The family that operates a convenience store together, stays together

I decided that I needed an energy drink to pick me up, so I walked over to the convenience store that is in our neighbourhood. It had recently been taken over by a new family that were all quite short, and of some hard-to-define nationality. Middle eastern? Eastern European? Could be either. Or neither. Anyhow, every time I walk into the store, there’s this short little woman with a strange accent behind the counter, standing at attention. She’s always polite, but I wouldn’t say exactly friendly.

So I was doubly surprised to walk in and, not only see someone other than her standing there, but to see that it was the guy that is usually behind the counter at the Esso station/convenience store 30 kilometres outside of town. Like the little woman, he’s always polite, but not particularly friendly, even though he sees me all the time when I stop for gas or a drink during my daily commute. I realized that he might be related to the little woman who is usually there. I said Hi to him as our eyes met, and I walked to the back of the store. As I was deciding which energy drink to buy, I started thinking I should say something to him like, “Hey, I usually see you at the Esso out on the highway,” or something like that, just to acknowledge that I knew who he was, as a gesture of friendliness.

I picked out a ‘reduced carb’ energy drink, and walked up to the front counter to pay for it. All of a sudden, three people, apparently all his family, but no one I had ever seen before, came bursting through the front door, and quickly filed behind the front counter. One of them, a pre-teen girl, was crying uncontrollably. A woman, presumably her mother, was yelling at her in foreign language. I think she was also directing some of her yelling at a young boy, presumably her son, who didn’t react in the slightest way. Then the Esso guy started yelling at everyone, and I was just standing there, waiting to pay for my drink. Saying Hi no longer seemed like a good idea.

They continued shouting for a bit, with the girl bawling her eyes out, and the boy completely expressionless. Pretty soon, the Esso guy decided to pay me some attention. He rang in the drink, the cash register calculated the tax and displayed the total, then he said the total out loud: “$3.38.” By now, the girl was sobbing noisily on a stool at one end of the space behind the counter, while the others stood on the other side of the Esso guy, with the mother continuing to berate everyone, including the Esso guy, who was probably her husband. I gave him $3.50, which I extracted in a painstakingly slow and awkward way from my pocket, fumbling with the coins to avoid including a large piece of pocket lint, and handed the money to him.

As he dug through the change in the cash register to get me my twelve cents, and as the yelling continued, I thought, ‘aw, what the hell’ and I said to him, “Don’t I normally see you at the Esso station out on the highway?” All of a sudden, everything went dead quiet as they all stared at me in silence. His hand stopped moving in the change drawer, as he seemed to forget how much change he was getting me. I looked at him, and then I looked at the rest of them, kind of surreptitiously. The young girl sniffed. “Never mind,” I said, “keep the change.”

As I walked out of the store, the woman started shouting again, this time much louder, the girl started wailing pathetically, and the Esso guy started shouting, too. The boy remained silent the entire time. I stood out in the parking lot, sipping my cold drink, and smelling the fresh air with wide open nostrils.

global zero

hot as iron, the morning star
hung from the night like an icicle, breathless
everything melts, there can be no doubt
mountains, oceans, candy and hearts
ready or not, here we come
with backpacks full of toys for the children
boots on the ground go stomping around
echoing down streets like slapping faces
hoot and holler, hold onto your life.

a new day dawns when every eye opens
those that don't are pulled wide with hooks
i grew up under the threat of the sun
delivered on the backs of innocent birds
a scattered flock spreading out in the sky
like a flower breathing, in hope and trust,
determined to find food as it delivers its soul.

two poems

molar

orbiting tooth
that
never left the mouth

tied to the earth
by a
string of white blood


olive and pear

olive sheds a coat of black glass
rebel child of the dark sun and sea
skin of salt pierced, that plump leather
liquid cells bursting with light
collapsing and breathing oil into the blood
rich velvet heart of meat like layered rock

pear sheds a sweet paper coat
wet with nerves of sugar
and freckled with earth and wood
tracks filled with pools of juice, crisp and soft
heavier than earth and softer than snow
a fat world perfumed by the scent of baby grass

let the weight of the great sea
roll over your tongue
and the hot blue sun
let the wind sizzle in the leaves

olive and pear, moon and earth,
bodies pulling on each other

fishing

I found him on a great rock
at the edge of the sea.

He didn’t know me,
I asked, “Are you a fisherman?”

He spoke through lost eyes,
“It’s all I’ve ever known.”

I followed his gaze, “What do you see?”
“Green sharks,” he said simply.

I waited a few moments,
then I said, “It’s time to go.”

“But I haven’t caught a thing.”
“You’ve had enough.” (he started to cry)

“Ssh!” I said gently,
and slipped a hook in his mouth.

three poems

fizzle puzzle (stream o' consciousnuzzle)

fizzle puzzle, candid stasis
questions of arrangement
followed like the fortunate fifty
broken down to the nearest digit
swallowed whole, identical numbers

free-range pesticide taken to the lungs
straight like a cannon shot or crooked like a tunnel
back to the oily cardboard
damp pavement overlord
by-product: birth control of biblical proportions

rust-free
bottlecap

wasted time
free crap

rip your coat
bubblegum

sunken eye
bingo

struggling with utensils, the yellow jacket authority
questions the utility of sending
a school-age rockstar to hell
dimes with ridges, thrown from bridges
when the catalogue clock strikes three:
fistfight in the morning.


before the sun

peace, sweet peace
before the sun
the snow stopped falling
to sleep

the dog got up
then went back to bed
belly full and dreaming
of another breakfast

my son awakened me
when he crawled beside me
frightened by the horrors
he knows are in the world

but now he sleeps
beside his mother
while I make coffee
before the sun


Instructions to be followed closely

Find a boat with willing sails and put yourself upon it,

give the boat a secret name but never write it down,

test the air with unbendable finger licked by resolute tongue,

drift out over bottomless water, away from all you know.

Cross the sea with skill and care using only wind and stars,
throw the radio overboard and with it all your charts,
after a time when land appears be careful where you choose,
(many adventures end in ways no captain would have wished).

Anchor the boat within a bay while the village is asleep,
slip from the starboard side at dawn, swim silently to the shore,
wander past the darkened homes until you find a path,
follow it to a field beyond the reach of human eyes.

Sit down underneath the sky that’s darkening above,
know that you were never more than everyone you loved,
this is where you’ll ever rest, the world won’t be the same,
lay your heart down in the grass and cover it with rain.

Prophecy

soon

soon one morning without warning
everyone who is chosen
will be flash frozen
with their eyes
wide open
...
.

Three Poems

nitroglycerine

by hacksaw and hammer,
a crude heart keeps pounding out a rhythm

this four-ton slave is a living slave
whose deep long beat has broken free of time
a second-rate machine whose living murder
is a flexing muscle countdown
the punch clock pitbulls by the hour
got bass and baritone hung by the heels
no skull of a heart is a thumping rock

the wind blows through and whispers in the branches
(the code of silence was written for suckers)
nervous leaves rattle bones and chatter

the beat works with its own echo
it feeds on itself, consuming blood
bubble and froth, picking up the tempo
slamming doors shut:

let the heart attack


looking for users

People are turning up dead
they’re finding them on the pavement
in dark alleys and church parking lots
there’s a new god on the streets

a stronger one
that users aren’t used to
no one knows how to
work out the dosage

some say they’re confusing it with another god
but some of the dead knew what it was, all right
they were just expecting it to be cut
with candy or disney glycerin

this god is never cut
pure from the source it is the source itself
with this one
you’re tapping right into the sun
a thermonuclear spike to the neurons
that no body can absorb and stay whole

no need for dealers,
this god itself is self-pushing, self-rising
it calls for users with a small voice
pleading for mercy,
offering release,
demanding an audience,
looking for a temple
to explode in.


eyes pop open

eyes pop open, ovens pop open
this psychiatry sews up openings

in slips needle out comes horror
open drain; cake comes after

rub away that funny feeling
warm food served with plastic cutlery

sprinkle sugar on incisions
scissors dance with sheer abandon

snip or stab, it's with precision
oh your hands are cold like popsicles

Two Poems

Apollo

When men first stepped onto the moon
in the stone black womb of cold space
among the lifeless rock, boulder and crevice
they found a human baby covered in dust.

Removing their gloves they knelt down in the stillness
(the vibrating moon groaned softness)
radios switched off despite houston’s pleas
they remained so for thirty minutes.

At the centre of the universe, in a tiny box
a piece of metal turns slowly on a thread
it reflects itself through an unstoppable reaction
but a chiming peal from it escapes through the void
like a stream of milk from a beating heart
riding urgent waves of electricity,
spilling through space at the speed of light
into our galaxy,
where condensed by gravity
it reaches us like holy breath:
the music of infinite emptiness (of the dark)
whispering, curdling in our ears.

Resuming contact with mission control
the astronauts collected rocks and dust
planted flags and posed for photographs
while the baby sank into the moon
beneath the prints of the astronauts’ white boots.


Knife fight

It’s no fun feeling
no fun,
you’re always starting
a knife fight.

I always wake up choking
a problem down,
pressed to my forehead,
the metal grip.

You were born to explode,
forever igniting, atoms splitting,
always reaching for something
inside your jacket.