Poem from 1-3-2002

Solicited vile dreams
gory imagery, intense fear

...awaken me..

Breathless, speechless, confused, jolted

...more than a few times...

Above the turmoil, above all, floats
a feeling of total serenity, total peace

...how can this be?

I take a deep, clear, breath, and
splash cold water on my face

...and step back into the nightmare



written on the train back from Montreal 1-4-02..

"uplifted but sorrowful...that's the feeling i was left with as i fell asleep on the last night of our trip...montreal is like a french version of new york, sometimes more vulgar...poor drunkards and unfortunate children in despair loathing the streets, looking for suckers to scam a nickel or dime; a quarter if they're lucky...a loonie or toonie if they're really lucky...all products of industrialized hopes abandoned as soon as another wave of modernization crashes through...

in this town, the senses are jolted into hyperdrive...neon lights and flashy images of cartoon breasts displayed on every street corner of Sainte-Catherine for a solid 10 blocks...i wondered, while cruising the isles between the stone and steel cabinets, what saintly Catherine would think if she saw what the street beholding her name had to offer...cinemas showing pronography in 6 theatres 24/7, offering $10 lap dances and $1 peep shows...hooded thugs with scruffy faces and glossy eyes asking if the tourists had everything they needed...yes, no, may-be?...beaten down old men asking for change, hoping to get the last toonie from you so he can retire in some dark corner with his fix...whichever hook snagged him...chasing a feeling that never seems to last long enough...that is until he's dead...

as soon as i fell asleep that last evening, some wicked nightmare came and in a blink i was awake...i was sitting in the middle of Sainte Catherine in front of Hotel Villa de France, where we stayed, at a school desk with my lap top...writting something... intense feelings, something deep, something i couldn't remember...with every pedestrian walking by, i looked into their eyes, no, stared into their eyes in length, looking for some kind of resolve...but all i saw were lost souls, looking at me for answers...and i had nothing to offer them...a car drove by...and stopped at the corner to my right...a man got out...my instincts told me to leave...as i hastily closed up and got into the hotel, the man was steadily raising his voice and coming closer towards me...i don't know what he wanted...i was frightened...the moment i stepped into the hotel i awoke...paralyzed, but not because of fear...

ironically, i felt extremely peaceful...serene...every breath i took had an inner sense of tranquility...something was out of place...for 5 minutes i lay still looking at the orange glow in the window, trying to understand what just happened...very few times in my life had i felt this tranquil...what perplexed me was that it came after such a hellish dream...i went to the sink and splashed some cold water on my face, soon after, i was asleep...still thinking about that man who got out and tried telling me something...what was he trying to say? and why did i run away from him?

a block away from our hotel was Saint-Laurent..a street that went straight through China Town and into Old Montreal...within 10 blocks you feel like you've gone through 3 different cities...anytime I found myself in china town, i had trouble accepting oriental people speaking in broken canadian french...it turns out, i learned, that canadian french is different from france french...i never learned enough of the language to know the difference...anyway, i've been through china town in frisco and new york, and a lot of my friends are chinese...edison is like living in little asia (the majority of its residents are either from india, korea, china, or philipenes - the native food and clothing stores and everything is just a 5 minute drive from my home)...you see, i'm used to hearing chinese people speak english...i definately enjoy hearing it for its amusement merits...but, hearing a chinese person speak french, now that's an experience on a level of its own...

i woke up again, this time scared and confused...unsure of my surroundings, shivering because the room was cold and i didn't know what i was just dreaming about...tick click click tick click click sounds coming from outside...i got up and looked out the window...some kid was beside a bill board stand accross the street spray painting grafitti...the phrase was "SMOKE MY CANNABiS" with a little smoke effect where the dot for the little 'i' was...as the clicking of the spraypaint can in the background continued, i went back to bed...

as soon as you leave the tall red gates of china town you enter Old Montreal...the deeper you go, the more interesting things become...first you notice that the buildings are smaller, tighter together, older looking...next, a few block further, cobblestone streets appear, sidewalks feel more quaint, and the road narrows to almost one lane...it feels like classic europe, but oh so cold...if you keep going all the way down Saint Laurent, you reach the water front where stands a big convention center of some kind and a great concrete walkway right next to the water...in the summer this place is wonderful...in the winter, it's brutal due to the arctic cold...the buildings are a good 100-150 feet away from the water front, in between which lays some grass with railroad tracks in the middle that don't seem to be used often, and a few lanes for cars to go through on the side closest to the bars, boutiques and restaurants that line up all the way down the waterfront

old montreal also houses some major government buildings in the classic european architecture of tall columns, regal staircases and fancy yardwork...all lit up in holiday lights that change colors every few minutes...very sweet...there is also a pedestrian courtyard where magicians and jugglers and musicians come and play in the summer....during the winter they usually have lighted statues and in our case a stage set up for some kind of show we never witnessed...this is the place to come and chill out...

there was a lot of noise and honking and people yelling right outside my window when i awoke the third time around...i think it was 4:30 or so...i was getting irritated, and the room felt considerably colder...there was a draft and no heat coming from the old iron cast water heated peace of shit that didn't do it's job...i curled up into a ball and wished to be on a beach in st.thomas near the blue water whispering while i went floating away into dreamland...nope, not in this reality...the only urge i had left inside was to get suited up in my gear and go take a walk outside...i felt like something was calling me...but i was too lazy, and in five minutes was out cold...

we arrived into montreal around 9pm after about 10 hrs. on the train...it felt good to be out...we were scrambling around st.catherine looking for our hotel when, after about 5 blocks of wonderful eyecandy, ashish noticed we went the wrong way...so we turn around and go back from where we started and realize if we went the right way, it would have been only 1 1/2 blocks to the hotel...

once inside, we get settled and surely pack a bowl...i should also note that at one of the stops near the candian border, we smoked 2 quick bowls behind the station, so on the train we were enjoying ourselves very much...after the smoking, all 3 of them went to the pizzaria next door to call home...in the meantime i showered and unpacked...they came back with a six pack ready to drink...i went downstairs, checked in with home to make sure they don't worry...while talking on my cell in the lobby, some old drunk frenchie was hassling the man at the front desk with incoherent babbling and constant recounting of his change as obviously as possible...stir a scene...this was background amusement while i'm talking to my mom somewhat high...fun fun!

back upstairs we chill out with some brew chattering away about all the fun we're going to have...ashish and ameera (a&a) come in and we all decided to hit the bottles....first, we poured ourselves some malibu and pepsi...then some more...and some more thereafter...we also opened the biccardi dark (really dark and strong stuff) and decided to mix with that as well...we also, by this point, started playing a game of asshole...after a few rounds, everyone is toasty....i somehow became president, which gives me the power of making the asshole, who coincidently was punit, drink anytime as much as i tell him to...the nite before he kept exclaiming how badly he was going to get trashed tomorrow...i went on a power trip...punit got hammered...mission accomplished...he was mad because i told ashish to fill the rest of his cup, which was 1/3 empty, with pure rum and take a good long swig...he got riled up in the comical way he does when he's drunk and decided to pour some biccardi and coke over my head...ah, no problem, for the sake of humility my good chum"