Jokes & Goofs (So Much Fun)

Wake up laughing
cackle into the kitchen
9:15 a.m. on Sunday
cop-outs couched in cups of coffee
          Sofa King Redundant
Lock the door but no one's coming
          I'm the LORD OF ALL I SURVEY!

Survey says the pilot's out
sink is full and
blinds are drawn.
It smells like sweat and silence
and a mostly empty fridge.

"Everything the light touches is yours!"
Outstanding power bill
          bank statements
               unreconciled
unwashed clothes
and unsent thank-you notes.
Shrink-wrapped books on how to cope.

Maybe I'll ask for a raise...

Bitter Nights. Best Friends. Bastard Town.

I know the contours of your face
just like the streets of my hometown.
          you'd squint your eyes
                 when laughing
     at the corner of Main and Dow.

Blacktooth Brewery
               on frigid Friday nights
frosted glasses, fogging breaths
and laughs caught up
               in tightening chests.
Kendrick Park can keep its towering trees
                                   and midnight charms
if I can keep your laughter with me
                       when I sail for newer shores

Something in familiar signs,
          buzzing blackened Bighorn skies,
keeps us just above the water line--
          afloat for one more night.

Sheridan Iron Works
Red, rigid lettering a raised, distant hand
Watch it wave from on the hill
above the Kendrick boardwalk,
soak December in our smiles
choking back our April cries.

Snake's head yawning
          from the I-90 exit
slithers down Coffeen and tails
          our icy footsteps
     Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.
Shake this town to its bones
with our Thurmond Street jokes
and our glowing Gould Street hearts.
I hope
          this is enough
          to buoy our asses up
          against the weighty ballast
          of this tiny, yawning town.

Settlers of Catan
played on a windy Wednesday night
over another drowning round
of clinking Wagon Box pints.

The contours of your face,
icy streets of our hometown,
our squinting, gasping laughter
on the corner of Main and Dow.

Blacktooth Brewery.
               Frigid Friday nights.
Fogged up glasses. Frosting breaths
and laughing, clutching tightening chests.
               This freezing town
               will test your mettle.
               Settle up and bring your friends.

Construction Site

Late night footsteps.
Crane necks and girders.
Fog lifts. The wind cries.
Steel bones in moonlight

                        I'm out
                      so late now
and it's Sunday night and Summer's ending
                         soon.
I'm aging
                                          with questions
fermenting in my mouth
ignored for years

Fenced off. Unfinished
project shelved and waiting
                     for next Spring.

Cool night eclipsing
years spent indexing
answers mislaid and
blueprints unrolling

Components rusting
crane necks and girders.
Steel bones in moonlight
Tight lipped and staring

                             Fall comes
                             construction
halts now and the walls stand half
                            complete
And outside
                                     the chain link
shrugging off the cold and
still wondering when

Step through unfinished
building. Get home. Shelved
                      until next Spring.

American Re-Runs

Grey-Green-Red-Brown Dawn
stains right through the a.m. sky
                     so the atmosphere
                     looks weird today.
The forecast calls for heat again;
that silent, seething drum that beats
        the blood-drenched dollar sky--
beats out a March of Ages--

beats us copper lumps to shape.

The shelf we Occupy on this drifting
westward continent, constructed from
the flesh that fell from our fathers' hands,
from the bones of distant lands
becomes a dusty storage closet
        for the corpses of our days

Our days--aha.
That's supply and demand, kid.
What's a life but flesh-time?
And what's time if not money?
Nothing!
Nothing is anything
                   but money.
You. Are money.
Like time.
Sleep well tonight. And set your clock.
You gotta work to buy their robots
that rape Mid-Eastern skies
(and Midwestern ones alike)

Sink real slow beneath the surface
of that rising ocean of noise--
growing louder--hot air melting ice caps.
Watch that boiling, acid ocean
roll in on the tide and sink
beneath the waves of noise--
               of monotone voices--
sawdust seasoning on cardboard--
crying, "These colors don't run!"
and, "Stand your ground!"
and for fun, when bored, answer the
                 Call of Duty.
It's that silent, seething drum

beating 'gainst THE TERRORISTS
while we deny the summer heat
as we sweat in SUPERBOWL SUNDAY dreams,
Like it beat against the COMMUNISTS
through all our TOP GUN weekends,
Like it drums up portraits of
              vampire fanged IMMIGRANTS
                                           and ILLEGALS
while we guzzle our BEER
and sweat beneath those acne-scarred skies
on the FOURTH OF JULY.

Sleep well tonight

And set your clock.

Don't wanna be late for work,
to buy their robots that rape Mid-Eastern skies
          (and Midwestern ones alike).

What's that hum outside your window tonight,
whirring, buzzing
                 droning
beneath the blood-drenched dollar sky?

3-Day Headache

Mid-20 doldrums never really wore off
still slay the summers with smiles
                                            like punches
Still walking wounded through the bad joke lanes,
questions clamped under your tongue,
with an aching brain

Can't believe we thought we'd left a place.
Still rattling 'round inside these tin can
                                                roadways.
Carrying cards after we fold the game
Poured pretty comforts down our throats--
                      so many candied gas tanks.

And I agree: these couches
                    are feeling more like graves
Will our crutches craft our coffins
'til we bobble routine plays?
Nothing changed before we knew it.
6-year blink, it's all the same.
                                It's just that

Mid-20 doldrums never really wore off.
Still blur the border between wants and needs.
Still suck our thumbs when all the
                                               lights turn off.
Still check our pulses,
then start laughing loud as
                                 knocking knees

Can't believe we thought we'd left a place.
We're still too comfortable with our own kind.
Still fall in love with the same friends
                               for just a few days at a time

And I concur: these routines
                 are looking more like chains
Will these crutches seal our caskets?
Would we notice anyway?
Nothing changed before we knew it
6-year blink, it's still the same.

Mid-20 doldrums never really wore off.
Still chasing sunsets and a 10-cent dream.
Still rattling 'round inside these tin can
                                           roadways
Still placing patches over fraying seams

Still checking pulses, still on quaking knees.
Still too scared to make up our minds
Still turning parties into 3-day headaches
while we pretend we never lost our minds

Can't believe we thought we'd left a place
Still slay the summers with smiles
                                            like punches...

Canadian Shield, Irish Goodbyes

Silver ribbon Assiniboine
a sash for a city--a ceinture fléchée
tied into the Red just off Highway 1
          You leak into the topsoil
           in the place you call home
          and come back up a street map
          with fingerprint roads

I remember the way you'd trace these out on my back
with fingertip pencils--cartographer's hands--
Bird's Hill and Lag' and Portage and Corydon
     laid 'em down in my veins
     just under my skin

Where are you tonight, in your smiling Great City?
Crossing the bridge and inhaling the skyline?
Or walking the river in my iced over thoughts?
Maybe walking, mid-tempo, around KP mall?

Those hipsters in Osborne Village
          and Wolsely
had nothing on us, did they?
                    Cooler than main
                              on the 1st of the year

I trickled away
                    and I leaked into topsoil
enjambed between rhymes in apology poems.
An Irish Goodbye; a blip on the radar
stopped flashing to fade off the map of your streets.

Our voices still echo, our spectres still haunt
Dollaramas and sidewalks, Tim Horton's and pubs
Our hands still lace up--at least so in theory
Perimeter Highway's still traced on my back.

          Here's hoping our Higgins Aves
          touch again soon.
          Here's hoping my luck outruns my mistakes
          one last time.

Us Mortarbombs

Raise our bottles to the purple night
We'll bend these floorboards
          weighed down with our voices.
Shout the doors wide open
fling the windows up
                              erupt into the
streets we know
          then fade and dissipate,
embers, sparks and cinders,
each and every one of us.
A fireworks display--
a winter's day in negative.

          Let's cross these longneck bottles,
flashing foaming glass Excaliburs,
and pour our frothing voices
'cross these seething summer streets;
                                boiling over, burning out.

The snows are coming soon enough
to spread out half a year between
our memories and this night.
So let's hoist our glass Excaliburs
and join our ragged voices to the night
               while records spin.