May 27, 1993: I read my poems "Christmas 1979" and "Vomit of the Star Eater" and I sang my poem "Starnivorous Blues"

Thirty years ago today 

            On Thursday I worked at Central Technical School at 12:45. My cheque still hadn't come in the mail and so my celebration of my birthday would be further postponed. After work I headed home for a while and called Mike Copping at work from a payphone along the way. I told him about last week's poetry reading and he was impressed. He told me to give him a call next week and he might drop by Mudds Cabaret. I worked at the Ontario College of Art until 22:00 and then I went to Mudds. Diana Dufretes showed up and later Ray and Jodie came. I gave a reading of two poems: "Christmas 1979", "Vomit of the Star Eater" and I sang "Starnivorous Blues": 

Christmas 1979 

In the slow explosion of morning 

by the restaurant's volcanic light 

I find in a box of meteor rocks 

an alien transvestite 

She is wearing a mask 

she has carefully carved 

out of the burning flesh of martyred lust 

and I find myself wanting this strange little bird 

to be dancing on her knees to my animal thrust 

But this woman can't get love

because she got no womb to catch it in 

and this lady can't be courted 

because she ain't no lady in the living end 

But I swim in the strangest state of longing 

as she sits pouting over there 

glaring defiantly at the clientele 

until she stumbles upon my stare 

The waitress lights a cigarette for her 

and she takes a long sensual drag 

while along with the smoke 

through those red flaming lips 

I feel my breath is slowly taken away 

But this woman can't get love

because she got no womb to catch it in

and this lady can't be courted 

because she ain't no lady and in the end 

she's like some flightless bird 

in a peregrine falcon's dress 

She's exquisite food for my fantasies 

but my fingers need smoother slopes to caress 

Vomit of the Star Eater 

He felt a shooting star 

make a pass at his mind 

then an elevator-snowman 

rose up his pneumatic spine 

This sensation split him 

dividing him in half 

and ripped apart the spasmic instrument 

that makes us cry and laugh

One half of him straddled the comedy 

and rocked upon its back 

while playfully tying the other half onto 

the tragic railroad track 

So now he's strung out on being a hunger-freak 

just like all the starnivorous martyrs 

smearing their phosphorescent vomit 

as graffiti on the darkness 

Now he's locked in a light-speed-prism 

and the breaks have lost their juice 

so the rainbow of ideas

at the top is falling loose 

Now its hailing pearls of wisdom 

raining sacramental wine 

but the heavenly fruit turns to scarlet mud

in the troughs of human swine 

But he's still strung out on being a hunger-freak 

just like all the starnivorous martyrs 

smearing their phosphorescent vomit 

as graffiti on the darkness 

Shanghaied by the inner crowd 

he wakes up as a rebel 

getting orders from the spectrum 

of those flashing ghastly signals 

from his pyramid of crystal 

frozen from the sweat of man 

which he keeps parked out in orbit 

where it won't do the harm it can 

With its razor-sharpened edges 

our so-called mental health it could cut 

making french fries of our illusions

in its blasting furnace guts 

and then we'd all turn out to be hunger-freaks 

just like all the starnivorous martyrs 

smearing our phosphorescent vomit 

as graffiti on the darkness 

Starnivorous Blues 

Oh catch the silver honey 

that splays from the spinning stars 

but never lick their buzz saw blades 

they leave a shining scar 

and your mouth will bleed forever 

filling every mouth you kiss 

and give each one a taste for blood 

and an ear for the telltale hiss 

of the whispering bleeding space balloons 

falling from the sky of knives 

so they'll never eat at home again 

or want to be our wives 

Then they'll build balloon skin tepees 

out on the playing field 

and they'll dance round each crash landing 

with their hymens fully healed 

and they'll say "We're through with bleeding 

so we're giving men a pause 

and we've joined this massive harem 

as consorts of Santa Clause" 

And Santa gives them everything 

including time to think 

and they think, "Let's send the guys up 

for that bloody star-sweet drink" 

So they send men up in lipstick rockets 

tongues protruding from the ends 

to lick celestial clitori 

But they expect them back again? 

            The crowd's attention was fragmented by the noise from the other room, but a few people came up to me and told me they liked what I'd done. 

            Diana, Ray and Jodie seemed pretty excited about me coming to their place for dinner on Friday.