In the Tavern of Lost Souls Read online

  I was crawling along the west wall of

  St. Grotesque of the Subway's basement

  My hands feeling for hidden panels

  Loose tiles for carefully-hidden keyholes

  A priest, flashlight wavering

  Knelt beside me, startling

  My seeker heart

  "I've figured it out," I told him

  "There's a passageway here, somewhere

  It goes through God's orifice, and out

  His muzzle to streets of gold

  Pearly gates, platinum wings.

  The carpenter's son was devious, but

  I've figured the code."

  He turned off the flashlight, sat down.

  "Go ahead," he said. "It might work.

  God knows, nothing else has."

  *

  How Can I Become Rich? [Lollie]

  Wealth is measured primarily

  (Pay attention, Lollie)

  Measured primarily by the size

  And softness of your bath towel

  Get a purple one that enfolds

  Your naked body completely

  (No, Lollie, men arrive, they

  Demand, they leave; a bath towel

  Is fresh after each wash)

  Do not buy one on sale; the towel must be

  Greatly overpriced. Such a towel

  Can never be overvalued.

  ****

  Chapter 20: What Do I Do With the Old Iron Scales I Found?

  "Good poems," Alf noted, when the reading was done. He was sipping slowly on his beer. He had a monkey on his back. Its name was Calvin.

  No one was quite sure why the bartender hadn't objected to the monkey, but he hadn't, and none of the poets wanted to ask.

  "Stuff it. Sideways." Blossom sat sideways in her chair, watching one of the working televisions and folding the poems into a small square. She was chewing gum. Her blonde hair was shorter than usual, something Lollie didn't believe she'd see. Somehow her skin was a shade darker, too.

  "You can't take a compliment?" Cal turned his dark eyes on her.

  Blossom refused to turn. The television screen showed a late-night talk show. There was no sound, of course, the room being filled with bad FM music, its volume turned down in deference to the poets. "I came to share my poem, not to have some jackass tell me whether it's good or bad."

  "But if no one evaluates a poem," Alf pointed out reasonably, "you'll never know whether you're getting your message across or getting better or whatever." The monkey had his tail wrapped around Alf's neck with the tip stuck up one of his nostrils.

  "Poems," said Blossom, "are meant to be experienced. Nothing. More."

  "You wrote a poem in grade four and nobody liked it." Cal yawned.

  Blossom tried to dump the last of her drink, mostly ice cubes, in his lap, but he was quicker than that. The monkey made a leap onto the table and grabbed an ice cube. Spitting it out, the animal flung it across the room. Nobody seemed to care.

  "If we start being judgmental," Lollie broke in, "someone might note that your poem seems to horn in on Alf's turf."

  "How so?"

  "Alf does mythic figures. John the Baptist, Ulysses. Now you've done a Don Quixote poem."

  "Imitation," Cal smiled, "is the sincerest form of flattery."

  "Once we get past national cliché week," Lollie observed, "we might try separating how good a poem is from how well it communicates."

  "Good friggin' luck," Alf said.

  "I think," said Blossom, "it's time to go home."

  "Your judgment is superb," Lollie said. "Wait up. These guys can spend the night trying to decide who wrote the best poem."

  *

  What Do I Do With the Old Iron Scales I Found? [Lollie]

  In the dream, he was asleep, curled up

  On one pan of the scales, but slowly

  Sliding off

  Frantically, I threw things onto

  The opposite pan, tables and pies

  And a shopping bag full of bright clothes

  Nothing worked, not even Timbits.

  At last I crawled onto the rising pan myself

  But it made no difference

  I saw him slide, still sleeping

  Off the other side, waking up

  In time to call his own name

  Just before I began

  That long, long fall.

  *

  What Do I Do With the Old Iron Scales I Found? [Alf]

  It took him almost forty years

  To get clearances

  Approvals

  Equipment, maps

  All that shit.

  He got to the top

  Of Mount Sinai

  Just about dawn

  Hauled out the

  Old iron scales

  Set them on a flat rock.

  At dawn, the next morning

  He left

  Time is money. and

  He had a life to live.

  *

  What Do I Do With the Old Iron Scales I Found? [Blossom]

  old iron scales should be set with

  terra cotta pots and geraniums

  there's nothing in my life I could weigh

  without breaking my heart.

  *

  What Do I Do With the Old Iron Scales I Found? [Calhoun]

  Drinking alone

  At the kitchen table

  3:14 a.m., the clock

  Inevitable as little rabbits

  Don Quixote strode in

  Armor clanking, legs trembling,

  Stuck his lance

  Against my chest

  "Here be monsters," he croaked

  Bracing himself against

  The fridge.

  "I've been expecting you!" I shouted

  Slamming the scales onto the table, and

  Waving my arms like a windmill,

  "Knight of my days, daze of my nights.

  You first!"

  Shedding rust, he wheezed himself out

  Taking a box of Shreddies for his horse.

  "Damn," he said.

  "Damn.

  ****

  Chapter 21: What Must We Never Let The World Forget?

  When I was younger… O, God! Is this going to be one of those 'old lady talks about her youth things'? Anyway, I don't know why I'm telling you this; I mean, we're here for our damn poems aren't we?

  So I guess I've been feeling a little down lately. Hell, for a couple of months anyway. This city'll do it to you, especially at this time of the year. Look at those two in the corner. Why don't they just ship out everyone over sixty to someplace like Peterborough or something. You ever been there? My aunt lives there. The whole town's full of old people driving along at ten miles an hour hunched over the steering wheels of their K-cars.

  This is a young person's town. God, when did that happen? That I suddenly wasn't a 'young person' any more? I guess it happens to everybody. I just thought it would take a little longer than it did.

  The hardest part is that I can't remember what he looked like. You don't have a smoke do you? No, forget that, I stopped three years ago and sure don't want to start again.

  Thanks for staying. I'll be better in a few minutes or maybe a couple of weeks. I've been through this before. Been a lot worse sometimes. Do you want another beer?

  I wonder if he remembers what I look like. We stayed in a cheap motel on the beach outside Panama city in Florida. The sand was white as snow, and there were white crabs on the beach. They called them ghost crabs. You'd see one move, and suddenly it would be gone. He chased a couple, and we laughed when he caught one and got pinched. I think men's love is like those crabs. I've always thought so.

  I don't give my love to any one man. Not any more. A bit here and a bit there and some for myself in between. I've seen too many women be hurt by men, even when they pretend they aren't. Men don't understand love; it's just not in them.

  Sometimes I dream about that beach. This is my first poem about it. I wis
h I could remember him better. Hell, I remember the pelicans flying just above the water, and the way the stingrays would swim in the muddy water at night, the tips of their fins just above the water.

  When I dream that dream, I walk down to the beach at sunset and he's there. But he's always looking out to sea, like he's lost his soul and he's waiting for it to come flying back in like a pelican.

  The beaches there are full of old people. Bad as Peterborough. But we were young then, and I was young. I figured he was married. You can always tell, if you really want to. The old couples used to watch us out of the corners of their eyes as they shuffled down the beach. Like they'd steal our youth if they could.

  I don't know, Christ, we'd sit on the dock and drink tequila and I'd watch the old couples, hand in hand waiting for the sun to go down forever, and Charlie would look out across the Gulf of Mexico like he belonged on the other side of it, and he'd tell a joke and I'd laugh, and when we couldn't see straight anymore, we'd go back to the motel. I don't know if he ever made it across the Gulf or if his dream came sailing in.

  Men think that, you know. Their dreams will come sailing up to their doors if they wish hard enough, and in the meanwhile you're handy while they're waiting. But men can be fun, if you don't take them seriously and are careful not to actually fall in love with one.

  They have souls like crabs, you know. Did I tell you that? They skitter sideways and disappear when you try to look at them. I keep away from that. All I want from a man is his time and a bit of attention. They'll give both, if you don't try to take too much at once.

  But you're lying to yourself if you think it's going to last. This town is good for young people, you know. Young women think they're in love and young men follow them around.

  I don't even remember if he had blue eyes. I think so. It's been years now. I wonder if he's getting old, if he drives a K-car. I don't think they make them anymore. Maybe they all drive Buicks now, all those old couples. Buy a small house in Peterborough and drive to Florida in the winter, and watch the young people and wonder where all the years went.

  *

  What Must We Never Let The World Forget? [Lollie]

  “I could bring over some cookies,” I said

  “Go to hell,” she said.

  “It might be better than the silence, you know,” I said

  “Go to hell,” she said.

  “Chocolate cookies,” I answered.

  “Go to hell,” she said.

  So I did as she said, and we ate twenty-two cookies that afternoon.

  *

  What Must We Never Let The World Forget? [Alf]

  After five years away, Andrew

  Returned to his wife, and the small hut

  By the Sea of Galilee.

  "I've told everyone who will listen,"

  He said to his wife

  "And many, many more."

  Occasionally, just before dawn

  She would hear him get up

  Take his wool coat

  And slip out the door.

  From the window she watched him

  Walk to the shore

  Step carefully onto the water

  When it got to his knees

  He'd look up to the stars a moment

  Then walk

  Slowly

  Back to his house.

  *

  What Must We Never Let The World Forget? [Blossom]

  he took my hand

  we walked through the darkness

  past the palm trees

  to the beach

  when the moon began to rise

  I remember the cold feel of night sand

  on my bare feet

  the warmth of his arms around me

  not much else

  *

  What Must We Never Let The World Forget? [Calhoun]

  They call it natural

  that I should die

  the cold, the silence

  and not to be

  A cry in the gray

  a shadow at three

  is that what you say?

  Last summer’s waves

  on last summer’s shores

  is that what I am?

  Am I to join the legion dead

  with not a word on the following day?

  I cry to the stars!

  A cry in the gray

  a shadow at three

  is that what you say?

  Last summer’s waves

  on last summer’s shores

  Is that all I am?

  ****

  Chapter 22: What Should We Throw Away?

  "There's something about that bartender," Blossom observed. "Do you think he's a couplet or two short of a sonnet?"

  Cal swiveled his head to look. "We're coming up to our second year here, and he's still working the midnight shift in this dump."

  Lollie privately agreed with both of them. It was a Saturday night, and there were exactly ten people in the place, counting the bartender. The owners had obviously given up on trying to add live music to the place, and the way the few regulars were nursing their draft beer, the place wasn't going to be making much money. Probably not enough to pay to keep it open.

  "I'm going up for beer," Alf said. The bartender no longer brought beer to the tables. In fact, he seldom even looked towards the tables, his eyes fixed on a place somewhere under the television in the corner of the room.

  "I'll get one, too," Lollie said, pushing the wobbly chair back. Cal pushed a five dollar bill towards her. She knew he wanted a draft Labatts. And change.

  As they crossed the room, Alf whispered to her, "Watch those two. They're starting to like each other."

  "I'll believe that when I see it." Lollie was unconvinced.

  While the bartender was pouring drinks, Alf asked him, "What should people throw away?" The bartender looked up, unsmiling. "I mean, in general," Alf added. "What sort of things?"

  The bartender put one too-foamy glass in front of Lollie. "People should put everything but their memories out with the trash. You don't even need a pocket for memories, and you can edit them if necessary." He poured a second glass, just as foamy. "Prisoners should keep only their chains, and actors only their costumes."

  He poured the last glass. "Taverns should throw out poets; they think too much and it ruins the atmosphere." He squinted at them. "God should throw away any plans that haven't worked out after a couple of thousand years." He rang up the bill.

  "Er…." said Alf, "What about bad French fries?"

  "They haven't worked yet," the bartender said, "but I keep hoping."

  Twenty minutes later, just as the poems were read, he brought a large plate of the fries to the poets' table. "Compliments of the house," he said.

  *

  What Should We Throw Away? [Blossom]

  one day we passed a field

  and paused to hear the cattle lowing

  as the thunder approached.

  I was not afraid, he whispered my name

  maybe twice

  and from far away I heard music

  if there were anything I could wish, it would be

  not to remember that.

  *

  What Should We Throw Away? [Calhoun]

  I am the wild pig

  Skulking among lilacs

  Rooting in the memories

  You thought you'd forgotten

  I am the angel of the

  Strange heart

  Sitting in mud

  Covering myself with yellow leaves

  I am Adam's son in high leather boots

  Waltzing alone on a moonless night

  Under wringing clouds

  Wondering if anyone will ever

  Speak my true name

  Aieee! Aieee! Aieee!

  I am that I am!

  It will take me days, perhaps weeks

  Just to haul all the costumes

  Down to the Sally Ann.

  *

  What Should We Throw Away? [Lollie]

>   Throw away your memories

  If you can

  Surely, if you can

  So she told me, and

  She seemed to know.

  She said

  You save them like fading wallpaper on

  The darkening walls of your soul.

  Squint in the gloom; you’ll find

  The faded flowers are not quite true

  The pears cannot be eaten

  The love letters were written by strangers

  Even if the world outside is ochre waste

  Papering the windows with yesterdays laughter

  Costs you

  Tomorrow’s light

  *

  What Should We Throw Away? [Alf]

  At the last supper Jesus left a few crumbs

  On the table

  That those who couldn’t believe

  Might be porters

  It was his joke, although Paul

  Never understood.

  “I guess you had to be there,”

  Peter would mutter in his

  Later days

  Leave behind Frito wrappers or

  Apple cores on the way

  To your own Golgotha

  In case you return. Just in case.

  You may use them to remember the few

  Who washed your feet

  Or shared the burden of leaning

  Against the grain.

  ****

  Chapter 23: Why is the Church Silent?

  Lollie arrived, as usual, a few minutes ahead of the others. The place was empty, except for the bartender, who was reading a comic book. When Lollie stepped up to the bar, he looked at her carefully, then poured her a pint, instead of the usual half.

  As he set it in front of her, he asked, "What's tonight's topic?"

  "We're doing 'why is the church silent?'" Lollie told him. She waited for a response, but he just said, "ah."

  But by the time she got to her table, he'd turned the background music totally, instead of just muting it as usual. Then he turned off each of the televisions, and most of the lights.

  Lollie sat at her table, amused, as he got out a marker pen and some white cardboard. On each table, including hers, he put a sign that read, "Reserved for Silence." She watched as he put another on the bar, and went to tack one up to the outside of the door.

  Three more people came in, were whispered to, and sat silently at the two tables closest to Lollie.

  When the other three poets arrived, they found a totally silent room, dim except for lights over a couple of tables. Lollie put her fingers to her lips to prevent any talking as the others got their drinks, then took their places.