I thought the world gone crazy. Inner voice said I was wrong.

I sometimes try to listen. Sometimes I try to be that strong.

‘There’s a movement without leaders. They want what they can’t be.

They use the web and ignorance. No sense that they can see.

Some people just love danger. Like the Joker, they do yearn…

To take away the beauty, and see how the world will burn.

They said if I stared long enough into that haunting dark abyss.

That I could break the darkness and see light, I couldn’t miss.

You see, I have this peace of mind, and when I close my eyes.

I’ve made friends with the darkness; to my horror and surprise!

It’s payday at the Gulag… There are smiles raining down.

The dealers here, peddling dreams. Anticipation is all the sound.

It’s chaos until midnight. When Cinderella hears a moan.

She was in the Masters dark room, where she thought they were alone.

It’s over like it started. Alarm clocks ring at dawn.

We move like it’s all over… It’s just the money that’s all gone.

She had a voice like mother… with a low sweet cadence drawl.

The kind that makes one shudder like a noose before the fall.

I searched for strength to hold back. I didn’t know how or what.

She caught me in that moment where I tried and failed to shut.

I wasn’t sure her motive, however I felt that it was planned.

I lost my will to say goodbye and then I lost my will to stand.

I left things as they started, all bright eyed and confused.

I left alone with my life more black and blue than bruised.

Winter is broken here…

The air is warm now.

People are shedding wool and jackets and blankets and sleeping bags.

Winter is not all that’s broken here…

I walk on the shady side still because I like the cool. On the streetcar, a man already seated says,

“I wouldn’t sit there. Someone pissed on the floor; I think.”

I responded, “I guess the TTC needs to be installing toilets now?”

“It’s tough times…”

“Indeed.”

I pick up my fruit at the local market and get back on the streetcar. Someone verbally attacks someone getting on the car; someone else goes face to face bumming change. More harsh refusals.

Yesterday at the drugstore someone yelled my way, “You have money to shop, but you don’t have money to help the homeless?

Am I missing something?

My coffee was exotic.

The cream was thick and chill.

I was feeling down like burnt malaise.

But for that, they had a pill.

The model came from Instagram.

So hot, it seemed like crime.

Necks all snapped, and heartbeats capped.

Traffic halted on a dime.

There was liquor and a base beat.

And the rest, I’m not so sure.

There was lust and fussed and upper crust.

And my intentions less than pure.

All

It started out as leisure.

Just a story with a name.

Just a dirty little poem.

With no guilt that wasn’t shame.

Then there was the paintings.

Looked like something maybe art.

Then a thought became a film.

Just no stopping once we start.

Was a murmur from a choir.

And a voice that rattled hymn.

From a note that just got higher.

In a light that knew no dim.

In the moments that were awkward.

I learned to listen and looked to see.

Saw the living and breathed spirits.

You can’t guess which one is free.

I am reading again… Savage Art, a biography about Jim Thompson, the author of The Killer Inside Me & The Grifters.

Here’s a quote:

“There are 32 ways to tell a story, and I’ve used them all. There’s only one plot. Things are not as they seem.”

Brilliant Mr Thompson!