Monday, February 22, 2010
[opening excerpt of] Drafts 5 Through 8 in Chapter 6
Good social workers don’t share my fear of action and conflict. Some of them crave it. The best ones have a conflict switch that shuts down their own feelings so they can strategically dissect the heightened emotions of others. They have bagfuls of touchless tactics. They can throw bureaucracy at anger, they can speak in calm soothing tones that smother panicked screeching, and they can use just the right language to help a client accept the blame for his own problems.
It’s not that social workers don’t see the way society crushes people. But good ones know they can’t do shit about it, so they focus on the possible. With time, effort and smarts they can change how a client deals with the world.
I’m not a good social worker. I’ve been fleeing conflict since I was a child. I ran from family conflict to join my friends, and I ran even further away as soon as I got a student loan. I fled Nova Scotia, returned to the big city of my early childhood with saving-the-world dreams.
My sister flunked out of high school, remained at home and worked full time at the local paper mill. During my undergrad I studied a lot of Freud-babble about family and childhood, learned strategies, tactics and techniques for counselling people who had suffered family trauma, or were living in dysfunctional situations.
These theories fascinated me but I never related them to my own family. We students had been warned about our tendencies to self-diagnose, usually incorrectly, when learning about new disorders and behaviours. I hardly thought about my family at all. I put them out of my mind, barely kept in touch. And in the case of my sister, our adult relationship existed only through my mother’s updates. Michelle and my stepfather never bothered to talk after she moved to the US four years ago.
I thought about Michelle after the blackout, the next time I rode the TTC. I got on the bus and saw the usual waves of humanity.
I had promised myself I’d be more open to people when the power came back, but when I saw them all I was hit with agoraphobia. I sat down at the front, where you’re supposed to stand up for the elderly and disabled. I pulled out my sketchpad and sketched the lot of them, all hobbled together, like a comic book proof before the colour artist does his magic. For the thousandth time I wished for Michelle’s talent.
By the time I found Sarah snoring on the couch I had too many historical thoughts swirling in my head to bother with her. I went to bed and thought about Michelle some more. I thought about the girl she was, her genius of creation, with talents that far surpassed anything I could ever hope to achieve.
I’ve been drawing since I was a child. Once I entered the workforce I took classes every week. It kept my hands busy, scratched the itch that my computer keyboard gave me every day. I learned the techniques illustrators have used since the pencil was invented to create reasonably hand-drawn facsimiles of buildings and trees and faces. But I was more craftsman than artist.
Then there was Michelle. She could do what almost no one in human history could do. She could make something out of nothing. Those models she made as an early teen progressed from representations of places she’d seen in books to thin-air creations. She invented entire cities writ small. Tradition was just her starting point. It taught Michelle more about what was wrong with how we live than it did about rules and techniques for success. Michelle could revamp tradition and innovate on it, bring in new techniques from the atmosphere, spit on the gods and the ancestors and come away victorious. She was the greatest city planner and engineer in North America. At least on a model scale. Real life was a different story.
In real life Michelle taught English as a Second Language to immigrants in Portland. It was honourable work but it wasn’t exactly earth-moving, for a genius. I thought about it all night, until my stomach hurt. I called in sick in the morning.
It’s not that social workers don’t see the way society crushes people. But good ones know they can’t do shit about it, so they focus on the possible. With time, effort and smarts they can change how a client deals with the world.
I’m not a good social worker. I’ve been fleeing conflict since I was a child. I ran from family conflict to join my friends, and I ran even further away as soon as I got a student loan. I fled Nova Scotia, returned to the big city of my early childhood with saving-the-world dreams.
My sister flunked out of high school, remained at home and worked full time at the local paper mill. During my undergrad I studied a lot of Freud-babble about family and childhood, learned strategies, tactics and techniques for counselling people who had suffered family trauma, or were living in dysfunctional situations.
These theories fascinated me but I never related them to my own family. We students had been warned about our tendencies to self-diagnose, usually incorrectly, when learning about new disorders and behaviours. I hardly thought about my family at all. I put them out of my mind, barely kept in touch. And in the case of my sister, our adult relationship existed only through my mother’s updates. Michelle and my stepfather never bothered to talk after she moved to the US four years ago.
I thought about Michelle after the blackout, the next time I rode the TTC. I got on the bus and saw the usual waves of humanity.
I had promised myself I’d be more open to people when the power came back, but when I saw them all I was hit with agoraphobia. I sat down at the front, where you’re supposed to stand up for the elderly and disabled. I pulled out my sketchpad and sketched the lot of them, all hobbled together, like a comic book proof before the colour artist does his magic. For the thousandth time I wished for Michelle’s talent.
By the time I found Sarah snoring on the couch I had too many historical thoughts swirling in my head to bother with her. I went to bed and thought about Michelle some more. I thought about the girl she was, her genius of creation, with talents that far surpassed anything I could ever hope to achieve.
I’ve been drawing since I was a child. Once I entered the workforce I took classes every week. It kept my hands busy, scratched the itch that my computer keyboard gave me every day. I learned the techniques illustrators have used since the pencil was invented to create reasonably hand-drawn facsimiles of buildings and trees and faces. But I was more craftsman than artist.
Then there was Michelle. She could do what almost no one in human history could do. She could make something out of nothing. Those models she made as an early teen progressed from representations of places she’d seen in books to thin-air creations. She invented entire cities writ small. Tradition was just her starting point. It taught Michelle more about what was wrong with how we live than it did about rules and techniques for success. Michelle could revamp tradition and innovate on it, bring in new techniques from the atmosphere, spit on the gods and the ancestors and come away victorious. She was the greatest city planner and engineer in North America. At least on a model scale. Real life was a different story.
In real life Michelle taught English as a Second Language to immigrants in Portland. It was honourable work but it wasn’t exactly earth-moving, for a genius. I thought about it all night, until my stomach hurt. I called in sick in the morning.
Labels: 2003, Fiction, subway novel, Toronto
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Drawing Lines
He took a pen and he drew a line
above one number, under another
He said 'ten years from this time
not a soul will fall asunder'
That was twenty years ago
Now four children play on swings
A fifth has no where to go
and no energy to bring
Welcome to the bottom of the poverty line
Watch those bombs fall on TV
Each could pay rent 3,000 times
They make apathy look easy
It's lonely at the top too
Welcome to the working poor
You won't suffer too little to do
12-hour shift to finish your chores
Café latte at table eight
Smile pretty for the ladies in prime
Work for welfare don't be late
Strangers watch your kids all the time
Welcome to the top of the poverty line
Not poor enough for subsidies
Dropped bomb pays rent just 2,000 times
Their apathy is still a breeze
above one number, under another
He said 'ten years from this time
not a soul will fall asunder'
That was twenty years ago
Now four children play on swings
A fifth has no where to go
and no energy to bring
Welcome to the bottom of the poverty line
Watch those bombs fall on TV
Each could pay rent 3,000 times
They make apathy look easy
It's lonely at the top too
Welcome to the working poor
You won't suffer too little to do
12-hour shift to finish your chores
Café latte at table eight
Smile pretty for the ladies in prime
Work for welfare don't be late
Strangers watch your kids all the time
Welcome to the top of the poverty line
Not poor enough for subsidies
Dropped bomb pays rent just 2,000 times
Their apathy is still a breeze
Labels: 2003, Poetry, politics, Toronto
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
A Good Driver
“I’m a good driver,” he said. “Been drivin professionally for 15 years never had one single accident.”
As he switched lanes the Tercel in the other lane quickly veered off the road into a telephone pole. With a quick glance over the shoulder he sneered, “Idiot! Probably drunk.”
Back to the passing lane he switched, forcing a black pick-up truck into the median, off of which it smashed-steel bounced into a swerving Mercedes, and together they careened into the ditch. Hearing the crash he exclaimed, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Well, that’s a Chinaman for ya. I’m not racist but those fuckers can’t drive worth shit!”
Looking back to the road he swerved to avoid a pedestrian and ran a red light in the wrong lane. Two cars driving perpendicular to us through the green were forced to swerve into cars stopped for the red, causing all four vehicles to explode.
“By Christ that was close!” he hollered. “Fuckin pedestrians!”
It was as he cut off a caravan and it swerved and flipped end over end six times in mid air that I turned on the television over his bunk in the back. The President was addressing the press, and through them, the nation.
“I, am a good pres-i-daant,” he drawled. “During my time in office I worked hard to build our great nation’s economy and protect our security, and nothing could affect my resolve!”
Just then a homeless man’s frozen body dropped dead. “What was that thud?” the President asked, scanning the assembled press corps for answers.
A giant drill broke sacred ground, the caribou starved and thundered into a pit of oil, and the locals joined the welfare line at the back. The President didn’t seem to notice. A two-tonne bomb landed in a remote southern village taking many lives and leaving many widowed wives hungry and wondering if there is something wrong with their country’s economic resolve.
“Today, thanks to me, we are a stronger, richer nation,” the President replied distractedly.
Then a transport truck ran him over, and I was distracted from that television when I heard the trucker say, “What was that thud?”
Secret service bullets came smashing through the windshield.
As he switched lanes the Tercel in the other lane quickly veered off the road into a telephone pole. With a quick glance over the shoulder he sneered, “Idiot! Probably drunk.”
Back to the passing lane he switched, forcing a black pick-up truck into the median, off of which it smashed-steel bounced into a swerving Mercedes, and together they careened into the ditch. Hearing the crash he exclaimed, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Well, that’s a Chinaman for ya. I’m not racist but those fuckers can’t drive worth shit!”
Looking back to the road he swerved to avoid a pedestrian and ran a red light in the wrong lane. Two cars driving perpendicular to us through the green were forced to swerve into cars stopped for the red, causing all four vehicles to explode.
“By Christ that was close!” he hollered. “Fuckin pedestrians!”
It was as he cut off a caravan and it swerved and flipped end over end six times in mid air that I turned on the television over his bunk in the back. The President was addressing the press, and through them, the nation.
“I, am a good pres-i-daant,” he drawled. “During my time in office I worked hard to build our great nation’s economy and protect our security, and nothing could affect my resolve!”
Just then a homeless man’s frozen body dropped dead. “What was that thud?” the President asked, scanning the assembled press corps for answers.
A giant drill broke sacred ground, the caribou starved and thundered into a pit of oil, and the locals joined the welfare line at the back. The President didn’t seem to notice. A two-tonne bomb landed in a remote southern village taking many lives and leaving many widowed wives hungry and wondering if there is something wrong with their country’s economic resolve.
“Today, thanks to me, we are a stronger, richer nation,” the President replied distractedly.
Then a transport truck ran him over, and I was distracted from that television when I heard the trucker say, “What was that thud?”
Secret service bullets came smashing through the windshield.
Labels: 2003, Fiction, short story, Toronto
Friday, September 07, 2007
Nothing but Flowers
I've been enjoying going through a bunch of old papers as I move into the new place. Here's one gem I had forgetten about. I wrote it as a short screenplay in 2003 but it was never made:
EXT – Day, Deep Woods
[A couple sits under the canopy of some trees gnawing on big hunks of raw meat, chewing and chewing slowly and disgustedly. They are both dressed in tattered business suits.]
JANE
Ten years of vegetarianism gone down the drain.
ADAM
Mmmm.
JANE
This is truly disgusting.
ADAM
(beat) I wonder how Jesus is doing without me running Hostile Takeovers.
JANE
I wonder how Tarik is doing without me to get his reapplication in order. He’ll never get his Thesta-Distatica patented without me to look out for him. He’ll probably be another victim of DigestCom in fact.
ADAM
Would you shut up?
JANE
Ooooh, do I detect a little lingering loyalty to the assimilation machine?
ADAM (moping)
No. I left for a reason you know. As much as I could go for some bruschetta and a café latte right now, I’d rather be here gnawing on this half burnt half bloody deer meat than carving up the corpses of small businesses to keep Jesus and the shareholders secure in the knowledge that anything innovative will soon be theirs. I’m just sick of talking about the city. We’re better off out here.
JANE
We’re miserable out here, Adam. This isn’t food, this is a dead animal. It’s not meat it’s flesh! And this isn’t living. God I have the shakes.
ADAM
Caffeine withdrawal?
JANE
I haven’t slept more than four hours a single night since we got here.
ADAM
You haven’t slept more than four hours a single night since university.
JANE
Yes but we’re supposed to be getting past that. What’s the point of caffeine withdrawal if you still can’t sleep at night? And what’s the point of sleep deprivation if you don’t have to work tomorrow-
ADAM (interrupting)
Oh we have to work tomorrow, girl-
JANE (interrupting)
Have to but can’t. How are we supposed to work when we’re shaking like this.
[Jane holds up her left hand to demonstrate. It’s shaking heavily and she has trouble even holding it up. It’s caked in dark deer blood.]
ADAM
Yeah, I know, I know. (beat) Not to mention our eyes.
[Camera shows close-up of a bloodshot red watery eye.]
JANE
Don’t remind me, please.
[Adam holds his lids open and leans in close to show Jane.]
JANE (ctd)
What I just say?
[She grabs Adam by the face and shoves his head away.]
ADAM
Seriously Jane what do you think is causing this eye thing?
INT. Adam at a computer, typing a financial report, with his eyes mere inches from the screen.
EXT. Back under the canopy
JANE (shrugs)
I dunno. My eyes are fine.
ADAM
Yeah but your ear looks like a head of cauliflower – mmm, cauliflower.
INT. Jane on the phone arguing about a rejected patent claim.
EXT. Back under the canopy. Jane gives Adam another face shove as he leans toward her ear with his mouth open and watering.
EXT – In an open field now, Adam and Jane are hovering over a fire upon which rests a boiling Teflon pot of dark green liquid
ADAM (shaking all over as if feverishly sick)
This better work, Jane.
JANE (very defensively)
Or what, Adam?
[Adam looks at her blankly but if looks could kill…]
JANE (ctd)
Whose dumbass idea was it to come out here again? Was it, hmm, maybe, I think, yes, was it – YOUR idea, Adam!
[Jane switches to a deep, goofy voice.]
JANE (ctd)
Oh, Jane, we’re stuck in a trap here. We’re working so hard we never have time for each other, and when we do I’m so stressed I can’t even get it up anymore. Oh Jane this life is too much work for too little reward – what’s the point of all our possessions if we can’t even enjoy them together, Jane? Oh Jane, let’s move out somewhere wild, build a lean-to and live like hunter-gatherers – we can be naked all the time. It’ll be our own Garden of Eden – except we can even eat the apples, oh Jane let’s do it.
[Jane switches back to her own voice, except angrier than we’ve yet seen her, she’s yelling at the top of her lungs now.]
JANE (ctd)
Well you know what? You may be Adam, but I ain’t no Eve, and there ain’t no apples on this godforsaken island!
[Jane storms out of sight. Adam stares deep into the brewing cauldron, pulls some small berries out of his breast pocket and squeezes a milky substance from them into the pot, and stirs with a stick.]
ADAM (calling over his shoulder)
Jane, I think it’s ready.
EXT. Back under the canopy. Jane and Adam sit sipping from two Second Cup stainless steel traveler mugs, making contorted disgusted faces with each sip. Jane occasionally looks like she’s going to wretch. They sit sipping for about 15 seconds, eyeing each other suspiciously, saying nothing.
EXT. Back to the wide open field. Adam is chasing Jane. She lets him catch her, hugs him, squirms loose, runs, lets him catch her again.
ADAM
Feeling better?
JANE
Oh Adam! What did you put in that tea?
ADAM
That was no tea Jane, it was espresso, espresso au natural.
JANE
Adam, some espresso, it was disgusting.
ADAM
I think it has potential. It must be healthy, look how much better we feel. I haven’t eaten for hours and I’m not even hungry. And I’ve stopped shaking. And so have you! And I don’t feel thirsty either, it’s a wonder drink. We just have to figure out how to make it taste good and we could make millions.
JANE
I thought you weren’t interested in making millions anymore.
ADAM
Well, I’m not, but, you know. (beat) I thought you were.
JANE
I just want to get out of the jungle.
ADAM
And go back to our miserable lives working non-stop, never seeing each other or our friends, consuming unstoppably, glued to our desks, stressed, sleepless?
JANE
Let’s work on this natural espresso. Show me what you put in it.
EXT. Over the fire and boiling pot again. Through the magic of time lapse photography we see Jane and Adam trying batch after batch, making a vast diversity of contorted faces until, eureka! They make a delicious batch.
EXT. Adam and Jane selling ‘Natural Espresso’ on the side of the road to Galiano tourists, thus curing the tourists’ caffeine withdrawal. They’re talking up the customers about city life, the beauty of nature but also how one misses the finer, higher culture things in life: the theatre, the ballet, the symphony, espresso.
JANE
Oh you can’t beat Karen Kain, Minigawa’s beautiful but she doesn’t have as much grace – that’s just how it is. I wish Karen Kain would perform again, even if she’s past her prime, she’ll always have that graceful beauty.
CAFFEINE CUSTOMER
Heather Ogden is something to watch. She’s very self-assured.
ADAM
Yes, she certainly is (beat) something to watch.
[Jane elbows Adam playfully. The customer thanks them, returns to her Prius with a travel mug full of a dark green brew, and drives away.]
JANE
We’ll be rich!
ADAM
Yes, rich because we’ll be in the city we love, with a job we actually believe in – bringing this great energy drink to our fellow yuppies, actually having conversations with people. And we can grow a rooftop garden that will supply us with all our raw materials. Rich indeed, a kind of wealth too few people know.
JANE
Whatever.
THE END.
EXT – Day, Deep Woods
[A couple sits under the canopy of some trees gnawing on big hunks of raw meat, chewing and chewing slowly and disgustedly. They are both dressed in tattered business suits.]
JANE
Ten years of vegetarianism gone down the drain.
ADAM
Mmmm.
JANE
This is truly disgusting.
ADAM
(beat) I wonder how Jesus is doing without me running Hostile Takeovers.
JANE
I wonder how Tarik is doing without me to get his reapplication in order. He’ll never get his Thesta-Distatica patented without me to look out for him. He’ll probably be another victim of DigestCom in fact.
ADAM
Would you shut up?
JANE
Ooooh, do I detect a little lingering loyalty to the assimilation machine?
ADAM (moping)
No. I left for a reason you know. As much as I could go for some bruschetta and a café latte right now, I’d rather be here gnawing on this half burnt half bloody deer meat than carving up the corpses of small businesses to keep Jesus and the shareholders secure in the knowledge that anything innovative will soon be theirs. I’m just sick of talking about the city. We’re better off out here.
JANE
We’re miserable out here, Adam. This isn’t food, this is a dead animal. It’s not meat it’s flesh! And this isn’t living. God I have the shakes.
ADAM
Caffeine withdrawal?
JANE
I haven’t slept more than four hours a single night since we got here.
ADAM
You haven’t slept more than four hours a single night since university.
JANE
Yes but we’re supposed to be getting past that. What’s the point of caffeine withdrawal if you still can’t sleep at night? And what’s the point of sleep deprivation if you don’t have to work tomorrow-
ADAM (interrupting)
Oh we have to work tomorrow, girl-
JANE (interrupting)
Have to but can’t. How are we supposed to work when we’re shaking like this.
[Jane holds up her left hand to demonstrate. It’s shaking heavily and she has trouble even holding it up. It’s caked in dark deer blood.]
ADAM
Yeah, I know, I know. (beat) Not to mention our eyes.
[Camera shows close-up of a bloodshot red watery eye.]
JANE
Don’t remind me, please.
[Adam holds his lids open and leans in close to show Jane.]
JANE (ctd)
What I just say?
[She grabs Adam by the face and shoves his head away.]
ADAM
Seriously Jane what do you think is causing this eye thing?
INT. Adam at a computer, typing a financial report, with his eyes mere inches from the screen.
EXT. Back under the canopy
JANE (shrugs)
I dunno. My eyes are fine.
ADAM
Yeah but your ear looks like a head of cauliflower – mmm, cauliflower.
INT. Jane on the phone arguing about a rejected patent claim.
EXT. Back under the canopy. Jane gives Adam another face shove as he leans toward her ear with his mouth open and watering.
EXT – In an open field now, Adam and Jane are hovering over a fire upon which rests a boiling Teflon pot of dark green liquid
ADAM (shaking all over as if feverishly sick)
This better work, Jane.
JANE (very defensively)
Or what, Adam?
[Adam looks at her blankly but if looks could kill…]
JANE (ctd)
Whose dumbass idea was it to come out here again? Was it, hmm, maybe, I think, yes, was it – YOUR idea, Adam!
[Jane switches to a deep, goofy voice.]
JANE (ctd)
Oh, Jane, we’re stuck in a trap here. We’re working so hard we never have time for each other, and when we do I’m so stressed I can’t even get it up anymore. Oh Jane this life is too much work for too little reward – what’s the point of all our possessions if we can’t even enjoy them together, Jane? Oh Jane, let’s move out somewhere wild, build a lean-to and live like hunter-gatherers – we can be naked all the time. It’ll be our own Garden of Eden – except we can even eat the apples, oh Jane let’s do it.
[Jane switches back to her own voice, except angrier than we’ve yet seen her, she’s yelling at the top of her lungs now.]
JANE (ctd)
Well you know what? You may be Adam, but I ain’t no Eve, and there ain’t no apples on this godforsaken island!
[Jane storms out of sight. Adam stares deep into the brewing cauldron, pulls some small berries out of his breast pocket and squeezes a milky substance from them into the pot, and stirs with a stick.]
ADAM (calling over his shoulder)
Jane, I think it’s ready.
EXT. Back under the canopy. Jane and Adam sit sipping from two Second Cup stainless steel traveler mugs, making contorted disgusted faces with each sip. Jane occasionally looks like she’s going to wretch. They sit sipping for about 15 seconds, eyeing each other suspiciously, saying nothing.
EXT. Back to the wide open field. Adam is chasing Jane. She lets him catch her, hugs him, squirms loose, runs, lets him catch her again.
ADAM
Feeling better?
JANE
Oh Adam! What did you put in that tea?
ADAM
That was no tea Jane, it was espresso, espresso au natural.
JANE
Adam, some espresso, it was disgusting.
ADAM
I think it has potential. It must be healthy, look how much better we feel. I haven’t eaten for hours and I’m not even hungry. And I’ve stopped shaking. And so have you! And I don’t feel thirsty either, it’s a wonder drink. We just have to figure out how to make it taste good and we could make millions.
JANE
I thought you weren’t interested in making millions anymore.
ADAM
Well, I’m not, but, you know. (beat) I thought you were.
JANE
I just want to get out of the jungle.
ADAM
And go back to our miserable lives working non-stop, never seeing each other or our friends, consuming unstoppably, glued to our desks, stressed, sleepless?
JANE
Let’s work on this natural espresso. Show me what you put in it.
EXT. Over the fire and boiling pot again. Through the magic of time lapse photography we see Jane and Adam trying batch after batch, making a vast diversity of contorted faces until, eureka! They make a delicious batch.
EXT. Adam and Jane selling ‘Natural Espresso’ on the side of the road to Galiano tourists, thus curing the tourists’ caffeine withdrawal. They’re talking up the customers about city life, the beauty of nature but also how one misses the finer, higher culture things in life: the theatre, the ballet, the symphony, espresso.
JANE
Oh you can’t beat Karen Kain, Minigawa’s beautiful but she doesn’t have as much grace – that’s just how it is. I wish Karen Kain would perform again, even if she’s past her prime, she’ll always have that graceful beauty.
CAFFEINE CUSTOMER
Heather Ogden is something to watch. She’s very self-assured.
ADAM
Yes, she certainly is (beat) something to watch.
[Jane elbows Adam playfully. The customer thanks them, returns to her Prius with a travel mug full of a dark green brew, and drives away.]
JANE
We’ll be rich!
ADAM
Yes, rich because we’ll be in the city we love, with a job we actually believe in – bringing this great energy drink to our fellow yuppies, actually having conversations with people. And we can grow a rooftop garden that will supply us with all our raw materials. Rich indeed, a kind of wealth too few people know.
JANE
Whatever.
THE END.
Labels: 2003, Fiction, short story, Toronto
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Ongoing Rendez Vous with Nymphoneous Angel
The Ongoing Rendez-Vous With a Nymphoneous Angel
I. Nymphoneous Angel
With the Power
of Your glory
With Christ on your side
Who am I?
To be so welcome inside?
In my matchstick hovel
rags strewn across the floor
eyes intensely gazing
at my hot mail's bores
commercial intrusions
masquerading as information
then you came knocking
at my door
With your do it for hims
and your do it for hers
Your flock of boys
and Your downtrodden girls
all of them have been touched
by your love
in my tomb of introversion
my joy at rare calm
the unexpected explosion of my heart
was destined all along
for one with such power such passion
that to ignore it completely
would be mortal sin
to not open myself
and let your wisdom in
would be betrayal
of God
and of the angels
You who tell me
you are an old woman
You who dances
like tomorrow
You who ask me
'who am I to judge?'
You who'd rather give than borrow
With the Power
of Your glory
with Christ on your side
Who am I ?
to be so welcome inside?
With sunlight laughter
in a dark dance cave
who was he to think he could touch you?
Yet still somehow
you let his impression be made
another in a stream of twilight stories
of humans in the valley
living lives made just for them
each special each lucky to be alive
On the long drive home
there was a small man's rant
how foolish you did prove him
with his Descartes and his Kant
he was a lost citizen
in need of sorrow
was there confusion
surrounding the fortune that I fled?
forgive me if the ego
was yours that I bled
but my quota for joy
was reached until the morrow
And besides
With the Power
of Your Glory
With Christ on your side
who was I?
to be welcomed inside?
In my business man's stance
I shift stiffly in bravado
it's my uniform my costume
my young fool's intifado
at your glance at your grin
it fades and recedes
like the remnants
of some politician's motto
the records remain
but who consults them anyway?
to even get an inquisition
somebody big gotta pay
and even then
the details converge in a murky blur
and you're all that's left of my day
so my colleagues can cry
when my partition falls down
or they can hang their jealous heads
when I'm no longer around
I guess I'll be with you
cleaning the underside of your wing
proudly relinquishing my sins
And all those useless little jewels
to which we used to cling
will fall into the hands
of the minions still within
While we fall into deep slumber
but with the Power
of Your Glory
with Christ on your Side
who am I?
to be so welcome inside?
In the midst of allegations
you danced to sweet liberty
from boredom you protected me
but what could I
an infidel in chains
ever do to protect you?
from your gunpowder past
the hands that hurt you
and fed you
And how could he
make sin of his own flesh and blood?
and how could anyone
think they could control you?
With the Power
of your glory
With Christ on your side
who am I?
to be so welcome inside?
Of course there's a past
we all must bear
a gentrified horror
too painful to share
but you
put the truth
out on trial
in the face
of your mirror
there was no room
for my denial
You like a bird
far from the flock
With your baseboard guitar
and your homemade frock
who was I?
to deny
your presents?
It is said that time
will erode all things
but passion once gone
shall return like sins
each new moment each new touch
brings deeper awe
but as these things age
awe becomes wonder
What fool could think he would capitalize
from you?
When each of your lessons is about giving
And why should we say
till death do us part
after you taught me
that life is for living?
freedom is fleeting
like dollar bills
And conclusions
are merely Hollywood fill
in a world
made of illusions
With your earnest words
your eyes of sky
With your Inuit nose
your swim in skin
you brought summer
one step closer
to eternity
Your sea of laughter
flooded me then
your philosophical nymph
invited me in
and it no longer mattered
that I felt silly
my relaxation
my unclenched jaw
was finally there
For this moment
and the fall that follows now
I'll stay with you
for this time this ongoing rendez-vous
I know and I feel happy
With your power Your Glory
Your righteous eyes
Thank you
for letting me inside
II. Symphonious Elevation
In a late summer’s
desperate night
A broken-winged raven
on the loose with heart ragin’
Who was I to think I could hold her?
A path of desecrated clowns
who stood in her way
but only an equally intense woman’s
worry could stray
into the night and calm her
Myself and my servant sitting shirtless
in sweat
Two clunking buffoons naïve
and wet
One cheers the other with ignorant spools
meandering lost plots on the tongues of fools
And I I fret with worry
As if I control the outcome
of beautiful bucking beasts
As if my anxiety mattered in the least
in the face of your history
But just when I presumed
all hope was lost
A cracking at my window
and the raven has returned
Who am I?
to be the one to hold her?
But it’s true it’s me she wants
in her hours of need
her outrageous anger
at a grown man’s greed
It’s me she clings to
and sanctifies with her trust
And thanks to her
I’m reborn
But slow-witted is my mind
and like an old goat I
cannot learn
And you cry hot tears
while I offer empty words
and I try to replace one cage
with another
My offer itself is innocent enough
it's immaterial and yet laden with stuff
it’s a bribe
it’s a risk we all know
it’s throwing away all the times
you forgave me
for making you think I was guilty
of something someone else had done
The cage I offered was brightly lit
And in it could be committed
no crime
But it was just another product
in an insecure world
where freedom is phony and costly
and control is even more false
So together we cried
while I realigned your spine
and our bodies fit perfectly
the perfect non-crime
All night
All night I held you
Who was I? Who was I
to hold you?
How fortunate we were
after your zigzag flight
that another world of lunatics
was locked in for a fight
and two rooms in their asylum
were freed
The way you took to the task
stripped to your waste
stripped the floor down
stripped me of false proud virtue
exposed to the world in hotbox sunlight
this was your domain
and the place you’d make a home
Who was I? Who was I
to hold you there?
What a fool I must have seemed
to invade your moonlit dreams
when I arrived among boxes
at your door
As I beckoned and commanded
in eight different languages
my cast and crew of twelve
Yet the whole team of us
with assistance from the stars
never really got that far
My possessions and habits
were left at your door
and my life was unlike
what it had ever been before
It was you
It was you who held me in
inside your door
It was you
who held me
inside our door
III. Serendipitous Journey through Solitude
In that early stage
of falling in Love
when tunnel vision
leads to the brightest light
Who were we to think we were alone?
We were so invincible
against the distance
strewn with the corpses
of other other’s love affairs
that no journey
seemed too harsh
no distance too far
and no obstacle too large
for us to barge through or skip around
The flight we chose
covered the fewest miles
into the darkest terrain
of memory
and psychoanalytic cat-food
a 20,000 league excursion
into the womb
of a small town the genesis of the man
whose parents hold the mirror
and the truth of me revealed
and we both faced
our greatest fears
about the other
about Love itself
as we celebrated
other young lovers rurally
with Latin dance songs
and beach walks where suddenly
the ancient age of ancestry was upon us
All those corpses zombified and we
experienced the birth
of love give birth
to god and space and time
and even to the surprise
of our own great egos
we aged with the ease of an old couple
seen through young eyes
blind to the bloody battles
of a lifetime of bitter compromise
Who were we to think we were alone?
There we waltzed and kissed
with great familiarity
the lone survivors
and compatriots
of a generation lost in time
But who were we to think we were alone?
When I held your head
and you purged your lifetime’s poisons
where were those more experienced?
Consummating what had just begun
yet still was older than our combined naivety
when we decided
you can dream reality
and dared
to speak of eternity
in the presence of the ocean
which cursed us with misunderstandings
The translocation of cultural norms
and expectations
the mysterious sealed doors
of emotional scar tissue
barring exuberant outreach
from the passion of the angelic nymph
Who were we to think we were alone?
We returned primarily confused
at first
and fused to my console I quipped
that first-time lovers need leave
for the first foray
when the obsession’s profundity
obscures grander objectives
and I could objectify only you
Summer lovin’ expedited winter
and I wondered
whether the rendez-vous
could survive frigid lock-down
The obsession proved consumptive
eating through my frozen dinner
leaving fresh organic produce
delivered by bicycle
You applauded vigorously
Your frenzied feathers
taking you higher above me
for me to see
the physics-defying enormity
of the pureness of your intention
and I begged you to cover me
in a blanket of unfettered snow
You obliged and we skated
melted ourselves in birch flames
accompanied by masochistic branch therapy
prism dives through ice-cube-holes
and buckets and buckets of beer
brewed by seraphic forest organisms
working symbiosis
like a national ballet
how could we stay separate
in circumstances like these?
Bondage the only answer
as the lake advised us
to ignore
the pessimistic warnings of the ocean
Who were we to think we were alone?
The elation of
fantastical French celebrations
toasting the connector
whose inspiration glued us
could not assuage oceanic uncertainty
Were we or weren’t we?
was the bondage for real?
Could we really be the first
among all those re-pats
to find refuge in a blizzard?
Who were we to think we were alone?
How could we have forgotten
the tundra traversed before us?
The fortitude of the Finns
forging ancient symbolism
into illicit contraband
(made right here at home
in the hailstorm
of the 5-year frost
frozen under Russian fire)
the ring that binds us
blissfully
making true my silly words
sermonized mounting on our bed
You be my Queen
I your King
We dance through winter
swim through ice
hibernate the summer
traverse toward some unknown
on all manner of roads
pathways and parabolas
drifting through branches of trees
and families inseparable
from each other’s smiles
stronger for knowing all routes
have been forged before us
Who were we to think we were alone?
I. Nymphoneous Angel
With the Power
of Your glory
With Christ on your side
Who am I?
To be so welcome inside?
In my matchstick hovel
rags strewn across the floor
eyes intensely gazing
at my hot mail's bores
commercial intrusions
masquerading as information
then you came knocking
at my door
With your do it for hims
and your do it for hers
Your flock of boys
and Your downtrodden girls
all of them have been touched
by your love
in my tomb of introversion
my joy at rare calm
the unexpected explosion of my heart
was destined all along
for one with such power such passion
that to ignore it completely
would be mortal sin
to not open myself
and let your wisdom in
would be betrayal
of God
and of the angels
You who tell me
you are an old woman
You who dances
like tomorrow
You who ask me
'who am I to judge?'
You who'd rather give than borrow
With the Power
of Your glory
with Christ on your side
Who am I ?
to be so welcome inside?
With sunlight laughter
in a dark dance cave
who was he to think he could touch you?
Yet still somehow
you let his impression be made
another in a stream of twilight stories
of humans in the valley
living lives made just for them
each special each lucky to be alive
On the long drive home
there was a small man's rant
how foolish you did prove him
with his Descartes and his Kant
he was a lost citizen
in need of sorrow
was there confusion
surrounding the fortune that I fled?
forgive me if the ego
was yours that I bled
but my quota for joy
was reached until the morrow
And besides
With the Power
of Your Glory
With Christ on your side
who was I?
to be welcomed inside?
In my business man's stance
I shift stiffly in bravado
it's my uniform my costume
my young fool's intifado
at your glance at your grin
it fades and recedes
like the remnants
of some politician's motto
the records remain
but who consults them anyway?
to even get an inquisition
somebody big gotta pay
and even then
the details converge in a murky blur
and you're all that's left of my day
so my colleagues can cry
when my partition falls down
or they can hang their jealous heads
when I'm no longer around
I guess I'll be with you
cleaning the underside of your wing
proudly relinquishing my sins
And all those useless little jewels
to which we used to cling
will fall into the hands
of the minions still within
While we fall into deep slumber
but with the Power
of Your Glory
with Christ on your Side
who am I?
to be so welcome inside?
In the midst of allegations
you danced to sweet liberty
from boredom you protected me
but what could I
an infidel in chains
ever do to protect you?
from your gunpowder past
the hands that hurt you
and fed you
And how could he
make sin of his own flesh and blood?
and how could anyone
think they could control you?
With the Power
of your glory
With Christ on your side
who am I?
to be so welcome inside?
Of course there's a past
we all must bear
a gentrified horror
too painful to share
but you
put the truth
out on trial
in the face
of your mirror
there was no room
for my denial
You like a bird
far from the flock
With your baseboard guitar
and your homemade frock
who was I?
to deny
your presents?
It is said that time
will erode all things
but passion once gone
shall return like sins
each new moment each new touch
brings deeper awe
but as these things age
awe becomes wonder
What fool could think he would capitalize
from you?
When each of your lessons is about giving
And why should we say
till death do us part
after you taught me
that life is for living?
freedom is fleeting
like dollar bills
And conclusions
are merely Hollywood fill
in a world
made of illusions
With your earnest words
your eyes of sky
With your Inuit nose
your swim in skin
you brought summer
one step closer
to eternity
Your sea of laughter
flooded me then
your philosophical nymph
invited me in
and it no longer mattered
that I felt silly
my relaxation
my unclenched jaw
was finally there
For this moment
and the fall that follows now
I'll stay with you
for this time this ongoing rendez-vous
I know and I feel happy
With your power Your Glory
Your righteous eyes
Thank you
for letting me inside
II. Symphonious Elevation
In a late summer’s
desperate night
A broken-winged raven
on the loose with heart ragin’
Who was I to think I could hold her?
A path of desecrated clowns
who stood in her way
but only an equally intense woman’s
worry could stray
into the night and calm her
Myself and my servant sitting shirtless
in sweat
Two clunking buffoons naïve
and wet
One cheers the other with ignorant spools
meandering lost plots on the tongues of fools
And I I fret with worry
As if I control the outcome
of beautiful bucking beasts
As if my anxiety mattered in the least
in the face of your history
But just when I presumed
all hope was lost
A cracking at my window
and the raven has returned
Who am I?
to be the one to hold her?
But it’s true it’s me she wants
in her hours of need
her outrageous anger
at a grown man’s greed
It’s me she clings to
and sanctifies with her trust
And thanks to her
I’m reborn
But slow-witted is my mind
and like an old goat I
cannot learn
And you cry hot tears
while I offer empty words
and I try to replace one cage
with another
My offer itself is innocent enough
it's immaterial and yet laden with stuff
it’s a bribe
it’s a risk we all know
it’s throwing away all the times
you forgave me
for making you think I was guilty
of something someone else had done
The cage I offered was brightly lit
And in it could be committed
no crime
But it was just another product
in an insecure world
where freedom is phony and costly
and control is even more false
So together we cried
while I realigned your spine
and our bodies fit perfectly
the perfect non-crime
All night
All night I held you
Who was I? Who was I
to hold you?
How fortunate we were
after your zigzag flight
that another world of lunatics
was locked in for a fight
and two rooms in their asylum
were freed
The way you took to the task
stripped to your waste
stripped the floor down
stripped me of false proud virtue
exposed to the world in hotbox sunlight
this was your domain
and the place you’d make a home
Who was I? Who was I
to hold you there?
What a fool I must have seemed
to invade your moonlit dreams
when I arrived among boxes
at your door
As I beckoned and commanded
in eight different languages
my cast and crew of twelve
Yet the whole team of us
with assistance from the stars
never really got that far
My possessions and habits
were left at your door
and my life was unlike
what it had ever been before
It was you
It was you who held me in
inside your door
It was you
who held me
inside our door
III. Serendipitous Journey through Solitude
In that early stage
of falling in Love
when tunnel vision
leads to the brightest light
Who were we to think we were alone?
We were so invincible
against the distance
strewn with the corpses
of other other’s love affairs
that no journey
seemed too harsh
no distance too far
and no obstacle too large
for us to barge through or skip around
The flight we chose
covered the fewest miles
into the darkest terrain
of memory
and psychoanalytic cat-food
a 20,000 league excursion
into the womb
of a small town the genesis of the man
whose parents hold the mirror
and the truth of me revealed
and we both faced
our greatest fears
about the other
about Love itself
as we celebrated
other young lovers rurally
with Latin dance songs
and beach walks where suddenly
the ancient age of ancestry was upon us
All those corpses zombified and we
experienced the birth
of love give birth
to god and space and time
and even to the surprise
of our own great egos
we aged with the ease of an old couple
seen through young eyes
blind to the bloody battles
of a lifetime of bitter compromise
Who were we to think we were alone?
There we waltzed and kissed
with great familiarity
the lone survivors
and compatriots
of a generation lost in time
But who were we to think we were alone?
When I held your head
and you purged your lifetime’s poisons
where were those more experienced?
Consummating what had just begun
yet still was older than our combined naivety
when we decided
you can dream reality
and dared
to speak of eternity
in the presence of the ocean
which cursed us with misunderstandings
The translocation of cultural norms
and expectations
the mysterious sealed doors
of emotional scar tissue
barring exuberant outreach
from the passion of the angelic nymph
Who were we to think we were alone?
We returned primarily confused
at first
and fused to my console I quipped
that first-time lovers need leave
for the first foray
when the obsession’s profundity
obscures grander objectives
and I could objectify only you
Summer lovin’ expedited winter
and I wondered
whether the rendez-vous
could survive frigid lock-down
The obsession proved consumptive
eating through my frozen dinner
leaving fresh organic produce
delivered by bicycle
You applauded vigorously
Your frenzied feathers
taking you higher above me
for me to see
the physics-defying enormity
of the pureness of your intention
and I begged you to cover me
in a blanket of unfettered snow
You obliged and we skated
melted ourselves in birch flames
accompanied by masochistic branch therapy
prism dives through ice-cube-holes
and buckets and buckets of beer
brewed by seraphic forest organisms
working symbiosis
like a national ballet
how could we stay separate
in circumstances like these?
Bondage the only answer
as the lake advised us
to ignore
the pessimistic warnings of the ocean
Who were we to think we were alone?
The elation of
fantastical French celebrations
toasting the connector
whose inspiration glued us
could not assuage oceanic uncertainty
Were we or weren’t we?
was the bondage for real?
Could we really be the first
among all those re-pats
to find refuge in a blizzard?
Who were we to think we were alone?
How could we have forgotten
the tundra traversed before us?
The fortitude of the Finns
forging ancient symbolism
into illicit contraband
(made right here at home
in the hailstorm
of the 5-year frost
frozen under Russian fire)
the ring that binds us
blissfully
making true my silly words
sermonized mounting on our bed
You be my Queen
I your King
We dance through winter
swim through ice
hibernate the summer
traverse toward some unknown
on all manner of roads
pathways and parabolas
drifting through branches of trees
and families inseparable
from each other’s smiles
stronger for knowing all routes
have been forged before us
Who were we to think we were alone?
Labels: 2003, love junk, Poetry, Toronto
