autobiography | poemimage

Category: autobiography

I told the painter, who had lived on a boat in England’s waterways, my idea for a poetry video about JFK’s widow in Dallas. I want to use a passage from my mother’s journal about tree shadows. She walked past a garage sale and picked up a book with pages blowing in the wind. It was Jacqueline Kennedy’s biography. She took it as a sign & told her ex-husband, a cinematographer, about my project. He traded time and expertise for my paintings & we worked on many projects, over many years.

From my book Meme-Noir (2019).

The video:

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July 11, 2022

page 73

I was a dishwasher at the Executive Motor Hotel on King Street. The waitress with early 1960s-style hair, who was, maybe, 28, said, ‘If you want to come over after your shift I live nearby.’ Maggie May by Rod Stewart was playing on the radio. Seriously it was. At the time I was reading the writings of Antonin Artaud – founder of the Theatre of Cruelty. He claimed to own a walking stick stained with drops of the blood of Jesus Christ. I was trying to connect dots on a map that didn’t exist. I partook of the green, brown, and black herb. I partook of the artificial chariots. She was, maybe, 28.

from my book Meme-Noir (2019)

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June 17, 2022

It Was a Secret

Giotto painted the stars bleeding out his fingertips.

Caroline Coon did a painting of Christine Keeler

As did Pauline Boty.

I fell into the world without a shaman

Somewhere the world is not yet what it will become.

I rented a tiny apartment next door to the girl in white shorts

whose brother, or maybe step-father, has a hook for a hand.

I wake to the sound of birds.

My mother worked near a famous intersection during the war –

music in the nightclubs vibrated echoes all night long.

Somebody said he remembered her –

in a flat boat gliding through the reeds.

Oak trees cast shadows across divided pools

designed in the curvilinear shapes of a Celtic eagle’s head –

I remember fish in deep water

I didn’t want to fall in –

going home from Eddie’s house.

Eddie spread catsup on white bread and smoothed it with a butter knife.

The architect said it was a secret.

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May 15, 2022

page 52

I saw a concealed camera. The building owner said, ‘Keep this to yourself. I can give you a better deal.’ They were trying to catch whoever pulled the fire alarms. I took a two-year lease on a bright, spacious studio. New owners took over. My lease expired. They showed me an abandoned studio containing a four-foot high plaster bust of John F. Kennedy. I wrote the artist a letter. His uncle took me to a basement apartment in Brampton. The artist had been living in his mother’s house. Dishes filled the drainer beside the sink. His thin leather coat hung, buttoned, on a wire hanger. Augustin Filipovic won the Mayor of Rome’s Award. His art embellished the cover of Canada’s Centennial Book. Augustin looked like a movie star, wearing a tuxedo & waltzing in the spotlight with a pretty girl in white.

from my book Meme-Noir (2019)

May 9, 2022

page 47

Eurydice made me a chutney & cucumber sandwich on white bread, minus the crust, for my drive to the art school. Somebody smashed the rental car window – I’d parked in the alley where the crack dealer operated, so I went to the emergency repair place. Sunlight on the shattered window bits danced like crystal chandeliers. I knew I should wait, until the glass was vacuumed & replaced, before eating the sandwich. But somehow the green chutney & white bread went perfectly with chandeliers. I pictured Eurydice making her entrance.

from my book Meme-Noir (2019)

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May 1, 2022

page 62

My father brought home FBI ^{WANTED POSTERS} his friend, the agent, gave him. I spread them out on the bed and frightened myself with aliases, previous crimes, and last known locations. What is white slavery? He has a bazooka? The square inked fingerprints looked like Neolithic patterns connected to the criminal’s inner mind. Photographs were specific yet vague. He could be at the music store, in line at the Frozen Dairy stand. If a car slowed down, surely one of the most wanted had followed me – possibly for hours.

from my book Meme-Noir (2019)

April 19, 2022

page 27

I thought the gallery in Yorkville might be a good fit with my work. The owner wore a sophisticated black dress. Maybe ten years older than me. European. People told me my work was European. She told me to spread it on the floor. She sat in the only chair. After an hour and a half – of what I thought, seriously I did, was a meetings of the minds – she said, ‘Of course, you know you’re not a fine artist.’ I walked out of Yorkville more than a bit shaky – but dazzled by the timing of her coup de grace.

from my book Meme-Noir (2019)

April 29, 2021

String Theory

I introduced the poetry project to the high school class. A boy, who seemed to be the class leader, didn’t see the point of it. I told him to knock on his desk. I said, “What did you touch?” He said, “Wood.” I said, “According to physicists at the University of Moscow exploring String Theory you just touched an elementary particle existing in 11 dimensions. Physicists at the University of Moscow exploring String Theory are now aware that elementary particles communicate with each other. Great poetry has come from Russian poets aware of scientific discoveries made at the University of Moscow.” He said, “Okay, I write.”

From Meme-Noir, my 2019 book of autobiographical vignettes. I bluffed my way through a possible rebellion. I remember the students reading aloud what they wrote. It was all very real. They followed his lead and he made it work. Somewhere he must be close to thirty years old

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October 26, 2020

GIF Experiments: 3 (My brother’s fish & my father’s funeral)

My brother cried, ‘Popeye is dead. Popeye is dead. He was inconsolable.’ His little google-eyed black fish perished overnight and floated in the bowl. At my father’s funeral the stress of the previous day’s open-casket visitation almost pushed my siblings and myself over the edge. We sat in a row along the pew, waiting for the minister to speak, our strange hushed laughter bubbling.

I appreciate the support given to me by the Canada Council for the Arts Digital Originals program in funding this GIF project based on text (with added images) from my most recent book Meme-Noir.