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