Tuesday 30 October 2012

Like Sitting Shivah

When you first came,
fifty pounds wet
and seven years old.
Cast off from family,
chased by the crazies,
held out in shelters
until you found our refuge.
You became my little girl.

But now I have to let you go.
Like sitting shivah for the week
after accepting that you can never
be who I imagined, prayed and desired
you to be.

I have come to terms to peace
with what you have become and
what you might have been all along.
For it's not evil, not even bad choices
but a condition, like wiring done wrong
that gives the ideas, that creates it's own mayhem.

For now I resist you,
protecting your son.
I know I can't trust you.
I surely cannot win.
Never will, 
but I love you,
I must
for the rest of my days.

Monday 29 October 2012

Who I Was; Who I Am

Quinney always said
your head is too
small for your body.
Milson would call
from the bleachers,
"Ding em big Moose!"
I dropped the ref
with a single
Punch
to a standing
ovation, quite
the revelation,
that was not me.

A poet, a writer,
equestrian rider,
mystic, prophet,
reaching the realms
of Teilhard, Rumi
and the Tao Te Ching
but still the old skin
sheds too slowly
and I will always
drag it behind.

Sunday 28 October 2012

I Am Up.

It's 3 a.m. and
I am up stewing, my
thoughts are distilling
potency. Reluctantly,
I am up and look
to the street, see a
kitten, chasing leaves
in the street light, no
thought of abandonment, no
thought at all just
the fresh invigoration
of wind and night.

Saturday 27 October 2012

The Mantle

Two women, long necked beauty,
elegant arms lifting prayer,
instruments of psalms ready.
Snow geese  in ascension.

A horse from Iran, Arabian stock,
a desert that claimed a life,
the Persian Gulf, oil and war,
religion infected with greed,
fanatical.

An old man from Poland
with a bag of gold a promise
of wealth flowing into my purse,
my life abundant prospering
with this gift, I admit,
it has, yes it has.

My mom and my dad,
he in his sport jacket and
cowboy boots from Quebec
rocking back with a laugh.
Her in a beige dress suit,
long, flowing, radiant
with joy for the camera
knowing they were happiest
then.

The Buddha smashed by a kid
but still chuckling to himself.

Friday 26 October 2012

What Have I Done?

Oh my Lord, what have I done?
I've let myself run out
into the things
you warned me about.
I've floundered in doubt
instead of shoring up faith.
Oh Lord, what have I done?

And to you, my sweet,
I never meant to hurt you,
never meant to desert you
and leave you bereft of my love.
I know, you thought I was tougher
than that, you thought
that I could endure.
Yes my darling, I can. I will.

My Father, when I return
to the place of ultimate loss,
I will find myself there
like an angel,
terrible in glory.
I will understand the story is
older than I
with eternal consequence,
and there's no going back to mend
what I rent.
Oh my Lord. Can you? Can you?

Thursday 25 October 2012

Love

Leave it alone man!
There's nothing there,
false hopes and pain
that strike through
vital chords;
the note that screams.
Life becomes duty
in the name of love.
But to move on you must
abandon the idea
that something survives.
Ask Jesus Christ.
He knows.

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Teacher

When I see a challenge,
I bow to it,
reverencing my teacher.
I once would kick and scream
like a three year old and say,
"I don't want to and
you can't make me.
But indeed those tests
did create me,
crafted the unique
person that you see.
And honestly,
we all know it,
nothing else would,
nothing else could,
have the resolve,
to wait like Bufferin
and dissolve,
the resistance with patience.
Allowing the grating
of nerves into silence,
quivering like crickets
in the long warm night.
I gave up the fight,
but not allowing retreat,
never admitting defeat,
I become who I am.

Monday 22 October 2012

Random

I say random.
You say ordered.
I say tandem.
You say bordered.
Where's this going?
It's the spirit's
free wind blowing,
moving thickets
without knowing.
It's just showing
us it's doing,
possible skewing
of our plans.
Give in to it
while you still can.

Sunday 21 October 2012

Peace Becomes Me

A problem is an entity,
just like me.
A turmoil of energy,
a vortex of turbulence
with peace at it's center,
which if I enter,
the calm becomes me.

But pretty soon it's boring,
so I jump back in
to the heady wind
and let the force tear
me to pieces.
So I  can gather again
and force myself in
to the peace that becomes me.

And this my friend explains
reincarnation.

Saturday 20 October 2012

Too Much Drinking

Oh fuck off, why don't you!
I'm having too much fun
soaking my brain in booze;
stupid  indulgent thoughts
I'm not ready to lose.

Oh fuck off, why don't you!
You tell me how futile
this habit becomes, taking
me down by degrees, more
dis-ease in the making.

Oh fuck off, why don't you!
It's inherited traits
you loathe and oppose,
the stone bred in the bone,
vicious hard thoughts exposed.

Oh, fuck off, why don't you!
The worse thing is I know.
My father often said,
problems wake up with you
and too soon Son, you're dead.

Friday 19 October 2012

Winlock

Suspended In The Moment

Silvered reflection of the moon
on the snow, crisp air
lifts us into the night.
Black walls of forest quiet,
just me and you
stirring up powder
(too cold to be packing).
We are out hacking.
our breath is steam
lost in this dream.
I move you forward,
quiet canter soft hand,
but you're never calm
and you erupt like a beast
remembering the track.
I move my weight up
and off of your back
and you level out,
fluid rhythm of speed,
of muscle and bone
carrying me. Ice
tears in my eyes
and frostbite in my lungs.

Thursday 18 October 2012

Time

Run out.
Run off.
The inevitable approaches.
I wish I had.
I wish I hadn't.
I hope. I hope.
I give in.
This too shall pass.
Sleeping, waking,
unraveling.
Predestination;
free will.
Arminius vs Calvin;
heaven vs. hell.
Eternity.
Now.
What I see,
what I feel,
gone.
What I thought,
gone.
Only a pins point
of awareness, always
time is an illusion.

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Anaheim

Anaheim, Disney World,
boulevards lined with palms
and gardens well tended
in early hours before
the anxious days begin
of children's excitement
and adult tedium.

We walk from the Hyatt
two blocks in behind,
find bungalows well kept
with verdant green lawns, trees
flowering, no litter
to be seen, quieter
the further we venture.

Small strip malls with signs that
read Spanish advertisements,
the shop that sells liquor,
exotic tequilas.
We enter a diner
that tells us in pictures
what we can expect to
eat we sit down, order
with gestures and smiles, this
is a special unique world.

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Tied Up

I want to tie you up
with duct tape
and throw you in the lake.
Witness the bubbles of
your death, your final breath.

I want to believe you,
gather you in my arms,
accept you forever and
the lies that you tell
until I am starving for truth.

I will ask you
To tie myself up
with duct tape.
Push me into the lake so I
can watch my own breath
rise in bubbles to the surface,
leaving me
with submersible senses of failure.

Monday 15 October 2012

Godson

I don't want to go to school.
I hate working.
I just want to play.
I don't care if I get kicked out.
I dont know why I punched him
and smeared my pear in his face.
You made me mad.
You threw my pop out of the van.
You took the fork out of my hand
because I was running.
I would hit you but you're too big
and you hit back.
I don't have to look at you,
but when I do, I feel better.
I don't want to listen!
I don't have to listen!
I don't want to go to bed!
I don't want to be alone.
Sorry! Okay! I'm sorry!
Sorry.
I want a hug.
Will you read me a story?
Please sleep here.
I'm scared.


Hmmm...

Usually, I'm right there,
as a snapping of fingers.
But these days I'm off over there,
like someone noticing absence,
similar to the odor in the air
of incense on a busy street.
There's nothing snappy about that!

Sunday 14 October 2012

Reflections

The geese that lift heavy bodies
with singing wings.
The dove that sits on a wire,
watching me walk beneath him.
The quiet marsh with mists rising
and slow moving waters, reeds
and blackbirds calling.
The coyote calm and defiant,
casually retreating
in the sights of the rifle.
The vulture that allows
the wind to lend it's grace
to one so ugly.
The snapper that lives
for a hundred years.
That's me.

Saturday 13 October 2012

The Best Laughter

There are times
when I look in her eyes
and see the same thought
reflected.
An idea askew,
no one else knew
I was thinking,
let alone share.
We hear the same line,
from inside the mind,
we allow our humor
to ripen.
And then gush it out
when we're alone
or over the phone,
a pressure relief
allows us to beef
without doing harm to another.
It's an intimate thing
that allows us to bring
our own small world into focus.
And insulates us in
our own small cocoon,
a sound proofed room
that keeps us in and them out.

Friday 12 October 2012

Passion

If I allow myself to feel 
PASSION!
The energy produced requires
skill that I just don't have,
to balance the ragged emotions.
I get too high and
drop too low.
Detachment aids best
in riding that wave,
risking the feelings,
gradually yielding
to delight.
I used to FIGHT
passionately,
but it was a gift ill-used.
I wound up bruised,
myself abused
in wasted regrets.
It's taken a lifetime
to turn it around,
to turn it to love,
becoming a dove
of peace.

The One I Yanked

One of these stories
behaves like the other.

I was with my brother
in west Edmonton mall,
went off on my own
to a lingerie store,
bought you an outfit
that made my hands sweat
at the thought of you in it.
It stayed in the box for two years.

I went to Vegas with work,
indulging free whiskey and beer,
and vodka shots with the Russians
at 3 in the morning.
I called you just as
you were leaving for work.
I haven't been to bed,
I'm still drunk, I said
but hell, this is Vegas.
Fuck off you pig,
and you slammed down the phone.

One of these stories
behaves like the other.

Thursday 11 October 2012

You don't have to go there,
It was such a long time ago
A year is a century
When it comes to some things
The monk seldom talks
More seldom listens
Even his own story stinks.

Wednesday 10 October 2012

Ghost

There is a ghost in my house,
a benevolent sprite,
who waits every morning for me.
To stir in my bed,
he darts to my head
and fills my mind with wonder.

He takes me to see
the child sleeping,
pushes  face close
to eyes mouth and nose
to smell the sweet breath
of contentment.

Then we are outside,
observing the sky,
stars deeply set
like caught in a net,
glitter like jewels
sending their light
to the earth.

and he pricks my skin
to feel the cool breeze
and tweaks my ear
to the first waking bird
in the tall spruce
and the sound of the trucks
on the highway.

He pinches my nose and
I smell the earth breathing,
ozone and tree,
grass, herb and garden
dirt and pine and wood burning.

And he whispers,
Man, you are blessed.
And I say, don't go away,
I need you to stay,
my friend.

Tuesday 9 October 2012

The Lights

Last night we saw the northern lights.
A ridge of phosphor
raining down brilliance.
I have not seen them
for the last 
quarter century.
The last time was when
I carried my newly
 adopted
seven year old daughter
lightweight and frail
after four homes
and two shelters.
Then they were red
the holy grail spilling
into our lives.
Last night they were green,
shifting hue coiling,
dropping shafts in the dark
like rain in the mountains.
Is God speaking?
For now my daughter 
has a son.

Monday 8 October 2012

The Garden

A strawberry stores the whole seasons
of spring fresh cool and summer sweat heat
into a ripe gift of treason
against the fads of fat salt and grease.

To taste the tart fruit of the flat
green plant, to notice a sweetness hidden,
the red reaching beyond the bounds of itself.
A strawberry stores the whole seasons.

It's enlightenment really, the flower
that teaches a place that honors the self,
that was born in a garden with Adam
of spring fresh cool and summer sweat heat.

We ate what God grew and never knew
we could carve up our friends for dinner.
An apple or pear satiated the senses
as a strawberry stores the whole seasons.

Hey, let's not blame Eve and live the old story;
it was Noah who first ate the beast.
And we're not bereaved of the effect we seek,
I still go to pick a strawberry
that stores the whole seasons of summer and spring
into a moist ripe gift to myself.

Sunday 7 October 2012

Best Man October 7

I'm Sorry
I had to leave it all behind,
and you were there
in that final 
abandonment.
You were closer than
a brother,
my friend.
But once I started moving away
momentum gained,
I was carried along
by then too late
to think again.
And now I'm so different,
so changed inside.
When we meet again,
when someone dies,
it will be something 
strange,
something unreal.
If we have time
we will discover
two different worlds
we both have created;
two different orbits
of lives we once shared.

Saturday 6 October 2012

October 6 Eight

Eight

the meadow beside the house with the marsh
banked by the 401 ramp holds many
flowers and bugs and birds. he wakes up with
dawn and avian racket through the open widow.
he once would get mad and shout out shut up
birds, but these days he pulls on his clothes and
goes downstairs where no one is stirring and
into the porch where he steps into his boots, gets
his rod and outside, his worms in a jar
from under the boat where he put them last night
and off he marches past the school where he'll go
everyday in the fall and he likes that though
other kids don't and through the big schoolyard
with the dewy wet grass and the sun
is just lifting the sky. the trees of the forest are
still black and in shadow when he smells the
fresh pines like they just woke up, and bubbles
and ripples of water that bounce on the air.
he readies his rod with a worm on a hook
and walks the bank dropping the line into
slower dark pools with no luck until he
gets to the trestle and pulls himself up
big granite squares to walk through the tunnel
with the green moss and the bright other side.
he sidles an awkward path and its steep incline.
he gets to the tree that stumps into blackness
catching swirls of debris in submersible current
and he drops his hooked worm into that motion.
one two slick backed mudcat with spines in their
fins that sting like a bee, skin and not scales,
handled with care, wide mouths and mustaches.
tossed in with the tackle
and then he decides to drop one more line,
and the silvered skin of the angry
trout bursts from its hiding slapping the water.
shoots in a spray as he calms his nerves,
his excitement so shaking his hands as he
exerts great care reeling it in his first
caught rainbow, fingers under each gill,
a sandpaper feeling the small mouth
breathing in vain. he imagines showing
his dad, receiving the proud beaming smile.
but what if the fish is too small,
will he be mocked for not throwing it back?
but at last he decides, makes up his mind.
it will be a good lunch!

Friday 5 October 2012

Me and the Gaffer


October 5

Morning light

Woke up early to go down to write.
Four a.m. and the house still and dark,
quiet for the soft hours before action
stirs the embers of electricity, lights
and laundry, coffeemaker and TV.

I pad down the stairs so gently
but, the three year old refugee
who lives in this house has
heard and I hear the covers toss
and the quick scampering feet
and a gruff little voice that
calls, softly enough not to wake
Oma; Grumpa, Grumpa, wait!

Thursday 4 October 2012

October 4

Where Rules and Inspiration Meet

On a horse learning to allow
the big moving frame to be
fluid in motion, using the bridle
to cycle the energy up and through.
It takes a balanced seat and a nice
quiet leg and a hand that can
coax the mare to listen.

With a pen, trying to release
your souls intention through a mind
with an ego wanting attention;
to submerge with your fears
into a sea of self doubt
and emerge with no self at all.

In a life where the rights all
turned into wrongs.
Where what you had hoped for
gets torn and discarded,
all the work that went in
with best intentions and prayers
is like shit in the paddock
from last year,
that makes the best compost.

Wednesday 3 October 2012

October 3rd Jesus Said

Jesus Said

Jesus said, I feel connected
when I suffer a child
to sit on my lap
for the kingdom of God belongs
to him who becomes
as one of these.

And he just might of added,
to let yourself be
careless and free
and in love with this life
for this is the secret
of the kingdom you seek.

It may take a long time
for all this to sink in,
but a slow knowledge grows
as your pace slows
and if you get this you'll see
that your soul at fifty
is one and the same
as that three year old boy
who sits on your knee.

Tuesday 2 October 2012

October 2

Can I Let Go

When my teeth grit with rage,
the thoughts splitting like lightening,
Can I let go?

When my friend becomes an opponent
and my good intentions are thwarted,
Can I let go?

When people despise what is good,
and spit in the eyes that care,
Can I let go?

When my best intentions are
interpreted as slander,
Can I let go?

When an impostor is promoted
in my place,
When the years of loyalty are
met with disgrace,
Can I let go?

Monday 1 October 2012

October 1st


Silas Marner

When I begin to love
I cannot stop
From keeping that seed
Nourished and alive
In spite of myself
For I am fickle
And desperately unworthy
But still
The kernel bursts within me
And my affections change
You are to blame
For a tenderness like shame
That curdles my face
Into smiles and laughter