Here is another poem accepted by Semi-Dwarf Review in Dec. 1998, but never got into print before the press decided to quit publishing.
Winter is arriving, no doubt about it. Cold nights and not so warm days. On night shift this week, so I guess I’ll need to bundle up before I get ready for work tonight.
Work? Ah, back from the Nov. lay-off (worked one day this last week). There will be more down-time in Dec, though no one is certain exactly how much. At first it was going to be 8 days, then 13 …. But that last figure we were told in a safety meeting yesterday could shrink, or grow, depending on circumstances as the month progresses. There will “certainly” be down time in February, as they have to inspect the boiler-drum (part of the machinery that creates steam to run the mill) and that could be a 7-12 day thing, depending on what they find …. So, looks like the dire forecast for 2009 isn’t changing at the moment.
THE SEER
on the edge of an occluded front
me in my faded blue jockeys
wait for the end of the world.
with my Nostradamus eyes
i have witnessed omens.
3 blackbirds in a broken apple tree
reciting the plays of Sam Beckett
with the ghost of the goddess
i forgot how to worship.
i tells you, it is a terrible thing
to understand eternity,
to have the spirits whisper of the future
when you would rather sleep
or indulge in the luxury of romance.
here, wind do more than cry Mary
down these pot-hole streets.
it moan grunge,
as it also whisper of bebop.
it be buffoons that walk these highways
& sees paradise.
i tells you, the rain to come
will wash more than soiled jeans.
if you be the offspring
of the wicked north witch,
the best you can do
is wear your rubbers.
