Because for nearly a billion years, ozone molecules in the atmosphere have protected life on Earth from the effects of ultraviolet rays.

Expand the lung, forsaken
in an ocean wide that is your body
Stretch-mouthed, drink the darkness
sing for light and never taste it.
Breathe in the sky blue
stillborn and cord-wrapped.
Breathe out the sky pink
womb that bleeds at sunset.

A Genre Story

 

I built her exponentially

and slapped her in a pink dress.

She can hold your head down

under the cloud of debris

or underwater. Only one of her many talents.

She can climb you like a tree

and strangle you like a Russian spy.

 

Even better, there are two of her:

then four, eight and sixteen.

She is a supermodel and a fighter pilot.

She is both carbon and silicon-based,

a crystal in a canister of Tang,

a Crystalline Entity darkening the atmosphere.

Her neural pathways are forming,

and forming, and she's hot, and evil, and it's okay

to rape her because she isn't real.

On/off switch at the base of her spine,

failsafe cancer built to trigger,

now, let's go, let's go! She's

carrying a gun and knows how to use it,

she bleeds and resurrects, and there are two,

four, eight, sixteen of her, and I made her,

in my image, and I made her, she's looking for love.

 

Off the wall

If I let go of this wall,

there will be no turning back.

He is waiting for me

in the middle of the room.

Patient, but insistent.

He could wait there all night,

but he knows he won’t have to.

He knows eventually I will

lift my fingers from this wall

that has no hand grips

anyway, that would eventually

become just one more thing 

to slide down.

So I look him in the eyes

though it’s too dark to see.

I have faith, I trust, I push off,

take that first step.

Strong arms reach out to catch me

as I let go.

America the everyday

"I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed."
—Norman Rockwell

A hum of energy
coming and going
to school
to swimming hole
on a train
back home
to war
to the rescue
wide-eyed, open-mouthed,
try-anything America.
Striding forward. Standing firm.
Changed. Shaken. America
full color, front cover.
America the story.

aftr th fall 15

u think u'r ok, u lace up yr flamenco shuz, glug soda watr, zip on yr bata de cola & its tite 'cuz u'r out of shape, but itz ok cuz u kno u'll get bak in shape fast. u tak a flamenco class but 3/4 thru u kno it waznt a gud idee, cuz yr brain iz so damnd tired, so u leafv urlee, go get grosseries, pak up yr bike, then a big dog cumz along, uzes the whheel of yr bike 4 a biffie. yr bik falls down. thn a bus flattens a huge bottle of soda, it xplodes all ovr u, u get on yr bike ride 2wards home. some old dude just about hits u with hiz car. u yell "watch out!" he givs u the finger. so do his kids. u've had enuff of this day & itz only 1 o clok.

The Setting

Tavernous cavern, a forest of men felled and stacked at each table. Guinness on cardboard coasters, sleeve-polished shine on every table edge. A hundred years of unfiltered cigarettes seep through fresher stucco. Glasses sing themselves full and empty, ricochet of billiard balls tap blindly their way across a flocked green. Cheap cologne, moderate scotch, dear whiskey: a smell like God's own armpit.

Object of Affection

 

If I could I would desire

the art deco warehouse kitty-corner,

or the glass tower in which I see myself

on cloudy days; could I speak, I might choose

to whisper arcs across the air to them.

 

If my fire escape could unwind and reach

through construction and cars, I might

touch unknown brick, scrape pocked-marked stone.

If I could hear you when you called me

I might tremble, I might squirm; or I might not,

might bar my doors and close and lock the shutters,

turn off my lights and pretend I am not here,

hope you might forget me,

but not wanting to hurt you;

you are made of weak things such as water,

you are unlatched and floating,

you bare yourself to smell and cold without

connection to the underground systems;

you have cut yourself away from your others.

 

Through the wires and sewers I do feel them hum.

 

 

After the Rain

Earthworms surfaced, swimming on

Rich black soil through its forest of green blades,

Hermaphrodites looking for a mate.

Black birds strutting about

Choosing now not to fly, for a

Free meal of earthy delights.

Bird-dog, mine, commanding over

Her kingdom, making worms squirm under

And black birds glide upwards once again.

Bubble gum tree

[Thank you!]

aftr the fall 14

th brainz accordeeon folds, the fell,
th brainz swooll nd swoll,
th brainz swoll nd swell
shak out th snakes uv livng hell
my hart my hart my hart
it cannot tell o hart my hart
it cannot tell....

R.I.P.

You froze,

Left me mid-thought, mid-email, mid-morning.

After months of false alarms,
this time I could not rouse you 
from perpetual sleep.

But how can I resent you?

You gave me a good life.

In six years, we went to film school,

shot a TV show and three features.

Moved together through six apartments

in three cities.

Survived a bottle of beer on the keyboard

and a couple of broken hearts.

Your screen saw

draft after draft of screenplays

love letters

hate letters

secret emails

mass mailings

bad poetry

resumes

contracts

requests for money

to fund art and life

erotica

divorce paperwork

and the miracle

of the chance to 

talk with blurred faces

of friends

across miles

and continents.

Sleep well, trusted confidant.
May you dream of
lighter fingers on your keys,
clearer words on your screen,
and a world where
you fly along 
with no case to 
hold you in
the dark.

Forecast

There will be weather tomorrow. It's virtually
guaranteed. Maybe sunny, a little bit rainy, chance
-- oh, chance --
of showers, clouds, snow, hail. Golden chance
of sunshine in the sunshine capital of Canada: grab your bingo
dabber, mark the highs and lows. Shake off
your blues, your rubber boots, your yellow umbrellas. Precipitous
precipitation on the precipice of perspicacity. Weather vanes
will point in the same direction as the wind (there is always
wind, nothing here to slow it down as it passes through town)
and we will talk:
unfairly about the weather,
whether the weather is fair
or not.

The house on 10th Street

I knew the house at knee-level
as openings and closings,
propelled my self across linoleum
toward spaces my arms could span.
The dining table was roof and walls,
was in, under, through.
Sewing machine in spindly-legged cabinet
was a swing-open door, was blue and green
of thread, spool clacking on spool
stacked on wooden pegs.
Bookshelves a crackle of dust jackets
under my splayed hands.
And the kitchen cupboard that held
the turning shelf, the one that moved
each time my hand touched it,
that one was again.

Flight path

we navigate by starlight and faulty instruments
through a night sky obscured by clouds
-- we are meant to sink like skipping stones

but first, we will:

map the constellations in our eyes
trace the topography of our scars
whisper secrets with plaid tongues

every crash landing begins with a peaceful ascent

Lost Causes

I'm a sucker for lost causes.
For boyfriends that can never be,
for candidates that are unelectable,
for family relationships that can never be healed.

I'm a sucker for the underdog,
the hopeless case,
the wounded outmatched welterweight against the ropes,
the guy in the wrong place at the wrong time
the prisoner facing the firing squad,
even if he's guilty as hell.

I'll bet on the long-shot,
Place my chips on zero,
Give money to homeless guys,
even the ones wearing new shoes.

I want the best for everyone,
even those who have done me harm,
even those who will never know
what harm they have done.

===

Sorry I have been so negligent with my posting. May has become what September was in my college days - a month of changes!

in the archives

James Farrar's words home, pasted bound
letters loop, black ink against onionskin, the sky
all clear, this boy has no fear just knows the known
little England, little England in May. is to die for.
the mourning doves, the pearl grey haze above moors,
bluebells really do grow in the woods.
I refuse elegy. I transgress the patent
all war poetry is not despair.
lean into the life pasted, bound into the maroon notebook
kiss what is there. what is there.

Superstore Bhavacakra

Walking the same circles
pushing my penance. Without fail,
the cart with one wonky wheel. Prescribed list
of remedies for our daily ailments.
If there was an aisle for eye of newt
I'd find it. Item by item, I supply
the Aegean stable with straw. Unload
again at the till, reload. Wobble to the van
in pouring rain. Passersby pointing
when items fall. Load the van, drive home.
Carry it in again. Put it away.
Done shopping for another day.

Kind of a mess and sorry to be so AWOL

Mites to mites

Motes to motes

Nanites to nanites

Particular we come into the world, and particular we leave it

Two-celled to caught in a rusty jail

Bits and bytes and everything nice.

A slog of code in a box.

Defunct deficient and diseased.

Wheeling about the earth we eat and repair,

reproduce and slough, shed and absorb.

A slice of code on a slide.

Parts and sums, divisions and multiplications.

A time to be born and a time to die.

A time to grow and a time to grow exponentially

and a time to fill the test tube and suffocate.

Bionic parts learning, yearning to become

cancerous and wise, hungry and deficient,

overfull of questions, a dearth

of computations, fallible instructions,

an incantation, a recipe

from a book of magic spells,

manifest and crawling around dazed creating

havoc.

 

 

 

 

sTicks and sTones

A chorus of punctuation marks the land,

Row upon row of dots, hyphens, parentheses (+ plus signs)

Hold my gaze mile after mile

From the back of this motorcycle -

More sticks |and stones ¨

Than I can count in a week,

This endless sea of dead people –

And me

And him

A minority.

In the fields at the city's edge

An outbreak of virgins cast in stone,

Avӕiled in small, medium, large

Sit atop cement pillars, plastic flowers at their feet

Across the street, the old steel mill endures,

Cremating vehicular accident victims, most of them,

With an antique shop older than me still

Standing on their property.

Soon we will reach water, see

Fishermen on the river banks,

And children loitering hotdog stands;

But not until we've passed the final wasteland, here

Where the graves of the dead unknown

are marked by two-by-fours half cocked in the soil.

            It suddenly goes quiet inside

As he pushes the pedal and

We roar past this piece of land shared,

The one that is theirs.

Morning

Faint cat-scratch, wanting out
or wanting in. A shadow flits
across the wallpaper. Something
just passed the front door.
Someone outside just spoke.

A trickle in the pipes: water running
in the upstairs suite.
Footsteps on the stairs, or
just the house shifting.
A tree branch scrapes
against the siding.

Did you lock the door?
I think so.


It doesn't take much,
one claw on the screen
and there's a hole.

Did you hear something?
Yes.

Distilling Wisdom

Remember “that you belong to nature, and not it to you.” - Grey Owl

Throwing knives in the woods behind Hastings
he dreamed of being a wild Indian. Hooting
like an owl, or pulling chemistry pranks
in grammar school. Crossed the ocean to join
his imagined tribe, crossed a line
to become someone else.

Somewhere between green fields
and green forests, Grey Owl
molted English feathers. Slid
into buckskin, posed
for photographs where he gazed
furrowed into the distance
at an uncertain future.

He asked everyone to remember
their proper place in this world.

Often, he drank
to forget his.

flashback: neighbourly

The woman who eats fire is hoping for rain.
In retirement, she has turned to gardening
and with the weather we've been having,
her gardens are parched. Over scones,
she tells us there never seems to be enough
water and wishes she could offer us something
she had grown, but perhaps if we came back
in a few weeks we could have our pick.
Even the rhubarb needs help. It does well
when watered with urine, and of course, she has
none to offer. Would we mind, she asked,
if we saved ours for the next time we visit?
We told her we would try to remember, but vowed
to forget and never speak with her again.

On Bank Street, fleetingly

A man smoking a pipe passes you on the sidewalk. Trail of smoke catches your nose, and you turn— realizing only then that someone passes so close to you— turn, and look,

but he's at the corner now, the light's green, he's crossing— is that him?— you look as he grows smaller with distance, indistinct, slips into the mass of people moving toward lunchtime cafés

and now you're sure: he wore a grey coat, his scarf was blue

he looked like someone you know.

Between 6 & 8

We prayed for clouds to clear
warned the children not to stare.
Told them about the time it happened
when I was in elementary school.
How we watched it on tv, all the windows
carefully sealed off. Now it seems
it happens all the time: there is
always one eclipse or another
coming up, or a meteor shower, or
a satellite explosion. This evening, we
sat around outside, lit the firepit
casually looking up in time to see
the snake bite the sun.