Spin the Handle
C. J. Leon


Copyright C. J. Leon, 2007, Vancouver

museslaveATgmail
www.myspace.com/cjleonspoken
www.youtube.com/thesurrationalone
*************************************

Contents

The Poet’s Conception..............................1
Inspired, Of Course, But...........................2
Newly graduated.......................................3
The Chocolate Incident............................4
The night was made for wandering.........5
Those moths again!...................................5
Cowboys and Indians...............................6
Them Beans...............................................8
Here from There.......................................11
the lure......................................................12
Gulls..........................................................13
Of the coastal life......................................14
Advil Morning..........................................15
Viagra........................................................17
The Prudent Censor That I Am...............18
Glaze..........................................................19
Fee, Fie, Foe, Fum.....................................20
Whipping Cream.......................................22
Variations on the Nut...............................23
Observation...............................................26
Du Chèvre.................................................29
Before, Middle, After................................32
House Guest..............................................34
Sweetheart.................................................35
On Some Asiatic Statues at the ROM.......36
Harbour Morning......................................37
and there are souls....................................38
Illustrative Buddhist History....................39
Such a great day yesterday!......................40
As a little boy I played..............................41
Entertained at my squat............................41
I chased a squealing mouse all day...........42
Meanwhile................................................42
*************************************

The Poet's Conception

Stumbled through an eye-sting morning-
the very first one of the year and decade-
steeped in Scotch-mixers, ale,
and any other drink,
he fumbled a tinker-clang jumble
of keys outside the door.
No luck, until
his wakened wife, his
shuffle-stepped, disheveled,
dark-faced, ghost-eyed, bleary-edged
Scorpion Queen came and stood there
and slapped him a good one on the face:
You didn't drive!

He answered by leaning in
with a peaty smooch
from which
she wriggled away.

Persevere, Papa!

Persevere to whatever
paltry climax you can make of it!
In under forty weeks, this kid’s gonna think outside the box.
*************************************

Inspired, Of Course, But...

May I share, my dear,
sweet Dawn, an honest word?

I have been following your work for a while now.
I am a fan. Those roses, lilacs, melons, tangerines!
And those swelling, streaking, voluptuous clouds!
Superb! Really great stuff! The problem is – well,

I’m wondering
if it may not be time to evolve, say,
work with alternate media, or
explore a new palette?
*************************************

Newly graduated,
I squat the park hill
admiring a humid dusk,
a rose and lilac dusk,
a more beautiful dusk
than has ever been,
in that way common
to all unusual twilights.
And there, sudden and swiftly
passing, a pale green.
I wonder sadly,
am I not now over-qualified
for simple employments?
*************************************

The Chocolate Incident

Well, I suppose it’s dusty,
this shattered vegan chocolate,
sitting in a cup,
pure cocoa to the tune of 86%,
dusty after sitting out
these couple weeks
since I had my friend for tea.

I blow.
Wow, indeed!

I’m tickled by the blast,
the particles on my face,
and in my hair and eye.

But I sit and suck and chew,
delighted by a song,
making bitter-sweet spit,
until my joy is abruptly punctuated—

remarking that the tiny dust-like specks
that cover the chocolate and the cup
are as many crawling yellow mites
each bit content as I,

whence I run moaning to the shower.
*************************************

This night was made for wandering
as the mice and insects know,
but I think that I will leave them creeping
about my home here alone amongst themselves,
while I creep out of doors.
*************************************

Those moths again!
Tonight I set a time limit
for picking out their larvae
before I cook my evening’s rice.
*************************************

Cowboys and Indians

More than the West was won and lost.
There was more than a buffalo genocide.
It was a game of Cowboys and Indians.
We all still know who the good guys are.

They’re the ones with greasy, grey, six-shooter guns,
close-ups, tough-lines, and pale skin despite the whiskey and the sun.
They have hats on thinning hair, button-shirts on paunches,
and they talk with lazy drawls through flat unshaven lips.

They oppose those bead and feather-ornamented,
muscular, tattooed, beardless, long-black-haired, long-bodied,
overly skilled in the hands with axes, the crimson shadow-skinned,
and all their barbarously undeclined pronouns.There’s a certain civility in giving a man
a death by gunshots or the smother-blanket of crude germ-warfare
(which works in the home, fine for the women too!).
There’s a distance respected.

And those Indians, those red Natives,
when they scalp you with their blades,
don’t you see how they do it, by the forelock?
They touch you with their hands.
*************************************

Them Beans:
A Dialogical Monologue
Between Big Sam and Lil' Jack


O say, Jack, whassup wi them beans
ya got thair in yer hand?
I mean them liddle brown ones thair,
whasth' deal wi that?

O say, Jack, you don' mind
'fn I call you Jack, do ya?
See, I'm lingwistic'ly opposed to puttin'
an aitch straight before a dubya,
and 'specially when you go 'n' spell
yer name with a J-U, before an A-N;
it becomes sumthin' moral Jack,
I'm talkin' 'bout moral positions, Jack.
Ya hear me thair when I'm talkin' at ya, boy?

B'sides, Jack, Jack's m' John and Sam's yer Uncle;
and them liddle beans ya got's's black as yoo.

So why don' ya just go 'n' tell
your Uncle Sammy here
what's goin' on wi them liddle brown beans
y'got piled thair,
them beans ya spent yer whole life away
in raisin' up, all yer land,
all the work of yer children's
nimble brown quick liddle hands?

They must be some pretty fancy-shmansy beans
for ya to throw yer whole life-toil
away on 'em like that.
Whassat?
Whassat ya say, Jack?
Thayr magic?

Magic beans! Well, I'll be... Ya don' say.
An' ya got two kinds, ya say, Jack? Huh.
One thair's fur strentgh and th'other's fur love.
Now that's as dandy as dandy ever was fine.

Co-co and ca-vay: well, I say,
that's stranger than a bluebottle singin'
the blues on a warm stool on a hot summer's day!

Grind 'em, eat 'em, 'n' they giv'ya' buzz?
Well, my word, Lordy, shit, Jack, I think
I'll be takin' some of them beans of yers
back up Naorth 'n' home Sowth with me.

Whassat, Jack? No?
Whaddyamean, No?

An' anybody ever tell yoo yet ya got
a funny way of saying No, Jack.
Anybody ever tell ya that?
Well, ya do.

Fair Trade?
Ya mean a kick in th' ass.
Them words chaffe me, just a sec,
while I scratch my balls here. Contract?
I know what yoosa do with paper here in the
Lower Americas, so don' go 'n' try 'n'
dance that jig with me.

Ya don' wan' m' filthy gold?
Too cold?
Well, Jack, if ya think that's cold,
try ma steel.

An' if ya don' wan' nothin' cold, Jack,
perhaps I could int'rest yoo, yes, I say,
how's about yoo tradin' over
them fine wares
against some of Uncle Sam's
burnin' Hell-hot lead?
*************************************

Here from There

In the Old Country we had the village,
or the village had us—
In Lebanon, there was a village,
antique between mountain and cedar,
of as many people then as now.
Long since they replaced great grandpapa.
As many now as then,
but fewer than the newly bred,
we in the land of flight-from-home
and kill-what-lives.
We did have to stop marrying our cousins
before issuing professional-class stock
or attaining that coveted six-foot mark;
but espoused with wealth and progeny,
some of us manage, even,
to call this country home.
*************************************

the lure

the delicious lure
like a polished word
glinting, glinting deep as the
fingers-and-feathers weeds
rising out of tawny silt,
fixed to a strong taut line, a
line plumbing fresh water
raw with slimy fish, a
line emitting
tree-ring concentric circles
on surface water where it passes through
the shallow regular sinusoidal arcs,
where it passes through the roll
of the blue-green lake.

patience, child. patience.
it will come;
the creature will come;
it will come.
draw them nearer, child,
patiently.
it is dawn and time to feed.
*************************************

Gulls

Grey as the bay,
with its grey-soup waters pressed
to its grey-wash sky at who-knows-where
in all this homogeneity,
they watch, the gulls,
lock-kneed, mute, twitching their heads
at the provocation of a water-droplet
or to keep loose metre.
They are pensive,
sentinels, not peaceful, thinking it better
to stay low, webs installed on pier or rock,
yawning through the hours,
collecting mizzle,
and shuddering a tail once in a long while
to shake it from them, which is all they get to
this interminable day.
*************************************

Of the coastal life it is said
that one learns to accustom oneself
to constant water, on land, in sea, and in air;

failing this,
one’s liable to drown standing up.
*************************************

Advil Morning

It’s immediate on waking,
when light splashes like acid in the eyes,
threatening to pop those itchy sleepless blisters.

Hungover grey matter’s
unraveled fingers move,
tickling the scalp from inside.

You know that no amount of coffee
can make this right, even
at the generous exchange
of two hours sleep per cup,

and you swore off the hard shit
when your ex-girl aborted.

Your first word of the day is
a high-tension ‘Fuck!’,
which is apt,
’cause your fucked.
You’re late, it’s important,
there’s no one you can call.
The alarm is throbbing
a panic buzzer,
as you realize
that you are going to eat this one,

yes, that today, you are going to eat it all.
*************************************

Viagra

Once he had a smack good life,
spice on the palette and bold sensations,
a sea to swim of voluptuous lusts,
a song to sing on the guitar when drunk,
and nature was at his side.

Now aged, in the cabinet
he keeps doses of doctor’s remedy
to stiffen-up the rod that time dripped soft,
that cure for the nostalgia and remorse
that once wrote so many memoirs.
*************************************

The Prudent Censor That I Am

That rosy hook of cloud
resembles a tongue,
the wisp below it
a drop of spit,
and below that
a long thick stretch
of what looks like–
well, let me just say here,
that I have heard
not all subjects
are fit for poetry.
*************************************

(but of course I don’t really believe that, so...)
*************************************

Glaze

Last night, when you slept,
you lay, stretched naked in the heat.
One arm reached beyond your head,
and you leaned to your side
so that your nubile hip protruded,
the echo of your soft pale breast;
a black grove fit between thighs,
a sour scent still hung in air.
And it was inspiration.
And I am not sorry,
for glazing, as I did,
your long porcelain-white feet
with semen from my fingers.
*************************************

Fee, Fie, Foe, Fum

Fee, fie, foe, fum, I say
Not in my bum, you say
It could be fun, I say
Fingers, but just one, you say

Well, there, that's done, I say
I'm fine with one, you say
Let's keep this going, I say
What are we doing? you say

Two could be mean, I say
Use Vaseline, you say
Now we've got three, I say
I have to pee, you say

We're on a roll, I say
What is our goal? you say
I think I could fit, I say
Well, then try it, you say

Are you alright? I say
It's really tight, you say
It's really tight, I say
I am alright, you say

Can I go more? I say
Yes, but it's sore, you say
Can I go deep? I say
Am I that cheap? you say

I'm gonna cum! I say
Right in my bum! you say
It just won't stop! I say
I feel every drop! you say

I've you to thank, I say
I am a skank, you say
I'll clean the mess, I say
Then set up chess, you say

Fie, fie, foe, fum, I say
That was the bum, you say
I think it's nice, I say
I shall think twice, you say
*************************************

Whipping Cream

I am in possession of a whisk!
For those who have never whipped cream
with a fork,
you cannot know my joy.
My hope stirs as gently as a dash of vanilla.
Then, mistaking a bag of elbow pasta
for the brown sugar,
the party's over
in one chattery outflow.
*************************************

Variations on the Nut

My mother sent me a big ol’ box
of variously prepared nuts for Xmas.

That was nice.

I am now consuming a bag of chip-nuts,
in all their potato-shelled
deliciousness,
the chocolate-covered almonds
having been consumed instantly.

They bring me back to my first
SIN-requiring job at Canadian Tire,
where in the staff-room
a vending machine used to carry chip-nuts
and chocolate almonds.

The wonderful part
was that they were free too.

You just had to jam
the paring knife
in at an angle
and flatten the blade a bit
and spin the handle.

Once I heard
that one of the cashiers
was screaming mad
to the pitch of tears
and clawing at the face
of another minimum-wage earning
family gentleman
for pulling
that same trick.

Apparently, he did not want
to pay a quarter for four almonds
or ten peanuts,
chocolate or potato covered
or not; and
her sister had cystic fibrosis;
and
that silver sticker
that said

"Proceeds from this Vending Machine
Help Support Cystic Fibrosis Research"

really pinched a nerve.
*************************************

Observation

It is a woman, and it is a boy;
and it is a woman of blond
straight hair becoming silver, hanging,
and a face of beautiful
loosened skin that gleams;
and it is a boy who sits,
his legs together turned into her,
jaw dropped,
conscious of his slinging tumid lips,
eyes aslant,
his face swollen with Down’s.

It is sleek mother and pear child
side-to-side in the subway car.
They sit on fabric seats
connected by cream
honeycomb frames.
The car rattles like a snake:
floor to ceiling, the people in between,
the seams of every bolted panel:
trembling, chattering, squealing.
Spitting wheel-shrieks and
rasping door-chimes
determine intervals,
the car then rumbling underfoot
indecorous out-in rushers.

The boy’s smooth plump forearm extends,
his limp tapered fingers extend,
partially into a cup or blossom,
his round white elbow rests,
denting his thigh.

He carries in his palm the weight of his mother’s caress.
He watches transfixed by serene motions
evolving before his wondering eyes:
she curls and re-curls her long
olive-waxy fingers,
unspoiled by spot of age,
sparkling with tasteful rings
of jewels and precious metals;
they sweep his skin surface
like a feather-fan knowing
only mindful tenderness.

And this, this goes on and on;
this goes on, it seems, forever,
before mother raises expressive,
pellucid, azure, liquid eyes to mine
and to me, standing in supportive slouch,
gripping white-knuckled a cold-steel pole;
and when she sees me,
she reads me,
she smiles.

I do not, and her poised gilt head inclines
smoothly, gently, naturally, to the pink lily hand
of the child beside her, to the hypnotizing glitter-fountain
she pours for it, to his blue entranced eyes
that betray by inward distance – delight;
I do not smile,
my skin prickles,
my vision steams.
*************************************

Du Chèvre
(chez M. Claude Bricault)

Down in the valley-village in a cabin made of stones
on the corner of cobblestone paths without names,
after our fasting and our psilo-tripping
and our night à la belle étoile
on the grassy, wet,
dung-speckled mountaintop,
we will find a bearded man in plaid
and jeans and maroon suspenders,
whose language we will scarcely comprehend,
and who will sell us cheese
from the milk of six goats,
and who collects,
among other things,
personal letters for our friend.

So now, it is Sunday,
a Sunday morning, even.
Yet this country is agnostic,-
caring evertheless for masses,-
reasonable, and quite enlightened
when it is feeling well and not moody;
and sellers will sell when buyers desire.

The cheeses are dry and strong or soft and mild,
aged, wrinkly, and yellow as the hands
of the old man, their maker.

My gourmandise seduced
by the sight of those rich chèvre pucks
on display in bricolés wood and wire-mesh cages
that form a wall of his detached garage,
which is otherwise fully cluttered
with hoses and hooks and rusted devices
that have dressed their every
kink, burr, weld, and joint
with clumped cobwebs and mousehair
and sawdust and dirt,

I leave without a franc left to my pocket,
shaking a hand and wearing a smile,
and holding to the fast assurance
of the oath presworn by my companion:
that he will buy our bread and jam.
*************************************

Before, Middle, and After

B

What is more tempting
than a virgin in black lace
waiting on a kiss?

M

Gently bowing,
remembering my Love’s embrace
in the trace perfume
of an autumnal rose—
Bah!
Insipid forgery
of that angel scent.

A

Having scorned my first
naïve indulgence,
yet wanting me ever,
I suspect she will have to go
quite out of her ordinary
to reanimate my favour.House Guest

You hate me
while I’m writing.
Self-absorbed, you say.
And you here for only a week!
Having come halfway across the world
for me! or for New York,
but I wasn’t far away,
or so you thought,
somehow,
despite the maps.

So, I am interrupted.

Is there music in the grinding of my teeth?
*************************************

Sweetheart

You have had the sweetest heart I know;
I know, because I bit it, my yummy Valentine.

I cracked the enamels
of its black chocolate chambers
and it dribbled from the pulp
of its red ruptured ripe cherries,
its sticky, tart, clotted mixture
staining my greedy teeth and tongue.

Shame I didn't eat you whole then,
like some bloody finger-licking treat,
for the wound festered after;
and you repulse me now;
and the cherry became a feast
for the wrinkly fruit worms
that were hidden inside it.
*************************************

On Some Asiatic Statues at the ROM

Bald heads, interesting for what they are: always ironic,
dangle off of scoliotic spines, showing vertical
the venerable ages in sagging oriental faces
and their horizontal smiles - if smiles - awry,
a mythic animal at the knee beside, a lion-dog or antelope.

These stony sages, fitting to their monkish robes as in them,
sat the centuries that saw them sedentary, un-watered, and unfed,
so that they stoop now, as crookedly as any Buddha would.
*************************************

Harbour Morning

Wet-faced robins dance amidst the dewy grass,
Hoping this pink morning to break their nighttime fasts.
See there, a lucky bird and an unlucky worm,
And now the sky as bright an orange as his bright crest.

A cream swan coils her neck around and chews her plumes.
Thin ovate ripples cross the harbour as she quakes.
She dips her head and admires her jeweled reflection.
With down upon her nose, she rests between her wings.

The sun clears, the water blues, and a loon
dives.
While he swims beneath it, the stirring surface calms.
A mirrored brilliance hides his shadow in the deep.
Up with navy swell, he surveys the whitened plane.
*************************************

and there are souls
of great destiny
who die once

and nevermore 
*************************************

Illustrative Buddhist History

Someone burned the Bodhi Tree,
the ever-branching, self-renewing
Seat of Enlightenment tree. It died.

It has since been replaced.

Both the original (contra Hindu)
and its burning (contra Buddhist)
were blasphemies. The replanting?

Corruption was early visible.

Expelled from India,
they treasure their Diamond Sutra,
thus having for emblems of Impermanence

immortal tree and stone,

while Gautoma of the Shakyas
was once renowned
for a mortal frown.
*************************************

Such a great day yesterday!
So much was done so easily!
So much that I expected
The disappointment of today.

Or

Yesterday so-good!
Consequently,
A not-so-good today.
*************************************

As a little boy
I played with dandelions.
I tugged and made their heads pop.
Well, now I prefer
to play lyin' with dandies,
but much the same game, in fact.
*************************************

Entertained at my squat,
the yuppies' daughter remarked,
the plate you've served me is chipped!
Oh, dear, you are right! I sourly dismayed,

I'll fetch another tout-de-suite
from the set I have stashed
by the silver
right under
the linens!
*************************************

I chased a squealing mouse all day;
and I swear I had it in my sights.
Then I realized to my dismay,
the end of my nose, also, whistles.
*************************************

meanwhile
things are
shaping up to
another night of me,
the words of the dead,
and a little digital romance.
*************************************

Geez, what next?...