Category Archives: poem

strategy

the friend of my enemy my friend

criss crossing over hills ‘n bends

were they ever in danger of freezing

or were they ever in danger of death?

we are beasts of enlightenment

whatever we think that might be

translucent bugs coming out of it’s

shell of 221 years –

to mate with the ancestral peers

3 cheers & a who-ra

any day it’s a night

in a house in the sky

they can stay there indefinitely,

but at least til 2030

when the space time continuum runs out

because there are 644 meanings

and secret liason meetings,

i’m in the broom closet mating

and you’re back where you belong

hating

me

 

the streets of toronto
worn, bullied, catastrophic
always a memory
the place you threw pizza
on the ground
wishing it was me
the place where we recited
endless reams of poetry
the place where i worked
until the BIG LIE took hold
the place where they’ve now dug
and burrowed and holed
every street narrowed, bulwarked,
emblazoned,
flagged, coned, piloned,
pocked, scarred and scattered–
streets that scream “go home!”
“you’re not wanted!”
unless you’re a tourist and then
“please ignore the mess,
and come spend your money anyway”
we are swerving to miss
the jaywalking grandmother
the carefree 30-something couple dragging
a child’s blanket like some comic book character
that guy on the corner with the microphone singing you can’t believe he’s still here after two years,
the man on one wheel,
the scooters on the gardiner,
the shooters in the school.

troll

The secret to loving a city is controlling it, bending it to your will, forcing it to give you what you want.
Eventually after years of trodding the same concrete paths you believe you should be afforded your fetish. After all that’s what you suffer through for right?
The city must be made to pay for your suffering, your perils will likely be projected on to her. She’ll make you surrender though, bring you to your knees.
You’ll be begging for release before she’s through with you and in the end, Stockholm syndrome like, you love her for letting you go, bonded in solidarity of mutually assured destruction.

space junk

i sit here contemplating what will happen
we don’t get paid to think yet
waiting for the drones to plant trees
waiting for the gates to re-open slightly
peaking our way on to moonlit paths,
only brush sets us apart from the spiders’ webs
stumbling quietly so as not to upset the killers
distracted from the reality of uncertainty
and the naming of the enemy
that goes on in lovers’ lanes
over right-of-way arguments
where the sun never, never reaches
parks emit light pollution
and waterfalls spread foreign fires
thru forests of builders,
seeking an alternative to concrete
while plastic bricks rescued from ocean trash heaps
stare bleakly from lofty ideals
making great green blog posts
that might get read by most
before the 23 tons of steel & glass
pour down on our next emergency.
2021 by a.i.heeds

for the times

i can pay you from my profits
but the profits never come
the major airlines will get seven billion
but I am only one,
person
running a trade
turning the page
on a life of no change
we walk the streets talking
the girls and guys gawking
and all the while hawking
our most precious and divine
there is no time
we lost it all in storage
the landlords’ drama bored us
the winds and rains poured on us
and we were left in tents
we had no money for rents
we wanted to be nomadic
but we were constantly held by cabinet
to a rock on a road’s hard place
a locked ransom not in concrete
i cannot stand it
i feel they planned it
and what ever happens
i am going to be fucked
it’s enough
this is fucking rough
all the sheep are lost
and the boy, lonely on a hill,
has cried wolf
and wolves are killed
but there are no thrills
like taking back the homeland
re-occupying the highland
generating the skyland
i stand in sinking sand land
dunes richochet in

while we’re trying

because we can say things other people can’t
because we are real
because we care
because we don’t care
about stupid stuff
because we have ideas
coming out the ying yang

because we can code
and no I don’t mean that code
although some uv us (like me)
can do a bit o dat too
(more on that l8r)
we can speak the code
of imagery
we see past the idolatry
because I am me

we are the ultimate rhetoricians
and I actually had rhetoric in my degree
but i’m stuck in a fame-freeze
a frame-freeze
liquid nitrogen emotional spill
the yellow cake tastes really good
riding the current in my rubber wheel
swiftly down the st.laurent I float
perdre la raison

I am from Toronto
look at me, look at me
I am here.

Walk around me.
I am a tank.
I am a killer.
I transfer my body odour into toxic fumes
I am subsumed.

why do we need poets,
to look at the big picture, when we already know it,
why their cynicism attempts to de-rail us
collisions & carnage only broadcast once
never to remind us of the wasteland
we live in
the junk carts
and the has beens.

all of a sudden the news is very, very bad
saudis have pulled out of iran
putin claims we are the eneemy we hear
we see him hunt and fish and swear

we relate to the haters
we understand we are lucky bitches
gratitude and humour and positive attitude stickers
scratch and sniff to win the big one
planet is dying while we’re trying to steal some
sun for the mars that haunts our nightmares
waking to find that it isn’t over yet

new book

Began writing this after the inspiration of Plastercine Poetry at the Victory last night. I feel it is part of the book I’m going to write during NaNoWriMo.

When you set your sights small sometimes it becomes easier to see them through. I thought we were through and then you came back to me, ever wanting, and yet unable to deliver the goods. Promises made became empty beds full of longing and memory. Trapped inside one’s body, one pretended to envelope the change, accept it, let go. Transform it, or you. Once admitted the dysfunction was no fault of one’s own it became possible to walk on the moon. Or any other such surface you desired. I played upon that desire. I didn’t mean to, it was just my own selfish transcendence of inhibitions. How far I’d let myself go into wanderings and trails obviously well trodden but not so much as the other ones. I… handed over my calvary in an attempt to bid for peace, bide for time or at least trade for some oranges. I hadn’t come this far to return with nothing.

But what I got was an aftertaste, some say bitterness, but I never saw that as a negative, I really enjoyed the ascent. Even though I now know it to be some disease, the way it played out for me I was able to surf, if for a short time, relatively in life span, but like a frog leaping from pad to pad I went exploring, walking on water to everyone’s disbelief. Now everyone can do it of course but I like to think I was a pioneer, at least for my tribe. And here’s where the apology I suppose could enter in. After all you could just say she was doing her job, like everyone else, caught up in a web of coercion, to which negation means finalization. And not in a good way.

Also a number of people received my free poem, good times.

ive started a rumour mill

of quiet revolution

a feeling of welling and telling solutions

i wage with a warm open fire

and potion, i cage up the bottom of my emotion.

im drawn to the fire

i open the page

i sit with the masters and see them enraged

i am but my maker

in all that it slays

i am but entirely of mater in chains

i am but a myriad, a microcosm of change

i start in the classroom, i start on the page

i do it with deliverance,

i do it all day

i’ll do it to the end of my formatted ways

it doesn’t need to be a prisoner

it doesn’t need to be strong, it can’t last for a lifetime

or last in a song

i am but a strand and a flan made of bone

I’m daughted by no one,

i care not for blame

the only thing that is important is we go on our way

Live it up! Sip from the cup!

We’re all in this together,

we must fight for it to control the weather,

the whether or not we’re gonna do it, weather or not we’re gonna weather thru it.

cheers, grab hold of yer matey, limey, blimey, mistress Katy

perrier is sold all over the world, probably owned by coke a cola

wouldn’t fight for it so i told ya, quitting coffee is what i gotta do,

i can do anything you can do better,

so I put on my sweater, and said, I have a cold dear,

gotta stay in bed, perhaps shave my head

run naked in the sun, and the rain, dive into the ocean

protect your right to cross borders,

dived undecided                         (x divided)

derided, derision, it was my decision,

where to go what to do the next direction isn’t up to,

you its up to me, i will be free

i will be greeting you,

at the door,

telling you what I done for,

dressing you down with my eyes,

all in an attempt to undisguise

my truth

all abourd                                z

matey, ahoy

and lately, have you seen a little boy

wandering around here at all,

he’s about yea’ tall…

actually he’s really just learned to crawl,

then he’ll stand himself against the wall

and brace himself against the side of the table,

moving forward ifin heez abel.

Ya, my name’s Mabel,

I’m an old sould,

di-send-id from the gentlin’

cross fit in the main strip,

eerily cage-lit

i dropped off your package,

and here’s how you take it,

just sip it in doses

and don’t forget to space it.

with food, fragrance,

hypnotic cadence

whenever my tameless

strangeless

pageless

pagan

superman

comes

home

then

I’ll

be

one.

still lonely, wondering, wandering

a cloud, vapour

plug back in and get to work

a deadline, a line

in the sand

a future plan

i wonce had fans.

But time passes.

people forget,

a man dies,

there are kids.

I can’t do it,

its all too overwhelming

a child has grown

the adults have showen

how not to

do what i say

not what i do

i know what’s right

but i just can’t right now.

always the wrong pace,

the wrong choice, spontaneity.

i’m spoiled like rotten milk

lost faith, how could I?

Make someone believe in me,

someone I wanna be.

Fragments cast away in this omnibus strategy,

you kissed me more when I asked for it.

your face, your face

is so endearing to me

i want to de-age you,

melt the stress, tension and worry.

clean the fury

when i met up with him he reviewed the conspiracy

the hemp car, the pulp ban

cortina, besos, tranquilla

los presas en el aqua, los presas en el agua

sola

pas campagna

dancing faster

the heron chased my bus.