February 11th, 2005
Sucking a Whale's Blowhole

Well, I'd like to have written a bunch of shit today.

Maybe the conversation me and Marvin Gander had about launching an erotic new business opportunity.

Maybe the sting that the Edmonton police service launched at me for driving an illegal ambulance.

Maybe the kick in the balls that illegal ambulance fines are, and how they remind one of failing to follow through on certain details, which is where god and profit margins lie, and how that leads, in the end, to certain financial ruin.

Maybe about how I once knew a gambler and at one point, I wished he would just put the gun in his mouth one day and make everyone else happy. Or at least make me happy. Fuck, I wish he'd shot himself.

Maybe I would detail the exciting events sure to happen when the Valentine's Massacre went out on the road. To deliver one book.

Maybe I would obsess a bit about how excited I am about this rare hippo book I ordered, and how hippo children ride around on their mother's backs.

Maybe an announcement about this new novel I keep thinking about. How I will start putting a bit online every week. No matter what.

Maybe tell folks what Chloe mailed to me two days ago.

Maybe make some interesting announcement about upcoming readings in Manitoba and Calgary.

Maybe nothing

Yes, nothing. 'Cause I'm gonna drive out to the country this weekend and take care of my mother who just started the chemo, and needs someone to cook for her, cause Pa is in Kosovo.

And maybe, because it's her first dose of chemicals, I'll shave her head for her. Before the hair all comes out.

Maybe nothing. The rest of it seems like dust.

February 10th, 2005
afterwards

there are mornings like this
when the wind is blowing warm
off the river
like it might in the south pacific
if there weren't snow on the ground
and I think about Quebec City

where I stopped after my
American tour of horrors

to learn to speak differently
a new language at age twenty-six

or rather
I think of Martine
and the five day affair
with my Polynesian lover
who was four foot eleven
and forty-two years old

and died two years later
of tuberculosis

she spoke french a bit
and so did I - poorly
just enough to nod hello in the bakery
entranced by her weightlessness

entranced by the idea that she must be lonely
being so small and thin

and that it was inevitable that we would soon be
waking up in the middle of the night
clawing at each other
pulling her ass on top

and after fucking relentlessly

falling asleep
embedded in each other

strange what winter winds say
when they blow warm like this

February 9th, 2005
Go Ask Alice

Imagine that you've been invited to a theme party. With poetry. And probably a lot of drugs. It's located somewhere near the centre of Canada.

It's an Alice in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass theme party. Everyone is supposed to show up as a character. That doesn't necessarily mean dressing up, but it means writing a bit of poetry or something as that character. And maybe speaking a bit like that character as the hookah roils in the background.

The question is: which character do you pick to represent yourself? Here's a list of the main characters from the two books:

Alice - Curious, brave and headstrong - the adventurous centre of the story.

Cheshire-Cat - The grinning feline who turns invisible. Mad and tricky, yet reasonable.

White Rabbit - Nervous, rushing and self-confident.

Queen of Hearts - A domineering snatch who screamingly runs the show in a decapitating sort of way.

King of Hearts - The queen's bitch.

Mad Hatter - Tea, anyone? Rude, witty and happily confusing.

March Hare - Another rude lunatic. Sort of like the Monty Python fellows.

Dormouse - The target of a lot of pranks. Quietly comforting.

Caterpillar - The sly dope fiend.

Red King - Ever sleeping, the possible master of the Looking-Glass world.

White King - The master of all the horses and all the king's men.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee - A pair of argumentative, dancing, rhyming twits.

Humpty Dumpty - The wall tumbler.

White Knight - A gentle soul, and a noble failure at times.


Go on: pretend you're invited to the tea party, and choose a character to appear as. Discuss your rationale at length. Other characters that are not listed here are certainly admissable. Except for the Jabberwock. He's spoken for.

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

February 8th, 2005
Red Glow

Out walking late at night
on snow paths made by children

thinking about old Tento

that last twisting walk through the pines
on a night like this

the blood popping and gurgling
through fingers

dripping steaming onto the snow
leaving dark pissholes in your wake

is that how it played

or did you walk down the paths just fine
sure footed and thinking about Tom Thompson
and Al Purdy and those black pines and those
words about drowning

before ripping out your guts yourself
and bleeding out in the winter air

February 7th, 2005
Blue Glow

Another Saturday night at the gin trough. The turning point happened when the waitress kindly mentioned that happy hour was almost over. She suggested that I order three doubles before the price went up. It didn't matter to her that I already had two full drinks sitting on the table in front of me. Or that I really shouldn't drink five more doubles and be expected to keep my pants on.

But I was already in no shape to argue, so I ordered three more. Five minutes later, I was making a wagon train across the table with my drinks.

For those who have never drank gin in a strip club, you should know that it glows a faint iridescent blue, outshining all the other drinks. If you line five of them up and close your eyes to bare slits, they appear to be deep sea creatures floating in the black, like nervous jellyfish.

I told them that, the drinks, that they had a natural beauty, and they whispered back to me, almost imperceptibly.

"You also glow," they said. "For a monkey, you are not so bad."

"Thank you," I said. "For jellyfish, you are quite lovely. If we could make love, we would. We should."

"Perhaps it is possible. Though it may be deadly to you," they said.

"I don't care anymore," I said. "Your beauty is too much, and I don't care what happens to us, any of us."

And so we made love.

--- The End ---

PS. This should explain my actions to all those who complained about me sticking my dick in my gin and tonic before throwing it at the DJ booth when he turned off that Portishead song and the bouncers hauled me out by the scruff of my Guns and Roses t-shirt.

Of course, it doesn't explain the t-shirt, but what will?







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