Handbombs of the Poor

            On Tuesday I spent a lot of time online arguing with bigots in the aftermath of Monday’s vehicle attack. So many people were ready to assume that it was an ISIS inspired terrorist attack even after the early and subsequent evidence clearly showed that assessment to be wrong.

            In the evening I put my guitar in its case and folded my guitar stand to slip it into my backpack, then I rode to St Stephen in the Fields Church for the April Shab-e She’r. It had just begun to seriously rain as I arrived in front of the church. Giovanna Riccio was at the reception desk and told me that George Elliot Clarke would be coming later. I expressed regret that I hadn’t brought my copy of Canticles I for George to sign but Giovanna shrugged and said, “Maybe next time!”

            I was feeling very warm and so I stripped my upper body wear down to my tank top.

            I unpacked my guitar stand and set it up on the stage next to the cathedra chair. I tuned my guitar and ran through the song I planned to do that night, then I put the instrument on the stand that I’d bought myself as a Christmas present this last December. This was my first time using it at a place where I would be performing and it made me feel like a professional.

            Giovanna commented that I was dressed for summer. I told her that I found it humid and hot in the church, she said she didn’t feel it but thought it was great that I’m so warm blooded. I assured her that I wasn’t, though I didn’t go into detail. The fact is that I get cold fairly easily and always have, though I recall it having been worse when I was a kid.

            Allan Briesmaster came in and we chatted briefly. He asked about my writing so I told him that I hope to have a book of poems on the theme of Parkdale ready soon and I would be looking for a publisher. I said that knowing that Allan still has a small publishing house even though he’s no longer one of the people that run Quattro Books. Allan said he wishes me luck and he would certainly buy my book when it comes out, and I got the impression from his tone that he’d picked up on my hint and had subtly declined my offer to give him first crack at my book. I might still send him the manuscript later on to see if he can point me in some kind of direction, since he’s the only publisher that I really know and he must be fairly familiar with the Toronto scene.

            I sat down at the front and started doing some writing. A tall man came out from the back, gym area of the church, followed by a shorter man who appeared drunk. The second man barked something at me that I couldn’t make out and then he tried to attack the taller man. Norman Allen got up to try to intervene, reminding him, “You’re in a church! Don’t hit him!” I added, “Just don’t hit him! It’s irrelevant whether you’re in a church or not!”

            Suddenly the minister of St Stephen in the Fields, Maggie Helwig was there and she was quite impressive in the way she quickly diffused the situation. She spoke quietly to him and soon she was lovingly holding him in her arms until he was sedated by her affection. I don’t think Maggie has special powers or that she’s a walking ray of light, but she has obviously developed some useful skills in her time as the priest of a downtown church.

            Elisha came to sit to my right in the front row and said hello. I had to ask her name though because the first time I’d seen her perform she called herself Charlie Chopra. She told me that she wouldn’t be coming to Shab-e She’r again for a while but gave me her instagram and Facebook addresses just in case I wanted to check out what she’s doing. She asked me where the washrooms are and I gave her directions, adding, “They’re all gender neutral.” She took my comment the wrong way and explained that Charlie Chopra was just a character that she’d done. I assured her that I hadn’t meant it like that.

            Tom Smarda arrived and we hugged. He pulled up a chair in front of me and played his guitar while chatting. He used a chromatic tuner similar to what I used to have and I asked him if he prefers it to a clip-on. For me, it took a long time to tune with the chromatic because it picks up too much ambient noise while the clip on tunes by the vibrations on the neck and it doesn’t matter what noises are going on around me. The clip on has saved my musical life. He explained that he finds it more accurate than a clip on. I told him that I’ve been advised to always tune the E and B strings slightly lower than where the needle says it’s dead on and that works out pretty well for me.

            Elisha was sitting next to us and practicing for her open stage performance. Every now and then she would ask for feedback. She was wearing a pair of big dark glasses over her own glasses and was holding her pen, which is made to look like a quill, as if it were a long cigarette holder. I told her she was looking a bit like Jackie Onassis. She said that I’m not the first person to tell her that. She explained that she was getting in character and so her responses to our conversation might not be hers. Tom asked her name but she told him that he would find out later. She asked Tom if he was into Tom Petty. He answered that he likes some of his stuff but he doesn’t follow people.

            Bänoo came to the mic and announced that there was Middle Eastern food on the table at the back. It smelled delicious but I don’t like to eat directly before performing and I also prefer to eat when I’m relaxing at home and it’s a part of every day that I look forward to. Tom asked Sozan Jamil, the woman who’d brought the food if it was vegan but she said it wasn’t. I could smell that it was delicious meat from where I was sitting. Tom seemed a bit disappointed that it wasn’t vegetarian so I held out my arm and told him, “You can eat me! I’m a vegetable!” Elisha commented that she thinks there’s a song lyric that says that. Tom quoted something that I came up with years ago: “If vegetarians only eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?” Elisha said, “That would be a cannibal. There’s a band called Fine Young Cannibals.” She mentioned missing Honest Ed’s and I agreed that it’s weird to see the place gone but told her that I always hated shopping there. It was an annoying maze of a store with unhelpful employees and a lousy atmosphere. She mentioned Sam the Record Man and I commented that she was a little young to remember Sam’s. She assured me that she is older than she looks and told us that she’s late Generation X. That would put Elisha as having been born between 76 and 80. I see after later looking it up that Sam’s closed in 2007 but for some reason I’d associated it with a much earlier period.

            I asked Elisha if all of these references to an earlier time hinted that she was planning something nostalgic for the open stage. She said, “I’ll plead the Fifth on that!” I reminded her that we don’t have the Fifth Amendment in Canada. She said, “Good point!” Tom declared, “And no second amendment!” I added that we do have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms though, which is better than the US Constitution. The right against self-incrimination is covered by section 13 of the Charter.

            Bänoo welcomed us to the 62^nd Shab-e She’r event and International Poetry Month. She told us that Shab-e She’r began in November of 2012. Since Laboni Islam, who knows the land acknowledgement by heart, was not there, Giovanna Riccio read it from a page.

            Bänoo told us that the League of Canadian Poets had donated three poetry month posters and some poetry anthologies for her to give away and she let us know she would be doing that later on.

            Bänoo said that she tends to ask a Shab-e She’r newcomer to be the first reader and so she invited Jenna Tenn-Yuk to the stage.

            From Jenna’s poem – “I’ve always been drawn to her hands … Po Po … opens two packages of yeast … Hands that survived the Japanese invasion … She touches smells and tastes … filling her precise creation with seasoned meat …”

            Jovan read “Now” – “Now is ever fleeting … My hands sweat in anticipation … I think hard to keep these moments that I long for.”

            Next it was time for Elisha’s set but she had asked Bänoo to introduce her as Charlotte. She stood halfway up the steps to the stage with her back turned to the audience and spoke in an ordinary voice without the microphone, so it was very difficult to hear what she’d memorized so well. I wasn’t sure whether or not it was her intention to not be heard, but she confirmed to me later that part was meant to barely audible for metaphorical reasons – “I had a teacher who was a big fan of great Canadian … We didn’t have Rogers Centre …”

Charlotte turned around to face the audience at this point, and so it was easier to hear her as she related early memories of double standards about women and girls in the media – “During an era when Kim Campbell almost became the first female prime minister of Canada … she never signed up for a boxing course … A friend or family member needs support … Not my … our story … I speak on behalf of all invisible populations … strong survivors are out there … There’s many success stories out there … Tamara Burke … Me Too Movement … There’s also a movement for children in Pakistan … Thank you everyone! Thank you for helping me find my Hindi accent! That was really heavy! Let’s be calm and help some girl guides!” Then she pointed back towards the gym, “They’re over there!”

Norman Allan did a few short poems.

From “I Spoke” – “I spoke of the Trumping of America …”

            From “He Said, She Said” – “When was the world not at war? There were peaceful people around Fort Erie for 10,000 years …”

            Bänoo invited a young woman to come up and tell us about a cultural event that takes place once a month, featuring music, poetry, film, visual arts and dance. Every event has a theme and it usually takes place on the last Sunday of every month. It’s at Luanda House at 974 Bloor Street West near Dovercourt and it’s called Sarau Brazil. The next one is on April 29^th and the theme is St George.

            Then it was my turn. I did my song “Insisting on Angels”. I had done it before back in the fall but had screwed it up so badly that I was determined to bring it back and do it better – “ … All the women pass this pit / and they stoop / to look down / to admire its depth / and the beautiful clown / who sits at the bottom / of a sculpture of ice / hoping for fire / though he can’t pay the price / to be warmed by the furnace / of a girl in finite love / cause it burns / with the sureness / of a dry entry shove // But hope / is the dope / that I smoke / to get by / though it don’t kill the pain / and it don’t / make me high // Cause the love that we hope for / depends on who we’ve kissed / and if you’ve kissed an angel once / it’s on angel’s you’ll insist.”

            Bänoo decided at this point to do a poem responding to the vehicle attack and for this she chose a piece by, Hafez, the 14^th Century Persian poet referred to as “the mouthpiece of the divine” – “Last night I saw the angels knock at the tavern door … The residents of the pure, chaste heavens … could not bear the burden of trust … The war between 72 nations is all an excuse. They did not see the truth … Thank god there was peace between you and me … Fire is what fell on the moth’s wings … ever since they combed the tresses of speech.”

            Our first feature was Sozan Jamil, who began by offering condolences for the people that lost loved ones on Monday.

            For every poem, Sozan first offered a version in what I think she said were two languages. One was Arabic and I think the other was Kurdish. She also sang each time after speaking the poem in one of those languages. I assume the spoken parts were the actual poems and that the sung parts were something extra, but the singing was quite lovely.

            From “On One Foot” – “Looking for a sign from you … I realize that you are watching me from a distance …”

            From another poem – “He is a big monkey … He dances to their tunes … Take a picture of him and occupy the minds of Facebook users forever.”

            Another – “A tender shy man covers his heart with fig leaves … The tender handsome man … He covered himself … The talisman on his neck did not help him … “

            “Oh Promises” – “The infiltrated giant … in my revolution … The fair headed pharaoh falls on his knees … distrust … wallow in winter … The virgins … ripple … under the shadow of a dark, cold land.”

            Another – “You departed … You emigrated my ruins and sailed … Honey on my lips … Leave me in the hollow of your sea … in the halls of your white shirt.”

            Another- “Four men apply Islamic law … The punishment is to cut off his hand … They apply the law with the mother watching … A hand bomb falls on the ground … Two eyes overflow with tears … Two hands lift it.”

            Although I think that perhaps some of Sozan Jamil’s poems did not come through their translation undamaged, a lot of her poetry has some very creatively written phrases such as the one about a departing lover emigrating someone’s ruins.  I think that her strongest poem was the one with the references to being an immigrant to Canada, especially the part with the alliteration of “the fair headed pharaoh falls”. Another poem though has a quite powerful and chilling image when she describes “a hand bomb” falling to the ground. 

            We took a break and I went over to chat with Tom. He complimented my song and told me that he remembered having heard it before. I think I did perform a musically simpler version of “Insisting on Angels” a few times in the late 90s because my girlfriend at the time was particularly fond of it.

Norman Allan came up and also told me that my song was very good. Tom told Allan that he liked his poetry and the way he reads it in stereo, whatever that means. Norman went on to weave a distopian prophecy that he is certain that humanity is approaching a massive apocalypse that will leave only about a billion people on the Earth. I asked him what the nature of this cataclysm would be the result of disease gone out of control. Tom wondered if it would be something developed in a lab but Norman assured him that it would be an already existing contagion. I seemed to recall it mentioned that Norman has some kind of medical background and so I asked him about that. He confirmed that he’d studied neuroscience.

Asking this question online, what I’ve found is that it would be very difficult for most of humanity to be wiped out by disease because the human genome has wide variety and on top of that we have an efficient medical infrastructure in almost every populated area. Once the first signs of a plague were noticed in one area, quarantines would be put into effect to prevent it from spreading. People would be screened before international travel. A small percentage of the population would have immunity.

Allan said something about god but I argued that there is none, or if there were it wouldn’t give a fuck, citing the example of children getting cancer. He said that it depends on what one means by god. I assume Allan thinks the universe is intelligent but there’s little evidence of that either. Tom said something about karma, the existence of which I also challenged. He said that he just sees it as an extension of the law of cause and effect in physics but I argued that there is no indication that thoughts or feelings are really physical actions or even energies such that they would be affected by the laws of physics. The idea of cause and effect is just about the immediate equal and opposite reaction to an action, so how can that fit with the karmic idea that years later or even in another lifetime the reaction could come? I drew his attention to one of the church columns and told him that if I punch it there would be an opposite force but it would be the same if I punched it on purpose, accidentally or because I had Torrette syndrome. I think karma was just invented by nice losers as a way of making them feel better about nasty winners winning. I think that karma is a trap that causes selfishness. If you’re motivated by being punished for an action you’re not really looking at how the action can just be wrong in itself. Why should people need universal consequences to motivate them to do the right thing? Tom and I had to cut off our argument because the break was over.

Before the second feature we had a musical performance from Tahseen, who played what sounded like Middle Eastern music on a woodwind instrument that sounded like a flute but which he blew from the end, so I’m going to guess that it was a kaval.

The second feature was Spencer Gordon. He had trouble elevating the microphone stand, so I got up to help him. It took so long for me to loosen the nut on the clutch to telescope the stand that he started to say, “It’s okay!” but finally it opened it and I slid it up to his height.

Spencer’s first poem was “X-Ray” – “Not to be unflinching nor deeply felt … no stunning achievement nor moral intelligence … No image of life … No thoroughly disreputable object … No triumph of the imagination … Neither convincing nor enchanting … No rigour to test the limits of what it means to be human … No wild amoral joy … Containing nothing … No phosphorescence … without startling realities … Without the mystery of the erotic menace of absurdity.”

From “Conservative Majority” – “Life, friends, is a game of online bingo … Ordinary people love a game of ones and zeros … Life, friends, makes art a necessity … Extraordinary Canadians sculpt rivers … Only Canadians say “Aboobooboobooboobooba … Banff … Pierre Berton’s ghost makes the internet hum … Poetry … Upscale décor … A Brooks Brothers suit … I liked poetry on Facebook … I tagged poetry on instagram … I wonder if books is where walls go … Pose beside a seal while a poet holds your hammer …”

From “A Picture in Gaza” – “Time slowed down its paradise … Sometimes you are paralysed … perfect summer dress … Every day we conspire to kindness … Inside they’re babies just like us … A dog’s pink tongue spoons up a bowl of water … Maybe the faces of children are still sweet and noble enough …”

From Augury” – “According to the website that sums up the Bible … when a storm came upon them seizing their boat … there’s a white crucifix stuck in the dirt of Lost Hills, California … near the world’s largest parking lot … chalks up your Pepsi bottle … no one I love has papers or records … The last time I saw my cousin … we passed three white crosses … He said, ‘Look, here comes the rain’ … The showers through the hills … in the wisdom of your water spouts … the earth is a killing brass pillow … I thought I was looking at the National Enquirer that bragged about Trump … Places you take Greyhound … dogs curled up on metal … My forehead pressed to glass … for the first time I tried on a prayer … The first thing is that we are alone and god hates poor people.”

            From “Ticker Tape” – “The Proline Auto Service used to say … outside Woolworths … More humorously, across Canada the Future Shops are closed permanently … wrapping halos of woe around the white peeling windows … Chiquita boxes filled to the top with Michael Buble CDs … Walmart Express stayed open just long enough … You work in fast food, you’re hungry … Zellers turns to Target … cradled by milk boxes … like Dominoes in Jeffrey Plaza … There is no system to replace the ruined system … severed reveries of thousands …Ask those pushing for a more diverse sea suite … sprinkled with fake looking snow … Climate change is a Chinese conspiracy … Coal is making a comeback … What’s a poverty line? Video lottery machines … if you’re part of the 47 percent who can’t leverage … at $5.99 the parmigiana is too expensive … Kids toys line the block … There is no system to replace the ruined system … When we wake up we’re covered in cuts …”

            Spencer told us that his final poem, “When You Are Old” was written as a tribute to Yeats – “The second time you try, it’s all right … then the call comes back … Even drinking is easier … You lean … and say ‘Kiss me darling’ … The air doesn’t need friends or family.”

            A lot of Spencer Gordon’s writing sounds like it is made up of phrases that were composed separately and then assembled later to make a composition. Sometimes it works but sometimes it feels disjointed. He does have some interesting thoughts and some killer lines like “mystery of the erotic menace of absurdity”; “wrapping haloes of woe around white peeling windows” and “god hates poor people”, but I think a lot of his poems are cluttered with unnecessary images and phrases and he could benefit from having an editor, or if he has one already, a better one.

            Bänoo announced that the next Shab-e She’r will be on May 29 and then called Nick Micelli to kick off the second half of the open stage. Nick read a piece he’d written for a talk he gave at the Centre for Spiritual Living – “A flower growing to the sun … A vast field full of infinite vitality … illuminating the night of experience …”

            Someone (perhaps Bänoo) mentioned that yesterday was Shakespeare’s birthday. Actually, April 23^rd has just been established to be his birthday because he died on that date and it makes for a neat time rhyme. He was baptized on April 26^th though, so April 23^rd might either be the date of his naissance or pretty close.

            Melina Gianellia came to the stage in her bare feet and spent about three minutes setting up her poem, but she seemed like an easily distracted person. She told us that she had planned on performing with an accompanist that is both a musician and a physicist but he didn’t show up. She announced that she is circulating a petition to ask the city to put a bench in the park in her neighbourhood in honour of a friend that died. She talked a little more about herself and then gave a shout-out to her mother who was in the audience. Just before starting to read her poem she suddenly ran to her seat to get her mug of tea or whatever beverage it was. Then she ran back to read the poem – “Give the girl October please … her aching knees … Give her also a man to watch like a sunset … August … a scrambled mass of nuptials … a steel tang on the teeth … How to love a man while slaloming through catastrophe … the gold loops catching … We are enraptured … I am sandwiched by twin disasters … We scrambled up the Bluffs … her body … You the men who traded gold, remember her.”

            I assume that Bänoo did not consciously arrange it so that we heard from three poets of Italian descent in a row. The third was Giovanna Riccio, who reminded us that she is writing a book of poems about Barbie. She said she learned about the Barbie Inspiring Women series of dolls featuring historical figures such as Amelia Earhart and was inspired to write a new poem when she saw their depiction of Frida Kahlo – “A girl cannot be what she cannot see … Death … derailed her trolley … She munched on … reflection and ennui … loneliness as newfound agent … Frida Kahlo … Once off her back she kept company with … his labour adorning Mexico’s walls … Frida’s brush extracted art … Her body as biological epic … Her dress composed a mestizo manifesto … Neither Paris nor New York could occupy her palate … Stick figure arms … A big faced fake Frida … Barbie never admits her faulty logic … a hollow tribute, Barbie can only see.”

            Erin Kang read “Tapestries” – “When you see railroads do you see progress … When you see diverse cuisine do you see histories ripped apart … Could I get those without MSG … When you see me, do you see …”

            Then Erin sang a song in an East Asian language.

            Chai came to the stage with a poster that he’d won because Bänoo had asked one of the features for the month of their birth and when it turned out to be April she asked for an audience member that was also born in April and that had been Chai. He was also carrying a long stemmed pink rose because he had earlier been at Yonge and Finch where the vehicle attack had occurred the day before and a man that had brought flowers for the victims, since he could not see where to lay them, had begun giving them to other people that were gathered in the area. Chai asked everyone to stand for “a few seconds of silence”, but as soon as everyone was standing, Chai immediately said, “Thank you”. It was the shortest moment of reflection I’d ever experienced.

            Chai asked everyone if they’d heard of Colin Kaepernick and then asked George Elliot Clarke if anyone has ever written a poem about a knee. George started to respond but Chai didn’t really give him a chance to finish and expressed that he’d never heard a poem about a knee. Of course though there must be thousands of poems about knees. In fact, an online search of poems about knees turns up a million and a quarter hits and a search for poems about taking a knee shows twelve and a half million results, including a poem by George Clooney.

            From Chai’s poem – “It is time to take a knee … for Canada’s carbon footprint … It is time to alternate knees for health … It is time to switch knees sitting down for a pleasant lakeshore bike ride … It is time to take a knee for national boundaries … Breathe till you die … Take a knee and stand against racism … Take a knee to the NRA … Stand against climate change … Stand for fresh water … take a knee for closing before the blow-up of Bruce and Darlington … Take a knee … and kick their ass!”

            Bänoo called Laura De Leon to the stage but she hesitated because she had hoped that Anthony would play guitar while she read her poems. But Anthony had thought that Laura had signed him up to accompany her and to do his own set as well, whereas Bänoo had only put the two of them on the list together. Learning that, Anthony decided not to accompany Laura, and as far as I could see he disappeared, as he so often does. I think one of the reasons that Anthony is so often homeless is because he can’t wait more than a few minutes for anything before wandering off.

            Laura read “Narcissus”, which she reminded us is an epic tale of one soul submerged in self-love – “How much are these wishes? Do they resonate like songs? Visions of silks … return to the place that was luminous and deep …”

            Laura asks Anthony to back her up on her second poem, “Echo” but he is nowhere to be seen – She tells us that Echo is the shadow of Narcissus – “Perchance one wish may find you … An epiphany of lost years … I am your reflection … given a second sense … dividing spirits from the lake … spirit sucked into the deep vortex … the displacement of all … Perchance you will find me all dressed in black.”

            Laura asked, “May I call on Anthony?” but Bänoo thanked her in a tone that indicated her set was over.

            George Elliot Clarke read a poem from his book “Canticles I” a poem in the voice of African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, who was quite famous in his day for writing non-critical, light hearted, pastoral poems about slave life. That’s why he was particularly popular with white people. He was bothered by his success. George’s poem was called “Paul Laurence Dunbar Selects a Theme” – “The great poem should canvas Confederates … shatting upon their own dumb, doleful dead … Being a Negro (or “negativized”) poet / I combine John Donne and Johnnycake … My tinny, dubious poetics … (hardy as Hardy: / hardy har har) … I edge toward a Direction … /to recall the slaves’ edgy tongues / to bless their hollered plaints / an epic of hectic invective: / that’s what I should write … But I’m the (bastard) child of Lincoln … and “Moses” Harriet … I slash words into sheets crepuscular /My poesy is surgery done wrong … A jungle grammar, nothing papers over / I’m the damnable imp of damp ink … All cantankerous Cant / cos I can’t descant … Yessum, I trade on my molasses sweet brogue / sumpin southern, wily and whisky smoky / and pungent as tar and icy as mint julep / a smidgen of ochre moonshine / and pot liquor low down in the mix / That’s why my rhythm jitters illicit … It’s as hard for me to carry a tune / as it is for a nigger to carry an election … My faux pas mustn’t mislead talented (i.e., obedient) / Negroes … Come the future, my words will be so many / dim smudges / and scholars will ice-pick apart /my plangent lying guts … My flowers constitute / a pitiful worm-blown bouquet … Consider Mr. Whitman … as egalitarian as manure.”

            Sydney White began with “A Mother’s Prayer” – “The war in Afghanistan is ended … Well isn’t that splendid … The dead children, they know the truth … Let their blood stain my gold but not my sons.”

            From “Living on a Ledge” – “Missiles were sent as a message to Assad … alleged to have used chemical weapons … Politicians are clinging to ‘alleged’ by their fingernails.”

            From “A Matter of Degree” – “Ten killed by a man noticed to be strange … Those new to our shores know death … The million dead children in Iraq …we have blood on our hands … That justice is blind we are so lucky.”

            The last performer, as usual was Tom Smarda. He told us, “By the time I was 18 I saw 50,000 murders on TV”. From Tom’s song – “We’ve got to take the pressure off the Earth /We’re destroying anything of any worth … We’ve got to take the pressure off ourselves / Looks like we’re on a one-way road to hell / We’ve got to take the pressure off ourselves / and make it better … I know you can … You did it before / now do it again … We’ve got to take the pressure off our kids / Lord knows it’s got nothing to do with what they did … Doodoodoo doodoodoo doodoodoo doodoodoo doodoodoo … Leave some trees so we can breathe / Leave some water so we can drink / Leave us our minds so we can think …”

            I approached Tom afterwards and he asked me if I remembered his song and I confirmed that I’d heard it many times and think it’s one of his best songs. He had the false memory though of having written it in twenty minutes at song writing workshop that I’d organized. I assured him that I have never done a song-writing workshop. But it was impressive that he’d composed that piece in a third of an hour. I told him that the only time I’d ever sat down with the intention of writing a song about a particular topic was after Angeline one night when we were in bed together had asked me if I was ever going to write a song about her. I decided to give it a shot and the result was “Angeline”. Tom told me it’s a good song and he plays it sometimes himself. I said that Angeline thinks it’s the only good song I ever wrote.

            Tom asked me what I would be doing on the week before Mother’s Day. I answered that I would be waiting to be born. He said that he’d been invited to perform at a psychiatric survivors demonstration and wondered if I’d like to perform my song “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy”. I said I could dig the song up and dust it off.

            Nick Micelli came over to tell Tom and I that we’d both done great sets.

            I started packing my stuff up when Melina walked up to shake my hand and tell me that she rally liked my song a lot. Then she asked if I wanted to sign her petition. I told her that I wasn’t going to sign it because I didn’t know the guy. She responded that she totally understood and that she would do the exact same thing in my position. It turned out though that even though she’d claimed onstage that the person that died was her friend, she didn’t actually know him either. She only has friends that knew him. She had been moved though by his death which was the result of having been repeatedly stabbed in the face. She said she lived in a pretty rough neighbourhood and could see Bruce McArthur, the serial killer’s building from her window. I know he lived in Leaside. She told me again that she’d enjoyed my song and I was able honestly return the compliment. I thought her poem, once she got around to reading it was one of the best of the night. As I went over to meet Tom and Sydney and walk out with them I saw the reason why Melina had been running around in her bare feet all night. On the floor, under a chair in the second row was a pair of glittering gold high-heeled pumps.

            Sydney, Tom and I left the church together and stepped out into the rain. We said goodnight and I went to unlock my bike. Laura exited the church and for a minute she stood there as if waiting for someone, then she opened her umbrella and walked west. As she passed me I commented, “You can never depend on Anthony!” She just smiled and said, “I enjoyed your song about angels!” I thanked her but wanted to make sure she understood that the song wasn’t really about angels. I told her, “It’s like when you kiss someone and …” she tried to finish my sentence “and the angels approve!” “No.” “Angels in the poem are just a metaphor for an exceptional person. It’s not that angels actually exist.” “I think that angels exist!” “But you can’t prove it. You’ve never really seen one.” “That’s why we need faith!” “I don’t think there is any necessity to have any kind of faith in anything. There’s plenty of reality to enjoy.” I smiled and said, “Goodnight Laura” and rode home through the mild downpour.

            I had a late dinner and watched an Alfred Hitchcock Hour teleplay starring Bruce Dern, playing a psychopath like he does best. Stella is serving her peach farmer husband Emory a big breakfast when she looks out and sees a drifter walking down the road. She suggests that he hire him to help pick his peaches. The hobo comes up their driveway and Emory goes out to greet him. He offers him half the wage any other farmer would ask but Jesse takes the job anyway. As soon as Stella sees Jesse she realizes they have made a mistake in hiring him. She senses that he is evil and she is right. He tells her later that he took the job because he sensed her fear from the road. Stella has a pet squirrel that she loves and on his way out to the orchard to start work, Jesse kills it. Whenever Emory is not around, Jesse intimidates and plays on Stella’s fears. Emory will not fire him though because he wants to get his peaches picked. Stella begins to understand that Emory cares more about Stella’s function as a cook and homemaker than as a loving wife and this is why they’ve never had children. One night while Jesse is sitting and falling asleep while listening for the radio weather report, Stella packs a suitcase and sneaks out the bedroom window, but Jesse grabs her. She screams but Emory doesn’t wake up. Jesse taunts her and makes her stand by the window looking in and screaming for Emory’s help but her husband does not stir. Finally Stella grabs Jesse’s knife and attacks him. He manages to avoid being slashed but he runs away and drives off in Emory’s truck, loaded with peaches. Stella goes into the house and discovers that Emory had been awake all along and had been too afraid to help his wife. She takes Jesse’s knife and kills him, and then she calls the police to tell them that their hired hand murdered her husband.