from “Indolent Corollaries”: A poem

Poet Colin Smith. Photo credit: Hani Yassine

 

A national party that slags the native people

as stupid puns on welfare, i.e. “they

don’t want to work and they

don’t want us to work either.”

 

But neoconservative leaders make extremists of us all.

 

But seams become dissolving sutures.

 

We’ll I’ve forgotten who to vote for or against, or why. So, I “did” it.

Let me “fill you in.” I’ve put myself in the used-persons column.

Put grief on post-dated cheques. Unsure,

gave up on those bananas. Went to see the whales at the aquarium. Uncertain

if “clamshells” that house the burger are a danger

to the ozone layer. Our lawyers search for language:

many get shudders. Guaranteed full insertion? Seems we misspoke

our disinformation. Sorry, wrong nerve. Art with a capital “w.”

In the nail file of the screenplay of the lunchbox of the soundtrack

of the gene pool of the bestselling book of the minor votive picture.

We tucked our snot behind the headboard till the bed collapsed.

We filmed the endgame at Humptulips River. The junk food

is healthier but sunlight is more toxic.

 

At closure I took a spraybomb,

on white side of a tall bank wrote

 

(…)

Issue 8 Spring 2007-3