New writing by Cass King

New poems
Late Bloomers
The Pro
This City
Wishful Thinking

late bloomers

Sunlight narrows
to a spaghetti strap
rolling off the shoulder of her bed
afternoon teas and
nervous, knowing laughter
she blooms late, she says
she blooms late

and I smell her like
eleven o'clock lilacs
rub her gloss on my mouth
tongue the word
girlfriend
until it opens and spills
its many meanings
down my chin.

I do too, I say.
I bloom late.
the brush of breast on breast
too exquisite to be framed by
flannel blankets / feather pillows
cotton tee shirts dissolve in
sugar candy fluidity

My legs have never bent before.
ripe
wet
luscious
our kisses make Maybelline jealous.
clove cigarettes and
her voice, warm and raspy
hot as a silk sheet on a wool blanket.
we are boyish fumbling and girlish sure
surfing a stampede
of newly inspired sensation
newly acquired
unscuffed
appreciations.

For me I will take off my makeup
cut my nails,
learn to dress comfortably.

For her I will spread my legs wide
wear boy cuts
invest heavily in silicone

await another chance
(enigmatic)
another time
(polyrhythmic)
play it by ear
(voyeuristic)
until the sun slips yellow
from her red rose dress
and drops her spaghetti straps
around late blooming lovers
like us.

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The Pro

He seems more dangerous
than the press photo.
His observations cutting,
his past an ill-concealed weapon.
The stage is too small for all those personalities
they teeter and tumble over the sides
into his books.

The poet fingers the crass one
the choirboy cries in a corner
the old man squints at the bright light
and the comic makes fun of them all.

He seems more pensive than the press photo,
so I prefer the one in the book
where he sits in his fashionless overcoat
on the concrete bridge
in the Sarnia he left twenty years ago.
His lips are pursed,
his eyes preoccupied,
as if still searching for the way out.

I watch him across the table
and thirteen odd years of experience.
He plays Toms for me, Lehrer and Waits
I feel self-conscious sticky with life's ambitions
like a kid wearing too much cologne.

He seems more attractive
than the press photo
and I observe closely
how admiration can nudge up against lust
in the right light
and the wrong circumstance
for a moment.

For a moment his temple touched my shoulder
and I realized that aside from Toms,
and poems,
and the quiet despair particular to rural Ontario,
we had one last thing in common:
"It's touch I miss the most" he said,
about the road.

Feb 18, 2001
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This City

I live in this city
where John Fluevog heel meets unseen banana peel
Vancouver, you are a pratfall of urbanity
A cocktail of hypocrisy
You put on airs, but your feet are bare
It would be so much easier to care for you
if I could turn you inside out and check your label..

Vancouver, you are a sequin
on the dance floor of God's Holy disco.
You, you funky city, needy city, drunken saketini city,
green city, mean and venal, menial city,
Dykes on Bikes and Take Back the Night City
Asbestos schools and parade of Fools city
wool socks and Birkenstocks city
slingbacks in December and gumboots for any and all affairs city
Vancouver, you reek of expensive perfume and wet flannel

city of east versus west, least versus least best,
band aids for urban gangrene
an inferiority complex that could only have been erected
by carpenter ant architects stunned dumb
by geography
Vancouver, you are a dandelion fluff caught in granite teeth
Good thing fatalism is hip this month (lucky for us, trendy robots, let's have coffee)

Dirty city! Filty with divinities
Underground, Chinatown, when the clouds bear down it's like
the whole horror show / gonna blow any minute
with you an' me in it.
My city, this pressure cooker city, track mark city,
Asbestos schools and parade of Fools city

poverty sucks at the bloated teat that will not leak
for no reason other than greed, yet we will not speak of it…
we will not speak of it…
we will not seek in this
needle track, on the mack, call me back city
scraping crystal sky into a snortable snack city
home home city city, grinding glass on bone city,
dense city tense city inevitably witty city

Vancouver, I love you
like I love the ex girlfriend with whom I keep vowing to
stop having sex, except she always brings a joint
and I forget my self respect city.

Pretty, petty, you're a human aviary,
only the birds all wear business suits and hoodies and gumboots.

Terminal City
your genius lies not in your uniqueness
but rather in the fact that you have convinced us that you are so.

Feb 18, 01

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Wishful thinking

Meet me someplace
ten years younger
I'll wear bigger breasts

someplace then, when
you're not a daddy,
and I'm not a lesbian
yet.

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National Poetry Slam Firsthand - first published in the Seattle Times
July 31, 2001

This is how it starts: You have that combination of writing skill and elocution that makes you a good performance poet, and the humility it takes to stand up on a stage and allow perfect strangers to judge your work. You know it's farcical, and yet you do it: You compete in a Poetry Slam. You're lucky. You win a place on THE TEAM.

Prepare to lock your thoughtful, private, sane self in a closet for eight to sixteen weeks, because you are now ON THE TEAM. It will be made up of people that, depending on your attitude, have either been sharing a stage or competing against you for months. You may have a coach that steps on your last nerve. You may have a teammate that you will eventually marry. They may be one and the same: you won't know until rehearsal time.

Poetic teamwork is part voyage, part scrimmage. Like all writerly pursuits, you start with high intentions, only to brave the muddy cesspools of doubt and procrastination; hoping to ferry into being a tiny remnant of one original, beautiful idea. Then, as this shred grows into a greased watermelon of a poem, you learn to pass it slowly, then fast and hard, you pile on top of it like pigs, you eat dirt in poetry's name and giggle like the mad bastards you are before brushing off (or not) and throwing yourself headlong into the path of the next promising metaphor. It's geeky and freaky and exhiliarating. It's Dorothy Parker on a dirt bike. It's the National Poetry Slam.
And before you know it, the date arrives. Your mood is swinging like a rhesus monkey on a geometry binge. You're reaching the peak of NPS anticipation and sightseeing at the precipice of inevitability. Time to do laundry. You pack like literary gobs on a four day shore leave: Books, pens, business cards, CDs, Sharpie markers, temporary tattoos, condoms, sequin dress, army boots, breath mints. And now the car is packed. ID check. Nothing like being a van full of Canadian poets trying to get across the border.
"Where are you going?"
"To a poetry festival." (eyes wide, look scholarly, breathe normally…) …
"So, are you a … band or something?"
"No, sir just attending the poetry convention." (big nerdy grin)
Of course he doesn't understand it, my mother doesn't even understand it. It's a game, Mum. It's a game, Mr. Immigration Officer.
"Go ahead."
Hit the road, Jack, no turning back. It's a game. It's a game. It's a game. It's a game. We repeat the mantra often. Sometimes we even believe it.
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