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.

The cover of Walking and Stealing by Stephen Cain. The cover features stadium lights and an airplane flying through the sky.

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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 Eatonโ€™s playgrounds green?

Albionโ€™s Angel at the corner of Kipling

Enitharmon in Etobicoke

Snakes of the North

Lost in Mississauga

Rattled

            โ€œfall down deadโ€

A tag through the traffic:

โ€œbp 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

Janeโ€™s Jacobin rebellion

The Republic of Rathnelly

Toronto, the hood

Robin Whiskeyjack

Sherwood Forest Hill

Hijack the Skywalk

Storm the Dome

The Bastille of baseball

Hereโ€™s 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 lโ€™herbe

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

Donโ€™t call the fax machine

13.

The Buddhaโ€™s dada

Thatโ€™s 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 Tiffanyโ€™s

Learning the dogโ€™s old tricks

Milking the dinosaur

To be cooler than capitalism


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A long-angle photo of Stephen Cain. He has short dark hair and wears a black top and blue jeans. He is sitting outdoors on some steps.

STEPHEN CAIN is the author of six full-length collections of poetry and a dozen chapbooks, including False FriendsI Can Say InterpellationZoomEtc PhrasesAmerican Standard/ Canada DryTorontology, and dyslexicon. His academic publications include The Encyclopedia of Fictional and Fantastic Languages (co-written with Tim Conley) and a critical edition of bpNicholโ€™s early long poems: bp: beginnings. He lives in Toronto where he teaches avant-garde and Canadian literature at York University.

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