Questionable Parts of Town

By Bob Wakulich

Enjoy a poetic journey through topics ranging from being a big, strong boy to dancing around Paris.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Wakulich
• Release date: Aug 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370635092

Bob Wakulich

Bob Wakulich received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia in 1999. He also holds a BFA in Writing with a Film Studies Minor from the University of Victoria (1996), a BA in Sociology from Lakehead University (1977), and he attended the Banff School of Fine Arts Summer Writing Workshop in 1979 and 1980.His short stories, poems, and commentaries have appeared in a number of journals, magazines, newspapers, and anthologies in Canada, the US, and Europe, as well as on CBC Radio and in cyberspace. He currently lives in Cranbrook, British Columbia.

Book preview

Questionable Parts of Town

-a collection of flash fiction, prose poetry and poetry

Copyright 2016 Bob Wakulich

Published by Bob Wakulich at Smashwords

ISBN 9781370635092

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover design by Booboo.

Publications interested in reprinting any of these pieces should contact the author.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Gail, Lara, Mr. & Mrs. G, and Mom.

Thanks also to Pennywise (Kaslo, BC), Black Apple (Lethbridge, AB), Jim Andrews and the Mocambopo Reading Series (Victoria, BC), Yael Wand and the folks at The Living Closet (Vancouver, BC), Tremors Magazine at the University of Victoria, The West End Writers Society (Vancouver, BC), SubTerrain Magazine (Vancouver, BC), Tamara Fairchild and the folks at The Canadian Journal of Contemporary Literary Stuff (Toronto, ON), The Astrophysicist’s Tango Partner Speaks (NY), Roots (UBC), Paris/Atlantic (France), Tickleace (NF), Star Trek: The Poems (UK), And Other Travels (St. Catharines, ON), Tales From the Script (COTR), The Allegheny Review (US), Rampike (Toronto, ON), Yarmarok (Edmonton, AB), Beyond Bad Times (Edmonton, AB), The Broken City (Toronto), and American Goat (US).

Thanks also to Karl Jirgens, Jack Hodgins, Derk Wynand, Lorna Crozier, Keith Maillard, George McWhirter, that old guy who used to catch smelt off the pier in Port Dalhousie, and Walter the clown.

CONTENTS:

The Rise and Demise of the 24 Hour Flu

The Completely False Dust Jacket Biography of Pierre Berton

The Lament of the Big, Strong Boy

The Bull Artist

Career Development

Everyone is in Love with the Waitress Here

The Exquisite American

Eyes

The Guy with the Lunch Pail at the Bus Stop

How School Was

The Secret of My Limited Success

Yelling at the Ocean

The Old Man and the Sleigh

So Much Depends Upon a Bus at a Stoplight in Coleman

Social Equations

Sprawling, Lusty Mini-Novels

The Wake for the Unknown Soldier

The Supplementary Adventures of Don Juan

God Attends Another Undeclared War

Viagra

Regression

There Will Be No Dancing in the Psych Ward Tonight

An Abridged Version of a Federal Leaders’ Debate

The Airport Drift

Why the Seagulls Keep Laughing

Twenty Floors Up on the Patio

You Will Be the Third Child

S&P

Love and Public Broadcasting

Memo to Leonard Cohen

False Memories

When Heroes Fade

Millennium

Great Canadian Rewrites

The Completely Condensed Christian Gospel

The Basis of Paranoia

An English Instructor Sorts for the Sally Ann

Hopeless

The Deathbed Confession of an Imminent Christian

The Recognition of Talent

Coins

Dey Goddit at Kenaidyan Tire

Her Father’s Shoes

Memories Too Big For a Suitcase

Reality and the Value of a Few Words From its Sponsors

Helena’s Kitchen

Justin

Things to Do in Canada

Welfare

Thirty Second Avenues

Dancing with an Echo

Alcohol Pudding

Animal Magnetism

Ativan

The Express Bus

Viewing the Deceased

Wearing a Dead Man’s Hat

Seven Things My Dad Told Me…

Arthur the Sailor

I Love This Place, and I Hate This Place…

The Publishers’ Cocktail Party

Issues Related to Detailed Late Night Peer Analysis of Literature

The Accoutrements of a Patron Saint

For the Viewing of My Scars, There Is a Charge

Shiver

Smokey Joe’s

Underground

The Vane

After the Seminar

What Really Happened

The Old City Hall

I Don’t Know What to Say Any More

Star Trek: Not on This Voyage

We Just Kept on Going

Two Long-Acquainted Tail-End Boomers Talk and Take a Stroll

Poor Traits in the Artist as a Young Man

Radio

Dancing Around Paris

A Lonely Montana Road

You are about to be infected by this poem

Ordinary Folktales

The Rise and Demise of the 24 Hour Flu

Later on, it was established that the stomach of the subject started its descent sometime after getting off the streetcar, although impending sickness wasn't really considered until people at the next table at the restaurant began to resemble a movie out of sync. The metal coffee spoon began to feel rubbery, the last refill had all the appeal of diesel fuel, and an ugly stranger was looking back at him from the shaky, hot beige, liquid mirror made possible by the addition of two tepid doses of an edible oil product.

Walking home with tentative steps in a state of uninspired woozy, the subject observed that even though the flat, grey sky was spitting random drops of rain, no one had bothered to open their telescoping umbrellas, which they carried at their sides like handsaws and pistols. (Cut briefly to the opening of Gunsmoke.) I remember thinking that maybe that egg salad sandwich was off. There was a tingling in the upper muscles of the cheeks, normal breathing became insubstantial, laboured puffs, and a number of attempts were made to re-position a fedora