In pieces

Going to Toronto on the long four oh one
Heading down into those concrete valleys.
The sun is shining in my eyes my love.
It burns the salty tears that tremble on the edge of falling.

We stopped for gas near Gananoque
The trees around us all were grey and bare.
The plants around were yellow, the fields all sere.
The rest stop like an isle of green amid the brown.

And oh, I cannot leave you
And oh, I cannot stay.
The sun is shining in my eyes my love
I don’t know what to say.

We’re on the road, the black top cut by painted lines
And my heart’s like a two way road and comes and goes
And sinks into the briny depths like drowning men
And flies up to the skies like sea birds soaring.

And I am torn in pieces by the Bacchanal
And one piece runs to you and one piece dies
And one piece hides inside a cave
And one piece just stays and stays.

And oh, I cannot leave you.
And oh, I cannot stay.
And the sun shines in my eyes, my love
And one piece runs away.

But you are all inside me love
Your hurts and cares and griefs;
Your pains, your joys, your smile, your burning fire;
There is no way to rip you from my womb entire.

So stay inside me always.
And bind yourself to my sinews and my bone.
And when autumn turns to winter and the cold draws near,
And vision fades with light into obscure night time haze,

You can be what holds me fast
Whether you be close or far.
I dry wet tears and pull us both into this one car.

And oh, I cannot leave you.
And oh, I cannot stay.
And the sun shines in my eyes, my love
And this is what I’ll say. This is what I’ll say.

Looking for some permanence

When in turbulent torment of the great unknown,
I sought some peace for a troubled heart
Down by the river.

The air was thin
And the pale blue sky was running high
Like the rushing tide and the beating pulse of time.

The shore sloped steeply to the edge,
The small round pebbles dry then wet,
Ground finely by the wheels of the gods.

Squadrons of geese swooped down on the surface,
Scattering the squawking ducks
Honking their hellos as they let the current carry them round the bend,

Floating on the flood of sharp metallic waves,
The choppy grey liquid taking them to calmer waters
In a quiet bay, the end of their long journey.

The trees stood bare, helpless to hide from sight
The foamy rapids of the flowing Ottawa,
The distant shapes of Gatineau.

Gone was the leafy camouflage for creatures in the branches.
I saw the abandoned nests of birds or squirrels,
Shielding my eyes from the November sun.

The damp cold breeze froze some flesh
And drove its icy needles deep to bite the bone
And lingering in the joints, woke my longing,
.
A solid tree received my weight, unbending.
The thick bark was rough and mottled,
Large patterned lumps emerging from the charcoal grey.

Another tree was split, one slanting upward towards the east.
Some were tall and thick and long enduring,
Something more permanent than fleeting seasons.

I wrapped my arms around its wide girth
And dreamed myself, a man upon the land,
I was a tree upon the shore.

Inserting myself into widening cracks,
I would extend my arms and fingers until they filled all the branches.
My toes stretched down to drink the earth.

I left the river, outside the tree.
But the woody strength that I acquired
Means perhaps, the tree’s in me.

Taken from the Yonge St. chronicles

I am walking down a street.
The evening lights make little pools
Through which I step like puddles,
Kicking up a splash of sparkling dust motes.

The dark doorways of stores on Yonge
Hide eager teens French kissing,
Old winos chugging out of paper bags
And clusters of black leather jackets smoking a joint.

A woman sticks out her fish net legs
To see what she can catch,
Her painted face smeared with lipstick
The faint traces of her penis pressed inside her crotch.

A man in a white collar stops me,
His red face and redder nose
Looming under the lamppost.
“You look like a good boy,” he slurs as he staggers past.

I am hot and sweaty, walking off the heat, Stepping gingerly over sidewalk lines And dead June bugs spread like a feast.
They crack like stale walnuts underneath my clumsy feet.

I peer into side alleys as black as the pit, Which smell of urine and old garbage, The empty darkness yawning like a mouth That eats the people like me, walking past.

I look behind me and on either side.
Am I being watched by hungry eyes?
I hurry on, my key thrust between my knuckles The sharp edge pointed out and braced by my closed fist.

I stroll nonchalantly to our store,
Rush quickly to the door,
The key at the ready, inserted and turned.
I open, enter, lock the door and let out my withheld breath.

My mother is there to greet me.
She whips me with a belt, the buckle biting.
I grab the belt and threaten her but do not swing.
After all, here I am in my home, out of the darkened streets and safe at last.

What is the moon?

The moon is a giant ball of white wax with black spots where I pressed it with my sooty fingers.

The moon is a cup of silver liquid dripping drops of bright burning stars down to my open mouth.

The moon is a face bloated and bruised in some cosmic collision with his companion, Terra.

The moon is a bowl of potato leek soup, without the bowl and only the lumps to mar the creamy white surface.

The moon is round bald head reflecting hot white light from a shiny surface pock marked by cosmic acne and a few dark clumps of what once was hair.

The moon and I circle each other like wary wrestlers in a closed cage.

The moon and I reach soft tendrils each to each, extend our soft lips across empty space and kiss like lovers.

My young son asks me on a moonlit autumn eve, “Dad, what is the moon?”

“It depends,” I say, “on how you look at it.”

Sea, Mountains, Sun and Sand

My eyes are seagulls sailing swiftly over the sea:
The spray of the salty sea is wreathing them in tears;
The water washes its way to far off coasts in waves;
The waves are green crystal hills that are topped by foam.

My eyes are lifting upwards towards towering cliffs:
The rock face grows like gray crystal out of green blue seas;
The water crashes its wetness against the hardened wall of stone;
The stone is bent in layers like frozen waves in unmoving earth.

My eyes embed in the brown earth:
The earth pushes up its stony surface to bright blue skies;
The hills are like breasts offered up to be kissed by the sun;
The sun burns like fire that scalds the skin of grass and shrubs.

My eyes seek cool comfort in the deep loam:
The pale light creeps into every cranny and parches it with thirst;
The moisture awakes and squeezes up and out in streams;
The streams fall like thunder into deep valleys.

My eyes fly like birds through lush valleys:
The green growth bursts forth from deep gorges;
The gorges plunge down into vast crevasses;
The cracks in the ground are crossed by bridges with trains.

My eyes are large windows in a travelling train:
The train streaks silently through deep green valleys and darkened tunnels;
The tunnels break suddenly into searing light;
The light shines on vast oceans of aquamarine.

My eyes are old men sitting on beaches:
The light brown beaches stretch around the bay;
The bay is full of water that’s moving closer in waves;
The waves grow slowly into green crystal mountains;

My eyes are liquid mountains that fall and dissolve on brown beaches at the feet of old men:
They remember the sea and the rising hills, the blue skies and the scorching sun;
They recall the giant movements of the earth’s crust in waves and the brief thrill of green living;
They ease gently into the sand before plunging into dark verdant valleys.

When you’re not there

It’s almost eight o’clock.

Upstairs and downstairs.

Kitchen, dining room, living room, hall.

Branches scratch the windows like cats.

Read a book, put it down.

Sit on the couch, stand up.

Turn on a light and turn it off.

Lift the phone and put it down.

Write a note and crumple it.

The closet is missing your coat.

The hangars clang together when I move them.

Your shoes are not on the mat. I’ve checked.

I am sitting and watching, mind numb.

T.V. has its uses.

Regeneration

It is a dry hot day in July.
The sun burns like acid
Even through thick shirts.
The grass is wilting one tick with every second,
The green gradually fading to yellow.

I have dry wrinkled skin on my knuckles,
Bony fingers scraping the hard bones of rock
And the clumps of sun baked clay underneath the turf.
The fingers furl like expended lovers
Unable to penetrate the surface.

A cooling breeze blows sweat off my cheeks,
The dark clouds rush at me like soldiers.
Out of the clear blue a sudden lowering sky
That presses down my head to earth
To lick the dust from my own boots.

The thunder drives me further down,
The rain pelts me like stones
Hurled from high up by someone without sin.
I stretch out to be buried in water
That covers me like new blood.

I kiss the ground, my lover
Who opens up its earthy arms to embrace.
I plunge as into wetness, sucked into its muddy mouth.
My fingers are engorged by fluid.
They reach down into the moist soil like roots.

I am filled with the smell of fungus
As my arms are drawn into the depths
And underneath the earth itself I feel the liquid heat
I open my chest like a jacket and press it
Into the very heart of growing life.

White card on a brown table lies wrinkled

White card on a brown table lies wrinkled
One corner bent slightly up and all of them frayed
Creases run across my printed name and make it look like a wave.

The card is not aligned with the edge of the table
But on an angle almost diagonal on the horizontal plane
Disrupting the deeper red brown hue with its rectangular bright white shape.

The card is alone and out of place yet neatly arrayed,
It floats on the shiny varnished surface like a boat on ice
Unmoving except when impelled by the breeze of a passing human hand.

Like me at my desk, it is where it has been placed,
A little rumpled, alone and slightly out of kilter;
I ignore the beautiful woman on my left, typing, and keep my blue fonts glued to my pale white face.

Two moments in time

She stands with her hand outstretched, moving;
The still heavy air entices my eyes outside so they move.

The rain patters than splashes against the window;
Waters stream across the glass blown straight by the wind.

The trees bend like courtiers saluting the air that’s blowing;
Trunks creak and branches crunch and rebound like a blow.

Clouds convene in the darkened sky and crowd;
The blackness descends its talons outstretched like a crow.

A flash of light zigzags to the green wet earth;
A roll of thunder builds and cracks in my ear.

The threat and promise of a summer shower breaks
Across my mind; against the wall a broken beaker.

The liquid’s strewn in puddles where it was thrown;
The shards lie still across the couch, the knitted throw.

A drop of blood drips where my flesh has torn;
The dark angry eyes of my wife are filled with tears.

The threatening storm and its fear are gone;
Imaginary tears pierce my heart with pain as one.

We’ve crossed a line and ripped the world in two;
We can’t go back: that was then; this is now.

The open air concert of Natalie MacMaster

The audience sits on the edge of something
As clouds push together to cover the evening sky.

Incipient moisture hangs like an unsaid sentence.
The atmosphere bears down on heads looking up in hope.

The currents of air fall still and enclose
The circling seagulls in silent waiting.

They rise up like flies from the quivering flesh
Of a horse that is waking.

The sound from the stage catches the crowd by surprise,
A sudden wave of coldest water that splashes the spirit.

I sit up astonished by icy needles refreshing and pure.
The strains of a fiddle fill me up with feeling.

The joy of jigging jumps up to my throat,
Mounts to my eyes like a rising river.

Uncontained, the streams of my vibrating
Flow out in separate tears that line my face.

We turn to look at the grey sky riven by sound
That bursts the bounds of the deadened air.

The seagulls have gone, engulfed in the wind
Of jumping melody that pulls us to our feet.

We are transformed into the living pulse of music
By the power of bow on strings.

With strong hands and woken hearts,
We hold back the coming storm until the last note.