baby, you/re an anarchist/

so you don/t listen when I say Chesterton/s got something to teach you/you preach at me while dangling off bridges/I nod enthusiastically while silently unscrewing your caribiners and cutting the cords holding up your banner hoping maybe it will whip through the thick air and wrap you in wrathful plastic that plummets and plunges you deep into the putrescence of the North Saskatchewan/(breathe)/It/s not that I don/t agree with your message/in all likelihood the tar sands probably are evil/most things are/evil that is/all I want you to hear is/fuck you I recycle/and every time I drop a plastic bottle into that bottle green bin I am reminded that I don/t matter and it/s not enough/we are insignificant specks/dust motes but smaller/nothing and no one and nowhere/yeah you hate the man and the man hates you/I hate you/you/re yelling anarchy with your tongue out/that shock rock hand signal morphs into the Spock sign and fuck I/m confused so I suggest that if you're such a hard-core environmentalist shouldn/t you just kill yourself/no waste then/sustainable living without the living/hahaha/you don/t get it and tell me that my attitude is destroying the world/so again/fuck you I recycle/it/s just that Molotov cocktailing my local Starbucks won/t do shit but make me late for school/I want to tell you all of this but you/ve got the monopoly on righteous rage/and my voice is gone anyways/ dry and dust-clogged from misuse because baby/all I ever do is sit alone in my room and read Chesterton/cough brine out of my lungs and dream of the nihilists taking over your world

playing with poetry cont...

I'm playing the piano

banging each note with the backs of my hands
pounding them into a
tuneless
rhythmless
submission

I'm playing the piano and

there are cotton balls coming up
through the keys
beside B flat
I see them dissolve and I know

that it's not cotton
it's smoke

I crouch upon the piano bench
still drumming out sound with my swollen knuckles
I replace my fingers with my toes
so no one knows there's been a change
but so I can stand and see
behind the dust and grainy wood
where you are hiding

I keep jigging on the keys
toes tapping out awful
childish noises
cold ivory on chafed calluses
this tuneless ditty dying under my cramped feet and
you dying under my cramped gaze

you are crouching
among wires and pedels
on a bed of sheet music
my metronome between your legs
holding up the small glass pipe
you're sucking on

you're all white scabs and mouth sores
oozing scabs that crack and bleed
when you pucker up
to kiss or to
take another hit

a self-analysis of the capacity for humour

I'm sitting at a sketch comedy show at Yuk Yuk's alone, clutching my freshly sharpened pencil and wondering why I can't be funny. Black humour, now I've been told I have a competance for that - but to be perfectly honest, I"ve never tried for black humour, it just seems to seep through into my 'serious writing'. I've been told time and time again - once more by Minister Faust at his reading last week - that if i want to learn to capture my audience, get my point across in an interesting and provocative manner, be diverse and entertaining in my presentation, then I have got to learn to be funny.



Minister Faust was introduced by an excited and flustered Janice Williamson, who proudly described how she met him while protesting the war in Iraq. He had given a speech so rousing regarding social change and human rights, that it caused Dr. Williamson to announce him as having "performative brilliance in all means, be it radio, television, or as a host for his live TV program. When she finally sat down, it was in the centre front row, with her chin in her hands to hear him speak. I idly wondered if I would ever have that effect on someone.



I settled into the third row which was close enough for a perfect line of vision and decent acoustics, but far enough away so that if boredom struck, I could watch the river and the skyline without seeming rude. However, when Minister Fust stood up to speak, I instantly forgot about potentially needing a decent distraction. He was an engaging, dramatic speaker - and unquestionably easy on the eyes, as my mother would say. He prefaced his reading by trying to sell us his television show, Health TV, and offering us low-grade prizes like pencils and mugs. I was unimpressed, but not so much so that I refused my pencil at the end of the reading. I inwardly recoiled as he described his reading and a branch of science fiction. To my elitist taste in literature, science fiction is the stuff of doomed boyfriends and annoying little brothers. To my delight, the book was absolutely hilarious, and I laughed out loud (this is rare) at least twice.



He discussed in his Q+A period how important honest language is for dialogue, and strongly recommended attending sketch comedy to hone our humour skills. So here I am now, sitting at Yuk Yuk's, not trying to polish, but merely discover if I have any hope at writing humour. I give up as I realize that I've been so stressed out, I haven't even laughed in the past hour. I walk out of hte comedy club feeling dejected, and catch the bus home. Lying in bed that night, I realize that I left my notebook full of meticulous stratagies for humour and my crappy-but-free pencil on the bus. I sigh and roll out of bed, pulling on a sweatshirt and walking to a nearby 24 hour internet cafe. I sit squinting in the dim glow of the computer screen and order two of Minister Faust's books form Amazon.com. Instead of trying to be funny, I'll settle for reading funny. It's got to come to me one day.

playing with poetry

Exposure

I am choreographed into vulnerability
chest lifted
head back
wrists held out to the crowd
as white and ghostly
as when you taught me how to
hold a hookah to my lips
and drink sweet cinnamon smoke
I fall violently to the floor
ripping the canvas of my musculature
rolling and splitting myself up my center
contorting with that pleasure-pain of
knowing there is
Ichor in my blood
and I am invincible
a hairless sweaty hand
sliding up my thick woolen skirt
leaving a streak of ash
along the inside of my thigh
the score is to arch my back
as I spread my legs
lift my pelvis
drop my eyes

but I’m not going to do this anymore

I stand and press my palms
over the bruises on my hips
I wipe the blood form my ankle
with the back of my calf

I remember how
It was because
your name was Atticus
that I trusted you