cracked pipes

imprints of Mexican children circumnavigate your curves;
the lady like bootlegger mudflaps covered the cracks
and saw all the pipes heating up till they busted
haiku's not written yet were already learned from an early age
You stepped from this world into a garden and the garden is You.
planted in sawdust and watered by cowboy spit-
at least you got off and out of the pot
Yage screenprints the mind in tide-dyes of ultraviolet
or was it infrared? I can never remember which is denser
or which caused the riot.
a priestess still taking confessions of remorse
Why, B. Did he do it?
broken toilet bowls spell out Y E S like alphabet soup once purged into its crevasses
porcelain dolls with cracked heads never made it that long anyways.
I stepped into the Garden and it was You.

Rose Street, Regina SK?

sought my twin in you

with incestuous purpose
now I lay me down

The Juggler

And there she sits,
Cinnamon-Cigarette twist lips
Elbow propped on a switch hip
Made of aluminum siding,
Where the aces are slipped
And a Vodka/Lemonade made lisp,
That drips

Off a tongue so young and so fine
Some angel divine, drinking whole boxes of wine
At a time

All her energy poured out
Like spilt milk
Not enough white tears to cry
Not enough ruined silk
It’s not enough to ask WHY
It’s not enough to show ILL
Shooting always to kill
Put your hands in the sky…

I do it for love,
And lay-down days of Vics Vapo Rub
To push with my eyes
When you’re too far off to shove
Beating back tears with a pool cue
Trying now to bewitch you
With my lies, with my thighs
And the way I preach Voodoo
But en lieu
She smokes crack out-back
And then tries to step to you

Here’s what cracks
Conscience when down in the sheets
On my back
All those bar-stools built flimsy
The wrought-iron they lack
This last minute attack
Of memories ground fine
As a white-dust gold mine
Of sodomy, a temporary full-frontal lobotomy
What was Theirs, what is mine
Hair-dryer left behind
Parking fines

Left unpaid
‘Til the last minute
When credit is due
The purple hue of an aura, out-shone by a few
Outdoing many,
And many more to out-do
Look at you
All gone-gone-gone so fine-fine-fine
I still have my name
And we’ll meet in due time.

Cartography: A Proof

I’ve seen the tongues of
rooftops splayed out like
maps charting the great
North American fresh-
water seas. From the
glimmering wings of
recycled trash, the once
mobile concrete appeared
to be eroding, as if it
longed for a ride on
the tarnished barges
shipping timber out east.

But from the top levels
of the City’s old schools
with the deep limestone
roots, the floors smell of
unsettled dirt and the
windows can’t be seen
through: the sooty
smudges of hand prints
disguise the city a
forest with rolling hills.

Hidden between intersecting
valleys, the sidewalks breathe
the damp air of fallen down,
hallowed out logs as they are
trampled upon by animals.
Blocks with broken windows
frame the avenues of birch
bark one-ways as the white
turns a dull, muddy brown
escaping beauty with age.

Now the smudges have come
alive, every color, every shape
reflect the cityscape a wilderness
of hate and difference and race.
It was in the schools these
traits were institutionalized and
went unchecked under monikers
of “higher education.” The English
language as precedent over the
dialect of foreign-born speakers.
Children separated if unable to
pronounce vowels, told they
were hopeless and left to
learn by themselves.

But up here, the past blurs
and neighborhoods abrogate
to nature, hills, and space.
The present shies away beyond
the dense ore canopy. The future
laughs what cerulean must sound
like to the lofty breeze

“Ahee Ahee ahee”
Over the lakes
“Ahee ahee ahee”
Over everything

This eventual echo of humanity
hooting: a nerve gas of laughter.
On top of the roofs I can see
the smiles on generations of
offspring slowly melt on the
hot tar of realization. The
colors of their peers have
always been poignantly
mirrored back at them

Did they know how
education would
prep them?

These children taught
cartography by teachers
drawing gridlines onto
human compositions?

Letter To Penthouse

The half-finnished beer
Blossoms with green glass
Like the breath of someone
Leaning in to tell an obnoxious story
Just close enough to your neck
So that the more ardent syllables
Find purchase on a lonely skin
That only prison tatoos
Can know the meaning of

"I like warrior women,"
You point out, while we watch
Nouveau Riche Sci-Fi
On the piracy purple screen
Made up all of silhouettes and static

You said that aloud, asthough
I'll take my que from such a statement

As if the man's supposed to give a fuck

I can not consumate
Your subsonscious desire to be dominated
When you've made it clear to me you have a
"Type"
I'm bored of this and of the rest

No matter where I hide
The Parkland or the Northern Lights
There is still coke in the bathrooms
Like neat piles of dry-wall slowly crumbling
And blocking up the shortwave
Nose to brain
Turning voices loud and obtrusive
Soundbites flooding in, over-capacity
The echoing drip from inner stalactites
The infection that lingers on my more private arm
The weather, coming in spells

I have had enough, and dramatically
Have torn the looseleaf free and begin:

"Dear Penthouse;
Two girls take me out to a secluded acreage..."
Leaving out the alpine smell
And the intoxicating sweat that a female delivers
Jumping on a trampoline, the way that nylon
Pulled taught
Is just like any other muscle of the body
The restless horses next door
And pitcher of spiked lemonade
The laundry left
Undone.