In the Tavern of Lost Souls

By Lenny Everson

Four poets meet regularly, at the dark of the moon in an old tavern, to answer odd questions in poetic form. Some of the questions are frivolous, some are funny, and some will make you cry. "An epic work from a legendary poet."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lenny Everson
• Release date: May 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311612793

Lenny Everson

List of Completed Works by Lenny Everson (As of November, 2014, over 36,000 copies of Lenny's works have been downloaded.) Novels •Death On a Small, Dark Lake. 67,700 words. Our hero snags a body in a remote lake. •Death on a Rocky Little Island 71,500 words. Our hero convinces a friend to take a canoeing trip to the 30,000 islands. •Mount Moriah 50,000 words. A strange sequence events involves a priest, a poet, a CSIS agent, a space alien, four horny teens, among others. My most fun fiction. •Last Exit to Pine Lake. 45,000 words. A dying writer goes back into the bush to off himself. Grimly literary. My best fiction. •Ally Oop Through the Ulysses Trees. As much fun as Mount Moriah! •Marley Was Dead: A Christmas Carol Mystery Novelettes •Granite and Dry Blood. 9,700 words. Our hero wants to write a book on Massassauga Park. Various people would prefer that he didn’t. •Death on a Foggy Spring Portage. 11,800 words. One member of a paddling group is found dead on a muddy portage. Screenplays •Murder on a Foggy Spring Portage. One member of a paddling group is found dead on a muddy portage. Plays •Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont. Ghosts of the two Métis leaders meet in today’s world to remember their lives. A short (20-minute) play for two actors. Full-Length Poetry Books •The Minor Odyssey of Lollie Heronfeathers Singer. A middle-aged woman tries to connect with her aboriginal ancestry. •In The Tavern of Lost Souls. Four poets meet at a grungy bar once a month to give their poetic answers to random questions. •Love in a Canoe. A set of five chapbooks and a songbook about the love of canoeing. With illustrations. •Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont are Dead. Ghosts of the two Métis leaders meet in today’s world to remember their lives. Includes the play. Poetry Chapbooks •Encounter in a Small, Old Cemetery. Autumn. Midnight. Poet visits a small, old private graveyard. Best poem I ever wrote. •Fire and Ashes. Poems about life’s flames and regrets. •The Empty Tarmac of a Long-Abandoned Airport. Poems about having a midlife crisis. •Love Poems A compilation •Pray for Me: 22 Poems Probably Slandering God and Jesus •Ballads from an Unlucky Fisherman: Poems from a fisherman •Tweetable Limericks. 60 limericks small enough to be tweets •Hiking Poems. Co-Authored Poetry Chapbooks •Who Would Be a God? Susan Ioannou and Lenny debate the merits of being a god. •How to Dance Naked in the Moonlight. Katherine L. Gordon (Celtic pagan) and Lenny (skeptic) confront the ceremony. •Cats and Dogs. With I. B. Iskov •For Ko Aye Aung: A Plea for His Release from Prison. For Amnesty International, with other poets. Non-Fiction Chapbooks •If You Condemn Gays: The Bible on Homosexuality and Other Items. •The Architecture of Suburban West Kitchener. A light look at house styles. •The Architecture of The University of Waterloo. A light look at the campus buildings. •Making Tourist Attractions for Towns and Small Cities. Advice. •Technological Solutions to Global Warming. •Hyphens: A Guide for the Early Twenty-First Century. •Colons and Semicolons: A Guide for the Early Twenty-First Century. •How to Review Draft Technical Writings •Rebecca’s Trail (Grand River Trail) in Winter •7 Temples to Bill Gates: a modern mystery •The Great God Pan - or Not •Two in a Tent: Camping Humor. •Why Haven't Aliens Contacted us? Songbooks •Dance Songs for Weddings Available on Smashwords •Canoe Songs. part of a set of six chapbooks about the love of canoeing. With illustrations.. Available on Smashwords •18 Dingbat Songs for Kids Available on Smashwords I’d like to thank all the people who downloaded my writings. And I’d like to thank Smashwords for making them available to the world. I started out as a poet, and spent most of my life producing poems. Some of them are really fine poems, but, of course, the monetary value of poetry in this world isn’t much. Actually, I once calculated poetry has a negative monetary value; poets are lucky if they don’t have to pay people to listen to them. But I always admired people who told me they were “writing a novel.” I don’t know why, but I did. So eventually, I sat down and wrote a novel, just to show I could actually do it. The result was Death on a Small, Dark Lake, more than two thousand copies of which have been downloaded. It wasn’t really very good, but at least I could say, “I wrote a novel!” I stuck to what I knew best, canoeing and the lake country north of Peterborough, Ontario, the edge of Canada’s lake country. I wrote Death on a Rocky Little Island in an effort to make some more believable characters, but I can’t really say I succeeded. People have downloaded a few more copies of that, so maybe it was a bit better constructed than the first novel. It included canoes, of course. Then one of my friends taunted me into doing something for NaNoWriMo, the endeavor in which a person tries to write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November. I was, er, a few days over, but I got it done. It turned out to be a bit incoherent in spots, but in general, a lot of fun; I recommend it, if your standards aren’t too high. And there are no canoes in it. By that time, I figured I could write something “literary.” The result – with more canoes of course – was Last Exit to Pine Lake. If it’s less fun, well, it’s meant to be. If most people don’t like it, well, that’s normal for literary novels, so it doesn’t bother me. My literary bent done, I wrote Ally Oop Through the Ulysses Trees. It was intended to be fun, and it’s lots better than the first two novels I wrote. I even put myself, in a canoe, as a minor character. Then I thought I’d just write a novel that would sell. For money, like. Smashwords said romance generally sold well, so I wrote Fire and Spark, under the name, “Laura Singer.” (You can search for it.) It wasn’t all that bad, for a guy’s first romance novel. Really, it is, although my wife said it should be subtitled, Five Canoes; No Sex. I again added myself as a minor character. But it didn’t sell, so I added it to my list of free books on Smashwords. You’re welcome. Last fall, I finished another book that I thought would actually sell, Marley Was Dead: A Christmas Carol Mystery. My wife thought it was really good, mostly because of the historical details of social life. It didn’t sell, of course, so it’s free now. You’re welcome, again. As for the poetry, the most popular are Hiking Poems and 21 Poems for Love, Weddings, and Anniversaries. And then there’s the rest. The opinion pieces are just my explorations of things that I wanted to know more about. I studied the subject, briefly, and published my findings. They’re not scholarly, but well worth what you’ll pay for them. A few are getting outdated, but nobody’s written to me to ask for updates. If you want to learn more about any of my writings, email me at [e-mail]. Like Lenny’s poems? Just type in (or copy) the YouTube address) from any item on the list below into your search engine. You should get a YouTube video of Lenny reading a poem. https://youtu.be/SfHAKSgn7lc https://youtu.be/29dmESWIgrg https://youtu.be/hyYqYhDl35E https://youtu.be/x8ufRDD65_s https://youtu.be/u0Bw6xUcEFM n https://youtu.be/g3PxjmjRl1g https://youtu.be/WCmoGGdLrTw https://youtu.be/IIL7e2cWWVA https://youtu.be/SfbwWwgd5Yo https://youtu.be/ZAuuYEUsMh0y https://youtu.be/Hw4v7RmZqk4 https://youtu.be/BmTywRZwe1o https://youtu.be/lYGmMyxgKGQd https://youtu.be/I8tA3dwv-WA https://youtu.be/yaX9WYb2y3o https://youtu.be/Y1Saq1UZ0kE https://youtu.be/FDBlHLuBmcw https://youtu.be/yTiSQLzU4nM https://youtu.be/On8ClcmNWsw https://youtu.be/L3IwGhkqIKMd https://youtu.be/KhOxMvR4wGE https://youtu.be/R6ybqmVUUCA https://youtu.be/BiiYKsR8YaE https://youtu.be/Y9a6pNuEoX0 https://youtu.be/ZyOn3Smu8ZY https://youtu.be/5U0zTnAw7X4

Book preview

In the Tavern of Lost Souls

By Lenny Everson

rev 1

Copyright Lenny Everson 2014

Cover Design by Lenny Everson

Cover Painting by Casey Jozwiakowski

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

Published at Smashwords:

Dedications

Dedicated to my wife, Dianne, who kept my soul from being lost, to my daughter, Anita, and to my friends, Al Daigen, Susan E. Smith, and Casey Jozwiakowski who encouraged this strange poetic madness.

****

Introduction

This is an entertainment. It does not claim to be anything else. Any connection to real life is coincidental and a lucky accident.

Lollie, Alf, Cal, and Blossom are products of my imagination, pure and simple.

****

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Lollie hesitated, looking up and down there street. She hadn't been in an awful lot of bars in her life, and this one didn't look particularly inviting.

An old beer parlour, she decided, looking up at the façade. Improved at some point, then let go downhill again, when business failed to pick up.

But the name and the address matched those on the mauve slip of paper in her hand. And it was cold outside, the October winds pushing a few leaves around. Lollie swung the door open.

There were maybe a dozen people in the room, scattered among twenty tables. Three television screens looked down on Formica tables, but one had nothing but colored lines waving like sea kelp in a riptide.

She paused. There was one guy at the bar and five middle-aged couples scattered around the room. The rest were sitting alone at tables. It was, Lollie, decided, time to go home. Right now.

She didn't quite get turned around before one of the men at a table waved to her, holding up the same mauve sheet of paper. Like a sick elephant, the sadness of the world stepped on Lollie's soul, but her hesitation lost her this battle. It became easier to go forward.

The man, short with dark scraggly hair, smiled a lopsided smile. I'm Cal, he said. Short for Calhoun. Welcome to the tavern of lost souls. He nodded at the woman beside him. This is…

Blossom, she said. She was a small brown-skinned woman with a bright flowered dress and very short hair.

Not her real name, I suspect, said Cal. But that's allowed. He frowned. Even encouraged. He brightened, returning to his lopsided grin. Welcome again. You are?

Lollie,: she answered, truthfully.

Obviously a made-up name. Sit down, Cal said. Sit down. He seemed lost for a moment. Get a beer if you want. He waved at the bartender.

When the bartender arrived, Lollie ordered a pint of draft. Before she could try to make conversation, Blossom leaned back and commented, sarcastically, I think you've got another victim, mister Calhoun.

Free will, Cal said, waving at the tall, bearded man coming across the floor. Here!

The new man smiled. Bufort, he introduced himself.

You don't have to give your real name, Cal said.

Call me 'Alf,' then the new man said. He pulled up a chipped brown chair, dropped a packet of papers onto the table, and said, They serve anything but Bud Light at this place?

Not a heck of a lot, Cal said.

While the men slandered the beer that was available, Lollie looked over at Blossom, who was drinking a can of Diet Pepsi and rolling her eyes upward.

Blossom leaned over to Lollie and whispered, So much for poetry.

Okay, Cal said, swinging his head around, it's time to go from bitter to verse. No one laughed. I've got fifty questions in this hat. We'll pick one question, and write a poetic answer. Next meeting, we'll find out how each of us answered the question.

There was a long pause, and the other three did a little Canadian polite silence. That's stupid, Blossom offered. Just what is this shit? She took in half a glass of Diet Pepsi in one suck.

Cal leaned back and waved his hands in front of himself. Hey, he said, I just wanted to level the playing field.

I'm in, Alf said. Your ad said 'Tavern of Lost Souls,' and I think that idea fits.

The two men looked around. Lollie nodded. Can't get any more lost than me, she said, uncomfortably. Not on this planet, anyway.

The men looked at Blossom, then up at one of the working television screens. Someone at the bar laughed loudly at something.

I want you to know I think this is stupid, Blossom said, looking at the empty glass in front of her. I'm only doing this because I'm bored.

That decided, and no-one else showing up by this time, Cal said, We meet at midnight, at the dark of the moon. He consulted a calendar. That'll be the twelfth of next month.

Isn't that a bit melodramatic? Alf wanted to know.

Damn right, said Cal, holding the hat towards Blossom.

Blossom drew out a slip of paper, and swore, Jeesus Keerist almighty. Should the Tavern Open When the Poets Need it?' Where the hell did you get these questions?"

Asked a few friends for suggestions, Cal volunteered, draining his glass.

You need new friends, Blossom offered. Alf laughed.

Cal nodded. I've often thought so. He looked at Lollie.

Lollie could think of nothing to say. She just shook her head slightly. The world hadn't improved much, but she had a poem to write. And two weeks to do it in.

****

Chapter 2: Should the Tavern Open When the Poets Need It?

The place hadn't improved any. It was ten to midnight; past Lollie's bedtime.

For a while she looked at the old door, and it was her life on hinges. It was her life in doors, open and closed. If she hadn't been feeling like one of the lost sheets of the house of Ishmael, flapping in some cosmic wind, she'd have hesitated her way right back onto the bus.

Too many doors, she thought. Too many tigers behind them. Too many tigers behind her. She willed the door to open.

Someone pushed past her, and she followed him in through the aperture.

The room was fuller this time, with fewer dark corners. It had an almost cheerful atmosphere.

Lollie wasn't sure she could handle cheerful. She took a deep breath, and found Blossom in the corner. Great, thought Lollie. I'll be sitting in a beer parlour with a woman with a crew cut." But she went over and sat down.

Blossom didn't look much happier than she had last time. Did you bring a poem? she asked, then went on. "I did. Can't say I'm happy about it, but it's been a while