down," Cal said. "Sit down." He seemed lost for a moment. "Get a beer if you want." He waved at the bartender.

When the bartender arrived, Lollie ordered a pint of draft. Before she could try to make conversation, Blossom leaned back and commented, sarcastically, "I think you've got another victim, mister Calhoun."

"Free will," Cal said, waving at the tall, bearded man coming across the floor. "Here!"

The new man smiled. "Bufort," he introduced himself.

"You don't have to give your real name," Cal said.

"Call me 'Alf,' then" the new man said. He pulled up a chipped brown chair, dropped a packet of papers onto the table, and said, "They serve anything but Bud Light at this place?"

"Not a heck of a lot," Cal said.

While the men slandered the beer that was available, Lollie looked over at Blossom, who was drinking a can of Diet Pepsi and rolling her eyes upward.

Blossom leaned over to Lollie and whispered, "So much for poetry."

"Okay," Cal said, swinging his head around, "it's time to go from bitter to verse." No one laughed. "I've got fifty questions in this hat. We'll pick one question, and write a poetic answer. Next meeting, we'll find out how each of us answered the question."

There was a long pause, and the other three did a little Canadian polite silence. "That's stupid," Blossom offered. "Just what is this shit?" She took in half a glass of Diet Pepsi in one suck.

Cal leaned back and waved his hands in front of himself. "Hey," he said, "I just wanted to level the playing field."

"I'm in," Alf said. "Your ad said 'Tavern of Lost Souls,' and I think that idea fits."

The two men looked around. Lollie nodded. "Can't get any more lost than me," she said, uncomfortably. "Not on this planet, anyway."

The men looked at Blossom, then up at one of the working television screens. Someone at the bar laughed loudly at something.

"I want you to know I think this is stupid," Blossom said, looking at the empty glass in front of her. "I'm only doing this because I'm bored."

That decided, and no-one else showing up by this time, Cal said, "We meet at midnight, at the dark of the moon." He consulted a calendar. "That'll be the twelfth of next month."

"Isn't that a bit melodramatic?" Alf wanted to know.

"Damn right," said Cal, holding the hat towards Blossom.

Blossom drew out a slip of paper, and swore, "Jeesus Keerist almighty. "Should the Tavern Open When the Poets Need it?' Where the hell did you get these questions?"

"Asked a few friends for suggestions," Cal volunteered, draining his glass.

"You need new friends," Blossom offered. Alf laughed.

Cal nodded. "I've often thought so." He looked at Lollie.

Lollie could think of nothing to say. She just shook her head slightly. The world hadn't improved much, but she had a poem to write. And two weeks to do it in.

****

Chapter 2: Should the Tavern Open When the Poets Need It?

The place hadn't improved any. It was ten to midnight; past Lollie's bedtime.

For a while she looked at the old door, and it was her life on hinges. It was her life in doors, open and closed. If she hadn't been feeling like one of the lost sheets of the house of Ishmael, flapping in some cosmic wind, she'd have hesitated her way right back onto the bus.

Too many doors, she thought. Too many tigers behind them. Too many tigers behind her. She willed the door to open.

Someone pushed past her, and she followed him in through the aperture.

The room was fuller this time, with fewer dark corners. It had an almost cheerful atmosphere.

Lollie wasn't sure she could handle cheerful. She took a deep breath, and found Blossom in the corner. Great, thought Lollie. I'll be sitting in a beer parlour with a woman with a crew cut." But she went over and sat down.

Blossom didn't look much happier than she had last time. "Did you bring a poem?" she asked, then went on. "I did. Can't say I'm happy about it, but it's been a while since a wrote any poetry, so I guess I've got to start somewhere."

"I know what you mean," Lollie said. "I'd have used an old poem if I could have found one that fit." She waved a waitress down, and ordered a draft Carlsberg and a large plate of fries.

"That Calhoun's a bit creepy," Blossom said, watching the clock. "He tries to be jolly, but there's something in his eyes, you know. And that hair. I wouldn't trust him in a back alley."

Lollie was prevented from answering by the arrival, together, of Alf and Calhoun, and her beer.

"The place should be darker," Calhoun said, sitting down in the quick way that small men have.

"We could meet at the cemetery," Lollie suggested. "With flashlights."

The suggestion wasn't serious, but Alf shook his head. "They get you when you try that."

"You'd know?"

"You'd be surprised what I know."

"Some of us might." Blossom sipped at her Diet Pepsi. "But it's past my bedtime and Lollie and I have poems."

"Wait!" Alf was waving his long arms. "Let's not get this over before I've even had a beer." He and Cal each ordered a half-pint of draft. "Now," he said, shall we socialize a bit first?"

"You can start without me," Calhoun said. "I'd prefer to remain mysterious for a bit longer, if you don't mind."

"Same here," Lollie said, taking off her glasses and cleaning them with a paper napkin. "I'm here to hear some poems."

Blossom said nothing, but her expression left little doubt.

Alf put his hands over his head and said, "Okay, okay; just asking, folks."

The beer and Lollie's fries arrived at that moment. "You ordered fries?" Cal looked confused.

"There is no better way to judge the true character of a place than to order fries," Lollie said. "It's the soul of a tavern. Beer you can buy anywhere, but fries you have to make on the spot. There are a lot of decisions that go into the fries."

She took one fry. "Go ahead," she waved, "have all you want, then tell me about them."

Calhoun carefully picked up a couple of the fries, and held them up to the light. "Straight from the freezer to the frying oil," he said, "and not even a good brand of frozen at that."

"You're right," Alf said. "Notice how limp they are. Cooked too slowly."

They looked at Blossom, who hadn't taken any. "Not for me," she said, shifting back in her chair. "Notice how dark they are, though. It's time they changed the oil."

"Or stopped using 10w40," Lollie said, putting one in her mouth. "Almost warm in the middle, though."

"Which means what?" This from Alf, who had tied a knot using a couple of fries.

"This," said Lollie, "is the right place. If poets die and go to hell, the waiting room will look a lot like this."

There was a long pause, then Calhoun dealt four cards. Lollie's was an ace. "You go first," Calhoun said. His card was a 2.

"Let's get some rules about this," Lollie insisted. "Are we going to comment on each other's poems?"

"Nope," Blossom sucked the glass of Pepsi dry. "I read, I share, I don't want anybody telling me what I should have written."

"I'm with her," Alf waved an arm over his head.

"You wish," said Blossom.

"I agree, at least for now," Calhoun said.

Lollie read the title, "Should the Tavern Open When the Poets Need It?" paused, then read her poem.

Calhoun followed. His voice was dead flat. Alf read his in a rather loud, histrionic tone, getting a few strange looks from some of the others in the room. Both Alf and Calhoun handed out photocopies of their poems. Finally, Blossom, her voice strained, read hers.

There was a long pause, as the last of the beer was finished up. There were still a few cold, dark, limp fries on the plate.

"There was nothing about taverns in your poems." Blossom looked at Alf, then Calhoun.

The men looked at each other. Alf spoke first. "I think I answered the question. The tavern is needed because opting out of the search for salvation is the only sensible option." He waved his arms around, then took a fry from the plate. "And this place is where people opt out."

Calhoun just nodded, his hair falling in front of his eyes.

"I'll know better next time," Blossom said.

Lollie thought so to. There were a couple of her older poems she might have used instead, if she had known the rules were a bit looser. And she wondered at the bitterness in part of Blossom's poem.

Before she had a chance to say anything, Calhoun called the bartender over for the bill. They piled the appropriate money in the middle of the table, and, making small talk, headed for the door. It was almost one in the morning.

*

Should the Tavern Open When the Poets Need It? [Lollie]

In the end there are two problems with life:  
The presence of clocks  
The smallness of glasses of beer

Old women on the corner watched us  
As we entered the tavern  
They knew, and  
We knew they knew

We ordered two rounds, each  
Ignored the clocks  
And our graying hair  
Hid our watches

At ten to midnight  
The bravest of us said  
"I have come too far  
To go back now."

The tavern is not the only answer  
To old women with strangely watchful eyes  
But it is one answer.

*

Should the Tavern Open When the Poets Need It? [Calhoun]

We the damned of Earth persist  
Driving to work  
In salt-caked cars

Once we dreamed of  
Gathering stars  
In cupped hands

Now we dream of sleeping in  
On Saturday.

*

Should the Tavern Open When the Poets Need It? [Alf]

Pounding the gates of Paradise  
I fled some inner Hell  
All the answer I got was a ride  
On God's stupid carousel

Looking for some bit of truth  
One tiny, warming sign  
I found tracks upon the world  
But they, of course, were mine

The Old Fart might have spoken  
In voices of wise old men  
But all I saw was flesh  
That turned to dust again

So again around the carousel  
Sing songs against the skies  
And raise a glass to those who chase  
God's tawdry tinsel prize.

*

Should the Tavern Open When the Poets Need It? [Blossom]

close all taverns; beer  
loosens tongues

couples speaking always carefully;  
such tight-ass bastards  
will be there to celebrate  
their first pension check

lies or not  
it makes for warmer nights.

****

Chapter 3: Should One Own a Cat?

Lollie sat down abruptly. She'd spotted Alf's tall form and a brunette, and had hesitated, wondering if the group had a new member or if Alf had brought his wife. It was only when she actually got to the table - not the same table as before - that she'd realized that the woman was Blossom with shoulder- length dark hair. Blossom was wearing an outfit that would have been suitable on Bay Street.

Someone had put the local rock music station on the speaker system at a distressing volume. Lollie looked at the closest speaker, then at Alf.

The bartender arrived, looking surlier than usual, carrying a beer for Alf and Blossom's usual pop. Alf said something in the bartender's ear. The bartender looked around. There were only three other people in the room, and all of them looked to be drowning out war memories.

Lollie shouted out an order for a draft Wellington Dark. When the bartender got back behind the bar the music level dropped suddenly.

"What did you tell him?" Lollie asked with a smile.

"If the police ask, it's better that you can tell them you don't know."

"It wasn't all that bad." This from Blossom.

"I hardly recognized you," Lollie offered, about the time the bartender dropped a beer in front of her, spilling a bit.

"In disguise. In case my boyfriend - my ex-boyfriend - comes looking for me. Dumb shit thinks I'm his personal possession."

"Are we in danger?" Alf asked.

"Nah. Robert just yells a lot if he's not getting enough sex."

There was a pause as Alf and Lollie looked around.

"He's not getting any, right now. At least not from me."

Cal strode up, carrying a bottle of Molson Golden, made a deep bow, and sat down. "It's okay," he said. "I bought it here. So, it's cats this week, is it.?" He shifted a bit, looked at Blossom, and added, "This is your catwoman disguise?"

Blossom said nothing.

"Sorry I'm late," Cal went on. "Have we read out poems yet? How'd we get this table. I thought we had a corner on the other one." He looked at the table they'd used last time. That fellow isn't writing any poetry.

Almost as one, the group pulled out photocopies of their poems and passed them around, shuffling them to be sure each had the right number of poems.

Cal passed the four playing cards to Lollie. "Wow," she said. "Am I honoured, or what?" But she dealt them out.

Cal showed his ace of spades, then started reading his poem.

"Nice that you wrote a poem about cats," Blossom offered. "I thought so," Cal said. He looked at the card in front of Alf, then at the sheet of paper in front of him. "Looks like you did, too."

Lollie shuffled through the set. "I guess we all did. This could set a bad poetic precedent."

"Won't last," said Alf. "I don't like being too direct, usually. You'll notice I may talk about cats, but I don't really get too specific about actually answering the question." Then he read his poem.

Lollie read her poem with no introduction, then Blossom.

When she was done, Blossom added, "I wanted it noted that I not only wrote about cats, but about owning them. Like, I answered the goddamn question." She sucked the last of the pop dry.

Cal shook his hair, which looked even less combed than usual. "I like to leave the reader with a bit of challenge."

Alf laughed. "That's the attitude that'll make you rich and famous!"

"All in good time, my good man; all in good time." Calhoun's eyes looked very dark, Lollie noted, and weren't smiling at all.

"I take it you don't own a cat." Alf looked at Lollie.

"And I take it you do?" She answered. Somehow it seemed awkward not to own a cat.

"Used to. Just ended up with an orphaned pair of monkeys last week. They're about three months old. I don't think they'd get along with a cat, anyway."

The bartender was nowhere to be seen. Lollie would have liked another beer; it had been a long week in the small apartment. She glanced at the closest TV screen, but it had gone back to squiggles and lines. She thought of going to look for the bartender, but he was probably hunched under the counter with a set of headphones on.

Alf drained his glass, and stood up. "I liked the poems better this week."

"Just what I don't need, a critic." Blossom dropped some change onto the table.

"You got a point there," Cal noted, rubbing his eyes.

"Okay, okay. I get the hint. See you all on the twenty-fifth, I guess." He waved goodbye and headed for the door, followed by the others.

*

Should One Own a Cat? [Calhoun]

A life circumscribed by walls,  
He eats too much, sublimating  
Primeval stalking desires.  
He stares through windows  
While hours vanish.

He needs more exercise, but  
Is unlikely to get it  
Concentrating instead on the times  
For feeding.  
He's no hunter -  
Being restricted to a plastic mouse  
During the daylight.

He comes home, restless  
Watches leopards on PBS  
While the cat sleeps  
On his lap.

*

Should One Own a cat? [Alf]

Falling into magic  
Are laps and  
Cats asleep

Tumble into silence  
When  
Afternoons run deep

Sunlight moves along your arm  
Warmth, light  
And fur

Ear against the cushion  
Hear the world  
Purr

*

Should One Own a Cat? [Lollie]

"I bore nine children," he said  
Nodding in his beer,  
"Though six of them were cats."

"I doubt it," I said. "I believe  
All you ever bore was red kites  
Over the waves  
To call the tide in.  
Cats would have pulled you back  
From where you flew  
Above it all."

"Oh, they did," he said.  
"That is the danger of cats.  
So I killed them. With kindness,  
Of course."

*

Should One Own a Cat? [Blossom]

two kittens, warming themselves by an old stone wall  
thinking short cat thoughts

they'll be fed  
water will be provided

they'll hunt the field for small wild mice;  
someday, for sure.

every woman should own a cat  
they are the best way of learning about men

****

Chapter 4: How Do Souls Become Lost?

Blossom got the ace this time. "Damn," she said, "I always hated going first in school, too."

But she read her poem. Alf leaned his head back to listen, while Cal and Lollie followed reading their printed copies of the poem. Blossom, Lollie noted, was back to her short, blonde hair. She wondered what had become of the dark wig. Or of the boyfriend.

She suspected, from the words in the poem, that Blossom was living without Robert. Or anybody.

Alf went next, doing a weird poem. Lollie wondered if he'd picked up a bit of strangeness from her cat poem.

When it came Cal's turn, he reached down and hauled up a guitar case. The guitar was shiny and only slightly dented. "You'll have to pardon me, but I wrote this poem as a song. It has to be sung."

Alf nodded at the stage in the corner of the room. "You can use the microphone if you want."

"Thanks," Cal said, "but modesty and a bad voice compel me to restrict my audience to the people at this table."

"Those losers aren't going to mind." Blossom indicated the few regulars and the young couple in the rest of the room."

Cal smiled, and sang his poem.

"A hard act to follow," Lollie said. She read her poem.

"Magnificent!" said Alf. "None of us have answered the question. At least not directly.

Lollie wasn't sure any of them had answered the question, even indirectly, including herself. But she was too polite to say so. It had taken her a week to write and refine her poem, and close was good enough for her.

"I don't care," Alf added. "I'm writing poems, new poems, for the first time in a long time. And I'm damned glad." He finished his beer abruptly. "And I have you wonderful folks to thank for it."

He looked around. Lollie nodded. "Same here," she said. "I guess I needed someone to hear what I'm writing."

"You're that lost in life?" Cal asked.

Lollie didn't answer. Blossom spoke up. "And you're not?"

"I'm so lost," Cal looked at her steadily, "that everywhere I look seems like found to me. I've got nowhere to go but a better place."

*

How Do Souls Become Lost? [Blossom]

pan the scene:  
empty pine chairs

chairs mark our lives  
these look bewildered  
squandered ruined abandoned

when a person leaves a kitchen chair  
never to return  
it's time to call an archeologist

*

How Do Souls Become Lost? [Alf]

In former lives we were  
Flowers among the willows  
Sunlight-dappled on long grass

But darkness was, under river banks  
Dirt and shadow and  
Two fluorescent orange eyes watching

We were small diamond-faceted fish  
Moving in slow currents behind mossy stones  
Nuzzling for life

Branches, dead from spring fury  
Sheltered yellow teeth parted and  
Silent as the grave

There were days that lengthened into dusk  
Darkness that flowed out from caves  
An evening wind howling in the mouth  
Of the old lizard of time

*

How Do Souls Become Lost? [Calhoun]

(song)

The peach trees are bare in the November darkness  
While long lines of lost souls roll on through the rain  
What can we do, we need the money?  
And we've done it before, so we can do it again

We are the damned of the Queen Lizzie Highway  
Driving to work in Japanese-cars  
We've lost our vision in the glare of the headlights  
God save us all, we just want to see stars

There's a backup ahead, the radio warns us  
The Queen Lizzie slowing down to a crawl  
Some poor bastard, he's changing a tire  
God help him, but God help us all.

Once we dreamed of the stars we would gather  
Dreamed of bright futures cupped in our hands  
Now all we think of is sleeping on Saturday  
And raking the leaves off our small bits of lands

The peach trees are bare in the November darkness  
I'm singing sad songs in the halogen light  
And all around me in the rains of November  
Thousands of lost souls drive on through the night

*

How Do Souls Become Lost? [Lollie]

If I could, I would throw open the gates of  
Hell  
March resolutely down the Long Stairs  
Find the morgue  
Open the cold gray lockers  
And find a tag on the toe of every  
Promise I made to myself  
In the green and gold  
Of yesterday's sun

Then I would burn the tags  
Before the devil could do  
His next inventory.

****

Chapter 5: How do People ever Get Together?

Buses being what they were, Lollie arrived early. She had a poem that she actually liked, for a change. Maybe it was the topic, or maybe it was that she was getting her poetic edge back. Being a natural skeptic, she was thinking, "Lives alone, writes love poems. Where have I seen that resume before?"

Surprisingly, there was a blues band playing at the stage in the corner, and Alf sitting at the table, rocking his bald head in time to the music. She sat down beside him, just as a perky young waitress showed up. Ordering a bottle of domestic beer, she waited for a break in the music.

When the end of the song came, the band announced a twenty-minute break, and someone put on a tape of loud industrial rock music. Alf stood up and looked towards the bar. The music volume dropped dramatically. A threesome across the room nodded at Alf and clapped loudly. The members of the blues group joined in.

"I was thinking," the tall man said, "that it's hard to tell how people get together. What provides the vital spark?"

Lollie nodded, wondering where he was going. Her beer arrived, and she decanted it into a glass, slowly, like the British do, avoiding foam.

"Take Cal and Blossom. Maybe they're destined for each other." He smiled at Lollie. "Maybe they'll get together sometime."

"With their fingers wrapped around each other's larynxes," Lollie suggested.

He laughed, holding his stomach. "I can picture that. But I've been wrong before."

"So have I. But I was younger then."

"Youth runs on stupidity," Alf said. "Old age on desperation. I really don't know if there's time for wisdom in between."

"Maybe there was a moment," Lollie said, and I missed it." It was flippant; maybe it was true.

"Boo," said Cal, appearing behind Lollie. She jumped.

At least, she thought, he's not gay. He'd be great, she thought, to host a Halloween party. "Welcome," she said. "How do people ever get together?"

"You'll have to wait for it," Cal said. As he sat down, Blossom came through the door.

They talked about the weather and beer while the perky waitress brought their orders.

"When I die," Lollie said, "if all the people around me are perky, I'll know where I got sent to."

"Me. too, said Alf, "if all the women there are like our waitress and I'm not allowed to do anything but look."

"We've only got a few minutes," said Cal, handing out his photocopies. "The band's on its break."

This time Alf dealt the cards, and, with the ace in front of him, read his poem. He was followed by the others in turn.

The band was heading back to the stage. Alf looked up from the notes he'd been taking. "Got the answers," he said, " to why people get together. Ignorance, blindness, coincidence, or desperation. Aren't we a cheerful bunch of bastards?" And he began to laugh, rocking back and forth.

Lollie joined in his laughter. Cal stared at him wordlessly. Blossom even smiled. "We're actually a bunch of optimists. Stupidity brings most people together."

Lollie caught on. "You're back with Robert."

"And he's still a jerk," Blossom said.

Lollie was about to ask Alf about his monkeys or Cal whether he howled at the full moon, but the band started up with some Mississauga delta blues. Blossom left shortly after, and Cal after he's finished his beer.

She stayed with Alf for one more beer, then waved goodbye and walked out into the darkness.

*

How Do People Ever Get together? [Alf]

"That about does it for locusts and wild honey,"  
Said John the Baptist, sitting on a desert rock  
Watching JC vanish over the hills;  
"I guess I've got to figure out what to do  
Now that the Big Deed's done."

"I'm a beer and salami kind of guy, actually  
Maybe I'll get a condo by the sea  
Marry a dancing girl – I always liked dancing girls  
And raise some kids

Take my word as a prophet  
Find someone  
Life is short and not even a prophet knows  
What lies ahead.

*

How Do People Ever Get Together? [Blossom]

you stand at the edge of  
the village  
just past  
the streetlight  
it's 4 in the morning; ahead,  
the gravel road  
blends into  
the darkness

love is  
a torch:  
it lets you see  
the road  
but not  
the stars.

*

How Do People Ever Get Together? [Lollie]

They came down a spiral staircase in the lighthouse  
One twenty steps behind the other  
Sometimes one on top of the other  
Sometimes half the circle away.

Across the road, at a seaside restaurant  
There were scallops sautéed in drawn butter

Their world had gone round and round  
They had tasted pleasure together

It was all  
It was enough

*

How Do People Ever Get Together? [Calhoun]

Somewhere inside (deep  
Where the mine drips water and  
The floor is littered with  
Dead canaries among the diamonds)  
He knew they'd come hunting him,  
Frightened of his Frankengenes.

He found her, or she, him  
And for all the time they spent  
Face to face and hand in hand  
Their crooked souls hunkered  
In that shared darkness  
Back to back, grasping cudgels  
Waiting against the frantic coming of  
Torch and yell and the smell of  
Burning fur.

****

Chapter 6: How Do People Get Separated?

"A little quieter tonight," Cal observed. "Nothing but the sound of people mumbling in their beers and taxis going by in the street. Sometimes I think no blues band could ever write a song as true as that."

Lollie raised her eyebrows. She'd arrived early again, and joined Cal to wait for the other two. "Maybe no-one would ever want to."

"I think there would be a small but definite market for something like that. There's a small but definite market for almost anything these days."

"Beer parlour blues?"

"A true Canadian musical genesis. More appropriate than music from another culture. Anyway, what's the topic for tonight's poem again?"

"'How Do People Get Separated?'", Lollie answered. "Didn't you bring a poem?"

"For sure. But I wrote it weeks ago, then went on to other stuff.

"All I remembered was it's another song." Cal indicated the guitar beside him.

"You do many songs?"

Cal shook his unruly head. "Just enough to keep my hand in, and to entertain myself when I get too drunk to walk."

"I've written about ten since last meeting," Lollie admitted. "I picked the best for tonight." She paused to look up at the television screen. "Why the wild hairdo?"

"Honesty," Cal said. "Expresses my inner form better. And it attracts the women."

Lollie leaned back, took a sip of beer, and looking right at him, said nothing.

"Oh, it's true," Cal said, leaning forward. "As I said, there's a small but definite market for anything. And the market for weirdos is bigger than the market for nonentities, at least for us men."

"You think so?" Lollie wondered if it was true.

"Absolutely. There are always women who want to shamble with the gargoyles as well as those who want to run with the wolves."

"You've had a lot of experience with people getting separated," Lollie guessed.

"More than you, I'd say, by a mile, but much readier to do it all over again."

"Here's Blossom," Lollie noted, as the other woman came up to the table. Alf followed before she's quite got settled.

"Here we are, writing poems about people getting separated," said Alf, "and were getting together!" He seemed happier than usual.

Blossom turned on him. "If this is what you call getting together, I feel sorry for your wife."

"I'll give you her last known address," said Alf. "You can send her a sympathy card. Lord knows she sent herself enough when we were married. How's Robert?"

"Actually," Blossom replied, rubbing her hair, "he's still trying to figure out who I went with when we broke up." She smiled. "But I'm kind of an expert in separations."

"The cards," said Cal, taking out the four playing cards and handing them to Blossom. "And the poems."

Cal got the ace, brought out his guitar, and did his song.

The others followed, in turn.

When they were done, Blossom said, abruptly, "Gotta go." She left with only a brief wave.

Alf chugged his beer, coughing a bit. "My cat's waiting." He left more than enough change on the table, smiled broadly, and departed.

Lollie and Cal almost made it to the door before him.

*

How do People Get Separated? [Calhoun]

(song)

Late at night, I was out in the park  
Way up in a tree, inhaling the dark  
Watching the stars, Venus and Mars  
Holding my body tight to the bark

Ch

Hey, hey come to me, hon'  
Hey, hey, look what we've done  
We came right down to the edge of this town  
And found ourselves with no place to run

We had us a time, and God, it was fun  
Sang in the night and danced in the sun  
I gave you my heart, a good place to start  
Till I discovered it left us with no place to run

In a town this small there's no place to hide  
You want to survive, you join in the ride  
You keep your lover hid under a cover  
And sit in a tree till your tears have all dried

I haven't an answer, and I haven't a gun  
I've added it up and I comes out to "none"  
There's no-one to blame, we lost at the game  
And I don't know how we could ever have won

*

How do People Get Separated? [Lollie]

Maybe the train whistle  
Breaks the night like  
A hammer shatters glass

You wake up, sweating  
Wondering why  
You didn't buy a ticket

Too

Maybe you rush to the window:  
Outside only dark leaves  
Tapping the pane  
And a vanishing sound.

*

How Do They Get Separated? [Blossom]

i looked into  
his eyes

i saw paths,  
roads  
laneways

they were all  
his

i wished him  
happy trails

*

How Do People Get Separated? [Alf]

On his thirty-fifth day in the desert  
Jesus was perhaps a bit tempted when the devil  
Dropped a Pepsi machine in front of him  
And offered him a shekel

'Nice try," said JC, "but  
Can you make a stop to the changes  
That make strangers of lovers  
The paths that diverge until reaching fingers  
No longer touch each other"

The devil turned into Darth Vader  
Offered Our Boy a double-dip maple walnut cone  
To say he could more easily arm-wrestle the Big Guy  
Than stop the wheels of universe

"Then I must go on,"  
Jesus said, watching a lizard take a gnat  
"I give hope in changes;  
Who would forgive me  
If I sold out?"

****

Chapter 7: Is There a God?

It was one of those change-of-weather days that give people migraines. Even at midnight, the wind howled outside the tavern. Rain beat at something tin on the roof, then stopped again.

Lollie sat at the table, a glass of milk and digesting another couple of acetaminophen-and-codeine tablets. Her stomach hurt, but not as much as her head. The left side of her brain seemed like it was being gnawed by a rat.

Cal blew in, clutching his guitar case. Before he sat down, Lollie squinted at him, took her glasses off, and said, "I hate that guitar."

"The guitar's part of my soul." He seemed a bit hurt.

"You're the one who wanted a level playing field. Should we all get guitars and learn to play?"

"I got it!" Cal nodded. For a moment Lollie thought he was going to say something about PMS. That wouldn't have been a wise move. But he said, instead, "You get migraines."

Lollie was on the point of getting up. "Don't go!" Cal set the guitar down. "You're right, you know. This'll be the last time I sing. I'll stick to poems."

Lollie just nodded.

"Is there a God?" Alf said, striding up. Lollie started hating the way men seemed to have the right to stride around rooms. And make up rules. But she refrained from further comment.

Actually, she didn't even feel like reading her poem. She stayed silent while the routine of dealing the cards came and went.

Alf read his poem, affirming the desolate lack of gods in the modern world, and Blossom read hers. Lollie wondered what it was about, but her brain wasn't working well enough to figure it out.

Cal made a comment about Lollie's not wanting any more guitar playing, and laughed about it.

"I hate to become a legend for being a music-killer, but I think she's right," Alf said. "It was making me feel slightly inferior."

"Didn't bother me," Blossom said, taking her jacket off . She had on a plain orange T-shirt that turned a couple of heads.

Cal's song turned a few more heads. Then Lollie handed her poem to Blossom. "Would you read this for me," she asked.

Blossom smiled a very large smile. "Damn right."

*

Is There a God? [Alf]

I came across Odysseus out in a field  
By the edge of an open grave  
Drunk and loud  
Stomping on grasshoppers  
And crying  
(He always was a sensitive man)

Well, I asked, and he roared,  
"Gods! You have no gods  
In your bloody cold country!"

I offered to show him channel 27  
On weekdays on the one-eyed Cyclops  
Or find Gzowski on a Sunday morning,  
Where sounds come from the air

But he would not be comforted  
"Fuck you," he ranted at the sky  
Positively begging for thunderbolts  
Or even a small rain.

It was a brave performance from an old man;  
He got my sympathy, and the lovely sweet song  
Of a meadowlark bravely singing over the grave  
Of all his dreams, fears, and hiccups.

*

Is There a God? [Blossom]

when I stand in front of the subway  
I wonder

but sometimes I stand in front of the special shop  
and there are God and Satan  
struggling in chocolate

*

Is There a God? [Calhoun]

(song)

Bless the good guys and the cowards  
Heroes, hookers, and them all  
In the cancer ward we answer  
Lord God's cattle call

chorus

And the humpin' and the dyin'  
They're just part of the song  
They're just God's way of sayin'  
Git along, little dogies, get along

I saw my old friend Arnie  
Just recovering from the knife  
In the cancer ward at Western  
And he asked me, What is life?

So I told him the good lies  
Things about God and plans and pain  
Then I went out the big glass doors  
To a cold November rain

I drove home behind a truck  
Full of cattle, and I thought  
Arnie, you tried for freedom  
Hey, universe, thanks a lot

So bless the good guys and the cowards  
Heroes, hookers, and them all  
The whisper of a needle is just  
Lord God's cattle call

*

Is There a God? [Lollie]

Don't be silly  
What Entity would permit  
General Motors?

If there were a God  
No one would need a  
Teddy bear  
Or a Buick.

****

Chapter 8: Does God Care?

"John asked me the same thing," Blossom told Lollie. "He was very religious, and was always trying to get me to go to church. His church, of course."

"John?"

"My second - no my third - boyfriend. I was just fourteen, and he was fifteen. His father was a minister. He believed in God; he just didn't know if God really cared." She looked at Lollie. "I think I always looked for someone to care. Maybe if people could care, then God could. You think?"

"What happened to John?"

"Long ago, and far away. A million years and a thousand poems." Blossom ran her fingers through her short hair. "So, are you feeling a bit more positive this time?" Blossom crossed her legs and looked directly at Lollie.

Lollie nodded and wiped the table in front of her, removing some semi-dry material she hoped was pizza. "I think so. At least I'm going to read my own poem this time."

Blossom straightened her sweater and swirled the straw in her Diet Pepsi. "Did you conclude that God cares?"

"I thought you didn't want to talk about the topic." The scowling bartender delivered a bottle of beer.

Blossom smiled. "I don't mind talking about the topic. I just don't want anybody trying to say things about my writing." She leaned forward. "Paul says it's a lack of self-confidence, but I think he's full of it. I just don't want to tell me I should have done it differently. Or trying to figure out my inner personality from my writing."

Lollie barely stopped to wonder who Paul was. "That's fine with me. Since you ask, I think God cares. Maybe a lot. But she can't do anything about this planet."

"That's better than the alternative, isn't it?" Blossom was watching the door. "Here they come together. Probably stopped for a quickie in the back alley."

"Can't imagine either of them being gay," Lollie said, turning her head.

"Listen honey, men will surprise you every time." She waved for the bartender, who looked like he'd rather ignore her, but didn't dare.

"Sorry I'm late," Alf said. "The monkeys ate some soap. What a mess."

Cal just did his best Heathcliff impression of mysterious gloom, and straddled a chair. Carefully, he placed four copies of his poem onto the table.

"Lollie and I were trying to decide if God doesn't care, or cares but can't do anything about it."

"About the state of the planet, you mean." Alf tugged at his ear.

"What else?"

"I run with the 'can't do anything about it' theory," Alf said.

Lollie tentatively raised a hand. "Same here."

"I'm in with the godless heathens," Cal said. He looked at blossom, who raised a thumb in agreement.

Alf turned to Lollie. "You're the quiet one here, I guess. It lends an air of mystery to you."

Lollie smiled. "One has only to keep silent about a dull life, and people will make a mystery out of it."

"I don't know," Alf went on. "I think there's more to you than meets they eye."

Lollie rolled her eyes. "You can look forward, I guess, to finding out the truth in my poems. Isn't that what poems are for?"

"Poems are for reading." Cal dealt the four cards.

"Who cares if we do?" Cal asked.

"God?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe only us." Blossom watched the guy across the room. He was reading a book and eating fries.

*

Does God Care? [Blossom]

we had a brass bed:  
they were popular, then

and a wonderful quilt, bought  
from the Mennonite auction

if God cared  
there would be warnings  
on brass beds

*

Does God Care? [Lollie]

Every evening God opens a fold-down desk  
(Before She pulls her comforter over Her head  
And sleeps the sleep of the damned)  
And writes the whole events of the day  
In a radiant book.  
It helps to keep her warm.

Lucifer, you see, stole Light  
And scattered Her power  
Across the gray planet.

God cannot be caught, but  
If you're quick, you can see Her  
In the strange reflection from a wine bottle  
If it is topped with a half-burned candle and if  
It is full of tears.

*

Does God Care? [Alf]

The offshore wind caught his shrouding hood  
Flung it back, the burnished shoreline sun  
Narrowed sad eyes, blistered lips that moved  
To make a blessing above a drying pool  
And a pair of starfish running out of time.

I'll say this for him, patience was his strength.

By early afternoon the pool was gone, the tears  
He cried could not revive the twisted arms.

Following a melancholy trail across the dunes  
The evening called, the slaughterhouse in town  
Wild-eyed cattle prodded towards the knife  
Needed his tears. His blessing and his tears.

*

Does God Care? [Calhoun]

Sometimes there is too much concrete.

There is a lone weed, and  
Candy wrappers and other bits of paper  
Skuttle and skitter and wave in the vortexes of dry wind  
Where concrete forms sharp angles

Hesitate, then wave again.

I have known concrete, and some days  
Only the desert wind gives me  
The imitation of life.

Some days, I am less than the weed  
Crowded in at a crack in concrete.

****

Chapter 9: Should We Search for Meaning?

It had been, Lollie decided, a long month. For sure, she had sought meaning herself, without enough success to fill a beer bottle cap.

Strange," she thought. I keep looking for meaning in other people. But all they are is people, empty as myself. If I found any meaning, I would bottle it and sell it in tiny bottles at a million dollars a shot.

Cal dropped into the seat opposite her, setting a bottle of beer onto the yellow Formica surface of the table. "We're the first ones here?"

Lollie nodded, thinking that someone would look for meaning in Cal only when other options had been exhausted. People who know where there's meaning, she thought, don't need disguises.

But she had the feeling that other women might think differently.

"Did you answer the question?" Cal asked.

""Not sure." Lollie moved over as Alf came in, followed a minute later by Blossom.

"I said we should search instead for comfort." Cal closed his eyes and turned his head as if to scan the room with sonar.

"Happiness," said Lollie.

"My poem," said Alf, leaning way back in the wooden chair, "says you'll never find meaning. It might be there, but it's out of reach."

"I think," Blossom said, "we should go on an epic search for a place where the damn drinks still have some fizz in them. Yuk." She eyed her pop as if waiting for a bubble to rise to the surface. "I printed my poem on pink paper, you'll notice."

*

Should We Search For Meaning? [Blossom]

he tried to learn to play the harmonica:

men!

have you ever heard a woman  
playing harmonica?  
to defy God is  
to play harmonica.

we women never learn to properly  
play the mouth organ  
that's what the men say.

if there were meaning  
men would learn  
women  
instead of  
harmonicas.

*

Should We Search For Meaning? [Calhoun]

Send me not  
A rainbow, Lord  
Send me not  
A star

Send me, Lord  
A warmer night  
Than I have known  
So far

*

Should We Search for Meaning? [Alf]

I stumble to the camplight, towards the music that  
Fills the forest, a black dog gripped, long-fanged  
To my thigh. On my shoulder a crow wipes his beak and  
Guilt on my hairless head.

Upon the stage the music wavers now; bluegrass turning  
Bad. The audience is gone and half the strings are broke,  
The players tired, not knowing when the show should end.

In a tree, a figure blocks the starlight, eyes reflecting gold.  
They say he has the program, rulebook, and scales  
But no-one's ever got him to come down.

Had I a kazoo, I would play Amazing Grace  
But for the dog, I would climb the tree  
Had I the schedule, we could all go home.

*

Should We Search for Meaning? [Lollie]

She stood on the cold beach  
First day of winter, dawn  
Curling waves tasting snowflakes.  
She had a warm red coat and  
A gingerbread cookie.

One seagull turned.

You can spend your life  
And not be halfway to meaning.

Ten minutes is all you need for joy.

****

Chapter: 10 Is The Kitchen Life?

"This is our ninth question," Alf observed. "I'm amazed we lasted this long." He rubbed his extreme forehead. "It certainly says something about something."

Lollie nodded. "Maybe we need to get a life."

"God, if we were doing this every day! "Alf encircled his beer with one hairy arm. "I think we're not pushing our luck too badly." He smiled at Lollie. "I trust you weren't busy managing an all-night theatre or something."

Yawning suddenly, Lollie shook her head. "Well past my bedtime. I usually fall asleep reading a book by ten."

"What kind of books do you like?"

"Murder mysteries, mostly. Light stuff with no redeeming value." Smiling, Lollie added, "No poetry, anyway. You."

"Science fiction most of the time. A lot of non-fiction books about travel."

"I was beginning to wonder if you spent your time reading the bible." Lollie tried to find a place to set the four copies of her poems. The table wasn't quite dry from the quick wipe the guy from the bar had given it. She settled for putting them on the empty chair beside her."

"Not any more. Read the bible cover to cover a couple of times, then went out looking for God."

"Find her?"

Alf waved his arms around, taking in the entire room. "My lost soul ends up here every time the safari ends."

"Could be worse. You could have to live on the fries." Lollie took a sip of beer. "How are the monkeys?"

"I always figured they'd see me as a kind of God."

Lollie raised her eyebrows.

"They think I'm a big, stupid monkey." He looked carefully at Lollie.

"It's twenty after twelve, and there's no sign of Blossom or Cal," Alf noted. "I told you they'd run off together."

Lollie laughed. "I still don't think it's likely."

At that point the bartender came by to see if they needed another beer.

"Well, we were waiting for the other two to come," Alf said, scratching his waist.

"They left a message for you," the bartender noted.

Alf was puzzled. "When was that?"

"The girl left hers with the guy on the previous shift, and the guy left his about ten."

"And you just told us?"

The bartender shrugged.

"I'll have one more of the same," Alf said, wearily.

Lollie just shook her head. "It was a pretty stupid topic anyway," she said, when the bartender was gone.

When the bartender returned with Alf's beer and two printed pages, Alf said, "I guess we read by ourselves."

Lollie nodded. "I'll read Cal's; you read Blossom's."

Each of the pages contained an apology. Blossom's pink paper said she was away attending a funeral. Cal's had no explanation.

When they were done, there was a pause. "I've read better poems," Lollie noted. "But I liked yours quite a bit. You'll probably go to hell for it, but it was a good poem."

"Hey, thanks. But yours was fine."

Lollie got up. "Too womanish. I wrote it so Blossom would like it."

"We're writing sexist poems, now?"

"More or less." Lollie left change on the table. "See you at the dark of the next moon."

*

Is the Kitchen Life? [Lollie]

Five of us in the kitchen  
At the table, playing Monopoly  
After the chili was done.

We drank home brew  
And built hotels.

Outside, the wind picked up, and the lights flickered.  
It's a dead thing, moving air  
As are the snowflakes it holds.

Somewhere about midnight  
We renamed the railways  
Earth, air, fire, and water  
And laughed the game closed.

*

Is the Kitchen Life? [Alf]

Jesus, entering Martha's house  
Would not to into the kitchen  
Where sunlight flowed willing onto  
Bread from the fiery pit  
Wine transformed from grapes  
Knives piercing limbs of lambs  
A table nailed together from old wood.

He healed the sick  
Raised the dead  
Argued with the devil  
But  
Would not go into the kitchen.

*

Is the Kitchen Life? [Calhoun]

The December darkness was full of lost highways  
Terminal mist, the thump of dead animals  
Beneath the bald Goodyear tires

So

I shambled into a bar in Stratford  
Wearied my torso to a table,  
Dropped the chili and fries prescription on  
The local Lady of Darkness.  
She noted my doom with a short yellow pencil and  
A sudden intake of breath.

I followed her, silent as a wolf, to the kitchen.

Lear himself, sniveling over a grill  
Begged me, with old beagle eyes, for release.  
"Not till you've done my order," I temporized  
Buy Lady Cordelia surlied me back

To my table.

"It is his life," she said, "and God  
Doesn't make mistakes - ketchup and  
Vinegar with your fries?"

It seemed wise to agree - I'd seen the spare  
Set of shackles beside the deep fryer.

*

Is the Kitchen Life? [Blossom]

we  
put our  
first Christmas tree  
on the tiny kitchen table  
ah  
small apartment; the bathroom was too small and we  
needed the bedroom  
for  
three  
weeks  
we ate supper  
sitting on the kitchen floor  
cups and dishes spread all around us

****

Chapter 11: What is Beauty?

"I think Alf likes you," Blossom noted, working on an extra-large Diet Pepsi.

"You drinking that straight?" Lollie stood up to stop the bartender. She made a design in the wetness of the tabletop. He got the hint, and wiped it again with his rag. It wasn't much of an improvement.

"I could use a something stronger." Blossom seemed a bit lost.

"Problems?"

"Had an abortion last month."

Lollie just nodded.

"The poem I wrote is for the son I'll never have." Blossom turned to watch the wall. "Here are the boys. Don't tell them."

There seemed, Lollie thought, a gap between men and women that poems only made worse.

*

What is Beauty? [Alf]

He remembered each spring of  
His childhood, and the way  
The wild mustard flowers covered slopes  
That rolled like waves of sunlight  
Down to the bay.

After the flowers, there was the road  
Dry, and hard, through the desert  
Past the temple

To the hill.

He could easily see eternity from the hill  
But it was spring, and  
He strained, trying to see if  
He'd left even the faintest trail  
Through the wild mustard.

*

What is Beauty? [Lollie]

The instant men die, they dream of  
Beautiful angels, knowing  
There can be no overweight women  
In heaven.

Men on earth do not trust  
Ugly women, knowing  
These obviously do not know the way  
To Heaven.

*

What is Beauty? [Blossom]

I was just a bit late, but  
when he saw me  
he smiled like his world  
had been remade, and  
hugged me till I could  
hardly breathe

every woman deserves to be beautiful  
if only for a few heartbeats

*

What is Beauty? [Calhoun]

If, on your travels, you find  
An old stone fence  
It is important that  
You have no map.

Rest on a block of Cambrian  
Granite

Watch the clouds.

Look across the field  
Wonder if there's another fence  
More stones  
On the other side.

****

Chapter 12: What is Love?

Lollie usually arrived early, usually before any of the others. This time, she hesitated again outside the doors. When someone came out, she saw Cal hunched over the table, making corrections to the four copies of his poem.

For some reason, maybe a bad month, maybe the flickering of a streetlight, maybe the gathering rain, she didn't want to talk to Cal. He seemed to be porter at a train station where all the trains went to the wrong place.

Turning, she started down the street, hesitated again, then turned back the other way, to a coffee shop that was still open.

By the time she got back, carrying a chocolate donut, it was a lot closer to midnight. She ate the donut quickly, then pushed into the room. It was deserted, except for the kid behind the bar and Cal.

As he came up to Cal, he held up a piece of paper. "No talking, please," was written on it, in bold marker. Lollie sat down and got out her poems.

Blossom arrived to face the same sign. She shrugged and sat down. The bartender arrived, bringing drinks for Lollie and Blossom, and another for Alf. Cal pushed forward another paper. "I ordered for you." was printed on it.

Alf himself arrived, and was shushed into silence.

"Why?" he wrote onto the back of one of Cal's signs.

"Too sensitive a topic." Cal wrote back.

"How will we read our poems?" Blossom took the pen and scribbled the question on the bottom of the page in big block letters.

"Just exchange and go home," Cal wrote. His handwriting was tiny and immaculate.

Alf sat there a moment with his eyes closed tight, then nodded and passed around copies of his poem. The others followed suit.

Lollie read each of the poems in turn. Somehow Cal's poem took her completely by surprise. The guy's actually got a soul, she thought. Somehow it made her even less inclined to talk to him. She became glad that there would be no speaking.

When they had assigned the next topic and date, Lollie waved goodbye, and headed for the door. Looking back, she discovered the others following her, a parade of muted poets.

*

What is Love? [Blossom]

in the morning you lie in bed  
your head on his shoulder  
his cheek in your hair

wait for his first words  
listen for one word  
"we"

*

What is Love? [Calhoun]

Moth to the candle  
There came I  
Not half so dumb  
Not half so wise

I learned as much  
Of love's game  
As the moth  
Of the flame

*

What is Love? [Lollie]

When they locked the church, at five  
There were two hidden quiet in the loft.

He was happy she would risk her mother's anger  
For him.

She was happy he would risk God's wrath  
For her.

*

What is Love? [Alf]

Love is madness to fight the madness of the universe  
The whole poem in one moment  
It took forever for her to  
Remove her panties

My wicked mind made a  
Transit of the galaxy  
Solved the backup riddle of the sphinx  
Invented a new mathematics  
Populated desert plants

It took forever for her to  
Remove her panties

The skies began to sing; I signed  
The declaration of dependence  
The Buddha said, "Pay attention.  
There are four hundred billion questions and  
You're  
About  
To  
Find  
The  
Answer."

****

Chapter 13: Why is a Cry in the Night Like the World Coming to an End?

"I wonder if we're learning anything from each other," Cal said.

"Doubt it," Blossom observed.

"Maybe not, but this is the second time Lollie's put churches and bibles in her poetry, and that used to be Alf's corner of the field."

Two things bothered Lollie. For one, Cal was right. For another, he'd put her name in the first line of his poem, and she couldn't figure out what the line was telling her.

She smiled, and raised a toast to Alf. "To Gods and bibles and all that stuff us lost souls can only see from a distance."

"Amen," said Alf. "Did anyone actually answer the question tonight?"

The all scanned the poems. "No way," Blossom observed. "But Cal and Lollie at least had the decency to wake up screaming in their poems."

"I knew there was something going on between those two," Alf chuckled.

"To all those poets," Cal said, "who wake up screaming."

"Amen," Lollie echoed. The four of them clinked glasses over the centre of the table.

*

Why is a Cry in the Night Like the World Coming to an End? [Calhoun]

Paper the windows, Lollie -  
I can live in the basement

In Wiarton, they wait for the groundhog  
The second day of February

It is never a monster: I stay inside; I am  
Brambles in the hurricane, the slug under  
The log where the grouse drums for his mate

I would put all glass in blue boxes; it permits  
Light, and I've never liked the way  
My shadow moves on concrete walls  
When I wake suddenly to a scream.

*

Why is a Cry in the Night Like the World Coming to an End? [Lollie]

If you wake at night,  
Screaming  
Check the floor.

If it is level, then you were dreaming  
You were a plum.

But if it is slanted  
Find a bible  
Quickly.

*

Why is a Cry in the Night like the World coming to an End? [Blossom]

party over  
guests gone home  
i sit in the dark  
eating all the remaining appetizers  
quickly, as they get soggy  
with tears

*

Why is a Cry in the Night Like the World Coming to an End? [Alf]

At three in the morning, the phone rang

Somewhere vast fields of cattails  
Ran in hysterics to the seething river  
The moon glaring and owls dropping from the sky  
To seize deer that had come across my lawn  
To the apple tree.

Within the desolation, it rang again.

Cain himself got up, fire gassing impatient  
From his whetted eyes.  
Tooth fairies, mad with fermented pumpkin rum pudding  
Tore bystanders from behind dew-wet and quivering bushes  
Into the ivory light

I said hello. Someone hung up.

"Shucks and darn it," I said.

****

Chapter 14: Who is the Enemy?

"Question thirteen," Lollie told the others. "A nice luckless number at the dark of the moon in the tavern of lost poetic souls just over a year after we started this."

"The questions haven't got any better," Alf observed.

"Maybe we've saved the universe by providing answers," Cal offered.

"Worth saving?" Blossom was wearing a severe black dress with a blood-red scarf around her shoulders.

The others looked at each other. "No way," Lollie said.

"Not our job," Alf chipped in.

"Whose job is it, then?" Lollie suddenly wondered what drinking beer through a straw would be like.

"Whoever's the enemy." Alf stretched and yawned.

"And who might that be," Lollie asked.

"Let's find out." Cal dealt out the cards.

After the poems had been read, Lollie observed, "I nominate Blossom's as the poem of the night." When Blossom looked like she was about to protest, Lollie went on, "Yours is the only poem that I can understand without having to read it twelve times."

"That's good?" Blossom looked amused.

"That's terrible," Lollie said. "I'm astounded that you'd dare show up with a simple poem like that. We ought to ban you permanently."

"I can do an exorcism," Cal offered.

"I can assist," Alf added.

"No way." Lollie shook her head. "The demons would never figure out what you actually mean."

"I guess Blossom will have to do her own exorcism then." Cal drained his beer.

"I'll put it on my list," Blossom said. "Somewhere between the laundry and cleaning the toilet."

"Has it really been just a year?" Alf stretched his neck sideways. "It seems longer."

"It's true," Lollie said. "I calculate we've spent over seven hours in each other's company. We're practically family."

"I've got a thought," Cal said. "Next time, let's answer the question. Or try."

"Heretic!" Alf shouted.

*

Who is the Enemy? [Alf]

When the sky fell he was there  
Handing me the pieces  
I filled the basement with them  
Did my laundry on the sidewalk after that

When the land broke like an egg  
He made me an omelet  
I thought it was fine  
Even if full of shells

When the seas drained dry  
He invented mudshoes for me  
So I could walk among  
Silver flopping fishes

Just before the volcano erupted  
I thought I saw him laughing  
Wearing a Yuk-Yuk's T-shirt and  
Swinging a can of gasoline

*

Who is the Enemy? [Blossom]

my words in poems.

I try, but they are like  
butterflies  
painted by a blinded woman  
trying to  
remember.

*

Who is the Enemy? [Calhoun]

You fall from the trapeze

If no-one gasps  
Or even hides a smile  
You may as well take  
The back route out of here.

Try not to look back  
At the big tent,  
Flags flapping

Hold your hands over your ears  
So you don't hear them  
Applauding the clowns.

*

Who is the Enemy? [Lollie]

I believed she was my friend  
And we'd always be able to talk about  
Men and kids and maple walnut

She would wear wooden beads one day  
As a surprise  
I would show up at the café  
Blonde, with small gold ear-rings

I never hated Santa, you know;  
Only those that encouraged me  
To believe.

****

Chapter 15: Why are There Shadows?

"Can you answer the question of why there are shadows without also answering why there is light?" Alf was looking older and more tired than usual, hulking over the table like a stork over a giant egg.

"Let me read this." Lollie passed around copies of her poem, and read it.

"So there are shadows because...." Blossom fumbled a bit.

"Because we love light, but we need to know where it is coming from. And there are forms of light only the heart can see."

"Then only the heart can see the shadows produced by those forms of light." Alf leaned further over.

"If you're lucky," Blossom said, passing out chocolate cookies to the others. "Let me read my poem."

When she was done, Cal shook his wild hair. "A shadow is what is left when love is gone."

Damn right." Blossom looked over at him, hard. "Or who is left."

"My turn." Alf read his loudly enough to draw the attention of a couple of young drunks for a moment.

"So why are there shadows?" Blossom peered at the page.

"Probably," Lollie said, "to show that you exist. If you have a shadow, you're not a ghost."

"Got it." Alf finally straightened up a bit. "Cal?"

When Cal had read his work, he sat back and looked at the others.

"I see you've included Lollie again. You two have something to tell us."

Cal smiled. "Lollie doesn't really like me very much, but she seems like another strange person, so I sense a kinship. An antagonistic kinship maybe, but a kinship nonetheless."

"I guess any attention is better than none," Lollie said. "But I think you're saying God made shadows so weirdos and strange people have some place to hide."

"Bingo!" said Cal, smiling.

"Can you imagine anyone more ordinary than me?" Lollie raised her eyebrows well above her bifocals.

"I'd have said 'no' to that a year ago, but an ordinary person wouldn't, couldn't write the poems you do. What do you say to that?" Cal leaned back in his chair.

"I think," said Lollie evenly, "that you are in real need of fiber in your diet. Possibly a couple of tablespoons of mineral oil, then make sure you take Metamucil every day."

Blossom and Alf laughed. Cal shook his head, and smiled. "What's brought you to this shadow world at the dark of the moon?" he asked. "Was the sun too bright yesterday or today, or are you putting your poems between yourself and tomorrow?"

"Maybe," Alf offered, "she comes here to watch shadows. Maybe she sees poetry as the light."

"And if I am the darkness, we complement each other." Cal drained his beer.

"Except for using my name in vain, tonight's was one of your best poems. That," said Lollie firmly, "is the only compliment you get tonight."

"I guess any compliment is better than none," Cal said. "Buy me a plate of those awful fries and I'll promise to refrain from using your name in the future. If you're in the poem, you'll have to figure it out yourself."

Lollie looked at the other two. "Blackmail," Blossom said. Alf nodded.

"I won five bucks in the lottery today," Lollie said. "Otherwise I wouldn't play your silly-ass games." She called the bartender over, and ordered five dollars worth of fries.

*

Why are There Shadows? [Lollie]

I knew a woman once;  
No side of her leaned  
Into darkness

She wandered the olive groves, but found  
Only shade  
And tried many supermarkets but  
Still no shadow

We told her she must be pure  
And that an immaculate conception  
Was a definite possibility, but  
"What will happen if God comes?" she asked  
"How will I know which way to look?"

Eventually, certain God could not see her  
She married a man whose soul was  
Like the underside of a log.  
Then she was much happier.  
When he was drinking his morning coffee  
She had only to turn away  
To look toward God.

*

Why are There Shadows? [Blossom]

some follow money  
some follow angels  
some, love

throw a coin, rich woman  
give a blessing, holy lady  
to that shadow

sitting on the courthouse steps

laughing at old photos.

*

Why are There Shadows? [Alf]

In the evening of his later years, Lazarus  
Took to walking the olive groves  
Outside Bethany

He said he liked to admire  
The pattern the shadows made  
On the warm ground."

He himself had no shadow, you know.  
His grandchildren teased him about this.

In the dusk, when the crickets began  
To sing of eternity  
He'd wait, sadly, on the old stone bridge  
Watching the shades of everything  
Fill up everyone else's world.

*

Why are There Shadows? [Calhoun]

Oh, Lollie! The brighter the light  
The darker the shadow, you know.

Come with me to the shady side of life  
Bring whiskey and water, lilacs and worms

We'll toast our own deaths  
Celebrate the pitter patter of forgotten years  
Under the old stairs.  
I'll put my hand inside your blouse  
Feel your shadow heart.

We will watch the feet of glowing people go by  
The saved soles gliding under heavenlight.  
Bless them, all, every one  
In this darkness we sit on old crossed planks  
Laugh, play with nails  
And dream of night.

****

Chapter 16: Why is Water?

It had rained all day, and the skies had gone from gray to black without a hint that somewhere on the planet there was sunshine, warmth, and drought.

Lollie draped her coat over a spare chair from another table. The other chairs contained raincoats from Cal, Alf, and Blossom, as well as an umbrella opened to dry. The poets were seated at the usual table.

"Late," Alf said. Blossom got up and made her way to the women's room.

"The bus went by. Almost empty. I waved, and the drive just ignored me."

"The damned of the planet," Cal said. "They can sense it, you know."

Lollie looked at Alf. He nodded. Bus drivers take special courses to sense damnation. The desperate, the poor, the freaks, they'll stop for, but they like to keep away from the cursed.

Lollie shook her head, and sat down, taking poems from her backpack. Then she got a napkin and wiped the mist off her glasses. "It's more crowded than usual tonight." There were at least fifteen other people in the room.

"Entertainment again." The dark of the moon had coincided with a Saturday night and, it seemed, the tavern owner's renewed drive to improve the atmosphere of his place. The little stage in the corner had a small amplifier, a big speaker, and a guitar resting on a stand.

"Arrived during the break, did I?"

Alf nodded, and was about to say something when water started dripping onto the table. At once the bartender arrived with a blue plastic bucket, which he placed in front of Cal.

"Shall we move?" Lollie asked.

"Can't see why." Alf indicated several other buckets around the room. "The water'd just hunt us down." He looked at Cal.

"It's like having a candle at your table, only with suitable adjustments for poets."

Lollie sighed. "We'd better do the poems before the band comes back on."

"Just a folksinger," Cal said. "Probably the boss's nephew or something. He's good, but I remember throwing a loonie into his guitar case a couple of days ago on Yonge."

Blossom returned, took in the situation, and said, "Idiots." But she sat down, then said, "Deal." She got the ace, and passed copies of her poem around the bucket.

Just after all four poets were done, the singer got back up on the stage, tuned his guitar, and started singing "The Water is Wide," as sad a song as any Lollie had heard.

*

Why is Water? [Blossom]

he took me fishing, once  
perch, and light-dappled sunfish

i watched his method  
he misled them with gifts  
trapped them, dragged them in  
dropped them flopping  
into an old bucket

we were new

the air was clear, but  
i was swimming in love.

*

Why is Water? [Calhoun]

Turn and dream  
Turn again and dream

I would not deny you fire  
But I can only give you water  
Coursing in on rolling waves.

Don't blame me  
I am a gentle dying whale  
Loving the sea

And you, a long-winged bird  
On a sand beach, turning  
Feeling air  
On white feathers.

*

Why is Water? [Alf]

God strides the galaxy  
To watch His handiwork  
(Which He thinks is really good).

Sometimes he rolls a few comets  
Inward towards a solar furnace  
Always quick to admire the  
Filigreed tail and the majesty of  
Parabolas.

It has its hazards; sometimes  
A planet is struck, and becomes infested  
With hard-to-remove  
Life.

*

Why is Water? [Lollie]

She found herself on the slippery  
On the rocks so passionately embraced by green  
Weed

The suck and spew of waves  
Red markers for lobster pots, and beyond, the  
Sea that refused to take her

She found an empty shampoo bottle  
Pert, from Canada  
It was her life, she thought

On the dry soil, she is a writer;  
By the sea, she is a nun.

****

Chapter 17: What Medicine do I Need?

My father was the perfect mark. Anybody with any sort of con could spot him a mile away.

The amazing thing was, he was convinced he could see right through most con games, if he tried hard enough.

And you know, he could. It just took him a couple of tries. Then he'd get this big smile and you'd know he'd figured it out. But by that time he'd bought one or two of whatever they were selling. We had a basement full of stuff that was not worth buying, but he'd paid too much to actually throw it away.

Sometimes, when I was small, I wondered if Ma had conned him into marriage, or fathering me and my sisters. I sort of pictured him, ten years into marriage, suddenly waking up one morning and looking at Ma and shouting, "Ha! I just caught on!"

Not that it wasn't a happy marriage. Having been hoodwinked into marriage and kids and a house and a job with the city, he was always trying to see what Ma would fool him into doing next.

She loved him. She was always planning the next big trick. I truly believe she figured us kids were a series of jokes she'd played on her husband. Two of us were born on April first, you know, and I was within hours of Halloween.

If Ma hadn't hung on three more hours, I'd have had to go round the neighbourhood every year and get my birthday presents in a bag. As it was, most of my presents for the first twelve years were leftover candies.

I was always listening to things, he said. My folks would take us kids for a walk in the forest, and I'd always trip, because I wanted to listen to see if pines made a different sound than spruces, or tamaracks. We had a fire on the beach, and I burnt one of my toes half off because I was walking around trying to figure the difference between the hiss of the fire and the hiss of the waves. Can you understand that?

I can remember the sound of hay in the barn when Paula Stannish and I first did it in the loft. I can't remember what she looked like, but I can remember the sound. I can't remember what she felt like, even. Just the sound. Do you remember sight or sound or touch best?

Maybe sound is the medicine I need, but I write mostly visual stuff. Don't want you people to think I'm strange, you know, sitting here listening to the sound of poets falling into doom.

*

What Medicine Do I Need? [Lollie]

Touch.

All the rest just keep the body alive.

*

What Medicine Do I Need? [Alf]

The fourth horseman offered me  
A selection of fine Nazareth cheeses and  
A flagon of God's mercy

I sliced the cheeses but poured the liquid  
Red as blood onto the soil of Palestine

From out the sand the dried hands of Judas  
Clawed the brittle air a moment  
Trying to catch a bit  
I hope he found enough to wet his splintered lips

"He was my brother," I told the tired horseman  
Handing the jar back  
"But  
Please tell God we thank him for the cheeses.

*

What Medicine Do I Need? [Calhoun]

He was a purveyor of the sales of stars  
The thin line of hope, the key  
To the universe.

"Twenty minutes under a blanket with a blonde;  
A few giggles, the slide of fingertips," I asked.

"I anoint you king of the planet," he said  
Dribbling 5w20 onto my ears  
You are masher of your soul  
The chaplain of your feet."

"The back seat," I suggested, wrestling with  
Zippers, her leg over the headrest  
Our breaths fogging the windows."

"You are meant," he said, churning moons  
"To distract the saints, not to rapture bimbos."

"I can do both, in sequence. I know I can." But  
He was gone, leaving only a silver bullet  
And a crown of blackbird feathers  
Drifting on that endless river.

*

What Medicine Do I Need? [Blossom]

this morning I could not get warm  
though I turned up the furnace  
and wore a coat in the house

then I dug up the herb garden

sat on the porch, pretended I heard  
a car door slamming

I'm no doctor: you tell me.

****

Chapter 18: What is the Meaning of Snow Accumulating on the Pavement?

"There is," said Alf, "something in the heart of the average Canadian that doesn't like snow." He swirled his glass of beer, added some salt to it from the shaker, and drank. "God knows, we're supposed to. God knows, so few of us actually do."

"You think so?" Blossom didn't really seem to care.

"I think so. I think we are forever strangers in this landscape, shadow-boxing the snowflakes, watching them fill old iron pots with ghosts."

"You men. Snow is always the end of the year to you. Have you ever thought maybe it's the beginning. Like a blank page somebody is going to write on?"

"Let's see your poem. I bet you see snow as endings, too."

"In a moment."

"There are other ways to look at snow," Lollie offered.

"Like what?"

"It covers things. It has a sense of purity."

"It's a shroud. A great awful cold damn shroud. What do you think?" He cracked his knuckles and looked at Cal.

"I think maybe you should buy the brightest blue scarf you can, and the brightest blue earmuffs, and a matching set of wool mitts, and don't worry if people wonder about your sexual orientation, you should wear them out in every snowstorm, till you become the saint of Station Street and people smile when you come by."

"That won't change the truth."

"The truth is amazingly malleable, you know. And you're going to die anyway; why not be martyred for the cause?"

Alf looked appealingly at Lollie.

"I'm with him," she said. "I like to sit inside, my hands around a cup of coffee, a good book in front of me, and watch the snow fall."

"If," Alf said, "it falls gently. If it falls in big clumps. Not if it howls around the buildings like it's looking for you."

"Especially," said Lollie, "if I think it's come looking for me."

*

What is the Meaning of Snow Accumulating on the Pavement? [Calhoun]

Bless the poor in spirit  
Who have nothing to look forward to but  
Snow  
And the cold stares of strangers

I walked till my feet were sore knowing  
That I could only walk to China  
Before I ran out of room  
And had to start back home

It snows in China, too

There was nothing to go home to  
So I went home  
Sat in a chair by the window  
Drank milk, and watched snow  
Drift by the streetlight  
Strangers shuffle by, leaving  
A bit of pain.

When I was warm again, I put my coat on  
And went outside  
Looking for the cold blessing  
Of snow, of strangers.

*

What is the Meaning of Snow Accumulating on the Pavement? [Lollie]

When the warmth has finally gone  
The world becomes ripe with possibility

There are pubs with beer and guitars  
Preserved pears, and  
New cookies

When you see frost flowers  
Look outside  
All the shadows  
Have vanished in  
Steady flakes

If you are a writer, your words on paper  
Are your footprints on  
The snow-covered pavement  
Leading into the arctic fog

Look again, writer  
There are always bear paw prints  
On top of yours

*

What is the Meaning of Snow Accumulating on the Pavement? [Alf]

To everything, there is a season  
A time to be born  
A time to think about seasons  
A time to cry.

*

What is the Meaning of Snow Accumulating on the Pavement? [Blossom]

there is a strange quiet beauty  
to an ending

there's Sinatra on the fm station  
I have a pumpkin pie, all to myself

out there, god pulls a fine white cloth  
over yesterday

****

Chapter 19: How Can I Become Rich?

"We are rich," Alf said. "We have a whole universe around us, and the sun above and the beauty of the robins on the lawns in the mornings." He spread his arms expansively.

"I guess I can stop buying lottery tickets," Blossom observed, sucking another Diet Pepsi dry. "I'll try paying for this drink with maple leaves."

"I think," Cal said, quietly, "that wealth is relative." The others raised their eyebrows. Lollie looked over the tops of her glasses. "I mean," he added, shuffling uncomfortably in his chair," that wealth is mostly in our minds."

"Great," said Blossom. "I'll see if the bartender will take a happy thought as payment for a beer for you. If I can find one."

"Depressed?" Cal asked her.

"I just think you're full of shit, as usual."

Cal smiled, but Blossom went on. "I actually like your poetry. I've got your 'Why is Water' tacked to my fridge door. But I think you're a fraud most of the time. I know happy poor people, but I'm not one of them. I'm a pissed-off, down and depressed, angry at the universe poor person."

"You think money would solve your problems?" Alf shuffled his long body in his chair and took a big drink of beer.

"You know," Blossom leaned fiercely over the table at him. " I don't think it would solve all my problems, but it would certainly make a dent in a hell of a lot of them."

Lollie raised her glass over the middle of the table. "To wealth, especially in large dollar amounts." The others hesitated, then followed in the toast.

Lollie looked at Alf, then Cal. "I thought you two liked less tangible forms of wealth."

"We lied." Alf smiled.

"Damn right." Cal waved at the bartender for another beer. "We're poets, after all."

Lollie laughed, for the first time in weeks. "Poetry is bullshit?"

"Look at the poems we brought today," Alf said. "A few of us, I think, are, ah, being a little, shall I say, narrow in our definition of 'rich.'"

"Nonsense," said Lollie. "Three of the poems will be perfectly accurate if we just add 'and pick six good numbers for next week's lottery' to the bottom of the page."

*

How Can I Become Rich? [Alf]

We came to the sunlight  
Lay down in the snow  
Chafed in love  
The pine tree above  
Whispered all we should know

You showed me the warm  
Deep in the flakes  
Fire in my lungs  
I was speaking in tongues  
God knows, that's what it takes

And there in the sunshine  
In immaculate snow  
I learned in the field  
Calmly to yield  
To fire, to secrets, to flow

To sunlight and  
Immaculate snow.

*

How Can I Become Rich? [Blossom]

the sound of returning geese high overhead

the April rains that call tulips from cold earth

a kitten, almost too young for love, in my warm hand.

*

How Can I Become Rich? [Calhoun]

In the crystalline minutes before midnight  
I was crawling along the west wall of  
St. Grotesque of the Subway's basement  
My hands feeling for hidden panels  
Loose tiles for carefully-hidden keyholes

A priest, flashlight wavering  
Knelt beside me, startling  
My seeker heart

"I've figured it out," I told him  
"There's a passageway here, somewhere  
It goes through God's orifice, and out  
His muzzle to streets of gold  
Pearly gates, platinum wings.  
The carpenter's son was devious, but  
I've figured the code."

He turned off the flashlight, sat down.  
"Go ahead," he said. "It might work.  
God knows, nothing else has."

*

How Can I Become Rich? [Lollie]

Wealth is measured primarily  
(Pay attention, Lollie)  
Measured primarily by the size  
And softness of your bath towel

Get a purple one that enfolds  
Your naked body completely  
(No, Lollie, men arrive, they  
Demand, they leave; a bath towel  
Is fresh after each wash)

Do not buy one on sale; the towel must be  
Greatly overpriced. Such a towel  
Can never be overvalued.

****

Chapter 20: What Do I Do With the Old Iron Scales I Found?

"Good poems," Alf noted, when the reading was done. He was sipping slowly on his beer. He had a monkey on his back. Its name was Calvin.

No one was quite sure why the bartender hadn't objected to the monkey, but he hadn't, and none of the poets wanted to ask.

"Stuff it. Sideways." Blossom sat sideways in her chair, watching one of the working televisions and folding the poems into a small square. She was chewing gum. Her blonde hair was shorter than usual, something Lollie didn't believe she'd see. Somehow her skin was a shade darker, too.

"You can't take a compliment?" Cal turned his dark eyes on her.

Blossom refused to turn. The television screen showed a late-night talk show. There was no sound, of course, the room being filled with bad FM music, its volume turned down in deference to the poets. "I came to share my poem, not to have some jackass tell me whether it's good or bad."

"But if no one evaluates a poem," Alf pointed out reasonably, "you'll never know whether you're getting your message across or getting better or whatever." The monkey had his tail wrapped around Alf's neck with the tip stuck up one of his nostrils.

"Poems," said Blossom, "are meant to be experienced. Nothing. More."

"You wrote a poem in grade four and nobody liked it." Cal yawned.

Blossom tried to dump the last of her drink, mostly ice cubes, in his lap, but he was quicker than that. The monkey made a leap onto the table and grabbed an ice cube. Spitting it out, the animal flung it across the room. Nobody seemed to care.

"If we start being judgmental," Lollie broke in, "someone might note that your poem seems to horn in on Alf's turf."

"How so?"

"Alf does mythic figures. John the Baptist, Ulysses. Now you've done a Don Quixote poem."

"Imitation," Cal smiled, "is the sincerest form of flattery."

"Once we get past national cliché week," Lollie observed, "we might try separating how good a poem is from how well it communicates."

"Good friggin' luck," Alf said.

"I think," said Blossom, "it's time to go home."

"Your judgment is superb," Lollie said. "Wait up. These guys can spend the night trying to decide who wrote the best poem."

*

What Do I Do With the Old Iron Scales I Found? [Lollie]

In the dream, he was asleep, curled up  
On one pan of the scales, but slowly  
Sliding off

Frantically, I threw things onto  
The opposite pan, tables and pies  
And a shopping bag full of bright clothes

Nothing worked, not even Timbits.  
At last I crawled onto the rising pan myself  
But it made no difference  
I saw him slide, still sleeping  
Off the other side, waking up  
In time to call his own name  
Just before I began  
That long, long fall.

*

What Do I Do With the Old Iron Scales I Found? [Alf]

It took him almost forty years  
To get clearances  
Approvals  
Equipment, maps  
All that shit.

He got to the top  
Of Mount Sinai  
Just about dawn  
Hauled out the  
Old iron scales  
Set them on a flat rock.

At dawn, the next morning  
He left  
Time is money. and  
He had a life to live.

*

What Do I Do With the Old Iron Scales I Found? [Blossom]

old iron scales should be set with  
terra cotta pots and geraniums

there's nothing in my life I could weigh  
without breaking my heart.

*

What Do I Do With the Old Iron Scales I Found? [Calhoun]

Drinking alone  
At the kitchen table  
3:14 a.m., the clock  
Inevitable as little rabbits

Don Quixote strode in  
Armor clanking, legs trembling,  
Stuck his lance  
Against my chest

"Here be monsters," he croaked  
Bracing himself against  
The fridge.

"I've been expecting you!" I shouted  
Slamming the scales onto the table, and  
Waving my arms like a windmill,  
"Knight of my days, daze of my nights.  
You first!"

Shedding rust, he wheezed himself out  
Taking a box of Shreddies for his horse.  
"Damn," he said.  
"Damn.

****

Chapter 21: What Must We Never Let The World Forget?

When I was younger... O, God! Is this going to be one of those 'old lady talks about her youth things'? Anyway, I don't know why I'm telling you this; I mean, we're here for our damn poems aren't we?

So I guess I've been feeling a little down lately. Hell, for a couple of months anyway. This city'll do it to you, especially at this time of the year. Look at those two in the corner. Why don't they just ship out everyone over sixty to someplace like Peterborough or something. You ever been there? My aunt lives there. The whole town's full of old people driving along at ten miles an hour hunched over the steering wheels of their K-cars.

This is a young person's town. God, when did that happen? That I suddenly wasn't a 'young person' any more? I guess it happens to everybody. I just thought it would take a little longer than it did.

The hardest part is that I can't remember what he looked like. You don't have a smoke do you? No, forget that, I stopped three years ago and sure don't want to start again.

Thanks for staying. I'll be better in a few minutes or maybe a couple of weeks. I've been through this before. Been a lot worse sometimes. Do you want another beer?

I wonder if he remembers what I look like. We stayed in a cheap motel on the beach outside Panama city in Florida. The sand was white as snow, and there were white crabs on the beach. They called them ghost crabs. You'd see one move, and suddenly it would be gone. He chased a couple, and we laughed when he caught one and got pinched. I think men's love is like those crabs. I've always thought so.

I don't give my love to any one man. Not any more. A bit here and a bit there and some for myself in between. I've seen too many women be hurt by men, even when they pretend they aren't. Men don't understand love; it's just not in them.

Sometimes I dream about that beach. This is my first poem about it. I wish I could remember him better. Hell, I remember the pelicans flying just above the water, and the way the stingrays would swim in the muddy water at night, the tips of their fins just above the water.

When I dream that dream, I walk down to the beach at sunset and he's there. But he's always looking out to sea, like he's lost his soul and he's waiting for it to come flying back in like a pelican.

The beaches there are full of old people. Bad as Peterborough. But we were young then, and I was young. I figured he was married. You can always tell, if you really want to. The old couples used to watch us out of the corners of their eyes as they shuffled down the beach. Like they'd steal our youth if they could.

I don't know, Christ, we'd sit on the dock and drink tequila and I'd watch the old couples, hand in hand waiting for the sun to go down forever, and Charlie would look out across the Gulf of Mexico like he belonged on the other side of it, and he'd tell a joke and I'd laugh, and when we couldn't see straight anymore, we'd go back to the motel. I don't know if he ever made it across the Gulf or if his dream came sailing in.

Men think that, you know. Their dreams will come sailing up to their doors if they wish hard enough, and in the meanwhile you're handy while they're waiting. But men can be fun, if you don't take them seriously and are careful not to actually fall in love with one.

They have souls like crabs, you know. Did I tell you that? They skitter sideways and disappear when you try to look at them. I keep away from that. All I want from a man is his time and a bit of attention. They'll give both, if you don't try to take too much at once.

But you're lying to yourself if you think it's going to last. This town is good for young people, you know. Young women think they're in love and young men follow them around.

I don't even remember if he had blue eyes. I think so. It's been years now. I wonder if he's getting old, if he drives a K-car. I don't think they make them anymore. Maybe they all drive Buicks now, all those old couples. Buy a small house in Peterborough and drive to Florida in the winter, and watch the young people and wonder where all the years went.

*

What Must We Never Let The World Forget? [Lollie]

"I could bring over some cookies," I said  
"Go to hell," she said.  
"It might be better than the silence, you know," I said  
"Go to hell," she said.  
"Chocolate cookies," I answered.  
"Go to hell," she said.

So I did as she said, and we ate twenty-two cookies that afternoon.

*

What Must We Never Let The World Forget? [Alf]

After five years away, Andrew

Returned to his wife, and the small hut  
By the Sea of Galilee.

"I've told everyone who will listen,"  
He said to his wife  
"And many, many more."

Occasionally, just before dawn  
She would hear him get up  
Take his wool coat  
And slip out the door.

From the window she watched him  
Walk to the shore  
Step carefully onto the water  
When it got to his knees  
He'd look up to the stars a moment  
Then walk  
Slowly  
Back to his house.

*

What Must We Never Let The World Forget? [Blossom]

he took my hand  
we walked through the darkness  
past the palm trees  
to the beach  
when the moon began to rise

I remember the cold feel of night sand  
on my bare feet  
the warmth of his arms around me  
not much else

*

What Must We Never Let The World Forget? [Calhoun]

They call it natural  
that I should die  
the cold, the silence  
and not to be

A cry in the gray  
a shadow at three  
is that what you say?  
Last summer's waves  
on last summer's shores  
is that what I am?

Am I to join the legion dead  
with not a word on the following day?  
I cry to the stars!

A cry in the gray  
a shadow at three  
is that what you say?  
Last summer's waves  
on last summer's shores  
Is that all I am?

****

Chapter 22: What Should We Throw Away?

"There's something about that bartender," Blossom observed. "Do you think he's a couplet or two short of a sonnet?"

Cal swiveled his head to look. "We're coming up to our second year here, and he's still working the midnight shift in this dump."

Lollie privately agreed with both of them. It was a Saturday night, and there were exactly ten people in the place, counting the bartender. The owners had obviously given up on trying to add live music to the place, and the way the few regulars were nursing their draft beer, the place wasn't going to be making much money. Probably not enough to pay to keep it open.

"I'm going up for beer," Alf said. The bartender no longer brought beer to the tables. In fact, he seldom even looked towards the tables, his eyes fixed on a place somewhere under the television in the corner of the room.

"I'll get one, too," Lollie said, pushing the wobbly chair back. Cal pushed a five dollar bill towards her. She knew he wanted a draft Labatts. And change.

As they crossed the room, Alf whispered to her, "Watch those two. They're starting to like each other."

"I'll believe that when I see it." Lollie was unconvinced.

While the bartender was pouring drinks, Alf asked him, "What should people throw away?" The bartender looked up, unsmiling. "I mean, in general," Alf added. "What sort of things?"

The bartender put one too-foamy glass in front of Lollie. "People should put everything but their memories out with the trash. You don't even need a pocket for memories, and you can edit them if necessary." He poured a second glass, just as foamy. "Prisoners should keep only their chains, and actors only their costumes."

He poured the last glass. "Taverns should throw out poets; they think too much and it ruins the atmosphere." He squinted at them. "God should throw away any plans that haven't worked out after a couple of thousand years." He rang up the bill.

"Er...." said Alf, "What about bad French fries?"

"They haven't worked yet," the bartender said, "but I keep hoping."

Twenty minutes later, just as the poems were read, he brought a large plate of the fries to the poets' table. "Compliments of the house," he said.

*

What Should We Throw Away? [Blossom]

one day we passed a field  
and paused to hear the cattle lowing  
as the thunder approached.

I was not afraid, he whispered my name  
maybe twice  
and from far away I heard music

if there were anything I could wish, it would be  
not to remember that.

*

What Should We Throw Away? [Calhoun]

I am the wild pig  
Skulking among lilacs  
Rooting in the memories  
You thought you'd forgotten

I am the angel of the  
Strange heart  
Sitting in mud  
Covering myself with yellow leaves

I am Adam's son in high leather boots  
Waltzing alone on a moonless night  
Under wringing clouds  
Wondering if anyone will ever  
Speak my true name

Aieee! Aieee! Aieee!  
I am that I am!

It will take me days, perhaps weeks  
Just to haul all the costumes  
Down to the Sally Ann.

*

What Should We Throw Away? [Lollie]

Throw away your memories  
If you can  
Surely, if you can  
So she told me, and  
She seemed to know.  
She said

You save them like fading wallpaper on  
The darkening walls of your soul.  
Squint in the gloom; you'll find  
The faded flowers are not quite true  
The pears cannot be eaten  
The love letters were written by strangers

Even if the world outside is ochre waste  
Papering the windows with yesterdays laughter  
Costs you  
Tomorrow's light

*

What Should We Throw Away? [Alf]

At the last supper Jesus left a few crumbs  
On the table  
That those who couldn't believe  
Might be porters

It was his joke, although Paul  
Never understood.  
"I guess you had to be there,"  
Peter would mutter in his  
Later days

Leave behind Frito wrappers or  
Apple cores on the way  
To your own Golgotha  
In case you return. Just in case.  
You may use them to remember the few  
Who washed your feet  
Or shared the burden of leaning  
Against the grain.

****

Chapter 23: Why is the Church Silent?

Lollie arrived, as usual, a few minutes ahead of the others. The place was empty, except for the bartender, who was reading a comic book. When Lollie stepped up to the bar, he looked at her carefully, then poured her a pint, instead of the usual half.

As he set it in front of her, he asked, "What's tonight's topic?"

"We're doing 'why is the church silent?'" Lollie told him. She waited for a response, but he just said, "ah."

But by the time she got to her table, he'd turned the background music totally, instead of just muting it as usual. Then he turned off each of the televisions, and most of the lights.

Lollie sat at her table, amused, as he got out a marker pen and some white cardboard. On each table, including hers, he put a sign that read, "Reserved for Silence." She watched as he put another on the bar, and went to tack one up to the outside of the door.

Three more people came in, were whispered to, and sat silently at the two tables closest to Lollie.

When the other three poets arrived, they found a totally silent room, dim except for lights over a couple of tables. Lollie put her fingers to her lips to prevent any talking as the others got their drinks, then took their places.

Curious, the poets took their places. The bartender dimmed the lights until the place was positively gloomy, then put a candle on their table.

After looking around, and at each other, the poets distributed their poems. Lollie read the set of four to herself, then, on impulse picked up the candle and the set of poems, and took them to the nearest patron. He blinked, read them quickly, and took the candle and poems to the next table, where a youngish couple read them slowly.

Finally, the girl at the table took the candle and poems to the bartender. He read the poems, then walked the candle and the poems back to the four poets. He was, Lollie noted, carrying a small plate with four fries on it, and the "last call" bell from the bar.

The bartender carefully put everything onto the table, then picked up a fry with a paper napkin. He held it towards Lollie, but waved her arms down when she reached for it. She opened her mouth, and he put the fry into it. It was, Lollie, noted, even greasier and colder than usual.

The others followed suit.

When they were done, the bartender picked up Lollie's set of poems, folded them in half, and set them in the middle of the table. He rang the bell briefly, then picked up the candle and blew it out.

The four poets, puzzled, drank in silence, quickly. As soon as the bartender saw they were done, he went to the door held it open, and stood by it, waiting. Lollie got up, and walked past him into the night. Alf followed, then Blossom, and finally Cal, smiling broadly.

Seconds after the door closed behind them, the group could hear the music return.

*

Why is the Church Silent? [Alf]

I whispered her to silence  
Among the burnished pews  
Free of social harassment  
Parents, and kangaroos

With free poetic license  
We wrote the naked news  
And no one saw our flaunted hides  
But dead prophetic Jews

No cosmological voyeurs  
Saw our pas-de-deux  
A place more safe from eyes of God  
We probably couldn't choose

We practiced, got right  
Things a priest eschews  
But God and churches come alone  
And lovers come in twos

*

Why is the Church Silent? [Calhoun]

The gargoyled church stands empty  
Beside the foot-thronged street;  
The people, tired of promises  
Have voted with their feet.

*

Why is the Church Silent? [Blossom]

I went to the same church  
for my unwedding

the place dark, no people  
crowding the pews, wishing me well

I dropped a toonie into a can  
blew out somebody's candle  
walked, old, into the street

*

Why is the Church Silent? [Lollie]

In the silence  
You can hear your heart

In the silence beyond silence  
You can hear it counting

Only then  
Can you know time

Only if you know time  
Will you really look for God.

****

Chapter 24: I Saw Frost. What Does It Mean?

After the previous episode, Lollie entered the tavern carefully. But the place looked pretty normal, but busier than usual. Twenty people, she estimated. She could see Alf at the Usual Table. She waved, and headed for the bar to get a beer.

The bartender was staring at the wall, as usual, when she got there. He gave no sign of recognizing her, but turned down the background music, then poured a half pint of Lollie's usual drink.

She put money on the table, then reached for her glass. But he was hanging firmly onto it, looking down. Lollie leaned forward, and whispered, "We made copies for you this time." He nodded, releasing the glass.

"You're early," Lollie said, when she sat down across from Alf.

"Celebrating," he said. Lollie raised her eyebrows. "I'm a grandfather, I hear. A friend phoned me last week to tell me my son and his wife had a baby boy." He paused, drank half a glass, and continued. "And a little souvenir the doctors cut out of me turned out not to be cancer. Benign, they called it. Sounds so friendly, doesn't it?"

"I'm happy for you," Lollie said, putting a hand on his arm, "but there must be better places to celebrate."

"It's an appropriate place, in its own way. The people here are my strangest friends, and their poems are closer to the heart than I get with other people." He paused, rubbed one eye. "They never ask any more of me than a poem once every month or so. It's a cold world out there, baby."

Lollie took her hand away from his arm. "Here's Cal and Blossom." Lollie spotted the two heading for the bar for drinks.

"Coming in together again. I suspect those two of collusion."

"You're imagining things. You should stick to writing poetry, rather than matchmaking."

"Bet you a beer." Alf leaned back and put his hands on his head.

"You're on."

Blossom and Cal arrived together, without speaking, sat down opposite each other. "This is a little more normal than last month," Cal offered.

Blossom scowled at him. "I thought it was fun."

"Hokey." Cal gave out copies of his poem, and got the cards. "You're taken in by appearances too easily." He shook his strange hair, sadly.

"Bullshit. You think everything.... You're incapable of feeling anything but your own cynical world." Blossom sucked half a Diet Pepsi and looked directly at Cal.

"Hey," Alf broke in, "we're here to read poems." He turned to Cal. "Did you manage more than four lines this time?" Alf rubbed his belly and chuckled.

Before Cal could say anything, Blossom said, "Hey, damnit, we all know it's harder to write a good short poem than a good long poem. I thought it was a really good poem."

Alf waved his hands in front of him. "Hey, I was just making a little joke."

The bartender arrived at the table, bearing a large plate of French fries. When he put them onto the table, Lollie handed him a folded set of poems. When he left, Lollie got up to follow. "I'm getting another beer. She looked at Alf and said, "Can I buy one for you?"

"Damn right," Alf smiled.

"Hey," Blossom said. "Is there something going on between you two?"

*

I Saw Frost. What Does It Mean? [Lollie]

Because I would not talk to death  
He finally emailed me  
"Your poems are not, it seems  
As thoughtful as a tree."

"Your words are sometimes dark and deep  
But ramble like an unsteered car  
Two lines diverge in just one stanza  
Do you know where your verses are?"

I could not hide from Death.com  
So I wrote one crazy poem  
I'll be singing it when the frost-clothed guy  
Calls me, finally, home

From Chaos, God makes order  
Let this poem reverse that trend  
So unlike life, I can make  
A creation without

*

I Saw Frost. What Does It Mean? [Alf]

It's a cold world out there, babe;  
The stars far and small tonight  
Saturn raining frozen oxygen,  
The ocean's cold hands on  
The rocks and the seaweed  
Waving in the indigo deeps  
Out beyond the silhouette boats.

The squirrel knows it's cold; this night  
For it sleeps with its tail curled around it  
High in the pine that swings in  
The heartless wind.

Oh, my motives aren't the purest  
I'll admit that  
But I have printed flannel sheets  
And you won't even need to turn on  
The electric blanket.

*

I Saw Frost. What Does It Mean? [Blossom]

the day was hot as young passion  
you bought sugared ice cream cones

heat can blind a person

beware frost, in summer  
and coated with sugar

*

I Saw Frost. What Does It Mean? [Calhoun]

In the dungeons of the damned  
In the laneways of the lost  
I call to you, I call to you  
Stay with me; there is frost.

In a jar up on the mantle  
I keep ashes from my holocaust  
Stay with me, stay with me  
I love you, and there is frost

I speak, but no one listens  
In some inverse Pentecost  
I love you, I love you  
And everywhere there is frost.

****

Chapter 25: Is Death Democratic?

Lollie arrived deliberately late, seeing the other three at the table as she entered, folding up her umbrella. She got her beer, picked up a full-size plastic skull that the bartender handed her, and went to the table, sitting down in the chair beside Alf.

"Late!" Alf looked concerned. He looked at the skull that Lollie set onto the table.

"You had a transplant?" Blossom asked.

"The newest and most vital member of our little group?" Cal grinned.

"A loan from the guy behind the bar." Lollie frowned over her glasses. "I'm beginning to wonder about him."

"I don't mind him staring at the wall," Alf said, "and I don't mind him helping us with our evenings, but if I find out he's writing poems, I'll see him committed."

"This place," said Cal, "is for people who have escaped from the filbert factory " He picked at a lock of his hair.

"You went over the wall?" Alf scratched his genitalia and looked sideways at Cal. Lollie began to think the group had been together too long.

"I get a day pass every time the moon is gone and the rest of the inmates are quiet."

"What's your poem about?' Lollie decided it was time to change the subject.

"I take the position that death is by no means democratic," Cal leaned across the table, poking a finger into the eyesocket of the skull. "So few of us would vote to die in the first place, and death can be cruelly slow." Beside him, Blossom nodded.

"And you?" Lollie looked at Blossom, wondering whether she would talk about her poem or leave it to Cal.

"I cast a vote, in true democratic fashion," Blossom took the skull from Cal and patted it on the top, "but not for my own death."

"Et tu, Alf," Lollie looked at Alf, who was rubbing his forehead.

"My favorite poem, so far," he said. "It's about a man who has a brush with death. He learns that death is inevitable, that his soul has been listed on some form already, and that.... Well, you get the idea." His eyes registered some sadness beyond expression.

"As for mine," Lollie declared, "I am opposed to death. Firmly, completely, and without compromise."

"You expect to win?" Alf looked at her, and took a sip of beer.

"I expect to go down fighting. I wasted too much of my life, and I want to start it all over again."

The bartender showed up with the plate of fries. Lollie passed him copies of the poems, and asked, "Do you want back copies?" The bartender nodded. "We'll try, Lollie said."

When he was gone, Lollie asked the others, "Do you want to give him back copies of your poems?"

Cal laughed, "I'm given the chance to increase my poetic audience by twenty percent, and you wonder if I'll turn it down? Get real." He made a note on a piece of napkin. "That's over a buck's worth of photocopying. But I guess I can afford it."

"I guess I can, too," Blossom nodded. She was, Lollie thought, looking pretty mellow.

Alf scratched his nose. "For these wonderful fries, for which we are not charged, a few poems are not too great a price." He looked at the fries. "Unless these are a subtle plot to kill us off."

"Happy clogged veins," Lollie said, taking a handful. "Death in every mouthful."

"This fellow," Alf indicated the skull, "may have eaten one fry too many."

"Obviously not a melancholy poet," Cal said. "Note the happy grin."

"The poems," Lollie demanded. "Let's stop dicking around."

*

Is Death Democratic? [Lollie]

Ask Jumbleguts  
Yorick's skull:  
I'm not to be  
Kneel and say an Ave there for me

No human has ever won.  
In quiet blood or screaming like a cat with a tail  
Caught under the wheels of a hearse, we go.  
Every woman waddling around  
Bears another fighter

If anyone ever ever wins  
Let them have a picnic in the graveyard  
Some of us do not go quietly into that good night

Remember us  
We were the heroes of the Resistance.

*

Is Death Democratic? [Alf]

"We haven't missed one, yet," Death said,  
Picking at the sole. It was a bit overdone, but saved by  
A mild cheddar and mozzarella sauce.  
"Not since the beginning of time."  
He nibbled on the celery.

Sunlight poured into the café windows  
Outside, lovers laughed, and a crow in an elm  
Kept his black eye on our food, patient as time.

"I can't tell you when," he said, "I'm sorry,  
We've already processed your name. But we work a bit  
In advance, you know. Nothing personal."

"A fine brunch," Death said, after I'd paid the bill.  
But I was too depressed to answer.

"After you," said Death, holding the door.  
"Oh, no doubt of that," I said,  
"No doubt of that at all."

*

Is Death Democratic? [Blossom]

yes.

glad of it:

serve the bastard right.

*

Is Death Democratic? [Calhoun]

I keep mousetraps in the cupboards.  
Sometimes I find mice in them  
Their passage from being to non-being  
Made in less time than  
The twisting of a whisker.

Death by cat is not so quick.  
It is paw and push and ignore and jump  
The run for shelter, the jaw trip back  
Till human nerves give out and  
I become life, or death.

I hurry down the hospital corridor  
My eyes, beyond my control, check out  
All those rooms, the brittle skin, the  
White hair, bodies curled on beds  
Sucking oxygen, watching nothing.

I could give the mouse a vote  
But it wouldn't make any difference  
To the cat.

****

Chapter 26: What is Wealth?

When the moon is gone and the stars try in vain to reach the soul-shattered streets of that damned city, Toronto, four poets meet.

The tavern is damned. Cursed.

Blighted by night and the hopes that are not realized. Cannot be realized.

They talk, they laugh. They pretend they can interact socially.

They're more than just mistaken.

The lying bastards!

But then,

they're poets.

*

What is Wealth? [Calhoun]

When the sky falls  
and the stars go out  
you'll find me in the dark  
still singing

Follow my voice  
the world was nothing to me

When the dark comes downtown  
and the neon is cold  
when the very wolves cry for hunger  
my voice will remain  
the melody, unweakened

The world was nothing to me.

*

What is Wealth? [Blossom]

silver and gold  
like all base things  
cast shadows;  
the brighter the light  
the deeper the eclipse

believing this  
women prefer diamond  
for the way it plays with light  
unaware, perhaps, of how waves  
on Toronto harbour  
make diamonds  
in February

especially in February.

*

What is Wealth? [Alf]

He stood under the streetlight, crying

Somewhere, someone  
Walked the beaches of the world  
Looking for strange seashells.

He didn't want to collect seashells  
He just wanted to be able to.

*

What is Wealth? [Lollie]

When I was very young I once saw four angels.

They were sitting on branches, among the leaves  
Of the old oak on my uncle's farm.  
They said nothing, did not smile. Large wings fanned  
In the August heat.

I ran, of course  
We were taught to mistrust strangers.

Except for love, all the rest has been twenty-nine pieces of silver and dust on a dry wind and leaves falling on a silent woman.

****

Chapter 27: Should a Bed Have a Zipper?

"Why are we doing this? It's been two years, now."

"You don't like it?"

"Oh hell, it's better than nailing my poems to the lamp-post, hoping someone will read them."

"Or posting them on the internet. Comes to the same thing."

"Aren't we pessimistic today! A poet can be a poet without someone to read the bloody damn things."

"Booollsheeeet."

"Well, I think so."

"Hey, you two. Why can't a poem just be a person's thoughts, done up better. For nobody but the poet?"

"See!"

"That's self-indulgence. A poem is communication. It's a way of telling the truth about the universe. But you have to have someone to tell it to."

"Put it on my garden; I can use it for fertilizer. We write off-truths, varnished and polished and filed and chiseled and painted till they're just totally deceptive and all you want is for people to look at them trying to make some sense of the reflections from the shine."

"Maybe you do."

"Maybe you should stop kidding yourself."

"But what's wrong with self-indulgence? If we can do something well, and nobody appreciates it but ourselves, why shouldn't we do it? This planet's a rough place and maybe we should please ourselves sometimes."

"Take up masturbation."

"Just why are we here, then?"

"Because, one, by reading our poems and listening to each other's, we become better poets. It's a cultural sharing. I know I come away with a few new ideas to try each time. And, two, if we didn't meet, I wouldn't write poems. I'd just think about writing poems. And, three, I improve my poetry by seeing how you respond to my poems. I watch each of you for the way you squint your eyes and slurp your drinks if you don't like something, and how you act if you do."

"Enough! Let's read. I'm going to practice my squinting and slurping in advance."

"Maybe you'll like my poem?"

"On this topic? Fat chance."

"It was a tough topic. Or should I say a stupid question. But I, for one, am quite satisfied with what I did with it."

"Maybe you're getting better."

"Maybe I've learned how to write poems suitable for three wierdos and a bartender."

*

Should a Bed have a Zipper? [Blossom]

a bed is a zipper  
you just have to watch carefully  
to see whether, every night  
you're coming a little bit together  
or a little further apart.

*

Should a Bed have a Zipper? [Calhoun]

Pay attention  
This is particularly important  
Especially if you think you're being followed

Your name;  
If you find it in a magazine  
Sometime between insomnia and the touch of dawn

You must act quickly  
Tear the sheets from the sweating bed  
Wrap them around you (no time, no time for clumsy zippers)

Get onto the street  
Ignore the dark lawns, the occasional car  
The dark-cloaked gypsy whistling, the badly-dressed vampires  
Stalking memories, God calling people home

Somewhere, people are tired of waiting  
Somewhere they're ready to roll the stone away  
And  
You must be there!

*

Should a Bed have a Zipper? [Lollie]

Oh, God, yes, a woman needs  
A bed with two lives, firmly separated  
By a zipper. At least

One part the childhood bed  
With enough room for a teddy bear  
A spread with a print of Sleeping Beauty  
The late morning sun through the lace curtains,  
A stuffed brown puppy fallen on the floor  
And, on the wall, a picture of a horse.

Zip, unzip, flip, change: the room transformed

She has her other bed, all  
Red satin, with enough room for a hairy  
Snorting man, all hands and laugh and groin.  
A Picasso print on the wall  
Black dress on the floor, and  
Six hours till breakfast.

When a woman approaches a bed  
At bedtime or any other time  
You must be very careful to find out  
Which bed she wants to get into.

*

Should a bed have a zipper? [Alf]

May the sun bless your heart  
Every day  
Every day of your life

May the moon frame your lips  
With silver  
Every night

May you smile  
When I come through your door  
Till the morning  
Till the morning wakes us

But if I find your bed empty, one day  
And all those zippers drawn tight  
May I leave as quietly as yesterday's starlight  
Taking with me only a memory of  
Sunlight, moonlight  
And your smile

****

Chapter 28: If I Have A New Home, Can I Eat My Cereal on a TV Tray?

"Not as funny as it could be," Cal said. He set his beer on the TV tray in front of him. Lollie, Alf, and Blossom had their own TV trays, facing each other. Cal looked over towards the bartender; he was watching the wall, as usual.

"Shaky," Lollie noted. "Be careful."

"You'll note," Alf said, "that none of the TV trays match."

"All we need now," Blossom said, "is a new home."

"Nope," Lollie said. "Not again no more." She took a big sip of beer and looked up at the TV screen, blinking her eyes rapidly. "I don't expect any more good moves. Not unless the lottery comes through for me."

"I've had a lot of new homes," Blossom said. "Every one started out summer and ended up winter. The only way to get back to summer is to get another new home."

"I've been listening to the trucks in the street." Lollie folded and unfolded her poems. "I hate them for their motion. Because they're going someplace and I'm not. When it rains all day I can feel the clouds moving over top of the apartment building. They're moving and I'm not."

The fries arrived, and Lollie handed the bartender a set of the poems.

"Every man," Alf said, "knows that he's really just a little boy. He pretends to be grown up, but he's always afraid someone will find out."

"Every woman," Lollie said, "lives on the precipice of madness. Love and biological clocks and children and parents and coffins.... We lean on love, and there's nothing to love but men and your kids, and when we end up in that empty apartment, with a wine glass on a TV tray, we have nothing to turn to."

"It's a rough decision." Cal spoke up. "Should I have another beer or just throw myself in front of a steetcar?"

"You're a shit," Blossom said.

"Go for the streetcar," Lollie said.

"In that case, I'll go for the beer. Then we can get back to generalizing about men and women." Cal got up.

"I'll go with you," Lollie said. "In case the aliens come to get you back."

*

If I Have A New Home, Can I Eat My Cereal on a TV Tray? [Calhoun]

I will get nothing from the tooth fairy  
When I spit out my last tooth  
No praise from the nurses  
When they finally diaper me  
And nothing when I say  
My last word

But they'll remember me  
I was the one who ate his meals  
On a TV tray  
Because I would not stop trying  
To carve my name  
Into the oak dining table

Nobody discards fine oak.

*

If I Have A New Home, Can I Eat My Cereal on a TV Tray? [Blossom]

around midnight, it began to snow.  
we turned out the lights, and watched  
the diamonds float past the streetlights

i wanted to light a candle; he said no; that  
cold and bright have their own beauty  
and warmth is danger, then

i wondered what voyage his mind was taking  
and if his heart would follow.  
i offered him hot chocolate on a tv tray  
we watched the cold and the bright.

*

If I Have A New Home, Can I Eat My Cereal On A TV Tray? [Alf]

Give away everything that might  
Outlast you  
Put it all into  
Love, laughter, and life

Laughter is a light bark, easily sunk by  
The weight of gold, Ikea tables, and fine glassware  
Drink your favorite wines only in cracked cups  
Eat easy-to-peel tangerines

Love is quite durable, but if it forgets joy  
It becomes an empty table in a cold Paris winter.

Invest everything in love  
But only if it brings laughter  
Invest everything in laughter  
Life does not allow  
The harvest of chaff  
However much you pay for it.

*

If I Have A New Home, Can I Eat My Cereal on a TV Tray? [Lollie]

Oh, yes, yes.  
You must.  
Don't ask how I know. I won't tell. Not yet.

Lawn chairs. Better yet, a shipping crate. Please.  
TV trays from garage sales.  
Get new ones each week. Fresh furniture, like paper towels.  
Even curtains are chains to the moment that you bought them and who you bought them with (use sack cloth on the windows).  
There are locks with no keys, timestamped with the howling pain of old laughter. You don't want this. Trust me.  
Did you know they don't let you throw old furniture into the canal and beds into the harbor? The Grimsby police Sgt. Anderson will have a word with you, Dr. Beaton, too. He doesn't listen to reason.  
Short leases. Destroy all your furniture before you leave.  
That's the way the world runs. Pick only what you can destroy. Leave in the night.  
There's not a hell of a lot I learned.  
That's it. Burn these words after you've eaten them.

****

Chapter 29: When is it Funny to be a Slave?

The four stared at each other across the table. They'd arrived as usual, but had been refused beer, the bartender offering no explanation.

Unsettled, they had read their poems and sat in silence.

The bartender arrived, carrying the usual plate of fries. Stuck into the middle of the pile were five lit birthday candles.

The bartender turned and beckoned. From a far table came a middle-aged woman with a large hat. "Wonderful!" she cried. "Someone's birthday!" She sang "Happy Birthday to Whoever" five times, and kissed everyone on the cheek and patted them on the head.

Then she pulled up a chair, and began telling everyone about her birthdays, as much as she could remember, from age three on. She remembered an astonishing amount.

Abruptly, Cal leapt up, looking at his wrist. "Omigod, the last bus is due in a minute." The effect, Lollie noted, would have been better if he'd actually had a watch, but it was enough.

"No!" Blossom cried, getting her coat and purse.

"I can't afford another taxi!" Alf grabbed a handful of the fries, and, stuffing them into a pocket, ran for the door.

Lollie sat there for another hour, listening.

*

When is it Funny to be a Slave? [Lollie]

His shoes unmatched, untied, his open fly unfurls  
His shirt, one tawny tail to golden autumn sun.  
I kneel in leaves just out of range of wino breath  
To toss him magic bottle, plastic shape encasing  
Whiskey spirits. One wish granted him this day.

Eyes focus, hand one reaching, hand two swipes  
At matted mane and drool in gorgon beard.  
I heave a sigh, said, "I cannot ignore you longer;  
It's compassion now, or mockery, and I need all  
Pity for myself. So today I'll laugh at you.  
Your masters must be entertained, so dance, man dance."

Beyond the cooling sky God guffaws too, I know;  
Free will, free whiskey, dances free on city streets.  
He drinks, then smiles and offers it to me. I refuse.  
"Dance for all us gods," I whisper once again  
I show him a jig, a pirouette, and hum a tune.

He drops the bottle, eyes roll up – too rich I guess.  
"A fine comedy," I tell a passer-by  
But as a musical, it's missing quite a bit."

"Maybe so," he says, "But I thought you danced quite well."

*

When is it Funny to be a Slave? [Blossom]

after  
a thousand years, and a dozen beers

or  
a dozen years and a thousand beers

I've got lots of photos:  
it'll be a hoot.

*

When is it Funny to be a Slave? [Calhoun]

"No," she said, the last yellow  
Leaves of poplars dancing  
Around her feet,

"No."

I tried to tell her what I knew, that  
Laughter is made of strings.  
"They've paved Florida," I told her instead  
My hands in my pockets

"Can't pave warmth," she said  
Kicking the leaves,  
"I'll sit on the beach  
Watch the kids flying their kites."

I lost a kite like that, once  
The string snapping  
The kite soon gone  
Me, wailing after it.

I don't believe it flies  
Forever  
But the kite never listened  
Either.

*

When is it Funny to be a Slave? [Alf]

For God's sake, let us sit in this damned bar and plan a  
Worldwide conference, before it's too late.  
Let's get the men of the world together  
Let's talk about our balls.

You heard me, Alf. Nuts, testicles, cojones  
Our lords and masters, from Thermopylae to Guadalcanal  
From the football team to Bikini Atoll  
Our balls run our brains. A bit of Jupiter Juice in the lower  
Regions and suddenly there's swords and blood and history  
And evolution running amok.

Yes, the most intellectual of conferences (no women allowed  
They have a solution, but you don't want to know. It involves  
Doctor's offices, stirrups, and hammers, for a start)  
All in a big tent and we'll determine who wants to lead.  
We'll ban those bastards, of course, and anyone who  
Is willing to fight for the cause.

Have another Guinness, Alf. This is going to take some thought  
A whole lot of thought. A whole lot of Guinness.

****

Chapter 30: What is the Experience of Cartoons?

When Lollie entered the room, she fully expected the bartender to hand out Mickey Mouse masks. Not, she thought, that we really need them.

But the bartender was not the same bartender as before. A sleepy gray-haired woman poured Lollie a glass of draft. Lollie held it up to see if it had any bubbles. Just barely. She took her seat at the Usual Table.

Ten minutes later, Alf came in. He brought his beer to the table. "Hi, he said. He set a Daffy Duck mug on to the table and poured his beer into it. "Cheers," he said.

"Cheers. How are you, tonight?"

"Not bad. What happened to our bartender?"

"Beats me. Probably sold our poems for a million bucks and is living in Florida."

"Anything's possible. How's your poetry?"

"Some good, some not so good. Don't particularly like tonight's."

"I'm with you. I've written better. Something about the topic.

Cal and Blossom came up together, carrying their drinks. "What happened to our crazy bartender?" Cal held Blossom's chair for her.

"Don't know. Not sure whether to mourn or cheer. Did you bring a poem?"

"Of course. Not one of my better ones."

Blossom yawned. "We gotta meet earlier in the evening. I'm getting too old for midnight trysts. Maybe I'll take up knitting instead. I imagine knitters get to bed before ten."

"Don't think so." Lollie nodded to the bar. The new bartender was knitting as she watched the TV.

"Damn. Deal."

*

What is the Experience of Cartoons? [Alf]

"Hey!" I said, reaching up to tickle the feet just above me.  
"You're not dead yet, are you?" The feet didn't even wiggle but  
I continued anyway. "What's the matter, fella? No spidey-silk to  
Immobilize the Enemy? No Super-Powers to vanquish legions?"  
I squinted in the dry light to the sparse crowd below. The city  
Stank, and not just the smoke from Gehenna. Soldiers, bored as  
Plowhorses watched the clouds. I continued, eating a sandwich:  
"The Hulk could have slaughtered a few Romans with a timber  
That size, you know. Batman, even, would be standing on  
Herod's palace, right now, scowling."  
A drop of red blood just missed me: I could sell this stuff for  
A bundle, I thought, but what the hell.  
"You still up there?" I asked. "Fine way to spend a Saturday  
Morning. Eh?" I scratched my ribs. Looked around: the other  
Two guys were thoroughly dead. Crows picked at their eyes.  
"You won't be forgotten," I added. But even a demo of  
X-ray vision might have made a difference.  
Don't die on me yet: I'm not finished."  
But there was nothing I could add. A Superhero either is,  
Or isn't. You fight nasty monsters from other galaxies, or  
You don't.  
This fellow didn't. Two paths diverged on the dusty road to  
Jerusalem. Superjew took the one, and that has made all the  
Difference.

*

What is the Experience of Cartoons? [Calhoun]

One moment I was singing in the sunshine  
The next  
Someone drops this house on me

When that happens, you can be quite sure  
Some young brat will run up  
To steal your ruby slippers

Oh, I'm not bitter  
She was young, I was old  
And the locals were glad of something  
With a prettier face

I don't mind the slippers  
But I wish I still had the road  
The sunshine  
And the road.

*

What is the Experience of Cartoons? [Blossom]

Broom Hilda meets  
the Lyin' King?

order another pitcher, Lollie  
and one for the guys.

near the end, I used to use the Saturday comics  
as liner for the cat box  
before he got a chance to see them.

*

What is the Experience of Cartoons? [Lollie]

It seems that  
Sylvester the cat and  
Wile E. Coyote  
Have teamed up  
And neither Tweety Bird, nor  
Beep Beep  
Are answering their phones

I eat my raisin bran  
Drink a tea, and contemplate  
A large roll of dynamite  
On the kitchen table.

****

Chapter 31: Why Do Men Have Nipples?

Lollie sat alone at the Usual Table. The bartender was knitting a sweater. It was more exciting than what was on the television.

Blossom came in quickly, walked over to Lollie, and handed her a set of papers. "Hi," she said to Lollie. "Here are our poems. Gotta run."

Lollie checked them; both Blossom's and Cal's poems were there.

Ten minutes later, Alf came in. He brought his beer to the table. "Hi, he said. He set a Daffy Duck mug on to the table and poured his beer into it. "Cheers," he said.

"The others aren't coming," Lollie pushed the poems towards him.

"You read Blossom's, I'll read Cal's." Alf seemed abrupt.

"You in a hurry?"

"Not feeling as good as I could. Personal problems, you know." Alf played with his glass of beer, but didn't drink. "The myriad problems of aging, I guess." He smiled broadly. "And so to the poems."

But after the reading, he didn't seem inclined to stay. He left most of the glass of beer on the table, and escorted Lollie to the bus stop. She declined his offer of a ride home.

*

Why Do Men Have Nipples? [Alf]

Damn right, babe. A present from God, they are.  
A reminder that we are all in the same boat  
All on the same road, in a lesser way, maybe,  
But we men share the essence of life, birth,  
Motherhood, nurture, love, tenderness.  
It's all in the nipples, chicko. We are one, you  
And I. Sisters in the struggle, friends in the  
Hard streets, aware of the hardships of being Woman.

I kid you not, every man knows these two little suckers  
Are a bond between him and womanhood. We never  
Forget it, not us. We might pretend we do, but it's an act,  
Just an macho act. We carry these reminders  
Out in front of us, to share your pain, feel your  
Sorrows, celebrate your womanly triumphs.

You don't get any more sensitive than that, girl.

*

Why do Men Have Nipples? [Calhoun]

The night was full of stone  
The 401 lost in rain, so  
I pushed my way into a beer parlour  
In Deseronto

I needed a beer  
The ceiling needed painting  
The bartender needed teeth  
The guys at the next table needed  
To find a topic other than  
Their new nipple rings

May you never find  
A night so dark that  
Your church is a beer parlour  
In Deseronto.

*

Why Do Men Have Nipples? [Lollie]

Basil, like most men, did not like cats  
He called his own cat, "Mittens"  
Always assuring the world that his  
Cat would be transformed into that apparel  
Some drunken weekend  
And so serve him better.

"Barn cats, they're fine," he said, "and dockyard cats, too  
But I'm convinced God made  
The average house cat  
Just to show that not everything  
On this planet has a purpose  
And that even God  
Has a sense of humor."

*

Why do Men Have Nipples? [Blossom]

for just a moment, you think  
he  
might understand  
she

when I was young, I pretended  
my teddy could talk.

****

Chapter 32: Why Are Men?

After half an hour at the Usual Table, Lollie went up and took a seat at the bar.

In answer to Lollie's question, the bartender put down her knitting and rummaged around. "Ah," she said. "These might be for you." She handed Lollie two envelopes, both bearing instructions that they be given to poets who showed up on that particular night around midnight.

Inside one, Lollie found poems from Cal and Blossom. Inside the other, poems from Alf, and a brief note that he might not be able to attend the meetings for a while.

Lollie stuffed the poems, unread, into her purse. She finished her beer, and checked her watch. The bus would be along in a few minutes.

She left a tip for the bartender, and walked out into the midnight.

*

Why Are Men? [Calhoun]

In the morning, the old men dance  
On the highway

The boys have plastic guns -  
It is required

Sometimes the only difference between Trenton  
And the wasteland  
Is the raptor eye of Al Purdy  
Encompassing the sidewalk.

*

Why Are Men? [Blossom]

there are words that would not be spoken,  
doors to summer gardens that would otherwise  
stay closed

flowers that would long for  
the ravening of the bee.

myself, I would miss the way the lawn mowers  
cough into a silence that holds the jingle  
of the ice-cream vendor's cart

*

Why are Men? [Alf]

He sat in the sunlight  
At the door of the church  
Ignoring the bottle that  
He'd called Sally.

He lied, but dared not dream of hunger  
In case the great doors opened  
And he was forced to follow his heart  
Inside, and down those stairs again

Men do that; dissatisfied, you know

With all the right answers  
And all the easy lines.

In the basement of the church  
Webs were waiting. They knew his hunger, down there,  
His sowing and his reaping.

He would come again.  
He could not wait forever.

*

Why are Men? [Lollie]

They are desire, springing  
From the ground always  
The madness of a laugh  
That carries woman away

The faith of Canadian Tire  
The sacrifice in the thunderstorm  
Sound, fury, the melting of  
Ice

They are the washer going into  
Spin cycle  
The inevitable tour of  
Blankets  
Kings of the cloudshapes, and  
Wanton purveyors of the  
Sales of falling stars

Desire, yes, like dandelions  
On spring lawns.

The End

The tavern is empty

The ARBORITE TABLETOP, NOT FULLY DRY, REFLECTS THE TELEVISION IN THE CORNER
