i.

In the age of “fake news” creating my
own truth, best-intentioned hedonist heading nowhere fast, cerebral
as fuck, a headlining legend in my own
mind loudest when the resistance against which I
have to push is not of my own
design, a masochist wrestling with a spirit rendered
less accountable, less numinous whenever this soul I
try to clothe in flesh recoils at the

                    ii.

cock-stench of my asshole’s breath, at what filth
my pen is doing more than simply suggesting
but chronicling, committing to collective memory what no
brain fever of amnesia is incendiary enough to
extinguish, anguish soils its way through the flashiness
of this trashiest bag of bones it consumes
without digesting its visceral contents, missing the subtext,
the craftiest calculation, ravenous as a mouth of

                    iii.

moths opening their endless months of pestilence on
a saint’s second-hand costume, suffering a plague of
cure finally, perhaps, having had enough of crass
nakedness, the sensual and metaphysical inextricable in the
way I live, which is what I seek
to express, doing what I do so relentlessly,
I never tire of being vulnerable publicly but
am tired of being told to be “more

                    iv.

marketable,” but hey, it is “on brand” for
me to complain, eh? “Not Canadian enough” others
say, brusquely articulating what no one else will
say, too impolite to be paid (it is
a great thing I inherited), taking too much
pain out of its hiding place to be
picked over by strangers, vultures of readers whose
names I have no need or desire to

                    v.

know, too moved by the reverberation of my
own shaking walls as though “Jono” were some
corporatized portmanteau of “Jonah” and “Jericho,”
emerging impious and profligate, doling out advice in
the style of the minor prophets, from the
belly of the whale bellowing, extolling, imploring, ‘Do
not let another’s lies blemish the eyes of
your heart’s understanding, our breath keeps flowers alive,’

                    vi.

one machine’s exhaust is another’s fuel, transubstantiating toil’s
waste into bliss the way alchemists do it
to shit, making gold in coughing clouds of
vitriol-spitting chaos, minting, milking rain like Zeus’ come
when it came showering down on Danaë, lemons
out of lemonade, shaking coins like fruit from
weeping, syrup-veined trees bleeding Eden, finally a drip
we can wrap our belief in, communicants lining

                    vii.

up, genuflecting and singing as if these were
hymns torn from their bindings, ripping up pages
of smut broken like hymens before they can
harm by being read, or dare I say
it, spoken, choruses for a choir I lead
reluctantly, unified by unfired mortars of undefiled, unbarbered
martyrs, copper-bearded suicide bombers of bangers’ lyrics basking
in the balm of hit songs, knocking off

                    viii.

the charts and out into the parking lot
what stained glass burned to tell for so
long, lusting after injustice with closed eyes, vraiment
and vehement, adamant as antic weeds planting seeds
in rooms they uproot without even having to
leave, apophatic bombshells knocking off, by way of
requisite negation, layers of god we part with,
knowing the cost of prayer is raw exposure.