magic fader

once i conjured synesthetic braille

i didn’t have to try very hard

colors were tasty, contours loved me

vonnegut hated me

then i drank a bottle of glenfiddich

and had the best drunk of my life

a literate drunk alone

posting poetry and replies

spinning, nauseous to a

spiritual hangover

when penance didn’t hurt

now it’s different

now there’s more channels

and most of them don’t work

but i keep my finger on the magic fader

stay to the left

and you’ll get through the maze

i love my magic fader

i love my magic fader

it is my favourite fader

because it’s magic

there is no magic anywhere

except the fader

that’s why i keep my finger

on the magic fader

i got a magic fader

smells like a magic marker

it is a lucky charm

it only works on me

i wish it worked on you

i love my magic fader

i love my magic fader

it is a lucky charm

it keeps my fingers busy

this is how we do it on creek street

this is how we like it on creek street

it used to be like this on stanley street

but they moved on to bigger and better things

and he gave the lease to somebody else

some earthbound family, not the cosmic family

and i would invite fast friends from the rotwood porch

into my corner to play with the magic fader

it was not my fader, it was our fader, we’d have magic parties

that would fade, but there was a picture of a mixing board

on the fridge to remind us of the magic fader

that might have some earthly avatar

in a studio temple in the mountains

across the lake

stay to the right

and you’ll get through the night

i got a welfare cosmos

i got a welfare co-ah-ah-ah-ah-os-mos

pharm-fresh filling up the cavity

we'll call absence substance tonight

kootenay snow in the sinuses

state boundaries make good riddles

empty heads make good rattles

good nexus makes a good nexus

i got a welfare cosmos

i got a good deal

take it with a grain of salt

and a gram of soma

this is how we do it on creek street

this is creek street welfare

galactic information warfare (sic)

every good boy deserves fentanyl

~~~

i’ve got nothing to say

the pungent lines i wrote two houses ago

have gone rancid, cerebro spinal fluid, perishable

but i have the gall to make them look poetic

tomorrow i’ll weave them into a fugue

for geese and clouds