Artie Gold 1947-2007
By Endre Farkas
Feb 14, 2007, 23:46
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| artie gold 1947-2007 |
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Obituary
Artie Gold, one of Canada’s finest poets died on Valentine’s day, 2007. Gold, an honoured disassociate member of the Vehicule poets died peacefully after a long battle with emphysema and with most of the world. From those of us who loved you and your “small & mean” ways and you and your “grand and tender” gestures, and most all, you and your poems--goodbye
Sun filters through my window
velvet like bats' bellies the shadow it casts
flutter about my room. I share the unrest
the sun is doomed with; the movement
sunup sundown moving around: ground sky ground
its only comfort the habit of its orbit.
we are orbs whatever we do is behaviour
the truth of our moment is too predictable
yet I delight in the sun. it is monumental
in the sky with certainty rising, setting
looking to the greater cycle, there is colour,
a yellow angel pedals about the world.
artie gold
I have no astrologer -
and don't believe in falling in love
on any particular August day you could name
I have knapsacks full of knick-knacks
that spread beneath a tree
would suffocate a hermit
and a perpetual cough
that when I've had enough
I'll die from.
I came to this city
naked and from a small town
and have rearranged some of its objects
I will hitch-hike out of here one day
with my hair in my eyes and a good breeze blowing
and cause a little confusion I'm sure --
though no more than a hair
discovered in a gravy.
artie gold
Artie’s Ashes
It was a beautiful fall Sunday. The sky was blue, the sun was out, I remember one Sunday like that with artie and Carol. We went up to the mountain for a walk. Artie could still get around; in fact that’s what he did on most days but not on the mountain. The mountain was too “nature” for artie but he did it for Carol, for whom the mountain wasn’t “nature” enough but in Montreal, it was the most “nature” you could get and artie loved Carol.
Carol was there, along with Chris and Stephen and Lucy, Carolyn and Jill who brought artie’s ashes. Actually, she had brought artie’s ashes the day before thinking that the spreading of artie’s ashes was to happen on Saturday.
We gathered on Lorne Crescent where artie lived when most of us first met him. The steps to his second floor apartment were covered in puke. It didn’t feel like auspicious beginning but we found a little nook under the steps that was relatively clean. So we reached into the blue velvet bag (like a Seagram’s velvet bag, artie would have loved it) and I read a poem artie had written for me in the early seventies when he had come out to Ste Anne. And while I was away for a couple of hours he ate a melon of mine and then split back for Montréal. This was the poem-most of you had never seen so I included it here.
I am taking your melon and buying you
another one. not because
your melon is bad, no, you pitch a good melon—
but I was hungry
in the middle of the day
I tried to blame it on the cat
..uhh..I was reading a detective story..
it entered my mind, walked around
like a noncustomer, like goodness,
it failed to gain the church yard..
I am taking your melon and eating it
with spoons,
your garbage bag
and my fingers(my
fingers are taking your melon…
I had a good alibi
but discard it..
because of the sun, the cat got up
and thought: his melon
is a mouse
and must be mine
I didn’t know if cats ate the seeds or not
and to be wrong was to be caught. I walked
walked three miles down the mainstreet of your town..
like an eight day watch in Europe, without a planeticket home
I was tired
and upon returning
ate your melon.
april 26 78
love artie
From here we went around to the back because artie used the back entrance as much as the front and he was also an alley man. It was a mess back here with rubble and weeds and broken bottles. Stephen read an artie poem and we spread a little of artie here.
From there we walked down a little distance to the Yellow Door-which by the way isn’t yellow anymore, and there Carol read and we spread a little artie there.
From there to The Word and there we placed the urn (which was really a plastic box) on the window sill of The Word and Lucy read a poem “I sometimes park….” She also found a matchbox in the store and filled it with artie for Adrian who couldn’t be there but wanted to spread a little artie. Chris took a beautiful picture. I hope to post it.
From there, a long trek down to Mackay St. to his apt where his descent into bad times really began. As we were going through an alley to get there, we put a little artie in a trash bin. It may sound gross but it seemed right considering he spent a good deal of his life going through garbage, finding treasures. I think I read Claudia’s Rock Flute poem there.
From there to Charlie’s where he hung out and scored coke. Jill read there. The O’Hara poem and I read the other O’Hara poem. From there to Chinatown-one of artie’s favourite haunts. We still had a lot of artie so we sprinkled him on potted trees and flowers-cityflowers. Stephen read a poem that Carolyn Zonailo wanted read. She couldn’t make the walk-she met us at the restaurant.
We stopped where the Welcome Café used to stand and I read something on Tom’s behalf. In spite of the animosity between the two, there was something akin to “hate-like” between the two. Then we went down the street to where Vehicule Print shop moved to, above the bakery and restaurant. Carolyn Marie Souaid read “Allison”. Chris read “please shave my head”, and I read the “superman” poem on Ken’s behalf. I then realized that we hadn’t gone to the original Vehicule.
From there onto the restaurant for a good Chinese meal. artie had a seat amongst us and after the meal, the fortune cookie’s arrived and without asking/mistake? a sign? we got an extra fortune cookie. It said “Good friends make good food even better”.
Then we left and as we were near the door, the waiter ran after us. We had forgotten artie. He was no longer ashes. He was with us in our hearts and memories. We didn’t need the ashes. But Lucy did take what was left of artie and was going to spread him around The Word. And the word was “g as in gold”.
I want to make the space around the poem
real . solid as the air about kilos of cotton
or the air things fall between
my muse must be a neighbor with
a street address others may see enough
silhouette sexily bending by a drawn curtain
it is late for them though , I may visit her
whenever I am able / she waits for me only
my muse invisible except when her giving
to me is apparent for others to see .
There can be no jealousy with a
poem so well defined . Not a
shaky idea I have picked up / not
a coincidence that I dwell there ,
nor a thing easily undone . so real in fact
a rent is paid.
artie gold
from cityflowers
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