The calm was worn out of her.
For decades, jesus ****, ---tens… of … *******...years,
She had abstained, held back, postponed and missed out.
Somehow she had become the Mother Theresa of kind gestures,
The one who helped
And healed
And hovered
And hoped,
Oh god how she had hoped,
Until standing in front of the mirror
In Bloomingdale’s basement,
Her lips chapped and her mouth parched,
In some obscene sort of spiritual dehydration,
A pre- catatonia,
And sensing the up swell of a hurricane of self-hatred,
So overwhelming
That it numbed her fingers and made her nose itch,
In this instant she could not tell
Which side of the mirror she was on.
Was she looking at herself or was she the reflection of herself.

In this messiah moment,
When a massively disinterested sales clerk asked her
If she had found what she was looking for,
In this exchange with a stranger with a name tag on,
Her life stopped.
And for the first time ever she responded, yes I think I have.

So she bought the dress which showed way too much cleavage,
Wore it out of the store and into an uptown bar,
Where she surveyed the 5 o’clock crowd,
Found the face of a man she had never seen before
And walked up to this stranger in a suit
And offered to buy him a drink.
He accepted, Jesus was it really that easy.
They exchanged maybe twenty words,
She knew exactly what she wanted,
And she shivered twice,
At the end of a dark corridor,
Bent over a cold aluminum beer keg,
A fistful of her hair in his hands,
Her ******* wrapped round one ankle,
The dress now a sash about her waist.

And so her secret life began.
She didn't tell her husband,
Or her priest,
She took a part time gig
At a massage parlour with the happiest of endings,
And she felt powerful and a little insane.
Sitting at Sunday dinner, smiling and engaged,
She wondered if she was a sociopath, a closet ******,
How could deception and promiscuity
Bring her happiness,
Where honour and fealty had failed.

She worried about others finding out,
It would destroy her life if they did,
Disgrace was a terminal disease at her stage,
Her heart would panic each time she entered the salon,
Each time she had to parade nearly naked,
In front of a new client,
The moment before she entered the room,
Would she know the man on the other side of that door,
Was the risk worth it.

Time after time she decided it was.

Carla said we must talk about love.
If it doesn’t define, it doesn’t exist, she said,
And pulled the two nearest stools away from the bar.

Has anyone you have ever known- anyone-
Ever offered you even a pitiful explanation
Of this bewildering word
She asked me,
In that way she has
Of not asking me at all.

She lit her pipe,
Her first exhale a ceremonial cloud,
A white tobacco fog,
A linger that purchased my childhood memories,
The pungency of three fingers of scotch, neat, at dawn,
The south face picture window ablaze with
The painful flood of an early sun,
A tin can stereo in full lament about cowboy love
And the inevitability of betrayal,
My father off key,
All his memories a libel and a calumny.

If I say I lust for you, you know what I mean, Carla said,
If I question your loyalty there is no obfuscation,
If I tell you in my sleepy voice the wine is delicious,
You are tempted to sample,
But if a man tells a woman he loves her
What conclusions will she abide,
Carla asked me with a stare.

Do you even know anyone who can utter the words I love you,
Without feelings of hysteria, near mental collapse,
Or worse-farce, she asked.

We tell people we love them to calm them,
To manipulate them,
To play magic tricks on them, Carla said,  
Love is an adolescent stage,
A toxic teenage mix and of oestrogen and testosterone,
Romeo and Juliet were children for ***** sakes, Carla said,  
As she drank half of her breakfast scotch,
And began to blow perfect smoke rings
In the mirror still stale air
Of the Rock Hen all day, all night, all the time bar.

I just know I love my dog, I replied,
And I held my finger up,
To see if Carla could circle it perfectly with a smoke ring,
Which she did.

And I don’t even know why, I said,
I guess I love how he needs me and doesn’t resent it,
Even as I disappoint him and neglect him,
Forget to feed him, force him to *** in the rain,
He still wags his appreciation with gusto.

Perhaps we can only love our dogs,
Carla replied,
Or perhaps we should all have tails,
And she ordered us lemonade and tequila
With scrambled eggs, french toast and a *** of blueberries.

I’m lost.
Inside a conversation
With a ghost,
Who keeps a case of beer,
On my back porch,
Year round.


I struggle.
With his take,
On things.
At best, he says, you perish in a fury,
His mouth a fresh full fill,
Raw oysters topped on spice baked kelp.

I wait.
To hear the worst.
His pause is theatre 101,
All fog and drama,
Ephemeral guest,
Sweet mist and ****.

I lean.
Against our red rose sun,
The window warm from spring to fall,
My back porch home a hobby now,
The worst he says, in adagio,
Is drudgery, no end at all.

One of a billion, so empty and thin,
The breath of a child can make me begin,
A bloat to a bubble, soon free off the ring,
Up into a breeze, not really a thing,
Oily bright colours, a slip woozy shape
I dance on the wind and make my escape.

Bold children chase, big eyes and quick giggles,
I snag grandpa’s nose and it gives a wiggle.
The snoozing old man so out unaware
He’s forgotten the girl with red ribbon hair.
She’s about to be snatched, hands intertwine,
I sting papa’s eyes and he wakes just in time.
He calls his granddaughter, the man slips away,
Bubbles, soap bubbles, were angels today.

Each afternoon in June,
I loiter-linger on the corner of 37th avenue,
Both eyes asleep,
A summer’s sunset smile on my face,
A flock of fairies in free float round my head.

My habit, a daily pause,
Plant my haunch against the blue barrel mail box,  
Old empty drum, anachronism, stubborn antique.

I cringe at the mad jazz of shrieks and horns on cue,
The hatter’s rush at end of day,
There is purpose in this cacophony,
My city boasts and brags with noise,
Intoxicated on aroma,
A frequency with every smell.

Baptiste’s Pizza owns the breeze at 4 p.m.
Inhale this baker’s breath,
An oven-joy in one warm gust,
Blond baked crust,
Tomatoes boil and bubble cheese,
Salt fresh anchovies, red peppers,
A currency of meats.
I salivate and lick the wind,
Hunger is desire.

Sudden harmony in one sweet waft,
A pleasant jet stream,
A toker passes by,
And gifts me with a 60’s contact high.

A small girl’s mouthful voice,
A jam cram of donuts is my guess.

The rattle, clap and black lung cough,
An old school diesel delivery truck,
The air brakes squeal for release,
It’s quitting time and everything wants to be free

A homeboy,  my local jive,
I know his dreams,
A lacquered finish,
In love with his axe,
You feel me... tap, bump and go.

Vinegar and toxic spice,
A window washer’s delight,
He squeals a squeaky clean

Fresh roses, oh a hopeful night, bonne chance,
The catastrophe of a cigarette,
The killer joy of a fresh cigar,
An uptown girl's stealth perfume,
She knows her prey,
He knows her ploy,
A mid west girl and a downtown boy

Daylight begs to dim,
The sun will witness just enough, no more,
My corner holds its own,
Each afternoon my part in scenes,
I dream,
And never wish, but often wonder,
About the life that might have been.

I was 18 and surrendered to a Van Gogh sunset,
The Aegean Sea a calm mirror,
Plato’s sun, rose-red and dying,
A shift from wind to breeze,
Each night negotiates a calm.

There were eight of us
Inside the cave,
A cathedral inside a mountain,
Our home, high upside a cliff,
The mountain shepherds unhappy
With our stake,
Until we saved the lamb.

We’d found each other,
An octad to a family formed,
Wandering, drinking, annoying the Swiss,
Our freedom dangerous,
Beyond control,
Our odd desire to just be.

Hell, we were reading Hesse,
One of their own,
Our Swiss welcome spent,
They’d had enough,
And so we left for Athens,
To dance and sing,
And tender the sad patience of the Greeks.

Eighteen hours on the ferry to Eos,
People barfed huge arcs over the railing,
Then sat down to reread the headlines for the hundredth time,
Eos was an island of no cars, sparse electricity,
An abundance of religion
And a constant flow and cask of wine.
Retsina, the barrel sealing resin of the Aleppo pine,
An odd and unmistakable taste,
It left a hangover like a warning shot,
The only cure to drink again.

We spent Easter high on acid,
In the back pews of a church,
A thousand years of candles
White walls black with carbon,
A priest, a chalice, the smoking thurible,
A pendulum of incense and pure thought,
The ancients practiced faith with all their senses.

On cloudy moonless nights,
We walked the miles home,
Sandals slap on a sugar sand,
The beach ours, all of it
So dark we could only hear the sea,
The rhythm of the waves like the downbeat of the earth,
We plodded to its dark measure in a line,
On return, from village, church,
Or a lover’s walk through miles of wild daisies,
Until the rediscovered goat path up to our cave,
A Sisyphean task, a find each time,
Drunk, ******, alive, young, nuclear with hope and desire,
We would change the world,
We would mend kind all the broken parts.

And in our cave,
The sounds of others making love,
Rough grunts and soft sighs, whisper kisses,
I would think and dream,
And ride the silver of those waves
Our lives like skipping stones,
Brief, beautiful, and bound.

Even I cannot find this care anymore.
I’ve run vague and dry of all moist thought,
Brittle will scores this round,
All life is best endured no more,
I will not bend to peek at joy,
Each smile a twist, all laughter ups to snort and ugly choke,
Time strides by, a hustler, a tomcat, a victim on the run.

At last the end of dreams, such bold relief.
Not more takes or edits done,
I breathe in whole, without the worry of dismal hope,
Each expectation outed now and free to fade,
I court the hours without a scheme,
Death will pace until my shift is done,
This warm friend who sentences but can’t condemn,  
Staid promise, an infinity of next for all.
Soon enough this now is gone,
Rejoice