(trying to write posts in under 60 seconds... here's the mess that follows)
The pesto was thick
and your accent too
the spices quick
your lactose flu
my body sore after
I beat it
the meat is grilled
is there someone to
eat it?
Here's the toast
buttered nice
I’m serving you
I’m asking nice
you want more
more
more
I can give you everything
there’s a grocery store
it’s next door
I am light and frivolous and contemptuous and falling free into fingering ecstasy. I learn the notes inside your soul, touch those strings in your heart; the wood of your body is a fine sculpture and the keys of your fingers... I want to play you like a Stradivarius. I am convinced you are quite an opera. I am certain you will be my finest symphony; let us get together and celebrate musically. I am the player, the flute, here is the whistle, wet; give it a toot. I am an empty red wine flute. I need a computer to give me the boot.
1/29/2005
letter never sent
(sitting four years, five months inside the head)
Oh dear,
Do you still have that much life within you? Do you dominate like you were supposed to? Remember when you took me up to your apartment and cooked me a baked potato with broccoli and cheese? You took me on your roof that day and we ate strawberries, overlooking trees on a tin roof, warm for each other, and I was idiot nervous beyond comprehension. I wanted to touch you, but you didn’t want that. I thanked you for a lovely afternoon. I never said what I was supposed to; never told the whole world what I thought, that you made my summer. You gave me so many lessons; was I able to return one-tenth as much?
Oh dear, you are the one I cannot tame.
Oh dear,
Do you still have that much life within you? Do you dominate like you were supposed to? Remember when you took me up to your apartment and cooked me a baked potato with broccoli and cheese? You took me on your roof that day and we ate strawberries, overlooking trees on a tin roof, warm for each other, and I was idiot nervous beyond comprehension. I wanted to touch you, but you didn’t want that. I thanked you for a lovely afternoon. I never said what I was supposed to; never told the whole world what I thought, that you made my summer. You gave me so many lessons; was I able to return one-tenth as much?
Oh dear, you are the one I cannot tame.
1/26/2005
Shappy the Clown
(yes, a clown poem will do nicely!)
Shappy the clown lives downtown
he has a round white painted face
Shappy’s hands snap his happy fingers, and
the air around his earlobe lingers
before escaping to that snappy place.
He wanders by the winding water
he's blowing goose-balloons for free
but sometimes real, nonballoonic geese appear
- it’s bi-winged, ornithid, aviarian fear -
just flapping feathers, dust and wind on Shappy's white mascara skin
And we ask:
Do you laugh, Shappy, at the fat grey gooses?
Do they peck you in the knees?
Do they ask you 'pretty please'?
“No,” screeds Shappy, “they honk and screech, and they clog the beach
- gather the gooses, call a truce, it's a thousand maniacs on the loose!”
The policemen and the clowns go dancing
the town mooses scatter fast
the fire patrol’s on a red-white roll
and ambulancers fence their patients’ pants
while dogtors play duck-duck goose
Shappy smiles at the smell of fried liver
and winter ice makes old men shiver
but Shappy jumps, slides on the sleet
a rat-tailed mouse squeaks in his pocket
-- it’s been living there for weeks!
Paperboy Pete is a friend of Shappy
he delivers the morning Times
and Shappy’s maids cook up his kitchen,
everything seasoned with cinnamon, cumin,
cayenne, dill and lime – oh what a nice relaxing time!
Shappy calls his agent, Bruce - but Bruce is out of town
so Shappy blows a Bruce-balloon
conflated, taut, he tied the knot
“Funny, Bruce - he looks like a goose!”
“If he sees this, he will surely frown!”
Shappy has a million clown tricks, just sitting in a bank
just waiting for his wife
but Mrs. Clown has not come around
so lucky and alone, with no one else to phone
Shappy lives a single life;
he says:
“Better to swing low than rocket high!”
“Better to blow up balloons than to expire and sigh!”
“Better to eat liver and season your life,
than to sit and shiver, and forget to taste the spice!”
“Now,” says Shappy, “where in tarnation is my wife??”
Shappy the clown lives downtown
he has a round white painted face
Shappy’s hands snap his happy fingers, and
the air around his earlobe lingers
before escaping to that snappy place.
He wanders by the winding water
he's blowing goose-balloons for free
but sometimes real, nonballoonic geese appear
- it’s bi-winged, ornithid, aviarian fear -
just flapping feathers, dust and wind on Shappy's white mascara skin
And we ask:
Do you laugh, Shappy, at the fat grey gooses?
Do they peck you in the knees?
Do they ask you 'pretty please'?
“No,” screeds Shappy, “they honk and screech, and they clog the beach
- gather the gooses, call a truce, it's a thousand maniacs on the loose!”
The policemen and the clowns go dancing
the town mooses scatter fast
the fire patrol’s on a red-white roll
and ambulancers fence their patients’ pants
while dogtors play duck-duck goose
Shappy smiles at the smell of fried liver
and winter ice makes old men shiver
but Shappy jumps, slides on the sleet
a rat-tailed mouse squeaks in his pocket
-- it’s been living there for weeks!
Paperboy Pete is a friend of Shappy
he delivers the morning Times
and Shappy’s maids cook up his kitchen,
everything seasoned with cinnamon, cumin,
cayenne, dill and lime – oh what a nice relaxing time!
Shappy calls his agent, Bruce - but Bruce is out of town
so Shappy blows a Bruce-balloon
conflated, taut, he tied the knot
“Funny, Bruce - he looks like a goose!”
“If he sees this, he will surely frown!”
Shappy has a million clown tricks, just sitting in a bank
just waiting for his wife
but Mrs. Clown has not come around
so lucky and alone, with no one else to phone
Shappy lives a single life;
he says:
“Better to swing low than rocket high!”
“Better to blow up balloons than to expire and sigh!”
“Better to eat liver and season your life,
than to sit and shiver, and forget to taste the spice!”
“Now,” says Shappy, “where in tarnation is my wife??”
fractured nations
.
holocaust drawn on a paper napkin
missiles tossed like rice at a wedding
numbers arbitrary, spoils divided
sick and fast diplomatical joke
send the envoy home in a limo
i’ll tip the driver for him
steps out drunk and condescended
r.o.w.’s outside for a smoke
presidents jabber the night away
a genocide or not, tough call, sure
weigh the cost, damn the torpedoes
a few more dead, a few votes less
so Kyoto’s not a top priority
our mandate’s clear—growth’ll lead us
(hey animals, go pray in the savanna
ostrich squawking, head in sand, busy with worms)
holocaust drawn on a paper napkin
missiles tossed like rice at a wedding
numbers arbitrary, spoils divided
sick and fast diplomatical joke
send the envoy home in a limo
i’ll tip the driver for him
steps out drunk and condescended
r.o.w.’s outside for a smoke
presidents jabber the night away
a genocide or not, tough call, sure
weigh the cost, damn the torpedoes
a few more dead, a few votes less
so Kyoto’s not a top priority
our mandate’s clear—growth’ll lead us
(hey animals, go pray in the savanna
ostrich squawking, head in sand, busy with worms)
1/23/2005
The cold brick hole in the wall
(or 'How to add brooding melodrama to your local watering hole')
A brick wall, alley in back,
chocolate lab and manx cat,
chucking Guinness at the bar and chatting up the skanks,
we’ve reached that
uncertain age and it’s
why we’re where we’re at.
Soft snow, white, metre thick,
Pick a private booth for carefree conversation tricks;
grey and slush, cold as ice, wallow in a vice,
never go home because your bed is full of lice.
Sweet wings hot as suicide,
lips bloody flaming red,
railing on about alements,
half a litre fills a head.
Darts needling
barbs witty,
clattering billiards, costumed customers,
neon firefliers sopping soggy coasters;
the warm smothering revolving roasts you
up and down and over.
Give me fire, flames, elbow-room to boast;
fifty years of these shut-up bars, this dirty water and deaf screaming,
these noisy dark halls. Fifty years
until I’m toast.
A brick wall, alley in back,
chocolate lab and manx cat,
chucking Guinness at the bar and chatting up the skanks,
we’ve reached that
uncertain age and it’s
why we’re where we’re at.
Soft snow, white, metre thick,
Pick a private booth for carefree conversation tricks;
grey and slush, cold as ice, wallow in a vice,
never go home because your bed is full of lice.
Sweet wings hot as suicide,
lips bloody flaming red,
railing on about alements,
half a litre fills a head.
Darts needling
barbs witty,
clattering billiards, costumed customers,
neon firefliers sopping soggy coasters;
the warm smothering revolving roasts you
up and down and over.
Give me fire, flames, elbow-room to boast;
fifty years of these shut-up bars, this dirty water and deaf screaming,
these noisy dark halls. Fifty years
until I’m toast.
1/22/2005
Can opener for the brain
(tale of paranoia and writer's block)
And so Toby went to an appliance store. He asked the sales associate for a can opener - explaining that he needed to get out the good stuff in his brain.
The shopgirl on the floor dismissed the merchandise with a wave; ‘None of these work on humans,’ she said, ‘you’ll have to get an MRI.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked, incredulous; ‘I know lots of people who have can openers; they open lots of things: beans, peaches, tuna, even pasta sauce...’
The shopgirl shook her head. ‘Listen buddy,' she said, 'a can opener is for light metallic cylinders—it doesn’t cut skull tissue.’
A brief silence. She repeated, ‘MRIs work better, trust me.’
'What’s that?’ he asked. Toby did not trust her, but was curious nonetheless.
‘Well, I’m not an expert,’ she looked at his face and eyes, ‘but you sure look like you need medical attention.’
He went to the library and researched what an MRI was; it was ‘magnetic resonance imaging.’ The doctors put people in big coffins and looked inside their brains. It took almost a year to get one. ‘It must be pretty dangerous,’ he said to his pet goldfish Annabelle, who lived in his apartment.
He was frightened about the MRI, and so was Annabelle, who looked puffier than usual. That’s how he could tell she was frightened — the puffiness.
‘Poor Annabelle, I’ll have to put you on a diet and some exercise. Tomorrow I shall take you jogging.’ So the next day he put Annabelle in a plastic bag full of water, and the two of them went out for a run. It was a refreshing jog, but he was still worried about how to get an MRI. 'Oh Annabelle,' he said, 'what shall I do?'
Not trusting the local doctors, he went to a foreign land for advice. But the doctors there didn’t speak English, so he had to learn to speak like them just to explain his problem. When the doctors finally understood what he wanted, they swore at him, hands gesticulating wildly: ‘No one can just open up their head and profit from their ideas!’ they laughed in their strange hissing language. ‘It takes years of other people’s crap, hard work, and pointless struggle.’ Toby noticed their breath stunk of coffee and cigarettes, and their skin was wrinkled. He was getting demoralized.
Back at home, he took out a classified ad. It read:
‘Wanted: a way to scoop thoughts out of my brain. Can’t afford much, interesting trades considered. No scoundrels please.’
He didn’t trust scoundrels at all, not after a man tried to steal his bike while he was locking it to a post, on his way to do shopping. ‘That man who tried to steal from me was a horrible person,’ he reminded himself; ‘I must not trust any charlatans with my brain.’
For a while no answered his advertisement, and Toby became quite sad. He took long walks, and began to despair about being able to access his own head.
Then he had an idea:
‘I know! This will solve my dilemma!'
(and that's when I wrote the story. unfinished of course and by necessity...)
And so Toby went to an appliance store. He asked the sales associate for a can opener - explaining that he needed to get out the good stuff in his brain.
The shopgirl on the floor dismissed the merchandise with a wave; ‘None of these work on humans,’ she said, ‘you’ll have to get an MRI.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked, incredulous; ‘I know lots of people who have can openers; they open lots of things: beans, peaches, tuna, even pasta sauce...’
The shopgirl shook her head. ‘Listen buddy,' she said, 'a can opener is for light metallic cylinders—it doesn’t cut skull tissue.’
A brief silence. She repeated, ‘MRIs work better, trust me.’
'What’s that?’ he asked. Toby did not trust her, but was curious nonetheless.
‘Well, I’m not an expert,’ she looked at his face and eyes, ‘but you sure look like you need medical attention.’
He went to the library and researched what an MRI was; it was ‘magnetic resonance imaging.’ The doctors put people in big coffins and looked inside their brains. It took almost a year to get one. ‘It must be pretty dangerous,’ he said to his pet goldfish Annabelle, who lived in his apartment.
He was frightened about the MRI, and so was Annabelle, who looked puffier than usual. That’s how he could tell she was frightened — the puffiness.
‘Poor Annabelle, I’ll have to put you on a diet and some exercise. Tomorrow I shall take you jogging.’ So the next day he put Annabelle in a plastic bag full of water, and the two of them went out for a run. It was a refreshing jog, but he was still worried about how to get an MRI. 'Oh Annabelle,' he said, 'what shall I do?'
Not trusting the local doctors, he went to a foreign land for advice. But the doctors there didn’t speak English, so he had to learn to speak like them just to explain his problem. When the doctors finally understood what he wanted, they swore at him, hands gesticulating wildly: ‘No one can just open up their head and profit from their ideas!’ they laughed in their strange hissing language. ‘It takes years of other people’s crap, hard work, and pointless struggle.’ Toby noticed their breath stunk of coffee and cigarettes, and their skin was wrinkled. He was getting demoralized.
Back at home, he took out a classified ad. It read:
‘Wanted: a way to scoop thoughts out of my brain. Can’t afford much, interesting trades considered. No scoundrels please.’
He didn’t trust scoundrels at all, not after a man tried to steal his bike while he was locking it to a post, on his way to do shopping. ‘That man who tried to steal from me was a horrible person,’ he reminded himself; ‘I must not trust any charlatans with my brain.’
For a while no answered his advertisement, and Toby became quite sad. He took long walks, and began to despair about being able to access his own head.
Then he had an idea:
‘I know! This will solve my dilemma!'
(and that's when I wrote the story. unfinished of course and by necessity...)
1/19/2005
lousy at self-promotion
...sure doesn't seem like it, I know. But I'm learning.
I (this is the author speaking - 'asinine voice') finally put a viable, readable copy of FIAC volume 1 on the links. So if you click 'want the home version?' it now opens onto 'la pièce de resistance-contre-le-raison' aka 2004's most unnoticed and yet rambling, rumbling lyrical-satirical-emotional-hysterical-empirically-impossible pot of prose-or-poetical jumbalaya (online history I tell you!), aka FIAC-V1.
As for the rather underhyped Liberty is a Bagel, I've been busy making other online history with my quite-deservedly-hyped pun-based projects at the moment (and if you haven't been patronizing the Pun Gents on a regular basis, you need to hop on that, Mr./Ms. Scant-laughter), but everything for LIAB is all written; it's just a matter of squeezing it onto the plate and flicking away the poppy seeds. Give me two weeks more: if you liked volume 1, you can afford to wait. If you didn't like it, well - online history is going to prove you wrong.
One day, I'll have all the solutions. I'll figure out a way to package them too.
Trouble is I can't stop shopping for problems.
(dammit - just lost my asinine voice... ah screw it; on with the show)
I (this is the author speaking - 'asinine voice') finally put a viable, readable copy of FIAC volume 1 on the links. So if you click 'want the home version?' it now opens onto 'la pièce de resistance-contre-le-raison' aka 2004's most unnoticed and yet rambling, rumbling lyrical-satirical-emotional-hysterical-empirically-impossible pot of prose-or-poetical jumbalaya (online history I tell you!), aka FIAC-V1.
As for the rather underhyped Liberty is a Bagel, I've been busy making other online history with my quite-deservedly-hyped pun-based projects at the moment (and if you haven't been patronizing the Pun Gents on a regular basis, you need to hop on that, Mr./Ms. Scant-laughter), but everything for LIAB is all written; it's just a matter of squeezing it onto the plate and flicking away the poppy seeds. Give me two weeks more: if you liked volume 1, you can afford to wait. If you didn't like it, well - online history is going to prove you wrong.
One day, I'll have all the solutions. I'll figure out a way to package them too.
Trouble is I can't stop shopping for problems.
(dammit - just lost my asinine voice... ah screw it; on with the show)
1/18/2005
The Johnny Cash ramble
(listening to the Sun years)
I will write like a fish in coast-guard protected waters, a braggart ossifying in the cruel warmth of springtime, months of snow and the coming hegemony of the sparrow and robin, not to mention the scowling and preposterous scallywaggery and the wicked licking fructosity that marmalactates and populates ptarmigan farms which greasy sputnik idolatry. Fiends waste time describing elliptical/tangential satellite behaviour to their friends over brunch. Because sputniks and children should be seen and not heard, and stories should be smelled and touch and tasted but never told too much; munched like a lunch, shown not told? Yes. The incubation of trust requires an understanding of toasters - electric technology of tender browning togetherness which spies in the 'godless' eastern countries would cut out kidneys to obtain. This is a secret of our society, the tallest tin-can castles ever built; the biggest ball of yarn in the world that ends up a tourist attraction – what makes America glorious ie its garish incandescent self-indulgence; inconceivably uncondonable in respectable Britain or the flaunt French hypocrite salons. Yet it's an indispensable quality and despite my knapsack flag I remain in Americawe. We the few, the happy, dangerous and fenderbending sly coyotes – this is mocha Monday and I’m wired like a kite. I’m electric and spanning, I am an acetylcholinergic smooth elastic muscle, flat and taut, stretching to allow calories to burn, this is the reason we are fidgety and flexing – this tex-mexistentialism in the middle of January a Jalapeno of doubt, the eggs of trust in the middle of the chutney of derision. We are spunky punks with leather wallets and green wheelbarrows, we plough through cold weather and spit in the ditch momma dug to annoy her neighbour Bessie; we are tickled midgets who bow and scrape and secretly plot pithy rebuttal. Your face is the tallest clock in my mansion, its ticks and time-telling are easy to apprehend; your lips are like blankets spreading like egg yolkiness from a sunset – the red and orange sneak whimsically across your blank slate teeth like so many toothbrush bristles, your wrists are like alabaster onions, white but stinky yet sweet. So don’t yelp in the tin can, the echo drives me batty, insomuch as your vexatious voice is not something to be suffered in needless repetition repeatedly… My Ugandan crocodile has a name, it is Norbert P Colbert – he is the Cajun Drano misbehaviour maven, can you smell his maggoty breath through the icy winter air? I think insincerity betrays insecurity, he doesn’t like to speak in public so he hires a publicist, also named Norbert but this time an alligator, diversity in species if not name, ambition in fame if not virtue... Smashing the walls in the truckstop was a fat bloated dime-whore named Carlene Simmons, aka the short order cook, serving up fried-eyes lies and braille-tales with her slippery liver and stinkysweet onions. We are the trespassers in the back of the country cottage road; I am the dyslexic Mulligan munchkin. I am Zebedee the phrumpy Pharisee, eloquently preaching the virtues of celibacy. Here in the pew, we say woo-hoo; God descends and men make sweeping, menacing ecumenical amendments; or is it man ascends and his master depends on him, man made god in his own image – yeah whoever said that was disturbingly clever my friends...
I will write like a fish in coast-guard protected waters, a braggart ossifying in the cruel warmth of springtime, months of snow and the coming hegemony of the sparrow and robin, not to mention the scowling and preposterous scallywaggery and the wicked licking fructosity that marmalactates and populates ptarmigan farms which greasy sputnik idolatry. Fiends waste time describing elliptical/tangential satellite behaviour to their friends over brunch. Because sputniks and children should be seen and not heard, and stories should be smelled and touch and tasted but never told too much; munched like a lunch, shown not told? Yes. The incubation of trust requires an understanding of toasters - electric technology of tender browning togetherness which spies in the 'godless' eastern countries would cut out kidneys to obtain. This is a secret of our society, the tallest tin-can castles ever built; the biggest ball of yarn in the world that ends up a tourist attraction – what makes America glorious ie its garish incandescent self-indulgence; inconceivably uncondonable in respectable Britain or the flaunt French hypocrite salons. Yet it's an indispensable quality and despite my knapsack flag I remain in Americawe. We the few, the happy, dangerous and fenderbending sly coyotes – this is mocha Monday and I’m wired like a kite. I’m electric and spanning, I am an acetylcholinergic smooth elastic muscle, flat and taut, stretching to allow calories to burn, this is the reason we are fidgety and flexing – this tex-mexistentialism in the middle of January a Jalapeno of doubt, the eggs of trust in the middle of the chutney of derision. We are spunky punks with leather wallets and green wheelbarrows, we plough through cold weather and spit in the ditch momma dug to annoy her neighbour Bessie; we are tickled midgets who bow and scrape and secretly plot pithy rebuttal. Your face is the tallest clock in my mansion, its ticks and time-telling are easy to apprehend; your lips are like blankets spreading like egg yolkiness from a sunset – the red and orange sneak whimsically across your blank slate teeth like so many toothbrush bristles, your wrists are like alabaster onions, white but stinky yet sweet. So don’t yelp in the tin can, the echo drives me batty, insomuch as your vexatious voice is not something to be suffered in needless repetition repeatedly… My Ugandan crocodile has a name, it is Norbert P Colbert – he is the Cajun Drano misbehaviour maven, can you smell his maggoty breath through the icy winter air? I think insincerity betrays insecurity, he doesn’t like to speak in public so he hires a publicist, also named Norbert but this time an alligator, diversity in species if not name, ambition in fame if not virtue... Smashing the walls in the truckstop was a fat bloated dime-whore named Carlene Simmons, aka the short order cook, serving up fried-eyes lies and braille-tales with her slippery liver and stinkysweet onions. We are the trespassers in the back of the country cottage road; I am the dyslexic Mulligan munchkin. I am Zebedee the phrumpy Pharisee, eloquently preaching the virtues of celibacy. Here in the pew, we say woo-hoo; God descends and men make sweeping, menacing ecumenical amendments; or is it man ascends and his master depends on him, man made god in his own image – yeah whoever said that was disturbingly clever my friends...
1/17/2005
too random to be random
I have a reason to kill you it's the first fist of the fight; the best follow-through, the wildest imaginable ocean brew, the clogged football diagonal, the marrowed phone and cleaver, the urn frigates the rectal weirdness, the tight bushy cactus leaf. Placate my mushroom minister, my martian drone heifer the igloo on top of the mountain, the hep styles for the tired lemur, the lego blocks smooth yet dimpled, the five thousand miles of sameness, the mangos that freak and fly out the the door; on Christmas eve the new year's gnu ears the ice’s thaw the clanging thumping insistence of bass drum; we are here and we shall sneer guru fear, we shall overcome. No no Bobby Jo - we shan't overcome after all. Policy of a pizzamaker? the hapless French fry queer and glistening metal bins in oil gliding and elided resto-stop, the blanket cashmere bilbo hop.
1/16/2005
I'm happy right now
Today was a good day
except today is yesterday
and tomorrow is today and
tomorrow won't come but
that's okay
because today was good enough to
last long,
forever
today though
some would say forever
and a day
is still just today plus the day before tomorrow and
after yesterday.
(today I'm drunk, and fully aware of the pointless paradox; tomorrow I'm hungover, but like Zeno said - when you're drunk tomorrow never comes)
except today is yesterday
and tomorrow is today and
tomorrow won't come but
that's okay
because today was good enough to
last long,
forever
today though
some would say forever
and a day
is still just today plus the day before tomorrow and
after yesterday.
(today I'm drunk, and fully aware of the pointless paradox; tomorrow I'm hungover, but like Zeno said - when you're drunk tomorrow never comes)
1/14/2005
M & J in bad times
When you got off that plane, I knew I could never go through with it
With what?
With this. This thing.
So you never loved me
I didn’t say that. Don't be psycho.
John, I’m getting old. I can’t play games any more. Don’t you think about the future?
You know I’ve always been deadly serious.
Shrivelled up inside you mean.
You kicked me in the teeth. Have you ever been kicked in the teeth?
No. What's it like?
Please: go to hell.
1/13/2005
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.
I’m flipping channels again, flipping the station, put on a song that I like.
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.
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.
1/09/2005
Celebratory cement mixer on Queen St
A cement mixer pours out with all its gunk, stopping everything in its place, freezing in time. This is no time to be a constructionist, I think – building up theories of thought, untestable, unfalsifiable, mere mystical philospeculation. Get these word merchants out of here – their verbal tricks leave you winded and blind. Throw away everything you think you know – let me tell about my friend Descartes. He went into a room, naked and stark, and came out as a real entity. I stink therefore I am... a sinner. Focus on the facts, focus on the focal point, focus on the faraway waterwheels, churning forces of productivity, grinding flour crushing chaff. Enough symbolism, let’s call a spade a spade. Enough metaphor, it’s like talking to a brick wall – enough simile, it’s the recourse of a simian. Don’t ape me – too much wordplay is insolent, don’t stoop to pun, it’s the tactic of a cow.
"We must do more research on the face-eating monkeys, they have so much to teach us," said Timothy Leary while tripped out on LSD. But I don’t do drugs – never have, and never will. What's the point; why spin out, I prefer straight lines, prefer waiting politely in line – I am far too Canadian. Here is a trick: snap your toes, snap your fingers, I’ll teach you to absorb a body blow, I’ll teach you to spurt a garden hose, to flood anthills like some backyard Old Testament wrath – the insects meet their maker, who’s just skipping along a path...
Bob Dylan, I found out, wrote in a twisted cliché, that’s all it was; that’s what we crave. When the wisest and most inscrutable finally blurts out all his secrets, are we likely to believe it? No I don’t think so, untrue. Let me keep my fables, it’s all I have that’s stable, otherwise I’m unable to block out noise. We need the same stories – keep them straight, repeat often, really jazz up the sexy points – they might even be true.
Here I am building up a work ethic – learning to write, say, 10,000 words a day. Obviously I have to think what I’m saying’s important, obviously you need a big ego for that. Obviously you need a good keyboard. You need the right spac, e the proper lighting, and above all an editor to make you finish what’s begun. You need somebody to take an interest. Otherwise what’s the point? We can’t all be Emily Dickinson.
Soon, see, we’ll just use links as footnotes. All essays will be submitted online, to allow for complete understanding. And in the future-future, hopefully, we won’t have language – just electric current in our cerebral cortex – sensation, knowledge in its purest form. No more vocal chordic oral-aural inter-media-ry. We can finally close our eyes, blinking to stop from thinking – what revolution, this evolution! what a nice holiday for the human ratracers… and our tongues will just do tasting. Mmm… can you smell the turkey basting? Yummy yummy - someday, honest, I’m going to try NOT to be funny.
1/08/2005
Nursery Rhymes for the Urban Cynic
a VERY special post ... the first few are nonsense, but they gather steam... to be read ALOUD, preferably to your small children... guaranteed smiles!
(they start to degenerate into the sensical - and the cynical - around here...)
Pizza man, pizza man, bake me a pie,
oregano-basil and turn it on high
it’s getting late, my date can’t wait
– I’m so munchy I could die!
*ahem*
Fluffy
Binky dinky trucks, filled with magic marshmallow fluff.
Beep beep! Beep beep!
Clear away the marshmallow path; clear it fast
– or face my Pegasus puff-pillow wrath!
I’m deep in a fluffy gunk,
so lock me in the puffy trunk
– I’ll munch my way to heaven!
Binky dinky trucks, filled with magic marshmallow fluff.
Beep beep! Beep beep!
Clear away the marshmallow path; clear it fast
– or face my Pegasus puff-pillow wrath!
I’m deep in a fluffy gunk,
so lock me in the puffy trunk
– I’ll munch my way to heaven!
Ronny Roy
Zassy passy joy – here comes Ronny Roy,
a tall thin chap with a leather cap -
his glass eye rolling on the floor.
Hey hey Ronny, you’re so funny, let me ope the door!
Do not sigh, here’s your eye,
come on in – we’re drinking gin!
You cannot ask for more!
Zassy passy joy – here comes Ronny Roy,
a tall thin chap with a leather cap -
his glass eye rolling on the floor.
Hey hey Ronny, you’re so funny, let me ope the door!
Do not sigh, here’s your eye,
come on in – we’re drinking gin!
You cannot ask for more!
Jelly or Jally
It’s jelly, Jimmy, or jally:
you can sidle, Jimmy, or you can shimmy,
you can slurp or you can spit
– but, Jimmy Jones, you should know that
we’ll get quite fed up with it!
It’s jelly, Jimmy, or jally:
you can sidle, Jimmy, or you can shimmy,
you can slurp or you can spit
– but, Jimmy Jones, you should know that
we’ll get quite fed up with it!
Fuzzy Frederick Froo
Fuzzy furry Frederick Froo, fashioned fire with his foxes two
Fie fie, Freddy – it’s time to get to beddy:
Angel pies with angel eyes will tickle your pink belly!
Fuzzy furry Frederick Froo, fashioned fire with his foxes two
Fie fie, Freddy – it’s time to get to beddy:
Angel pies with angel eyes will tickle your pink belly!
(they start to degenerate into the sensical - and the cynical - around here...)
Market
Ooga booga, ooga booga
fluctuate flump and flash
eat some bangers, eat some mash
bug-eyed babies wail the crash
– time to sell your shirt for cash!
Ooga booga, ooga booga
fluctuate flump and flash
eat some bangers, eat some mash
bug-eyed babies wail the crash
– time to sell your shirt for cash!
Print
Happy slappy pap – read it like a map,
Following squiggles makes you giggle
wiggle wiggle, wriggle wriggle
– I think that’s a wrap!
Happy slappy pap – read it like a map,
Following squiggles makes you giggle
wiggle wiggle, wriggle wriggle
– I think that’s a wrap!
Earthquake
Underground sounds: pound crash crack!
The earth is in a lurch – look out above,
the mountains are on drugs!
Screech and scrape, lava bakes
– it’s smashing us silly mugs!
The earth is in a lurch – look out above,
the mountains are on drugs!
Screech and scrape, lava bakes
– it’s smashing us silly mugs!
Tube
Watch the talking box, look at how it squawks;
it’s so silly, willy-nilly – I’d rather play with rocks!
Watch the talking box, look at how it squawks;
it’s so silly, willy-nilly – I’d rather play with rocks!
Traffic
The beetles on the street, crush em with your feet –
Oh no, oh no, they’re made of magic rubber metal!
They got glowing eyes and teeth!
The light is red, stand on your head
Now it’s green, so you can dream
– please go right ahead!
The beetles on the street, crush em with your feet –
Oh no, oh no, they’re made of magic rubber metal!
They got glowing eyes and teeth!
The light is red, stand on your head
Now it’s green, so you can dream
– please go right ahead!
Firewater
The fire’s in the water, flaming in a bottle,
drink it up, or drink it down
look, the world is spinning round
– out the door you wobble!
The fire’s in the water, flaming in a bottle,
drink it up, or drink it down
look, the world is spinning round
– out the door you wobble!
Black Bean
Black bean, black bean, make me jump
if I don’t sniff you I’m a grump
milk and cream, spoon and steam
– we’re a clump of sugary lumps!
After hours
Black bean, black bean, make me jump
if I don’t sniff you I’m a grump
milk and cream, spoon and steam
– we’re a clump of sugary lumps!
Pizza man, pizza man, bake me a pie,
oregano-basil and turn it on high
it’s getting late, my date can’t wait
– I’m so munchy I could die!
Bus stop
Wait all day, wait all night,
wait so long I want to fight
I need the bus, and so do you,
could it be in Timbuktu?
– the driver is a possum!
Wait all day, wait all night,
wait so long I want to fight
I need the bus, and so do you,
could it be in Timbuktu?
– the driver is a possum!
Sidewalk
Blompity rompity clomp – through the snow we stomp,
slushy stewy mushy mash – don’t fall your on ass!
Blompity rompity clomp – through the snow we stomp,
slushy stewy mushy mash – don’t fall your on ass!
Office
Look up, look down,
don’t look around, don't make a sound
the going up, the going down,
– the elevator is so stuffy!
Look up, look down,
don’t look around, don't make a sound
the going up, the going down,
– the elevator is so stuffy!
Hobo
Oh one-eyed Jim, where do you sleep?
On the sidewalk? That’s pretty neat
– live and work in just one place!
Jiggle, jingle, fill that cup
here’s a coin, now please let up
– we’re all in such a hurry!
Oh one-eyed Jim, where do you sleep?
On the sidewalk? That’s pretty neat
– live and work in just one place!
Jiggle, jingle, fill that cup
here’s a coin, now please let up
– we’re all in such a hurry!
Newspaper
Newspaper, newspaper, spin me a yarn,
splice it together and stitch it up fast
– I don’t have time to bother with facts!
Newspaper, newspaper, spin me a yarn,
splice it together and stitch it up fast
– I don’t have time to bother with facts!
Medication
Sticky licky ricky roo
I have something good for you
I know something you must do:
turn the lights off two by two, in the dark you swallow goo
Woohoo woohoo – now you don’t feel so blue!
Sticky licky ricky roo
I have something good for you
I know something you must do:
turn the lights off two by two, in the dark you swallow goo
Woohoo woohoo – now you don’t feel so blue!
SUV
Sparkly pizzazz, cool suburbia fad! My abs are fab!
I don’t do carbs, but I do yoga
– look at me, blending in so flawlessly!
My dog’s a collie, my girl's a Dolly
and my Filipino nanny’s name is Molly!
Sparkly pizzazz, cool suburbia fad! My abs are fab!
I don’t do carbs, but I do yoga
– look at me, blending in so flawlessly!
My dog’s a collie, my girl's a Dolly
and my Filipino nanny’s name is Molly!
Metrosexual
Tell me boy, what is your Gay-Q?
If you live downtown, I bet it’s two-hundred and two!
Do you, do you, do you look gay?
Hey hey hey, it’s hip to act gay – tall, skinny and gay
– it’s the surest way for a guy to get laid!
Tell me boy, what is your Gay-Q?
If you live downtown, I bet it’s two-hundred and two!
Do you, do you, do you look gay?
Hey hey hey, it’s hip to act gay – tall, skinny and gay
– it’s the surest way for a guy to get laid!
Bleeding Heart
Don’t eat meat – it’s bad!
Don’t use paper – trees will die!
Don’t say those words – it’s not allowed!
Don’t do anything – we might not like it!
And whatever you do,
don’t tell me what to think
– I’m a unique freedom-loving individual
and so are my unwashed friends!
Don’t eat meat – it’s bad!
Don’t use paper – trees will die!
Don’t say those words – it’s not allowed!
Don’t do anything – we might not like it!
And whatever you do,
don’t tell me what to think
– I’m a unique freedom-loving individual
and so are my unwashed friends!
1/06/2005
Warning to the Angry Turnip
(my worst poem so far... by far)
*ahem*
The Angry Turnips
Once there was a massive kitchen, full of vegetables of renown-
and among them were the turnips
with an e’er confounding prowess
a daring mix of red and brown
Upon a turnip shelf was often heard to pound
a mighty turnip drum:
singing ‘we are the turnips, everlasting veggies
and we’ll always be around’
But produce items did not last, ‘cause rotting is the norm
even despite their vitamins;
yet the turnips shunned mortality
loathing to conform
Some turnips turned to the blackest arts; their voodoo did enthral;
they ordained turnip priests, and
their mystics awoke a mighty beast
which was called the Wherewithal
Worse than werewolves was this Wherewithal, with its demon’s red hot ass
-a truly shocking pantry spectre-
the turnips used it to enslave the baked brown beans
--there was much passing of the gas
Life was bleak in turnip-land for many drudgerous eons
there was many a lamentation over
the caste system devised by the turnip Shahs
in which carrots were the peons
Today the turnips still hold sway in their Empire of the Fridge
the salad days are waning, however
the Tupperware perishables are escaping
--freedom’s oozing from the lids
Let this be a lesson to the Angry Turnip: few tyrants ever prosper
the day of Cooking is fast approaching
indeed it’s rare that anyone survives
being boiled alive with a lobster!
*ahem*
The Angry Turnips
Once there was a massive kitchen, full of vegetables of renown-
and among them were the turnips
with an e’er confounding prowess
a daring mix of red and brown
Upon a turnip shelf was often heard to pound
a mighty turnip drum:
singing ‘we are the turnips, everlasting veggies
and we’ll always be around’
But produce items did not last, ‘cause rotting is the norm
even despite their vitamins;
yet the turnips shunned mortality
loathing to conform
Some turnips turned to the blackest arts; their voodoo did enthral;
they ordained turnip priests, and
their mystics awoke a mighty beast
which was called the Wherewithal
Worse than werewolves was this Wherewithal, with its demon’s red hot ass
-a truly shocking pantry spectre-
the turnips used it to enslave the baked brown beans
--there was much passing of the gas
Life was bleak in turnip-land for many drudgerous eons
there was many a lamentation over
the caste system devised by the turnip Shahs
in which carrots were the peons
Today the turnips still hold sway in their Empire of the Fridge
the salad days are waning, however
the Tupperware perishables are escaping
--freedom’s oozing from the lids
Let this be a lesson to the Angry Turnip: few tyrants ever prosper
the day of Cooking is fast approaching
indeed it’s rare that anyone survives
being boiled alive with a lobster!
1/03/2005
Apologies from a cave man
He called again
a talking brick wall
wacking at the cracks
like a neanderthal
your ooga-booga baby, he
wouldn’t do any harm;
it hurts him more than you
and when he walks all over
at least he wipes his feet...
He called again:
I’m so sorry
so sorry, but
I feel strong,
my feelings so strong;
so
it’s no wonder I have to club you:
I have to show you...
how I love you
--so get off the floor
and cook a nice dinner
a talking brick wall
wacking at the cracks
like a neanderthal
your ooga-booga baby, he
wouldn’t do any harm;
it hurts him more than you
and when he walks all over
at least he wipes his feet...
He called again:
I’m so sorry
so sorry, but
I feel strong,
my feelings so strong;
so
it’s no wonder I have to club you:
I have to show you...
how I love you
--so get off the floor
and cook a nice dinner
1/02/2005
cumulo question
I asked the vapours for some advice,
the cloud looked at me and said,
‘when you get this high, everything looks different.’
I said,
'thanks, but I don’t like to smoke.'
'Really?'
I said, 'some people, when they land, after a long journey --
all they see is fog'
but he ignored me again, and
dissolved into the stratosphere.
when I landed on the ground, I booked a train to somewhere hot;
I was tired of clouds - I wanted to see the sky.
(ed note. anthropomorphizing a cloud - oldest trick in the book)
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