The Anatomy Of Pain

forget the music, sister,
your obese ladder stretches forever,

lunchbox cheese, a smile that neglected
its mother and scuttles like a demented spider

into safe corridor.

cellulite ripples, and so do memories, lies
and forgiveness.

you have crosses too many lines
to claim any kind of citizenship.

kindly
die.

Kafka On The Shore

you stop me on the Avenues,
my hair has paled, my lips a rosy hue

musica, lingua franca

a waifish Jane Birkin, abundant Adele.

Jittered, jolted,
trying to catch up with success and stammer,

my stroll is clipped staccato

I recall that harmed time,
you were stalled in Prague:

I cawed, "Crow, my crow,"
but you were too unilingual to know

that I was calling
for Kafka on the shore.

over the counter...top

green girl,
absinthe shoots those ladder legs

you climb
holes and all

to the tattooed thrust of Redemption Hall.

your little winning streak

gentle man lady
slayer, your winning streak
persists a thousand
treacheries deep.

must be Westmount
in your blood or those impeccable
suits you were born to wear
during threescore years
as troubadour.

counting backward

no gimmick, just a bucket
full of heart slop,
slipped knot

your feral lies
underneath my life rack

breathing in and out
and counting
backward to the pact we broke

Happy Birthday, Sylvia

Where Is The Shelf For Disjointed Ballerinas?

I am happiest at turnstile,
the metallic divider

in or out
before or after

time slices life,
brutal diviner

there is a place for every torn ligament,
each bruise, bunion and blister

All God's freaks and whisperers

the worshipped and discarded

find solace
in knowledge

commuters and travellers
wear itchy woolens on the eve of winter

Can you smell my cedar mothballs
and my plastic brink enlarger?

The Mysterious Mrs. Shoe

she comes and goes
in a state of hushed chaos,

ribbons detaching
like errant kite strings

so much to support!

a feckless blonde hitchhiker
with a barefoot heart.

One-Hundred-Eleven Days Of Sweet

111 days (and nights) passed
evenly; one month had two full
moons. I stored the blue one

in my memory. Now I recall

so little, so much, a pond, an ocean
that leaps to our touch.

You made me wince
each time you left. This life is old;
I look toward the next.

 

The Promise

you don't have to die
until I do. I can keep you
warm, under a leaf or stone

never to be found,
singing your ghost song.

Your loneliness is a shawl;
it becomes you.

The Happy Huntress

~ tag: The Joyce Chronicles~

and for her last birthday,
she received a Mission,

fully decoded, unboxed.

How odd
to be inside
a shaken snowglobe

when your feet are glued stiff.

And though
there is so little time
between this moment and death,

you are enabled to pretend.

Happy Huntress,
go forth and extract deeds
from boughs and branches.

Landscape is the same for each of us;
it is all we have ever known
of our hunted universe.

in love with slave master

 

I will climb your back

until you collapse, Master,

 

unhooked you have no chance

to escape. Suspended like a confused

 

condor, your circles create

earth quakes. when you choose

 

to plunge, my heart discharges

an army of tin soldiers

with open legs.

 

What holds you high

will bring me

to my knees,

swallowing your love

or my release.

my best witness

far flung arms
and head attempt
to reconnect

my best witness stays
and says. white-ladder
legs open
and stretch. She folds

in accordian tears and bellows,
beautiful blond bull in love
with a drum of tin.

reluctant fingers

slender pink piggies
flex and cock, yield

to sweet sister, Trigger,

who preens as boss.

She will shoot
you home to kingdom come-what-May

through December. Her favoured
texture is tacky gone astray.

Her motto: Dry what cannot be blown away.

blond avatar

I can be your Marie-Line,
diplomat's daughter,
ocean liner.

I can be your little dancer,
positioned forward or to the back

for any graceful and deadly attack.

free-fallen in thunder bay

each day begins
with a hint
of what has been

yellowing-blue,
an orchid bruise

an umbrella cascade
of misfortune.

You have never been more
yourself than when you disspell
my dreams and tell
me to head north.

unsettled bride

 

 

this chase is wave

over matter, a rapture

of grey-shark froth

 

milking a rabid dog.

 

be still,

unsettled bride. your voyage

unravels like seaweed mistletoe.



raven and maiden

duped by a triplicate
forgery, your lore
folds into tidy collapse.

Raven,
how could you be plucked
by a blind maiden
who forgot the name
of your true totem?

rapunzel as ghost

the tower
was not spun from song;
your stay was cold and long

and even now
in your ghostly grey gown,
you insist on letting
your tresses down.

beast riders

You never paused, such resolve
as you joined the carousel of beasts

leaving me behind.

I catch the rapture in your eyes
between rides
and I know
you made your final choice.

box of ballerinas

velvet is more a secret
when blue than red
yet the gift box arrived
upon an Indian Summer door step

nothing mechanical about it
except exhausted ballerinas
not quite bereft.

apple cider friend

enchant me
one final time
with pink apple cider

and a dollop or a dime
of caress.

Wind is such a harsh boss
and all finery and lies

are hidden or lost.

little one gone wrong

the herd forbids
you to disobey,
yet your accordian heart
yearns to stray

a little farther
beyond the trudgery
of every day.

sick—we the sickened

no
fever sores
or razor-cut piss

can deflect my shame
or torture.

I was born to
blossom like a blister flower.

You find
amusement elsewhere.

So Be It.

My cold, crowded birthday approaches
and my sole comforts

are visits to Papa
on the outskirts.

Love never ends even if it claims to pretend.

never the less & not with standing

you chop your words,
truncated sausage on a butcher block.

blood pudding bags fly
every which way

we collide
on the wrong side of happenstance.

paper jewellery
does not withstand

precipation.

You— my erstwhile salvation.

We, The Bullied

our voice is passive,
yet we overturn rubble

to be heard.

We, the bullied,
shall be no more ignored

your flock
of mediocre, the average,
the unaborted

bleat sermons
to the good folk, the accounted.

The absent
are the focus of my rapture.

You will always be
tormented, yet your full

lips and lives hurt
like burning truths

or birds rehearsing stoic
throughout bullet bursts

who you might have been

those past modals
express unfulfillment

allsorts

like a liquorice bag
of disappointment

full joy
turned sticky

desire
often disappears
after a squirt

and then
the contrast of black nylon
upon dimpled mooncake

has no further allure.

you might have been
the One, but now you are

some other.

Those indefinite pronouns
no longer matter.

Wells That Wish, Kill and Tell

Not tells,
your twitch ever-so-swift

but wishing wells
that spill boiled disaster

your Killing Field,
so skull-cluttered and enboldened

by rats that scurry every-which-way,
tomorrow, today,

prefixes, suffixes in sheer
disarray— I
await your unforthcoming confession:

Now tell.

Turmoil and the Bladder Infection

if I could only describe
the torment of this infection,

I would pack a Yuki bag with
plum blossoms and green-tea scones.

Tuck my blonde
behind apricot ears

and be devasatingly still

until

a new day arrives
to the tin of powerpoint

chimes. To that spider
in my toilet bowl,
I call "Tsunami, mon amour."

End Of The Line

I have sung
end-of-the-line another fatal time.

numb-tongued and bereft
of refrain

the stale stained
spokes clang on and on

the other side of your game:

fishy and piggy
in love although maimed

my siren call
reaches
no one left at home

in conchcave.

Remember
that I was smooth and nude,
when you untangled our sea web.

my return

I slide
on a carpet of vomit
and ask:

Whose return is worthy?

hand-and-knee raw shuffle
with black coin
glinting like a prize hole

or

bold swagger of the conqueror,
coarse golden hair upon horn

townsfolk with eyes
more confused
than ever before
since the arrival of smart phone.

 

I Would Die For You, But

I already have
time after time after

and it becomes less
than sublime

these gymanastics of the tortured heart.

In fits and starts
I explained
that our meeting  will never be
in as much as it has
already transpired

in an ancient quagmire.

I was lovely; you were Coward,
and nothing you will say or not say
can convince me

other wise.

To You, Who Would Be Saviour

of battle-scarred toms and
anal-bruised annes

our cloth sizzles
and shreds under iron's
hot hand

everything must fall apart
it is written under shrouds
and inside virgin coffins

My Love,
I do not doubt
there was a time
Your Love

could hold me high above
my saviour's firing squad.

To You, Who Would Be Assassin

last time I blinked,
you were mere juror

cramped and distracted,
unimpressed with foreign borders.

my sweet disease
reeled you further
than a circus trap.

Now, you are destined for distemper.

I Will Never

confess to those pale
transgressions, no sins,
no claims.

I am vindicated
by years of self-denial
and hard-swallowed pain.

You,
who flaunt your attractions,
cannot understand my solemn subtraction.

loss wears a subversive dress

in and out
of orchards, cherry, plum and apple
I wander, a derailed being
hunting for my lost head.

could it be
the pumpkin fermenting
near the outhouse door

or perhaps the Indian
rubber ball chewed raw
by the neighbour's outlaw dog?

how can it possibly matter
now that your memory
assassinates my every  artful fibre?

firing squad recall

the criminal mind
is no more labyrinth
than yours or mine

we all long for
the memory before memory,

the perfect presence
of something that defines.

I recall your tastebuds
in those hours before dawn.
The firing squad coughed and shuffled
but our lives were faintly drawn.

Four Years Without You

let us debate
bridges, for we may never meet.

I continue to imagine
the perfect death,

a long, russet walk
with my father

his smile that
takes me in once more
yet never again.

No need to explain
the dull tug of pain.

ghost daughter

Father,
the eighth of October
is upon me

Do I choose to breathe
or be gently
tucked inside a snowy duvet cover?

The mind cannot imagine
what the heart has come to know.

 

 

I Will Endure

your barbs,
eloquently dipped in rose-gold venom,
will not defeat my senses.

I am here,
in endless cadence
to subvert your reticence
and claim my place

among the used and the repentant.

Where The Wind Blows

sucker-puched like a pro,
my delicate limbs flail akimbo.

Lost and abandoned,
I cajole Reason,
which is so solicited that it never answers.

My Secret Black Swan

you were lost,
castaway ballerina shoes

scuffed with torn stitches
and the memory of stage floors

my nostrils intoxicate
at the mention of a name

Master

your demands
were ever-changing.

How could I keep
up with the slogan?

Compete And Beheaded Try

my listless
out of sorts alibi

always to disappear
behind curtains
or fabrics far more sinister
and relentlessly inexplicable.

Tired In October

charm wanes
as October deepens:

the birthday approaches
and cold ovens
begin to shudder.
Enter, enter, sleepy blond heads
they cajole

your pink memory
silvers like a slice
of forgotten harvest

and nothing
will be possible
if I cannot be held
and worn before the first frost.

disheartened

staged,
your ruby innocence is lipstick
on a corpse, yet you yearn
for camouflage and ownership of heart.

something that once was new

you stand in wait
like a disarmed soldier
or wound down  ballerina

on stairs
amid sawdust

the sweet scent
of wood shavings and memory
of polite music
are your uncertain companions

you were always inanimate,
but now you grow confused
imagining there was true life
when once you were new.

accordian torment

for years
I lay in wait,
pressed by accordian torment

You
were quick to taunt
and pluck my hope-quills
one by one

until like a bird
dressed for Thanksgiving dinner

I submitted to all
that was certain to follow.

Ice Pilgrim

through a millennia of winter,
you trudged—ice soldier
with a chestnut heart.

Snow contains
both memory and voice.
It called to you repeatedly
no matter its texture or hue.

You never answered, though— just
poised in mid- motion
inside a quest of glass.

crow dreams

do crows dream
of electric fences—
corn kernels plump on the cob?

so many underwing treasures,
glinting morsels
which catch the eye:

a golden string
attached to beak
trailing religious icons
stolen from grieving households.

Assassin Hotel

I recall

three hardening bodies
posed in an elevator shaft

inside a clandestine hotel.

I was chambermaid,
with Euro-trash accent and indiscreet need,

easily bribed to silence.

Things become defunct
in new world order
and the bride that you ejalulated into existence
is now a prototype:


shoot, reload and fall.

There Was

a certain something
that looked so much like love

I could have sworn—
trapped short
upon a wild beast horn

Nothing can be certain anymore.

All my symptoms conspire
to design a Syndrome so sublime
that earth and mud
run and slide,
competing with each other.

cliché mat and Detroit rat

your unzen rasp
clasps my swan throat:

Be Sodomized,
illiterate hillbilly goat.

distress
is the note
of your Rip Van Winkle throat:

sleep long and deep, and forever
clench your
creep.