In the Tavern of Lost Souls Read online

  Curious, the poets took their places. The bartender dimmed the lights until the place was positively gloomy, then put a candle on their table.

  After looking around, and at each other, the poets distributed their poems. Lollie read the set of four to herself, then, on impulse picked up the candle and the set of poems, and took them to the nearest patron. He blinked, read them quickly, and took the candle and poems to the next table, where a youngish couple read them slowly.

  Finally, the girl at the table took the candle and poems to the bartender. He read the poems, then walked the candle and the poems back to the four poets. He was, Lollie noted, carrying a small plate with four fries on it, and the "last call" bell from the bar.

  The bartender carefully put everything onto the table, then picked up a fry with a paper napkin. He held it towards Lollie, but waved her arms down when she reached for it. She opened her mouth, and he put the fry into it. It was, Lollie, noted, even greasier and colder than usual.

  The others followed suit.

  When they were done, the bartender picked up Lollie's set of poems, folded them in half, and set them in the middle of the table. He rang the bell briefly, then picked up the candle and blew it out.

  The four poets, puzzled, drank in silence, quickly. As soon as the bartender saw they were done, he went to the door held it open, and stood by it, waiting. Lollie got up, and walked past him into the night. Alf followed, then Blossom, and finally Cal, smiling broadly.

  Seconds after the door closed behind them, the group could hear the music return.

  *

  Why is the Church Silent? [Alf]

  I whispered her to silence

  Among the burnished pews

  Free of social harassment

  Parents, and kangaroos

  With free poetic license

  We wrote the naked news

  And no one saw our flaunted hides

  But dead prophetic Jews

  No cosmological voyeurs

  Saw our pas-de-deux

  A place more safe from eyes of God

  We probably couldn't choose

  We practiced, got right

  Things a priest eschews

  But God and churches come alone

  And lovers come in twos

  *

  Why is the Church Silent? [Calhoun]

  The gargoyled church stands empty

  Beside the foot-thronged street;

  The people, tired of promises

  Have voted with their feet.

  *

  Why is the Church Silent? [Blossom]

  I went to the same church

  for my unwedding

  the place dark, no people

  crowding the pews, wishing me well

  I dropped a toonie into a can

  blew out somebody's candle

  walked, old, into the street

  *

  Why is the Church Silent? [Lollie]

  In the silence

  You can hear your heart

  In the silence beyond silence

  You can hear it counting

  Only then

  Can you know time

  Only if you know time

  Will you really look for God.

  ****

  Chapter 24: I Saw Frost. What Does It Mean?

  After the previous episode, Lollie entered the tavern carefully. But the place looked pretty normal, but busier than usual. Twenty people, she estimated. She could see Alf at the Usual Table. She waved, and headed for the bar to get a beer.

  The bartender was staring at the wall, as usual, when she got there. He gave no sign of recognizing her, but turned down the background music, then poured a half pint of Lollie's usual drink.

  She put money on the table, then reached for her glass. But he was hanging firmly onto it, looking down. Lollie leaned forward, and whispered, "We made copies for you this time." He nodded, releasing the glass.

  "You're early," Lollie said, when she sat down across from Alf.

  "Celebrating," he said. Lollie raised her eyebrows. "I'm a grandfather, I hear. A friend phoned me last week to tell me my son and his wife had a baby boy." He paused, drank half a glass, and continued. "And a little souvenir the doctors cut out of me turned out not to be cancer. Benign, they called it. Sounds so friendly, doesn't it?"

  "I'm happy for you," Lollie said, putting a hand on his arm, "but there must be better places to celebrate."

  "It's an appropriate place, in its own way. The people here are my strangest friends, and their poems are closer to the heart than I get with other people." He paused, rubbed one eye. "They never ask any more of me than a poem once every month or so. It's a cold world out there, baby."

  Lollie took her hand away from his arm. "Here's Cal and Blossom." Lollie spotted the two heading for the bar for drinks.

  "Coming in together again. I suspect those two of collusion."

  "You're imagining things. You should stick to writing poetry, rather than matchmaking."

  "Bet you a beer." Alf leaned back and put his hands on his head.

  "You're on."

  Blossom and Cal arrived together, without speaking, sat down opposite each other. "This is a little more normal than last month," Cal offered.

  Blossom scowled at him. "I thought it was fun."

  "Hokey." Cal gave out copies of his poem, and got the cards. "You're taken in by appearances too easily." He shook his strange hair, sadly.

  "Bullshit. You think everything…. You're incapable of feeling anything but your own cynical world." Blossom sucked half a Diet Pepsi and looked directly at Cal.

  "Hey," Alf broke in, "we're here to read poems." He turned to Cal. "Did you manage more than four lines this time?" Alf rubbed his belly and chuckled.

  Before Cal could say anything, Blossom said, "Hey, damnit, we all know it's harder to write a good short poem than a good long poem. I thought it was a really good poem."

  Alf waved his hands in front of him. "Hey, I was just making a little joke."

  The bartender arrived at the table, bearing a large plate of French fries. When he put them onto the table, Lollie handed him a folded set of poems. When he left, Lollie got up to follow. "I'm getting another beer. She looked at Alf and said, "Can I buy one for you?"

  "Damn right," Alf smiled.

  "Hey," Blossom said. "Is there something going on between you two?"

  *

  I Saw Frost. What Does It Mean? [Lollie]

  Because I would not talk to death

  He finally emailed me

  “Your poems are not, it seems

  As thoughtful as a tree.”

  “Your words are sometimes dark and deep

  But ramble like an unsteered car

  Two lines diverge in just one stanza

  Do you know where your verses are?”

  I could not hide from Death.com

  So I wrote one crazy poem

  I’ll be singing it when the frost-clothed guy

  Calls me, finally, home

  From Chaos, God makes order

  Let this poem reverse that trend

  So unlike life, I can make

  A creation without

  *

  I Saw Frost. What Does It Mean? [Alf]

  It's a cold world out there, babe;

  The stars far and small tonight

  Saturn raining frozen oxygen,

  The ocean's cold hands on

  The rocks and the seaweed

  Waving in the indigo deeps

  Out beyond the silhouette boats.

  The squirrel knows it's cold; this night

  For it sleeps with its tail curled around it

  High in the pine that swings in

  The heartless wind.

  Oh, my motives aren't the purest

  I'll admit that

  But I have printed flannel sheets

  And you won't even need to turn on

  The electric blanket.

  *

  I Saw Frost. What Do
es It Mean? [Blossom]

  the day was hot as young passion

  you bought sugared ice cream cones

  heat can blind a person

  beware frost, in summer

  and coated with sugar

  *

  I Saw Frost. What Does It Mean? [Calhoun]

  In the dungeons of the damned

  In the laneways of the lost

  I call to you, I call to you

  Stay with me; there is frost.

  In a jar up on the mantle

  I keep ashes from my holocaust

  Stay with me, stay with me

  I love you, and there is frost

  I speak, but no one listens

  In some inverse Pentecost

  I love you, I love you

  And everywhere there is frost.

  ****

  Chapter 25: Is Death Democratic?

  Lollie arrived deliberately late, seeing the other three at the table as she entered, folding up her umbrella. She got her beer, picked up a full-size plastic skull that the bartender handed her, and went to the table, sitting down in the chair beside Alf.

  "Late!" Alf looked concerned. He looked at the skull that Lollie set onto the table.

  "You had a transplant?" Blossom asked.

  "The newest and most vital member of our little group?" Cal grinned.

  "A loan from the guy behind the bar." Lollie frowned over her glasses. "I'm beginning to wonder about him."

  "I don't mind him staring at the wall," Alf said, "and I don't mind him helping us with our evenings, but if I find out he's writing poems, I'll see him committed."

  "This place," said Cal, "is for people who have escaped from the filbert factory " He picked at a lock of his hair.

  "You went over the wall?" Alf scratched his genitalia and looked sideways at Cal. Lollie began to think the group had been together too long.

  "I get a day pass every time the moon is gone and the rest of the inmates are quiet."

  "What's your poem about?' Lollie decided it was time to change the subject.

  "I take the position that death is by no means democratic," Cal leaned across the table, poking a finger into the eyesocket of the skull. "So few of us would vote to die in the first place, and death can be cruelly slow." Beside him, Blossom nodded.

  "And you?" Lollie looked at Blossom, wondering whether she would talk about her poem or leave it to Cal.

  "I cast a vote, in true democratic fashion," Blossom took the skull from Cal and patted it on the top, "but not for my own death."

  "Et tu, Alf," Lollie looked at Alf, who was rubbing his forehead.

  "My favorite poem, so far," he said. "It's about a man who has a brush with death. He learns that death is inevitable, that his soul has been listed on some form already, and that…. Well, you get the idea." His eyes registered some sadness beyond expression.

  "As for mine," Lollie declared, "I am opposed to death. Firmly, completely, and without compromise."

  "You expect to win?" Alf looked at her, and took a sip of beer.

  "I expect to go down fighting. I wasted too much of my life, and I want to start it all over again."

  The bartender showed up with the plate of fries. Lollie passed him copies of the poems, and asked, "Do you want back copies?" The bartender nodded. "We'll try, Lollie said."

  When he was gone, Lollie asked the others, "Do you want to give him back copies of your poems?"

  Cal laughed, "I'm given the chance to increase my poetic audience by twenty percent, and you wonder if I'll turn it down? Get real." He made a note on a piece of napkin. "That's over a buck's worth of photocopying. But I guess I can afford it."

  "I guess I can, too," Blossom nodded. She was, Lollie thought, looking pretty mellow.

  Alf scratched his nose. "For these wonderful fries, for which we are not charged, a few poems are not too great a price." He looked at the fries. "Unless these are a subtle plot to kill us off."

  "Happy clogged veins," Lollie said, taking a handful. "Death in every mouthful."

  "This fellow," Alf indicated the skull, "may have eaten one fry too many."

  "Obviously not a melancholy poet," Cal said. "Note the happy grin."

  "The poems," Lollie demanded. "Let's stop dicking around."

  *

  Is Death Democratic? [Lollie]

  Ask Jumbleguts

  Yorick’s skull:

  I’m not to be

  Kneel and say an Ave there for me

  No human has ever won.

  In quiet blood or screaming like a cat with a tail

  Caught under the wheels of a hearse, we go.

  Every woman waddling around

  Bears another fighter

  If anyone ever ever wins

  Let them have a picnic in the graveyard

  Some of us do not go quietly into that good night

  Remember us

  We were the heroes of the Resistance.

  *

  Is Death Democratic? [Alf]

  “We haven’t missed one, yet,” Death said,

  Picking at the sole. It was a bit overdone, but saved by

  A mild cheddar and mozzarella sauce.

  “Not since the beginning of time.”

  He nibbled on the celery.

  Sunlight poured into the café windows

  Outside, lovers laughed, and a crow in an elm

  Kept his black eye on our food, patient as time.

  “I can’t tell you when,” he said, “I’m sorry,

  We’ve already processed your name. But we work a bit

  In advance, you know. Nothing personal.”

  “A fine brunch,” Death said, after I’d paid the bill.

  But I was too depressed to answer.

  “After you,” said Death, holding the door.

  “Oh, no doubt of that,” I said,

  “No doubt of that at all.”

  *

  Is Death Democratic? [Blossom]

  yes.

  glad of it:

  serve the bastard right.

  *

  Is Death Democratic? [Calhoun]

  I keep mousetraps in the cupboards.

  Sometimes I find mice in them

  Their passage from being to non-being

  Made in less time than

  The twisting of a whisker.

  Death by cat is not so quick.

  It is paw and push and ignore and jump

  The run for shelter, the jaw trip back

  Till human nerves give out and

  I become life, or death.

  I hurry down the hospital corridor

  My eyes, beyond my control, check out

  All those rooms, the brittle skin, the

  White hair, bodies curled on beds

  Sucking oxygen, watching nothing.

  I could give the mouse a vote

  But it wouldn't make any difference

  To the cat.

  ****

  Chapter 26: What is Wealth?

  When the moon is gone and the stars try in vain to reach the soul-shattered streets of that damned city, Toronto, four poets meet.

  The tavern is damned. Cursed.

  Blighted by night and the hopes that are not realized. Cannot be realized.

  They talk, they laugh. They pretend they can interact socially.

  They're more than just mistaken.

  The lying bastards!

  But then,

  they're poets.

  *

  What is Wealth? [Calhoun]

  When the sky falls

  and the stars go out

  you’ll find me in the dark

  still singing

  Follow my voice

  the world was nothing to me

  When the dark comes downtown

  and the neon is cold

  when the very wolves cry for hunger

  my voice will remain

  the melody, unweakened

  The world was nothing to me.

  *
/>   What is Wealth? [Blossom]

  silver and gold

  like all base things

  cast shadows;

  the brighter the light

  the deeper the eclipse

  believing this

  women prefer diamond

  for the way it plays with light

  unaware, perhaps, of how waves

  on Toronto harbour

  make diamonds

  in February

  especially in February.

  *

  What is Wealth? [Alf]

  He stood under the streetlight, crying

  Somewhere, someone

  Walked the beaches of the world

  Looking for strange seashells.

  He didn't want to collect seashells

  He just wanted to be able to.

  *

  What is Wealth? [Lollie]

  When I was very young I once saw four angels.

  They were sitting on branches, among the leaves

  Of the old oak on my uncle’s farm.

  They said nothing, did not smile. Large wings fanned

  In the August heat.

  I ran, of course

  We were taught to mistrust strangers.

  Except for love, all the rest has been twenty-nine pieces of silver and dust on a dry wind and leaves falling on a silent woman.

  ****

  Chapter 27: Should a Bed Have a Zipper?

  "Why are we doing this? It's been two years, now."

  "You don't like it?"

  "Oh hell, it's better than nailing my poems to the lamp-post, hoping someone will read them."

  "Or posting them on the internet. Comes to the same thing."

  "Aren't we pessimistic today! A poet can be a poet without someone to read the bloody damn things."

  "Booollsheeeet."

  "Well, I think so."

  "Hey, you two. Why can't a poem just be a person's thoughts, done up better. For nobody but the poet?"

  "See!"

  "That's self-indulgence. A poem is communication. It's a way of telling the truth about the universe. But you have to have someone to tell it to."

  "Put it on my garden; I can use it for fertilizer. We write off-truths, varnished and polished and filed and chiseled and painted till they're just totally deceptive and all you want is for people to look at them trying to make some sense of the reflections from the shine."

  "Maybe you do."

  "Maybe you should stop kidding yourself."

  "But what's wrong with self-indulgence? If we can do something well, and nobody appreciates it but ourselves, why shouldn't we do it? This planet's a rough place and maybe we should please ourselves sometimes."