Un collage

I'm making a collage, tearing and piecing
together parts of my life,
wishing to find a pattern that will please.

Choosing my pieces, I come across

the key from a small treasure chest

I inherited from my nanny's daughter.

In there, a collection of awards for 

the athlete I once was; 

a newspaper photo, me, miss Congeniality;

A wee blue silk flower that only reminds me

of the giver's words: you don't deserve it;

Why did I keep it all these years, mom?

Et une lettre from mémère (who knew I was

an artist before I did) asking me please

to build her angel wings pour noël.

The first piece to my collage: a small key

to a box that I will keep locked in a spot

of my bedroom closet, top shelf.

river 2

would you call me
would you
call me

that I could be
silver, the willow,
that I could

forever,
the stream bed,
perfect,

the ice crack
snap, the blue
of break

perfect,
sheer,
glass

mother call
me
mother

I am
yours.

Pray for wonder

Pray for wonder

“Since the imperfect is so hot in us” ~ Wallace Stevens

you’ll find yourself

where all is water and thirst

and thoughts fall like petals into an open palm

as the heart’s coating cracks

and smooth shell gives way to sticky mess

curl up in the nest of memory

heavy as an eagle’s

Drinks at Midnight

One day, I know
he will pour me
the sweetest
coolest drink
that will quench
my every thirst.

He gave me a taste
of it once,
and I've craved it
ever since.

But lately
all he's served me
is the same tall glass of
disappointment,
to swallow
one slow sip at a time.

What the spring thaw uncovers

Last year's leaves.
Cigarette butts.
Dog shit.

On the street, a Jack-o-lantern
smashed, its colour faded.

In front of the rooming-house,
a teacup in the grass.

In my garden, wrinkled red
knuckles of rhubarb,

the shovel I lost
in the first November storm.

Intro

It keeps logging me out, I feel like a lumberjack in the desert.

I am just finishing a degree (like I literally handed in my creative thesis 24 hours ago) and I am very burnt out

- but I hope to show up when I can! I know I've posted / feedbacked obsessively in the past, I think my time here will be much more limited this go-round.

Happy writing!!!! And I look forward to sharing even a little bit of this process. This is my....um....fourth year or ??? I don't know. I'm a writer not a mathematician :)

A from SK

The man at the party

the man at the party

lost his house and job and car

the man at the party lost faith

friends said praise God for your son’s cancer

family said take a break now and then

as if there were anywhere to go

the pastor said here’s a beer

the elder said be mad at God

till there was anything else to be

I ask the man at the party

how he and my friend held onto their marriage

we both look down at his ragged nails

we look down to his calloused fingertips

Hello

Hello Everyone! I am also new to the May-Day project and am looking forward to living in this month of poetry with you all.

I am a Winnipeg-based writer and editor, though I'm really just starting out in this thing I hope to turn into a career. Right now I'm in the last month of my mentorship through the Sheldon Oberman Mentorship Program (through the Manitoba Writers' Guild), in which I've been working with Ariel Gordon. We've been working on putting a chapbook together, so I will be contributing poems from that. I'm going to aim for posting one poem per week, and if I end up with more than that, so much the better!

Present

I am here, signed in and accounted for!

This will be my 9th year of doing May Day. I always start with big ambitions so this year I am not going to prognosticate about how many poems I will actually create. I just know I will enjoy the process, the challenge, and most of all reading the words of my fellow poets.

I am now living in beautiful Colorado. It's my home state that I've returned to after 20+ years, so I imagine some of my inspiration will come from the mountains and trees, and thinking about home-comings of various sorts.

Look forward to it!

Polly

River 1

consider the river
consider the great, green vein

consider the opening
of this great land, o mother

o mother, high up in the Rockies
you, deep blue grace, glacier,

waken your sleeping child,
waken your child, river,

again.

50

Hello to all my fellow May-Dayers! I look forward, as always, to reading your latest words. And I hope that your inspiration will feed mine. I wasn't at all sure what to offer up to this year's poetry pot until it came to me last night that the last day of May will mark my fifty years here. Well, not here, here...

And so, I will dedicate this month of May as a retrospective on these last 50 years. Hmm...

Where would I be without you May Day???

Another May, my favourite month of the year. Good things always happen to me in May and good words seem to come from our May Day project.

As I write, I'm still in England working on my doctorate. Today, Xegesis, our poetry collective, launched a lovely poetry project called "The Wall of Miracles". We invited poets to write prayers, eulogies, ditties, etc. about the natural world's flora, fauna etc. and we hung the words on a lovely Victorian wall. Poets responded from across NAmerica, the UK and Europe. Some even travelled to see the wall unveiled!  I love working with others, so thank you May Day for welcoming me back!

Sign me up!

Hi all! I'm new to the May Day project. I heard about it last year from Joanne, and looked forward to joining the next round. It turns out I'm going to be at Sage Hill's poetry colloquium May 10-23, so most of my month will be spend on intensive revision rather than new work, but I do hope to post twice a week.

I've met some of you, but for those who don't know me, I've worked part-time as a journalist and copy editor in Winnipeg for 8 years. I've been writing poetry for two years; my mentorship with Meira Cook through the Manitoba Writers' Guild in 2012 really propelled my poetry forward. The collection I'm working on is about parenting children with autism.

Hello again

It's almost May, and I'm hoping we have a May Day group again this year, however small. I would to post every other day— I have a lot of half-baked ideas waiting to be fleshed out, and want to get going on at least some of those.

Hoping to see some more May Day-ers emerging over the next few days...

Fare - thee - well

Until we meet again!

Thank you everyone for the kind and insightful feedback. Will use to move forward with the poems. Most importantly for me, in the last stage of the month, made it back into a poetry writing groove. Have scribbled notes from the middle of the night to whip into some kind of shape - will miss having this forum to post the results in, and miss seeing your thought-provoking words.

All the best to each of you beautiful writers!

And thank you Joan for hosting!

xox

adieu

yes, me too. sad to see May go. it appears we lost some along the way... should we invite more to join next year?

thank you for your very, very helpful words. please feel free to drop me a line. I'm busy doing my PhD in the UK and on November 10, 2012 my major work is being premiered in Calgary... Afghanistan: Requiem for a Generation, with my words and with music by the incredible Jeffrey Ryan, performed by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, with soloist Zorana Sadiq, Soprano, Rebecca Hass, Mezzo, Benjamin Butterfield, Tenor, and Tyler Duncan, Baritone, with the Calgary Philharmonic Chorus and the Cantare Children's Choir!

besos amigas!

Farewell till next time...

...and thanks to all of you for making this a great May! Once again it's been great to be part of this month-long poetry conversation. I, too, will miss it till next May.

(By the way, two poems that I posted last year on May Day appeared recently in the online journal Curio Poetry (http://curiopoetry.wordpress.com). And my chapbook containing a few other May Day poems is now available at McNally Robinson Booksellers.)

fare-thee-well!

Thank you/merci/marsi/meegwich Maydavians.
Can't believe how fast this month went by.
I will miss this (until next year!)
xoxo A.

jᴑᴑn

I was sadly not as present as I wanted, needed to be this year. Still, I'm very happy to have again participated - to have written, and to have read wonderful words! Thank you so much to those who took the time to critique, to veer me in new directions by allowing me to 'see' through different eyes. And thank you, Joanne, for taking us on!

love, marjo.

Episode

Rain in the background of '70s sci-fi on TV.
It's dark. The evil scientist has our heroes
in a trap. His cave is a labyrinth stuccoed
with fragments of mirrors, polished corundum,
agate, jasper. Flashes off curving walls
confuse the eye. A short distance off the screen,
out the window, something flickers. I turn,
it's gone. This happens again. Meanwhile,
our heroes have a plan. It involves
the power of thought to bend reality.
I face the window. Sooner or later
the clouds will flicker again. This time
I will see it.

aftr the fall 18

maybe I should say. this day. this last day of May. this last day of May. day. I should say. beloved. May day. poets. may I? maybe say? may I o may I say. thank you. you help me. to sing. better. o how I love. this. May. Day. watch for me. next. May. insha'Allah. yes. watch for me. the first day of May. o May!!!

The Theme

Maybe the bouquet from freshly poured wine, maybe the aftertaste. Was it what the author had in mind, or the reader? Or where the story went on its own, a highjacked vehicle on a deserted stretch of road? Distilled like vanilla from the bean. Not an answer. Should leave you with questions. The holes in the spiderweb, not the strands.

Keeper

 

Things accumulate--

rain, snow, fallen leaves--

shoes, power tools, pet rocks--

receipts, transfers, squished Junior Mints--

antique lunchboxes, non-functioning lamps.

 

There is, emphatically, plenty.

The credit cards ring out their songs.

The March Hare uses dirty teacups but who cares.

The size of my closet grows without ceasing.

 

There are things here, in the closet--

some of them from a swamp or outer space or a time machine.

Landfills no longer required, because,

I will keep everything.

Dating Daddies

It turns out, at my age,
all the guys available for me to date
already have kids.

This hadn't factored in my fantasies
of carefree post-divorce dating life.
Nothing has prepared me
to make small talk about night terrors
play dates, soccer practice.

And god knows how the kids
will react to me if
I ever Get to That Point
with any of the dating daddies.

But we're not there yet,
not by a long shot -
wouldn't want to traumatize the tykes
If We Don't Work Out,
and no need to have them
carrying stories home to mommy
about daddy's new friend.

I'm ok with it, really,
don't need any extra pressure
to perform in these early tenuous stages.

But it means
scheduling the dads on
alternate weekends,
when they don't Have the Kid.
I swear,
anyone new will have
to cycle in, get the ex-wives
to work together on this.

Everyone says,
How Lucky I Am
to not have a kid of my own
to schedule in.

I do know for sure
I don't ever want to be
an Evil Stepmother.
But secretly I think,
I could be a Nice one,
an understanding one.
One who doesn't try
to take their father away,
one who doesn't
talk darkly to mirrors
or offer beautiful poison apples.

The Dialogue

A dance, a swordfight, the sparkler in the birthday cake. The breath in the paper doll. Intent articulated, relationships explored. Avoid lingo, resist cliche. Carry the plot forward. Develop the character in the darkroom, one snapshot at a time. Show, don't tell, don't tell. Each word a falling stone, a penny from a skyscraper. He said, she said. Rock, paper, scissors, quotation marks.

aftr th fall 16

whre did she go?
th may fly
th may qween
th may i
th may b
th may o
th may we
th may day
o o o
whr did th feathry seasun
go?

Tales from Grandma's house

In the brown cupboard in the spare room
in the house by the post office lived Sleeping Beauty
and the Sword in the Stone
on slips of colored celluloid that glowed
in the window-light through Viewmaster lenses.
The Princess Aurora like a glass figurine,
young Arthur with golden Plasticine hair
each playing out their fate in seven
stereoscopic views.

On the very next shelf lived Struwwelpeter,
wild hair and curling fingernails menacing
from the front cover of his book. His stories
all cautions for young minds: Eat your soup.
Don't play with matches. Don't suck
your thumb. No knowledge of German
necessary, the Or Else is clear in the bright
flames devouring the girl's dress,
her cats weeping over her ashes. Long-legged
Scissors Man lopping off thumbs.
The fussy eater dwindling to a stick,
a soup tureen for a headstone.
Children, says Struwwelpeter,
here's a destiny you can change.

50 years

The first ten years the secret drills


your insides till your hollow flesh,

tired and emptier from pushing babies out,

betrays its state by getting a glow

reminiscent of transparency.

Free love passed you by those years.

You'd bought it already, dearly,

before the flood.

 

The next ten years were work, work, work,

filling up your hole with dirt and burying what you knew,

that the baby you'd given away was becoming a man,

somewhere, and you'd look at him drinking and think

does he even remember? He showed no hint.

What was he supposed to remember?

You wish you could say. But it was imprecise

and floating, like a blotch of light at the corner of your eye,

like a mythical creature that disappears

when you face it directly.

Or turns you to an empty, brittle, stone urn.

 

Decade three was crashing,

rotting bodies, disappearing.

When your daughter died, you might have remembered,

a quick thought of a son above ground;

decade four was bandages and pus,

as your husband sailed away

on a beer and auto-immune funded ride

to the inside of a waiting urn.

All without speaking it.

 

The last ten years and the world is new and it doesn't just occur to you

it is capable of being spoken:

the 17-year-old country girl just arrived in town,

the beer, the panic, the nuns, the way

things just were. They just were

hollow and invisible and difficult to say.

The Plot

Action, significant action. Instigating action. Gives way to rising action, spiral staircase of chaptered imbroglio, bannister of red herrings. A pattern, a sequence, cause and effect, simple coincidence. Necessary or probable. Aristotle, proud father, watches on. An exposition like a new tube of toothpaste, like artificial turf on a football field: fresh and ready. There will be stakes. There will be obstacles (overcome). There will be plot devices battling dramatic technique: Deus Ex Machina will wrestle Dramatic Irony to the ground in a staged match. There will be thrusting and sweating, panting towards a climax. There will be a resolution, with or without New Year's. One final confrontation. Fireworks, a bonfire, a funeral pyre. Fade to black, turn the last page.


Beginning. Middle.
End.

Learning How to Fly, ii

The girl in the photo looks happy,

oblivious to everything

outside her own joy.

She has at last learnt how

to fly in her dreams, reaching

the sky before the bad ones grab her.

Protection

He thinks he’s the Big Bad Wolf

because he’s in finance

and I’m a sweet tree hugger

one foot shorter and eight years younger.

He’s held back,

tried to convince me he’s too bad for me --

he still smokes though he’s trying to give it up,

our politics are too different,

though he "respects my passion."

We’ve gone three dates

without his going for more than a kiss

or a brief, random fondle of a breast.

I hadn’t known such gentle men still existed,

find it sweet that he wants to protect me

from himself.

But tonight I’m determined to convince him

I won’t melt, won’t shatter.

I skip to his house with my basket of bread,

take off my red riding helmet.

What a big meal you’ve made me!

What a big couch you have!

What a big bed you have!

He does have teeth, I discover,

And dark eyes and warm mouth

And long fingers that stroke oh so gently

And yes, he wants what I have,

he wants to eat me alive,

keep a part of me inside him.

Driving home through the woods,

he blows smoke out the window,

turns up the rock music in his truck.

Feeling like I’m back in high school

I ask if he had a letter jacket.

Yes, he says, he was the quarterback.

I smile -- I’ve slept with the quarterback.

I’ve slept with the Big Sweet Wolf.

I will protect him from the lumberjack,

I will protect him from myself.

Fugue on the Magnificat

Pachelbel and rain, dim light
over organ keys, shadows
in the nave, the upside-down
ship that parts the water.
down the panes of pebbled glass
drip by drop, steady
eighth notes marching
like they're about to skip.
Rain works itself up to a stretto
then a final, great big Amen
on a 16-foot pedal stop.
After the last long-held chord
I close the book, reach
for my paisley umbrella.
Can't quite echo Pachelbel's affirmation,
mine's more like yeah, I guess but
that's an improvement since this morning.

The Characters

Bartender: teastained with a battered cricket bat and a bitter backstory. If he was a tarot card, he would be drawn from the minor arcana. You'd never know him from a bush full of starlings, a tree without leaves, a burnt-off stump. Head bent to the side, eyes sharp, he listens like a stone. In his wallet, folded banknote with a phone number, creased photo of the son he'll never know, recipe for misery stew. Ask him about the tattoo he had removed. Ask him about the scar above his eye. Don't ask him to run a tab unless you want to see the cricket bat. Never ask for advice, or his backstory: distant constellations shed more light.

Patrons: Male. Typecast. Not unfriendly. Hardly welcoming. They don't look up when you come in. Undercurrent of laughter, whirlpool of rage. Vague menace like a shark's fin in a swimming pool, you think it's a joke until you see the blood.

Protaganist: he or she is just like everyone else. But completely different. The only lightbulb on the ornate ceiling fan. What sheds the light. Fades or breaks. Is eventually replaced by another, dimmer or brighter. Or maybe that sad and metallic spike -- sharpened and thrust -- to pinion the story together. One sighs, fits awl.

Antagonist: the opposite of antonym. The moment before the lightning strike or thunderclap. The moment after. The shape of a shadow thrown by a single blade of grass on a moonlit night in a barren field, only magnified significantly and then reduced to half normal size. Whatever you fear most, only moreso but considerably less than anticipated. The lion and the gazelle. You.

flashback: he always gave us the creeps

The man who was turned into a tree
pleads with us not to leave.
We must, we tell him. It is time.
You can't come back, he explains,
as if we didn't know already.
We want to ask him the details
of his own story--the how, the why,
the who. If his expanding
rings cause him pain, if he can feel
the worms wiggle around his roots, if autumn
is a relief or agony. What about squirrels
or decomposition? What did he do
to deserve this fate? Instead, as if a breeze
were the issue, he reaches down to pat our heads,
graze our shoulders. We snap his limbs,
throw them at his trunk, and run.

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.