3 a.m. Blue

wanna run through
the one, two, three, o’four clock night
a naked note and celebrate
the vanished sanity
of language, the way trees
become locomotives through the quiet world
the root and river world of earth
the way buildings are transplanted and grown
as high as the relative imagination
of snapshot light on a misplaced corner
where more than one is gathered
in bus stop tones
and the liver of love drowns
in the bars of expectant wood
dreaming of becoming a bookcase
a sideboard, a headboard, a cross
slashed into the earth of love

or a tear waiting to fall
because language is expectation’s disappointment

Happening At The Zoo

I watched Guantanamo gorilla through the chain-link grate doe-eyed
disinterest the way passing Cuban (we contained by bus) considered
us – tourists on a tour of the other world with its otherwise like us
culture twisted the way our front yard mulberry tree twists towards
the driveway and our two cars parked forever homage to a garage
full of things unfit for house for marriage and for home decorating

and I considered the considerable of cages (caught) containing even
this wind leaking from sunset down the boulevard of verandah
the verite of vermillion eyes encased by square links and the certitude
that escape is only a way of discovering other cages craftily constructed
to contain the considerable conclusions of our hapless helplessness
in the dull moments we cry out our failures to care or love enough

Boomer-Ku (Spring Rituals)

maple larva unfurl, tide from the womb,
sun's palm warm on dormant grass, slight
snow shawls deserted in north yard shade

I stand in my suit, wait for you beside
the car, impatient with sour anticipation
of the journey to Mt. Forest and yet another

funeral

Boomerku 2

in the book store I’m inundated with ideas
though tide edges away from rocks to touch sand
and arrange homogenous patterns
and I’m inclined to wash dishes
mow the unruly lawn short
clean the washrooms before lunch
tie my thoughts into Gordian knots
and have a glass of amber wine

Boomerku

what began with words is ending in the same way–
book litter, idea litter and life library where will and power of attorney is the denouement
before a chair, a window and the pecking order of diminishing perception

A Drink Becomes History

Time sinks through moraines until
it finds bedrock like rain slowly
settles into a parched landscape.

Last month when we drank water
I wondered when we were
drinking–a day in 1969,

rain falling on asphalt like music,
or restless wind shuffling memories,
a deck of 51 cards a fortune teller

reads? Today sunshine spins around
me as I dance to call rain
from the treetops where it sits, raptor.

Do you remember? I wore purples
and white. We made love and the moon
bowed to the sun, laughed and said, brother.