From 7e4b1b40e09d2a8bf169918db01a13115d8de3ef Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Zane Meyers Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:06:04 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] vault backup: 2026-01-30 07:06:04 --- purdy_1962_quinte-hotel.md | 85 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 85 insertions(+) create mode 100644 purdy_1962_quinte-hotel.md diff --git a/purdy_1962_quinte-hotel.md b/purdy_1962_quinte-hotel.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a451301 --- /dev/null +++ b/purdy_1962_quinte-hotel.md @@ -0,0 +1,85 @@ +--- +id: +aliases: [] +title: At The Quinte Hotel +tags: + - authorship/other + - destiny/permanent + - exclude-from-word-count + - status/complete + - type/media/poetry +authors: + - Al Purdy +collection: Poems for All the Annettes +type: poem +year: 1962 +--- +# At The Quinte Hotel + +I am drinking \ +I am drinking yellow flowers \ +in underground sunlight \ +and you can see that I am a sensitive man \ +and I notice that the bartender is a sensitive man \ +so I tell him the beer he draws \ +is half fart and half horse piss \ +and all wonderful yellow flowers \ +But the bartender is not quite \ +so sensitive as I supposed he was \ +the way he looks at me now \ +and does not appreciate my exquisite analogy \ +Over in one corner two guys \ +are quietly making love \ +in the brief prelude to infinity \ +Opposite them a peculiar fight \ +enables the drinkers to lay aside \ +their comic books and watch with interest \ +while I watch with interest \ +a wiry little man slugs another guy \ +then tracks him bleeding into the toliet \ +and slugs him to the floor again \ +with ugly red flowers on the tile \ +three minutes later he roosters over \ +to the table where his drunk friend sits \ +with another friend and slugs both \ +of em ass-over-electric-kettle \ +so I have to walk around \ +on my way for a piss \ +Now I am a sensitive man \ +so I say to him mildly as hell \ +"You shouldn'ta knocked over that good beer \ +with them beautiful flowers in it" \ +So he says "Come on" \ +So I Come On \ +like a rabbit with weak kidneys I guess \ +like a yellow streak charging \ +on flower power I suppose \ +& knock the shit outa him & sit on him \ +(he is just a little guy) \ +and say reprovingly \ +"Violence will get you nowhere this time chum \ +Now you take me \ +I am a sensitive man \ +and would you believe I write poems?" \ +But I could see the doubt in his upside down face \ +in fact in all the faces \ +"What kind of poems?" \ +"Flower poems" \ +"So tell us a poem" \ +I got off the little guy but reluctantly \ +for he was comfortable \ +and told them this poem \ +They crowded around me with tears \ +in their eyes and wrung my hands feelingly \ +for my pockets for \ +it was a heart-warming moment for literature \ +and moved by the demonstrable effect \ +of great Art and the brotherhood of people I remarked \ +"-the poem oughta be worth some beer" \ +It was a mistake in terminology \ +for silence came \ +and it was brought home to me in the tavern \ +that poems will not really buy beer or flowers \ +or a goddam thing \ +and I was sad \ +for I am a sensitive man \