the sibilance of dawn

life,

slips through my fingers,

like the sun,

slips through the blinds,

memories,
are ghosts,

that slip from my mind,

pain,
is my wise council,

helps me hold the line,

love,
runs too fast,

I slip behind,

loneliness,
is an angel,

her lips slip from mine.

getting faster

just outside my window,

a man was shot last night,

a witness called the cops,

her voice trembled with fright,

couple cruisers showed up,

sirens and flashing lights,

TV men dressed nice,

reported from the yellow line,

it's never going to be alright,

it's only getting faster,

time is slipping farther,

tensions are just too tight,

read the story in the paper,

on the bus the next day,

people always say,

"it never used to be that way,"

some pray to Jesus,

some buy guns,

some just move away,

where you going to go,

where it's going to be ok,

where you'll meet someone,

who doesn't struggle through the day,

baby, this is home,

you can go or stay,

you can dream up easy answers but believe me when I say,

it's never going to be alright,

it's only getting faster,

time is slipping farther,

tensions are just too tight,

it's only getting faster. 

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This is a song I was writing but fuck it, I just blogged the motherlacker.

settle

a thaw,

metal machines roll out,

another detour,

another broken line,

a chance to walk down the hallways of my mind,

total up the sum of the days and nights,

the skeleton of a city,

displayed crudely,

crews jackhammer down,

digging into a grave of concrete, metal, clay and gravel,

a boiling tension of traffic,

through torn arteries,

and spouting fluids of this God-forsaken earth,

sitting here,

it is always my chance,

to prolong it,

to shorten it,

to get the logic of it,

to take it too far,

traffic unlocks,

metal machines twist free,

things just are,

I will try to be. 

was.... is.

galaxies swallow galaxies,

broken saviours sit in traffic,

Van Halen lightning love bolt

eternal damnation

shoo away those birds that nest on your balcony,
watch them fly into the foggy morning,
for someone wrote a story of eternal damnation,
to keep us miserable and scared,
but implosions of hate and jealousy,
beget explosions,
creating breath, hope and change,
so swat away those fears,
and fly into the foggy morning.

Re-post Feature: Al Purdy's "At the Quinte Hotel"

other than

slap together some roads and high-rises,

for a civilization of broken hearts,

a malcontent malaise pasted over with smears of fatty diner mayonnaise,

and midnights full of whiskey shots, chased with the hard inhale of weed,

tape the side mirrors to your car,

as cyclists will kick them off again,

as they should,

as we all should,

as I stand with curmudgeons, art therapists,

and unemployed cooks,

having trouble listing our experience,

using language,

let alone,

in the boxes provided,

I go out there,

but I don't know who they want me to be,

a cup of coffee and a positive attitude,

a brow sweat hustle and a "three bags full ma'am,"

but I'm really just the pause in the discussion,

I'm the kid sent to the office,

I go out there but I don't know who I'm supposed to be,

other than the words that drip through the lines on the page,

like the water from the ceiling,

into a sauce pan,

on a chair,

in the corner of your room.

melt

winter rides out,
fluid and strong,
like a Boards of Canada song,
from a dream to a cold room,
to the street,
where old men poke poles at plugged sewer grates,
and crows gather in the trees above,
March melt fills the streets with puddles,
water drains away slowly like suburbanite love,
marriage seems to me,
to be,
the ultimate anomaly,
like living in a crowded city,
but going for days without talking to anybody.