Monthly Archives: August 2011
prose poem of the past
on washrooms and likeness
Julie’s always wondering why she’s drawn to the one washroom stall (in any given washroom) with the faulty lock. Once in it, awkwardly holding the door shut with one hand, she reflects that occasionally in life you feel like you’re an actor when you’re not even acting.
She feels like a warm-water crab in her mango-kiwi bubble baths. Partly because she is a Cancer (perhaps in more than one way). And can’t bring herself to eat seafood due to feeling too akin to sea creatures. Julie finds it ironic that mental is half of the word ‘sentimental’. And while splashing in her bathtub she thinks about how passing of time makes for the learning of lessons and attempting to move forward (not sideways like she had for some time) in shallow suds.
A program on the Discovery Channel once said: “Crabs don’t congregate; they need their own space and time to keep to themselves. Sure they come across another crab or two at times, but a brief chat is enough, some clacking of claws and they’re off on their way”. Julie sees the crab’s inability to give back massages as a fortunate one. At least for them it’s not a matter of lacking skill, but of lacking the proper implements.
forgotten bits
I’ve stumbled upon some old, rather minimalist poems from my advanced undergrad poetry workshop back in 2005, I believe. I decided to put a couple of them up (including my post ‘train-ed’) and would like to dedicate them to the late Robert Allen, who was a great writer and friend. I have him to thank for getting me excited about poetry again, which was crucial to striking the fulfilling balance of prose/poetry my work has arrived at 6 years later.
before 10 p.m.
Ben doesn’t care that a baby died
in the pool
he wants to go for a swim
splash about, splishitty sound
while I hand wash a rug
or look at the montreal skyline
in specks of blurred light and
concrete bordered
from 23 floors up
several seconds stretched to a century of rinsing
the funny thing
about being
in the sink
is it’s the only time
one feels
like the dishes
robotic 9-5
she was modular
her hair, rubber cable
caused a hush to fall over the office
and the walls to hold their dry breaths
in drowned cubical calm
in doubled daily doses
in barely blue,
in moss green,
in slate grey
soft tones
muted textures
you – muffled
like your attire
train-ed
men and women.
Rained and winded windows, trucks
beyond blurred metal, concrete and cold.
Places in passing.
People dispersing like gases
of green gold and grey.
Side streets vacant –
freezing rain golfballs form ice blanket
over nada nil trapped little towns,
flickering past, elapsed fast.
She was vague like the
space she travelled through.
On tracks.
Lined with trees.
Scrap metal wood rubbish
dirty debris,
that she somehow saw
as ‘so pretty’.
Weathered wreckages
had nowhere to go.
Thanks to all the
nowhere-places
they’d already been.
reflective and simultaneously matte
With mere weeks before my departure, a lengthy chapter of life closed, I am relatively powerless against my mind and body making certain associations. Correlations. Nostalgia/nausea. Love/loss. Uncertainty has resulted in an acute inability to focus on the more encouraging End/begin (but I’m working on it). As of late, if I had to use only one word to describe things, me, this post, it would have to be mushy.
“I’m in the mood for you. Or running away.”