A Refuge of Self-Deception

Everyone reaches for a shard of immortality—
a gleam to flash in the cosmic audit.
Some chisel their names into monuments;
others whisper them into the seams of the universe,
hoping the wind files the message
in the correct eternity.

Most get routed through the usual channel—
a granite placard, dates stamped
like misprinted batch codes,
telling passersby:
here lies a carbon temp
whose contract dissolved quietly.

Lower still drift the poets—
the graceful write-offs—
crafting metaphors no one requisitioned,
reciting sonnets to drifting dust
and one baffled housefly
clocking overtime.
They get no graves.

They’re rerouted to a containment district—
Amazon Books—
a cul-de-sac of forgotten language
where paperbacks arrive like stray birds
and gather in gentle piles,
murmuring their unread lines
to fluorescent skies
that never look down.

A soft-afterlife warehouse,
stacked with abandoned imaginings,
each book aware of its fate:
to fade with dignity, in print,
aligned beside its silent colleagues
who never cleared the ledger.

The Only Reason

You stand in line at the job fair
amidst all your counterparts,
their jeans just as ripped,
their hair just as unwashed,
their dreams long since dead,
drying out on a line of hopelessness
for some future boss to chew on
like a pointlessly idle snack.

You stand in line at the job fair,
and the dude in front of you,
what with what’s left of his teeth
brown and folded in,
he somehow is both tweaking
and reeking of stale pot
and staler cat piss.

You stand in line at the job fair
waiting for your number to be called,
because as bad as these prospects are,
they’re at least a few rungs up the ladder
from where you currently reside,
constantly paying for gas
with rolls of nickels and dimes.

You stand in line at the job fair,
and the lady three or four bodies back,
she’s got a crying infant on her hip,
and she looks so tired;
the bags under her eyes
have their own carry-on luggage.

You stand in line at the job fair,
and finally they call your number,
and you’re under no delusion
that you’ll ever be anything more
than those disposable digits,
and you sit down across the table
from a graying man in a suit,
and he asks you why you want to work,
and all you can think to reply is:
because I don’t want to die.

What a pickle

 
I chew pickled carrots beside the toilet, 
waiting for the bath to fill. 
Each carrot is the length of finger – snap. 

I lick the vinegar off my thumbs.
My cold sore is a nibbling imp.

How do I annul this marriage?
I don’t hate my husband. I only 
want to shit in this toilet 
audience-free.

I cycled to work today. I cycled home.
A Civic glanced my handlebars
on the corner of Harvey and Gordon.

I’d only had two shots – Captain Morgan – 
before cycling home. I don’t think
I was in the wrong. 

I must be sleeping with that driver
– according to my husband –
because why else would someone hit me?

I envy these carrots their spines. 
How they take the edge off hunger
while leaving you empty. 

I’m half-reclined in half-warm water, 
half in and half out of this marriage, 
the bag, chewing
garlic from the bottom of the jar.



Urine: Thought Police # 8

 
You are among the worst, the pressure
that dogs me everywhere.
I piss in the pool and don’t tell anyone.
I piss in the men’s washroom
at work, after everyone else 
has gone home – a power play.
I rush to the bathroom at 2:00 am. 
My husband sits up in bed. He wants to see
my phone. My urine 
is a barbed canker worm, filling the space 
between heart and cunt. I can’t
wear fitted dresses, fitted pants. I burst
under pressure. I jog up onto the ridgeline,
smoke everywhere, but I still
drink and drink. My mouth
is a wasteland. I piss
in the middle of the trail. I piss 
on my shoe, my brand-new Nikes, 
and don’t wash it off.
Welcome, I tell the laces. Here we are.

August 21, 2025 (Ars Punk)

For want of hole, the heart remained whole.
For want of a whole, the band remained sound.
For want of a sound, the guitar found a chord.
For want of a chord, Joe Strummer formed a world.

Mad, cracked-tooth hippy –
Angry son of diplomats –
Ignored by a father –
Deserted by a brother.

Wild poet of Ladbroke Grove,
Council house lay about,
Cortez of London who burned
His books for three-chord rock.

Clumsy guitar hero!
Crazed, stage stomper!
You did not make the Era
But you took it for your own.

For want of a record I found his words.
For want of his words, I saw a world.
For want of a world, I grabbed a pen.
For want of a pen, I learned to sing.

Joe Strummer! Enemy of gimmick-hungy yobs!
Joe Strummer! Saint of the Holy Cassette Deck!
Joe Strummer! Watcher of that great Jazz note!

For you, today, I wear blue and brown, Joe Strummer!
All days are days for you, Joe Strummer! Joe Strummer.

vagabond’s goodbye - 
she: “hope you’re sterile"
me: “hope you’re barren”

Rather Be A Fool


Don’t teach me the lessons
I don’t need to know,
the ones that require
so much pain.

I’d rather remain
an innocent fool,
angelic in outlook,
and out of touch with the world.

Peace of mind comes so easy
when your head’s full of fluff.
Wisdom can be a burden.
Knowledge can be too much.

Ever a child,
it would be better to roam,
capable of smiles,
filled with love
down to your bones.

Wolf Moon

 
Wolf Moon nips at my heels
as I dance across damp sand dunes
avoiding pratfalls induced night rhythms
portending danger or imposing
obstacles to my free form celebration
of light and renewal, prowling raw
parameters of solar sheen and shadows
renewing spent strength, clearing paths
for new beginnings placing tomorrow’s
prosperity on the horizon as I howl
in open air seeking a spiritual doppelgänger
to guide my footsteps both novel and familiar. 

THE BLACK GIRL WITH BRACES ON HER TEETH

 
The black girl with braces on her teeth,
long skinny legs ending in roller skates.
Those beautiful brown legs in blue jean shorts,
sleek torso twisting in a loose top.

She glided past me,
turned her head,
looked right into my eyes,
caught me watching her.
She held my gaze a second,
I memorized her little nose,
her full mouth.
She turned her braided head forward
as she turned the end of the block
and she was gone.

She didn’t smile at me
but she didn’t seem upset
that I was looking at her like that;
those big marble eyes of hers complacent,
without curiosity,
telling me she knew what I was thinking,
that she was used to it;
used to boys thinking about her like that.
I was helpless.
She had all the power
and no desire to use it.

I was fifteen
and she was probably about the same age.
It took me ten years to stop thinking about her,
seeing her only that one time,
for only a few seconds.

The black girl with braces on her teeth,
long skinny legs ending in roller skates –
she came rolling across my mind tonight.

 

“Irreparable”
 
There’s a mug in my cupboard
with a huge chip out of it
and its coffee stains tell tales
of Saturday morning victories
over terrible hangovers,
while my favorite whisky tumbler
is as clean as a beautiful smile
hiding the most heinous lies.

 
“I’m sad enough”
 
to hear an old friend
is doing well
in their sobriety,
only to feel like I’m a dog
that can’t help but drink
from the toilet bowl.

Against the Worms

 
Such a shame
to waste these
opposable thumbs.

I should throttle a buttercup
or thump-thump-thump
type a thesis

or finger a saxophone
while she rises from the tub
singing her siren song.

Something to show I was here,
my juices soaking the bun
between bouts of shuffling.

The whole time
birdsong bounced from the branches
as we throbbed.

This voluptuous ticking
match-by-match until
the heft and heave ceases.

Only then
does the prickling make sense, tumors
amounting to nothing

in the end.




Arranged Like May June July August

 
Thin clouds
passed through a cheese grater
and scattered overhead

An urgent yip yip
a ponderous arr arr
nothing from the koi pond

A tailless squirrel
next to my father’s coffee mug
half-full of rainwater

Our little family
lost among all the multitude of little families
at the fair