The poems are from Freak Show available from above/ground press ______ For more Poets

Adam Levin The World’s Oldest Rat After 32 years of back lanes changed past his ken, until he doesn’t know if he’s moved or lived in the same manhole all through time, you’d expect more dignity: it befits his hard won girth & the scrapes with cat & fox. Yes, even he can see god’s purpose in the trail of not quite cleaned bones, but night’s best believer does not know why his teeth ice up as he gnaws through canvas, furred knees locking at every old leap so bad he forgets to squeal. The World’s Largest Cabbage Moth Collection Once engrossed he picked a flower, was hound-&-foxed through the rest of childhood, trapped by bigger boys more White than his mute skin: netted by hands, pinned against brick schoolyard walls. Still when they danced the flick-knife on his neck as if to prick & suck the life out there was always something desperate, fluttering in their eyes. They too needed him, & he held on to this, even in February when they packed fairy-tale white snow into his underpants. Now his vengeance is clinical, Roman: he pins to pleasant-smelling wood cases the formalin-soaked specimens of the world’s largest cabbage moth collection. The World’s Largest Piñata Hale children gather amid further ado near mantra places: Transcona, Red Deer, Nepean. They are so tanned from riding horse you can barely tell them from the Cree. They’re all here in the park with cows & parents to see who’ll break the world’s largest piñata. He’ll get the cosseting trip to Cancun & return affirming suburban myths, such polite people! Sponsored by the Pangloss Club, this trip will open a door to better appreciation of hot peppers, bribe & taxation systems, everything but the smell of tripe frying & why the dogs follow him everywhere. I did not win. Instead of the beach I went to some town of a seven-foot name & thought poverty explained the broken glass atop walled fences. There are no eager retrievers named Petula, dogs lie in gutters, vultures keep off if only for fear of the living & shame to eat anything that should have been named. Back in the True North there are smarter ravens & poverty is clever enough to hide in ground beef, well water, populist parties sponsored by cable companies, cheerful postage stamps celebrating Wonder Bread. This is also Cuchulan’s kingdom, Canute’s Canada: we are all huddled south waving our staffs at the world’s largest piñata.