I sat full of myself
The birds singing somewhere down the block
The sun shining on the birds
I looked at myself in the shine of my monitor light and said, “Things are pretty good”
Then the sun went out and I saw my full face
A Jack’O'Lantern of a face, blinking in piggish surprise at what it saw
“What is happiness?” it asked me, and I was hard pressed for an answer until I went out and talked to the birds.
O Nobly Born
Whose Followers Stretch To The Heavens
Whose Tweets Are Retweeted Until The Stars Above Shake Hands With Them
Peace Be With You
O Nobly Born
Ruler of the Twitosphere
Peace Be With You
O Nobly Born
Let Your Manifest Compassion Be Shown To The Universe
By Throwing Me a Retweet Once In a While
You Stuck-Up Snob
Who The Fuck Do You Think You Are
O Nobly Born
All Blessings To You
The young server’s eyes light up as she sees him come in
“Hi! How are you?” as he smiles and mumbles a reply
His favourite seat is empty & he makes a beeline for it
She brings him his favourite beer & he make a beeline for it
“Menu?” she asks with a smile, and nine times out of ten he’ll say yes
The salt and grease of bar food add that certain something to the entire evening, he’s found
Food comes, and more beer comes, and sometimes he brings a book, and sometimes a laptop, and sometimes he just sits there and stares at the air
I should rip it up, he thinks sometimes.
I should rip it up and go crazy and go talk to that woman all alone by herself who is looking at me looking at her as we both pretend we aren’t looking at each other. Go and sweep her off her feet, take her back to her place and fuck till we’re both sore.
I should rip it up.
And usually, by then, his glass is empty, and the smiling young server is right there. “Another pint?” she asks, and usually he says yes.
Whatever she’s offering, it feels more real than the other thing.
What who is this shadow reaching from this past I never entered
How does it know me so well when I’ve never seen it before now
It whispers things it should not know
Flesh of my flesh
Blood of my blood
Who cries out in the night?
Is it my voice, or the voices of me stretched back to
Who was I before I was born?
Flesh of my flesh
Blood of my blood
The terrible stinky drunk men marry the
The quiet repressed men marry the
The simple honest men marry the
The scattered sisters go marry the
The times between them the children between them
The marriage becomes the sad that creeps between them
The memories that surround them to
Protect the enrich the fantasies
Every day is the last with a few more flubbed lines
Flesh of my flesh
Blood of my blood
Happiness is that thing out there
We’ve never heard
Ten paces left, four down. Ten paces left, four down. A gigantic X marks the spot.
No shovel or pick with you, time to dig in with teeth and fingernails! Spit the damp cold earth out, don’t swallow any, or you will die and lie there rotting by your buried treasure. Stinking up the murky glade deep in the cold jungle.
Dig, dig! Your salvation lies down there! Pause for breath, then keep going. There, what is that, a vibration under your fingernails. Dig some more, you’ve found it.
Stare. What is it? A wooden box. Dirty and soft. Pull it out. Some kind of lock? Smash it down on that rock over there, and smash, and smash, and smash, and CRACK
A map. To your house. What? There is no treasure there. That is why you are out wandering the forests and mountains and plains. Because there is no treasure at home.
You realise suddenly there is a pain in your fingers. You look, they are bleeding. You wipe them off and the blood wells up again around cracked and missing fingernails, but you try to ignore it all and carry on.
Home? Where is that? You haven’t been there for so long, you’ve forgotten. Best to carry on. Once you find your treasure, you can buy a new one.
when you get down to it, it’s a cozy little space
not too cold, not too warm, just enough to keep you semi-alert
if only there was porn
when you get down to it, it’s a private little space
little guys in red three-piece suits with tiny cocktail pitchforks poking you so you keep focussed on the plan
if only there was a video store nearby
when you get down to it, it’s a friendly little place
lots of mirrors around so you always see your current attitude to life and you’re never really alone
if only there was someone to wipe down the mirrors once in a while
when you get right down to it, it’s a safe little space
i mean, sure, guys with pitchforks, but they are SO tiny, you barely notice them
i mean, sure, no sign of an exit door, but what’s out there for you?
i mean, sure, that blanket there is nice to wrap around yourself and once you clean that thumb, it’s soothing to suck on
if only there was
if only a
if i could see you again
if there was a way
out
it is isss a hard a hard night at the Noun and Firkin
the UFC is playing on the big screen, on all the big screens
fans are drinking hard and cheering hard, and then, it happens
push comes to shove, shove comes to punch, punch comes to fight, each other’s friends forming a circle around, cheering for their boy
above them sweaty men wrap their legs around each other while down here the guy in the hawaiian shirt is trying to punch the skull in of the guy in the shorts and baseball cap
finally they get pulled apart and the ambulance comes and the mop comes out and then there is the fight on the pub floor too which also gets cleared up with the help of the police
before the last flash of the cruiser’s light has faded from the bar mirror reflection, the fans are back, cheering at the UFC
He’s a two-fisted drinker, she keeps it down to one glass at a time.
Somewhere in the back, the chef bangs a plastic drum against a sink and the smell of chlorine fills up the entire bar. Water runs.
She talks about her plans for the future. He makes some small talk to keep her going.
The music is too loud for an empty space. It’s trying too hard to make everyone happy.
He walks out the door into the cold spring night. She walks back around the bar and stares into her glass of house Merlot, $8 the sample but I bet she gets an employee discount.
Nothing is going to save this night. Better bail out and save myself.
Old fat man
Scratch to win Keno ticket in hand
Beer belly stopping traffic in the street
Moustache flying out and saluting heaven
Saying “Thank you!” to no one in particular, to everyone at large
Stopping to scratch another square off your lottery ticket
Baseball cap perched on your head by force of will, your square-framed glasses missing nothing
Here is the streetcar! Marching orders start!
1 Fling the worthless Keno ticket into the curb snow
2 Get in front of everyone else
3 Grab the transit pass firmly affixed to the loop around your neck and hold it proudly
4 Present to the driver, stride on, and take your seat
Old fat man
There, but for a few nuances, go I
here sit the chemical men
storing chemicals through advanced ingestion techniques, liquid and solid both,
some times si mul taneously
that one takes in salt and fat,
that one, salt and fat,
that one, fatty salt,
that one sugar and chocolate
oh wait, that one was a chemical woman
they all take in alcohol in various colours and sizes with different additives (frozen water, fizzy water, fizzy sweet coloured water, frozen sweet coloured water) or the braver do not add, they subtract immediately they subtract their courage they subtract their freedom they subtract their intellect: just faster than the rest, but they all end up in the same place in the end
the earth, the mother of all chemicals, and it gratefully takes back what it has loaned them
to make more chemical men and start over
after all, life is cruel, so eat, drink, and be merry