BETTER WAIT

Electric radiators have come on to my waking
Still in my night clothes Gus admires my matching
Tolerates some belly snuggles but he is all claws
Defining his boundaries and looking
down at his empty breakfast dish
that I leave empty this is a dead loss
for a poem no matter
How much I hurt these words
are empty Unless I lie,
make coffee, have a cigarette
But more importantly I need
even my my

my leg to write
So I’ll open the blinds and decide
Whether to wash before wearing
my leg or put my leg on right this
minute to make me feel whole again. 
Though the twitch in my dick meant
Happy Good morning day dreams
can start unassisted before breakfast 
Let go my leg go let go my leg go.
I don’t smoke anymore how long
how long does anymore last
as far as the professional look,
I’m clean. But I remember lovers
who brought their smokes, all of us
putting them aside for the children
we brought into our lives our desire
with a different light. 

My good foot.

TOES

The big toe is called a toe
not a fancy name like thumb
which, I suppose is also a finger
of which I have the requisite number
ten of course, with a ring
on my ring finger calling out
my marital status in a fine
textured tungsten my wife
has two in different sizes
but she has the requisite
number of toes, ten also
matchy matchy which I love
anointing with lotions
making up for my loss
of five toes that never returned
from the market or let’s
be specific the Winnipeg
General Hospital. My toes
remaining are now five,
noting again the big toe
recognized for its size
but alas the remaining
four are sad examples
once again hammertoes
bleeding into my shoes
after bleeding through
my compression socks
my doctors complain
about the degree of difficulty
in straightening my bones
those in my remaining
five toes the easiest
one might think, unless
grabbing for tarmac
they remember my
left foot, amputated
on my says so
April 5, 2018
the ankle fusion
a failure and all five
toes lost in the
operating theatre
well-lit for their
final bow.

STARTLE

Sideways, damn
My eyes open
Ceiling not overhead
but under my bed
My flight flips frightens
No soul no soul no soul
Danger danger danger
We taught our children
Not to come near the stovetop.
Elements cook porridge
Hot hot hot!
Our cat reaches for my arm
“Please please may I have
More books to chew?
My breakfast disappears
In a few minutes,” I turn away
Looking for vomit which starts
With V and that’s rhymes with pee
There’s trouble in River City
Get the trombones!!!!!!!!!
I jump out of my chair
How did I get there
Too much here
That’s what!

OPPOSABLE THUMBS

I’m losing my grip. there was a boy in grade school who could bend his thumbs all the way back to the bottom of his wrist, we said he was double jointed. But always looked a little gross to me I prefer my bones to be where they need to be to make a body whole. I am slipping into depression today because I’m losing the use of my thumbs particularly the one on my right hand which I’ve been using to move my mouse that is a computer mouse of course.

I’m losing my grip. On Monday an occupational therapist looked at my space hammer and my computers and my chairs and helped me decide where things could be better and how to get in and out of things without risking a fall.

I’m losing my grip. I will want a different ergonomic mouse I’m certain I’m already dictating this article for example this essay this paragraph this sentence while I’m listening to music with the same headset. This may not be advisable but it’s not about my yars this piece.

I’m losing my grip. My things my thumbs I meant to say giving me a hard time. I should be wearing my gauntlets which makes me think of cutlets which I think we should buy for supper soon. Carpal metacarpal arthritis carpal tunnel syndrome whatever you wanna call it it hurts like hell.

My 10% toklo phenac cream came today. That’s DICLOFENAC. It helps a fair bit. What it does is take the pain away the immediate the instant the ever present the chronic the acute pain but it does not make it any easier to use another words I can drop things from a pencil to a hot pan being lifted out of the oven say yesterday with a pizza on it.so if I was going to move on to the next paragraph I would go

Like my mother, I am Losing my grip. “Daut jleppt mie aules wajch,”
My mother used to say things just slipped out of her hands in low German of course but I won’t try to spell it, I’ll get Ralph Friesern to look it up. She didn’t complain much though she did complain which is that something that I remember my mother foremostly I don’t remember her complaining about much like she grew up how she was treated and how glad she was not there anymore that is South Manitoba, except “for the record.” She did complain about her body but not nearly as much as I realize nopw as she could have.

So I’m sitting with my hands so that I guess you could say across my belly. When I’m in bed I often have them crossed under my man boobs over my heart on one side. You look for the most comfortable position to rest the hands to rest my fingers I mean this could be called fingers I suppose fingers would be a separate piece I’m obviously not doing as well while I’m listening to music I’m listening to Steve Reich’s lovely piece done for Pat Methen. Pat Metheny. I should just listen.

OK so I turned off the CBC the timing is always off for me now to listen to Tom Allen, living on the coast. I am listening to Igor Leavitt play Shostakovich preludes.

Probably I should just write a really short poem about them by two opposable thumbs my carpal metacarpal arthritis my carpal tunnel syndrome how everything slips through when we’re talking about slipping through as in it slipped through his fingers we’re actually talking about the thumb and the fingers most often. Then there’s the hundreds of thousands of thoughts that slip through my brains every day. I want a health metre measuring how many thoughts in a day to go with the 1000 steps a day, the most I can manage.

This is a diversionary tactic

I am very happy in my inventing studio I’m just pouring a hot coffee that smells terrific out of a thermas that I feel this morning that way I don’t have to make it a second cup problem is I have to support my coffee differently which is a little bitter but I can’t actually hold it so my thumb I can’t use my thumb to hold it up that means essentially closing my finger then holding another hand on it nothing like making coffee drinking a two handed job.

That’s the same with masturbating of course you don’t need it much but you need it just enough to have a firm hold of what makes you come of course most people wouldn’t put this in a essay and I’m surprised to see the word program spell it that way because I don’t mind the double Diversion simply is I’m happy to be sitting here surrounded by pictures of my kids no it’s a lovely woman asleep at our bed no less than my wife and if I get tired of talking like this I can read which is what I may be left with because I can’t type Less sure because I get dizzy maybe it’s the coffee

I went to the hospital emergency one time because my thumb it was giving me acute pain just it was horrific levels in the 8 to 9 range so it wasn’t very busy, and they took me into X ray right away and took a picture of it. The nurse practitioner came in with results instead as well it’s a good news bad news situation. The good news is you haven’t broken anything. The bad news is you’ve got arthritis all through your hand. Tell me something I don’t know I said to myself. Next week Tuesday I’m getting lots of X rays maybe some ultrasound maybe will set me for a ct scan but that’s next week and today is Friday so I should do something that’s fun just not everything tomorrow is Friday no please let everything tomorrow Saturday piss off early today is Friday anyway it’s poets today

Saturday. Found a joint and a lighter in the back of my wheelchair. Jared is here washing windows. I’m drinking coffee but listen up ‘AIN”T IT FUNNY HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY” Daut jelept miwe allous weiCH Steve Reich rhymer Al Green going tick talk, etc…../.it all slips awazy from me

Victor opening standard res.mp4

Please click on the link .

IMAGINE THIS BLANK PAGE IS YOURS AND YOURS ALONE. WRITE OR DON’T WRITE THIS BLANK PAGE IS YOURS. NO SUBMISSION, NO ENTRY FEES
WRITING IS FREE, TO YOU AND TO ME.

~

My shoulder replacement is a success. I must be careful not to overuse it, lift something heavy and I’ll lose it.  My surgeon said he would look at my right shoulder in January when he looks at the left for the final oohs and aaashhs.
 The cleaner is cleaning.  

I am waiting for:

 The results of the BC Provincial Election tonight
pain medication  by Tuesday,
a call to set up physio appointment
Counselling session next week Friday
six cortisone shots to relieve pain in my spine  Oct.30th , 2024
Shoulder surgeon appointment  in January, final clearance on left
and  start the process for the right shoulder
First x-ray on my knee for what  likely be a knee replacement

1.
I should get a pail to  carry
random thoughts  Yes
that’s more like it.
If I had a pal
I could carry
my head in it
but only when
it is too heavy
for my cervical spine.
so most of the time.

2.
I forbid any talk
about Liza.

I forbid any talk
about holes.

I forbid any talk
of bottoms.

You see, the next
thing you’ll talk

you’ll talk about the
hole in Liza’s bottom.

You’ll forget
the pail completely

you dirty minded
rascal.

3.

All I’ve got
is my head
in a pail.

Lucky man
my angels carry
the pail between

them. Ever so well
leaving
my body in hell.

EROS HOTEL

Desk Clerk/Gatekeper

1. St. Augustine/with ghost of Euripides
2. Richard III
3. Menno Simons
4. Catherine the Great
5. Ludwig Van Beethoven
6. Queen Victoria
7. Sigmund Freud/with Richard Dehmel
8. Samuel Beckett

Augustine is working on a story for you!

DREAM

This is still kind of loopy but I’ll put it in my dreams section on my website.

Last night I dreamed of forgetting my car. I was driving and needed to park quickly.
The parking lot changing from U of M to the downtown flat lots while I went to meetings.
I overstayed my welcome the tough guys came and towed my green Studebaker to their central parking compound. Not happy, I had the phone number and called.
I went to the compound and it seems the visit, only one or two, in real life had an impact. The tough guys as I’ll call them, were not interested in helping me at all, calling forth their manager, who suggested with a significant payment well over the usual compound fees I could get my car in time to get to the airport where I wanted to go in a hurry or they would give me a ride in my own car and keep it safe in their compound. Gullible to a fault sure drive me to the airport.
I was in Minneapolis for a professional development event for writers. Returning, landin, back in Winnipeg I called for my car and the compound said they didn’t have it. Likely somebody stole it. WTF, what do you mean, “likely it was stolen.”
“Happens here all the time.” I’m on my way, and I expect to retrieve my car at the government approved rates for parking tickets and such.
Do what you want, but you’ll be wasting your time. I take a cab who I asked to wait but insists on collecting its fare, and then high-tails it out of there. Not a pleasant neighborhood, for sure. I see what I think is my green Studebaker and go into the compound office all huffy and puffy. “I’d like my car please.”
“Yeah, about that we don’t have your car
“I can see it in the lot without its doors.”
“Oh, that. It’s not your car. Did your car have doors?”
“Yes, of course I could drive it.
“See, not your car.”
“Should I call the police?
I don’t know what you should do. I would suggest leaving as your best choice.

After muttering a number of profanities, I turned and walked out into the lot, and tried to make a phone call. But there was no, I mean NO cell phone service thereabouts, at all! walk away afraid in the dark until I find service, call for a cab
Two possible endings; One I walk to the green Studebaker get in on the driver’s side throw my carry-on into the back seat and try my spare key. It starts, I go, leaving with no doors on the car. The second is I try to retrieve the car but have no way to get it started and not ready to drive it without doors. So I walk away afraid of the dark, until I come into the light and cell service.