Orange is the Colour of Word

Mute

2012-01-28T22:11:00.003-06:00

It begins simply -
place a plunger
on the end of a trumpet
to quell the sound.
Soon, the players forget
the importance of big -
keep the sound down
in case it destroys
their own definition of symphony.

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 in.

We sit in the dark
left reading nothng -
wondering who
will strike the first match.

Epoch

2012-01-28T20:09:00.013-06:00

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 refuse to grow old in my sins.

Time Ticks the Light Longer

2012-01-21T17:19:00.012-06:00

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.

Carnival

2012-01-14T19:12:00.004-06:00

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

2012-01-14T17:27:00.006-06:00

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

Horizon

2012-01-06T09:35:00.002-06:00

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

2012-01-05T07:16:00.001-06:00

A love like that

2012-01-05T07:07:00.002-06:00

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.

2011-12-30T19:40:00.002-06:00

Goodbye in Slow Motion with Those Trees Waving Back

2011-12-30T17:34:00.006-06:00

As if these words could alter wind's lucid course
And make the trees wave hello again;

As if the wind had something new to bless,
Confess; that, finally, today's losses were palpable, explicable

Even; as if there were a reason for this self-pity
To descend again like shade

From the maples and lilacs and palms,
The sweet peach and lacquered locust,

Those cherries, chestnuts, and oranges .... It has to be

All of them, all of them
lining those streets whose names I loved:

Calle de la Bonanova, Rue Descartes, Aldstadter Ring,
And further still, Coates and Sharon, which aren't

In Barcelona, Paris, or Prague, but from Sharon Hill, from childhood,
Places that don't exist anymore.

As if childhood were some tourist destination to visit
Off season, walking those sun-stroked sidewalks,

Sipping wine in the street-side cafés, saying hello to those
I'll never know in a tongue I used to know.

As if anyone's history were myth, and that myth an unconditional love
For loss. As if sorry didn't exist,

Any need for sorry.

If only childhood would tell the wind where to go,
If only it had a home.

If only this poem could hold childhood in its hands—
All gnarl-knuckled, chapped, blood-cracked—long enough

To say goodbye, to the bartender in Prague
Who was from Brooklyn, who talked with me awhile

About what home can't mean to him anymore, who got lost
Hiking in the Alpines and "ended up in here somehow, never left.... "

As if childhood's a place never left and never found, never
Said goodbye to;

As if that mattered now, as if there were time enough
To say goodbye to childhood

With all the slowness loss demands;

As if loss and childhood were distinct.

As if there were someone to talk with, walk and smoke with.

Besides, after awhile, we'd feel a need to sleep,
This me and that you I once was,

Our skin chilled a little, turning to gooseflesh a little, swept
By an August breeze weaving its way through the trees.

It doesn't matter, though, does it?
You've already begun to name the trees for yourself.

But feel that?

The trees are waving, too.

I'd like to teach you the names of these trees, to confess
How much I need to miss you to finish this off.

Alexander Long

Pitch

2011-12-27T10:35:00.013-06:00

Begin the morning with a stiff
regimen of something
quick - shake it off.

Have on hand a notebook
a small machine
something you can pull out

on the sly to calculate
the length of a shark tooth at lunch.
Smack your lips, smile large.

A sharpened pencil
for back-up in case
one has to scribble

a quick cliché for deployment
in a new situation.
Same tactics new fascination.

Employ the use of nicknames
so as not to slip on a banana
peeled off in haste.

Be confident in humility
flex the muscles of growing
unhappiness enough

no more or less than what you choose
to draw. Use whatever medium suits
each task. Ensure a timely departure

close the door behind you
before a yolk of sun splits and spills.

One Art

2011-12-26T20:28:00.005-06:00

One Art

Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Alone With Everybody - Charles Bukowski

2011-12-26T18:58:00.000-06:00

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

- Charles Bukowski

Gentleman Alone

2011-12-26T18:03:00.004-06:00

The young maricones and the horny muchachas,
The big fat widows delirious from insomnia,
The young wives thirty hours' pregnant,
And the hoarse tomcats that cross my garden at night,
Like a collar of palpitating sexual oysters
Surround my solitary home,
Enemies of my soul,
Conspirators in pajamas
Who exchange deep kisses for passwords.
Radiant summer brings out the lovers
In melancholy regiments,
Fat and thin and happy and sad couples;
Under the elegant coconut palms, near the ocean and moon,
There is a continual life of pants and panties,
A hum from the fondling of silk stockings,
And women's breasts that glisten like eyes.
The salary man, after a while,
After the week's tedium, and the novels read in bed at night,
Has decisively fucked his neighbor,
And now takes her to the miserable movies,
Where the heroes are horses or passionate princes,
And he caresses her legs covered with sweet down
With his ardent and sweaty palms that smell like cigarettes.
The night of the hunter and the night of the husband
Come together like bed sheets and bury me,
And the hours after lunch, when the students and priests are masturbating,
And the animals mount each other openly,
And the bees smell of blood, and the flies buzz cholerically,
And cousins play strange games with cousins,
And doctors glower at the husband of the young patient,
And the early morning in which the professor, without a thought,
Pays his conjugal debt and eats breakfast,
And to top it all off, the adulterers, who love each other truly
On beds big and tall as ships:
So, eternally,
This twisted and breathing forest crushes me
With gigantic flowers like mouth and teeth
And black roots like fingernails and shoes.

Translated by Mike Topp

Pablo Neruda

from The Book of Questions

2011-12-26T18:00:00.000-06:00

III.

Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?

Why do trees conceal
the splendor of their roots?

Who hears the regrets
of the thieving automobile?

Is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?

Pablo Neruda

If You Forget Me - Pablo Neruda

2011-12-26T17:26:00.004-06:00

I can write the saddest lines tonight.

Write for example: ‘The night is fractured
and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance’

The night wind turns in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
I loved her, sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like these I held her in my arms.
I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes.

I can write the saddest lines tonight.
To think I don’t have her, to feel I have lost her.

Hear the vast night, vaster without her.
Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass.

What does it matter that I couldn’t keep her.
The night is fractured and she is not with me.

That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off,
my soul is not content to have lost her.

As though to reach her, my sight looks for her.
My heart looks for her: she is not with me

The same night whitens, in the same branches.
We, from that time, we are not the same.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the breeze to reach her.

Another’s kisses on her, like my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but perhaps I love her.
Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long.

Since, on these nights, I held her in my arms,
my soul is not content to have lost her.

Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer,
and these are the last lines I will write for her.

Pablo Neruda

2011-12-25T15:08:00.000-06:00

More and more I find that life is a series of disappearances followed usually but not always by reappearances; you disappear from your morning self and reappear as your afternoon self; you disappear from feeling good and reappear feeling bad. And people, even face to face and clasped in each other's arms, disappear from each other.
- Fremder

Ironic Sunset

2011-12-20T13:34:00.004-06:00

When She Said Now You Never - Runaground - James

2011-12-20T13:26:00.003-06:00

For every woman you will leave an open door
You find yourself thinking why can't I have more?
You say there's nothing you can do
You tried your best but you were only being you
Oh no
She's gone
Back wherever she came from
You watched
Her go
Your reaction's far too slow

Runaground
Runaground
Runaground

You don't know what you've got until you've lost it all
Might I suggest you find a softer place to fall
You take for granted all the riches of your world
You may have oysters but you'll never find a pearl

Oh no
She's gone
Back wherever she came from
You watched
Her go
Your reaction's far too slow

Oh no
She's gone
Back wherever she came from
You watched
Her go
Your reaction's far too slow

Runaground
Runaground
Runaground
Runaground
Runaground
Runaground

She's moving on
The love has gone
You left the door wide open
She's moving on
The trust has gone
This anger's felt not spoken
It got too old
Was too controlled
Could have gone on forever

The love has gone
She's moving on
When she said now you never

Runaground
Runaground
Runaground
Runaground
Runaground
Runaground
Runaground
Runaground
Runaground
Runaground
Runaground
Runaground

Oh no

Jolene - White Stripes

2011-12-15T21:01:00.002-06:00

Better Do Better - Hard-Fi

2011-12-14T21:53:00.002-06:00

2011-12-11T17:23:00.002-06:00

Paradise - Coldplay

2011-12-11T16:29:00.003-06:00

When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach
So she ran away in her sleep
Dreamed of para- para- paradise
Para- para- paradise
Para- para- paradise
Every time she closed her eyes
Whoa-oh-oh oh-oooh oh-oh-oh

When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach
And the bullets catch in her teeth

Life goes on
It gets so heavy
The wheel breaks the butterfly
Every tear, a waterfall
In the night, the stormy night
She closed her eyes
In the night, the stormy night
Away she'd fly.

And dreamed of para- para- paradise
Para- para- paradise
Para- para- paradise
Whoa-oh-oh oh-oooh oh-oh-oh

She dreamed of para- para- paradise
Para- para- paradise
Para- para- paradise
Whoa-oh-oh oh-oooh oh-oh-oh.

La la la La
La la la

So lying underneath those stormy skies.
She said oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh.
I know the sun must set to rise.

This could be para- para- paradise
Para- para- paradise
This could be para- para- paradise
Whoa-oh-oh oh-oooh oh-oh-oh.

This could be para- para- paradise
Para- para- paradise
Could be para- para- paradise
Whoa-oh-oh oh-oooh oh-oh-oh.

This could be para- para- paradise
Para- para- paradise
Could be para- para- paradise
Whoa-oh-oh oh-oooh oh-oh-oh.

Oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo
Oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo

Ladybug

2011-12-10T18:40:00.009-06:00

Six months ago I watched a ladybug
die inside a fluorescent light fixture.
She's still there, unmoving.

My head was tilted back
into the wash sink, water freezing
cold so as to preserve the colour.

Ladybug, how did you get in there
in the first place? And how could
you not fly your way out again?

When I was a teenager
there was a bridge I had to cross
between school and home

a gravel path freshly dumped.
Suddenly a cat head surrounded by stones
its face terrified - no not terrified

horrifically distorted, a victim
tortured by sick fucks
on their way from school

or was it in broad daylight? I dug
stones away with my hands raw
saw only skin from the neck down

an odd colour like corned beef
red but not - pink but not -
imagine the sound something makes

so far away from love.

My Back Pages - The Byrds (thanks to Bob Dylan)

2011-12-07T19:33:00.000-06:00

Walk On By

2011-12-07T17:38:00.002-06:00

A broken fence

neglected over years

may no longer be a fence

A torn coat

that goes un-mended

may rip beyond recognition

A piece of cheese

left on the counter

may be more mold than cheese

Does a crumpled heart

left un-straightened

change shape within its cage?

Each day that passes

without forgiveness

may end before it begins

Paree

2011-12-04T21:09:00.002-06:00

Free Fallin'

2011-12-04T20:18:00.001-06:00

2011-12-03T18:11:00.002-06:00

"The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot."

-Salvador Dali

"Even though I'm old my heart still aches."

- Under the Tuscan Sun

2011-12-03T17:41:00.001-06:00

Unbalanced

2011-12-03T17:26:00.015-06:00

Hello hello, I'm at a place called Vertigo

-U2

This time, absorption was quick.

Either a testimony to strength

or a here we go again.

Life had taught her well enough

was enough.

The parry, the thrust, the wound

a strategy, patterns formed into

reasons not to carry hope

on her head like a clay jug full
of sweet nothings.

This time, she would walk away

carefully balanced,
repeating don't break
don't break

don't break.

Cliché

2011-11-19T18:57:00.005-06:00

Overnight, he became
a horse she could no longer lead
no matter how thirsty.

His heart had become as numb
as a stopped grandfather
clock erect
and alone in the hall.

Her hands were sore from winding
yet she would
sit cross-legged
on the wood floor studying his face

until well after midnight
waiting for the hands to move
balls to drop –
a chime, a gong, a tick tock.

Tomorrow she would air out his dirty
laundry, shake the ants from
his pants
fold them neatly, all thumbs.

Little did she know, she had been
barking up the wrong tree.
It would have been best
to let sleeping

dogs lie.

Bittersweet Symphony

2011-11-19T13:01:00.000-06:00

The Passenger - Iggy Pop

2011-11-05T12:37:00.000-05:00

Passenger Lyrics

2011-11-05T12:35:00.003-05:00

I am the passenger
And I ride and I ride
I ride through the city's backsides
I see the stars come out of the sky
Yeah, they're bright in a hollow sky
You know it looks so good tonight
I am the passenger
I stay under glass
I look through my window so bright
I see the stars come out tonight
I see the bright and hollow sky
Over the city's a rip in the sky
And everything looks good tonight
Singin' la la la la lalalala...
Get into the car
We'll be the passenger
We'll ride through the city tonight
We'll See the city's ripped backsides
We'll see the bright and hollow sky
We'll see the stars that shine so bright
The sky was made for us tonight
Oh the passenger
How how he rides
Oh the passenger
He rides and he rides
He looks through his window
What does he see?
He sees the stars and hollow sky
He see the stars come out tonight
He sees the city's ripped backsides
He sees the winding ocean drive
And everything was made for you and me
All of it was made for you and me
'cause it just belongs to you and me
So let's take a ride and see what's mine
Singing... la la la la lalalala...
Oh, the passenger
He rides and he rides
He sees things from under glass
He looks through his window's eye
He sees the things he knows are his
He sees the bright and hollow sky
He sees the city asleep at night
He sees the stars are out tonight
And all of it is yours and mine
And all of it is yours and mine
So let's ride and ride and ride and ride...
Singing... la la la la lalalala...

Iggy Pop

Between Two Acts

2011-10-30T19:50:00.003-05:00

I am producing a new chapbook titled "Between Two Acts" poems to accompany photographs of Paris at Natalie Knezic's show opening in London Ontario, November 13, 2011.

All photos by Natalie Knezic of London Ontario. Poems by me!
Very exciting!

Champagne Supernova - Oasis

2011-10-30T19:45:00.000-05:00

Palaces of Montezuma - Grinderman

2011-10-24T21:18:00.000-05:00

Just More Wind

2011-10-16T20:16:00.001-05:00

The wind makes the house creak like an old banjo
being lifted from its case, singing old memories
down chimneys, swirling up the dusty hearth.

Autumn always arrives this way, in an instant
without regard of any need for warmth. It strips
a tree bare quickly, like an unfamiliar lover strips
a woman that he doesn’t really love at all.

In this way, one thing ends to let another begin.
A crow sits on top of a telephone pole, feathers
gusting in defiance of winter. She puts
on the kettle and sighs as it hisses .

Swirling up the dusty hearth, down chimneys
she sings memories like an old banjo being lifted
from its case. The wind makes the house creak.

Oars Across (A Frightening Wind)

2011-10-07T22:15:00.001-05:00

I

The wind scares me.
Oaring across the street it throws everything off.
A piece of glass teeters precariously.
They say your heart is beating far too fast
when I put my ear to the hollow of your chest it flutters
like a panicked bird after it has hit a plate glass window.

II

The sparrow lies in the mud, black eyes darting, felled, desiring flight.
A tiny mound of brown and grey billowing softly in the scary wind.
Is this what a heart attack looks like? Crumpled, grey?
Stopped short by sudden impact?

III

The clock turns 9:50 pm, you’re still at work -

IV

The wind outside is frightening.
They say it will die down tomorrow.

V

Your car rolls into the driveway faster than the wind.
I show you the bird rescued from the mud, it lies in the box, still, dumb.
Outside, curtains on the screen house come loose.
The wind is frightening.
Canvas flaps furiously against the bedroom window.

VI

Ten years from now, how will I pour the wine?
Alone in a tattered screen-house
I remember how a thin sheet of glass
stopped a free bird dead.

Poetry Reading - Nuit Blanche - Oct 1, 2011 Winnipeg

2011-10-03T22:46:00.001-05:00

Sidwalks

2011-09-24T21:38:00.002-05:00

On the cracked sidewalks of my mind

there’s a question dressed in rags

that begs an answer.

Every day I pass by, ignoring its tin can

rattle, the pungent smell, need for bread,

water and a roof.

The question does not want money

only opportunity. I choose to mute it

with nonsensical chatter

television, chaos of work, or a bottle

of fine French wine. In the moments

before sleep I hear it and know

the question will follow me down

into the lucidness of dreams. There is fear

in listening

to something that howls for freedom.

An animal trapped will chew off its own limb

to gain it. The answer is simple, the journey –

harsh. Tomorrow I may stop

realize the sound of my own footsteps

fleeing this earthly trap clear in the knowledge

that survival

with one limb less

will have never felt so good.

Early Mornin' Rain (partial lyrics)

2011-09-22T18:00:00.002-05:00

Hear the mighty engines roar

See the silver wing on high

She's away and westward bound

Far above the clouds she'll fly

Where the mornin' rain don't fall

And the sun always shines

She'll be flyin' o'er my home

In about three hours time

This old airport's got me down

It's no earthly good to me

'Cause I'm stuck here on the ground

As cold and drunk as I can be

You can't jump a jet plane

Like you can a freight train

So I'd best be on my way

In the early morning rain

You can't jump a jet plane

Like you can a freight train

So I'd best be on my way

In the early morning rain

- Gordon Lightfoot -

Here or There

2011-09-05T21:27:00.002-05:00

One day the ticking that is I will cease.

There will be no creak up the wooden

staircase of my bones, my toes will

no longer curl like tender fiddleheads

when tickled by the foot file.

All the hinged planes of my body, closed or open

will stubbornly refuse entry or exit,

push or pull, heave or heft. I will not notice

the fragrant nosegay of lavender you placed

in my soapstone hands, falsely carved into prayer.

My eyelids, now the texture of onion skin

have been closed to God by mortal fingers.

The only possibility of flight sprouts new

between the rigid yolk of my shoulders.

Soon I will be nowhere near between

- here or there -

and no-one at all will notice

my awkward attempts to lift off

with some last semblance of grace.

Open Season

2011-09-03T18:08:00.003-05:00

The autumn wind ripples across the backs of geese

hunched and chilly in the ploughed field

feathers moving like black and white soft dominos.

There is no technology that tells them to move out

hit the road, beat it or get lost, they just know

to lift off when the ground kisses their feet

with lips subtly colder than the day before.

My phone goes off, its fake cricket ring tone

startles what seems to be a million feather dusters

beating the air clean of blue. It’s only the drug

store calling to say my prescription has been renewed.

I smile wryly, can sense a headache coming on.

I turn and slowly walk back down the side-road

to my parked car, avoiding goose dung on the way.

I know there is a good chance that some

will make it past tomorrow’s open season.

Decoys gleam on my back seat in the last slant

of afternoon sun, real enough to pluck.

Imperfect

2011-08-27T18:02:00.008-05:00

Clouds rumble in, unexpected house-guests

to an otherwise quiet sky, pushing

through the door of a perfect summer day

to remind us nothing is ever perfect.

Cloaked in blue grey, under-layed with rain

winds speak in the flap of tarps

rushing oceans of grass

train whistles hanging too long in the wooden air.

Last year there were promises of return

from faraway places; now faintly evaporated

trails of words catch and crumble

like dry leaves in their annual exodus to grass.

All that is green today will soon be yellow.

We hibernate as deeply as winter bears

while stars unclothe themselves slowly

to a grim, voyeuristic night.

Alone-ku

2011-08-22T20:30:00.003-05:00

Alone and drunk
at the top of a hill -
nobody looks like you

2011-08-21T22:33:00.000-05:00

Briefly it Enters, Briefly it Speaks

2011-08-21T19:45:00.000-05:00

I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years. . . .

I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. . . .

When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me. . . .

I am food on the prisoner's plate. . . .

I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until it spills. . . .

I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden. . . .

I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge. . . .

I am the heart contracted by joy. . .
the longest hair, white
before the rest. . . .

I am there in the basket of fruit
presented to the widow. . . .

I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit. . . .

I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name. . . .

- Jane Kenyon -

Blue Guru

2011-08-21T14:33:00.013-05:00

There is a bough on the blue spruce

resemblng the face of a guru. I can see
his form, a hand sprouting a pointed
finger towards my living room window.

On calm days the guru sways gently

forgiving my sins. The sun and shadow

reveal his own shades of grey and he

does not speak, mouth a silent yawn.

Whenever the wind gusts, he gestures

with purpose, stretches closer
wagging a finger, the movement

of his head revealing displeasure.

These are the days that I am most

observant. Rain hangs from the prickle
of his beard, saturates his soggy fingertip
bubbles from the end of a piney nose.

In the nude of winter, he remains clothed,

frozen in memories iced with last year's
unforgiving, drenched days.

Perhaps that explains our natural kinship.

We communicate through intemperate seasons,

in little gusts of wind, peeks of sunshine

the empty quiver that is winter. His hoary
finger no longer points, only proffers solace.

Today, the horizon brews rain.

I can count miles between thunder claps.

Soon, blue guru and I will speak again.

The Sorting Field

2011-08-20T22:06:00.002-05:00

It's mid- August.
Every man I know
is sorting something out
rolling around an idea -
not talking
lost in some sort of distress.
It must be something
about the change of season
or a lack thereof

attempting to match
mis-matched socks
or roll pennies into
brown parchment tubes
working on panicking
when they should be
arranging a rendez-vouz
that has nothing to do
with anything other than
last spring.

There has to be
more than this early
September -

there has to be
more than this.

Fly-ku

2011-08-07T12:12:00.003-05:00

broken artichoke hearts
green and glassy on the plate–
a black fly creeps

Altars

2011-08-03T23:11:00.004-05:00

It all falls apart
at the knees.

Too much
bending
weeding
kneeling
falling

at the feet

of lovers
unworthy
weed-filled
gardens
false god
promises
posing
rock stars
hoping
for

suddenly

it’s all
too much
knees give way
freely
no use
standing
no need for
canes
walkers
support

smile
fall softly

too many altars
so little time

Six Days of Decision

2011-07-15T14:10:00.010-05:00

On the first day she decides
she can live without him -
buys a sun lamp
to permeate the gloom.

On the second day she realizes
a little bit of heaven is required
to get her through, so she smokes two -
passes out to The Carpenters.

By the third day she is so bored
she flies off to Fiji. She delights
from her perspective, an island emerges
wet as a bobbing green beach ball.

She spends the next day listening
to sun and moon argue about illumination.
The stars witness, and begin to chatter.
On the fifth day she returns home

buys a budgie and three goldfish.
On the sixth, she finds a cat curled
on her doorstep, its green eyes shine when
she opens the door to let it inside.

She decides she can't live without him.
They meet for dinner, he stays forever.
The next morning finds them glued together
with sleep. The cat lies gleaming.

The blue budgie preens and finds its own voice.
The three goldfish hover in their bowl, looking out
at a parabolic world. The apple she picked sits
on the wooden table, waiting to be sliced and eaten.

Ah -
so ends the seventh day.

Iris of the World - Bruce Cockburn

2011-07-05T17:26:00.004-05:00

Crossed the border laughing
Never know what to expect
They wanted to know what church I'm in
And what things I collect
They're trying to plug holes in the hull
While flames eat up the deck
The captain and his crew
Don't seem to get the disconnect

Passing through the iris of the world
Passing through the iris of the world

I will always love you
On a boulder by the shoulder
The paint will likely outlive
Both the feeling and the holder
In the age of Global Warming
When all things are growing colder
It's beautiful the writer
Opened up his heart and told her

Passing through the iris of the world
Passing through the iris of the world

I'm good at catching rainbows
Not so good at catching trout
I'm good at blowing holes in things
And ranting in self doubt
I've got a way with time and space
But numbers freak me out
I've mostly dodged the dogma's
Of what life is all about

Passing through the iris of the world
Passing through the iris of the world

I'm talking in strange voices
To myself the way I do
The road under the half moon sky
Rolls out in shades of blue
I'm raw anticipation
Of our rhythmic rendezvous
Loving the gift of the loving I get
And the loving I give to you

Passing through the iris of the world
Passing through the iris of the world

Two Julys

2011-06-26T18:26:00.012-05:00

Two summers past I heard you leaving

softly stepping so as not to wake me.

The room was dark and full of you

and dread that clutched at all of me.

Instinct arrived at three a.m.

to the sound of flung locks

click of a clock, breath exiting

sharply from an empty room.

I curled in the dark, eyes squeezed

shut, a child again at forty-eight.

It was then the door re-opened

you strode back, gathered me up

as if knowing, kissed me long and hard.

Only then did you go fully, loudly

in defiance of the fact that you had to.

I was left alone swathed in night -

transforming back into woman.

Carnival

2011-06-22T21:55:00.006-05:00

Few can see to the end of the tunnel of love the entry beckons heart-shaped
framing an empty void had it been labeled “HauntedHouse” 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 swallowed 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 tred to smile
put on your best front your mask dripping with the sweat of denial

She was no longer holding your hand

2011-06-21T21:28:00.002-05:00

Civil Twilight - Letters From the Sky

2011-06-12T22:41:00.000-05:00

2011-06-12T15:16:00.001-05:00

Always Ride a Horse on your Birthday

2011-06-12T15:15:00.000-05:00

Did Hitler Eat Eggs

2011-06-12T15:10:00.001-05:00

Perhaps he preferred the art of poached

over the simple act of scrambled, admired

the precision required in timing their quick

ascension to the top of enthusiastic bubbles,

slightly runny centers wobbling as they slid

across his black and white plate, a side of burnt

toast to mop up the spill, washed down by a glass

of unspoiled apple juice. On the table a vase

of closed Edelweiss, one pinched and tucked

behind his Eva’s ear. As he stepped off to work

Could he hear her humming

oblivious to the scream of the plate

as she scraped away his leftovers?

2011-05-28T22:25:00.003-05:00

2011-05-24T15:26:00.001-05:00

All heft and cloud

capped white souls

froth sky blue

Riddled (new version of "Anyway"

2011-05-24T15:19:00.006-05:00

I wish to die a slow death

riddled with something

incurable -

lose my mother tongue

the ability to smell fries and vinegar

or new rain on the fur of spring violets.

My cat curled, pushed

against the weak flesh of my belly

her purr a movement of fur

keeping time to the metronome

of the bedside clock,

my breath a rattled score

sung to the earthworm turn of seasons

Postcard From Here

2011-05-24T14:22:00.001-05:00

Twenty-six days

of stories and ghosts

scribbled caricatures

sketches and silhouettes

shadows inked over cobbles

in old Montmartre a decent man

sells word art behind a beat up desk

a curl of smoke

singes the rafters grey

he calls me kind

the gristle of his beard

mutters it

as twice he kisses me

Anyway

2011-04-22T19:23:00.004-05:00

I wish to die a slow death riddled

with something incurable -

that you would die for anyway.

I don’t want to go unknowingly

in my sleep

or fiercely combust in a blaze of glory.

I’d prefer to suffer

home to a number of infirmities

steeped in awareness

of my own tragic flaws.

I could lose my mother tongue

my ability to smell fries and vinegar

or a fresh summer rain on the fur

of spring violets.

I might become a simple blank stare

where the trees once met the sky.

Clouds would not matter

or the earthworm turn of seasons

save for the layers

I might need to assume.

I wouldn’t mind keeping

some bodily functions

as in the basics;

peeing, drinking

knowing when to love

and when the burner

should be turned to off.

My heart I’d also like to keep

close to my chest -

like a house of cards

so close to collapse that

all it would take

would be a puff of breath

or a ghost of a hiccup.

I’d rather die a slow death riddled

with something incurable -

your afterimage still burning.

Anyway.

Good Luck Jonathan!

2011-04-17T19:21:00.001-05:00

I was ill and could not attend, but check it out:

http://www.jonathanball.com/?p=1625

I'm betting against the odds.

Signals

2011-04-17T19:16:00.001-05:00

They creak and sway, ancient tuned
forks pitched to the language
the steel of the track

oblivious to crooked stones
in parallel graveyards
or the choke of wildflowers

between live rails
signals play witness
to rail-riding tramps

stoic conductors
guardians of velocity
they orchestrate commands

observe the curved moon
turned like a Grandmother’s hip
bent to reap and sew

measure the length of ghosts
by the weight of a whistle
as a slice of sun sets over iron backs

we stand - watch the signals spin
very much in awe
of what just blew by

Give Me Something Beautiful

2011-04-09T23:02:00.006-05:00

Eve needed to feel the pen
heavy in her hand so full of

everything forbidden has always been
fair game

Pop

2011-03-27T18:30:00.007-05:00

The first time she heard his voice

a bubble of champagne

caught in her throat like news of death

blooming darkly through the wire it fell

visceral as a bat’s night wings

sudden against sky

every string appeared to play

bass collapsed in fragments

of pitch and timbre

she curled into its character

no longer aware of street noise

in temporary search of destination.

A Bell Tower Speaks

2011-03-27T15:43:00.000-05:00

Sky interrupted

birds fly from tiny chipped spaces

hollow bones turn flute

notes high and breathy

below the dirty snow melts

into dirtier puddles

a small boy jumps –

his red rubber boots

distort reflections

birds turn pinwheels

on the street corners

familiar curbs reveal their crumble

as winter erodes into liquid spring

a stranger smiles at nothing in particular

she grins too, orange coat open

as if to welcome anything other

than last year’s white

There is Nothing New Under the Kitchen Sink

2011-03-20T17:37:00.003-05:00

Distracted, she stirs the kitchen with a spoon

Far, Far Away

2011-03-13T20:25:00.006-05:00

She sat cross-legged

on the moon

waiting for answers

Moon stayed silent

ladled stars

into galaxies

Party Crasher

2011-02-26T17:31:00.003-06:00

Uninvited, It sits with us, cold.
We try to ignore the way it stares.

It’s infringing on our space until the booth
becomes uncomfortable. One of us says

“I’m so busy I haven’t eaten or peed for three days.”
The waitress delivers the sandwiches and salads.

Barb rolls up her sleeve to show us her implantable port.
We see the tube running up her arm

into an incision in her neck, we know it also runs inside her.
“Only twenty rounds of radiation now

like a long slow round of of golf, one hole a day.“ We laugh.
Nobody seems to know that "golf" stands for gentlemen only

ladies forbidden. “Does my wig look like a wig?” we both shake
our heads vigorously, “No as a matter of fact

your wig looks fantastic, how often do you have to wash
it?” “Every seven to ten days I drop the wig off

at the hair salon to get primped. Sure cuts down time
getting ready in the morning.”

She winks, states twice that she will never again complain
about having to style her own hair.

It shifts uncomfortably in the booth, nudges me to move aside
while eyeing up a group of seniors at the next table.

It wants to go out to play. I shove it back, advise it to settle down.
Bad manners to leave the table when you haven't cleaned your plate.

The Art of Goodbye

2011-02-21T21:02:00.001-06:00

Snowshoes are so much softer
than a heel on concrete
or boots down a hotel corridor

It’s one advantage of living here
leaving is easier than sucking an ice-cube
on a July terrace in Montreal

too many years of phantom pain
still reaching out to

Lament

2011-01-23T21:53:00.001-06:00

I’m not writing
but feeling the weight

a pen in my hand

listening.

listening.

listening -

dull ache in the left side of my brain.

Gravity Bites the Big

2011-01-23T19:50:00.002-06:00

Apple, Adam, Eve
sparrows from a bell-
tower

Lucifer too
tumbled – a wished
upon star.

Fruit from every tree
litters gardens every
where, sunken tombstones

across from a farm
dead tracks that once sang
parallel songs to yellow fields.

My abs, your hair, rusted cars
little black flies swirl in the red
of my Cabernet

Last night I swear I saw
Humpty sat on a wall, today
shells in the eggs.

Even the doves have flown -
leaving peace as a bite-mark
on the branches of olives.

The Truth Behind Chicken Little

2011-01-23T19:49:00.001-06:00

In the end

The sky was not falling -
Chicken Little
was only growing

up.

Something like the Blues

2011-01-23T19:47:00.001-06:00

thunder rolls out its familiar timpani
wind turns grass into flutes -
a train in the distance wails for rain

Junk Mail

2011-01-23T19:43:00.001-06:00

Papers everywhere
little bits, torn or whole;
newsprint, blank cheques,
lined paper, ruled paper, graph
paper with those little squares.
Moleskins, fake moleskins,
faxes, emails printed, unprinted
receipts, money, cookbooks
journals, telephone messages
labels, assembly instructions
Christmas flyers, catalogues
paper bags, paper towels
napkins, tampons, toilet
paper, kleenex......

all my books
all my unwritten books

Reclamation

2011-01-23T19:22:00.003-06:00

She knew when the refrigerator light went out
that so much more would fall apart.

Words no longer transmitted between
heart and hand, no feeling in the fingertips.

The sun began to erode into winter,
bright but without the substance of warmth

or happiness, what about happiness?
No longer a funny kitten with a limp

or a dog with one eye. It’s the small things
that slowly leave us. Like dusk to sundown

queer indigo space where nothing matters
just a fraction of what used to be before it disappears.

With everythig in shreds, she revels
in the null of quiet white spaces.

Midnight

2011-01-23T19:08:00.004-06:00

I am the stranger you should have kissed
over there in the corner, against the wall –
me, in a little orange dress, silver stockings,
real lips, real time. Instead, you settled for
the same old thing, a lack of everything
but the same old new year.

I watched her little black dress swing
as you walked out of the place.

But I saw you look back -
I swear, I saw you look back.

White Out

2011-01-08T22:45:00.001-06:00

I guess there is always something new
to look at or learn, something like living

through the first snowfall upon settling
in Manitoba when all the trees were ripe
with leaf, rivers full of survival.

Until the mosquitoes
in May -
Until the yellow orange leaves
in September -

It’s still a place you can see for miles;
here, they still hang a sheet
on the line when someone dies.

Until everything prairie howls
white .

The Great Thaw

2011-01-01T21:24:00.024-06:00

And suddenly, words

melted, ran, flowed down-

stream, mesmerizing as they

ran clear, brighter than any sun

day and the forests flexed with the

muscle of loggers, lakes crested

heavy with shippers, next to fields

full of poppies, lavender, spring

anenomes that only nod their white heads

for over a week - yet all these brightened

as the words tumbled by, in love with

themselves, clothed in a magical purple -

their own bruised truths. When darkness

fell you could hear them all singing, as if

they had just become something

closer to magnificence.

Snow-Globe

2010-12-31T12:39:00.001-06:00

Finally, there is peace and quiet.
From a distance this city might look
like a giant snow-globe, freshly shaken by
some invisible hand, all the building windows
glowing yellow. From back here there are no
beggars in the street, no homeless children,
no girl shivering on a dark sidewalk waiting
for her next trick, no rock star playing God
to a dwindling audience. A fireplace roars,
tries to mute the whistle of the wind as it
lassos the house and pulls the rope tight.

It’s winter in Winnipeg
even the devil knows -
it's best to leave by the back door.

Night, Silent

2010-12-31T12:38:00.001-06:00

I would have gulped the silver star
until the black hole of us became
bright; skin illuminated from the inside
like Christmas or a pomegranate reversed,
consumed back to what it should have been.

instead I kept it all on the outside
wished upon a distant star
just before turning out the lights -
I could hear night in all its finery
silent

getting ready to feed.

Un-Earth

2010-12-29T14:37:00.001-06:00

It’s time I stopped digging you up -
only to contort you into some new position,
place a fountain pen in your hand, a cigarette,
a daisy with one petal, or a piece of granite
from the lake-shore.

It’s time I stopped digging you up –
to look at you, or tilt your chin towards me.
Once, I removed your tattoos, inked a new one
“He loves me he loves me not …”
I enjoyed watching; pretend it didn’t hurt.

I know you’re supposed to be sleeping,
but I swear I saw your number
come up on my phone last week.

Did you ever find that plane ticket in your pocket
dated a year from the day I placed it there?
Or the love poem I wrote before I knew you?
I wonder if you later read it to someone else, a lover,
her long dark hair splashed across the pillows
your mouth so close to the oyster shell she could hear the sea?

When I dug you up to ask you were turned
away from me. There was no note only a view,
the broad of your back. Only I was left, crouched
in a wheat field, earth clumped hard in my fists.

A First Poem, A Giving In

2010-08-14T12:04:00.000-05:00

Under the chatter of stars
let us eat fruit, rotten or ripe.

Climb over me, hip to bone
measure the precise weight

of longing in a tent made of veils.
Your bloodlnes crawl inside me

ants to a hill, stones to a grave
a slice of moon puncturing night.

Scrolls of messages
lie hidden in primeval sands -

lover, dig.

Zoos

2010-08-02T15:01:00.000-05:00

I always did detest the pant
the nervous gait beside a fence
perhaps because I understood

captive. An animal only senses
everywhere it needs to go.
Tonight I pace wooden floors

screens hold me hot.
Lightning. Exaggerated
distance. You.

Close enough to chase -
suddenly.

Fear of Flying

2010-01-29T21:23:00.000-06:00

You are surrounded by brick
I am behind glass
there are wide marble hallways
somewhere
that we are not allowed to
walk down
I go through a scanner
nothing beeps
still the eternal pat-down
the unloading of pockets
until there is nothing left of us
we tried so hard to fly
above the clouds such realization
that all of this was just
too late

Still Life

2010-01-27T20:23:00.001-06:00

Just blooming, Amaryllis. Hand
sanitizer, a bottle of corked Chianti
to be returned. A bottle of liqueur -
Pomegranate. The sound of my cat
eating dry food. In the basement
the furnace kicks in, all that dry heat
sucking moisture out of everything.
In the corner, a dead TV, red curtains
through the window, nothing but
pitch black. Astounded, I catch a
reflection, one tomato left in a bowl
in the kitchen.

2010, A Space

2009-12-30T21:05:00.003-06:00

So tell me, if we throw all of our skeletons
up in the air, will they morph into space-
ships, transport us to the next level? And
will we really be that more evolved? Perhaps
we need a Hal to give us the answer, as to
exactly how we fucked everything up;

how at the end of it, we are just tail-less
apes making bones about nothing.

Just More Sky

2009-12-28T19:38:00.001-06:00

We could have walked together
under the Elm trees, arm in arm
along Champs-Élysées, laughed
about how the rich and famous
really aren’t that important,
about how music is secondary to
the rapid sound of a sparrow’s heart
as it sits in your hand after thinking
a living room window is just more sky.

Had the window been open, it would
have been different, the chance of
getting closer than a poem
to an expanded world of fantastic
reflection was like throwing a bread crumb
onto a river covered in ice, there was no
possibility of anything but reverberation.
At times, I think of her when I see a horse
standing in the early morning fog

breathing a memory of its first mate.
I remember how quickly she gave it all up
for the company of scoundrel(s) and wonder
had she known everything she knows today
would she have done the same?
Someone taps quietly, translating words
into deeds in the middle of the night.
I could have met her there, in Paris
if she hadn’t been such a bitch.

Poetry Anthology

2009-12-19T14:56:00.002-06:00

Check out this link to the book "Lilith", A Collection of Women's Writes in which I am featured.

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/lilith/7923763

It's exciting!

only the weather

2009-12-12T20:30:00.000-06:00

I often wonder did anyone
really walk on the moon

and who named it
Sea of Tranquility

perhaps it should be
Sea Now Disturbed

honestly
who tees off when they reach

something like the moon?
Could the first man

not have written his name
in a brick of cheddar cheese

and left it to petrify
sort of like a joke or an R.I.P.

carved in a tombstone?
The Eagle has landed

scripted and announced
in a soundstage in L.A.

Osama Bin Laden and George
Bush reminders that Elmer Fudd

hated Bugs Bunny, or how Wile. E
in pursuit of Roadrunner faltered

while an Acme weight fell so slowly
on our heads

while inside an unabandoned house
in New Orleans a man believed

it was only the weather -
a hurricane never lies.

2009-12-11T21:57:00.001-06:00

Jeremiah Johnson made his way into the mountains
Bettin' on forgettin' all the troubles that he knew
The trail was wide and narrow
And the eagle or the sparrow
Showed the path he was to follow as they flew.
A mountain man's a lonely man
And he leaves a life behind
It ought to have been different, but oftimes you will find,
That the story doesn't always go that way you had in mind.
Jeremiah's story was that kind. . .
Jeremiah's story was that kind.
The way that you wander is the way that you choose,
The day that you tarry is the day that you lose.
Sunshine or thunder, a man will always wonder.
Where the fair wind blows.
An Indian says you search in vain for what you cannot find.
He says you'll find a thousand ways for runnin' down your time.
An Indian didn't scream it, he said it in a song,
And he's never been known to be wrong.
He's never been known to be wrong.

Still

2009-11-22T18:12:00.001-06:00

So much to say before the air
begins to turn

bells cease to ring broken
promises, steeples empty now of wings

only ghosts glimpsed in tatters
turn blue corners, in quick flutters

they dart in and out through portals;
elusive as minnows flickering through

gaping nets lost to the sway
currents fraught with undecided

still

11/01/09

2009-11-01T15:11:00.000-06:00

Again, the geese are flying
South, a flutter of words on
a blue page –

For a second, the world is full
of nothing more than black and white
wings that flag and signal

a start, a change of season.
I think of you on the other side
of a windy world

where waves lick at sea-scummed
rocks that have guarded shores
since before we were born.

With the instinct of a migrant
you will return and take root in dreams
in the roll of luminous waves reflected

in the sweeping eye of a lighthouse
as clouds puff up and grumble
shooed away by fair-weather winds.

I grin to think that we are so tiny -
grains of sand that spin pearls
into the mouths of oysters

split open on a beach at dawn.

Between Gasps

2009-10-24T14:27:00.003-05:00

In the grandness of edits I live
in gaps and shadows; between
footsteps I walk to feel land’s beat.
To find a place in this air, I breathe in
taste wild cherries, autumn apples, dance
drunk as a bird lost in the sweetness of ferment.

At night I lose count of my sins
in the blackness between stars; my dreams
scale fortresses to find me. I burrow for them
overturn every stone, grapple suns until my
hands are burnt, follow them down into
silvery gasps between gills of a grounded fish.

Sometimes, I hear stories in the silence
just before wind moves through the leaves,
and my heart trembles like a paper lantern
strung between the trees. The bones of a fish
rattle on the shore below as high in the hills
a sound of chimes can only be heard as longing.