Cold Rambler

I’m not waiting for ageing or changing, for growing, restoring, or recreating the mask. I’m not waiting for structures to collapse and reform and reshape and remake themselves from the ruins. I’m not waiting for the revolution in thinking, in acting, in feeling, to happen when the walls finally fall. No. I’ll dig the tunnels. Then I’ll wait. Wait for you to scramble through to greet me then we’ll be away, through with our waiting.   Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for Pushcarts, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/

for Joe Pera My second return to Canada from Covid exile was to Windsor, mainly to see Matthew Good do a solo set. I went through the tunnel, and spent less than five minutes talking to Canadian border patrol, because I have long mastered the art of pretending to be a happy-go-lucky Michigan yokel who is just there for a weekend getaway in an exotic land who they cannot stand talking to so much so that, most of the time, they just wave you through in less than five minutes of chatting. To get the full experience of this poem, three things must be noted: 1) Covid, and 2020 overall, had black pilled me to such an extent that I can't possibly imagine anything getting significantly better in the future. This isn't meant to bash or discourage efforts to do so—I wish more than ANYTHING to be proven wrong—but this is one of the things you get when you begin a new decade by getting slammed daily with the most awful, most jack-shit insane stuff you can imagine. 2) I got into a couple of...

The elderly eat canned meat and tinned fish, empty rooms, memories of their mothers and fathers, penny candy, vague feelings of regret, military rations bought at the surplus, 8-tracks, shag carpet, the dreams of kids, scratch off tickets, and a pack of smokes.  Typically they will wash that down with tea and milk, tears and lamp oil.

blonde hair parted sideways— the freckled child, I, finds solace in the fist-sized crayfish scattering with buoyant, quick-witted bounces from submerged rock to submerged rock, the cool wetness of bare feet in the shallow, gurgling stream, the rough feel of wood on a dock, the idea of minimalism (before it was a known word to the child, I) punctuated with joyful relish by the echoing slap of the curved fishing hook reverberating, reacting to the crisp waves, the early morning waters of Sharbot Lake in Ontario, Canada the sway of the tiny motor boat the child, I, rode upon to fish, to play, to become one with this secret place where the child, I, foraged, built waterside forts with scattered sticks once submerged in surrounding mud, grass, assorted foliage with an active, imaginative, ten year old’s heart as the shoulder-shaped, uniform wooden cabins lining the slumping, sighing backdrop of this nostalgic, postcard-like scene fill the air with the once isolated, now harmonizing, now orc...

All felonies forgiven Misdemeanors forgotten Our lungs populated With cheaters and thieves Pardons cascade upon citizen villains We indoctrinate with vacancy Absolutions incite attacks The guilty cannibalize their own Puncture the sky Poison the land      With no provision for a compass Everything is authorized Through these detonations we notice A solitary statue detailing The preservation of dignity The vindication of opulence It stipulates that we elude passion The appearance of panic And by all means Don’t disturb yourselves Well done thy good and faithful servant I present this book of law And evidence of civilization Platinum and roses await In the winner’s circle The confident stride of royalty In magnanimous America Distributor of dreams and cheap beer To the unimportant created equals Cold cash and frozen genders List the fundamental elements of equation Occupying a position Where the soul is thought to be The dustless cowboys Purveyors for America’s sanitiz...