At my fantasy flea market

• claw-foot bathtub


• vintage fabric scrap bargain bin


• Roy Lichtenstein paintings


• white lace parasol


• 1920s cloche hat


• vintage glass Christmas ornaments - 2/$1


• rack of 1950s housewife dresses


• various articles autographed by Joni Mitchell or Leonard Cohen


• Louis XV style armchair


• 1960s Groma Kolibri typewriter


• Mary Poppins's bottomless bag


• DecisionMaker 5000


• battery-operated time-stopping device


• hair-digitalizer


• personal portable lighting crew


• Star Trek food replicator


• careers - buy one get one free!


• wind-up internal motivation

I'm off to Pennsylvania for the next two days, but I've scheduled poems to be automatically posted at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday and Friday. I haven't been able to see them and make sure they show up properly formatted, of course, so forgive me if something messes up.

Photo by Incase Designs

        What's for sale at your fantasy flea market?

Saturation

1. "It’s amazing that I always chop onion this way
   and never cut myse—OUCH! DAMMIT!"

   A red little mouth on my middle finger,
   thin and deep, and it sings. I stifle it
   with bunched tissue like a chloroform rag
   but now there are splatters of crimson chorus
   wet on the ears of the witness-fingers
   and a muffled melody is seeping through
   with steadily pulsing percussion.



2. PARIS AND NICOLE CATFIGHT, PULL HAIR VICTORIA BECKHAM BALLOONS UP TO 125LBS JEN AND ANGELINA ESCAPE TO CARIBBEAN TOGETHER ADAM LAMBERT CONTRACTS SYPHILIS FROM ON-STAGE SIMULATED ORAL SEX RACHEL RAY CHALLENGES MARTHA STEWART TO COOK-OFF KANYE WEST CLIMBS ON STAGE AND SAYS SOMETHING MEAN TYRA BANKS TO TAKE OVER FOR OPRAH PENELOPE CRUZ BUYS UPPER LIP DANIELLE RADCLIFFE ATTACKS ROBERT PATTISON PEREZ AND PARIS ACTUALLY SAME HILTON STYLISTS ON STRIKE: FRIZZY HAIR PLAGUES L.A. MICHELLE OBAMA PICKS NOSE AMY WINEHOUSE SNORTS SALT BY MISTAKE JUSTIN BIEBER COMMANDS ARMY OF TWEEN GIRLS KEITH RICHARDS NOW ACTUALLY CORPSE FASHION POLICE ARREST PAULA ABDUL JOHN AND KATE REUNITE, SELL CHILDREN


3. Beneath concrete buildings and clouded skies, strangers:
   somber, smoky-eyed girl in grey dress shirts,
   dusty old biddies with silver hair and drab sweaters,
   men of chiseled stone in charcoal overcoats, distinguished
   salt-and-pepper locks, iron in their gaze,
   leading leaden lives.

   Image > Adjust > Brightness/Contrast

Photo by Roke

        This poem explores three types of saturation, the second obviously being media saturation. So now I'm going to ask the age-old question about celebrities: Why, as a society, are we so obsessed with people we don't know and will likely never even meet?

Feast

We are three and six and eight
and all we hunger for are the ambiguous shapes
that huddle beneath the tree, their entities obscured
by gussy prints and packaging. Skirting
and prodding their edges with our tiny fingers,
we play maddening guessing games
and feel shameful of our secret greed
on this most sacred occasion.

Our begging is no match for tradition,
and we will eat dinner before opening presents,
as we have always done. Sitting restlessly
at our little fold-out card table, we make a pact
to eat quickly – but then there is turkey
and stuffing and gravy and cabbage rolls
        (I surgically slit the roll with my butter knife,
        plunder the rice and bacon entrails, and
        turn the offending cabbage over to my father,
        the family trash compactor)
all shaped and roasted by my aunt and grandmother
like a song born of love and thin air. Moist breading
and soft butter are an unforeseen distraction.

Pop can empty and mouth dry, I sniff
at my grandfather’s glass of Coke for that telltale stink
        (a few unexpected sips of bitter rye
        taught all the grandchildren to sniff first)
and sneak gulps from my father’s glass instead.

Then dessert: the torture
of having to wait for every adult to finish
their coffee, not only so we can get to the presents
but also so we can eat the leftover éclairs.
We kick at each other under the table, antsy
with sugar highs, and wonder aloud
        (purposely too loud)
how anyone can take sooo long
to finish a little cup of coffee.

Our mothers shush us
and ask for refills, but we know
eventually our fathers will cave.


This poem was written in response to Prompt #102 on Read Write Poem.


Thanks to all the people who helped me win the ThoseGirlsAreWild Contest! Check out the winner post, in which the amazing Andrea sings my requested Stevie Wonder song. I also won a copy of Shannon's sensational book, Laid: Young People's Experiences with Sex in an Easy-Access Culture (this is now my second copy -- yes, it's that good).

Photo by Kelvin Kay

        The theme of this poetry prompt is how food can be so deeply connected with memories. What meal or food do you associate with a particular memory or person?

The mayor of Cabbagetown has died

The mayor of Cabbagetown has died
and the city grows quiet, ears pressed
to flesh and memory, listening for
the stories
                he no longer tells
are painted into the gingerbread trim
of Carlton Street storefronts and
the faces
              of costumed children
pang at future Halloweens before a house
drab with the cavity of true death, so unlike
the jolly spectacle
                           of years past
continues on the Parliament parade route,
hesitantly creeping, unguided by its Marshal:
the mayor of Cabbagetown has died.

I wish I had less trivial words and memories by which to honour the death of a man who did so much for my city. Goodbye, Mr. Orbach.

        When you die, what do you want people to remember and say about you?

Prosaic predicament

I purchase the provisions,
word process, print, obey,
and palaver with patrons,
and paper-push for pay.

My profession, presently,
perturbs me to no end,
but I have pacts and promises
and payments to attend.

A poet is a pauper:
The pennies are in prose,
the Pecos are in paperbacks,
the real pay? No one knows.

You’d have to play at politics
or property, I s’pose.


This poem was prepared in participation of Poetry Prompt 101 on Read Write Poem.

Brought to you by the letter P.

        If you could make a living doing anything, what would you choose?

Disgrace under pressure

Fix the mistake. Reprint. Still mistakes. Reprint. Shuffle papers. Hands shaking. Clients waiting.

Take out staples. Replace pages. Re-staple. Take out staples. Impale finger. Replace pages. Worry about gangrene. Re-staple. Take out staples.

More mistakes. Clients waiting. Don't scream. Back to printer.

Multitask: print and photocopy. Press copy. Run to printer. Copies ready. Shit, legal size. Copy again. SHIT, legal size! Stop copying! STOP! SELECT LETTER SIZE. Copy again. Printing ready.

Signing documents. Don't cry. How do I spell my last name? Drop the pen. Hands shaking. The client doesn't like me.

Silence. Small talk. Oh God, sentences.

Photo courtesy of PDPhoto.org

        I have no problem speaking in front of a large audience or taking an important test, but apparently I'm totally incompetant at doing general office administration work under pressure. What tasks tend to make you break down under stress? which ones can you take in stride?

Dream geographers

Sorry to disturb you. We are dream geographers from the Institute of Imaginary Studies. We’d like to ask you a few questions. May we come inside?

This is a beautiful house. How long have you lived here? Twenty years! Why, that’s perfect – you’ve surely built up a fine collection of dreams here in that time. Do you often remember your dreams? Well, never mind that; it’s not important to the study.

I’m just going to jump right in and inquire about the most obvious feature first – the staircase, has it always been here? Think hard. Do you have any memory of walking up and down the staircase, vacuuming it, sitting on its steps? It seems to us that your house is a bungalow, at least from the outside. May we take a look upstairs?

What marvelous taste you have in decorating! The colours in this room are so vibrant, the fabrics so rich! And how delightfully unusual to have a velvet circus tent in one’s bedroom – I assume you sleep within it? May we peek inside? Ah, it’s just as we suspected: impossibly spacious. Is that a willow tree growing from your headboard?

Now, now, there’s no need to be alarmed. Dream geography is mostly just your imagination playing with Lego and paper dolls. Sometimes the locations you visit in dreams are what you imagined a place to look like, before you actually visited it and your mind erased your preconceived version. Except the mind never really erases anything, does it? We understand how confusing this must be for you.

Please do calm down or you’ll wake yourself up. Our study is nearly complete.

This bay window gives a superb view of your backyard. Where does that broken pipe trail in the far south corner lead? Oh, how lovely, I didn’t know you owned a cottage. Whereabouts is it located? Muskoka – that’s about a two-hour drive from here, correct? And how far would you say it is walking by pipe trail, about ten minutes? Give or take.

We want to thank you so much for helping us with our research. As compensation for your time, the Institute of Imaginary Studies would like to offer you lucidity for the remainder of this REM cycle. Tell me, have you ever wished you could fly?

Dickens' Dream, unfinished painting by Robert W. Buss

        I have a recurring dream in which the closet at my grandparents' house connects directly to their storage nook. I sometimes have to open the closet when I'm at their house to check, because I'm never 100% certain it doesn't. Do you have a location in your dreams that is repeatedly different from the way it is in waking life?

Andrew cares for his hungover wife

I’m really trying to get up
but my body is too wet flour
that won’t conform
to any particular shape,
no matter how I roll it
over the tangled blankets.
Andrew! Scoop me up
in a bowl and wring me out
in the kitchen sink.
Sift with your fingers
to keep my brain from
spilling out my mouth
and down the drain.


A new site called Review Your Own Blog has recently launched -- check out my review of A Poet on Adelaide West and, if you have a blog, consider submitting your own review.

The hangover by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

        My actual hangover cure involves Ibuprofen, Gatorade, television and fast food. You?

Just looking

Killing time before work. Can I
help you? No thanks, I'm just looking.
It doesn't cost anything just to
try things on. Gum costs a dollar
and that's basically nothing,
that doesn't even count, right?
Rationalization is the bedfellow
of consumerism. Martha Stewart knows
the secret to happiness: how to fold
the perfect fitted sheet. I must buy
her magazine -- it has good things.
Chips are on sale. Chocolate.
Butter has never been healthier.
Sarah Jessica Parker's perfume
is probably good; ugly women need
to smell pretty. I want shoes. Why
do pink disposable razors cost twice
as much as blue ones? I have a beard too
-- it’s on my legs. Save on cream cheese.
Earn double the customer reward points
if you buy two. Why yes I would like
a free sample of Mini-Wheats.
Where are the tampons? Where is
the exit? Where is my wallet?
A pack of gum, just one dollar.

Window shopping at Simpsons Department Store in Toronto, 1937
Photo by Alexandra Studio

        Buy Nothing Day is coming up -- November 27th in North America, November 28th in Europe and overseas. Do you think practicing anti-consumerism for just one day can make any kind of impact on society or individuals? Why or why not?

Sketchbook philosophy

Start with the eyes: they’re everyone’s favourite.
Use a sharp pencil. Light outlines
carve a rough home for the iris, vacant
and cartoonish. Inside, two floating circles:
a black pupil, a white light.
Eyelids. Eyebrows.

A nose is always precarious, but
especially troublesome on paper. Only sketch
the bridge if a shadow river runs beneath.
Easy on the nostrils, they have bad tempers
and are quick to flare up.

The lips hang from the nose by two wires.
Feel free to improvise; mouths are receptive
and forgiving, unlike a jaw line,
which must be deliberate -- a border
between warring territories.

Now, to shade. The 3B pencil
is the breath of life. The blending stump
is royal lips on a frog. For the hair,
just make it do what gravity and inhibition
would never let yours do.

Fun with photocopiers and office supplies

        Amateurs get a bad rap, but a lot of great works and important discoveries have come from people who lovingly pursued a field in their spare time. What do you think are the merits and potential harms of amateurism compared to professionalism?