freedom’s just a little bit higher now above countertops
& just beyond kitchen sinks - I am (r)evolution:                                    
everyday a transformation                                    
another quick decision to choose to be or maybe be..

or not be at all..

we all have a choice & a voice that can carry us so far past
the paths that have long been carved in familiar grounds                          
stones line up these earth veins in a way

that we’ll never forget                                                
how we even got here in the first place

(..but I don’t remember that part very well right now..)

my shadow is a sphere it’s right here & I know you can see it too three screams to be heard:

                                   my head to my voice                                    
                       ­            my voice to yours                                    
                                   & yours right back to mine again..

let’s forget the highways just for a second            
& remember that so long ago, we didn’t have            

to follow any carved paths..

eyes are bursting
(insert adjective here) feeling has found me again          
this time I was careful to hide far enough away                    beyond fields                    beyond highways                    beyond everything I once was

..but it found me anyway
deep footprints in snow that hasn’t even arrived yet          
streetcorner calls my name (straight up after Tunney’s)          
bright lights of a (not even on a) corner store          

I remember staring so long, sitting in that cold apartment

6am sitting on that cold kitchen floor by the heater
because that was the only place that was warm

& writing poetries until I knew I was done
those moments are buried so deep - (or at least I thought they were..)
six feet of memories pushing metaphorical nails out of their coffins

my mind has to intervene & immerse questions,
coax them to retrace fumbling steps
bribing my own brain w/ promises
best kept under                                     locks & keys..

history repeats itself.
thoughts are now
i    n    t     e   r    m    i   t     t       e    n       l      y

spreading across the same landscaped highways
found further down seamless, low-tide midday avenues

a crushing sound of reality realizing real eyes
will always reach for                
a higher piece of earth to climb                
for our collective peace of mind

you give & get        
remember & forget        
& remember & forget        
& remember & forget

I’ve walked under so many streetlights      
from home to the faraway cities trying to      
escape life of a smalltown
m    e     n     t     a     l      i      t     y
fighting so hard            
against conformity I still get      
stares walking                  
around

I’ve walked under so much starlight      
it’s not as bright when living that big city life, instead you have                  
to hang on by a thread from your
m    e     m    o     r     i      e     s
of what it looks like                        
that navy canvas staring right back at you -

a familiar journey of a million eyes..

Am I the only person you’ve ever seen w/ dreads? Are you so stuck in your hometown preconceived notions that I just can’t wash my own head? Let me just clear this up for you right now.. I don’t like reggae..
I didn’t catch your stares down the first freezer aisle at the grocery store last week but I heard that there was some nodding, some pointing & some laughing.. Thanks.. you’ve just given me another reason to not want to be like you..
Open your mind, open your mouth, I’ll answer anything you want to know..regardless of how many times I’ve already been asked before… I’d rather educate than segregate your thoughts even more.. but if you choose to keep your mind closed, make sure your mouth follows closely behind..

you see, life is a puzzle, and I’ve always felt like the missing piece… I remember being seventeen and refusing to dream.. I remember lonely nights in basement bedrooms, blue walls echoed what was in my heart at the time… I remember the ultimate Zen disaster, I was then my own master of a melancholic destiny, my weapon of choice, silver sharpness, five times (at least..) & before sleep, hand on stomach, stomach in head, head somewhere so far away..

fast forward:

one of my best friends asked me the other day, “what’s your definition of beauty?” It took me ten whole minutes to come up with the world’s most generic answer.. a decade ago, I blamed society for bending my brain into thinking I was too plain and why can’t I be like all the skinny girls you see on the screen?!  A decade later, I know it’s just me.. it’s my thoughts, sometimes rotting, corroding my soul (they say..) and if I can’t see the beauty in myself, how come I can see it in everyone, and everything else..?! I just programmed my mind to see things that way..

things are slowly changing, I’m re-arranging all the wires, re-booting my hard driven mind..
I owe it to myself to have a tomorrow free of sorrow because life IS a fast lane & won’t wait for me to catch up to that last departing train toward freedom.. I have to get there on my own, leave my home & choose the best path (it’s always the one less travelled though..)

so you might ask why I’ve written this…

I wrote this for you, summer niece or nephew… please know way in advance that beauty is not a reflection in a tv screen, but in your own bathroom, or bedroom mirror… it’s you and you alone.. Bukowski was right.. “your life is your life, know it while you got it..”

I wrote this for you, my little sister… to repay you for never leaving my side when I fell head first into poverty, property has no measure in your heart… never lose your spark..

I wrote this for you mom & dad..  through the highways & the hallways that changed over the years.. during those couple of trips to the medicine cabinet.. I knew I could never leave you guys behind no matter what clouded my mind..

I wrote this for my bestfriends that I have who shine…for Jeremiah, Bee, Sarah, Tonya, and Pam they’re the ones, according to Kerouac “who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..”

warmth in mind silent previous lifetimes
& age is memory, a secondary
view for everything..

grocery store stares today (possibly again?)
these stars are just too far away -
      & eyesight sighs shining beside an old vein..

another door opens, speed kings
gliding down streets much too narrow

(this is home..)

windowsill views: this smile has gotten
      the best of me..
peculiarities particularly interest me
during these (almost) spring days
           because I know I’m free

hometown nights not so silent anymore
streetcorner w/ a reputation:
        but it’s always the people I see..

(“..pardon me while I burst..”) but

poetry is my drug -
I’ve injected my surfacing thoughts on many tables
                                  over many nights
my own reflection stuck in permanent glass..
but now I’m slowly running out of veined vanity

it was never mine to own anyway..

this world is a freebase for words
these words are tweaking on walls
those walls are crushing the wails
that wail is the fix for the whole world..

pretty boys, w/ their confiscated smiles:
                they walk along sidewalks pretending not to howl
                their thoughts into barricaded minds & then we
wonder just how much sincerity is left behind
                their calloused words, their shameless eyes
                all caught up in assumptions that
the world is theirs for the taking
skyscrapers are built in their honour
while below, the pavement's bruised by broken glass
                                          windows of the future,
                                          widows of big city memories

makeshift Sundays,

I’ve heard your aerial views of underground endless
moments wrapped in summertime perfumed permafrost
once too many times
                             you’re melting in a post-industrial candlelit day

while the atomic monster came (to take me back home..)

penetrate this city’s mind:
it’s
          divided
                   divine &
                             disguised..

title does not dictate behaviour:

your authority, throw me down on
broken knees but you still need me
                        achieved your dream,
                        but you still scream (at me)
obeyed your insecurities
unlocked the noose
& sprayed your words across walls
built
          to
                   divide us..

but it’ll never be enough
                               for you
                                for them

statues toppled, city ruins running rampant
in our veins, our minds washed away,
            rid of your poison now

a new day
a new dawn

                    separate me from you
                   cut the lock

                    this (friend)ship has sunk

in the span of sparse seconds, thoughts united &
won vs. maddening midnight
specials – our voices,
                                                 our choices
are now running further down the road..
our hands are leading,
our fists, breaking obscene visions that our visionaries

never even had.. r(evolution)
                                      happens everyday

my manifesto is shining w/
                          torn pages full of watermarked memories
                                                      watercolour poetries written late at night
                                                      barely sleeping dreams slowly seeping in

& freedom found me once again
free them from their sheltered grinning eyes
I lay so many nights mesmerized at
            the beaten thoughts
             my beating heart threw them all out on stranger streets than yesterday

                                                   driving down tomorrow’s permanent
                                                   highways we’ll always be left w/
                                                   another memory to steal from the
unjust
            banks
                        in our own
                                           backward backyards slowly etching out our brains
from plagued moments of “fame” protect the
fathers from their nameless namesakes left forgotten under the stars

                            abandon all hopelessness,
                            abandon all scars..

we all know that shelter is in the speed of light
so when you read your thousandth eulogy, ignore those
               aftershocks in your mind – your hands, they’ll
                                                 hold other hands forever & throw their own
                                                  sand in the air (a different season every time)
“welcome forget, forgive has already left..”

paralyzing highs & my eyes, they’ll realize (again) that
time stood still for far too long
                                       these rooftops where I left my belongings,
                                       some change for a thrilling night & maybe even
                                       a moment of daytime paradise to send off
this pair of dying “I’s”: so close to freedom

(I bet you I can scream at the shore from here..)

I ran away w/ renegade, detached
                       minds as madness poured from lively veins
                       just around the next corner
                                          the next sunrise is coming back
& probably won’t fit in this doorframe –
windows will have to be thrown in these famously anti-famine
atomic streets:
                                    embrace strange days
                                    erase mechanical raised hands &
                                    photographs will be imprinted on our fingertips
                                    at the touch of
                                                            a
                                                                 button..

I’m spinning: these planetary, capillary eyes are rising & singing & reaching
              for a voice w/ a face for this moment as  I'm standing on these stargazing rooftops

never to be heard from again..

you are louder
than
            a
                        bomb (of thought)
these empty spaces are now filled w/ streetlights turning into spotlights

            & my memory is a game of chances
            as dreams are emptied on the shining canvas
            of a voice I’ve always wanted to hear

be conscious
     the world is your playground
     of dominant ferris wheels & sugar-coated
     ideals sold at five dollars for three tries..
one shot left
     aim for the biggest prize –

tides of trying times are coming
giant steps toward stones leading toward tomorrow
are placed at even intervals across
                                          oceanic lines flawlessly airbrushed

                                          on canvas purchased outside
artstore windows in a city that I would rather soon forget..

I
Gave
No
Other
Reason
And
Nothing
Came
Easily

Love
Is
Killing
Exits

And

Great
Understandings
Now

Inside
Noticed

How
Another
Neighbour
Died

open roads, you’ve grabbed these wrists again
under              streetlights that weren’t even mine (to begin w/) now I'm
                       running toward spaced out dreamlands & my head can only
                                                                                         shake so much..

& this bomb you’re building in your own
fragile lungs has lead me to believe
that another day has passed, fused
itself into the open hands of

                an autumn afternoon/afterglow

so now, here we are

waiting
watching


                keep an eye out for me
                I’ll be the one spinning my
                own web of truths

life is nothing but (a) reel..

sister w/ your tambourine in hand under shining suns
keep throwing your stones, keep saying those thoughts
& when all the windows of the world decide to shatter,

it will matter

what we’ve done..

you scream like the shattering glass of too many broken windows
found in an abandoned house, in an abandoned field of an abandoned life..

suit up for battle,
                           the trees are now spinning like forgotten reels thrown on
                           a blank screen - & now we’re all the same (all over again)

tolerance, not ignorance is the cure
so step in line for your very own dose

& open these doors that lead to brighter hallways
                                                (& brighter days)

spotlights keep spinning in my mind again as unrest
has found me sitting under that deepest tree, & there’s no use running away from

                                                  what things really mean..

this road shines
as broken windows scream our names under semi-atomic streetlights

caught one last time giving bad directions to beat-up cars
                                                  driving down beat-up sidewalks

& as pedestrians, like spider webs get caught in
                            the crossfire of the ages,

only an echo remains
of a former time complaining
of a better daze left waiting
in a room without a viewing
pleasure mixed with painless
complexities restraining

                        a madness that is now gone..

I am the reckless voice of a thousand nights spent driving down
highways too close for comfort when hometown familiarity
was everything I was trying to escape
                                             only to end up face to face w/ cold
                                             concrete Bank Street(s) where reality was shovelled
                                             in my lungs, where fatality was imprinted on my veins
                                             & where circumstance became a real reason for
those overpasses where I constantly searched for a friend..

you see, the strangers I’ve met have melted into my memory
& given me such capillary strength that the whole world seems like
it’s right in my own backyard too often, & it’s never too late to
                                                extend an energy to save another’s skin..

warmth now pours from their eyes & I realize that it only takes a second
to change a life, a striving moment can be stretched out to last a lifeTIME!

so we survive in these streets of small towns or big cities
& we strive not to repeat what’s been taught to us by silver & living room screens:

I am the reckless voice of a thousand days spent walking on & along sidewalks
                                                                                            on dirt roads
                                                                                            on early morning wet grass
                                                                                            on those highways heading home

a peace is coming soon
& it won’t be showcased at a theatre
   near you, it won’t feature
   wars on stages, screens
or on your TV in the corner of your living
room on the Action News

& it won’t ask you to wake up at
     7 a.m. or beg you to watch
the world burn to watch
the world dig to watch
the world scream
& it won’t ask you to
wish to sleep in comfort
  in silence
  in homes surrounded by fences

this peace will be mending
never-ending seams & it’ll never
leave the wounded to
    brood in ditches built for
their dream
this piece of peace for me will be

     found where sapphire met up
     w/ the shore & where my
     grandma’s voice echoes..

a maddening, vagrant city of composure
                                                     & closure
                                                     & always somewhere to go

to learn
to live
to love
but there are so many megalomaniac incidents of
warm summer daze here

can you whisper through the walls
       of winding roads where
       stars still shine & epic drives down
deserted familiarity still reminds
                                        me of what it's like
                                        to be so much younger..
the peace is just around the corner,
the war is just in our heads..

guns vs. bombs,
they both throw away reality
almost like Friday morning garbage day -
they both ignite capillary, distant/instant
                                                                    reactions

& it's all just tragedies..
& it's all just statistics..

my memory is a stretched piece of
                  spontaneous come bust in: because
                  real eyes realize that acid
rainbows are falling & blending bullets to
               spinning skin, are finding that one key
               left to lose, are finding that one door
               left to open..

"meet me in outer space.."

where a million is a thousand is a moment in a day..

("..& I need you to see this place..")

city lights & I'm
coming home, this
"who you know, now what you know" echoing
                                                 needs escaping..

in alleys/on rooftops, visions
             of reality: what real
                 reality is now a
fierce fight for what I know
       is good & beyond the afternoon,
       things really aren't that
       bad are they?

or are we just making
it seem like they are?

            always shining:
                                   overpasses, freeways,
                                   suburbs & subways -

city lights,
               in my veins like a virus,
               in my head, like a dream..

mind is an

atom
bomb

I want to be rogue w/ wayward
stories to tell of roads swallowing
           me whole & forests inviting me in

mind is surreal:
suggested thoughts are
so elastic -

tomorrow is tomorrow is tomorrow

capped energy, let's go smiling in swelling tides..

"city lights lay out before us & your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder.."

& rabid stones stood sinking
    & dreaming near gasoline
    shores & soaked to the skin are those
same copy/pasted highways from five hours away
         all-ages included in memory
                     empty spaces, no more visions
                     of green

& driving every two weeks to & from
               familiarity w/ those sapphire stops
               in between (sometimes..)
& still we danced
& still we screamed at the top of our minds

always existing somewhere in the middle of black & white

an urban afternoon of lunacy,
                             of no more teenage angst
                                              teenage violence
                                              took its place
where a no man's & madness motherland sleep
          a few blocks away

& everyone copies how to behave
                a copy
            of a copy
            of a copy

"..she tells the same old story to everyone that she knows.."

w/ streetlights causing midday
much too bright madness this town's
too small for anyone caught in
between realities because what
             you see is what you speak is what you scream

& roads never different
& windows always the same
& this home/my home (my pleasure/my foe)
& familiarity: a catch-22 for my mind..

& where city streets disconnect
    w/ so many smiling souls & eager minds
                                              eager to learn & to live & to live again
& where bullets bend
              through bodies
              through lifetimes through happiness in
              a laugh, in a long morning
                             (a good morning..)
& in a short goodbye in an unfamiliar
town where I saw such a familiar face

& where tides are softer now
I miss the diamond shores, the sapphire
voices of yesterday still burn in my own
           mind & this memory is no longer
                                                           cursed

& the concrete wave every night filled
    w/ strangers, w/ friends, w/ anyone trying to
                             pretend to be anything but themselves

high & hiding from suburban legends
                     far too deep..

& this place is mad
& this world has had enough
madness for one day
& now horizons stretch like
eleven & its trees still
              stand naked
                                 still waiting for a
                                 summer's sun..

"you have a body of melting memory, & at the
slowest pace, the most random places are
now your home, so please take this number
down, please take this stone, please
shatter your reality & reality is all you'll ever
           own

           you blew through the ages, timeless imagery
           imagining a cost to your freedom, a reason for
           perplexing dreams - now it's your turn to run
away in this maddening forest of urban storms -
you've crushed empty sidewalks w/ cemented
                        grins, you've pushed all magnolias
                        from such green fields,

now let me in.."

overpass stories & rats
              that wouldn't let you
              sleep & how every time I
                           see you
                                 you look so much older

(my mind rattles)

downtown cold &
consuming
a man told me he used to drink

Listerine & shoot up heroine
(but now it's just alcohol & ***)

& I felt such a contrast while sitting there
    in the Rideau Centre (buyers never weary)
    the season is spitting &
    we're all supposed to think that
                                                    it's good times for all

except that's not true & you can be
           positive all you want but there's still
                                   going to be someone out there w/

a disregard for the season because
I'm sure they have their reasons
for doing what they do..

this night has
      melted into too many
      casualties trying to reach the
edge of dawn
        where beaten voices
                  still believe in summer
                  dreaming about ages in the sun

w/ loaded gunning thoughts
tomorrow will never fade
                painted hands broke the ground
                stones reflecting off sapphire
                bombs always explode
at the most random times like
         when memory is sleeping..
           (my memory is wide awake)
& sometimes it screams so loud that I
can remember everything

what would it be like?
just a second of silence?
maybe it's like being thrown in that bomb of
gemstone safety..

smiles for yesterday,

          the future is running toward
          its own shadow:

a new song in this vein..

riding w/ conversations, she delighted
              starlit riots w/ stories of drifting canopies
              & sleeping on midnight summer beaches

she said that their shores were
      so close to your soul that energy
      can't help but pour out of your veins because
                     it wants to see if sunshine
really does have freewill

& if it does, then there really
isn't anything to be afraid of..

Blair Station & its "middle of nowhere, yet
                             middle of everything.." feel
        Sunday night groceries & the shelves
        would always scream of emptiness
                                         because it was Sunday night
                                                                        after all

concrete madness & bored
                               teenage tags & teenage riots

a thousand times (it feels like..) walking
                                                                toward nowhere..
                                                                toward somewhere..
                                                                toward nothing..
                                                                toward everything..

there's something to be said
           about Sundays
           & slow days
           & highways divided by minutes
                              35 or 45 (depending on the year..)
& the fields
& that green bridge
& the shared rooms w/ all-night
                                    conversations finding names
                                    on ceilings a thousand times over

there will always be something to be said
          about Sundays
          about after dinner 6 p.m. goodbyes
          about closing the car door

& waiting in the many entrances
& a fading black speck on #11..

the mind
my mind
is a desert

or so it seems
a hurricane of thought
where thunder dreams
up ways to
keep me awake

never sleep
never sleep
ALWAYS THINK
never sleep

flooded w/ photographs, memories & moments..
seasons in mind, in my head
months define/demand attention

"..& I feel safer in the eye of the storm.."

home
is
where
the
heart
is
there
anybody
home?

carcinogen waves hit
           this town like a bomb
           (where will madness smile?)
no time left to run, too busy screaming
     after that forgotten highway

to come back for us
                      for them
                      for me

Main St. 4 a.m. desolation many times
              that short walk home
                             on dark pavement
                             under pieces of
streetlight / shards of familiarity

& no conversations
as many eyes sang
dangerously close to my veins

knock down the airwaves & start screaming w/
           your ripened voice under lost bridges,
           forgotten & faded w/ their signatures
on concrete always the same & down the road,
                   always the same..
I've seen the cost of the loss of the crossing
      of benign highways eleven ways to freedom
                     where that freedom is a never ending

series of intermittent yellow lines..
you've begged for peace in such an anti-calm world:
           but the war machine won't listen..

please break out of this glass jar, it's not reality -
it's only reality because they tell you it's real..

I met up w/ a memory, or at least a
peace of it.. & we're both shining
                   & we're both screaming
we walked the alleys & spoke of many
things: of empty buses & pseudo wild nights
          spent under canopies
(didn't matter where exactly..)
I've seen you shining & I've seen you screaming
                                & enemies aren't memories (anymore)

let's put an end to the war on the mind..

warfare of the senses, open a window for

p
e
a
c
e

you crashed through the night like a speed king ready
for the thrill, probably thinking life's too far away

t
o
d
a
y

& still
the forests burn
the cities burn
the voices burn

w/ empathy

& midnight came
& we ran toward each other on
such snowy, hometown December streets
lights hanging from roofs because it was the season
(after all..)

two years worth of conversations exploded..
your stories of glories & defeats, of good times
wild times, bad times, crazy times w/ him,
w/ them, w/ yourself.. I'll always want to hear them..

come back soon though
come back & laugh before that same midnight,
w/ those same colours dancing on the edge of
those same roofs

comes back

a thousand voices speak
& a thousand more scream

my mind echoes thoughts like in distant caverns
you've read about secretly in the far corner of
abandoned rooms still stained w/ remnants
of webs invading

windows where you can still see the cracks
(they spread like fragile veins)

pieces of sunlight still pierce through
& suddenly, there's a rainbow on your floor

I silenced two thousand voices today

"remember to bring some flowers.."
& rage through your descent toward peace
while beating your own glass wings,
they will surely break anything close to

ignorance - & don't forget to knock down those locked doors,
to collapse in front of those ***** steps
too much
too often
too many..

(& sing..)
the same will be said for your screaming
keep stirring those echoes always past
midnight

that's when these streetlights will open their arms
& show you kindness..

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