The wind has brought snow to music and words


The child that reads and leaps
words over midnight’s crescent—
that child has always known

there only is one road—
one road to travel home—

one road that winds so stealthily
through carnival mirages
and voices hawking realities

as though they’re vegetables
or elixirs to bring back memories
that have always disappeared—

one road that’s seemed so lost
as though it never was

the road that like a kite’s thin string
cuts through the boiling air
and anchors the kite’s bold dreams

of freedom to the surface
of this earth from which it imagined
there is escape.

Words that appeared while playing something or other in D

who are you today remade
in lines
as familiar as my bed

or the headlines in this morning’s
paper tossed on our porch
from the past

did you mix the crowds
from yesterday
into your coffee this morning

and did you repeat
those words you heard
at the end

of the play when the world
didn’t change
no not at all

when we were on
the other side
of the door walking through

first November snow

are your gestures today
as dramatic
as a soap opera play

where it’s always
absolute love
or the end

in a rush of music
that seeps
from the fabric of the room

like the sighs
of a million voyeurs
with blue eyes

watching the world
drip away
from brown to black

and disappear

behind you singing, there’s a tv looks like a microwave and I’m just damned confused

why’d I follow you—guru of Viet Nam lost—
guru of meaning-tossed moments—

there was no road, just air/
the sound of air/
the sound of sun/
the sound of moon/
the sound of imagination—
yes, that wind,
imagination stirring eye-see, ear-hear—
imagination rustling through

transport transportation into the future

and now meaningless moments
have blown from the trees, have settled
in the eaves of my history—

the child behind you in Newport lost his brain
long ago on a road he imagined was there—
asphalt stretching through his children/
through his wife/
through his body as he struggled—
the child behind you chose

to believe

and there was no road/
just settling dust/
just settling words
into the minds of nations and time
that were ready to change

if only for a moment
with the fervour of youth

hearts believing in false dawn

love) camped for campaign
along the borders

and there are mountains (as
though we’re looking
for Kurtz (as though—

a rhythm has been raided
and we kiss the music (not
(not (not the fabric and the hem
descended and ascending (dead
Kurtz prostrate before (so simple
love (and the assumption power

yes power camped for campaign
across the minutes
of breakfast and midnight

(as though an empty shell (as though
an empty wave (is not (not alone

Words and other odd theories for reality


I think we give too much mystery
away to words and that’s not it at all—

at all—

there’s always the sun, even behind clouds
and there’s always the earth damp
with rain or blistered and cracked like over-term eggs

and there’s always the grunts
we release while sleeping or making love
or drinking coffee to celebrate another afternoon
plastered like concert posters on every pole
of the conversations we engage—

the whole thing’s more like building-blocks
and macrame, the eye’s sharp angle through
a camera’s lens pointed at an event
that happening has already disappeared

and left a mystery—

but not one filled with words.

The last muskat grapes on the back deck vine and the maple on the boulevard.

A consideration of leaves caught by the flaming bush

separate I am
from the body singing
these waves to sleep
on the palm of small events

and when I am coffee or sex
and when sun and concrete
dance a tango
on the lips of afternoon

then I will genuflect
to the small events falling
from memory
as though it is autumn

and winter is coming
on the heels of my past

The Mendicant Tells the Truth


in the matter of trust
I trust
you found my message
placed on the coffee table
contra-grain to the
events you may have
judged else-wise productive
in reaching a decision

I have nothing else

nothing left but the echoes (

you walk out a door)
but which side—

which side of the sun has burned
everything to simplicity (to
a glass

of wine) red bricks—
pale constructs and someone’s promise
to reconstruct each word
Hansel thought

was a bread crumb
(trailing) from one life
to the next

and another
like so many bottles
(emptied) into (the hours)—
promises—and arguments
that convolute then pass—

are blown away by the movement
of another door (and we
sigh as though) angels are in the rafters
of the air
this door disturbs

The Poetic Stance

wonder if it’s in the hips
or the hair/stair/glare of the last minute
now discarded along with—

wonder that

when construction vehicles are backing up
as though—but no/you can always still see
the original lines vectoring down the fresh-paved road
like Gordian dreams

and into that and that and into the one standing
on the sidelines waving/mendicant of explanations
for this passworded world—

it’s there/in the back yard
where the leaves have been raked
into a sifting pile—it’s there
that we see such faces/hear
such voices/and walk such alleyways
as may populate the imaginary life line
a spider spins from eyes that were never created
to see time as more than just this moment

Yesterday was a sunny day after a few days of dull skies, like sore blisters, leaking rain. I grabbed my camera, got into the car early in the morning and drove to St Jacobs, where I parked by the Trans Canada Trail—that portion which tacks the old mill race. It was cold, near O C. The colours had shifted from the bright reds and oranges of a week ago, to more yellows, many of them sombre. It was more the colours of a razed corn field, as though the doors were being opened, the guests to the long celebration asked to depart into a weakening sun.

I brought only my macro 150mm lens, so I was limited in the types of photos I could take. I decided to go for isolated objects, though I did try a few scenic shots, with limited success, especially at f 2.8. The depth of focus is just too shallow.

The above photo was taken at the head of that portion of the trail. Someone had obviously found a mitten and placed it upon a rock for the owner to find. I took it as an omen of what was to come.







I had too much lens, but looking across the mill-run, the leaves in the woods there were spilling toward the water as though they were a lava flow.







Leaves over water above, with an old stump supplying an honour-guard of sorts.