Manitoba, Canada
—Photos Courtesy of Public Domain
A LIBERAL ARTS SORT OF
SATURDAY NIGHT
Listening to classical music while drunk
seemed to lessen our drowning,
and maybe even gave us a reason
to do a dead-man float inside our empty glasses
until we sank too easily
underneath refills
that guaranteed slurred words
more pebbles placed inside our pockets.
Your vinyl record of Mozart
a lucky find from a thrift store,
leaving me to point out his love of shit jokes
as a way to sound witty
among all that dead genius,
and our traumas babbled at each other
like two people who never learned
how to listen
or the river we fell in too often
to die of thirst.
SATURDAY NIGHT
Listening to classical music while drunk
seemed to lessen our drowning,
and maybe even gave us a reason
to do a dead-man float inside our empty glasses
until we sank too easily
underneath refills
that guaranteed slurred words
more pebbles placed inside our pockets.
Your vinyl record of Mozart
a lucky find from a thrift store,
leaving me to point out his love of shit jokes
as a way to sound witty
among all that dead genius,
and our traumas babbled at each other
like two people who never learned
how to listen
or the river we fell in too often
to die of thirst.
IT’S A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON’T WEAKEN
Tuesday night beers helped the darkness
enter the corners of my brain,
where lies about the yellow flowers
inside my glass grew
and made more sense than the truth
of my escape being just
a room with the lights off.
Tuesday night beers helped the darkness
enter the corners of my brain,
where lies about the yellow flowers
inside my glass grew
and made more sense than the truth
of my escape being just
a room with the lights off.
A VICTORY
I remember the choruses now,
instead of waking up the next day,
knowing there was music,
but the words blacked out
like information I made confidential
just to make more questions
out of another stale Saturday night.
The hangovers desperate to end
up meaning more than cheap whisky
and eggnog not mixing well,
only to surrender my favourite songs
to the drink without realizing my defeat
an old one, like a scratched record
grandparents never thought enough of
to mention in their will.
AS A COASTER REASSURES ME
I remember when that vacant lot
was a home to an empty house,
where my grandmother used to live,
and as tall as the grass is now,
it seems shorter than the beer bottles
piled in boxes on top of each other,
waiting to be turned in for nickels,
teaching me early about nothing
being free in this life.
She never owned the land,
yet her third husband decided to plant
strawberries that we liked
to theorize were still thriving
(hidden behind a pine tree,
similar to a breath-mint covering up
whisky breath at 10 AM),
even if his recipe for homemade beer
lost as an alchemist's secrets
to change the colour of lead.
Meanwhile, I peal the label off
my beer and hear the silence
give me its family history,
only to stop listening as my own ghosts
never arrive, leaving me alone
with my golden inheritance.
AN OVERCOOKED TV DINNER
ON A SUNDAY
Waking up in a cold sweat
in a Winnipeg hotel room,
wondering why the whisky
had all the solutions last night
instead of a kiss in the rain
that never came,
an overcooked TV dinner
on a Sunday, baseball scores
still as strangers' obituaries,
the right to vote for a millionaire,
hungry children, overfed people
unable to taste the pesticides
in their blueberries,
another dying soldier
staring at the sun and seeing god,
or a lotto ticket lining
a pocket seduced by lint,
only to go back to sleep
because all the problems
that trouble the world
sound like a lullaby
the longer I think about them.
ON A SUNDAY
Waking up in a cold sweat
in a Winnipeg hotel room,
wondering why the whisky
had all the solutions last night
instead of a kiss in the rain
that never came,
an overcooked TV dinner
on a Sunday, baseball scores
still as strangers' obituaries,
the right to vote for a millionaire,
hungry children, overfed people
unable to taste the pesticides
in their blueberries,
another dying soldier
staring at the sun and seeing god,
or a lotto ticket lining
a pocket seduced by lint,
only to go back to sleep
because all the problems
that trouble the world
sound like a lullaby
the longer I think about them.
MEMES AND THE NEWEST PHONE
Bukowski drunk again and picking fights
just to prove to anyone watching
he was a man, until he died
and left behind a bunch of poems
published like he was some sort of spirit
haunting a typewriter,
except we know better now
than to believe in ghosts,
instead finding faith in things
like memes and the newest phone,
leaving the dust to write love sonnets
to all the wannabe Bukowski's,
who struggle to find the right words
to describe our encroaching loneliness.
______________________
Today’s LittleNip:
AGAIN
—Richard LaDue
I try so damn hard not to worry
about my worry of all the little things,
but I can never squash it,
even if it no longer makes cobwebs in my brain,
because its eggs are still somewhere
out of sight like any smart bug,
waiting for me to miss some crumbs
or spill a beer I never thought I'd have
again.
_____________________
—Medusa, with thanks to Canadian Richard LaDue for today’s fine poetry!
Bukowski drunk again and picking fights
just to prove to anyone watching
he was a man, until he died
and left behind a bunch of poems
published like he was some sort of spirit
haunting a typewriter,
except we know better now
than to believe in ghosts,
instead finding faith in things
like memes and the newest phone,
leaving the dust to write love sonnets
to all the wannabe Bukowski's,
who struggle to find the right words
to describe our encroaching loneliness.
______________________
Today’s LittleNip:
AGAIN
—Richard LaDue
I try so damn hard not to worry
about my worry of all the little things,
but I can never squash it,
even if it no longer makes cobwebs in my brain,
because its eggs are still somewhere
out of sight like any smart bug,
waiting for me to miss some crumbs
or spill a beer I never thought I'd have
again.
_____________________
—Medusa, with thanks to Canadian Richard LaDue for today’s fine poetry!
More than one way to drown those sorrows…
For future poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
during the week.
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Poets’ bios appear on their first MK visit.
To find previous posts, type the name
of the poet (or poem) into the little
beige box at the top left-hand side
of this column. See also
Medusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom
of the blue column on the right
side of this column to find
any date you want.
Miss a post?
You can find our most recent ones by
scrolling down under this daily one.
Or there's an "Older Posts" button
at the bottom of this column.
(Please excuse typos in older posts!
Blogspot has been through a lot of
incarnations in 20 years!)
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
Guidelines are at the top of this page
at the Placating the Gorgon link;
send poetry and/or photos and artwork
to kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
during the week.
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Poets’ bios appear on their first MK visit.
To find previous posts, type the name
of the poet (or poem) into the little
beige box at the top left-hand side
of this column. See also
Medusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom
of the blue column on the right
side of this column to find
any date you want.
Miss a post?
You can find our most recent ones by
scrolling down under this daily one.
Or there's an "Older Posts" button
at the bottom of this column.
(Please excuse typos in older posts!
Blogspot has been through a lot of
incarnations in 20 years!)
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
Guidelines are at the top of this page
at the Placating the Gorgon link;
send poetry and/or photos and artwork
to kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
