Stranded

This was not written in my free hotel room in Amsterdam

or in one of the endless lineups at the airport

or in the plane, waiting for another technical issue

to resolve itself.

("The problem has disappeared", announces the captain.

Am I supposed to feel relieved?)

I kept thinking: I have to write this down

I have to write about this

But I didn't.

I just wanted to get home.

So here it goes:

Thousands of people were probably thinking

the same thing as I was.

Or were they?

The bitch whom the attendant refused at the gate

So that I could get on the plane —

I felt bad, maybe for a minute,

before incredible relief kicked in.

Or that little lady with the broken English

Who inserted herself in front of me:

"I was here, I was here before. Ask the gentleman in front."

You're going to london anyway, I thought.

Heathrow is closed today and tomorrow,

Go get a hotel room.

Which is what I did in the end,

Besides, I was in the wrong line.

Humans become cattle

queuing, shuffling;

kicking their luggage around,

too lazy to pick it up,

dozing on the floor, against pillars;

everyone is a potential angered customer

and lineups are calculated in length of wait

(averaging around 2.5 hours).

Every so often they send someone

to calm people down with desperate smiles

and a fair amount of shoulder shrugging.

They hand out water bottles and chocolate bars.

(Damage control?)

I become a specialist of air travel lingo:

Misconnections, short connections,

re-bookings, flights cancelled or delayed,

luggage rushed, lost, or on-hold;

I know what it means to be stand by,

not to have a seat on that plane you see outside

until the very last second,

to be alone, yet constantly surrounded

by people with the same problem.

I know what it means to be

stranded.

Take Off All Your (Alternate Title: There Are Problems With Your Engines)

Does this make me impatient?
That I wait in constant thought of
what I was promised earlier?
Does this make me?

I've waited in a chair,
I've waited standing,,
I've waited with my hands in my hair,,,
I've waited weeks for a reply.

I've waited for your call
while rummaging through
my refrigerator (that I should probably fill up).

Most of my time is spent waiting. That's what I've noticed. Waiting. Nothing is constant. There's always a

break.

Time for me to think.

And I'm thankful for that.

Straight Jackets For Straight Rabbits

We've taken all the roots from the trees
and given them to the children born without feet.
We ask them to crawl. We ask them to feed.
We ask them depend on appendages as well as their knees.

I've had it with this world's twisted way of saying sorry.
I'm done with all the things I never finished, but I've started.
I've cleared my throat of the phlegm and blood that Winter's
made me bottle up. I can't say I give a fuck
about all your literature,
about all your paintings,
about all your music and all your new sounds,
about all your muses and different perspectives.

What is life without a home and what is home without love?

Home is where the bar is for all the starving artists
and the starving artists crave for their big break.
With my breath on your breath
and the countless cigarettes
we've made a home.

A Winter's Tale (Final Draft)

A Winter’s Tale

It began on the first snowfall of grade eight. The school accepted her late entry because, quite frankly, they’d accept anyone. As with most latecomers, the rumor was that she’d been expelled from some other school. An all girl private school up in Westmount where they were forced to wear short skirts, high socks and turtlenecks. Sacred Heart, or something. I’d see them in the morning sometimes through the bus window, crammed and carpooled in their father’s silver minivans. Shiny Doc Martins stepping in. I’d beg the wind to pick up, for the plaid to flutter.

Her name was Cynthia. She sat in front of me in English class and every day, almost mechanically, she’d tie her hair into a ponytail. A simple act, maybe, but Cynthia’s morning routine began the self-induced torture of my own. She’d begin by flinging her hair back, a purple elastic around her thin, tan wrists. Peachy arms would stretch out, bicep muscle expanding as she’d smoothly glide it around the wad of glowing blonde-streaked hair. Holding it tight in the palm of her fist behind her head, she’d slide the elastic down. Slowly. Then she flipped up her hair before finishing off.

I remember other times when she leaned forward on her seat if she’d accidentally drop a pen or rest her head on her desk – I’d catch a glimpse of her lower back. On a lucky day, I’d see the hot pink thong sticking out of her skinny blue jeans. The lace whale tail. The bulge in my sweatpants impossible to hide by tucking into my boxers, the heat rising to my ears. After a few weeks, I was able to construct a rainbow of lace in my mind.

Snowflakes tumbling down desolate Montreal skies latched onto my overcoat, hiding the blackness of it with melting clumps of ice. An old coat, passed down from a cousin – the material frayed, the mismatched buttons roughly sewed on by my nonna as if done in a rush. Some were more oblong than others and one of them even purple. Piled deep within my closet that morning, I had wrestled it out for the first snowfall. The first fall which continued to howl gusts of wind past my ears, spitting specks of snow, blinding me. A perfect juxtaposition to its scorching summer. Montreal, paradise.

I don’t remember how it happened. Nervous and cold. Cynthia’s body crushed into mine, my armpit over her left shoulder. I wondered if I put deodorant on that morning, but figured that the smell couldn’t perspire through the layers. We sat on a park bench. Her nose red and runny, the tip bright from the reflection of the glowing snow, though the sun hid behind the grey. Her bony fingers reached for mine; numb extremities intertwining. Her hair glowing. Her low-top, grey Vans sole-less.

“Fucking socks are wet again.”

“How about you get some new shoes?”

“How about you suck my dick, Adam?”

“Lovely, Cyn.”

She looked into my eyes and I didn’t know where to look back.

“It’s chill if I call you that… right? If I call you Cyn?”

She looked past me. Devin running after his bus in the distance.

“Yeah. Whatever.”

The wind rattled the basement window in my mother’s duplex; the humidifier I forgot to turn off let out a low and persistent hum. Cynthia’s mouth formed the shape of an O around the tip of my cock, having trouble pushing her throat any further down without gagging. I felt bad, embarrassed. I concentrated. Tightened my jaw – my body straightened out on the bed, head resting uncomfortably on a hard, old pillow. I tried not to think about it, I didn’t want to come too soon like a fucking loser. Chewing on the inside of my cheek. Biting off minuscule particles of dead skin that latched onto the tongue like leftover bread. But I couldn’t turn away from the blonde locks on the back of her head, the low light dancing as she bobbed gently, up and down, like hypnosis. And then I lost it. Too far gone to hold, sounds too distracting. Swallowing and gagging and humming and cracking. I finish in her mouth. Pathetic. I lie down, too much of a pussy to say anything. Finally,

“Sorry. Umm.”

The sound of her throat swallowing.

“Um, do you need a kleenex?”

“No... that’s okay.”

The next day, a packed city bus shook and slid on icy streets, but I barely even noticed before it reached the school. I couldn’t get my mind off of it – the day before, the first. Cynthia, too. Her hair.

I ran off to class and sat next to my friend Devin who had a shitface grin on.

“Hey Adam, I totally just took a piss while drinking from a bottle of water. Isn’t that fucking... what’s the word... fucking... fucking like paradoxical?”

“You’re a douchebag, Devin. That’s weird.”

“No it’s totally legit! It’s like messing with bodily functions.”

“That’s like taking a shit while eating supper.”

“Don’t pretend like you haven’t tried that, bro!”

I was anxious for Cynthia to come into class. For her to act like she barely knew me, as usual.

“Hey Adam, did you try that password I gave you for Wildlatinagirls? It totally works.”

“Shut the fuck up, Devin.”

I clicked my mechanical pencil.

“Hey Adam, my cousin Mike asked if we wanted to smoke with him later. Are you down?”

“Only fucking losers and blacks smoke.”

“It’s supposed to be so chill, though. They call the stuff kush, bro.”

“Can you stop saying bro, you fag.”

“Shut the fuck up you pussy, don’t tell me what–”

His voice carried on as Cynthia entered the class, walking past poems written by the class and hung up on the wall by the over-eager temp. Ms. Rachel. I barely passed the assignment because I didn’t use enough metaphors or some garbage like that. I avoided eye contact with Cynthia and kept my head down looking at my desk. Pathetic. She came right up to me and kissed me on the cheek in front of everyone. She bent over to place her school bag on the ground showing off the lace. Devin stared incredulously.

The next few weeks with Cynthia became a blur. She really cared, because she’d tell me she loved me, and she’d tell it a lot. Perfect sense. She’d kiss me everywhere, even at Angrignon mall. At first I felt shy when everyone stared but they stopped to matter. Everything stopped to matter. She was the first person to ever give me the attention I craved, the attention I gave myself. She even had a pet-snake, rattling. Jumping at the clear glass cage, synthetic wood and leaves under its belly. I didn't really know what breed it was, but it was black and with subtle red stripes.

I remember a week later, getting drunk off of forty’s of 8% “rat-piss” in back of the Place La Salle with a couple older, fuck-ups from the neighbourhood. Cynthia and I had gotten into an argument – I don’t remember why, anymore. I stumbled, avoiding cracks and potholes in the parking lot.

And I saw her, the streaked blonde locks on the back of her head. Knees on cold concrete. Head bobbing up and down, sucking off Devin, his back resting against the maroon bricks of the wall. And he saw me and his body jerked and she turned her head – cat eyes, incandescent in the moonlight.

I remember sprinting home. Shrieking into my pillow. I remember ripping apart the sodden bed sheets. My mother trying to hold me down as I punched a hole into the wall, blood dripping down my knuckle.

That was then and now is now.

Run-down motels spread across the ironically named Canada Street like a decaying, coffee stained carpet. Old Orchard Beach, Maine – the prime vacation destination for the not-too-rich-but-just-comfortable-enough-to-max-out-their-credit-cards-on-a-cheap-holiday Québecois.

And now I’m walking under sweltering mid-afternoon sun on a black street barefoot, rushing to get from the motel room to the dark wet dark sand. The salt-drenched air digs into my lungs, clearing out residue of leftover cigarettes. A loose Led Zeppelin t-shirt bought from the local Target flutters underneath my armpits. I don’t like being topless. Probably due to the insults thrown at me as a child for being a chubster. It doesn’t matter now. In a world that has no need for me, or anyone for that matter, the thoughts tend to dwell on the past. But past is still dead, I am told. “Live in the now” is what all the self-help books say. Eckhart Tolle and Chopra and all that new-age crap. Bullshit. Live in the now, only to repeat yesterday’s mistakes, I suppose, is the generation’s tagline.

My mother and aunts and uncles are at the motel pool, glowing like Christmas ornaments, lathered in tanning lotion. I move in the opposite direction, taking the scenic route. Anything is better than confrontation. Perfume lingers in the air as a group of seniors walk by, making my stomach churn. Past the bakery where the chronically obese gather for fried dough, my feet still toast, like walking on burning coals. It’s a sad thing to think about. That every lived experience before this moment is now dying, only to be remembered temporarily, until forgotten and then death. These thoughts stray back and forth as a senile couple gobble down on some fried dough with Nutella spread. “Bein Tabarnak c’est bon!”

I make it to the beach and I don’t feel any better about it. Bulbous males fish on the beach, baited hooks in the ocean while young children with floaties wade through the waves. Safety precautions are merely suggestions, after all. I zone in and out of consciousness on a sandy towel. I dream of an elephant parade on an intersecting diner road in a desert. Then I have a dream where I fall backwards off a 20-foot diving board head first, but never hit the water. It’s recurring. I always wake up right before landing.

It is not hot anymore, the weather bipolar. A lack of Ritalin. I pop one down. I look through the sand speckled duffel bag and pull out a cracked-leather jacket, a hand-me-down from my cousin, stitches sewn up by my nonna.

Now is now and I am on the beach and I am alone and I am lost within my mind while the sun sets, dies, a symbol of something-or-other in most classic literature. I have been reading too much Camus. An appropriate choice to read on a beach. But do I even understand what any of it means, or do I read it only because Wikipedia tells me that it’s considered his “classic”? Sometimes I wonder why people even bother with the classics. Does it make them feel good about themselves? Accomplished? Does it make me feel important?

Whatever. Everything ends up meaningless.

I walk back to the stuffy motel room I share with my mother who coerced me here for a family trip over the summer. One more year until I’m eighteen and I can do whatever I want, or so I am told.

With the sun down, the “nightlife” begins. A rusted old ferris wheel twirls at the pathetic excuse for a fair in the heart of downtown. Downtown consists of a single, potholed street. The rides, arcades and game booths with buck-toothed carnies are dilapidated. The prize is a giant polar bear. Everywhere. No matter the game, the only thing worth playing for is not so endangered in Maine. An old club, the only one, called The Caribbean Padise blasts out shitty wedding music, like The Macarenna and YMCA. My drunken mother, aunts and uncles spend their nights there chugging margaritas. I have come to accept the fact that Old Orchard Beach is the poor man’s Cuba.

Tall street lamps attract a myriad of shad-flies and I envy them for their life-span of a single day. I see them attracted to the brightness of light and I can’t help but think of Plato’s cave. In fact, all this rumination has gotten to me. At the end of the day, I still am alone for another three weeks, slowly dragging myself towards monotony. I pray for China’s industrial revolution to speed up a bit.

I spend quarters at the claw-machines and have managed to collect over twenty-six stuffed animals, including the entire South Park and Spongebob Squarepants cast in doll form. Christ, I even won a Gameboy. I play the third one to the left side of the arcade, a big mother called Grab-O-Mania and in my mind, I constantly refer to it as Grab-Cock-O-Mania. I imagine Spongebob being fucked in the ass by Squidward as I play and drain the machine, collecting doll after doll, piling them on the floor next to me to maintain this I don’t give a fuck attitude to the other tourists. Secretly, I gloat in my prowess. The average modern man undermines the extreme skill and precision it takes in mastering the art of hand-eye coordination for a grabbing machine. Add in all the bells and whistles – the 30 second timer, the mirror reflections in the back of the machine, the constantly repeating jingle, the fact that the “claw” rarely closes more than a couple of centimetres (2.5 is my guess) – and “clawing” becomes quite serious.

Tonight, people seem to have noticed my meandering clawing skills. It makes me feel both pathetic and accomplished, probably like someone who masters Dance Dance Revolution and hangs out by the machine all day, with a water bottle and a towel to wipe away the sweat. Or like someone who manages to self-serve fellatio.

I see in the reflection of the back mirror, while dropping my 89th quarter into the slot, a group of young people behind me – people my age. They’re dressed like locals. An uncommon occurrence. And I notice enticing dark eyes staring into my own... well, the reflection of my own. The light bulbs flashing red, white and blue in the grabbing machine change the tone of her skin in the reflection. Considering my 90th quarter, I tell myself, if I fail this round, I will turn around and introduce myself to her. I will buck up. Grow up. Become a man.

Her name is Angela. And her real-life face is even prettier than her reflection. Her dark eyes, her long brown hair. She dresses like all the other kids who try not to dress like everybody else: a plaid shirt, skinny jeans, low top single coloured shoes, ray bans and a tweed hat. And I fucking dig it like all the other fools. Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.

“Where you from, Adam?”

“Montreal.”

“Should I even be surprised? Wait, isn’t the legal drinking age there, like, nineteen?”

“Eighteen, actually.”

“Then what the fuck are you doing in this shithole?”

“I manage to ask myself that exact same question every day. Where you from?”

“That’s for you to find out. Hey, what are you reading over there?”

She motions toward my pocket. I reach at it, surprised. I forgot the book was there all along.

“Camus, right? The Outsider?” She’s right.

“Yeah.”

“He’s alright, I guess. I’m not really a big fan of the existentialists. Too morbid for my liking. And self-indulgent, too, you know? All that mental masturbation – in-itself, of-itself, for-itself. It can go fuck itself.”

For the first time in about two weeks, I legitimately laugh. It’s not even because it was that funny – it’s just that it’s a joke.

Under the rickety wooden pier, with a few more of her friends, I look for a flat surface to roll a joint; I take The Outsider from my pocket. Angela and her friends stare, impressed with my rolling skills and with the calibre of the pot I smuggled across the border. I’m just happy that I’m not smoking alone tonight.

“You Americans gotta’ step up your game, bro. Getting out-rolled by a Canadian fucker! Aren’t we supposed to be the nice ones?”

“Hey, shut your mouth, you... you existentialist! HA!”

Angela snorts mid-laugh and covers her mouth in embarrassment and then laughs some more. Then everybody laughs, looking dazed. Her pothead mannerisms are authentic – they are innocent. Then we get tired and plan on meeting up on the beach tomorrow, and I walk home with a jump in my step.

The next day, she wears a yellow polka-dot bikini, her breasts squeezed in tight towards the centre of her chest.

“You have to be kidding me. She wore an itsy bitsy teeny weeny...”

“Shut up! I find it cute. And trust me, I’m sure you don’t mind that it’s itsy bitsy...”

American girls.

I chase her into the ocean. Everything I say is perfect. She is into me. She wants me. Angela wants me.

Getting out of the ocean, I follow behind her as she leads the way, sand sticking to our feet. Rivulets of salt water drip from the lower half of her bikini, tight against the crevice of her ass. The lower side of her buttocks bounce with each step, sneaking out of the lower corners of her suit.

Walking in front of me, she lifts her arms. A purple elastic is tight around her wrist. She grabs back all of her wet, brown hair tightly into the palm of her closed-fist and gently slides the elastic down to tie her hair into a ponytail. Slowly. Drops of water leaking with the squeezing of her wad of hair.

My chest suddenly feels hollow – the feeling that everything is dead. A stone in the pit of my stomach.

She flips up her hair and turns back to look at me, looks into my eyes. I don’t know where to look back. I turn and I walk away. I walk, without an explanation, without a look back, without a goodbye. Heart pounding. I wonder if she follows, though I speed up. I think of the reaction on her face. The thought that I was surely joking until it went too far – too late to be a joke.

I continue down the beach until the winds begin to pick up. Black clouds envelop the sun and I am the only one left on the shore, waves crashing harder and harder. Gusts of wind start to throw sand up in the air, creating a dust storm with specks of salt flying and whipping hard against my legs. Wind hits my face and the sand blinds me. Plato’s cave. I can’t see a thing, I rub hard until I manage, through the tears, to see a blur of sand whipping in front of me, everywhere, like a snowstorm.

One is only enough for the ignorant

My muse ran me over after reading/hearing Marta's beat poem.

One-

the beginning of something, which eventually leads to an end

Yet one is infinite just like the soul

Or so we are told

by scholars who knew little about the world

yet held ideals stronger than those we grew up with

The beginning can perhaps lead to something new

Exciting

Until one eventually despises something which was loved

Too often

Love turns to hate

And then we are back at square one

However, one is not squared

It can be shaped as an octagon

Nothing substantial can be fabricated

Into something concrete

Except ideas

Except those who hold no ideas

Those like me

Who have nothing to look forward to

Only looking back

At what could have been

Can one live for the past?

When the future means nothing

And the present is a dull grey ache

Residing in one’s chest

There we go again,

One.

One day, they say

One time

At one point

One step

These all mean nothing

Until something follows

One day I will grow up

Into what?

Hopefully something more substantial

One time, long ago

Hope was blossomed from an idea

Except we already know that ideas lead to danger

They cause irreversible damage

At one point,

I wished for many things

Until they never came true

And I stopped wishing

One step into something unknown

And one can be lost within the void

Perhaps one is not all that bad

If they look away from the consequences

Of ideas

Thoughts

Wishes

Hopes

And most of all

The fact that one is just a lonely number

I should know,

One dictates lives

It is after all one of two binary numbers

It’s the start of everything

It’s what makes the world spin

While little kids can dream of one far off day

Where they can win,

Come in first place

They can be number one

For an assortment of ridiculous things

That will one day no longer matter

Until that one day though

They have their false ideals

And miss-represented schemes

On which one number is higher ranked than others

One should be last,

It is solitary

And lonesome

One however, is all I have

And all I know.

So here’s to you,

The ignorant

The deprived

The lonesome.

WINTER SUN

we Met by grey 18th-century houses

with guns in our waistcoat pockets and

bombs down our breeches

we Walked for miles

up and down cobbled hills

through squares and graveyards

the sweat on my upper lip

Unglued my fake mustache

by a victorian crescent we finally Stopped

Sat on benches and Stared

at the wide architectural arch

where a young poet and an accomplished lady had Lived

he Died

in rome

she Died

in bed

when our historical voyeurism Was finished

we Unleashed our little chaos

homemade chemicals

handfuls of anarchy

under the cold winter sun

our bullets Broke bones

and flesh

our bombs Burst bright

like flares

windows Sh a tter ed

crystalline

waterfalls

Cascading

down

on wailing children in bloodied

bonnets

a greenish smokescreen

an echo chamber

of banging petards

through which we Ran

like wild game

eyes stinging

our mouths smothered

with handkerchiefs

my kind of sunday

Home Won't Be Home Any Longer

I don't feel my fingers in the cold,

but I feel them too much indoors.

I feel the bruises on my fingertips

from poking at the chest of

that old building, shouting:

"How dare you tell me I'm too old

and it's time to move on? How

dare you crumble when I am within

and tell me to find another?"

I stared at the bricks, silent

and felt a rock tumble at my feet.

I don't accept your gift nor

do I accept that you're dying,

but I guess you'll do it anyway.



(I didn't feel like waiting for midnight. I know you all understand. <3)

Home Won't Be Home Any Longer

I don't feel my fingers in the cold,

but I feel them too much indoors.

I feel the bruises on my fingertips

from poking at the chest of

that old building, shouting:

"How dare you tell me I'm too old

and it's time to move on? How

dare you crumble when I am within

and tell me to find another?"

I stared at the bricks, silent

and felt a rock tumble at my feet.

I don't accept your gift nor

do I accept that you're dying,

but I guess you'll do it anyway.



(I didn't feel like waiting for midnight. I know you all understand. <3)

Roughing It In The Bush

This is experimenting in voice. The Rumi and the Szymborska are spilling out, and I don't know how it works. Help!

This is the morning,

this is the hunter,

this is the forest snow.

Walking behind you, I wonder why

we are the only species

with the capacity to ignore.

Were we birds

on the wing of some migratory path,

there would at least be salutation.

But for now I breathe quietly

and try to match

the rhythm of your feet.

You are looking for something

beyond my understanding,

so I don't focus on 

following the path

so much as the bootprints.

I begin with myself

step before step

and only the crows note my passage.

If you look behind

and find me gone

when you arrive,

it is because I finished before you

and took to flight

for other hunts.

The Dalai-lemma

I no longer lose any sleep over those who suffer.
I have come to terms with the world's impermanence.
If you truly want to know what it is to be awakened,
think of the chair you sit on today.

"24 seconds you'll be comfortable
24 minutes you'll shift
24 hours you'll start to feel pain
24 days the pain becomes excruciating
24 weeks you no longer have control of your limbs
24 years you deteriorate
240 years we are dust."

To bring vividly to the mind

[As requested by Andrea. I feel like it's stronger hearing it aloud than reading it off the page. But anyway, you tell me. Also I hate the way that blogger distorts the sound on videos...so sorry about the quality, it's not my fault...]

The moment of Realization
isn’t ever of a single particular realization –
people try to classify it, label it,
stick it in a really boring paragraph
in some overpriced psychology book
(or, like me, rant about it in a really boring poem)
where it is disregarded, undervalued
skipped over so you don’t think about it –
but whenever that moment of Realization comes,
it comes hard.
(That’s what she said.)

Kind of feels like you’re going through an anti-birth.
Pressing against mother’s womb,
banging with tiny purple hands begging to be let back in –
entirely disoriented
except for the deep down feeling that something’s wrong,
perverse, distorted, distended,
and you don’t know if there’s something wrong now,
or if there was something wrong before.
You reevaluate, reengineer, recalculate your view of reality
every second;
every time something happens,
it changes everything.
Every time you realize what you thought was untrue,
history is rewritten –
like in 1984
except Big Brother is that pained and pruney heart
and doublespeak is flirting.

The laptop is open at an angle
the one where the screen is always too dark or too light
and there’s nothing you can do about it.
You keep adjusting the slant, the brightness, the dimmer,
hoping to see right,
but you’re honestly just killing time
until you think of what it is online that you’d rather kill time with.
And meanwhile the screen bears the brunt of your boredom
and your obsession with an ideal
that you won’t even bother to define.

You’ve not been healthy for a long time
and you’re in a hole.
Remember that.
There’s nothing down here,
just like the refrigerator or the pantry
– junk and sweet artificial factory packed machine bred snacks –
and no matter how many times you open those cupboard doors
you’ve seen it all already and it bores you.
You can’t help but think about it in metaphorical terms,
relating what you see to your own state of being
because of course there’s meaning everywhere
– being an English major, I know that now –
especially when trying to find a sign for the direction of your love life.
The jaded cupboard doors open and close
with the familiar dull and empty clunk;
there's nothing for you there
but junk and the breaking of a self defined integrity.
You imagine yourself peeling plastic off an overly sweet and fat free cake,
that feeling of soon-to-set-in queasy.
Pointless to begin, you tell yourself,
looking at food and thinking of lovers,
but you don’t really believe it
because you’re starting to realize just how alone you are
and you’d rather begin futility than never have started anything at all.
That’s the way it works.
Because as you hit Realizations
and shed realities
from perceptive layer to layer

(talking about layers gets the taste of onions on my tongue and I always get thirsty
and need to take a water break)

you realize that you’re just too unique to conform
– especially not to the standard of relationships -
that conformity is stupid
that individuality is stupid.
You wish you could shake society by its blond shoulders and tell it to “Stop being so stupid! Ignorant! Insensitive!
So vain!
Society, stop looking at yourself in the mirror of the cosmos
you don’t exist there!
You just want to.”
And it goes ahead and overanalyzes the patterns and numbers anyway
to come up with answers that it doesn’t understand,
just to see the way it works.
The grand psychosomatic dissection.
Everything we do is to our minds,
probing the phallic rod of hard science
in cerebral gray matter to build the scar tissue,
make us uncaring, non-lonesome machines,
because if we’re kept busy enough we won’t notice
we’re all scientists
we’re all cyborgs
the amalgam of our fleshy existence
and who we see in the software of our mind.
We pretend we’re unaware of our growing inhibitions
when it comes to contact
that doesn’t have walls and likes and commenting
because then we can’t live in a society that promotes “company”
as the number one commodity –
we push into small virtual worlds
abstracting ourselves
like money, the concept of value,
the assigned meaning that only exists in thought
that used to exist in accountants’ books
but now stores in zeros and ones in memory banks,
coats six billion human lives
with an economical proclamation of the importance of numbers
and people in relation to them.
A network of theoretical concepts.
Somehow it exists.
You try not to think about how,
how an entire world was raised on such intangible mental fences,
but figure an educated guess
that blaming the Internet sounds like a credible claim.

You can’t help but think of the Internet spreading like Ouranos
as a blanket over Gaia
tucking itself in at the edges of humanity
blurring the lines of what is accomplished in reality
and what feels like it’s been accomplished
staring at the loading bar of Firefox webpages.

On that line of thought, you feel you ought to complain
about how Facebook never gives enough notifications,
and you don’t know how you feel about the fact that
you find yourself getting way too excited
upon seeing a number in a little red box
spring from the tiny planet Earth icon.
You have to stop from clicking right away sometimes
just to prove that this digital life hasn’t consumed you,
that you still exist
as a separate entity from your profile picture.
It isn’t worth bothering over though;
you’ve been brought up to feel that waiting makes you itch,
you just want to read what that notification says
which invariably will be to let you know
so-and-so has commented on so-and-so’s photo album
that you commented on three months ago.
You feel empty and you say you don’t know why
which is ridiculous because it’s clearly so obvious.
(Refer to the end of this poem,
if your neurons are so clogged with
Facebook quizzes
YouTube videos, overly furious YouTube comments,
Snorgtees, TeeFury, Threadless, Zazzle,
cyanide and happiness, lolcats, DeviantArt,
The Oatmeal, The Onion, xkcd,
FML, MLIA, MDT,
Vevo, MegaVideo, Memebase,
Troll Physics, Twitter, College Humour,
Hotmail, Gmail, Torrentz, Demonoid,
Chatroulette, Seshroulette, Redtube,
Post Secret, Failblog, Pirate Bay,
Blogger, Tumblr, Flickr, Wimp,
World of Warcraft, Wikipedia,
eBay, Craig’s List, Amazon.ca,
even MySpace [though that was so 2006]:
refer to the end of this poem
if your neurons are so clogged with all of those
that you don’t know what the answer is
or even what the question was to begin with.)

Still, you can’t help but look through Facebook
in pursuit of elusive comfort
always forgetting to realize that Facebook friends aren’t real people
just good intentions.

So much time combing msn lists
scanning Skype and Adium
for names to hit a chord of interest
to speak
to grow friendship
to love from a distance
safely between typos
from tangled fingertips
swimming across a keyboard
through the waving water sways
radiating from the smoking ends
of tight rolled joints.
Maybe drugs are just a way of finding interest again
in this world of jaded sculptures
static preserved moments
that had meaning once
before artists tried to capture feelings
and got it all wrong.

Sometimes you don’t know why
people like artists
or believe in their profundity,
they’re less sane that anyone you know
– especially goddamned writers -
and the fact that they define the world
through the abstraction that is culture
is unnerving.

That doesn’t stop you putting your iTunes on shuffle
in a 21st century last ditch effort for fate’s intervention –
for Apple to find you that one song you need
but are too lazy to really put your aural finger on.
You know there’s something you want to listen to.
You know it would take that edge away
that smarts and burns like that slice of pseudo-cake
if you get a corner piece
when there’s too much icing
and your stomach tightens in biological protest
reminding you that what you’re consuming isn’t food.
Leaving you paranoid with glossy sugar crisp lips,
your iTunes shuffles
giving you songs that make you wonder
why you have so much crap in your library
trying to remember where you got it
vowing to delete the useless albums –
but never getting around to it
just like that book you were going to write
and that letter you were going to send
and that phone call you were going to make.
You’ll do it all after the song on your playlist is done
but you need to let it reach the end
so it can add to the play count.

Sit at home alone
beside outlets for easy plug access
to charge phones and iPods and laptops
with screens that never hit a good and proper angle.
Maybe you can charge your brain one day
and eliminate the need for coffee
that is overpriced and undercaffeinated.
Have this thought meander
while feeling lost and aimless
in the Ambien zombie land of limbo.
Look up random directions on Google Maps,
zoom for street names, drag for street view.
How navigation used to work is beyond you,
without global positioning precision
the sense of self dissolves
in a Wicked Witch of the West puddle
melting into a panicked pancake batter
of general confusion.

You don’t fit into this modern world
because you are a product of it

and that realization makes you a little bit crazy
because you know that you’re just you
and that the chances of finding another person that sees the world with your same “talk-about-layers-and-get-onion-taste-in-your-mouth” way of thinking is on the few-and-far-between side.
So you get used to loneliness
it becomes yet another thing
to desensitize yourself to.

In two thousand ten
two's a crowd.

Superluminal (Version III)

[A redo of my first HeartRape post ever! Original found here.]



II.
It comforts her to say that her life remains unchanged. She wakes on her side of the bed, showers, dresses, eats, arrives at work at the punctual hour. She finds time passes no slower than before. When she arrives at her cubicle she is greeted by her neighbour with the customary grunt; at the lunch table her coworkers speak the same mundane babble without noticing a profound change in her, and so that must mean that there is no profound change to be noticed. Even her fingers are unaware of turmoil, flitting across the touch screen with as much assuredness as the week before, like pistons on a train, propelling her forward. When she returns home, it is as still and empty as when she left it. That these things persist without alteration is proof that past events are no great harm done in the grand scheme of things. The past can be put in the past so long as one slogs forward.

I.
The table was glass and she noticed the flecks of grease across its surface, dried now into small opaque stars in a translucent sky, flung from the mouth of a famished god, starch worm wriggling into a puckered worm hole. She saw also the smears and, looking closer, the minute lines drawn by the ridges of his finger pads, and the concluding whorl. And these were like spinning galaxies leaving trails behind them of their unique existence. And even closer on a microcosmic scale she saw the globules of oil, intermittent deposits through time, sticky and insoluble. And as she stared down at the bottomless glass he took her hand. She pulled away.
“That’s a really long time,” she said.
“I know.”
He glanced down and they gazed into the universe together. They perceived the timeline of a thousand shared meals and a thousand wax drippings from a thousand lit candles, their light overwhelmed by a unified gust, and they saw in the dark of space some remnant flickering until the last flame reflected in their eyes was snuffed out by darkness. He gripped a little harder.
“The irony,” he said, “is that at the same time, it’ll only be five years…”
“For you,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And what am I supposed to do?”
He huffed his chest. Contemplated a spaghetti stain.
“Whatever you want to do, I guess.”



“Then I’ll wait for you.”
“You can’t. You’ll be waiting your whole life – for nothing. It’s impossible.”


“But if you can travel forward through time, can’t you go back?”
“It’s not the same.”



“It’s not so easy.”

VII.
She turns her back to his side of the bed, certain she feels his warm shadow there.

III.
The colony suffers a minor power surge. Artificial gravity offline. She sits above her armchair, legs gently brushing the fabric. She is awash in white light. Watches the news:
“‘We can assure you that this is nothing more than a minor disturbance, caused by a small solar flare, not a warhead—this is not an attack.’”
The framed photograph glides through the air like a mote in suspension. His plump smile turns to the screen. In uniform, he salutes the President. She stares with moist apprehension.

IV.
She has decided to take up knitting. She buys a holo-tutor, scours an antique store for the needles. Cannot find yarn.
“Knitting is an archaic craft,” states the holo-tutor, “sustained by a few devoted hobbyists on and around the globe. However, knitting circles are more commonly found planetside, where the craft possesses deep roots in some traditional Terrestial cultures.”
The needles themselves are ancient. She traces with her eyes the dark brown warbling rings of the wood, the stretch marks of time. This tree was alive, once. It seems so prehistoric.
“A novice may find it difficult to procure yarn at an affordable price, particularly in the colonies, due to high exportation costs. However, yarn can be salvaged by unravelling knit sweaters.”

V.
She stirs pasta in a pot, attempting to break its sticky bonds. It becomes a heavy, entangled mass, a ball of yarn with a dozen loose ends. There is too much starch in the water, viscous and grey. She tells herself that she might as well cook the whole pack, no sense in leaving just a few strands behind, save herself from cooking again later, what if she wants another plate, might as well make extra, just in case…
As she stirs the clock pauses a moment, timid. It quickly steps into the next minute.
“Is someone there?”
A warm, familiar smell. She hears footsteps approach from behind.
“Cooking the pasta wrong.” A rumbling laugh, a deep breath. “Same as always…”

VIII.
She finds, abandoned at the back of the closet, a man’s sweater.

IX.
She unravels.

XI.
“Want to talk to her, Tony? Don’t you have something to say?” – a woman’s voice, garbled somewhere between Iowa and Lagrange Point 3, by a surveillance satellite, perhaps. She hears shuffling as the phone is brusquely shoved into Tony’s hand, clattering against the newest handheld gaming device. She hears the tinny music, the rush of vehicles through space, chasing stars.
“Thank you, Aunt Marla.”
Pew pew pew.
(“For what?” )
“For the birthday card.”
“Oh, you’re welcome Tony. Thirteen is a big year, you know.”
“Mmhmm.”
Shuffling static. The techno-beat of space fades.
“You should really come down sometime, the weather’s great.”
She eyes the unlocked door.
“I’d love to,” she says, “But I’d have no one to watch the house. Who knows what kind of people might break in…”

VI.
“You look different.”
“I’m older.”
“But still the same…”
She appraises him. A little tattered, a little softer around the edges. She supposes she is too. Too much pasta.
“You said this would be impossible.”
“It was. Back then.”
“And now?”
“It’s still impossible, now. But not in the future. I’m…from the future.”
He shifts his eyes. His smile is grim.
“But your ship hasn’t arrived yet. You said that would take my entire lifetime.”
“Time dilation is a tricky thing…”
X.
She finishes knitting the scarf. Or rather, knits it to its logical end. The yarn ran out. That seemingly endless thread…It had surprised her to discover that the sweater was made of one continuous line, looping over and back and under itself. Taking form.

IX.
She unravels.

XIV.
She opens a package and finds a tiny, potted cactus. It’s from Tony. He’s roadtripping across the country with son.
“C. Gigantea from what was once Arizona State. It takes 75 years to grow a side arm.”
It is a small and prickly nugget. It tears through the tissue paper.

XII.
Maybe he was a figment of her imagination.
She sits in her armchair, needles in hand, watching the dusty couch, its indented cushion. Maybe it is the phantasm of her own weight she sees. Or maybe it is like a ripple in the water. Maybe in another time, he is sitting there, and she sees only the frozen reverberation of his existence, like pausing on a single frame of film. Maybe he moves too quickly to be perceived – the Wink of an Eye.

XIII.
At her retirement they give her a watch and a cake. A fruit cake. She notices for the first time that their faces are different, and yet the coworkers in her department have remained the same age: fresh-faced graduates, faces so plump that the strain does not show around their smiles. Retirement, they muse, must be…awesome.
They pat her on the shoulder or back and she feels like a statue, groped and greased over thousands of years by thousands of hands.
“Such a nice lady,” they sigh, and take pictures.

XV.
She sits in her armchair, unravelling. The needles lie on the table and yet she feels them in her fingers. On the finger a ring: it shimmers dully like a star behind a cloud, traveling across the sky. A star that has lived a million years. Maybe it is dead, and we see only the dying burst. Beside the needles rests the framed photograph, fading in the sunlight.
The television screen blinks its eye, searches for her face.
“An incoming transmission,” it coughs.
She nods, stiffly, then hears a shuffling static, an image warps into place.
“Hello...is this...Marla...?”
A living photograph.
“It is.”

Bristol6

Do you remember, November,

the chills we caught

when the days grew short?

Your cold-kissed cheeks

blushed raw —

your hard numb knuckles

which I longed to

suck on

and feel soften in the moist warmth of

my mouth.

We watched the silver-haloed moon

sail through threaded clouds,

behind the lacework of bare, brittle branches.

You said it looked lovely.

(Oh! The things you say

my sweet November!)

I found it rather dreary.

When I finally extended my hand

to take yours,

my fingers grasped only icy night —

and no November.

You were gone, already.

Praying/Preying. (possible Stan Holiday and The Sunshine Six song)

Give me what your body tells me I can have.
Give me what your speech betrays and neglects.
Stranger, Stranger, on my face,
Heed my warning, cry en garde.
(Stay the fuck away.)
We take on decisions, we take off our clothes,
We take on personas, we get off.

I don't need a reason to cast you aside.
You don't need a reason to leave either.

The space in between you and I tonight
subsides when we collide
violently, passionately.
Flesh upon flesh, we are one, again and again.

but I'd hate to be you right now.

Frost

The streets are cold and empty,

as I pass by a horde

of shuffling people

who mumble grievances

A couple, speaks to each other

without hearing the other

The air is crisp

My hands, cold

find refuge in pockets full of lint

and a forgotten candy

escaped from it’s wrapper

A homeless man shivers

while the rich ignore

He, underfed

caresses his dogs

who fed not an hour ago

I give him change,

nothing substantial

He might buy food

or drink it away,

at least he’ll be warm,

if only for a minute.

Bristol5

That's when it started raining

on our used dishes,

strewn about on gritty counters —

numbing dribbles of November drizzle

at first,

then hard pellets of hail

that shattered our charity-bought crockery.

We were clever, then —

read books,

studied words and symbols

(they would eventually tells us to turn our backs on these and find real jobs) —

but this, we failed to comprehend.

They offered no other explanation

than empty upturned pockets.

The Second Apple

So after First Adam left
and Eve went with him
they tried again

but this time they brought them
to the centre of the garden
and they showed them
the Tree of Knowledge
and said go for it
no seriously
we don't mind

and wouldn't you know it--
it worked
and no one left

So things are okay up there now
Second Eve does the garden and
Second Adam just walks everywhere
like he's forgotten to call some
long-forgotten relative
they're pretty happy
as far as these things go
though sometimes they dream about
the taste of apples or
the breath of another
on each other's cheek

but mostly it's sunsets in lawn chairs
by the garden on the hill
and the feeling of the company of a world
without neighbours    to yell at
or dogs   to let out
or dishes    to break

and it's pretty good
let me tell you so far
it's pretty good

Untitled #?

This world of guilty pleasures
referring back to the same old images
which all mean nothing
It seems I should write about
poor little pigeons
squirrels
cats
and roadkill
Guts of belly
and blood soaked fur
cracked skulls
on the curb side
the important
real stuff
no more serial criticism
the bullshit will rot hot
the rhetoric to be debatable
datable
thus,
therefore,
a lack thereof:
Hope.
Could never commit myself
to the longevity
of a tattoo,
she'd end up a nihilist
another cold, dead heart
Tentacles sucking pores
pouring rain
living by ideals
to accept violence
but do not tell it;
to tell violence
but do not show it;
to show violence
but do not do it;
to do violence
but do not do it too badly.
Do you know where I'm coming from?
Besides my balls
and chain
green in the face
leaving it to the reader
to interpret
to stir it hot.
But,
make it real
ambiguous
he says
not for the benefit of the reader
but to counter all depth
with shallow notions
of shallow ideologies
of mass
market
topic
laden
cuckoo nests,
experimental frameworks
of the NAIVE
NAIVE
NAIVE.
Writers, writers,
call me academic,
intellectual;
I smoked five joints, drank seven beers, ate cake and pizza and it all ended up in the toilet.
Brain fizzling.
Call it excess,
I call it the circle of life
the holy grail
and the fountain.
Can you believe
they have once mistaken me
for a Jesusfreak?
& I have simply
mistaken them all for freaks.

Bristol4

nothing ever really finishes —

you always end up some place new

after where you last were

and somewhere else

after that

my life fits in 2 suitcases and a backpack

and even most of that is superfluous —

i don't need 9 button-down shirts

and 28 pairs of socks

or so many books

i hoard in order to feel rooted

as i move to bigger, better, brighter

i seriously consider

scattering my stuff on the way

like golden leaves in the autumn wind —

shed my leather coat and posh boots

walk off barefooted to see things

instead of owning them

Share the Night

Today, I realized that I'm an angry man.
I tricked myself into believing that I was just
"tired".
But I let myself go for five seconds
and felt the hate.
Hate for being tricked by myself and
others.
Hate for knowing what I want and being
blocked.
Hate for hate being able to get to
me.
Hate for knowing that I still think about the
off switch that everyone supposedly has
for their brains.

Life doesn't work that way.
At least, not in my experience.
Maybe I need that off switch.
Or maybe I need to yell and scream
and beat my chest, jump around,
and aimlessly punch amongst people.
Maybe it'd be best if I took a vow
of silence.

---
---
---

Maybe maybe maybe. Fuck.

I wish I had some kind of clarity.
Some kind of certainty.
But I don't and some tell me
"That's life."
and I don't want to believe them.
Nor do I agree.
Because people who stop themselves
at "that's life" and never question "Why?
Why is that life?" should abstain
from conversation with me.

I need my friends to share the night,
a cold, cold night,
laying in sharp grass in a park
staring at the few stars we can see
in this city,
talking about "Why?" instead of
having awkward silences after a
quick and short "That's life."

Sometimes Lover (continued)

"Stop," she says. "Tell me something different."

Her demand falls flat, cold. She looks at him meaningfully. Although he is aware of this, he can not decipher the meaning. She plays with the long, delicate stem of her wine glass, almost takes it between her fingers, but then opts for water instead.

She brings the clear, full glass to her lips and drinks. He thinks she will stop after one mouthful, but she goes on. She raises the glass higher as she drinks, throws back her head so he can see her small, hard Adam's apple bobbing up and down as she swallows. He is troubled by this — the mechanics and pipes of her body, the things she can not hide with makeup or jewelry or clothing. The things that make her function, hold her alive. He feels as if it is something he shouldn't be seeing, but revels in being able to stare at it: the pale, taunt skin of the neck, the blue veins and bulging tendons.

She places the empty glass back on the table.

"I know this story already," she says. "I know it too well. It has a sad ending —"

"It doesn't have to have a sad ending."

"Yes, it does."

Pause.

"Tell me a story with a happy ending," she asks.

"I'm not good at that kind of story."

"What kind of writer are you, then?"

He hopes she didn't mean to put so much venom in her tone, but the fact that she did certainly means there was an intention to hurt. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he is hurt. She wounds him deeply with her sharp, careless words. He goes on asking for them, like some masochist.

"I'm a tragic writer, I suppose." He attempts sarcasm. "Both my life and work are tragedies."

"How unfortunate," she says neutrally.

He looks at the table, averting her stare.

"You haven't touched your wine."

"I don't like Italians."

"That's new."

"A lot of things have changed," she says. For a moment he thinks he hears her chocking back a sob. "You have no idea."

Plea (inspired by Modest Mouse and Listener)

I don't know what I'm chasing
I don't know your name
I never said that you should die
I just said that you might like it
I just suggested that you try it
Take it back if it ain't your thing
But maybe they'll give you
A store credit.

I've built up quite a reputation
For tearing down buildings
and seeing their bones
With the people in them.
I've built up quite a reputation
For accidental product placement
of beliefs. They're for everyone.
They're easy to use.

This town got smaller as I grew.
This cup got empty as I filled
myself. This house got colder,
but everyone's complaining about the heat.
How long until I can get out of bed
and say "Hold my head for me,
I am tired. I've been using my neck
for a while and I've even failed at that."

I missed the sign, apparently.
I have to play this game, apparently.
Truth is, I've tried and it's worked.
I just want you to want me on your own.
I think there'll be another sign.
I think you like me, too.
What it means is beyond me,
but it feels pretty nice.

I don't know what I'm chasing.
I've known your name for a while.
I've built up quite a reputation
For taking things out of context.
I've preached clarity before
and now I see that it's harder
for others to achieve. I have.
(most times)

Here's all I have to tell you:

"This is my personal space.
You are welcome to be in it, but
Understand that this means
That I need to be in yours, too.
I know that it takes a while
for anyone to allow this to another,
but I've grown enough to let
refusal be a high five for effort."

Bristol3

Have you been out on the downs lately?

Have you seen the crows there?

Maybe they are ravens.

I wouldn't know the difference.

Let's say they're ravens —

It sounds more literary.

I went jogging there last Tuesday

And noticed them,

All squat and ugly

In the long, wet grass.

They bob along awkwardly

Between the runners

And footballs and students.

Sometimes they croak —

I suppose that's to be expected

Of a raven.

Sometimes they fly,

Wings folded back —

A flight full of effort,

Quickly finished.

They are dispersed —

Just a handful of them —

Black specks in the green.

They are waiting for something,

Stationed there like bodyguards

On a landing pad.

Grant

An Italian Sonnet

The stubble only stuttering across
Your (sadly) uncleft chin. The mesa of a
Mole upon your neck, the mark of a lover
Surrendered to the beast. Your eyes agloss

With eager fear, transfixed on the horizon
Still. The net upon your skin, it sears
You to the bone. Legs thrash as death comes near.
Head pressed against the alter of my thighs,

You plead for your release, gripping ankles.
A chortled frenzy rises from between
Your grinding teeth. The apex of your horror:

A groan, contortion in weird angles.
All covered in a cold and sickened sheen,
All limp, you eye the open door.

Sleeping with Open Eyes

We used to play pretend

until one day it became real

The games, they stopped being fun

yet we continued on,

trying to capture our lost innocence

I Know That You Are Home

I know that you are home
when I hear you from
beyond the staircase and
you break my concentration with
the open heart of song;

and I listen like a man
who has spoken all his life

but never heard before.

untitled #3

this
primordial waterfall
sunken
ship
dry.

Penumbra

There one day appears a dull ache
in the form of a cold vertical burn
running the length of the windpipe,
as though autumn air was filling the lungs
after a long run, as though autumn
was filling the body with the frost
of a promised but not yet present winter.
It appears, settles with nettled spokes,
drags skin and hair down to mingle with the silent fall
of maple leaves and brown staghorn branches,
littering the ground under the soles of summer shoes
with a halfhearted reminder of cloudless light
and sun that did not just blind but warmed,
and a body that did not just walk inside of coats,
but inside freckled skin that, until sunset, lay on grass
to watch the purple bruise of darkness seep,
knowing of the ache to soon set in,
trying not to think about the darkness as bad,
because really all that nightfall is
is a shadow cast in slow motion.

Bristol2

Nose clogged with cold

Cheeks flushed from the walk's mild effort

Shoulders borne down with books

I bite into my apple

The fruit's firm flesh

Tears and cracks open

Sweet, tangy pulp fills my mouth

Crisp juices burst and

Tickle my gums

Out of breath

I inhale through my mouth

Opened wide

A generous smile

I taste Autumn air

I breathe apple

It's my day and I feel like posting.

Schoolyard Tracheotomy

I blame all of you for what I've become.
Please notice that I use "blame" and not
"attribute" or whatever the fuck else
would be complimentary.

I blame you. and you. and you.
and you.
and you. and you. and you. and you.
and you.
and you. and you and you you you and you
and you.

especially you.

Lord of Mornings

Perhaps this was the original cause of death,

boredom.

Tired, of the abyss which is my time.

Perhaps coffee, the sweet lord of mornings

will break me from boredom's hold on me,

that sorcerer.

Yet the last time I broke my pact

(with the lord of mornings),

worshipping him with a Medium sized coffee well past noon,

I paid the consequences.

I wish not to go back to that dreadful 95 minutes.

A predicament, is where I find myself.

Oh look, a book,

Oh sweet escape.

I praise thee.

there is a girl

there is a girl and her dog
on the sidewalk

(there is always a girl
so the dog just seems
extraneous at this point
but we'll go with it for now)

she is the girl i thought of
when i lay half awake on Saturday morning
expecting her to walk through my door
not knowing she expected
the same of me

she is the girl of my day wasted
looking at dinosaur skeletons
in the Canadian Museum of Nature
hoping for a conversation
about early equines

the day that wasted but did not rot
did not bloat and bulge and burst
like what might be expected
of a dream, but
rather fell to the sidewalk

like the other thousand forgotten days
(that are sitting on piles
in impoverished countries
with small children climbing
looking over the mounds of wreckage looking in
the Hills and Mounds of Bad Days
for what they (as children
who cannot, or so we observe,
do Nothing) consider Days Well Passed)

but this one has returned
this one remains
and as she sits on the sidewalk
and i do not know if
she is there for me

but i can only assume
that the dog was there
to catch my attention

Generation HP

Hey, so I haven't got anything for heartrape this week, but I posted a confessional essay on my personal blog about how awesome Harry Potter is and how potentially awesome the books made us because we grew up with them.

Anyway, I'd appreciate it if some of you took a look at it and told me what you think. The essay can be read here. Thanks!

CAFS

Breathing August

I need help with this. I can't figure out how or where to edit, but know that it needs polishing. I've been ruminating on it since August.


i.

“You made me love myself”
I say
though not to you
because you’re never here
to hear my words.
I store it instead
in the ossuary for words,
for my words to you,
for the ones that never grew
strong enough like the bones they should have been
to give a skeletal rendition
to this thing we call –
or rather that I call –
us.



ii.

I perpetuate this perfunctory business
of making these words for you,
out of air and flecks of sunshine
that float around my room in bits of solar radiation,
because I need to extract these words
through the slats of my ribs,
and have no choice
but to curve my existence
along the circumference of your
gravitational tug.



iii.

I store these words on paper,
file them away in neat rolls
(rolled because the only place I have
to store them is a Payless shoebox).
They coil in fetal positions;
words half-baked, premature,
and wrong
in some fundamental way,
because I realize that the truth of it is
I have never actually written
a love letter –
to you or anyone else –
and I then become obsessed with understanding how.



iv.

It makes no sense to me
to deconstruct along the feral cracks
of feeling
to quote platitudes exaggerated
to a cosmic scale
while in the meantime
our circumstellar selves rotate
around the star of our burning immediacy.
There is no way to trap that emphatic necessity for nowness
itching raw red skin
beneath which cells fight the fever infecting humanity
because it turns out we were never
supposed to feel this way.



v.

Imbued with biology for feeling sensations
but not for feeling
and even then the feel is obsessive in its need
and gored by the horn of some mythological beast
leaking roses and moonlight from the wound.
How to transfer, then, that acquisition
of a caught ephemeral thing
to paper with the tired keys
of a punch-drunk typewriter.



vi.

I try and bind that feeling to my fingers
so that the only way that it can escape is
through the ends of the mechanized alphabet letters
where it is pinned, pressed, stained
against the inked ribbon
to leave its mark forever
before it leaves to mutate
and infect again
and scoff at all the clever antibodies that finally allowed
for an army of white blood to conquer,
biding their time before they wash said blood red again
with blushes and overflowing arteries
and the rush of orgasm.



vii.

No, the feeling flies,
unbound, never quite managing
to be spoken of with truth, just platitudes
from amourous tongue lips and fingertips
and breaths spoken into displaced pillowcases
in the sleepy haze
of the thumping pulse of release.
These moments are real,
but they are moments
and anyone who thinks that moments justify truths
has to learn that reality cannot rest on abstraction
from a time that can never be preserved
or even proven.



viii.

I sit in front of my yellow paper
curled into the protective lip of my typewriter
and I imagine it as being the thing to expel my words
a separate being from myself
speaking these words
that aren’t actually
- I swear they’re not -
my own.
A mechanical scapegoat
that gives my soul absolution
from this writing, this art that I can’t help but which fires
down my bloodstream like arrows or cannons shot from embrasures
to break down the flesh of my body from the inside out
with these words
all these words
that die before they reach their destination
because I destroy them even as I create them:
filicidal desperation
to save me from your eyes
your bitter twisted flash of judgment
knocking in my teeth as I smile
as if you’d smashed in the true source from which my words had come
spuming madness in the form of a carefully crafted alphabet,
along the paragraphed lines that aren’t love letters
but rather the breakdown of their inherent theory
as if they were a science
and I their pitiable moon-bleached lab technician
growing specimens in agar
and prodding the Petri dishes for authentic poetry
finding only the petulant bacteria
and mould that grows on disused emotion
and stagnant ossuaries of words.



ix.

My crumbling carpal bones find themselves
failing to find what it is they strive to pry from my mind
since they can’t even pinpoint if it exists
and all the while trying to understand the form of love letters
and their purpose
because in the end,
I decide, and so do they,
love letters don’t make anyone happy,
but rather entomb a feeling that should never be contaminated

with perpetuity.

Looking through the Window

I see the pain of a generation

filled with lies

disguised as promises.

I hear the cries at night,

they pierce me and leave me

breathless with despair.

Desperation kicks in,

programmed from within

with time, the cries subside

as the silence ensues

it spreads;

a disease.

Eating up mankind

until only one voice remains

A disorder of chaotic immensity.

Bristol1

It's very wet here —

Although that's to be expected,

From outside one thinks of England as a grassy rock

Thrown against the fog and hail

Moulding there in the cold winds

Like a piece of old cheddar

In the channel.

The humidity seeps through

Thick socks, sweaters, woolen scarves

Looped thrice around the throat —

Any fissure and your pale, tender skin

Will prickle and shiver.

The clammy cold chills through knits

And flesh

To the bone.

Inside,

The kettle whistles

Blows a hot welcome geyser —

A jet of steam around which humans huddle.

Wrap your fingers around the mug

And already you feel the stiffness smoothed out —

Released, knuckles bending/unbending again —

But is it really good, to add more fluid to the balance,

To gorge yourself with more wetness?

Meanwhile,

Windows steam up, blown opaque with humidity —

They perspire, pearls of water forming —

Sliding down the panes —

Clear rivulets in their wakes —

A crystalline pointillist map of droplets and

Cold, warped smears, glistening beads falling

Collecting themselves,

Running down in branched streams —

Creeping, alive —

Wet.

Hand me the towel.

Cliff Jumps

Storm in tableau:
the waves a mountain falling
towad the face of the rocks,
lightning half off the ground--
the immobile sound of
one hand clapping.

wait and

one more step
to the edge of the cliff
with the spray half on your face--
the deafened air still ringing
from thunder's passing.

wait and

you are there with me here
at the edge between open and closed,
stricken and calm--
while below us erosion takes
the fastest ourse
and the sky above shows
no signs of ceasing and
no signs of going on.