until

Until
I can hold
All this in my hand, and
Not need someone to steady me
Until I can clearly enunciate
and stick to
Which meals I don't want off this menu
Until this train stops and lets me breathe
the Prairie air, fresh,
Flat lands all around
And I do not see desolation,
Only vistas
and horizons
Until then,
I will not find a way out of this velvet-strewn
chamber, and
all that i want will
remain a
dream.

I have knocked, rung,
Checked my dress,
Straightened my stockings,
Compared my attire
To the folks inside,
But the rosy glow through
The window
Doesn't reveal why you
Only wave
But don't open
the door.

lying snake

I stare out these
shuttered windows and you
don't see me
Can't hear my soundless screaming in this
Dark room
You walk by and
I am invisible, another part
of the scenery.
All of you pass, and sometimes stop,
Tap the glass, think
You know what I
Might be thinking,
Enjoy my antics.
Inside I am frantic,
Weeping for love lost,
Life without freedom,
Life without joy.
Another emo attraction in
this morbid zoo.

a visit home

And so, after touring on
Distant beaches,
Almost feeling the foreign sun
Kiss my skin, I
Crawl home and pull myself
Into your den,
Timid and
Tenuous, reluctant
To go back and yet
Warmed by the comfort
Of your familiar chest on my back,
Your arm's weight a
Gravity I've missed.

I know I can't stay here.
Let me sleep a minute more.

the cold

Today the hard sun tricked me
With his golden smile and I,
Beguiled, ran to his warmth
But found instead
A chill to the bones, a hard
Wind round my head.

Hopes of spring thus dashed,
I, spent, luxurious in
Disappointment and dread,
Sat and rested, against an
Oak, leafless, dead,

And wished for a blanket,
Thick and soft, a
Duvet filled with down,and
Bubble wrap, pulled round
To soundproof my rumbling
Heart and warm my cold, cold
Love, that,
Rejected by the sun,
Now lay in my belly,
Weighing a stationary tonne.

waves

Some days, a sophisticated
Stranger
Sneers at me in the mirror,
"Pathetic girl.

Romance is
Dead,
You killed it,
And there is no CPR now
That will bring you
Safe strong arms and
Flowers at work.

You leapt from that boat,
Drawn by the swell and call
Of the dangerous ocean,
So surf,
Or swim,
And stop complaining.

Or crawl to land and give up."

ferocious

The ferret explores by first
Filing what-is-food and
What-is-not-food, and
To this end, tastes
Everything
Bites everything,
Draws blood
Just to see.

Wise ferret.
Full moon, and now I
Explore,

Your fingers entwined in my hair,
Sharp teeth and
Fierce need, and
I submit
Again and
Again.

Master me.

Those leather and wooden snakes
That undulate like the real thing,
I am that stealthy.

Sliding up beside
Your regular tea and
Cell phone,
Slipping onto your key ring,
And then next to your morning alarm.

Soon, I will disappear and you will
Miss me
Everywhere.

This day is a quiet bead

I don't need to fall apart today,
I think I'll be ok, rolling hills on the chart,
Not sharp peaks and jagged valleys.

I will not invent a new way to explore my mind
And odds are I won't write a book
Perhaps my chief achievement today will be a really good
Cup of tea and to pat a friend on the back.

Every day does not have to be purple.

I won't count this as a day that slipped
Off the string and fell into the dust, losing its
Glitter forever. I will count this as a
Matte bead, spacing out the dazzling ones
to better show them off.

next day

Morning after,
and at work, the
Cold tea calms my cough.

I focus on the screen,
Absently touching
My neck and shoulders,
gently poking till
I find a sore spot,
A bruise.

Then I
Remember
In a rush that
Makes me smile,
Flush,
Close my eyes
For a split second.

The rain reminds me to get
Back to work.

November

Pulled into a ball, in the corner,
Lap opened only for the cat, who
Does not stay.
I pull it around me tighter, this
Loneliness, wear it
Like a scarf,
Like armour,
Like a cloaking device.

Look through me, I
Am not here.
All that I was is gone,
And this dustball that is left
Will soon tumble away
With the next inconsequential breeze.

these words

These words are blood
ripped from my veins
wrists spurting raw thoughts, not
enough to really drain me,
not real or deep enough to hurt,
but a great show, a
performance
designed to make you
look.

I whore my heart, my
thoughts, my
gift for a focused moment
of your precious
intention
an interlude of
your
attention.

Since I am
a shadow, though,
this will pass with
the night.

dark man

unexpected, a
message from another place,
rock tattoos, clark kent glasses
devastating smile.

surprised,with
intelligence, humour,
interest. I was an
understudy to this drama

watching terrible
horror films, his hand
grazed my thigh.
Like a mythic slavic count, like
a hero of countless harlequin novels,
he rose, commanded,
dark hair flowing over
vampire caresses.

I had forgotten
how it felt
to be
mastered, and
i surrendered.

after, I
nursed my
bruises with
wanton
pride, hoped
and feared
he would call again.

whispers

He will be
funny, in the unexpected way of
the alcoholic that made me
fall in love
and in the sweet, smart
sardonic way of the boy I love-hated
in grade five;
He will be strong, stable,
like the ex husband that was
my protector, even if
he never understood me
He will be sparks and fire and larger than life
Pyrotechnics like a concert that
Moves me beyond this quotidian
Veiled existence.
He will love me, madonna,
whore,
little child,
lost soul,
pragmatic nerd,
and
whatever lies beneath.

And he is nearly
here.

I know that the moon
and the flame on the candle
that dances in my breath
I know the inky cat staring me down
And the song I think of
That comes on the radio unexpectedly
These things don't mean that
You
Are
Waiting

But I know you are, I
See your shadow where
I've just looked
I see your silhouette behind
My closed eyes.

Yes, my love, I see your
coming in the eyes of the
Men I dally with now
And when you come to
Claim me, I'll be
Warm
And ready.

i can't

i can't admit even
to myself how you came
to inhabit that empty spot within
how even now when i
look inward, i see
you

i can't erase your scent
from my senses, your
touch from my memory

you took me further
than i'd gone before and
now i can't go back

i can't say any of this
to you, i can't break
the barrier i put up
but i can't move on

i know, i've tried but
he wasn't you.

alliterative angst

wallow and whine
wallow and whine
swallow and
I'll be fine

swallow the wine
swallow the whine
when will we
be fine?

wallow and wade
wallop and wail
whine winge
why
not.

gravity-weighted

across meadows
and tarmac she crept,
tied fast to the
relentless earth, shaded
by trees and skyscrapers,
bruised by the rocks she
trod upon, shins
lumped with
calcium from
being barked upon
so many benches and
curbs.

Her face was burned,
Neck stiff,
feet blistered.

Though she stumbled
often in her
heedlessness, she
never
never
looked down, never
once glanced away
from her lovers
boiling
yellow eye.

her destiny awaited.

all her days she trod on
seeking only a kiss
from the sky.

I, lesser mortal, tarried
near a tree with a
soldier, saw her pass by.
Deep inside, ashamed,
I felt faithless, and burned
as well for the
benediction of a kiss.

My soldier...
did not comply.

witchery

Soon the fire of
Self denial will
Burn down to
Ashes of tenacity.
Then I will have to
Burn candles
Throw salt
Draw on the strength
Of my familiar
And deep earth truth
To steady my hand
And not write your
Name.

what women know

(Usual caveat: no poem worth its salt is ever about only one person. Well, that's a lie, but this one isn't.)

You think it's the size,
The thrusting hard thighs,
That makes her moan
When you two are alone.

Caught up in your myth,
Your physical gift,
Only from skin and out
Is what it's about.

You're wrong, but then,
Like most men,
You cannot fathom how it can be
Erogenous to see
Vulnerability

You can't see the rest
Beneath her peaked breast,
For who thinks of emotion
With bodies in motion?

So she came to your bed
With sex in her head.
But why was it you she chose
When she wanted to take off her clothes?

My friend, what put her there
Was not just your hair,
Your hypnotic eyes,
Or your tumnescent prize

No--your pain and your need,
Weakness, and greed,
Your adolescent love of toys,
Your need to make noise.

The way you love your mother,
How you always need another.
Your talking and singing,
Are what keep her stringing
Along in your wake,
Expecting heartbreak,
But alive at your touch
Saying little, feeling much.

So bodies meet in a sacred communion
And sparks fly from your needs' union.

quark

You don't know you are magic.
Your insistence on science and dirt
Makes my teeth gnash.

Your essence rings the room large
Like a balloon in honey, sweet and
Orange and sticking to everything

And still, you keep your prosaic eyes
Down and insist on sinew and bone
And cellular degeneration.

What quark expresses your charisma?
What effect does the burning whisky have
On your spirit?

That was a trick, because whisky is magic
too.

micro-poem 1

I'm never more lonely
Than when I'm with you.

nurse bear

Threadbare in spots? Certainly,
Since nurse bear has been on duty
For nearly 40 years.
That's a lot of wear on the fluff.

Offering kapok cuddles,
Soft tear-absorbant face-burying fur,
Love, no judgement, no recrimination.
Nurse bear has tended all comers
With equal gentle care.

Nurse bear, when do you lock the bathroom door,
Toss down some valium and soak in scented bubbles?
Buy yourself flowers, jewellery, Chinese silk pillows?
When do you have time to think your secret thoughts,
Crewel stitch your love onto a shield
You can use to repel the constant onslaught of others' need?

processed self in modern times

I am one pixel deep but as wide as a lake.
I am made of cork and mirrors and outtakes.

I barely exist except in a dimension of need
and facade.
My batteries are failing, my usb corrupted but
I have to go now, the 'Applause' sign is flashing and
That's my cue.

Quick, someone take a picture of a cat
With a Hitler moustache,
Show me the grotesqueries and pantomime of
So-called stars with no careers
Show me the human burlesque parade and teach
Me to contort my wants and speaking paths to
Fit in this digital box.

In the sternly seething flesh world --IRL LOL--
I am not your princess. I am not your slave.
We do not exist as these people. I do not
Know you, really.

Circuitry isn't even an analogy now, it is all
Post-concrete, post-threedee.
Tactility is so 2008.

We live in flashing lights, we live in TSX sound.

In the cave where my meditating body dwells, a
Rat gnaws my bones.

Process take one

Here it is raw, off the tip of my brain. I will percolate today. This format may be too restrictive for what I'm doing. It's not there yet.

The first sip from his amber eyes
was intoxicating, heat spread through her
And she wanted
More

Months in, drinking in his wit
And winning ways added sparkle,
And joy to her
Days

Months passed and the times between
The redhot joy spread like
Grey; Each hit still great, but not
Enough.

Soon, too soon, she trembled
In his absence, tried to recreate
A brittle flirtation with a
Substitute.

She wept to know his power,
And he, drunk with it, withheld
His caress to watch her
Beg.

All the sunshine fled her and
The dark clouds that flowed
In were more like
Smog

Finally, prostrated and empty,
She crawled away, beyond
Desire for escape, seeking
Ending.

Friends found the shell
Her once-bright eyes dulled
Propped against a tree
Lost.

Deprogramming, and withdrawal were
Long but at the end,
Harder, sadder, she was
Saved.

Mess? I? Ah.

Nothing about this hangs together yet, I'm still stretching for it instead of writing from within it. Damn you, WordsWorth, for making me think about process!! *shakes fist*


It will come.


****
I was a free woman when I walked in this place,
Worshipping only my independent will,
A woman of means, never mind how I got it,
Serving my own sweet whims, subject
To no man’s demands.

I entered as he was telling some tale,
Bullshit about water turning to whiskey, and
How women followed him, seeking his touch
To heal their ailing hearts. Libidos, I snorted,
Sailing past, still thinking I belonged to
Myself.

At the table, a friend introduced us.
I am not sure whether it started
When he first touched my hand or
When I looked up and got lost in his eyes, but
Suddenly broadsided by tenderness and
Unable to swallow for wanting to touch
His lips, I was lost.

The stories he tells, son of a god
Are they real? Is that his magic? I don’t
Know if he can raise the dead, except when
His amp is too loud, but he can perform miracles.
Why else do I find myself washing his feet
With my hair?

harmonize

He is disappointed that I won't
Harmonize, he
Waits at the backup vocals for
Me to chime in
But
I won't.

I won't harmonize until I
Float into his dark pupils and
Know that no sea monster awaits,
Know that I can show my
Heart and the beating
Will not cause a squall.

I rest mute.
I will not harmonize
Till I hear clearly
A voice with no lies,
Till I see
No harm
In his eyes.

The Merman

She fell in love with a merman,
It was foolish, she knows that now.
She was at first just captivated by his long green hair,
His noble brow.

He had every appearance of a man,
A fine man, above the water.
Below, his cold-blooded churning tail, his
Mystery was what caught her.

Day after day, to the shore she'd go,
And he would swim in to meet her.
They'd race, each in his element, and
Because the water made him fleeter
He'd often beat her,
And then feel bad, and
Treat her sweeter.

She listened, enthralled to all his tales
Of life as a prince of the ocean,
And if, when she spoke of life on land,
He seemed to recede farther from the sand,
She didn't catch the motion,
And she moved from infatuation to love,
And he accepted her promotion.

Of course, warm-blooded mammal she was,
She dreamt of lying in his arms,
And though her friend raised alarms,
Certain this would to lead harm,
All their warnings she did not heed
Blinded by her passion's need.

One day, they met at the usual rock,
And she, overwrought with longing,
As she had already drowned in his green eyes,
Dove in the deep water with a sense of belonging.

He shrugged and pulled her near to him,
And here, we must not judge, it seems to me.
He knew only that it was his birthright to swim
And his father was a cold-blooded creature of the sea.

He dove, with his love pulled tight to his chest, his
Powerful fin kicking behind,
And she, breathless in love and blind
Already, barely noticed the thickening gloom,
The pressure building in her lungs,
His bed would be her tomb, and yet
She inhaled the salt with no regret.

He was saddened, in his man-heart, but
Felt not a thing in his fishier parts.

Such a story needs a moral, and yet
I don't know what to say,
She knew what she was doing when she dove that day.
Perhaps the lesson is simply this,
Know he's a merman before you kiss.

Scripted

These are my words
and in the spaces
are the pieces of me that
broke off a long time ago
the scars
the scabs
the stories I can't
tell you
Although I wish I had
the words.

Around the punctuation
You'll see the curved places
Of my wanting
The echoes of my
Open arms.

And in the dots on the i's
And in the bowls of the o's
the exotic lures of wild
Orchid species, designed
Only to bring you to
Me.

heights

The most trite image:
"Hanging off a precipice,
Afraid to fall."

Honestly, ten thousand pop songs and
A million would-be minstrels have
Paved this path.

But then you took my hand,
And I was suddenly
Hanging in a strong breeze,
Gripping one slim bar beside
An airplane attached to
Nothing
Looking down 14,000 ft at
A squirming mass of snakes, spiders
and rejection.

How much faith do I need to let go?
How much courage?
Or should I just wait till I'm too tired
to hang on to these fears?

thinking too much

every time my
eyes close
one more scene flashes up
like projected vacation slides
you

Laughing
Dancing
Talking
Drinking

your eyes deep, dark, impenetrable
and my phone keeps
not ringing

For the word stringer with the greatest cache of beautiful beads

And so the sun stared down
Our backs, and we, hunched, focussed,
Counted out our beads, piled in glassy hives of
Beautiful colours,
Puce,
Amber,
Viridian,
Teal.

And so we strung a pattern, a story, with our
small glass beads.

But as always, he
Sat apart, slightly turned, and
Only when he revealed the final
Scintillating, labyrinthine pattern,
Only when his smile
Resonated in a thousand facets of light from
The resplendent rosary he held aloft,
Adorned with a myriad of stones,
Large, small, beautiful, all--

Only then
Did we acknowledge ourselves mere dilettantes.

tempus fugit and we are glad

Is there inherent quality in this, enough
That if infinity were an option and we,
And this, went
On and on, like
Movie vampires, living through aeons of change,
And remaining, ourselves, unchanged;
That this, and we, would still retain this
Golden sheen of beauty?

Or does the brevity of
Our lives lend them meaning, as
The philosophers and poets insist?
Does our struggle to make a ripple
In our moment
On the surface of the vastness of forever
Define us with honour, joy or value?

And
Even so, does the blink of
Time in which you and I are
Clasped like this,
Have a beauty that overlong held,
Would be stained by familiarity
And contempt, first
Verdigris and then
Tarnished to dirt?

and all the infinite stars

I was staring into the night sky
Thinking about the person I
am, the person I should be,
Who I was and who
I am with you, and it
Was like looking around a
Mirrored room with me
Retreating endlessly away
In all directions.

In a way it was odd, since
Usually I can only see
You.

I started thinking about all
the infinite stars in the sky,
And I could feel myself disappearing,
Shrinking to one of a billion grains of
Meaningless sand, and so

When you woke and asked me
Why I was crying,
That's why I said because
I miss the moon.

petals falling

Some would compare it to an
Onion, but I think, if I'm going
To cry I'd rather it be from the thorns,
So, like a rose, layered deep, our
Mutual and exclusive needs,
Stripped away as they are exposed,
Support, and security,
Acceptance for all this,
Silky hair, and sinewed muscle and an
Absolute lack of judgement.

(That
Is deliberately a dual-edged statement.)

Enough reflections of 'yes, me too' to balance the
'really? ... no, really?' moments, and then
parental echoes and tests we invented to
see how much cynicism you would require and
how strong are you? Because I want you to
Carry this for me, on your own trembling
Shoulders.

Stripped away till there is left just the
Tiniest heart-of-rose, the softest and
Starkest moments of open, raw
Don't-ever-leave-me-alone.
Don't ever leave me alone.

tired

At the stage of tired where I
am limp, muscles sapped of any
power, mind quieted,
spent post-desire and
ready to lay my
head on your lap, close
my eyes and listen.
Tell me a story about today,
about the past, about our loving.
I am too tired to search your
Coruscant eyes for hidden truths
and lies.

So tired that the inner voice that
Questions me, outraged,
(In the voices of my mother and
ex husband)
about just what the HELL
I think I'm doing? has gone on
Break, subdued by the search for an inner
well of energy. That Starbucks is closed, and
for the moment, that cold logic is
rendered vestigial, and I,
Vestal.

Stroke my hair, let me rest, and I
Will resume my subservience,
My cynicism, and my safe distance
momentarily.

the many little deaths

It's funny how some people paint themselves in death
Scream out their gory fantasies to the crowds
When the real death is not black eyeliner and blood, it's
When you lay down your will and accept
The inevitable, stop
Fighting against
Destiny and soft focus.

I'm watching a morality play about death
The slower kind
Nick Cage is shaking in the final
Throes of the battle

And I'm soaking in the agony like
A napkin soaks up spilled wine.

like a magician

like a magician but not
precisely like that,
he lifted a hat, and
no rabbit was
revealed, but instead a
whirling, shifting image of
the world, changed and
filled with his own
gods and monsters and
each bore
his face.

his words pulled at my wrists
and ankles and the
warmth that spread within
made me drunk, made
my vision blur,
made it harder to breathe.

so I found myself in another world,
a universe he had created to
make sense of what he saw and
no matter where I went,
or turned, he was
there, like a soft blanket,
like a fast tornado,
like a fox hunter
and the persistence of the
last note of wind.

now when I inhale
his scent I wonder whether
I was ever real.

codependent

"Oh mama, say a prayer for me
Jesse's back in town,
It won't be easy..."
-Carly Simon


Oh, there's a poem to go with this, but
Before I write it, I must
Channel my mother's spirit, ask her
How she did it for 40 years,
Swam in my father's wake.
Was it worth it?

Is it hereditary that we require
That locus of dark addiction to spin
Around, to focus our lives,
That lends a livid edge of tragedy to
The mundane details of our
Otherwise boring lives?
To the extent that we each
Harbour our addictions to replace
Any that might be lost to
Reform and good intentions?

I thought I had no addictions, but
The tidal pull of your skin tells me
I was wrong.

freezies

in the sun it's like
you were never here.
I only see you in shadows
and in the cool taste
of blue freezies but
you know how fast
they melt.

open road

this is a metaphor

there is no here
it all flies by
all i have is this moment
all i have is this purring
powerful engine beneath me
roar in my ears
there is no here

all i have is your strong
back, these arms tight around
your waist, eyes squeezed shut
sensation of moving

and we breathe in time
melded by movement
my legs squeeze to keep me
tight against you

all i have is now
there is no here
all i have is you
and this machine
and the carving wind that defines me.

resistance

It would be so easy to
wade in that pool, drown
with all the others.

The warm water invites,
beckons with refreshing promise,
But oh, the bottom is so
Murky deep.

And it looks so solitary,
Calls to only me, but
I know about the bodies below.

Bluebeard's closet, that
is, women drawn to the honeyed
waters, never to emerge.

do I have the strength to
walk out of this glade?

chocolate

Remember the cusp of 12?
We summer-school-studied
Circus and Bop to learn
How to be cool, listened
To tapes, baby-oil-and-iodine slathered
In the backyard,
Still watched Starblazers, planned
To go to space, argued
Whose boyfriend Derek was.

We ate junk food, sunshine, movies
And experience, gobbled each day,
Savoured nothing, swallowed it whole.

That September, back at school, I
Found the chocolate bar, you
Had given me, BFF, to
Think of you while in our separate classes.

It was sun-warmed, melted, and I
Pressed my lips to it, wore it laughing,
Like lipstick. Then Todd, that
Guy we had splashed at the pool,
That you said was short and I thought
Looked like Keith Partridge,
Well, a little
Licked some of the chocolate off.

So I guess I owe you credit for
My first kiss too,
Kind of.

tetra

I am one of six
Tag!
I chase your silver
Tail and four more
Fall behind.

These walls are glass,
Infinite,
But flitting among
These plastic grasses, I
Don't even think about that,

I just think about
Tag!
Now I am in the lead!

tough

Small dark space, I know every
Wrinkle within here.
I can touch all my limits, I
Know where I am,
Know where everything is.

Outside these walls, the
Chaos lurks, I can hear
Birds, sirens, screams
And laughter.

I am growing, I know, and this
Case won't hold me forever, but
I curl up, trying to hold this
Moment, hold the safety of now.

What will do it? A persistent
Bird, a hungry rodent, or just
The fall from this height, at
Which I lightly swing?

What will release me?

what middle way?

Always leaping in reaction.

First chasing the sun,
Gamboling faun utopia,
Gods on the lawn
Verdant and nymph-filled
Pastoral and domestic bliss.
And a bright boy, blonde smile,
With a wholesome, sunny laugh.

Then
Spun from Eden, whirling
Into dark shadows seeking
A pale night dweller,
A picture with
Edges singed by dark fires
Cool body to share
A moonlit altar

Always seeking a hand up
Out of the creeping suburban normality
That pulls like the muck that sucks off your boot.

of pictou

It's insidious, that
After 20 years uprooted,
Transplanted to this city I love,
A few hours back and my feet will barely
Heave from the dirt, so
Heavy with the weight of
All that I have been.

My heart is given to
Urban dreams of cafes
And concerts and crowds,
But here, that vision is overlaid with dirt
Road, bonfires, guitars and
Country twang, the lingering warmth
Of being wrapped in a blanket that smells
Like doughnuts, mom and home.

I must drag myself from this
Woven bed of expectations, dreams,
Security and hurt, and unfurl myself
Back in the light of my real life.


(Still rough, bear with me)

doggerel: In vino veritas

I used to believe in divination,
Search the skies
And others' eyes
for portents of the divine

But now I don't read tea leaves,
For saying of sooth
For honest truth
I search a bottle of wine

-cmby 09

cherry jam

In your sleep you're younger,
Sweeter,
Innocent almost.
Not the
Violet explosion you
Made in my
pastel life

I remember my 9th birthday
The first taste of layer cake,
The centre not frosting but
My mom's cherry jam

The surprise, the unexpected
Sweet and tart revealed
The way the line of red cut
Through the blond cake, making
It new, and more exciting.

I think I must have woken up
Because I'm hungry.

whispers

this is a confection, a
meringue,

melting on my tongue
even now

but even while it
will fade, is fading,
as we all cascade past fixed points in time

you will stay in my mind this way:
lithe, pale,
dark eyes,
hard muscles,
a surprise of soft skin and
gentle touch and
the
joy
that
makes me
laugh.

the edges of everything softened by the darkness,
the decadence of beer and late night and memory,
the outlined brilliance of drama and discovery.


Is there ever a present that
won't make me look
ahead to how I will remember it
with affection when it is done?

country homage

momma don't let your babies
grow up to love cowboys
don't let em fall for bikers
and long-haired men in trucks
let em be lawyers and career gals and such

momma don't let your little girls
like pornos
make sure they read Ms. mag
and know what they should make
don't let em wear stilettos or
nails that are fake

momma don't let your babies
go talking to rock stars
make sure they value themselves any size
make sure their iq's more
important than their thighs

momma make sure your babies
grow up with this wisdom
when a man says 'my heart has a history'
make sure they tell him to go piss up a tree

momma don't let your babies grow up to be models
fashion is just a distraction you see, it's
all about making people unhappy.

Momma kiss your little girls good night with warm love,
Set em free smart little women you're proud of.

rain

Above these clouds, bright sun
Warms a bed of wafting cotton,
Gilding it like the
Bedspread of a king.

But down here, grey ashes fall,
Soaking all of the scurrying
Rodents and dustbunnies, and
We never look up to wonder.

We stoically slog through puddles,
Muddy deep, sternly focused,
Relentlessly isolated and
All mildewing from inside out.

Sometimes I want to just lie
In the rain, let it pour down
Till, like Alice,
I float away on the dormouse's tears.

This house

The supports are rotting,
I noticed in the basement.
The floor is sagging a bit and
Cracks run jagged inside the
Foundation.

Pretty sure the roof is in
Dire need of reshingling, and
The gutters are hanging on by
Only the soft grasp of duct tape.

But

we must paint the trim
And keep the lawn tidy.
Mustn't alarm the neighbors.

EM

Why do we do it? Smile,
sweetly, slyly slicing a delicate
line down tender flesh

It separates, blood wells up, we
Feel alive. But I am not that,
not physical that way.

I
Slice deeper, into
The ectoplasmic envelope of emotion
I swim in, I cut a deep line,
With the sharpest kindest blade,
and all that wells up are
Quiet tears
You'll
never
see.

elements: not a love poem

Earth:
Blood pulsing
Soil streaked
Coarse
Ribald
Rotund
Voluptuous
Rooted
Touch, feel, revel
Burial
Birth
Creation

Belief from
the gut
Love from
the loins
from the messy
bloody
heart
Laugh and eat and touch

Air:
Pure, thin
Rational, soaring
Sunny
Open
Clean
Smooth
Invisible, yet
Everywhere, tangible
Think, reason, analyse
Know

Proof from
the evidence
Love from the
head from the
cold, bright
intellect
Fly, stretch, soar

Sky touches ground at
the horizon line, the binding
infinite
One thin line of touch, 360 degrees
the binding
infinite.
Fire mingles fuel of air, fuel of earth,
Water becomes part of earth,
Evaporates, mingles with air,
falls to reunite again with
Earth.

The energy of each of us circulates,
Circulates
In a closed system, we are
Water, we are fire,
we are earth, we
are air.

God and goddess,
Each bound to the other,
the binding infinite.

Bob Marley sang, we all are one.
I a part of you, the lake, the tree, the sun.
You a part of me,
The bird, the sparks, the sea.
The binding infinite, and ever will be.

What if it breaks?

Smashed to red pulp
Like a dropped tomato
Like a Pollock nosebleed
Like the ketchup packet my brother stomped
That time in the mall before he got kicked out;

Smashed and then scraped into a small pile and
Dried and then
Tucked sadly and carefully away

Like the rose from Nan's funeral or the
Corsage my first boyfriend gave me at the prom.

As long as you don't think about things
They don't hurt
Right?

nor can it fly

This is the bird I gave you because
Near you, it always sings
You love it, you say.
You feed it and tend it but you never let it out
You never hold its trembling tiny body
And feel its heart race.

I wonder if you have a room full of caged birds,
And love them all equally,
Platonically and
Distantly.



My heart is a triphammer,
My heart is shot silk,
My heart is
not a bird.

Truth is

She lay on white paper and had the child
Draw her outline in purple and black
Then she stood, stared at the shape before her.
With her eyes unfocused, it looked enormous
Shaped like a continent filled with ugly buildings
And smoggy cities and dense grey highways.

She took a green marker and drew inside
The shape she felt within herself
And it described an island paradise
With beaches and breezes and
Small animals that rustled the undergrowth.

What is truth but refocused lies?

Not eros

I have been
Wooed by words
Before

Swept away
Semantically, set
Adrift

Gave my heart,
Blindly to man and
Muse

But
vision complicates, creates
Distraction, physical needs,
Greed for warmth, strips
Away the purity of the
words
alone.

Someday my mind
Will master this body
And this will be
enough.

sheherazade's cousin

You are
Perhaps another shimmering oasis
soon to
disappear, and even if
you aren't, you
are not my oasis. I cannot water here.
You have said, and you
are king.

I need reassurance once in a while that
I serve a purpose beyond being the keystone in
The arch that holds your ego in place. Perhaps
not even the keystone, maybe the stone two
places to the left of it.

When I am removed, your sultan's palace will not
crumble, you will simply find
another stone.

I want to find that place again of being
Essential, needed
I want a courtyard to hang on my every word. I
want to be fed grapes.

I deserve this... but I sure
don't want to head back out into that
desert tonight
unwatered.

backblogged

Sometimes days go by before
The words rise to my gorge and
Demand spilling, you know,
It kind of depends how many
I've had to swallow,
How often I've been around you
And not said Kiss me, please,
And how often I've not yelled into
The phone, LADY LEAVE ME ALONE,
And how often I haven't said hello
To an interesting stranger, and asked
About that curious scar...
Once there's a base of
Swallowed words, they build quickly though,
It seems, rising from deep inside, until,
Here I am, purging
All I've eaten for a week.

And synchronicitously, a stranger
across the Internet is doing the same.

Bill Murray

Choose the day you'd relive.

So hard with spotty memory,
Flecked and smudged with greasy nostalgia, but I
Can remember lying on the prickly grass,
Inhaling the smell of ground and
Home through my blanket,
Warm sun orange through my closed lids,
Soft breeze rippling the pages of the book nearby.

I don't remember which book, and this
bothers me
Probably Anne of Green Gables, or Little
Women, but it could have been during my
Stephen King stage. I want it to be a Huxley
novel, or Vonnegut, but those were
later.

Smell of baby oil, and the sun toasting
me, because I didn't know it was poison.

The best part, the part that makes me want to live this day...
Listening to In Search of the Lost Chord, loud
In my headphones, feeling deepened, different,
transported. House of four doors, opening
the doors of perception in my tuned in mind, as I
settled down into the grass and became a part of
everything.
Om.
Never more present, never more distant.

I think
It was that night I felt infinity expand in my brain as
I looked up at stars forever.

Things I wish I could rip off me

My belly,

My girly need for reaction and reassurance
that makes me fuck things up;

That stupid look I wear
when I don't want what just happened
to have happened;

Two of the nights we spent together that cling to the sides of my brain
Like alcohol coats the glass

My self-conscious fear of asserting my needs,

My experience and wisdom,
so I could frolic carefree like I
never did.

deep wisdom

When I was 14 I did
yoga, I
meditated, I
studied eastern religions

When I was 16 I
salted the corners of my room,
burned candles, summoned
the Mother

At 28 I was
baptized, tried to find
the Father from
Anne of Green Gables

Now when I look inward,
All I see are reflections of
nirvana in others' eyes and
a deep
emptiness.

Plugged

I am gathering up my boredom,
My hurt,
My sticky loneliness that coats this room,
My depression,
My pride--there are still a few scattered bits around.

I am rolling it all together,
Firing it with the heat of
My anger

I will shape it as a plug, a cork to stop up
This hole in my centre.
I'm tired of my will leaking out, the wind
Blowing through.

I'm tired of bleeding.

Since your knife was the last
To reopen the hole, perhaps
I'll name the plug in your
Honour.

superheroes

We all want to
fight evil
We want our lives to be important.
So we label things
and people
evil
and slay them like dragons.

I don't have any dragons, just
Pigeons, and they are an annoyance,
sure,
but not really evil.

I have no purpose beyond ennui.

That's why I wrap my thin
layer of self around
sawdust
and dream of
fire.

tell the witch I will pay
she can have my cats, my
sister, my
prettiest beads and even
the hug my mother gives me at
bedtime, and all the golden
love that it holds

take it all

if only she will take her straw and
suck this extra flesh from my bones
like Marie Claire said she did to her

now Marie Claire is fine and
slim while I plod like a work pony
and all the boys coo
when she walks by

take my sister, witch, take
my horse, and take
my future

i want a now.

i don't

i don't see a problem with
sitting conversing driving around
feeling this way if i don't
tell you

you like it
knowing that while i
am nodding and talking about
weather and
our friends

i am picturing you naked sometimes

i respect your
disinterest i
will work out
my desires
elsewhere and
you won't
know
you will think i am a saint
or repressed or
maybe you will wonder but
it doesn't matter one
whit does it?

the breeze from the window
and we drive
and this is good.

blood drinker

tongue running over
canines that she'd
always wanted to be
less prominent
power
surging
thirsty
bored

somewhere here
is the new
taste she
craves
and she knows
deep down
that she
will
have
her
way

Do men feel
it this way
all the time?
The sexpowerlust
is that why they ruled history for so long?

more vice
more

James Taylor

Don't read these
words and imagine,
James Taylor,
That I am talking about you,
Or only about you.
You're so vain.

Any poem I write
Is a process end-product
Raw experience and emotion
Meet their own echoes in my
Mind, and they
Combine, entwine
So that when I record
Reaction it is shaded, metaphoric,
Catalytic and cathartic.

At least, that's the intention.

Don't imagine any emotion I record
That might be a reaction to you,
Your proximity, your heady fragrance and
air of what might be,
Is a permanent fixture in my stratosphere.
A poem is a snapshot, interpreted through
Filters, a frozen moment of how it was
When you brushed my hand
That one time.

Don't imagine, James Taylor, that all
my dreams of falling end in your
arms.

Don't even imagine that this
Poem is entirely about
You.

Still

A repost from my other blog, a poem I'd forgotten:

23.10.05

still

Mostly it's the stillness I avoid

healing quiet
reveals the gaping hole
where i should be

The stillness creeps up on rainy days and when I sense it near I
dive for the remote the computer the phone
the noise will hide me

I can't abide
me.

I don't want to be
still.

Bound

Floating? Perhaps too
Benign a word, although
At a distance like this, it seems a
Gentle sort of pull.

I accelerate with proximity.

I am scared to
Crash.

I need no altimeter to know the exact
Distance to this gravity centre
That draws me.

I struggle to tread water, remain
Safely outside that warm,
dangerous
atmosphere,

but
you can't tread water in air
stupid. You are not a
cartoon.

I am falling so
long, such a
short distance.
Please please make my
landing
soft.

energy in a closed system

loops, curls, reforms
itself around shapes like
ferrets, clouds,
waterfalls, SUVs
oil rigs, endangered moose,
small children with hula hoops...

tiny quarks that may or
may not be here, now,
bump around in oceans of empty
energy-space

and here, in this dark room,
the tv flickers and from the corner
of my eye the three inches between us
dances with sparks.

is it

this science experiment foments
bubbles
raises steam and sparks

i note my observations, the
change in hue in the air, the
way the intensity changes
with proximity to catalyst, and
the change in heat
when the two ingredients are mixed.

He has written down that the experiment
failed, no change occurred.
Perhaps i should ask the teacher to change
our seats.

dreams

I hold his head still
On my chest, I kiss his hair...
Skin rustles on skin.

From the hill behind
My childhood home, a lonely
Howl. Lit red eyes gleam.

How is it possible?
Last day of term, can't find class
Don't recall subject.

His smile warms me, till
Strobing alarm wakes me and
I'm alone, still smiling.

After all, this dance,
And all the sparkle, and
Archness and wit and
Companionship,

This is a warm cloak
Of a different kind, to be
Sure, and yet, it is
As comforting as a hug.

This is the village I need
To inhabit. Even
When the cold night
Presses, sometimes,
A blanket is enough.

I know this addiction cycles through
My blood, and all too soon I will want
Flowers, music, the heat of your blood.
But for now, a clink of glasses suffices.

haiku april

how to trust? -- yourself
or anyone else. Close eyes,
Jump. Fall. Hope. Believe.

all i want is the
kiss that will stop my heart and
love to restart it.

And so, I followed
Another pixie path on
the road to nowhere

Another friend, and
Who can have too many friends
In her lonely room?

Perhaps the sunlit
Way seems more passable when
You're actually here.

I, a mouse
His eyes seem to grow and grow,
Yellow like the moon overhead that reveals me.
I do not run, I
Am falling in,
Will sucked away
Desiring to stay
Curiousity growing.

Then my fellow nips my tail, hard,
Spell broken, I saunter to safety,
Remembering that I am not
A mouse,
I am a cat.

Edna St. Vincent de Millay

There are some days when nothing will do but some ESVdM. Like Dorothy Parker, she is brilliant at flattening the compulsive male ego. This has been one of my favourite poems since I first encountered it as a freshman. Oh that someday I might elevate my poor musings to this level:

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity, -- let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.

-Edna St. Vincent de Millay, 1923

april haikus

Feet on ground, head in
Mist of daydreams, memories.
Traffic flying by.

Someone was leaning
On the remote control: Snow,
Sun, rain, fog, snow, wind...

And now...

Breathe.

Proximity teases and even his warmth
Crossing the inches between us makes
Me gasp and--

Breathe.

This heat builds and builds and
Screen zombies and vampires and lightning
Are unable to pull my attention from his
Arm, hand, leg near mine
I want only to --

Breathe.

His scent makes me feral, squirm, but
I sit still, and refuse to direct this, just
Count silently and wait and

Breathe.

And when our lips touch finally
Finally
All the air
And light and heat
Explode and I can't

I can't

Breathe.

Spun

22.3.09

Quietly in this cone of silence,
Web of solitude,
Your reflection teases from a thousand shards
Of bad-luck-broken mirror but
I can't see you,
Though I turn and turn, looking.

spring sotted

It snakes around trees awakening
Silver sliver through grass turning verdant
Slips in through a newly cracked window
With the whoosh of moist fresh air.

It finds me here, strapped to my
Weekday concerns, even on a Sunday,
And coils up to my ear, whispers
Of open roads and apples

The infection shows in a hunger
I can't fill, a thirst unslaked, a
Restless itching desire for these soles
To find pavement, and trail, and go.

Half-realized exotic visions dance in
My head, mangos and prairie and car
Rides and flying to where you are
Greeted by natives in batik or grass skirts or furs.

I want to be anywhere but
Here, anyone but me, anytime but
Now. I twitch, unable to untie the concrete laces
That keep my home shoes on, wed me to reality.

I am drunk and must riot in the streets
I lack a mission, an aim, beyond anarchy
and change, but I am beyond caring.
Break these chains, spring, tidal currents call me.

No matter whose orbit I
throw myself into it, no matter
What zenith, what nadirs I reach, it's
Here I find myself, now, then,
Beginning, end,

Here, ground zero,
Naked mind, heart, alone, with
The cold wind whistling through me

Cleansed of intention,
Torn from pretension,
Building no myths, just
Clinging to the rocks with my toes.

Stretched to the sky.
Me myself and I.

A. Haikus

Lucky for me one
Cannot love fully if the
Other will not share.

**********

I miss his back, his
warmth, the blue tattoo over
his heart, closed to me.

**********

Daytime, cheery smile,
Cute, but then, moonlit, he is
intense, dear, older.

*********

and this --

What I miss most: his
Cat-look under shaggy mane,
Weak knee hugs, just 'cause.

Valentines

Flanked by romance, on
All sides, I close my eyes and
Feel your hot kisses.
***

If skin and skin were
All we were I could do this
...if hearts disengaged.
***

My bloodstream races
With heat and adrenaline
And traces of you.
***

This time, last time, one
Time more and then I must resist
Your magnetic pull.
***

You: crack. A bright bulb
That pulls this stupid moth to
Fruitless flailing. Stop.

Savage Starts

It begins like this:
Sniffing the night,
Seeing the eyes aglow
Beyond the firelight,
Needing to know now

Listening to the howl,
The prowl
The closing in,
Padding footsteps
Thrilling, near

Then pushing into darkness, chasing
Scent, clues, broken twigs,
Finding where you were

I hear you
Heart beating
Blood rushing
Pausing ahead
Then pushing away

Fishermen tell me
to pause here,
Reel in,
Feel you turn and
Learn to come back
But I,

I have hunter blood,
Restless, sporting,
Cannot rest till
we are cavorting
snorting like
bulls but

in this clearing,
Stillness

pant pant

You are lost
to the darkness, moved
On to haunt another enticing fireside

And I have just chased you
Away.