Eating a Mars Bar

Eating a Mars Bar

Eating a Mars Bar. While its down there. In T.O. I told her. A Mick Jagger sex tip. She tried it with her next boyfriend. Everything I did for her. She could have given me something more than a smile. And then she got pregnant. And I was in Seattle. When I met her daughter. Who was a nurse. A little portly. An obvious weakness. For chocolate.

Later you asked me

Political Speeches

I caught you smiling. Canvassing the room. Looking for your male counterpart. We ended up lying to each other. Pre-photographic horizontal manipulations across your bed. You smoothed out my wrinkles. And  told me that I was a habit. You could not afford.

You said you were Joan Baez. I said I was Dr. Neil Thomas Cream. Soap on your shoulder. Hand on your waist. Tell me that you love me. If only for the moment.

Later you asked me. Don’t you think its time. You went home.

Standing at my door

Standing at my door. Sitting on my chair. Laying in my bed. No one there. You talked at 100 mph. Kept stuffing yourself. Into an envelope. Of generalizations. I didn’t want to tell you. That in your loneliness you already had me. All you had to do was stop talking. The silence would have healed you. But you kept ripping off the scab.

Suitable for children

Good Friday. When I was a kid and attending Church on Good Friday. I listened. And listened. It was the longest gospel of the year. And it was about betrayal. Framing an innocent man. Torture. A brutal execution. It is one of the darkest images of one’s youth. And I fidgeted in my seat. Dressed in a suit. My tie to tight. The starch in my shirt chafing my neck. Like I said, the darkest hour of one’s youth. Looking back I wonder if anyone asked themselves if this was suitable for children.

The magic of film is recreated, taken apart, examined and lovingly satirized in an unusual work of fiction. David Halliday imagines a BBC documentary about ‘the well known Canadian film maker Samuel Bremmer’. We see moments of the films themselves; we hear the words of the actors, the designers and the commentary of the director, Samuel Bremmer. The illusion of film, and how it is created against a backdrop of money problems, personality clashes, jealousies, ambitions, love and vanity. Originally published by Press Porcepic.

City of Gold

 

1.

wind a pilgrim across a cold

barren flatland in search of shelter

small plants huddle

close to the ground

sky dark clouds climbing higher and higher

falling over each other like wolves

ravenous.

 

SAMUEL BREMMER: I took a ride up to Churchill on the rail, the North Pole Express. It’s the only way you can get to Churchill by land. Train travels about forty miles an hour. At top speed. Usually goes slower. And it stops periodically when people wave it down. Like you’d wave a bus down in the south. .. Carries mostly freight and Indians. It’s not so much a train trip as a way of life.. . One Indian stared at my gear for a while and asked if I was going hunting. Told him I was going up to shoot the tundra, to film snow. He looked at me for a very long time before he spoke again. Your snow no good? he said quite seriously. The snow in the south is shit, I replied. There was another long pause before he responded with a smile. I myself have been of that opinion for some time, he said. After this breakthrough the Indian and I introduced ourselves. His name was George although all his friends called him Eisenhower. He had worked for the American forces during the war watching out for German submarines in Hudson Bay. I used Eisenhower and two of his friends in a lot of the distant footage in the film. When we finished making the movie I returned to Churchill with a copy of the film to show Eisenhower. When he saw himself he refused to believe it was him. My legs are not so short, he claimed…

(To be continued)

No matter how many times they rub up against our leg

I was not always sure of animals. Everyone else seemed to treat them like furniture or pets. As a young lad I used to sit on the fence and look at my grandfather’s cows for hours. People thought I was a little queer. (Things were confirmed when I in my teens I grew my hair long.) But I thought that cows had something to say. To contribute to the conversation. On the planet. Except they never talked. Pigs bothered me. I really think they have their eyes on our position. As the top of the food chain. But pets, like dogs and cats. They are our allies. On this planet. And they do talk to us. But we’re not too clever. Can’t understand them. No matter how many times they rub up against our leg.

 

SAMPLE FROM MY BOOK “The Adventures of Fred and Me: Episode One, Divorce and Kitty Litter.

I motioned to Fred and the two of us tiptoed out of the bedroom. We went into the living room. I poured myself a scotch. Fred asked for the same. I went into the kitchen and got him a saucer of milk. It was a warm summer evening so we took our drinks and sat out on the back fence, and watched the moon. It was a full moon, like a scoop of French Vanilla ice cream. There were a few wispy clouds wandering around. They looked like lambs that had strayed from the flock. The rest of the sky looked like a parking lot filled with stars.

“Does the moon make ripples when it drifts across the sky?” Fred asked.

I shook my head.

“You’re absolutely sure of that, Dave?”

I shook my head. “I’m not absolutely sure of most things. You should know that by now, Fred. But, I’m damn sure that the moon doesn’t cause ripples when it moves through space.”

“Then you haven’t studied Einstein’s description of gravity which clearly shows that gravity acts as a well to objects around it, like a stone dropped into a pool of water. And that’s not all, Dave. Did you know that there is not enough matter in the universe? Isn’t that depressing? All the dead stars and dead planets, all the flotsam from the Big Bang can’t compensate for all the matter that is needed to balance the books. We’re running out of fresh water, clean air, natural resources, and cottage country, and now we’re told there isn’t enough matter. They should have a lottery and divide what’s left up between us. I’ll bet those rich bastards in Rosedale are hoarding all that matter in numbered bank accounts. They should set up a government commission to investigate.”

Fred gargled his milk.

I took out my pipe and filled it with some Dutch tobacco. “I’ve always admired the Dutch,” I said. “Such a tolerant people.”

Fred muttered something about dikes that I didn’t find amusing. It was to my mind, insensitive. Fred said that everything funny was insensitive.

“The trouble with you, Dave,” Fred said between laps around his saucer of milk, “is that you believe that time really exists. If you could conquer that misconception, you’d find that there was really nothing to keep you awake.”

“You don’t believe that time exists?” I asked, taking a sip of my scotch and a puff of my pipe.

Fred shook his head. “It’s just the way the mind has of filing things, a way of cataloguing events. Time doesn’t exist for example the way a horse exists, or for that matter, Descartes.” Fred slapped his knee with his paw, rolled over on his back, and roared with laughter.

 

And then we are not

 

There was one they found with a needle in his arm. OD’d. Another who died of a heart attack. With a gun in his hand. One in a psychiatric ward. One in jail. One on a bottle. One on an oxygen tank. One living in the suburbs with his family. All artists. Of different degrees. None wanted to suffer. Most to be truthful. It is a life that promises nothing. And gives what it promises. It is everyone’s life bared down to its essentials. Without the retirement home. And the bank account. We are all alive. And then we are not.

 

 

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

………………………………………………….

I Am A Landscape Painter

My face is gone. Senses bared like skin pulled back over a face by a coroner. Etherized on a table. I can hear the piano keys eating fingers. The tenor’s voice has no mouth. I can smell cancer on her clothes. The soft touch of shade between her legs. Taste the liquor of God in the sky. I have lobotomized the education system from every hemisphere. Taken my censors out on the town and gotten them hammered. My wiring is in chaos. The owl is not in the sky; the sky is in the owl. The artist does not stand aloof from his work but steps into the canvas and tries to paint his way out. I paint nothing on the canvas until it is there. The world does not exist; it appears.

You better have a big mouth. With fat lips.

You better have a big mouth. With fat lips. Reading an article about introverts/extroverts in the New York Times Review of Books. The writers who excelled were the squeaky wheels. Artists who weren’t alpha were nada. Selling yourself. That’s what separates successful artists from those who fall by the wayside. I’m standing on the wayside. Most everyone else is bent over at the waist and upchucking their work. A lot of artists aren’t good or comfortable selling themselves. Especially early in their careers. Unfortunately publishers and galleries don’t have the time or inclination to harbor these artists until they get their sea legs. I saw a fish once that had sea legs. He was walking up a beach. But when he saw what we had become he turned around and headed back home.

 

Its as if women were kryptonite

I wonder if this is a power we all have. I’m watching television. News program. (I was watching the IOWA caucus results.) And when people are talking live, I can look behind their public persona. Not just the politicians but the news commentators as well. Its uncanny the vibrations you feel. (When I looked behind Perry’s mask as his mind went blank in a debate, I saw a little boy crying from a scraped knee.) BUT when you watch a movie or anything rehearsed and taped, you can’t see anything. But live people are open books.  People at work are talking to me, and I’m peeking into their real thoughts. Or shopping. At Starbucks. This applies to almost any situation I’m in as well. Except one. When a beautiful woman is talking to me, my mind goes blank. I can’t read a thing. Its as if women were kryptonite.

This story concerns masks. That people present to the world. And one old man who has adopted a whole persona.

…………….

EVERYONE WANTS TO BE SOMEONE. ELSE

“So…” Ralph Sampson cried. Looking down. A large black man looking down. At the demure coyly decorous middle-aged man below. A small white chubby man. Ralph was standing at the top of a ladder. Like the vantage point from the crucifix. Ralph liked the view. It was strangely empowering. As if by seeing the world from such a height he could see truths. Not available to the lowland man. That’s what the astronauts must have seen. On their little skate across the sky. Ralph looked around. The top of the shelves were revealing. Nothing was added to make their appearance appealing. There was dust. Old candy wrappers, spider webs. And to Ralph’s surprise, several condoms. Used.

Ralph was packing toilet paper rolls. Like clouds in cellophane. Packed high. An adventure for customers. Who wanted to get one down. I’m trying Mildred. But they’re so high. There were of course accidents. Puff avalanches. Luckily they weren’t cartons of cola. A truth ran through Ralph’s thoughts. It’s a sin to tell a lie. And why hadn’t those astronauts rolled downhill. Like Jack and Jill.

“You call yourself the wanderer,” Ralph spoke from his perch. Like God to Moses. That’s not the decorous middle-aged man’s name. He called himself Ralph Bellamy. For the purposes of clarity, we shall call him Bellamy.

“Yes.” Bellamy replied. By the way, Bellamy looked nothing like Moses. Or the Hollywood version of Moses. Ralph Bellamy straightened out. Not his life but his bow tie. Licked a finger to wet down a rebellious group. Of hairs. That kept threatening to rise up. From the masses on his head. The proletariat of keratinous filaments.

“I got the name from a 50s song, The Wanderer. Performed by Dion and the Belmonts.” Bellamy smiled. Not expecting that the tall dark figure on top of the very long ladder would recognize the song.

“I know that song,” Ralph Sampson said. “My father used to sing it to my mother. When he decided to take his vacation. Or when he forgot something.”

“They took separate holidays,” Bellamy suggested.

Ralph Sampson shook his head.

“My mother never took a holiday. There were nine of us in the family. Someone had to stay home and pull the plow.”

“Enough said,” Bellamy responded. His chest shaking with mirth.

Ralph Sampson stepped down from the ladder. A step at a time. No point in taking chances. Of missing that simple step. Ralph’s medical coverage didn’t cover accidents. Incurred on the job. Strange clause for a pharmacy to have.

“I like to wander,” Bellamy said, his eyes glistening with excitement. “Wander around. Especially here in the drug store. Drug stores remind me of the 1950s.”

“You liked the 50s?”

“Yes. My name is Ralph Bellamy.”

Ralph Sampson looked at the little man. Bellamy smiled. Sampson smiled back. The polite thing to do. Bellamy expected the younger, taller, and recent African émigré to ask for his autograph. But Ralph Sampson had never heard of Ralph Bellamy. He had never heard of anyone else being named Ralph. It was a shock when Ralph Bellamy introduced himself. And somewhat of a let down. He thought he was unique.

“That’s nice,” Ralph Sampson responded.

There was a look of disappointment on the old man’s face.

“You really don’t know me, do you?” Bellamy asked.

Ralph Sampson shook his head.

“Should I?”

“Well, you might. Ralph Bellamy was a famous actor in the 50s. And into the 60s. Mostly in television. Not so much on the big screen.”

“So you’re famous?” Ralph Sampson asked. Ralph didn’t trust famous people. Usually their celebrity was used to relieve common people of their purses.

“Well, Ralph Bellamy was.” Bellamy blushed. “I’m wasn’t born Ralph Bellamy. My real name is Dexter Peebody. I legally changed my name to Ralph Bellamy in 1994. The second Sunday of lent.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Ralph Sampson stared at the older man. He was taller then he looked from the top of the ladder. But heavier. And there was a small almost invisible scar under his left eye. He had tried to trim his eyebrows. While he was hanging from a swing. Upside down. When he was eleven.

“People kept telling me,” Bellamy spoke, “that I looked like the actor. So I changed my name. It seemed natural. Ralph Bellamy might not even have been his name. Actors are always changing their name. Maybe there was no real person named Ralph Bellamy. Makes you think.”

The tall African nodded. This deserved a good deal of thought. Which he didn’t have time for. There was pasta to be layed out. On the shelves.

“So you took the name of a well known actor because you looked like him.” He spoke these words questioningly. But it cannot be said that it was an actual question. Since he already knew the answer.

Bellamy nodded. “You could say that. Also I love the 50s.”

“Don’t you feel lost?” Ralph Sampson took out box cutter and began to cut up the boxes that toilet paper had been delivered in. These had to be broken down, tied together and put out for garbage. For recycling. As new boxes. A version of reincarnation with the depressing small print. We shall all return as ourselves.

“Lost?” Bellamy enquired.

“Your name is out there someplace,” Ralph explained. “On a library card. Or a hospital band. A childhood notebook. But it has no owner. It’s suspended. In time. And place.”

“I…” Bellamy hesitated. He was confused. “I don’t get your meaning.”

“Your real name. Dexter Peebody. Has no home.”

Bellamy shrugged his shoulders. He still didn’t understand what the tall African was talking about. A name was just a few words. It wasn’t like he had abandoned a child.

Bellamy pointed at the ID card on Ralph’s uniform.

“We have the same first name,” he said then continued to talk without waiting to receive the clerk’s response. “Everything was so well ordered then. In the 50s. People knew their place. Now everything is in an upheaval. Maybe its all these new people coming into the country. Back then it was mostly Irish and Poles who were the underclass. Now it changes every week. People from every corner of the world. I don’t mean the world is a box.” Bellamy thought about that last statement for a moment. It was quite unnecessary. So why had he been compelled to clarify his statement about corners? Bellamy shook his head. “Look around the drug store. It’s so well organized. Just like the 50s. Everything has a place. Reminds me of the airport. Safety dictates order. Comforting don’t you think.”

Ralph Sampson looked around the shop. The little man was right about the order. But. How else could you organize a store? Ralph Sampson was beginning to believe that he and Ralph Bellamy were the opposite of soul mates. Was there a name for such a relationship?

“Why do you call yourself the wanderer?” the clerk asked.

Bellamy chuckled although it seemed to have nothing to do with the words he spoke.

“Didn’t I answer that question at the beginning of our conversation?”

The clerk nodded. “Oh yes. The 50s song. But why do you come into the drug store?”

“To think. Out there,” Ralph Bellamy’s mind drifted off into unpleasant memories of the world outside the drugstore. “Outside everything is so messy. Disorganized. Chaos rules. It’s all you can do to walk in a straight line. In here, thoughts wander through my head. Easily. It’s like church, but cleaner.” The little man straightened out his tie.

“And what thought comes to you today?” the clerk asked.

“Well,” Bellamy said looking around the aisle. “Look at that stand of toilet paper you’ve just assembled.”

The African looked at the product of his labour. “Yes. What about it?”

The little man leaned toward the tall clerk.

“Well, kind of makes you speculate on all the assholes that will be wiped by those tissues. Imagine them. Thousands of assholes. Flying around like bats. Swimming like fish in a school. All those brown little mouths sucking on tissues.”

The clerk stepped back. His face screwed up.

“Cat got your tongue?” Bellamy asked.

“That’s a very disturbing image, Mr. Bellamy.”

Bellamy laughed.

“Oh son. That’s the power of poetry.”

Ralph Sampson thought about that for several moments.

“Why would you change your name? What was wrong with your original name? Dexter Peebody. It’s not so bad. Your parents gave it to you? It’s how you were introduced into this world.” Ralph Sampson thought for a moment. “Is there something you’re trying to hide?”

Bellamy shook with laughter.

“Hide. Of course not. In the future everyone will change their name. Everyone wants to be someone. Someone famous. Changing your name gives you a jump start. Why be Joe Blow when you can be Sylvester Stallone? If you want to be rebellious and conflicted, troubled and angry, you might change your name to James Dean. Perhaps you want to be sexy but intelligent. With a streak of the melodramatic and tragic. Why, you might name yourself Marilyn Monroe. Perhaps you see yourself as enigmatic but brilliant. Einstein might be your moniker. There could be millions of Brandos. Thousands of Reagans. We will imitate our heroes. Become them. In person as well as in name.”

The clerk stared at the little man for several moments before responding.

“What happens to individuality?” he asked.

Ralph Bellamy smiled. “Why, then you become T. S. Eliot.”

Whiskers to whiskers.

Our hearts were broken. I was 8. My sister was 7. Toots was 1. Maybe. And she wasn’t trained. But we didn’t care. She was Toots. One day gone. No Toots. Our mother told us that she had run off. We knew it was a lie. No more cats in my life, I determined. But all the women I have lived with loved cats. And they were all pests. Or jealous. One always ran at your ankles when you were descending the steps. Trying to send you plummeting to your death. Another had a taste for testicles. In the middle of the night the beast would grab a hold of your manhood. Some were fat. Sitting there on the couch where I wanted to lay down. Daring you. We did have a cat when my son was born. He lived for over 20 years. He was my son’s cat. Never came near me. Until I had to bury him. But now we have a cat. B&W. Most affectionate animal I have every encountered. We sleep whiskers to whiskers. He likes me. I like him.

………………………..

HER TAIL RAN ACROSS THE SMALL BOY’S FACE

Like a fashion model down the ramp. Step by step. Eyes riveted. Ahead. Shoulders in a military pose. Tip toes. Her tail rose perpendicular to her body. Her golden hairs were smooth and soft. There was a certain demure smile on her face. Whiskers curled melodiously out from her cheeks. The golden cat moved across the top of the shelves. She looked down at Alvin sitting in his stroller. His little head turned upwards to the monitor. He was enthralled. With what he saw on the screen. It annoyed the golden cat. This child captivated by the monitor hanging from the ceiling. While she was there. To be looked at. Her foot steps became smaller. She found some invisible steps. To the floor. Arched her body against the stroller and rubbed. Alvin did not react. She rubbed against his legs. Still there was no reaction. He kept looking at the screen. She leaned closer to the little boy, her body almost perpendicular to the ground so intent was she on grasping the boy’s attention. Her tail ran across the small boy’s face. He smiled. And grabbed the tail. The cat screeched. Caught. Tried to pull loose. Turned on Alvin. Hissed. But it was the boy who pulled. There was a look of triumph in his eyes. His teeth jagged. He laughed. Feline eyes bulged. The golden cat panicked. And struggled to free herself. Alvin held on tighter. The cat crouched, crawling down the aisle, pulling the stroller behind her. Alvin threw his head back. Like Judah Ben Hur. His mouth open to the breeze. And laughed.

There is a hell

One of the first images I had of sheer terror was a dream I had as a child. A man is thrown off a boat. In the middle of the ocean. It is a beautiful day. Blue sky. Sea calm. Warm light breeze. And the man alone. The ship sailing away.

And then I read about the slave ships. Packed in like… I was going to say sardines. But there is no like anything here. Because you cannot imagine human beings being treated like this. The smell. Corpses. Rotting. Rats. Sea sick. The cries of death. Corpses thrown overboard. Brought up from these holes to the fresh air. Small groups. Some would jump overboard. Most would breath in deeply. Then return to their hell.

I read that the wealth of America was built on the backs of slaves. Africans. The indebted serfs of Irish immigrants. The Chinese labor.

There is a hell. For some it is on earth.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

…………………………….

SLAVE TRADE

the drums of deepest africa

clang in the darkening city

- the muffled stacato of expectant sleep.

the sea slaps the side of the ship

echoes pulsing through the hull

- mumbled utterings and insomniac spasms of energy.

history and consciousness wed in the nebulous drift

where we lay under ransom, prisoners of neither

illusion nor reality, straddling the fringe of our sanity.

the savage beatings and curses

and the skin strangled ribs

- the serenity of cunning nightmare.

metal clanging and the scurry of tiny feet on the rafters

a woman moans,

flesh is born and seperated

- the tap is sweating.