Category Archives: Poetry

Dying Beliefs

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Dying on a Monday
like a battery
a moth
a match
a monarchy.

Dying like
a bombing comedian
embracing the inevitable
as if it were
a plastic comb in the sink
or a large fuzzy mascot.

Dying
on the pavement waiting
for a meandering street sweeper or a
half-drunken janitor
to lethargically
collect what is left
of this detritus
this tangle of limbs
this withering ruckus.

Dying
to sing like the bird on the sill
just don’t want the reviews.

Dying to beat
the crowd
the drums
the record
the crossword.

Dying in the sun
and in the rain
and in the filth of your charade.

Dying on wholesale
at Costco
aisle 4:
the album
the musical
the sitcom of your life.

Dying beliefs
painting my clown face
with all of the things
I’ve done yesterday.

What They Do With Your Money Does Not Concern You

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Another administration carpet-bombing children
in the name of democracy
Another grinding financial forecast and
another impractical cost-saving device
Another improbable economic promise
trumpeted with prolific zeal during election year
Another half-hearted one-liner graveyard
Another insulting one-time rebate
Another legacy issue attributed to the open immigration policy
Another app for the produce section
Another uninspired song
manufactured by a team of award-winning producers
Another AI-induced psychosis
Another table full of doom scrollers
Another obvious divisive tactic applied by
another propagandist regime
Another underfunded vital community resource
signed off by another trust fund politician
Another prescription for another social malady
Another spam scam shazaam!!
Another encampment bulldozed as a solution
to growing economic disparity like placing a piece of torn tape on a rotted pipe and calling it fixed

Another way to make it all make sense:

Another space chicken rapture graffiti

Poncho Sumo Gaelic bazooka

Blah blah this air just wrecks my tiny, tired tin brain…

Another thirst trap on my feed

Dream Home

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Inside there are
books piled upon
books piled on
tables.

Broken calculators
blanket the floor.
Factory beige.

Cracks run underneath.
Insects chatter.
Moss grows.

Dead flowers in black vases
grace midnight windows
under fluorescents strips.
A lurid spectacle.

Dusty mirrors show long neglect.
reflections shunned like criminals.

A staircase descends into darkness
on the other side of a door
torn from its hinges.

All the floors
beneath the floors
and rooms behind
rooms behind walls
change between visits.

A stranger not certain
what they should wear.

Webs in darkened corners.
suggest larger things.

An empty trophy case lingers
at the far wall
crumbling
like a forgotten receipt
in a back pocket.

Close as a buried trauma.

Once the wind gets into this place
things become scattered.
Unmoored.

Once the night comes in
it’s hard to get it out
and it’s hard to understand
why.

Health Check

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The good doctor placed a stethoscope on my chest
and listened.
“This is quite irregular,” he said. “You only have half a heartbeat.”

“I know, Doc, I know…” I sighed.

“It’s shrinkflation.

It’s how I feel
about the coming election.

It’s an involuntary response
to the harsh reality of strangers
at the local Stop N’ Go.

It’s been silenced
by woke culture.

It’s been outsourced
downsized
and deregulated.

My dog ate it.
My ex wife and lawyer
had seconds.

It’s been sanctioned by the UN
for my role
In the energy crisis.

It’s in my back pocket
along with a receipt for something
that I cannot return

and a picture
of me with a celebratory blunt

at yet another summit
that wasn’t worth the hike.

How’s my cholesterol?

I Have Let it All Go

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A mind like an abandoned factory
A field from which you can hear birds
A blank yellow pad
An empty shell on the beach
A floating seed above the sea

This is how I operate
on a good day
on a bright day
on a clear day;

weightless
and joyful
-a nitrogen balloon.

I wander between
voids filled with
industrial noise

as a ghost from childhood
always there
and never
but

calmly tucked
into a soothing respite like

wind chimes
beyond the freeway or

a dark bedroom window.

I have let it all go.

I am a quiet place now.

Moment

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No matter how fast
you can’t catch it.

No matter how strong
you can’t lift it.

You can’t bottle it
You can’t measure it.

You can’t change it
and you can’t fix it.

But you can hold it
as long as you want to.

Some people
never let it go.

Like me.

So many times I
could have done it
differently.

So many moments
that I never left.

Introspection

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The head sinks
and disappears
between the shoulders.

The mind recedes into
a dark empty garage.

The hands freeze into fists
involuntarily and
legs threaten to abandon
the body.

The world becomes
all concrete and clowns.

Where is peace?
Where is your soul
but at home?

Just remember that
after you close and lock
the front door

shutter all the windows
pull down
the shades.

After you dim the lights
turn off the television
the radio and
close your eyes
upon the world
and yourself in it:

people
places
things

they never truly stop
bothering you.

Even when you’re alone.

Especially when you’re alone.

The door never fully
closes.

It all gets in
somehow
and stays there.

Lingering
across time and space

like dust in sunlight.

Daydreamer

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Daydreamer
with my eyes up to the sky
slowly slipping away
from the earth
when the pull
becomes too much.

This anti-gravity
gravity
gently tugging me
out from the room
up through the window
and into the clouds.

Weightless,
untethered,
I fall upwards
enveloped in blue.

Carefree;
I have become
so far away
-a ghost from a childhood story
living above the rain.

No time.
No fear.
No regret.

I’m never coming back
down
to this place.

At times
old,
webbed,
dead.

A vacant lot.
An abandoned garage.

I Am

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I float along
as a seed in the wind
a cloud in the night
a dream in the mind of a child
floats.

I am alone
fading into silence
a flash of light
in the darkness
a blast from a trumpet
a circus
a rocket
a riot.

I am
a drop of rain
on a weathered stone
an eye
through a keyhole
a wick in the candle
a gamble.

I am a face
in the window
a ghost
in the attic
a breeze
from the cellar
a bridge
and a river.

I am a saviour
a strangler
a stranger.

I am
the lifting of the curtain
the elucidation
the burden.

I am
the last bedroom light on
in the house
in this neighbourhood
in this world.

I am this world.