. "I write my initials like you write the number 36" – Original Poetry by JG

There we were
so to speak
worldly delegates
each bringing something fresh to the table
An Italian, a Japanese and an Egyptian all walk into a clinic
not much of a joke, but you wouldn’t know it from all the laughter
The minutes of the previous meeting were discussed:
we all were as Anglophonic as we needed to be
and with that out of the way
so to speak
wordy delegates
we swapped the lunches packed by our mother tongues
going around the room
we became educated teachers
the stapler became a graffettatrice
hypothetical women became habib elbi
some of us became gaijin
as the computer sulked in the corner, muttering quelque chose
And our free-flowing, spoken word meeting
became a boys club
as we learned to order cold beer and to find the washroom
in three more continents

revisiting
and free association
limited by timidity
and perfectly spaced squiggles
like corroded, corrugated copper
but strangely judgemental

Victory kept a secret, though badly
Something I really needed
Unseen by something I really wanted
you cannot re-read in astonishment
that which you never read in the first place
first place

across town
not much of a different persona
not even wearing different hats, or hats at all
“Thanks for coming out but the competition is through
I get down”
“clean up on aisle three”
“what part of meow
don’t you understand”

it’s less facetious than you might think

“well that’s cool cause I’m frequently jocked
from speaking this talk and plus
on the streets I get props”

I was told
to judge myself before I let anyone else
judge me
good advice
thank you.

We sat in the pub
necks craned and jaws slacked
unblinking
interuppted only by ourselves
as spasms of fear and excitement overtook us
when perspectives were optical illusions

To be sure, we were scared
cautious to say the least
the last regulated 20 seconds like a self-fufilling
prophecy

It happened.

It happened and our Janus’ masks fell off
and we lept from chairs and stools
lept after looking
but only truly seeing when were on our feet

We slapped hands and embraced one another
our countrymen, our countrywomen
our country

we became vehicles
for exhuberance and joy
and we poured into the streets

fizzy bursts of sparkling wine
cresting our faces like spray
from the Pacific
At the ready with golden leaves
of gold leaf
we made a point
of learning, finally
that flag-waving
was no longer a facade
performed atop hollow soap boxes,
No.
We waved our banner, our flag, our insignia
perched atop the shoulders
of our beloved friends

I armed myself
giddily
with an Eaton’s saucepan
made in Canada before I was
and a well-worn wooden spoon
and passing in the amateur parade on my block
I proceded to the square

Recognition and instant recording contracts
from the masses
my new friends
The saucepan, my ago-go bell
amplified smiles

I paced, playing in an orchestra
providing harmonies to the cowbell and the whistle and the djembe and the horn
and the largest and most storied instrument of all:
the collective voice of many

The photographs I took
of the flags and the jerseys and the street and the warmth
of the game of shinny over tracks of resting streetcars
of the signs of new history and the signs of things to come
all are redundant
for even when my sight is gone
I will remember fondly
the spoon, the saucepan, the square
and the greatest gold medal in Canadian history

And so it ended
Not with a bang
Not with a whimper
But with a boing

Old Man Winter
took a comic book boxing glove
right in the kisser
Spring had sprang onto the scene
Into the panel
And all onomatopoeia could say
was “boing”
A glorious, prodigal return
in four colours
and thirty-two pages

Sweater weather has me sweating
in anticipation, in excitement
My blood is lightly carbonated
and slyly turbulent
The sun throws a curveball
at my sleeping window
and demands, like a December-born child,
that I get up and go

Plans of rooms and of music
and of music outside of rooms
Outside of walls, outside of in
Promise of open air over grey and dappled bricks
saturated with the acoustic
saturated with sense made from noise made from sense
I don’t want to wait
but I can stand to and I will

Breezes will tumble through context
and come out alright
will shed their titles as pariahs
and enjoy about half a year’s reputation
as potent relief pitchers

Looped, urban exploration
like beat cops in a safe town
Perouse, step, don’t
T’sall good, baby!
Baby, we’ve got time.

The time had come
for him to brew another
pot of coffee
and write another
story
with the intent
to shed light
not on the walls of an algorithm
but in the bath of a dark room
time
to take the negatives from his exposures
and make positives
and send them out as copies

He coded
transcribed
what he thought last night
and scribbled this morning
what he thought me might like to do next in the coming months
and become in the next days

Cynicism into optimism
Discouragement into creativity around your problems
Complaints into silence

No money back guarantee
they almost sold themselves
almost
like pocket change
in a quiet bar on a quiet night in a deaf town
they were worth a shot

Checklists
And questionaires
for answered questions
Tick the box
Lines climb to the ceiling

An oral art kit
running out of gas
Colours washing
out
The monarch
the wings
the jaw growing
from the gums
and vice
versa

We all clap
but we don’t all clap at once
We are marbles and bubble wrap
Not Ayers Rock
Speak up over idle threats
of quantity restriction
without quality control

As a caffeinated stenographer
I look busy
I am busy
Breaking fourth walls
Writing about Writing
Again
the bean appears

Let’s play a game

The purpose
Is that of most games
To take the theoretical
Things we read about
And dreamt of doing
And pretend to do them
To stage a play
In our living rooms
Where, if you would read the program
You would see our names
Actors and understudies

We begin the game
A dress rehearsal, I suppose
Yes, we start
As we were started
An unlined, unpackaged, untouched
Notebook
A snowbird’s backyard in January
Crisp, virginal, new

And we
As snow and as paper
Take what our mothers told us
Hastily
When we complained about our shoes;
“Count your blessings”
Sit
And do that
And in this scene of our play
We do that
As a verb and
As a verbalization
We do that

Today, I woke up

Today I woke up in the heart of layers
Of cotton and wool and polyester and flannel
And plaster and glass and metal and wood
I was in the heart of it all
In the heart of the city
And the heart of me
Was warm
It was beating
I slept in

When the shower cut out
I regarded it as abnormal
That clean water
Water unfearable
Flowed
At a rate
Lower than I have become accustomed to
I have become accustomed to
Holy water at my finger tips
Sacred, wasted water
How blessed I am

Scrubbed and conditioned
I robotically navigated
Suffocating choice
Clothes and their permutations
The decision made easier
By the permanent storage
Of those which I chose to ignore
The also-rans in a race for my approval
These items sit
In open tombs in open rooms
And I forget to read the markers
And I never leave flowers

I ate today, and often
Let us leave that at that

And here I sit
Back in my fortress
Back in my thoracic cavity
I, the heart
Wedged between lungs full of air
And air full of life
And I just keep
Plugging away
Insensitive to all but volume
Doing nothing when there is enough
And sending panicked, alarmist
All-or-nothing chemical screams
When there isn’t

We have long ago folded the board
While our pieces
The symbols of the people we portray at get-togethers
Are on the mantle
But the night is young
We can be new again
And the rules to this game are limber and few
We can dust off the box
And be forgiven
For our optimistic lies
If we can play again, perform again
Be practical in our theorizing
And be thankful in our time here

It began
Like a poem
A birth
Well anticipated
But unsure of the outcome
Until out it comes
And it’s your family

I used to concieve with a pen
Thoughts like children
Thinking like a child
Writing letters in my letters like I was learning how to
As I learned how to think
And the more coffee I’d drink
The better it seemed
As an idea
To write about writing
Type about writing
Type about typing about writing
As an idea
As a novel
As a novel idea

It was easier with a pen
When words with the same meaning could be written differently
And I dreamed about getting found
After I was gone
Now, no one knows my password
So when I pass
Words I transcribed will die alone
In their iconic burial grounds
On a Desktop in an outdated
Pirated Office
Does that mean I’m digging graves
Just to do the eulogies?

Between you and me
And her and he
And her and me
I am what you pretend to be
But I pretend to be
Me
So I am you

This is the most focused prescription I have
But when my insurance checks clear
I will return
With my latest and greatest
Advancement in literary technology
…not literally, you still follow me?
I don’t mean a comeback
With a fat stack of dictonarys
Climb atop deliver the very words
You were waiting to make eye contact with
No
My meaning is that I will come back
And attack a crowd
By speaking aloud
Quick, slick lyrics
That rhyme accidentally like a pun
But instead of cringing
You’ll be binging on my words, son
As I purge what I put
On a TFT screen
Till you see what I mean

A little world of wax
Malleable with a little heat
Vibrations etched in wonder
As the motions are set again
Like those of their estranged fathers
Repetition, regurgitation are unflattering
Do not imitate but edify
Better than you were taught

The door will remain open
But the wind will not knock
Nor warm the home
Both are your duties
To push on through it all
To purse bluing lips over chattering teeth
And rhetorize
Better than you were taught

Change is not a pun
It is history
And so
May you never know
How much you’ll never know
Rather, may your tools
Your lenses and scalpels and forceps and assertions
Be ever dulled by your ideas
May you make yourself foolish
Better than you were taught

May theories of solidarity
Turn to real pluralization
May you unionize not on paper
But in your life
Better than you were taught

Where is Bohemia
of the workplace?

Heavy lids and coffee dripping
Closing, closing in, stopping
Neck plied with steam as balsa
the pneumatic stent
is in the lab

sip

toying with the idea
of the comeback
of showertime battle rhymes
and punchy percussion pops
a potato is nothing but a spud
until you give it rhythym
and we know
that all the eyes in the world
don’t alone see

a gulp

lids open by a hair
the doors of a rogue 7-11
I am who you pretend to be
but I pretend to be
me
so I am you

a slam

third-degree burns
and second-degree murder
first-person shooters
ain’t what she used to be