o, amazing

o, amazing

how you cup my face in your hands

and drink from me

my full sweetness and writhing delight

and how

our breath, shared in a circle of ecstasy,

hums with harmonious voltage

and how

in the dim silk cave of our joinings

one cannot tell where

one begins and

the other ends

and after this

unhurriedly our limbs unfurl,

the blossoming of black marigolds

sweet and bitter with the warmth and damp,

the results

of the shadowy vibrations of love

eyes and mouths burning

full of the tastes of the other

this that we have fashioned together

life is patterned

like the leaves 

on the lawn

of your childhood house

in autumn

in the colours of their painted living rooms

glimpsed through the blinds

(it is dusk, and you walk by,

head hooded & ducked 

against the dew

falling)

wait, no wait-

patterned in more colours,

colours in the velvet paintings of

tahiti

and

jesus

(why did he wear thorns and why

did he hold that burning heart?)

colours in the velvet pantings of 

your

first

girlfriend

(wet and distant, she hovers on the edge

of your memory)

patterned in more colours

colours of your secret dream time corridors,

the twisting, singing,

swinging doors

(the sacred geometry lab 

in your head)

patterned in rocking hips rocking,

and stinging lips

shocking

(you

held me down and

I liked it

a little)

patterned

in the latticework of

your music, ever

unfolding, undoing me,

beginning this over again-

life is patterned

basement room

in the blue glow,
your face a round sweet poem that cannot be expressed
full and shifting, wings of a night bird folding over eyes
fluttering of the heart
and the heat and the velvet and damp
O, the rotation of the day and the night
O, the tides of the dark and the breaking of light

ten years away, and ten years close,
as close as a coin in a fist
grip firm or uncertain, now is now is now is
now

isn't that everything
isn't that everything

now is now, and you sigh and curl and sleep
and away from you, I dream and travel and take flight
above the trees and low houses I skim, my way
an arrow to your way, to be loosed upon the world, to
travel to the heart of the heart of the world
to plunge deep into the beating mess of it
with you

isn't that everything

final gig (this lame poem)

a spinning light
like a spinning star
boys in the band
girls at the bar

the smell of beer
the smell of piss
the nights with you
I haven't missed

the smell of stars
the smell of us
I miss you most
when I'm on the bus

the weight of dreams
the weight of you
the heaviness
of what is through

I cooked your meals
I made your bed
you washed my clothes
you kissed my head

I got sad
I moved away
so many things
I couldn't say...

and this lame poem
is just for you
and all the things
that we went through

some things were great
some things were rough
and this lame poem
is not enough

broken plate

Sweet sweetness
you call to me, then let me be.
All I am is yours, what's yours is me.
we circle and spin, let each other out, and in;
end it, begin it, upend it, chargrin it.
You know who you are, and what you can do.
The fragments, the lightness, they come shining through.

wanting

five directions and
one broad smile opening all of the doors
in impatient haste, desire brimming behind
the rim of that sharks mouth, friendly hunger
gnawing and moving strange and unexpected
like an alien child within

we have the face of the dreaming computer, beautiful
in its mindlessness-- and we have the philosophy of sound,
galaxies of music,
birdcages cut open--
this breaking open, this undoing
carries me over,

carries me over

another one for coal

I say to myself:

rise up, dreamer
and engage in the sticky realities and
preservative-free joys of this wholesome life

reach through the window to that distant smile
swim with salamanders, hands outreached below the clear water

begin something
painting in colours forgotten, landscapes yet unseen
form and undulate, glow and press
against the grain of what you thought
you wished you had

but this:
the beyond beautiful,
the bigger unknown

so much better than any fading
fragrant dream
so much better than an imagined past:

this unfolding future.

realia

it's light in the room, from the gloaming rolling in the window
until I turn on the light, and then the dark is resigned to be
what it was all along

different here, unconnected from my recent past
and unconnected from my past past... this is not me.
not my family. but is. unwashed things, dusty corners
piles of secrets and papers and stubby pencils

what I think is
whatever it is I think I see
becomes what I do see;

maybe the darkness was still glowing
despite the lamp in the bedroom

the falling night's
light remaining blue and dim
not darkness at all

old vs. new

it smells of toast and cat piss here;
we linger and malign.
we wage the wars, but stow the fear-
raise the flags, and hide the signs.

for coal

there was
that flash of -- something the moment I first saw you
and I
just wanted to jump up and hug you,
as though I hadn't seen you for years
although I was just then meeting you for the first time--
that
is the moment I keep turning back to,
turning over\and looking under, around

I want to be in your head, and watch the
circuit board electronic soundwave symphony play out.
I can imagine it, but O- to be there! And the way you mumble--
I catch half of what you've said
make you repeat yourself
but I-- I would never stop your mumbling,
your lip-tripping, not for a moment.
The light of-- what?-- happiness-- or genuineness--
it just sparkles and flashes from your mouth
when you smile--
and even I am reduced to mumbling.

Around you-- I almost want to become a circus dog,
frilly necktie adorning my neck
I want to leap and dance ridiculously for you,
show you
anything genuine that I have, so I can share in the light
that you are spreading with that smile
(O that smile) and I
can imagine you as a small child:
funny and likable and weird as all get out...
big eyes and perfect teeth and
wondering/wandering clockwork brain--

I wish wish wish that it wasn't just moments
that we had, we have--
there's something bigger,
something we haven't even touched yet--
do you know it too?
Something
something signaled to me in that first alarming minute
when we shook hands in front of the blue light of the television
and when I came out to say goodbye and
blushed beside your jeep in the dark...

and now: I have dashes and ellipses,
pauses and stumbles and bubbles of excitement--
--and you YOU are the spark plug,
you have ignited something within me
when I was not even aware that I was possessed of any fuel.

procrastinator

avoidance
the tactic serves me well
though I pretend it is my enemy
(oh, I don't know why I can't seem to get to work, I just have so much to do these days you know, it's a miracle anyone gets anything done, isn't it)
I know better

I'm telling myself, telling you silently
bright and bitter, better things await me, if I could
just put off that thing, that one thing
I was supposed to have done
by now, but haven't
If I could just
hold off

what is the reward?
weigh it.
what is the punishment?
weigh that, too.

try to take one,
and evade the other
without lifting a finger.

spin & spin

will everything
everytime
open wings and spin, sublime
on and on to warmer climes

we play these tricks
and watch these signs
for news of news from beyond the lines

we sing and sing and
rhyme the rhymes
of better things and brighter times

do you just want to
talk about it?
I don't want you
to talk about it

little miss and her mp3
no room for you, no room for me
we spin the spin
and climb the climb
to warmer sins, and better times

we jump the gun and
run cliches
we think, for fun, for sport, for days
we almost never look, or peer, or see, or gaze
beyond the book
beyond the gate
beyond the haze

do you just want to
talk about it?
I don't want you
to talk about it

citywired

I am
damp with the
wet wonder of the November city and I am looking up,
peering over the cloudy soft pillow-white edge
of BC Place on a Saturday night
(Leafs fans in jerseys pass by, howling at the Vancouver skyline)
I peer at the glow of incandescent orange and gloaming blue
I walk, my inside is a dull aching place
due to the replacement
of
bodily fluids with caffeine
a daily occurrence for the past four weeks--
and I walk at a dullard's pace,
breathing in the mist and the orange glow of street lights, city lights
on my way to Pat's to
listen to Stevie Wonder records and to
make him a lampshade out of copper wire and acrylic medium and paper
from the recycling bin
(it's a birthday gift, he needed a lampshade)
and
things are shifting... Stevie Wonder sings maybe your baby
it's makin' him worried
it's makin' me queer
things are beginning, but the ending
is near

salacious / salubrious

the sentiments you sent to me are disturbing
though inadvertently, I am sure

you make a wish in your foreign mind and in the english language:
to see me again, all “sexy panty and golden hair”

I haven’t got the slightest inclination to
share these things with you

I want to keep it clean and distant,
a postcard unsold
free from the misfortune
of words

when you meant to convey
romance and the scent of autumn
you instead recognize my superior strength
and voluminous size
and pillowy softness

unintentionally tasteless twisted compliments

I received sleazy covetous intentions and was bound by
your hazy tethers of garbled muddy desire

translation
how unfair are the brutalities of language transformation

ten

one finger crooked to beckon or push on the button of the chin

two fingers to wear rings of falsity, and one to wear a ring of hope

one thumb drawn smearingly through charcoal and ash, then across faces, making warriors
or committing others to Wednesday’s penance and grief

one thumb held in the palm for safekeeping

one finger long and lean, speaking of bone and ceremony

two fingers
catching up a thread
between them

one finger stuck in the mouth of the past
feeling the wet jagged spaces within

friction

heat can be produced
simply from the act of rubbing two things
against each other

anemone

whatever he said, it stuck
a blob of blackberry jam, just like that.
it’s always like that, in the beginning
in the beginning of everything
my brain is flat and wide open, begging
to be etched and stained,
and then
after a period, it folds up small and tight
like a note waiting to be passed. no more room
for words, however clever they may be. but
like I said—at first, he left vermillion splatters and
magenta smears, a cocktail of fantasy distorted
like a red tide of dangerous passion
all across my bleary (but appreciative) senses. and
now although I have passed, like an anemone, into the
epoch of closed tendrils
the interior lights up with a glow of warmth
like a love note
written on the palm of a closed fist

p's and q's

face creased
lips small like a cat’s ass
all for the sake of concentration
all for the art of beatification

send your words up
ask for
love/money/luck/patience to rain down
or don’t ask for anything at all

prayer is the same all over the world
the personal twist is
whether you commonly call up to ask
or to say “thank you”

what is it

whatever have we here
unreliable fullness of smile
i want to rest my head on the heart of
the heart of the world
i want the biggest reality to be
the fullness
of me

finished

August goes blowing by, so much cotton candy in the wind
warm air and hot sweet breath mixing to syrup
leaves drying and adding orange music to black branches reaching up
to the gypsy skies, indigo and ochre

my mind is turning to the tune of the sweeping
of the dust on the sundeck, the past days all glory and no substance
leaving nothing but dry granules and a cocked ear

I’m ready for September to launch