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TOM PRIME


The Rusty Toque | Issue 13 | Poetry | November 30, 2017

​Revelations


          It was May, and I was sick of Toronto. I was living in a squat with some friends. Since the winter had ended, I decided to hitchhike to Algonquin park and go camping. I packed up my torn blue Value Village hitchhiker’s backpack and hit the road.

          I was trying to not smoke pot for three weeks, so I had no weed, but I brought a plastic container full of Peter Jackson tobacco and a mickey of vodka. My backpack was full of stolen food (about three days worth)—I cooked with a little propane stove. By the time I got there, it was late, so I drank a bit, smoked a cigarette, and fell asleep on the beach.

          In the morning, I stole an aluminum boat—rowed across to somebody’s cottage. I read Revelations for the bizarre imagery and got bit by horseflies. I was alone, and it felt good. Nobody to please, nobody to prove myself to. It rained the second night before I left, so I sat inside my stupid child’s tent and shivered in my sleeping bag, while the rain leaked through.

          In the morning, I found that all my matches had been destroyed, so I forced open the window of the cottage and climbed inside. There was a woman with a dog’s head staring at me; she had on a thick see-through shawl with white elephant patches embroidered onto it.

          That night I couldn’t sleep. At about three or four in the morning, I packed up my sleeping bag and tent—rowed away from the island. The night was quiet—the sky was scintillating green, due to apoplectic solar winds. All I could hear was my paddle, dipping in and out of the water, and a loon calling to nothing. The mother-shadow of trees, the old light of vibrating stars. 

Working Class

 
I died a few years ago
since then, I’ve been
smoking cheaper cigarettes
 
I like to imagine that I’m still alive
I can smoke, get drunk,
and do things living people do
 
the other ghosts think I’m strange
they busy themselves bothering people
 
turning on lights, pulling open kitchen cabinets
 
some try to talk to me
they think I’ll care
 
about their trivial complaints
their many disappointments

Golden Apples

 
when the birds flew northward
and the snow became raindrops
and the hills grew green gowns of grass
we hitched on an highway
 
to valleys of cacti
where scorpions haunted
a fog of dust—we picked golden
apples and smoked strong pot
 
the tent and all our things
washed away—all our shit
pulled underneath the gardener-
snake stream—quivering lips
 
slept in a cheap hotel
the bed, a foreign thing
 
the mid-September air
under our starving skins
my cigarette smoke and pawnshop
fur-coat kept me picking
 
farmers’ fruitage. soon it
was all rotten or sold
the birds flew southward
my parents got divorced
 
we travelled through wet snow
waited outside McDonald’s--
for spare change, plastic pancakes, and
the dead Thunder Bay sun
 
if I loved you, it was
then. your pea-green coat and
fucked up hair—staring out nowhere
your cold October hands
TOM PRIME’S poems have been published in Vallum, Ditch, Carousel, and the Northern Testicle. His first chapbook was recently published by Proper Tales Press. He is attending the University of Victoria's MFA program. 
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  • Home
    • Issue 1 >
      • Creative Nonfiction: 1
      • Fiction: 1
      • Screenwriting: 1
      • Poetry: 1
      • Contributors: 1
    • Issue 2 >
      • Visual Art: 2
      • Fiction: 2
      • Poetry: 2
      • Masthead: 2
      • Contributors: 2
    • Issue 3 >
      • Poetry: 3
      • Visual Art: 3
      • Comics: 3
      • Fiction: 3
      • Reviews: 3
      • Masthead: 3
      • Contributors: 3
    • Issue 4 >
      • Prose: 4
      • Poetry: 4
      • Reviews: 4
      • Visual Art: 4
      • Contributors: 4
      • Masthead: 4
    • Issue 5 >
      • Nonfiction Kathy Acker & McKenzie Wark
      • Drama: 5
      • Prose: 5
      • Poetry: 5
      • Film: 5
      • Comics: 5
      • Reviews: 5
      • Visual Art: 5
      • Video & Sound: 5
      • Masthead: 5
      • Contributors: 5
    • Issue 6 >
      • Poetry: 6
      • Prose: 6
      • Reviews: 6
      • Film: 6
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  • About
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