The Poetry of Bernard Alain

The Oceanview Resort

2011-07-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

This is another photograph I took at the resort where I stayed for the week, a peek at one of the many capes and inlets found in the Grand Barachois region of Shediac N.S. The weather would change on and off during the day, warm sunny periods cooled off by kelp scented wafts from the Northumberland Strait. The seasonal residents were honoring the tradition of the snowbirds by hanging decorations in celebration of a July 25 christmas, estranging at first but any excuse for a party ...eh?

The Grand Barachois

2011-07-24T16:09:00.000-07:00

I left for Shediac N.S. to escape the heat wave in Ottawa this week, the air was as rejuvenating as the hospitality and well worth the 14 hour drive. The high point for me was the Duschene wharf, a great little spot where you can wait for fresh lobster to be delivered straight from the fishing boats or grab a bite on the patio of the local restaurant looking out onto the marina.

on power groups

2010-11-28T06:53:00.000-08:00

so I called my broker back in Toronto
said I wanted the black Avenger
not the gray one
the one with the tinted glass and moonroof
to go with my black mob suit
and pointy shoes
that I wanted to go
like Thelma and Louise
spinning my tires
racing for the edge
steeped in premium audio
[em]powered all

and he said ok
but it would be the sum[s]
and substance
of more meager means (not the cops)
that chase me down

faster than a
speeding bullet

sure to hit
before the crunch
and final impact

fer sher and the thing

2010-11-20T15:17:00.000-08:00

the mortgage personna

and I thought I'd read them
all

creative
sure
and I continue to keep an
open mind while reading poetry

but I think it was the way
it ballooned
that made me think
he didn't know

what

he was signing his
name to

tarantula

2010-11-16T17:54:00.001-08:00

when I go back to volte-face and that guy I recall the door shutting after
every disturbance every second away from peurta del sol then out
for a beer drinking back every deficiency as a long-legged
nemesis buzzed in my tavern like gypsies and packsacks and belize and
borderless prints of red-eyes on my amp top
the snap and twang like boomerangs and slingshots the
old me my nemesis never excusing always accusing
I knew you well before you died you hairy legged sticky foot spittling on my wings
you want me come and get me
but keep in mind
I know where you live
and where you don't

romeo y julie ta

2010-11-07T18:32:00.000-08:00

it came from cuba
not the best
not second best
but the third best
my son said
a gift from a corner
of the world maybe
that understood
the dilema of a commoner
like myself
I'll smoke it again
sometime
to remind me
of that fact

the veritable excursions

2010-10-30T11:15:00.001-07:00

we don't have possesions
just attachments
equity eventually redeemed
for the boarding passes
of a shipless cruise
destiny a port
not totally in view
until the last
leg

and the euphoria of endless
free camels and bacardi
dissipate
as exotic dreams
and travel hype
bury themselves in
the commonness of
baking sand
and photogenic
palms
you'll have the same
as everybody else
when you finally lie down
the deepest of tans
won't stay with you

and living
is the risqué
of a double-entendre
the unexpected sequel
of unraveling fiction
the intellection
of wide-eyed amibition
and whimsical
dreamscapes

and tonite
the protagonist
Henry Pelham
a berry pickin' pro
a mogul expert in the science of the
slopes, nurturer of bunker crops
and breaking boughs
and I stretch again
for the next notch in the vine
a drunken swivel
of red tape leading up
to imaginary blue skies
(or
maybe to an imaginary certificate
of full performance
or
maybe an imaginary vineyard of crashing jets
and tabloid paparazzi
who knows ...*!)
surrender to a bouquet
of fermenting rare
(but still pickable)
picks

last week it was my brother Tom two eggs
over easy at Moe's
the Elvis paraphernalia on the tavern walls
overdone and spicy but the conversation
simmering and palatable

this morning it was danishes
and upgraded bandwidth
thunder and rain periodic
the dish outside on track as a brandless mouse
scaled the face of virtual nirvana

later on it'll be Rickard's Red
and sirloin tip with my son and fiance
and we'll probably talk about silly things like poetry
and dream homes, other fictitious structures
and I'll pick up the tab make another
installment against my future cruise to paradise
knowing, as in most destination packages
even though the price of the hype seems out of reach,
the blowing smoke and bottomless jugs
will somehow be accounted for
in the cost of the plan

e'steam and the (loco)motive

2010-10-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

and he said she
was a bookreading
freewheeling tart with an occassional
fetish for weekend meter checks
a tease for adolescent woodies
an NJ swinger; in hot pursuit
of bon jovi look-a-likes
orgasms in a shot
glass

and she
sure (he)
was the victim of circumstance; a small diamond
left between the crack[s]; overlooked
by the monicles of more discerning
cuts

and sympathy poured out steadily
to sweeten the oats of old lumpy
thick and syrupy shoulda-woulda-couldas
coating the mush of overcooked grain
and jagged edges
and like a suicidal die-hard
she wore old lumpy wisdom
like a tnt belt, finger near
the [smithereens] button; ready
to obliterate
anihilate
eradicate
lumpy or nothing
lumpy or else

and today no
different from the others
as they yap incessantly like
allies in the dmz comparing notes on whatever
cowlicks and ironed curls
mating with ooh ooh oohs and
yeah yeah yeahs
small wars forgiven
for another truce
in yup-amity

and I
never in view long enough for real consideration
but visible enough for dimissal
a UFO in the no fly zone
the target of heat-seeking missiles and prolonged monitoring
another insignificant moment of brightness
destined for tracking by circular
low-luster scope

and she'll never know
what he says when she's not around
he'll never remember
the last jab

myself
I'll never risk exposing
the real blips here in the
dmz

anything too dubious gets shot down
long

before it has a chance
to drop

a
bomb

on reaching puerta del sol

2010-07-11T16:38:00.000-07:00

I think steve
had it right with mood for a day

the occasional rasgueado
slipping off the end
of his fingertips
skipping over
nickel-plated rungs

on the way to an apex
the correct
intonation a
matter of a
small bend

others
doing the talking

clinging to a shard

2010-07-03T17:18:00.001-07:00

titanic my ass

it was gargantuan
the way all the band members
slid into the ocean
tooting their
horns

my sympathy
to the remaining
groupies

marvel

2010-07-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

as a comic character
I don't know
how many times
he zoomed in
and saved Lois

the only thing I
could say for a fact

was that in real life

he didn't exist

about the hole thing

2010-06-29T15:31:00.000-07:00

the gps steering us in and
out of Montreal a few
times
the radio sputtering
the ample-breasted biker girl selling
hotdogs at the roadstop
all mercilessly out of range no less the
prospect of the Cabos, Rosalita, any-thing
remotely exotic
and it's hello to a few hundred miles of
moose barricade until we feed on a
a dozen or so re-boiled poutines
$2 to see my mother
$5 to see my aunt $10 to visit
Parlee Beach and $45 for the bridge
back from P.E.I with the possibility
of deep-frying toll fare at some
ocean-front clam shack

so my thanks go out
to Anne's country kitchen and the
town of Crap-o

at $5 a plate

it'll be well worth enduring the smell
of a dairy cow's ass

a definite 5, coulda been a 7

2010-06-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

my cage was really rattled today
I wanted to step off
call Otis or Thyssen in,
to duke it out with a couple of antiquated
gearheads

but the rumble was so large
it filled the adjoining hall
and I realized the contender would
have to have a much larger billing

and the Doomsday march
played in my head with startling new revelations,
that I didn't want to be in that number
(or any number close to it)
and that if I ever fell off the top
I wanted the exclusive movie rights

and the sequel wouldn't have been called 'Treme'
but maybe 'Current Affairs' or 'I'm not Shore Anymore'
and there wouldn't be any actors
because our peace of mind
came from a river view
whose noisy ducks
only appeared to be
harmlessly migrating

and our core understanding
would've ended near the market area somewhere
where the hos would continue to
provide lip service to a depleted economy

the House of Commons
having to cool down regardless

all this just mighta

because today

(June 23rd, 2010)

somebody

didn't give a
nickel

to our seismologists
on call

..oh, tHAt kind of peace

2010-06-21T09:41:00.001-07:00

the percussive
slap and twang
the squeaking and
squawking
index finger
groping
daisies lining up
along the bar-rail
duped and
swaying
crude
but infectious,
could've almost
been Arlo
except for
the designer
jeans

back then it was only a childish revival for me
the rebellious mid-range of a vintage Rhodes
playing Woodstock in another town, long after
the notion of being proactive, peace and love
just a faddish remake taking place every now
and then outside of Toronto, and the barrios at
El Avila the only thing sliding in the mud,
the only electric anthem played, seared the
spires of Baghdad

and I wanted to tell the guy
it's already been done
we tried that and it didn't
work
but the acoustic thump
like tribal code to a silent army
the petalled tiaras
untamed carrot locks
young and creamy skin
and ...

...*!

who do I have to be ... Mickey Rooney?

2010-06-19T14:43:00.001-07:00

it's this pain
made by a little man
stabbing the inside
of my stomach
sometimes having the duration
of a short email or the word
"no" but more often
spans days, weeks and
years
punctuated
by overly complex
analysis

and they say it builds
character, makes you
stronger, helps you ....

...pf*

pretzels please!

2010-06-19T14:40:00.001-07:00

and
I think it must've
been a
drunken mistake
an induced
state of mind
that made me
believe
for a moment
that
I could spread
those milky wings
on a slice of bread
and swallow
knowing
what they
do

a vixen
in the dreams
of many
sipping on my
beer

and I ask

"would you still love me in the morning? ..."

"no."
she says

"but I'm a helluva lot cheaper"

when the U and I are miles apart

2010-06-19T14:39:00.000-07:00

she was surprised as hell
when John told her his brother might've
skied Mount Fuji and she was quick to point out
how dreamy the islands might look
while peering down through the clouds,
the resistance of a corporate being
maybe, wanting to elevate her preconceptions,
flee the mundane long enough to kill the
obvious but not long enough to test
the steepness
and again substance driven
like unwanted white snow
further into obscurity

and John, shattered like stalagmite might
after the red rocks in Colorado,
the next natural phenomenom blade
grooming or retarring, maybe Hummers
with a roofrack to get away from the
outrightly rocky but never slipping away
to Aspen

and escape becomes relative
with the random knocks
of more spontaneous being
spitting up in the wheel wells
as lapping bus tires drown a
panorama

roadworthiness a question of
stamina
and even though John really didn't ski

sure she meant Fiji
another kind of trap

closer to a monet

2010-06-05T10:44:00.001-07:00

today I leave for the east,
the fabled peals of a
returning coast play like a
child with model long boats
and preened gulls,
far away from the bare feet
where dried kelp nips on
pristine dunes, photogenic
beaches cry barrenness
at low tide

and Panini won't be a great architect or
painter just a simple tuna melt I've grown
to love
and Socrates just Socrates,
the only hemlock ingested
there along the treeline,
where auroras die,
when I arrive

someone else's dog, not mine

2010-06-01T13:38:00.000-07:00

of course chihuahuas
are always hiding behind the master's leg
when they say come and get me,
the instincts of maybe a mexican fighting dog
tethered together
with the bone mass of a chicken

and today my little hairless huitzilopochtli
is yapping about infringement on a
domain that's no greater than
the step ahead
and the same step behind

and the old dogs in the park
don't know what to think
sure they've had a shrew or two
and that size not so long ago

we dance around
hubris (hubris in a much less classical sense)
careful not to step on
the little thing

the yelp could be crucifying

no less
what other walkers might think

the iron cross

2010-05-28T20:55:00.000-07:00

ok so maybe I squawk a bit
but it's all those sycophants
that drive me crazy
showing up in their virtual cadillacs
shining fenders kissing ass
an elite gymnastic club
that could've been applauded
for unusual flexibility
if it wasn't for the fact
that they bury heads
in polyvinyl safety mats

you see real beef
is made of iron
draconian iron
hung like an effigy
for impailed super-egos
baring nipples
to flourescent light
dangling stinky feet
and precariously high

and the reward
for being able to sustain
the position
is persona non grata
abject poverty
and c-spine [med.] (possibly)

yay

'cause they only pay
for carbon copies of the Dalai Lama
intravenous feeds to lovesic addicts
and type AB blood (if you're dead)

real beef is made of iron babee
that's the way it is

of type ficus elastica

2010-05-24T17:21:00.000-07:00

schnapps on the balcony was never
that expensive
the sun
absolutely free
a few leaves bending
a little torn
overall effect
not too bad

on the inside the constant
rubbernecks
a contemporary ensemble
having outlived a few french provincial and
italian archetypes
simple geometry and naugahyde
never needing much water
syphoning minimums
of reflective matter
between the slats

a tiger lily
might blossom once and
a while with dull orange
wishing it was more
but it doesn't
it just hangs and
waits

not surprising others
survive the downpours so well
near the equator

hangers as well
they can take it either
way

silent clucking

2010-05-23T07:51:00.000-07:00

somehow
I offended her
and I thought fuck
another gesticulated ellipsis
maligned
by Maat's clone

and she's the type
that doesn't make mistakes
got mags that hang like clothing
on a verticle rack in her entranceway
and she waits like a cop
for the perpetrator to draw first
no question who's wrong
when the bullet finally pops

but there was no stealth intelligence
just unrehearsed spit
and I swear the smirk she abhored
was just innocent perioral reflex
and I could go on and on
about an obvious lack of diction
but there was nothing to listen to
nothing said

a case of one chicken

too much
like the other

out of line

2010-05-15T16:27:00.000-07:00

and like Gump
I sidestep the mud
system[at]ically pooh-pooh the elements
search for a coast
to plant wobbly feet

and everyone said it was great
that I'd found an outlet
a way to express whatever
it was they missed
when I said hello
a closer look maybe
at the gyros of the little dog
that aggravates
the hounds so

I could've gone on
about what never gets done
or who likes who
or even my passion
for the least exhaustive
path
but I leave bonafide trivia
to the coconut crackers
frankly
and not that complex
create wordy penises
yak about my lack of religion
spin the outershell of
a dormant yolk with
world-like wisdom
far reaching as tibet

and the marathon always like every other
long jog
nothing very touchy feely
no competitors except for the last edit

with all this practice
I'll be ready

when the blinders come off

ancient echelon

2010-05-12T19:22:00.000-07:00

po pi 7 moused the backdoors
of a military domain
warned papal nuncios
in realtime

apache servers made of
shaving mirrors
coded secure dit dahs
to the end-user scalps
of general miles

armies re-crypt
the silent
decrypt at the end of a stream
of disturbing molecules
reality hacks existing long before
the first shotgun blast
in seamless nirvana

newness of the matter
in which friction starts

arguable

only digital
if you saw it that way

she goes down easy every Friday night

2010-04-29T15:34:00.001-07:00

fantasy and the flu
squirming
in an office chair
trying to smile above the sinus ache
a survivor or a trooper perhaps
and she said it didn't help the sex at all

and the night
a heady mix of sticky bellies
bobbing heads and loud calls
ringnecks maybe

or maybe just victims of
alcho-kinesis
the homeless zeal of a lonely bard and his
drunken bride-to-[may]be
tangling dried out limbs
and fresh debris into transitory
spaces

maybe love never coos or cums
maybe walking on backs isn't about building nests
but more about rituals and habits

like this bottle of port
(hic) !*---

if I punched the monkey one more time

2010-03-31T17:32:00.000-07:00

I was sure Goethe's dawn
in the drama Faust was REM
and the morning choir the
dissipation of monsters

and it must've been all about
mental exhaustion back then
with the yap of stray dogs
ambient in the idle hours

mediocrity you
worthless piece of shit
you are the nobleman as far as I can see
7am backs up
into my head like a garbage truck

the devil is pixilated
in a virtual stream
re-materializing as
same o same o wearing blackberry
and iphone skins

and I'd be
another victim like the doc
if it wasn't for ergonomics

I power down my demons

subtract myself from the drama

dream of things I coulda

on goldschlager

2010-02-28T17:51:00.001-08:00

I don't know if she reads me
I don't know if she reads this

and I read the saneness of her smile
the warmth of her eyes
but there is no common ground
no simple conversation
just some spiritual domain
that believes in things bigger than the triteness
of this instance

and I am a shabby remake of Benjamin Button
cucumber eyes, neoprene abs
I am old and she is young

ta ta mon amor until we meet again

you are the beast
in my sleepless nights

gullible's travels

2010-02-07T05:53:00.001-08:00

and I'd awake to find they'd
pinned me down again
a little harmless meandering
and an entire town
turned on me in my sleep

we had become friends
realizing that size had nothing
to do with it,
I agreed to watch where I was stepping
they swore on a stack
of bibles to never
be underfoot

everything was ok until I banged Sally
last nite

the entire Court of Lilliput was smitten

my apologies to the little people

you were either underfoot
or too close to the action

blowjobs and perfect legs

2010-01-24T06:46:00.001-08:00

the fedoras and the jons spawned another
and I felt the
legs want to wrap around me

but she only screams
with the promise of renumeration
and they
only tame when there's a cut

and the jons don't care either way
just afford the pleasure, feel around
for oohs and ahs

and maybe the emotion not obvious
debased by some caustic agent
eating out fiber
the absence a violation
not commentary not rhetoric

and I write like Monet paints
but with no garden
no palette, no definition of art

where perfect legs
bend easily at the knee from a distance
and I am not the ho

just another prick

2010-01-18T19:08:00.000-08:00

"like the red light district here" Paul says
and I remember thinking fuck he must've
been standing completely erect when that came off
the top of his head

but this goes with the anatomy
always upright and visible
looking for an opportunity
to stab a ho one more time
before the better-half arrives

the stag was a failure
the analysts saw it coming

the tuxedo rentals and mirrored balls
didn't change a thing

and the old tin cans banging and popping behind the exhaust
the last known signs of glitz before the big do

was officially

over

on gas and newer vehicles

2009-12-22T17:07:00.000-08:00

a Challenger dies
on the side of the highway
there's a hole
where the gas cap
used to be,
mechanics insist
at the root of problem
is a hairline crack not easily detectable
by the untrained eye
the loose threading a sure indicator
of poor design

the makers on the other hand
allude to the possibility that
the flaw may be more human,
thinking that the disposition
could've easily occured while
topping-off the wiper fluid and keeping
the coolant in check

on the cold and narrow shoulder
there's no room to test the morbid logic
of pseudointellects or scholarly design
the process of engaging is a loose
foot-stomp countered by a feely grope
for anything with teeth and as long as
the engine turns over and the sock
doesn't fall out

theory atomized

in the first jolt of smoke

the tools for everything else ...f*

2009-12-06T18:12:00.001-08:00

today's horoscope said
a quest for raging passion
could easily drown
the rational man

still the scales tip in a warm southerly hemisphere
and seemingly harmless peri-oral sensors
slither down abs
unbutton i's

naked I paddle through a
kluge in the drawers of
a sophisticated organizer

looking for the little rubber
hats but considering the possibility
that after the leg razor, nail
file and sewing needle pricks

the stars

could be correct

when to kill

2009-11-28T17:04:00.000-08:00

I was sure she wasn't Medusa
Medusa hid under a tangle of vipers
not fine combed
with a conservative auburn luster

and when our eyes met
I turned to sub-rate shale that flaked and fell apart
not real stone

I might've been fooled by
the depth her fangs
could penetrate
but as night progressed
the head came off too easy

I mirrored the last painted upper brow
donned Hades cap of invisibility

sure it was a trap

having died a thousand deaths

2009-11-22T10:17:00.000-08:00

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,
--- Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue ---
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

---William Shakespeare

I.

last week it was iritis
swarms of flashing black locust attacking my eye
and the doc said it was an immune difficiency of some type
likely to reoccur infrequently; without reason
and the cortisone, the emolients, all just feeble retaliations
against a body so determined to die
after 40 we are no longer superhuman
to rot is to be human

II.

today I'm no where near the uppers or the god-like
even my fellow helots feel confident enough to piss on me
and there are no concessions for the meek unless
you want to be a castrato for a lady's night out.
it's play or be played
show me how to roll 9 to 5 into a cigarello; tipple daquiris
and I'll toast with the carcinogens sing like a ho
fuck go all the way cry havoc; let slip the dogs
---not
I choose to rot

III.

die-hards and martyrs have nothing to lose but time
the winners have taken it all
and we are hangers as in expired centuries
hangers as in dangling bodies
hangers on the last letter of I'll never let it go
so I can't imagine it ever happening the way Shak' wrote it
in the last line of o pardon me
it's the cigarellos that roast into perdition; groan for burial
the meek are hangers
quite used to the rot

for the last time I DON'T WANT TO BE SAVED

2009-11-14T18:46:00.000-08:00

"o ... with all due respect" he says
"this is not the way to get popular"

and he's taken
the time to tell me he isn't
offended by the fact that he's offended,
the all-accepting yet somehow descriminating
artiste who's gonna save me from
the perils of obscurity
open my eyes

and he thinks I can't
read between the lines thinks I don't know that he thinks
everything I'm about comes from some slimey and suspicious
landside of inside deals, no regard
for what's due, a hierarchy
of hedenistic evil maybe
pooping out noxious grafitti
on the stipple
of concrete walls
like the way to go is
to be part of some animated forum
of opinionless cartoons with characters like pop-eye
and olive oil
helpless bulemics
infatuated by sailors
pumped-up on spinach

and maybe I am destined for obscurity
and maybe I'll tellya if you don't dig what I'm all about
then you might've just as well gone to the other side ---joined the others
but don't call it networking
call it birds of a feather or something more regal
so that when you fly with osprey class
into the bronze-like umber of some exotic sunset
you can be immortalized
among the other gods
remembered for who you wanted to be
not actually who you were

and don't be offended by the fact
that I think your an ass
it's only because I'm real and you're not
and that I could never be some fictitious 'toon
flexing a muscle to a june moon
pretending to be popular when in fact

all your friends
are as fictitious

as you

paparazzi eyes

2009-11-01T09:17:00.001-08:00

the slow process of vulcanization

2009-10-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

brittle polymers
rub and chafe my alveolar ridge
and I begin to wonder if
eventually I'll grow ears like Spock

my disposable contacts are made of some
semi-permeable membrane, the soles of my shoes
made of polystyrene and my replacement tooth
that arrived today, acrylic

I see with it, walk with it and eat with it

as long as I don't have to breathe with it
I guess this should be ok

after talking with a disciple

2009-09-10T20:56:00.000-07:00

I'm borne again, another ellips(e || is)
in wireless nirvana
time to depart from
the cumbersome coaxial dependancy
---those sly rabbits

and Hank the installer said
this would be my connection
that I could find my venus
in the eastern sky if I really wanted
and that I'd owe it all to some higher body
tracking my skips
and hemispheric shifts

I upload my thoughts to a
distant star
care less how the signal strays
as long as I can find my venus

like Hank said
and shortly after 5

jumbledlie coldfish pie me o my feely gumbo

2009-08-18T15:24:00.000-07:00

maybe mor[e] is right
and I'm just your basic country hick
whittling aesthetic
out of twigs
and debris
no frills
like bransle de poictou maybe
flat-out but nothing too full
while the [coevals] and june moons bloom
with multi-faceted psyches
and well-contrived spir[i]ts
resonate assurances
that real essence
is only a few hundred
years old, weaves thick and textured rugs
with deep blue tones, royal patterns
and speaks like
a victorian
that the apex
is a box of tastey bon-bons
where a horsedrawn buggy waits
with the other glass shoe
and I can't decide what's scarier

this
or still having to write about it

on considering the hole

2009-08-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

Harold, I am writing this
because I want
you to know
that you were absolutely correct,
that the clock on my cable converter
on my kitchen stove
and at the end of my
imitation sterling keychain
were definitely off
and to let you know regardless
we still share a similar zone,
a time perplexed slice
of deceptive paper wads
nervous pencil ticks
and inferior jewel movements
and to let you know
that the watermelon the ants
time and space
the wormhole that we abuse so much
has finally placed us both
on a plane no longer accountable
by means of average ingenuity
that even though you
were thoroughly
impressed by the fact
I arrived in the lobby
at work five minutes early
today

according to Greenwich
and our timesheets

I was only there in theory

really pissed on this time

2009-08-08T19:02:00.001-07:00

really pissed on this time

I read
reprieve into every
flex of a brow
every wordless eye
every disappearing ounce
of shaming saline
and Joel's old song
fills the quiet
with she never gives in
and she never gives out
and the walk home from Gelato's
as solemn and vacuous
as a Tibetan mountain range
devoid of bestowals
for childlike wisdom

and she could be
just chilly for the moment
like this Häagen-Dazs
like maybe if I took a bite
out of that hardened outer coating
all the firmness the wrapper bragged about
so boldly
would lose a few
degrees

but
stripping hard cured form
of it's waxy
cover is a risky business,
all that sudden
concentrated coolness,
I could talk about
the rush of numbing
BTUs

so I settle for the smaller lickings
wait for a milky core to ooze
promise on a stack of well written fiction
to never

leave the lid down

again

mosquito

2009-08-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

nights under the patio light
dying
regenerating
unjustly sucking up red
corpuscles
fleeing
at the first sign of cold

and
for every large hand
slamming down
a lucky escape
into aromatic cedars

to think of the careers
and jobs I've had
the hype the gloss
the corporate citizenship
all such horseshit

I died
and died again
along the way
a
sucker of types
perhaps

a small fly
no different
from the rest

larry and the gang gets shit for being so vain

2009-07-10T20:09:00.000-07:00

for the life of me
I couldn't get through
the first page of
Atlanta Nights
and I begin to wonder
... how nice can a guy get
and lordy lordy lordy
what'd we do without
sir gallahad
to save us from emancipation
save us from those critical [k]nights;
$redeem$ our most undecipherable
of thoughts in the discount aisles
of 'no return'[s]

but I guess in fairness
everyone publishes for reasons that
have to do with vanity
and it's never about the bucks
or whose paying
or who got paid
more about the fear of obscurity
the need to be heard
before the last sparkle
slips through the cracks
misses a chance to
bind
with concrete

and we write, write
hope
like riding a bike
we'll pop wheelies
jump curbs in no time
hope
to cross a finish line with
sleek [k]nits and lithium goo
and when the wheels
finally go plop-plop-plop
we throw rose petals at the sir gallahads,
pointed nibs buried in mediocre submission
as a small army of could-be heros
(try to) make a last avenue
go clop-clop-clop

and we know
they'll love our artsy-blue
hearts (particularly our siblings)
know they want us to know they're
an advocate for the creatively oppressed
not too picky about the spellin, hyph
-enation ... or even content :o,
want to hermetically seal
the oozing precipice of our last faux-pas
in a book with perfect bind

all that
in exchange for one more chance
to sling fresh [st]ink
down the amazon

what a buncha nice guys

on behalf of an estranged majority
I thank you larry and the gang
(... even if you didn't really get it)

we have to send it all somewhere

rodent lust

2009-06-26T20:22:00.001-07:00

if you were to say anything about
tikki it was her lack of eloquence
and desire to keep a few steps ahead that
always seemed to test the center of gravity
and though infatuated by
her simplicity her ambitious strides
entanglement was constant
with the upper pedigrees
and I'd straddle the pack
maybe dangle the occasional tidbit
let them yap incessantly
wait night after night
for the crucial ort
the one that would make the latenight snacks
a tribute to our unconditional
love
make tikki see
those foreign cars
and border crossing felines
were just a passing
thing

but our connection strayed too often
the juicy memories no longer appeasement
for a lack of wordy convos
and she began to talk in some alien voice
like a large laryngeal implant made of titanium
was growing from her throat
and every other sentence was one word "no"
every gesture an imaginary slap;
the chi-chi silver choker I bought
a small boa
choking all hope

and I could sense her
wanting to sever the bond
run away
ferret out her identity
in the rodent chasms
of an open field
still I held on tight

this morning it finally happened
she un-tied the knot

I said "...tikki ..."

"you a b-a-a-a-d bad pup"

feral domain

2009-05-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

poem: Bernard Alain
narration: Bo Digi/Fx
Music: MIDI adaption to Steve Elliot's Green in Blue

a sophistocrat baby
a vile whore tangling you tangling me
talkin bout the real thing
burninin out on probability
feasting like a carnivore
on wee you wee me

and all that mumbo jumbo
from high falutin'
mind pollutin'
esoteric fact disputin'
dances on your
head like a charlatan
sophistocrats baby
tangling you tangling me

they ain't Nero but the colosseum growin
the lions roamin
the victims showin
don't be waitin for the real thing baby
gonna spit out your bones
gonna spit you out
feast on you
like a carnivore

you can ask joy, shit ain't happenin,
the inlaws a bitch,
the ex complainin,
neurally protrusive those jangling veins
throb maniacally
drive me insane

what comes around goes around,
so don't be waitin
the lions'll die when the meats all taken,
gonna eat themselves, eat themselves alive

sophistocrats baby

feasting like a carnivore
on old bones
gonna spit you out
when they're done

on tampering with logic

2009-05-06T14:01:00.000-07:00

today I got slapped in the face by the wooden handle
of a gardening tamper while trying to repair a laneway,
my cheekbone started to swell and bruising marks
began to appear and I didn't rush off to the
doctor's office or the nearest emergency room I
just kept on stoking a bag of domestic blacktop
waiting for the pain to die away and my right
eye to clear up
and I remember thinking later on
with the big five-O around the corner
that maybe I'd already begun the mellow journey,
willing to endure a bit of the 'rough stock' maybe
for the sake of simplicity
and then the phone rings and I tell
a telemarketing rep to
get lost for umteenth time,
that I don't want the (free) trip
I won to the Carribean and
that if he'd spent more time with
his kids instead of making these
annoying calls we'd both be
much happier and I'd get some
work done
and as I hang up I realize
that I haven't mellowed at all
and that pain is only old hat as long as you think
your limbs can hack it
and that when my knees finally do give out
I'd rather be filling potholes,
not leaning against a kitchen wall
listening
to another mind@?#!!ing script

canadian platypus

2009-04-10T20:55:00.000-07:00

on any given
night you might find
her as deep as
the Bowery far out as
Manhattan,
in a brown fur wrap
with a front bill
that could almost quack
claiming to have a more
sophisticated sensory stack

and everything between
14th and Houston
was electric
some far out neural connection
tingling in
hyper-text space

but she never let on
she liked it fresh
or dug
the lower east side

stay away from those New Yorkers
she'd say
just a bunch of junkies
pushing plastic buttons
slicing out lines

five o'clock shadow

2009-03-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

some nights
slowly roast into
perdition
truism the quietly deformed
noose that hangs, waits
for me to make the first move
the options ersatz at best
and the city much like morning
punctilious chirps that care less
about who it serenades
and john you old fart
we all know you pick your nose
and snooze when no-one's looking
I used to do that
and it's always been there
the trollies the power grid
the sidewalks that go at 7am
arrive back a little
later at 5pm,
now I'm here
hauling on a cigarette
waiting for hoops
to come apart

progressively selective bit buckets

2009-03-07T22:11:00.000-08:00

long before friendly Dell
and my jazzy sidekick HP
was a string of eight red-headed
idiots who were either
on or off,
always sacrificing
the significant other when
it came to the crunch,
that was Altair

I scrutinize
an apartment-sized
wasteland of easy divorces
and after-aftermarket toys,
surprised that
the memory of an
8-bit RAM chip
is clear as a
bell,
damned if I can
find a pen
my reading glasses
the remote
other sock...

the bits

2009-02-20T10:09:00.000-08:00

it's a
a rare legal holiday
with the sun out
and not too much
ado, a day
when I despise
McGuinty but
still a law
abiding citizen
visiting whoever
hasn't flown
solo to the Bahamas
or some other
exotic climate
in celebration
of Family
Day

and
no point in going
to see my son,
the hiatus just another
excuse to evaporate into
a coded sea of
'where it's at' and
'where u gotta b',
and my sister of course
(who wasn't in) probably
out doing what I was
doing, unfound as
her returned email
'unknown recipient'

and mom,
well mom's always in.
and I spend the day
nursing an unfortunate
victim of misguided
wrist shots and overly
pregnant social
networks back to
life while we
discuss why her
webcam hisses

tomorrow it'll be over,
the flurries back,
favors forgotten,
no evidence of this
digitally warmed
chinook

I'll have to
write the premier and
thank him for the extra
24 hours over and
above Valentine's
day,
remind him though
we may need a bit
more time for matters
of the heart
given the apparent
complexity

on catching snowflakes

2009-02-04T05:51:00.000-08:00

7am,
the buses on
strike,
the shops on Elgin
open up to the remote yelps
of a paramedic's siren,
it snowed last
night and the ground
cover barely illuminated,
the only sign
of life scratching away
at a stoop,
some guy
out catching snowflakes
as they fall

myself I never
waste much time
with the short squalls
no less the shoveling,
fling a bit of
salt maybe and
hope it
disappears

today
it's about
being in the know,
the wisdom of networks
tracing flurries with
doppler precision,
forecasts of sun
by noon telling us
it'll all
be gone without
much effort

21st century
prudence
and possibly why
the scrapes of a dull
cold edge
are lost in the silence
this morning,
I'd go tell
him what I know
but there's not
much point,
he's one of those
guys who's awl-ways
got it under
control

it was well below zero

2009-02-02T10:37:00.000-08:00

when the sun set on English Bay
I was among the narcs, bootleggers, gypsies
pale silhouettes straddling a skyline,
waiting for an indifferent mist from the bay
to rejuvenate dry nostrils,
cleanse the after-scent of dying alleys

there were no gods, no higher bodies
only the random weaves of a mottled sky
queued in thin vermillion strands,
and somewhere in the stillness and dying sunset
empty easels paraded like the last walk before
a crucifiction,
martyrs of a similar kind maybe, beliefs crafted
out of the less holy, the lips of babes
blowing out their own version of the bible

I left my gloves in the lobby this morning,
the bitten knuckles and walk home all too
familiar, sure it was the cry of failed
flight from young robins trapped in nearby
brambles that tingled in my strides, they
could not be reached, they would not survive
the season

when I exited Main resistance was no longer
a factor and chilled skin still fought with warm
blood, purging with tiny spikes

maybe it was the hypes they escorted from the
penthouse of our building this morning or maybe
that things around me have only appeared to change
over the years I don't know, as I exited the
last avenue of a homeward trek and the complex
came into view, a shimmer of plate glass lost
strength to a shroud of aging twigs and insoluble
clouds

a distant bay ebbed
it was well below zero

on wisdom

2009-01-22T01:24:00.000-08:00

some girls went
for the wise look,
others thought
it might be
fake,
but leaving it
on took a half-hour
off of a shit,
shower and shave,
not much point
at the time
in taking it
off

approaching
the
big five-0,
with silvery moss
sprouting
on my lobes,
the hotties
call me sir,
hold doors
open, think
of me as pa

and the curse
gets worse as
a beard starts
to streak,
more silver
stubble sitting
in the sink

I could get out
my razor try to take
back 10 years
but
that damn double chin
doesn't
come off

coulda been a Barracuda or a Stingray

2009-01-18T08:38:00.000-08:00

the rattle
in the transmission
of this erstwhile Sundance
worries me a bit,
a buncha guys at
some manufacturing plant
in Detroit maybe
already decided
when I'm going to
die on the side
of the road

and I grope
for a tooth to hook,
hoping
it all won't fall out
3 days outside
of the warranty,
and that planned
obsolescence
is a rumor,
NOthing
like we joked
about at the
pub last
night

and
that this
sputtering void
is a small matter
of foot placement,
timing
and shifting
gears

not about
expiry dates

peckers

2009-01-14T23:48:00.000-08:00

if
you look it up,
a real woodpecker
is hostile by
nature,
a lack
of social grace
propped up
by tailfeathers,
only stopping
off from time
to time
to poke at dying,
possibly even
dead bark

of course
the local fly-weights,
walking their
pedigrees by
7am, the ones
that never poo
or smell, just
waddle and interrogate
on behalf of
city ordinance,
peck on
heads

like Woody
Woodpecker
reruns
the same o same o
black and white
shtick

amusing
as in a funny kind of way

can't escape
them somedays

kicking it

2009-01-04T15:03:00.000-08:00

my father was a large
man, over six feet tall
and big boned, always
saying to me
he could never do
what I did

and I never knew
exactly what is was
that I did that
he couldn't do

of course there
was the impromptu
board meeting at
the water cooler,
Vance the right-hand
man of the winning
corporation with
an elbow in my face
and the only
reason I told him
to move it was
so I could see
the Japanese
engineers outside
kicking a hacky-sack
whenever the
experimental robot
lost communication
and was stalled
on the lawn

maybe not a stellar
moment,
but he could never do
any of that

sucker-punch-drunk

2008-12-31T14:03:00.000-08:00

it was always that girl
with the glossy black hair
and tight ponytail,
tied up with some kind
of terrycloth thing
always kicking me in the
shin and running
away

maybe she
wanted me to react
or
maybe it was my blasé
attitude towards some
of life's inequities,
like it was ever my
fault that the flunkies
were drunk and never
made it to class or
that the guy with
the paper hat at
Chicken Villa couldn't
afford a second
beer

now they're success
stories by comparison,
and here I am sifting
through an old cardboard
box of borderless prints,
a flash in the pan[ts]
and possibly disposable
Kodak's largest garbage
dump, thinking it
should've been
me

that kicked

not my day

2008-12-27T10:51:00.000-08:00

bleep

overdraft charges were
created by bankers and
opportunists to tap the
potentional of delinquents
like myself, to defer
the consequences of smaller
crimes, like that second
bottle of Merlot for a
party of two or unorderly
shots of Glenfiddich
before a salad or main
course

bleep

and I tinker with a
pin, try to escape
with a crispy bail of
unmarked bills,
add to the pixelated
trail leading up
to a crime already
in progress

bleep

and Paul thinks the
Friday robber shoulda
been off the hook,
a harmless drunk who
couldn't hurt a fly,
said the guy was
totally out of
character at the time,
just wanted what was
his, some inheritance
trapped deep in vaults
of legal mumbo-jumbo

bleep

only a moment ago
I might've done a bit
of time
but the echo from the
chamber unanymous
and the jury
temporarily out of order

Sunday
already spoken for

high-wire acts

2008-12-15T17:59:00.000-08:00

strands and strands
of twinkling bulbs
lead up to the larger
trees, disappear into the
liquid-crystal of
hand-held reins and
global lassos

Conrad says it used
to be Sears-Robuck when
chickpea eyes fell out of
teddy-bears,
babies choked and a choir
of lawyers sang well
into the New Year,
lineups at the payphone
indifferent and long

now the dialers are
pushers and swarm
at kiosks, and it's
all about glide-pads
and having no wires,
and eyes fall out with
every new steriod,
surrendering their
babies without
much remorse

my son says things are
looking up this year with
his iPhone and connection
plan, swears to god
he'll be able to text
me,
of course I'm still
duped by the Razor
sharpness of my old Motorola
though never sure if
it'll be the web or the
capture button that'll
cause this battery to take
on new and estranging
dimensions

the buses are on strike,
the salt closing in on my
stoop,
the Moroccan clementines I
bought yesterday are a bit
dry and I can't imagine
the crate getting any
sweeter,
I peel the rind of this
aftermarket dinosaur like
a surgeon,
careful not to risk
losing anymore
juice

the entire defense system of an airborne invasion

2008-12-12T06:28:00.001-08:00

this pre-war elevator
takes so long,
and the biochemical gas
so stealth, murdering dreams,
and mister comb-over
the infallable general,
cowlick evading trails
of six year old scotch
is sure the victims don't
belong to him,
and incredible mister awe
no better,
off in some other universe,
sure garlic is a cure
not the killer,
and this egg-salad, stuck
somewhere between the top
and bottom floor
wants desperately to
escape but stays behind
sealed lips,
thinking it was me
that murdered
dreams

I rest my case

2008-12-10T07:42:00.001-08:00

well ok I confess
today I ...

slept on your bed
barked at the mailman
left noseprints on the bay window
dragged the runner down the hallway
nibbled on your couch
defluffed a few pillows
chased that fuzzy little squirrel out back
watered your geraniums
knocked over a flower vase
emptied the kitchen garbage
ate that twenty in the money dish
crinkled your venetians
gnawed on your slippers

... and chewed on your remote (channel 7 still works)

there are few things I've left out
but we can discuss that later

more serious matters at hand

you're probably wondering what's going on
why my list of crimes seems so long

you see
it's not the mailman
that gets my goat
or freezing my nose
when the bay window's cold

not the hardwood echoes
of a cracking vase
or the chewing of plastic
ycchh! ... (such a bitter taste)

it's that idle feline
that's makin' me wild

that damn cat!

I rest my case

pullovers or parkas

2008-12-06T15:32:00.000-08:00

I could go for goose down,
but I might work up a sweat and I'd have to shed
the extra layer, maybe end up with a runny nose
on the walk home, or I could just slip this
jersey on, but maybe that wouldn't be enough,
hypothermia might set in,start rattling this
cage of protesting bones

we didn't have spring this year, summer seemed
like fall, the tides in Galveston were crazier
than ever
and history is reluctant to view it as
anything more than business as usual,
we've had plenty of chinooks and floods of
more epic proportion

and we could go back to the first crackle of thunder,
maybe sometime after the apple was plucked, but
the real suspects are long gone and the next
of kin haven't much else to say other than start
building arks and counting pairs

so what's left is you, me, common sense and
---stop depleting the ozone layer---

really,
this morning

I can't decide

what to wear

over the edge and into hell

2008-12-05T15:58:00.000-08:00

and I'm on the phone with customer service,
and I can tell by the music and the transfers
this could go either way

of course if I end up talking to Friedman
he'll tell me "the world is flat", and
I'll have to tangle myself in hours
of sophisticated conversation while he backs
up his theory, stand here and be dumbfounded
while he points a finger at the internet,
connectivity, an entire global community

six or one-half dozen of the other
though I guess it doesn't matter, maybe I would
like it short and sweet,
I mean suppose the world was flat

Wiley Post
would've never returned

airmail packages
would disappear into nowhere

just like mine

a little vinegar please

2008-11-30T14:30:00.000-08:00

On the busiest days the crackle of steaming
peanut oil seems to meander it's way
through city traffic, an invisible magnet
leading me to a stop I make often before
heading out to the super mall near the
MacKenzie Street bridge, the calm before
the storm, a last chance to carb up, and
the doctor says I've got to cut it out or
I'll have a heart-attack and it won't seem
like such a bargain, of course anything
from the deep frier would come at a cost,
and I understand what he's saying, it's
the cholesterol, it's going to kill me,
and I realize the guy handing me the change
at the french fry stand doesn't speak a
word of english and it doesn't matter
because even if he did go to medical school
and had an opinion on that fat-like
substance lining my artery walls I wouldn't
give a shit, it all comes down to a
couple toonies and a bit of extra gravy
for fifty cents, no installments, no
deferrals, no hidden charges or contracts,
and if I time it right, no waiting in
line, my day couldn't be simpler, it's
everything else that's going kill me.

why the toast is a little acrid sometimes

2008-11-29T08:25:00.000-08:00

somedays I wish to
jesus the bread would stay
down long enough to toast
evenly on both sides,
other days I could
poke away all day at the heating elements
of a failing Sunbeam
try to get the bread unstuck,
and only if I'm willing to risk
a shock or a blown fuse,
so much easier using the glider control
down near the base

and I blame Sunday school
for my lack of interest in who's really
winning,
in grade one a nun caught me behind
the incinerator outside when I should've
been inside,
she said she was concerned that I might get burned
and gave me the strap

since them I only fiddle with
the outer mechanism,
stay clear
of the rest

a bird of one feather

2008-11-28T23:33:00.000-08:00

I know they overcharged me,
the no-name mixed beans were clearly on sale,
and in principle I shouldn't
feed the monster,
but it's
the lady who's always in front of me,
the one with the long feather sticking out
of her hat, that looks like a rudder
guiding a zircon cluster through aisles of
unmarked and day old possibilities

and she
probably never tips
the paper boy
or drops a
nickel in the cap,
finds more
promise in
well hung drapes
and collectable
cups

I could never be
the lady who's always in front of me,
holding up the cash for stickerless
and dented cans

the one
wearing rare fox,
peach hair
and shoulder
pads

bad connectors

2008-11-19T14:43:00.000-08:00

the escalator wears
me out,
power up, power down,
the extra steps
eat up my day,
I disappear
into an upper
mezzanine

and
I can't trust Norton,
says everything
is ok, secure, but it's
too quiet, not
a live sign
anywhere

the cable guy Jack,
head already stuck
inside the wall,
doesn't think the
problem is in the box,
thinks maybe it's the worn-out
connectors and old wires
feeding through
a bent pipe
holding it all up
outside

and today
I'm thinking
this is probably
right

cable monster lore

2008-11-15T17:48:00.001-08:00

two rings
and I know it's a virtual center
trying to take back what was never
mine or ever there to begin
with

and I should've paid my bill
the other day but I was busy
dodging other 1-800 calls and deleting
horny ads from my inbox,
(telemarketer scripts are like
viagra email, never thinking outside
of the box)
but that's the way it is
in wireless nirvana, other
than a bill in your mailslot,
not much evidence
of anything real

of course I'd never hear
from family otherwise
and
I'm on the cell with my mother
who's swallowing an ocean
out east,
and a familiar cat pop-up pops up
on an LCD screen, while 'Chicago' streams
'Saturday in the Park' from a Yahoo sidebar,
and I'm no where near the ocean
tangling with a lobster trap,
or at my sister's talking our hats off
or across the border in the windy city
drinking a beer and listening to the
brassy sounds of nostalgia

I'm here sitting at my desk,
hoping the charge in this battery
will outlive all these
digital
how-do-ya-do's

out near the curb

2008-11-15T17:47:00.001-08:00

the city can be a
pernicious snake somedays
and I have no idea
how it got in front of
me

it's the narrow streets
with longer articulators
swinging their vulcanized hips

backs flex
crowds compress

I swear the sleepers
of the next headline terrorist attack
are going to come from
this town not Yarmouth,
dressed in blue uniforms
hiding behind reflective
shades,
and hissing hydraulics will signal
a beginning to the massacre,
bystanders lapped up
by the treads of 'gotta stay on time'
and 'this lane is mine'

and the second wave
genocide
as misplaced suburbanites
make the final
[c]rush into the last
express, singing
'thank god it's friday'
and 'seeya at the pub',
one more time,
shoulder to shoulder,
as they sink into
the opiate of
slower middle lanes

they started to widen
Bank street the other day,
with sidewalks gone,
a labyrinth of gravel
paths,
peeking in from behind the
construction barricade
I can see the gaping hole,
quite obvious
it's going to take
some time

again
I and the other
supermen are powerless,
little we can do
but rest our capes
and wait

wait for it
to move along

smaller denominations

2008-11-13T21:40:00.001-08:00

some people don't like change

like the cashier
serving
the customer
ahead of me

complaining about
the nickels
the pennies,
loose
and spread across
the counter

petty

it works well
with small change

not at all about
the coffee

and I'm thinking

'... slide it under the tray jack,
what's the big deal, it's just
a bit of change ...'

and my guess is
he's spent so much
time elevating himself out of a need
for basic dignity,
he's forgotten where it all
began,
I don't know

I can feel the
tension

the jingle in my
pocket not helping matters

at all

my acuvues

2008-11-12T10:13:00.001-08:00

I go to see her once
and a while, when
the stigma finds itself
in the upper facades
of busy intersections
and speeding transit,
she's one of the
few people I consider
to be part of my vision,
clarity at the top of
the list, the small
change always
counted

and there are no
marble veins and carved
oak surrounding
her deepest thoughts,
no pondering of the origins,
the Toras or the Vedas
none of that stuff,
just a sign above

"an additional $10 charge for
grumpy customers"

and of course I never
know whether she's
joking or not, but
I never risk crossing
the line, I need
contacts in the city
so I can get to where
I'm going, I could
easily be run over
or left to rot on the
curb,
never see it coming

so I smile with my mouth shut,
thank god they're in

while at the fruit scale

2008-11-11T13:22:00.000-08:00

I've been in an out of
the core since my
teens,
all-nighters,
doing the strip,
always finding myself closer
to the beaver-tail shacks
and latenights with
wineskins

sunkist and chikita
a sure cure for hangovers,
something about the tang
that ate away the
lethargy,
broke away
the styes

I fumble through
the nickels and dimes,
a bosco pear is
extra,
the busker outside the
front door looks familiar,
the eyes I think,
far reaching maybe or
just two dead black peas,
on a good year I could be
driving the cherry-red
mustang parked out front,
other years only loonies
away from
cold knuckles and
a jingle in my
cap

I can see the funky new
front-end on Al's restaurant,
sort of a retro-seventies
flagstone kind of thing
going on there

it's always been like that,
one man up
another man down

ping pong with Pho

2008-11-11T04:46:00.001-08:00

I loved Pho's
bok choy and
wonton

yesterday his storefront
was masked off completey with
brown paper and the
sign gone

and maybe I wasn't
surprised,
always taping notices
on his front door

like 'come back 4'
'come back half hour'
even 'come back tomorrow'
sometimes

and of course I'd
come back,
I liked Pho,
he loved his daughter
his wife
everything about
his life

but I guess
he had no more time

for bok choy and
wonton

a reoccurring vortex

2008-11-08T16:54:00.000-08:00

a few stray leaves
are caught up in a small
whirlwind, possibly the
last sign of life from
the willow out back

they fell hard and
quick and this year
like watching a cheap
screensaver dribble
inca spots onto a
frozen backdrop,
unreal as the weather
has been, ending
just as quick

Pete says it's going to
be a long winter
and somehow I don't know
we got the 30cm they
forecasted a few weeks
ago but most of it
disappeared before
it even touched
the ground
and
they've repainted
the yellow lines on the
parking deck outside,
in the middle of
November a sure sign
of disregard

I don't know

maybe the words out
maybe it is too late
and were finally getting
ready to swap
winters with California
or some other exotic
climate

the herd

2008-11-06T21:11:00.001-08:00

it's the fear of being
found out that makes
a wild horse run, I'm
not sure what the tame
ones have to lose

and I couldn't put a
number on the
soirees of 'drop by soon'
and 'great to see you',
where the snapping
point for etiquette
was 'how about Friday'
followed by a
short lapse of vertigo

I always thought that
if you meant it
you should say it,
be draconian, and
that timing was
a matter for old engines
and carburetors
in constant need
of tweaking,
and if you didn't mean
what you said you
were an asshole
for presuming and
not asking

I knew eventually
the herd of purebreds
would break loose like
they did, escaping to
the safety of the
mountains and pockets
of green pasture

I think about them from
time to time

I don't worry about
how or what they're doing,
knowing most of them
live roughly in the same
neighborhood, in roughly
the same houses with roughly
the same cars

and
I can imagine roughly
what they'd say if I dropped
in to say 'hello',
never doubting for a moment

they already imagined
on my behalf

not quietly like suburbia

2008-11-02T22:15:00.000-08:00

The city alienates, resonates, but quietly, not
quietly like suburbia and baby strollers and
droopy soothers but like the quiet maples of
Minto Park overseeing other gratuitous
insertions, and the mastermindis a ubiquitous
contrail that never seems to move, writing
anthems from a private office just behind the
pilot's seat. I have never been much of sucker
for the elevation or the sleekness, chance
lives at the top of the rock piles, footings
only a matter of necessity and all that
tumbles shapes again into the cobblestone
mimicking a grander past no different from
today. Still somedays I can never get enough,
the flutter of the pigeons so easy on the
ears, and the time limit as easy to understand
as the sunsets and dimming trees. The city
alienates, resonates, but quietly, not quietly
like suburbia.

a fare justice system

2008-11-02T21:55:00.000-08:00

whoosh!
right by me

and I'm sure if it'd been raining
a tsunami would've washed me away

and I bet right now he's shitting himself laughing,
smirking in his rearview mirror
pretending he doesn't see me

and just my luck he probably parks at a stand nearby
and if I went over and knocked on his cab window and said
"hey! you blind!!?"
he'd deny ever seeing me, fall back on his broken english
sink like a tortoise head between disavowing hands

and I'll bet when he goes home at the end of the day he brags
to his wife about what he got away with, drinks Sunny-D with
vitamin C, watching L.A. Law and Steven Seagal movies, planning
his sneaky diversions for the next day

I can see right through those imitation graphite Pradas

but it'll all change tomorrow
with the early birds

watch him wave
the first chance he gets

Pete says

2008-11-01T22:42:00.000-07:00

Pete says hummingbirds
don't have the energy
to migrate, they work
their way into the feathers
of a goose, nuzzle up to
all that fluff and down
and hitch a ride

and I begin to understand
why geese yawp,
winged opportunists
being quite smart,
not showing their beaks
until the mothership's
warmed by paradise,
letting loose into the
airy tributaries
of not-too-hi and
not-too-lo,
my guess by then
a goose is spent

the last victory
formation disappeared
when the crows came
yesterday,
except of course for
that almost transparent
buzzing ball knocking
on my window, wondering
where the goose has
gone

just across the street

2008-11-01T22:16:00.000-07:00

A paramedic vehicle, a rescue truck and fire truck all
converged on Minto Park, they were reviving someone,
an entire emergency system converging. She was diabetic
I was sure, they were prodding her lips with something
sweet. During the week activists lined-up along the
cobblestone, megaphones blaring on behalf of abuse, and
I really liked the poets and how they spoke of how we
evolve and unevolve, so evolved they are. And the
telephone pole today is plastered with a new ad, one
of the local churches holding a special service for cats
and dogs as long you are willing to leash them (oh joy,
I thought). Closer to where I live, where the recycle bins
are picked up there is a guy with baseball cap fishing
through the bottles to buy a pack of cigarettes. I don't
talk to him, I don't dislike him, maybe I dislike more what
it is he has to do, and maybe that I would only help
someone who agreed to help themselves ... I don't know,
you would think the sirens, the megaphones and the
cathedrals were miles away today, maybe that's what's
bothering me.

the matrix: unloaded

2008-11-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

'the clergyman look'

Versace's spring line-up
last year

modeled after the
Pope's right-hand man
'Gorgeous Georg'

and he was lookin' real good
struttin' down the aisles of Milan

and it wouldn't have been long
before the university across the
street started to look like a
seminary,

and the neighborhood kids,
-- like altar boys

but the devil has won,
the runway less holy

Versace 2008

preppy tailleurs
with
a waterproof shine

smoke stop

2008-11-01T17:35:00.000-07:00

Google,
with the flick of a wrist
you can zoom
in and out of neighborhoods

hover over Area 51

pan the Australian outbacks,
scroll the Big Apple in 3D

I found my apartment complex
the other day, I could only see
the top of the building but
with a little imagination
I could make out
an umbrella
a lounge chair
a small table maybe
and
a tiny white speck slowly closing in

it could have been
my neighbour from down the hall,
I don't know him that well
but he was probably cradling a gin fizz
looking for an empty lounger
anticipating a cool breeze
possibly a rooftop siesta

we google everything these
days,
cutting edge software
capable of invading
even the most innocent of
dispositions, but
everyone's gotta be in the know,
wants the scoop on the
real dirt, zooming
in on trivia with their
digital microscopes

and
billions of dollars
spent developing this
sosphisticated
tracking system

just to remind me

I left my cigarettes
on the table
near the ashtray on theck

and that soon
there'll be no excuse
for being five minutes
late

mo[u]rning stopover

2008-11-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday, August 9, 2008 at 10:09pm | Edit Note | Delete
quite often it was Dana
at the border
asking
where it was my girlfriend lived

no buckle too alarming
for the sensors,
back then
a driver's license
good enough

but
the wormholes
of O'Hare
have grown complex,
swallowed
by a blue(toothed)
whale,
sinking
into arteries
where
x-ray wands
and sniffing
dogs
ferret out
the sleeping guns
the grooming gear
the bobby pins

no longer does the middle lane spill freely
and line-ups at
the customs gate
have buried Dana's smiling face

stepping quick beneath the mirrored ball

2008-11-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

blame it on my upbringing
the nouveaus
the golden grapes
the breaking boughs
that certain je ne sais quoi,
for dressing this poorman
in exclusive ware

the grip was firm but not heavy,
like my palm could just slip out if it wanted to

an area of chance,
of higher probability,
not necessarily
of scholars

and she,
an expert in burrowing through
straight-laced Liberace

I,
an expert in the dance

mud

2008-11-01T17:20:00.001-07:00

when the barrios slipped into the sea
it was the rain they said
and the experts were quick to
analyze the sediment

in Phoenix 90 miles of dust fell on Swallow
Valley, planes grounded, a local
town left without power

today nobody died in Galveston,
no food, no power,
they said it was mostly wind that drove
the waters inland,
and like Phoenix, advance warnings
filled the air

the experts say disasters of this
nature have alot to
do with global warming
how it
affects the weather patterns

the barrios was without power
years before the mudslide in El Avila,
I don't recall hearing about it
before then

sediment?

nepotism maybe