Permanent Smoke

By Darrell Epp

Permanent Smoke, Darrell Epp's fifth collection, uses poetry as a scalpel to dissect our present moment in all its terrors and delights.

Gravity and grace duel to the death in a tinkertoy universe. Downsized superheroes moonlight as Uber drivers. There's a light in the black like a knock-knock joke in the palliative ca

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quoir
• Release date: Oct 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781957007267

Book preview

Praise for the Poetry of Darrell Epp

I enjoyed these poems immensely.

—William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist

Lucid, raw and honest poems, refrains that slide with grace and wit from the particular to the general, from the past to present and back again, authentic and absorbing.

—Rudy Wurlitzer, screenwriter and novelist

A fun, sly jumble of poems that often tackle weighty issues . . . Epp’s dense, snakelike poems will wrap and crush your heart.

—Winnipeg Free Press

Strangeness and familiarity co-mingle and collide in these visionary poems, informed by both a pop culture sensibility and a masterful grasp of the texture and nuance of human speech . . . poems as universal as the orbits of planets and as specific as a drop of rain evaporating on hot cement. Leonard Cohen once said that cracks are how the light gets in. Epp’s deep cuts into the Veil of the Ordinary Road flood our senses with the light of revelation.

—Barry Alfonso, Grammy nominee and author of A Voice of the Warm

Epp explores the unexpected graces that may rain down on us unawares . . . in his patron saint of underachievers I think he has achieved something quite wonderful.

—Canadian Literature

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Permission for wider usage of this material can be obtained through Quoir by emailing [e-mail].

Copyright © 2022 by Darrell Epp

First Edition

Cover design by Rafael Polendo (polendo.net)

Interior layout by Matthew J. Distefano

ISBN 978-1-957007-26-7

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Published by Quoir

Oak Glen, California

www.quoir.com

Also by Darrell Epp

Mechanical Monkeys (2021)

Sinners Dance (2018)

After Hours (2016)

Imaginary Maps (2009)

CONTENTS

1. Breeze: Corner of Barton and Emerald

2. The Law of Suffering

3. Home Before Dark

4. Like a Ninja

5. Bribing the Hangman

6. Angry Glacier Blues

7. Big Baby Blues

8. Door Long Gone Blues

9. My Terrarium

10. Slow Dazzle

11. Catch Me If You Can

12. Ottawa

13. Hole in the Sky

14. Join the Army

15. Embrace the Ricochet

16. Valedictorians

17. The Local Trickle-Down

18. Lost Voyager

19. Primer

20. Meanwhile the Humans

21. Stuttering Prankmonkey Blues

22. Reality's an Idea but Not Mine

23. Undercover Hominid

24. Let Love be Your Frankenstein

25. Low Self-Esteem Perpetual Motion Machine

26. I Said Hallelujah She Said Jalapeño

27. Museum of Broken Parts

28. Lost in the Toy Factory

29. Picture of a Kite

30. Broken Homes

31. Riptide

32. Bumper Car Smash-Up Derby

33. Non-Pixelated Remedy

34. Swimming Through Concrete

35. Save the Cat

36. Surfing on Landmines

37. New Rules

38. King Fog Isn't Much of a Talker and Neither am I

39. My Soul's a Slinky Toy Ascending a Divine Ladder

40. Stained Glass Heart

41. Missing Persons

42. Clouds Over Buffalo

43. Pet

44. Anemone Elegy

45. Empty Glass

46. Against Thumbs

47. Jupiter Salute

48. Left-Handed Poem for a New Economy

49. What Comes Next

50. Futures Market

51. Space Monkey

52. Shaving Mirror Apocalypse

53. Against the Accelerating Expansion of the Universe

54. Sleepwalk Marathon

55. The Daily Mirror

56. Pledge of Allegiance

57. Escape Clause

58. Trophy Case

59. Soulmates

60. Gravity and Grace

61. Cenozoic Child

62. Green Goblin

63. Happy When it Rains

64. Renaming the Moon

65. Participation Trophy

66. Scatteration Vacation

67. Security

68. Voice of the Fire

69. Post-Operative Poem with Half its Stomach Removed

70. Broken Telescope Blues

71. Hug the Panda

72. Radon Daughters

73. Galactic Gymnastics

74. Earthquake Party

75. Under the Bridge: Corner of Barton and James

76. Die Fledermaus: Corner of Barton and Gage

77. Black Dog Corner of Barton and Sherman

78. Turbulence: Corner of Barton and Walter

79. Britannia Tavern: Corner of Barton and Sherman

80. Parts and Service: Corner of Cannon and John

81. Contra Zeno: Corner of Barton and Tiffany

82. Pawn-It: Corner of Barton and St. Ann

83. Duarte’s Deli: Corner of Barton and Cheever

84. Diorama: Corner of Barton and Gibson

85. Ghosts of Commerce: Corner of Barton and Ferguson

86. Vigil: Corner of Barton and St. Matthews

87. Detour: Corner of Barton and John

88. Pre-Dawn Fires: Corner of Barton and Mary

89. Carnage: Corner of Barton and John

90. Stadium: Corner of Barton and Leinster

91. Against Incumbency: Corner of Barton and Oxford

92. Counting Cars: Corner of Barton and Fraser

93. Javier: Corner of Barton and Fullerton

94. Laughing Man: Corner of Barton and Barnesdale

95. Batman Diary: Corner of Barton and Connaught

96. Born Again: Barton Street Burger King

97. Speaking in Tongues: Corner of Barton and Ottawa

98. Royals: Corner of Barton and Glennie

99. Night Picnic: Corner of Barton and Belmont

100. The Hard Road (Clint’s Story)

Acknowledgments

‘Grab your coat and get your hat

Leave your worry on the doorstep

Just direct your feet

To the sunny side of the street…’

—Dorothy Fields

Breeze: Corner of Barton and Emerald

You can stick your head out the back and smell

the decades of iron alloy, rolled or in slabs, that

fathers and sons gave their lives to. steel can be

cruel. now it’s gone, to plastics and to china.

i want to believe in what’s left of the trees. johns

cruise by the girls lounging on the steps of iglesia

pentecostal hispana. tomorrow’s good friday. the

breeze is warm, a gift from the big-hearted tropics.

i’m buzzing, everything’s in motion, a chip bag

rises, hovers, falls. trevor says turn up the bass.

ifrah misses her dad, he died before they could

patch things up. she begs forgiveness of his ghost

when she’s wired and waiting for the last bus home.

humans crave the light and settle for so much less.

come wind! come rain! wash it all away. taste it

and see: the heart of the world mends by breaking.

The Law of Suffering

The wind that hounded me was God’s own breath.

the fiery flowers of the marigold were God’s eyes.

you should always glide just above or shimmy just

below the ambush, and leaping roof to roof isn’t

that easy in real life. all this i learned the hard