The sun did not shine.
It was too wet that when.
So I sat and played Punch Dance
in a Wooded Glen.
What’s a ‘glen’, I wondered,
whether wooded or not.
Are there glens in this city?
Are they easy to spot?
And what of this dancing
with the fury of fists –
surely such whirling
leads to much violence.
So all I could do was to
Think!
Think!
Think!
Think!
And I listened and listened.
I did not did even blink.
And then something went SMACK!
And I fell on my back.
I blinked,
and I saw what I needed to do!
I blinked,
and I saw it: I’d set out to view
the glen, and the woods,
and I’d punch dance, too.
I know it is wet
and the sun is not sunny.
But I’d start at the top:
the parade for new mummys.
I put on my jacket
to thwart all the rain,
and I walked to the crossroad
at Portage and Main.
And there I did see many mums waving banners
with babes in their arms, who had very good manners.
All sung of the good mums bring, they were praised
with jubilant cheers and hip-hip-hoorays –
and despite all the rain, it was a joyous parade.
What’s next? I asked,
when the crowd did disperse.
It was then that I heard from an alley a curse.
“Fuck slaps!” someone shouted.
It was Cookie Delicious,
he was punching the air
and acting suspicious.
I queried him,
“What’s going on here? Pray – what the deuce?”
He replied, “It’s my take on the great Dr. Suess.
There’s claps and there’s snaps,
there’s booms and there’s baps,
there’s even a way to see maps on an App.”
“Maps?” I responded.
“Mightn’t you have directions
to the glen so that I may make mine own inspections?
I wish to imbibe on its greenery lush,
to drink of its water,
lay down in its brush.”
To which Cookie said,
as a kind of détente,
“Well if that’s the case,
then it’s fire you’ll want.
Take both these matches
and wood from the glen,
light up a fire and then peer within,
and you’ll see in its flames just where to begin.”
I thanked him and left with the matches and wood,
and though there be rain, I understood
the fire’s flames would lead to the glen.
My goal was nearer, I could feel it.
Now all I needed was a firepit.
• • •
To read the rest of this review — and more by Steve Schmolaris — visit his website Bad Gardening Advice.
• • •
Steve Schmolaris is the founder of the Schmolaris Prize, “the most prestigious prize in all of Manitoba,” which he first awarded in 1977. Each year, he awards the prize to the best album of the year. He does not have a profession but, having come from money (his father, “the Millionaire of East Schmelkirk,” left him his fortune when he died in 1977), Steve is a patron of the arts. Inspired by the exquisite detail of a holotype, the collective intelligence of slime mold, the natural world and the suffering inherent within it — and also music (fuck, he loves music!) — Steve has long been writing reviews of Winnipeg artists’ songs and albums at his website Bad Gardening Advice, leading to the publication of a book of the same name.
