storefront poetry 4

4

comix for the workers     misfit
collectibles for the ever
rebelling youth     cow-
girls in shorts and leather boots
the rabbit hole a centre of counter-
and under-the-counter culture life
shakespeare behind me on the floor
tolstoy twain desade heaney facing
me as tom waits sings to the store
i’m told we made the front page
of the dawson creek daily without
crimes committed or outrage
claimed or accused thereof like
houseflies in the storefront open
door attracting novelty seekers—a
display of action figures under
glass and racks of t-shirts from
the edges of the past that don’t
won’t go away unless all humans
get disappeared faster than dinosaurs
gone like codfish from the nose
of the wonderful grand banks
once to the west of civilization
in secret      off the charts harvest
and collection of church tithes
in parts not mapped—the new found
land of basques and jersey merchants
or pirates from la manche home ports
reaping unimaginable riches from
the sea and sandbar shore tuskers

—17sept2008