4

If I were a man – if this were my city – like – I just heard yesterday someone on the radio, the AM station, 1130, I found out about on the Talking Yellow Pages, they have a little ad for it that comes on before the weather – Lock Your Radio – the station I turn on to hear if there’ve been any accidents – the announcer said ‘Capilaino,’ like Denny Boyd says old Vancouverites pronounce it –

*

Nick’s driving
along Venables
& I look at the sun
this late September
afternoon, daylight saving
still ‘hangs’
high in the sky

*

This is being written just after noon on September 22, 1999 – probably the last day of this gentle, warm late summer that followed a cold, rainy August. I’m perched on a welded steel stool leaning on the steel counter of a pomo coffee shop which I guess is called Trees Organic Coffee Co. (at least that’s what it says on my coffee cup – dark Sumatra coffee – the image – the image of the map – of Indonesia – from the Globe & Mail & the BBC on-line – in mind) – east side of Granville just north of Pender – this soft bright sunlight off the young maples on the Mall – light & shadow sharply delineated on the pavement – to right, Sinclair Centre – the old Post Office – where the 1938 demonstration / police riot still goes on, black-coated arm upraised coming down on the men running away escaping down the short flight of steps at the entrance on Hastings St., now Plaza Escada – dress shop – so are we (tuna sandwiches) now at lunch time seated at round tables with red & yellow chessboards on them & painted scalloped edges in two shades of green, behind a low ornamental steel railing - & people walking the Mall, two men stopping to talk between the potted plants, one wearing a madras jacket, hand on hip to indicate mid-morning ennui – bicycles, buses… I really don’t know what I’m doing – this is not the world. It’s just my take. My lucky take. My sunny day September take.

Allen Ginsberg said he once dropped acid & went up on a mountain in Wyoming to sit & experience in sympathy all the suffering in the world.

*

Bright light, sharp outlines
of September

*

The boys & girls
at dawn
Their dawn
Wipe out
childhood.
They aren’t even young yet.

*

Take refuge in a long poem.
Avert
inspiration.
*
Write carelessly.
*
On the 210 – tempted now to add a little local colour – as it lags behind the 4 – now passes – signs on fence – on Powell St. – Subway - &
Vancouver Today.com –
virtually all you need to know

& now turns north on Nanaimo – once imagined living here – near here – near the PNE – all this too thoughtful – write carelessly, head down, feeling furrow of brow, weight of glasses – peripherally – sunlit street & cars, shadows, going by – head up into no thought, even though all this district – no place to go – the irremediable – gulf – not between being & nothingness

Angela Bowering
in Kerrisdale,
a town

Here is no conflict, no choice – the breeze – the Ironworkers Memorial – a colour I used to call Prussian blue – Bridge – the inlet – trees, boats, the forested mountain – bluer mountains behind – just here

Angela on her last afternoon

spent her last afternoon
with the Finnish genealogists
exchanging information

to be there – by being stop the slide – regretful towards, always a not-ness, a not there – by consciousness, participating in the illusion, that doesn’t just run one way – entropy – but has many mansions, some furnished, some just waiting – for Angela, by insisting
on disbelief – to grin. This is not not, this is where not is exposed, laid open to view
& shown to contain

precise distinctions – almost the 0 & 1 from which 2 arises – in defiance of pristine
order – hors d’oeuvres, instead – start over

*

The pleasure of getting on the 7
in the chill morning
& something must follow
something non-reciprocal
stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck
all the while the sun – this is still
September (last day) - & the long
shadows before 9 a.m. – is this all –

sometimes the mind
is just aware of its
dumbness – the skull – the unnerving
pathos (unjustified, yes, I’ll always
scream –

is that all, just
location, location, location – a grid,
the special sciences
dutiful, perfunctory – & yet a pleasure
not to have any ‘meaning’ interfere,
long, drawn-out, even before it’s thought.
Let’s be clear
(blank) there’s nothing to say here
(quick bump of the tires over the train tracks & now
emerging from beneath the overpass,

& back to reading Paterson
on the Granville bridge

*

She wore a red hat. Flat-brimmed.
She wore a flat-brimmed red hat.
It was at Sharon’s place, on West 18^th.
It was New Year’s Eve. Michael Ondaatje was there.
She wore a flat-brimmed red hat & she grinned.

She grinned with delight. With the delight
of disbelief, as if her disbelief had cleared
the air. Like a hailstorm, sweet sun
to follow.