Bell

you're Gandhi

you're Houdini

you're Mark Twain

you're a university student

you've got two jobs

work evenings and

some days and stuff

got that night class on

Tuesdays so you work

during the day on Tuesday.

you don't let school interfere

with your education

you've got the iPhone 6 Plus

in silver

on a Bell contract for 4

years and it costs you think

about $70 a month or something

like that, you don't exactly remember

it just comes out of your bank account

automatically and they don't

send you a bill anymore.

the windshield of your car

Ta g ta c ta d

we played a song

you sang

mm, i played guitar

you hit a note

and we locked eyes

like locked

like actually like locked

like, that's it and that's all

there'd ever be.

tears welled up in my eyes

they started to anyway

felt something

right then

the vibrato of that note ya sang

in time

stretched

and stretched

felt so good

and stretched

till it herniated

the fat of it

busting through tissues

strands of the actual

separating

like spreading fingers

yellow adipose threading through it

mushrooming into voids.

yr still hitting that beautiful note

that B flat

that B flat of love

of partial nakedness

smirking into the evening

blowing ill formed smoke rings

the streetlights cutting

their own brand of kindness

through the windshield

of your car.

metallic blues

sometimes when contemplating the theatre

i remember, always as the observer

watching you kissed on stage

it’s just a play

and yet

the silver spandex

wet, sparkling eyes

those metallic blues &

the kiss was, always someone else

i watched your heart beat through your breasts

in front of a spaceship

or some shit

some hero at your lips.

this mirror, bent on my head

and still

tableaus i can’t

pick myself up from

dusty seats, this hinge will

rust at 90 degrees

a standing invitation

i’ve got season’s rickets

to your play

santé

i’ll sit

and still

drinking in the third row from the back.

Harvest Moon

Let's say it's 1am

you're on

'the wrong side of the tracks'

these kids say it's

'the wrong side of the tracks', smirkingly,

from the other side

of the tracks.

Anyway there's this building.

the main floor, it's shoppes

and the concrete pavement heaves up

through the cracks

come tenacious weeds

twiggy and indestructible

indifferent to the seasons.

There's this liquor store

it's open til 2am

hardened tradesmen

pull their trucks up

with blank faces,

they pause

before going in.

There's this butcher shop

it's open til 5:30pm

bone saw,

grinder,

chopping block,

cleaver.

There's this shop

dowdy purple curtains wrinkle

and break unevenly in the windows

it's a handjob joint

men in chinos

look back furtively

before going in.

There's this vacant shop

it's always closed

exposed wires hang from junction boxes

throwing long claw shadows.

Outside, the lettering glued to the awning above, since,

has tanned into the vinyl

cracked, has peeled off, has

aged into powdery crumbs,

blown away.

once every few weeks

come people, have muted conversations

outside it,exchanging business cards,

concerned expressions.

An abandoned bar at the corner of the building

has a sun bleached 'for sale' sign

taped to the glass door with translucent brown tape

rust drips down the diaper stucco when it rains.

Above the shoppes there's these apartments

one's got this dog

it yelps

along with its owner,

as it pleases

when the sun is down.

Across the hall

there's this couple

they're having a hard time

and like

like I just feel like I've been wasting my time

and what are you going to do about this?

Then there's an apartment from which

nothing much issues

except,

every couple hours

after 6:45pm til' late

the click of an opening can,

then nothing.

re spite

'Leda, how you been?

I'll be in town

in a few weeks'.

this makes you think some nasty things,

but just

keep them to yourself.

authenticity is so

demanding.

You'll find that I

plucked my feathers,

discover that I've

become hardened

in strategic places

I'm seamless

in the dark

I'm a liquid

in the crook of your arm

you're shaking

you're spilling

I'm waterproof,

stainless

ya know.

to a calgary tower block

this would be a letter,
an affectionate letter
with a bittersweet denouement
and everything
but who would write a letter
to a tower block?


concrete monolith, béton brut
your doors, often locked
after dark, the lights in the windows
binary mosaic
testament to a consciousness state.
i spent nights
with that cypher
mathematics & geometry
giving up in the end
entropy came in waves.


the hallways, i knew well
running through them, angry,
and drunken first-floor enlightenment
furious a-ha moment orgasms
philosophical emissions spent
on the thick nap of those carpets
hallways always in the dark.

i kept the calgary tower block
with an image of it in my head
that i could love.
i return quiet to burn incense.
evacuations pose significant problems.

Now i think about throwing rocks
at the tower block,
but who would throw rocks
at a tower block?