I
can't
find
myself
I'm lost in the ragged wrinkles of addiction and obsession
I
can't
lose
myself
I'm found in the wrinkled rags of sobriety and freedom
and In-Sight
almighty and powerful
is just a pat
we give ourselves on the back
to justify
insanity

down the caustic path of personality growth
a guy limped along
scooped out inside, poor bastard
but it really doesn't matter if his
mom and dad were married or not

The Keys

The morning air was cold; the iron-grey hues of daybreak stained the constricted, pallid sky demarcating the leafless trees and black silhouettes of the city's skyscrapers against the backdrop of the chilled air. Down on the street in the city's grand park, a man lay crumpled under the regnant branched of a large tree; he'd slept yet another night beneath its sheltering boughs. Slowly he opened his sore eyes and saw above him the low branches, a network of antlers cold and bone-like, and at once he felt himself pinned down, prey to this indifferent entity. He cleared his throat; it's rawness burned him and made him think of scorched flesh. His head was pulsing with sharp pain as though an angry prisoner was inside, hammer in hand, trying to escape by pounding through the cage of what was his skull. His breath was sour and acrid, he could taste still the cheap thin wine. It seemed to him that every nerve of his body was firing at a terrifying rate; was his heart beating so fast in an attempt to break through his chest wall and also escape? He lay there trying to calm himself. Finally, he rose up laggardly, swiping away the leaves and debris from his damp clothing. He pulled the collar of his black overcoat up over his ears and scuttled cockroach-like across the park. At last he reached the arched gateway and stepped out onto the white cement of the sidewalk. The paleness of the cold slab beneath him turned him dizzy. His white hands, trembling, searched his pockets for keys. Had he lost them? No, they were there. His fingers squeezed around them. He had a quick, sharp desire to free himself from them, drop them right there on the walk or toss them into the trash. Useless, abhorrent, smug little pieces of metal; maybe tomorrow.
He was supposed to be in court at 9 am. He looked furtively at his watch; it was 9:07. He would be late. He walked with purpose, his head slightly bent, across to the Courthouse and began to climb the cold marble steps. Near the heavy over-sized doors, a well-dressed man puffed nervously at a cigarette, looked with irritation at his watch, and then at the man ascending the stairs. He dropped the cigarette and with the heel of his shoe, ground at it angrily. At last his lawyer reached the final step and the two men entered the stately doors.

this troubled
lie between us
is a roof leaking into my
cornered ego
the bed is a platform
and a stage
heaped with covers
and daylight is the
enemy of all the
decaying secrets

CHRONICA 1

I’m L now. I wonder if I’ll think L is so bad when I’m C. One time I asked my friend Brooke , “ who the hell would want to be 100 ?” and he said, “ someone who’s 99.” We were tooling around in a beat up Pontiac , just driving around drinking and having fun. We hit a big pothole and he said, “ they should fix the road in that hole.” I thought that was pretty funny, obviously, given that I still remember that xxx years later. Brooke lost a leg in an accident and he had to live in the Rehab centre in Richmond while the money issue was sorted out between his lawyers and Workers Compensation. That was a crazy place that Rehab centre, sort of a cross between a recreation complex and an after hours booze can. Brooke didn’t appreciate all the rules and regulations. After all , he was a young man who had just spent a year of his life in the hospital and now he only had one leg, and gone were a lot of dreams, and here was some asshole with coke glasses and pimples telling him to be in by X1. It didn’t go over so well. We’d be out tooling around in that old Pontiac and he’d wheel in to some dive and make a phone call; “this is Mr Brooke Peters, have a cheque ready for me by three o’clock, I need five thousand for today.” And it would be ready. And away we’d go on one of our champion drunks , and almost always he’d have to have a new used car. The transaction would take about XV minutes. It was exciting to look out on to that car lot and wonder which one he would pick; sometimes it would be a beauty , a gold coloured 1966 Lincoln Continental Land Yacht, sometimes it would be the worst looking piece of shit you’ve ever seen , depending on his mood. We did a lot of touring during that time, taking up residence in some very charming places, the details of which mercifully escape me now. Brooke tells me he’s the only guy I know who doesn’t lie when he says his dink is longer than his leg.