Meta μετά – a consciously self-referential story that often takes place down a rabbit hole.

So many songs and poems have been written
on a Sunday afternoon, so
just to be original, I think I’ll go and make
another cup of instant coffee.
“How odd of God to choose
the Jews…”

For a dollar twenty-five beneath the crown
in Guelph, Ontario they are mine.
Lewis and Costain are finished.
There they lie like dusty childhood trinkets
sullied by the egocentric eye
that used them so unmercifully
to fill the spaces lost in time.

France is gone.
The telephone is silent
but the house is filled with ghosts
of ringing phones and great beginnings
of what might have been
if I hadn’t left it just to walk
in crunchy snow with leaky boots.

Mountain time is ticking in the bedroom
locked inside the eastern clock
with Leon Uris close behind.
A smiling Jewish kid sends me letters
filled with love and science labs
and Hermann Hesse and once,
a watercolour filled with hearts,
one defiled with X.
“You know I fucking hate you.
You haunt the halls at 2 a.m.
and I think your sister wants me.”

I grab another cigarette
and tell him not to visit.

Chains can be like houses
depending on their purpose—
whether keeping all outsiders well away
from what’s within
or to gather all together in
communal harmony —
and on it hangs the Holy Catholic Cross
of Jesus Christ,
a rather heavy question to be wearing
round my neck
on a Sunday afternoon.

I think I’ll go and make
another cup of instant coffee
and wait
for Lee to come with the piano.