Standard Average Canadians
it feels secretive
languid
listening to
Man Machine Poem
after dark in his
basement apartment
the kind-hearted drummer & I
make our anchorage
cross-legged on baggy pillows
beneath tawny rondure lights
walls festooned with sad totems
hand-made birch bark canoes &
a burning vision of Irving
Layton
framed
everything entertainingly fussy
we huddle with
aromatic smolder
cold Clementina San Pellegrino
paralleling our pocket knives
folders of hand-written poems
construing
Gord’s lyrics
“tearin’ up the pea
patch, isn’t he”
he
says in halted speech
“like rushing the
dark with pious light”
I
reply timorously
& just like that he cartwheels over
the
chesterfield & fails
I laugh so hard I spit out a mouthful
of
stars
we group again with snacks
warm garlic knots & dipping sauce
& he delivers a blistering lecture
of my interpretation of the record
as
a whole
the
needle rebounds & crackles
a gentle warning
he
chides
for reading too much into the chaos
discerning a pattern that might not
be
there
I shrink to the shape of a fraud
chip
like shale
& he says
“it’s a precarious time
for the Caribou, we are the
Ancient Pines
singing & praying for
the sky clap to
send us downstream,
& the cancer
spirits to map their way
to another world
– don’t buckle under
the weight of
occasion”
the kind-hearted drummer
draws a clean breath
cradles my shrugged shoulder
with a meaty palm & squeezes
“we listen with the
Intention to live, it
is the way
of the Poet …
words survive”
it feels melancholy
as we separate from
the floor boards to
say goodnight &
gather up all the clever things
he runs a comb under a slow
running tap
then
through his hair
I zip my jacket tight under-chin
I
walk home through
inky midnight
I ponder the evening’s
decorous language
acrobatic humour
calming potions
easy
listening
gathering
gratitude
I long for our
next meeting
after dark
in
his basement apartment
eating hand-cut fries &
juicy
burgers with BBQ sauce
relish mustard & sharp cheese
a Bugs Bunny film-fest
& name brand ketchup chips
disagreeing
about
used bookstores & punk-rockers
politics
passions
& practical magic
I imagine we will revisit
Man Machine Poem
interpret Gord’s lyrics again
two Standard Average
Canadians
trying
to decipher love
