Cartoons For Grown-Ups

Settle down
I'm sinking in
     to this dingy motel tub.
Stain the water
     with the paint
from my sardonic, smiling face
now, babe, I got a flower in my handband and
a sloshing bottle in my white gloved hand.
     Do you think we'll still be laughing
                              in the morning...?

Blinking lights and bleary eyes
in a neon wash for a bloodshot lifetime,
and a swallow
     is all I wanna take.

     Besides, I'm still holding the bag.

Puddle up
pull the plug
     colors circle 'round the drain
Pollute the night
     with a laugh
from inside this facepaint bath.
And, babe, I been swirled 'round the world's full glass
and, for a bit, I guess, it was a helluva gas
but, ya know,
                  nobody makes it in the end...
                 
                  so where's the joke end or begin?

Reddened nose and dirty jokes.
Life's a vacation, we're just pigs in a poke
and a mouthful
     is all I need to take...

     We all get left holding the bag.

Watershed

You said I had a face like
                 cinder blocks at sunrise:
Ash grey staining
                 red in the ending night.
The late winter cold
leaked down into my bones.
You pulled my hood up,
kissed me once and walked home.

                                I was a weak
                                 kneed floater
                                 that night.

It was a month to forget buried heart dents and debts.
You let me ride on the back of one more losing bet.
                                 The deck's cut,
                                    it's raining
                                       outside

If I had
       one more card
tucked up my sleeve, I'd lay it down
                      you wouldn't play
                      'cuz your hand's weak
Game's no fun. Folding. Heading straight out the door
                   Cashed in your chips and that's fine.

                   I'll take off and try to stay dry.

Your living room was greyscale
                 blue and white at midnight.
Ash on my tongue,
                 had X's in my eyes.
I'll choke down the bile
building up in my throat--
this mouth full of crow.
I'll walk out, grab my coat.

                              from your couch
                             turn the knob and
                                       I'm gone.

It was a month to forget buried heart dents and debts.
You let me ride on the back of one more losing bet.
Kick up my heels, over pavement, walk home.
Half-rain and half-snow. Half a mile left to go.
                                    the jig's up
                               and our steps were
                                      all wrong.

Let's take this
      time to find
some ground for standing. Thawing out,
                      I'll leak away
                      with the meltwash.
One more week draining to the Columbia
                   and your front step'll be dry.

                   ...and your front step'll be dry...

Apiary

In '94,
               in the early Autumn,
I stood there, torn
               between two homes on itching feet.
And, in the warm,
of a thick October, Wyoming Saturday,
I tossed my queries at the sun.

It looked like buckwheat honey, setting--drop of burnished brass.
Stuck to my face, a viscous coat, but it still went down too fast.
A lightning bolt in quiet thunder, stuck to the rumbling ground,
'til the decade at my fingertips burned all my fences down,
                                                             they burned right down.

In twenty-twelve
               in the jaws of Winter,
those cold fangs fell
               I guess I'll never be un-bit.
These days, each night,
the months flip by. I grow fur and much longer teeth.
I howl and flee on padded paws...

In my youth, I always dined with insects. Swallowed the queen bee.
Now I'm old and time has filled my guts with droning beasts that sting.
These days I keep my lips drawn tightly over bleeding gums,
retaining all that bloody honey, quieting that buzz,
                                                          that endless buzz.

Huncher

Keyring's clinking on my cut time stride
under lights, buzzing islands in the ink sea night.
Slink away from my murky years,
                  they're piling up
and I'm hunched, walking dumb
          across the hazard yellow lines.

Behind me
          the night just rolls up
almost outruns me to my front doorstep.
                                                The hungry
hills enclose
                    our mid-size
                    opaque town.

Old partners,
          forgotten crimes we
did and left trails of clues, all gutshot
                                       creep hunching
through this skull
                      beneath a
                      fraying cap.

Keyring's jangle like anxieties
in my chest, humming static in the core of me.
Sinking in to familiar tones;
                  shades purple grey.
And it's cold, striding slow
          through the west side warehouse lots.

Behind me
          the teeming sidewalks
shout half-slurred spears at my back retreating.
                                                The half-light
spills itself
                    on wrinkled,
                    trenching brows.

And out there
          the night just rolls up
to darken the mat by your front doorstep.
                                                You're just a
single thought
                    and several
                    miles away.

Green-Up

Maybe it's two years feeling lonely,
or I'm juiced from drinking way too much coffee.
But, when the Springtime shows its Joker's face,
I'm less likely to sneer and turn away

                                                           ­               Than I was this time last year,
                                                           ­     when I had lost all fucking bearing,
                                                        ­            while I was swearing at the stars,
                                                          ­                    aping Oneida's* navigating.

And, now, I'm on the eastern side,
I'm walking slow, it's early morning.
I don't even want a brush,
          to paint a blackout on the sun.
Well, I've had a few false starts,
I've made an art of second guessing.
Finally don't need a crutch
          to clear the days of all their must.

'Cuz I think I'm aware, now...
          that the frost is gonna thaw real fast
          and trickle down
          into the topsoil 'neath my feet.

Well, maybe we should lay off the whiskey,
or maybe it's two years in this city.
But, when the Winter creeps down 'round our heads,
we should welcome her just like a sneering friend.

                                                        ­                      'Cuz the other shoe will fall
                                                          an­d we'll be walking halfway barefoot.
                                                       ­                  Frozen roads'll get gridlocked,
                                                 we'll bitch for months that we can't stand it.

For now, I'm drifting through downtown,
I'm striding fast, it's early evening.
Ask a stranger for the time
          and wonder what's been on your mind.
And I'm always running late
but make an art of playing catch-up.
I'll catch up with you next week,
          we'll kick the pattern off repeat.

'Cuz lately I've been thinking...
          that the frost is gonna thaw real fast
          and trickle down
          into the topsoil 'neath my feet
          and green things up!

My Northern Folklore

From the top of the Terminal,
your size was splayed out,
a grey shag carpet for the Red River Valley.
And The Forks right beneath
                      our weary walkers' feet
was a thick drop setting up in the center
of your ash grey forehead.
Traced a thumb down Taché and St. Mary's
to the peak of your left cheek on Fermor.

Your traffic light glance blinked us
                    right to a stop
as blue bomb thoughts and temperatures dropped
at the base of our minds
and your wide, widow's peak sky
formed a cold iron bruise 40 minutes past 5.

I've held your muddy diamond eyes
in mine, how many times?
And you'd sigh, sometimes
         from your North End scar,
but the Assiniboine bends around Wellington Crescent,
a stifled, spiced laugh from the failed rebellion
of your Province's youth.
          And you know I'm no novice
to the uncouth barbs of the Winter,
'cuz you wrapped asphalt arms
                                       nice and tight
'round our shoulders.
Osborne & Morley for an A-frame embrace.
The face of a city, its wrinkles a sketch
of laugh line drives for donuts and coffee.
Crows' feet stretched through The Exchange.

We followed your grin
                from
corner to corner,
from Richardson Airport
to Transcona Yards; one earring a lifeline,
the other, steel bones.
From your St. Norbert chin,
to your twin St. Paul crown,
we would wander,
kiss your River East temple
                  then call it a night.

I have names for every smile you gave me:
Vi-Ann in the Village,
The Toad in the Hole,
St. Boniface Cathedral, that first time
in deep snow.
                 I want you to know,
               you frozen Great City,
your terrible beauty is written on me.

Each side-slanted grin I shared with your sidewalks
               encircles my history now,
                          even still.
Fill an eye with 5 years
                of joyous, drunk laughter
which seeds your purple sand sky with fog ghosts.

Still-frame your patchwork, frostbitten face--
the Perimeter Highway's a jaunt-angled toque;
                                           keeps you warm--
I still wear you
           when late Autumn light takes me back.

Absolute Pin

Checkered choices rise some nights,
play chess with all my frightful failings.
Queen's Pawn to Rook 5.
          Nail my footsteps
          to the concrete season.
          I'm losing pieces it seems.

I'm a sardonic grinner
     and under these eyebrows, it's nuclear winter.
Wending my way through the last
three years, I find no release valve.
The pressure will build and place
its long arm along my shoulder,
pull me far from my friends.
One.
                                         Two.
One.
                                         Two.
                   Step
                 by step
      by hammer blow step
a story is crafted, installed with a lock
          in a circular book.

Queen's Pawn to Ryman Street
                  1:45 a.m.
simmering skin over ice armored innards,
the freezing rain sends up my curses
                                               like steam
                                  clouding off of my shoulders
and into the skyline.

I've castled my way out of checkmate questions.
Not my move to make,
                     so I won't life a finger.
Queen's Pawn to front doorstep,
          then straight on to bed.

1,000 Miles of Sundays

About a million prairie miles
roll out slow from sparkling eyes.
Each night, beneath a blanket
of melting white noise
that distance wraps around your
toes and takes its sweet time
          with every
          aching inch.

If I could sell you a story
from pursed lips a half-inch
beneath my reddened, runny nose
who knows if you'd believe it?
But I might get rich if you
were buying
          my slurring, supine words.

I could buy you.
               A new coat.
               With your coin.
And I'd borrow it for the winter.
'Cuz mine's all full of holes
that breathe too hard.
          Like me,
on my long walks home
through streetlights and snow.
          Like you,
in your bed tonight
carving words in your wall,
in the dark, with tongue tucked
tight behind your crooked,
perfect, lovely teeth.

A coat's no good in Summer
(save to improvise a pillow
when I sleep on friends' floors).
But you can sell me back my story,
                                   (half-cost, I'd hope...).
And--just maybe--I could swallow
your million prairie miles,
and stomach five more months
of Sundays...
               To read your wall.
                       Aloud.