DAVID MCGIMPSEY
ASBESTOS HEIGHTS
THE CANONICAL NOTEBOOKS
Coach House Books, Toronto
copyright © David McGimpsey, 2015
first edition
Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
McGimpsey, David, author
Asbestos Heights / David McGimpsey.
Issued also in a printed format.
ISBN 978-1-77056-415-2 (epub)
I. Title.
PS8575.G48A73 2015 C811'.54 C2014-908355-6
Asbestos Heights is available in a print edition: ISBN 978 1 55245 309 4.
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for my father, John McGimpsey
all the flowers in Ville D’Anjou
& the New York Yankees.
NOTEBOOK I
A HARKENING OF FLOWERS
‘Hath sorrow struck so many blows upon this face of mine and made no deeper wounds?’ – Richard II
Some drink grappa in Old Trieste
Some publish novels with a vanity press
But I love noodles
Some name their country homes ‘Le BelleBelle Rive’
Some name their yachts ‘O Big Mighty Steve’
But I love noodles
Some like the taste of mackerel in a can
Some can’t write essays without quoting Lacan
But I love noodles
Some like to consider nude curling the hardest sport
Some like to call the tansy flower common yellow mugwort
But I love noodles
Some love a poem that speaks of rare flowers
Some wake up and say, ‘Ohmigod! Gotta shower!’
But I love noodles
Lettuce
For poetry’s sake, let us consider
iceberg lettuce a flower, much as I
considered (for poetry’s sake) college
a place where I would find value in life.
I can’t say whether or not my whole year
was good for bouquets of iceberg lettuce,
blooming in beds of bacon and mayonnaise,
just that I remember their quiet, cold heads.
Stamen, anther, filament – I clammed up
for most of the summer. It wasn’t so bad.
I missed the old provocations of rage,
moved on, and didn’t gain too much weight.
Imagine the bride is holding her lettuce
and, then, tosses it to the eager crowd.
For poetry’s sake, I really have to say
I am happy for her among the crispy petals.
Lichen
What I remember about the lichen
were its inevitable invasions.
It would cover Taco Bell franchises
if you didn’t respect it and kill it.
Dogwood blossoms were different, I think.
In April, in Georgia, I could smell them
while looking up to the sky, calling
any scramble of stars Sagittarius.
From April came May and then other months
that also demonstrated my general facility
with the Gregorian calendar. By October,
I was puking all the cow grass I ate.
Lichen is a perfect combination
of algae and fungus, whereas we were
the perfect combination of liver
and peaches. We sure were a freezerful.
Scarlet Geraniums
A beach towel I bought in Barcelona
had a crest of scarlet geraniums.
Who would I give that to besides the one
I didn’t give the Kim Kardashian towel to?
Scarlet geraniums are not natural
to Ville D’Anjou, Quebec. ‘You’re amazing,
but you will always hurt those who fall
for your charm. You won’t mean to, but you will.’
The cover of Ted Hughes’s Birthday Letters
has a similar strew of geraniums,
but he wasted no time singing his anthem,
‘This One Goes out to the One I Fucked Up.’
I bought duty-free Iberian ham
rather than beach gear, which only affirmed
the Spanish maxim: You always end up
eating the Iberian ham you love.
Blackberry
Eventually, my critique was refined to
‘I hope all you sickening snobs just die.’
I ate blackberries every morning (once)
and held on to my earned, mature insight.
What people generally liked about me
was the thought they could do my job.
The quality my closest friends loved most
was that I was ‘a generous tipper.’
I read on some site blackberries were good
for the lungs. I knew they tasted really weird.
Fruits that taste good have soda pops based on them.
Isn’t that right, Diet Sierra Mist Kiwi?
Did I mention all the blackberry smoothies
and drinking them in one gulp, imagining
I was steadying myself on Jesus’s shoulder?
Jesus, of course, would just have Diet Sprite.
Canola Flowers
If you tore off the tops of canola –
yellow canola flowers – would you