We had wanted to leave our homes before six in the morning
but left late and lazy at ten or ten-thirty with hurried smirks
and heads turned to the road, West
driving out against the noonward horizon
and visions before us of the great up-and-over

and tired we were already of stiff-armed driving neurotics in Montreal
and monstrous foreheaded yellow bus drivers
ugly children with long middle fingers
and tired we were of breaking and being yelled at by beardless bums
but thought about the beards at home we loved
and gave a smile and a wave nonetheless

Who were sick and tired of driving by nine
but then had four more hours still
with half a tank
then a third of a tank
then a quarter of a tank
then no tank at all
except for the great artillery halt and discovery
of our tyre having only three quarters of its bolts

Saved by the local sobriety
and the mystic conscious kindness of the wise and the elderly
and the strangers: Autoshop Gale with her discount familiar kindness;
Hilda making ready supper and Ray like I’ve known you for years
that offered me tools whose functions I’ve never known
and a handshake goodbye

     and "yes we will say hello to your son in Alberta"
     and "yes we will continue safely"
     and "no you won’t see us in tomorrow’s paper"
     and tired I was of hearing about us in tomorrow’s paper

Who ended up on a road laughing deliverance
in Ralphton, a small town hunting lodge
full of flapjacks and a choir of chainsaws
with cheap tomato juice and eggs
but the four of us ended up paying for eight anyway

and these wooden alley cats were nothing but hounds
and the backwoods is where you’d find a cheap child's banjo
and cheap leather shoes and bear traps and rat traps
and the kinds of things you’d fall into face first

Who sauntered into a cafe in Massey
that just opened up two weeks previous
where the food was warm and made from home
and the owner who swore to high heaven
and piled her Sci-Fi collection to the ceiling
in forms of books and VHS

but Massey herself was drowned in a small town
where there was little history and heavy mist
and the museum was closed for renovations
and the stores were run by diplomats
or sleezebag no-cats
and there was one man who wouldn’t show us a room
because his baby sitter hadn’t come yet
but the babysitter showed up through the backdoor within seconds
though I hadn't seen another face

        and the room was a landfill
        and smelled of stale cat **** anyhow
        and the lobby stacked to the ceiling with empty beer box cans bottles
        and the taps ran cold yellow and hot black through spigots

but we would be staying down the street
at the inn of an East-Indian couple

who’s eyes were not dilated 
and the room smelled
lemon-scented

and kept on driving lovingly without a care in the world
but only one of us had his arms around a girl
and how lonely I felt driving with Jacob
in the fog of the Agawa pass;

following twin red eyes down a steep void mass
where the birch trees have no heads
and the marshes pool under the jagged foothills
that climb from the water above their necks

that form great behemoths
with great voices bellowing and faces chiselled hard looking down
and my own face turned upward toward the rain

Wheels turning on a black asphalt river running uphill around great Superior
that is the ocean that isn’t the ocean but is as big as the sea
and the cloud banks dig deep and terrible walls

and the sky ends five times before night truly falls
and the sun sets slower here than anywhere
but the sky was only two miles high and ten long anyway

The empty train tracks that seldom run
and some rails have been lifted out
with a handful of spikes that now lay dormant

and the hill sides start to resemble *******
or faces or the slow curving back of some great whale

-and those, who were finally stranded at four pumps
with none but the professional Jacob reading great biblical instructions at the nozzle
nowhere at midnight in a town surrounded

by moose roads
                             moose lanes
                                                     moose rivers
and everything mooses

ending up sleeping in the maw of a great white wolf inn
run by Julf or Wolf or John but was German nonetheless

and woke up with radios armed
and arms full
and coffee up to the teeth
with teeth chattering
and I swear to God I saw snowy peaks
but those came to me in waking dream:

"Mountains dressed in white canvas
gowns and me who placed
my hands upon their *******
that filled the sky"

Passing through a buffet of inns and motels
and spending our time unpacking and repacking
and talking about drinking and cheap sandwiches
but me not having a drink in eight days

and in one professional inn we received a professional scamming
and no we would not be staying here again
and what would a trip across the country be like
if there wasn’t one final royal scamming to be had

and dreams start to return to me from years of dreamless sleep:

and I dream of hers back home
and ribbons in a raven black lattice of hair
and Cassadaic exploits with soft but honest words

and being on time with the trains across the plains  
and the moon with a shower of prairie blonde
and one of my father with kind words
and my mother on a bicycle reassuring my every decision

Passing eventually through great plains of vast nothingness
but was disappointed in seeing that I could see
and that the rumours were false
and that nothingness really had a population
and that the great flat land has bumps and curves and etchings and textures too

beautiful bright golden yellow like sprawling fingers
white knuckled ablaze reaching up toward the sun
that in this world had only one sky that lasted a thousand years

and prairie driving lasts no more than a mountain peak
and points of ember that softly sigh with the one breath
of our cars windows that rushes by with gratitude for your smile

And who was caught up with the madness in the air
with big foaming cigarettes in mouths
who dragged and stuffed down those rolling fumes endlessly
while St. Jacob sang at the way stations and billboards and the radio
which was turned off

and me myself and I running our mouth like the coughing engine
chasing a highway babe known as the Lady Valkyrie out from Winnipeg
all the way to Saskatoon driving all day without ever slowing down
and eating up all our gas like pez and finally catching her;

      Valkyrie who taught me to drive fast
      and hovering 175 in slipstreams
      and flowing behind her like a great ghost Cassady ******* in dreamland Nebraska
      only 10 highway crossings counted from home.

Lady Valkyrie who took me West.
Lady Valkyrie who burst my wings into flame as I drew a close with the sun.
Lady Valkyrie who had me howl at slender moon;

     who formed as a snowflake
     in the light on the street
     and was gone by morning
     before I asked her name

and how are we?
and how many?

Even with old Tom devil singing stereo
and riding shotgun the entire trip from day one
singing about his pony, and his own personal flophouse circus,
and what was he building in there?

There is a fair amount of us here in these cars.
Finally at light’s end finding acquiescence in all things
and meeting with her eye one last time; flashed her a wink and there I was, gone.
Down the final highway crossing blowing wind and fancy and mouth puttering off
roaring laughter into the distance like some tremendous Phoenix.

Goodnight Lady Valkyrie.

The evening descends and turns into a sandwich hysteria
as we find ourselves riding between cities of transports
and that one mad man that passed us speeding crazy
and almost hit head-on with Him flowing East

and passed more and more until he was head of the line
but me driving mad lunacy followed his tail to the bumper
passing fifteen trucks total to find our other car
and felt the great turbine pull of acceleration that was not mine

mad-stacked behind two great beasts
and everyone thought us moon-crazy; Biblical Jake
and Mad Hair Me driving a thousand
eschewing great gusts of wind speed flying

Smashing into the great ephedrine sunset haze of Saskatoon
and hungry for food stuffed with the thoughts of bedsheets
off the highway immediately into the rotting liver of dark downtown
but was greeted by an open Hertz garage
with a five-piece fanfare brass barrage
William Tell and a Debussy Reverie
and found our way to bedsheets most comfortably

Driving out of Saskatoon feeling distance behind me.
Finding nothing but the dead and hollow corpses of roadside ventures;

more carcasses than cars
and one as big as a moose
and one as big as a bear
and no hairier

and driving out of sunshine plain reading comic book strip billboards
and trees start to build up momentum
and remembering our secret fungi in the glove compartment
that we drove three thousand kilometres without remembering

and we had a "Jesus Jacob, put it away brother"
and went screaming blinded by smoke and paranoia
and three swerves got us right
and we hugged the holy white line until twilight

And driving until the night again takes me foremast
and knows my secret fear in her *****
as the road turns into a lucid *** black and makes me dizzy
and every shadow is a moose and a wildcat and a billy goat
and some other car

and I find myself driving faster up this great slanderous waterfall until I meet eye
with another at a thousand feet horizontal

then two eyes

then a thousand wide-eyed peaks stretching faces upturned to the celestial black
with clouds laid flat as if some angel were sleeping ******* on a smokestack
and the mountains make themselves clear to me after waiting a lifetime for a glimpse
then they shy away behind some old lamppost and I don’t see them until tomorrow

and even tomorrow brings a greater distance with the sunlight dividing stone like 'The Ancient of Days'
and moving forward puts all into perspective

while false cabins give way
and the gas stations give way
and the last lamppost gives way
and its only distance now that will make you true
and make your peaks come alive

Like a bullrush, great grey slopes leap forth as if branded by fire
then the first peaks take me by surprise
and I’m told that these are nothing but children to their parents
and the roads curve into a gentle valley
and we’re in the feeding zone

behind the gates of some great geological zoo
watching these lumbering beasts
finishing up some great tribal *******
because tomorrow they will be shrunk
and tomorrow ever-after smaller

Nonetheless, breathless in turn I became
it began snowing and the pines took on a different shape
and the mountains became covered white
and great glaciers could be seen creeping
and tourists seen gawking at waterfalls and waterfowls
and fowl play between two stones a thousand miles high

climbing these Jasper slopes flying against wind and stone
and every creak lets out its gentle tone and soft moans
as these tyres rub flat against your back
your ancient skin your rock-hard bones

and this peak is that peak and it’s this one too
and that’s Temple, and that’s Whistler
and that’s Glasgow and that’s Whistler again
and those are the Three Sisters with ******* ablaze

and soft glowing haze your sun sets again among your peaks
and we wonder how all these caves formed
and marvelled at what the flood brought to your feet
as roads lay wasted by the roadside

in the epiphany of 3:00am realizing
that great Alta's straights and highway crossings
are formed in torturous mess from mines of 'Mt. Bleed'
and broken ribs and liver of crushed mountain passes
and the grey stones taxidermied and peeled off
and laid flat painted black and yellow;
the highways built from the insides
of the mountain shells

Who gave a “What now. New-Brunswick?”

and a “What now, Quebec, and Ontario, and Manitoba, and Saskatchewan";
**** fools clumsily dancing in the valleys; then the rolling hills; then the sea that was a lake
then the prairies and not yet the mountains;

running naked in formation with me at the lead
and running naked giving the finger to the moon
and the contrails, and every passing blur on the highway
dodging rocks, and sandbars
and the watchful eye of Mr. and Mrs. Law
and holes dug-up by prairie dogs
and watching with no music
as the family caravans drove on by

but drove off laughing every time until two got anxious for bed and slowed behind
while the rambling Jacob and I had to wait in the half-moon spectacle
of a black-tongue asphalt side-road hacking darts and watching for grizzlies
for the other two to finish up with their birthday *** exploits
though it was nobodies birthday

and then a timezone was between us
 and they were in the distant future
and nobodies birthday was in an hour from now

then everything was good
and everyone was satiated
then everything was a different time again
and I was running on no sleep or a lot of it
leaping backward in time every so often
like gaining a new day but losing space on the surface of your eye

but I stared up through curtains of starlight to mother moon
and wondered if you also stared
and was dumbfounded by the majesty of it all

and only one Caribou was seen the entire trip
and only one live animal, and some forsaken deer
and only a snake or a lonesome caterpillar could be seen crossing such highway straights
but the water more refreshing and brighter than steel
and glittered as if it were hiding some celestial gem
and great ravines and valleys flowed between everything
and I saw in my own eye prehistoric beasts roaming catastrophe upon these plains
but the peaks grew ever higher and I left the ground behind

The sweat on my lip
brings this barometric memory
of heat and flesh
to the forefront.

Two fronts,
a Summer monsoon
where pale lightning plays
through reefs of golden cloud
circling an alabaster cliff
humming like live wires
with soft and hard design
with rain and sea spray.

The curve of your back
is a horizon.
The lines carved on your chest
are highways and slipstreams
above which gulls wing and wheel
below which mysteries are concealed.

And I sigh like thunder
to the softness of your storm
and I sigh like thunder,
to your silver screen embrace
I sigh like thunder.
I sigh like thunder.

There are places
where my heart ripped out of my chest by my hands in a fit of clarity ,
i yearned to see what kept me alive, with blood dripping from my fingertips
and splashing onto my coat in artistic nonchalance

the beat, beat , beat , of my only heart
the beat , beat , beat , of my time keeper
the beat , beat , beat , drip , drip , drip , silent watcher of ****** functions
seeping onto the floor are the unwritten lines that flow into vein like patterns, as if the blood tries to reach the sea,
only backwards - the pool spreads around my feet
away the streams run
criss crossing like rivers from a plane
oxtail islands form with inlets that lead to dead end forests that spring up spontaneously on either side of the waters flow

get lost in the forest - only to find more forest

twinkling lights of skies dawn appear in the slipstreams and mountain ravines form slowly ,
valleys carved from the still beating *****

i wrap the contents in a plastic bag and put it in my coat pocket
so maybe i’ll remember that i’m beating my drum to my final beat
which will ring out -

oh patient heart
oh , oh , oh , peaceful heart
full of yearnings for untainted love
untouched , touched by malice
touched by dandelions drifting seeds

oh patient heart
fill up your lungs with night falls dew point air ,
and falling stars falling still
into my eyes that explode
with the light of a million suns
they burn.

they burn.

they burn.

without the embers of loves hope
i would surely stop right now
slide the knife into the flesh
hope for the best

what a wicked thing to do - to make me dream of you

the fall

the thunderstruck tower of loves , loves touch
send shivers up my spine and into the neuron pathways of tickled pink touches
and strange worlds open up

synapse exchange - electronic turns chemical and back again all too soon
lightning flashes without thunders encore

dappled light hits the spiders hammock
old ladies weave their dried up tears into jumpers
grandmas and grandpa’s their stories outshines the children they bear

what burden to carry on the shelf of self.

I want to disappear now, into the smell of books, old ink,
Moldy columns and perfumes of dried flowers.
What keeps us alive, bundled into these bodies,
Are incoherent strings of dna the gods of our existence,
Do they determine if our days are mostly carefree
Or slipstreams of inchoate agony?
Does the loveliness of life arise from its randomness,
Or the randomness from incalculable beauty?

Why do some pay the ultimate price,
And some never seem to pay anything at all?

Is my breathing my tithe, a piece of each day that's unwound,
Tribute paid to the universe, itself but one hallowed out-breath
From the sphincter of time and inconceivable distance?

I can wrap myself up in pages of words, in folds of paper
Trying to cover myself in understanding,
Yet no man holds the keys of what we are,
Or what we are yet to become; faith is all we inherit
In the orbiting chaos of time, we find once-living shreds of it
Always in free fall, floating forever through the continuum,
A whispered message from the secret heart of being,
To never forget, that the smallest mercies can save a soul.

my meds are syntactical pills.
i pop them daily.
never fail.

i constantly rearrange them
and stare

at their sound.
how they
slant, or how they
run off
into tangents.

each day i stare at what they say.
eyes wide shuttered, half-here-or-there

or whatever.

they make me feel better, i tell her.
i get off
from it.

hear me! i am creator
of small thoughts
written down.

slipped crown tumble.
wings fallen into
this glyph

which stands for
something greater; or
so they say.

----- crow over there. see it? it careens scenes
of scenes, never-ending slipstreams and forgotten seas;
tangential shadow tree limb swim there: promise is viral gold..

i want to be difficult to read so you can't ever fully know me.
or because i know i'll never know me,
not really;
so why the **** should you get to?

no. it can't be.
i locked and ate the key to me
long long ago.

shine the light just right
and you can see it: it's there,
grown into the spleen.

see it?

it turns me on
and off.

my doses have increased, i say.
i'm addicted, she says.

we all are.

we all are because
to write is to admit
you have so much more to say but don't know how,
and probably never will know how.

but still you do it.

there's always
another
angle
to be
seen.

I'll most likely die
chasing the syntax, i think.

Lesser beings
sliding through slipstreams
A bipedal virus
spreading through the veins

In dreary codeine inspired nights
Where I have somehow
Wandered back into your bed
We forget who we are
Lose ourselves in
those lucid slipstreams
I know where we stand
And I never want to come down

It all began with a moon;
A waxing gibbous moon
Glistening in the sky;
Beauty staring back at me
Within my glassy eyes.
Anchored to the jutting rock
Which is just above the rise
Are my hope and dreams
Of sailing throughout time.
In a celestial sailboat with wings
Onward I would glide.
On through time and tide,
With flags and ribbons streaming,
Fluttering in the breeze, I slide
Into swirling lovely slipstreams
Ever onwards I am steaming
Way up high and dreaming
In a celestial sea vast and wide
If only in my mind!