van Gogh's final shot at the big time

these dirty roads lead nowhere,

there’s really nothing out here,

save for a tear in the eye,

and a rough ride,

just dead ends and pot holes,

tired, salt-stained metal,

creaking with the weight of day,

no ultimate direction,

I take small pieces of pleasure from the platter of pain,

postponing what I know is coming,

and no it’s not "my shot,"

and no, no amount of social media can save me,

(that black hole into our collective mental illness),

the universe doesn’t care about our frustration,

or the level of consciousness on which we operate,

the false modesty,

the uncanny ability to feign humility while subtly downplaying the accomplishments of others,

or pretend tolerance while criticizing the opinions of others,

c’mon now,

are you sitting by the mailbox?

smoking your last Indigenous cigarette?

waiting for glory? 

what’s glory?

when is glory?

let’s get serious,

shut up and work,

with luck or without,

because it’s who you are,

drag your stone,

like everyone else,

some babies get hit by missile shrapnel,

bodies burned and limbs torn,

some babies die before they're born,

are you better?

life is a dirty sidewalk,

a lonely weekend,

a toothache,

a line of urinals filled with the tepid piss of a thousand drunk business men,

a disgraced politician,

an old man undressed,

Violette Morris’ last country drive,

van Gogh's bullet to the chest,

am I any better?

waitress

take the same chords,
for your generation,
I've played them all in my time,
if you want, 
put your fingers like so,
and I'll show you how to find the tune,
maybe a little too much too soon?
a damper on your youthful hustle,
your limitless new day,
rainbow blow jobs,
dick pics, 
layered with dream pop soufflé,
it gets hard soon love,
it gets messy and noisy,
and smells like everyone who's been here before,
I recommend protecting your trusting heart,
cause no one is gonna show you how,
I have some suggestions,
but I'll mind my own old business,
plus, the waitress will take our order now.

one in the hopper

I live in a flesh house,
a mind with walls made of tissue and bone,
fuelled by electricity and blood,
I eat from mother earth,
I suckle from the teat of Gaia,
I wander the halls of infinity,
stepping gingerly across the glass floor of inconsolable despair,
I'm just a peasant,
too pedestrian for your equestrian tastes,
I love your simple epistemology,
it's really just a horny little eschatology,
it's a conversation that ends as stale as it begins,
it's ok though,
because as we age, 
we are slipping into freedom, 
which is just another word for emptiness,
and emptiness is just another word for loneliness,
and loneliness is just another word for the freedom to be,
and there's not much time for you and me,
because, you see, a lifetime is relative to eternity.

sugarbush

can I come into your sugarbush?
so dark and deep,
where the sap runs sticky and sweet,
where the wind breathes life into my tired lungs,
and the sun slices through your trees,
and bounces light off the trembling leaves,
like a giant maple cutting into the sky,
I can feel your power,
your sanctuary,
my rejuvenation 
my salvation,
and the immanence of your love,
let's go deep into your sugarbush,
swallow me into your cosmic night,
and let me sleep within you,
until I wake up baptized and reborn,
wrap me in your sacred arms,
until I forget what I know,
let me come into your sugarbush,
so we can labour until the bad feelings go,
to where we collapse the ego,
and your syrup mixes with my snow. 

the last of my bad habits

I've got a window,
inside my mind,
I cracked it open,
so I could take my time,

I feel helpless,
when I look into the sky,
troubleshoot the future,
why do I even try?
on this smouldering star,
I'm just a frozen fly,

friendship is just the distance,
between how we feel and how much we try,
the last of my bad habits,
will never really die,

but I've got a window,
inside my mind,
now I keep it open,
so I can take my time.

dasein

a vast emptiness permeates my consciousness,
rain pounds the garbage and the dirt,
my pulse beats heavily,
my muscles convulse and cramp,
my body shakes in the midnight hour,
my mind stabs fear into my heart,
my thoughts flow like a polluted river,
sending torrents of darkness into my twisting, aching bowels,
my dreams are dark corridors with wicked storms battering the windows,
my power is gone,
my hope has faded,
I feel I am standing on the crumbling edge of a shifting universe,
I am a rogue cell giving life to disease and destruction,
I am a bug...

can you hear my lamentation?

are you there?

is someone there?

am I alone?

how can I know you if you have left me?

how can I love you when you won't speak to me? 

a prayer of simplicity to a shifting universe,
falls from my quivering lips,
and blood spoiled by hatred,
drips from my fractured and restless body,
send me an angel of hope,
send me an angel of peace,
have mercy of this rogue cell wreaking disease and destruction....
have mercy on this bug...

for there is nowhere to go,
there is nothing to do,
we are who we are only through the fullness of being.

--------------------------------------------------------------
in the quiet stillness, 
a baby breathes gently,
and awakens,
in the light.






=====================================================================
this poem is dedicated to my friends who recently lost their business to fire. 

they can't help you now

love,
a twisted labyrinth,
a heavily wooded web of darkness,
emotions helplessly oscillate,
between desire and need,
between attraction and fear,
between what I have and what I've lost,
alone-ness and time,
stirs the deepest hunger,
creates an unquenchable thirst,
an unrelenting ache,
the limitless depths of this,
burning,
gnawing,
despair,

it is something in the Self...

an emptiness,
a black hole,
a void,

that cannot be filled,
how ever vainly we try,
to medicate,
to hold another,
to shun another,
to kill the "other,"
to pray to the vacant heavens,

but a screaming sadness,
creates a torrent of frozen anger,

a will...

to exist,
a dying to live,

the courage to be,
to co-exist with the lack,
the courage to be,
in the face of the void,

it defines me,
allows me to reach with the senses,
transcend the paralyzing pain,
the disorienting pleasure,

to become,
for just a fraction of infinity,

someone unequivocal. 

tomato can

the poverty of the heart,
writhes like a restless fetus,
twisting all around in anxiety and nausea,
feeling through the city night,
like a blind man,
in a tunnel of darkness and metal,
pain, the oldest friend,
was there at the beginning,
will be there at the end,
aching on the surface,
aching in the depths,
aching in the body, mind and soul,
calcified knuckles,
detached retina,
nasal fracturing,
slight limp,
half numb left hand,
and a bum knee,
a tuna sandwich and a hearing aid,
long nights and lonely dreams,
a shit love life,
but it's the only life he's got,
and he was never surprised what he could do alone,
just out of sheer willpower,

now he trains younger hearts,
eyeing the struggle,
from student to teacher,
from novice to master,
if success never came to him,
skills were gained,
how to handle failure,
how to manage the sting,
with the restraint and patience,
of a veteran of the ring,

somewhere in the nexus between time and meaning
the heart explodes,
like a spiritual sneeze,
just a gnarled figure under the lamplight,
shadowboxing the breeze.

baseball sun

a Goliath of a world,
a David of a soul,
born to kill and whither,
born to love and grow,

one must be nothing,
for one to be everything,
and when you are everything, 
you will know that it is nothing,





God is everything,
God is nothing,
God is both,
God is neither

sometimes I'm many,
sometimes I'm one,
sometimes I've gone beyond,
orbiting a baseball sun,

the plate is our life,
we stand alone,
did you know?
we will be alone when we go,

so stand relaxed at the plate,
while we orbit the baseball sun,
when you relax you get hits,
you might just get a home run.

dust in the heater

steam cloaks the vicious river,
purposely raging as though the flow was in it's nature,
frigid black water,
beats and splits the ice,
ripping through the open dam,
to swallow the dirty city snow,
temperature drops,
and the pulse slows,
under the lights of the bridge,
lovers and dreamers,
holding hands,
beautiful faces kiss beautiful faces,
lovers and dreamers,
offering us a bond,
through our common ideologies,
of love, war and terror,
a community for the rest,
alleviating the anxiety of death,
my ideology is the blues,
and "the blues is just catastrophe lyrically expressed,"

a poet sits at the bar,
unfurling rhymes,
about the frozen land and sea,
half past a waitress's ass,
a thought occurs to me,

life is but a thin sheet of ice,
resting on the ocean of infinity.












 

heavy petting

in the mind,
hold the tension between positive and negative,
then step outside of both,
a trick of the Stoics,
whether unloving,
or unloved,
disappointed and lonely,
fulfilled and together,
disappointed and together,
fulfilled and lonely,
I wish I could see as clearly as you,
with impossible clarity,
or understand as easy as you,
with impossible simplicity,
instead I awkwardly wade through the grass,
and stumble through the woods,
looking for some product,
to fill up my time,
like the shoppers in line,
at Costco,
but really looking for meaning,
some kind of deep-hearted-meaning,
struggling to meet it,
in every little touch,
in every little sound,
in every little taste.

before we are just skeletons

cottage sun blasts overhead,
a cool wind behind,
I am standing on the riverbed,
casting out my line,

maybe get a bite from another cold summer,
maybe get a bite from a lost love,
sink down deep to the bottom,
it's trial by fire,
no salvation from above,
gotta remember when I'm back in the city,
when I'm lost between buildings without art,
when the roads of my life are falling apart,

the future is blasting overhead,
there's billions of years behind,
we are are standing on a riverbed,
casting out our lines.

pour your heart out

economists call it "risky wife-seeking behaviour,"
it affects the "real exchange rate,"
it's unproductive,
the alcohol,
the drugs,
the gambling,
living on the outskirts,
with the unloved,
the un-matched,
they say the government will open up some dating sites,
so the violence will decrease,
savings will increase,
and shit will stabilize,

but how do you pour your heart out,
when you can't trust love?

when some just have the labour of the day,
the light of the sun,
bringing the joyless traffic of the mind,
cluttered and hoarded,
the acidic wash of sycophants,
the bitterness of ambition,
the after burn of fading youthful illusions,
and the howling hounds of time?

but how do you pour your heart out,
when it's always coming apart?

should I try to hurt the world back by holding back my art?
after all, psychologists say "women nurture, men self-destruct,"
still, why wait around for a sloppy kiss from lady luck?
why try to hurt the world back when the world doesn't give a fuck?

tube TV

for what it's worth,
and it ain't worth much,
trying to survive,
a body determined by uncertainty,
and bound by time,
I've only known one side of the thin red line,

some are starting out,
some are halfway done,
some are getting towards the end,
some never got started,
some got stuck part way through,
and some would like to start again,

take a moment of pause,

loosen the chains of the mind,

and feel the warm summer rain,

this is where I sit to die,
where I close my eyes,
and let loose the body/mind,
watch the flow,
and let it go,
without the eyes,
and be present,
outside time,

but then I'll come back,
to where I choose to live,
sitting out here behind the garbage,
watching a tube TV,

where they play for a cup,
a cup for the world,
a cup for you,
share a cup with me,
on this side of the line,

for what it's worth,
and it ain't worth much,
but what I have is yours,
and what I give is mine.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Special Feature: Great blogs! Updated!!

http://thelatenights.blogspot.ca/2014/07/again.html

http://thesquarecorner.blogspot.ca/2014/07/blog-post.html

pull it open

in the middle of winter
bite down on the harness,
in the middle of winter,
a wicked test of the will,
in the middle of winter,
a beast pulling on the chains,
in the middle of winter,
loneliness is visceral,

a fortuitous frost line and dirty ice,
a weak sun and salt rusted water,
melting dog shit and mud matted garbage,
buckets of diesel and coffee,

the last days of the winter,
pull a grey sky open,
unveiling the human insult,
the meager cry of the vain animal,

the last days of winter,
same thing all along,
coming into being,
then it's gone,

now pull a grey sky open,
there's black behind the blue,
I shouldn't worry about tomorrow,
but I always do,

now pull a grey sky open,
get a sense of the vastness,
which gives way to a chill,
giving way to a shiver,

nothing is forever,
not even the winter.

a Buddha on the nightstand

I've become skeptical,
yet I put my hands out,
into the dark night,
to be slapped,
and bit,
and burned,
and stung,
for the worst storms,
are in the mind,
wait them out,
play some cards,
tap a tune on the knees,
or shadow box the breeze,

open the shutters,
step out alone,
meet the Devil at the gate,
pay no heed,
go right through,
the wicked world is waiting for you,
the Devil throws a jab,
a southpaw angel,
with a right foot glide,
I stick and move,
then step to the side,
play through the pain,
blood in the eyes,
cramps in the thighs,
feel the spirit rise,

no other journey but to find the Self,
no matter a distance so far,
or an ocean so deep,
or a desert so wide.

getting back

put the paint on the paper,
watch the colours run down,
I feel like I'm waiting,
for my luck to turn around,

thoughts start exploding,
like salmon from a stream,
like an ancient Zen symbol,
I know just what it means,

a force pushing from the outside,
against an opposite force within,
I try to transcend the fools,
preaching salvation and sin,

look what it gives you,
one contingency to the next,
too busy texting and tweeting,
no time left to reflect,

a quest for the plastic and hollow,
when there's more to behold,
rivers of colour,
flow through the folds,
into the cold, dirty street,
where the flesh of reality,
and the bones of our principles meet.

rock me

lamentation,
stacked upon,
lamentation,
papers fly from a broken bag,
as the heavenly storm,
bears down on a broken world,
quickly cramping our dreams of escape,
the wicked torrents will skin us to our skeleton,
and give us only dirty water to breathe,
until there's nothing left but hunger and thirst,

but there is life where there is music - 

there is life still,
there is rejuvenation,
there is transformation,

until the morning,
angel of the darkness,
hold me in your arms,
and rock me.

















 

3 fingers, 3 chords

you are such a vast element,

look at you,

how can I ever know you?

I pound on your gates,

I call out to you in the black night,

I try to fight against your winds,

but I become weary in your sun,

and tremble in your cold, 

all the endless talk,

this examining,

this organizing,

this classifying,

this deducing,

but never knowing,

all this endless talk,

separating one from the other,

my fear strikes like lighting,

my nausea festers like boiling acid,

my despair crashes like waves,

I'm a slave to the grind,
before I begin, I'm behind,

all I need is 3 fingers of whiskey,
to loosen the Western-logico-linguistic bind,

all I crave is 3 chords of Blues,
to loosen your hand from mine.