Jak's View of Vancouver v.3

It was a spontaneous gesture

— unplanned, unexpected

completely out of place

compared to her routine liquid grace —

but one that cannot be erased.

Her aura, the gentle appearance;

soft natural makeup,

the smart marquisette frock,

the deliberately misplaced lock

of hair;  her exact air was grazed

in that simple moment of caution

released and disentrenched.

The extended finger,

— erect, phallic, rude — didn’t linger;

but he felt it to whom it was raised.

To make a crème brulee

take a luscious creamy custard

and a butane torch

and burn the bugger to bits

cocaine and speed were her butane

her body and brain the custard.

That was her life she was burning

though she thought they were just desserts

We begin our passage

by passing

through a passage,

the passing through of which

seems like a lifetime

to both passenger

and bearer

The forked tongue of the future lies ahead

Beckoning us forward.  Advance!  Progress!

Regardless of the perils and our dread

Of failure, ever onward must we tread.

And no matter how much we feel the stress,

The forked tongue of the future lies ahead.

And whether we fly the black flag or red,

The same indignations we must address

Regardless of the perils and our dread:

The starving masses, children barely fed;

And even for those who have even less

The forked tongue of the future lies ahead.

So throw away your doubts; let us instead

Rejoice in future’s coming, and impress —

Regardless of the perils and our dread —

Our generation’s mark.  Let it be said

We lived, loved, built, and understood that, yes,

The forked tongue of the future lies ahead

Regardless of the perils and our dread.

ordinary lives shattered by

curiosity

&

revenge

invisible shadows reflected off

murder

&

bodies

momentary madness defence fails to

execution

&

nothing

“You what?”

“You what?”

my voice echoed down the line

like a bedlamite

bouncing off

cushioned walls.

Then,

suddenly,

the silence,

the quiet electronic crackles,

hung in the dark night

as if my question had gone,

disappeared down a deep and endless well.

Minutes passed, maybe hours.

In the end, I whispered “I love you”

and put down the receiver

as the bitter sting of nausea overwhelmed my throat.

It’s 2am and the furnace

of our passion

is cooling     slowly

we rise, tottering together,

arms entwined,

to the kitchen    kissing

after making love

we make toast

thick with butter     oozing

rich strawberry jam

streaked liked blood

or rust on a fence     rich

as sweet love’s triangle:

you and me and toast

The older woman at the bar

thrusts out her breasts

exposing her defiance

of gravity

only to reveal

the clever architecture of her foundation

garments

etched in lines and grooves across her back.

Such women

with such pretensions

shouldn’t wear white sweaters

tucked tight into yellow stretch pants.

the shadows of the lines and grooves

accentuate the engineering

drawing our attention

away from the points she wants us to watch.

And once you notice the bra-lines

across her back

you ignore the synthetically pleasing roundness

of her surgically-enhanced bosom

across her front

and instead you focus

the lines and shadows that dog

her face

even through the most post-modern make-up

and you ask

probably silently

why this woman needs to hide her age

why this woman needs to pretend

she is still a sexual object.

Indeed,

why the sexual attribute has become so all-fired damn important

when sex lasts for but minutes

and friendship lasts forever.

The rustic lane unwinds

its way from the mountain

like a lover leaving her man

after a lingering entwining kiss;

a solitary clump of bluebells

reflects aquamarine raindrops

on the hood of the passing car

like mirrors round as hazelnuts in the mist;

and as I ignore the windowed beauty

the weekend ending burns into my soul

leaving me wondering if, once I’m gone,

she’ll remember me with a cheer or a hiss.

He snored.

And threads of thoughts of windy days

Rushed by like the rivers of Sierra de Ronda.

He turned.

And the heft and touch of the silken duvet

Slipped across his body like the soft waves of Estepona.

He slept.

And into his reverie the ringing telephone

Floated like a minor chord from a flamenco guitar.

He yawned.

And the dreamy grin of the old pepper merchant

Dissolved like tapas in the mouth of a hungry eater.

He answered.

And the sound of his hoarsely whispered “Ola?”

Crept across his chin like a shovel scraping tar.

He awoke.

And the everyday cares of the little village

Wrapped up his dreams like garbage and threw them afar.

As our world winds

through the stars,

do we leave sparks

in our wake?

Do we leave others guessing

what voices we use,

and what good

friends we’d make?

Are we more than

a falling garnet or

just a crashing bore

for heaven’s sake?

The smog-laden tangerine fog

tinted by a million lamplights

lays heavy tonight;

the busy rustle of the city’s moves

lost in its depths

like the delicate harmonies of a dulcimer

played in the attic as heard in the basement.

Closer, much closer, I hear

the lazy rustle of the scorpion

picking carelessly at a pecan shell.

I blink in the orange darkness.

the autobiography of a mayfly

would be as short as a page

and as dense as perfect memory

the madness of dashing hither and yon

across the summer’s blue distance

to seek the one mate of perfect desire

the need to avoid the bloodletting wars

of birds and trout at cool water’s edge

to arrive in one piece at the perfect location

the keenness of invention, of new hieroglyphics,

to tempt her away from the maddening crowds

to sing her, to win her with this perfect dance

the sense of fulfillment, slowly drifting to earth

with all power spent, all duty completed

to remember, to listen to the end of this perfect life

Big in size

but with a squeaky little voice,

Canada is like

an effeminate linebacker

facing the south-of-49ers

across the goal line of an undefended border.

We have steroids without strength

mass without muscle.

We are

a huge collapsable shell of a country.

We survive

because the Americans cannot be bothered

to deal with the

PR flak

that would inevitably follow

the easy pushover.

Could Celine Dion save us?

Or Bryan Adams or Margaret Atwood?

Or even Douglas Coupland, Tony Onley and the Bare Naked Ladies linking arms?

No.

Not even the whole mess

of Canadian culture

— bilingual and multicultural —

could save us

if the Americans put their minds to it.

The manifest destiny

of globalization

ensures that it will happen

one day, some day.

And then many of us will become

marginalized Americans

like Idahoans or Puerto Ricans.

Maybe we’ll qualify for grants

and affirmative action

as the third largest minority

after

blacks and hispanics.

Maybe we’d alter American politics

for ever

with our semi-socialists

and our semi-fascists

and our quaint idea that government can occasionally

be a good thing.

More likely, we’ll become

a minor market for Wal Mart

an inconvenience for weather forecasters

and a fiscal drain

on southwestern startups

and other entrepreneurs.

If there’s a futures market for snow, native land

claims and Gallic intransigence,

Maybe they could sell us

to Norway

where benefits are better.

He
drove

her home after dinner.
They dawdled for a moment on the porch until the wind

drove

them inside where, after drinks,
their mutual passion

drove

them to seek the comforts of the bedroom, and where
her exuberant energy

drove

him mad with desire, and where
he

drove

his knifeblade deep into
her heart

He was

driven

they said, seeking to excuse
his excess,
his access to those parts of
her body which even this exhorbitantly open society doesn’t allow.

Driven

he was
they said by television violence and devil music and commercial
radio and the

drive-throughs

he was forced to eat at as a child by
his working mother.
His vanished other parent

driven

he learned to drink by
his inabilty to access the excess promised to all by the features
he sat through at the

drive-in.

His mother and father coincidentally killed in

drive-bys

he read about two continents and two decades apart.

Driven

they said by these circumstances to commit
his act
her death
they killed
him by

driving

his last of a long line of needles deep into
his arm. And then, in an unmarked car,
they

drove

his body to
his last home, just as
he had

driven

her to the first and last home
they would ever share.

She fumed

and fumed loud.

And as she

disabused me

of my place

in the human

race — given

my lineage

must be replete

with morons and

monkeys —

her otherwise neat

and clipped

peroration

was interlarded

with sailors’ slang

and potty talk,

and ended with

a red-faced

squalk.

“Fair dinkum, gal,”

I replied,

smiling the smile

that’ll usually

sink ’em.

Stonefaced,

nothing.  I sighed

and completed

the refund

that would send

her away.

Thank God,

I’m stoned

all day.

The bus ride finished a mile from the shore

leaving a trek through the muddy clay

of rain-spattered early spring,

the swarming midges of late July,

or the leafy carpet of middle fall,

to the beach at the end of the world.

Sitting on a sea-driven log,

a carcass of the far northern woods,

my lover and I cleared our throats with lemonade,

quietly removed the stings of another week,

and populated our thoughts with waves of dreams

far removed from the drab of every day.

Childhood is

a flat green blade growing from the stem of a plant,

the absorbing and digesting of

a body of myths

Adolescence is

the property of becoming self-luminous

in the recognition of

fire and hunger and strong desire

Adulthood is

the acceptance of the heat and light caused by burning;

a steady flow that rises

as the tide, and ebbs

Wisdom is

known only to those of special comprehension,

something very white,

a leaf blown across the firmament

Death is

the beginning of all things, the nape

that links the body of one life to

the head of the next

He had long ago accepted the loss as permanent,

but that acceptation was merely a gloss, as yet skin deep,

not yet having bled into the very marrow of his being,

nor led him to that place of serenity.

His bitterness lay as deep as the roots of cedar in shale,

following tracks as distant and serpentine as the staged attacks

of true hackers working their miraculous juju through the internet

ether, and forever ending in a sad soiled grace.

And, though he could choose to confuse his loneliness with tragedy –

as if he were the sainted prophet of his own persecuted

exarchate in exile — it was but loneliness nonetheless,

and it hurt as bad as the arrows of martyrdom.

I have seen the best minds of my generation squander their extraordinary talents on the marketing of consumer goods and the maintenance of shareholder value.

I have seen them abandon all pretence of worker’s rights at the behest of foreign and domestic bankers, Friedmanites from Chicago and MIT.

I have seen them relegate the environment to the dustbin, a victim in the race for quarterly profits and analysts expectations.

I have seen them treat safety issues as public relations issues, and seen them lobby to lessen their liability.

They have shamed seniors into wearing diapers, taught children how to smoke, and taunted teens into starving themselves to death.

They have sold goods that have killed millions, children, pregnant women, families, clans, tribes and nations, here and around the world.

They have spiked the waters of the masses with a poison called greed.

They have swallowed our ethics and morals and spat them back in our faces as branded goods for which it is right and necessary that we pay to display their logos.

You have contributed to their victory with every discretionary purchase, every dollar saved or spent.

You have accepted their world view with every envious glance, every lottery ticket purchase, every time you have watched a TV program starring “celebrities” or giving away a million dollars.

You have bowed to the inevitable with each ring of the alarm clock, each punch of the work clock, each end-of-week celebration.

You have become your parents, your older sister, your Uncle Frank with his shiny pants, your parents once again.

I have purchased things I could have made myself.

I have allowed my city to become plastered with advertising slogans, from store signs to billboards to the names of buildings and arenas.

I have dressed my children in designer labels, given then Elmo dolls and Flintstone vitamins, and let them choose CocoPops and TV cartoons over papaya and reading for breakfast.

I have enough of everything I need, and yet forever I need more; and

We have accepted all this bullshit, washed it down with the liquid lies of the liberal’s election hoax.

We have time and again made the wrong choice; time and again we have meekly accepted that the choices we are offered are the only choices possible.

We have been active participants in our own kidnapping, paying the ransom over and over again.

We have failed ourselves — and the bastards have won.  At least for now.