Sometimes.

Sometimes
When I am alone here
And the lights are out
I imagine a slow-dance with you.

Sometimes
When my hammer swings
And the nail is hit just right
There is a spark
And I imagine building a house for you.

Sometimes
While tying my shoes or washing the dishes
Alone, here
I imagine your hand on my back or neck or even on my ass
Lightly, lovingly, longingly.

Sometimes
I just want to crank the wheel of my truck
And drive to you
Openly weeping and yours.

I say sometimes
But
There are no other times
When
I don't think of these things.

"...the diver descends to maximum depth immediately and stays at the same depth until resurfacing..."

Hit with it
Stung by it
Ruffled and fucked
by it.

Open your legs like an Alberta sky in August
Let me in.

I am all yours.

Hit with it
Stung by it
Ruffled and fucked
by you.

Open your heart like a Wild Rose in July
Let me in.

I am coming there, back there, for some kind of terminal end.
Some terminal finale, some everything. For you, just you.
I am yours, all yours.

Hit with it.

Stung by it.

Ruffled

and

tussled.

Get in love.

-Sid
xo

Winter Miracles.

I want to freeze again on those long nights from 4 p.m. to 9 a.m. when the sun is gone.
I miss the drifts of snow and the instant sobriety upon leaving a place.

Boots and toques, icy lungs and cold fingers.

I want you to miss my warmth at 4 a.m. on an Alberta morning when I get up to piss and make coffee. I bet you'd call my name softly between sleep and wake states.
"Sid, come back to bed".

I would, too, cold and naked, leap under the covers and tell you I love you. I'd run my fingers through your hair until you fell back asleep.

I think I should retrace my steps, but in different shoes this time.

I want my winter miracle.
I want my spring lust and summer freedom.

The hard trees, the brown, the over-frozen everything. I want it.

I want it all that winter miracle.

Snow in my boots and frost-bitten ears so hot that I can't fucking stand it.

I want the drifts and wisps and shifts again.

I want to jump under the covers when you whisper my name on a farm in Northern Alberta.

"Sid, come back to bed."

-Sid

Dowshi, Afghanistan. The cunt road.

Sentry was never done, but my shift was over at 0900. I needed sleep, water and new laces. I always needed to hydrate.

On my way back to camp I saw three boys playing soccer.
Their ball was a piece of shit. Cow shit, or something.
I didn't even care and hoped they would die before they were old enough to want to kill me.

When I thought that, though, that second, that fucking instant, I was suddenly beside you. Your scolding, your fantastic love, your compassion.
I was sorry for it, for thinking like that.

Dowshi is a tiny fucking town at the cunt-opening of a valley into certain death. A76 North, a suicide drive. We had patrols up there, but man, that road buttressed by mountains on both sides is death. Drones went ahead of us and we stopped every 500 meters for a sniff-check.

It rained all day Saturday and I was up it only 1500 meters. I kept the rear and made sure we didn't get flanked or pinched or drawn-in.

It was silent.

We drove and hopped and checked like that for days, for days.
I sang Neil Young songs and kicked rocks.

But fuck I loved you, through that dust. A76 was shit, deadly but so fucking shit.
Maybe the Terry had bucked it deeper into the valley.
Fuck, I hope so.
At night we tri-podded the M20 just for kicks.

I slept well on that road.
IEDs, mortars nor snipers riled us.

Two teams were on either side of the road at all times, sifting slowly and looking overhead.

But those letters from you.
They killed me.

You.
In Safeway.
In traffic.
In line to pay your SHAW and TELUS bills.

Fuck you.

I love you.

Us.

I waited and waited again.
Not just for a rebirth of wonder
Not just for Christ to climb down
Not just for some fucking lines from God
But for you.

I waited for you and I came to thoughts of fucking you.
Again and again and again and again.

And again.

This is it, you know, my last stretch, my last grasp.
Keeping a man like me on the fence is like keeping a man like me on the fence.
One day, the whole thing is going to come the fuck down.

Like a Zimbabwean government
Like the Eiffel Tower without rivets
Like Marxism built by IKEA!

Like me.

Again and again and again.

The snow is going to be heavy this year, baby.
Are you sure you don't need some soft-shoe, soft-heart to clear that fucking drive?

This is it.

Are you sure?

Only after a few.

I love you like a plane crash.
Those jet engines digging into the earth
and serving up everything for the last time.

I love you like a fucking car crash
glass everywhere and me hanging out the driver's window. Alone,
bloody, and even dead.

I love you like a firecracker or a nuclear bomb.

Everything is always exploding.

I love you like that.

Sometimes, a monster is loosed for want alone. It will take you and it will eat you and it will give you pleasure.

I want flesh.
I want to fuck.
I want to be deep inside of you.
I want to cum in you and keep my hard cock pushed in there, filling you.
I want you and I will have you.

When your duvet or covers or sheets are pulled tight tonight, and you are drifting off to sleep, I will creep in there, into your secrets.

In that place you will be free to take me like the lover you have always wanted to be.
You can have anything you want of me, as I will of you.

Your fingers will drift below your waistband and with self-muffled sighs you will imagine that those very same fingers are mine; my cock, my tongue and my heat.

And when your hips buck as you cum, you will say my name and gasp for it; clenched fists, curled toes and open mouth.

After it all, dear lover, you will shudder and shake and return to your senses and drift away into sleep.

But I will have had you then like that, using your own body to fuck you and make you twist.

Sometimes, monsters be loosed.

Tonight the jailer has opened the doors and the monster is out there. He is hunting you.

Check under your bed.
Close the closet doors.
Leave the lights on.

"She is the paragon of paragons of beauty, the reply to all desires, the bliss-bestowing goal of every hero's earthly and unearthly quest."

It had been a long ritual. I cleaned out everything that meant anything to me. Under the seats, the buttons on the roof, the rosaries from Mexico and the Philippines hanging from the rear-view mirror, the clothing and camping gear and carpentry tools from the back, the Jesus and Mary stickers carefully lifted from the rear window using dish-soap and my bank card; even the small things like my favorite tapes which I had constantly played in you: David Bowie, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.

On Saturday morning we took that final drive and I spoke to you softly; the radio stayed off as I wanted to hear what you had to say to me. Your V-8, 350 5.7 purred and roared at all the right times, when I asked you. You have never let me down. When we pulled off the collector and onto Highway 1 East I opened you up wide and was willing to take any ticket, any punishment; just for you. I opened you wide and was hitting 180km by the time I passed Canada Way and we swerved in and out and I thought we would die together as we lived. You have been my shelter, my home, my work-horse, my escape-pod, my darling in white. I have driven with you through the Rockies and slept in your lap, I have worked to feed you the things you need. Your new catalytic converter and muffler, your new tail-pipe. I love you.
You hauled me and my small number of belongings through Alberta and into Vancouver to begin my new life in Canada. I worked you hard those hauling days. And you took me back through Alberta and back again to Vancouver, too.

As we sped toward your final destination, our last drive, I began to weep and shake hard. I pulled over once to explain death to you and I knew you might never understand but I did it anyhow and I just wanted you to know how much I love you; so much.

We pulled into the wrecker and I did the sign-off, tears running down my cheeks and a hole in my little heart. They had to ask me several times for the keys before I complied. They knew why I was crying.

I couldn't watch you being driven off but I did sneak a small look as you rounded the corner and I blew you a kiss and hoped to God that you saw it; I think you did and your tail-lights were gone.

I left my favorite Elvis tape in your cassette deck.

I left you a love letter in your glove box.

-Sid

Not infrequently, the supernatural helper is in masculine form.

Many years ago there was a young man with a broken heart, and a soul which could never be still. His spirit was strong, but never silent enough to hear the sounds that trees make when the wind kisses them. He was attached to worldly delights and measured his manliness against them and defined his godliness through them. The young man was well known in the small kingdom he thought he ruled and was sure that the women and flowers were pretty for him alone.

One day, while inspecting his possessions and counting his coins, he was approached by an old man. The old man walked slowly and was dressed in rags, yet there was a peace in his face.
"Is this your fine house, sir?", the old man asked.
The young man did not answer, but instead continued counting coins.
"I will give you a wish if you answer me, boy."

The young man told him that it was in fact his house, his land, and bade the old man to stay as many nights as he needed.
The old man smiled and said,"I knew you would be kind to me."
"How did you think that", said the young man, "when we have shared but mere words in exchange?".

"I am the future you", said the man in rags. "I have met the women and the money and the possessions and the hollow-nothing."
"I have returned to warn and encourage you".

The young man wept hard and fell to his knees.
"I have nothing", he cried.
"You never had anything", said the old man.

The young man became old.
But his love became grand and wide.

Being a man, he thought, is the greatest profession.

Aspen Tongue and Groove Plywood at 1&1/8".

This shit is fucking great for building walls.
I like Aspen, it's soft but strong and has a low flammability rate.
The T&G ply just fits in so nice over some squared studs.
It's an automatic hoarding wall; and even cheaper than factory flat-edge.
You couldn't even fit a piece of paper through those joints.
Not even a fly's wing.

Today after some serious fucking around with a 12x12 timber support, I drove home mad with thoughts of all things carpentry. I drove home listening to the Frank Sinatra cassette, "Some Nice Things I've Missed", loud on my stereo.

The traffic was pre-cum at 4:00 p.m. near 1st Beach, not quite there but showing promise. I always drift to the days we used to be insane together, then. I wonder about you now and think you would love carpentry.

On Monday, I'll drive in some duplex nails for you. I'll bury the top head in Aspen and dull the point.

I wouldn't want to split the wood.