(like a wedding)
she had one once; it was
a happy day
must
ob-
serve
the social
graces (
her daughter’s life
was embarrass-
ment enough)
seems like yes-
terday
she
met and fell in
love
with
a Black Man
a refugee from the
war for Civil Rights
• a taboo embraced
• a disgrace born
• estrangement sworn
a baptist wedding:
$1000 with a potluck
dinner yuri &
yukiko were the maids-
of-honour
with Rev (small “c” christian)
Dave
presiding
the black &
community
drank,
sang & danced
but
laughter gave way to tears
years
of wandering
the wilderness
with a child
born outside with-
out blessing, with-
scorn and
out of
shame
came defiance I am not
what you say I am . . . I am soul on ice, sister
to
the black saints to Malcolm,
Eldridge, the Panthers
with the courage to create
but then she reached
out to her own
no
one
understood,
identified, and she spit in our
faces
and disappeared.
eventually teaching
taught
her compassion so
she embraced the sansei
ethos
—of denial, no history, the suburbs, lost customs and traditions
and wrapped a-way
her anger of her youth. to be put
away,
stored in a trunk somewhere
In her hospital bed,
her
mother dismissed, her
child a comfort,
she struggled
against the cancer
as Reverend [Buddhist this time]
Grant [a touch of compassion]
shared
the Dharma with her
and she cried
but not out of sorrow self-
pity or the fear
of the gloom of darkness
she cried
as the enlightened self
and closed her eyes
as the tears
solidified and glued
her
sight shut.
i didn’t
know her well
but
at least in
the end we
met
in the
Buddha Dharma
and I am grateful.
Nighthawks
at
the diner
a neon wash a-
cross
venetian blinds
splinters
and lightdrop-
lets
in-
to the restaurant
Gerde
leaves the pieces on the floor
the flatscreens stream
the hockey brawls for no one in particular
maybe
Nat King Cole
and the Tijuana brass
or Mantovani Music to Strip By
tired record covers
and
publicity shots of:
Betty Grable, Bette Davis,
and Bogart, Bacall and even
Johnny Mercer pinned mute
against the wall
maybe they pay attention.
maybe
the only ones
flapjacks over
easy or is that
the eggs?
rack ’em with an Apple Betty
for de-ssert
what’s the soup today?
split-pea, but hold
the bacon
any specials?
“did you hear
the one
’bout
the new Jew dog?”
Gerde shakes her head and wipes the counter.
“it’s a cross
between
a Spaniel and Bathurst
Get it?
Do ya get it?”
Gerde half- smiles and pours the coffee
“You know, Spadina &
Bathurst? Jewtown?”
“Yeah, I get it. [Lot of cold
people in Toronto.
that’s why out west
they say it’s
colder
than a heart in Toronto.]”
anti-Semitic philosophy on a vinyl spinaround
with a side of asinine
the lateness of night
turns the joint
into
a Brother Waits sermon while we
fall
un-
to our beers
and we turn to the blues in a
Hopper
painting
sipping cups of coffee while
dreaming
about
our tomorrows
and
knowing there ain’t none.
while i listen
to some asshole
coming
on
to old Gerde whose
broken teeth
speak of romance decades ago
he
just wants some company [she
just
wants to go home
and i want to listen
to the
next record
nighthawks at the diner
while
i
eat
my blue-plate special:
sweet & sour porkchops
with a side of fries, slaw
and topped with
melancholy.
The Heart
of
Saturday night.
Richard’s a once fabled resto
at the inter-section of
Dundas and a
tea room: hooker- infested
and
long dead,
Tom waits on the
phoney-
graph
singing
his gravelled
blues
for the days that
have gone by-bye
i sat with Judy long ago
her
future cloaked in
a confusion of
a gurgling child
with fetal alcohol syndrome
its
face
distorted its mind
conflicted confused edged
with death
her soul
seared with hate and the love
of the father,
but not that night;
no,
an evening of scampi and
wine
the grapefruit wedge after the appetizer
don’t ask
for more bread
you may be thrown out like garbage
into
Dundas
rainywet asphalt smeared with
deadbodies in the alleyway
died of broken hearts & exposure
hookers and homeless circle;
a concrete street
with
the filmore beckoning
with mascara’d
women
in nylon-meshed
legs
Richard, the brawny scot
proud of his food once
threw out a sold-out
night of
CBC
cognoscenti idiots of
fashion because they
demanded butter
for their bread.
Judy’s eyes cobalt glo of
eyes candle-sparkled
blue bright
spiked
a hint of evening as if
telling me
maybe we
will
be
one.
[a hint of the working class in her sharp
cheeks, in her eastend voice] short height &
hunger
but no, no
such
thoughts in our
search for the heart of most nights,
her lips soft her rose perfume
reminiscent
of a rainstorm her hair as
luxurious as an
erupting coke bottle
I don’t deserve her,
my
arrogance
exceeds my asian desire
and vanity of my worthless-ness
we drove the streets towards
the east-
end deadend hopes
as the wheels sizzled
in
the rain that night.
i never
saw her again
deadlost in the ever-changing
swirl
of events
but i wander back to that night
every time
i stand outside the window
of that emptydead restaurant
of long-ago meals
and
afterhour drinks in the
denouement of
a cityscape
evening.
those were the days of roses, of poetry & prose and
his voice
was
weak, the last time
I spoke to him
on the telephone, a landline,
A tribute to
our
youth
misspent & wasted
[ ]
there was a rasp
to it
like a voice from the grave.
he
was saying
goodbye.
from a nursing home up Christie
in-to the
Avenue Rd after-
club playing Evans
heavens bill evans
on a beat-up up-right getting
those syncopations
and
modulations right a Waltz for Holly
he
was caught by her shadowed smile
siren lips
her ardent bosom and twisted
tangled legs
they ended the night near
Chinatown
a lower Bathurst
apartment. of peeling wallpaper, musty smells of
meals half attempted, half eaten.
an artist’s loft; an intellectual’s conversation coffee-klatch
right
down
to deco posters, Sylvia Plath and cheap brandy with
marijuana images on the side
a decades long love-affair the
poetry
of angst and
the music of suffering
ended with amputated legs
(shapely legs)
in her sanctification in a
hospital bed far from that
cigarette-caked smoke
burdened
genius-filled-
conversations
jazz-club with the scratchy
Dizzy Gillespie mingus
parker records
revolving as sonorous horns swirled
into
the romantic unholy night.
goodbye roy
“i’ll talk to you soon,” he said with faint hope
I could
feel him
sigh, bent over and perhaps
fallen
into
his regrets
as I held my own middle of despair
bemoaning
the
loss of jazz, artists and red-lit
nightclubs i never knew.
Closin’ Time at the 5 & Dime
the neon buzzes
underneath the
Coffeetime Donuts sign
in the attempt to be cheerful,
welcoming
but
Gladys
is
working the last hour of a 15-hour shift
the light coats any goodwill
with apathy
with a kind of sepulchral mask
and she is limping
on withered legs ulcerated and dripping pus
just
to get the order right
a crueller, honey-glazed,
cake donut with a double-double
medium size coffee, forget the Venti/
grande, tall-short shit.
a snap of the bag and a pour out of the carafe
and that’s all she wrote.
“this here place
used to be a Dairy Queen”
that’s right.
my dad used
to bring me
for a butterscotch dip cone on
a hot summer’s day the edible oil product dripping
onto my arm
we bought
our christmas trees here i always got the back end
carrying it home. That’s my dad—strong, honest
i loved his immigrant eyes
once, i worked all afternoon
washing my
brother’s car, a pugeot, and
he flipped me a quarter to buy
a small soft cream cone here;
as
he drove away I realized he never helped. We
never
did anything together.
the light
clears
the facial shadows
and she appears bloodless maybe think-
ing of bill, her husband lying
dead
of cancer during the ice storm of ’69.
“the manager can’t make it in so
I do a double shift. [a double-double
in a small cup of hands]
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