Hi. Yeah, I’d like 2 all sawdust and soybean patties, not-so-special sauce, irradiated lettuce, processed cheese, pickles, onions, on a bleached, white, Wonder bread bun, please. To drink? Yeah, I’ll have a large, carbonated water, with sugar (glucose, fructose), unnatural flavours, caramel colour, caffeine. Go heavy on the phosphoric acid. No ice. Yeah, and an order of fries. Well, you too, have a beautiful day.

Bumtown I shrugged that mouthy devil off, so tired of his hot cough at my ear. And that prissy angel didn’t make a sound as she fluttered to the ground. I took off my packsack of shitty history, shoved it in a luggage locker, ate the key. Well I got one barefoot in the grave, but you know I’m just testing the water. And death’s too fucking cold for me. I pawned off all my broken hearts, bought some spare parts 'case my soul falls apart, traded in the chains for some patched up wings. This downtown strip’s just a runway for me. I’m the only bum in this bumtown that’s free. Last call at the Last Supper, I was drinking ale out of the holy grail. That brother with the halo hadn’t shut up yet so I said, “hey now waitress, bring my cheque.” I stuffed my pockets with holy bread, shouldered my cross, headed for the door, passed out drunk in a ditch, slept for 3 days, woke up, looked around, slept for 3 days more. If I had a dollar for every drink I drunk, I’d buy this whole room a round. Hell, if I had a dollar for every drink I ever drunk, I’d buy the whole fucking world a round. Brother spare me dollar, spare me a dime. I’ll spin you a tale as long as this ball of yarn of time. I’ll sing a barnyard song as off-key as this out-of-tune heart. But don’t you start thinking about it or you’ll end up just like me.

Crazy Dave Has anybody heard from Crazy Dave? I haven’t seen hide nor shaggy head of that boy in 4 years. You’d know him if you met him, man. He had long red Raggedy-Andy hair he’d wear in two pigtails, had a Harley Davidson handlebar moustache, wore workboots, baggedy-assed dirty jeans, 2 blue tattoos and a sunburn. Played harmonica like the cat lost his balls. Yup, Crazy Dave... had a toothy smile as big as my hand, always chewed on a toothpick or a long blade of grass, drank from the bottle, rolled the worst cigarettes, was impervious to insect bites, was one of the best damn tree planting highballers east of Prince George. Never went anywhere without his damn dog, german shepherd, name of Karma, completely loyal, sang in key to any Bob Dylan tune which is something even Dylan couldn’t do. Has anybody heard from Crazy Dave? Has anybody heard from Crazy Dave? Has anybody heard from Crazy Dave? Now the cat couldn’t spell to win a bet but he carried a battered notebook full of his poetry - more soul per square word than the Lord’s Prayer. He was the kind of guy that called a spade a shovel, a violin a fiddle, and a lady ma’am. I don’t even know why I think of him now, maybe because he never told me a lie he’d have to apologize for later, because he’d speak to a guy straight, eyeball to bloodshot eyeball, like he never even had a secret, or maybe because the last time I saw him he and his dog Karma were howling the sweetest blues out on a rock on Bad Vermillion Lake in Northern Ontario at 4 am. I remember, the full moon was hard-pressed to blink back her silver tears. And even the Aurora Borealis kicked off her dancing shoes, sat back, cracked a beer, and sighed “ooohhh, craaazy.” And that’s a fact, man.

The Tao of Joe Joe and I sit outside the used bookstore watching what Saturday does to the Southside. I’m trying to smoke his cigarettes faster than he can smoke mine. “Hey,” he says. “What?” I say. “Do you see that apartment building over there?” he says. “Which one?” I say. “That one,” he says, “the brown one with the puke coloured balconies.” “Yeah. What about it?” “How many people do you think live there?” “Jesus Joe, I don’t know, hundreds maybe thousands. I don’t want to do the arithmetic. Why?” “Well, it occurs to me,” he says (stroking his silly goatee in that thoughtful way that he has), “that that ain’t nothing but a filing cabinet for people.” I think about that. “Jesus Joe, next latte is on me.”

Clouds Been a while I been hiding out, sitting in my room under a big black cloud, wasting away days just staring at walls, waiting for the pain to work itself out. Oh babe look at me now. Oh babe look at me now. I’m whistling a tune and I’m walking on clouds, just kicking up my heels and laughing out loud. I don’t like being the neighbourhood crank, my angst leaking out all over the place, my face a blank like a broken brick wall, infecting everybody with my loss of faith. Oh babe look at me now. Oh babe look at me now. I’m whistling a tune and I’m walking on clouds, just kicking up my heels and laughing out loud. What doesn’t break me makes me strong. I kind of like being alone. Oh the days fly by like they were an hour long but the nights drag on. The nights drag on. There’s this woman been hanging around, I kinda like the way she stands on her ground. She lets her hair down and laughs like a clown. She spins when she dances around and around and around and around, around and around and around and around. And I’m doing cartwheels under the stars. I’m writing stupid poems about how beautiful they are, doing somersaults and handstands, I’m kicking out the jams. I’m beating out crazy rhythms on my pots and pans. I’m jumping like a goof on a hot tin cat. I’m throwing my heart under your welcome mat. I’m racing through the hills. I’m running through the flats. I’ve been up so far downtown who knows where I’m at? Oh babe look at me now. Oh babe look at me now. I’m whistling a tune and I’m walking on clouds, just kicking up my heels and laughing out loud.

Light Fixture In my kitchen is one of those old-timey light fixtures you used to find in old country homes, looks like a glowing upside-down mushroom. One day, my roommate Luann said, “those flies in the light fixture drive me nuts. It’s gross.” I looked up. I’d never noticed the 20 or so dead flies collected in the centre of it. In fact, up until that point, I’d never noticed the light fixture. “Those are just dead flies in there,” I said. “It’s gross,” she said. “One day, I’m gonna take it down and clean it.” “Whatever,” I said. That was a couple of months ago. Now, I can’t seem to walk into the kitchen without my eyes straying to the collection of dead flies up there - just a sort of gray shadow of death hanging over the kitchen table. Eating at that table is kind of like having a picnic under a hanged man. I find myself sitting there in the morning wolfing down a bowl of granola contemplating the deaths of those flies. How did they get in there in the first place? And once inside, how did they die - slowly roasting, suffocating? Did they land on the hot bulb on purpose to get it over with or did they give up the ghost due to natural causes - old age, cancer, AIDS, car accidents, etc...? I wonder - how would it feel to have such a short life flash before so many eyes? Someday, somebody in this house is going to drag their sorry ass onto this kitchen table, unscrew the screws from the ceiling, take down that light fixture and clean it. Tell you one thing folks, it won’t be me.

Charlie Brown This guy in high school had a head like Charlie Brown: greasy hair that showed which side he slept on, acres of freckles, pimples, bulletproof glasses that magnified already bulging eyes. There was something bovine about his expression, like a cow after the shock, before the descending blade. We all instinctively sensed that he was easy meat so we sharpened our words and ridiculed him until he bled and even his few friends joined in the slaughter for their own fragile safety. Once, he phoned up this woman, told her that he was a cop, that he had something urgent to tell her and to meet him in the park. The cops found him waiting in a grove of trees with an ice-pick. It made the local papers. When he was released, stupid Charlie followed another woman home, attacked her in the hallway, but she was stronger than he, pushed him down the stairs, got inside her apartment, locked the door, phoned the cops. Charlie. I sat near him in the school orchestra. He played viola.

Dancing Girl Just a dot on a map, a spot where your finger stops when you close your eyes and spin your own private world. Such a big patch of grass. A flag unfurls and the marching bands still marches on. You spin your legs and twirl your baton. Good girl, dancing girl. Good girl, dancing girl. Just a point in time, a moment where a line intersects a line somewhere in your mind. Dad puts on his jacket, tells you to hurry up ‘cause the show starts at 9. You got the lead in the Nutcracker Suite. Good girl, dancing girl. Good girl, dancing girl. chorus: Your dreams curled up and went to sleep inside of you, a slumber so deep only the kiss of a prince could revive you. If only he could recognize you dancing girl. Oh, dancing girl. Oh, dancing girl. Open up your eyes. Pull yourself from those other places, those other times. Up come the lights. You look upon those stony faces, those hungry eyes. You step your steps, take off your dress. Good girl, dancing girl. Good girl, dancing girl.

The Big Beat Speak I remember whirling lights, sparks whipping up and spinning out like frightened fireflies, tornadoes of intense colour: orange, yellow, red, white, flames highlighting sweat, flashing across your flesh: breasts, hips, arms, legs - you dancing life, you dancing death the night the Big Beat chose to speak. I remember Beelzebub played rubadub on a big old oil drum stretched with human skin, rattled chains strung with teeth. And the jester, smelling profit, set up shop in the shadows by the trees, sold cut-rate crowns of thorns, musky resins and scrap metal jewelry. He showed you how to paint your face and you paid him with lies and he died laughing. We buried him in a shoe box and nobody remembers the whereabouts of the grave. Gypsies told fortunes around the fire with bubblegum cards, smoked Lebanese hash, ate deep-fried American beans from the can, and Shakespeare played with snakes as the tattooed man upped the stakes the night the Big Beat chose to speak. Somebody yelled, “last one in is a rotten egg,” so everyone ran for the lake. White asses, like balloons, bobbed across the beach. Splashes and shrieks echoed from the cliffs and I cooked up an omelette. I watched a thousand bats writing your name in the night sky. And Jesus would’ve walked across the water but he turned it into wine instead and couldn’t walk a straight line. He had his time with the waitress from the Wildcat Cafe anyway. I know because I heard her shriek out his name, “Jesus Christ, ooohhh, Jesus Christ...” I picked up a 3-string guitar and sang songs to you from the dock, watched your ex-lovers drowning, swept out to sea until they became little dots... then nothing. I remember wondering why tonight, of all nights, in an endless succession of nights, why would the Big Beat choose to speak? Well, who can foretell the convergence of points? Who can plot with pencil and compass the turning of all these things? Who can remember their true names? And who can profess to understand the words of the Big Beat when it chooses to speak? Hallelujah! The universe turns inside out like a dirty old sock and my innards tighten against the shock. Hallelujah! Comets split the sky. The cow jumps over the moon. The clouds roll over us and the thunder thunders like Jaco Pastorius. And not once, but thrice, the solstice moon is eclipsed, turning our souls to ice. Oh! May the fallen stars rise again. May the sky bleed. May the sun bloom. Hallelujah! All the old wounds open again and I weep for the old pain anew, anew. The Big Beat speaks. The Big Beat speaks. The Big Beat speaks again. It’s at times like these, quiet times, that I roll the past around in my mouth for a taste of what once was and I ask unanswerable questions. How much love has to be lost before we become completely exhausted? How many unspeakable things must be spoken before we are blessed with silence? And I ask you sister, where does the time go, in which direction and how fast was it moving when you saw it last? And I ask, where is there a sacred place to bury all my dead? And I ask, did you hear the Big Beat speak? Did you hear the Big Beat speak? Did you hear the Big Beat speak? And when lover, sister, friend, when will it speak again?

Vampire He wants to be a vampire, a lifestyle he thinks would match all the black dye in his hair, the black widow spider tattoo on the side of his scalp, his scary jewelry, prominent cheekbones and wardrobe of shadows. He wants to be a vampire! Why not? He stays up all night, sleeps all day, hates the beach, wants to live forever. And wouldn’t it be cool, he thinks, to chill his victims with his calculating stare, suck their blood straight from their jugulars and chuck their carcasses aside like so much trash. Oh! He wants to be a vampire. He’s done his homework: read every novel by Anne Rice twice, owns a copy of the Satanic Bible, has seen Silence of the Lambs 7 times, has a complete collection of Bauhaus dance mixes and his own crimping iron. Boo! He’s scary. Weekends, he gets all dolled up goes to the alternative clubs, poses, shows off his clothes. He knows all the gothic dance moves. He throws his body against the wire mesh on the dancefloor like he means it. He’s one of those straight guys that says he’s bisexual, does acid and ecstasy because it makes him feel sensual, fosters a fake english accent to sound intellectual. And he’s incredibly nervous, chews his nails to the quick ‘til they bleed, breaks down with asthma attacks, and his legs and arms are sticks, his complexion as pale as the underbelly of a fish. And he wants to be a vampire. Or else, perhaps, a hairdresser.

All Aboard The new kids on the block hang out on the corner, play hackeysack as the waitress from the café takes an order from the fattest man in the world. The bladers and the skaters weave through the traffic. The grungy little hippies all toke outside the gazebo. I can never go back to the way it used to be. I'm stuck in high gear, going forward, getting older, steaming onward, all aboard. They say that time's a point in a line where history meets the horizon. If so I'm a joy filled boy. I swing over the deep water. Suddenly I’m back at summer camp the year that Elvis died. We choked on cigars behind the mess hall. We experimented with alcohol. I can never go back to the way it used to be. I'm stuck in high gear, going forward, getting older, steaming onward, all aboard. I wish I could show you all the scenes that I have seen. All the pictures I could draw my friend, all the songs that I could sing. These are the things I have done, the trails I have run, the prizes won. If I knew now what I knew then I'd just do it all over again. I'm not broken yet. I refuse to forget the joy. I'm still a boy inside. When I'm an old man I'm gonna sit on my rocker on the porch, smoke home-grown, drink dandelion wine with a fender strat sitting on my lap. And when those whippersnappers whip by I'm gonna turn up the volume on my amp. In my slippers and my housecoat, I’m gonna match them note for note. And we never really die, we just lose our lustre. We are beams of light going forward, getting older, steaming onward, all aboard.

Trans-Dimensional Spider Slow day at work. No customers. I stand at the cash register, on duty, smoking, drinking espresso, trying to get a good caffeine buzz going, when I notice this small spider, about the size of the fingernail on my pinkie, crawl out from under a book of matches. It’s kind of cute, I think, furry, the hue of milk chocolate, friendly too. It raises one leg at me as if to say, “hello, have a nice day,“ or perhaps, “good-bye, been good to know ya,” for in a blink, it’s gone, as if it exited via a door hinged on thin air. I stand back, scratch my head and think - damn, if I knew in advance that flashbacks were going to be so goddamn friendly, I would have dropped far more acid when I was a kid.

Some Guy Downtown Some guy downtown walks past, jingling, jangling, scuffing worn-down cowboy boot heels against cement with each step. With bells ‘round his neck and a ring through his nose, a cacophony of noise wherever he goes, shakin’ his skinny white butt in his baggedy-assed, hole-in-the-knee jeans, bobbing his floppy muppet head and flapping his arms and hands against his thighs and sides to some goofy internal rhythm only he can hear. Oh! His so-neatly-trimmed van dyke! Oh! His so-black, so-hepcat sunglasses! Looking like the lead tenor sax player in the Sally-Ann band, man, moving a losing out-of-tune jive like some old hippie whole-lotta-love Volkswagen van backfiring and farting up the sidewalk, a big old glad-to-be-a-madman grin a jackhammer couldn’t crack smeared across his face. And I can hear him just a-chuckling to himself, clucking his tongue against the back of his teeth like he just ate some big old shit sandwich and doesn’t want you to know he loved it. Oh, jolly, jolly, jolly, man... like the world isn’t at war, like the human race isn’t committing suicide, like the air isn’t poisoned, like the water isn’t poisoned, like love, itself, is not poisoned... oblivious. I watch the damn fool walk into 2 lanes of high density traffic against the flashing don’t walk, don’t walk, don’t walk sign... a hero, a god-be-damned hero.

15 Spring Street I painted this fence with my own hands, danced in the garage to CHYM radio with a girl whose name was Sharron. Her aunt lived across the road. I babysat for her when I was 13 years old over half a lifetime ago. I mowed the grass ‘round the gardens in my jean shorts and my runners, fought with my brother in the living room. I hit him with the blunt end of an ax. He got mad and I got grounded. So I masturbated for a month in my attic room. The memories in this house leave a taste in my mouth. I shovelled snow for the Hendersons on the corner. They gave me cookies and Cokes. Old skin-flint Tucker next door gave me a dollar. My buddy Champ would whistle the secret code. I’d jump out of my bedroom window. We’d throw firecrackers off the rooftops. All the memories in this house leave a taste in my mouth. The guy down the block played saxophone as old man Schweitzer tended his prize-winning roses and chased us with a broom when we cut through his yard. The guy that owned the Minute Mart wouldn’t let me near his daughter so we met secretly at the arcade in the pool hall. All the memories in this house leave a taste in my mouth. I guess when you leave a place to long it changes while you’re gone. Suddenly you’re a stranger standing on the sidewalk. Oh I’ve been standing in this spot for an hour. Nobody’s stopped to say hello. Only this old house seems to know that I’ve come home. That’s not a tear on my cheek. It’s just sometimes my eyes leak when I say goodbye to somebody I used to know. And it’s not that I’m weak as I turn to leave 15 Spring Street. It’s just hard to turn your back on a home.

Hamilton, Ontario This crazy old man on Main Street in Hamilton, Ontario plays an outrageous squacking noise on the harmonica for loose change, inhaling, exhaling, wailing any old note, sounding like a bagpipe being eaten by a goat. He rolls his eyes, flails his free arm in circles, skips this crazy crippled-up dance, bobbing and stumbling up and down and around. It is the saddest sight you could ever look upon. And I’m standing in the smelter swelter summer stink of Hamilton, Ontario - eyes stinging with the yellow acid from Defasco and Stelco in the air and the diesel fumes gassed from the asses of the goddamn transit buses in the same t-shirt and black jeans I was wearing when I got on a Greyhound in Vancouver 4 days ago. Dumb bum broke. And I’m thinking, y’know, you reach a point, inevitably, where you can’t count on anything. You can’t count on the buses being on schedule or the bank being open. You can’t count on your lover to not love another for the month that you are gone. You can’t count on the functions of your body: your eyes to see clearly, your ears to hear, your heartbeat, your next breath, your spidey sense. You can’t count on the calendar, the clock or the weathervane, or that you’ve got it together when it’s obvious that the rest of this world is completely insane. You can’t count on the number on the cigarette package to connect you with the guy you met in the bar the night before who said he’d give you a free ride to Toronto in the morning. But you can always count on the fact that that crazy old man will be dancing around on Main Street in Hamilton, Ontario like a park pigeon with all its feathers caught on fire. And there’s some small piece of hope in that.

Political Correctness I ate this vegetarian rennetless cheese chapati at this vegetarian co-op restaurant on Commercial Drive in Vancouver. There was a his and her washroom labelled ‘humans’. Graffiti on the walls read, ‘FRUITARIANS RULE, VEGETARIANS ARE WEAK.’ I reached for some recycled toilet paper and thought... it’s at times like these I’d like to club a baby seal to death, spray it with aerosol hair spray, strap it to a nuclear missile and propel it into the ozone.

Pinocchio I work for the circus on the south side of this town. I’m the down clown with a smile painted over my frown. And like some rag doll that you found in the trash, you all kicked me around to get a laugh. chorus: I am Pinocchio obsessed with the length of my nose. Tangled up in strings, I been whittled down to my weary bones, whittled down to my wooden bones. I am Pinocchio obsessed with all the lies that I have told, cross-eyed. Oh, look how my nose has grown. Look how my nose has grown. This suit of clothes that you’ve woven me is much too stiff, too starched, can’t seem to bend my knees. There’s knots tied at the end of my sleeves. This costume doesn’t fit naturally. And this script you put into my hands is filled with words I refuse to speak. The longer words I don’t understand and the general tone reeks of hypocrisy. chorus: I’ve been a puppit jerked around on strings, been a tin soldier used to fight your heavy metal war, been wired up to your remote control. I performed every chore that you chose. The roses are bleeding. The violets are bruised. This is the bouquet I now send to you. One plus one is two, two plus two is four they say. better open up your door, time to settle accounts, you’re the one that’s gotta pay. Hickory-dickory dock, this mouse ran up your clock, jammed up the works now your time is up. And three blind mice, see how we run, better put down your butcher knife ‘cause one of us might have a gun. chorus: I work for the circus on the south side of this town. I’m the down clown with a smile painted over my frown. And like some rag doll that you found in the trash, you all kicked me around to get a laugh.

Winnipeg Bus Station Revelation Flat-busted in the Winnipeg Bus Station, my one-way ticket tucked into my left shirt pocket to keep it safe next to my still-beating, stainless steel heart. Greyhound bus departing in an hour, destination: dark realm of Hades via dead Saskatoon town and Edmonton. “Nice three-headed doggy,” I say scratching Cerberus behind one set of ears to keep him hushed. I’ve entrusted Charon to carry on my baggage: a guitar, some books, a bag of dirty laundry. I sip acidic coffee reeking of the polluted Styx from a styrofoam cup, feel it gnaw into the side of my empty gut, and goddamn! I scratch my stomach and sides in vain. Oh... now I remember. It was some days ago. I accepted from Eve’s uglier sister, an apple, which, like some dumb-assed Adam, I consumed and found wormy to the core. Dismounting, she showed me her heels and I paid for my meal with my 180 pounds of flesh now crawling with crabs. Damn! I don’t blame her though. Every serpent must gag on his own tail sometime, I suppose. It’s my fault my ass hits asphalt. Some of us never read the hieroglyphics, never heed the writing on the wall. But I know I’m not alone. Look around. See that woman there with the two boys in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle tennis shoes and Mickey Mouse sweatshirts tied to her wrists with telephone cords? She’s so bored and defeated. And the bum in the Sally-Ann suit picking the longer butts from the ashtray for a shred of tobacco to help cut the hunger. And the recession-battered businessman searching for solace in the Globe and Mail, smokin’ and chokin’ on his cigar. (The both of them, bum and businessman, have the same traffic accident faces, cracks spreading from the shattered windshields of their eyes, are only distinguishable by the cut of their suits, the cut of their tobacco.) And the long-haired son of a biker pushing a mop and pail, pack of smokes tucked into the sleeve of his black Iron Maiden t-shirt above his Harley-Davidson-forever-fuck-the-world tattoo. (Now does that cat judge his progress through life by how many slippery-when-wet signs he leaves behind?) By the can an Indian pushes shoepolish hash at 20 bucks a cheat gram on an out of work carny on the way to her dad’s funeral. The Indian’s love/hate knuckles are bruised, his left eye black and blue, “but you should see the other guy,” he says and laughs throwing his head back to display his lack of front teeth. And the security guard just watches but he’s given up on filling the demands of his uniform. He lights a cigarette, scratches his balls, yawns, and dreams of going back to daddy’s farm. Yup, just the no-win situation in the Winnipeg Bus Station, that’s all. Some of us never read the hieroglyphics, never heed the writing on the wall. Suddenly, a thin beam of revelatory light pierces the grimy skylight, focuses on my forehead, pries open my bloodshot inner eye. I feel the heat and the weight of it, my mind impaled by light. The interlocking varicose veins that lace through the very flesh of this universe are laid bare to me. I have been touched by the hands of God! (Though I can see he forgot to clean his nails.) Suddenly, I see the 7 billion hallucinations of grandeur that motivate us, the 7 billion pathways to the grave like a labyrinth of randomly chosen lost dreams and false beliefs, the 7 billion faces of God laughing as we beat ourselves yet again to our billions of knees. And suddenly, I know that it’s not your fault, my fault, their fault that we act out the same history over and over and over again, changing only the names and dates to protect the insane, not our fault that we re-write, romanticize and glorify to give meaning to our small grim lives, not our fault that experience becomes idea becomes symbol becomes empty of meaning, that spirit becomes religion, mythology, fairy tale, is forgotten, that value becomes money becomes debt and enslavement becomes death at the hands of thieves, not our fault that lost Atlantis becomes Ancient Rome becomes New York, Paris, Moscow, London, becomes the no-win situation in the Winnipeg Bus Station. Then, in a rush, the vision is hushed, the light shut off, and again I am as empty as my styrofoam cup, itchy as hell, hungry, hungover. I start to sift through pocket change, move in increments of nickels and dimes toward a fresh pack of smokes and I think of how alone we all are, how alone I am, alone with mother, brats, bum, businessman, janitor, carny, pusher, farmerboy security guard and a couple hundred crabs, alone, with my bus ticket next to my stainless steel heart, wearing my barbed wire crown, with my corroded soul, my punctured guts and my pretty, pretty face, alone, and strangely satisfied with it all.