Pop Art Pack Rat

Pop Art Pack Rat

Pop Art

Grand Poohbah

Tsar sat high

in an exalted

tin-foiled office

among

prefab superstars

heroin heads

wannabes

hangers-on

one of his mega

zillion white wigs

shoots up

                tickles the

lashes of fizzled out

fallen angels

while he imitates

w/ forged artistic

oomph

Campbell soup cans

paints a first lady red

multiplies Marilyn

in silk-screen surprise

                while in secret

created chaotic clutter

in his humble abode

squirreling away              

                airplane menus

                unpaid invoices

                pizza dough

                porno pulp novels

                grocery fliers     

                                & stamps

                a mummified foot

Caroline Kennedy’s birthday

                                cake

                kitschy cookie jars

                in the shapes of

                                dogs     

                                pigs &

                                pandas

                dead insects &

invitations to events he

                did not attend

a skinny four story space             

                                stuffed

                crammed

                                610 boxes

heaving with stuff

His confession:

“I can’t throw anything out.”

**

I forgot that famed pop artist Andy Warhol was an over-zealous hoarder. I was reminded of this fact the other day skimming an article online. It stuck with me and as with many other things, served as food for a poem. It’s such an interesting morsel of his fascinating and multifarious life, certain he had hoarding down to a shambolic art-form despite the desire for a clean space. His stuff got the better of him. Another eccentricity he personified.

I wonder if it is a creative affliction? I have, for many years, been known to store away a great many things due to their sentimental value. The older I get, the more I am inclined to part with things, especially the collection of things that I truly don't need or that no longer bring me joy. I'm not as apt to hold on to every-single-thing anymore. But, there is a decent mountain of goodies that could still go heave-ho. I'm not necessarily a hoarder but I do often lean toward collecting the tokens that color my experiences or my history. I've stopping stashing the most important items and limit myself to adding to the rock wall instead. Wait, did I just totally contradict myself?!

In propinquity,

Nic

Ghostly Tricks in Eastern Passage

I have been digging back into the archives, reading some of the stories that I wrote way back when for a local newspaper. I was tasked with writing ‘stories from the past’ for the Eastern Passage and surrounding areas. Some of the stories came to me by way of my Dad. I want to preserve some of them here and with Halloween coming, I thought this one would be appropriate to begin with.

**

Ghostly Tricks in Eastern Passage

Are you superstitious?  Panic when you see an owl in daylight?  Knock on wood?  Shrink when a black cat crosses your path, your heart skips a beat when you break mirror so you tie your handkerchief in a knot to ward off evil?  If you're one of those people who avoids walking under ladders or counts crows this story of a prank played on an old Eastern Passage resident who was superstitious will appeal to you.  Leo had an active imagination and was genuinely spooked by ghosts.

Ghost is a word derived from the Saxon word gaste, meaning spirit. In common usage, a ghost is the soul of a dead person that becomes visible to the living. Psychic researchers refer to a ghost as a recurring apparition.  A ghost does not inter react with the living but rather repeats the same action over and over, like a tape being replayed again and again.  Leo was well aware of the activity of ghosts and it sent him into a tizzy just thinking about it.

In the 1940s, the young men of Eastern Passage could often be found hanging out at the Myers Pool Hall on Quigley's Corner.  Leo was one of the usual suspects.  You could spot him easily by his wild tuft of curly hair fopping about while making his way around in his bare feet on his trusty bicycle.  Not a fan of the washtub, his idea of 'cleaning up' was applying a little powder and he was ready to go.   He was a comic sort, often a casualty of horseplay.

Al and the other guys in the pool hall were notorious storytellers.  Devising antics of tomfoolery and telling harebrained fibs while chalking up their cues.   He knew Leo was scared of the dark and particularly of ghosts.  At nightfall, Leo would always rush home, passing the graveyard at St. Andrew's Church. He would pedal fast, his heart racing until he was safely by without incident.  Al knew this and used it to his advantage.

One evening, Al was in the mood to rile up a little mischief.  Night fell to a black hush and Leo mounted his bicycle giving himself a push start off home down the dirt road.  As usual, the closer he came to the graveyard, the quicker his pulse raced.  St. Andrew's cemetery sent chills down his spine especially in the dark. Al, being good with detail knew all of this and decided he would treat Leo to the fright of his life.  Leo pedaled with a fevered pace evading all that goes bump in the night, stiff on top of his bike, focusing straight ahead.  Al was waiting for him behind one of the larger headstones in the cemetery with a ghastly white sheet draped over his head.  When Leo approached, sweaty and nervous Al, in his clever disguise jumped out at the wiry haired man aping the sounds that we imagine ghosts make.  “WOOWWWHOAAAA!”  Leo's eyes widened with sudden fear and jumped ten feet in the air nearly throwing himself off of his bicycle.  He jerked his pedals so hard he snapped the chain spinning his dirty feet creating a billowing cloud of dust behind him.  Al watched Leo, spooked to his core race off pushing his bike with his feet all the way home.  All Al could do was laugh.  He returned to the pool hall to recount his caper to the boys.

The next evening Leo told the story of how he was attacked by an aggressive spirit rising out of the cemetery.  He had every man in the pool hall in stitches, standing in the middle of the room replaying the scene, his hair still wild, and his eyes popping.  Al chuckled and confessed to Leo it was him dressed up in a sheet trying to fool him but Leo wouldn't hear any of it, he knew better than to believe anything that came out of his mouth.  He went on believing that there was in fact a ghost out for revenge and pedaled quicker every night after on his way home.

**

I miss my Dad telling me stories, especially after being afforded the opportunity to tour through the Myers homestead yesterday with family. The walls vibrate with history and stories and shenanigans. I wish I knew every single one of them so I could write them down.

I’ve got a few more ghost stories from the area I used in those news stories to share here in the coming week. It’s so much fun re-reading them now.

In propinquity,

Nic

Je Est Un Autre

Je Est Un Autre

I am another

willfully opaque

unable to choose

between

an Olivetti typewriter or

a leopard skin pillbox hat

I am another

where you are not

                between

the present moment or

a place of grave vacancy

I am another

better than words

more lovely than

                a dream of

                serene wiles

I am another

a minute vertical line

counterpoint

to the void of course

I am another

here only to

translate the surge

                of           

arbitrary signs

               

**

There are nods in this poem to men I greatly admire: a recent Nobel Prize winner, the Senior Cohen, and someone who this summer, united a Canada I believe in and love, through music and compassion. Poetry, for me, is my outlet, it’s my vehicle, it’s my happy place - where today I have encapsulated three venerable human beings in the medium we each call home.

In propinquity,

Nic

Pity The Fool

Pity The Fool

go on

pity the fool

the poet at night

writing character

sketches of battered

women

inexplicable demons

                rise

profess to be ordinary

& soil summer dresses

go on

pity the fool

the night poet

who breaks

down

when tears come

pushing poems

to their long bitter

limits

piecing the sweet

dreams of lost women

together

with paper-clips

go on

pity the fool

                who keenly

hauls the trash

                out

alerts the reader

combats violence

                fights

until anyone bothers

                to notice

**

The news of late has me fired up about important things such as the many ways women are harmed, both by men and the media. Frankly, I'm fed up. I am tired of misogyny, tired of 'locker room talk', tired of abuse, body-shaming, slut-shaming, tired of my sisters of the world not being heard when she's been hurt. Pity the fools. The abusers, the sexist dregs of society. There's a special place in hell for you. 

In propinquity,

Nic

A Long Way To Prayer

A Long Way To Prayer

it is a cool cerulean morning the

sunny slope of daylight dawning

I am wrapped in a warm shawl

w/tea at my Carleton House desk

long into the privacy of my wits  

intent to ease a critical torment

the absorbing errand of

writing something down

for the time being, I consent to

the calm will to chew my pencil

this poet, awakened to the perils

stationary in the heart of the world

the itinerary of the sun

I resolve that I am not alone inside

a sound presence tizzies, is resolute

its provident measures preserve me

safely in this scene of spreading paper

I could sit here forever, not a single

sentence strung just for the quietude

akin to the day Light was named

this joy postpones enduring travail

guised as a harbinger, a prompt that

                it is a long way to prayer

en-route I count treasurable things

handwritten letters, polaroid pictures,

a small porcelain box full of sea-glass,

a cracked vase, chipped china from a

pattern used at Christmas luncheons,

paperbacks, hair-pins, and the Muse

my ideal friend, with me while I walk

around & will be with me in the grave

it is a short Horizon

                a long Heaven

write everything down

in the affirming arrangement of prayer

I know all of this to be true in the glow

of cerulean morning, wrapped tight in

wool, the sweetness of steeped tea &

a great gift to acknowledge

& all of it abolishes an incarnate woman

                Me

**

I have been feeling like someone kicked me square in the gut lately. It’s always good to play with words when things happen to your heart, your psyche, your spirit. I’ve been trying for the last few days to peck. This poem, the result. It was a slow burn but it served its purpose: healing.

It’s interesting, when I grapple with unpleasantness; my poems tend to be laced with a spiritual tinge. I notice this about myself, perhaps it’s a subconscious defense mechanism, an ideal friend guiding me along as the poem suggests? I tend not to be creative when I’m unhappy but this one pieced together but only because I needed to write something; even if it was something small, something messy, something spare. Some days it is a long way to prayer, but today I skimmed poetry and that was good.

In propinquity,
Nic

Sad Desk Lunch

Sad Desk Lunch

lunatic poet in slick loafers

eats a sad desk lunch while all

the beautiful words are dying

hunches over in a dim cubicle

gobbles up a cold container

of leftover pappardelle pasta

tuning out dust-bowl ballads

wafting through the window

the old FM radio blaring from

cheap cars hopping potholes

on the sullen city streets below

cranky, old-fashioned compared

to the nouveau hip literary kids

would take a cup of simmering

soup to venturing out mutually

blue devils settle in bone deep

no one spends time on a clock

without all passion parts at risk

of burning out of their brilliance

lunatic poet besotted w/ industry

fails to evoke smelloftheworld

held tight in blanketed wasteland

of fat file folders microwave meals

long performance analysis reports

jangling telephone calls data entry

& not the creative linguistic variety

it thieves: frippery take-home pay

it deceives: the old nine to five

rattles rudely through artist flesh

like a purposeful pillaging plague

arresting dreams of grape arbors

fresh linens creative retreating into

thin volumes of loquacious poems

varied survival – there’s the catch.

**

It’s National Poetry day in the UK. I’ve been having a heck of a week in terms of life getting me down, work kicking my ass, gnats getting under my skin. It was time to bash something out. A ditty. A poem. I’m still scowling. Still stewing. But a little less. Because words.

Long weekend ahead. Just one more slave day. Then sleep in. Then turkey. Peace.

In propinquity,

Nic