I was born with an overwhelming empathy
for all creatures encompassing me,
a red heart ready to feel something
I’d never felt before,
I was born
with the ability to love,
and perhaps I’d no say in the matter
but the blood filled me no less and the strings
‘round my organs tugged and throbbed
and eagerly heeded the choir’s demands

I was born in a state of pure chaos, pure bliss;
I was born to look ahead and reminisce

I was born to the familiar it would seem,
the leaves I recognized when they fell from the trees
and how evergreens stayed so ever green;
I’d felt the life of rain in me,
death as cold as Canadian Rockies
all at once with the shelter of instinct
leaving behind nothing but footprints
and running for a different reason
into a cave that says
security and not
top-security penitentiary

I was born, learned and raw
in chaos and bliss,
I was born to look ahead and reminisce

where? in a land far, far away



suburbia about to crack
every Jim, Joe and Jack
solicits money for dope
with no hope for a future
for his kids cause he’s broke


                he hasn’t seen them in a couple of years



                there are all
these mannequins

they walk around like they’re people
they got the houses like us
they got their malls and their steeples

imagine




the hand that feeds them buys ammonia
and they give it to the kids
yeah, they put it in the pigs  
before they’re porkchops and ribs
they take
a little arsenic
and sprinkle it on carrots
because they heard the brand has merit

it's like




a different planet
once they had orange men and pink

and they didn’t get along
they said the colours were wrong

and they fought,
of course they fought
because that’s in all of nature


but they were given a few thousand years
they never quite figured
it out
it was a failure
and they never found a cure
and they never did mature


til the sky

came falling down




and it’s
a different time a different place
it’s not even the human race
but citizens get robbed by banks
held hostage with a gun in face




so I hope
that though the words I speak
are really just absurd
they’ll send a message that is heard




                                     almost there
                                                be the change
                                                          ­    with your
                                                            ­               words.

first
let’s discuss
the girl in the other room

you know the one?
with the hair

who's wearing too much perfume

and those shoes              ha, those shoes!
you know?

her outfit's a costume




yeah, that's the one! the pants… they did make her look* (                                                 )
and her dye job?
heard it’s box

she has a **** job and botox

****, **** there she is



phew...


haaaaay girlfriend
I didn’t see you there!


your hair
is like
so gorgeous!
it's totally a win

and I
am like
SO JEALOUS
of your beautiful
skin!!!!

but could you be a doll
and go find my brother Pete?
I think he might be out front
finding parking in the street


ex…
oh…
ex…
oh…



she totally ****** Pete.

I know, she seems nice but trust me she’s a *****
her legs are always open boys they use her like a bank
I know I’ve slept with like eight guys
I think she’s been with more than ten
I know I cheated on my boyfriend but she totally ***** over men -

Pete! hey,



thanks, giiiirl… love ya!

ex…
oh…
ex…
oh…







so -ahem- this poem is called
*I Thought I Knew You...

imagine velvet walls, pianist and violins, moonlight dancing with the chandelier
above; a grand affair.
everyone suited, of course. just alike, shaking hands,

“sir,”



“as you were.”

injection-forced smiles while shadows eclipse their heads, dimming the hanging
diamond lights as they speak in tongues.

laughter echos from cathedral ceilings, spirals down into deaf cellars and
oh, there will be cocktails that night and concoctions that night,
easy, put me to sleep and then wake me back up!
you’ll thank the waitress, politely, generously offering ten per cent gratuity, five
per cent pity ‘cause she isn’t all that pretty…

mirrors noticeably around every corner, catching glances each passing time.
adjust:
bow-tie (check)
cuff links (check)
slight quaff, unwrinkle, tuck-in your shirt. now,
back to businesss!

and dance akin to swaying scare-crow, in some flawless type of wind where steps
match up mechanically, symmetrically; photographer, and pose.
now your face is on the news
and it’s nothing new to you,
the sun could be your spotlight...



so it’s really too bad that the sun can't reach;
that those clouds suspended above you,
well you’re not sure how to rid them or even, really, how to want the warmth.

I see through magnified eyes
the binocular kind out of focus
I see with a telescope mind
but I think that the glass might be broken

your face
is a smear on the lens, a bit blurry
and my house, I can’t see from the ground
I got worries

it’s like why can I see
up above it’s so clear?
but I look straight ahead
everything disappears






the anthills have all gone away
you filled them all up with your problems
but volcanos on mars I can see
and each molecule, and their atoms

well that’s just my beauty
I can’t help what I see,
everything’s just so giant
to little old me

and my eyes
the binocular kind, out of focus
and my mind, that telescope mind
might be broken

it’s like why can I see
up above it’s so clear?
but I look straight ahead
everything disappears

as a baby
I shed a tear
to tell you of all that ails me,
until the words
start to form;

now tears
still come often,
more, perhaps,
and I am entitled
to that which you give to me.

as a child
I walk
with my nose in the air
as to not directly
inhale my perfume

of arrogance
so sloppily sprayed
on wrists and neck;
underneath,
a faint scent

of fear and despair
lingers.
as a young girl
I hide
behind fear and despair

worried of seeming
arrogant.
oh,
how the tables
have turned.

as a young woman
I shed a tear
to tell you of all that ails me,
but words
never form.

it’s with a heavy heart that I expel these thoughts to endless seas
toward oblivion I see a vibrant, burning entity
inviting me to spill my blood
and to unwind my mind for him,
with faith I leap beneath and into the chameleon rhine.
Her tide will keep me safe from monsters that I swim among
and current pulls me further, and then pushes me back in again.  
it’s with some heavy feet that I’ll now walk toward the ball of fire;
o’ shame of my confessions please don’t yeild this truth from me.
“I am the only truth,” he states;
we speak for weeks or minutes or days
about purple and orange and yellow and green
and how to see the colours of me;
how the blue isn’t blue unless you really look
and how you can’t believe everything you read in a book.
I tell him of sadness, which dulls his glow.
I tell him of the soulless, which he knows so well.
I tell him about sidewalks and concrete fields,
and how our trees have fallen ill.
and he speaks in short, brash flashes;
he is everything
and then nothing;
he’s gone before I get to say goodbye or really even said hello
and all I know is I’m left with nothing
and something,
and if I keep following the rolling stream
North and South and West and East,
and if I flow as One, surely I’ll find him again
and when I do I'll spill my self;
my mind, my body and this soul as One into the chameleon rhine.