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Five poems:
… the closer I come to elegy
Jobless Wonderboy
What’s The Worst That Could Happen, Courtney?
Stop Knowing How I Am
I’m Pulling For Your Narrative
This piece is about 3 printed pages long.
It is copyright © Jon Paul Fiorentino and Jacket magazine 2007.
… the closer I come to elegy
Little Lucifer falls
despite listless prayers
The palliative strain
and cigarette drama
Don’t fuck this up
with your feelings
Went to sleep without
him
Tried to dream him
back
But it’s zero sum the
summer
Nothing cold about it
just that
The closer I come to loving
the closer I come to elegy
Shh. There are other
poets trying to die
Sherbrooke, November 3, 2006
Jobless Wonderboy
Jobless little wonder
needs his antibiotics
Jobber never leaves
never earns his lesions
Got paper and markers
and motherfucking white-out
Listen, sent you a text
message in 1983
One day you’ll get it
New York, 2006
What’s The Worst That Could Happen, Courtney?
She slides out of a launderette
No, wait. She struts out of a café
Check that. She stumbles out of a bus
Or not. She steps out of a bank
Too dull. She stirs out of a dream
That sucks. She slips out of a clinic
The washer is old; the smoke is thick
The transit is slow; the credit is wrecked
The fear is real; the doctor is sick
Her clothes are stained; her coffee is cold
Her transfer is gone; her money is low
Her mind is made up; her pills do not work
Stop Knowing How I Am
When the punch line is chlorine
you transgraze, catch cold
When the punch line is Advair
the side effect is death
When the punch line is adjunct
high on grad school Sudafed
When the punch line is prairie
periodicals spiral
When the punch line is hockey
tell it antiseptic
Stifled by Winnipeg dust
stunted by Winnipeg stricture
when the punch line is stop
I’m Pulling For Your Narrative
It’s a trope
I think you know it
The ATM looks lovely tonight
if you believe in the word lovely
You kill an adjective
and then
The word lovely wakes
you up at 4pm and says
You sleep too much
you drink too long
Jon Paul Fiorentino
Jon Paul Fiorentino is a writer and editor. His most recent book of poetry is The Theory of the Loser Class (2006). He is the author of the poetry book Hello Serotonin (2004) and the humour book Asthmatica (2005). His most recent editorial projects are the anthologies Career Suicide! Contemporary Literary Humour (2003) and Post-Prairie - a collaborative effort with Robert Kroetsch, (2005). He lives in Montreal where he teaches writing at Concordia University and is the Editor of Matrix.
The Internet address of this page is http://jacketmagazine.com/34/c-fiorentino.shtml