George Anderson

studied meetings


1


listening to Black Sabbath one afternoon -

the power is cut & the vinyl glides to a halt

outside the sky is unusually clear-

no apparent clues which link up,

to make sense of it all-


I hear Nino upstairs screeching repeatedly

in Italian,  a blasphemous phrase

which loosely translated (I later learn)

means something like-

may the Pope's cock bleed forever!


I rev up the bike & head east

along Rue St Jacques towards the City

to unravel what I can discover about what has happened-

the tenements of St. Henri

the park where I first read Dostoyevsky

the black marble statue of a famous

Quebecois fascist strongman Groulx

blur by

the air sucking up & into my helmet

buoying my head

alert

along the hard, death-filled bitumen


I veer into Dawson College just before Atwater

where I'll soon start-

it is a sprawling complex

of converted office spaces

littered with long-haired

refugees from the excesses of capitalism

there is a buzz -

an unfathomable sense of being free

from the limitless rules,

the bullshit curriculum

the social posturing of high school


It is 1974.


out on the lawn

I observe her enter the Selby Building

    again & again

she is wearing jeans

& a w

stitched with flowers around the collar

each time she pushes the door open

more aggressively

more frantic

whirling through a void


You looking for someone? I ask curiously


2


I first notice her on a bus to the Vanier Campus

in Montreal East

she sits & chats with a friend

at the front of the bus

opposite the driver


I love her long black hair

it seems alive

like snakes

or blackened branches

reaching out for something

she smiles to leave

& disappears

in portions

as she treads down the stairs


the next week

at the exact time

I sit in her spot

at the front of the bus


the door pneumatically opens

& there she is-

dangling at the bottom of the steps

she sits with her friend

squeezing in

right next to me


I smile & ask:

Are you interested in poetry?


3


as an historian

I have a summer job of restoring

& recataloguing

the brittle journals of Acadians

dying of starvation on the Bay of Fundy

near Morden in Nova Scotia in 1755


I love to visit Old Montreal-

Notre Dame Church

the street artists &

musicians

the famous fountain of  Jacques Cartier

across the street from the Greater Life Building

when one day

I saw her eating her lunch

glancing downwards

her enormous breasts glistening-

my blood

cooking in its own juices


the next day

at the approximate time

I sit in her spot

pretending to munch on a salad sandwich

on brown bread

she sits next to me


I ask:

What's your conception of reality?

my cock hardening



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