Poem 62

Time heals all…time will tell

this story   with words as scabs

over gaping lapses from

memory’s torn synapses

that failed to react in time.

She has some nerve   is told  

Return

Account

Explain

Use my language

Speak my love

Why don’t you bleed

A little more

Use my language

Speak my love

The woman exits the café

Leaves her umbrella behind

Clouds burst others run for cover

But she strolls with the rhythm

of a heartbeat 

Steady despite itself.

Poem 61

The woman sits at a café

Sun shadows her past 

even in this chair.

For a week of escape

she prefers clouds

crying skies

names of streets with

no connections

another language .

In her hands are lines &

in her notebook

blank pages.

The woman sits in a café

Aware of planet’s rotation

Cycles of change

Lunar   linear   lost

In the constant spin

She twirls her ring   

Past centre of gravity

She has escaped

Tumbling head over…

Heal with time

Mind over matter

Poem 60

Where is the light & what is its source?

Should we move into darker times & pray

For illumination or do we light a candle

For today—dim but warm

Circles of light  shadows dancing 

I want to cover the city with images

Spirits and words

When our hollow structures are visited 

Long after we are gone

We shall be a people who believed in something

I want to cover my eyes sometimes too

It’s what we do with our hands 

When they are empty

That is the matter before us

What is the matter with us?

Fists clenched in our pockets.

Poem 59

I read somewhere that the Grand Canyon would be

a splendid site for waste disposal   Could keep us 

going for at least 15 years.

Then I began to think about outer space & how

there is light years of space.

Problem is gravity & the fear that it would return

to us when least expected, like at a garden wedding

Maybe just a tattered bag or two, but the mess.

This physical waste - all of our things are headed

For the trash eventually.  Even the trash cans have

Limited shelf life.  I am burning envelopes in the back

Yard creating smoke but am warmed by it.

The crackling of a few pine twigs 

then the nothingness in the pit, the ash

the rocks all evidence of what was 

no longer. 

Poem 58

I read that the leaking seeping oil from

The latest spill shall be set aflame sometime today

So the poor ocean dwellers will be roasted alive

Like there is no tomorrow & you should wonder

About that day coming if this is what we have to

Do to make it happen

Our never-ending hunger for fossil fuel

& the blinders we wear to get it.

Taking the ancient is misleading us

all without complaint we ride this black wave

like surfers from Hell

It cannot be ignored that this most recent mayhem

was triggered by a tanker of coal slamming into

The feeding oil well as it sucked & sucked & sucked. 

Poem 57

Wish I could sleep like a dog

Or left alone to do so

As they like to say

For a good nights sleep you need to lick

Your chops good and loud

Then exhale as if you were seeing a respirologist

Then toes need stretching

Followed by legs extended to their fullest

Finally sleep.

It seems so simple watching my dog

His ears twitch if I flip my page too loud

Or click my notebook shut too suddenly

But he is out.

It is midnight or beyond & illogical to him

We should have been asleep hours ago 

Both knowing how slow I am to start another.

Poem 56

For my friend who weeps symphonic

For the beauty that she hears

She will make tea in her best cup &

Chipped saucer then seated upon sofa

will still herself until the first few notes

Run down her windows like rain

Schutz or Mendelssohn trigger deep surges while 

A largo from Dvorak opens a sea of supraliminal

Insights.  This is a state sought by holy men

Trenchant & lost at the same time

Gripped so you cannot question the why of it but

Where inside & then to whom?

Then to whom do you return

Like a lost note from the New World Orchestra?

Poem 55

One thing is certain

I was standing on the edge of something

A mountain climbing decision

Fire or water   earth or sky

I had a rope but what I needed

Was not at hand  I Ching

Dice  Dial-a-prayer

Ting went the bottom of the cup

The sound of my coin as he howled out

Baby I was born to run… 

He’s on that corner every day Irony

Taste in my mouth 

I’ve bitten my lip 

As I often do  now I’m bound to repeat

This self-mutilation (or the slow beginning of it)

Throughout the day

What was the insight pressing my teeth so tight

Upon my tongue?   I was certain the moment of clarity

Would be less painful  but as the tug between

Knowledge & Language 

Contracts & advances

I continue along the street with a bad song knitting & hooking

Itself inside my well insulated head.

Poem 54

We stand at the corner of College & Bathurst

Facing West into the clear blue into the prevailing

Move with a small group of women in tights & leather   

Boots, one of them still smokes & I look for the cafe

With the best caffeine around tasting it now

It’s the detail of a day, the smallest thing you carry home

Like those sunflowers in the blue pots

or the creama shaped like a heart in the cup

You sweetened & sipped your lips so beautiful

Broke into a smile when our friend walked in & wished 

You the best for this day, your day & I opened a newspaper

Out of habit & then folded it shut, so many words

In just one day, but they can wait for later 

We stroll together like a new map has unfolded & we

Say this is the best way to live,

Not knowing where & not knowing when.

Poem 53

Living like a rat gives you much hope

Feeding off garbage because of your needs

your hole is filled & thst pile is never-ending 

You hope the next meal will be of

Considerably better quality & fresher too.

Seeking out a dry nest for a long rest

No easy task in this rain

Down this drain, buy hey

Use your brain you found your way 

Here in the first place & when it’s time

To push off there’s no exit door telling

You where to.

Poem 52

Electric toasters 

Like to follow me around

Leaving trails of crumbs.

They drag their cords like lacklustre tails.

They will “ding” to get my attention & begin to 

Blow smoke if I brush them off.

I read The Brave Little Toaster while sitting

Before an electric heater but learned no new insights

The heater hissed & sparked

Some advice, then ran us a bath

But pulled out at the last minute

Just as one of the toasters hopped in.

Poem 51

When they talk their voices

Sound like those attending

To flights about to embark

Rise with all its bulk

Its faulty hull high above the 

Chaos below.

We find comfort in the newscaster’s voice

Steady as she breaks it to all of us

that planes are trying to stay afloat &

Out of plumes of volcanic ash a

cumulus thunderhead from angry Vikings

That will freeze jet engines 

From fire to ice in a split second

Iceland has frozen Europe’s arteries &

Will continue to push forth around the Earth’s

Circumference with its Dragon’s mouth wide open.

Poem 50

Found in a ditch are last year’s remains  

dried leaves   an old prescription bottle 

cracked & empty, a paper cup  & on a

crumpled sheet of faded blue lines

a note from one heart 

to another   the ink has run & 

before I can decipher the faded emotions

April snatches it from my hands & flies 

across a field.

That lost message almost imprinted 

An image in a cave before the last match flickers out

I spend the rest of the walk wondering

If the note read hello my love is a flower or

Farewell as Fall is calling me away.

Poem 49

I can cover the neighbourhood in a day

Doing the crawl including parkades

where I often find half finished drinks &

whole piles of cigarette butts   I lunch at

restaurant bins & consume pages at a time in

the library where its park lets me sun while

digesting the latest trends in architecture or 

consider theories of the origins of the universe with

no buildings      I know where to defecate and how

to avoid traps  I know time by the rhythm of its people

There are twenty short days and two long ones

On the long ones  centre neighbourhood is mine

Spare change is heavier then & the

Slow hands can’t reach that deep.

Poem 48

To chew is to think about deeply to

Muse as any poet would ponder

Whole heartedly the heavy inside

Ruminate the unfinished   keep

In order the cards that hold the recipes

A lifeline  a life time  of words

spoken around tables meals 

made from words  measured

and blended  then left alone

to rise  pounded back down

placed carefully into rectangles 

and baked until the whole neighbourhood

Knows this story in one form or another.

Poem 47

I am eating this cake the way I did as a child

Layer by layer    the crushed prunes between crumbly 

cake  a recipe my mother had from hers

The black & the white of it

Longing & regret  seven layers thick

An Easter tradition  the same for generations.

I have long ago put aside the images of thatched roofs

Swept wood floors and purple flowers in mason jars

But these crumbs I sweep from the table push them back

Into my quiet mind  like an old photo ragged from handling.

If I turn now I would meet my great grandfather 

for the first time

Moustached and tired but ready for a good long story

His wife laughing tearful by our plentitude

her hair falling from tight braid    I stare too long

at her square fingers upon smooth table & they both disappear.

In my mother’s pantry was a jar of jam made 

by her late mother

that she refused to eat   It was the colour of garnets 

& Sweet I am sure, but too late for tasting & 

Too hard to open. 

Poem 46

Every day in every large urban centre

on the globe  hundreds of thousands of birds

crash into glass   attracted by the light

Surprised by the height   draped by fog or smog

A man in Toronto collects these fallen angels

Smooths bloodied feathers then disposes the hollow boned

victims of urban achievement   Bags  of them every morning

before gulls or commuters stare aghast for a split second

Before they enter the towers to perch themselves at desks

or cubicles with vistas they never notice.

Poem 45

It has gotten so that every time I pick up

A book, cup or pair of shoes

I expect the scattering swarm of small insects.

Too much time in the garden I know

Overturning rocks then jumping back at first

In horror, then stepping closer in a morbid curiosity

Not to spray these futuristic looking ancient creatures

But to check my gloves my shoes my hair

It is enough to frighten the weaker bipeds

But not me at least not now 

While I dig and push & pull

Like the relentless invader I have become.

Poem 44

Because we've arrived at poem forty-four

Allow me to take you through death's dark door

From belief Cantonese, well it’s pure superstition

an unfortunate link & a plea nay admission

That onomatopoeia has dictated decision

from Address to Birthdate

it’s time to obliterate

This crazy conception

a way of deception

That 2 times 2 which is 4 to most

but over on that Far East Coast

They cringe and deny

That what to you & I

Is a digit, a symbol, plainly just a number

Not the last thing you’ll see b4 your final slumber.

Because the Cantonese word for the number 4 sounds like the word

for death it is avoided whenever possible, addresses that end in 4 might

be changed to 4A birthdates may be changed & check the 4th, 14th etc floors

of buildings for Cantonese.   There will no doubt be revisions to this piece.

Poem 43

There was an edge to this dinner

The dinner in my dream

The timing was crucial & we were late

Someone was with me in the car 

Careening into  Car Park Sub Level 9

There were no cars but a woman was down there 

Mopping up water that oozed from the walls

I worried the car might rust over dinner

Down there in that damp enclave

Undoubtedly Freudian at this point.

Like some meta-fiction that dreams are

The missed engagement 

The chase of time in the form of

a subterranean journey one might be hard-pressed

not to reference Orpheus 

But I will not fall for that.