RAGEOUT

RAGEOUT
PM 1307301



Too many are waiting outside for my
arrival and I can't understand why
there is no one else who can look after
them right away.

I curse all of them inside as I throw 
out my cigarette and realize that my 
soup is going to get a lot colder before
I get the chance to eat it.

People are stupid, and the less smart they
are, the quicker they become more impatient
and more demanding.

I feel like they think I am the devil,
or at least his servant,
thrown here to abuse them and treat
them like the dirt they wallow in
day and night.

I don't care anymore, I treat them as
they treat me, relying on the first impression
to make a template for my future dealings,
but they eye me with such distrust that I have
no discourse but to bristle at them and this
is evident in my eyes.

Once they feel that initial stab, there is
no winning them back,
the poison was released in the
quills and the only antidote is to treat
me poorly,
no greater revenge than to remind me of
who I am and where I have ended up.

Instead of smoothing things over, I stir up
the water into a torrid whirlpool of hate and
animosity,
I stir and I stir until I have made
myself seasick from the motion.
Mal de mer which translates into more
distaste on their part and I know they 
hate me even more.

Even when I smile at them they feel
as though they are being spat upon,
my smile can only be fake now,
false as false can be,
yet I can now flash them at will
and at the very least, I'm not automatically
considered an outcast.

They still leave, seething just a little
as they have paid, and paid dearly
and though they think they are in control,
or at least that they deserve to be in control,
I am the one who has won,
at least for the time being, a shallow victory,
is still a victory.


MCC

ROADSIDE EMPANADAS

ROADSIDE EMPANADAS

PM0906133

The young girl at the side of the road looked no

more than nine or ten years old, maybe she was

twelve and suffered from malnutrition,

I couldn't be sure.

The basket she carried on her hip was huge

it looked bigger and weighed far more than she

did, all sorts of small packages, balls wrapped 

in napkins, steam coming off them in the early

morning cold.

As she climbed onto the bus, nimble as an elf,

the aroma hit me full in the face,

beef and onions, olives, all fresh and just off

the fire I would wager.

She smiled a mouth only half full of teeth,

whether it was her age or poor oral health,

I couldn't be sure, maybe a mixture of both.

I bought four for ten pesos, two dollars, more or less,

I offered one back to her but she refused,

she continued on towards the back of the bus

returning five minutes later with an empty basket,

I marveled at her salesmanship, yet a bus full

of hungry passengers was an easy sell.

They were delicious yet I couldn't help but picture

the bug-infested kitchen they were prepared in

and the less than sanitary hands that crimped the

dough and then so gently placed them in the

boiling oil. The dirty hands that wrapped them

in the napkins and gently filled the basket, trying

not to break any of them and have all their

goodness spill out.

How far did she have to walk to reach the road

and then how long did she have to wait for the

bus to come?

And when she got home, did she clean herself

up and begin the long walk to school,

or did she just fill up with more pastries and

get ready to go and wait for the next bus?

How does one analyze the different worlds

people live in without feeling a stab of pain

and wonder how some people live so poorly, 

and we complain when we are living so well.

I ate those four empanadas so quickly, as if they

were nothing, I didn't resent that I had paid the 

foreigner's rate, I just enjoyed them until the

bitterness arose in me so vile as to how many

might have suffered for me to have something to eat in

the morning after a long bus ride.

Her face was so dirty and sad and I will never

see her again as long as I live,

and she could be out there right now, waiting for

the next bus, an empty desk in a schoolhouse.

MCC

BARBARIAN AT THE GATE

BARBARIAN AT THE GATE

PM0906132

The gates loomed above me as I got off the bus,

I had been looking out the window,

and as I spotted the King David Hotel and

considered getting off and going on to use their

washrooms. The hostel washroom had been very busy

that morning and the smell had sent me outside

to urinate against the side of the wall.

Everyone out at nine in the morning sharp, a cookie

and some orange juice, that was the free fucking

breakfast? The orange juice was canned, we had

passed acres of orange groves on the ride from the

airport and I was given an paper cup of canned juice?

Anybody would have felt ripped off.

Back to the gate, it was so high, how the hell did they

build that without using a modern day crane,

it must have taken years,

I entered, everyone looked seedy, not a smiling

face in sight.

I was glad I hadn't shaved in days and I had

left my backpack at the hostel so I didn't think I

looked like a tourist, a terrorist perhaps! The aroma

of nearly a thousand different food stalls permeated my

nostrils and slapped me right across the face.

Finally I felt somewhere strange, exotic, alien,

everything I didn't want to see wasn't there,

no McDonalds or Dairy Queen,

and not a doughnut in sight. No sign of

the stars and stripes here but the sight of

so many yarmukhas and uzis in the same spot

was unnerving, so nothing I had ever seen before

and as I stopped to buy some sesame cakes

from a vendor I got some strange looks,

as though I shouldn't have been buying

anything from this person.

I walked on, munching, but still feeling very

uneasy and I couldn't dream of a spot I might

fit in here.

The ugly foreigner, perhaps, but I wasn't up to no

good and they should have known that.

I continued on my adventure through the city,

so much to buy and not a lot of money in my pocket,

learn to shop with your eyes at all times, I was told,

you don't have the means to carry any of that shit

around with you even if you could afford it.

Leave it for the rich Americans who could pay for the

extra luggage and who had lots of room to store the shit

when they got back to Albuquerque.

I smelled hash coming from the back of one of the stalls,

now there was something I could afford, and finally

someone smiled at me as I walked towards the back

of the stall.

MCC

FEAR SWEAT

FEAR SWEAT

PM0906131

The red light flashed and a buzzer rang,

but I ignored the customs guy and tried

to nonchalantly walk out the door.

Not today, I was called back and sent into

a room with my luggage.

Screw this, I thought, I'm not in a hurry,

and I don't have anything illegal,

I just want to get the fuck out of here.

I can't take it anymore.

I waited and I waited,

what a bunch of assholes, I just wanted

to get out and have a smoke,

I had been on the plane for hours and if

they had let me outside for two minutes I would

have happily sat there for hours as they tore

through my suitcases looking for heroin and ecstasy,

or whatever it was they thought I was trying

to smuggle back in.

I had lots of alcohol, maybe twenty bottles of wine,

but that's not what they were hunting,

why should they care about alcohol,

and the worst-case scenario was they would take it

away or charge duty on it,

fuck them, whichever they decided, just make the

decision and let me get the hell out of there.

I put on my most uncooperative face and just

sat there as if I had all the time in the

world, which I did, but then again,

I didn't.

I smiled as they pawed through my dirty 

clothes, they looked for secret compartments,

and they even opened my notebooks to see if

they could decipher what was on my mind.

Nothing.... doodles, swastikas are not illegal, we

are not in Germany or Israel,

frown and suck in your breath all you

want, I have done nothing wrong.

I answer the questions that I have not listened

to or understood and I wonder what they really

think of me. They are so interested in my notebook

and I can't help but laugh at the irony, I have 

tried so hard to get people to read what I have

written, but there are so few takers, yet these idiots

seem to be glued to every word, every pen stroke

every nuance, they didn't spend this much time

on my laptop for crying out loud and there could have

downloaded upskirt pics in there that

could have raised an eyebrow or two. Finally

they close my bag, look at me as though they are about

ready to spit and then they send me on my way

with a wave and a scowl, oh that cigarette was Heaven.

MCC

Engineering Open House

Visiting as a parent of a new student, what a different environment! !!!

RADISSON OLIVES

Radisson Olives
PM1303162

The sun shines, melting all the snow of

the previous night, all the vestiges of a hard night of

work destroyed in the twinkling of an eye.

I aspire to vanquish the storm clouds

on the horizon and deep inside my mind

but they remain, fluttering eyelids will not

make the blackness disappear nor the

cold icy blast of Arctic air that comes

streaming across the parking lot and taking

up room in my heart.

Though my feet may freeze and my fingertips 

turn black and fall off,

I cannot warm them, not even by

sticking them directly into the epicenter of

a fire, icicles still dangle, tauntingly,

and I can only wonder how the fuck that 

is possible.

I feel the poison building back up in

my brain,

every time I breathe it is there to

remind me who is in control and the

amount of time I actually have left.

The poison, whether up from my heart

or downward from my brain, its trying

to destroy me from the inside out and

I can't see far enough inside

to get the poison out. If I can't see

it the doctors will claim its not there

but I know it is there and I can feel

it slowly digesting the insides of my

skull cavity. All this time I thought

it was my teeth, but it goes far deeper

than that.

To truly rid myself of all poison I would

have to cut off my own head,

not a viable option,

at least if I am still deciding to

keep on going.

Can't make a go without the head.

Blow it all out disintegrating tissue after

tissue,

the only way to survive but it will surely

catch me one day,

one day it won't stop until every

ounce of fluid has been drained from my

body and I will remain, mummified,

in whatever position I happened to be in.

Other choices exist but I am blind to their

existence, be it dictated by intelligence or

even common sense, both curiosities I'm not sure

I possess.

Turning over I wonder if the next

breach will be my last,

will I feel something inside me

permanently detach and spell out

the last thing I will ever do.

Will I drain over a clean surface

leaving a blot or stain where I once was,

or will it simply be washed over with a

mop and a bucket of water and pine-sol?

The people I see here are getting dumber 

by the second,

so many vacant looks and equally

vacant stares,

they ask me questions while the answers

are there, open, right in front of their faces,

yet they don't possess the eyesight to just reach

out and take it.

It would be so easy,

yet life is not easy and it never 

promised to anyone to be easy,

they certainly got that one right

as an unfettered run is next to

impossible.

I glimpse into the future daily and I

never see that silver lining

that is rumored to exist in each cloud,

only endless billowing that seems so

light, yet weighs us all down with such

excruciating force and dexterity.

You want to blow it all away with a hair

dryer but there is no extension chord long

enough to reach to the sky for that purpose.

Instead you watch them and try to

figure out what shapes they have transformed

themselves into on that day,

when you know deep down that it has only

been a matter of chance,

and surreal exercise in your mind.

A dog, a cat, Otto Von Bismarck, you can turn

them into anything you want to.

I prefer land masses to people or animals,

you can't insult anyone that way,

how can one not appear to be fat if they

are told they look like a cloud?

Furious rage is beaten down onto your head

as you try and make sense of every

oxymoron you have ever heard,

and you have run out of ideas on how

to make any more.

Bittersweet irony was the only irony ever

invented.

MCC

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Home For The Holidays
PM1303161

John Fitzgerald Kennedy International Airport, New York

City, the bar looked out on to the various

runways, while planes from the world over

taxied by, filled with wild-eyed vacationers,

some heading home, possibly for a funeral or

maybe even a birth,

long shot case even a circumcision, but then

again, why would they be leaving New York.

I ordered my third whiskey sour and decided

maybe I should slow down, I had four or

five hours to kill, most could be done in front

of this window but if I fell asleep I would get

in trouble.

Royal Air Maroc, LOT and Aerflot, one behind the

other, I guessed Casablanca, Warsaw and Moscow

and I was probably right. I could 

make out the faces inside the tiny windows

and no matter the amount of happiness it

was always overpowered by the fear.

The Fear.

The fear of crashing into the ocean,

the fear of being late,

the fear of a mid-air collision and your

body disintegrating beyond recognition.

The fear of a customs dog picking up on the

scent of marijuana embedded in your

jean jacket no matter how many times

you had it washed,

how long would you last in a South American 

jail,

and would they even notify anyone to come

and get you out?

I doubt it.

It's easy, just don't get on the plane.

Not so easy, I already checked my luggage,

it will go anyway,

and how do I get back to Toronto,

I don't have a return ticket.

Avianca flight # whatever, I'n not going to

Bogota, finally I see the Aerolineas 

Argentinas jumbo jet move down the tarmac

and into a dock.

At least I know the plane is there and I

forget everything else, instead deciding to have 

another whiskey sour, I wish I was back

at school and the holidays were over.

By the time I'm ready to board, I'm drunk,

by the time take-off rolls around, I am asleep,

somewhere over the Amazon I awake to

find they have kept my meal warm and the flight

is running smooth as silk.

Ezeiza in the morning, just in time for breakfast.

MCC