(Les Chemins de la Liberte)

In a basement
presently bereft of life

avocado
beer fridge contains single

serving Pop Shoppe
Tom Collins mix bottle

to which the cap
bent by the opener

is reattached
precariously and

symbolically
panelling well you know

old tube TV
21 inch black and

white and best of
all an RCA "in"

jack to which I
could run a chord from

the portable
suitcase mono that was

my parent's thus
adding a channel of deep

mahogany
courtesy the TV's

mighty twin four
inch cones resonating

through layers of made-
in-Canada-goddam

it verathane
and varnished returned now

to duty as
the downstairs TV which

I alone watched
things in black and white old

movies &c.
on this warm night having

drained the mix which
when held long enough gave

a hint of fizz
good & cold certainly!

I returned to the
weekday summer showing of

the early 70's
serialisation

of Sartre's Roads
to Freedom done by

the BBC
in that particular

house style that
English actors use

portraying
the French as in that great

Maigret series
with Michael Gambon

of which nothing
outside a lot of shouted

conversations
I remember nothing

except for that
on this night the action

suddenly shrank
to the size of a postcard

then a stamp
then a pearl on which you

could still make out
the tiny figure of a

woman in a
trench coat striding across

a tiny room
then the image brightened

to the head
of a pin retinal

trace only now
and then from the back of

the TV an
acrid plume of black smoke

(COMMITMENT
they were talking about)

poured clinging
through the vent upstairs yanked

the plug blue blue
spark a copper smell curled

but the chancy
wiring and fridge were saved.