The Dark Triad

            On Wednesday at 6:00 after yoga I skipped song practice to study for my Romantic Literature exam, but there wasn't a lot of time because the exam started at 9:00. That didn't give me much more than an hour since I also had to have breakfast. I printed some of my notes and took them with me. The exam was at Sidney Smith Hall on St George north of College. After getting there I used the washroom and went looking for the exam room only to find Professor Weisman wandering down a hall by herself looking for the same thing. It turned out to be the same room where I’d had my Canadian Short Story and my Philosophy of Art classes. I sat on the floor outside to review my notes while waiting till it was time to go in. I sat in the front row but I found I didn't have a test booklet on my seat and was told that I’d have to go to the second row. Professor Weisman laughed when I just stepped over the front row to get to my seat. The exam had two short paragraphs in answer to two out of four questions and one essay from a choice of two topics. I chose the one about the notion of “other” because I figured I could apply my notes on Shelley’s ideas about putting oneself into the place of others and Keats’s idea about negative capability. I guess in a week or two I’ll know if I made the right choice.

            After the exam was over I asked Gabriel and Julia, “Who wants to go for a beer?” but they just laughed. I think Gabriel had to go straight to work at the prison.

            When I left the building I coincidentally ran into Professor Weisman again. She stopped to chat and asked what my plans were. I said I was going to spend the summer riding my bike and finishing my book. I asked her if she knew that Professor Albert Moritz is the new poet laureate of Toronto and she said she’d heard that. I told her that I'd also taken Canadian Poetry with another poet laureate George Eliot Clarke. She commented they are two very different people. I said, “But both very open minded” but added that poets in general are open-minded. She said, “Not always" and I agreed, realizing that I've actually encountered a lot of closed-minded poets. She told me that she’s teaching a fourth year seminar nest year on “Romanticism and Memory” if I’m looking for a course to take.

            I stopped at Freshco on my way home and bought a loaf of bread and a can of coconut. There were also four-packs of toilet paper for a dollar each. That seemed like a good deal so I bought four.

            When I got home I found a letter on top of the mailbox addressed to "The Guitar Guy". It said, "To the guy who plays guitar at 6am, could you please:

a)      play later

b)      play in a different room

c)      at least stop playing so early on weekends.

From your neighbour.

This person must have lived with their parents in a very privileged environment

before moving next door to me to believe that they can just move in and change the neighbourhood to suit their sensibilities. I never have and would never complain about any noise that a neighbour is making. I've already compromised by putting up a mattress against the wall but I'm willing to compromise further by buying them some earplugs, since I assuming that a lot of noises bother them from living in the noisiest part of Parkdale.

            I don’t know why I always feel a little depressed for the first few days after a course is finished.

            I did some edits on a couple of pieces from my poetry manuscript:

Our Less Than Solid Dude of Solitude

The world’s not big enough for me and my ego

so when I find the one that’s really me

you know the other one will have to go

But maybe I should cut out

all of my pretending

that this fancy footwork

on fate’s banana peel is really dancing

and gracefully fall down

But if I were addicted to descent

I would’ve kept on doing

acid

I’m tired of this free spirit that gets me kicked out of bars

My honesty won’t work with love

because theatrics are the key to the heart

But it’s saying such things

that keeps me so lonely

that chases everyone

to my periphery where they watch me

while they dance with somebody else

But if I really wanted a lover

I would be out there talking

bullshit

And that’s one lesson I’m beginning to sense

that when someone tells somebody the truth

it tends to make them lose their balance

I still hope to find myself

a lover somewhere

who stares at the danger

of reality’s teeth when they are bared

and refuses to look down

I am sure that such a lover exists

I’m just not sure I’ll ever

prove it

I don’t want to be remembered as a tragic dude

some ultra-sad example of solitude

carved in the gravestone of history

like a scarecrow made to scare

the honesty away

from the poetic fields

where all of the ghosts of future women wait

to slip into my ideals

but when all those women phase into time

they no longer serve as my

muses

But at least I’ve got a child a syncopated clone

to genetically haunt with my character

wherever she might happen to go

until she in turn chooses

to pass on our disease

so the future smells like me

It’s like I’m pissing off the edge of eternity

to mark my territory

So if I do go through this life alone

the only thing I’ll regret

is not blending in my being

the beauty and the bitching

and not marrying the bitter with the

placid

Mooning the (P)(M)atriarchs

Man and woman are the challenge

the counterweight and balance

in the breeding ritual

When prick and pussy come to shove

they’re the acid tests of love

that sit in judgment of us all

They got us jumping through hoops

before we barely know how to crawl

But if you grab men and women

at the light end of their rhythm

there’s a chance you can delay the exam

Catch a boy or girl inhaling

and there is no fear of failing

till they’re back in spurs and stirrups again

and if you touch the right spot

they might not make you pull the gravy train

He’s got a body like a mountain, flashy as an Alpine fountain

spilling pieces of the dark triad:

psychopathic, narcissistic

Machiavellian, as statistics

say we’d rather have a cad than a dad

She’s got a body with a motion like it’s swaying on the ocean

and so that’s why we line up on her shore

and there’s a wind out of her heart

that's what makes us stop or start

and so we drift

until she breathes out some more

Each thinks the other side is winning

although neither side is keeping score.

Oh but baby baby baby

we are giving you the warning

don’t you step on our parenthood

and take that grudge out of your pants

next time we ask you to dance

and it’ll do us all some good

You’d better lighten up baby if you want to be understood

Man and woman

as interactive as the land and the ocean

but only touching through the sand in between them

We only love each other through our children

But be my lover and then maybe baby baby we can break the law

            I had beans and toast for dinner with my first beer in a month while watching The Rifleman. This story begins with Lucas bringing a wounded man into the doctor’s office in North Fork. The doctor is still named Doc Burrage but he’s played by a different actor and has an entirely different personality. The writers should have at least had the decency to change the doctor’s name. The sheriff is notified but went Micah walks in and sees the man he recognizes him as someone named Stoddard and he bitterly tells the doctor to let him die. Then Micah goes back to his office and begins to drink. The doctor says Stoddard needs a transfusion but it could either save or kill him and so Lucas volunteers. Blood transfusions had been done since the 17^th Century but blood types weren’t discovered until 1900 and so it was a mystery why sometimes transfusions saved people and sometimes killed them. Meanwhile a peoples’ committee from another town shows up looking to arrest Stoddard and take him away to hang. The doctor says they can’t have him because he would die in transport. They don’t care but Lucas stops them from forcing their hand. Finally Micah explains why he is so upset. He and Stoddard had been friends but Stoddard had borrowed $200, promising to double it but never came back. Micah’s wife inadvertently died because of not having that money. Stoddard is about to die of his wounds but calls Micah to his bedside to give him $400.