In the Quiet After Slaughter

excerpt

work-in-progress. On account of all the babies about, it was known
as Diaper Hill.
A few years after the family took possession of its new bungalow,
Mr. Rhodes, who drove a truck, was killed in a traffic accident. The
Mrs. had already lost her firstborn, a girl, to a heart defect.
In the early days of the Project the streets were unpaved and
unidentified, lined on both sides by the skeletons of unfinished
homes. It was a world of lumber and brick, of bulldozers and mud,
the air rank with dust and diesel fumes.
Fender dropped out of school in Grade 8. He busied himself
doing jobs others declined: cutting lawns and weeding gardens,
washing cars, helping out with paper routes — whatever he was
asked to do, whatever he was capable of. He was rarely seen without
his red baseball cap.
When I was working for Kellman’s Drugs, stocking shelves and
delivering prescriptions, Fender was running lunches to store owners
too busy to abandon their counters. He swept walkways and cleaned
windows. Occasionally somethingwould happen to remind us Fender
was different. He would anchor himself on the gravelled shoulder of
Rupert Street at rush hour, oblivious to the cars speeding under his
nose, unresponsive to concerns for his safety.
– Where’s he going so fast? Fender might ask of a passing motorist.
Fire someplace?
And if you, strolling by, should shrug your shoulders and walk
on, Fender might give chase, as he once did with me, whispering
into my ear, Maybe he’s going to the dentist! Maybe he’s late for
work! Then he flashes those green eyes of his as though it’s you
who’s the simpleton.
Most of the time, though, Fender was simply a little strange. He
was a devoted fan of the lowly Vancouver Canucks, following their
ineffectual tribulations on a transistor radio. He felt compelled to
announce each home-club goal to the world, running breathless into
shops to deliver the news.
More troubling was Fender’s habit of scaling telephone poles. He
used the steel service pegs running up both sides to make his ascent,
positioning himself centimetres from a live wire.
– It’s dangerous, Sgt. Toby McManus warned Mrs. Rhodes. The
lad will sizzle.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00731WSPE

UGGA

thirty
Three million years before zero
Primate,
why Lucy washes the long, black hair
of your children
and you hide and record it
from behind the thicket?
Why are you embarrassed of
your scarce body hair?
All species get smaller
get tougher
grow wings
and you the forever straightened
stand erected.
You pluck, become human
and resist
your Green Mother’s longing
her longing to hug you.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676370X

Jazz with Ella

excerpt

that old buzzard, Ivan Nikolaevich, their Soviet “host”. Even the rambunctious Hank—a student whom Chopyk thought would be nothing but trouble—had settled down under Mrs. White’s teaching. She had also worked with Carlos, bringing him out of his shell to find that he had a good verbal grasp of Russian.
Then there was the other side of the coin. Even setting aside that outburst at lunch yesterday as not typical of her behaviour, Jennifer was disorganized and a trifle too friendly with the students. Of course, she was much closer to their age group than he was—she was a true apostle of the hippy era, while Chopyk had grown up during the Depression. She was—he stretched for the word, knowing that he would have to find the right one for this report—she was instinctual, a natural teacher. But in this academic context he would have to use the word “undisciplined.” That was only fair.
It was that business in Leningrad that had really bothered him. He was quite certain Mrs. White had not slept in her own bed at the hotel for two, three, maybe not even one of those white nights. She had met a man—that much was the subject of gossip at the breakfast table—but he had not known who until Natasha had gone digging into the man’s past record. Mrs. White had all but disappeared during their stay, showing up for lunch occasionally and for a fast shuffle through the Hermitage. She had only assembled her class once, on the last day, when she had spoken to them about the siege of Leningrad and taught them that maudlin poem. She had not introduced this Soviet man to anyone; that did not bode well. Couldn’t she see that he was some Soviet nogoodnik who wanted to marry a foreigner for his own selfish reasons?
“Maybe I am being old-fashioned,” he muttered to the porthole. He found that, though not married himself, he frequently felt compelled to deliver advice on the state of the decaying institution. How easily these modern career women flouted the rules! Even if Mrs. White was currently separated from her husband, she was still a married woman. He felt irritated. He didn’t want to be modern; he wanted to be right.
“How is she going to explain this Leningrad dalliance to her so-called husband?” he muttered again and quickly shut the porthole in case someone overheard him.
Chopyk closed his journal and secreted it away in his briefcase. He rose from the desk, pushed the chair in neatly, examined his beard…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562892

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

Marginal

VII
Come and with soft caresses remind me
the fire of our voices during
the demonstrations
and the fire in our hearts as we listened
to the words-symbols our favorite
speaker orated to the delight of our souls
come, let’s recall the dreams we had
before the compromise turned them
into caricatures and banal puppets
come and tell me where we failed
and what we could have done differently
if the lost time was given back to us
come, sit next to me when
the soft rain is mixed with
tears flowing down our cheeks
talk to me of us the timid fighters
come, let us ponder on which
Elysium the diffident usually go
what inglorious glory is due to those
who never aimed at the heart of an enemy
and those who never shared
their humble and hardened bread

https://draft2digital.com/book/3747032

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1771715987