Queen Street Java revisited

Sunshine and weathervanes, passing diesels throw slush and fleck stained wetness on my boots. I help a one-legged grey man in a wheelchair cross the street through the muck - we almost got run over by a cellphone driver. I was just happy to be alive.

We have so much freedom (that word again) we don’t know what to do – it’s a massive responsibility, trying to sublimate into something pure. Just because you have the chance. It’s scary to be alive. When everything is true along with its opposite, you spend most of the day in tears.

And we watch the bodies pile up on television – 'death toll pornography' is right.

And my thoughts are slow and deliberate – I don’t let the blade take over, and the brain has been doing too much thinking. It’s the baby; we lavish so much attention on the baby. Today it’s all about the baby.

I’m flipping channels again, flipping the station, put on a song that I like. I’m practising my voices again, but this is a laryngitis New Year; I can’t make myself understood.

We write because of what's wrong.

Those aren’t poems, I said, just some things I wrote. I was supposed to be a mathematician. An actuary, actually. You know - the folks who determine the value of a human life. "...who can’t take being an accountant – because that’s too much excitement." Hahaha. Funny how it all turns out.

When I was nine years old I was a genius. So what - all children are geniuses; I’m not sure why. But experience makes them stupid. Case in point: this is not my metre; I need a better metre. Got to move things along...

my colleagues:

1) guy in corner is upset when people walk in; the draft from the entrance is too much. So he walks out, applies his toque and angrily heads east, toward City Hall. Gonna fight city hall.

2) cellphone man carries a cardboard container with four hot coffees, strides purposefully through the muck, talking to someone in Woodbridge or maybe Brampton – cooking up a really big deal.

3) red purse mailman arrives at 11:31 am, got folded envelopes bound in elastic, his bald spot shining in a noon reflection. I wish I had no hair between the air and my brain... what the hell does that mean?

The cement mixer is loud, streetcar hums, another mixer passes, construction down at Queen and University; it's the new opera house – aka a missed opportunity. They should have poured a billion into the thing, said Mr. Hume, put her down by the water, make a real showcase for the city. But look at the bright side: at least long last a place just for Puccini and those other screaming Italians.

And hey I'm one of them.

But this isn't that kind of opera. Yes I've been screaming for a while now, but not nearly so melodramatic.