Three Poems by Allan Lake

 

Survival

 

I drink espresso at Elwood Beach Shack,

at Lark, at Arlo, at Prickly Pear, at Turtle,

Kremma, Superrandom, Carter-Lovett,

The Wall, The Galleon, Jerry’s, Johnnie’s,

Journeyman, Spout! Sip and stare ...

into space, take notes in moving motes

as caffeine is turned into verse,

some better, some worse.

 

And I recall another man, a daily drinker

of beer in the one pub in a frosty/dusty

prairie village that once was my home.

That man stared into space, took note

of the diminishing change in his pocket

as he turned alcohol into toxins until

bad got worse got predictably terminal.

 

Not all that long ago, Charles Darwin,

an unusually insightful wine-drinker,

whose doctor dad was a tea-drinking

teetotaller, discovered evolution to be

divergent and often incremental but

not necessarily progressive.

Romantic Talks to Self 

 

Without a companion animal

or carer who cares what others wear

– what’s trending – you’re by your

self. You suspect youth is trending

but you misspent yours a while ago.

There’s a fake fireplace that warms

the heart at that cafe on Tennyson,

in the suburb where every street

is named for a poet who is known

for a tragic death or a verse or two.

Too late for early death for this minor

poet who won’t become a street but

there was investment in life-shortening

that came to naught. He plodded on

without noticing anything sticky,

left by some bitch or son of a bitch

with no sense of civic duty, no shame.

You know the type. Fears thunder,

chases his own tail, finds foreign shit

irresistible. But that sticky/smelly

is how old toothbrushes achieve their

second life. So unlike nearly expired

romantics without pets or Juliet’s.

Them’s busy adding to a highrise

of mouldy poems while contentedly

sipping coffee. They chat to themselves

or imaginary fiends on-line or old friends

they once thought they knew so they feel

like the centre of a squeaky wheel that’ll

roll on till it leaves the almost path and

come to rest in tall grass nearby.

There is no shame there either.

Answering a Question

 

Could I be happier? he wondered while seated

on the toilet in his one-bedroom apartment

with old heater glowering because it was chilly

winter, Again. New fluorescent orange socks

and Avatar on profile had accomplished no up-

ward surge on his Happiness Graph. Could any-

thing sweeten the past or improve circulation

going forward? Perhaps he’d peaked, despite

existing on flat prairie. Having thought it through,

he sensibly turned heater Off to save a few cents

and to some degree Nature itself then ventured

outdoors for his daily walk that culminated in

coffee at a local cafe where they seemed pleased

to see him and he felt happier, as usual.

Allan Lake is a migrant poet from Allover, Canada who now lives in Allover, Australia. Coincidence. He has published poems in 24 countries. His latest chapbook of poems, entitled ‘My Photos of Sicily’, was published by Ginninderra Press. It contains no photos, only poems.