I haven’t produced a videopoem since 2012, since moving back to the Big Smoke and starting a business. Gots to pay my (astronomical Vancouver) rent. Like many people, I have more time these days; perhaps it’s a good time to adapt this poem, The Last Ping, to the moving image as friend and colleague Fiona Tinwei Lam is encouraging. It has mutated into song, in collaboration with guitarist pal Keir Nicoll. We’re discussing this next step, anxiously anticipating meeting up again as soon as possible, continue music-making. Is it just me or is the wait excruciating? The end of a marathon is the most daunting though and requires discipline. We’ve come this far with health intact, I’m determined not to blow it now. (Knock on wood!) Rock on and remain well my pretties!

THE LAST PING

After the girl is gone,
long gone, out of character,
statistical, presumed dead,
the verifying department
hops to it, sniffs out
the revelers, especially
the life of the party,
his liquid engine of beer.
Anyone with information,
to confirm names and addresses,
substantiate stories.
They watch your gestures.
Read your face.

Last seen wearing a blue ski jacket,
white blouse, black jeans,
Phoenix tattoo ascending
from the right hip.
Bright, unintentional dropout,
inadvertently delinquent.
Boyfriend person of interest
according to the RCMP.
Always. Constable passes the flyer.
Her cell phone may be dead,
last ping traced—pinpointed in fact—
to here. Right here. Last known location.
Right where we’re standing.
This town. Your pretty little town.

Fucken eh.
Check your property,
your shallow ditches,
So petite, she takes up little space
in one’s psyche;
turkey vultures leading us
not to her
body but to a deer carcass.
Parents pray
to repair the squabbles. Home.
Local kids clam up,
weighting the secret with smoke.

A teenaged girl can forget
she’s graduated
the fenced-in yards of childhood
to this vast plain
where condoms provide safety,
sympathy muttered. Crocodile.
She forgot
townies find transcendence in fury,
one vaguely recalling
Eminem shouts,
a catfight in the backyard.
She looked kinda posh,
smashed herd fumbling,
fawning, pushing.
Over. Under.
Dancing.
Sending her sailing.