The Fading of a Dream
and into something more real
fake grass on an outdoor patio
with drinks of sweet tea to soften the loss
of steps not taken and steps overstepped
staring down into a spiral of outworn sorrows.
and into the party scene of trophy memories
linked arm-in-arm with felicitous gestures
jokes, semi-serious, half-profound, half laughing
heartily stalling a painful feeling.
shadows chase me now in this stony castle
where I barricade myself in corners of straw
you and I no longer feel through the photos there
proof that we had loved once and taking me to a
warm place
a small blanket, enough to cover the legs
and arms, or even a torso, but not the whole body.
A Creation Story
I leapt into a star and
couldn’t get out of it
it was hot and
stifling, like being in someone else’s dream
when people saw me, I
become my own spectator
a telescope turned
inward into an eternity
I came out as a wave
and nourished many life forms
from crustaceans to
trilobites, up a scale of emergent complexity
I watched crusaders
clash and vie for the living air
while waiting for the
sea to evaporate into the cloudless sky
life is all around
struggling for survival
my tears are but the
salty foam that gives them courage
my warmth keeps them
vibrant while they do battle
yet I am the mirror in
their eyes
I am the fire, the
water, the air and stones
I am Medusa inverse, a
being who somehow survived
and braved the terror
of reflecting my own struggle.
Caving In
I fall when I see your
words
You must be joking,
then---
The words just aren’t
there,
they are looked deep inside this stone
I am floundering to
show you how I feel
I am terrified that you
will hurt me more
But who is this ‘me’?
Couldn’t I just leap and let go?
Nothing is so clear to
me anymore
All Four Corners
Out on the streets, you
strike quite the discord
Green pants and some
other colored melange of gold and silver brocade
Silken auburn hair to
top the elaborate accoutrements
A pricy pattern clashes
with the indistinct greys of the city
You meet Mr. Parker on
the corner of Struggle and Strife
You are emitting a
perfume that nobody can recognize
And are everything that
isn’t a cliché, with none to lose.
Did 2320 A.D. take an
inclement turn?
Only you and your
doctor will ever learn.
Your people are on a
mission that has no return ticket
You’re an
anthropologist who just happens, by chance, to blend in
And what you bring with
you is your strident laugh—
A ticket to all the four
corners of this universe
One day you wake up to
realize
That you don’t belong
in the future or its past
You are somewhere in
the crux of two cultures
And you don’t know
where you’ll scatter yourself on the return trip
Some molecules
dispersing in cloud rivulets
And some even make it
to Aldabra
Between the moons of
Mars
and the spiral arms that hold you
Where then will you
stand?
You take a chance and
dissolve backwards
into the heavenly plan
A Cafe, Yonge/Sheppard
this rhythm has no
focus
where am I?
the screen upon which
we project our latest fears?
and who am I?
the sounds, the
sweetness, the smell of coffee
lingers in the horizon
of experience
the wriggle of the pen,
a solid book, a table brown and hard
again, what do we make
of it?
immersed in the space
of things, the very time of night
the this, the thus, the
uncanny in-this-seat
a sparkling champagne
half-moon overseeing the all
calm autumn breeze with
no place in particular to go
the details dissolving
into static on the radio
steadily, this time,
this place, not to be emulated
this very not in the
musical songbook
not to be replicated.
The Eye in the Hand
There was a man who, in
his own way
Touched my soul one
cool and sultry day
He showed me an eye in
his hand.
Though he was blind by
birth, he has an eye
Embedded firmly in palm
of hand
So one day, a calm and
sunny Sunday day
He grabs me by the
lapels and tells me,
So squarely and
self-assured
That a blind man still
sees darkness without his eyes
What do we use to see?
Even the gods
themselves feel stumped by this gambler’s question
Even a fool should know
that seeing
Doesn’t end when the
lights go low
Something always
lingers in the bottom of it all
A thing indescribable,
lurking behind every experience.
And can you tell me
what it is? He laughs
Eye in hand, hand
concealed deep in fist
See the tumble-down,
tumbleweed universe
So well planned but
ready to burst like
A bubble in the wind,
to avail itself and leave us
all naked and blind.
Czar of Nothing
A walk alone.
watching news in the
darkness of night.
smut and blood after 2
am and the smell of ancient smoke.
shocked by the static
of VCR,
he finds himself awake
in a dream
only to find himself
the Czar of Nothing.
he walks out on the
balcony of his 2-half star motel
and marvels at the
multitude of red cars
counting the ones he
can spot through fault-finding
fact -absorbing
telescopes
in time to table it in
Volume 7 of the Great Unread.
the women and men, they
are mostly devotees of the modern life
they plan their
vacations with measuring spoons
he thumbs a grand
salute to their efforts and gives them a smile
then heads for the
Continental Road-side breakfast of corn on the cob
wearing his cleanest
dungarees and a fez to top things off
and wishes those tourists
he had the dream
still embedded in this
time-piece, on schedule
and wishes to keep
track of something
like the prisoner who
counts his days with fine strokes of chalk
and still he sees them
passing by to their destinations out in the sun
desiring to be lord of someone
the tv has a control as
well, which he seeks to turn off
and surrenders to the
desert of the unconquered land.
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