the pussywillows

in the window, dying to get out

I left the door open

Too tired

The hardwired highway twisting, rushing

A few trees from the reflected light

of beams on the road

it’s Athabascan weather

so get out your furs

the wood heat curls around you like a warm cat

Years later

Years later the poet looks almost the same.

 

lost among the ruins

lost among the ruins  Old Gordon Lightfoot plays the fools
and fools are in the show and shoes are in the school
fouling up the lockers, scaring all the schoolgirls
webfeet wetness and street sense smartness
calling coo-cooing through the fields
with trees on their side
and old wagon wheels rotting between
the long grasses

I grew my cherry on a tree that grew and grew
beside a children’s playground. And hardly
any one knew it was there, just my pet detective

west among the flowers I dot my q’s and p’s
and fools are lost among sloughs and snowmobiles in the great outdoors
messing up the scenery, ticking off the animals
snoeshoe webness and backpacking hardware
tempting Natures’s own strict laws
4000 ft above the ground
timber lying across
the boy’s skinny legs

I grew up but never compare my growing
to the maturity of others my age and older
we were not fond of each other. they all knew
it and we knew and slandered each other

© 2017 Rudolf Penner

from catch yourself falling listening to Elvis

make the most, they say, of your friends

and Bobby Zimmy will reward you in the End

even though he got SAVED some time ago

and some don’t trust him anymore

 

© 2013 Rudolf Kurt Penner

 

from the poem: catch yourself falling listening to Elvis

(ask for the rest)

Ode by Lewis Carroll = me

the chocolate eight
of a cake of chocolate cherry
the magic buttons on the silver coat
turned twice
and presst against the breast of society
the cake was great – as a matter of fact
it was all we ate

the cherry turned full-round on its heel
and rolled into the cup of orange peel
and then a cup of tea

Something cannot take away the joy
of cake of chocolate; not a hater or a debater

not a Wilmhing winer of a dine
the hourglasss and the end of the old oak table
stained brown

the cake remains a perfect harmony
unto itself

©2016 Rudolf Kurt Penner

Tall Order. drinking 9.5% beer do you

hear the Christmas bells

The peacocks wish to show their wings, amid silver ornaments

The chrome of an old car coming in the rear view mirror

like a fountain pen no one would ever

touch

 

The elevator is taking us up – its rich

walnut stain handrail – a comfort

to the blonde panelling with dark hearts

 

I wear a black shirt and underneath the hurt

I suck the straw of festive music

Like i was sitting on a throne in technicolor

Walt dizzily would listen to jazz

on Tall Order Wednesdays

at his favorite dive

percolating rhythms and aromatic espresso

into the blue stage with its golden horns

‘twas a hive of bees and birds

and thin rectangles of red stage lights

on the floor

 

like a fountain that never knew it was shut off

and hazelnuts never to be harvested, he hooked

his eyes into her lightly tanned face with its

green irises and blonde straightened

shined hair

 

Tall order. drinking with peacocks in the warm

sultry air by the salt sea

and silver and green iridescent wings

 

© 2013 Rudolf Kurt Penner

parent(heses)

As we were walking

  and in a group, she said

I’ll put that on when we get to my place:

  it was Fernando, by ABBA

and that was the artist, Inge

  but she never did

But some forlorn loudspeaker

     that was rather quiet,

       was playing it on the street

I said I could play in on the guitar:

     no comment, so I said it again

     no comment  plus – I’ll put that on

       when we get back home

I have that one

The sun was shining for once; and we’d met

  on the wall that goes around the sea

There I was taking photos of my friend Sylvia

        practicing kung fu

born of a forlorn preacher

The Russians stept in,

and everybody left; everybody who could, that is,

   they soldiered on thru

       to other continents,

miserable oceans by boat

I caught a glimpse of my mum’s Chinese,

   but she would say she forgot

   she would lay in bed for days

     after she got cancer

     and stink up the house with

her rotting peaches

What a drag it must be, to be like that

mentally ill people don’t get cancer

at least I’ve never met one

      miserable oceans apart

what it must be like, living on

  a dog’s leash

a gift of the horse in the mouth

     a grave on either side

     some artist wrote a book

some author plays the game of brandy + cigars

   talks with the gen’lmen-scholars

  and they go back to their boots and hunting

      and triggers and hairpins

and planning the annihilation of the enemy

Tigers walk slowly, eyeing up their prey

   the tips of crows’ wings  setting off the sky

What if the grass is greener on the other side

   And parents off the tan their offspring’s hide

I don’t know what i feel inside

with all the oil paint sitting there unused

the tiggers hoped I’d create a portrait

of them stealing through the brush

the way I figger I can’t get caught

doing something bad

   It’s the best linen canvas you ever had

I would lay back for days

coaxing my back back into shape

  It hurts after working

  and the frog outside keeps croaking

Crow may leave a versatile feather

        for me to pick

  from the ashes

in the sand

And I will go play in the band

with all my wet music

  stained and haunted by

        a silent sadness

©2014 by Rudolf Kurt Penner

Jamie Reid

Jamie Reid asked the question,

  lost in Gastown – which

    way do I turn

– to get home

Way over on Main Street,

    he starts some PRIMAL Shit

      dishing out the art

      – with the mentally challenged

         and brain-damaged

I saw him in a university once,

    that used to be a college

      on Purcell Way

      – tryin’ to teach some tish

    Jamie Reid indeed!

The moment was lost on them,

    no primer

      they sat wide-eyed

      – listening to an old man

A lot of people remember

    Jamie Reid in December

      by my watch

      it’s time to glow

reading, retired

    to the in-crowd

    of Canada’s poets

    Time’s up!

  Jamie Reid indeed!

I wonder what would have happened

if Jamie Reid’d been born a rapper

    listening to the youth of yesterday –

    the giraffe came out and ate up

  the long grasses

but he met 4 men

    and they kept going

the basement of Woodwards

    came with jazz &

           island poet Kim Goldberg

black walls and dreaming guests

    listen to the wisdoms speak

      Read and learn, young poets

      by my watch, its time to glow

  Jamie Reid indeed!

You meet him – then you

      don’t meet him

      and you hear all kinda

      political shit about him

black walls, social conditions

    other semi-famous poets

      dying around him

         Al Purdy, Milton Acorn, Malcolm Lowry

don’t take it with you

    when you’re at a loss for words –

      a stone drops

and you are born

   Jamie Reid

©2015 Rudolf Kurt Penner

(written Aug. 9, 2015 12:15 a.m.)

notes to references in the poem:

PRIMAL was an art gallery on Main St., perhaps in the early 1990s, in Vancouver, serving persons with brain injuries and others. There were open mics and shows to which anyone could come

tish was a literary movement Reid started with several other literary figures in Vancouver. tish at Google books

tish is shit backwards as Jamie Reid often explained…

Gastown – in the summer of 2014 Jamie attended a show at Vancouver’s International Jazz Festival. After the experimental session at Ironworks Studio he got lost. I had heard he’d had some health problems at the time and realized it had probably affected his memory. I directed him to Hastings St. but he turned and went back into Ironworks. I was a bit worried about him getting home, but he was in good hands, as he met acquaintances of his at the studio.

Kim Goldberg, Nanaimo, BC is a fascinating poet