I walk these streets
lined with maples
where the mighty oak should reign
From windows gaping I am assailed
by bourgeois houseplants
External trappings look the same
These constants ignored
I am the variable
but am I still sane?
Or some spare fruit
of solemn contemplation
The voices heard in the dark
are mocking, mostly laughter
Orwell chortles from the grave
Whos laughing now?
Under any banner
Big Brother all the same
No obligation to listen
nonetheless
tells what you don’t want to hear
I will not be silenced
Die Gedanke sind immer frei
Pajama nation
There is no bed to retire
Sleep in winter clothes
We witness elemental shift
without premeditation
Random acts less brilliantine
Cause and effect
Their purpose unknown
A furnace spent on final fury
while air fills the vacuum
Like new sheets
descending cool
There is still water
flowing underground
David Byrne swims against the current
This time between
Same as it ever was
Mid summer, sun retires late
across the courtyard
Shadows crept into the eve
Lights out, on the floor
we watched through the bottom pane
Only television flickers
The Braves on TBS
The Fixx on the stereo
Moonrise on crank whores
Stand or fall
They queued for that peanut butter
Stand or fall
Communion from a needle
Red lips and eye liner
a parade of sad clowns
They only had one way out
and in the morning gone
Yet every night the same
Forty years on now
Can see Friday’s lights from here
Return to scene of the crime
Boulevards unchanged
untainted by the shadows of years
and still bathe in afternoon’s
waning light
Bricks hold no memories
only echoes, then vanished
Familiarity donned
like old slippers
Do not lament forgotten years
Done and gone
Fixed for all time
against the mutable spirit
Wind swept blue waters
A March wind, biting wet
CN Tower distant
and a lakeshore always in reach
Take the Queen St. trolley to western edges
where Etobicoke youth waver
escaping their suburban cocoon
Don Mills freaks and Yonge St. denizens
all these pilgrims shelter at 999
Summer, short and glorious
Her Autumn streets adorned
and Winters white and cold
