Injured Thoughts

 Are limping towards the
                finish line.   A kiss and

an insult dance.                    The sun is consumed by

bloated horizon.  Music

struggles to be heard
above slap-happy waves.  You

wear a white dress.  You dance
                the sunbeam dance.  Shadows

patrol crumbling
                                walls.      History awaits the right word.

Some Thoughts

Well, this is the last day of April.  Finally, the cruelest month has passed.  We can look forward to May, a gentler environment and perhaps gentler words with which to put down our thoughts. Ah Thomas, did you know that they would make April poetry month?  Perhaps the thought of breeding life out of death is the ultimate challenge to all those who write.

It is for me.

Looking back on the month, I didn't succeed in writing a poem a day, through I did try.  Life intrudes.  Work intrudes.  Is each and every thought worth the effort of recording it?  I don't think so.  In an article in 'The New Quarterly', a poet opines that she writes poems from notes, over time.  I write from the moment.  I've stopped keeping notes.  Quite often, I begin with a random thought which seems to require expansion.  I begin to expand, I lose my way, the writing wanders off and arrives somewhere, though not on any recognized rail line destination.

Writing as catharsis — journal entry.  I like to think I take things beyond that plain, though, perhaps I don't.  This is the way I understand writing — brush words against  your soul, see them spin away, realize that there is no GPS for creativity, just one's own sense of where you are and where you would rather be.

The Problem Is

Like an old spider web, the kind which weathered,
sacrifices disarranged threads to a late August wind —
rhythmic and forlorn, severed
from the touchstones of the initial vision —
the cedar, the downspout, the neglected chair.
The solution lies in an ability to recognize, in the withering chaos,
what once existed, where emotions flowed, how they rose
to bind events into sweet history — a stream
and stream-sound and laughter which was salve on wounds.
In the events, in the event that, how great is
a spider’s faith to envision an end and to begin again.

Words Are Not Real

Need the imagination to interpret / void
in which to grow / Petri dish of experience
in which to breathe  / and each breath is
a DNA string leading to unpredictable results.

Perhaps that is why the comments you made
last night while sipping wine after
the play / expanded on during the cab ride out
of downtown Toronto / perhaps that is why
the story you heard this morning
over coffee / it reminded you of your
Uncle Frank / your chalk drawings on the driveway
while babysitting your niece / just after
the first five thousand raindrops landed.

In The Rhythmic Silence

 It’s three in the morning                    
                                                                and Eugene
                insists we listen to                                jazz

in electric atmosphere.                        Storm centers hum
he avows.             
                                                I state that gypsies control
woodwinds.                          

A lost soul moves
from table to table                              plays the minor
                                                accordion.   

                                In the rafters of our actions
the sun struggles.                  And you smile

when rain begins to descend.             The orchestra is awake.

In That Instant When

It becomes — during a discussion between

creationists, history — slave
of perception — or rationalists — history
wild card in poker game —

it happens — I remember the way
sun slanted sand dunes — Grand Bend
and bent into sunset, camp fire, beer,
word games — the rush and wind

winding through your hair — words
dressing the sidewalk — 1969 —
reality two-stepping it with antithesis
and hair hanging down like a black tie.

Am I

 God?  

 Silence.  Am

I God?  

Silence. Am I 

God?  Silence,
but it’s not 

God’s. 

When The Pain

didn’t allow sleep, I
rolled this way          and that,

                searched for the most comfortable position

and dreamt those dreams which end on
an apostrophe to reality — a missed transit stop,
                lost time travel ticket.

Words don’t evolve from static situations —
they percolate until ready.
                Have been worn — at least a thousand times.

The description of you keeps changing,
 your bio constantly updating.

                Not a minute passes without deceit.

Age

Learning more about                          the impossible
                than the possible.

Brakes are applied.
                                                Blinders are on —

direct path to        a              playground           swing

creaking with        the gravity of                        memory.

Try To Remember

Exclusion supersedes inclusion.  Missing moments remain
fact, camera captures cropped to support the rule
of thirds.  He said, she said a third,
the rest was Photoshopped — emotions somersaulting
from the chandeliers when touching — earthquake smiles,
a vulnerable shoulder, the tight shot open
to interpretation.  When smoke and mirrors don’t suffice,
sheets prevail, ruffle and settle on time.  In the acid tongue
days which rain on us, what matters — comprehension
or the best frame positioned just so on the perfect wall?

The Truth?

No, these are stories, the flotsam
encountered while walking down the street,
the emotions which erupt like pimples
out of arguments and encounters,
slightly ugly and mostly real.  Important
to document.  Important to vent.  And forget,
the way the last lines of novels are forgotten.

The way the jigsaw puzzle is down to only
blue sky.  Hard to find contrast, something from
which the mind can draw conclusions.

And know what really occurred.

When You Watch Hockey

It’s a game.  Applied to business, it’s a business plan.
strategy stops short of mayhem.  Unless.  There is always
the long shot in from the blue line.  Icing for a reprieve.

Or the bone-rattling takeover cheque.  And you have
your heroes.  Those that light the way down the left wing.

Attach the blue ice.  And ice the game away.  Money

Means everything.  Retain the franchise.  Lose it.

Like the girl in the chick flick.  With tears in her eyes.