The Republic of Naught
Poems by Jay McLeod
Published by Philistine Press at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Jay McLeod
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Contents
1. Trash
2. Notes from Abroad During Hurricane Season
3. To the Dictator’s Daughter
4. At the End of a Line
5. Rateshock Shoppers
6. Planes, Trains, and Dishpits
7. Last Time We Talked
8. The Scholar
9. The Dishwasher’s Last Will and Testament
10. Artie
11. Don’t Work
12. Back in the City
13. Rosemary
14. Walter Lives on the Edge of the World
15. The Rime of the Ancient Chimney Sweep
16. Saturday, 2007
17. Success
18. perhaps by the end of my working life the hockey players will be off strike
19. The Dishwasher’s Chant
20. Things to Do Before I’m 30
21. The Republic of Naught
Cover photograph by Adriano Zanni
Trash
At the end of the day
It all amounts to the same
Tread lightly
Stalker-azzi
The road to bling-bling
Is paved with good intentions
A car in the swimming pool
A series of revelations in the supermarket
Fliers
Feel the almighty love of Dr. Filth
Rain down
Superstar alimony
Millionaire child support
For drafted actors and actresses
The kings and queens of canoodling
Hard rock goners
South beach marauders
Lottery winners
Drowning in accolades
It can happen that fast
The supermarket
Is the heart of commerce
Many folk write letters and e-mails
Of support and diligently
Follow the sitcoms
And reality shows
Notes From Abroad During Hurricane Season
they're sleeping on their roofs
to get out of the water
a couple of lean months
at least
half a world away
we bicker about municipal politics
and "The Return of the Sequels"
ever myopic
held in thrall by
failed applications
character assassinations
faked celebrity weddings
a puppet government
fallen to insurgents
the hatchet man in another country
living off the rented time
of soldiers and pollsters
it seems anything but real from here
all the worlds a gas
when your home's washed away
and you haven't the wages to rebuild
at least the weather's pleasant there most of the time
meanwhile
we maintain radio silence
we watch the damage in advance
the hurricane's path
in the space of a single day
via satellite
several thousand swept out to sea
failed by geography
tropical out-ports
the men and women
a generation now disappeared
from the edge of the world
beyond the verges
of anything we know
or would care to watch
for longer than ten consecutive minutes
To the Dictator’s Daughter
Cleopatra on T.V
The dictator's daughter
Is pleading for understanding
Notwithstanding
A change of heart
Your everyday warmonger
Illegal combatant
As for me
I've got no car
No Swiss bank account
Or a jet to Brazil
There's a CSIS agent in the apartment next door
Monitoring my every cough
Got a get-out-of-jail-free card and a ticket to ride
Meanwhile
On TV the dictator's daughter is begging for leniency
Railing against NORAD
As for me
I'll live off the land
Go mad
Die young like Tom Thomson
Become a wholesaler in vestiges and reminiscences
Like throwing haymakers at a counterpunch
A kings' ransom in crow
You can't hold down what you never found
Imelda Marcos
Pleased to meet'cha
They're coming for me
Hoser of fortune
Going to knock down my spider-hole
I'm feeling charitable
Down and out at the Laundromat
As free as a roll of American quarters
At the End of a Line
From the end of a line you’ll call
Requesting
Something basic.
I will borrow your manner
Politely
Murmuring something
Cryptic
About the weather here
Or the inconsistencies of the higher ups’ marketing strategy
As we haggle over the price
Over what must surely be an Eiffel Tower
Or some prime swampland
In Cape Breton.
For my part,
I will quiz you for discounts from light years away.
For your part,
You may wish to speak with my superiors-
Tough!
This is not a democracy, friend.
It is always midnight.
It is always raining.
We will each have something in one another’s world view
Confirmed
Before quitting each other
Along the Jersey Turnpike on a cell phone
Or the former dictators’
Gallows
Global denizens
At the end of a long, nearly interminable line.
You could be in India.
I could be on Mars.
In thinking so, neither of us would be wrong.
Rateshock Shoppers
you don't know how he does it
business class traveler
platinum Amex
wants a GM car
in Canberra
next January
and a hotel room
with a view of the pool
he can't believe what you're telling him
that's rate-shock
he says "buddy business is bad,
it's killer"
he's from Florida, of course
which I have always imagined
as a trailer park next to Disney World
beside a golf course
all the ching you can snort
a piece of Paradise Pie
but for the occasional serial killer
or hurricane
how many more will be dead by then
the madman on the plane
the wild-eyed activist
the insurgent with the video camera
but not this guy
as for me
I'll be back East
shovelling the driveway
paying down my degree
that's sticker shock
the toast of NAFTA
strange bedfellows make strange business
as yet to be outsourced
Planes, Trains, and Dishpits
I walked forty-five minutes
each day to wash
dishes
for more than a year
when I dropped out of school
the walk home seemed
even longer
this was usually cause I’d stop
frequently to sit on
benches and
stare at the stars and the
river
and occasionally nothing
in particular
After
I got back into school I
thought I
had it made
and then found the call centre
four years went
past
an instant that stretched
into eternity
of bussing
biking
walking
and bumming rides
finally I worked up the
wherewithal to skip the country
altogether
I’ve been taking planes
every year or so since then
and I still don’t know how to drive
a fucking car
Last Time We Talked
The last time we talked
Your fangs were at my neck
And I was dying to let you in
Last time we talked
I was much smaller than this
And much younger
A spectacular failure
I was christened with ignorance
Now you've got some dishes to wash
Race you to the bottom
The last time we talked
It was Captain Overtime
Cheap thrills
A leave of absence
At behest of the management
Deject on the block
And hangdog summer days
For the neighbourhood type
It was psyche-ops
A clove of garlic
Operation: Elvis
And the drums of war
We chased each other around the apartment
Grandstanding Atlantic trash
Grafting the skin of the scam
The Scholar
He’s the quizzical sort
Has a bachelor’s in classics
Reads Virgil and Herodotus
Born millennia too late
What he lacked in marks, he made up for with effort
But not enough for his Masters
Has a middling novel tucked away in his dresser
Perpetually half-finished
Keeps adding pages
Can't figure the ending
Keeps misplacing the characters
Sweeps up at the University
When not driving taxi
Listens to symphonies at top volume
As he flies around town
Romances dead languages
Feels slighted by the world at large
The years yet to be spent
Paying down his loans
Trying to make the rent
Goes home once per year
Right around Christmas
Feels unfairly compared
To his successful younger brother-
A semi-pro hockey player-
He paces the streets of his small town-
The scourge of the Acropolis-
Leaves as quickly as possible
As courtesy will allow
Falls asleep on the train
Imagines the Atlantic as the Mediterranean
Nearly burned through his twenties
Shoe leather and credit
Dreams of less lacklustre days
Job interviews in Toronto
And women fascinated by his mind
Without regard for his career
Thus far unable to penetrate
The closed casket of the Canadian cultural industries
The years spent chafing at the bit
The world of ideas
A bit like Raskolnikov just before
He off-ed that old lady
Considers a career in the military
But can’t do the push-ups
Speaks Latin when the bill collectors call-
“Attenuo accipio argento”-
That is to say-
“I have no money”
The Dishwasher’s Last Will and Testament
Back in the day
He was a real whiner
A barely published
Seldom laid
Never paid kind of writer
Dropped acid and acted out
Scribbled in a notebook
Muttered to himself
He was six-five
And just a hundred forty pounds
Had a buzz cut, but wasn’t a skinhead
He meant to say nice things
But they came out mangled
When he drank, it was all he could do
To keep from getting beaten up or arrested
The nights he walked home
Wanting to die
But for the Grace of God
And a couple of friends
That girl he worked with
From the fast food restaurant
They used to be tight
She said,
Let’s put this movie
Out of its misery
Now she is a medical student
He pushes a broom
Full-time
They have coffee every once in awhile
He liked bits of “Ulysses”, but hated “The English Patient”
Those shows you wrote about
Now seem to have happened to a different punk
In another province
Earned his bachelors
By the skin of his teeth
Got his Masters in What-The-Fuck-Ever
Sometimes
I miss that little bastard
In spite of myself
That guy might be gone
But I’m still writing his story
Artie
Artie takes the bus to the mall
each morning at eleven
a civil servant
who opted for early retirement
now a cell phone and the bathroom
serve as his office
pulls up a bench
until the pub opens
sports jogging pants and last year's runners
frequently polluted
weathers family and workers
kids bound for school
Jehovah's Witnesses
plebs with delusions of empire
thwarted bourgeoisie
he's one of those
whose mind goes North and his paycheck goes South
a former husband and step-father
a one-time nervous wreck
and holiday maker
he can spot a fake from twelve paces
at high noon
the boozer opens its gates
shooters blazing
a roll of wooden nickels
now it grows dark before seven
he takes a new tack
brand of draught
he can't afford both
cable and smokes on his pension
he's overly deferential
to the bartender's admonishments
the different languages
the chatter of commerce
tries to make a new girlfriend
she says "Come on now, Artie"
tells everyone he has to quit
he says "I wouldn't be with me either, Laney"
he reads the paper
tickles the slots
takes the bus home at nine
long enough to pass out
how often he comes here
how seldom on top
Don’t Work
There’s no jobs in this town
You need a degree
Just to get past
Dishwasher
The line cooks are bilingual
The sous-chefs have PhDs
There’s no employment in this city
Check the human resources:
Answering phones is available
So is light clerical
You’d also do well
To play the slots
Until hitting the jackpot
Performing stunts for passersby
On King St
Or racing your shitbox down Queen
Until you get to
Indianapolis or Monte Carlo
The local hiring firms
And temp agencies
Have their work cut out for them
I’m going to stand here
Passing out
My phone number
Until the mayor or manager or major himself
Calls
To ask if I can start
At anything
This coming Monday
Back in the City
Back in the city
Glad to be back
And you feel it hasn't been
Half as long as all that-
The girl at the bar
Actress, acrobat
Wants to be seen,
Playing invisible, kind of at war,
"we" and "she", same as before,
and things haven't changed much
back in the city
-"ah, excuse', madame,
enchente'z, pleased to be
eh-ah-"
and so you will similarly have to wait
staying on keel
"right out of it, eh"
nearly off balance
and it hasn't been long enough yet
to lose your sea legs-
it's hard to stand being away
but then it works out
for the girl and for everybody
and outside the stars burn
as if in her eyes,
the tips of a compass, the ends of a leaf,
wherever they catch, they take
Rosemary
She sits at her desk, singing quietly
She sings "tra-la-la, my darling"
Even though there's nobody around to hear
Cutting out pictures from the week's papers
And faces out of magazines
Trying to turn trash into something worthwhile
It's the middle of the night
She's talking to Americans
The people she's cutting out
Don't know her, neither do
The people she's talking to
They don't know she's over fifty
And she makes eight seventy-five
Her husband was bad with money
But he was a wonderful man
Until he passed away
She lives alone and she needs this job
She keeps a scrapbook at home
Full of people that she'll never meet
She sings to herself all the time
Trying to make her life into something sensible
Walter Lives on the Edge of the World
Walter lives on the edge of the world
By the syringe at the doorstep
And the queue of kitchen mice
This used to be a livery stable
Neither a slave nor employed
He’s semi-retired
His afternoons spent
Stalking historical figures-
Billy the Kid to Brian Mulroney
One day he’ll catch the car that will take him
To Calgary
I was insubstantial
Watching him there
From the depths of my hash
Ah fuck it, I was dead sober.
But I shouldn’t have been.
And neither should he.
Sea Change
The thrill worked
My nails down to the quick
Sun shines behind the clouds
Fickle lass, pragmatic
How we placate ourselves
Waiting for the sea to change
The Rime of the Ancient Chimney Sweep
Caterwauling
Albatross
Out all night
Heart jangling
Soldier of misfortune
Suffers the slings and arrows
Of outrageous bullshit
Sweeping up at the bowling alley
For some extra quid
He resembles your least favourite uncle
Wears his nerves on his sleeve
Veteran layabout
Seasoned ne'er-do-well
'Tis the season
To check your ticker
Keeps track of
American weather
On American T.V
Even though he's never been
South for a day
Out comes the white flag
A season of repeats
Armchair general
Wrapped in dulse
By turns a seaweed merchant
Partly cloudy
Terror alert- yellow-elevated
The bad old days seem so far away
And still some things
Don't seem to change
Don't bear repeating
Checks his ticket
Still no jackpot
Got permanent dust in his jacket
And a perma-cough
Positively bronchial
Waiting for his ship to arrive
Slaked with hoarfrost
Got a smorgasbord of porn
At home
Jenna Jameson
+ Traci Lords
Still single at forty
Gets misty eyed to think of it
Irish eyes are rheumy
Phlegmatic
From staring down a pipe
Muckraker
He grits through his silts
He'll have to own up
To half a million false starts
It's not glamorous work but somebody has to do it
Saturday, 2007
They interfaced beautifully
All over the bar:
Lawyers in love,
Cyborgs on the sauce
They exchange fake names
And then they get off
Every nights’ a brand-new
Cold call
She says “Let’s go back to my coffin”
It’s never been so crowded.
He’s hedging his bets
Laying down in traffic
He’s from the South but likes the North’s chances.
Collection agents in love
It’s Christmas in the meat market
Questions like presents
Shimmering baubles
Fanatics without ideology
Pack the boozer to the rafters without regard for nation
Or century
Success
The smell of printers' ink wafts from the newsstand
Greenbacks freshly minted
I feel like a success
When I see
Guys dressed exactly like me
In the pages of glossy American magazines
My leather jacket
Burlap sackcloth shirt
Collar turned up
Against the elements
Jeans and sneakers worn right out
I'm the real thing
Dressed for three times the price
As one of these fashion plates
You may have seen me before
Begging for change
On the corner of King Street
Success, burst at the seams
perhaps by end of my working life the hockey players will be off strike
the teenaged millionaires are going on strike
they make seven figures per annum
on average
it just isn't enough
to be set for life
for Lord Stanley and company-
meanwhile I'm schlepping for four hundred a week
after the luxury tax
EI, CPP and Dental
age twenty-five
the picture of health
without a skate to stand on
MVP of the stop-gap league
paycheck hermetically sealed
oozing with privilege
the right to walk out and find another
profession or wife or life
to up-sell
I'll go on vacation for the next half-century
and these guys can work my job in the cubicle
an elite-level dropout
wrecked the sports car
on the way to the dish pit
take the company jet to Anguilla
with a discount number
sweeping up
do a spot-mop
at the branch plant
ignored by most, reviled by a few
as many similarly healthy twenty-five year olds do
The Dishwasher’s Chant
We need forks! We need spoons!
Get them on out! They’re all ready done!
We need glasses! We need knives!
Get them on out! They’re all ready done!
These pans are hot! These pans are hot!
Put them in the sink! Put them in the sink!
The trash is full! The floor is dirty!
Take it out back! I’ll get the mop!
We need plates! We need cups!
Wash them yourself! I’m all done!
Things to Do Before I’m Thirty
One day it will happen
I'll be the author of my own demise
I'll take advantage of the company drug plan
Contract bronchitis
And then sue them for workers' comp
Get off the crack
Start doing hard stuff
Start going to bed at ten
Attain enlightenment
Become a bilingual sales rep
Inherit one hundred grand
In Brazilian Reals
And then fake my own death in a phone booth
Go down to the States
Get deported
Rob Peter to pay Paul
Desecrate a national capital
Do my part to fight noise pollution
Become an active member of my alumni association
Set my clock fifteen minutes back
Exacerbate the problem
Explore my feminine side
Try influence peddling
Have an affair with a country singer
And cry about it after
Stop, drop and roll
Live on practically nothing
Prove Descartes wrong
Lose all sense of accountability
Replace it with a sense of taste
Become a fly on the wall
At a counterfeiters' symposium
Knock on wood
Rap on plastic
Forget to floss
Slip a disc
Work up a good lather
Confess to everything and then take it all back
Save all my roaches
Wipe the prints from the gun
Bungee jump using a roll of red tape
Pole vault the Vatican
Stock up on cohorts
Become a captain of industry
Dabble in real estate
Hire a driver
Incorporate Estonia
Then invade Lithuania-
It's showing up that's important
Rub shoulders with royalty
Rub shins with an heiress
Exchange blows with her dad
To speed up the process
Change my underwear six times in one day
Go down Niagara Falls in a barrel
Relocate to St. John from the peanut gallery
Send my ear to the collection agency
In lieu of further payments
Impale myself with a steak knife
In imitation of the Samurai
Quit begging for sex
Stage a coup d'etat
Get jacked up on gack
Rewrite my memoirs
Go into rehab
Take my place of work hostage
Get married to a dysfunctional wife
Keep my maiden name
Have a dog or a child
Stop at the duty-free store
Collect mucho bric-a-brac
Become vegetarian
Rat out a narc in another department
Attend a Paul Westerberg concert
Buy an SUV if the market allows
Jump from the tallest building on Bay St
If things don't work out
Storm the beaches of Normandy
Start following sports- both amateur and professional
Take out some insurance
Retreat to my dungeon in Montreal
Weep into my teacups while nobody listens
Measure afternoons with coffee spoons
Get middle-aged
Watch reruns of "the Beachcombers"
Languish in obscurity
Face the music- preferably Beethoven
Buy a bear skin rug and a girl scout uniform for the wife
Take the brat to t-ball games
Yield to pedestrians
Have a heart attack at Wal-Mart
Go on safari
Exit stage right
Lance my own tumours
Stop checking the mail
Join the Raeliens
Win the Atlantic Super Seven
Uphold my allegiance to the Queen
Learn CPR
Turn down the Nobel Prize
And then crash the reception
Attend midnight mass
One fatal Christmas
Die of natural causes after getting hit by a bus
The Republic of Naught
There's a heaven for turncoats
Those about to dissemble
Confirmed unbelievers
Evangelical atheists-
Progressive recidivists-
Robert W. Service-
John Wesley Harding
Captain America
The Ayatolla
The Lesbian Mafia
Slaughterhouse workers
Legions of deadbeats
Lighthouse keepers
Overwired plebs
Acadian driftwood
Travelling snake-oil salesmen
An army of smart alecks
Homesick Jones
Prisoners of Diego Garcia
Schlubs of all stripes
Guano islanders
Repomen and repowomen
Stars to be shot
A man called "Intrepid"
Fictional presidents, both past and present
The Secretary of Defects-
Archconservatives-
Jean Chretien's last stand
The wreck of the old '67
Bastards of young-
Silent film stars-
Various persons named Kevin O'Brien
The simplest chimp in the jungle
Fidelity investigators
Amateur brain surgeons
The nineteen-year-old girl crying on your shoulder
Autodidacts
Honourary finks
Disgraced valedictorians
Amateur warmongers
Stooges for hire
Dial-a-pariah
Certified bumpkins
Chronic gossip-mongers
Roughnecks in training
Pinch-hitters and spoilsports
The kangaroo court of last resort
The losers' circle
The victims' consortium
The Twilight of the Sons of Bitches-
Spring-heeled Jack
The working-est of classes
The most drunken of masters
The bonfire of the vanity of Duluoz
A confederacy of wingnuts
Would-be confidence artists
Turbojugund-
The axis of evil celebrities-
Half and halve-not provinces
Former Maritimers repatriated at gunpoint
The hordes of bedlam
The Dictator's daughter
Students of cryptozoology
Twenty-first century midwives
Charles Foster Kane
Your missing keys and schemes
Hacks of all trades
World renowned line cooks
Professional busybodies
A flock of wide cunts
Several spare embryos
An endangered species of creeps
Reeking Lizaveta
The fucked up white trash in the cubicle next to you
Harbingers of bathos
Steve Purgatorio
Barsluts-in-waiting
Armchair goalies
Kafka on the Klondike
A rotating cast of crooks
The bad Samaritan
Your odious in-laws
The scourge of T.O
The prodigal motherfucker
The Ghost of Tom Joad
Victims of image transversing the multi-verse
Part-time sycophants
Revenge of the Zits
The passions of 'borgs and 'droids
Rhoda, riding the bus to work in the winter
And her children who don't call anymore
Hank Chinasky
Your older alter ego and the booze he rode in on
Trannies and hermaphrodites
The Cape Breton Liberation Army's Women's Auxiliary
Drudge workers and wage slaves all numb to the bone
Forty-year old grocery clerks who still live with their mothers
The erstwhile ballerina
The way of Jerzy Kosinski
Your pickup that got away
Tyler Durden-
The Blame Canada Commission
You, or the face you wake up to
Chairman of the board of dogs
...in fact you've been there yourself
before you got caught.
#########
For more information about Jay McLeod and Philistine Press, please visit www.philistinepress.com