The Shamrock Hotel
Has live blues for those who are dying
and it is one o’clock in the morning
and I have misplaced my keys or locked
them in the truck, I am not sure, as
it is too dark to see the console
where I think I might have put
them down when my friend Paul
and I went out to read some of
his new poems and sample some
green straw, but that was hours ago.
So I party with the band “Wild T
and the Spirit†and T is a black
guitar player who I am convinced
is channeling the overdosed soul of
Hendrix, he is that good, and I tell
him that people everywhere playing
guitar hero are channeling him, and
as the crack aficionados try to sneak
into a room, any room, I walk to the 7-
eleven and buy a flashlight and there are
my keys right where I set them down
and so I call the auto club and sit
and wait in a hotel lobby that looks like a
furnace room and smells a lot like
the chicken processing plant situated
right next door and the Shamrock Hotel
has live blues for those who are dying
and it is three o’clock in the morning.
~ Kirk Miles
His poems have been produced on CBC’s Alberta Anthology and his poetry has been published in journals across Canada. As a playwright he has earned recognition for his work including a playwriting award from Alberta Culture for co-writing the critically acclaimed Juggler on a Drum and in June of 2009 Kirk Miles won the Writers Guild of Alberta Screenwriters Award for a screenplay entitled Shadow Maker. A book of poetry: The Last Six Minutes of Elvis, was published by Touchwood Press in 2002, and in 2009 of ash of brick of water, was published by Plan-B House. In the fall of 2007 Bravo aired a half hour special on his life as a poet, playwright and clown. His spoken word show with Ken Sinclair is call midnight yoga for alcoholics and has been seen at several festivals and events through out Alberta. A frequent participant of the Banff Leighton Artist Colony, Hotel on the Cliffs on the Heart was completed in 2011 and will be published by Plan – B House publishers in the winter of 2013. Presently he is working hard on a manuscript of poems about the holocaust called Moving Dust. In 2012 Kirk Won the Golden Beret Award presented by the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival.
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