What if one chose to swim instead of ride,
Climbed, cold and dripping, from this blue river,
Refused towels and fires, every offer,
In preference of solitude? What if
The wet traveller had no choice—
What if an exterior force impelled
Such watery journeys? Picture it gone:
The bridge removed. The river, an ocean—
Or a widening gulf, shore receding.
Somehow, all boats turned sieve. No luxury
Of bus or bike. This is a strange country,
This of both crossings—destitute and rich,
Choosing and coercion, truth and fiction.
A land, in our minds, welcomes all drifters.
Today Earth is at perihelion.
It’s hard to believe
we’re closest to the sun.
Air hangs damp.
It’s hard to believe
When sky hums gray,
Air hangs damp,
And doves refuse their dule.
When sky hums gray
I turn this direction to see live things
But doves refuse their dule
And perch in isolation around the corner.
I turn this direction to see live things,
Glimpse only a stranger
From this perch in isolation.
Earth flies nearest its star.
In motion, about to sing,
the viewer walks and walks
as if hunting for childhood
and death to imbue the foggy air
in upswelling umbers. Her wished-for gift
has slid into the emptiness, low,
or in the corner, the space surrounding
her movements. Driven to remain
while she knows the artist, mesmerizer,
touches chance, none of it makes sense.
From slow gel, what emerges?
Not a forest. Not pretend or metaphoric births.
Sureness of self, in this breathing state.
Encounter, burning to ash in the emptiness
around airborne parrots, a juxtaposition
of fragile secrets about what lies beyond.
Would it surprise you
to know all elements of reverie?
Tools for patience
and missteps?
When you fill spaces until
the right thing happens,
harmonies of brown
and gray, in sunlight,
cloud cover, rain?
Humans emit vibrations
as the elm and maple trees, the wind,
find stillness.
How often have you wondered
which one,
what is as important as
what is left out?
Long he walks in silence,
carries silence, eating, running,
dreaming, but brings to answer doors, our guardian,
clickity claws on hard floors, a woof, ancient
inherent, and basso, and his growls
for young men who broach the garden.
Knees in wet grass I garden,
belong to old dirt and dog silence,
drop my fear, my furrowed brow, my growls,
find the calm of free running,
a link to the ancient:
dirt as sanity’s guardian.
Rhythm was sanity’s guardian.
Decades ago I ran beyond street and garden,
ran along sand and rising sun, ancient,
familiar, ran in wordless silence,
Wait for the moon
in this wild cacophony …
howling wind holds
its own silence …
listen to whining
branch and rustle …
Learn to wait
in gentle ellipses …
lights blink three times
answers to questions …
I don’t know how sun
and clouds understand silence …
Expect when facing mirrors
glimpses at infinities, sureness
of self, in this breathing state, instead, discover
bowed lattices shuttering future or past or whatever
looking glass holds and shows with its silver surface:
no person, no time, no assurance. It is a bad habit
to check every reflection for presence
as if hoping to be swept back to innocence,
but forgivable. Walls and windows play the reel
in reverse and blink in synchrony.
(Montreal)
The city rides a cobalt river, glints
warning of turmoil and perpetual winter
from its extinct volcano perch
excels at mighty blizzard depths
and flake lace tablecloths, at treacherous
dustings over ice and white swirling columns,
blinding and same as those which hoodwinked Champlain
in the time of beaver skin trades
During dark months, softly overnight,
snow arrives, redecorates,
frosted slum becomes morning wedding cake,
grass-roofs-trees-streets wear one white sugar coat
When citizens awake they tromp
through scenes as monochrome
as old Brownie prints,
So many poems are about poems.
So many poems are read only
by other poets or—a few—by persons grieving,
hunting for a match for the eulogy,
because poetry taps into our mournful centers
and we seek certain sounds more than meanings, or a sense
of knowing. We are satisfied with suggestions.
After nineteen days of sunshiny cold, our city
returned to its better-known self which is wet-streaked windows,
rain-soaked smells of soil, swishings of cars through shallows
where streets once stretched, and to its preparations for mysteries
by knitting shocking pink hats and scrawling slogans on severed box lids.
No one knows whether a frozen patch
of hard clear days or a week of warm deluges
Almost is the now we live in.
Always tempted to hold onto something we barely touch,
Barely feel.
Answering calls to voices we just missed,
Fading away to an endless cycle of "what if?"
"What if we had called sooner?"
"What if we shouted louder?"
Feeling hopeless because we let things slip from out fingers
Leaving regret the winner and you knocked out in the corner of "then" and "now",
Shouting useless words like "how?"
"How could I have avoided that?"
"How long until I get another chance?"
Living in the now and not the second after
Or before.
Living in the moment that you really wanted and not stopping short of the cliff
You don't know if something will catch you but you should jump anyways.
Went up to cross you—
yes you—
footbridge slim,
two meters wide and you were long frowning,
though ever slightly, over Tatum.
Incorruptible, you always make ways to places not here,
as ponytailed Venezuelan boys wheelie cross
your parabolic back,
and the slow fluid fills
the ever-thirsty mouth
of Bahía Vizcaína,
who,
in the face of language,
is in fact,
a lagoon.
And the pelicans probe her in the night
Industrial din, piercing deep inside the walls.
Birds chirping or are they clamouring?
Agitating sounds, or simply love calls.
Spring breeze flirting, playing around,
sun scorching and sizzling, layers browned,
Rust cities, mechanical noises, quirky sounds.
Mango flowers, buzzing bees tell another story.
Summer come knocking before I leave this town.
Shades of dusty brown on the teak over my head,
Dead leaves, funky flowers or are they seeds,
Breathing in the funny air, full lungs before I recede.