between the mallet smash
and the stone.
cut edge
debris blasting off the saw
whipped up as missiles of sand
off the mason’s hammer
or the chisel’s tip
with each
aggressive stroke.
i am a spackled reminder
of the immortality
of harder
material.

touched the positive terminal
with a steel wire while
trying to secure
the rad reservoir
back to the hanger.
branded my digits.
the index, right to the bone.
they wrapped me up
in ointment
and gauze
and now my right hand resembles
a sausage
bouquet.

new job old job the shits, the stain. love going right goes wrong like all others. this beer will run out and so will the battery. the stereo keeps getting me high despite my new resistance to the tiny white narcotics i swallow, not out of terrible ignorant rebellion but just to sleep, to forget dreams, to dull the thin ache of a 35 year old man doing the work of a teenager. it’s not bitterness i attempt to quell with the onslaught of liquor and drugs. it’s just maintenance now, like an oil change, or a new home-permanent. gotta keep rigid, curly, limber and quick with the lip. mylips, now do me only disservice, telling truths, rejecting advances, actually asking for what i want, asking to be let go for all the acres of quivering youth flesh so that i may make it back to that
swollen apartment
to soak
in my own tub
and sleep
to my constant reminder
of the way it used to be
when the all was a shitty death, now
i prefer the patter
of small orange cat feet
and the gentle nudge
of a real love
to settle me in
to this newest
disaster,

some friends are worried

they fear
the death
of the disaster
i chronicalled
from the madness
of my situation

but, that’s all bullshit

i lived

enough disaster to know
you never run out
when you’ve run the pink thing
long
against the seam
for long enough
to know
that it is
indeed
over.

i will always occupy the burn
the others are so anxious
to sup.

the damned overhead lighting sucking
what little left there was of us left after
the taxes, the cigarettes, the domestic battles
every damned one hungover near the point of death punching
dull little numbers into dead machines trying
to extract information, wages, cures for halitossis, sometimes
some one punching someone else
over the counter
over nothing more
than a computer malfunction
all of us one moment away from total madness, the receptionists, we imagined
had dull affairs with the grease monkies and the parts schleps envied
those gross grappelings, over varicose thighs enormous tits
and jealous husbands,
the husbands blamed the parts schleps( who, unknown to everyone, barely fucked their own wives) haggard against the dull glow
the hopelessness, the hangover, the low wage and the knowledge
that a short skirt
or a dirty glance
or a spilled breast
was as close to passion
as many of us
would ever get
again.

i sat in the back seat
while her best friend raged.
they had brought a case
of warm
over-proof beer
and i downed 8
in 15 minutes
(no bullshit) because i
(unlike her best friend) knew
that she had a little
piece of me
growing inside her.
so, the friend
went on
raging
about nothing and every-fucking-thing
and nothing
and i tried my best
to black-out.
as the sun was just about to come up
she had slid down
upon my tattered middle, again
and asked;
“are you going to leave her?”

“FUCK!” i cried into the back of the front seat
” i left her
when i stepped thru
those Greyhound gates…”

she didn’t believe.

smart girl. smarter than
i ever gave her credit for being.

we worked that one out
and i fell
into those enormous breast
like a car crash
emptied
just barely aware
of making the nut
then out
off to sleep
the sleep of
the guilty
fucking drunk.

i awoke in a hotel
(why were we at in in the car?)
a warm 6 pack on the end table
and no trace of her.

4 weeks later
she sent the word;
i lucked it,
no baby.

i thought
i was the slickest
luckiest
god-damned fool
ever to own a cock.

later that summer
her friend showed
at a bush party
(this is strange only
because they were both from
400km away).

she emerged from some
embattled old red Camaro
walked right over to me and
punched me in the mouth.

now people were always doing that
back in those days
so i hardly noticed
and the night went on from there.

7 years later
i learned that
in order to ensure the loss
and avoid the small town
stigma
of abortion
she’d thrown herself, repeatedly
down her stairs
until the blood
came pouring out of her.

i haven’t, often
deserved the blows
and the fat lips
that followed
but
that time
it would seem to me
now
that i got off
real
easy.

probably me.
but, that won’t get it.
i’m an innocent, awash
in the good, warm waters
soaking
drinking cans of beer
waiting on the next line
while the great
orange god
in the next room
sleeps with all four paws
up into the air.

you knew this, yes. as you let him slice you, anew, again and again.
as i lay
in wait, in waste, sick
for the knowledge
and the thought
and the drink. you were
one sick bitch.
and i loved you.
for when you bent
over, before me
in penitent amore
black g-string flossing
your perfect ass your
perfect asshole only out-done
by the glistening promise
of your perfect, pink, manicured miracle
i forgave all invasions
and went
back to my favorite mistake.
only lust can make such a man as i
both pitiful
and glorious
wet with love
and sadness.

god fuck cock it was hot, so fucking hot, i can’t imagine you could imagine, it was Africa, Nigeria, the Tigris, the Nile, the very face of the sun and the mole that poked out from just under her billowy white sleeveless was driving me mad. or maybe, it was the youthful erection i sported, tied to my fucking thigh 16 fucking hours a fucking day, or maybe it was the way her ass cut deep grooves in my old 501’s, ancient and the color of skim milk( her boyfriend never guessing they had once been mine, as she would always be)like two small hands desperate to be held, licked, lapped, suckled, worshiped, fuck it was hot and so was she and so was i so painfully fucking young and hot and all i could do to keep my heavy hands off her ass and my tongue out of her every crevice was drink drink drink, fucking DRINK bourbon. straight from the freezer. bottle after bottle. bottle and hand, tongue and mouth and longing and my totally fucking isolate girlfriend, away, always away, her arrogant boyfriend more preening and beautiful and in love with himself than Narcissus himself, so vain and stupid, fucking all those older bitches leaving this poor little one to go dogie, off into the night, in my old cut-offs, in my sights, fuck, has it ever been that hot. i went off and the day went off the tracks.i had been asleep. passed out, step-mother cursing the ringing doorbell, throwing my own clothes at me, telling me the fucking hoodlums were back, knowing that i would be gone in a flash, back off into the burn, into the day( which had passed me by, had ended, now night). i could barely walk, but my lips were on fire. it was hot, prairie night hot and starless black. the car was ablaze with smoke and violence, no room no room anywhere, why did the awaken me? there was another bottle under my bed, i didn’t need there chalice or comfort, fuck there dumb asses and i made to turn to walk off when the miracle occurred; another set of lights tried to pull into our drive. it was her, in her new drop top. she had come, she had come for me. the boys, those damned dumbed thugs( not ever again so young, and never as dumb as i make them out to be) hit the gas and were off, knowing my ways and the lengths i would go to to get back inside that young thing. the sleep had made me wild with morning and love and sadness, the come down of coming sobriety, unwarranted and unwanted. it had given me a crazed edge, glued my mane of hair straight up into the night. fuck it was hot. so was she. i made for the door and her best friend made for the back seat. we made the bush party just before 11 pm, and seconds before the rain. all that heat and sex and booze and drunken desire and the sky split open, a black broken lip dousing the cock-stiff dreams of so many wild young things. i hadn’t a care. the rain came down. the friend dissappeared and the stereo played on and on. the bon-fire blazed red-hot against the moisture and with the top up, that car was like a greehouse, the windows dripped in torrents with the dew of our enthusiam i was
engorged
enraged, drunk again on warm beer( hers), drunk on young hot pink tongue(hers)
gripping at belt ends( mine), trying to set us both free, i sucked and kissed at her as Lenny preached to us about God and Love and black girls and we swayed motherfucker, we swayed, then there. it had been so hot that God had to have a little cry for all of us lovers. the door would occasionally be yanked open, by some wayward fools, looking for beer, for smoke, for her, for me, but we never disengaged not for a moment, until we did, in the coming of the early, very fucking early morning light. fuck. we were doomed, everyone knew. and so did we. the night had ended. the heat had broken and we were fucked, fucked over for doing only that which we wanted the most. she pulled that amazing ass up of the soaked seat, opened the door and ran out into the wet, waist-high grass just as the sun poked up. i fell again, back against the seat and took a long haul off the last of the warm beer. i let her run. we weren’t in love, we was just wasted in the heat, and now i needed to do a little running of my own…..

left me tears, lipstick smeared across my ruined face, bullshit, fuck a dry hole in a burnt couch( the release is exquisite, and the grip tighter than half the stench holes i’ve went probing with ill-intent), suck up all the bottoms of near-empty beer cans, warm gross magnificent, look thru someones discarded newspaper find more than half the lies believable, know what this means, sick at my own delusion, re-fuck that nasty sexy couch, bust another nut into the foam and coil, fall in love, fall over backwards, find the cat, remember the girl who brought it, took my wallet, stitched her vaginal neglect onto my heart, think of lighting the beast on fire, like some feline Joan of Arc, but decide against the madness as i’ve only so many matches and unlike the cunt attached to that other cat, this one purrs without murderous intent, not quite, not , dead, not yet, there’s still beer, still books, still matched and cigarettes to butt up against the kitchen sink,these walls, have they always been this sickening gray? or did she do that with a dragging snail on her way out of this hell hole, looking like a zillion yen, leaving a trail of slime, aluminum, alcoholism and a bitter right pitching finger, thank God for the beer the couch the back catalogue and all the near-dead( but, not totally unhinged) phone numbers from a life-time of late night desperate scratchings up against the neon glow of the cell sitting ringing into the ears, the lovely downy ears of all the unloved sisters with deep homes, deep holes, deep pockets, 6-packs, clean sheets and soft pink insides you’ve flayed just like the fillet running thru you now, you selfish, magnificent bastard.

the mail has returned as a threat
and every cracked can
is a hole
sucking life from
some other thing.
paranoia no longer relevant as
they are actually
watching you.
hurt, edgy, and fully fucked up.
the end of the fragile peace
and only the weather
has the grace
to be kind.

and then it was. just like the night
the nights you were too drunk to notice that
it was night
just like the knife
they slip it in.
you are suspect. guilty only
of doing your very best, but
of course
doing it
your way.
now
you are as guilty
as if
you had never done
any of it
at all.

fickle and brutal
are those faces full of favor
and thanks.

broke.
and the employment opportunities
are not now
what they once

were.

half a can
then it’s back
to modern
poverty
and distrust.

with your mind, your ming your cock, your blindness, the sickness that aches out of
every pore in your vesicle, your sickness, the sisters that come to take care, when mother has abused you, hurt you stung you, left you in son, deaf, travelling, put the pedal down, pushing in the glow-plug, the sickness of all things, your family is murder, the murder that keeps killing, keeps dying, don’t you hear the trumpets? dead boy, dead girls, the deans’ girls, the kilt, the dew the cunt the smoke and the miracle and all the liars , they’re told the greatest lie told to gain access inside that vessel the swollen sickness that makes the whole fucking thing worth suffering and dying and killing for………

it dont matter, no, if they clap or snap or get it in in the last minute right before the mighty Sun rises in the courtyard outside the bedroom of the wrong lover (again), if it’s in, it’s in, you can’t vacuum seed( many have tried in the early hours following copulations mishap) push it, push push push, get it down into the next thing, if it clicks, hit the fucking keys so hard they puncture the ribbon, if it moans punch the motion so deep it s-k-wheels to the bone the none the nothing 5th to mouth there is nothing s-k-week moan grunt kill kill yourself in the moment it will never get better let it lather lose the mind the seed the bladder the sheets the matter what’s that? the matter? leave that for Mother, there is nothing in this union, nor any other that means anything from the outside…a slow bass riff comes up from under the tongue. hold back the instinct to puke don’t get sick don’t blow the blow-out after the blow job the pretty angel the retarded child the sick dog the 400 hundred pound lesbian claiming to be God don’t deny her them it, all of this is possible if the mail with the most, the sticky yellow sub-standard substance will just grant the reprieve you need. one needle, one beer, one pill and one thousand other bottles to drown out the sound of the idiot applause…no one claps when they hear the door to hell shut, the toilet seat rise, or the truth come, full froth, from the mouth of the true savage……..

twice in two weeks i’ve learned the hard lesson that the words i use, frequently, do not carry the intended meaning. you know the tale about “buddy”. or maybe, you don’t. i went home.always a bad mistake in all ways. a teenager informed. i mentioned a mother, one of the gangs parentals, as a “buddy”. this was now a term intended to demarcate the subject as someone you only mouth, or ass-fucked. never vaginal. getting old is getting weird. the mother was neither. not that i hadn’t tried.

there was this enormous copy.
it bled over into all
the things we
could never touch.
we touched it anyway
the sucked cunts
the sucked beer
the sucking upon the linen
the last seam that
we thought alive.
just another flap
holding back
less than we
imagined.
we took it in
took it nowhere.
took it blind, took it all along the rim
of the thing
we waited for.

we danced in that early shadow
we danced

oh yes i wouldn’t even if you would ask ’cause i’m too drunk to get off this couch .but don’t have any pre-coital fears about equipment failure, God wired me hard external from other mechanics in this poisoned bio-system. don’t mistake disgust for morality. laughable male vanity and gross bravado on the down side of an ugly evening spent at the dark end of the wrong party in a part of town the cops once arrested me for walking the streets of. now i’m the honored guest( or is that “the honored dead?”). my hostess has crawled too far into the cups and her hubby is puking in the upstairs washroom. seems he’s taken my role. now, i’m being silently invited to fill his void. well, fuck fucking her and while i’m at this rant, fuck him too. sure i’d love to have their clothes and theirs car(s) and their well-positioned jobs, friends, opinions, 7 types of onions going bad in the bottom of their full fridge, well-hung art from the right school, fine leather coats, boots, fine leathery wine and even finer whiskey. but, that just wouldn’t get the river. i need dirt, dirge, fits of unhealthy disease, heavy diesel fumes, hair of the dog, of the dragon, hair dangling into my red eyes, my beat truck, boots, hands, Hilroy. thats the grunge that makes my heart sing. and without the song i find in that type of dark, like the poets say, i begin to die. so, i’ll steal this bottle, openly, piss in the hedge on the way out the door and stumble down the hill to my home. the angel will be waiting worried that i have, once again, accept an invite into the ill will of paranoia from the lies the pink flesh can make me a slave to when i’m too far from the tub, the razor or the word.

you’ve got to love it, a morning like this. true rarity in this city. i am forced to walk the streets( “that i walk blind”) early this a.m. got to get the cheque in the bank, the bread in the cupboard, the coffee in the guts, the hash on the stove. boobies needs a sweety and i need a drink. the Sun is up high and there’s still a chill in the air as i hit my stride. Saturday morning coming down and all the non-func alkies suffer the humility of public hangover, digging for gold and tin in the garbage bins of a society that refuses to acknowledge them. i hand my little plastic tot of last nights sin to the man in my dumpster. i thank him and he gives me the wink( maybe he’s Jesus, and i just got in the gate). now i’m clean and free to do it all again. i smile at those poor fascist trapped in their dreams, buckled into heavy fuel bombs hiding behind sunglasses, and all they can do is stare. i’ve got something in my step, maybe its my broken down shoes or the hole in my soul but, i’m dancing. it’s a ballet and a war, but the guns aren’t around so, i’m dancing. paranoia follows this type of manic episode, so i gotta hop to it quick, so as not to pitch a fit before i get back inside my own door.

its hot too hot the line ups drive you mad the untold amounts of barley covered teen flesh erode what little there is of your sprinkled morality trying on linen suits under flash bulb lighting with three way mirrors is no good for a man entering middle age every pore is enormous and your face shows the tab of all those night spent out on those pills the rain gutter building around the waist and we won’t even get into the hair and like i said its hot too hot sweat started a build up in the small of your back stick to the new shirt the crisp vest and the black linen jacket like your body is trying to spit this alien fabric out must get out of this must the air is sick with phermones and cell phone rings and the bleat of the text generation and there isn’t a beer around for miles and the sun outside is up way too high and it’s not God coming back up off the chrome and the glass and this is not the end of the world but bridging this distance between what the sane mind knows and the sick mind is selling sure makes it seem like it might be.

i got this friend inside, she keeps me close to the madness leaking out the ear, the eye, the orifice good god i love orifices shaped like pouting swollen flowers of musky seed. i took this bus over the bridge and found no teeth worth mentioning. the driver stepped on the gas and i knocked my cock against the stiff plastic. the ironics wore bad glasses and let their ipods blare into my dream. i turned to one of the androgenes and said” hey man, turn that shit off”. but, it couldn’t hear me, for i am old and organic and they only suck and fuck re-used plastics. so fuck ‘em. fuck me, and fuck you too. the sun is out and only idiots, chemists, bad crank fiends and poets hide inside on a day like today. motherfuckers.

the ice
is five inches thick.
four hours til
the sun gets a semi
6 til its get hard.
there’s powder
on these streets
that i can blow
and i
can shoot
and i can cut
to make
the cake
for rent.
fucked up
on the downward slope.

the snow pounds
a steady rhythm
against my overall health
i stumble
and i drag
the fucking shovel
over the same stretch
of ice-caked concrete.
5 long months.
don’t talk to me
about
light
and space
and time.
i’ve got
all you could ever need
and i eat
handfuls of pills
just to keep
from cutting up
on the inside.

“… i have always thought it was obvious. this thing is everything to me. it is the only thing. i’d love to play it cool. aloof. wear dark glasses in the corner, smoking my Gitanes, ignoring the remarks of the masses. ignoring the fawning that goes on over the most atrocious writing. ignoring my own atrocious writing. but that all a lie, see thats all bullshit. i ache over every fucking word. there’s nothing cool about turning down a good shag to make slaves out of words. i’m sick and i suffer for the illness i cultivate. the words, the titles, the good the bad collections, the lost works, the lost words from all those lost years. i mourn the dead. i mourn the idea. i am connected to this world only truely thru the end of my pen. but, on the other hand, i really don’t give a shit. pass the fucking wine….”

i am so stoned.
not from the drug
or the citizen that took
a second glance
but, the real
heel
of this
off-coast , missive.
i
am not waiting
for greatness.
just ink.

rows and streams

and rows
of it.

the beginning of ink
was the sunny salt of the room.

i got better

when i stopped caring.

i was out
with this week of people
and i was granted the gift
of out-the-box
genius, i
took the drink
to make that comedy
it took the full weight
off of me.
when you start dancing
you will eventually get to the spinner.
i got sick on this syncopated
rhythm.
there are no vowels in rhythm( not really).

he said
“stop just fucking around of the fringes of this thing
get dirty
get into the thing.
they want the Hero, give ‘em the clap
get sick, really deep green
around the gills.
put beer into the porridge
drink it with your morning juice, supplant all liquids
with a good dose
of God’s unholy water.
get real drunk
real ugly
and tell ‘em
what you really think.
fuck those dirty whores, their rules
and their petty fears
about some distant God…”

well
he’s the Doctor….