Climbing Mt Royal #1
First breath went
where it went …do not…know
breath left, breath left
like a dog who is an aquaintance
then isn’t
Then legs left
somewhere between pain slash tired
I’m sixty two damn years old
so what the blank am I doing?
and why?
Then – half-close-my eyes
just walked up
like not any of thing
of import
just – usual- day
Wife walks ahead
unfair advantage
no years of smoking other abuses/vices/libertining
up the steps of Mount Royal
up the steps to the sky
keep walking
knowing there is an end, a finite
legs breath arms all
in fire not desire
time does not end-
Climbing Mount Royal #2
This felt like
image of a marathon
like Greg runs
nothing
a rational person would do
This felt like
the final silence
when running is wanted
but not available when breathing is wanted-
This felt like
the sound of distant music
fading out/in out/in out
This felt like
voices of past ghostly heard
voices from someone’s borrowed past
Climbing Mt Royal # 3
Fuck one two three
all the way
up the goddamn stairs
using my imaginary cane
to generate anger
to generate up
By the time of the top
I did not find a down to look
I did not care
The empty hallway at the top of Mount Royal
This bespoke of past opportunities
concerts, plays, symposiums, poetry prose readings
classes art depreciation seminars
english as a foreign language classes
empty hall now
was this the best the Mount could do
the ghosts of activists and artists
crowded me then
yelling what had been their organizing
what had been their results
the times had been just as frantic
with each moment counting as their eternity
why did I not know this
thinking only my time fatal
Kahwa Cafe #1
Kahwa Cafe
top tip Mount Royal
young girls with legs too thin to think about
Paula excidedly tells me
about history inside
I leave to look
Frederick Olmstead
Frederick Law Olmstead
New York Times
Central Park Design
Mount Royal Design
ends life mentally gone
but what a life!
would we wish to have this life
knowing what the end is?
would we make a devil’s deal
if so offered?
she drags me out to coffee/cakes
the young girls no longer-
the pastry has no meaning-
Kahwa Cafe is just a venue-
Though there is down to look
a panorama a vista
I only think of Frederick
know only him could be him
Then think of me
words that never reach music
but continue minor league politics
Paula constant with me
Kahwa Coffee soars down my throat
want to be nowhere but the am I am at
the who I am the who I’m with
the time I still so surely live in
6-20 Solstice 97 degrees revised 6-23 2012
robertthesmall 