Lucky loser

I find a half pack of stale smokes

behind some novels of

Bukowski’s drunken knowledge

look into the night with a smile

walk through the rains of January

too the bar

without stepping on any lines

I do that at times

when there’s a poem in me

that wants to escape

the madness within

I head for that smoke room

sit in the corner

with pen and paper

two mugs of beer

I drink alone

I let that poem escape

onto blank paper.

 

Copyright © 2015 by Henry Doyle

Published  in  STORYBOX:  an anthology from the Thursdays Writing Collective.

Edited by Elee Kraljii Gardiner,  Otter  Press, Vancouver.B.C www.thursdayspoemsandprose.ca

Pain and Wastings

A city tour bus from Vancouver’s air port slowly drives through Main and Hastings

Women look like witches in Polanski’s Macbeth

Men as starved vampires

Shuffle down East Hastings as though with feet of clay

Some hide in the shadows of the Carnegie Library

Lighting up their crack pips or shooting up herion

Their drugs try to bring them to Heaven

But they only wake up in the DTES of Hell

On beds made out of cardboard

They sleep, shit, piss, fuck in the back alleys

Screams of pain and waste

Wake me up at 3am

I hate them but pray for them in one breath

Looking out my small bachelor apartment window

Under looming darkness

They light up their crack pips and shoot up their heroin

As a little piece of their souls burn into the night.

 

Copyright © 2011 by Henry Doyle

A version of  this poem was publish in MEGAPHONE, Vancouver’s Street Paper

Issue 62/ September 17th 2010