I'm not that good at beginnings/ so let me start all over again/ It's so cold, you can't write anything/ The ink just freezes inside the pen/ The floating, phophorescent head/ of Henry Fonda counsels me/ We numbered men and numbered women/ The herd is mightier than the pen

Untitled 1: "And here it is/so sad and near/The Chimera's mutant form/steps reversed from the mirror/An iron bridge/spans this town's edges/The shimmering moon-light/on the water's moving ledges/And every floating light/on the river/shivering in the night/like shattered crystal/Slithering streams of blinking binary/firing through your mind/like a pistol/Why do you stray?/And drift through days/like your mast's been snapped/Torn sails have floated away/You're losing streak/Bleeding colour/Behind rain-streaked windows/life couldn't be duller/Give me two new glazed eyes/to see through/Blue fringe on a gray sky/looks more blue/Like learning to read/the garbled symbols march through/permanently/Twist the shrieking screws/Chatterton/I understand I'll/ understand no more/And here it is/so sad and near/As the spheres reveal themselves/no faint-hope clause appears/An iron bridge/The moonlight pours/filed in the river's/opening, closing drawers."

Hospital on Fire: "And I care not to know/I'm not up to much and in no rush/It's not a real Montreal as such/Twilight threads in a portamento night/My instrument's out of sight/Come and toast the choir/A hospital on fire/And I care not to know/nor say that I'm blase' per se'/Though I know some blokes would surely say they'd/like to pulverize the Theremin/it's the cross I bear I'm in/an eleventh-hour choir/Hospital on fire/Stale fast-food/and tasteless jokes/are our last recourse when we/hit the road/and hale homeward/on those spokes/Stop on a moon-lit shoulder/to piss on our shadows/And I care not to know/nor open Pandora's box it's/chok-a-blok with paradoxes/Like I feel like a kite that's lost its string/Though the cult is growing/Come and toast the choir/A hospital on fire/Stale fast-food/and tasteless jokes/are our last recourse when we/hit the road/and hale homeward/on those spokes/Stop on a moon-lit shoulder/to piss on our shadows/Family maelstrom/slumming down (slutting up?) our book of Psalms/Join us in our swan song/one we've sung all along/Picture all twenty-one strong/strung along/in grace along the 401/Floating unsung flock flung/like flotsam/And I care not to know/though these thoughts/flicker as the shadows turn/like a candle in a Jack-o-lantern/And off it flew like a will-o-the-wisps/Blue bird of happiness/Come and toast the choir/A hospital on fire/Stale fast-food/and tasteless jokes/are our last recourse when we/hit the road and we/hale homeward/on those spokes/Stop on a moon-lit shoulder/to piss on our shadows."

The Candy Snatchers: "They kidnapped Candy/They profaned (Procained?) her body/They committed a felony/They were a family/They got caught/with their hands in the cookie jar/and it closed around their wrists/Their ransom went unanswered/with a cold indifference/The evil plans of violent men/and women in this world/A ginger-bread van combs the streets/for the goose that laid the golden egg/It didn't work like they planned/They held a bird in the hand/They dug a hole in the sand/They profaned Candy again/They got caught/with their heads in the hang-man's noose/and it closed around the throats/Paranoia settles in/and they run around like headless chickens/The evil plans of violent men/and women in this world/A ginger-bread van combs the streets/for the goose that laid the golden egg."

Skylab to Rehab: "In Phil's skull/it's so still and dull/it's so silent and sepulchral/A distant melody/down the hallways of relics/Gold records turn to black/From when you were/music czar/You called the shots/Son-of-a-gun/you orchestrate the stars/in your Saturnalia/Heading downtown in a cab/From Skylab to rehab/When you're crashing down to the Earth/you're going to find out what it's worth/You're gonna find out what it's worth/In Phil's skull/so still and dull/It's so silent and sepulchral/A distant melody/down the hallways of relics/Gold records turn to black/When you pulled the/strings/in stacks/the kettle drums/and an oleaginous sax/Recorded onto wax/it's where his soul's intact/Heading downtown in a cab/From Skylab to rehab/When you're crashing down to the Earth/you're going to find out what it's worth/You're gonna find out what it's worth/Heading downtown in a cab/From Skylab to rehab/When you're driven out of the shadows/Blown highlights in wet windows/blown highlights in wet windows."

Narcotic: "Young men/with families to feed/scurry into shadows/like centipedes/And young women/with their whole lives to lead/bend like a willow/and gone to seed/Upon narcotics, automatons/without civility/It's so neurotic/sucking on the tit/of self-pity/Doctor, dear Doctor/made lots of friends/Made ten-fold more enemies/Hiding in an opium den/Lash out the spike strips/at every exit out of town/If the dragnets don't get you/the roadblocks don't stop you/The narcotic will smoke you out/Upon narcotics, automatons/without civility/It's so narco-sisstic sucking on the tit/of self-pity."

Quaquaversal: "Coarsing across/every compass point/Like a blaze of hoar-frost/upon a window-pane/Or jets of spray-foam/bursting in building-joints/Bachelors in the belfry/Celestial bodies/all have carte-blanche/in the Quaqua-verse/You have no idea/how much on Earth/this saddens me/A little anger and/ guilt score a deep fissure/I drove my sword/up to the hilt in the scar tissue/Mini-laboratory/bottled up the beast/lured by its echo/quaquaversally/Now the abstract is cracked/it grows in my heart like yeast/A little anger and/guilt score a deep fissure/I drove my sword/up to the hilt in the scar tissue/I can hardly hear/the words you softly say/but feel them as leaves/striking my closed eyes/Leaning against the door/And through the key-hole/I'm cut off at the knees/by a rocketing/saw-swastika/Mini-laboratory/bottled up the beast/lured by its echo/quaquaversally/Now the abstract is cracked/it grows in my heart like yeast/A little anger and/ guilt score a deep fissure/I drove my sword/up to the hilt in the scar tissue/Bachelors in the belfry/Celestial bodies/all have carte-blanche/in the Quaqua-verse/You have no idea/how much on Earth/this saddens me/Coarsing across/all points of the compass/an avalanche/leaving the holes that it's drilled out/Malign bedroom eyes/and a large, crippled mouth."