My Dealer of Illusions

My dealer of illusions slipped out the backdoor
While I was putting the coffee on

I am the old woman who lived in a shoe of verse

I was the drunken hunchback in the park
With a bottle at my lips looking for words
The bottle was drier than an August desert

Like a California poet I bedded

Five hundred metaphors in one year

I applied all the poets’ tricks of the trade I learnt in sidewalk cafes
Or on the top floor in an attic of poetic rubbings
All the skills of my craft were useless as truth in a cop shop

Still I dab at the blank paper b/c the scribbling
Of bandaged sentences may find a path
Into the warm yellow sun . . .

Winter

Winter in the country is white as Heaven
Winter in the city is dirty like Life

I know where I want to go when I am dead

Sounding Post

Leroy Jenkins
Leroy Jenkins
Leroy Jenkins
Draw that bow across the strings of virtue

Leroy Jenkins
Leroy Jenkins
Leroy Jenkins
Wail that song shouting out onto a grey world

Leroy Jenkins
Leroy Jenkins
Leroy Jenkins
Bring home the chords of the human mystery

Of life
Of the Universe

Shake hands with eternal soul

Grant Guy is a Winnipeg, Canada, poet, writer and playwright. Former artistic director of Adhere + Deny. His writings have been published in Canada, the United States, Wales, India and England. He has three books published. He was the 2004 recipient of the MAC’s 2004 Award of Distinction and the 2017 recipient of the WAC’s Making A Difference Award.