A gaggle of glamour girls,
Debutantes of Times gone by.

With talk of Aruba,
White Sands and clear blue waters,
Spoken to inspire jealousy to all those around.

And of organization,
Motherhood and label makers,
Construction of pigeon holes for every part of life.

And the Latino Girl at work,
Whispers of the lasciviousness of a life unknown,
In the silliness of two glasses of white wine each.


I smoke a barrier between them and me.

In an effusive hurried rush they leave,
In search of sustenance of the soul,
In search of Sisterhood.

I sit in a Dewar’s drought.

She walks by and grazes her fingertips across my back,
A touch of familiarity,
A touch that I long for.

Gently, I speak,
Within this microcosm,
You stand as Aphrodite.

Smiling, she goes about her work.

I return the appreciation,
The warmth of bad bourbon,
Exuding from my pores.

Cause I sit in a Dewar’s drought.

They sit down in the virility of youth,
Testosterone tilted hats,
Speaking the language of Poser Street,
In the melody of white noise.


Showcasing the uniforms of a self-created culture.

I turn and tune them out.

The rumbling motorcycle pulled in
The Cowboy entered the luncheonette
And Doctor Boss was sitting there waiting
They licked their lips, shook hands and that was it
This is the Legend of The Cowboy and Doctor Boss
Two stones untouched by complacent moss
Together they made a deal
His satin suit and His Cuban heeled boots
This is how it began

Doctor Boss was a respected physician
Shaved, shampooed and conditioned
Wore a stethoscope, had tongue depressors in jars
The Doctor had a gold tooth and fancy cars
But he was crooked as the day was long
Had no regards for right and wrong
Just as long as he was making a buck
He had connections to the cartel down in Mexico
And they lined his pockets with rising dough

Back in 1955 he was peddling dope in med school
Made the junkies line up and the women drool
Until he was challenged to a switchblade duel
Got his right ring finger sliced off and throw into a pool
He turned around and killed that man
Slashed him in the face and punctured his gut
He packed his trunk and headed north and ran
Darted toward the Jersey Horizon
On the way he picked up gun and a phony medical license

You would think a ****** would weigh on a man’s conscience
But not the Doc his mind was on motel options
He got a room and went to a local hole in the wall
A smoky, run down biker bar
“Dewar’s and water” said a pretty little thing
Boss looked at her, downed his drink and suffered whiskey sting
“Hey there beautiful, what’s your name?” “Lillian” she said
“What’s yours?” “Well, Lillian that’s not important but I’ll tell you what is”
“I got a motel room all to myself and I need some company”

Paper thin walls and a moaning women
The mattress squeaks as the vacancy signs flashing
The next morning Lillian awoke
Just to see The Boss had hit the road
She got dressed and went on her way
The motel bill remained unpaid
She wished he would have stayed awhile
But he was miles away by then
And starting a new life
This was the origin of Doctor boss
Wayward bound and identity lost
How a boy became a man
From check ups to drug trafficking now
This is how it all began

Now The Cowboy thought life was a game
A wild child that wouldn’t be tamed
He lived his life against the grain
Behind his aviators was repressed pain
He never knew his dear old dad
And his mother, run over by a drunken cab
Broken home launching pad
The kid went mad and hopped on his bike
He began his quest to quench his thirst for an exciting life

He raced and robbed from Cali to Michigan
He broke every law from Dallas to Vermont and back again
Until the day when he wasn’t fast enough
They tackled him down and put him in cuffs
He was charged and sentenced to five years in Cook County
An extensive criminal record by the age of twenty
But as soon as he was behind bars he busted out before anyone knew
Off to continue his life of debauchery
Of freedom and existential ecstasy

He was an escaped convict with a bounty on his head
The warden of Cook County didn’t want him alive but dead
But The Cowboy went on his merry way, making deals and getting laid
Getting ******, kicking *** and taking names
He was just looking for a good time
He was searching for a new trail to ride
All he wanted to do was live
Do everything in the world there was to do
To him every day brought something new

On a faithful day, The Cowboy came to Hacketts
The city where Doctor Boss opened up his practice
The tired traveler went to go get drunk
Over in the corner of the bar he was slumped
The Doc strolled in and everyone paid their respects
But there was something The Cowboy didn’t get
“Why are they kissing the ring of this nine fingered quack?”
He pulled out a knife on The Doc and a bottle went smash!
Over the poor Cowboy’s head and he blacked out

“Now, son I know that’s not how you say hello”
“And you seem to be a nice young fellow”
“So how bout I cut you a break”
“And we’ll go over to my office and I’ll clean up these scrapes”
The Cowboy agreed and got to his feet
They walked to Boss’s office just down the street
And The Doc sewed up his head
“Say, boy where you from I never seen you around here”
“It doesn’t matter you three piece suite wearing queer”

Doctor Boss chucked then pushed The Cowboy down by the throat
Pulled out his gun ,“I can **** you now but I won’t”
“No, you’re gonna do me a favor you little ****”
The Cowboy couldn’t breathe but Boss wouldn’t quit
“I got a package that needs to go to Georgia”
“If you take it there , they’ll be four grand waiting here for ya”
Now how could The Cowboy resist such an adventure?
Not to mention the grip Doctor Boss had on his Adam’s apple
He let him go and began to cackle

“Now around here, I run things”
“I’m free to do as I please”
The Cowboy was amazed at this man, he was right
He owned a gun and  got involved in a bar fight
Could this man be in the mob?
“Boy, you can call me Doctor Boss”
“Well Doc, they call me The Cowboy”
“So tell me, where am I going?

Doc Boss loaded up The Cowboy’s bike
With Mexican white powdered dynamite
“Now that’s four kilos, you got there”
“You get the money and bring it back here”
“You got it Boss, I’ll be back by Tuesday night”
And off went The Cowboy out of sight
The Doc new he could trust him
He had that look in his eye the he did those years ago
The one when you yearn to search for the unknown

This was the origin of The Cowboy and Doctor Boss
They paid no attention to consequence or cost
They saw themselves in each other
Just trying to reach one height after another
Cowboy respected a man so free
And Boss saw his prodigy
Together they became filthy rich
They shook hands and that was it

Outcasted kid with purple hair

Albeit not the kind of violet
That made your nostrils drip
With a watery ambrosia
Sugary enough to belong to a bee

And not the kind of
heavy, royal, omnipresent
contentment plum presents as a
molten lava
perfecting the pockmarks in the pie

My tendrils were not reminiscent of
home or
anything savoury so

I tangled them in tiaras
belonging to some Duchess' daughter or
one of Henry's wives or

Maybe twined them round
Frita's pallet and
Dyed my scalp a more pleasing hue or
Anything other than purple

Because purple was what I was not
Purple was Lilacs and
Pansies and Heliotropes and Tulips and
Lavender and

That little wild flower aforementioned

whose name I can't bare say
for the sake of
a humble beauty
such as hers

'twould be a shame to make comparable
To the wet-dog-fur look
Of my purple hair

And so I learned to get lost

In a past I always felt my own
Traveling continents and
Floating through eons

While my classmates  coloured in
British Columbia and
Where is Nunavut again?

Growing, I gained companions

A faery,
Athena,
Aslan and
Frodo, Einstein, Plato,
Theodore Geisel, Mahatma Ghandi
and Louis Leakey, Jamal Dewar,
Joan of Arc and John Lennon and
it all became
more complicated

Because my world was in flux
Oh it ebbed and it flowed and it expanded
Like the molten plum but this time
It really was more like lava

Assuredly you'll understand;
See the seams in our stitching!
Our Worlds are sewn together!

And as much as we would like
to cling to our
individualism

at some point we all must
accept that there is
but one

Intrinsic as our innards
Are our atoms and
Electrons and
mine are yours and
yours are hers and
ours together are all of the stars and
it really is
beautiful

At some point the twisting shroud
The squeezing and contracting -
of the world inside my head and
the world inside my eyes and
the world I was walking around in
and the world that I saw above me -
it tensed then halted
and became very dense
then melted

What a glorious
Ubiquitous, secure and everlasting amalgamation!
I opened my eyes
To find Van Goghs Scissors
All bloodied still and so
I cleaved my purple hair

But to find Hieronymus' oils and
watercolours so
I made my skin a hellish canvas
Painted all in yellows and blues
Without a hint of purple

Now from shoulders to forearm to wrist
from breast to navel to hip
from thigh to calf to foot
legible as anything are
lines that lilt and gleam
sighing songs of
devils and cherubs alike
and of sparrows and snakes

So after heaven is hell
and after hell is Nirvana
And Manna is as good as dirt
if Ambrosia is but
the spit of a bee

It all always works out
Because at the end comes
Death and after that
We don't know
But I do know that
I don't know
Much at all to begin with

Except for four things, almost assuredly:
1. Energy is all
2. I will never cease to find shouting at people from my bedroom or a car window amusing
3. My mother loves me more than anyone
4. Nothing is certain, except for uncertainty

Mr. Ivories

entertains with elan,
daily during cocktails on the mezzanine level.
Jolene always orders a Black Russian,

mine is a Dewar's and water.
We drop a fiver in his basket on the Steinway,
along with a request for "Ebb Tide",

Jolene's personal favorite.
He conjures an image of Fred Astaire at keyboard,
his tails flipped elegantly over the piano bench,

like long black raven's plumes.
Jolene points out two announcers from CNN,
seated opposite. Makes us feel

important by mere association.
Our waitress asks, would we like another round
before the hour's end, as we speculate

about Mr. Ivories' musical propensity.
Time escapes in moonlit harmonic vapors,
leaves us already longing our next soiree.

A fighter from
India
But I can't my way to the other side of the border
Laxman and Rekha block it
Amitabh Bachan ka dewar
Sunehra suffer

When it rains, it pours;
A downpour less frequently wet, sure
Dancing a shambling, ill-dressed manticore
Who has barely the strength to shake anymore
Find the only chagrin of the forecast is yours
But you bring some fine wine, a handle of Dewar’s
Your mind ascending from improbable sewers
Searing tomatoes, aged beef on skewers
Burned-off or absorbed during barhopping tours
With whom you lounged on Mediterranean shores
In your history head: Mongols, Turkmen, and Moors
It hits you again ‘til another drink floors you
Sleep on a sofa where bad weather ignores you
And somewhere inside a girl asks, “From who
Comes a voice (yours) at night ambling the halls?”
The friendliest ghost, not haunting at all
Who’ll likely come by if you give him the call
But leave in the morning before sunlight is tall
Out of fear of breaking some protocol

Despite this, you’ve certainly seen so
They keep you around as part of this scene, so
This is your life, just how it should be, so
Thank you my dears, my beloved Piso