nostalgia’s in atm

ou, une merde chaude par une journée froide

A poem.


her back is to the separating wall,
left thigh over right
under the table at the unhappily married
middle-aged debutante ball,

long faces and all,
and instead of a trombone in her lap it’s her phone
and i’m not leering from around a beam.
this time.


what’s the use of this personification
except to hold on to it for later?
drooling through my pillow case at the open mystery
under those Lululemon Kirkland Signature duperies,
clasping fruitlessly to post-workout legs
like plastic cheese bricks to hot broccoli reeds


that, again, no one’s forcing me to eat

and being fun & flirty and platonic won’t do us good either
because you’re another non-native English speaker,
and i’ve changed little carnally in twenty-five years.
i’d much rather just non-verbally roll around on the floor
but it isn’t my middle-school Québec exchange anymore.
it’s life.



it’s life.
but apparently nostalgia’s all in at the mome.


Featured image “Impression of ‘Lonely woman embracing body in morning’ by Alena Shekhovtcova” illustrated by the author.

400 Words on: Kissed (1996)

or, “Misanthropic Thanatophiles in Love”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.


3.5 out of 5

“Kissed” is a bizarre but on-brand Canadian film, with Molly Parker (from Global TV’s “Doc”) in her first major appearance. It’s a drama that skews closer to video art, with a striking premise that eventually plays second-fiddle to a middling obsession plot.

But damned if it exists at all: a straight-faced movie about necrophilia. Jörg Buttgereit’s “Nekromantik” this is not – though both films share the same fleeting duration of just over an hour: an unheard-of runtime in today’s feature market. Plenty for director Lynne Stopkewich to poke her head in, make her points, and leave, in – fingers-crossed – the most memorable way possible.

In that regard, its prologue is laudable: a snapshot of heroine Sandra’s youth & learned Wiccanness: evolving from a respect for the dead, into intimacy. Getting these character beats so early made me emotionally invested in the unorthodox subject matter – as did Parker’s fearless, Genie award winning performance as the adult Sandra (Genies are the Canadian Oscars, now called the “Canadian Screen Awards”).

[cont’d]

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ain’t no way

A poem.


where did she goooo?

mah luuuv-ly?


ah wanna nooooo…
wh-r do u whar do u goooo?



“what?”

i’m talkin’ ‘boute that one renter,
you know,
with the smokin’ hot bod
and the mini pincher dog,
who we only ever saw
when they’d test the fire alarm?


the babe, not the dog.


h-h-h-ho-ho-way
h-h-h-ho-ho-way

“who’re you
yammering about now,
hm?
i told you the girl at Jasper’s funeral was
probably twelve.
it’s the GMOs in the food:
that’s why rule of sevens, dude.”

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400 Words on: Tyler Perry’s Duplicity (2025)

or, “Waiting-Out Your Shift on the Toilet”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.


1 out of 5

“Life is like an onion. Peel it back one layer at a time. Sometimes you weep.”

– Carl Sandberg

Recently, I went to a boring live drama where the players hardly moved – not even to monologue. In media, you shouldn’t have this problem because editors exist, where theatre fills that gap with the ‘live’ experience.

Jack-of-all-trades Tyler Perry’s new Prime collaboration “Duplicity”, however, is so top-loaded with actors in closed rooms retching phlegmatic dialogue, that Perry seems overwhelmed by his own cinematic mediocrity, and reverts back to his theatrical training. This results in stagers either sitting or standing across from one-another completely stationary, endlessly overstating their positions. It’s the filmmaking equivalent of waiting-out the end of your shift on the toilet.

[cont’d]

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thank you, Cardinal Richelieu

to whom we owe our fabulous screws

A poem.


the smitten
are only going to give you
as much grace as they can.
nothing waits forever


unless you work across from them

often turning one-hundred-and-eighty-degrees
in their direction
not for them –
it’s just part of your job description;



accidentally break
at the same time as them,
back-and-forth, braiding one another between
the sink and the toaster oven.

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