Sunday, January 29, 2012

'And the days are not full enough'

And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
                Not shaking the grass.

Ezra Pound

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Mute

Begin simply -
place a plunger
on the end of a trumpet
to quell the sound.
One by one, the players 

forget the importance of big. 

Soon, all books are banned
bras reluctantly put back on.
Rosa goes to the back of the bus.
Little by little, everything turns
back in on itself until we are all
at the place we fought so hard
not to be.

We sit in the dark
left reading nothng -
and wonder who 

struck the first match.

Epoch


My hair is loose
job jar empty.

I can't stop Venus
from rising
the wax and wane of moon
a wild sea from rolling
against a stubborn shore.

My knees ache from kneeling
to what confession?

I will not grow old in my sins.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Time Ticks the Light Longer

There was an odd quality
to the light that day
how it fell through the window
changing the blue of her cup. 

She sat, newspaper folded
wondered why people turned. 
That sweet little girl in Indiana
in her pink nightgown, dismembered 
left to forever, such a long time.

Or how she had found out
he had lied to her for years.


Odd, how the light changes 
something as simple as colour.
How we are all deemed to die

different deaths.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Carnival

Few can see to the end of the tunnel of love the entry beckons heart-shaped
framing an empty void had it been labeled “Haunted House” half the fair-goers would politely decline citing the sudden need for candy floss the brave
would clamber into the small cars expecting to emerge from the other side
half out of their minds

anticipating that somewhere along the line a man in a mask taunting
a chain saw would roar into the moment or that severed arms and heads
would drop lifeless from the sky fingerless toothless

There would be screaming -
and plenty of it

How then, did she coax you into the tunnel?
You - with the logical mind, practical life?

Did she look at you with her goal-post eyes?
Calculate possibilities into tiny fractions,
subtractions, additions?

Did the car rattle and shake as you clasped hands and entered as fearless
as the guests in the Haunted House? Did she kiss you with her mouth open
as the tunnel gaped, swallowing you quickly?

Cobweb hair, goose-bump flesh, a strange sensation filling your belly
your heart talking in beats assuring your mind

No sign of severed arms, heads, or men with chainsaws.
No indication that the ride was faulty.
No chance of a refund at the other end.
Just the creak and sway of the car,
teetering precariously on the edge
of something unseen.

The mind a blank a magic realism painting where the grass is too green
the sky too blue her red dress too perfectly creased see through in the sunlight
nobody mentioned the tunnel of love would be so narrow lonely dark the fifty
percent chance of emerging as two instead of one but you knew it would feel good
so good to get lost in there for even a little while.

When the ride finally came to a stop, you reeled out of the car as if emerging
from a fighter plane that turned upside-down with a G8 force the bile rising
in your throat but you swallow it back denying the need for help your legs
wobbly and unstable she was no longer holding your hand
The crowd stared as if you were a freak in the big tent and you tried to smile
put on your best front your mask dripping with the sweat of denial

She was no longer holding your hand

Bonaparte

A powerful star
not to be followed

too many places
his heart always broken

perpetually pumping
driven by need

it takes strength to say
no

go, I will not be conquered 
even if it would only take one word

Friday, January 6, 2012

Horizon

earth-home
sky-home

a sea too distant
to close

a circle that separates
noon from midnight

in the corner of my eye
the split face

of a magnified moon
an illusion of ships

you arriving
always

Thursday, January 5, 2012

A love like that

A love like that
Hafiz
Even
After
All this time
The sun never
says to the earth,
"You owe Me."

Look
What happens
With a love like that.

It lights the
Whole
Sky.