No one paints a calm sea

No one paints a calm sea.

Okay, some artists do,
Paintings that chronically stressed women
Choose to match the sofa
And never sit and meditate before.

Calm seas and happy endings do not merit art.

We need to feel,
To be caught in the churn
The sloppy, salty tide bearing down on
Dark rocks, barnacle-jewelled,
And crunchy shell-strewn shores.

We journey with the turmoil of
The storm-thrown vessel on burning cold
Rivers, through a washing cycle of
White water beaten on hard sand
And we emerge clean.

We need to be tossed, shaken, inverted, pummelled,
Hearts battered, no timid knocks,
To be reborn.

Let my words be big and violent, thrash and pierce.
I do not want to soothe. I want to wound.

No great loss

That kind of guy
Who unselfconsciously in open robe
Retrieves his paper
Bathmat-scratchy chest exposesd,
Coffee slopping as he waves pleasantly to
The greymalkin next door, who purrs
Into her cane.

That kind of man with a touch
Of clinging shaving cream garnishing a
Lengthening earlobe, who dashes, late,
To his Volvo, but brake-screeching stops midblock
To retrieve and return a wayward basketball
To a sheepish purple
Hello Kitty shirt and a wide
Pair of eyes.

That particular species of fellow who,
Mostly harmless in all his peanut-munching
Placid days, who loves his digital watch and
His high-achieving accountant bride, and his
2.5 kids and normal existence
In middle America.

That man.
Wobbly, in his third
Buddy-delivered-with-high-slaps beer  of
A Thursday night, post-game.
Pulls out his phone, friend ear-talking loudly about the
Pros and cons of heavier characters as
You drift on a corner and
The way pretzels bloat him.

That dude. Pokes at the fuzzy bird icon, scanning
Timeline while agreeing heartily in a vague nod,
Bowser! Am I right?!

Inside his face, a foreign snarl forms, feeling
Like a hot flush on his droopy blotched cheeks.
He squints with one eye, hits reply,
Starts to index-finger type at the
Awkward, robe-wearing woman in the tiny square, answering
Her comment on a technical play strategy in the
latest Star Wars game, which he hasn't played yet but Goddamit
it's STARWARS and he and his dad had agreed mom knew
Nothing about the logic of Tattoine and what the hell
do basketball-losing, slack-jawed, job-stealing, ball-busting
LADIES even think they are DOING having opinions on StarWars
It's not like a doily set or a where the hell the sofa goes or whether your
Feet should be on the coffee table or not, even when it's your house,
Having OPINIONS like a goddamn unnatural talking trained dog, a mouse in a maze
Pinky and the Brain, so he types, he types words he would disavow later
If anyone asked, It was that Brian stealing my phone, he's
Such a jerk, he's just trying to get me in trouble, words
That would make the awkward woman feel cold and alone and afraid,
Dictated by the lump of reptile logic deep within his manbrain,

"Die in a fire you stupid cunt."

As he holds the screen back to squint for a final look before posting,
His planet is unfortunately destroyed to make way for a new hyperspace bypass.

Destiny drives us all

Destiny
Is it a thing?
A haunted place we inhabited in the in-between
Towards which we now hurtle, heedless of space,
Unconscious of the ripples we fling across the face of the sky, the
Hearts of those around us?

Or is it a mirage,
Borne on a tidal pulse beat, pushed
By adrenaline, our endocrine drives, my
Cell-deep need to create, procreate, thrive, survive?

What calls me, is it the golden-lit island where I am fulfilled, or
Just the siren drawing me off the cliff hills?

If this magnet drawing me will not be denied, if
I am allowed no peace from ambition, no respite from pride,
Then I ask only to rest here,
Out of the water, on the
Quiet shore, where I am not fraught,
Nor sought evermore.

Oscar

In my deep place I birthed a dragon.
It wasn't real of course,
But it flew with terrible grace
Blew fire that burned the clutter away
Showed the secret door forward.

Through the door but slowly,
Sadly waving farewell, not
Knowing who my next guardian would be.

In the meadow I found a horse,
Sparks from her hooves,
Mane whipping in the harsh wind, and
On her back I rode and rode.
She crossed a desert with me, nearly,
Dying a day's walk from its edge.
I mourned.

Alone I walked from the desert, dry,
Calm, quiet, at peace.
At the edge of the city I found a
Mewling cat, demanding worship.
In his eyes, the desert remained.

In the market, in the bustle, I
Nestle into his fur and I
Still can find peace.

oh canada

I will never be warm

Block-hard feet in black boots

Mittened hands clutching my Otterbox as if

It could deliver me from this

Snow

As if I could tweet myself away. 

Creeping down, soft,

Innocuous, looking like Christmas,

Like childhood, like a white blanket.

Like a landslide that looks like clouds in the distance.

Smothering trees,

Lawns, roads, cars, 

Steps, hats, upward gazing churches.

Smothering hope of spring

Hope of light, gasps for help.

Smothering.

I close my eyes, imagine

A beach, the crystal blue Dominican sea,

The sharp explosion of a beach grape on my tongue,

Sand and sunburn and coconut.

Imagine Balinese breezes, 

Loose cotton pants, big hats, 

Grass thatch.

But my feet are clay, frozen to this place and 

I hate snow. 

Southern Cross

It's the imperfections that make it art.
That moment in Southern Cross where Stills' voice cracks
breaks my heart wide open to the salt sea
every time
every time

The messy people, the odd ones, the ones who don't fit
The stripper feminists, the androgynous ones pining for princess treatment
The ones who bluster and cuss and make uncomfortable spaces more
uncomfortable

80 feet of waterline.

read riot, blast on, trample your fucking etiquette
this is the stuff of life

nicely making way.

Punks and Stephen Stills
Feminists and arrogant men
Black hearts and bleeding hearts

I have been around the world

but I haven't, I haven't, I have been safe, here,
in the invisible buffers of everyday life, contained.

I may not get to the Marquesas but I can
be the mad one, love the differences, embrace the unusual
I can fall out of your polite society, push out, punch my way out,
I can rave with the ravers, rant with the newfoundlanders,

Spirits are using me
These things make life bearable.

Storm riders

"Out here we is stoned, immaculate."

Jim Morrison carves an altar out of a grey Sunday and I
am flooded
by colour making my fingers itch, words
piling into stalagmites
pushing for release

Lizard king, slither out now, I
can't focus in the deluge. My
eyes ache for wool's soft tug, I crave
Pattern and rhyme, need to hear
A mosaic of line and shade.

Spattered and bruised and ragged,
Not immaculate,
Not stoned. I need a funnel, a filter, a
Priority system.

When this gladiator war is complete, I will lapse into
re reading cookbooks and knitting books
Lamenting my spare time.