Greg and Bower were such jerks. Twice they'd been questioned about break-ins at the school. Turning over desks, drawing obscene pictures on the blackboards, spilling the contents of the teacher's desks around the room. All kinds of moronic shit. But no one could ever prove anything. On the way to school they'd catch you and steal your lunch money. Never picked on little kids who might spill the beans to their parents. Only us older kids who were silenced by the code. Never rat out a kid to...

I wanted to believe in something. I prayed. But all I could hear was the echoed clang of a clapper against a bell. The bell ringer was dead. The universe was empty… I was the miserable beggar on the street, my palms slashed red with the cuts from freshly minted coins… I was the bitch, the poor cur whining in the overheated parked car in the middle of the afternoon in the middle of a parking lot in the middle of the suburbs… I waited in the middle earth between paradise and suicide… I studi...

Children have nightmares. They wake up in a sweat and cry out for their mothers. A village can have nightmares too. The villagers wake up and cry out for each other. These stories are about that nightmare.Mackenzie Phillips sat up in his bed. He needed to stay awake. All the news about the dead body in the valley had spooked Mackenzie. Maybe Mackenzie was the next on the list. Glancing out the window he watched the slow sway of the treetops. His eyes became heavy. He began to dream...

Two factions of children in separate schools find themselves at odds. One is humiliated but rises to take vengeance on the other. It was war. And the children loved it.

A line of words is a necklace of ideas is a rosary of adventure. The poems are a pin ball of puzzles for your brain. A delightful play in the ferris wheel, screaming and laughing your way through surprise after surprise.

A bunch of poets got together in 1971 and agreed upon nothing. I declared at the time that I had planted my flag in Church Street and from that moment on my poems would take root there. Ted Plantos took Queen Street. Robert Priest took all the pubs on Spadina and points north and east. And other poets divided up what was left. It was the Balkanization of the Toronto poetry scene. But of course none of us respected the terms and soon all out war took place. I fled to Europe where I met Leni...

Edwin Drood dies. But why? His girlfriend never understood him. Though she feared for her life at times. His enemies were numerous. But would they kill one of their best dealers. Did he cheat someone in a drug deal? Or was it something else. About the world. About himself.

"The stain on the cement stared back at me. I wanted to go home and get a pail of hot water and wash it off. Several ants were grazing on it. I looked around. Everything was the same as it had been a few days earlier. The telephone booth. The newspaper boxes. The Six Points Plaza across the street. The plaza was empty. Business was bad. Several of the stores were abandoned. The stain was the only sign that something terrible had happened."Detective Sam Kelly is in the last days of a...

I went to an all boys Catholic high school. Boys from many different backgrounds. Rich and poor. In uniforms. Controlled by a series of rules on conduct and appearance. Our English teacher introduced us to many fine poems. And then there were lively discussions. Some points of view came from left field. Others were well beyond that. But it all came to a cacophony of voices. The conflicts of the school yard focused on a class discussion. A poem in itself.

"Leaving T.O. Train shivering between the rails. Wheels and rails grinding their teeth. IMPSTONE. A book of poems keeps tapping on my eyelids. Like rain on a tin roof. A commercial from Eden in Morse Code. Clattering of train. Percolates. Miles through my spine. The photo of Susan Musgrave on the cover of IMPSTONE is not. Flattering. I know this is madness. Crossing a continent to meet a woman I don't know. Hoping she'll introduce me. To the poet. Inside her."Across a continent. Wri...

The Trans-Canada Highway was approved by the Trans-Canada Highway Act of 1949. Construction was begun in 1950 and finished in 1971. Upon completion it was the longest highway in the world. It runs from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. And that's when the adventures began. Stories about what happens to folks along the great highway. Small towns, villages, folks traveling, folks trying to get away from something. Or someone.

Shot like a man out of a cannon. My mother almost died giving me birth. Head was too big. Doctors' thought I might need braces on my neck. Crawled through the first centuries of life. When I was twenty my hair was down my back. Orange and dusty. I felt like a god. Beautiful and outrageously vain. Standing in the Kipling Station. I could have stood there forever. When I stepped on the train I was 40 and everything picked up speed. The last decade has been like a long weekend. My eyes are wa...