This is for my friend sewa. A few months ago I posted one of E.A. Lacey's poems in a thread on Indigo's site...I think it was Indigo's site! It was a wee bit naughty. This one is pure lonely romance. I've loved this poem for years and I hope you do too.

TAVERNE

Outside, the wind,
the blowing snow,
dead green of pine:
twenty below.

Within, the warmth,
the human cheer;
man-heat, man-talk,
sausage and beer.

Snow-paths that crossed
led to this place;
I followed the steps
others had traced,

came to this safe
and sheltering cove;
a place to learn,
the need to love;

a place to be.
Yet each man knows
midnight must come.
The bar must close.

The bar will close.
The men will go,
each one along
his path of snow.

I always wanted to be a nature mystic, but I couldn't do it. It's not like I didn't try. I think of Richard Jefferies and his famous lament: "It's the old mistake. I love the earth, therefore the earth loves me."

One way to celebrate the early morning chill is to grab a coffee and sausage sandwich from Tim Horton's and head over to Alexander the Great Parkette. Find yourself a stone bench by the fountain. It's a Saturday in mid-September: slow your pace.

Mademoiselle Vague's paternal grandmother taught Latin, French and English. My paternal grandfather was a postman and a freelance gardener.

If they had met...but she grew up in Annopolis Royal in Nova Scotia, a town famous for its apples and apple festivals, and he had the bad luck to grow up in the slums of Belfast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90u1IV4dw8o

And it's not only the old-fashioned diners that are disappearing. Try to find a fish & chips shop!

Oh, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't want to live in the meat and potatoes city I grew up in. I love the multicultural explosion of food. Even in this Greek neighbourhood I could at this very moment pop out for Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Indian, Thai...

But I miss the humble fish & chips shop. We had one in the neighbourhood when I was a kid. Every Friday night all the kids on our block would head down for the lovely mess wrapped in newspapers, and bring the mess home for the family supper. It wasn't a Catholic thing...it was a fish & chips thing...especially on those winter twilights after street hockey when we were all so famished.

Speaking of those rainy late nights in a diner with booths and mini jukeboxes...

(film noir, picture it black and white)

I loved the weird selection of songs. I mean it was all over the place. It was also a bit weird to have the 24-hour breakfast late at night.

I dropped in my quarters and clicked: "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash; "Karma Chameleon" by Culture Club; "From Me to You" by the Beatles; "If You Don't Want to Fuck Me Baby, Baby Fuck Off" by Wayne County and the Electric Chairs.

And when the diner closed we all stepped out together with umbrellas or newspapers over our heads.

The lake breeze is very pleasant on an unexpectedly hot afternoon. Jump up on the windowsill and inherit the wind, Fanny. I predict a salmon supper in your very near future.

Gina and her little daughter and her yappy wee dog moved out tonight from the apartment across the hall. I saw her dragging the garbage bags down the stairs and I said hello.

Before Gina it was Craig and Gregory. Craig was a gay hustler who wanted to get Gregory into the trade. Many mornings I saw Gregory dressed as a salesman in a suit or as a worker in an undershirt and workboots.. Gregory wasn't into the fantasy thing and they broke up and moved out.

And tonight is the rainy night I wanted most.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt5BOpn-0b4

And it won't be long before autumn -- old beachfront restaurants, the chill and the gulls --and fresh prawns sold in paper cups over salad on the boardwalk...if not here, then in Penzance.

***

Greg and I were best friends when were were 13, 14, 15. We spent every night at the plaza big-game hunting for girls. Greg and I met again a couple of decades later and I asked him what his favourite teenage angst song was from way back when. It was something by Alice Cooper! I guess we didn't know each other very well, what with our minds on other things.

This was my teenage angst song:


http://youtube.com/watch?v=HB40zw8R7r4

A brief intro: Indigo Bunting may remember a high school era tale of my friend David stealing my EDITH PIAF BOX-SET (on vinyl). Well, last night I had dinner with Dodie and Day.

A few readers will maybe remember them: both in their 70s, well-off, here in the summer and in France or Spain the rest of the time. Day got mugged in Spain last year and ended up with broken ribs. Anyway, last night Dodie made curried chicken over rice and we had lots of white wine. They gave me a 2-CD set of Edith Piaf.

Now another thing. Dodie and Day are the parents of their rebel son B. He has thrown them many a curve ball over the years but a phone call sent them for another spin. He is converting to Islam in order to marry a gal half his age. B. is my age, stately and greying. Unlike me, he is rich. The young gal is not a practising Muslim but her parents are. In other words, rebel son B. is doing it to keep the peace in his girlfriend's family.

The wedding is to be in October and I'm invited. So are Nicola and Kirby, erstwhile owners of the late and lamented Gus the Deaf Cat (I mention this for old blog friends). Not surprisingly, alcohol will not be served at the wedding, nor at the engagement party which will happen a few weeks earlier.

Hmm, no booze. Nicola says she's going to bring a flask, bless her heart.

To add to the drama, Dodie threatens to make a scene at the wedding because the father of the bride has refused to meet Day and herself before the ceremonies. This isn't a religious tradition. Dodie and Day have met the mother already, a most serene and speachless woman. The father is apparently too busy.

Dodie, I'm afraid to say, isn't kidding when she threatens to make a scene. I predict a train wreck. I wish I had a digital camera.

This weekend reminds a lot of people of going back to school. Not me. I never went to school. Like William Blake I spent my childhood running naked in the fields. I wish I could say I was raised by wolves but I wasn't. I was raised by tenement cats which might explain my fondness for fire-escapes and my habit of purring in my sleep.

It's the tail end of summer and I can feel it in the air. When Marushka phones it means Kevin and Marushka feel like going out for dinner, and they want me to tag along. I fully intend to do so shortly.

I don't know about you but I like the change of clothes from summer to autumn. It's a sort of poetry to put away the t-shirts and shorts and pull out the sweaters and jeans.

Cold pasta salads have their place but I look forward to the soups and stews I make myself in a giant's cauldron.

The twirl of the seasons took so long when I was young -- now it's almost a carnival ride.