HURDLING THROUGH THE TRAFFIC NIGHTLIGHT MACROCOSM MY BUS BOPS AND DASHES LANE AND INTERSECTION
BAM GOES THE TENNIS SHOP
THE GRILL
THE SHOPPING CENTER
IT'S ALL LIGHT IT'S ALL ECSTASY
A BOILING CANDLE
RAPAPAPA-
THE WILD JAZZ
BUDDY RICH SWEATING IN MY EARS
UNRESTRAINED FRENZY
NEON BLINKING APARTMENTS WIDE IN THE DARK DISTANT ATMOSPHERE
MOHAWK MAN BOOT COLLISION ON THE COLD FLOOR
SOME LINOLEUM SOMEBODY SHUTS OFF THE LIGHTS TO HIS STALE OFFICE RETURNING TO BED DRAGGED OUT AND BEAT
BEGGING FOR SLEEP IN AN UNWASHED BED
BUZZ AND THRAP THE DRUMS AND CYMBALS SOAK ANY OTHER SOUND INTO THE
949 HYSTERICAL NIGHT
GAS STATIONS
NIGHTCLUBS
MONOLITH
CAR DEALERSHIPS
MOTELS
RADIO TOWERS
BUS DEPOTS
LIQUOR STORES
SUBWAY
UPTOWN
4 6 4 5 0
APT SUITES
DRAIN SERVICES
"STOP REQUESTED"
DISTORTED RATTLE OF THE INNER WIRING AND WHEELS SQUEAL TO A HALT IN FRONT OF EMPTY HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION
"FOR YOUR SAFETY PLEASE HOLD ON"
UNSPOKEN MONOLOGUE OF WOES IN EACH TIRED SKULL
CASINO
LIBRARY
DRIVE THRU
PHARMACY
VAPOR SHOP
INFLAMED EGO
RAPTURE
MORNING RAZOR WELCOME
POLICE TASER UNWELCOME
I'M PROUDLY RANTING
OF MY SURROUNDINGS
OF THIS MAYHEM MUSIC
THIS GASOLINE VESSEL
HOWLING INTO NOVEMBER
TRANSFIXED AT THE ENTIRETY OF IT ALL
OF THIS
OF THAT
OF THOSE
THE STEADY RACKETING IN MY  BRAIN CONVULSES TRAIN OF THOUGHT PURE FLAMMABLE VERSE
ELECTRIC
"GRANITE & QUARTZ"
THEATRE
THERE IS NO THEATRE
NOT HERE
DON'T BOTHER STAGING SOMETHING AS ELABORATE AS CHAOS ONLY THE WIND BIG BAND CAN BUZZ OUT A TUNE LIKE THE AFTER-HOUR MARCH OF LOOSE HEADS
POLITICAL AFTERMATH ON THE TELEVISION
DRUNKEN SUPERSTITIONS
SIDEWALK FIGHTS
RECKLESS CONSUMPTION
RAMPANT DISORDER
CLASS WEALTH IMBALANCE
CRUELTY
ABANDON
INSOMNIA
PARANOIA
THE SKY HAS SEEN EVERY WAR AND MISHAP OF US
IT SECOND HAND SMOKES EVERY
INDIA PYRE
SMOKESTACK REPETITION
MORNING COMMUTE
AFTERNOON JOYRIDE
FIREWORK
AIRPORT BACCHANAL
THE CLOUDS DO RECALL
DISTANT OLD-WORLD CASUALTIES AND THE NUCLEAR INVENTION
A LOSS OF IDENTITY
I THINK OF ALL THIS
AND THE BUS WINDS DOWN
SCREECH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'M ALMOST HOME
I'M ALMOST THERE
THE HOME THAT'S NOT MY OWN
NOT YET
IT'S EVERYPLACE
AND NOWHERE AT ALL
IT'S THE UNSEEN AND THEN SEEN
INDIVISIBLE AND TRANSPARENT REALITY
IT'S EVERY DRIVE
AND DREAM
I'M ALMOST THERE NOW I CAN TASTE ANOTHER
CATACLYSM
WHILE MIRACULOUS JAZZSOUNDS AND
TCHAIKOVSKY'S CANNONS
SILHOUETTE A CHANGE
OF PACE
IN THIS MAD PLANET
AND ALL IT'S
HABITUAL
INHABITANTS
FOR BETTER OR WORSE
I WILL CONTINUE MY MEDITATIONS
AND GET BY
TO CATCH THE BUS AGAIN
AND TO SEE INDONESIA AGAIN
AND TO LOVE AGAIN
AND TO DRINK WHISKEY BY A MERCURY BONFIRE IN SOME PASSING YEAR
AND HOLD TO HOPE AGAIN
AND HOLD
AND WRITE MORE POEMS
AND WRITE MORE POEMS IN VIETNAM
AND MORE POEMS IN BENARES
AND MORE POEMS IN SAN FRANCISCO
AND MORE POEMS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
UNTIL A BEARD KISSES MY HARDSHIPS
AND REMINDING ME I'LL ALWAYS GET PAST WHAT SEEMS TO BE THE WORST OF IT
I'LL WRITE AND WEEP AND SING
AND RACE MY OWN DEATH INEVITABLE
IT WILL BE
*E  X  P  L O  S  I  V  E
X                               V
P                                I
L                           ­     S
O                               O
S                                 L
I                                  P
V                         ­       X
E  X  P  L  O  S  I  V E

DYNAMO

consciousness tossed
around in the heavenly night,
illuminations and poems in us all
as an asphalt drum bounds
oak to flat
dispersing lamentations to
the brain and barbwire ribcage
clawing at our lungs

PHANTASM

pain,
the behemoth cause for all inspiration
the pressing crucifixion
the shrill cry of harmonica overcast in
this bizarre moonlight
sinking an oceanic shadow
for my memory is high off melancholy
but i keep at it because the morning is beautiful

A PRAYER FOR WARMTH

(in my opinion)
nothing feels stranger than
an empty bedroom
we are each others loneliness

SOLIPSISM

I'm sure an abstract painter adores
the confusion of their
lovers.
Glass reflections on materials in a bedroom
E M P H A S I Z E
the EGOIST in every
sofa
and
actress
in a television set while it rains out
(creating pockets of water on the balcony)
Where is my foundation for times like these when
feet become LOUD ER in the daytime
and obstacles have grown their teeth?

Perhaps a dump truck full of nicely dressed mannequins
will finally be
ticketed
and my eyes
will see
as soft
as your
hair.

Quarry of bones in an office space
and the FORMAL TIE HAS DESTROYED ITSELF WITH
SOCIETAL EXPECTATIONS AGAIN
(LUCIDITY KEEPS INSANITY DISTRACTED)

Caffeinated Canadian Bohemian
daydream of firs showering adjacent
Manhattan batteries.
Tomorrow's rejections watch
bright and beautiful waves smile with false
inspiration
a n d a n o t h e r
concrete victim is created.

!MADNESS!
(the solar flare of the Neutral)
the ammunition in my coffee
and conversations blinking
LAUGHS          OUT
                           TO
                           THE
                           ABYSS
(gorgeous and hollow lineups in front of
a Vancouver bar 11:30pm)

Pale October energies and the
Dharma Radio
feathering my fantasies as this year reaches it's last quarter
CREATIVITY MEANDERING
NEAR NOTHING
anxiously I roll around on the mattress,
open window, listening in on the intricately staged
oblivion of trees
who've become infatuated
with coffins.

Gastown (as it appeared in my dreams)
has found it's dusk anthem!
Adriano Celantano's
"BUONA SERA SIGNORINA"
what a strange dream that was
the music was vivid to the point of
impossible recognition
and I'm awake and dizzy not from all that
but from love
(it's tilting my axis!)
Always has......

An untraceable eye
lingers in
malevolence to ALL city banks
where the late bop players
stand united and "free"
(Outside, by art on a wall with animals dancing in a hot air balloon, jealous of their own permanent state of painted euphoria)
Restaurants are consumed by silence
upon closing down,
but NOT the Fisgard streetcorner cafe
I frequent!
It's LOUD TRUTH and San Francisco weeps in
the decorated walls.....some far off dream of North Beach
Trieste evening with people who were once ALIVE!!
People that bleached
THE AMERICAN VISION
with sharpened language sleeker than
the polished jaw of Apollo.

Here I am again,
accepting the same sweeping misery
as those before me
(settled tombstones barely seen beneath a wild oak
while cars cry exhaust to beach-view apartments
and Winter's harsh wind drums against the window pane)
sure they were good people, but living plays no favorites.

I'm awake and dizzy!
forlorn with the morning.
Stars surrender to a sun
which often wonders
how we adapt to this asylum.
(Vanity makes me sleepy)

Warm in the delicate crimson light,
I lie in a temporary peace.
I am setting
as all else rises.

Flowers grow tired in the morning,
as people disrupt their sleep with car horns
blaring the industrial alarm clock to mountains and
whispering gods who smooth the leaves with their voices.

The architecture students have created a rat maze lecture hall
for students to stress in when fog rolls through the campus.

Now is the time for sentiments, anyone who has told you different
is too dull to carry any or too cold to care.
People pray for commodity.

Why have the Dutch left Asia? (less than 24 hours)
The absurdity of things is a white white sun worshiping itself
indefinitely.
Poems are autobiographies as autobiographies are poems.

Philosophers do not accommodate false prophets.
Philistines stray from therapy in paintings.
The depressed don't wake to traffic jazz but rather the silence of sleeping birds.
The sociopath will not make love without a motive.
Pacifists will not even battle their own sadness.

Autumn arrives with a few wraps on the door of an old folks home
(again)
Priests have daydreams and then suffer from a terrible insomnia.
A cigarette can last as long as the lungs that feed them.

Hospitals contain their own life cycle, I was born in 1996 and a few floors below my infancy
corpses lay in the cool sterility of a morgue.
People I would never met
(Except for 19 years later as I pass them in my local cemetery)

Projectors contain all the information needed for countless hives of youth to swarm around another thing to bury under the weight of narcissistic culture,
who's reliance on materialism is a growing fruit gone rotten.

The diverse architecture of Tokyo is really quite fascinating
(a city I would pay to get lost in)
Taiwan has existed as a single airport that reeks of tiger perfume
and sells cheap coffee in February.
(our reality is our perception of it)
Vancouver's train system is a rattling electric crib.

.......People count sheep, sheep count factories (?)

Psychic tea readers have fallen to the poor habit of leaving one's china out in the open for anyone to stumble across and become the next doomsday microphone.

Here comes the martyr on a carved wagon of moonlight.
Observing the bathroom flamingo called youth
perching upon a grenade.

A ruby suitcase emits egotism to a wicked one
who rests upon it like a vault of accomplishment.
Small snowdrops freckle a crows beak in December.
Autumn calls for keepsakes like a doll's dress
(A repressed memory)
Gifted to you by the Serendipitous Psychologist
who holds a Venetian mask to Her eye

(The forest retaining it's Summer form behind bare branched truth)

Jesus Christ is a child spotting the
street corner behind you
on the public transit.
He can create gold out of anything!
Including a shy abuse feeding off the heart of those we pass by.

Nothing is really estranged except for our perceptions.

A Monk inflates a BLACK BALLOON to float around
in an apartment with aged paint and
THIRTY TALL MIRRORS circling each side of the DOORFRAME.
Nobody knows why,
but he does this every day at 6 even when he's feeling
under the weather.

Laundromats are the most romantic place to meet somebody who shares the same infliction as you.

The drunk on the corner of Government St was here yesterday
and has vanished
(Their place to be is a match-strike away in any direction they hear it first)

I like to imagine the woman who lives across the hall from me has named her favorite potted plant or painting or
associated an object with a positive memory
(Perhaps a time she was in love)

The M O O N appeared the hue of harvest
yesterday, and I'm still burning.

Hummingbirds give advice to those who are open to listen.

Allen Ginsberg ate at my favorite restaurant,
one day I'll be placed where he sat,
writing poems and continuing a
legacy of sorts.
For those who are crazy enough to write their monsters down
so anyone can see.

Nothing but a straw man is itching the flesh of every false King and Politician.
I need a pungent flower to make them sneeze out the ******* of this
Nation
(We have amputated enough as is)

Another rural goddess steps off the bus and
some nights after an encounter like that
I watch the circus, wrapped in blankets,
laughing at the hypnotists until they laugh at me.
Arriving back home bewildered and confused.

Don't listen to ME, I haven't slept in WEEKS!
I suppose in some ways that makes me happier and more miserable
than you all.

Why can't people dream as vividly as dogs?