7
One
among the old people
in
the cafeteria on the 6th floor
of
the Bay Seymour Room
Necropolis
a
coffee & danish
not
thinking of anything
but
the raisins
Sears
will manage Eatons as a traditional department store, not high
fashion,
but will keep the Eatons name because people who shop downtown
arent interested in garage door openers.
An
apartment house in the West End changes hands 50% increase in
rents All of us could have had strokes. Not sure
if she read that in The Province or heard it on News 1130.
Skytrain
to Waterfront faces reflected impassive as in an old T. S. Eliot
poem as if the set of the face belied the interior mind
and it does try it I could teach this to the young.
Wait
for something to happen want nothing to happen. Homeostasis.
Sun flashes past the pillars. Terminus station: Will all passengers
please leave the train.
winter
comes on in the mind
even
before Octobers half over
the
broom sweeping leaves
In
Gastown, the concentric brick circles & low ornamental posts with
chains what is this all about? Something else than is given in
perception, so shut your eyes. Shut the minds eyes. Fiercely.
No
smoking, tourists. Go outside,
he
says. Who? Oh, I forget, Im dead,
I
cant smoke. Which are tourists
&
which are ghosts.
Look
at the old warehouses, concentric circle brick arches over the windows,
pediments with an inset brick pattern & think
why
are there so few
here
(compared
to, say, St. Louis)
did
they (we) have just-in-time delivery
from
the trains to the steamships,
the
steamships to the trains?
a single ape
in complex light
city of death, city of friends
10 again. Dark, seamed faces,
old clothes. (Some missing word)
as Swedes. This is prosperity.
Washrooms on the 9th floor
Elevator door mirrored
on the inside. Security man:
2nd door to your left.
Mirrors, red & gray tile.
Inside the Hong Kong bank.
Its cool in here, & its night, & its not sad.
In the mens room of the Hong Kong bank
(she uses the mens room).
When
Debra McPherson pointed over the heads of the crowd at the anti-TransLink
rally & said, Ive always liked looking at her. I remember
the original, nobody knew what she was talking about. I knew.
She remembered the stone figure of a nurse executed in high relief that
had adorned the façade at the southeast corner of the old Georgia
Medical-Dental building (blown up) & that had been replicated at
about the same height on the new Cathedral Place building that had taken
its place.
I
saw it on TV. And two days later I read it in the Sun. The triptych
of the explosion. A time-sequence. The dustcloud rising to reclaim the
irresolute verticals. I wondered what happened to the steel frame. Oh,
I know now.
The
newspaper is held up at a distance, depending on her eyesight, between
the reader and the city or flat on the breakfast table next to the coffee
cup. When the newspaper is lowered, the city rises again & she forgets
that it has changed.
The
Devonshire Hotel. I remember when I first came to Vancouver I used to
go to the Dev. They served a great corned-beef sandwich with hot mustard.
I thought, This is England! Blown up replaced by
the Hong Kong bank!
Now
back downstairs in the (atrium?) she rejoins the crowd dressy at the
opening of a display of photographs of writers. She sees her own photograph
with a poem. It reminds her of Iris Murdochs wry inquiring smile
before her forgetting.
These
formalities, of people
kissing,
exchanging
compliments,
& lightly patting
the
others hand, at the same time as
No,
thank you.
  *
At Darbys drinking whiskey (that catches the tone of it, no crap
about brands or labels nationalities). Watching the Redskins
& Cardinals, from Phoenix, out one eye (the left), & the other,
the Mets & Atlanta tied 1-1 in the 14th, in a rainstorm. The electronic
scoreboard says 14th inning stretch. And I keep looking
out the window onto Macdonald, the October dusk, now night, & thinking
its raining here. No, its raining in New York, my mind snaps
back at my brain. And now from up the bar voices of three middle-aged
lads arguing on two drinks about Canada & the States. The youngest,
biggest, richest-looking one says, Theres no sense of urgency
here.
I laugh, soundlessly, smilelessly. No, theres no sense of urgency
here, either.
Im glad the NDP screwed up the convention centre deal. It means
I wont have to walk another 200 m to the SeaBus.
Its not true the snow makes the flanks of the Lions more lion-like;
here it is October & the rock is bare; theyre like lions sculpted
by some Assyrian or Henry Moore. If anything, the snow would obscure
these lines.
City of death, city of friends.
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