A NEW POEM BY TODD SWIFT ON HIS 48TH BIRTHDAY

I've been writing poems again lately, now that I feel rather unmoored - it's been a decade or more since I was not teaching or studying or both at a university somewhere in Europe. I posted a poem to facebook the other day that I may post here at some stage. Turning 48 today is a mixed dish of sweet and sour. I am very grateful and relieved to be alive. My wife is a saint and a great friend. I run a cool indie press. However, my depression is bad, and I am facing lots of unspoken trials and tests currently, personal, and otherwise. I decided to write this poem when I saw the title of a forthcoming album. It made me want to try a "classic Todd Swift poem" from my early Montreal chapbook years, the kind of poem I might have written in 1994. Fans (ha!) of my work will note this touches on a lot of the tropes and themes I enjoyed working with in Budavox, all the way back then; and the aim I had at the time to craft poems with the style and simple pleasing form of a ska or power pop/ new wave song. Have fun!

MYSTERY GIRL DELUXE

It was never quite the kiss or weather.
We fell down after reading together
Simply since love is a matter of fact
At Easter; it often follows the act
Of indiscipline, the shifting feathers
That transform a swan; bars of leather
Were not our scene, but we attacked
Ideas of unison with underage tact.
We ached to wake up as F. Kafka;
Cherry-balmed lips the morning after.
It was sub-zero that April in Montreal;
The metro was blue; the turnstile
Saw us part, Walkman’s synchronised
To Orbison’s dream tears in our eyes.

April 8, 2014
poem by Todd Swift

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