Beautiful Losers

the wave rolled in. The feet of Ozymandias had more company in the sandstorm of ‘89. They sat very straight in the bulletproof auto like children trying to read the subtitles of a foreign movie. The route was lined with yellow riot squads and the backs of a hostile crowd. I do not gloat over their solitude. And I try not to envy yours. After all, it was I who pointed you to a place where I cannot go. I point there now – with my lost thumb.

Charity!

Your teacher shows you how it happens.

They walk differently now, the young men and women of Montréal. Music floats out of manholes. Their clothes are different – no smelly pockets bulging with Kleenex bundles of illegal come. Shoulders are thrown back, organs signal merrily through transparent underwear. Good fucks, like a shipload of joyous swimming rats, have migrated from marble English banks to revolutionary cafés. There is love on Rue Ste. Catherine, patroness of spinsters. History ties the broken shoelaces of a people’s destiny and the march is on. Do not be deceived: a nation’s pride is a tangible thing: it is measured by how many hard-ons live beyond the solitary dream, by decibels of the female rocket moan.

First secular miracle: La Canadienne, hitherto victim of motel frost, hitherto beloved of nun’s democracy, hitherto upholstered by the black belts of Code Napoléon – revolution has done what only wet Hollywood did before.

Watch the words, watch how it happens.

It is not merely because I am French that I long for an independent Québec. It is not merely because I do not want our people to become a quaint drawing on the corner of a tourist map that I long for thick national borders. It is not merely because without independence we will be nothing but a Louisiana of the north, a few good restaurants and a Latin Quarter the only relics of our blood. It is not merely because I know that lofty things like destiny and a rare spirit must be guaranteed by dusty things like flags, armies, and passports.

I want to hammer a beautiful colored bruise on the whole American monolith. I want a breathing chimney on the corner of the continent. I want a country to break in half so men can learn to break their lives in half. I want History to jump on Canada’s spine with sharp skates. I want the edge of a tin can to drink America’s throat. I want two hundred million to know that everything can be different, any old different.

I want the State to doubt itself seriously. I want the Police to become a limited company and fall with the stock market. I want the Church to have divisions and fight on the both sides of Movies.

I confess! I confess!

Did you see how it happened?

Before my arrest and subsequent incarceration in this hospital for the criminally insane, I spent my days writing pamphlets against Anglo-Saxon imperialism, glueing clocks to bombs, the ordinary subversive program. I missed your big kisses but I couldn’t detain you from or follow on a trip I charted for you precisely because I couldn’t go myself.

But at night! Night spilled like gasoline on my most hopeless dreams.

The English did to us what we did to the Indians, and the Americans did to the English what the English did to us. I demanded revenge for everyone. I saw cities burning, I saw movies falling into blackness. I saw the maize on fire. I saw the Jesuits punished. I saw the trees taking back the long-house roofs. I saw the shy deer murdering to get their dresses back. I saw the Indians punished. I saw chaos eat the gold roof of Parliament. I saw water dissolve the hoofs of drinking animals. I saw the bonfires covered with urine, and the gas stations swallowed up entire, highway after highway falling into the wild swamps.

Then we were very close. I was not so far behind you then.

O Friend, take my spirit hand and remember me. You were loved by a man who read your heart very tenderly, who sought your unformed dreams as his resting place. Think of my body from time to time.

I promised you a joyous letter, didn’t I?

It is my intention to relieve you of your final burden: the useless History under which you suffer in such confusion. Men of your nature never get far beyond the Baptism.

Life chose me to be a man of facts: I accept the responsibility. You mustn’t meddle any longer in this shit. Avoid even the circumstances of Catherine Tekakwitha’s death and the ensuing documented miracles. Read it with that part of your mind which you delegate to watching out for blackflies and mosquitoes.

Say good-by to constipation and loneliness.

F.’S INVOCATION TO HISTORY IN THE OLD STYLE

The miracle we all are waiting for

is waiting until Parliament falls down

and House of Archives is a house no more

and fathers are unpoisoned by renown.

The medals and the records of abuse

can’t help us on our pilgrimage to lust,

but like whips certain perverts never use,

compel our flesh in paralyzing trust.

I see an Orphan, lawless and serene,

standing in a corner of the sky,

body something like bodies that have been,

but not the flaw of naming in his eye.

Bred close to the ovens, he’s burnt inside.

Light, wind, cold, dark – they use him like a Bride!

F.’S INVOCATION TO HISTORY IN THE MIDDLE STYLE

History is a Scabbie¹ Point²

For putting Cash³ to sleep

Shooting up⁴ the Peanut⁵ Shit⁶

Of all we need to keep.⁷

1. Dirty, germ-laden, infected, leading to the Scabbies or inflammation of puncture holes, blood poisoning and Hepatitis. Also blunt or rusty.

2. Drug addict’s argot for the hypodermic needle (No. 12).

3. Underworld argot for the conscience, the brain, or any kind of painful consciousness. I have not heard the word used outside of Montréal and environs, and there mainly on Blvd. St. Laurent and the now defunct Northeastern