Listen.
Or more appropriately I'm listening.

I know you aren't happy
And you are unsure of what to do,
And no matter how many times you try
It always comes back to money,

I get it.

This weird concept of trading our time for tokens

But the best advice I can give you
Is to not follow your dreams,
Ignore your passions,
Stop worshiping Disney.

Join forces with others if you can
And make money.
Its the only way to get free,
To reclaim your life,
To do something that matters.

You are soon dead.
That's the only sure thing.
Money will liberate you from fear.

That's as good as it gets

Stamp out all the clocks in me,
Bend this  glass until time breaks
Hobble the pace of everything that runs
End all noise and raw prediction.

Give me one moment with a still sun,
A pod of great white clouds in pause,
The flutter, the wind, the memory of beginnings,
I miss you most in mornings, why wake up at all.

Can you feel it.
The tension, the fear,
The way that even strangers sneer.

Can you smell it.
The decay, the rot,
Everyone poisoned by their own thoughts.

Can you hear it.
The hate, the suffer,
We forget we have one original mother.

We punch in at birth,
And somehow we survive.

We have a few laughs,

Over the years we leak out an ocean of tears,
About 10,000 ******* more or less,
We scale a man-made mountain of moral quandary,
And never get near the top

We enjoy a clutch of near death expediences,
Like close calls, accidents and anger
Before we clock out,
And go, who knows where.

You have to laugh.

When I asked you for the naked truth,
It was not an invitation,
To strip bald at Starbucks,
And opera sing the national anthem.

Although I’m sure the  ovation and applause was exhilarating,
And my god, I was certain you were going to fall off our table,
In fact, I now think a birthday suit should be mandatory,
For everybody when they sing the nation's song.


Never the less,
In future I will choose my clichés more carefully.
God knows what you’d have done
Had I asked you to bare your soul.
It was an unsettling first date, yet I am intrigued.
Text me if this Friday works for you.

We used to roam,
Free range and gallivant,
Rat tat tat down a dusty backtrack,
Smoke a deck under the galligar bridge
No jim-jams, no fear.

It was post war,
****** takin' a dirt nap,
Every hometown winner talking sweet greek,
Every man a lion-heart,
And pushing a ******* fortitude.

It was drunk talk.
Bobaloo and vintage balderdash.
No frenzy off a struggle,
Sad eyes in a cool wind,
Most go boys still shook and escared,
War pins a nightmare, no dash, no end.

It got to the point where we just ******.
No snake oil arguments,
No cookie batter eating binges, no street corner improv,
No cold, crazy, middle of the day, psychopath silence,
No clink, clank sulking,
No cuckoldry tears over the kitchen sink.

It was as if we secretly decided,
To pound each other to death,
Or die trying.
Why is this so enjoyable.

Why do we fear,
Those who stray near,
Why is it us versus them.

Can't we have love,
And be tolerant of,
Where do our differences stem.

In this world of division,
It's a simple decision,
Change is always within.

So nod at a stranger,
Kindness trumps danger,
Joy is a magical win.

I want to feel nothing.
For just a minute,
I want to feel nothing at all.

Please.

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.

You know that way you look at me,
With your seductious, come hither, taylor eyes.

Well, I experience a kind of reverse nostalgia,
When you lust and oggle,

And I realize that this is the moment,
The exact moment,
That one day,
I will yearn for,
As I stare out and through an uncurtained window.

What an odd ingredient sadness is.  

It salts a tear, bittersweets a kiss,
Hungers us for the things we miss,
Ever abundant, such a convenient thing,
I can find it in everything.

A death, a birth, I cry for both,
Gild a sorrow, a wistful hope,
Ripe melancholy I savour most,
Yet a pinch too much is a lethal dose.

I was often told it shouldn’t be,
But the clown that frowns was the perfect me,
Thin taunt and cackle, ghosts everywhere,
Sometimes I hide, but it’s still right there.

Perhaps I’ll woo this lifelong friend,
Embrace this thing I cannot mend.
Odd comfort in a peculiar way,
To know this thing is here to stay.

Always think in questions,
Be the first one to ask 'why'.

Then follow with an easy 'how',
Exposing truth from lies.

My favourite is a simple 'where',
An adventure to be sure.

'When' tags and lands you in the past,
And makes the 'where' endure.

Now only our poor 'what' remains
Whatever can we say.

Asking questions daily
Makes my life seem quite Ok.

There is no god,
You're all alone,
No sin, no saints,
No wrongs atoned.

An entropy,
Of time and motion,
But this Jesus stuff,
Is just a notion.

But it's ok
To think and wonder,
To gaze at stars,
Shimmy-shake with thunder.

One day we die,
Our one fear only,
Hope leads us all
To live less lonely.

Without sadness there is no poetry.
Without love there is no point to poetry.
Without laughter there is no point to anything.



Best wishes for the season and thank you to everyone who has been kind enough to read my stuff. Only art can save us-- although peter and melissa might try. HH

Please.

Look at me.

Please,.
I'm begging you.

Just one...    more       time,
...
Or   one...     last         time,

Your choice...

Please.

It doesn't matter.
What you do,

Or who you imitate,

Or how eagerly you listen and behave,
It does not matter.


You are alone.

You will always be alone.

You will live alone,
You will die alone,

And be forgotten forever.

You do not matter.
At all.
Ever.

You are free.

Anger is the fight in flight or fight,
Sadness simply reminds of what is right,
Love rewards us and tells our purpose bold,
Empathy encourages, each has a story told.

Emotions are the most important thing,
Does not matter if born a peasant or a king.
We feel before act, moved deeply by the fact,
That emotions are the key to life's abstract.

They had *** everywhere.

In the car,
Parked at Costco,
She teased him,
Bra-less under an unbuttoned shirt,
Her agile hand coated with a thin primer of Vaseline,
She stroked him slowly, precisely with a twist,
As somnolent sad faced suburban Sherpa,
Their neighbours and fellow citizens,
Hauled their apocalypse supplies  
Across pristine acres of fresh asphalt,
Doped by fear,
Trapped inside the pixels of an infinite routine,
Unaware and
Unable to imagine life as a movie.

Out on the highway, as he drove,
She pulled up her skirt
And pulled down her tube top
Trucker’s horns roared their musical approval,
The benefits of a long haul driver were scant and skimpy,
Her ***** alive and anonymous,
Guilt free and aroused.

They ****** in washrooms,
Molested each other on escalators,
Texted friends while they copulated half clothed,
Shared their pride with angels dressed as ******,
And counted their ******* like winnings at a casino,
Excited by the number and the game,
Their brains hot-wired,
Life a blur of alternating currents of sensation.

Death is constant state of ******, he told her,
When we leave this organic realm,
When we have finally turned the oceans into pudding,
And caged all of life,
When it is over,
We will enter into a cosmic stream of pleasure.
This is why the universe is expanding, he told her,
Pleasure is a colossal force,
The big bang was God’s ****** after all,
Her consequence the stars, the galaxies,
The dark palette of her entropy.

He was ******* her on a balcony while watching the moon
And waving to the woman with binoculars
When she asked,
Why is it so difficult,
Why do so many ignite pain and cant despair,
How did the curl and cling of hate
Take such deep root, she asked.

We fear death too well, he said,
And
Within the quick boundary of this moment
As they searched their waft and scent for clues,
They heard a whisper.
Inside the swell,
On top of a crest of acid clear thought
And without regret,
They forgave destiny,
Only to fly to the ground and beyond.

Do you fear death,
Our vested demise,
The end of all things
When you close your eyes.

So what in your life,
Have you left undone,
A kiss or a kindness
A nose-rub for fun.

We all take our leave,
Our end is for sure,
So today love the other,
Let your actions endure.

Time so precious,
A one way street,
Pause and wonder,
Life can't repeat.

Do you fear love?
Philophobia.
Anxiety d'amore.
Is it your fear of rejection,
The dark,damp infection
Of self doubt
That swiftly invades
When ultimately,
As we know it always will,
Love fails.

You've been hurt.
Many times.
Can pain teach you lessons anymore.
Love hurts.
Who knew.

What is love, this stalking lau,

A want, a wish, a whiteoaked blunder,

I fell for you sad rain and thunder,

Do not snub and shame me now,

I live to touch my palm to breast,

It seems to me I have confessed.

Is love a sin, a knot, a test?

Can we feel another's pain.

Yes of course.

It is exactly the same as yours.

Pain unites us.

Tease me with your metaphor
Your kitten's purr, our lion's roar,
Alliterate your love for me,
****, sensual, sets me free.

A simile might make me smile,
Like Cheshire cats in sly profile,
But allegory comes first and last,
Our love a winter's snowy path.

There could no longer moment be,
Than the pause that comes after a prayer.
Be it final request or pleading promise made,
His answer weathers, wanders and out waits us all.

I want to die happy.

So the next time I feel unrelenting joy

I will **** myself.

I think I'm safe for awhile.

If you were standing on the side of the road,
With your thumb out,
I'd pick you up,
She said to me.

Strangers can be dangerous, I replied,
Acting all give and take.

It's never the hitchhiker that commits the crime,
She responded and batted her raquel L'Oreal mascara eyes directly at me.

I'm rowdy that you are even going my way, I retorted, nonsensically, my best poet's nose at precisely 45 degrees in the air.

We are going all the way mon petit chou, she said and slipped her hand down the front of my jeans.

What memories old photos hold,
Inside the creases, beneath the folds,
Friends whose names I cannot mine,
Stirred feelings, mix and intertwine.

Faces, smiles, our eyes star bright
First loves, best friends, love in hindsight,
Cocky, loud, such laughing fools,
Long hair, bold flowers and way too cool.

Three wishes offered I’d take one,
To live again, let life rerun
To be that boy in time again,
To passion all and youth regained.

First find someone you enjoy *** with.
Spoiler alert it might be yourself.

Second, absence is a bit of a relief.
Minor irritations are glue like.

Third is roughness. It's a spectrum.
Don't be afraid of it and don't be cruel.

Forth and most important is humour.
What does Charles Dickens keep in his spice rack?
The best of thymes, the worst of thymes.

So there you have it.
Life is easy.
Eat pickles as often as you can.

I like a girl who orders pie at noon.
Deep dish apple,warm with a macaroon,
Strong coffee with one fork,one spoon,
No rush today take the afternoon,
Of course the finish was delicious
And over way too soon.

Karla said we should get lost.

Let's go off-trail, she said,
To some distant part of this city,
And we will walk until we wander.

I'd been drinking since dawn,
Not a usual thing,
And yet somehow today
A beer for breakfast,
Seemed like the right thing to do.

Come on, she said,
And pulled me by the arm.
We will edge away from all your demons,
And find a secret place to make out.

Then after, you can buy me a dollar cup of joe,
Karla continued.

We'll chew with our mouths wide open,
Trample down a half dozen donuts each
Then tease-feed the pigeons with samples and dessert.

What if it rains, I asked as I did up my old Nikes.

Then we get wet Karla said and kissed me.

When you suggested we play hide and seek,
I did not realize you were talking about your emotions.

THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH: MODERN VERSION

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of over-treatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help

They did yet not know,
The coincidental details
Of each other’s loathings,

Or even begin
To chart
The eclipses of their early aspirations,

Although instantly,
And within seconds of hearing each other’s voice,
They suspected they’d soon share
The gasps and pleadings of the great grand hope.

Their introduction was online of course,
Their first physical meet,
A small wine bar on the south side,
Where they were served complimentary
Blue cheese, on
Crisp crackers, handmade,
Each bite a delight and a nod and a welcome treat.
A sign of so many yummy things to come.

Lisa, her full name was Lisa Lilac,
Explained, with a bit of crumb on her lower lip,
That her bedroom was the only place to have
A serious conversation.

Nothing else will matter if we don’t **** well,
Or at the very least if we don’t **** with potential, she said,
Can anything overcome the cardinal disappointment,
Of *****-shat ***?
How is intimacy even possible she asked
If the ordeal is bitter or banal.

His name was Keegan
And he took her hand for a moment,
And examined the backs of her knuckles with
A kind man’s massage of her fingers.

Her hands were small beautiful appointments,
Soft,
And he knew her touch was ******  
And capable of breaking him apart.

Let me see if I can read your desires, Keegan said
And he turned her hand over and examined her palm.

Our first kiss must be a valuable possession, he said,
A vivid memory, ****** and intentional,

From this first brush, in this famished embrace
You will find in my pursuit all of your hunger,

I will draw your lower lip out with a lover’s bite,
My tongue will pirate your beautiful mouth,
And like a jewel thief in a plush apartment,
It will search urgently and everywhere for a precious reaction.

A French Kiss, is that not the most perfectly named thing,
Our entanglement will tender to curiosity,
This very first kiss will be ours,
Our only signature of things to come.

Lisa said she wanted him to kiss her right now,
In the company of strangers and hired help, Keegan asked.
Of course, I sometimes like an audience, she said,
And I always fall for a man,
Who can perform under pressure.

In that case you must make a promise, Keegan requested.
I’m listening, she replied.
You must promise after
The first time we make love,
To let me read to you out loud,
No matter time of day,

Will there be a first time,
She asked in blush of fashion and feminine coy,
Without any doubt he replied
And consummated her with his dusk- dawn smile.

Karla told me to give up art.
You really aren't very good at it, she said,
And suggested I take up drinking full time, instead.

At least with a beer in your hand,
You project a sense of purpose, she said
Even if it's only to empty the glass.

But your poems ramble on forever,
Your short stories always stop in the middle,
Maybe you should combine the two, she suggested
And blew her cigar smoke down the front of my sweater.

We will call them stoems she said and laughed,
And challenged me to a push up contest,
Right there on the dance floor.

I declined, she knew I would,
Then let's dance with our backs to each other, she said,
And defend this art of yours, silly puzzles no one can comprehend.

Have you lingered long enough,
Lived a life and done some stuff,
Do you fear your last few thoughts
The holy sound of nots and naughts.

Let me set your mind at ease,
There will be no one left to please,
Close your eyes and shepherd home,
Death is but your final poem.

The overtones were under blown,
And so no one got to the point.
Speak up she said, before you're dead,
There's so many to disappoint.

I furled my brow,a bit angry now,
This crowd has an evil intent.
They want games and names and eternal flames,
And I was about to repent.

Look I've cried and tried and tried to cry,
To entertain all of my life,
I write, I talk and sometimes I gawk,
But recently my time has been rife.

With ups and downs and clowns that frown,
Things just aren't the same anymore,
We've had tears and fears and Trumpian jeers,
How soon can we show him the door.

If I make a donation,
I get a standing ovation,
Yet scrimp and be stingy
And I'm treated as cringey.

Or maybe I'm lost,
And my work just gets tossed,
A lost poet who pouts,
For sure on his way outs.

Beware the life spent in pursuit,

Of happiness and joy,

A life lived longing, hoping,

Can make pleasure our decoy.


Time better spent posed standing still,

Attracting to us the things that thrill,

Be the magnet, be the pull,

Attract and capture the beautiful.

There is no god,
We know that now,
No righteous way,
No need to bow.

There's us and time,
And space galore,
Muons, quarks,
Sun-stars and more.

But meaning hides,
A shy allusion,
We pray with faith
And find delusion.

Determinism. It's scientific.

At the moment of the big bang,
Every particle in the universe,
Began its journey.

Each on a predictable path.
Physics.

That means the future is set.
We cannot change it.

And the past is the only past that could have ever been.

You are not to blame.
You cannot change things.

But you have to act as if you can.

Your past is not your fault.

Consciousness.
We are in this together.

Enjoy.

How can candy be a cane,
Why is crazy not insane,

Words are washcloths,
Verbs can scrub,
Adjectives will sometimes snub.

Prepos are so lost and found,
Adverbs increase sight and sound,
Interjections yay and yippee.
And or but my conjunctivity.

Exclamation, question mark, statement in a phrase.
Is grammar always complicated
Why is long life such a maze?

The world is run by middle men,
Buyers, sellers, again  again.
We cannot change or alter course,
A middle man has no remorse.

So what to do when no one cares,
No hope, no joy when yours is theirs.
Middle men make profit king,
Money is not a magic thing.

I can remember so much.
Why do I feel like I missed it all.

My family was a jig saw puzzle,
And I was always the missing piece.

Always.

Is was a long ride home.

We were sober.
Legal, maybe the best way to describe it.

But a 185 kilometer drive,
The morning after,
On snowy roads
Will test you at the core.

It wasn't the *** with other people.
She'd given a ******* to an eighteen year old,
I'd ended up drunk and flaccid,
With my head between the legs of a lady from New York City,
And *******,
Jesus christ, *******
Were never a point of contention between us.

God has one gift and we'd never been stingy, jealous,
Small minded control freaks or emotional kamikaze suiciders,
Dive bombing the happiness out of each other,
No way.
Nor were we myopic work slaves jacking off to the next tech treat,
Nor were we stingy uptight ***** faces,
Trading in the allusion of human perfection.
No way.
We knew love and we knew life and we knew the power of new.

But to say Jimi Hendrix wasn't the greatest axe player to ever trip.
**** man, that just couldn't stand.
So we listened, the windows shaking,
The seething poison of artistic disagreement,
Like nerve gas, art is serious ****, you feel me?

All Along the Watchtower, Hey Joe, Crosstown, Voodoo Child, Angel...

Some **** just won't stand

You dig?

The temptation of quiet collaboration,
Friends often talk to friends in whispers,
Enemies by word of mouth.

Who to trust.
The psychologically slippery,
Those who claim they understand... you.

Women pretend that love is real,
Men lie and lie and lie and lie.
Yes we are the tribe who killed off all the others.

Walk backwards through life,
Memory, it's borders found by joy
The past is a Pinocchio, dance madly, be the star.

There are 43 quintillion atoms in a single grain of sand.

That's a 43 followed by 18 zeroes.

In one grain. Of sand.

So when we set off a nuclear bomb.

Which is 150 lbs of uranium.

All the atoms in the uranium will burst open almost simultaneously,

Like a gigantic  horde of little gas filled balloons.

A Billion times a billion of exploding firecrackers

That will create a 100 million degree fireball,

Which is five times hotter than the center of the sun,

That will blow through your neighborhood at 1000 kilometers per hour,

Leveling every man-made structure and vaporizing every living thing.

So size really doesn't manner.

Who we choose to lead us does.

We rail against suicide

While seven billion of us destroy our 1 and only choice.

It won't matter.

Nothing will weep when we be gone.

All around I hear voices,
Noise overtakes choices
Am I alive or still dead,
Who's invaded my head,

I can't promise you answers,
Trump spreads like a cancer,
Lies sold by the bold or so I've been told
From hearts oversold,grown old and so cold.

Take chances they say
Kneel down and play pray,
But we know the bomb's coming,
Cause his mouth is still numbing.

When will you vacate and take all your hate,
Or should we castrate this evil lightweight.
I have none, no respect, you gotta be checked
You want everything wrecked, is it all to protect?