how lonely sits
the city says
lamentations

guess this mouse has what you americans call post traumatic
stress disorder,
think of it more like
a path for the
eyes.

one where eyes are finally forced away
from the works of hands
by the knock knock
knocking on
heaven's door,
everybody's saying,
hodi hapa? something's
wrong if no one's answering; tonight.

my neighbor whose
name is eej (for
real) came to
the hut with
his friend.

i said do you
have siblings
he said
i did

oh

said i

you are living
my worst nightmare
one thing about an african

childhood, they say fatalism, you say you
would think about death too
and who knows

what you'd
look
like

tonight by the bagel van i said bunkle
i gotta problem
what's your problem said he
well i think i'm not wearing enough colors
no said he you're missing a bright splash in the orange red family

who knows what we all look like
inside the infinite space
of our souls

wonder if
blue means purity or
green means beauty
or red means strength
or love
or love

well
we all look
pretty much
the same asleep

hatred doesn't look
different in one
eye or another

but why does
it have to
be in the
eyes of
anyone

this mouse has
been asking
since
child
hood

why
why
why

the cruelty

but
yet
still and always

(you always did care for me yeah
you always did share with me yeah)

the book of jonah makes me
think of sea legs
and just everything, you know

all the palm trees
the huts
the nonvoices

the blessings rain down
an ocean sunsetting
on an Ocean sky

siblings

be strong the
good kind of
dangerous

is
the



fire

nothing sounds as final as the piercing words
that fall like bricks from your mouth,
nothing feels as final as your fingers
that slip easily out of my grip,
nothing smells as final as the perfume
that i know is certainly not mine,
nothing tastes as final as the last kiss
that lingers on my cracked lips,
and nothing at all looks as final as the end of your coat
that sways in rhythm with your footsteps
as you walk away.
...but you know what?
nothing is as satisfying as you finally out of my life.

5:00 am - Happy New Year!

I look like I should be a musician not a poet.

"It's so easy being a poet
so hard being a man"
      - Charles Bukowski

----

5:14 am - Passing Rocklea, no sign of the dawn.

Coopers Plains station.
3 people get on.

Florescent lights cast a spell of sleep.
I wish I could sleep right now.
Eyelids droop like sad flowers  from a convenience store.
I write metaphors like a drunken amateur.

Trinder park - Sounds like a bad neighbourhood.
FUCK ME ITS WOODRIDGE.

Where even the McDonalds sign is fucked.

XxXxxxxxx, Xxxxxx Xxxxxx :
She could be fun. So tight, she sometimes felt  illegal.
Tight and bald. I would slide up to the balls.
She loved it rough,
golden hair wrapped around my fingers
as she was pushed into the pillow.
She was loud in the mornings.
I could feel her tight ass
grinding against my thighs
as I fucked her harder  and harder.
Until I came :
either inside her.
Or on her chest.
Or in her prim
pink
suburban mouth.
Tightening my grip on her hair as the hot semen spurted against the back of  her throat.
The head of my cock, throbbing.
That only happened twice though.

----

5:37 am - The Dawn begins to rise over the Suburban Nation.

Final remnants of night
twinkle like stars
against the silhouette
of society.
House lights
Street lights
(and the omnipresent)
fluorescent light.

Beenleigh station - A pinch faced older woman gets on.
Business suit, lunch box.
Short hair, glasses.
Her earrings are imitation mother of pearl
(step-mother of pearl?)
She  sits next to a window covered in graffiti.
Prim, tight  mouth
incarnadine lipstick.

Over in the distance a smokestack cuts through the sky above the horizon.
Trees do mask the sun and sky.

"Hippies; they spend their whole life trying  to get to a microphone and when they do, they don't tell anyone  to fuck off." - The Wolfman.

----

5:52 am - One more stop.

The clouds  are the colour of smoke against the pearl blue sky.

----

6:00 am - Arrival.

Clouds are tinged with fire and blood
incandescently.
You can watch it spread and grow
with intensity.

Taxi driver  was  a foul mouthed Indian.

you made me so sick
you made me so sick i made myself sick
with the intention of ending up in the hospital
or better yet, dead
all in hopes that i could give you a taste
of your own medicine:
layers and layers and layers of pain.

but that was one long drawn out evil endeavour
and i'm glad i didn't succeed
because life shouldn't be spent with the intention
of trying to die
just to prove something to someone else
because no matter how much death
is glamorized in this goddamned society
there is nothing glamorous
about it
and in the end you will prove
nothing

there is nothing glamorous about
sticking your head in an oven
or drinking yourself into a stupor every single night
only to forget what you did or said or felt the next morning
there is nothing glamorous about
sticking your fingers down your throat
or carving poetic words into your inner thigh
just so you can feel or un-feel something

trying to die
does not make you
a tortured artist
it makes you
a miserable soul

yes, pain is useful
to create
without it i probably would not be writing this
but it does not define you
fuck them all
fuck society
stop trying to die to prove yourself to someone
dying proves nothing

take a hammer to the mirror
it's only a piece of glass
run into an open field and scream your lungs out
cry all of your fears out of your system like you did when you were five years old
stop being ashamed for feeling things
write down what kind of person you were this time last year
then next to it,
write down what kind of person you are right now
look at how far you've come
look at how far you've yet to come
be proud of yourself
think of the people that have left you
think of how good it will feel when you forgive them
think of someone who has left their footprint on your heart
now go tell them you love them
now leave your footprint on someone else's heart
make sure you tell them you love them

you matter
you matter
you matter
you matter
i swear to God i'm not joking
i don't fucking care if you don't believe me
and it isn't going to be easy
be terrified.
be brave.

you matter
you matter
you matter

you matter.

(in the dream it is late March)
there's a light rain in Montréal & the sky
is a gorgeous, early-morning variety of slate grey. imagine the lid
of an old metal garbage-can.
everything is dismal, perfect. and quiet; even the people leaving the bars are silent.
dismally, perfectly, silent.

ghosts of old cats—belonging maybe to ghosts of old ladies who lived, say, just off St. Lau, back
in the eighties—ramble downhill, in the direction of rue St. Catherine (Saint Cat! O patron of felinity!) ,
between the legs of those spilling out from the trendy & shitty clubs.
some of the ghosts wander out into the street, flash thru car tires that would've (& have) (at one time)
smashed them to pulpy carpet on the asphalt.
(who goes to pick them up then? when the tires have had their way with them over & over?
when they are just hair & porridge by a sewage grate?)

after a greasy smoked-meat-on-rye or a nightcap at somebody's place, just off the drag,
i'm in a sodden, but warm overcoat, hands curled in the bottoms of it's pockets; mis-shapen mass
of hair plastered to my scalp; walking en bas de la montagne just past the McGill Medical Centre.
—this late, the busses back downtown are never on time.
(driver's probably having a few smokes before he starts that long tour down. full up of drunk kids,
taking one another back to their dorms, etc.)
(and what does he have, to look forward to at shift's end?
        i. a cranky wife—past her prime?
        ii. a buncha dogs—yapping for attention?
        iii. some fucking kid—who's disrespectful & won't shut up or turn his stupid fucking punk-rock down?

—it's enough to make me patiently wait.  i'll wait forever, as long as that isn't me.)

...'spose I'LL have a cigarette too. waiting
in the bus shelter on Ave. Des Pins looking down over the
football fields of the McGill Athletics Dept.
still lit up. no sun yet but
now at 4 AM a dull inch or two of lightened grey out there on the horizon.. dawn will come,

though i'd rather not face the day. all the mornings are so hard after nights like this.
bound to be hungover &
spend the day hiccuping in bed texting some girl; maybe get up
in the late afternoon t'fix coffee, toast & eggs.
sit on the balcony,
make my little guitar sigh,
and try to feel normal until i [have to] puke.

"—and who was that girl i spoke to for so long at St. Sulpice last night? how many gin-tonics did she let me buy myself, nattering on?.. probably too drunk to even get her number."
"—maybe Sean or Dylan will know if she came thru with anyone we knew.."

the bus is finally here. twenty-and-three minutes late. the back of it probably smells of
stale smoke, dim sun, and sweaty, rain-soaked cloth, absorbed from jackets into the seats—the eau du jour.
it's always a bump 'n jerk ride down the hill; bound to,
with the other handful of dumb & silent riders, drunkenly sway,
(or is it a natural compensation of the body, to groove along with the curves and stops?)
back & forth like carcasses of half-dozen slaughtered pigs
swinging on their hooks in back of a meat wagon..
(i'll end up getting on, but only for three blocks. i'll fucking walk the rest of the way home,
after that comparison. to hell with the rain.)

SIX MINUTES LATER:
(Avenue Des Pins still—4 blocks closer to downtown)

directly in line now with McGill campus via McTavish; this way i can
cruise down thru the silence of the main drag having a couple smokes drinking beer
(copped a 40 at a Dep before i left St. Lau—frosty under my arm enshrouded by brown paper.)
& be left to my own thoughts for fifteen minutes 'til i get to Sherbrooke
—i adore that fifteen-minute stretch down thru the jumble of
student associations, clubs, faculty offices, administration buildings, resources centres & the like;
all contained in the same red bricked, white trimmed victorian monster, multiplied threescore
on either side of the lane; all built in the early nineteen-hundreds, all acquired by the university in one of several expansion initiatives in a decade i won't bother to guess at, it doesn't matter. you don't care..

midway down the hill i stop and go sit on the verandah of one of the buildings,
the graduate studies in math offices —
cccrack that forty.
sit there with the sun JUST barely splitting the seam of the horizon feelin'
like the lyrics from a Sun Kil Moon song. nothing more or less.  
"off to a good start," says i.

this is the repition of my life
the cause of all strife
the emotions come later
like the food brought out by the waiter
to most the emotions arrive as we sit down
but i feel nothing so i sit with a frown

this is my life
i'm in this town now
living with strife
asking myself how
i want to see you
i so desperately wish you wanted to see me too

They say every seven to ten years you replace all your cells
you shed your skin like a snake, in the night, making dust

these dust motes swirl, a swirling in mourning of stirring,
light filters through glasses on a table, in another's home.

I think of you often, and now, presently, I lie wondering
if you are okay. If you will be okay, if you love me still.

I wonder how badly I broke your heart, and if I will feel it
echoing, if and when you cry out, for me, from little sleep.

I wonder if you will remember my name as good, as clean,
and whole in your mind, untarnished by devoted cynicism

I wonder when we meet for coffee, if you will ask me back,
I wonder what I will say. We said we would meet, will we?

Should we? Would it help us with anything? Will it hurt?
I'm afraid if you hear one word from me, you will unravel

like a spool of film, with you going over and over and over
every memory and analyzing what happened where, when.

I can't tell you where I stopped loving you. I remember one
night, and many of them, each all unforgettable secrets, that

I will tell to my own daughters, maybe, if I am so lucky, of
when we saw the shooting California stars. They were ours.

But, I will not tell them about the night we spent together,
you watched as I cried clutching--scarring--skin with nails,

you didn't know what to do. And then we ran out of things,
and I didn't know if I liked you, or even if I liked me, really.

But, I still hear you, sometimes, with a ripped and raw voice,
that screamed, like an animal, that you only wanted me! No!

I didn't know what I wanted, but, I knew I couldn't stay,
that is how I felt, after so long, with the city impending,

pressingly. I felt forced to stay. I left because I couldn't.
I left you, alone, because I didn't know if I wanted you.

I wanted what I have now. I wanted art. I wanted the city.
I wanted new boys, girls, drinking, laughing, and kissing.

I wanted to know the taste of others that weren't you, and
what it felt like to truly be unsafe, alone, and dependent

on nothing but my own wits, gumption, and self esteem,
I have it. It is rough, but it is more worth it to me to know.

I remember all the weekends in bed, sweetly spent tucked
in the crook of your shoulder, the smell of your neck, us all

talking and laughing, enamored with each other and feeling
of love and euphoria. We'd tell each other our futures, and

we said we'd meet in Paris in ten years, laughing bitterly at
what we all know; that our relationship will come to an end.

That's the thing about first loves, that you are sure of an end.
You were a better man to me than others, that I know surely.

I did not need the roughness of a cruel person to know it then,
and having felt the cruelness of others, I know the real sounds.

But I do not think I can return to you, and be the same woman
that you once wanted, needed, and saw. I am just not the same.

Something in me grows, feverishly, and maybe we will meet,
but I am moving fervently, and too quickly for your nostalgia.

You would be chasing a whiff from a stale perfume bottle,
and a wisp of a will that is just barely out of longing reach.

So my question is, still, will we ever meet again, and if so,
where and when will we each be, and will you want a we?

When my Dad got divorced,
He told me that he would wake up in the night with his hands tightly clenched into fists,
I've gone to bed with aching bones ever since,
Falling asleep angry and alone,
Just like him

I breathe you in like dry air,
exhale your memory,
so soft, so light,
it glides off my lips like last summers
flavored tobacco,
I miss the way things used to be.
I have a sadness in my heart,
rotting away all traces of
what I once was,
I am erasing myself,
I believe.
living beneath the shadow,
of stale promises,
and old secrets
Regret pulls me deeper under these waves
every fucking day.
Sliding under barbed wire fences,
and looking out at
space,
I could of sworn,
I was invincible,
but I will have to find
new armor,
that will never smell as good,
as your cotton t-shirts,
and faded blue jeans.
I am sorry if I hurt you,
but you will never know
how much you have hurt me

4:11 am - The nighthawks are starting to resemble pigeons.

Train station is deserted.
An employee checks the bins as the tunnel fills  with the ringing of a distant bell, heralding the arrival of the morning train.
42  minutes till my train.

I can smell the acrid fumes of the Ferny Grove train.
The behemoth pulls away-
empty.

At least I'm not existential anymore.

There is an installation of a coffin made from old bits of railroad,
"Not everyone makes it across the tracks"
This reminder of mortality is strangely fitting in a place of transit.
The true face of memento mori is  shown.
Remember that you too will die, and everything will come to pass.

It's times like this that make me wish 'The Sound of Silence" was never written.
For its perfection in this moment comes as a burst of pure divine bliss.
The kind you wish would never fade away. But inevitably does.
And all we are left with is a memory of that bliss,
everytime we hear the song (after the first time).
As if we are recalling the curves of an old lover from the shadow of yesterdays gone.
Dancing beneath our fingertips, always out of reach.

Memory is never as divine as the moment that burnt it in.

----

4:29 am - It was ephemeral.

The trainyard announcer has a cultured voice.

----

4:41 am - I fear the muse has left me, beauty fled.

DEAR GOD - PLEASE LET THERE BE A CAB AT THE STATION FOR ME.

Selection 11 gave me the water i desired.
11 minutes till the train.
D.O.B. 11/2
Aquarius,  11th  sign of the Zodiac.

Will I see the dawn rise from the train?
There is no light at the end of the tunnel from where I sit.

Inexplicably: I recall the cool river air that bathed us as we lay naked in your apartment,
the smell of cigarettes on our skin, the evening peppered with
scurrying, fighting possums
that danced upon your balcony.
I recall being inside you.

(Then I imagined you being eaten out
by a woman
her lips inside yours,
her curled tongue
inside your hot, bald
golden cunt.)

And I came.
Warm and glorious
my children of pleasure
caught in a latex coffin.
Your heaves of pleasure pushing against my chest
with the rhythm of waves.

----

4:46 am - On the train.

Fluorescent lighting is the devil.
Everything is garish yellow.

We  pull up to the station near where you lived.

Your blue  rose lives in a Chinese vase
and no longer smells
of Marlene Dietrich.