things move around

Nothing like a three-week sojourn
in the low-rise hinterlands
of an always-overcast town
in an unpopular time zone,
missing the girlfriend,
nothing like it to mess with the mind.

All day at the office,
tapping at the laptop,
adjacent to two airports:

all day, float planes
ascending from / alighting on the lake
with an aboriginal drone,

and inbetween times the throb
of jumbos rumbling in from the Faraway,
jarring blood and bone,
freighting the air with their perfume,
probing old memories
like a gloved hand inside the brain.

Nothing like having some time alone,
when you’re young enough to spare the time
or old enough for it to mean something,

nothing wrong with that.
But I’ve had enough of it,
the maudlin and the turnagain tone;

so bear me home jumbos, bear me home,
to sunup and incoherent sundown
and days to come,
and let the low moan of the plane
moderate memory unknown,
and bear me on.

The front of beyond;
The outskirts of nowhere;
The interior of Reason;
The start of one’s tether;
On the beaten track;
The palm-fringed beaches of Anchorage, AK.

Bookman Old Style, peering at you from behind prince-nez glasses, saying shhh.
Comic Sans MS, a droll customer.
Times New Roman, the accomplished salesman with a secret fetish identity.
Garamond, Garamond, won’t you do the fandango.
Palatino Linotype, a Florentine carpet salesman.
Tahoma, misnomer.
Univers Condensed and put in a snowglobe.
Verdana, growing plum tomatoes and citrus fruits in her own hothouse.
Courier, content to live alone.
Arial, a solace in times of doubt, dread, despair.

“If there is anything we can do to make your stay more comfortable, please do not hesitate to let us know.” Actually Yes. Better lighting. Get rid of the anodyne faux-native art. Complimentary scotch. A colonial ceiling fan. Maps, not Where’s Wally?-style pictorials catering solely to children and animals. Speaking of which, a spit-roast suckling pig at dinner on Wednesdays, and a ban on children. Tell the Gideons your guests will read only the Old, and never the “New” King James. And if you’re going to offer the book of Mormon, it should come with two of those cute Mormon chicks to feed me grapes while I read it in my executive black leather armchair. Oh yeah - and an armchair. Black. Leather. Eggs-eck-ute-iv. No fucking art. Free fucking scotch. That’ll do for now.

In the song “Cemetary Gates” by jangly 80’s Mancunian beat-combo The Smiths, Morrisey asserts that

Keats and Yeats are on your side
But you lose
‘Cause weird lover Wilde is on mine

Is Morrisey right? Or would Keats + Yeats be a match for Oscar “Weird Lover” Wilde? It’s tempting to entirely discount Keats, the consumptive weakling’s weakling, leaving a straight match-up between the bitter guile of Yeats and the bruising roughhouse tactics of Wilde. I think it would be a pretty close call - certainly not the mismatch envisioned by Mozzer - but if I had to pick a winner it would be Wilde. Unless Keats was armed with some heavy, blunt object - an Urn, say. A thing of battery is a joy forever.

What about other poetic dust-ups - who would carry the following bouts?

Sidney v. Shelley (cage match, no holds barred)
Peter Reading and Gavin Ewart vs. Ted Hughes and Thom Gunn (tag team)
Dylan Thomas vs. R.S. Thomas (sumo)
Alfred Lord Tennyson vs. The Imagists (Tennyson handcuffed to a lamppost, permitted only to glare and declaim)

Who would you want on your side if Moz and Wilde were waiting for you at the cemetary gates?

[Incidentally, poet-fighting was once a common sight in the rougher areas of London Town. Baying crowds would surround a pair of hapless versifiers and goad them into bloody combat. The practice is still legal, but fell into obscurity around 1902, with the launch of the TLS.]

Me: Look at all the bugs on the windscreen - or at least, what’s left of them.
Wing: Imagine being a bug.
Me: A short life.
Wing: No, I mean the way they die. Imagine it - heh heh - you’re flying along, and next thing - heh heh - flying along, and whumph! - whole body explode!

The Rockies are a young mountain range - rearing, rambunctious and brash as billygoats. They rise up out of the almost nothingness that is Alberta, bald and covered in snow this morning, buffering the sunrise back over us in a smeared wash of orange gouache, a savage welter of honey and fire.

- Yvette! Mornin’! Just in time to make me a coffee!

- …

- but you don’t drink coffee. I know, I know.

In related news, I’m rediscovering condensed milk. I think condensed milk has a lot to say about the way our society is evolving. It has futurelevance.