It never rains
but it pours
vodka and falls
down drunk.
. . . . .
A Zoo at the Blue Metropolis Bleu
Human cannonballs host book launches.
Traipse Artists sign autographs upside-down.
Do not feed the animals at the Flea Circus.
Do not poke fun at the comic book clowns.
You must be this tall to ride the elevator.
You must clap for the Dancing Russian Bear.
After a feeding frenzy of: So, who are you?
There is no fish left for the trained seals.
. . . . .
SHORT STUFF LAUNCH
My short story “Precipice”, 2003 winner of the Quebec Short Story Competition, has been published in Short Stuff, the second anthology of winning stories of the CBC/QWF Short Story Competition.
The launch will be held tomorrow, Saturday, April 2, at 5:30 pm., in the Jeanne-Mance room of Hyatt Regency Hotel (1255 Jeanne-Mance, in the Complexe Desjardins).
This event is free and open to the public. Copies of the book will be on sale onsite at the Blue Met bookstore.
Metropolis Literary Festival-
http://www.blue-met-bleu.com
“Precipice”-
http://luckysoap.com/publications
. . . . .. . . . .
Reading Sharon Olds
The Eye
My bad grandfather wouldn’t feed us.
He turned the lights out when we tried to read.
He sat alone in the invisible room
in front of the hearth, and drank. He died
when I was seven, and Grandma had never once
taken anyone’s side against him,
the firelight on his red cold face
reflecting extra on his glass eye.
Today I thought about that glass eye,
and how at night in the big double bed
he slept facing his wife, and how the limp
hole, where his eye had been, was open
towards her on the pillow, and how I am
one-fourth him, a brutal man with a
hole for an eye, and one-fourth her,
a woman who protected no one. I am their
sex, too, their son, their bed, and
under their bed the trap-door to the
cellar, with its barrels of fresh apples, and
somewhere in me too is the path
down to the creek gleaming in the dark, a
way out of there.
Sharon Olds, from The Dead and the Living
. . . . .
sunny, but wind
Now it’s sun on the face.
Now it’s wind in the ear.
Cold going, walking in the shade,
sweating by the time I get anywhere.
. . . . .
first spring rain
The first spring rain hangs in the air
grey as dog hair floating the hallway.
In the park, the ice is ruined,
like smashed honeydew rinds.
. . . . .
a few beers
A vernissage beer turned into
Two ‘let’s meet for a drink’ beers.
Which led to another beer with dinner.
And then I met up with some friends.
Big guys, buying round after round.
By the end of the night I was a full bottle behind.
In the morning I found a steak knife in my purse.
I guess we went to a restaurant after.
At least the knife was clean.
. . . . .
I dreamt of duels
I dreamt of gunfights. Not Wild Western ones.
More gentlemanly, more strategic. Duels.
I was a second in a fight to the death.
But I wandered off to shop for belts.
Not gentlemanly at all of me.
The belts were Western ones.
. . . . .
far off projects
I have been writing grant applications.
Descriptions of projects in far off countries.
Summer in the States, winter in Warsaw.
I wish those two were the other way around.
. . . . .
equally thin
Today I wore a wool blazer instead of a coat.
My coat is a hand-me-down, the ex of an ex.
The blazer is a hand-me-down too,
but it at least, was hand tailored.
I walked ten blocks in un-broken-in boots.
I wore jeans so new they dyed my legs blue.
My first pair of new jeans this millennium.
I bought my last pair of new boots in 1996.
It’s not like I came into money or anything.
I had to take a temp job so I could pay for it all.
And not because I was tired of the old stuff either.
All at once everything I owned wore equally thin.
. . . . .