By Kenneth McIntyre
BUM
Hello?
Yea
Don’t ask for money
It’s mine
You’re a fucking bum
You’ve told me that for 30 years
You’re a liar
and
you
don’t
even know it
That’s not true
If it wasn’t for me you’d
have been dead 10 times
I’ve died many more
Without your help
Your poor mother
You practically drove
Her nuts
She was well on her way
You’re a piece of shit
I’ll hang up the phone
You’re not even a piece of shit
A piece of shit stinks
Yea? That’s nice
You tell your daughter
What kind of father she has
I can’t she’s 3
Doesn’t speak English
And lives in China
I’m going to change the phone#
Ok dad
It’s still the same Korean account?
Yea I have to go now
I’m running out of credit
DYING SCARLET
I saw George at a downtown bar once
when I was home from cow college
We used to play hockey and baseball together
He was native and the people that adopted him
Were poor
His mom always had hair leaking out
Of her shorts in the summer
And
His dad looked like a greasy Merlin Olsen
George was sheepish and fragile
Because the other families would pay
For him to play out of town
He sat down and I bought him a Molson
I asked what’s happening
He told me he did 18 months for
A B and E
I told him I’m home because I
Dropped all my classes
We laughed
George said alcoholics like us have to
Stick together
Rumor had it that he was always being fiddled
With by his dad
I didn’t have an excuse except the time my
Next-door neighbour Yvonne made me suck her
Nipples after she caught me smoking behind the church
I finished my beer bought George another and
Told him I had to split
Walking down the street I looked in a coffee shop
That had a sign that read:
COFFEE BRINGS LUXURY AND NOBILITY
GOLD FOR THE COMMON MAN
I turned went back to the bar
Saw George at the slot machines and
Bought 2 beers
It’s not doubt but certainty that drives you mad
GRACE
Arriving here I started dating this Korean woman
Spent weekends at her family home in the country
Dined with her relatives every holiday and
Ripped around the peninsula in a Korando that
Her brother owned
We were going strong for 2 years when her
Mother dropped dead in the garden
After the mourning she told me she was taking
Her father and brother to Hong Kong for a week
To get away from the misery
She left Friday after work
Saturday night I got a drunken call from her brother
Inviting me to drink dong dong ju in Insa Dong
When she got home I asked where she had been
She said:
I went to Rome to see my boyfriend
He’s an architect
I called her a pig
She laughed and told me that if I didn’t fly back
To Canada and go to law school we were finished
Well it’s 8 years on and I never did become a lawyer
But
I’ve overstayed my visa by 7 months and probably need
To
Find
A
Good
One
________________________________________________________
Kenneth McIntyre is on a continual journey in search of muses, mystics, pontificators and inebriates. He roams the streets of Seoul and patronizes the borough of Haebangcheon where he may be found setting the scene for future verse.
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