Poetry: Selections from David Boski

Invisible Gods

Am I destined to be a curmudgeonly old man?

My neighbours hear voices 

that lubricate their brains

and construct stories 

I can only dream of telling.

Society has forsaken them

to the halfway houses

littered between

the overpriced rental units

and seven-figure homes

found throughout Parkdale.

I see them talking to invisible gods

I have yet to come into contact with.

I wonder what they’re saying.

16 Temple Avenue

I lie in bed and listen to the rain outside

On a cold, blustery night in December. 

The sound it makes as it hits this old house

Built long before I took my first breath.

I think of all the people who have come through this house:

The owners, the tenants, the visitors, and even the pets.

I think of the threesome I had in this very room.

Of the women who have come and gone.

Of Melvin, sleeping here beside me.

So many memories, rooted in place.

A place now empty, save for us.

I think of my father.

Of how I showed him pictures of this apartment

While he was in the hospital after his second suicide attempt.

I think of his final act.

His last breath leaving his lungs just sixteen days after I moved in.

I think of my mother’s visits. 

Of how excited Melvin was to see her.

Of the treats she would bring him.

Of her last visit before she got too sick to ever visit again.

I think of the baby who was murdered here, on the second floor,

By her drug-addled parents in 1994.

Twenty-two years before I gave my first and last month’s rent deposit. 

I think of the condo that will eventually knock these walls down

And make all the memories in this house and on this street

Things of a distant past. 

And how those memories will all die with us.

And how those memories will all die.

Shoppers Drug Mart

I was sitting in my truck in front of 

Shoppers Drug Mart on Queen Street.

I had gone to pick up a prescription for two inhalers

but the pharmacist told me they didn’t receive

a fax from the walk-in clinic.

After waiting a while, I was resigned to the fact

that I’d have to come back later.

I was about to leave when a vagrant drunk,

with a large grey pit bull

appeared in front of the passenger side window,

miming for me to roll it down.

I shook my head no, and as I put the Chevy

into drive and eased off the brake

he started walking forward and gave me the finger.

I pulled up beside him,

let the window down and said, “What’s the problem?”

“I just wanted to fuckin’ talk to you,” he said indignantly.

“Nah, don’t talk to me. Fuck off,” I said.

As I drove away, he shouted at the top of his lungs:

“WELL FUCK YOU TOO THEN!”

Lost & Found

How many beautiful poems did we lose

when Forough Farrokhzad was thrown out

of her Jeep & her head met concrete?

 

How many remarkable stories did we lose

when Breece D’J Pancake took that

Savage over-under & blew his genius all over

the wall behind him?

 

& what did my city lose when Daniel Jones

swallowed those pills, put a plastic bag over his

head, handcuffed his wrists, & waited for death?

 

& what would be lost if I called it quits

& purchased a one-way ticket

to the unknown right now?

 

Anything?

 

& what have I lost?

my mother, my father, the woman I love . . .

my mind . . . a long time ago

 

PLEASE HELP ME FIND IT

 

& if you do, please return it

it belonged to a nice young boy once

full of so much potential

 

They ripped my heart out on March 19th, 2020

 

I picked it up

took it & held it in the air

looked at it

irreparable damage had been done

but a few pieces were still salvageable

so I took them & put them back in my chest

 

The rest were stuffed inside a FreshCo grocery bag

with an empty bottle of Glenfiddich

& tossed into a blue bin

 

If you find those pieces

please don’t be alarmed

they belonged to a nice young boy once

full of so much potential

 

I apologize for the mess

but it’s okay, don’t worry, I’m still here

parts of me are still beating

albeit, ever so slightly

 

& that nice young boy

is still in there

somewhere

Geese Along Lake Shore

What happened to my stoicism?

I didn’t cry at my father’s funeral.

My mother’s funeral was different.

Tears leaked like a broken spigot.

Maybe I’ve become too visceral.

I thought Melvin was gonna die 

A few months ago. 

My girlfriend saw me weep. 

He needed emergency surgery—he didn’t die.

But what happens when he does?

What then?

There isn’t a medication on 

God’s green earth that could fix these

Thoughts that preoccupy my brain.

And anyways, God’s been on the world’s longest

Sabbatical.

The voices in my head have become obstreperous.

As I perambulate by the lake it occurs to me

That the insolent geese along Lake Shore

Don’t give a fuck about our feelings.

Happiness is an old friend

I no longer recognize.

David Boski lives in the Parkdale neighborhood of Toronto. Many of his poems have appeared throughout the underground small press.