INDECENCY

          

                After his failure to get his graphicnovel published
            (Too sensational or Not sensational enough or
             Not quite appropriate for our current teenage market),
             Stew thought he’d get an advance from VISA to publish it
             Himself, but gave up on that idea when he discovered
             He was ‘maxed-out’, a few bucks below his credit-limit.

                                                                            *

             You might think he would have tried to get a second job but,
             Instead, surprising even himself, he quit his only
             Paying job, gave up his apartment and boarded a bus
             For London, Ontario, where his father and mother
             Used to live and work – after their devastating divorce
            (Or had Stew told me both of them had died in a plane-crash?)       

                                                                              *

               But when i was in London in 2007
            (For no other reason than that i had some cash to spare
             Or wanted to see how that town compared to its namesake
             Or just to attend the first night of an art-show to which
             I’d been mailed an invitation – oddly, since i don’t go
             Usually to such events, but i thought this one might fit
             Into my doggy explorations of smart backwaters
             Before i die), i found no trace of a Stewart Galenza
             Either in the phone-book or in the streets.

                                                                          I thought he might
             Appear at the exhibition-opening, and i thought
             i saw a bearded version of him chatting up a girl;
             But, when i interrupted their shiraz-sipping schmoozing,
             It turned out that they were Bob and Jill who had never heard
             Of any Stew Who?

          (from *fatima solagua arterra’s nudes* by Brian Chan, 2015)