red tile roof ...
whitewash balcony in romanesque cemicircle ,
fridge full 'f
                        1 litro bottles Alhambra cerveza --
clawfoot tub, coldwater (couture)
$1000/week:
(i could live on that)
lucky strike spirals in spanish summer,
bare feet on the railing upturned to sun beaming on pearly albayzin of granada.
afternoon mojitos with a new woman ev'ry week. (reading magazines)

spend
75 drunk nights ( reading ,   smoking ,   swilling gin )
&
typewriter whirring out pages (underwood airbus laissez-faire)
flamenco on a record player back in the house
one of those spanish girls slipping off a white dress (which falls like a soft breath of cloud down to the ground and sits there
still as death)
as she gets into the jacuzzi.
&
spend
75 high days throwing change into fountains, hand
up skirt of my carmen-du-jour.
climb drydust hills with guinness tallcans in plastic borsa
drinking dark beauties as golden orb hung in clouds keeps on grinning heatwaves.

(feelin' like maybe perhaps possibly i be free)

soft sound of shoes on new pavement
hot & clinging.
sentences strung together/hinging on subjects of a wide variety,
petroglyphs, ivory, & māori history.

touching lamposts with the wicked curiosity
of an only child.
cutting the hair of strangers in an alleyway off of downtown,
burning the strands in a bowl w/some potpourri
interpreting the smoke.

(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 & ****** 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 ******* kid—who's disrespectful & won't shut up or turn his stupid ******* 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 **** 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 ******* 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.

last night i almost
gave up thinking of bronzy brazilian girls
perspiring pure coconut oil, eau de margherita ;
supermodelas eating my dreams like concord grapes, lionesses
lounging on new york balconies, lithe, reading céline.
(esti ginzburg, on the phone, considers another pomeranian) .
almost stopped.
almost derailed strange vogue-like fantasme of irina shayk, standing legs planted
left knee out-****** and foot
in ebony heel, cocked against the earth.
set being imitation of gloomy coal mine, east of prague. thin arms firmly controlling the
arc of her pickaxe, clothed in leather, high heels;
sheen of sweat holding her feline body in sweet embrace.
imagining that when shift's end buzzer echoes thru the tunnels she smokes a cigarette
on a bench in the women's locker, apple planted on old planking, elbows on her knees.
cover-alls peeled
down to her waist and her hair,
free at last.
(click)
on the tram back into the city all the smoked glass
cartier storefronts pass by like polaroids held in the hand. the same speed.
giggling, 'rina thinks of the six she could place
along her arm; gilt gold, brushed silver, diamant...

there are 11 smoked belmonts by the back steps; i did
little with the night. (tall shadow of a woman in a black dress and my mouth
a cotton ball)
that is to say:
i did almost give up thinking about bronzy braz ilia     g rls ,
-
but i didn't/and so there's nothing else.

i've got me a ***** black cadillac,
stretched out—front windows rolled right down—on the curb.
with a French girl waiting inside, legs long as sin, sitting against the wide dark window
legs extended 'cross the backseat.
hiding her eyes behind big round sunglasses, smoking oily moroccan cigarettes
—writing about the way i talk.

there's a whole lotta crisp, cold money in the trunk,
waitin' to be spent on the furs she wants;
old books for me.                                                 and why not??
old books on art,
and i can't even paint!
just sit around not talking—read about Brughel or som'thin,
wishing my over-large, complacent hands knew to render the face
a fifth so well.
a fifth of whisky's 's close 's i get,
i get drunk and further away,
out now in that devil of a car, parked presently out
by the shed where i go most nights to sit in musty chairs 'n scratch ink lazily
on pages nobody ever reads..
            —but it feels ******
                       g  o  o  d  .

my frenchwoman would like to know what i think of old Proust...

REPLY: he took too ****** long! // (a sigh can be a story)
—one could write a novel in the time it takes to
toss your load on a pair of trembling *******, held up in offering—oh i can't help but be uncouth!!
—i mean just the other day fr christ's sake i moved a friend in Waterloo
to her new apartment and when carrying up the stairs two bags of clothes and a toaster
saw wonderful little second year heading up as well so i
let her go first (at first glance you may think me chivalrous) and while climbing up behind her
composed in my head the following pome, which i dashed off later on a post-it
and dedicated to her exquisite ***:

“all legs blonde climbin' the stairs, lamp in hand, yoga pants
hot & clinging like wee-ooo / hot enough in this cramped old stairwell as is,
carrying all these bags & boxes & couches up for a friend.
—hey when you're all moved in / you could come sit that thing on my lap.
share a cigarette while i carve slices of apple & offer them to you,
impaled on the end of the knife.”

i guess there are
some people
who just don’t realize
how preposterous they sound when
using social media.
yeah, maybe you’re one. no one
is safe from suspicion:
-the comedians (their own biggest fan types)
the witty commentators
                    jumping in from the far corner.
(you wonder how
someone who learnt every word they know
     from about six Archie comics is allowed to
use social networking)
-oh and the girls
                   who post new selfies
every day. (in fact there’s one,
i swear, posts so often
                      so regular
                                      i barely need a watch.
“here’s the three-fifteen cleavage shot.”
—she’s long since been hidden!)
and wait here’s that
fella who speaks out about injustices;
firecrackers taped in a doberman’s mouth,
which is awful, sick, repulsive—and bravo
for making the universe aware, i applaud thee,
but it’s the rambling included about what you’d do
if you ever caught them
(curbstomping, mutilating, beatings)
that gives
me goosebumps.
i don’t wanna see this kid’s mug in
the paper next week/point & say
“christ i knew it!”
..so maybe keep the ****** fantasy off the web, eh?

& then of course the weirdness
too weird to
properly recall
example:
an acquaintance's call for attention “i need a hug :(“
and the random girl
probably th’sister of a friend
(which is bizarre in its own right,
adding a friend's younger sibling..
but i
won’t bother delving
there tonight)
who replies:
“hey you should come here instead
and see the skunk that just came
by my window
if you wanna?”
—what is this absurdity?
and hey here’s an answer
to your original call:
internet hugs don’t work.
    computers don’t hug in binary, man.
0110101110101101111001010010101011011010110101110101010101
 ­                                        >—O—<

—i’ll never understand it.

wednesday  ..
                      is faded black jeans/old white tank (too big) (hole from belt buckle centre front)

glass of water stuck into the rings left by past week's mugs of beer
sitting by the ashtray. and you are better than a nip of rye in the truck cab heading to work.
the dust in my lungs (wide open saskatchewan fields)
is not as important as watching the clouds stain purple with the sunrise
patting two gorgeous farm dogs who run over from behind a silo turned to bronze in the light
(there is an angel laying naked in the wheat grain)
to nip playfully at my calves while i unchain the derrick,
somewhere in my mind's recess it feels like i am loosing atlas from his *******
tho i do not register the thought until later upon waking from a nap.

saturday // 1:15:44 pm
i am in only briefs now working on a song/i clocked 4
                                                               ­                                       hrs greasing truck 1117 this morning and
hauling pallets.
daylene from dispatch brought in donuts.

i'll spend the afternoon listening to kanye and talking to women online.
—there are no girls in estevan. i have (kind of) looked.
                                                       sometimes i believe this to be pathetic but then i think further ahead
and it's not so bad.
you do really meet some nice girls. phone is replete with their numbers &
they keep me company on long rides to and from leases,
asking about work. hoping that i am well.
(once back home by christmas account will be deleted and i can
take them out at my leisure. you'll understand i hope that i am not
a desperate man. but one has to work with that which he has.
would you rather i go lonely? make my home in the mud to croon hank williams to crows?)
(temporality.)

15/10/2012
there are now three beer cans on the carpet & one on the washing machine by the
bathroom door which i will drink in the shower.
it was sort of a long day.

first woke up 8:23
went back to bed
                              (oh so hungover)
woke again 9:30, rubbed my eyes then
drank 2 ½ glasses water/puked. felt slightly better
but not perfect so
sat down on the couch in the dark
                                                            ­blinds closed
and read a book
                            (desolation angels - kerouac)
until my headache [sorta] cleared.
drank ¾ cup orange juice to take w/medication, antibiotics
(just got my wisdom teeth pulled)
and one tab oxycodone.
stopped reading (couldn't say why ... )
then sat lotus on the table by the window
writing/picked up jon's banjo n thought up
a neat (simple) roll, played classical guitar too
                                                             ­                     ---watching girls.
did that til i got bored, or the girls stopped
walkin' by (1 of the 2)
so i washed dishes for the fellas
grabbed a longboard from by the door
rode over to the LCBO for some beers,
passed the ShortStop on the way back and got an Arizona
to have w/my Romeo y Giulietta on the tour home.

when i got back jon was up
(wearing a blanket)
making scrambled eggs --- heavy on the onions,
using all the dishes i just washed..

advil & gatorade
bring a moment's ease
to my rending body.
soaked wet/head-splitting, after
long night in an awenda tent/colt 45 at 41 turtle.
off to the city in a packed car (rainy 401)
to cop a bass.
also decided to pawn the old red body
and grab a little classical gitr.
shred it in my basement room.
singin' folksongs.

howling idiots (myself) who
spat on store windows ****** & still half-drunk,
leering strangers in cars & stars
creeping from the sky to show teeth in wry grins
while
balancing nimbly on balcony railings
gazing thru heavy curtains to watch                     russian
                                                         ­                girls
******* on cold leather couches
shedding bulbous slavic tears which
ride crests 'f ghostly, high cheekbones &
at th'same time off some
where in drumheller, alberta
                                                             skeletons of ancient
kingly lizards rise & rattle like
                                                            ­ 1000 triassic maracas
recording spanish mariachis in
                                  bloodbath bullrings.

leaving the parking lot
i see a little hare
making his misty-eyed way into
the undergrowth framing the concrete,
where near the highway, morning greenery is exhaling.
it is small,
fragile;
--intoxicating to see such
wild innocence
in the midst of
home depots, city buses, roughriders fans.
--makes my [aniruddha] heart soar.

curling red & white post outside a barbershop
entices me to enter for a shave.
i put the follicle-filled lather in a bag & express-post it
to a friend.
(she collects **** like that.)
i estimate the date of arrival to be
2 days 5 hours from current.
*(will it get there/in time for her to use in in that exhibit?)

another construction friday:
                                                 smash, lift, grunt, clean, sweep, collect, empty . . . (grind)
lift up (hup!) doors, hang 'em, nail 'em in.
rap up the stairs, feet heavy in big old boots
                                                           ­                   thighs aflame --- heavy--****
           clomp
    clomp--stomp. swish.
stop for lunch: sandwich/grapes/arizona
sandwich only cheese so not satisfied full..
dusts in the mouth
                                  (and nostrils) so i sneeze & sneeze
raw-nosed in the attic cleaning
---brooms and dust dust dust.

good view to the bay up second level tho:
autumn vistas and panoramas and waves on white shorelines
giant's tomb in the deep, breast heaving

big wide windows w/wasps buzzing eternal
buzz
whack each with rolled window installation guide
grind with the heel
                                  grsch
each one dead is replaced with one more
crawling from odd upstairs nest
---from rest.
feel guilty & awful killing them but
so aggressive in their slowness (compensating) this time of year that
moving material presents good risk of sting.
                                                                ­              ---zing.
      hope they will forgive me.

creek in th'dark
w/brightest stone baubles, dappled riverbottom pebbles under moon-water,
a thousand faces glinting, smiling upwards.
school of carp in the reeds, the stalks rasping in the warm air
as the tails swish them back and forth.
the unheard steady **** of flapping, feeding mouths --
drawing in of algae, snails, waterbeetles;
soft crunch of shell and exoskeleton.

two legs on the dune by the stream wishing
there was two more legs on the dune, angling
down toward the stream.
a tender accompanying voice singing maybe Piaf
avec un accent provincial (de châtillon?)
hair wet, tangled;
sporting powder-white two-piece,
fresh from having swam with strong, slow kicks of slender pale legs,
long in that green water.
legs that look good in black heels.
their clicking imagined in the head.

take an F250 down a dusty bush road
& it will create
a new universe of dust.

let a bald eagle lead you
as you island hop
in an aluminum outboard.

bushwhack out to a lake in cougar country
& teach all the pike you catch about
the 4 noble truths.

a few weeks back i
   opened my big
                              fat mouth
& agreed to bartend
this art auction fundraiser for
street children in
         kenya
which my parents organize
         yearly
to which a lotta local artists
big & small all
donate pieces to.

anyway my pops wouldn't
let me serve gin with tonic (this being a front so
i could drink it all of course, if y'know me at all..)
and bought bud light (horsepiss)
and for wine used several
bottles of the stuff my
mother makes
                          in town
                          at the Penetang Wine Cellar
which, though rich & darkly red
is over-dry and smacks of vinegar,
be assured.

so despite see-sawing between
indignant "No's"
&
commiserative "Yes'ses"
(i mean who else are they gonna get??)
(---and due in part to
my lack of success in
making other plans)
i end up doing it &
having an alright time
in the process ...

(hey i had a big sink fulla icy beers &
'probly drank more than anyone
else save my father's friend Ted!!)
---i even threw down
a bit o cash on a pretty neat little
abstract called "view to the bay"
but got outbid,
---as if i needed to drop $100 +
on some painting
when i should be saving ev'ry dime
for old España
in the new year.
so i crack another beer and
live vicariously thru my mother
when she picks up a oil of this island
with big storm & clouds comin' in
---and then outta nowhere it actually is me
that closes out the show by outbidding
a neighbour for a
photograph of some dingy toronto night
(buildings under construction)
and then go back to pouring more wine
& smiling & shaking (wringing) a few hands.

***** alleys weeping garbage (fish                         heads)
            40s (alhambra) for 1 euro & a new leather
jacket;

football games in parks
carpeted broken glass/kids laughing.
sun like a strange shimmer 'yond th'mountains rearing
like
         jagger's wild horses   ,

liquid spanish smiles in little bars all w/th'same signs.. words
words
words like birds ...

                                   (birds that take off
                                   in th'park in raucous flights
                                   if yer talkin' too loud.)

eat minute fried fish outside over 6 glasses strong beer.
almost fall off stool twice's'many times scrutinizing passing girls.

go home & write pomes 'bout cig'rettes & running,
call it "oxymoron" 'cause doing both in same day
is bad ******* news for the guts.

                                  go to the university campus
                                  for cheap coffee
                                  &        conversation
                                  w/a girl from the bar (the bartender)
            write a poem while she talks & call it
                                 "terra nova"

                                                         ­                      that one's about nothing.

this being
dedicated to wicked woman hiding cold eyes
behind overlarge sunglasses;
sporting blackest velvet dress coat firmly buttoned smoking
long, cruel cigarette lit from glare off your cartier-replete wrist
as hordes of men in line to perhaps hold your parasol
while you read tedious course material are turned away
by singular lazy wave of the unsympathetic hand,
ashes falling & cherry red nail polish flaming across
the patio panorama like hellfire;
with hard, rangy body and cut-to-shoulders
blonde curtain to hide behind, safe upon your wicker throne;
wary of males & their hidden, bursting sexes.

there's a pair of
chopsticks i'd wanted to
order/for a while,
(made from old recycled
baseball bats y'know.
japanese little league teams)
so i drive in to the library
[they have free/fast wireless]
& connect.
shop around a coupla sites to
find the cheapest price.
& amidst the crying of infants..
the beeps of **** being checked out...
i'm all done & thinking
of rice.

the hand that rubs my body down
is soft: softly veined &
of a powder-white translucence; transcribed
from dover chalks to run down my
chest, backs of my thighs.

the hand that rubs my body down
curves in sweet musics 'round my soul;
the shrill but beaut'ous rasp of skin
on skin
-- of fingertips tracing strange poetry
    along my spine.

the hand that rubs my body down
holds in its palm a sacred oil;
anointing me at midnight hour. muted
bewitchments; burns the candle
down to a nub.

the hand that rubs my body down
calls for christ in attics of sunday
afternoon ...          crosses its fingers in
spiteful fits
of piousness.

the hand that rubs my body down
takes the shape of golden scarab;
sets aflame my eyes of beaming azure &
finds in me a willing servant.

the hand that rubs my body down
wakes me at dawn, partnered  
with an extension of pinpointed
warmth: the touch of her breath upon my cheek.

jesus i hate
          christmas readings --

low intonings,
bursts of song,
prayers -- so many
       ******* prayers ...

all in name of th'
                          "wonder & mystery"
of christmas,
                         the birth of
                     quote-on-quote
                               holy babe.
                                                  nativity story spoken
       as
true   granite   fact
                                ,
heads all nodding..

Caesar Augustus, yes,
the census -- oh good!
                   ... some lady doing a
Mary monologue ...
                                   my own father playing Joseph!
          father!
(lumbering Boris Karloff father of Christ)

-- grandmother!!
quit jabbing my shoulder
                 as i        
put pen
to page!
              these hands
              are not
              the hands
of a devotion blinded
         christian!
(blasphemous thoughts do i write!) (poems on *******)

here is
a woman in white!
                                (angel?)
very performance art
with that lighting
                              but
i'm not convinced ...

.  
                
    /
advent candles on
the altar ......
when the last is lit will a
heavn'ly chorus
                            ring out?,
blue flame batonning round
the sanctuary? orderly little halos.

-- grandmother get your
uplifted hands out of my face!

am i doing my part by
                                        holding this candle
        & singing hymns? ...

       (my arm is being twisted) (i call this penance/comes once a year)

                                                            where is my eggnog & ***??
a friend / hiding behind some poinsettias (****** good idea)
supplies a fitting finish. garnish for my thoughts:

           "man ...
i want
            some
christmas h
                    anky-
    panky. "

(then:)

*"****.                            that
            doesn'
                        t
fit under a
                   tree..."

i heard your clear deep
                           voice     (singin’)
last year in
                 evening san antone
bleeding from truckstop P.A.
where i                                  bought cactus burritos &
                  1 basket
                                  heavensent peaches &
thanked you
for ev’ry one b/c only
someone like you could                              send a gift

so humble
    .

down the lane the summer homes all yawn,
open & airing out,
depositing mothballs, musty deck chairs/on the lawn

strolling i see all last year's forgotten furniture
waiting
on the roadside, dust covered.
here a couch groans out to me:
"such a life!
reeking of mildew,
springs worn from children jumping on the weekends
--and the old man couldn't stop them.
too busy slamming drinks on the porch!"

i very nearly weep,
"poor tired old thing!"
for it is a hard ride to be a couch.

yr whisky-flavoured voice of
what seems 20 years your senior makes
infinitely better th'
first coffee , smoke after long hot shower;
it being slow, rainy thursday morning, solo
in Granada (clicking of
stilettos on wet pavement coming thru
thrown-wide windows.)

all the hounds
of old Spain
can't find me ...

after one last summer of cottages, palm-beers floating on the lake,
faceplanting into the waves while trying to kneeboard,
badly-planned but perfectly-timed trips to toronto for shows
(getting kurt viled)
the family casa (host of
many ragers and teenage kicks) was sold and georgian bay was no longer home.
my parents bought a new truck and moved what was
once 15 quesnelle drive
down to cape breton island, three quarter million in pocket
and i,
i had a resurgence of old feelings towards a girl i won't name
brought on by our rekindled friendship after the death
of my best friend, (nothin' helped me get thru those months
quite like that smile)
and after an embarrassing night spent having various altercations
(fisticuffs)
with a young birch tree behind my pal's place
i hopped in my '03 volvo and sped west like that old man once told
dean to do.
dust flying thru the open windows and my split knuckles
smilin' at the fat old sun.

that summer the bookstore,
where i bought so many weathered novels, died and
the man who was its overseer, with whom i spent so many evenings philosophizing over cups of joe in the closed-up shop ,
sort of faded away; i'd see him thursdays at the study sipping whatever he drank there in the corner and always felt too bad
about the closing of cottage books, ashamed in a word, to
ever go over and buy the guy a beer.
still don't know why.
guess i'm a bit of a *****.

that drive out west was good. made 10 mixes in addition to CDs
i already had and slept on the highway side and stopped
where ever the hell i wanted to stop. smoked cigars while blazing over the pavement with my life in the backseat at 120 km/h
not knowing how to feel,
but doing alright.

i became the jumpin' jack flash in november '77.
there was slush in new york city and the bums at the piers
still burned trash in metal barrels you could see from over on coney island even.
just like kerouac said.

in the daytime foolish kids picked weeds in central park
and called them flowers. they got laid by stringing charming words together as they gave them
to the thousand daughters of manhattan's old monied men,
the wall street hacks hanging from the teats of the
great & frenzied cash cow of capitalist interest. the milk
came slow that winter.

one week, early december when the slush gave way to furtive snowfalls
i took a bus to patterson, NJ
for a few days, drank a lot of awful coffee writing obscenities in my journal but speaking
them aloud in the restaurants and bars and so
was deemed just like everybody else in patterson, NJ.
drunk & high, helicopter tours, stuffed with bread and half-truths.
and when shortly my irish luck ran out i raced back to the big smoke
in a drop-top mercedes driven by a man whose thick accent i couldn't quite place.
whose only serious question was whether i knew anyone
who had good coke.

in the city it rained for three weeks straight and
david byrne, in some bowery apartment wrote a song called 'flood'
which was never released on any talking head's album
but lingered in his brain as a reminder of the three weeks
he spent cooped up, eating saltines and dancing to the rhythms of the thunder and rain outside.
totally alone with his mind & a bass guitar. tina weymouth, naturally, was furious.
the bass was the last thing she had left in a band she half-started. and david had stolen even that.

but that was tina weymouth, that was new york.

i)
moving a couch:
our labour pained
by darkened skies.

ii)
smoky room and the long long couch
-- freshly moved,
a multi-hued curvy affair of fabrics, orange & salmon
my old man, the artist & i all sit, cigarettes between fingers
talking.
gives us two paintings, his, for the help.
sitting in the livingroom now while they
talk &
looking out onto the street
clicking a lamp on & off.
two girls see the light blinking,
look up,
wave for me.
so i go down the steps and they ask
if i *know the artist. if i paint??
"i play with words."
--won't i please read them something??
having moved the couch just then, i read them "couch"
-- poem of the summer previous
(furniture on the brain?)
wringing their hands they use words like
great !
enveloping !
eclectic pittr-patt'ring of your words !
-- at this turn away, quoting b. dylan:
"it's very tiring having other people tell you how much they dig you."
instead of standing in the doorway offer
to buy them
                      coffee.
(they greedily accept sans even a blink -- the leeches!)
make 'em wait while i light another cigarette.
& once in cafe
they don't have much of interest to say so
i take my cup and go
sit on the artist's roof.
        
      dig that
          sunset ! ...

on my basement cellar shelves i keep
a buncha cans:
soups, water chestnuts.. tomato paste
some firewood & old glass.
i go there in the evenings with a drink,
heft the big axe/chop wood, kindlings.
a friend even slept down there one time
my house was full up of sleepers (drunks)
he said the sand was cold/but comforting.
i told him:
*"that's why i go down barefoot.
that dusty sand on my feet/takes me someplace else."

get up early & open the windows to get that
fresh balcony air from the slow-waking city
whisky claws still in my scalp;
smell of last night's stale smoke inside from the girl sleepin' upstairs
and her after-glow cigarettes down on the couch.

nothin' quite like cooking up
some eggs in a greasy skillet,
-- big hot mug of stiff coffee.
(the way it sits like oil in the stomach)
slouched at the table by the window
in longjohns and
an old familiar shirt (no sleeves/girl playin' baseball)
might go smoke in the rain, talk to the neighbour who
feeds the pigeons ...
then pad upstairs and wake up miss new *****
for a little *joviality.

GERONIMO wherefore
are thou now?
what scaffold have you fallen
                                                       from & stared
w/milk-pale eyes
                                 at Reverend Cacey
(who stands murmuring   ,  
                     4
pound golden crucifix in out
stretched hands ? )

(the world is very scared
o
  f
     you..)

(why else would
                               ol' blood   hound
Joe Horn
                  be  put  on  yr  trail  ? )
                                                               raise thy sharps rifle 'bove yr head & eat out
                                                                ­                                                          
                                                                                                                    th'sun !!

                 (i declare you are a mountain poet.)

writing a poem (on my iPod: feels like cheating)
while greyhounding back homeward---
(weekend red stripes in guelph & waterloo)
it hasn't much t'do with anything,
save perhaps this mournful banjo
in my ear and grey toronto
and the plateglass houses of the
great rich masses set back on
manicured hills. . .
                            . . . it is overcast again
---tho t'always is on busfilled
                     travel sundays---
when you've nothing else to do but
leave all the weekend's joy in the dusts.
preachers screamin' in fastidious belled churches
while my head splits (from th'very thought)

and O the women i leave behind!
the tight snaky barworn dresses,
smudges (lipsticks)
on ***** cranberries ...
                                          ah! (ah!)
all the numbers and names half-collected,
waiting for next trip down
---or maybe just black oblivion.

. . .
but enough of cloudy thoughts!
i have Spring and all (WCW)
waiting in the pack &
                                      afterall

                                  ... poetry

is the only thing of any importance.
the gardens of bedroom bliss
the freckled map of womankind
the rippling cascade of golden hair
must wait...

nightsong/fallsong
nippy nightfog, dark drive (solo)
breathy windshield, elmvale driveway defog,
a naked girl/thru the house panes
whose bareness
is shown teasingly. (full aware)

homestead.
lamplight, "goodnight!", golden readlight.
bowl of noodles -- broccoli,
darkly pacing silent upstairs/eight-track recorder loudsound (genesis/trick of the tail)
weedpipe outside cold fresh nighttime.
outdoor *******/rockwall/hosetap,
posters/scotchtape/pins
(troilus & cressida pages taped to th'wall)
alone with thinkcap, lady dreamin'
(that ***!---ahh!) (sighs)
ragged joint thru windowscreen . . . baked-up mouth pasted---ice tea sippin' (glorious)
warm blankets & an empty bed;
need to get out of this ****** old town
empty; lonesome songs.
---but, think better . . .
this pre-spain hometown transatlantic waitin' sadness won't last
forever.
& tripping gets you nowhere. (snoop dogg)
smoke again and maybe put on
more genesis.
. . .
*(tho it is fleetwood mac instead
that i slap on/toss myself into bed.)

"who taught you to look so good?!"
says a thought *[shot] in the dark.
--- this to no woman in particular but to
all womankind i suppose.
outside there is a dog haranguing me,
saying WOOF (that is, "where d'you get those old clothes?")
i tell him the sally ann but good luck
getting in there, dog . . . he takes off, complaining ---
but i pay no attention to the bellyaching of an old mutt...
"nay," says i there's not a ******
thing of any real importance in this
universal dustbin/save the dharma.

yea i could live in a woodsy cabin
deep down a valley-ay shoutin' "HOOO-EE!!" out the open door
to anyone who comes by and
be thought a crazy young ('ventually old) ******
off his rocker in the trees.
--- and why not!!
chop logs/cook bread 'n brew potsa tea
'n otherwise lead a silent but meaningful old existence
out there with weekend friends/girls/wine/talk.

--- tell all that to a bookish pal
who scoffs:
"some dharmy of yours, boy. all that work.
where are the café sittings & sunny youthy days of
readin' sutras on a lawn somewhere?"
"bah," i says. *"bah..."

the beach here is nicest
on the weekends
by sunday, after supper.
the crowds are not crowds,
nor are the remnants of them
so awful, so loud, sweaty
--and you can hear the waves properly!
there are just a few last cottagers
clinging to the sand
and a coupla locals feet in the surf
sippin' beers in the days'
last dying sunbeams.

out sweating under the
august sun
i realize the days/are getting colder,
--shorter.
shadows of the geese flyin' south
get longer every day.

but the apples are reddening!
and the water's not yet
too cold,
(still a few girls/down for late-night dips)
nor are the leaves the orange brown of trampled autumn,
and patty d & i still go for tours in the civic
blowin' smokes out in LA park.
---so things aren't really so terrible.

you could perhaps,    some n
ight come
up to 3rd flr           &
entertain. you know
.     split
words in 1/2 with
silver straight razor kept in
yr mouth. loving to
chastise mundane things i do —
grip th' railing
white hands
as petals of obscene flower
that makes feel    ...
one's everything  ...
o phelia.

and why when siren wails
past the mercadona at 3 AM
while i sit on the curb
as you buy
some-thing (i forget. wine i hope).
do you come out and stare
at my shaking hands?
your very eyebrows contesting
my innocence?
the way the fully-loaded hips ****
with the asking of your unspoke question and
legs angle to the sidewalk left foot turned
slightly inwards,
a heart attack in roberto verino.