In the Tavern of Lost Souls Read online

  He needs more exercise, but

  Is unlikely to get it

  Concentrating instead on the times

  For feeding.

  He's no hunter -

  Being restricted to a plastic mouse

  During the daylight.

  He comes home, restless

  Watches leopards on PBS

  While the cat sleeps

  On his lap.

  *

  Should One Own a cat? [Alf]

  Falling into magic

  Are laps and

  Cats asleep

  Tumble into silence

  When

  Afternoons run deep

  Sunlight moves along your arm

  Warmth, light

  And fur

  Ear against the cushion

  Hear the world

  Purr

  *

  Should One Own a Cat? [Lollie]

 

  “I bore nine children,” he said

  Nodding in his beer,

  “Though six of them were cats.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “I believe

  All you ever bore was red kites

  Over the waves

  To call the tide in.

  Cats would have pulled you back

  From where you flew

  Above it all.”

  “Oh, they did,” he said.

  “That is the danger of cats.

  So I killed them. With kindness,

  Of course.”

  *

  Should One Own a Cat? [Blossom]

  two kittens, warming themselves by an old stone wall

  thinking short cat thoughts

  they'll be fed

  water will be provided

  they'll hunt the field for small wild mice;

  someday, for sure.

  every woman should own a cat

  they are the best way of learning about men

  ****

  Chapter 4: How Do Souls Become Lost?

  Blossom got the ace this time. "Damn," she said, "I always hated going first in school, too."

  But she read her poem. Alf leaned his head back to listen, while Cal and Lollie followed reading their printed copies of the poem. Blossom, Lollie noted, was back to her short, blonde hair. She wondered what had become of the dark wig. Or of the boyfriend.

  She suspected, from the words in the poem, that Blossom was living without Robert. Or anybody.

  Alf went next, doing a weird poem. Lollie wondered if he'd picked up a bit of strangeness from her cat poem.

  When it came Cal's turn, he reached down and hauled up a guitar case. The guitar was shiny and only slightly dented. "You'll have to pardon me, but I wrote this poem as a song. It has to be sung."

  Alf nodded at the stage in the corner of the room. "You can use the microphone if you want."

  "Thanks," Cal said, "but modesty and a bad voice compel me to restrict my audience to the people at this table."

  "Those losers aren't going to mind." Blossom indicated the few regulars and the young couple in the rest of the room."

  Cal smiled, and sang his poem.

  "A hard act to follow," Lollie said. She read her poem.

  "Magnificent!" said Alf. "None of us have answered the question. At least not directly.

  Lollie wasn't sure any of them had answered the question, even indirectly, including herself. But she was too polite to say so. It had taken her a week to write and refine her poem, and close was good enough for her.

  "I don't care," Alf added. "I'm writing poems, new poems, for the first time in a long time. And I'm damned glad." He finished his beer abruptly. "And I have you wonderful folks to thank for it."

  He looked around. Lollie nodded. "Same here," she said. "I guess I needed someone to hear what I'm writing."

  "You're that lost in life?" Cal asked.

  Lollie didn't answer. Blossom spoke up. "And you're not?"

  "I'm so lost," Cal looked at her steadily, "that everywhere I look seems like found to me. I've got nowhere to go but a better place."

  *

  How Do Souls Become Lost? [Blossom]

  pan the scene:

  empty pine chairs

  chairs mark our lives

  these look bewildered

  squandered ruined abandoned

  when a person leaves a kitchen chair

  never to return

  it's time to call an archeologist

  *

  How Do Souls Become Lost? [Alf]

  In former lives we were

  Flowers among the willows

  Sunlight-dappled on long grass

  But darkness was, under river banks

  Dirt and shadow and

  Two fluorescent orange eyes watching

  We were small diamond-faceted fish

  Moving in slow currents behind mossy stones

  Nuzzling for life

  Branches, dead from spring fury

  Sheltered yellow teeth parted and

  Silent as the grave

  There were days that lengthened into dusk

  Darkness that flowed out from caves

  An evening wind howling in the mouth

  Of the old lizard of time

  *

  How Do Souls Become Lost? [Calhoun]

  (song)

  The peach trees are bare in the November darkness

  While long lines of lost souls roll on through the rain

  What can we do, we need the money?

  And we've done it before, so we can do it again

  We are the damned of the Queen Lizzie Highway

  Driving to work in Japanese-cars

  We've lost our vision in the glare of the headlights

  God save us all, we just want to see stars

  There's a backup ahead, the radio warns us

  The Queen Lizzie slowing down to a crawl

  Some poor bastard, he's changing a tire

  God help him, but God help us all.

  Once we dreamed of the stars we would gather

  Dreamed of bright futures cupped in our hands

  Now all we think of is sleeping on Saturday

  And raking the leaves off our small bits of lands

  The peach trees are bare in the November darkness

  I'm singing sad songs in the halogen light

  And all around me in the rains of November

  Thousands of lost souls drive on through the night

  *

  How Do Souls Become Lost? [Lollie]

  If I could, I would throw open the gates of

  Hell

  March resolutely down the Long Stairs

  Find the morgue

  Open the cold gray lockers

  And find a tag on the toe of every

  Promise I made to myself

  In the green and gold

  Of yesterday’s sun

  Then I would burn the tags

  Before the devil could do

  His next inventory.

  ****

  Chapter 5: How do People ever Get Together?

  Buses being what they were, Lollie arrived early. She had a poem that she actually liked, for a change. Maybe it was the topic, or maybe it was that she was getting her poetic edge back. Being a natural skeptic, she was thinking, "Lives alone, writes love poems. Where have I seen that resume before?"

  Surprisingly, there was a blues band playing at the stage in the corner, and Alf sitting at the table, rocking his bald head in time to the music. She sat down beside him, just as a perky young waitress showed up. Ordering a bottle of domestic beer, she waited for a break in the music.

  When the end of the song came, the band announced a twenty-minute break, and someone put on a tape of loud industrial rock music. Alf stood up and looked towards the bar. The music volume dropped dramatically. A threesome across the room nodded at Alf and clapped loudly. The members of the blues group joined in.

  "I was thinking," the tall man said, "that it's hard to tell how people get to
gether. What provides the vital spark?"

  Lollie nodded, wondering where he was going. Her beer arrived, and she decanted it into a glass, slowly, like the British do, avoiding foam.

  "Take Cal and Blossom. Maybe they're destined for each other." He smiled at Lollie. "Maybe they'll get together sometime."

  "With their fingers wrapped around each other's larynxes," Lollie suggested.

  He laughed, holding his stomach. "I can picture that. But I've been wrong before."

  "So have I. But I was younger then."

  "Youth runs on stupidity," Alf said. "Old age on desperation. I really don't know if there's time for wisdom in between."

  "Maybe there was a moment," Lollie said, and I missed it." It was flippant; maybe it was true.

  "Boo," said Cal, appearing behind Lollie. She jumped.

  At least, she thought, he's not gay. He'd be great, she thought, to host a Halloween party. "Welcome," she said. "How do people ever get together?"

  "You'll have to wait for it," Cal said. As he sat down, Blossom came through the door.

  They talked about the weather and beer while the perky waitress brought their orders.

  "When I die," Lollie said, "if all the people around me are perky, I'll know where I got sent to."

  "Me. too, said Alf, "if all the women there are like our waitress and I'm not allowed to do anything but look."

  "We've only got a few minutes," said Cal, handing out his photocopies. "The band's on its break."

  This time Alf dealt the cards, and, with the ace in front of him, read his poem. He was followed by the others in turn.

  The band was heading back to the stage. Alf looked up from the notes he'd been taking. "Got the answers," he said, " to why people get together. Ignorance, blindness, coincidence, or desperation. Aren't we a cheerful bunch of bastards?" And he began to laugh, rocking back and forth.

  Lollie joined in his laughter. Cal stared at him wordlessly. Blossom even smiled. "We're actually a bunch of optimists. Stupidity brings most people together."

  Lollie caught on. "You're back with Robert."

  "And he's still a jerk," Blossom said.

  Lollie was about to ask Alf about his monkeys or Cal whether he howled at the full moon, but the band started up with some Mississauga delta blues. Blossom left shortly after, and Cal after he's finished his beer.

  She stayed with Alf for one more beer, then waved goodbye and walked out into the darkness.

  *

  How Do People Ever Get together? [Alf]

  “That about does it for locusts and wild honey,”

  Said John the Baptist, sitting on a desert rock

  Watching JC vanish over the hills;

  “I guess I’ve got to figure out what to do

  Now that the Big Deed’s done.”

  “I’m a beer and salami kind of guy, actually

  Maybe I’ll get a condo by the sea

  Marry a dancing girl – I always liked dancing girls

  And raise some kids

  Take my word as a prophet

  Find someone

  Life is short and not even a prophet knows

  What lies ahead.

  *

  How Do People Ever Get Together? [Blossom]

  you stand at the edge of

  the village

  just past

  the streetlight

  it's 4 in the morning; ahead,

  the gravel road

  blends into

  the darkness

  love is

  a torch:

  it lets you see

  the road

  but not

  the stars.

  *

  How Do People Ever Get Together? [Lollie]

  They came down a spiral staircase in the lighthouse

  One twenty steps behind the other

  Sometimes one on top of the other

  Sometimes half the circle away.

  Across the road, at a seaside restaurant

  There were scallops sautéed in drawn butter

  Their world had gone round and round

  They had tasted pleasure together

  It was all

  It was enough

  *

  How Do People Ever Get Together? [Calhoun]

  Somewhere inside (deep

  Where the mine drips water and

  The floor is littered with

  Dead canaries among the diamonds)

  He knew they'd come hunting him,

  Frightened of his Frankengenes.

  He found her, or she, him

  And for all the time they spent

  Face to face and hand in hand

  Their crooked souls hunkered

  In that shared darkness

  Back to back, grasping cudgels

  Waiting against the frantic coming of

  Torch and yell and the smell of

  Burning fur.

  ****

  Chapter 6: How Do People Get Separated?

  "A little quieter tonight," Cal observed. "Nothing but the sound of people mumbling in their beers and taxis going by in the street. Sometimes I think no blues band could ever write a song as true as that."

  Lollie raised her eyebrows. She'd arrived early again, and joined Cal to wait for the other two. "Maybe no-one would ever want to."

  "I think there would be a small but definite market for something like that. There's a small but definite market for almost anything these days."

  "Beer parlour blues?"

  "A true Canadian musical genesis. More appropriate than music from another culture. Anyway, what's the topic for tonight's poem again?"

  "'How Do People Get Separated?'", Lollie answered. "Didn't you bring a poem?"

  "For sure. But I wrote it weeks ago, then went on to other stuff.

  "All I remembered was it's another song." Cal indicated the guitar beside him.

  "You do many songs?"

  Cal shook his unruly head. "Just enough to keep my hand in, and to entertain myself when I get too drunk to walk."

  "I've written about ten since last meeting," Lollie admitted. "I picked the best for tonight." She paused to look up at the television screen. "Why the wild hairdo?"

  "Honesty," Cal said. "Expresses my inner form better. And it attracts the women."

  Lollie leaned back, took a sip of beer, and looking right at him, said nothing.

  "Oh, it's true," Cal said, leaning forward. "As I said, there's a small but definite market for anything. And the market for weirdos is bigger than the market for nonentities, at least for us men."

  "You think so?" Lollie wondered if it was true.

  "Absolutely. There are always women who want to shamble with the gargoyles as well as those who want to run with the wolves."

  "You've had a lot of experience with people getting separated," Lollie guessed.

  "More than you, I'd say, by a mile, but much readier to do it all over again."

  "Here's Blossom," Lollie noted, as the other woman came up to the table. Alf followed before she's quite got settled.

  "Here we are, writing poems about people getting separated," said Alf, "and were getting together!" He seemed happier than usual.

  Blossom turned on him. "If this is what you call getting together, I feel sorry for your wife."

  "I'll give you her last known address," said Alf. "You can send her a sympathy card. Lord knows she sent herself enough when we were married. How's Robert?"

  "Actually," Blossom replied, rubbing her hair, "he's still trying to figure out who I went with when we broke up." She smiled. "But I'm kind of an expert in separations."

  "The cards," said Cal, taking out the four playing cards and handing them to Blossom. "And the poems."

  Cal got the ace, brought out his guitar, and did his song.

  The others followed, in turn.

  When they were done, Blossom said, abruptly, "Gotta go." She left with only a brief wave.

  Alf chugged his beer, c
oughing a bit. "My cat's waiting." He left more than enough change on the table, smiled broadly, and departed.

  Lollie and Cal almost made it to the door before him.

  *

  How do People Get Separated? [Calhoun]

  (song)

  Late at night, I was out in the park

  Way up in a tree, inhaling the dark

  Watching the stars, Venus and Mars

  Holding my body tight to the bark

  Ch

  Hey, hey come to me, hon'

  Hey, hey, look what we've done

  We came right down to the edge of this town

  And found ourselves with no place to run

  We had us a time, and God, it was fun

  Sang in the night and danced in the sun

  I gave you my heart, a good place to start

  Till I discovered it left us with no place to run

  In a town this small there's no place to hide

  You want to survive, you join in the ride

  You keep your lover hid under a cover

  And sit in a tree till your tears have all dried

  I haven't an answer, and I haven't a gun

  I've added it up and I comes out to "none"

  There's no-one to blame, we lost at the game

  And I don't know how we could ever have won

  *

  How do People Get Separated? [Lollie]

  Maybe the train whistle

  Breaks the night like

  A hammer shatters glass

  You wake up, sweating

  Wondering why

  You didn’t buy a ticket

  Too

  Maybe you rush to the window:

  Outside only dark leaves

  Tapping the pane

  And a vanishing sound.

  *

  How Do They Get Separated? [Blossom]

  i looked into

  his eyes

  i saw paths,

  roads

  laneways

  they were all

  his

  i wished him

  happy trails

  *

  How Do People Get Separated? [Alf]

  On his thirty-fifth day in the desert

  Jesus was perhaps a bit tempted when the devil

  Dropped a Pepsi machine in front of him

  And offered him a shekel

  ‘Nice try,” said JC, “but

  Can you make a stop to the changes

  That make strangers of lovers

  The paths that diverge until reaching fingers

  No longer touch each other”

  The devil turned into Darth Vader

  Offered Our Boy a double-dip maple walnut cone

  To say he could more easily arm-wrestle the Big Guy