Lalala nécessaire déconstruction de l’éphémère4.

La nécessaire
déconstruction
de l’éphémère

Première année- № 4

BUREAUX DU JOURNAL, L’ILE A POULE, PORT DE
FEUILLE, CANADA ATLANTIQUE





La nécessaire déconstruction de l’éphémère est le trimestriel
désordonné consacré à la poésie et à l'art. Il est publié par
Fire Agate Press, anciennement connu sous le nom de
Fowlpox Press. ©MMXX tous les droits réservés. ISSN 2563-
1713. Rédacteur en chef: Virgil Kay. Rédacteur en chef de
poésie: Jack Ketch. Conception et mise en page d’art: Paris
Pâté. Longue rédaction de manuscrits: Prince Robert de
Rohan-Courtenay, de Guthrie, Okla. Tout le contenu et ses
innombrables défauts, imperfections, ommitions et
travestissements peuvent être imputés à un bouc émissaire
errant nommé Fripouille, de Yukon non organisé.
Photographies de paysages marins: Bill Cutrer. Bureaux du
journal : L’ile A Poule, Port De Feuille, Canada Atlantique,
et Hawthorne, CA, USA. IAJC ID d’adhésion d’entreprise :
9028852911



Poems by
Christopher Norman Brooks

What If?

To see a flash of lightning, one must stare
in the direction of its strike. One cannot guess
where, suddenly, the slender branch will scar
the darkened sky with its electric kiss.

Had we been gazing elsewhere and had missed,
each other, back when music sparked our loves,
we might have never wed—the moment lost.

But we were ready; and so we share our lives.

Physics

I tripped.

And suddenly I was hurtling towards the concrete
accelerating at 9.8 meters per second squared.

At that moment (as it does at every moment
according to one interpretation of quantum mechanics),
the universe split.

In one universe, I broke both wrists.
In another, I hit my head and died.
In yet another, I hadn’t tripped.

In this universe, I tucked and rolled,
escaping with no more than a few scrapes and bruises
and a bemused sense of having gotten away with something.

Where did I learn to fall so skillfully?

The Vermont House

Gone, those lingering summer days,
the road, still dirt, devoid of cars all afternoon.
If one comes by, we wave,
and they wave back.

Summer evenings fade;
they’re gone.
The distant sound of sunset birds
transmutes to twilight frogs,
and supersonic bats flit overhead.

Gone, those ruddy maple afternoons.
Autumn leaves enwreathe the mountains
in their variegated fiery glow,
the nights now growing cold.

Gone, the snow above our ears;
we don’t feel the cold
until bone-chilled we come inside
to huddle round the kitchen Franklin stove.

A storm might rage outside,
but all together reading,
in the hearth a glowing fire—
fairy tales and murder mysteries,
histories, and Charles Dickens—
we are warm.

I left out spring.
They call it mud season.
Still cold from winter,
melting snow and ice turn all
to mud, mud, mud—
and promises of summer.

Gone.

No more martinis on the porch,

another evening wasted,
contemplating Boynton Hill,
and lilac bushes,
slapping at no-see-ums,
talking politics and books,
watching summer evening die to dusk,
and then to dark.

Dark. The dark so deep
that distant stars descend almost to touch.



Poems by J. D. Nelson

1.

pie watch “83”

denver of earth

the share of the word to be given to the world
the old roots are the words of this world

spiders were the friends
Spiders with fangs out to here

police worm was working that night
huck-one is the huck of the brain working for the sun

wow I said your world is great
I especially like the moon and sun

do you think the new world will be as nice?

2.

looking at trees for five hours

eating a cheerburger in the gelatin bath
that’s the best I could do with the ant farm

this fog is gruesome
how long has it been since you put your feet in the water

that could be the snail rally mom was talking about
buried in sand is a good way to sleep on the beach

the bug feather
a secret feather

the program of light
the moon was a smoking machine

J. D. Nelson (b. 1971) experiments with words in his
subterranean laboratory. More than 1,500 of his poems have
appeared in many small press publications, in print and
online. He is the author of several collections of poetry,
including *Cinderella City* (The Red Ceilings Press, 2012).
Visit http://www.MadVerse.com for more information and
links to his published work. Nelson lives in Colorado.





Bambi vs Contagion.

By Pinchas May

oday’s test wasn’t my wife’s first for Covid-19. The
first took place in March of this year, after traveling to
Fishkill, New York. Upon our return to our Nova Scotian
home she had begun to have some symptoms associated with
the disease and after calling 811 she’d been instructed to
drive to a hospital about an hour and a half away. Driving a
solitary two lane highway through a stretch of wretched fir
and spruce interrupted by some Dutch or Georgian Colonial
houses on family farms, we were lulled into the cold abyss
that had become the new normal. Welcome to 2020.

There was a ten minute wait in the cold while my
wife waited for someone to unlock the set of doors leading
into a revolving door of the west wing attached to two other
buildings that made up this overpriced hospital designed by
a Toronto firm of architects. Fast forward ten years later
after the ribbon cutting ceremony and the whole thing is at
the mercy of some disgruntled divorcé named Dennis who
just crawled in late after spending all night beta testing Fall
of Booty: Modern Slaughter 3. But Dennis finally found the
high security key next to the vape pen and some gum in his
uniform pants pocket. Thirty minutes later and after two,
six-inch Q-tips were inserted into her nose my wife was ready
to go.

To the bathroom, that is. But there wasn’t any
available at the 160 million dollar hospital—she might be
contaminated, after all—and public bathrooms were shut
down at that time. So she suffered in silence. It’s harder for
women. Women are marginalized where it hurts. If a
highway, hospital, or jobsite were entrusted to women, there
would be plenty of bathrooms. They would be as plentiful as

blades of grass and each one would be immaculate. After
twenty-four years of marriage I am beginning to realize there
is a sizeable disparity between a woman’s grace under
pressure and a man having no problem in stopping the car on
a lonely stretch of highway, looking for any oncoming cars
and, having discovering none, gleefully spraying
“CHRISTOPHER REEVE WAS THE REAL
SUPERMAN, BOTH ON THE BIG SCREEN AND IN
REAL LIFE. ALSO, DID YOU KNOW HIS PATERNAL
GRANDFATHER WAS CEO OF PRUDENTIAL?” in the
middle of the road.

But my wife tested negative and we have had a
delightful respite for almost seven months until last
Thursday, when, having traveled to visit my in-laws, her
symptoms flared up again. And while we did have to enter
that 811 limbo of Tim Carleton’s Opus Number 1/Cisco music
mashed up with “Your call is very important to us/Votre
appel télé phonique est très important pour nous” yet again,
we were spared the pee prohibition trek through nowhere.
Our local hospital could perform the test now.

As a child I had enjoyed treasure hunts involving
maps hidden in random spots. The final map always led to
the treasure. But this trip to the hospital was more like a trip
to Oak Island, only with more sink holes and booby traps.
When you have walked past the boxwood guarded by a doe
and her two fawns, who appear to be up to their heads in a
quicksand composed of black earth and wood chips, and step
into the ER foyer, the papers leading to the attendant nurse
conflict with each other while confirming that the cafeteria
is closed.

Acting the part of hardened pirates, we took the
elevator and found our treasure—that is to say, the
receptionist—behind a plexiglass-protected desk. She
mustered all her training and natural enthusiasm to bark

that my wife should follow her into a patient’s room,
complete with vinyl chair, wastepaper basket, en suite
bathroom and a 12” flatscreen television. The television was
mounted to the wall over a floating shelf on which had been
inscribed: “DONATED TO EASTERN SHORE
MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. IN MEMORY OF CALVIN
DAWES BY THE SPRY HARBOUR VERIOS, FITNESS
CLUB. The television—an Electrohome—was not plugged
in, as there was no jack in which to plug it into. However, on
the floating shelf had been placed a beautiful 8x10 glossy of
a jaundiced patient wearing an oxygen mask. There was no
explanation as to what it was there for.

The attendant nurse came in dressed in full battle
gear, complete with full body suit, face mask, and a clear,
vinyl face shield. She asked the same questions regarding
symptoms as had the receptionist who echoed the two people
on the receiving end of 811, and my wife, while gasping for
air, was now quite polished in reciting her litany of
symptoms. The Q-tips were inserted, my wife cried silently
and bravely, and soon we were home.

Now, as my wife has joined the 5,294,012 people to
date who have been tested, we shall re-enter our quarantine
and soon, soon, I shall free that blasted doe and her progeny
from the depths of that black earth and wood chips, and
position them securely in front of a fully operational,
Electrohome television, for a blu-ray presentation of Bambi.

Pinchas May writes from his desk under a thick layer of
disappointment.