we're counting all the windows

that line our city streets

we're counting all the cracked ones

and the dream catchers there

we're writing all the letters

that will never be returned

we're lighting all the dreamers

that forget how to burn



tonight, we open our front doors

tonight, we step out on to the prison's dance floor

tonight, we pull down all the flags

and wrap up our innocence in shiny plastic bags



you spread out your curtsy

before my drunken eye

you pull up on your skate board

and say "can I give you hand"

that day was important

that day I won't ignore

when you opened up your window

but you shut your front door

and I put you in my pocket

and you fall to the street

and you say you like the devil

but we're the nicest guys you'll meet



Tonight, we open our front doors

tonight, we step out on to the prison's dance floor

tonight, we pull down all the flags

and wrap up our innocence in shiny plastic bags



....



Barber Shop Part 2



"I've never seen the pyramids"

This is what I told Sara, my companion

I'd picked her up as a hitch-hiker approximately

3 years, 7 months, 21 days, and 9 hours

approximately

Her response was,

"go buy a postcard of those triangles in the sand

and send it to yourself with a message reading

"wish you were here"



It's been three years since we left the place

where we'd already paid

that moment when the jump of your heart

is equal to the weight of your body

on the ribcage of another



One day, she told me that her mother was born on May 8th, 1945

the day the radio turned drawn cheeks into arched smiles

the news cascading through the crowds and fields

as the european guns were dropped

and diplomatic pens covered in dried blood

tried once again to share ink



she says our kids will look at those two world wars

like those of Alexander, Napoleon, or even Shakespeare

the victors as rockstars

held on the stages of our imagination like armed marionettes

wading through the glory of stardom and the poison of nostalgia



We were driving on the outskirts of some small Canadian town

the kind of town that's cradled by the CBC and tough like an abandoned teenager



she turned on the radio

some faint music sorted its way through the static and confusion

of Alzeihmer speakers

but the melodies stopped short of selling us courage

so she turned it off



Instead

she put in a different album

she explained it was a collection of the songs of a man

who when his hands had been broken by soldiers

after a September 11th military coup in his country in the 1970's

he mustered a song that sang

like spit-in-their-faces glory

before they riddled his ribcage with 44 bullets

and tossed his body into the street

the jump of his heart fading in the cadence of smoke



our tires carried us through that small Canadian pre-alarm clock town

the doors were locked, from the liquor store to the barber shop

the windows blinded to the passing lights

and his voice came through the speakers

like broken glass throwing its shards at fear

as the oncoming headlights swept across the dashboard

like unknown flags blowing in the wind



--- the barber shop is closed ---



I think often about New York

and the effect pop songs have on small villages in Northern India

and how that day in Times Square a few years ago

dumpsters orchestrated a horror movie in my head

as protectors of the peace scared the courage out of us

and blanketed us with the possibilities and maybes of violence

but did stop something from happening



now my great great aunt was diagnosed with Tuberculosis

before the cure had been found

now her reality had nothing to do with the probability of maybe

she was quarantined to the grainery on the family farm

and her father moved the family piano so she could play it

when she played her Irish dancehall, classical exercise

the sound resonated up through the wooden walls

as her family listened in from the outside

until one day the hammers no longer hit the strings



I grew up knowing this story

and I remember as a kid imagining her on the floor of that grainery

she inspired the idea that

scales are the teeth of beauty

and that sometimes a song can help you accept the grave

or make you feel

like you were born on May 8th, 1945



so I asked Sara again

if she could explain to me

what is the story of what the river gave the boat

she said don't worry,

some things float and some things don't

and the ones that don't,

well, they're kind of like a glory

that doesn't have the grace you'll find in a small town

that knows it will never be abandoned

then she rolled the window down to the let the morning in



I sat beside her

the music coming out of the speakers

became quarantined to my ears

like the sounds of sara's hallelujah

on my ribcage

at her moment of glory









.....





we're looking for that woman

we're looking for that man

we don't believe in music

that needs a hospital

we're looking for your jesus

we're looking for your allah

we're looking for the gandhi version

of the holy fatwa

we're looking for pinocchio

at least he stands out in a crowd

we're looking for the dreamers

that can sing this fucking loud



tonight, we open our front doors

tonight, we step out on to the prison's dance floor

tonight, we pull down all the flags

and wrap up our innocence in shiny plastic bags