Terrorist

if they learned
if they knew
that on that tuesday morning
God turned to new york and said
“yes, it is time”…

would they change
would things be different

Third down

You’ll tell me life isn’t fair, and I know that. But this is how it played out for me.

I've been running sideways, parallel to the goal line, for years now. Every so often there's a whistle on the play, and today I've set the ball down in Bolt's basement. It's WASP heaven... you know, it's cool in summer, the colours are subdued and cheerful, the couch is covered in ass-worn fabric that suggests to me it once had the starring role in the living room, but has been put out to pasture in the rec room, where its real life has begun. The three of us are seated on it: me, Bolt, and the bowl of popcorn between us. Bolt rests his hand in it, even between munches. Whether this is just out of ignorance or actually some sort of passive-aggressive territorial dominance thing, I don't know. I reach; he relents. But as soon as my hand is full of the stuff he's been sweating on and leaves, his is right back.

The carpet is extremely woolly; it feels good under my feet. The room's dark because Bolt insists on that when he watches movies. Not that we're really watching this one. It's on... it's running... but it hardly captures the imagination of either one of us. He says, "I'm working on this commission. Did I tell you?"

Through a mouthful of Bolt-flavoured popcorn, I mumble, "I dunno; what is it?"

He holds a handful of popcorn up to his mouth like it's a microphone and speaks into it. "It's this girl sitting on a fence in the countryside. Some guy in Texas wants it. Sent me, like, fifty bucks, U.S." Done speaking, he stuffs the popcorn into his mouth, now free for other duties.

"Nice."

"Nude pose," he adds.

"Cool."

Someone gets shot on screen; we pause to indulge ourselves in the end of a fictional life that's already imbued with more meaning and substance than our real ones. The man expires. Bolts says, "I'm thinking of asking Pat to pose."

I turn and look at him, his features dancing in the shifting light of the television. He doesn't move, except to finally shift his eyes to meet my gaze. "Think she will?" I ask.

One shoulder shrugs. "Prob'ly. You know what she's like after a couple beers. Everybody's seen her take her shirt off."

Bolt, I know, has on occasion seen more than that. Pat loves to tease him. It's clear she doesn't really like him. But she likes to lead him on, and for guys like us, that's enough. Paying her this compliment will, we both know, probably get him what he's after, at some point during the 'posing session'. Emotions flash through me, excitement for him, envy, and then a sudden disgust. A generation ago, guys our age — twenty-something — would have been well on the way. Decent jobs, probably married, family started... not sitting in the basement of the parents of one or the other of us, waiting for life to suddenly happen and contenting ourselves with whatever sexual opportunities presented themselves, however sad and desperate. I mean, fuck, is this as good as it gets? Is this all life has in store for guys born at the butt-end of the 60s or the ashtray of the 70s?

I have to ask it. "Think she'd let anyone else sit in?"

He gazes at me out of the corners of his eyes again, hand perched possessively in the bowl. "I dunno. I can ask. She might. She's kind of vain." He lifts his hand and nudges the bowl at me. "Fat chicks usually are."

Yeah, lucky for us. I think it, but I don't say it. Neither of us is catch either.

"Did Lare tell you he's coming today?" I ask.

"After he gets done with his pick-ups and deliveries," Bolt says. Larry is really more my friend than his, but Bolt's place has become kind of a nexus for us. I'm not sure why. Of the three of us, Bolt has the absolutely worst relationship with his parents. I fully expect to see him on the news some night, covered in blood and being led away in handcuffs ranting. I never really appreciated the meaning of the word "shrew" till I met his mother. As for his father, the man might have been carved out of ice, painted boring, and brought to life by someone feining an incantation reading out of the phone book. And yet, out of the three of us, it's Larry who's never home. I mean, he still lives at home, but aside from sleeping, he's there about as long as it takes the put on pants and flush the toilet, sometimes even in that order. Of course, of the three of us, he's the only one with a steady job. Right now, mine is "call me when you need me". Bolt has none at all. Aside from making $50 to try to get into Pat's pants, that is.

The bowl is empty, and Bolt lifts his feet off the coffee table. "You want a can of Coke?"

"Sure."

He pads off, up the stairs. He calls, "You wanna order a pizza?"

"When Larry gets here."

"Okay."

I hear him moving around in the kitchen above me, in a house that belongs to someone else, raiding a fridge stocked with other people's money. I get up and wander to the tiny window near the ceiling and I can just glimpse the sky, with its clouds skating by, busily occupied with getting on with whatever business clouds do.

setting son

after work
my father smells of
sweat and oil
coffee and alcohol
as he drives me home

he sings songs
tells jokes
makes me laugh
weaving the hempen threads
that will have to sustain us
when time and reserve
make friendship awkward
love embarassing

Fire-eater

I haven't known you to cry out loud
or confess to secret fears
Your world consists of granite smooth
you've prowled alone and naked
__basking places you shouldn't be

Sunburned now, and yearning for
__ the shelter you denied

Pray for rain,
__ark or no
__the hiss of steam abounding

Footprints on the Windshield

There's footprints on the windshield
ten little toes
footprints on the windshield
without their clothes
I tell myself I'm seeing things
tricks playin' on my mind
but there's footprints on the windshield
I know they sure ain't mine.

A butt-end in the ashtray...
ain't seen you smoke.
They say it keeps hands busy
that ain't no joke
you been drivin' in the bush:
deep valleys and tall pines—
there's footprints on the windshield
I know they sure ain't mine.

footprints
walkin' on my heart
them footprints
leadin' us apart
footprints...

The music is romantic
the station's new
but since I didn't pick it
I sing the blues
all the wipers in the world
will never dry my eyes
not with footprints on the windshield
I know they sure ain't mine
yeah, footprints on the windshield
you know they sure ain't mine.

papercuts

you open your diary
and there i am:
your imaginary friend
who's walked far

talk to me
tell me what he's done now
stack your triumphs on my head
drape the lei of your tears around my neck
and beckon me with fingers wet
from the well of yourself

close the book
to gather dust
till the next entry swells you heavy
to give birth in my ear;
lift me again from the pages
if only to admire your reflection
in my eyes

Downslope

The leafy hair of summer turns
the freckled face
of fall's
forest floor;
A white beard
not long in coming—

White wine and firesides
Scones and Montovani
Ice-hung windows and
____the twilight-flavoured woods;
these genteel trappings
____of waking hibernation

Don't call
Don't knock
Don't ever be
____ever so
____bold
Unless your name is
Spring.

Mix in the Pudding

So we made eighty-five dollars worth of chocolate pudding and we fucked in it. I wouldn't call it a romantic weekend, but it was certainly interesting. I think the whipped cream was a little over-the-top, though.

Corrigendum

The light from the reading lamp seems harsh, as though if given enough time it could set the newspaper in his lap on fire. He might not mind. His eyes are tired from busily not reading the same page for half an hour.

She has descended the stairs at last and is preening in the hallway mirror. He forces himself to raise his head, crane his neck, and look at her. She's more mature now, and somehow thinner, but she still looks like she did 17 years ago. But only to the eye.

And she is humming softly to herself. Something swift and full of promise. He wonders if it was like this back when he couldn't see her... when he was sitting out in the car, humming the same way, waiting for her nightly debut.

"Will you be back this evening?" he asks. His stomach knots, punishes him for his temerity.

She turns and regards him, and offers him a sloppy, silly smile of dismissal even as her eyes dart away. "Yes, of course I will. It's only a meeting to work out a few last details." She closes her hand on her clutch purse like a venus flytrap, suddenly and definitively.

The ice wiggles in his glass as it farts a trapped bubble. He takes a deep breath, wondering if he's drawing in the liberated air with the scents of rye and cola. He forces his expression to brighten; he says, "Knock 'em dead."

"Oh, I will," she smiles. Whether she's being ironic or rewarding him for playing along isn't clear. She blows him a kiss and her heels clack as she marches with determination along the hardwood floor, a model in a wrap about to turn on some private catwalk. "I shouldn't be too long," she calls.

No, you shouldn't, he thinks. You shouldn't be going at all. But she is. His throat tightens and his eyes sting and he suddenly feels like he's outside himself, considering the plot of some soap opera. How will it end? Divorce? A gunshot? Will she give it up out of boredom or disaffection or some latent sense of loyalty, guilt, love? Or will it never really end, simply trailing on and on forever like some bad cough you can't quite shake?

The car starts. Leaves. The garage door comes down. From the wall, the ticking clock watches him, taunting him with each second.

Hunting Snoopy

Whenever I hear someone say the word iditarod — which, I admit, isn't all that often — I have the overwhelming urge to quip, "Yeah, me too, but I was in college and going through kind of an experimental phase..."

But Whose Is It?

Something is up here

I've had the vasectomy,
but she's still on the Pill

Something is definitely up here...

You Lead

It was 1:15 in the morning and Bobby was discovering the expression 'if you can't find it, grind it' didn't only apply to driving a stick. It had its uses in the back seat, too.

She put her hands on his hips to guide him (they were too close together for her to reach much else), and panting, he steadied himself and followed her gentle direction. And like a penitent in Purgatory, the gates opened for him and there was Heaven...

Unrenaissance ii

She has your balls in her paw. You smile at one another knowingly as she fondles them, as your cock emerges from your sheath and arches, rigid, into the night. All around you, the sounds of song and laughter, storytelling and lovemaking. Some eyes are on you as your turn comes, and you’re proud… excited. You can’t believe you’re unashamed. Someone nudges his friend and points, chuckling, and they watch.

At first licked only by the firelight, your cock now glistens with her spit as she dips her head to tongue it. Tails wag as your admiring audience take in the show. You don’t know her name… or at least, you don’t remember it… but it hardly matters here. She’s a villager. You, though newly-minted, are a villager too.

You’re in her mouth, moaning softly as you work your paws though her long, unfettered mane. Her head bobs slowly, keeping time with a folksong being sung at a neighbouring fireside. You know you’re going to love that song all your life; whenever you hear it, you’ll be right back here… The naked, white-pelted bodies appearing and disappearing in the smoky dust of late autumn, balls and boobs and bottoms. Dancing, walking, running, sitting, wrestling, fucking. You reach around, your paw straying under her tail, which she lifts. Your fingers dive into her cunt, finding her welcome deep, warm, wet, overflowing with readiness. You shift, and she immediately understands and lifts her head; standing, you take her hips, and put your cock in her. A few more people pause to look on. Cocks stiffen, eyebrows arch over smiles. They all agree, you’ve adapted quickly, and well. One of your admirers can’t contain himself anymore and he rises, leaving his friend’s side to step up in front of the girl you’re fucking and take your place in her mouth. You smile and chuckle at one another over her back as she pleasures you both. Your city life is far behind you, seeming like a bad dream from which you’ve awoken at last.

A Walk In the Snow

He steps out from between the towering pines, hung heavy with wet snow. His mane is ragged, his poncho time-worn and full of stories. The wind lifts it, revealing his gun belt; all he wears beneath it. He has come armed. You would have been amazed if he had not.

The scent of his females creeps to you in a shift of the wind; the clan he has sired and shepherds is nearby. He’s at the end of his rope. This is the only reason you see him at all. His eyes are like steel, fixed on you from across the hollow. Even your horse fidgets, unnerved.

“You came alone?” he calls at last. Under the brim of your cap, you nod. Once. Sharply. You meet his gaze. You have to.

Your uniform. It still seems warm from being pressed this morning before you set out. Blood red. Commanding attention. Unmistakable in its arrogance; daring any foe to take a shot and bring millions more just like you down upon him. A single red dot in a spreading sea of changing ways, washing over the prairies.

His poncho flaps in the wind. His tail, his mane, are his only flags; the living standards of his people, pressed to the river, mournful at the prospect of crossing over, leaving all this behind, forever. But that’s why you’re here.

“You knew Greyshadow?” he calls.

Carefully, slowly, you reach into your pouch. You draw out the talisman given you long ago in a moment of peace and friendship and celebration. It’s barely visible, but in the eyes of this man, something softens… glistens.

“You did know him,” the man says.

“Yes. He called me friend. Though I knew his daughter much better.”

“And that is why you’ll help us?” His voice is cold and flat, but behind it you hear both hope and incredulity.

“I will help you,” you say, “because it is right.”

“How can we trust you?”

“I’ll be one, among many. The moment you doubt me, you’ll kill me. I’m resigned to die. I will either die at your hands, or the hands of the men I’ve just left. Which, is up to you.”

He nods. “You speak well.” He steps towards the trees. “Come. But if you would be among us,” he says, “then you must free our brother.” He means your horse. His kind do not keep horses, and kill only what they need.

You dismount, stepping down into the cold snow. You move your paws over Commander’s neck; he whickers and nuzzles into your palm. He’s a clever beast; he will make his own way back to the fort. “Good-bye, old friend,” you mutter to him, the wind kicking off your cap and sending it tumbling stupidly across the field. “Take care of yourself.” Now your mane and your tail are flags. Your only flags. You pace through the deep, wet snow towards the wild man, and whatever awaits you.

The uniform itches. It has itched for a long time.

Today is the day it comes off.

It Really Is Like This

The President brooded darkly in the Oval Office. Clearly, his erectile dysfunction was going to cost some country dearly. But which one? Needing sage counsel, he summoned the Secretary of Handing Out Billions of Tax Dollars to Defense Contractors to his office. "Who can we blast?" he snarled.

"How about England? They're getting pretty smug about being in tight with us. Maybe it's time for a smackdown in ol' Londontown?" grinned the Secretary.

"Yeah! I like it! It works for me!" squealed the President.

"That's not what I hear," snickered the Secretary.

Luckily, the President didn't get it. "So what's our cover story?"

The Secretary stroked his chin. "That's going to be hard one," he said... then started giggling again.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing, sorry..."

The President had an idea, and beamed with pride. "Listen to this: we found out the British have been hiding Hitler since the end of World War II! Huh? Huh? What do you think?"

"Um, well, sir..."

"You don't like it."

"It kind of sucks."

"Yeah. I thought it would."

"Don't feel bad, it was a good try."

"No, I suck at this, everyone's always smarter than me, and better, and funnier, and... and smarter, and—"

"Well, look, sir, we could just do what we usually do..."

"What's that?"

"Bomb the shit out of 'em and come up with a reason afterwards. Besides, there's a lot less arguing that way."

"I like how you think. Keep it up, and you'll have my job someday."

"If you could keep it up, we'd all be out of a job," murmured the Secretary.

The President reached for the phone. "Sorry, what was that?"

"Nothing, Mr. President. Now dial M for murder."

Brackets

Steel-glass bauble
__timeless, set
__the moment suspended

__tiny gem waiting
__the jeweller's strike
__in wonder:
__will the flaw give character
__make it unique
__or make dust of
____what might have been?

Rain slams down like time

__dry inside
__timeless, set
__in fading light
Take me back
__ready to be unready
__waiting for the clock to tick

10:43½ a.m. — Café Orlando

There’s a clock on the wall. I look up from my coffee for a moment and watch the second hand beating against the 22nd tick mark over and over again, like a wave throwing itself fruitlessly against a rocky coast it can never overwhelm. It’s just like that moment when a clock’s battery is so worn down it can’t advance the second hand anymore, but it still has enough juice to keep trying for a while. Except it’s like this for all clocks. Everywhere.

I can’t tell you how long it’s been like this. Obviously. How could I? My own watch demands that it’s 10:43 in the morning, August 18th, and has steadfastly done so for quite some time, despite the fact that I’ve slept soundly three times since I started noticing that nothing was changing. So I guess it’s been three days now. Maybe four.

I’m really losing hope.

I drain the coffee cup. I put it down. The guy behind the counter, whose name, unfortunately for him, is Gayle, pours me another cup. I stand up. Turn my back. Step over to the window. The blue Datsun blows past the café window, left to right. I turn away for a moment. I look back outside. The same blue Datsun blows past the window outside, left to right.

I flick the door open, but don’t step out. I move as though I were entering. I head toward my open seat. My coffee cup is gone; so is the greasy plate of bacon and eggs I’d not quite finished. As I sit, Gayle plunks down a clean white cup before me and pours me a cup of coffee. “What’ll it be, mister?” he says.

“Bacon and eggs,” I say. It’ll be my third plate today, maybe my tenth since this all started, and I haven’t paid for one of them yet. As far as Gayle’s concerned, he’s never seen me before in his life. It’s quarter to eleven in the morning for him, and I’ve just walked into his restaurant for the first time. “Sunny side up, please.”

“Sure thing.”

“So what’s there to do around here?” I ask him. This is one of the rules. No one notices the passage of time, but it will pass for them if only I keep them engaged. If I turn my back, they’ll just keep doing whatever it was they were doing, in short little loops of a few seconds, forever. Or at least till this spell or whatever it is is broken.

“You new to town?” He breaks a couple of eggs. The bacon hisses on the skillet. To my right, a man named Chester turns the paper to page A9. Again.

“Yeah, I just got in last night,” I say. Chronologically, this is true. At least for all of them.

“There’s a railroad museum down the east end by the tracks,” he says. “A good place to kill a couple hours if you like that kind of thing. A lot of people come through for that,” he says. Of course, I already know this. He’s informed me a half a dozen times. I have to keep him busy or the meal will never get finished.

Chester turns to page A9. A woman whose name I haven’t learned yet stirs her 90th spoonful of sugar into her coffee and sips it. Talk about your bottomless cup. She sets it down with that same, perfect lipstick mark on it. If I look away, it’ll be gone.

I gaze at the phone. I’ve tried. Janice doesn’t answer. She never will. She’s in traffic somewhere, hundreds of miles and two time zones away, on her way to work. The phone could ring for a thousand years for me, but she’ll never arrive to answer it. I ache inside, thinking I might never see her again; she is trapped forever in a car traveling 120 km/h and she doesn’t even know it.

“How those eggs coming?” I ask Gayle.

“Pardon me? Oh, I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t see you…” Shit. I look past him; the eggs are gone, the bacon still raw on the sideboard. Gayle plunks down a clean white cup before me and pours me a cup of coffee. “What’ll it be, mister?” he says.

God tech America

Out of my ass I pulled
     the starship Enterprise
to spare the human race
the fear
of having to decide
what god to pray to before breakfast
what shoes to wear after
and what to eat during

Cloudy forecast

There were soft gaps in her life we knew nothing about. She would come home on the weekends and resume her presence in our lives, only to vanish again come Sunday evening. The little girl who’d once chased Frisbees through the park had become a woman who drank and dated and studied and fretted over grade point averages in St. John’s. Back in the outports, things were different now.

Carrots. Carrots in cheese sauce. She was trying to impress us with what she’d learned, the tendrils of the outside world reaching into our sure, quiet, secure lives of cod and beef and potatoes. Carrots and cheese? We humoured her. As though adopting this little change would mean she wouldn’t make a life in Toronto or Calgary or Vancouver or New York someday. Close at hand. Carrots in cheese would be cosmo enough.

“It’s different,” I allowed.

She smiled. “Velveta’s kind of junk cheese, I know,” she said. “But it’s got its uses.”

“Kinda like snot,” Dylan said.

Myra sneered. “Fish and bubblegum more your speed?”

“Up yours.”

“Hey. Hey. Enough. Both of you,” Alice warned.

I brushed the cap off Dylan’s head. “You like cheese. You like carrots.”

“I don’t like carrots.”

“You like carrots.”

Myra said, “There’s no hope for him. He’ll be a small town nobody the rest of his life.”

Her mother growled, “There’s nothing wrong with small town life. It’s the backbone of this island. This country.”

“There’s more to life than this,” Myra told us, as if we didn’t know. “Dad, you were in the Navy. You remember Halifax. I love Halifax.”

Halifax was sure a hell of a lot closer than Toronto. “Halifax is a good town. Solid folks. Good Atlantic folk. Good bars, too. You could do well there.”

Myra waved her fork around like a wand, like she was casting pictures for us. “Dave’s from Truro; he has an uncle in Bedford. We could get jobs at MT&T.”

Alice looked up while Velveta oozed onto her rib-eye. “Dave?”

Myra’s fork was still but her smile was a little too animated. “This guy I know…”

My head was swimming. If Dylan had opened his mouth then, I'd have exploded. Dave… Halifax… carrots in cheese. Jesus Christ. I needed a drink.

By Association

Corrosive
and over that beer-frosted smile
you'll tell me
all those witty things

There's a little hollow spot in my guts
that keeps growing
like the heart rotting out of a tree still standing
My leaves are green
but your termite smiles condemn me