Old Poet   Yellow Knife

 

Once Jung and Freud were arguing

And you can read about it

Like I did today

And Freud pissed his pants

And Jung offered to psychoanalyze him

Years later Freud was rolling into

Some town where Jung lived

And decided not to drop by

Can you blame him?

But this is called

In psychoanalytic circles the

“Kreutzenhollerin Blick”

Or something like that.

 

When Jung was a baby

He had two personalities

Number 1 and Number 2

But that’s ok…so did his mama

Years later he was asked to come back to Germany

Declare Hitler insane

He preferred not.  He was busy.

“And who isn’t crazy these days?”

 

Crazy men is leading us, my friends

 

Even before my First Communion

I knew I had to get away.

School?   Nuns?

A town with a West End and an East End?

Who signed me up for this?

 

You don’t get no points in

Those louche joosh joints.

 

Runnin’ from the Paterrollers.

 

Shortcut through Fairview cemetery

Goin’ to the library

With a note from my mama.

“Please let Dooley take out any book he wants”

Knew all about zombies

So when my grandmother got up from the grave

And followed me down

The weasel around her neck with its red eyes

Her sayin’ “The turkey is a little dry, Jean.”

I didn’t say “Feets don’t fail me now.”

Might have whistled a bit though.

 

The Patterrollers.

 

And when oh them cigarette girls got up

Dead after 30 years at Sun Ray Drugs

Following me down and when all them

Patterrollers started following me

Maybe I walked a little faster

Quick look behind but

They was circlin’ round.

 

“Who isn’t crazy these days?”

 

And then at the library.

“You can’t take out that book.”

That note from your mama

Doesn’t cut any ice.”

I stole the book.

 

Outside all my Zombies.

Bowing before me.

Crying “Ourance. Ourance!”

 

Which wasn’t my name.

 

And is the point.

 

It’s ZERO degrees here in Yellow Knife

And we is grateful.

 

I am in my little room

And when death comes

We gonna have a “Kreutzenhollerin Blick”

Death on the street  I lean out the window.

Like Scrooge on Christmas Day!

“We’re havin’ a “Kreutzenhollerin Blick,” Mr. Death.

And I am not at home to you.”

Him goin away saying

“Who isn’t crazy these days?”

And I won’t answer the door either.

That’s how they got Mozart.

I’m waitin’ for the Groovemaster.

 

The Loneliest Ranger

 

 

What is Poetry?

Here in Yellow Knife
At the Artificial Limb and Brace
We got a lot of “Nature.”
Never liked Nature much though.
“He died.  Oh, well, it’s a natural thing.”
So what I don’t understand is
Why anyone would like it.
“If your grandmother ain’t in heaven
Why are you thinking about her?”
Well, we tried.

Here we got the Aurora Borealis
And  people who say
“He looked like a moose in the headlights.”
Over and over.
Just like the old aurora.
But what do they want?
I don’t worry about it.

After all I ain’t natural
An old man stuck all the way here
Playing his banjo singing “Sweet Lorraine”
Dreaming of a white snake with soft brown eyes
Like Nature never thought of
Polar snake, all white fur,
A sweet little guy you could talk to.
Named “Lorraine.”

“All Nature is a Heraclitean fire
Pray you, avoid it.”

We got a lot of one armed Inuit
Since the introduction of the

Snowblower by the White Man.

It’s why I’m here, baby.

 

The Loneliest Ranger

 

 

Trout Fishin’ in Yellow Knife

 

Up here in Yellow Knife
We don't worry about the wars
Against Aesthetic Idealism or whatever.
The war is there but we don't go to it anymore.
(Thank you  Mr. Hemingway.)

We worry about our little dogs.

"Hoppy, I'll let you out but don't

Go down to the Borealis fields!"
But he does anyway and it’s so cold there.
Brings back what's froze.
Our Iniut calls them the "Breath of the Stars.”
Always so romantic.
They want it all so strange and beautiful.

Old radio shows frozen.
"The Third Man"  I loved that.
Could have done without

"The Great Guildersleeve" though.
And those last words... all tangled up in Hoppy's  fur.
They thaw and then you hear them.
"Help." "Mommy" “Ah, fuck"  “No, no, no."

Heard Goethe's the other night.
No, he didn't say "More light!  More Light!"
Hoppy just standing there.
Wants to go out again.

"Ok, Hoppy, you tell me.
When did Poetry ever change a thing?"

Wants to go out.

"Arf," he says.

"Arf. Arf. Arf."