Indexical Elegies by Jon Paul Fiorentino Page A
Authors: Jon Paul Fiorentino
number.
⢠If you think about percentages.
⢠Remember the soaps?
⢠Remember watching them?
⢠They were soap-driven!
⢠Remember the soaps.
⢠People love advertising.
⢠Thatâs why
⢠they buy things.
⢠I will show you a chart
⢠that will knock you out
⢠literally.
⢠Think of it as a good workout.
⢠The name of the game
⢠is brand fitness.
⢠Is there an occasion
⢠thatâs not a purchase occasion?
⢠Maybe a funeral, but I donât think so.
⢠People always have rational
⢠passions and interests.
⢠Use them.
⢠If you probe popularity
⢠you will avoid playing
⢠hard to sell.
⢠The question
⢠is not âwhy?â
⢠Itâs âhow come?â
⢠Just think about it:
⢠four percent penetration
⢠in just five seconds.
â¢Who doesnât want that?
LATCHKEYED
Sick of the trains
left the conscience
West of the Seine
dream the Albert
Prayer of the contingent
drone the late shift
Next to November
tell the mall to swell
Please the Perimeter
will straight lines
Pay homage at wholesale rate
rent-to-own disappointment
Croon any scrapyard
insulate the empties
Drive by the winter
sleep summerfall
Wake up furious, deadlocked
daydream latchkeyed
MIASMA MEDICATION
Take the North Main Car east
watch your strep
Selkirk Avenue and so on
sad insistence. Dark matters
Howâs your labour?
the smug get paid
The old dreams never die
never really lived
And some of us were
already someone
FAMOUS GREY CHEVETTE
Listen, when we were younger
we drove to the legislative buildings
in my famous grey Chevette and smoked
oil from bottle caps and bought
licks from street kids
And then we stared at the floodlights
until our retinas burned and the city
turned purple. We called it âpurple cityâ â
it was the only thing to do in Winnipeg
Do you remember this?
I think we were trying to
upgrade the city or go blind
ST. TRANSCONA
Transcona calls me at three in the morning
demanding a rewrite
But Iâve moved to St. James. And the Free Press
is already printed
The rivers are bingeing and purging again â
you see them only in the spring on the early news
This love moves toward something
at bonspiel speed
Consider yourself unhaloed in a trailer park
in St. Vital
You can lead a tourist to the Red River
but you canât make him drink himself to death
Itâs Saturday evening
Iâll be at home, fucking up locutions
Sunday morning
Iâll be at the floodway burying Saturday
STOP KNOWING HOW I AM
When the punchline is chlorine
you transgraze, catch cold
When the punchline is Advair
the side effect is death
When the punchline is adjunct
high on grad school Sudafed
When the punchline is prairie
periodicals spiral
When the punchline is hockey
tell it antiseptic
Stifled by dust
stunted by stricture
When the punchline is stop
CIVIC POEM
The poet, not as priest, but lover
The novelist, not as druid, but drunk
and shaking off careerist rust
but almost constantly shaking
and therefore displeased
but not completely displeasured
and, yes, health concerns
but no, not concerned
and they are tired of lessons
but the poets are pictograph sick
and how you get back from that fissure
but why you wonât come
and the fissure divides the priests from the lovers
but the druids and the drunks mix implicit
and for some reason you like it in winter
but the adverbs returning
and the full rash
but the half-life left
and the votive, the semaphore
but the shrinking ex voto
and you know where to find you
but you hate civic poems
DYING IN WINNIPEG
Donât read me wrong â
I plan on dying in Winnipeg
In a strange way I
believe Winnipeg is where everything always dies:
Grandfathers, clock radios, Chevrolets
faith, journalists, fine-tip pens
Earle Nelson, hockey dads
your
⢠If you think about percentages.
⢠Remember the soaps?
⢠Remember watching them?
⢠They were soap-driven!
⢠Remember the soaps.
⢠People love advertising.
⢠Thatâs why
⢠they buy things.
⢠I will show you a chart
⢠that will knock you out
⢠literally.
⢠Think of it as a good workout.
⢠The name of the game
⢠is brand fitness.
⢠Is there an occasion
⢠thatâs not a purchase occasion?
⢠Maybe a funeral, but I donât think so.
⢠People always have rational
⢠passions and interests.
⢠Use them.
⢠If you probe popularity
⢠you will avoid playing
⢠hard to sell.
⢠The question
⢠is not âwhy?â
⢠Itâs âhow come?â
⢠Just think about it:
⢠four percent penetration
⢠in just five seconds.
â¢Who doesnât want that?
LATCHKEYED
Sick of the trains
left the conscience
West of the Seine
dream the Albert
Prayer of the contingent
drone the late shift
Next to November
tell the mall to swell
Please the Perimeter
will straight lines
Pay homage at wholesale rate
rent-to-own disappointment
Croon any scrapyard
insulate the empties
Drive by the winter
sleep summerfall
Wake up furious, deadlocked
daydream latchkeyed
MIASMA MEDICATION
Take the North Main Car east
watch your strep
Selkirk Avenue and so on
sad insistence. Dark matters
Howâs your labour?
the smug get paid
The old dreams never die
never really lived
And some of us were
already someone
FAMOUS GREY CHEVETTE
Listen, when we were younger
we drove to the legislative buildings
in my famous grey Chevette and smoked
oil from bottle caps and bought
licks from street kids
And then we stared at the floodlights
until our retinas burned and the city
turned purple. We called it âpurple cityâ â
it was the only thing to do in Winnipeg
Do you remember this?
I think we were trying to
upgrade the city or go blind
ST. TRANSCONA
Transcona calls me at three in the morning
demanding a rewrite
But Iâve moved to St. James. And the Free Press
is already printed
The rivers are bingeing and purging again â
you see them only in the spring on the early news
This love moves toward something
at bonspiel speed
Consider yourself unhaloed in a trailer park
in St. Vital
You can lead a tourist to the Red River
but you canât make him drink himself to death
Itâs Saturday evening
Iâll be at home, fucking up locutions
Sunday morning
Iâll be at the floodway burying Saturday
STOP KNOWING HOW I AM
When the punchline is chlorine
you transgraze, catch cold
When the punchline is Advair
the side effect is death
When the punchline is adjunct
high on grad school Sudafed
When the punchline is prairie
periodicals spiral
When the punchline is hockey
tell it antiseptic
Stifled by dust
stunted by stricture
When the punchline is stop
CIVIC POEM
The poet, not as priest, but lover
The novelist, not as druid, but drunk
and shaking off careerist rust
but almost constantly shaking
and therefore displeased
but not completely displeasured
and, yes, health concerns
but no, not concerned
and they are tired of lessons
but the poets are pictograph sick
and how you get back from that fissure
but why you wonât come
and the fissure divides the priests from the lovers
but the druids and the drunks mix implicit
and for some reason you like it in winter
but the adverbs returning
and the full rash
but the half-life left
and the votive, the semaphore
but the shrinking ex voto
and you know where to find you
but you hate civic poems
DYING IN WINNIPEG
Donât read me wrong â
I plan on dying in Winnipeg
In a strange way I
believe Winnipeg is where everything always dies:
Grandfathers, clock radios, Chevrolets
faith, journalists, fine-tip pens
Earle Nelson, hockey dads
your
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