August Kleinzahler

Selections from 'Sleeping It Off In Rapid City'

 

 

 

noir

 

 

Light emission diodes stare,

incandescent crab eyes.

foghorns trade calls in the night

as if lost, seeking one other out,

sometimes in the key of A,

sounding out there by the cliffs,

sometimes in G or C,

depending on how the fog is blowing,

but always at their loudest right before dawn

 

A fine rain falls.

The actors scuttle back to their trailers

after the hours of hitting their spots,

muffled scenes, take after take,

shivering out there under the helium lamps.

another crap, over budget homage

to Hammett and John Alton,

Magyar master of the shadow game:

fog, steam and smoke,

bad news behind slatted blinds,

the half illumined face

and pistols report.

 

Exhausted, feeling a little debauched

after too much weasel, cop and tough, good time Mabel,

down on her luck,

the canny Chinaman named Wu,

three of them play cards,

the other two, after a few lines of blow, screw.

 

the front is blowing in from the South.

You can taste it in the air,

smell it.

The flags on the downturn buildings begin to snap.

It starts out there on the Pacific,

a thousand miles off the China coast,

and comes across on the westerlies.

That’s what it does this time of year.

I’ve been out here a long time.

Every year.

You can set your clock by it.

 

 

 

 

 

vancouver

 

 

Black filthy rain its raining

like a grudge is out

but the neon mermaid over the fish place

looks best that way, in the rain.

 

Downstairs, Sol, of Sols Paradise Club,

mixes a fizz drink for mummy blonde.

- Thanks Sol.

The resident “monster on alto,”

recently back from a large success in Regina,

roars through the bebop warhorse  “Steeplechase,”

played in the manner of Jackie McLean,

say, around 1957.

                       Everything sounded good in ‘57.

 

At the foot of the block is the inlet

and beyond the inlet mountain

and beyond the mountain almost nothing,

nothing until the North Pole:

                                                    Squamish,

Far Mountain, Ootsa Lake,

lichen-coloured eternities

sprinkled with bear scat,

the abandoned dam project,

an unspeakable comfort station along the gravel highway,

Tuktoyaktuk.

 

It is March.

tomorrow morning, drivers,

commuting to work along the North Shore,

will observe a dusting of snow

on the branches of cherry trees lining the road,

the same trees now in bud

and making ready to blossom.

were it not for the Safeway and car dealerships

one or two might think of Ukiyo-e

and the great Hiroshige, or perhaps Hokusai.

 

But tonight, tonight in the harbour below,

freighters queue

                             1   2                        3       4                5

Waiting to dock.

A sailor aboard the lead ship, a Dane,

sniffs the salt chick and lights himself a smoke.

He gazes out to the shimmering downtown spit.

He likes how tobacco and sea air mix in his nose.

 

 

 

 

copyright © august kleinzaler

2008

 

 

August Kleinzahler is the author of ten books of poetry, including: ‘The Strange Hours Travelers Keep’, ‘Live from the Hong Kong Nile Club : Poems: 1975-1990’ (2000); ‘Green Sees Things in Waves’ (1999); and ‘Red Sauce, Whiskey and Snow’ (1995). He is also the author of one prose book, the memoir ‘Cutty, One Rock: Low Characters and Strange Places, Gently Explained’ (2004)

His most recent book ‘Sleeping It Off In Rapid City’ a major retrospective featuring a hefty chunk of new poems is out now published by ‘Farrar, Straus and Giroux’.