the invitation

By Stan Rogal

the old lady invited me to her soirée
yes, she of the weeping work, parade of earrings
washed blue, the back still bent, as much dust as snow
detachment is the dark cloud she carries
who painted the airplane thus, in that sky, daub over daub
who kept friendly converse w/dwarves who walk on their hands
who was followed close at heel by a broken-coated jackabee
who might have been capable of love     worth trying
the leaves brighter than grass on the sidewalk
               — fools rush in, no?—  
what I have been thinking about, lately, is bewilderment
the possibilities of music (first // that it does exist // & that we do, too)
“the trees add shade to shade, lights out, quiet”
entire downtown area a ghost town, spooky
this far inland appearance of a fox is more reference than metaphor
the entire network connected by a series of bridges & tunnels
attentive to their surroundings they stall a while to get to know a place
a bumped fender or a newsstand w/o a newspaper
a ramble in the bushes; a bramble in the rushes
we feel perplexed whenever we see these excerpted sentences
I mean, did you drive to work or bring your lunch
what started as pages & pages, then erased
something hit our heads & our hit heads hummed
we climbed into the taxi, accepting all things
played dominoes
             listened to L. Cohen on the stereo
                          drank calvados until four in the morning
good to share molecular orgasm with a friend
famous blue raincoat & all
later read the papers with a coffee then smoked cigarettes
 
by the time we got back
the ballooned fans had already turned red in the black sun
the little cherubs were nesting nicely in the arbor

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I​, Object

By Stan Rogal

Dear J______. Had a dream my life was real. This silly make-believe probably fed only on an already unhealthy sexuality. Desire to be both ‘inside’ & ‘outside’ the subject simultaneously. [I ask you, who cannot not be awed by the odor [[sic]] in the door, the wind in the window?] Function is neither expression nor reflection it is performance. But what are the rules for applying the rules? A bubble wrapped in techno-mysticism inside a cocoon of libertarian ideology, or. At times, mystery falls into our dreams (yes?) the radio on at midnight — oh, by the way, did anybody hear me sing today, do you think? Largo al Factotum? anybody? no? — aw, well, yes, unlikely, just that. [One should not have a little toy hammer in place of a heart. Just saying. I pause only long enough to lay a small tear upon a square of white cloth, sigh]. Too soon I’ll be just a name (less) & not the one who wandered with empty pockets amid streets of Dickensian children begging, their dirty faces pressed against the window of the Sebastien Gaudard patisserie shop, rue de Martyrs, Paris. That particular tableau has been almost wiped clean. No nightspot here, no bar there, no sweetness either on or around the corner. Figure & ground dissolve. ‘What’ & ‘why’ as such are no longer genuine questions. I mean, what does ‘mean’ mean anyhow? ‘Cat’ may mean a furry four-legged creature, a malicious person, a knotted whip, a horizontal beam for raising a ship’s anchor, a six-legged tripod, a short, tapered stick, a jazz musician, & so on. “A noun is the name that you call anything by as it is known by that name at a given moment in history.” That was Gertrude Stein. Swell. A stimulating exanimation of the fickleness of objects. Tender Buttons, say. Say, Rose is a rose is arose, or whatever. [I am very busy finding out what people mean by what they say, honestly, up to my elbows at the present moment, seeing in the writing — any writing — a ceaseless systematic permutation of erotic positions].  Still there is still some need still for ambiguity. A word is not a river. Never a river. Sometimes an indication (though rarely). “Green grass” is not an object in itself but a sign for an object, just as a painting of a pipe is not a pipe: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” AKA “The Treachery of Images.” AKA “The Wind in the Song.” Too many angels on horseback, too many fuzzy navels, too many golden showers & three-legged monkeys. Actual things often violate polite conventions, it’s true. Sat on the edge of the bed, legs spread slightly [provocatively?] apart, skin delicate, two slender fingers holding a lit Egyptian Ramses’ brand cigarette whose smoke rises in loose spirals similar to the bluish mountains that blur in the distance in Italy… [deep breath] …pronto prontissimo son come il fumine: sono il factotum della citta… Dear J______, please excuse me for not having told you this sooner. I wish to remain to remember that stanzas go on. Foliage is not per se in the trees, it is surround. & so it goes on. [It does go on]. Signed: truly, madly, deeply, yr old thing.

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​Stan Rogal lives and writes in the always-under-construction metropolis known as Toronto. Work has appeared in numerous publications in Canada, the US, Europe, and, most recently, Asia. The author of several books, including 12 poetry and a handful of chapbooks. A new collection of poems to appear in 2025 with ECW. An autodidactic intellectual classicist [reformed]. Speaks semi-fluent English and controversial French.