Baby Doll

Shivering on East Sherbrooke street
hands lost in mittens
and kisses with kittens

Slippery southern St Laurent avenue
feet slide on sidewalks
I perfect my streetalk

Dreamy western backpack
the problem is that
i dont want to be
in some waterlogged straightjack

You jerk motherlover
now whats left to discover

your love patents covers
you watch over others

your lust is sprinkled on
death
your past
is covered up in the wall your
skin is promised to my own you
cant promise me a damn thing you're
not really here are you?

i can read the dust on my shoes
and its been two hundred and fifty thousand kilometres
or so
that I have walked

and of this great distance
there have been at least one hundred and fifteen people
that I have jerked my shoulder away from

All because
I know they would have tried
to take this away from me

Whats it gonna do to you
sweet baby child
to see exactly what this is worth
and then to see
that it is nothing

what will it do to your mind
sweet baby doll
to understand exactly what this is
and then to understand that it is nothing

What's that going to do to you?

Carmen Miranda

Somebody told me as I was dancing to Latino music at a wedding that I reminded them of this woman. I don't get it. I never wear fruit hats.

The weird thing is when I was on my ayhuasca trip a woman with a fruit hat holding a big bowl of tropical fruit juice came to me and was enticing me to drink from it.

What is my connection to Carmen Miranda?

if you find my dead body

Disintegrate
under the wheels of not knowing why
ask me your questions
then i'll tell you mine

illuminate
the consequences
of not knowing why
tell me your reasons
and ill tell you mine

but you can just get those from the air
you'll find it where?
it's always there

should i lay my heart on the line
but i wont give it up
because its mine

and will you shine a light on my breast
and take all the rest
would that be best?

if you find my body when I die it would be:

protected in secret shadows
talked about with hushed voices
carved out of decayed wood
burned from the spots on the sun
weakened from the ocean's currents

all of the above.

end.

Smelly Jungle Pillow

I remember the smell of my pillow when I was staying in the jungle hut in Peru. Pungent like mildew, understandable given the intense humidity of the place. My pillow was always damp there, and I guess it never really got the chance to dry. It also smelled like scalp, scalp and mildew. I guess the little pre pubescent boy who kept hitting on my sister must have laid his head on that pillow many times before me. Anyway, that day after canoeing through the river that was rushing beside our hut, I knew it was the river that smelled of dead things, thick with squirming creatures and decaying matter. Thick and swampy, and when the bubbles surfaced I could have sworn that someone had passed gas. As I ran my hands through my greasy hair I thought, there's no way I'm bathing in that sewage for the three days I'm staying here. So I didn't blame the pre pubescent boy for not washing his hair. I lay my head down on that pillow and the mosquitos didn't bite me, the bullfrogs and the crickets lulled me to sleep.