Maja wanted to party.
Pachanga and rage,
Yodel see oooma and tunnel sing.

No alcohol she said,
A stupid juice, no switchin' lanes.

We dance tonight, she said, macarena, gigging,
A grind fest, dry ******* on a stanky leg,
Be ****** and true.

The word spread.
By 11 p.m. a thousand isadoras from Devon,
Mud sharks and ****,
Everybody smigglin' and dimplin' out.

We only have this day, Maja said,
So we bustamove and shuffle.
Tonight. All night.
And we rallied.

When I kissed you,
With open eyes,
I was not expecting,
Such a pleasant surprise.

Soft lips, plump pout,
**** sounds when you breathe out,
Bodies press, ******* flatten,
Buttons yield, belts unfasten.

It isn't love,
Such a mystery tour,
But so divine,
Love's first lure.

It can't be

That I will spend an entire life,
Begging for love,
Confused by anger,
Afraid of frowns,
Eager to blame,
Bored with myself,
And
Waking up dead,

Can it?

We have only one terror,
An early companion,
Our fear of death,
Is our eternal canyon.

One slip or stumble
And life is over,
Even the careful
Get handed over.

Immortality perhaps,
Is found only in fame,
Heroes live for ever,
The rest of us abstain.

I've lost the connection to my voice,
I can no longer hear myself think,
A man with a cap full of change,
Told me I might be dead and unaware.

Is that what death is, I asked him.
The moment you pause and realize
You are infinitely alone,
No others ever in the room.

Look around he said,
You've scripted each and every outcome,
Your frosty choices and slavish needs,
And now regret... how sour and sad.

I miss hitchhiking.

The most honest conversations,
Always happen,
With people you do not know.

I miss talking to strangers.

For three billion years we all got along,
A single cell dance party chanting one song,

Constant cooperation and pulling your weight,
No time for scheming, an amazing birthrate.

For three billion years we shared and we grew,
Until one sunny day, one cell became two.

Competition now was life's driving force
Winning, the strongest, marriage and divorce.

But never forget how full it began.
Cooperation was our most successful game plan.

Dance lessons began at six p.m.

Martha said she would come,
And then,
At the last second
She bailed…
And sent her friend,
The soprano who lives above her,
The wild one with the parrot,
Who sunbathes in her underwear,
As her replacement.

My name is Alexandra the friend said
And offered me her hand to kiss.

Then I will expect great things from you, I replied,
And drew her body close to me
In a nose to nose, cha-cha embrace.

Are you always so obvious,
She asked me,
Especially in this day and age.

I am a defiant breed I replied,
A man who truly loves to dance.

What has life taught,
What message spins,
Does evil have
A twice evil twin.

The greed and the fear,
The lust is to win,
Does all torment stop,
When true love begins.

God doesn't cry,
In His chagrin,
He waits for us patiently
To search from within.

I asked chatgpt to write me a poem about death and to make it happy. Below

In shadows'embrace, a dance unseen,
Where sunsets fade, and stars convene,
A journey's end, a tranquil flight,
Through veils of time, toward gentle night.

No sorrow lingers, only grace,
As whispers echo in death's embrace.
The weary soul finds sweet release,
In realms where joy and sorrows cease.

A tapestry woven, threads unfold,
In realms unknown, a story told.
For in the circle of life's grand scheme,
Death, a serene and joyous dream.

Amidst the dawn, where sun-kissed dreams take flight,
First love emerges, tender, pure, and bright.
In youthful hearts, a melody takes hold,
A sonnet's verse, where emotions unfold.

With hesitant steps, we dance the unknown,
A waltz of feelings, beautifully grown.
In every glance, a world anew is spun,
A tale of hearts entwined, two becoming one.

Soft whispers linger in the moonlit air,
As stars bear witness to a love so rare.
The touch of hands, a gentle, sweet caress,
Ignites a flame, a passion to confess.

Oh, first love, like a sonnet finely penned,
In every beat, a timeless love, transcendent.

A poem a day is not cure,
It's lollipops and green manure,
So hold your nose
And close your eyes,
The smell of cheese,
Is my surprise.

500 years ago,
On a shoreline in northern Peru
More than 140 children,
Were ritually sacrificed,
Their chests sliced open,
From the sternum,
And their hearts ripped out,
Literally, all in one day.

In America over 5000 catholic priests
Have been reliably identified,
As child rapists,
And that's just since 1950.
And only in one country.

Over 300,000 child soldiers exist today.
The worst of the worst,
Had to ****** their parents,
On the day of their abduction.
Think about cutting open your father's throat,
And watching him bleed at your feet.
Over 30% of child soldiers are girls.

This poem won't trend,
Almost no one will care,
And I am certainly no saviour.

But somehow, someday, somewhere,
The essence of us must change.
Only art can save us.
I know that now.

In life we are alone.
Only death touches all.

Scream and shout, let your feelings out,
Curl and winge, let your body cringe,
Hide your eyes, smile wide within,
Head up boldly and  take it on the chin.

But most of all, there's no more pretending,
The world isn't cold and it isn't upending,
There is more good, more right than wrong,
So stand up tall and be iron man strong.

Men are doomed, Carla told me,
It’s your eternal haircuts, she continued,
How can you sculpt a life from a single shape,
One look,
Every mirror an impersonation
Of the initial version of one’s self,
Each day reduced to a child’s calculation,
You wake up, only older, grayer, a withered rasp,
Ever more discouraged by the unfairness of things.

Carla exhaled a dragon’s torrent
White jet streams unfurled out of both nostrils,
A waft of my father’s morning scent.

With a flick of her thumb,
She snapped the ash
Off the end of her cigar.
A sharp hiss as the ember sizzled and sank
In the shallow of a pavement puddle.

It had cold rained most of the day.
Over a pause, the sky roiling with indigestion,
We bundled up in autumn clothes,
And trudged uptown,
Our chins tucked deep into our chests,
Our squinty eyes glued to our shoes,
The wind had a slap to it.

It isn’t war you should fear, she continued,
It’s robots.
Soon we won’t need you for anything,
Carla jabbed her lacquered fingernail at phantoms as she spoke.
Women have been fornicating with machines
For over a hundred years, she said,
The transition for us has already occurred.

Weld and solder us a pleasant replica,
One that can shine a toilet
Sterilize the dishes, **** us brilliantly,
And recite Shakespeare at will-
Believe me,
Soon we will barter for your *******,
Exchanging bitcoins for the innate,
With no intention of ever attending your funeral.

No the war is over and men have lost, Carla repeated.
She walked ahead me,
Her hips a sashay as she spit a loose bit of tobacco leaf
Onto a lamp post.
I could not persuade my eyes to look away.

We were not innocent.

The desperate choke of religion,
A Jesus with our ham and cheese,
Jammed down our throats everyday,
Alliance with Satan implied and guaranteed,
If we deviated even one degree.

But then, to be honest,
We weren't that afraid.
And we were not innocent.

The offspring of war heroes,
We mimicked battles,
Received toy machine guns as gifts,
We joked endlessly with each other.
Babbled on in rushing rapid ramble,
About killing the enemy,
About nothing,
About school,
About the Maple Leafs.
About castles in the sky.


We shoplifted on a dare,
Bought cigarettes as ten year olds,
A full pack was twenty five cents,
We blew smoke rings for hours
While lying on our backs in the long grass,
Giant jumbo clouds floated by,
Our circus in the sky.

We peeked in windows, hid in bushes,
Learned about women's bodies
While she brushed her teeth,
And examined herself for lumps and bumps.
It was exciting beyond our wildest
******* fantasies.

We were young.
We were eager.
We couldn't wait to live each day.
We were boomers on the rise,
Life was meant to be exciting.

I sat down to posit beauty,
As the careful print and plan.
But my anger bubble-boiled,
And I could not give a ****.

Not one to gutter up and quit,
I watched the sun's red rise.
There is majesty and mystery,
In clouded clear blue skies.

But anger knows a patient name,
A shiftless, lazy sad,
Beauty bookmarked once again,
The world spins joker mad.

We cannot give up.
We cannot.
It is not the ridiculous, righteous end,
It is the naked dawn.
The beginning.

We are at the edge of a brilliant frost,
A moment of clarity and resurgence.
Be still and listen.

Things are getting better.
Our minds will clear.

Talk out-loud to that person in the mirror.
Tell them courage befriends determination.
We will learn to love again.

I used to have a cause.
But now it's a because.

I have promised myself,
Not to die,
In a car,
In a garage,
With the motor racing.

I have promised loved ones
No need to fear,
No echoes here,
The coast is clear,
Such lies are self effacing.

Death my only comfort zone,
A ridiculous time,
To be alone,
I long to leave,
The end is what we're chasing.

It a candy can kiss,
And mothers are grand,
The moon spins to full,
And stones turn to sand.

Then love is my lady
Her heart broken and kind,
My eyes as my witness,
Her spell has its bind.

The solid inner core of the earth
Grows by about a millimeter each year.

Wish mine did the same.

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.

Why do we fear,
Those who come near,
The suspect of guile,
In a careful coy smile,

How can we  tell,
Who casts the spell,
Clever impostors
Suspicion well fostered.

**** the so cautious,
**** all of loves' losses,
I'll take my chances,
On life's reckless romances

There is a sign in my neighbourhood  
That says 'Rural Crime Watch".

Personally I like to watch crime in the city.
Much more exciting.

The crow one-eyes me,
Gives me the up and down,

Then stabs at the ground
And harpoons a blue and white,

A tiny caterpillar only seconds old,
A hatch-ling, one minute in the sun,

How brief, how pure,
Life is never over before its begun.

I've spent my life searching for coins in the cushions,
Scrounging,
Excited by the cookie crumbs others leave behind.

No more.

Today I draw my sword.

You birth, you die.
In between you laugh, but first you cry.
Babies can’t be born a giggling,
First a howl and then a wiggling,
Feed me now, I see them jiggling,
A ******’s nourish or I’ll have to amplify.

You grow, you leave.
Kindergarten’s where you find and first deceive.
Are you scared, no I’m just shivering,
What’s the answer, please stop quivering,
Stop your squirming and start delivering,
Be silent girl, while we teach you to retrieve.

You love, you hate.
This line defines who you will be, so hesitate.
Your skin is dark, you must be trouble,
Born a woman let it double,
Godless freak, you’re on the bubble,
Fools all, refuse their call and stave a poisoned bait.

You fight, you lose.
Death’s undefeated makes afterlife a muse.
Still there is joy in generosity,
Kin and kind in blind equality,
Stand up to greed and each atrocity,
Your courage deep, dwells down the destiny you choose.

My father hated me.
I think I was a mistake.

I should have said I'm sorry,
And wandered far away.

Sad early Sunday.
My father sits bus station alone.
In the big chair, in our living room.

A half empty glass of 6 a.m. scotch in one hand.
An unlit White Owl cigar in the other.

It's an odd way to describe a room.
The living room.
Always made me wonder where the dying room was.

Sunlight across the prairie as
Dawn explodes through the big picture window,
And chases out the dull and grey
Repainting  the living room instantly
Into bright daytime colours.

My father is a man with no friends,
The most solitary dude in the history of the world.


I hide in the hall.
Six years old, awake, not woke.
No fear.
Just curious

I hear the rasp,
The red tip of a white wood match scratches
Along the strike pad,
A rough scrape down a runway
Of sand and powdered glass,
Before the head flares and ignites.

You know the sound,
You've heard it a million times

Smoke hypnotizes,
Curls and coils off the tobacco tip,

I can't pull my eyes off him.

It's his ritual,
His moment to atone alone,
I watch as a man prepares himself,
To reflect, remember and regret.

Four big puffs
Before the sunlight streaming
Through the picture window
Is subdued.

Clouds and haze,
The tip of his cigar glows ember bright on each inhale.

Pasty Cline sings Crazy.

It was the loneliest I ever felt.
Or would  ever feel,
Kneeling in our hallway,
Watching him sit and contemplate
The blue burn.

He circles his lips, his mouth,
And blows a smoke ring.

A perfect curl,
The whitest rolling O drifts,
Into the middle of the room and hovers,
A magic trick.

He closes his eyes and listens.

I'm crazy, crazy for feeling so lonely,

Pasty sums it up and I fall back asleep,
On the carpet in the hall.

She wrote me an old fashioned letter,
Ball point pen on snowflake stationary.

Found my soft spot as usual, uncovered a tear,
She was always **** good at that.

There's personality in the way people write,
The individual shape of the letters, the slant, the size.

And like a thumbprint, your style is unique to you,
Handwritten like homemade brings things to life.

Oceans of love was my grandmother's signature phrase

We are transforming into machines, robots,
Things that never feel at all, never really laugh or cry.

Are you as numb as I am,
Watch people die right before my eyes,
Then switch to cats chasing clicks.

In the middle of the night,
When sleep is a drug of choice,
I sometimes weep openly,
A damp pillowcase in the morning,
My oft found re-memory of you.

I cannot live without you.
I cannot die without kissing you again.
Hope and despair have finally won.

Love's lucid lust, limp and lent
Touch, tempt and tease, taut  tumescent,
Feelings fray, fear finds a face,
Doubt doubles down, damp desire displaced.

We must dance,
With flowers in our hair,
Like the hippies at Woodstock.

We must dance,
Intimate and exposed,
By the rhythm and the beat.

We must dance,
Naked and aroused,
As we touch, taste and tempt.

We must dance,
Tonight

Dance for me this one last time,
Tease me naked, sweet pantomime,
Slip-slide your dress but stay your shoes,
Swing-sway your hips, my gorgeous muse.

Wrap round your arms, a prisoner’s chains,
Make me confess and make me strain,  
Offer, tempt me, tease me, sting,
Dance for me and my nomad queen.

Twitter tongues, all kiss no tell,
Secrets, whispers, rumours swell ,
Lies ignite, sparks lust to fire,
Dance for me til death conspires.

If you are sad, then sing,
About each and every anything.

If you're happy, then dance,
Maybe even in your underpants.

If you're violent, perhaps enlightenment,
Time to give up your entitlements.

If you love, it's from above,
From that celestial place we've all heard of.

Be kind. Please. First be kind.

In the sun's rise, the dandelions were yellowicious.
A Woodstock of bright and bold,
A city field of green and gold,
The **** churned butter bright and so ambitious.

But chemical crews with the Monday blues
Soon arrived well armed,
Urgent men much alarmed,
A holocaust of daisy soon ensued.

I sat wondering, bright petals fluttering,
As the poisonous spray,
Drifts all my way
Dawn's toxic breeze leaves me stuttering.

We beg,
We cry,
We plead and bargain
Til we say goodbye.

We bend,
We break,
And gamble all and everything,
That took so long to make.

We wave,
We wither,
Death whisper-speaks,
A cold night-breath that makes us shiver.

I like a girl who wakes me up at dawn,
Gets up half naked and puts the coffee on,
Moves me out before the day's half gone,
A working man, no time to yawn,
More pie tonight if I stand tall and strong

What madman's  joy in this new dawn,
Renewed, refreshed, a massive yawn,
I stretch, I arch, a groan out loud,
A hand slips under, a warm breast found.

Now *** under sunrise is a spiritual find,
The covers uncovered we slip back in time,
To haylofts and snow storms and cars parked for hours,
When kisses were contests and life was devoured.

French toast and blue berries, an ocean of syrup,
Twice breakfast in bed predict the leaves in my tea cup,
A long life, good fortune, greets lovers at dawn,
Life isn’t a dash it’s a mad marathon.

The best way to prepare a man for life,
Is to deny him all love and acceptance.

Only then, will he spend every waking moment,
Asking why.

Krista makes me want to dance,
Rob paints words with circumstance,
Victoria smiles, the kindest eyes,
Melancholy knows that love is wise.

Bones is searching for a hopeful heart,
Emmanuel smiles, all humour's art,
Solange sees others first and pure,
Melissa's kindness will pearl endure.

So why is now the only time,
Surely things will always rhyme,
Is dawn a beginning or a sweet revenge,
A time of day to think of friends.

We walk alone, it's our sealed fate,
We search at night, we consummate,
Your naked body pressed to mine,
Love is our boast, your lips divine.

Dare any swain escape his youth intact,
Soon after the fringe of courage will discolour into fade,
Until one day the pause,
The morning mirror, the tics and taunts,  
Who is this clumsy old man his story will complain.

His bruise of reputation echoes back as tease,
The ***** and sag of masculine decline,
Is journaled in the bloom of brown blotch on his hands,
The tattered skin, the oaf and clownish frown,
The aberrant fur in ears and nose,
The quitter’s curve now cues to crooked spine,
There is no bath, no rub, nor miracle devine,
From here on in he culls and manages decline.

She asked me if I would die for her.
I said yes instantly.
Without thinking.
There was no decision to sift.

The fact that you said yes
Is insignificant, she said.
That you didn't delay means everything and all.

I'm not sure I understand, I replied,
And we stopped,
Turned,
And faced each other.

Reluctance is a carcinogen, she said,
Love cannot, will not, must not hesitate.
Willingness is where we fuse.

I smiled. She kissed me.
Autumn wept without a tear.

They main-lined memories,
Cooked up,
Or reheated their juiciest reminiscence,
Over fresh drip coffee and burnt toast in the kitchen.

They played the what-if game joyfully,
And injected the good, the bad and the impossible
Into their long walk
Down to the train station.

Retelling- hell,
Anthony and Emily
Rewrote their history together
With a laugh.

What if we’d had girls instead of boys, she asked,
What if we’d worked for somebody else, he remarked
Be a lot richer Emily chuckled,
And maybe a big pension too, Anthony replied,

And they snorted out loud and squeezed
Each other’s hands so tight
It felt like they were holding on
To life itself.

The only regret I have, said Emily,
Is the number of ice cream sandwiches
I stuffed in my mouth.
My *** could be half the size it is now.

My only regret is that *** isn’t twice as big, Anthony replied
So there’d be more of you to love
And lot more for me to hang on to!

It was an old joke,
Hell they’d performed it a million times.

But truth out…
They still ****** like teenagers
Only now with the kids gone,
They could be loud.
Jesus, the dog hid downstairs,
Or barked seriously
Like thieves were breaking in.

God-****** a good scream felt **** good,
And the hard work warranted some
High pitched celebration.

Hell between the banged up knees,
The stubborn like a mule hips,
And a ***** with attention deficit disorder,
A bit of applause at the end of it all,
Was a genuinely appreciated gesture.

It's the kind of thing,
Couples in for the long haul
Do all the time.

She served him red ripe cherry pie at dawn,
Oven warm,
With a skimp of cheddar cheese,
Curled up and asleep on the side of the plate.

He captured the first whiff while strutting through  
The maze,
Of a last minute dream.
On stage, lead guitar, **** Jagger, Brown Sugar.

She held a fork full of promise near his nose,
And smiled.
He woke humming, strumming, *****, and confused.
What more pleasure could desire be.

The dark shuffles out
With night and quiet on its back,
Winter's woke,
Up and lifts one lazy lid
Sniffs the fertile autumn stir,
One single harsh and homeward sneeze
Turns morning dew
To foggy breath and needle's breeze.

If you had a dial,
With a spinning needle
And one hundred spaces
On which the needle could land.

And one of the spaces was marked death.
And you do die if you land on it.


Would you, in exchange for feeling happy
All the time,
Plus the absolute ability to tell a truth from a lie,
Spin that dial once each day.

I would

Emma and Jack
1 A.M.

Emma: “Hey you asleep…?”

Jack:  “…if I say yes… what happens?”

E: “Look, I think we should get a divorce.”

J: “From each other or from reality altogether?”

“Funny. Do you dream anymore?”

“Never. Last time was when Paddy died.”

“Your high school friend. The one who got shot by the cops?”

“Yeah. The night I found out I had a dream that went on for hours.”

“About him?”

“No, yeah, it was all about life after death, there were angels, big rooms, lots of light.”

“What happened again?”

“He robbed a bank. Paddy and a guy named Chris Ranier. They held up a bank, like with shotguns”

“Why? Why would a 17 year old middle class kid rob a bank?”

“His parents were down, not starving, so I don’t know.”

“Where did he die again?”

“At a bus stop. They were waiting for a bus. If the bus had been on time, the cops would never have found them. At least that’s what the cops said.”

“And the Chris kid lived?”

“Yup, took a bullet through the heart but he lived.”

“So our divorce.”

“Why do you want to get divorced again?”

“Research. I want to know how people react.”

“ To what?”

“To you and me. What happens when you tell someone you are divorced?”

“In my case women start to salivate.”

“Women don’t salivate. They plan.”

“They scheme you mean. I thought writers made stuff up.”

“Wrong. Writers discover, we ‘re explorers.”

“You know I’ve got an early morning…”

“Scheme is sexist by the way, just sayin’”

“So is salivate, sleep tight”