My Dad’s favourite meal was a fry-up breakfast. You know, the classic; eggs, baked beans, mushrooms, bacon, tattie scones. If you could call that a meal. I hadn’t seen my father in nearly two years; he lived on his own now after mum had left him. When it approached Father’s Day I thought I’d make the effort to go and see him and make him a classic English breakfast, and maybe hope for some conversation along the way, cheer him up a bit. He met me at the door. I hugged him. He smelled of cigarettes and old sweat. I told him I was gonna make the food and he said, “Nice, Hon, I’ll just be in my room reading the paper,” and he went into the fridge and brought out a can of Newcastle Brown Ale and then retired with it into his bedroom, where I heard him clack the can open and then the fizz of a lighter and then the funk of another fag. I began making the food. I hadn’t brought oil with me. Assuming that he would own some; there was none, so I used butter instead. Did the mushrooms in the pan first and began heating the beans. And I boiled the kettle for some coffee and I called to him, “Hey Dad, you want some coffee in the meantime?” He didn’t answer. I drank a little cup myself. Whilst I did the bacon. I didn’t remember quite well how to cook bacon because I’d been a vegetarian for twenty years, and I worried whether I was getting it right. Nor did I venture with eggs anymore [because all I thought about when I was cooking eggs was straggly chickens screaming as they were being massacred in mass farms, after they’d had their beaks cut off and had seen their male siblings be pushed into a grinder straight after birth ...] and yet they went pretty easy: Dad liked them a bit underdone. Got the plates out and set the table. Orange juice. I looked into the fridge to see if father had more ale. Yes - quite a-plenty. So I took one of those out. And I called, “It’s ready, Pop. If you wanna come and eat! All nice and warm.” He replied that he was coming. I thought I was doing real well with all of this and being a good daughter to him and looked forward to asking the questions I had thought up for the dinner scene in advance ... And I spooned out the beans/mushrooms/bacon/scones on the plates and they gave off this enticing steam with their prickly British smells. And then Dad appeared in the kitchen. He was putting his coat on and he was already wearing his flat cap. The plates were two metres away from him on the table and he didn’t even look at them: all he did was light another cigarette, and then crush up his finished can of ale. “I’m going to head down to the pub for the game,” he said, effortlessly. - “Right now?” I asked. - “Yeah.” I protested, with a light voice, that I’d just made all this food for him. “Thanks, Honey,” he said, “I’m not hungry.” I told him that he should have said beforehand. “It’s fine. Food like this brings on cancer anyway. You can come down to the pub too if you like? Should be a cracker of a match.” I gulped. He wasn’t looking at me either - only admiring the way he blew the smoke out his mouth in these wavy shapes. “Dad,” I said, “It’s Father’s Day: I did all of this for you.” He chuckled. I couldn’t tell whether it was sarcastic or not, because this man very rarely laughed. He tapped his fag in the nearest ash tray, nonchalantly. Then he said, “Fuck fake holidays.” And he turned around and walked down the corridor ... to the end of it. Where he started putting his old boots on.
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Ran some errands this evening and was planning to get my dad's favorite beer for him (Newcastle Brown Ale. Newcastle is also his preferred soccer team. I do not know if the two are related.) because it's his birthday (very funny for a math teacher's birthday to be pi day) but I did not see it at the grocery store beer aisle. So on the way home I stopped at the liquor store that used to be a bank that used to be a train station (exact history unclear), but I could not find it there either. I tried to text my mom to ask what would be perhaps second best, but my message did not send (phone barely works) so I went home without it. When I returned home my dad was out. Later, over dinner, I told him that sadly I was unable to find his beloved ale at the publix or even the liquor store. before I had a chance to do my not very funny bit about how I was blaming boris johnson for this mishap, he asks "where did you look." "I looked where the beers live," I said, perplexed. "Did you check the cave," he asked next. I did not know what he was saying to me. "What are you saying to me," I asked. He did not respond and returned to his conversation with my mom. What is the cave. Does the cave have newcastle brown ale.
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three from Stephen Bett
Tom Pickard: Oop norf, fook sake
bulimia oblivia
I
[h] ate
it
bulimia oblivia―Tom Pickard (w/ nods to Basil Bunting, the Newcastle poets, Liverpool “beat” poets, George Harrison, bp Nichol) bulimia oblivia
don’t woof yr cookies (Newcastle Brown Ale)
purge yourself, sunflower
say somebody’s lil’ bunting
I
here’s I me mine in yr eye
oop norf, fook sake, you bet
Yorks Bete beat the Pool
[h] ate
not to get all cocky
h’8 no ’aitch 4 bp concrete
viz, getting all visual
it
ate me (’arf-time) so don’t be
telling porkies, pie-head
magpie caught in a barcode
Jeremy Prynne: Paratactic Procedures
Here I saw… telescopic to the field inside the mouth
where speech parts of separation had been swallowed
in foreground… fricative was the advice and
to palate by adhesion said to be forward
Kazoo Dreamboats―Jeremy Prynne (with a nod to Gerald Bruns)
Here I saw… telescopic to the field inside the mouth
chokeberries on the line rotten beyond description
chomp by field ate down to baby letter shivers, bottle
our mal du doute upchuck trick, there’s a good chap
where speech parts of separation had been swallowed
by black holes, do not interrupt his moment of disconnect
at all / anyway / whatever / even so / rubbish
goes down whoosh it’s got some teeth in it
in foreground… fricative was the advice and
couple disjunct blimeys in a row pick & prune a’miss
near scurvy them ballsy labiodental f’n fearsome
feckful avant swine, dey do dis da joint
to palate by adhesion said to be forward
by outward tastes like collage glued on the tongue
you can only “be” in the moment, just out Near/Miss
meets Gordon Lish meets Lewis Black, well done old son
Tom Raworth: gifted
a present
that
fits me
to a t
Ace ― Tom Raworth (with a nod to old Stones… & stoners)
a present
gifted, & at arms (rah-rah)
shabby old cardigan, slippers, &c.
― the real raw deal!
that
’s worth a lotta r…
She corrects / x-ray
muse in my devices
fits me
sting or other wrays
Rae-worth, Raw-worth let’s call
the whole thing off ?
to a t
Om boy… pleased to meet’cha
full steam a head
top speed, them ol’ rollers
Jack Spicer: No One Listens to Poetry
No one listens to poetry. The ocean
Does not mean to be listened to. A drop
• • •
It pounds the shore. White and aimless signals. No
One listens to poetry.
Language―Jack Spicer (with nods to Robin Blaser)
No one listens to poetry. The ocean
rolls over us ― these coastal people
nothing’s out beyond this last gasp edge
serial decoder of breakers
Does not mean to be listened to. A drop
drip drip on little green transceivers, whatever
comes in from that darkness around us
you were the real outsider, honest angel
It pounds the shore. White and aimless signals. No
jolts or jive, so okay dictate something, anything…
Nothing, you said, Deserves to live
& I heard that, crystal clear
One listens to poetry.
It’s difficult to get the news
No one listens to radio anymore,
not even Martians
Stephen Bett is a widely and internationally published Canadian poet with 25 books in print (from BlazeVOX, Chax, Spuyten Duyvil, & others), his most recent being Broken Glosa, from Chax Press. His personal papers are archived in the “Contemporary Literature Collection” at Simon Fraser University. His website is StephenBett.com
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