this is a mad time
in a mad world

you breathe in glass air
through lungs craving for
another moment under
mad morning stars

addicted to walls
to those short instances where
the definition of living seems
wrapped up in grey, thick canvas

transparent no longer
this mad city embraces
steel comfort & concrete peace

remember these mad times
remember these mad times
remember these mad times

because they sure won't last

escaped Suburbia
escaped what's to be
              expected because someone else says so
escaped moonless nights
             & cold city streets

escaped hometown ideals too close
             for comfort can't stray
                                       too far from the designated lines of
                                       past generations
                                       past books &
                                       past what's supposed to be..

just leave me on the road
                     on the highway w/ its
                     familiar/comforting yellow
                                                            intermittent lines

a light from miles away
& I recognize
& am flooded w/ so many lost moments
& so many found eyes

"..I've changed by not changing at all.."

s
   p
      i
         n
            n
                i
                   n
                      g

away the days we've been caught once before in sheltered caves catching
                                                                          shattered waves by the dozen
like it was a passing fad, a nomadic habit, a sporadic memory that will never
be searched for again:

"you have the voice of a thousand eyes & I've been cursed w/ the eyes of a thousand voices.."

our mirrors keep on finding ways for us to self-criticize, but we're all enemies here anyway
                
                  so it doesn't even matter who said what about who when & where

(life IS a fast lane..)

we march under overpasses much too low for our own concrete heads
w/ so little time left over to spend any of it thinking about our future
mistakes & what we'll never do about them.. a journey without
a destination, a marketed smile without a cost:
these are things that just don't matter (in a long series of ends..)

& you can tower all you want over zen skies, I will not answer the call
that is expected of me - change(s) flattened out the horizon & clarity
is my new virus, my new vision, my new void to fill up to the rim..

I have seen & felt the distance that is thrown on me once
that blue sign is crossed.. I want to shout at #11 for ages
because we can't keep being strangers in such a familiar place..

we can't keep being strangers around such familiar faces (anymore)

this is sublime.
          vengeful tides of occasions spent thinking too much have
          sent me spinning out of de-controlled skies again
& this sudden urging urgency to be everyone's knight in used armour
will not penetrate through my outer skin

I cannot sit here anymore
              sit here & watch as the skin turns to
              bones, turns to dust, turns to..

I remember meeting this elderly woman on Bank Street in 2007
& what struck me the most about her was that circumstances never
for a second trampled her smile.. her love of life seemed to contradict
an article I read several weeks later that stated all those without
a home were junkies, one hundred percent of them would take change
offered to them & fetch their fix..
                                                                 I knew that just couldn't be..

there are stories
the woman who gave her son up for adoption.. I think her name was Tricia..
the nineteen-year-old girl, Chloe, sitting by the Rideau Centre..
& the elderly woman, I did not catch her name..but I'm sure someone
out there has called her "Mom" in the past..

yes this is sublime.
the tides are swelling high now
& occasions spent thinking too much about
what's on the horizon are throwing me into
                                        
                                                     deafening spins..

(sub)reality:
sublet your mind, invite communication (pat)RIOTS in your low-ceiling hallways -

angry, screaming voices on a Saturday night & it's not even 11:30 yet..
I've chosen to live in anti-ignorance for any sound heard directly below
my  new picture window (which my past self is envious of, by the way..)

                                       this place: w/ hate & love all in the same day
                                       & sometimes even in the same moment

toward ourselves, our loved ones, our children
it seems like it's always somebody else's fault
for our own targeted (mis)fortunes..

I'm not a void
& I'm not avoiding the words

                             but it's such a strange feeling..

for every single moment they've wrapped us in madness
we've left them sitting under past-midnight streetlights
& they're never quite satisfied w/ their time being spent
screaming their voices from their spaced out throats
                                  to our own out of space minds

& all I can say is that freedom is coming
it's coming to find you
                       & you
                       & you

                                                  so be ready for that particular second
                                                  when it comes & remember that when
                                                  it comes, don't be caught blinking in
                                                  the middle of a setting sun..

instead,
speak the instant you think
& think the instant you breathe
& breathe the instant you..

                         these hallways are so much brighter now -
                         w/ their new walls, & the picture frames on those walls

"I'm sorry, I've been known to sink into a memory or two,
& I've been known to crash hard into the comforting comfort
                                                    of sapphire waves
                                                    of the past..
                                                    of the future.."

& these highways are so much wider now
w/ their veteran trees waiting for the season to be over
                                 waiting for more waiting to start..
another winter-to-spring romance is at hand (for all to see)

             & they're watching
             all the windows of the world are watching
             & they're ready to shout it shout it shout it
             (the truth, that is..)

endless roads
endless rogues
endless..

meet me under this machinery of stars at 2 a.m.
& we'll wait..
& we'll shake hands w/ dawn itself..