Monday, 4 June 2012

Pickled Egg Poetry by John Sobol




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Picked Egg Poem (for the Carleton Tavern, Ottawa)

pickled eggs on the counter
pickled eggs on the linoleum 
pickled eggs gathering dust under the bar

pickled egg breath in the phone booth
calling home
calling a cab
calling the cops

pickled egg dreams of another friday night boozeup at The Carleton Tavern
pickled egg lunches between Mechanicsville shifts
pickled egg picnics in baskets with quarts of beer, pig's knuckles 
and tucked away in a vest pocket 
a wedding ring

pickled egg pennies (1935)
pickled egg nickels (1959)
pickled egg quarters (1982)
pickled egg loonies (2012)

quick call mom i just fell in love over a pickled egg
quick call a cab my water broke like a jar of pickled eggs on the floor
quick call an ambulance, joe just tipped right over backwards in his chair and landed on his head, this time he's really hurt i think
quick call louise and gilles and alfred and michelle and eugenie and bob, the band is cooking tonight
quick another joke another laugh another wink another dance another kiss another tear another beer
quick another pickled egg

carbonated afternoons of Black Label and Ex and Blue and spaghetti and maybe a pickled egg or two too
nights and decades of hope and lust and late night truths in the smoke of 10,000 cigarettes
mornings after sleeping it off in the phone booth outside
corner of Armstrong and Parkdale in Hintonburg
snow drifts between tarred fingertips, snoring gently into the phone
this is home
this is home
this is home

call me a pickled egg on the phone
this is home

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