Joanna Gilman Hyde

"Good Morning, World!"

Month: October, 2013

LITERALLY WEIGHING MY WORK

The Hawk West Desk Window 1:38pm

Today I counted and weighed

My Volumes Of Writing —

38 Journals and My 364-page Typed Manuscript

weighing in on the bathroom scale

at 39 pounds

counting Birk’s largest bag

in-which They are contained

valuable to Me

nearly indecipherable to anyone

other than Me

& ready to hit the auction block

when I die

PS

In the meantime

I have put a pillow

on top

for a cat bed

I COME WITH A STORY

The Hawk Queen Bed 10:22pm

I Come With A Story

& It ain’t very pretty

It ain’t no Barbie Doll story

where You make It up as You go along

It has all Its facts laid out

straight

bright & ugly

terrible in Its glory

It starts with a death

of The Mother, My Mother

Who entrapped Me on an island

off Nova Scotia —

Oh I’ve told this story so many times —

How when She died

I didn’t sleep for four days

How on the fourth day I asked for a sign

to comfort Me

& got smashed over the head

by a Shower Of Lights

so much so I thought I was The Second Coming Of Christ

I was taken to hospital

to a darkened little room

where I saw no less

than The Meaning Of Life

& I laughed

I saw God’s Joke opening out before My Eyes

& have never been able to tell It

I Come With A Joke

to set the world ablaze

with laughter — so much so

that no one can copulate

for several weeks at least

thereby making a blip

in the productivity of Human Kind

I Come With A Blip

TRUE ROSES

The Tomato-coloured Couch 6:22pm

I have saved every Dozen Roses

of Eliza’s

hung upside down

& dried out

in vases, arranged

two dozen still hanging

from Me, old boyfriends

one treasured young man

staged in My Kitchen

doubled dozen in cut glass

petals laying themselves out

on table tops

falling to the floor

scattered up the stairs

crunching in Her Bed Room

all their colours subtly muted

drying into generic mauve

as they lose their moisture

their scent

taking on the scent of age

of years

INFECTION

The Tomato-coloured Couch 5:30pm

Hunter has a throat infection

so I went to The  Little Store

to try and find Neo Citron

and as I was leaving

found instead A Charming Child

Who tilted His Head to one side

and gave Me a lilting “Hello”

MOTIVATION

The Hawk West Desk Window 10:44am

I pulled up The Evening Blind

on Today’s Morning

on A Big White Truck

passing Our Living Room Window

showing Me I am On Track

I will not lie in bed

I will row on My Rowing Machine

take A Shower

and make Eggplant Parmesan

SILVER EVOCATION

The Hawk Dining Room 1:05

The Fog Clouds are shifting rapidly Right to Left

South To North

as I look out My Dining Room Window

determined to capture Their Silver Evocation

of the higher clouds

to capture Them

speeding away from the upper, more stationary

grey silhouettes

of backlit Silver

The Lower Fog Clouds are moving in streaks today

rather than the bulbous blotches

of yesterday

as I look They’re getting thinner, thinner

revealing more & more Silver cloud behind

Oh there They go!

and there They’ve left the magnificent skyscape

brimming with molten undulations

of My Precious Metal

FOG CLOUDS

The Hawk Portico 3:15pm

I can hear The Waves

in one direction

& watch Them in another

The Fog Clouds dissipate

underneath a patterned sky

& I am momentarily in The sun

THE POCONOS

The Tomato-coloured Couch 7:13pm

On My only trip to The Poconos

I accompanied A Non-descript Man

to some friends of His —

A Husband and His Pregnant Wife —

I went swimming off a dock

in My royal blue bathing suit

& drove back to New York City

in the night with The Wife

and My Date in the back

and Me

in the front passenger seat

My Knee surreptitiously laid

against the gear shift

against The Husband’s fist

and sometimes open hand

THE SEALED FATE OF PETER LYNN HAEGHAERT

The Tomato-coloured Couch 11:30am

I met a Nice Young Man

with a husk in His Voice

on the pedestrian walk-up

to The Yarmouth — Portland Ferry

New Year’s Eve 1985

I had been dumped on the highway

by My Arguing Mother

and had to get a ride to New York

Peter Lynn Haeghaert was His Name

and He had been visiting His Father for Christmas

After discovering We were both visiting parents

and We were both artists

He agreed to drive Me into New York City even though

He lived on the Eastern End of Long Island

We caught the tail end of a Holiday Inn Party

and shared a room and slept in separate beds

Not only was Peter an artist — He was available

In January I invited Him to an ice cream party

and He drove the fifty miles into The City

and took Me out to dinner

In February He sent Me a home-made Valentine

I didn’t see Peter again until May

when I went out to Sag Harbour

armed with Two Friends

Who liked His Blond Apartment

and the $50.00 picnic He bought for Us

which We enjoyed on a beach

in the company of a topless Irish girl

On the way back to NYC, one of My Friends

suggested I ask Peter His Birthday

and when It was discovered to be June 22

plans were swiftly made

to visit again, this time picking strawberries

& drinking champagne

Our last official date, numbering Four

Peter chartered two tickets

aboard a sail boat for The Statue of Liberty Centennial

with it’s 4th of July fanfare of food and fireworks

Peter came into New York City one last time

before we planned to go to Nova Scotia together

but He didn’t stay as long as I would have liked

& I deliberately slept with someone else

August in Nova Scotia

My Mother cornered Peter on Her Island Bed

with coffee in the morning

and asked Peter what His Intentions were:

Peter looked at Me and smiled

and said

“I would like to marry Joanna

and live in Nova Scotia”

TRANSITION

October 14, 2013 The Hawk Queen Bed 10:24pm

She showed Us Her Gift Card Collection:

Tim Horton’s, American Eagle, NSLC

(Nova Scotia Liquor Commission)

She said Good-night

on the eve of Her Adult-hood

& closed Her Bedroom Door

on Teenage-hood

Childhood

& Infancy

She took a dark fluffy cat with Her

to sleep

She plans to be up @ 6:00am

to leave @ 6:45 to drive

three hours to Her First Class

The New Nineteen-year-old