Three Poems

JARRY PARK

The Academy for Deaf Mutes
suggested I get a haircut.
Then I was at the park, where I got a haircut.
Sparrows nipped a little off the top with their beaks.
The sharp light reflecting off the pond
shaved the back of my neck.
The sky was experimenting with futurism
in my haircut when I sneezed.
The Park Supervisor thumbed his anti-haircut notepad.
I wanted the Mount Royal Tennis Club
to observe the progress of my haircut
but the willow tree shielded my haircut from view.
I thought the willow tree could use a haircut.
The pond thought the joggers were a people parade.
I asked the ducks who work in teams what they thought.
Ten ducks counted one haircut then fell asleep. 

TOWN OF MOUNT ROYAL

The laundry machine is on
and it’s raining. That’s the New Balance
shoe I was talking about.
What separates one building
from another building is [something].
Can we get some mirrors in here?
Even three differently shaped bowls
on a tray can herald the tinsel train.
Going outside is the only way
to have anything interesting to say
about interior design.
That experience was a sphere
and not a ladder was fundamental.
Hey, c’mon, we’ve got to finish this pineapple.
Lessons in perspective taught perspective
how to say please and thank you.
The bull of the electric socket.
“The Gardener”
accidentally made a bouquet
out of yard clippings. Will the mountain
still look like a mountain
or will a thicket of cedar trees challenge
my assumptions about interior design?
And But So Yeah!
is my favourite DFW cover band.
I integrated the community spirit
of the commercial into my personality.
You are my ninth-grade boyfriend
sleeping like sunlight in my nail beds.
I can’t even. 

WITH WILD ABANDON AND UNCOMMON HOPE WE SET OUT ON OUR JOURNEY

I don’t know why I write about my past.
I would rather write about my pasta
here
in front of me
covered in red
sauce made from pomodoro
and sale.
Fact: Professor Boring taught Frank O’Hara Psychology in 1946.
The clocks go ahead one hour today.
Packets of information called bytes
traveled at 299,792,458 metres per second
through wires and air
to make an adjustment on my smartphone.
I woke up in a bedroom more orange than grey.
Life is a gameshow I told myself
opening Bedroom Door Number One.
I anticipated a gold wrapper (at least)
on my way to Caffè Italia
but found only that the melting snow
was throwing all our garbage, dog shit, cigarette butts,
gravel and glass back up into our beatific faces
as if we didn’t feel this way already.
Can I trust my love instinct anymore?
Did I do it justice buying catfood on speed?
I contemplated this
or something like it
while my pay cheque cooed
If you continue to leave when things get ugly
you will exist in a constant state of departure.
Fact: The pasta is in a bowl of unknown origin.
I thought it was Japanese—
it’s not.
I made pasta because I was sad and lazy.
I wanted to avoid the actual conditions of my life:
the wheel of fortune, the commercial break,
the promised prize money,
my private unfair judgments
about his suit or her choice of earrings,
not so much afraid as distracted.
Today my surroundings are an endless stream of gibberish.
For example this morning I was a beautiful girl named Carissa.
All the sunshine had me in the mood for budgeting.
The wind was blowing my hair around.