I'm sorry
but I
want
a fucking
casino
I was
that child at Ontario Place in 1971
that post
adolescent in 1976 dizzied by the CN Tower
closeted
on steel bridges dwarfing waves
marveling
at cinesphere
flying
over Lake Superior
by the
steeply raked theatre seat of my pants
mesmerized
by geo-desic domes
floating
familial fun filled flotillas
hell bent
on leading me nowhere
and now
god dammit
I am done
with all that
in my
restless maturity
and I'm
sorry
but I
want
a fucking
casino!
one I can
walk into, gamble a little
risk my
life on sordid cocktails
morbid
gleeful conversations with illicit strangers
lurid
fashion choices threatening my tenuous grasp on proper casino attire
I was
that child
And now I
want to be that overgrown infant
Rummaging
thorugh my filthy purse
Weeping
into empty laps once filled with chips
Arm
wrestling with one-arm bandits
Telling
strippers that I love them deeply
Why do we
always push the playgrounds for addiction into the margins
Relegate
them to our deepest reservations about our ability
to manage
our little first world pathologies - reservations we have already exploited and
mismanaged with reconciliations that can never undo our risky colonization of
the hearts and minds of many
Canada!
Ontarry-arry-airy-ons!!! My God - I want a casino!
If we
really want to help ourselves and pre-selected addicts
Then lets
keep them close to home and off the highways leading to far off Orillian,
Niagaran, Kawarthan slots and blackjack bistros loitering in the regions
smirking at our uptight urban fear of more of what already lines the gut
wrenching streets of our gorgeously garish tarnished cities
Oh God!
Canadians! On-tarry-arry-aryans!
I’m sorry
But I
want
A fucking
casino!
A casino
with provincially funded childcare
and free
on site seminars for managing addiction
because
they can be managed!!!
And when
our governmentally challenged healthcare gambles our lives away and becomes the
house of rising suns advertising on billboards that our civic duty lies in the
carpeted corridors of casino castles equating family with a weekend of water
slides wet bars wolf lodges bearing bare chesty daddys in the hotel lobby on
their way to wave pools lined with plastic beaches like some simulacric Waikiki with slots in
the morning and slots at night
Then who
are we kidding!
I am that
child, and I fear for children and where they play as we push so-called sin
into rural margins
Beware -
it could flourish there - the management of all our urban fears - it could flourish
there, swept under carpets in dusty faded margins
On
farmland, in fields, it could flourish there, where children play…
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