Spider World

Spent August, early September,
a grander destiny — taut webs
span eaves and faded asters.

Frost is the army in waiting,
advances across Macintosh,
loiters on bleached curbs.


I recall rain, earthworm odours
on drizzled sidewalks, leaf
yard salad, warm rooms, windows ajar

and grass torn by a hard tackle,
resettled on shiver pads; cigarette smoke
coaxing the eight ball, side pocket.

Information is inexpensive — books dance
five-four — decisions swirl
at machine gun gait.


Sunrise tints napping clouds,
colour loses direction; spider weaving
from front door to bay window

has yet to visit Rome and we haven't
permitted ourselves to create beyond
the peneplain of  syncopated vision.

Alien Blood

In transit and transition
between one door and the next,
combination or key lock,
we have not escaped the veldt,
emaciated prowling lions,
the frenzy of the watering hole —
and in an alien country,
where language has been deconstructed
into unrecognizable components,
intent baked by sun — when a bullet
is the irreversible solution,
steering back into before —

the man who ran from the TO bus
with a knife in his hand hugs sidewalk,
off his meds, off his life,
off the trail most of us imagine following.

The Dark Side of Your Kiss

arrives at three in the morning
under unreliable clouds / peekaboo moon

bar stragglers mutter staggered nonsense
car and apartment door slam / harmony

you mumble and you sleep / a spider
struts your memories / spins
imagined event threads into potential

in the morning over coffee
with bacon and eggs you'll recall

I had the strangest dream  
and nothing  quite made sense  

listening to your somnolent tale 
I wonder if the earth really loves  
its hostage / the baleful harvest moon 

A Concrete Wilderness





Elevator glides linear,

mooring at cubular countries,

then sails.



Cacophony  carousel,

a murder of business,

monetary lint.



Above the 19th floor,

vultures slowly surf

September afternoon.



When EMS arrives,

the woman with heart

palpitations decides to be well.



The parking lot

is ticket heaven,

another courier arrives.



On this carousel,

the centre falls apart,

spins into the away



of cold shoreline

and doors which remain

permanently closed.

Autumn comes to asphalt
and concrete meadows
bereft of the grandeur of death —

the pageantry dying seems
to tear from all of us —

that last stand in curling waves
and unstable beach, that last fist
shaking at consequences and time

that last kiss for the faded flower,
the last slice of sunshine flowing
down a sluice of maple trees

disappeared into the arms
of a rising moon singing
a lullaby to Charon.


Autumn comes to asphalt
like rain seeking cluttered gutters

shearing the everyday detritus
from our vision and our minds —

as empty cigarette packagers,
coffee cups, useless lottery
tickets, gum wrappers,
a condom mimicking dam

against the river connecting
birth and death,
celebration and celebration

a voice we hear and silence
although October wind rattles
the shutters of our eyes.

Layers

world glued to world
flexible cinema
and alternate endings

with rain machines
full gutters
people-wash philosophies

a discrete cafe
table in the corner
with centrepiece rose

a far place
far from the near
the streetlight and bus

the brush kiss
over starters
of calamari and rye bread

you know me
and I know you
all too well

but what the hell
this is September
and rain clings

like a phone number
to the sides
of our sentences

call me
ball me
stall me

as daylight leaks
like love from a wound
of rush-hour traffic

and we're caught
in its rainbow
of infinite colours

under this umbrella
of faded stars