We try to write
And dance and sing
And other silly
Creative things.
Getting nowhere
Slowly die
Erode our souls
Sell out and lie.
Magnum opus
Left half done
Can't afford to
Have much fun.
I'm over dramatic
But our lives are real
Working, *******.
To borrow or steal?
We wait for a chance
But in the meantime
We watch the rain
And drink wine.

Pursue anxieties through the arches
Grand clothes, in all, proscenium
Marks the flesh of fiction of which
We wear in pride and tears, breaking
At whimsy the sacred real. Born in
That repetition, the rebel who rips
With rage and striking tongue solidity
All to null. We hold the soul of the earth
In balance just as we know every second
And intense authority, conscious of the body
To mold the putty of your lives.
Absurd boheme! But this magician
This contradiction with no delusion of self
As close as any man may get therefore
To perfection in our nihil.
Running, running all alongside
The misted face of high Olympus
And greatly gathering elements
And crafting, as any god to waltz
In history and awe, Absolute from
Absolute None.
Meet us when, meet us when
All the words like leaves do die
We’ll leave you with the seed of it
From drama comes drama
To drama it will go.

LAUREL AND THE MARE

It was spring and Southern Ontario air tasted of trees.
A pregnant mare escaped to the woods from her prison on the estrogen farm.
She had long, curled hooves and cracked skin.
She came to Laurel and her two children at the edge of Beamsville.
Laurel had no work, a jumble of painted canvasses in the porch, her father's
Hired man's stucco cottage. Laurel, Hadley, Malcolm wore ski jackets and jeans.
The horse loved to exercise at night in the yard.
They combed her and gave her oats. They couldn't afford a vet so they

Called a farrier horse dentist and she fixed the skin and hooves and filed the teeth.
They hung a trouble light on a nail and talked to the horse at night.
The farm smelled of animal again: you know the power of grass breath.
They read library horse books and what's left of the family
Sang with the radio in the barn. Those might have been holy days,
They were feast days, and the children were pulled away from
American television by the strong and willing horse.

Torn French bread and good cheap Beamsville Magnotta wine on the picnic table,
Wine for the children, too, and they all read in their beds after dark.
Laurel went to bed thinking: "It's La Vie Boheme for us."
She gloated at the return of ******
Feeling and the possibility of love and laughed her
Coarse, sweet, hee-haw laugh.

        Paul Anthony Hutchinson    
This poem was published in Canadian Poetry

***** squalor punk paradise
Outlaw gravestones unmarked
Mountains cast heavy shadows
Valley honors no dead
Newspaper op-ed hippie commune expose
And communists all up and down the block
Vintage retro holocaust-chic
La Boheme in the land of gods and monsters
Masquerade ball at the Masonic temple
And marijuana smoke permeates everything
All cells and viscera
Homeless vagrant lowly pauper
Prince of rats king of nothing
Filth & filth & mottled fury
Broken ****** Christmas morning double suicide
New year tastes just like the old one
***** hair on ***** streets
Piles of burning mattresses without sheets
Papers called me a disease, parasitic epidemic
I think I might believe them

Don’t lose hope,
Just because of Shawn
Don’t lose your mind.
Just sing this happy song.

Be the gal everyone loves
You will always rise above.

Always do what you do best.
Take a deep breath
Give life’s meaning a rest
You managed to pass this test

Don’t think long on memories past.
Life is only something to outlast.
When your having trouble getting along
Just sing this happy song.

Sing this lovely Boheme.
Make it your life’s long theme.
Don’t let thoughts of that love dwell
Cause girl it wont do you well.

A sacred beauty, a true bohemian.
But a girl who brings home the bacon.
You are a woman’s woman.

Don’t let life get you down
Turn that frown upside down.
You have too much to live for
To be living life, emotionally poor.

When you down,
Sing this lovely song
It is something to help
You get along

Stop being pitiful,
You cant afford it
Especially when you are so beautiful.

Live life to the fullest.
Never let your nose touch the sky
When in doubt.
Sing this song and you will know why.

I entered school at Blaisdon Hall,
when everybody seemed so tall:
but when I finished being taught,
all my chums in height were short.

The invention of a former cook,
fed the progress of my build and look,
along with spuds - best of Stud Farm crop,
and regular pudding known as "FLOP"

Wilfred Higginbotham was his name:
t'was from Manchester that he came.
Before him the chef was Mr. Higgins:
toupee-topped, nicknamed “Wiggins.”

Very wobbly on a pushbike:
Wilfred was (as they say today) "like"
sort of fat.  Yet, tha' knows
very light upon his toes.

If in the mood and no kerfuffle,
he'd do a lively soft shoe shuffle.
Opera trained - Wilfred was a singer:
for a famous Welsh tenor a dead ringer...

By the serving hatch, his apron gravy stained,
melodious, cheerful, unrestrained
he'd make the pots and kettles ring
as from the repertoire he'd gaily sing..

....selections de La Traviatta, La Boheme,
in his opinion "la crème de la crème"
and other classic arias with aplomb
in the style of Harry Secombe.

Now Wilfred’s "FLOP" a sort of madeira cake:
from the kitchen hatch the server would take
a warmish, deep presenting tray,
where puffed up inviting, there it lay.

Father "Bulldog" Wilson then would cut a slice,
take a bite - declare it “Nice!”
Alas! his knife released the air,
that wily Wilf had mixed in there.

Like a balloon pricked by a pin,
silently within the cooling tin
the cake collapsed. What a ****!
Wilf (t'was said) had used a stirrup pump.

Wilfred - as a baker- didn't cut the mustard,
but he was a dab hand when it came to custard!
A portion of his added magic yellow liquor
made the deflated "Flop!" taste thicker.

What was served up, had a fleeting taste
and was scoffed down in a fitful haste,
thus pleased I am to here relate,
not a trace of "FLOP!" was left upon the plate.

Whatever came of Wilf, I'll never know:
back up North, to ailing mum he had to go.
But still his pudding can invoke
such sensual sentiments all beyond a joke.

Early on in life Marcel Proust's nibbled madelaine,
a lifetime later, when dipped in tea,
and tasted once again, had power to regain
lost time and illuminate his memory.

So it is with me and as I thought
of cher Marcel, an evocative poem was wrought:
"FLOP"!" inspires the 1950s when I recall,
those schoolboy meals in Blaisdon Hall.

TOBIAS

M Vogel
(et inpaenitens boheme, infidele)

When your worst horrors have come to pass
     and you did not die
and sleep  is actually a comfort,  
instead of a curse
Because dream-themes are no longer hauntings
but  instead,  flow in and out of consciousness
as random acts of grace
And the death that should be coming

becomes, instead
a replenishment of living cells--
a surprisingly-unexpected regeneration,  
this bracing for a Fall that never comes.

Winter is coming,

and this death, has a warmth
that will carry me through
And though the ground will be frozen soon,
there will be no death this year
above the frost line

But below,  in what is still warm
there will be a death,  that brings life--
encased in fear, yet floating within the midst
of a subterranean stream..  an ocean, of peace

Winter's chill is coming;  
there is a strange feeling in me
that tells me, I am ready.

Lying down
at the day’s intermission,
I listen to Puccini arias,
and am transported to Lucca,
his walled hometown,
with its *****-white streets,
its darkened straits,
its massive cathedral under
eternal construction.

Life limps along in
effervescent flux here,
beauty kept dormant,
or sprouting like a tree
from the Torre Guinigi’s
grassy roof.

A one-time amphitheater
sports cloned tourist shops.
Only one
sells Puccini souvenirs.
La Boheme survives
on note cards and
lop-sided bookmarks.

The composer’s legacy turned
into trinkets made in China.
A vast, discounted reserve
of memory, kitsch and fame.
Still, they provide me
a precarious solace.

Music without words
charts my tourist mood
of endless angst.
Opera is the grandest art,
some critics claim.
The human condition rendered
thick in symbol and sound.

Happily, I carry
the philosopher’s stone
to decipher the soaring
scores.
They say, passion, foreboding,
no regrets. A fluttering
high C stirs the airwaves.

Ululating sopranos,
searing tenors sigh
heavenward.
The last act over,
the curtain rises on
the dull, restless, repetitive
routines of everyday life.

In the background,
echoes of Tosca, currents
of ruin and rust.
We must embrace our destiny
even on the off-notes.
Opera’s solo signal:
Amor Fati.

Lying down
at the day’s intermission,
I listen to Puccini arias,
and am transported to Lucca,
his walled hometown,
with its *****-white streets,
its darkened straits,
its massive cathedral under
eternal construction.

Life limps along in
effervescent flux here,
beauty kept dormant,
or sprouting like a tree
from the Torre Guinigi’s
grassy roof.

A one-time amphitheater
sports cloned tourist shops.
Only one
sells Puccini souvenirs.
La Boheme survives
on note cards and
lop-sided bookmarks.

The composer’s legacy turned
into trinkets made in China.
A vast, discounted reserve
of memory, kitsch and fame.
Still, they provide me
a precarious solace.

Music without words
charts my tourist mood
of endless angst.
Opera is the grandest art,
some critics claim.
The human condition rendered
thick in symbol and sound.

Happily, I carry
the philosopher’s stone
to decipher the soaring
scores.
They say, passion, foreboding,
no regrets. A fluttering
high C stirs the airwaves.

Ululating sopranos,
searing tenors sigh
heavenward.
The last act over,
the curtain rises on
the dull, restless, repetitive
routines of everyday life.

In the background,
echoes of Tosca, currents
of ruin and rust.
We must embrace our destiny
even on the off-notes.
Opera’s solo signal:
Amor Fati.

He welcomed me to New York
So I say thanks a lot
Please say a little prayer
For my beloved brother Scott

Brian Stokes Mitchell
Eric Alterman
2001
3710

New York to me is taxis
Wicked. La Boheme.
Puerto Rican girls
Not Kansas, Aunty Em

God Bless Paul Simon
Also Billy Joel
Fish out there somewhere
Midnight's Broken Toll

                 Manhattan!

I've been to New York City
5 or 6 times
It's ok
Expensive. But ok.

Cabaret
Wicked
La Boheme
Man of La Mancha

Jerusalem was brown
Tel Aviv was blue
Dublin was me
Denver is you

          Susan. Not Sue.