The Fourth Wall

I’m a descendant of the first cave painters
who thought to include human beings in their art.

You see, up until then, prehistoric murals
were mostly just bison, bison, bison.

The theory was – if you drew them on the wall,
you drew them from the land.

So, once my ancestors began to
include themselves in their own scenes,

the land became strewn with
artists, artists, artists.

Soon the scene was all played-out,
leafy greens were over-priced,

and the bison felt excluded,
so they left. My bad.

The Ornamental Cannon

I used to think that meteor showers were glorious occurrences,
that is, until a comet dropped from the sky and blinded my dog.
What happened was, we were walking through Tecumseh Park
when a fireball ricocheted off the barrel of an ornamental cannon.
All at once, three-fifths of the detonated rock illuminated the
Thames riverbed in a shower of red and white sparks, while two-
fifths of the remainder headed straight for my unprotected calves.
Then I felt a slack on the leash, and I realized that my dog had
heroically heaved his body between my legs and the meteorite.
The local ambulance crew appeared on the scene almost at once.
As it happened, they were speeding toward the park with such
haste that they rebounded off the barrel of a vandalized slide.
"I'm fine, fine," shouted my dog. "I can still smell goddamn it!"
Despite his protests, he was rushed to the local hospital where
I dutifully sat by his bedside, describing every inch of his dimly
lit room, until the needles and the sleeping came. At daybreak,
an eager reporter from The Daily Procter came by to interview
the heroic blind dog that had selflessly saved his master's legs.
But to the reporter's dismay, my dog denied the entire glorious
occurrence. "Well, what about the witnesses?" asked the reporter.
"Bark," said my dog, with a dismissive flick of his paw. "People
will remember what they want to remember." "But what about
the ornamental cannon," asked the reporter, "it bears the marks
of an explosion." "Weapons will bear what they want to bear,"
said my dog. "Besides," he added. "I wasn't even in Chatham
last night. I was holding defensive positions with the Shawnee."
In front of the dubious reporter, my blind dog continued to drone
on and on about his role in the War of 1812. "General Procter
had retreated up the Thames with such haste," said my dog.
"That he'd left more than half of his men and supplies behind
with Tecumseh's last chance at honour." "So," said the reporter
who's eyes rolled like looping meteorites, "were you very scared?"
"No," said my dog, "my job was to fetch the scattered supplies
from the river. Our last remaining cannon could not longer fire,
and the enemy knew it. Their artillery thrashed at the Thames
until the shoreline resembled a pot of boiling water." Then my dog
turned his head away from the reporter, and I knew that he had
just shared everything he cared to. "This interview is over," said
the reporter, and he left the room in something of a huff. My dog
sniffed the air and said, "Good, he's gone." We sat alone for a while,
and I asked him, "So, were you really in that War? Or were you
out walking with me, saving me from the ornamental cannon?"
My dog turned his bandaged eyes towards me, "Victims will
explain what they want to explain," he said. Then as a heavy rain
thrashed against the hospital window, I rested a reassuring hand
upon my dog's unsuspecting paw. "I get it," I said. "Sometimes,
I find it very scary to tell people how much I love them, too."

The Pill Bottle

Standing topless in front of the old mirrored cabinet,
I stared at the open bottle of pills until the voices came.

“You cannot continue to view your illness with contempt,”
said the bottle of pills. “It’s not something beneath you.”

“The illness,” it added, “is an adversary worthy of your nerve.”
Instinctively, I sucked in my gut and stood up a bit straighter.

This sudden shift in posture caused the pill bottle to rattle,
and my ears were filled with the peals of well-rung bells.

As the room fell back into stoic disquiet, the childproof cap
on the counter gave voice to the silence. “The path you seek,”

it said to me, “is a unique expression of your symptoms.
And it will lead you to something that’s been missing.”

I rolled my eyeballs in their sockets, scanning the bathroom
for any misplaced lotions or decorative soaps, but nothing

seemed out of order, except the pill bottle. “What you need,”
said the bottle, “is less estrangement from your various

selves.” Then almost as if they were searching for something,
the dozens of pills left in my bottle leapt from my hand,

and threw themselves towards the peeling linoleum below.
Standing topless in front of the newly painted wall,

I stared at the open pane of glass until the constellations
came. Careful not to crush the wandering doses at my feet,

I turned to face the bitter pill of the moon, as it called out
to me in a booming voice. It said, “To be estranged from

what makes a person human is to diminish all remaining
humanity.” Then an alarm on my watch face began to chirp,

chirp, chirp, and I knew it was time to discover whether
or not my pills still worked after they fell onto the floor.

Haiku

The sheet on the cage
flutters with the squeaking fan -
a nap without dreams.

The Coup

Yesterday, as I bent over to steal my neighbour’s
newspaper, I was struck in the head by a precocious

carrier pigeon. The wayward bird entered my suggestible
brain by way of my softened left temple, where it eventually

came to a fluttering rest somewhere within the vicinity of
my right frontal lobe. The bird has since crafted itself

a comfortable nest out dried twigs and dopamine.
What’s more, it’s apparently caused irretrievable impairment

to my problem-solving skills, not to mention my risk-taking
tendencies. In other words: I have since grown up.

The Cancer Patient

- A Belated Father's Day Poem

I rarely wore the silver watch my father bought me
because it felt so heavy on my wrist.

During the early morning hours of the recovery ward,
we patted the back of his hand and walked towards the park.

We ended up climbing some playground equipment
made of interconnected bars and chords.

As we contorted ourselves through the darkened apparatus,
I imagined ourselves as heavy hunks of cancer –

Where we each took turns politely excusing ourselves
from the depths of a patient’s grateful body.

Then, I saw that my watch had lost a heavy hunk of its silver band,
and I felt an unexpected rush of nostalgia for the thing.

At long last, the accessory felt like an extension of myself,
and it reminded me of those fortuitous times

when losing a piece of something you love
can help your family hang on.

The Custody Hearings

This morning, I was streaming a video of the dog that I lost
in the divorce. The dog had somehow learned to play the piano,

and had gained a following on the internet. All the while,
the webcam embedded within my laptop gently hummed a tune

in my ear. It reminded me about a medium, a message,
and about something else I can't quite make out without the

assistance of my court-appointed interpreter.