What have we become?
We who used to sit in my bedroom
listening to Beatles records on headphones.
We spoke of the future.
We planned our advance.
How many cups of coffee have we consumed
in the over 30 years we've known one another?
A private village buzzing with secret flies.
An isolated two merged in one thought.
Teenage boys. Teenage men.
Men. Yes, we became men.
Grown up. Living in our own apartment.
Peanut butter and coffee in the cupboard.
Bread and margarine in the fridge.
Macaroni and Cheese for supper.
Living the good life!
University. Late night studies.
Crammed in between the parties.
Laundry day. Bags and bags of
rumpled semen stained clothes,
dumped like angry bitches
into industrial machines.
Video games and cigarettes.
Philosophy and politics.
We and our gang of other anxious young men
gathering in groups for comfort.
Planning on how we'd get laid.
Mostly going home alone and jacking off.
We grew older. Old.
Yes, I suppose we are now old men.
Just a wee bit past middle-aged.
Infrequently connecting. Suggesting times
we could meet.
Dinner and a Movie perhaps? Have we become that old?
Life goes on and has gone on.
Marriages begun. Marriages ended.
Husband. Father. Having Kids. Children. Teenagers. Young adults.
Grandfather now.
You've lost your hair. I didn't take it, but still it is lost.
Mine remains, but rude strands of grey pop
up like alabaster whores
on parade.
Keep it between ourselves, but I colour mine now.
Oh yes. Like a vain woman rushing to her
makeover session, I plop
The gunk on my head and
wait for it to pretend for me.
I'm crabby in the mornings. Irritated in the afternoons. Pissed off
by the coming of the night. Adulthood.
Isn't it grand?!
Do you still listen to the same music we used to love?
Pop on a Beatles song and sing along, planning on how
to change the planet?
Me. I don't give a fuck about the planet anymore. Let it rot
into stinking piles of dung.
I'm involved in my own existing now.
Are you?
We're in the final stages of living. Neither sad nor morbid.
Simply a fact.
Good twenty, thirty years left.
Let's promise each other to meet again
a few more times before our funerals.
Asleep, where the dreams
curved away, leaving
you behind.
Those instant pictures that
shape the false
impressions.
Do you remember
those shadows?
This is the only time
the dusty photo albums
become
reality shows.
Stranded on islands.
Strangers of different
races.
We were even strangers
when we met. We never did
get to
know one another.
This is what I realize.
Falling asleep
the best
defence to facing
the
mourning.
We can be what we want to be.
That is the promise
we gather to ourselves.
Flickering moments of
intensity that
crawl away
like wedding bands
thrown into the trash.
Asleep, where the dreams
curved away, leaving
you behind.
The flash of urban
machine demonstrates
persistence.
Rubber slithering
on absorbing iron.
Interlocking harmonized echoes
scan in electromagnetic
trains.
Tracks dispersed across
the spectrum
of nothing.
Spaces.
That is this country.
We who've been in residence here
know the
detachment of our flag.
Walking shoes
of
walking men.
Back and forth, back and forth.
Sonar devices clamped like cancer
to their ears.
Listening to private noises
in the middle of a cluster.
We were thinking alike.
Hide in trains and
acclaim
the vacuum
of
performing.
Nylon stockings over face.
The photographed sequence of
choreographed events
cascade over and over
into paths never spoken of.
Age one on the mounted
message is clear as drizzled wings
sneered by ornaments in drag.
A double tone of tolerance
is wanted but is not welcomed.
Were we still dancing when the
music did not mean anything to
us anymore?
Artificial roses on the table.
Plastic food in the fridge.
We sat for dinner in solemn
manifestation.
My plate was full.
My heart was void.
Null and void.
Void and null.
When I break out of
my chrysalis, will you
still remember
how to comb your hair?
Across the snowing intemperance
streamed colours named,
yet not used.
Null and void.
Void and null.
In the obscurity
of the humiliated
steeples
androids sob.
Neoprene murmurs
shriek out
cellophane fabrications.
Listen for prosthetics
dropping
to the surface
of heartbeats
and silence.
Promenade like
falling sleet
to chambers
of hurting.
Infra-red warmth
flashing
on and off
through the body.
In the shadows
of perspective
mud rots
in
tones of
triviality.
Agitated odours twitter
in the stimulating scent of corsages
corrupted and bronzed.
Submissive to sleeping
hands gesturing
symbols of
expiration.
Please let me
hold you
one more time.
Like an assassin,
the hinting of a new period
requests its entrance.
Under sheets of
seasonal heat,
the
precipitation
swings in enlightened
rasping.
Please let me
hold you
one more time.
Stupidity disgusts me,
and so do you.
Growling like a lion.
As if somehow I should
be impressed
with your tangible lying and
your suits and ties.
Self deluded fuck fuck's
who think that
the decisions they make
are sterile and important.
Be still my heart!
The Call Centre explodes with
angry customers.
Coerced into complacency with visions
of sugar plum fairies
stuck up their asses.
The world explodes around them.
There is dying right on the streets
of the suburbs
they are imprisoned in.
A plastic bowl and a baseball cap.
Football and beer,
ice cream and phoney.
I'm not dying inside. I've never been alive
to begin with.
Save for one brief period when I was a boy,
Before they manipulated imagination
away from me.
When I believed in aliens and other words,
spoke with joy of kingdoms pretended
and animals always speaking.
Correctness corrupts. The middle ground swallows
intelligence and spits it out
like cum from a penis.
I'm swallowed whole.
Compressed and stagnant.
Stagnant and compressed.
Angry lips blistered by bitching members
of the lower classes.
Soup Kitchens and Food Banks.
Food Banks and Soup Kitchens.
Rushing feet walking by the poverty stricken.
No time, no time, no time to
connect with humanity.
Jesus on their necks.
Christ on their lips.
Hearts that are foreign to Him.
Swirling, swirling and becoming consumptive.
Living from cheque to cheque.
Televisions that are never turned off.
Not living, but watching other people
pretend that they are living.
Ignoble diseases celebrated by celebrities.
Causes and motions of Parliament.
Words repeated over and over.
Hurting. Always hurting. Broken hearts and shadow thoughts.
Shadow thoughts and broken hearts.
My skin escalates with zealous precipitation
as my nerves evolve,
Waiting for your eventual embrace,
your renunciation.
Before touching we gape in intimate knowledge.
You roll my underwear down my legs.
I salute in male fashion.
Sliding tongue over penis,
sliding penis into mouth.
I close my eyes, groaning in indulgence.
Your tongue tickles in passionate waves
of temporary passion.
I'm at your mercy. I'm your slave.
Your sucking lips the only noise
above my sighs.
6 inches in, 6 inches out.
Up and down I watch
your head perform.
Your hands caressing my testicles.
Your finger tracing on my scrotum.
Closer I arrive to mindless phase.
Lying when I whisper
"I promise not to cum in your mouth."
And when I do, holding your head
forcing you to swallow.
Next time, I promise to return the favour.
Tonight, do not talk to me of love.
I will not listen. I've heard too much
and felt too little.
Now I have heard nothing
for so long
it has become my
frame of reference.
I could be bitter, this I know.
I should rebuke myself
for such self explorations.
Tonight, do not talk to me of love.
I am not interested in symbols of comfort.
Nor do I find myself wanting
to hear your thoughts.
Your mouth looks to me like a
flapping sign advertising hand cream.
So oddly suspicious of what I assume
are your intentions.
Tonight, do not talk to me of love.
Talk to me instead of snow flakes and
poisoned apples.
Share with me your tales of how
strangers have died.
You are like that to me. A stranger
that I've slept with
for so many years.
A face I can put a name to, but not an emotion.
A body that I can fuck, but not love.
It's interesting how the
wedding pictures have dulled in intensity
as the days and nights have evolved.
Tonight, do not talk to me of love.
I will not listen. I've heard too much
and felt too little.
Now I have heard nothing
for so long
it has become my
frame of reference.
Forever is lasting forever.
Long shallow trips into
the curve of concentration
which reveals
naked wires.
Out of body nothing.
I collect my toys and go home.
I am not playing with you any-more.
Leave me alone, don't talk to me.
I am the shadow that hurts you in the light.
I am the pain that calls you from the mind.
Sweating worry builds
until it
gathers the morons for another
chance at salvation.
At redemption.
At unfilled judgements
dreadful in expiry.
I will fall into the gloom and shatter every
picture I encounter.
Yesterday a shape emerged
from the debris of animation.
And it called out to me.
I answered in monotones of disgust.
I will not play this game any-more.
Of cleaning the house and shipping out
images of a life I am supposed to be
having
It is death, you see,
these traps that have been set for me.
Once I spoke in terms of being me.
Yet, the demented voices demanded that
to conform one must submerge.
Be emptied.
Be shallow.
"How are you?"
"Well I am fine"
Please, no more empty stupid phrases that
collect like weeds.
Clogging hope.
Dampening ambition.
Play along.
Stand still and let the waves of iron
sponge across your sentiments.
Enclose you.
Trap your hope.
Die a death that denies a coffin.
I rip open the plastic bag
that has been wrapped around me.
Wretched skies overhead, sun vivid and gilded.
My feet travelling, no set destination.
Birds chattering around my cognizance,
I think I'm already there?
Now where?
Where have I been going?
What laced path have
I set for myself?
Jungles grow and
deserts burn,
simple lives
get complicated.
Maybe one and one is
actually half a dozen?
And flies won't sit on
garbage if the mood
doesn't strike them...
Who knows what life
has to surrender?
I'm already there, I think.
Already travelling its path.
Clean underwear and
a few dollars in pocket.
Method plain and self-explained.
Don't bother me with
game-plans and rules.
Whatever you say, I
know I am
already there.
The old woman.
She liked to drink.
It helped her create a
brand new identify for herself.
She lived in a world of
mixed alliances; cultures clashing
Love and respect lacking.
Arguments and shouting.
Suffering and despair,
so she liked to drink.
The old woman.
It created a brand new
sense of purpose, of suicides
attempted late a night.
Of holiday wars with family joy.
Dissension, crying children.
The old woman.
She liked to drink.
Silent witness to another
frame of disease. Her compulsion
dominating her existence.
Neglected and neglecting,
suppressing and suppressed.
The need to drink larger
than the need for stability.
Her focus centred
on escapism, on rejection.
The old woman.
She likes to drink.
She died, the old woman,
before she retired.
In a hospital bed with
delusions in her
mind. Her path
set years before. Her
anguish ended, finalized.
Another credit to the
addicted cult.
The old woman.
She liked to drink.
It killed her.
Red poppies stuck like glue
on everybody's coats.
"Remember our veterans", they cry.
"They died for our freedom" screams
reactionary morons who
ignore that "they"
murdered other people.
"Ah, but it's not murder if it's done by
no mind drones on our side!"
they explain.
Honour our soldiers?
So I'm to celebrate men killing
other men?
Not I. I refuse to shout praises for
champions of death.
Where is the shame of these
people who participated
in such evil?
Guns and bombs do not bring peace.
War does not bring freedom.
No. These I refuse to worship.
Instead, I voice my support for
those who speak and live
against war.
There is no such thing as a good soldier.
Either side, the thinking is flawed.
Propaganda may erase
the truth from
red poppy filled eyes,
but these are not people to respect.
If you kill, you are a murderer.
If you destroy you are wrong.
Uniforms do not make right or wrong.
Singing silly warrior chants do
not speak of courage.
Senseless sheep who have allowed themselves
to be conned into thinking
that theatres of death
are to be
remembered forever.
Instead, we should be ashamed of the
wars we engaged in.
This is not how God commanded us to live.
No mention in the teachings of Christ
that suggested
killing one another
was to be
admired.
"But they fought for your freedom!", the mind dead masses
insist on believing.
What nonsense, I think. They fought for greed
and corporate profit.
Duped into killing and dying by men who stay at
home and make
valiant speeches
about
bravery and honour.
Stitching flags to present to widows and mothers, almost
delirious as they salivate over the
money they will make
from the adventure.
So please, don't wave your red poppies
in my face as if God had
painted them on your chests.
I am ashamed of anyone in my family
who allowed themselves to
conned into marching to destruction.
I am ashamed of my country when it participates in war.
Peace does not arrive at the hands of violence.
Red poppies stuck like glue
on everybody's coats.
Bring down the borders, baby,
bring them down.
Stop pretending skin changes
on either side
of an
imaginary line.
Dude, it's just a made up name
for a made up place.
It separates us; conforms us; destroys us.
We pretend some are in and some are out.
This piece of the puzzle is all ours!
We've stuck a piece of fabric on a pole;
on that fabric we've put a symbol.
A symbol that only holds relevance
if we all pretend it does.
Bring down the borders, baby,
bring them down.
It's time, isn't it yet?
Isn't it really time to
put away illusionary arrogance.
To do as Jesus said and love one another.
"All you need is love" someone famous sang
not so long ago.
We begin to not be men
when we assume differences
exist from other men.
We're all just trying to get by.
Trying to live as best we can.
Working at jobs we hate
to make a little money.
Pay-cheque to pay-cheque, day by day.
We may wear different coloured pants,
but we all piss the same way.
Bring down the borders, baby,
bring them down.
Some of us on the planet hoard almost
all of the supplies.
Bitch and moan when the rest want to share
in the spoils.
Talk about how foreign they are.
How different.
How wrong in thought.
Surely only our piece of the planet
is the most civilized zoo!
Justify any amount of violence
because the men on the
other side of the line
are not us.
Stop it.
Grow the fuck up.
Wake up people.
Do you really think hating everybody
is pushing us ahead?
Bring down the borders, baby,
bring them down.
For me the lugging of the luggage
becomes unusually difficult.
One more day of life, and so
I'll live. Send flowers to anyone
who walks in their death. Send
them best wishes and solitude.
Washing the dishes, I spoke
words to myself in the kitchen.
Verbal zooming. Master baiting
of the species I enjoy. Overnight
it will all change. Reshaped and
refocused. Finishing the dishes,
I dry my hands and hit my
eyeballs with a knife.
The temperament drops. The
temperature follows. I sit in
my favourite spot, rolling
certain horizontals in prepared
method of becoming. Long
showers of rain splatter
against the window. Pick up
the Remote Control and
imagine the stupidity of
American sit-coms.
"Thank God I'm not anything!",
I mutter in disdain.
A new web is woven by the
spider who lives in my house.
She carefully passes by me
as I scratch the surface
of my hands.
The cushions on the coach
seem agitated, and so I too
was aggravated. Don't
colour in the picture yet.
For me the lugging of the luggage
becomes unusually difficult.
Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with you.
The Lord is with me too.
He whispers in loud soothing words
that resonate like
liquid softly fluent.
His watchfulness always lingering
in the pushing of
this steel plated city
where I am trapped.
Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with you.
The Virgin Queen of Heaven
intercedes for all of us.
She intercedes for me too.
She prays in splendid atmosphere
anguishing over every
sin I am thinking.
Her once-flesh hands twinned in
ever steady prayer.
Shapes populate in my always troubled
daily life.
They upset and tangle the soothing
urgings I feel God placing
in my contemplations.
Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with you.
The pleasing phasing of spiritual halo's
surrounds me in constant
reassurances.
I'm praying mental rosaries, intoning
words familiar, yet, so loved.
So firm in comfortable places where
I come to God.
This straggling pretence of reality
that we call human-kind;
is not as clear as the affable prayers
of Blessed Mary, my holy Mother.
Standing or sitting does not matter.
Nothing of flesh
ever does.
What is critical are the prayers of
faithful gathered
in presence in Christ's Sacred Mass.
I shall be there too, joining my voice
in time honoured assistance,
"Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with you."
Don't leave me.
Restless lights
tremble on and off.
Sanity bent and brown,
submissive living.
Drying clothes
tumbling around
and around
and around.
You are like a fire
that has been extinguished.
Glowing memory.
Hissing water.
Failing assassin
that kills the
wrong ambition.
Under wheels of
rolling indifference,
winter, spring, summer
and fall.
Succumbing to the
blaring ending.
Under sheets once white
and now
tattered and forgotten.
Succinctly, as a pen being laid to rest,
The creative killer, foreign and tall.
A mixture of apathy was manifest;
Like a bowl of water, or a single call.
At Ouellette Avenue in Windsor he arrived,
His passions evident and surely not deprived.
Tired, and hungry, aching from several ailments,
He professed with affirmations of dark and light.
Known to be one openly seeking compliments,
To his friends, he was a fickle as day to night.
Heads turning as he yawned and then he spoke,
Of illustrations ripped to shreds, and also broke.
Enough of this professing of his constant labour!
His embraces as shallow as the love of his honesty.
Parables of nonsense were his party favours.
No relief to be had, no purpose to think free.
The young man would grow to old man nurtured
By the approaching chasm that is to be his future.
Munda cor meum ac labia mea, omnipotens Deus.
For my heart has ached with the pain
of separation from You. My lips have
spoken words that have caused others
to be in turmoil.
Perevangelica dicta deleantur nostra delicta.
For only in the Gospel will my answers be,
through the Christ, the Redeemer, my
redemption from this life of multiple lies.
Credo in unum Deum.
For both Scripture and Tradition tell
me this is how He exists. Our common
Lord who will wash clean the heart.
In spiritu humilitatis et in animo
contrito suscipiamur a te, Domine:
et sic fiat sacrificium nostrum in
conspectu tuo hodie, ut placeat
tibi, Domine Deus.
Let everything within me live up
to the words I pray. May every
promise, to you, Good Lord, be
everything to me.
For only in the Father,
only in the Son,
only in the holy Spirit,
is found the truth I have so
deeply been trying to reclaim.
Munda cor meum ac labia mea, omnipotens Deus.
Every word of disobedience
comes with a cost.
Ceaseless wounds that never heal.
Forgotten words never shared.
A world made of chemical reactions
and liquid presumptions,
and gravity..
Heating water on the stove to boil
away the skin.
Burn the memories. Shuffle them
away from the thinking.
Broken promises and lying vowels.
Shaking hands and nodding heads.
It's what it is.
Crucifix dangling from neck.
Rosary beads tightly held in hand.
Praying.
Words mumbled. God hears them
as clear as glass.
In the darkest hours, I refuse to change.
I wait for my grave. I picture
carved words on the
headstone.
My name.
The dates of birth and death.
I will sleep in.
The entire weekend will be wasted.
The circle completes itself.
Every word of disobedience
comes with a cost.
