From Conjugation. Published by BookThug in 2016. Phil Hall is a teacher and an award-winning author of over a dozen books. He lives near Perth, Ontario.

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Oh I missed Fountain Pen Day!

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~

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For a while      a couple years ago

I was working on a series of poems about imaginary Special Days

somewhat in imitation of Calvino’s Invisible Cities

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my favourite was Day Day

all of the festivities for this one      were transparencies

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they fit      right over the day      & were unseen

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~

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Also      this line      no one remembered it was Balcony Day

seems so sad      that line      to me      even now

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~

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Once a year      there was a day      by which

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anything you wanted to keep      had to be taken off your balcony

then      on that day      Balcony Day

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whatever      items were still left out there      disappeared

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all of the balconies      up all of the high-rises      in all of the target areas

suddenly empty

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what a feeling of lightness      & a readiness      for fresh marketing

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Cashier Co-operatives would send up flares from their roof-decks

as if ice has broken in a river    enthused the laureates

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sales soared

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~

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But      if a person were standing on a balcony

at midnight      come Balcony Day

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poof      gone

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so      balcony      as in      she committed balcony      or      he balconied

became a common form of suicide annual group suicide

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~

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It was good to clear away the dead-profit junk every 12 months

but how could the State stop these suicides by its consumers?

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so      all advertising for Balcony Day      was suppressed

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& each year      Clearing Day

as it was now called      in internal reports

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was scheduled for a different      undisclosed      day

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~

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That helped      but still there were many who      sick of shopping

stood on balconies every night      at the tick of midnight

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hoping today      was the day