Artists (and their blindness)
That morning I went
to the university
with all those people
who think too much of themselves.
I walked on the streets
and avenues,
all dressed up in worn out shoes
and faded denim because it’s cool.
There’s this thing in the air of campuses,
like breathing pretension,
and I like it,
I’m part of it.
The students sit outside
with coffees and smoke,
Double cream and double sugar,
they’re drinking their hypocrisy.
They sip and they talk
about Pollock and their muse,
they think they know Warhol
because they eat Campbell’s.
But when they paint
they’re just pissing on canvases
and they tell you all about it
because it’s poetry for the eye.
They move their hands in their hair
and tell you you should care
because theirs just means so much more
than that painting with your guts all over it.
They think their C’s and D’s
are from being misunderstood,
they’re all struggling with their troubles
and then go home to their parents and silk toilet paper.
They tell you money doesn’t matter
when you’ve got art,
while staring at you
through their million dollar glasses they don’t need.
But they’re just blinding themselves
with their visions of Bohemia
and their bullshit complaints
about capitalism and politicians they see on TV.
And it makes me feel so sorry
because me too I sit and drink my coffee,
and I disagree
for the sake of being an artist.
Hemoglobin Heat
It’s like a fire that’s gotten into my blood,
Like a mute, howling wolf.
I hopped on that bus to get away,
But it’s burning and burning like a pain in my gut.
In the melting sky there’s this sun,
That just won’t fucking set on himself.
Feels like watching a clock (tik tok tik tok)
Going crazy crazy crazy, it’s passed midnight goddamn it.
There’s the sleep like a buzz in-out,
And alcohol in my heart angers my hemoglobin suffocating.
My eyes blinking and flooding blue on themselves,
Looking for a horizon in the sky.
There’s a few clouds (phew phew phew)
White so white they cool my flame.
One, two, three days to sober my muscles,
drunk with anger like whiskey in the heat.
Then the wind blows and I’m blind,
A light bright like a bare bulb in my sad retina.
Damn damn damn I’m sweating red
And I’m breathing carbon in my violent lungs.
I need the night to wake and shine black,
A night to rest and let my chest soften.
Crisscrossin’ NYC
The architecture of my mind is shaking like an earthquake;
Trembling and trembling like anxious thrills.
I’m singing to the melody of the open road like car-sick children
“Maman, are we there yet?”
I’ve got my head light as a balloon when I hit the streets;
Streets like dreams (crisscross crisscross)
Dear Jack, and dear Allen, are those your shadows under my feet,
looking of memories like whiskey and nicotine?
Oh dear Neil are you here, and you too Billy,
in those taxis like shooting stars over me?
The ducks are long gone from the park
and the rain is pouring on me like a Dylan blues.
That troubadour inside my heart is playing loudly,
shooting power chords along the ruptured veins of my arms.
Can you hear me out there Jerome David,
in your rye field with your unpublished prose?
I hear the echoes of harmonicas bleeding in the Village
and the strum of guitars spitting poetry.
I can see you across that cold water Bruce,
Dancing in the dark like a hungry night owl.
I can feel all of you in my muscles tighter than sailor knots,
You with your devil may care smiles so loud.
Hayfield girl
With her windy hair
like a bird in the big blue,
And her needle head pupils
like two flakes
On the burnt ground of her eyes,
shaking to the drum of her heart,
She stands in Canadian hayfields
like a lone mountain top tree.
With her wolf-like shadow
she dances a waltz like an angel,
And with her trembling throat
she screams red like the devil.
In that burning air of the West
She fights a war of love and shame.
Acadian love
Les grandes personnes
From fluo thoughts of swings
to cold cerebral mechanics.
There’s a storm, flood flood flooding;
A murder up in there.
Draw me a sheep, he says
and so there was a birth in his mind.
And with that fetal electricity
playing god on Asteroid-B 612.
With all flaming sex games
and with bruised lips,
You can write all the words you want
but just with the ashes of the heavy stares.
Then there’s the dreams like mathematics
but where 2+2 always equals 4
And where you can’t ask things like,
“Why do roses have thorns?”
From hand in hand laughter romance
to machinery staccato love
There’s a rain, pour pour pouring;
An eternal washing.
I’d rather be stuck up in a tree than be tied to it.
Pine kill
The trees breathe to the sound
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