people who have more

In Sunday’s Toronto Star there is a feature on Paul Godfrey, ex city councillor, CEO, etc. I have grown up with Paul Godfrey. He’s been a headliner. A nose for the front pages. Always leading with his chin.

Mr. Godfrey says that he has always admired ‘risk takers’. (Like Rockefeller, Al Capone, Lenin.) You hear this from people in business. Mr. Godrey does not mean risk takers in the arts. (My kid could draw that.) No. He means risk takers in business. People with vision, as he calls it.

Its a lie. What Mr. Godfrey means is that he admires people who are successful. People do not admire risk takers who fail. But to say that they admire risk takers who succeed is a mirage as well. What they admire is people who have more.

 

 

 

Then Terry died

I was almost a beat poet. Liked the whole idea of sitting around and listening to the chatter of voices. the patter of spoons in coffee cups. the bongos. and the almost endless and vaguely mystical poetry that filled the air. like sweat in a locker room. but then Terry died. Though I wouldn’t find out for twenty years. And rising up to read I realized that I was afraid of heights. And immediately began falling.

The poem here is from a book called The Baltimore Catechism. The book is free but if you hurry you can get it for half price.

…………………………

DIARY OF A WHITE VIRGIN

 

through the cracks in th

e wall i can hear the small talk rambling

on in the hall;

shelley looked so frightful

when her bronze boy lover left.

he left slamming the front door

but the house was mute and deaf.

i was smoking a cigarette

that put me on a wing – torn curtains drool upon the

streetlight shadows

an old oak drooping bent

over a hollow like’\

an old man begging for care and

then forgetting

why he’s there.

 

i tried to sketch your portrait

but you stole my rock.

 

a roman circus passes my way

eight days after friday;

candlelight

unknown voices

soar to flame

so i go dreaming down the street

smoking

drinking

sucking.

 

the grass is smoke

upon the factory’s heat.

all the walls flee

you’re not impressed by their rout.

 

breeze caresses the flame.

 

rubber careemed off the street

black shivering beds

sighing with the roll and scortch

magic dawn flushes,

the fury of the night stalls.

 

laces of my boots cry

that its someone to pray to.

toothless sun laughing at me.

walls are closing floor rising up.

i want to go up and touch your face.

dust drained from his skull.

the caution signs r blind

perfume swallows the air.

 

silence bleeds.

 

TIMBRE yells the vet

before he mends the old hookers

falling crotch. lovers separate

& crawl into marble rabbit holes.

i saw the hardwood melt

down upon your face.

 

against a bus stop he leans

with his guns in his eyes.

 

kissed a girl who didn’t want to be touched

manufacture some hate

aren’t you getting kinda stout?

 

don’t you realize yr a self

conceited egg tonight i met

jesus with a bottle of zing in his hand.

a lonely elephant asked me today

if

i was as mirror of discontent.

 

we should all wear pink

and be forced to carry around portable sinks.

 

drenching darkness empress

coca cola clown

onion blood baby

blow me. let me follow it down your throat.

i have sat inside my room

placed my fingers inside your wounds

touch’d things smoother than moonlight,

seen you hide from the cruel dancers.

 

a spider weaves suicide across the moon

t hide the memory of a king

who hung himself one afternoon

one sticky afternoon in the seaweed

beneath big blackman’s beach.

 

spring lingers on

sleeping under the snow.

 

moses kissd all the virgins with rain,

gave them passports,

put them on the cattle train.

 

one must please the customer.

 

DANCE LITTLE LADY

DANCE UNTIL YOUR FEET ARE THE FLOOR

DANCE UNTIL YOU CAN’T DANCE ANYMORE

DANCE LITTLE LADY

DANCE FOR US ALL

THERE’S NO TIME TO BE LEFT AT EASE

DANCE LITTLE LADY WOULD YOU PLEASE

 

my bride stood before me in yellow

she was scrawny

naked

& sour. a tinge of resentment on her breath.

get outta here

i mean would you please leave the room

i wonna think about the love you gave me

but i don’t want to think about you.

 

joann

i can hear my daddy’s poetry

building stand naked

& faceless

sounds of groaning uncles

& their voices.

i met a child in the back of the back room.

she came wearing a badge.

i lifted her latch

burnt her on my minute steak.

 

i announced i was running for god

& everybody gathered around to ask why.

don’t get too close

i couldn’t handle an overdose.

 

close your eyes. you’ll never go blind.

watch the seagulls fly in their cage

broken beer bottles in the grass awaiting a victim.

lonely romeo trapped in her canyon

a wooden waste basket full of crawling hands

a crowd of a thousand breathing

a skinned woman

desks and silver spoons choking

her visions of you have kept her

up through the night.

she weeps like a tyrant.

 

through the cracks in the wall. i

can hear the rambling on

of small talk in the hall.

look at michael trying to apolo

gize with his jokes and his cur

ls and his gift of pea

rls and his lost wor

lds. antiques will replace old ladies.

my grudges she warms like white coals.

– i’m losing the beat.

 

what about the year of 56

when men breathed fire

and men threw sticks.