flooded, vi

Tough and weathered, he appears

on the six o'clock news

though his words scratch through

tears                impeding their flow

If I can't move them to safety tonight

The  cattle will have to be euthanized

Evacuation notices taped

to a door, a truck, a shed 

stamped friday the 13th 

and

rain and snow keep falling while

weary men work fingers to bone-

            In the morning

                       they breach the dike.

Common Era

My friend's kid tells me all about

the eras of existence on the planet:

Crusty ol' Crustacious,

Early Jurassic,

then, because we'd already run out of names,

the Late Jurrassic

and then, the Great Extinction.

To him it's all abstract -

the era when his mom and I were roommates

might well be about as far back as T Rex.

And I've survived through many more eras since

with my tough hide and sharp claws.

The Flirtacious, the Kick-my-assic,

then I killed off every single thing I knew

one by one

sent them to the ground to become

after a millennium or so

oil or diamonds

all the more valuable

for having been buried.

While I wait

for new forms of life

to emerge on my planet

I guess I'll just keep on

what the kid says we're doing,

living in the Aftermath.

Hold On

When the pine crashed onto the cherry tree
we wept ferocious as if the loss
was a grandparent or a dog.
No fruit so prized, so ripe
for greedy fingers, gaping mouths.
The man was hired to fell the pine and
avoid the fruit, the house.
We would not have cried for the tart
apples or the even the plums
which confused us each year
into thinking they were apricots.

Thirty years later, midnight,
a wind threatens to lift houses,
toss venerable maples, elms.
Branches splinter. The house creaks.
Chimes a block away frantic in protest,
sirens squall. Between gusts,
I hear my children breathe
from across the hall, even and calm.
Basic biology, this is sanctuary.

Wednesday

April's being good today,

all warmth and possibility.

Boys linger after school.

One a troll, one a Viking.

A mother sits, face tilted to the sun.

A father walks and walks around the soccer pitch.

Batman arrives in a red wagon. In his hand—

and epée? a rapier? Surely a Bat-sword.

Boys walk the ledge dividing sand from gravel.

Survival's at stake. They watch their feet.

Now a girl's in the wagon. Regal in pink sunglasses,

turquoise shirt. Batman pulls, she holds the reins.

Australia

I wept for two months

after coming back from Australia.

How could I live without

the water (the water, the water), the sand,

the sky so much brighter there,

without sunrises on the beach

without toes in the sand?

I researched visas and special job skills list,

wondered if I could pass as a structural engineer,

wondered if I could pass as a Youth on Holiday.

My shrink didn't think moving there

would actually solve anything.

But he'd never been there -

how could he know

about the alien trees, the parrots in the wild,

the surfer boys out on endless waves?

So I get out.

But I only make it

a few hundred miles

in the direction of Down Under.

A pitiful compromise, paradise postponed.

Then I wake up this morning,

walk out to the water

past a purple tree raining blossoms

as the sun paints the clouds orange.

Sink my heels in the night-cooled sand,

watch seagulls surfing the waves.

I lean down to touch a shell

and find Australia.

Coming Clean

from the front cover of today's Star-Phoenix

Because he loved her
Because she was his baby girl
Because her boyfriend was bad news
(a drugseller who injected heroin in her arms
even when she was only half-conscious)
Because of that, because she had just
gotten clean again. Because. Just
because. Her father loaded
his gun. Tucked it into
the same belt he'd
never hit her
with.

Remembered her coming home, telling him
how her boyfriend beat a man with a crowbar
until he lost consciousness.

There was a standoff. He stood. He stayed.
Emptied 20 bullets in her boyfriend's
body. Traced a sign of the cross
in the blood on his forehead
when he was sure
he was dead.

It was a life for a life for a life:
he'd do it again. Trade his
freedom, bloody his hands
for his daughter.
Any man.

Catullus 2a and A Sparrow Poem

Is it just me or did some posts get erased?

Here is something I think I posted before:



Catullus 2a

Passer -- Sparrow

Passer, deliciae meae puellae,
quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere,
cui primum digitum dare appetenti
et acris solet incitare morsus,
cum desiderio meo nitenti
carum nescio quid lubet iocari,
et solaciolum sui doloris,
credo, ut tum gravis acquiescat ardor:
tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem
et tristis animi leuare curas!
... Tam gratum est mihi quam ferunt puellae
pernici aureolum fuisse malum,
quod zonam solvit diu ligatam.


Sparrow, my darling’s delicate one,
always her little plaything, held fast in to her chest,
to you she stretches out her stroking fingertip
provoking your sharp pecks--
She’s incandescent with desire for me,
but I do not know the joke I could joke to please her,
to make for her a small solace from her pains
so that, perhaps, her heavy burning could quiet.

She can play with you like this,
lightening her mind’s sorrowful concerns.
... This is as dear to me as the golden apple
was for that swift girl who threw them,
releasing her from her long-fastened girdle.


Sparrow

I am anything but a sparrow.
With the swift push up from the poolside
after swimming my shoulders
fit five birds width
two birds depth.
Are they seductive, those twin lines
that sketch themselves
onto the steam-streaked mirror,
my hands raised to braid my hair
dividing the under muscles
that curve down to my breasts?

Early I filled out
the feminine slight swaying
hollow reed body,
never lacked a third
dimension, sometimes
there appears a forth.

But shouldn’t women’s bodies
be puzzle pieces?
Small birds
with soft corners, trimmed
to be fit into things.

Our Home Needs to be Painted

It is a house of collections
housed in old gem jars—
eyelashes in the bathroom,
teeth in the bedroom,
discontinued currencies in the kitchen.

Hair elastics looped around doorknobs,
a forgotten code left undeciphered.
Point shoes stacked in the corner,
dice in every drawer.

The bucket on the deck is there
to collect stardust and wishes
wished on satellites masquerading
as shooting stars. To date, it has only
captured raindrops and glimpses of the moon.

Everything is weighted in luck,
yet we are unsure how to measure.
We place items in our palms,
on our tongues but we can only guess.
Yes, we are lucky, we say, until we are not.

Veracity

The days are fatter, rounder
ripening lush-lipped plums.
The trees are loaded brushes
poised under cerulean skies.
Stand on the stone embankment
a rising river in your eyes.
Birds are feathering downwards
stealing Hansel & Gretl crumbs.
Daylight stretched elastic
weak tea dawn to brass brazen noon;
We'll question the sun's uprising
but in secret, suspect the moon.

burrionis viridis

defying the slate-gray sky

outside her window a Dutch elm

burgeons glossy green leaflets

Two poems

I seem to behind on everything today. This is not unusual. I also apologize for my commenting slipping-- will try to catch up this weekend.

I got a service interruption message when I tried to post late last night. So this is later than even it should have been!

In the meantime, and I'll explain this bit of fluff later:

Two poems

1

Dublin's

Bashful

Mary, Queen of Scots

A steam launch

The Virgin

Red

2

Swedish

Alfred

Steel

By bouncing

They ate it

Be prepared

flooded, v

i

it is less about his death

than his life

these memories that flood me

        fifteen years since his

last breath, my final words,

since

        in the still air, floating,

remembrance of a tragic life

.and words. only words. mine,

holding the hand of his

holocaust body I

whisper

- go

ii

a Holocaust ago

they played at the edge of the Danube

watched bodies float the blue

             children chanting

boy or girl? girl or boy?

but she would be the first to know

that girls always faced the sky

though to this day

she doesn't

know

w

h

y

.

Above Average Temperatures

Blinded by winter’s
inner thighs, young girls
in 80s jumpers stroll the Drive
in squeaky Keds—so much ironic flesh,
I feel old. The first hot day
brings picnic blankets and pot
smoke, novels consumed
on front stoops, all the leisure
a paycheque can afford,
grab another beer
from the vegetable drawer.

Time to start shaving
more than once a week.
Late evening rays
reflect on red brick:
all the pores and cracks
softened. After a long bout
of sleeping alone, it’s not
just the street trees
that need watering.

o my

6'2 of confusion

I love that pic of you that Pat took in the desert-

your weedy mustache, eyes behind ballistics, hard-boiled,

the dust of a shitshow war/marriage carried on your shoulders,

duty, honour, big ideas tattooed in blue on forearms, inky thunder

it's May. the light on the coast is weak.

I wait. patiently. for you.

Small Corpse

Feathers imploding outwards
like flotsam from a shipwreck:
"wreccum maris, sturnella neglecta"
The body lays in state
on the corner of the neighbour's lawn
Decapitation indicates
feline involvement
The wind tenderly ruffles
delicate breast feathers
The grass is inured to grieving
but a bough is sighing mournfully
The ants will pay their respects

Death brings a certain
softness before
the hardening.

Ella Ewing, Absolutely the Tallest Lady on Earth

Papers report the wedding – dress sewn from sailcloth, band any other woman’s bangle – but I’ve never proposed, even though she’s the only one I could kiss goodnight without sinking to my knees. My manager tats her a pretty letter, counts imaginary dollars aloud, but I can’t sign.

Yes, I think of the house we’d share – windows punched high enough to see the view; no ceilings, only sky, above our heads. Simple beauty of proportion in our empty clothes, hanging side-by-side, in the cupboard.

If we were paired for the ark, she’d be my match. But how can I marry a woman I’ve seen only on a Barnum and Bailey poster? (And a drawing, at that.) After chit chat of height runs dry – fear of chandeliers, how to best stretch a shoe – what to talk about?

And children. I’d never pass this millstone to another.

Catullus 70

Catullus 70 -
or
To No One--Nulli, a translation

Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle
quam mihi, non si se Iuppiter ipse petat.
dicit: sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti
in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua.

"To no one," my woman says,
"There is no one I would prefer to marry myself to,
more than you, not even if Juppiter himself should seek me."
So she says. But what a woman tells her lust-filled lover
ought to be written on the winds and rapid rushing rivers.



To No One Else
-after Catullus 70

He reminds me of Heraclitus'
forgetful river and although I cannot
cannot have him, I should be able to

remember this, each time I catch
his liquid green eyes
in my palms I write love
on a rock and throw it.
Plunk and splash
in the water, where it will remain.


(The first is a translation, the second is a rough little poem inspired by it.)

IN THE DEPARTMENT OF LANDS AND FORESTS

Arguments are reasoned with fists
firm as the fritters I’m shaping on the table.
My clothes smell of smoke
and wood. Jack pine and river. Bisco.

I build a fire in the stove and place
my cast iron pan on the top. Here,
everything tastes charred. The mill and store
only a month ago burnt like toast,

now nothing but blackened boots
poking from the earth. I slice
a fat chunk of lard, drop it in the pan.
Archie calls them donuts, dough

formed with a tin cup, then
marked by a hole from another
smaller lid. Where did this
indulgence begin? Who broke

a fleshy mid-section once so heavy
six seamen fell overboard after eating
those fried cakes? Who noticed the cow
kicking the pot of oil, tipping it onto pastry

rolled and ready? Who was that pioneer
that made the first opening?
Sizzle splatters my arm and I carefully
lay the circles into the pan, watch

from my station as the brown
edges up the sides. I’m the ranger
on duty, keeping one eye out for signs
of smoke, the other on the sky.

Metamorphosis

They hang, blue-frosted, in September trees.

A finger's touch removes

the powdery veneer and now

they're satin-skinned, blue-violet,

dark droplets hefted in the palm.

Knife-point finds the crease, opens

a slit. Quick rotation, circumference

complete. A twist, knife-flick

tosses out the stone.

Golden flesh bright

under the blade, firm halves chopped,

mashed, measured.

Slow circles with the wooden spoon

stave off burning. Sugar's added

when the soft mass bubbles.

Stir and stir, the purple seeps

from skins into flesh, lightens,

loses its midnight darkness.

Red-violet, color of velvet,

favorite crayons, the prayer book.

Plum.

Melospiza melodia

song sparrows waken her at dawn

fearful she will otherwise forget 

winter's gone

March 6: St. Colette, Virgin

Nicolette is a plausible name, virginity
a likely state of first breath. Hermitesses laudable
role models, even those who believe themselves
assaulted by bees
and zombies.

Traitors hanged in the public square,
rapists and poachers,
swinging their bulging arms at her
right out of their sockets. While the bees swarmed.
Buzz buzz. Buzz buzz. Slutty slut. Buzz buzz.

Hunched fetus-like, squat and swatting.
Let them go, let them go, my God, my God.
Buzz buzz. Buzz buzz.
She showed the priests her bruises.

There was less awareness back in those days
about anti-zombie strategy.
Today, many reclusive virgins
with ears ringing, whispering surround-sound,
would know just what to do.

Late in the Season

Hearing a chickadee call so late—
the others already flitting in
and out of tree cavities and nest boxes
with insects for their young—
swee-tie, what once was hopeful,
a sign of longer days and leaf out,
now urgent like a child calling
for a lost dog, swee-tie? swee-tie?

Then, the pitch changes—
a response? For all of us
whose clocks run a little late,
I offer another who, after chase,
will gather moss, dog hair and dryer lint
to line the nest, then lift her tail
for that quick cloacal kiss.

Team colors

On the train ride home tonight,
the first day of real tshirt weather,
I'm surrounded by a conspiracy
of blue and red
jerseys, t-shirts, caps,
even a dress
that barely covers boobs
CU -- neckline-- BS

They chatter loudly in pairs,
couples, families,
taking up seats
two by two,
like they will at the park,
sipping colas and Red Bull
as if they need to get
more jacked up.

They pity me perhaps,
heading home without a seat-mate,
just my book for company.

But I was them once.
On my way to a game,
secure in the happiness
that no runs have yet to score,
anything is possible,
the home team could still win
despite recent statistics.
This could be the night
the star player beats his slump.

I don't even know anymore
who that star player is -
I haven't had to care,
haven't had to check daily websites
to keep up with intense speculations
about streaks, batting order, standings.

I had in fact thought until now
that since we finally struck out,
this would be a summer without baseball,
unthinkable as that once would be.

But I see tonight
baseball goes on without me,
surrounds me, befriends me.
And summer reaches out --
in blue, in red --
to pull me in.

allegrias

o guapo guapo mi amigo

mi Mayo

hola hola mi alma mi espiritu

apples, cherries, plums blossom

petals salt, pepper the earth

mi corazón flies flies

all my springs back to me.

20th and P

Slow for a pedestrian clutching her coffee
crossing one lane at a time, and in sunlight
she smiles, spry lean against the breeze, white teeth in a brown face.

Behind us cars honk, swerve around, a screech
coffee splashes on the ground. She
grimaces, raises her cup to me as if to say

"Cheers."

Keeps walking head-high to a downrolled window,
Racist invective, fountain of pennies and a thrown
Slurpee cup. Another spring day in the 'hood.

Fade

The westbound bus is ailing,

lights, air conditioner turned off

to spare the battery. No one complains.

Ceiling vents open to the sweet

end-of-summer night.

Sun slips lower, pastel colors

burn hotter. Late-August blue

grows deeper, the land falls under

a wash of shadow, darker than sky.

Small pools of water in the fields,

gaps of reflected light in the dark

landscape, holes in the black

cloth cast over the world

like the cover of a birdcage:

Shh. Quiet now. Settle down.

And we do, the cool air tranquilizing.

Talk fades to a murmur,

children retreat into video.

You hold my hand.

It's the end of the day. Don't worry

if there's nothing left to say.

Growing pains

Toes cramped inside shoes
from eternal curling.

Ankles, wrists, always bitten
raw by frost.

Throat gripped tighter by noose
of collar with every swallow.

Knees, elbows, forehead,
blued with bruise.

Heart stamped flat
with every vicious whisper
of the Devil in my veins.

The world

is a funny place.
Fly to Vancouver to Beijing reading
En Route about the rise of cerealism—
breakfast clubs after dark. Bowls of pumpkin
porridge with lobster and truffles, steel-
cut oats topped with chocolate pudding.

Opposite page—Wayne
Gretzky sells watches. Read
About elitist private members’
clubs in Hong Kong—similar to people’s homes,
not my home.

Another page—go
to Camont to make sausage
from pig shoulder in the eighteenth-century
farmhouse. The instructor an American
who came to moor her barge.

Along the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia,
a golf course. What a shrine to the old
country. Expect a fickle wind.

And now in Beijing, step over
the thin man missing limbs, sitting
in the street.

* * *

Hello everyone. I've been traveling through China and haven't had regular access to the Internet. I'm back on May 15 and will be posting more then. Until then, here's a poem.

Best,

Kelly

How to Celebrate Mother's Day, part three

1.
Because she sat in the kitchen with the curling tongs, most afternoons. And she spread my hair like a blanket over my shoulders and brushed it until it crackled. And then, section by section, she curled my honey hair. The hair that was just as hers was, when she was young.

And then she would re-tie the sash on my dresses, making it big and pretty.

And she’d send me out to skip and prattle for the newspapermen on the afternoon train, all of them young men new to suits, to pencils and telegraph wires and column inches.

And I know my hair caught the sun like waves on the ocean. The sun and their surprised eyes.

And that Mama saw it from behind the blinds, her hands empty and still.

2.
Because she taught me that bolts of lace and cards of pearl buttons were as potent a message as those punched in telegraph tape.

3.
That Mama wouldn’t let the servants clean the sheets in the guest room. The ones he blackened and stained with smuts from the lab, him falling into bed after a week or more away.

He would sleep for a day or more and look at us, bleary-eyed, when he awoke.

After he left, she’d bundle up the sheets like they were something sacred. And take them down to the basement and scrub them clean again, her soft fingers burning in the soap.

I read how women used to hang the sheets out the window after their wedding night, the blots of blood a badge of purity.

I think Mama’s triumph was keeping his badges, his hard work, his neverending work, all to herself.

4.
Because she stroked my cheek when she was happy with me. Even now, someone touching my pocked face makes me intensely happy.

5.
That when Papa dumped an armful of broken clocks before going away, that Mama got down on the floor with us, even though the servants laughed at her.

She’d taken apart chickens, she told me, a streak of rust across her cheek, a screwdriver in her hand. How different could this be?

(Likely story, said cook, smirking.)

6.
A crock of milk gone sour; you don’t know it’s off until you pour it out. That’s how it was with Mama, those last few years.

But I knew she was sad and drunk most of the time. And I didn’t say anything to Papa.

I didn’t say, “I know you love Mama. And if you come home for a week, a week or maybe a month at home because you love Mama, she will be a little bit better.”

7.
Because she smiled crooked. And often, when we were little.
Because her happiness was stitched into Papa’s shirts
and he never knew it. Because I see now that she was young
and foolish, when she married him.
When she died.

Flooded, iv

Monday morning brought camouflaged men

to his door, stating he should make sure the tank is full, and

-don't forget your medication and a change of clothes-

but forgot to ask if he had anywhere to go.

Door to door the troops moved onward

the roar of military trucks battling with the music

played over loudspeakers to the weary

dike builders on the  banks of the Assiniboine .

And the rain came down with no sign of ceasing

as the river snaked its way through southern cities

and what used to be shades of green and gold 

mosaic patches on the Manitoba prairies.

 

Flock

No difference between me and the blade-faced, ash-eyed working girls, except the side of the striped canvas from which we try to snare attention, solicit ooohs, aaahs.

Between shows, I slouch out of the crowd, watch the flock of grackles in tattered taffeta scratch and squawk behind the tents. They smear lips red, sip from small, stoppered bottles. Spit at their sisters, then pinch roses into one another’s cheeks.

They whistle to me and I raise one hand to my waist, half-open the palm in a wave.

Plump one means me to hear when she says: I’d like to take his measurements, and I don’t mean the inseam. Elbows her friend. Just north.

Plenty of room inside those trousers for all of us, honey, says another.

I turn my face, as if away from a campfire. Let wind cool my flushed cheeks, my smile.

March 5: St. Ciaran of Saighir

Foxy fox on the chain gang. Ginger fox.
Wolf whistles with the whip.
Badger badgers.
Only fox the jealousy of the underfoot.
Fox carries wood between her jaws,
builds the monastery and gets no credit
'cept this slinky rage. This fit
of underhanded pique. This is what
we write her down about.

But three ill-gotten shoes
is a magic number
and desire is punishable by death.

The first shoe found in the stream where she'd been
admiring herself. Some say it was the shoe of power.
In her cave she rested her head on the shoe,
on its fickle leather. She licked and stroked it and
looked on it with unforgivable anguish and love.

Then a collar. And an axe. And becoming wood-bearer.
And the two shoes imposing on her downturned sight
and kicking in her small kidneys.

When they came for her, they came to her den,
the wolf and badger were afraid and carried
amulets made from the gnashing of her ancestors.
They stuffed her tail down her throat and nailed the shoes to her paws,
carried her to the monk with the cold eyes,
oh he could look at a fox and make her wish she was dead.
He put a spell on her using the bones of her comrades
(the wolf and the fox expendable in the pursuit of a penitent)
and made her to roll over and pray.
She repented and returned the shoes
bloody and unhinged
and picked up wood.

Seasonal Orchestra

No conga line of perennials and songbirds
more a slow waltz in 6/8. Sometimes
the music fades, the score wanders.

Notation of hard buds, closed brown and grey
in one movement guitar riff to green.
A wan and diluted sun

conducts butterflies out for weeks:
spring's suicide-bombers, hoping
in vain for flowers.

Flourished finish:
an arpeggio of
swallows.

(And lingering after, violin
whine: the first
mosquito.)

SPANISH RIVER LUMBER COMPANY

Grand Trunk talk says it's the land of a thousand
lakes. Rapids and falls. An old fur trader

peddling his wares on an empty cabin’s stoop.
The last 16 acres of unspoiled forest and there’s nothing

virgin about the wilderness in the tales told
over a bottle of whiskey, his toothless

grin before he poses for a photograph
beaver skins held in his hands,

those hard-bitten slabs, dark like wet granite,
his shabby coat and too short pants —

One man’s isolation advertised
as he smiles for the camera, this golden nugget

found in a northern Eden, the Canadian lumber yard
where I’ll spend the next two climates of life

knee deep in 160 miles of water and trees,
my arms paddling for days, my boat

nosing trout, smallmouthed bass, and the daily
stops, flyfishing for a meal. An old logging dam

spills the shore with signs I paint—
rocks, severed logs, water lapping,

and one overturned canoe.

How to Celebrate Mother’s Day, part two

1.
The time I fell off my bike at 6 and skinned my neck and chin raw on the sidewalk. And she held me as close as she could until I fell asleep.

2.
At 19, I taught myself to skate again, doing laps at a local rink. And I was slowly skating backwards, hip checking all the miles I’d done on pavement, when I nearly toppled. Righting myself, breathing hard, I turned around and saw her, standing with her elbows on the boards. And she was smiling. Not because I’d fallen; this wasn’t a pratfall guffaw. No, it was pride. And I’ll REMEMBER that grin until the day I die.

3.
Because she worked full-time and raised three kids and kept house because ALL of that was somehow her responsibility. That her resentment was a nasty dog she kept leashed, most of the time.

4.
That she put up with the bulk-bin peanut brittle. Oh, wait, first we burnt toast for her...

5.
When she let us raid our uncle’s stash of old Playboys at the cabin, curious about all the naked women. And didn’t say a damn thing, just put the magazines back in the cupboard when we were done.

6.
That she didn’t just get up and leave when all THREE of us spilled our milk during a single meal. Any number of times during our long adolescence.

7.
Because she sang You Are My Sunshine while she wiggled the loose tooth in my jaw, my head in her lap. She sang it like sunshine, like sugar, like love, put into words.

Attila triomphe

Contre toute attente

la tulipe hâtive casse croûte de neige

pour saluer les passants

de la rue McMillan.

                En retour, eux,

trouvent espoir.

Spider dreams

This one's in black and white.

Man, bald like a cartoon villain,

his laugh low and humorless:

I am the spider.

This one is muted brown and green.

The bush behind the neighbor's field,

derelict van with rear doors open,

spiders pouring out the driver's window.

This one's full color, real life.

Hairless seed of a body suspended

from legs like jointed threads.

I watch its progress through the grass,

unwilling to kill it

(those grey guts smeared

on my shoe), still less to feel

that filament of a leg

on my wrist.

How to Celebrate Mother’s Day

“Warning #2. Don't bring up past issues. She may have been into drugs when you were a kid, and forgot you at school a lot, but don't talk about that today. Try to focus on the better times, when she supported one of your decisions, or when she did something silly and made everyone laugh.” – How to Celebrate Mother’s Day, wikiHow.

1.
Leave the house RIGHT now.

2.
In the name of home economics, efficiency, and Rorschach-like splatter, set off a small bomb in the kitchen at 8 am.

3.
Spray paint a loving tribute on a nearby bridge the night before. Go for a drive after dinner and see that the liquor made you write “I wuv you Momo.”

You’ll find that a brutal you-ee will stifle her contemptuous snorts.

4.
You’ve heard of vodka-infused watermelons? Get out the turkey baster and get…creative.

5.
Seriously. Don’t come home until DARK.

6.
You've been giving your father Seven Eleven-grade plasticized porn and your mother bulk-bin peanut brittle for every major holiday since you were four...why stop now?

7.
Enlist your twitter minions to call your mother every minute the ENTIRE 24 hours of mother’s day.

8.
Black roses.

Breaking

1.
Square his huge world
with rough wood, pen in even the sky.

Let him tire of thrashing,
give up sniffing for freedom.
In a day, he’ll forget the luxury
of untangling legs.

If needed, choke his will.


2.
Approach from the front
with hushed promises:
a lifetime of feed.

Whisper I’m your only friend.

Watch trust bud, flower,
let him sidle to your touch.


3.
Hide intentions in your left hand,
low, holstered along the thigh.
With your right, smooth away his wariness.

Ready the hackamore silently,
below his line of vision,
reassure -- low tones, always -- natural,
for the best, then buckle it quick.


4.
Let his dignity starve at the post,
spirit snuffed before he knows he’s tied.


5.
Saddle him with your ambition, his destiny.
Dig in your spurs until he bleeds.

flooded, iii

in the morning he stands on a mound of clay

looking over fields that will soon be swallowed up

by rivers that run through this prairie, his.

the seeds should already  be in the soil

sprouting hope

giving vision to mid-summer sheaths of gold

from the kitchen window she watches him, worried

about the man on the radio

(spouting dread with a smile in his voice!)

and the outcome of tomorrow's elections,

and with two boys still at home

she prays to the man in charge for mercy

when he returns she will pour him a cuppa

comfort the weathered lines on his worried face

tell him it will all be okay, make

love to him into the night

her spirit silently flooding with the pitter-patter of

rain that keeps falling outside their bedroom window.

fall

big men, I mean really big men,

the kind whose muscles wrap

their torsos like two-foot thick vines,

are falling, falling, heavy into the swamp,

it is a terrible thing to hear the first crack,

the tear, the roots snap from the earth,

the listing, the leaning of the massive trunk,

then hit of hard land, the man cracks,

branches pulled back, tattoo'd arms splayed.

Mother's Day, Gray

8 a.m. silent the stairs
cloud filtered light
through windowpanes
there comes a day
when all you get is calls
maybe an email,
a greeting card pinking
(in the bills)

always a mother but
retired from active duty
or grandmothered
to a new role
pleasing but distant
(like spring, or summer)

birds chip, whistle, call
bragging of a nestful

click the kettle for tea
happy mother's day, me

I just happened to be first up and it made me think of the future. I had a really nice day, for the record. Well, mostly really nice. There were a few moments. Funny qotd: "I don't see why we should honour women for reproducing. I'm only 13 but what if I wanted a present today too? See! Mother's Day should be discouraged!"

Prairie Winters are the Longest Winters

Edmonton smokers are the toughest bitches,
James Dean shadows along government brick
taking what they can get, giving nothing more,
cutting -40 with their sharp exhales.
Fuck you, global warming, we’ve got data to input.
Stacey brought Timbits & the Oilers
got a decent pick this year.
The Coliseum has new turf and the Grey Cup
should be ours this year. We’re Festival City.
We got class. We’re gonna be all right.

untitled

In Scotland, sea-side villages
full of fishermen and miserable seal-brides.
Here, were-ducks snooze
in insurance office gardens where once
there were gardeners trimming hedges
picking up
all the coffee-break butts.

In South Korea, entire days yellowed
by sand lifted from the Gobi by wind and wind and wind
and wind and dropped
on millions. Here, buses blow by,
creating curb-side simoons,
gritty instants.

In Brazil, exotics destined
for cages and corners of living rooms.
Here, rusted wrought iron full of bird
and then empty, each one a perfect mimic
of treed plastic bags
insistent ringtones
and smouldering dumpsters.

* * *

This is such a uncooperative fragment. But it's all I wrote this week. So it'll have to do...