Substandard Tires
The customer rants and raves at me saying it’s all my fault
And my colleague’s and my employer that he’s got no family
He threatens all of us with court and is off to see the judge
You’ll be in the dock all together he warns for ******
Treating me like I’m the CEO and God of ACME Tires
I just answer the phone and reply to emails
I never made the substandard tires on his car
That failed and killed his daughter wife and sister
He rants and raves and it lasts an hour
All recorded he states finally stopping
If I was employed by the Illuminati
Making cups of tea would he sue me?
For not making his tea sweet enough
Now I nod and say what an *******
I’m so glad he can hear me
His tires will soon fail…

ACME TIRE FACTORY
The system was so slow to use and the boss was always on our back
Hurry hurry get your fingers out this job depends on you
I’ll fire your sorry arses if you go any **** slower!
My company and big fat profit depend on you lazy gets doing this job right
Don’t dawdle and stop gossiping about your Saturday nights
I’ve checked the order already and it’s only half done and needs to be sent
For that you can work thru your dinner hour without pay and eat after work
See what a good boss I am to you all I will treat you at Xmas
And so it went on day by week by month by year by decade
ACME TIRE FACTORY was always this way with a slave boss
And unhappy ******* workers who were no better than slaves
Why did we stay in the job when there was the dole doing nothing?
We were all mates and drank together every Saturday to forget this
Plus we also worked deliberately slowly to **** the boss off
We could live without eating dinner when our boss was upset
Our tools and line was ok but outdated so we milked it
It was us who ran the tire factory not him and he knew it
We could shut him down or burn his company without interference
We made 2 out of 3 vehicle tires on North American roads
Why change a good thing when we hated but loved it?

Where did I go wrong?
Was it when burnt rubber filled the cold morning air?
Or was it laid against you with your fingers lost in my knotted hair?

Where did you go wrong?
That's something only the universe knows.
Broken, twisted, beautiful--that's how the heart grows.

Ask again: Where did you go wrong?
The answer is in the breeze.
The answers are in the trees.
The answer is not you, but me.

Where did we go wrong?
We watered the weeds growing in our flowerbeds.
We simply left the stove on, and the house burnt red.
We danced in the streets, only to be dead.

Tell me—
Was our love wrong?

I watched the world spin from the windshield of this old car.
I felt the slip of the bald tires,
My hands tighten around the wheel,
And I screamed.
I screamed but somewhere in all of that mess,
That chaos,
I knew I was going to be okay.
I knew I was going to live,
Despite totaling my car.

I never was a fan
Of buckling in a van
And sitting
To mostly go
Where I never wanted.

I never found it a thrill
Scrunching my body
In every vehicle my grandparents leased
Every time my family and I would visit.
And, isn’t it ironic
How I’m the middle child of my family
And the middle seat in the back would always be available
Especially for me?

Traveling on a road
For more than an hour
Feels like a breeze after a time.
But somehow the shorter car rides
Seem to take forever,
The basic mile perceptually elongated.
Just my luck.

Everything I have done,
Every activity my parents rode me too
Required my AIS
And patience toward whichever parent
Navigated.

I almost begin to believe
That traffic roads have a treadmill mechanism
To illusion travel and make one believe
That the wheels spin forward,
But I think they lag atop the same gravel
Much too long for my patience and time.

As I crave for a hurry in life
When time slowly fumbles,
I wonder if I would get to where I want to be faster
If I took the wheel.

The poison is in all of us:
Half-smoked cigarettes lay on the side of grainy gravel paths,
crinkly Dollarama bags and glass beer bottles.
We relax on trees
leaning
backs against the braille texture of bark
that tries to speak to us in a language we don’t understand.
We lean back and raise our faces
towards the sunlight dancing between
the leaves of the canopy,
listening to the tires
whizzing against concrete,
but think it similar to the smacking of waves against stones;
lean back and savour the syrupy smell of maple trees
against our tongues,
thinking to ourselves
how grateful we are for nature
as we sit in a paradise of tall trees
their branches intertwined in a space
smaller than bathroom stalls;
lean back and breathe in exhaust
and cigarette smoke masked
behind a layer of sweet antiperspirants
and coconut-scented shampoos
as the wind whips hair against your face.
We take peaceful naps against the undeciphered braille,
but the poison is in all of us
and one day this paradise will become
nothing.
A bed of dirt
blanketed by prickly store-bought
strips of grass.

Greased wheels, I knew you once.
I loved to balance like a child.

Roaming the paved streets; riding is like flying.

I knew you when the store held you back.
I chose you from behind handlebars with purple streamers.

Your tires silently carried me to classes,
each brake stop signaled that we were close to our arrival.

I sat on your worn black seat like I was on a throne of sorts.
Even though that seat is tattered with one rip on the side,
all I saw in you was my own **** pride.

Spokes, I knew you once.
I played your tune each journey that we went on.
No hill was ever tall enough, no road was ever too bumpy.

Gears, I knew you once.
Click, Lock, Click
sometimes you were tight and never let me ride
sometimes you were loose and my feet went flying ‘round too fast for me to catch
                     what you were doing.

I knew you once, when time was young.

the city and it's music
every changing
the city and it's music
daily rearranging

you can hear the distant thunder
kept in time by city drums
a beat of urban tires
that makes the city roadways strum
the wind blows through the subway
you can hear the wires hum
it's the city making music
shut your eyes and listen some

the band has no conductor
there are horns and there are strings
there's a bass back from the buses
listen to the joy it brings
it's a concert in the city
by the city and it rings
the bells from downtown churches
and the piegeons flapping wings

you've an orchestra around now
listen close, it never stops
from the cars racing through downtown
to the whistle blowing cops
it's a different kind of music
it's got a rhythm that just pops
it's a gritty harder sound
that echos to the building tops

cars, trucks, people walking
all are part of this great band
and the best part of this music
is it's spread across the land
each song you hear is different
nothing ever comes out planned
each city has a cadence
listen close, the show's at hand....