Saturday 30 November 2013

Phone Call

I don't want to write.
Instead I'll remember
how grief took her
like demon possession,
heaps of emotion,
on a cold tile floor,
fluorescent light shading
us from her sight.

She had
left with her son
who vanished in a phone call
never to be heard
again.

We also changed
into transparency
as her husband lifted her
back to life,
but only partial;
what is lost is lost.

Monday 25 November 2013

Poetry

Is meant to be read aloud
away from the crowd.
Get yourself all alone,
a dog with a bone,
growl and sneer
at all who come near
while you chew
for the marrow,
neglecting tomorrow,
because no one can borrow
today.

Sunday 24 November 2013

Pardon

I can never know the outcome;
my mind runs to disaster.
Imagining the worst;
proven wrong well after.

I think I've learned.
Think I'll just shut up.
I'll learn to laugh more.
Learn just to give up.

And accept my pardon.

Rumi

Let me dance like a Sufi
And spin tales of desire
for a vastness of spirit
and unquenchable fire
For abandon he's drunk
all the wine that was made
The wine of your presence
that's made him insane
but so many they follow
and give up on this world
My friend let go
and give it a whirl.

Expansion

I have expanded my reality
from a string of solid facts
as narrow, strong and
cold as a razor's edge
to a wild chaos of possibility.

When He Left

When he left the first time
I stooped over the car and wept.
A neighbor was watching thinking
I must be having a heart attack.

The second time he left
we got into a fight
railing accusations
well into the night.

The third time he left
I hired a lawyer
and dropped five grand
with no place to land.

Now he comes and he goes
and I fit in the place
of allowing the facts
and accepting the grace.

And enemies don't prosper,
resistance never wins.
And I stand in the place
of I don't know, I stand.

What I Will Miss and Miss Already

The rough hands of my father,
the coarse voice of my grandpa,
my grandmother's scoldings,
my brother's embrace,
my sister's clear voice,
my daughter's laughter,
my wife's explanation
of the TV shows ending.
The smell of diesel,
the lights on the highway
at 4 a.m.
the snow covered road,
the creek cutting holes in the ice.
The German Shepherd's bold stance.
The Canary's loud song.
My cat appearing with
 a squirrel in her mouth.
My friends slight smile,
the way she touches my cheek.
The heat of summer
unfolding my body.
The cold of winter crunching
my face.
My old wood stove.
Sawing and splitting logs,
stacking neat cords.
Sandwiches and beer.
Zena.
Kelly Myers, Brock Real
and Dustie.
Sue Ball, Uncle Greg
and George who slept
at the office.

Why Write a Poem.

Because next week I won't
even remember this moment.
Because next year this will
come as a surprise.
Because to notice something
for it's own sake is to be aware.
Because to be aware is to
know yourself.
Because to know yourself
is to be divine.
Because to be divine
is to be other than this.
Because to be other than this
allows you to be this.
Because being this is pure bliss.
Because pure bliss is who you are.

Thirty Years

That's what that ring represents.
Three decades of working the margins
because that's what it is.
This ain't text book stuff
but invention, created, cooked up.

Out of lives and stories factual enough
but with the slant eyed version
that sounds like Chinese.
A name that means John but
gets lost in translation.

So do the lives that join into one
become monstrous and angelic.
You say that cannot be. You
cannot combine them.
Yes you can I say. Just look at me.

Wooing

All are from a single point to be treated.
Be decently modest and then with ease.
You may get the blind side of them when you please.
A title first, their confidence must waken.
Then your art many other arts transcends.
Then may you, lucky man on all those trifles reckon.
For which another years of groping spends.
Know how to press the little pulse that dances.

Squirrel

I see that electric
fire squirrel.
The pine
that survived a toppled maple
has grown, has shown
a might, a grace,
noblesque.

Dusk

How many poems can I write
of black wires and branches
cutting into the grey sky,
pink and green roofs,
some trunks as straight
as the telephone poles.

Saturday 23 November 2013

Things My Father Tells Me.

Anger is never worth it. This is why wrath is reserved for God.
If it gets a hold on you, well, you will have to run the gauntlet
of spirits that inhabit anger. They are as old as the planet and
they are powerful. That is why you had so much power in your
anger and tantrums. So did I. We felt invincible but as you know,
you end up wrecking and being wrecked.

Spirits inhabit everything. Obviously the best spirits to encounter
are the spirits of love. They accept everything which is a tall order
for us. But if you live in either love or acceptance these spirits
come to aid you. And with them by your side life becomes easy and fun.

That is what most of us on this side are experiencing. A few go
into the wrath and the denouncing but not many. After they go
we cannot reach them; they are in a different place. They are
even hard to remember once they choose.

Choice is your one big option, the gift as it were. What you get to
choose is to judge or not judge, to love or hate, to denounce
or lift up.  You face challenges as we still do. And it is hard to explain
but a part of all of us is watching and inserts these things into our lives so we
must choose. Eventually we all choose correctly and that is what takes
the time and many lifetimes to achieve.

You see nothing really matters because we all make it in the end. 
But it does matter at the same time because knowing what matters
is the nature of the game. 

I would say relax and have fun and this watcher who is all of us
will guide you through the challenges and journeys you need to address.
Learn freedom. I mean internal and not external. You see, what you feel
inside becomes the outside, what you are living. This is what we do here,
practice feelings, and we are able to help you as well.

I know you know that. I hear you say it now and then. I am always
pointing out to you the beauty of the earth and people, animals, insects
and birds and especially children. I know you see me in their eyes. 

It's great here. In many ways better than before. But the fondness for
life as you are living it always grows within us here. There will be
a culmination where we all meet again. We just never know when.

Love, Dad.

Friday 22 November 2013

Godspeed

Godspeed my friend, where did 
I get the idea that
we are more than you
are now. I'm sure that's wrong.

It's the other way round.
You are solid, we
are shadow, we diffuse,
we lack knowing. Shadows

inhabit where we are
now. But you live in light.
In fact, it is where you
move that causes reflections

that make us move and have 
our lives here. For from you
we come and to you we
return, like you we are.

Thursday 21 November 2013

Dear Friend.

This is a poem
that confirms that
even if a person
is the biggest asshole
in the world
someone loves them.

I know this because
I have been the
biggest asshole
in the world and
still somebody
loved me.

And you
have also been
the biggest asshole
in the world
and somebody loved you.

You do not need
to do much
to be an asshole.
Just dip below
the line of your
best behavior
let your guard down
become your unrestrained
egoistic self
Don't worry
You are still loved.

Wednesday 20 November 2013

A Better End

Shadows cast dispersion.
Your actions cause despair.
We all are schizophrenic
with voices in our minds.

That tear us thought from thought;
the mental limb by limb;
dismantled self we are and so
feed neurosis that is blind.

To the purpose then to gather
all in one, to pull the fracas
into a whole, all the chanting
becoming one eternal gong.

Calls from where we started. From
where it all began, the ancient
God who's sought by all and one.
I'm listening, nothing is resolved.

It just carries on, life after life,
creating stories, same old themes,
betrayal, revenge and the lovelies.
We die in our despair or pretend

a better end, the triumph of story
to lift a soul from Hades to send
it onto glory, where tears are never
listed. I instead choose that now and here.

Thursday 14 November 2013

worth it

Worth it!


Love has me stretched on the rack
of your mercy.
It is like a shot of tequila,
has me wincing at the taste.
I am an addict for the cringing feelings;
forcing my shoulders together,
and it is so good,
even if you reject me
and cut me off from him,
that smile and the energy
of his small body,
dancing and skipping,
throwing his joy around with every movement.
Just the memory and the knowledge of risk
lifts me off this chair
and I will not succumb to despair.

tyrrany

Tyranny


I certainly have volunteered
to these tyrannies
That force me outside my self control
Into obscenity

I threw the handle at the tin shed
It went right through
If I were coarser it would hit you
And you be fallen

If I were true I would confess
To over duress
The voices pressing on a nerve
Ever sensitive

And now the more with what I store
Anger slushing
Like the shit that's been stewing
Until it becomes

An overwhelming gaseous storm
Bursting forth rage
The venerable sage becomes
A loathsome ape

But at least he is free.

bosses

Trinity

My boss has an anxiety disorder.
And he's a carrier,
passing it on to unsuspecting victims.
When he's in the room people puff up
with frantic thoughts
like purple blowfish
warning off enemies.

My other boss left.
He was infected.
Was paid 200 G's to scram.
Now he day trades:
up goes one-sell;
down goes one-buy.
Anxiety breeding in him
like termites in Georgia;
too late for exterminators.

And now I have shingles;
a snake welt
up the back of my skull
and down over my left eye.
Angry and ugly.
It seems we're a trinity of suffering.
And we have blamed each other,
and like countries at war we will
end up together in the dirt.

traffic

Traffic Jam

It is nice to sit in a forest
watching a fox.
But I am on this highway
watching Joe asshole
cutting me off.
An hour not moving
Producing a trance and
The car becomes me,
I become it.
The tires become asphalt
below where I sit.
All becomes one if
you can see it that way.
Like fluid in a jar,
and if you did not know it,
you would not look for a car.
You would see flashes of movement
in a mixed jello mold,
which would explain something
like how thoughts create fusion.
Add colour to the mix,
See yourself as intrusion,
Creating the illusion,
Casting the roles,
Making curtain calls,
Because,
it's only a made up world
after all.

things

Things I Notice

One small bird stretches a vocal chord,
mixing with the smooth carriage
of wind and leaf.
Purple crab apple blossoms slouch
over a grey panel fence.
Streets reach between tall narrow houses,
siding, grey brick, red brick,
bright signs advertising error-
not this way.
Concrete telephone poles holding
street lamps over us.

Did you see the leaves poke through the fence,
the stop sign concealed by a shrub?
The bearded man walking a hairy dog?

The years have thickened my skins,
though I look weather-beaten and mangey,
my eye is keen as a hawks
and my hearing discerns like a razor.
My gait is swift and silent.
Few notice me anymore.

poet

The Poet

Awaken the poet in me
so I can see through the veil
into the Holy of Holies.

Awaken the prophet in me
so I can be the fountain
spewing eternal waters.

Awaken the priest in me
so I can stand at the altar
offering the blood sacrifice

Awaken the warrior in me
with the shield of faith
and the sword of truth
cleaving marrow from bone

Awaken the worship in me
to break alabaster
and squander perfume
on the head of the wandering Jew.

past

The Past

For me, the past is too big.
I have to return to it
slowly,
to inch into it,
bit by bit.

They say those
events that occurred
hold the key
to the forming of me

And every single one
contains the whole
that will open
unfathomed dimensions


For I once heard that
the Baal Shem Tov
Considered himself a
Fragment ofGod
whom he loved
a chip off the
old block of
everlasting divinity.


crow

The Crow

When I on my deathbed look back
on my days full of doubt and debt,
I do not think remembrance of lack
Will gnaw at my mind to forget.

Will rather seek for the moments
in meadows the butterflys grace,
The sizzling days a sacrament,
The hoarfrost I shall embrace.

The brook it calls me to release
burdens and worries, old and dear.
Wind carried fragrance of my decease
Skin, bones and cartilage sunk into bier.

Am I conscious? I cannot know.
People in fine dress below I see.
I laugh and croak from raspy crow.
Sit content in an old pine tree.

sweetheart

Sweetheart

I heard you knicker as I slammed the truck door.
I smelled the sweet shit steaming.
I felt the cool gate as it swung on it's hinges.
I tasted the tart apple as I bit it in two.
I saw your ears push forward with your neck erect.
And I knew something existed between us,

I heard heavy clunking of steel shoes on cement.
I smelled the stringent mass picked from hooves.
I felt the curry and tasted the dust.
I saw your coat shine as I brushed with the grain.
And I knew you held peace in your mind.

I heard leather slap as I lifted the saddle.
I smelled the deep oil rubbed in.
I felt your soft mouth as I set in the bit.
I tasted my own dull sweat.
I saw you so majestic in tack and well groomed.
And I knew I was blessed to have such a partner in you.

raw materials

Raw Materials

God is not waiting for a new you,
as if you were a mistake waiting
for correction.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made
and you are still a work in progress,
every moment, every second every breath
is a divine
miracle in process.

You are right now the essence of life,
that was intended to dig roots,
grow stem and leaf,
and bloom flower to
attract and reproduce
before dying to seed
and returning to soil once more.

It takes raw materials to build a house,
a painter needs paints and a canvas,
the sculptor needs clay dug out
of it's settled place to be moulded.
And God needs a life like yours
to be God.

private

Private

Her voice settles about my head
Like an offering of pearls
How could the feminine hold such
Power to entrance a thug
The Lapis lazuli eyes that seem to phosphor
Like the lights in the northern sky
Lips of ebullience
Lashes that hold butterfly grace
Long black ringletted hair like
The mane of a proud Friesan mare
Your flesh a soft instrument of torture
My senses flagellation as retribution
To my common sense

I need to bolt me in my room
And recite psalms
To save myself
From your terrible allure

mid life

Mid-life Crisis

Sometimes, its quite boring this life
But only for five minutes
Until the strife begins again
Then it's quite engrossing
The good and the bad and
What you should have had
It all comes back full circle
To this place TGIF and
Wind it up again
Tell some stories
Quaff some beers
Saturday morning headache
Take the kids to hockey
Will Tommy turn out Gretzky
The job stretching long ahead
And the marriage
Like a road on a map
Etched in folds that wear
And tear and dissolve into
Fragments with use
So do I change with years
Of care and become discarded
But then free and
That is where I begin
Again to venture
Where no one expected
Not even me.

love

Love

Is love anything but attatchments and habits
and remedy for alone?
Am I so drawn out of myself that I can never
find my way back in?
God help me that pathetic.
I should infuriate at waste.
I am!

Jehovah called David his beloved while David took Bathsheba.
Solomon was the greatest king but had more concubines
than chariots and horses.
I take pride in monogamy.
Shoulders like granite bearing.
I was.

I am confusion left on it's own to bury deep
in a hill of stale dry crumbs,
trails of ants leading down into busy mines.
I lunged ahead for the best.
I fell, alone for the empty.
I sing.

Many come and go but I am one who is fearless.
Not for courage but for weariness and discovery.
You cannot hold me anyway.
You spoke too often to hear.
I end.

love

Love

Is love anything but attatchments and habits
and remedy for alone?
Am I so drawn out of myself that I can never
find my way back in?
God help me that pathetic.
I should infuriate at waste.
I am!

Jehovah called David his beloved while David took Bathsheba.
Solomon was the greatest king but had more concubines
than chariots and horses.
I take pride in monogamy.
Shoulders like granite bearing.
I was.

I am confusion left on it's own to bury deep
in a hill of stale dry crumbs,
trails of ants leading down into busy mines.
I lunged ahead for the best.
I fell, alone for the empty.
I sing.

Many come and go but I am one who is fearless.
Not for courage but for weariness and discovery.
You cannot hold me anyway.
You spoke too often to hear.
I end.

bee

Kelsey

Cool breeze on my neck
quiets the whole blood.
Children squeal in joy,
or terror,
or anger.
Adults laughing, people quiet,
while cicadas moan in piercing cry.
Slow ripples of lifetimes carry the moments.
My wishes fizzle within the insects sizzle,
from the great giant willow.
"Don't fear the bee,"
I say to the child.
She looks at me with brown eyes and a smirk
as if to say,
how could I surrender this power
to draw my parents attention.
By a raised eyebrow I suggest,
you may be better off without that.
But the signal is too subtle
and her dad swats the bee.
Off to the hardware store to purchase
zappers of brilliant green
with wires that melt the yellow jacket
while legs flail
in furious helplessness.

Unfold yourself,
so we can read
what is written
in the private places.
"What, and lose my self importance?
Who would I be without it?"
A Bee!

lost

Lost

Your soft ambition has
Trodden the acquiescent spirit
And
Did it matter
Was there consequence born of this
Union
Or were we both
Becoming
Dangerous
In our opening to each other

No one knew it was happening
But it did
Occur
Right under the noses
Of those spitefully aware
But they did nothing
Because it did not register
On the pattern
Of their minds

It is to you I return
When I've lost myself
In this tearless place
Of cells that weep
I have been here for
A thousand years
I just keep finding you
And you draw me out
Into this hazard

Is this a song of love
and innocence
Where the night sky stands
For itself
Because it holds every story
Ever told
And our story is there
Ineffable mention of two
So small and illiterate
But I don't need more
Do you

i love you

I Love You

My thoughts have slowed
To a murky state
Where the scum
(some of it natural)
And the leaves
Branches and sticks collect
In a rhythm moving circular
Around the events we shared

I can see how our
Different perspectives
Gave us each
Something simple
That we took with us
And as I see you there
Your mind no longer with you
But mine I still have
Evoking images
That surround emotions
Informing me
How much I love you

street

A Street in Toronto

The tall Jack Pine with two trunks
One curving away, one straight standing
With bushes of needles
Forming it's own blurred visage
To try to focus is to adjust your reason

The fir droops its strings of
Coniferous softness

The massive walnut
Black and reaching
With strong arms disproportionate
To their circumference
Wide births of leaves
Crossing the road and
Filling the yard

This old neighborhood is
Quiet of action
But Kingston Road drones
In the distance
Trucks and traffic at
All times consistent
These days are full
They can't hold much more
But this street is empty
Except for the trees

hungry ghost

Hungry Ghost

I left my life today.
Walked out and left it standing there,
with it's attendant worries, griefs, despairs.
Said, "don't call me and I won't call you."
I sailed off into a void,
where I was no longer.
Where the emptiness was suffocating,
and I questioned nothing because I was nothing,
but the want of something.
So I went back to my life,
to where I'd left it and it was gone:
I could not find it!
"I am a ghost" I said,
"wandering in empty space
seeking now those things
I had declared loathsome,
and repugnant."


Oh... but you know me:
Because I was you.

Him

Him

A lake serene, soft and thick,
dark mirrored images deciduous.
Silence beckons the quiet mind.

My heart racing slows it's pace.
Pulse meets air, muted sigh,
at a lake serene, soft and thick.

Smell of decay, compost dreams
of who I was supposed to be.
Silence beckons the quiet mind.

This dense being, inside skin.
Earth's epidermis, ozone blue sky,
over a lake serene, soft and thick.

Here I feel you, sense your form,
The gun, the cap, scan for birds.
Silence beckons the quiet mind.

Smelling the Rothmans tinged air.
Hearing the ducks, stand ready.
On a lake serene, soft and thick,
where silence beckons the quiet mind.

Sunday 10 November 2013

30th

30th Anniversary

It has taken me this future of time
To learn how to love you.
I grabbed the scalp of your fierce grip on mine
To shake us into the truth.
We circled in a madness of crazy ideals
(I don't indulge you I accept you)
Because we believed we could pull off a miracle;
Daring god to send us a job so insignificant
That it could change the world
And we did not notice because it had braided our minds into each others
thoughts,
Each attempting to throw a quick fist that would unlock the
embrace.
But neither of us would risk the eternal
separation,
And the answer was left in a child a woman a teenager adoption cancer;
The radical faith that dares them all to face us to shout us to wrestle us
down,
While we remain locked now fused into each other into one the division worn
frail.
If one goes down the second is done but we stood and they watched and
then the
Bonds broke but the spirits were merged and our thoughts meandered
as gods mind did when the prayers were answered.

Friday 8 November 2013

Lets Build It

An ark
An idol
A temple
A brothel
An image sculpted
An effigy burned
A gallows with shadow
A steeple reflecting
Erecting an archetype 
The phallic, the womb
Create a dark planet
And the bright morning star
The desert, the mountain
The heat and the frost
Feel what it is
To mourn and rejoice
To fall and arise
To sleep and awaken
To awaken then die.

Thursday 7 November 2013

The Pack

We prey on the weak.
Forsake mercy for food.
Males watch the young so the bitches can hunt
An adult is a mentor,
be it parent or uncle or aunt.

No one lives too long, you can't.
Nor would you want to.
Being has purpose,
there's nothing we want
and it's magnificent out here.

We breathe the sky,
herald the night.
The colder it gets
the harder we play and fight.
You can join us by becoming a wolf.

Tuesday 5 November 2013

Rob Ford

I was brought here.
I never came.
And I never thought this could happen.
I am opened,
my spirit keeps leaving
and returning and leaving.
It wants me to go,
to abandon this mess.
And if it were not for love,
her love, their love,
I would.