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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

Loneliness

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Loneliness
by James McLean

Little tea cup, were you happy on the shelf?

Now a thousand pieces on the floor

little tea cup, please forgive me

thousand pieces now forget me.

Time goes slowly–

This new tea cup a thing of beauty I declare

with joy both fleeting and rare. Now lonely

as a tea cup needing tea I’ll brew

some tea for us to pass time, gaze

while you whisper

I have not always been a tea cup.

Tomorrow again I’ll fill the cup

that clears past regrets or future fears

Teacup, say come with me. I am old

and wiser, have one thing certain —

how time evaporates.

***

James McLean was born in Scotland in 1927 and has lived and worked in the DTES since 1960. He is a member of Thursdays Writing Collective and has published in four chapbooks as well as in V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2012).

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