exterior by Pablo Vision.

missing in Canada

when i was younger i stuffed some clothes
into a backpack and boarded a Greyhound bus
with a rail pass and no particular destination.

i didn't tell anyone that i was leaving;
i had no intention of returning – i wanted
to disappear.

as the bus carried me across Canada
it stopped in many small prairie towns where
i'd light a cigarette in front of shop windows
and study faces on missing person posters.

once i recognized one of the faces –
it was the photo of a young man
that worked as a cashier in a gas station
in one of the small towns in which we'd stopped.

the man was neither missing nor dead
nor in any kind of distress whatsoever –
in fact he appeared happy and healthy –
apparently the only foul play involved
was his own desire to go missing in Canada.
here is a man much like myself, i thought,
as i entered the shop and put the poster
inside my backpack.

i found out two months later that my ex-girlfriend
was pregnant – so not wanting to be like my own
deadbeat father i jumped on a bus to take me back
home into the city of my birth.

as i passed again through that small prairie town
i entered the gas station, handed the poster
to the young man behind the register and smiled –
"it's too late for me man," i said, "but for what it's worth
i hope they never fucking find you."

"Wolf Carstens' poetry reads like cries from the void. He is the master at uncovering old scars and turning them into the raw poetry of all the dark fathers and the primal dreams." - Todd Moore, author, DEAD RECKONING

"Wolfgang Carstens debuts here with a rock solid collection of poems where you can sense the presence of the viscera under the blood-coated muscle that is the text. And yet the poems are surprisingly gentle and nostalgic sometimes, sometimes angry, sometimes philosophical, sometimes funny. Not so much a traditional anthology of poems as a manifesto and statement of intent combined with a dissertation on life and the sort of things that are deserving in it, love loyalty and the forgotten child inside. Poems to read in all seasons, but especially when winter storms howl outside." - David McLean, author, LAUGHING AT FUNERALS

"Watching acme safes fall slowly from the sky…death as random and meaningless as life, only the moment is real so better have that laugh or that orgasm or that shot of life right now…that’s how I felt reading Wolfgang Carsten’s excellent collection, crudely mistaken for life, and it is actually a quite liberating feeling.  Wolfgang does not write about how one is “supposed” to feel or about the sanctity of life or joys of parenthood. He exposes the underside in metaphors of violence against rotten apples and May snow, suicide attempts and realities, fathers who “crumple like wet, dirty towels”.
 
The opening poem, fragments of a dream, contains the haunting phrase “the sad drama of flesh”, repeated both as a theme and literally, in dead dreaming, in which we crawl “back and forth into nothingness.”  The collection ends, brilliantly, with the title words.
 
In between the sad dramas, however, is love. Love of Annie and Thelma, and even, grudgingly, of the father too tough and proud to give up his ring while being beaten by thugs. The juxtaposition brings the humanity and elevates the feelings…it is all so meaningless, yet all so beautiful and sad.  It’s like the classic barroom discussion – what if you die and find out it was all about nothing after all? Well..it is all about nothing, but we find those moments that slip in between the darkness,  as shocking as May snowstorm." - Puma Perl, author, KNUCKLE TATTOOS

"Wolfgang Carstens paints elegant images with intensity brushes, uncovering the root of madness, inhumanity and sorrow in his poetry.  there are lines and images as stark as the desert and as delicate as fresh blooms of spring flowers.  Carstens goes places you don't want to follow, but, inevitably you do (and for the better).  this is poetry, rich, full and brimming with life, even that wrought from the darkest corners.  count me as a fan of Wolfgang Carstens and his work, CRUDELY MISTAKEN FOR LIFE." - Jack Henry, author, WITH THE PATIENCE OF MONUMENTS

• Sleepwalking In The Void by Tony Moffeit

• The Rusty Truck
• the Annie poems

CRUDELY MISTAKEN FOR LIFE by Wolfgang Carstens is coming soon from epic rites press. It'll be available through Small Press Distribution, as well as part of The Lucky Bastards Club subscription.

Epic Rites Press
240 - 222 Baseline Road
Suite #206
Sherwood Park, Alberta
T8H 1S8

epicritespress@gmail.com

"because all our fingers are middle ones"™