On The Bus

By David Swanson

The author who prints his name more prominently than the story title on his book jacket isn’t arrogant. He just forgot it was his words that made his name important.

Sky scraper gazing county boy innocence.

His provincial romance witnessed through a pane-glass window.

Chewing maple syrup soaked pancakes beside his skull hungry peroxide blonde lady friend.

Wondering why is always rains harder in murder movies than it does in real life and if music always soundscapes better in the bathroom of the disco.

Tall and Steep

By David Swanson

 

The red and black rucksack bought secondhand

by my father for our first hiking trip

carries my sleeping bag and sweater,

the apple cinnamon oatmeal we cook at first light

and the box of red wine sipped just before bed.

 

It carries the 6am wake-ups and the metallic scent

of my friend’s pickup and the dried dirt of last summer’s

final back country night – blue, yellow and purple

wild flowers that resemble small chimpanzee-faced daffodils.

Sunrises over slanted ground and distant

giant Christmas trees that look older than sound.

 

Walking up the rock face, a 50 foot drop below,

minor slides beneath shaky hands all leathered

from altitude cold and the fear of all the growing feet,

My hands hoist adrenaline legs gripping polished branches 

held by all the people that made sure they reached the next tree.

 

The final glacial viewpoint found through the fog, before September’s

first hail and snowfall – the black mountain spire in the shape

of a hound’s tooth was the perfect spot

for hot tea and honey comb sweets,

before glow-in-the-dark glass daggers and rock slides echoed in the valley

during a wooden mattress sleep.

It’s all enough to make me miss my dad when I reach the top.

He didn’t come this time because he can no longer climb tall and steep.  

The First Date

By David Swanson

 

Outside the train station on Water Street,

I recall the protagonist from each of my favourite novels.

Their posture and mannerisms are more difficult to mimic than I imagined.

Sunny after school dress rehearsals,

I study the commuter theatre production and try

to memorize the lines of Jack, Fransisco and Howard before I greet her,

my conversation resume written on a thoughtful outfit,

a half smile mouthing my engagement in matter of great significance,

a sentimental gentleman, hoping not to be acknowledged as hyperbolic –

entertaining out of necessity.

The presentation is a speech to a future ex-girlfriend.

Cold cave optimism and I resist the realization

this habit is a revolving door of faces,

cheeks kissed and clothes on.

An over-zelous sense of apathy on another nothing night.

Vancouver

By David Swanson

Many people I ask agree vacation sex is easy,
but I hear it’s hard to meet people in Vancouver.
I wonder if travelers from countries with
lots of tall dark and handsomes and long legged beauties
find temporary romance daunting in my city?

Do they experience periphery glances and
a confused reaction when greeting locals they pass
walking down West 4th?
Made to feel their excitement for new streets
is a form or personality imperialism meant
to force us polite Canadians to more personable?

People in Vancouver seem to study the pavement like they’re
contemplating who’s initials to add under theirs
in what must be wet cement.
Or perhaps the shape of the heart they’ll tie around
this four letter alphabet math equation.

I’d like to think there’s an earth worm or snail needing
a human hand helicopter air rescue to less gray pastures
but I’m the stupid drunk energy at the bar when
no one gives a shit so what do I know. Continue reading

Sunwood Drive

When you’re 17, title fights don’t start with a bell.

They start with a rumour.

Jessica is suicidal. She has to take Zoloft.”

I heard Mike got herpes from some girls in Victoria last summer.”

Half truths based on selective hearing.

Cafeteria testimonials shared between class and beside lockers

by the popular kids who were graced with early puberty.

 

Their bodies taunt their peers.

The less attractive majority.

They temp their teachers too – who’s natural human sexuality

tell them broad shoulders and a strong chest are traits of a man

and large breasts and wide hips

are the contours of woman.

But these mostly fabricated stories about

depression and polygamy

or some other hyperbolic character flaw, rarely end as a rumour.

They evolve into isolation, self-censorship or confrontation. Continue reading

3 AM

By David Swanson

A dream is the forum where God lectures.
He speaks in many languages.
His tongue spits riddles in the arena of
the account, the pope an the pimp.

Image poems studied by sophisticated
leather chair psychologists writing scripts
more expensive than an Oscar nominee screenplay. Continue reading

Mexico

By David Swanson

Palm tree awnings are coastal Mexican street lace.

They guide white collar foreigners, beer in hand,

cubical punctuality left at their hometown airport,

to burger joints and pop collar discos.

The traveler’s sense of safety is protected by tourism police

who guard their empty wallets and cavernous purses.

The same gold shield blue suits who shake down club kids for unspent pesos

after catching them piss on the beach at 4AM.

This town is no place for a man and his rucksack.

Continue reading

Youth Suicide

Since 2008, youth suicide has tripled in BC’s North Shore. Dr. Michael Markwick, a North Shore resident, discusses how insufficient clinical services funding for youth has impacted youth suicide rates and the need for systemic change to better support youth with mental health issues.

The Main Street Make Out

David Swanson

Let’s be big men and contemplate the suit and the sun.

I know I’m great without a woman,

but the opposite direction is a learned enlightenment.

A maturity stance, a left turn surprise, I learned long ago.

Major steps return and playful demons

tickle my Monday morning cripple complex

that fades from 10-5.

They’re subservient when Mike drinks coffee with me

in the early morning before I go to work.

He’s unemployed.

He’s up early because he’s a taxi cab service

trained by guilt and routine.

Tomorrow might be a poem,

but I probably won’t write it down.

Tonight’s a right handed workout,

my fingers soft from middle habits that look like

misdirected passion.

It took a career to make me still

Radio journalism replaces unstructured sentence therapy,

the next light bright always coming after I’m ready,

unprepared for self responsibility.

I find myself on the number 3 bus inspired and without

the proper poetry tools.

It dissolves and I forget.

I rearrange the stuff animals on my bed.

I didn’t pack them when I left my parents basement.

Be an antique, an old wood table finished with cherry varnish,

hope flavored fuckups that illicit pretentious comments

at your false hipster party.

If there’s an audience, I’m more likely to lie.

I’m more likely to present surface creativity I know will get women wet.

My skinny frame grand, big arms that curl stereotypes and

a round chest ideal for a nineteen 80′s porno.

I don’t need you Granville Street.

But I still love you.

I’ve lost 20 pounds in two years. It’s not because I’m sad or my body image is impaired.

It’s because I used to be nervous and poor.

I thought too much and didn’t have enough money for both

noon time take our and beer.

It doesn’t matter what I look like, women till stain my sheets,

magic fingers frank, they disgust lust.

They never promise love.

She’s 1 day in 9 months.

But that’s literal.

It doesn’t change my Monday morning cripple complex,

a disturbed commute, 2 buses.

I contemplate never speaking again.

Every blonde haired girl I see frightens me,

because for a second I think she’s you.

I made you my idol. Thinking about your thoughts,

paranoid, forgetting my pillar ideas.

It’s obvious what happens next.

I finish the sentence, get weak and struggle.

The sound or an errand jean jacket button

slapping the inside of my parent’s dryer

reminds me that I’m cared for.

Unfortunately my apartment doesn’t have in house laundry.

I’m forced to hear at Juili’s.

A teacher.

A one night stand.

Someone with a genital blemish and

I’ll I can think about is Melissa.