SUSPENDING DISBELIEF IN LOW PRESSURE SYSTEMS
stomach turns nausea roils a tide of migraine creeping in
flat implement to side of jaw cold steel rail impales inner
most self seeks out final refuge girl in wheelchair on saturday
said: hope is a form of courage I say: courage is a form of
hopelessness on steroids at some point the night weasels come
+you fight on old bottles of old wine
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Winter 2015
PERIWINKLE OVER CHOCOLATE FACTORY IT’S 6 A.M.
In bed with paper +Humbert who looks at downed Russian
plane Face of Putin wretched+elfin stares back at him You
get the face you deserve says Hum’s mum a Lolita scholar
with a dry sense of humour
I am currently attempting a re-invention tour My last career
was striking only in its adherence to the unglamorous This
time around I aim to re-vivify the haggard Bring me your
immutably fatigued your careworn minions +with a macabre
sense of comedy I will eradicate melancholia itself
Last week I hired a new staff member within minutes she brightened:
I’m not stupid I can see you have powers I tried to withhold the truth
But now discovered I had no choice but to hurtle her toward her newly
dead “Poppy” Her severe depression there for all to see lifted I know
on paper this does not sound like anything fresh But any further follow
up would ruin its magic
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You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
Vladimir Nabokov Lolita
Fall 2015
IT’S A SHIT SHOW OVER THERE!
cackling co-ed intones Trying to write a poem
Steel-grey day pre-christmas light 17 gunned
down at a playground Bunny Friend Park 9th
Ward New Orleans yesterday Dead +maimed
celebrating with Po Boys 12 inch southern sandwich
crawfish or couchon merlitons+hot sauce
jacomo fi na ne
It was yesterday too that a five year old I know waxed
specific about what he’d do with all of his money: I’ll
buy a jet +some guns +shoot everyone who teases me
Tiny tormentors weighing heavily
Radicalized at 5 by gun-toting media-minions Homegrown
super-hero nihilists coming to a playground near you A descent
into de-socialized mayhem But what if you had a teacher who
applauded you for living beyond the frames of violent video games?
Opiate for the masses of children
2 brothers of Daesh 1 blown to bits in his suicide vest the other
dreaming of guns+planes+grenades +Brussels Today in lockdown
as lone brother relishes the silence of his final daydreams His parents
hope he is killed soon
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When the shooting finally ended there was a deep silence. Dr. Hefez
unfolded herself from under the table. What she saw was boucherie –
butchery. “They were me. The same hair, the same shoes. Just girls,
going out for a night on the Canal St. Martin. ( Dr. Louise Hefez 30 yr.
old survivor Paris terrorist attacks November 13, 2015)
Fall 2015
SMELLS LIKE DEATH CULT
Think about the streets of Paris July 16 1942
Let us travel back to another reign of terror To
Nazi occupied Vichy France To the infamous
Véldrome d’Hiver roundup
Thousands of families were amputated Parents put
on trains Children as young as 6 months left to fend
for selves Only later to be herded onto eastbound cattle
cars One family had barely enough time to hide small
son behind a trap door
His bones found by prodigal sister after the War She
survived Auschwitz Parents ashes scattered here+there
A strange smell emanated well into 1943 The pillaging family
did not know what to do when no amount of fumigating could
expunge the scent of small jew
Paris has seen rivers of blood it is true Heads on pikes 1792
Barack called the recent slaughter: acts against humanity Have
they not all been? The lights of Paris dimmed A tapestry of liberté
A tapestry of blood rimmed tides
But should we braid together past+present +dig deeply into micro-
history we can see that YES we are all Charlie + Hymie +Zainab
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Jade water – the Aztecs called human blood They fed it – hundreds of
living sacrifices a day – to the sun This the only nourishment the sun
god would take (Annie Dillard For The Time Being)
Fall 2015 O Bartleby O Humanity Herman Melville Bartleby The Scrivener
EAU D’ TEEN SPIRIT MEETS THE WHIPS
+SCORNS OF TIME
Bush the roofer visited today jovial diviner
Single-toothed +agile climber Beaten down
by water ice floes bursting through duradeck
membrane Broken condom-inium hell Once
was a time sublime No chattels No urban water
creep
Yesterday Hamlet on campus U of T mean age audience
18 Not the usual phlegmy coughers Diseased boomers
nowhere to be seen Sat among the mouldering teens Smells
wafting up all around me: sweat yeast +sex All instantly
asleep with Hamlet’s: TO BE OR NOT TO BE
The girl’s: thick+sturdy lacrosse thighs short plaid skirts
feral eyes Loads of ginger headed boys pink-skinned +
hunting Teachers look pubescent too tight pants high
breasted Dreadlocked Narcissus leaned in: Lady your
perfume is sick!
It was beside the crumbling bell-tower where final bluebells
bloom we talked of Gertrude’s complicity His sweat fragrant
+Oedipal caught in the webby fibres of my favourite Zara sweater
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O that this too too sullied flesh would melt Thaw and resolve
itself into dew O most pernicious woman! Get thee to a nunnery
(Hamlet)
Late Fall 2015
A DIMINUTIVE WARRIOR ROMÉO
See this man Modigliani head elongated neck
Leans against a tree world-weary about the watery
eyes Eyes that cried him a River Styx Pallor greyish
yellow tell-tale sign of years in cells Roméo Roméo
Roméo Phillion: Victim Of Wrongful Imprisonment dead
at 76 Reminiscent of a child I knew 9 yrs eyes also full of
un-cried tears Locked in room used bed as bathroom Almost
climbed out 14th floor window No one would have missed him
Step dad in prison for: breaking my mom’s face May still be in
diapers never toilet trained Took 2 yrs. to notice office had windows
+2 yrs. more to look outside The cell he was locked inside was locked
inside of him Therapist crafting a key from base metals A soul-food
alchemy Eyes so blue like her father’s Countertransferential stew
Back to Roméo 31 yrs. in prison for a murder he did not commit Twin
brother Donald in prison for 2 he did See this child Roméo See this
mother Yvonne Father’s mean-streak ran deep Sent twins away at 8 while
mother birthing 9th
Residential school for orphans+truants St. Joe’s Broke Roméo’s body Spirit
scarred some too Run by Brothers of Christian Schools replete with beatings
+sexual abuse Lost+living by instinct a habitual liar with no sense of right
from wrong (Roméo’s obituary November 7 2015) Multiple suicide attempts
in prison one with fishhooks sent down his throat
Charges withdrawn this past July Roméo’s alibi lay buried in rotting police
records Went directly to the CN tower on the day they set him free Come
gentle night Come Roméo Take him and cut him out in little stars And he
will make the face of Heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with
night (Romeo+Juliet)
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Fall 2015
HAMLET A 400 YR. OLD NARCISSIST: DISCUSS
I am compiling a list of reasons to resist suicide Other reasons
than as Hamlet posits: The dread of something after death The
undiscovered country makes us rather bear those ills we have
This conscience does make cowards of us all
For Hamlet cowardice +fear of the great wide open turn the tide
against egocide Why not send me your list? (#Itsallaboutme) Surely
at the top of ones list might be: the pain this act would cause others?
But then again maybe Will had sunk into a depression so deep his eyes
saw only death decay+betrayal fast tracking the promise of the cradle
+heading straight toward the grave
Here is what a modern day Will has to say about this human-ape: Our capacities
for making ourselves unhappy +for torturing ourselves+others remain undimmed
We are a properly puzzling animal not very well suited to contentment or peace
(Alain de Botton) Twice this week I have both heard+read that we live in the
shadow of a personal apocalypse A mini-Armegeddon Should this not breed a
dark buoyancy?
Pessimists are far better prepared for death as are depressives for the giant meteor
There is a the constant dress rehearsal amidst the glory Yes! The bell is tolling for
me me me And there is no shortage of incredulity over a distaste for the Reaper Is
s/he not a parental figure? Even more complex than those who brought you here?
Turn around +face the death mask Carry it with you in your pocket My own lip
gloss is so shaped A daily dose of dress-up-hemlock for the morbid fashionista
Did it ever occur to you that the skull is our most democratizing symbol? The
greatest leveler of them all? No race No creed No emblems of wealth No
preference for gender identity
We all have one buried under hat+hair+skin a rather thin protection for such a
personal treasure One that remembers little the body you have hauled around
Best of all one who remains guileless +smiling long after your last stand
So for all happy optimists you may stave off said Reaper with a tincture of
Egyptian mummy Or for those too old for dancing get yourself a monkey gland!
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Fall 2015
NECROPSY OF AL
Sticky note on cover of Al Purdy’s: rooms for rent
in the outer planets 1962-1996 Note says: go see
Al Purdy’s statue Queen’s Park So here I sit at
stone Al’s feet Al Purdy Poet 1918-2000 carved
into concrete
Long bobbed hair all in black shirt sleeves rolled up
Cool deshabille Al gazes off into now ochre trees That’s
poets for you autoerotic pencil flailing in lonely parks +
freezing cafes
This poet sits on Al’s left knee gold Chanel shoes glinting
in November rays Al missed Justin’s swearing-in today by
15 yrs. Don’t know how impressed he’d be with the ceremony
There was Sophie G.T. clutching her heart blonde locks
flapping in the golden girl breeze
2 tiny throat singers all shock+awe as our Governor General broke
into loud gaffaws Al won the GG award twice in his lifetime Born in
Wooler Ontario died in Sidney B.C. Someone called his poetry: effortless
gratuitous magic Not a poet certainly Now I wipe word-sweat off of
stone Al’s brow if he could move he’d surely seduce me
Al thought love: a comic disease yet I kiss his cold cheek + squirm on
his knee Too late to resist becoming poet-cliché Sun now setting time
to climb off of statue When Al Purdy groans +hauls me back 2 french bullies
begin to howl as I succumb to advances of giant stone Al
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she stands above him as a stone goddess weeping tears and honey
she is half his age and far older and how can a man tell his wife this?
(Married Man’s Song 1970 Al Purdy)
Fall 2015
PSYCHO KILLER QU’EST-CE QUE C’EST FA FA FA FA FA FA FA FA
a smooth girl sitting ramrod straight against a tree
albino squirrel dangerously close to me as i prepare to
bolt momentarily over there 2 topless men spar is it a
hipster thing? their jeans ripped oh so perfectly yes you
might die from beauty in my park today
many of us hope Justin legalizes pot in the coming months
the governor of colorado has said: no new people became users
its just old hippie resumers specking out my vaporizer going
to add buzzy-buddha to night time anjeo ritual these are the
kinds of things you look forward to when as Pete Townsend said:
all my friends are dead
late last year a woman at starbucks whispered to my brother:
my dreams they aren’t as empty as my conscience seems to be
he married her on the spot this his 2nd marriage born at starbucks
1st wife a psycho killer from poughkeepsie
but then he did have a wicked jew-fro at 9 +lived for anything jimmy
hendrix said when father asked him what he’d like to be he said: black
Now gold wolf howling in the setting sun park going dark time to run
the whole of a story is never told
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Fall 2015
SO THIS IS THE DAY OF THE DEAD
We talked of tombstones + a blue dinosaur rising from
my father’s grave He couldn’t be saved her husband of
23 yrs. Wheelchair bound for the final 4 went down for
the count in his early 60’s Steve had small hands
Carl Jung noted that diminutive hands prophecy an early
demise Now beside me astride a bungee rope a guy balances
spideyesque +on his T-shirt it says: fuck life fuck death Sam
Beckett would not protest
Yesterday at the Beckett Trilogy in a darkened theatre coughers
coughed Drowning out the sound of disembodied lips Lady beside
me shouted: Silencio! Cough rheumy +wet turned to choke
Get that rat bastard out of here I broke I broke I broke Beckett
is all about repetition
The longer a man stays in a form not his own the greater is the peril
of losing oneself permanently With depression there is the fear that
should you get clear you may leave some of your best parts in the
blues dumpster This is not necessarily a bad thing especially if
mundanities eat your soul +chitchat is anathema
Now spiderman beside me juggles coloured globes All things have a
name I implore you: discover the name of your shadow and yours
shall be: my get out of jail free card +my bullshit meter even though
I need them so desperately Today China changed its one child only policy
+ the masses will now be allowed 3 Bullshit meter tingling
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Dia De Los Muertos 2015
songanddancegirl... at 4
songanddancegirl 