Hate how Kerouac talked
About being "high" on *****

The bottom of a bottle isn't
Place of elevation
Rather a state of inebriation
Grasping at the straws
Broke the camel's back
Or some such drudgery

I sip dry cider
I fill a tin hip flask
Drink to the last
Over too fast
Leaving girls
Less naive
Than my drunk ***
Contemplating self-destruction

An old dull silver tray bought from the thrift store last polished never
Sits between us, holding a half emptied handle of rye, two rock glasses
Adjunct ice bucket and a handful of spansules all neatly lined up in a row
Like candy for the taking
Too late

Existentially snuffed out
'Yes' I thought, there's a good start
But existentialism is so boooooring dear,
such a dry, ******, passe affair, pedantic really
She groans out her words elongated like some big queen of England
Sitting on her royal *** smoking from a long black cigarette holder
I pull her towards me roughly slipping quickly into thick, thickening
Newfound (land) accents
"Listen here missy, you're no Audrey Hepburn"
Brashly kissing bright blooming vermillion lips
"And you're no John Kennedy"

Playing dress up ***; cosplay games de la haute societe
Cruel broken bank account pauvrete down and out facade
Tho this is neither Paris nor London
Nor do we find any satisfaction in our destitution
I am not a plongeur et vous,
Vous etes rien qu'un petit ami du nuit
"I'm not your *****"
All part of the act
Or so I'm told

We've forgotten who we really are behind these vaudeville masks
     The world less lucid, less clear, receding gently tho greatly
         Day by lurid day

Standing on my head to rid myself of this soul-phlebitis
  An old hobo train jumper trick apparently
All that blood rushing to my previously empty head
      Filling, pooling graciously flow
            (Don't we all know, there's nowhere to go but up)

Abruptly fall head first lurching, crunch
To the cold brittle hardwood boards of nuns in our parent's youth
       Creaking (they whip us good)
                  Is this ink sunken in skin to be yer biggest regret?
     What can pain do for you?
Connecting the mind and body
    Cingulate gyrus integrating
         reptilian brain vagus nerve body influence with higher
              Social functioning
                                      ugh when really it's all a big joke
                                           and the sad clown laughing at the universe
                                                 is me and i am god and god,
                                                      god he weeps
                    Breeding consciousness, somatosensory convergence
                           You make my prefrontal cortex sick
                                   Subsequent serotonin stomach butterflies
                                         The prescience of a dozen acid trip candy flips
                                               Tomorrow's 500 micrograms of blissful gut          
                                                      Awareness in bloom

Home, where's home for the moment?
       Not sure, asking, looking
            And questing to find o yes and where to go and where to stay
                 And with whom and Why
                      Questions called to no one and nothing (but the sea)
                             That can't hear me
                                      As if Nietzsche's 'void' is staring back
EAT ME THEN DAMNABLE VOID
       I cry
    For
What pain is there in true madness,
       sick little toy words
       sick little boy slurs

i am in cocoon like edamame
says the disembodied
tibetan monk
cocoon is rapture
warm embrace of the ether

Got new job today
After hanging up phone
Went for smoke on deck
Looking up at gloom laden sky
Down at wet vermilion leaves
Felt nothing (empty blessing sickness)

Bored
Want for whole charade to be over
All this *******
Therapy and

ADD meds
That make me feel like a zombie
(Dead eyes in mirror look through you)
Abuse them anyway
I don't want to stop

Pretending
To be so much better for family
Really still useless (dead weight anvil)
Really still high dreaming
Of tall buildings on rainy nights
Or ketamine bathtubs
Ready for the end

Tired
Of worrying about the girl
Remorseful poison
Afraid it will take her away
Says she can't stop
Don't want her to go

forced to ask 'is it all *******'
this field of study just completed
this path now flying feet fleet'd
I, alumni all outwardly faux alacrity
but instead really inside shades drawn
hiding shame useless
waiting for the sun's forebearant rays
to pull dead drunk me off floor again
still sick sinning spinning lies
on nodal web patterns
of activation

just a narcissist sociopath-in-training
(was I?) being taught how better
to manipulate other's fate
for personal gain

great fat magnificent magnanimous beast
loafing on liar's chair o'great victory-defeat
doublespeak tho Orwell is long dead and we do mourn him so with eulogy eyes
that weep crocodile tears of
well hidden liars

having long forgotten how to believe
in anything aside from own ill-gotten
gains, they mean nothing more
than bloodstained verses
anemic murmurs
whispered great
whisky hopes
and sallow
cheeked
dreams

Quiet words
From a lonely man
I write on

Convinced was doing God's work
Sure these were God's words
And I the conduit who never believed

The word left me
The lion to the lamb
There I sat, throne of swords
Crown of thorns
Struck a Pyrrhic victory
Slink off to lick sunken wounds
False prophet, I lie in ruins
The pen and the *****
Bloodletting

Even as ship was sinking
Having hit Titanic iceberg
Still silly ship captain me could laugh
At go down with it self-tragedy

Now resting (rusting)
On Atlantic ocean bottom
Can't laugh without air to breathe
No humour left in these old oxidized bones

Having missed the lighthouse
No sea shells to share
No crashing waves
Dead eyes stare out window

Laid bare barren wastes
Blair station
Near where used to live
Pretending we were still a family

the doctor said i have a fatty liver
so i started drinking straight *****
to cut down on carbs

Look at you some ******' hieratic figure
Holier than thou prosetylizer
I wouldn't **** on fire
To put you out

Make me sick tellin' me
how to live love lie loaf
Fay çe que vouldras
Day's new motto

death wish tryst
8ball and a fifth

Rainbow trout at fish farm
Father and son four years old
Caught fish flapping in mud and ****
Little boy feeding it pieces of corn
Not knowing fish is dead already
Post-mortem spasms of rigor
Now remember four year old thinking
This is life, sinking

Cold winter camping
Frigorific night huddled around fire
Many coyotes auspiciously howling nearby
"Don't worry, they're across the water"
Still I wait at the ready with coyot-basher

Tents in snow shielded from peninsula
By tarps lashed together with rope and ply
"You'd probably die out here" says Oscar
Here meaning Newfoundland
Here meaning the Northern Pen.
Agreeing monosylabically

Nearly hypothermic thinking
Not so bad
Maybe stay another night (says the voice)
Sneak down to water
And jump in ice fishing hole

Wake up groan roll over
last night a dissociative nightmare
strange waking dreams

Of flanging cars whipping by windows
brittle and metallic waves crashing in
32 bit distortion and dark pixillated vision

Coughing, laughing, welcoming insanity
stagger out of bedroom smoke a bowl
bacon and eggs, mozzarella and 9 grains

stare at voluptuous dark haired student
with billowing scarf

She'd get it buddy

Listen to aging hipster talk
About government

*****

we got cranked up on dexxies,
"for my ADD" I'd say,
which was technically true

suddenly solemnly looking at me
big sincere eyes
you should come
with me

we'll crawl in my brother's car
having a grand 'ol ball
rambling across the country

running away from home
ridiculous "quarter life crises"
we're all having

but you're gone one way
i'm gone another way
Sea is back by the ocean
my father mixed with the Atlantic
take me back
throw me in
with'em

Laughing drunk high be
Like dirt dog on mtv
Taking the camera crew to cash his welfare
Like ******* pay me

The country just outside the city, a good place for me to hide
Swallowing Xanax with 40oz's, swallowing my pride
To all those people taking it in stride
How bitterly I loathe thee
Your adjunct faith sickens me
In abject jealousy
Truly yours

Here I sit crushed like the cans underneath me
Smashed like the empty bottles I threw from 10th floor windows
If you throw it hard enough you can hear it crash into the river below
The sound of settling, sinking cement laden feet
Food for fish to grow
To be cast over so easily, as these glass encased temporary lies
Were it that I was not such a coward
All shallow cuts and shallow gestures
Washing down empty overdoses in vain vacillating hope
For a new death

Trying to figure out
Why I should help these narcissists
Everyone I meet is a ******* *******
I'm sure I'm a ******* ******* too
Try not to be
Good luck honey

They don't deserve help
I don't deserve
We don't deserve

What does Rustin say?
"It's all one ghetto man
Giant gutter in outer space"

Hope this planet bends us over its knee
(Implying some Gaia complex)
Or an asteroid
Universe's way of telling us
'*******'

sabotaging my own life
because somehow what happened to you
is my fault

a commune back home not hippie
buy 300, no 500 acres great land
in Codroy or misty high hilled Avalon
built great big house wraparound porch
beset by rocking chair by the sea yet
in the woods at end of road all brown dirt

growing gardens, herb and vegetable
pulling weeds but keeping good green ****
brewing beer by own hand
group work but not always group think

friends lovers writers growers givers
all come to stay
making great pots of stew and strange brews
awakening brought far from Peruvian Torch homeland
telling stories all somehow great fables and anecdotes for life and living and love and everything that's good in the long run

at night over bottles on beaches by fires
we worry these are funeral pyres
for our great little social experiment
fear of leaving loving womb
of isolated salt fish by sea commune

real world so crass&brash; an unctuous affair
where here instead guitars, ukes
silly screaming little buddhas recite poems
by gleaming eye fireside

I seek to fill this cup eternally,
My grail brings not eternal life
But rather quenches
The thirst upon my lips
That besets my battered
Drinking brain

My cup runneth over with madness
And confusion
Finding liars in friends and shadow people
Beckoning from beyond my shoulder

Hear the brittle knock at my door
Sure it's Death's rattle
Find a cosy corner
Self-trepan
So I can see the stars again

I awake at 4am
Meandering through
Selfish thoughts

Toxic grains and growing pains
Have I changed
Or same *******

Same pretend man writing
Heartfelt speeches of comraderie
All lies and I false prophet
Proselytizing strength in numbers

you will find not in me quotes
the quotes of great men
(all) great dead men all
rotten up yasss yasss

don't hide in great dead men
or great dead coiled quotes (worm)
eat me boiled up rubbery
squid ink jet black poison eyes
make me wanna ******* raw
(agave honey darling)

hiding between the lines
lying behind the scenes
great cosmic puppet master
pull pulling pithy lil puppet strings
who do you really believe is you
what **** is me anyways (sugar)

Wake up groaning hungover
World piercing my skull
Can't seem to stretch out

****** huge broken down truck
Blocks my view
She was a ***** in heat (ol yellr)

I put her down like the ******* ****
That she pretended not to be
Rather be celibate now
Narcotics make me sick
But people, people are obscene

we see eye to eye
when i'm down on the ground weary
want to be at the bottom of bottle again
spies behind enemy lines
corkscrew

stay alone, no need for pretending
meals for one (not hungry)
smoking joints at table


look at you only
my own dead glazed eyes gaze back
beer bottle gaunt
let's go another round

You ******* been trying to get hydro to keep me warm for a a winter's week

Xanax and bud help but neigh
They aren't the treat I seek

Sleepy September rain
pretending life isn't busy
Standing still on slippery edge
Taking in foggy city view
Of little senators and harpies
Playing house of cards
All so quiet up here
On newly constructed condo roof
Little ant people climbing up
Towards the light with fungal parasites
protruding from wet open wounds

Brooding over brews
Breathing over false prophet lines
It turns out I'm falling apart again
'You seem to be so in control'

Through the haze
Hiding in pristine dreams
Painting over the cracks
Sullen porcelain princess
Sin fest cease your ingress
Said the girl in fake flower print dress
She knows what's good
Like smoking in the back woods

Lesbian shirtless circus living room roomie
Sees through facade as if to say
It's all a farce

Understanding somehow
Secret inner nightmare
Don't know how to stop hiding
Can't forget

Staring at self in mirror
Do you see any clearer
Break the glass
Hit the stash

Cut back and say look at me
All great grand grandiose lucidity
Can breath out and see thru
Tipping the morning dew leaf
Sipping some silymarin
Nectar of the gods

Rejuvenating oils of the midnight lamp
Pressed in a stamp
Crushed with a hose clamp
Morpheus or Prometheus
Really one and same

We speak, or rather you spoke
I listened

You'll be fine, you'll do great
You've got so much going for you

I never understood why you said that
Maybe just placating
Weary little broken boy toy me

What good was I, could hardly speak
Or look at faces, just shoes
All shame rotting away
In death trap little future overdose room

More ***** than brain
Felt skin sloughing off
Hair falling out dead anyway
While cancer ate away ulcerous stomach

When looked in mirror
Only saw death, reaving reaper
His scythe my smashed absinthe bottle
****** X marks the spot where
I drag everyone down with me

******* hollow feeling lump in chest
tired of the dead man dead feeling
you feel it behind the eyes too
like looking through people to their souls but actually since the soul is nothing
it's right on through
like everyone is a single atom thick

I can feel the sickness welling up inside me
Is it too late to put this behind me
Sighing late and tossing
'When I turn the whole universe turns with me'
It's too late start giving things away
Get ready for the last trip
With hollowed eyes pinned
And dry cracked thirsty lips
Each word seeming strange to me

mother mother Mary
this ain't be my first last sin

this ain't my debut spin crash win
show you who a liar really is
tella true soul diss
like

i see right through you
transparent yet clouded
like the holy ghost
tame you as my host

'I saw you from the bus'
Walking towards me
As cars zoom by (overpass)

Walking towards the golden arches
I think everyone in this parking lot
Is here for the same reason

Roll one on the baby changing station
Blow away the crumbs giggling
Hands a pill to me
Over bathroom wall
comic sans 'crank'

Tells me about new job
Line cook
looking for an apartment
On the French side

Tells me about the Mission
We swap stories about shadow people
And lion gods in the stars, triangulating

Tells me about the dragon and the monkey
On his back, Jack and functions of Fibonacci sequence

Snow falls heavy from low flying clouds
The sounds of the city muted
Like jazzy horns all around me
Miles Davis

This will be the next one

I am oyster of ocean (closed off)
I am burning of bigot neo-**** flag
I eat of earth and drink deep of river
I sleep on floor in concrete sardine can
I pluck words out of the sky (drawn ire)
Paint pictures of solumn cerebral sorrow,
Tired eyes, liars ties
Humbled before magnitude of universe
Crushed by weight of world
"Then why carry it"
Asks pretty girl/voices

In our polite (Canadian) society
We have a tendency towards passive aggression

You don't address a problem directly
Say nothing

Do nothing
Except ice out the person or collective
The weather isn't the only thing
I'd describe as cold

I, ******
Alliteration of my lies
Trade one for the other

I see him in my sleep
Sphinx in the streets
The sarcophagi & the scepter
Haunted nomad shielding
Constricted eyes, obelisk-blinded
Black stone that still somehow shines

morning dew causing (un)due inspiration
flowing out of cowards head
i see you there,

looking in as if to say
why can't i have a piece
where is my cake
yer cake is in the dumpster with
evidently unyielding unborn soul
all garbage to be taken to landfill at day's end

to be cubed by crushing collapsing compressing cuber
to be rolled over by great heaving garbage dump cesspool machinery
left to decompose and rot
like magnificent little ghandi trash

all dignified passive resistance inaction
what good is cake to the self-starving man anyway
what good is life to the self-immolated tibetan monk
is that who you are
all in flames sitting there
blue hue'd blackened bone

dead dying uncles in icu rooms unstable
little weak men old dried up not dried out
you ask i tell, nothing to see here but ashes
time rots everything
so what tell me is the point
of pitiful, joyless struggles
all our own small motives laid bare
so crass and primal the animals we are
mucking about ******* in the mud

This insomniac act is growing old
Limbs become cold

Sat on plane little saline tears
Bead like rain on window
More sentimental ****
Sick of it
Miss you that's nothing new
Same ol me same ol you
For all my grand gilded words
I'm just a coward and a child

I see you upside down lying on great
High captain's house ceilings circa 1920
Strange babe you look down on me smiling
Quell my desire like what snowy night
Bus ride did I take to some bleary eyed
Character now too long dead like those
Cold empty nights we used to meet
Walking back alone long miles
Thru bitter wind east coast wind
Thru bitter east coast powder
How sad he seemed then as if he knew
And I knew  too but really knowing does
No good except through our brief
Shared solidarity experience not alone
That same look I now see on yr. twisted
                               Head

So I guess we know now too that really
I don't care for you and you don't love me
Tho we feel like this our last chance
What more chance left our tattered souls
               (If you believe in that kind)

Why speak words no words to wax
I pack up few paltry possessions
You keep old sea captain's house
Now ruined for me like pet geranium
Bloomd once then died from neglect hiddn
I cried 'why did my otter die
                     Why do they do that

I find one bedroom flat
Look over city lights holding cheap beer
Quiet dread you can smell like pheromones
Here staring walls eternity sleep
Cold drafts in bones
                Tho windows sealed shut