This city street opens up a place for me, on it's bruised and dirty carcass.

Maybe we're the same that way - the city and I - both here, marvels of evolution, progress and fusion; and simultaneously out of place, a discorded footprint during time's relentless march.

The City is a fascination as well as a terror. It breeds a deep duality within me. Excitement, intrigue, experience and expression as well as anxiety  oppression  conformity and obscurity It lends itself to hope and indifference in a single moment.

In many ways I know it's th end of an era.

But will I remember? Remember how to hear the sounds of a soft shoe scuffle? The parade of leather souls down cracked and beaten paths. Will I remember how to see the stars, as  I have again and again, for the first time? Will I remember that most great things come in small packages, to be savoured and set free? Will I remember how to free my eyes, when the time comes, from those perspectives that do not serve me? Remembering rather that I am creator of all magic, the director of my dreams, rolling the camera backwards I breath life into the narratives that I have lived. A narrative of strength, endurance and perseverance A narrative of kindness, insight and the quest for commonality. Will I remember home is a place I carry in my heart, not a destination? Will I remember all the lessons? To be kind to ourselves in our moments of weakness They are fleeting and necessary. To be open to the possibility in all things and all people. To not be afraid. To never, ever let fear rob us of curiosity. That all fear is a creation of the mind. Will I remember to dream big and live small? That life exists most profoundly in the moment and all change is made through small and immediate action, not in long protracted thought. To embrace the newness with compassion. remember that wherever you go, there is someone there trying to get out. That freedom is a mechanism of choice, not having choices. We don't have freedom - we choose it - in the deepest parts of us.

Will I remember that we are not a summation of 'proofs' things you can put down on paper, wards you can hold or deed you can count. Do not build your sense of self on accolades. You will always be miserable and never know why. Because there will be long stretches of time when you are alone. When  attention is spare and suspect and the worlds indifference will be crushing. You will be lonely. Utterly, disparingly lonely. This is where you start. This is the beginning of all that you are. Say hello to yourself, you will never your her more intimately.

Do not hide from those feelings or things about yourself you feel are ugly. There denile feeds deep resentment. Root it out as soon as you can. Understand what haunts you and face it. name it. Call it out and sit with it. Then let it go. Burn that ugliness with the light of conscious awareness. Know that you are infinite both in weakness and in strength. None of it matter, all that matter is that you do not run from what's inside you, what drives you. What you are most afraid to admit.

No one has any answers, though many have some very interesting things to say. Listen first. Don't force yourself on others. If they're worth the time they will ask.

Sleep when you're tired.

Eat when you're hungry.

Eat real food. Remember that what and how you eat is merely a prduct of culture and habit. You'll never regret how much better life is when you feed yourself with intent and purpose.

Be here now. stop waiting for th next thing to happen. Sheer joy is living for the moment.

Don't try and compete in anyone elses darhma. Don't play anyone elses game or live to their standards. your greatest attribute is the beauty, joy and persistance that comes from doing those things you are truley passionate about. But for godsakes Try Everything Once. becuase you'll never know what you don't know.

More people will love you respect you and do right by you than will let you down. Let it go and move on.

Practice Yoga

Enjoy. 

All You Need to Know

Broken boys

Make the best lovers

So long as you don't love them

We were so young

We were so young 

And had no idea 

And we thought we were still living 

Waiting to be grown up 

Until we realized 

We were old 

We were them

And they were us

Younger and more vibrant 

Still alive 

With the optimism 

We’d abandoned 

And all the things we could ever have been

Floated away

Neither good nor bad

Right not wrong

Just impossible 

Now that it was gone 

Every day became a frame around our lives

Making them clearer and clearer 

Until there was no ambiguity 

That potentiality could bring  

Only what was

And what would never be 

Before Tomorrow

God I love the night 

Like a restless slumber 

I go down 

To arrive 

In energetic vibrations

Humming with the stars 

Not a lullaby  

But secrets 

Too rich

And too guarded 

For the light of day 

As the thick haze gives way

To the muggy blackness

Warmed over by streetlights 

Headlights 

And glowing neon signs

I’ve always been at home here 

Half hidden in the shadows 

Bolder under the covers

Where certain eyes cannot follow 

I go here sometimes 

To remember 

The heartbeat 

Of the night 

And that nothing really sleeps

Only changes form

Compelled by the night air 

And all the possibilities that exist 

Before tomorrow 

Paid by the Hour

Ode to my Working Class boys 

My get up before the sun boys

Heart on their sleeve,

Out with the lads,

Steel toed boys.

Ode to my sweatshirted 

Bleary eyed

Wife and two kids boys 

With all their sweetness 

Simplicity 

And lunch boxes.

The hero’s of construction 

The thoughtful father 

They are the men 

With lean bank accounts 

And the best intentions 

The quiet warrior 

The unseen alpha

Up before the dawn

Between the girders 

And everywhere 

We can take their years from them

One hour at a time

Failure, le deuxieme

Let me sit and inhale,
The threatening vapours,
Of failure.

Seduced by the intoxication,
as it beckons me,
breathe deep,
and get lost,
in the mist. 

Winter Sleep

The cold, white snow cracked underfoot, giving way just a little before sinking to the frozen soil below. As always, the winter day was setting before it even began, casting, long, lazy streams of sunlight through the trees. Snowflakes danced like paper crystals in the air, gusting waves of glistening cloud into my eyes. Brittle branches creaked and swayed, with single dead brown leaves quivering a lonely hello as I made my way deeper into the woods. Coming upon a shallow, fast moving creek I inhaled deeply the pungent mix of mud and ice cold water. I stumbled ever closer, held heavy under the weight of pills and alcohol. Drowning in apathy and inhibition, I cloaked myself in the beauty around me and it stirred my sadness. Hot tears welled and burst from their ducts, streaming slowly down my cheeks, ending as cold raindrops from my nose. Nature was unusually kind today and revealing of her precious secret power to overwhelm you.

I stuck my feet in the water and soon my shoes were filled to the brim and I could feel the ice water leaching between my shoes, around my arches and ankles, stealing their warmth. It wasn’t long before my feet were numb, then hot again. I took a deep drink from the amber colored alcohol in my rub-red hands. It tasted sweet and harsh and burned its way down my throat. My eyes closed reflexively and I stood in the half light, swaying in lazy waltz with the motion of the trees. Left………….. right……….. 

I came to my knees and let the water rush past my calves and knees, piling up against my thighs. I began to shake ever so slightly, involuntarily my body continuing its will to live. I looked up at the sky, grey-wash cement clouds mixing against the blue tapestry, the sun peppering my eyes, blinking shadows. I soon stopped shaking. My legs felt heavy, like lead weights tied off around the thigh, floating behind me, amputated. I laid down backwards and inhaled sharply from the shock of cold cascading around my body. My head exposed, water rushed in to block my ears and I fell into a rumbling silence. I winced but never moved. Slowly the pain gave way and my body began to fade, heavy with water and numbness, needled in place by invisible threads of ice. The tears came again, only short burst of eye water mixing with the dim light, warming my eyelids before disappearing forever. I fingered the stones beneath my hands and sighed deeply; smooth and water worn.  I lingered for a moment in the effervescent sunshine, watching the powdery flakes float away, taking me along, higher and higher, above the deserted canopy, back from where they came. 

To be Alone

-->

 On the precipice of despair ­– laughing. Calling out the names of old lovers like wisps of smoke from an extinguished flame, riding the current of the winds of time. What leaves the taste of a Queen, in the mouth of a young child. Lusting. Reaching. Agonizing. Calling out in the darkness. See me. Feel me. Hear me. Know me. 

Isabella was a slut, or so they said. A real piece of shit, but also a lovely girl. It was hard, knowing your husband wanted the babysitter. Maybe you’d call it to her face, if you were any braver, any more sure of yourself. But it’s hard to know where you stand, on an island made of sand. Falling down under the weight of lies, bigotry and pride. Who were these simple people. With the flashlight smiles and grotesque lies. 

He came on her like a flash. Without warning, brightly. Suddenly, there he was, calling her name, motioning towards his cock. That red little pecker, all alive with the thought of her hot young mouth. Where was her mother after all? 

Fast-forward past 1983. Past the days that spilled out like rain onto the sidewalk and into the gutters. Past the time her parents met and decided, foolishly, to know one another as lovers do. Its hard to blame children. 

But we do. 

1999, and all the rights of childhood are gone, even if technically still intact. Daughter maybe more adult than guardian. Though never when and where it counts. How dare she anyway, suppose that she could cook all on her own, simply because, she couldn’t stand that hand that feeds her. 

Isabella you slut. You 13 year old child. You babysitter. You stoned hippie. You mother fucker. Isabella you Queen. You delicious danish of perfection. Don’t let those fat little thighs make you think otherwise. Squish squish. I know how they go, rubbing on the inside, causing you pain. Masking who’s to blame. Forget him. Forget what he said when he was drunk. Remember Isabella, remember your name, and that Paris is where you go to be alone.

Menu

You could be this mother fucker

–I think to myself–

eating his ketchup chips,

sagging like a brown banana

slipping from the chair

in stained and dirty track suit.

You could be that mother fucker

and his no name bag, 

of no name chips

stuffed inside 

his acidic yellow

No Frills sac.

You could be that mother fucker I think.

Sour cream

and onion.

Chin crumbs,

and another day, 

wasted;

instead of hiding your decay,

your pain and your fear,

you could be eating it 

on the train. 

A Love Story

She approached him, dirty and unkempt, stalking the sidewalk like a cougar, night and day.

“How come you never ask for money?”she asked.

He looked at her blankly. The the act of human interaction had been lost to him. He searched his mind through ancient figments. Seconds passed as the street continued on obliviously around them. She stood staring at him unquestioningly, unphased by his grotesqueness. He lifted his toes inside the almost bottomless shoes to feel the gravel. Strange reminders flickered inside him, sensations from memories long lost to the confusion and shame. A wave of lust moved like a frozen tide into his barricaded mind. All he had known for so long from others was fear or obilvion. Of which, this was neither.

“Do you have any?” he asked finally.

“No.” She responded.

He grunted and sucked back on his dirty second hand cigarette. His shock blue eyes were the only clean patch left on such a piece of used up real estate. And he knew it. He just didn't understand why she had come to look at the landscape. 

And as quickly as she came, she turned and walked away.

Sour Spouts

I remember the old man, sitting alone, drinking scotch and milk. I remember thinking, it was a strange combination and wondered what it tasted like. I wondered why he drank it. But more than that, I wondered what he was thinking when he looked at me like that. When he licked his lips like that. The way he called me darlin'. The way he smiled. It made me think. His eyes, the colour of mustard and peas. His skin like a wrinkly plucked chicken, greasy and uneven, except for that big, bloated belly, which waddled from side to side. Sometimes he would watch TV, but mostly he would watch me. Sliding the doors open and shut. Bending down. Standing up. Washing glasses. Pouring cheap, weak beer, from old sour spouts. Hours would pass under the drone of the television and clinking glass. Scrapping off the plates while he sipped his scotch and milk, and watched me. He would talk so quiet, that I would have to lean in close, just to hear him. Just inches between us. I wondered what he thought of then. Most of the men in that small town would look at you, but he was the only one that made me feel that way. Sometimes it's hard to keep your dignity and your paycheque.

Growing

And that is how 

the people that you know, 

become words upon a page, 

and all those summer days, 

drift away. 

Breathing in and breathing out.

The Act of Being Human

I must have known at some point that all this inward journeying, all this abstract introspection, would have to lead me back here, to the pampered confines of my middle-class existence, ravishing and admonishing the treat of normalcy and routine from which I feed life back into my exhaustion. Even now I’m not sure it will ever be enough to return the vitality once had, the energy and optimism of youth, that immense sense of possibility born from the inner labyrinth of ignorance.

Playfulness is no longer an act, but a secret memory.

Yet I hold out hope that maybe the night will revel itself to be young again and the dawn will wink its shimmery eye at me from that distant horizon and speak its promises. In these hollow empty streets, lit up from the inside by dozens of neon razors, I might find myself welcome once again, find an autumn air which is not yet ice inside my nostrils and breathe it with zealously and compassion. Rediscover that old familiar sound, the crunch of grit in the heart of the city, a city with no bounds, no confines, only roadblocks of ambition and bravado. Nights alight in the cold stone whitewash of the moon. Edinburgh, London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Dubai, Sydney, Tokyo; once the siren songs of the twisted mind of an adolescent girl in conflict with the sanctum of her windowless soul. A girl dared to tread a million miles, through a million hills and down again to find out the meaning of it all. There is no amount of gold or riches, love or power in the world which rivals the need for a journey written into the heart of a child. A child who fighting for the will to speak in for a world which turns inside her in all the emotional hues of the greatest symphony. It was a desire to see greatness in grit, joy in fear, and the meaning in struggle. To bear witness to the god that sighed oceans of tepid coloured rain clouds into her mind. To understand the perfection of the imperfections that weave the web of serendipity. Which is to say, it was to know oneself. To feed on the caress of your own past and  spit the ashes of old selves into the fiery eye of the setting sun. 

To believe once again that you can and should live, boldly, unashamedly and  for the sheer inexcusable pleasure of it. 

Simply because,

that is what we do.

             

Smoke Signals

-->

He rocked side to side with a cavernous grin. Red wine lips, stained teeth with the gaps in-between, sliding his words like refuse from a cutting board pulling them down down piece by piece to land in a nonsensical pile. I sat glazed and numb at the endless stream of passion and misery–like a vacillating rubber ball bouncing between complete insanity and borderline genius.  It seemed in so many ways that my days had never been so empty. Devoid of any real meaning they spun away, one by one, into the past behind me, never to be seen or thought of again. A strange type of limbo had rolled in on me like a storm from the sea and cast my days in a haze of putrescence and mendacity. He pulled me in close like a deranged boa constrictor and I held his broken fingers and strong arms like a baby, sick with lacking, sick with fear, sick with a pervasive neediness that coursed from vein to vein. Rock me gently, rock me slowly broken man.

I was a series of incomplete satires of a functional human being. I remember all those humid sleepless nights, caught inside a thought, spinning my way from room to room. Tea, or hot coffee, and a sunrise, a brisk jog and a faltering start towards adulthood. Perpetually manic and hungry. It’s hard to comprehend just how something so meaningful and driven could collide with such emptiness and drift. It was almost unbelievable. To the point where I half expected some wild boar of inspiration to come charging through the front door and drive me onwards to some great destiny. Instead I just waited, chasing the clouds away with respiration. This is how you get caught inside the demented worlds of deranged men and wayward children’s fantasies. The emptiness sets you free, but it also makes you directionless and malleable. Free to wander in and wander out of anywhere, to decide without hesitation to become a ghost on the lips of any other outsider. That is what travelling is mostly. Removing the endless tourism and any connection to your previous self to dine on the nothingness every night; be it a quiet peace or deafening silence.

He used to beat me senseless with his words. They flew like big fat globular punches to the face–right, left, right left–again and again until I would submit to the silence within me, submit to calm his angry tirades of stupidity and narcissism.  This man was like a twist tie I found locked around my shoe. On and on he would go, up and down each street, scraping the pavement like an irritating whistle. I felt insane. I felt like I was slowly being rendered, cooking inside myself. I would kick and scream the monkey beside me trying to scrap the shoe against barbedwire. He would only stick harder. And I would only scream louder. And bottles would fly and punches would land. And then it was all spit and spanking and heaving myself into a submissive ball of bones and flesh and indifference. We would hold each other, but only to make the spinning stop. And his eyes would glaze, and his mouth would gape in a tonsil-bearing laugh. And sometimes I would laugh too and wonder in a part of me what exactly we were laughing at. Perhaps it was just some of the absurdity escaping. Little giggles like bits of dust from the unused doily on the side table at grandmas house where she sometimes put candy before she died. But I could never forget the disappointment of that white crocheted circle when it was empty; because it was either Worthers Originals and a place to hide, or Wheel of Fortune on the puke green couch that smelled like Epsom salts and old newspapers.

Adventure

You have no idea what I've seen.

The icy winds,

the thundering waves.

You have no idea the places i've been.

To have been free,

on the wings of adventure.

Even in You

My loving of you

does not make me weak.

My loving you,

despite your withheld love for me

does not make me foolish.

My loving of you,

despite your lack of respect,

and your deep ignorance,

of just how profound and amazing

my love really is,

even this,

does not make me stupid.

In fact,

it makes me incredible.

That I could find something to love

still,

even in you.

Assumptions

I have to be practical.
I have to be clean.
I have to be efficient.
I have to be on time.
I have to be rational.
I have to be measurable.
I have to work hard.
I have to apply myself.
I have to achieve.
I have to succeed.
I have to excel.
I have to contain.
I have to explain.
I have to be smart.
I have to be thin
I have to be pretty
I have to be loving
I have to be kind
I have to be a good person
I have to go to yoga
I have to medicate
I have to have a family
I have to have a dog
I have to love my parents
I have to have a mentor
I have to travel
I have to do thing better than you
I have to compete
I have to get good marks
I have to provide for myself
I have to save trees
I have to recycle
I have to have an opinion on politics
I have to vote
I have to get in line
I have to stand in line
I have to pay my dues
I have to struggle
I have to be grateful
I have to love myself
I have to feel great
I have to have fun
I have to be fun
I have to get up
I have to be a morning person
I have to eat healthy
I have to be strong
I have to have friends
I have to have a partner
I have to be loved
I have to be social
I have to know culture
I have to be witty
I have to be cute
I have to smile
I have to wash my face
I have to brush my teeth
I have to read
I have to write
I have to play an instrument
I have to plant a garden
I have to clean my house
I have to rise to the top
I have to know geography
I have to learn new languages
I have to say something useful
I have to help you
I have to examine my life
I have to spell properly
I have to do math
I have to hear my heart song
I have to be loved by attractive people
I have to be loved by smart people
I have to hate the wrong things
I have to love the right things
I have to nap
I have to get 8 hours
I have to push through
I have to go to bed earlier
I have to get up on time
I have to do it anyway
I have to put my nose to the grindstone
I have to pay attention
I have to play the game

I have to
be authentic. 

I am a series of ongoing, incomplete assumptions.

Aurore

Pierced,
by warming dew,
the dripping leaves
fall,
like the tears of trees.

Echoes of a lonely night,
lost rays,
of dead sunshine,
nothing left but steam,
and cold water
to trickle down gutters,
along with,
the debris and hubris,
drunks,
and disease. 

A diesel engine roars,
and nighttime flickers,
casting an auburn stare,
of panoramic golds,
an inspiring obligation,
for a few old bones,
who quiver and ache,
from the bitter taste,
of daylight.

Oh the the moment,
between night and day,
to be up in the rising swell,
witness to the turbulent parade
mixing our before and afters,
on a timeless interstate. 

Of all the things there are to see,
this is the one,
that will always be precious to me.

Until She Does

The night mocked me with its' shadows,

soul-less herds on parade

down the boulevard.

Keeping time with the doors that smile 

that crooked smile,

in the false luminescence

of a wayward street light,

sickly orange hued madness

that pierced my eyes,

and turns my guts into;

a sleepless madhouse.

It's easy to believe

we're all broken in the night

and to find yourself wandering,

amongst the miscreants.

I am haunted by,

what I cannot achieve

but more so tortured;

as those empty promises

ring the bells

of half past three

and go echoing down,

these empty concrete corridors.

Her eyes spoke to me the words,

which hid from her mouth,

as she cast about for meaning,

in the din and hollow,

staring into

one good eye,

begging to be seen.

Here's to an internal life,

straight from the heart,

of the universe's ocean,

Where nothing will rest,

until she does. 

The Feel of Summer

the sun's golden rays
upon my face,
irrational and innocent
like that summer night's,
first kiss.

that humid air,
the slippery breeze,
which sits beneath the trees
and inside me.

tumultuous clouds,
asunder in an afternoon storm,
weak with excited exhaustion,
from one more swing
in noon day shadows. 

and those nights!
illuminated by a twinkling tapestry
that spreads on towards infinity.

where vulnerable skin,
meets cool inky darkness
and promises are made
that layer themselves so thickly
in the recesses of your mind,
that you'll loose yourself
and the rest of your life,
trying to peel them off
with the rational application,
of obligation.

it's no good. 

even love's most most passionate embrace,
cannot replace,
the feel
of summer.