Kitty corner…

I was pushing a wheelbarrow…

Then I saw a little sparrow…

I caught it…

I picked it up…

I put it in a cage…

I was looking at my pets…

Then I saw them look at me…

I sat a while…

I thought a while…

And then…

I set them free…

— in I Was Walking Down the Road by Sarah E. Barchas

Who needs GD Shaw Cable when you can live in my neighbourhood…

Early Saturday morning I was awakened by the sound of a GD Honda motorcycle dying in front of my house…

And instead of Mr. Hipster rolling his bike down the alley from whence he came he decided to start’er up and tune the engine right then and there…

I didn’t lose my mind but I felt Bill next door having an aneurysm,

along with all of the other neighbours around the whole city block…

This knowledge was just confirmed by the gathering of people across the street,

discussing the new addition to the fleet of motorcycles that sounds like a World War II jet engine on reconnaissance missions at all hours of the night,

and plans to lodge a nuisance report with the po-lice…

I just want to get inside the fellow’s head,

and figure out how someone can be so blatantly unaware that he is living in a world with other people…

And now I know where he lives…

In that Vancouver Special with two yappy dogs,

a front yard fire pit,

and an Airstream trailer out back…

There is no lack of subject for philosophical research,

and no need to attend university to write about them…

After the motorcycle roared back to life and cruised the circumference of the block one more time before going home,

I kept my eyes on my outdoor HD screen…

Shorty thereafter five drunk twenty-somethings stumbled down the street into a house diagonally across from me,

but not without one of the young men pausing to urinate in the middle of the alley…

He had the courtesy to turn his back as he hosed the asphalt with beer piss,

but then turned in my general direction to belt up his jeans,

and wipe his hands on the side of his t-shirt…

By the time I was his age I was already responsible,

for the growth and development,

of other people’s children’s,

and owned my own house…

This made me wonder what the world,

was coming to,

and then remember,

that we each have our own path to walk,

in our own ways,

nobody’s perfect,

and I’d had to pee in an alley off of Granville Street,

on account of ingesting,

too many gin and tonics,

in my mid thirties,

so who in God’s name am I to judge…

I watched a taxi arrive and Mr. Pister announce to the universe that it was a quarter to six in the morning…

I silently thanked him for telling me what I couldn’t already tell by the light of the day…

Last midnight I was awoken from a deep slumber by an anxious conversation on my front porch,

and the sound of La Bamba being played by a wedding band blasting out the doors of the Ukrainian Hall…

I heard a male voice right under my bedroom window talking about how he’d better propose right away before she went off to school and was swept off her feet by an undergrad…

The other male voice told him he better get on it and get that ring on her finger,

and then walked away…

I heard Panic get on the phone,

and pace the sidewalk with his predicament…

I stuck my head out the door and asked Buddy,

to move his conversation along,

as the volume was keeping me up…

I thought of asking for the girl’s number,

to warn of the energy of possession,

clinging,

and fear of betrayal,

but I suspect she already knew…

Impulse is intuition on crack,

Crack+marriage=recipefordisaster…

I pulled on my skirt and my Italian wedgies and walked up the sidewalk to see dilemma and cell phone in communion against the post box up the block which I continued to hear all the way into my house…

Communion clouded in worry…

I wanted to sing out,

When the soul wants,

the soul waits,

but the storm was full blown,

and I had dreaming to do…

So I marched myself back home,

crawled under the covers,

and got it done…