Jap Ji Jinn Jina Jasper

mystics are too proud
  to comb their hair
  or Jasper back alleys for bottles
  to cash in at the depot

  don’t comb my hair neither
  but figured I could
  use a couple hours away from
  being drunken and figuring, fingering slops of
  spilled pints while you weaved
  towards a forged Ultimate Reality
  with a feather meshed in
  your dreads you found
  utterly stupefying
  dirty, an Edmonton gutter

    lifted three bags full from blue bins
    lugged them down the main drag
    levied them over the tracks
    left-handed three bags full onto the counter
    for a lousy loonie times eight and four pennies

pseudo-mystics enjoy healthy doses of
  underarm deodorant, empty bags of pretzels out
  the window, teeth brushed four times before noon

leave the car running while lost
  in the abyss between the
  Jesus of their youth and The Cloud of Unknowing
looming in the distance

  like Old Man Mountain
  reclined above the town
a-sleep-ing warrior also
with a feather in his hair
  we walked barefoot in tendrils, mosquitoed toes
  green forest layed out furthur
  and furthur where
  the daily sense of failure recedes
the daily drone of the Babylon hive conks out

kneel down and worship a pile of pebbles
  wrapped in a prayer flag
  cause surely it isn’t what they mean
  to me or any one else
but only The One, being you

  I layed down on moss mattress
  hoping to catch a ride in a spruce xylem
  phone the folks and “I won’t be home…ever”
   to the tip of the tree where
   at Christmas you place a plastic angel and
  pooofff
   the sun

J. Alfred Woody Allen Prufrock

what is this                                    space between us

the language of           our awkward inaction

twiddling thumbs                   no doubt of wanton

soup spilled in                    your lap

when I reached                 out for the first

time to touch                    my fingertips against

your wrist              and goosey lips

words conveying               beyond what is intended

tripped on a                 sidewalk crack

Well fuck me                  is what I said

we weren’t well                 enough aquatinted

for you to tell if                I was joking

I swear                

 a lot                                 when               

I’m doing my best               Woody Allen imitation

Pierre Bourdieu          would argue this

space is symbolic              representative of

a disparity in our                cultural and economic capital

where the difference                         between picking whiskey over

sparkling white wine                      makes the world

and the dotted line            indicates probable orientation towards the

right                      or                     left

Well fuck me                    if we didn’t speak

this damn English               we’d have less to mo-not-on-eyes over

and would nowise suffer                  a need to kill our close-mouthed-ness

with colloquy                     but round-the-clock osculation

Sitting in a waffle house that also served coffee
(some would argue it was the other way around)

conversations, spilt

the diabolical church go-ers muttering under their coffee breaths

trying to make a buck off the two smucks in the corner

and eyes tuned in

as she serves the eggs, hotcakes, pancakes, crumbcakes, honey dew melon

existence as one big moratorium

pilings and heaps of pilings and heaps

we talked about our impending trip to Babylon

I’ll be Toto in the Wizard of Oz

cause the Gold is in the Streets, in Us

she could let her hair down

of eggs, hotcakes, pancakes, crumbcakes, honey dew melon

and you know

say “WHAT!!” at a Berkeley poetry slam

like dipping you eggs in toast

the infinite dialectical nature of natural and non-natural happenings

Kevin Walby is from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Email: Kevin Walby

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