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Two Poems: Walking & Stealing
Toronto poet Stephen Cain delivers a triptych of serial poems on baseball and Toronto that address urban life and culture in his latest collection Walking & Stealing (Book*hug Press). Read three poems from the book, each from one section of the triptych.
Poems from Walking & Stealing by Stephen Cain
From the section Walking & Stealing
11. Christie Pits (2017/06/30)
& was this gruesome place builded here
On Eatonโs playgrounds green?
Albionโs Angel at the corner of Kipling
Enitharmon in Etobicoke
Snakes of the North
Lost in Mississauga
Rattled
โfall down deadโ
A tag through the traffic:
โbp was hereโ
Haunts these lines
Walks those lanes
A lone punman
Accidental, not disappeared
Smoke, not light
I had not thought debt had undone so many
Surreal City
I see the lich of Layton at Langstaff
Yoked to York
Musing upon Montreality
Inching along the shore of Iroquois
Davenport where Spadina splits
Secedes from the Annex
Janeโs Jacobin rebellion
The Republic of Rathnelly
Toronto, the hood
Robin Whiskeyjack
Sherwood Forest Hill
Hijack the Skywalk
Storm the Dome
The Bastille of baseball
Hereโs Hawksmoor in Hogtown
Where Schafer synchronizes with Sinclair
The minotaur at midtown
Daedalus devises delirium
Cloverleaf roundabout railpath
Backlane historians
Articulate the known-lines
Map the Masonic
Toronto Chthonic
Get him on the rundown
Pick off the precocious
They eventually hoist themselves
Gallows for goofs
Fighting words, a panopticon punchout
Rough trades for the Bay Street boys
The Buddha of Mt. Baldy
A koan by Cohen
Booze blues
Raincoat shuffle
An impersonation for introverts
Some grass on the hill
Christie chronic
Le Dejeuner sur lโherbe
Without the naked nymphs
Foxes think fondly of fawns
Coltish capering
Chickenhawk dawn patrol
It is resolved by walking
If I had a Nietzsche hammer
Remember your whip pussyboy
Rub it with bones
Skinny begs for all
Half asleep in fog panjandrums
Another roadside contraption
Long weekend lassitude
Guarded Godard
From the section Intentional Walks
10.
The Interpretation of Memes
Little lamb, who ate thee?
11.
A competent poet
Held at gunpoint by Calliope
Not amused
12.
Not much hope in that chest
Write for free
To save your CV
Donโt call the fax machine
13.
The Buddhaโs dada
Thatโs King Suddhodana to you
Confucius had some cash
Too old to skate
But the Vans look great
14.
Presidential paranoia
Means mitigate against megalomania:
Killing an Ahab
White wails
From the section Tag & Run
From CANTO ONE
9.
Our Virgo viragos
Be there with belles on
The blues clues
A ploy & its fog
The problem with
Brunch at Tiffanyโs
Learning the dogโs old tricks
Milking the dinosaur
To be cooler than capitalism
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STEPHEN CAIN is the author of six full-length collections of poetry and a dozen chapbooks, including False Friends, I Can Say Interpellation, Zoom, Etc Phrases, American Standard/ Canada Dry, Torontology, and dyslexicon. His academic publications include The Encyclopedia of Fictional and Fantastic Languages (co-written with Tim Conley) and a critical edition of bpNicholโs early long poems: bp: beginnings. He lives in Toronto where he teaches avant-garde and Canadian literature at York University.
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