Ti-Jean

     Le Casino de Hull and its bandit calliope carnival lights 
     drain into the usual rusted out dream, dying stars 
emballed in Labatt batten clouds, au-dessus la route du Carrefour, 
par le chemin Barrage past the stone surging up from the ditches 
like anger.  His last cigarette pack, John Player’s, as empty as pockets,
spins out of the window.  His F-cent cinquante '98 in bad shape
     gets him home, then rattles its last.

     Grey morning, pis mal au cheveux,
he trudges Barrage, thumb out in late season, rough breath.  
Fallen wild grains only thicken the mud.  An empty pack history 
decays, blue flowers decomposing in ditches.  And a fear lurks 
behind a craving.  Oat cells multiply in the dark clouds of his lungs.  
     Beneath the brooding rock face, mosshair and fernlocks, 
     “J'accuse, Ti-Jean, j'accuse.”
	
     “Je sais.  Pis?  J’fume, hostie.
Bien, je n'ai rien de plus.  Fuck you.”  Muttering like gravel 
under work boots.  The smokes made him dizzy at 13.  Collar rising 
to a sneer curled in a mirror, he still swaggered au chiotte 
to puke pommes frites, sauce avec, into a porcelain chalice.
And now, 52, and woozy without them, his head floats 
     in some vacant blue aether 
     he can't breathe.

© Rod Pederson