the observer

watching the end of one thing
or possibly all, in a room decorated
with corridors.

the scent of you inside this wall
weakens my fingers, kidnaps
my call.

your message is swept
like debris, like debt
and I lose memory,
lose regret
in a moment of possible death.

when you died

I had excess words
to fling, far and thin,
sinewy kites
that strained against string

and the curses rang out
fish that fly, hearts that swim

doors that close
on the sly leaving
your memory to stall
under a camouflaged sky.

a foreign religion

flutterby, grey moth
that silkens this still gate.
the clamour outdoors
is fanatic
in this darkened place.

aftermath beckons
with lips as twisted
as a splintered
torture bench.

inside-out quotation marks

if she had not been stitched
inside out, she might be pretty.
As is, her condition
alarms all passersby and even
those who choose to pause and watch.

"It's my heart!" she exclaims, "It was created
like this." such radical deformity,
such  punctuated bliss.

intermezzo, mon amour

the theatre where
you mulled opaque white berries

has long since disappeared.

I ghost-walk through December's
playful chill.

A pause can smudge and blink
or bury deep inside a snowy throat.
Animal tracks decorate
sidewalks endlessly parallel

to closed crime scene boutiques.

December Swan

all that glistens
is not silver.
strung soft lights
mimic tinsel.

I blink hard
and whistle, glimpsing
a ghost train, catching winter.

by the wayside

no torture clock
could stalk you even
in Allegory Alley
where sea glass burns
like Ethiopian opals
and brides decompose in glory.

poem as chameleon

you could be written
for anyone about any loss, any wrong done,
my any time chameleon song.

you could be chaste and sly
or as mournful as a November
sky, my

chameleon alibi .

calling you again by one of your foreign names

my stranger, my hungry foreigner,
I have glimpsed you once
again at death's simple door

and I palm your chin,
caress your impossible neck

wait for an unlikely grin.

in the concert hall,
you were the girl
swathed in tulle, the swan
beaking faux pearls

the lights dimmed;
wandering Jew music
mused us back

to where I call
you again and again
by all your unknown names.

gemstones for the dead—painstaken

for you and only you,
would I unravel messy lineage

sift through  boxes,
unopen yet not
forgotten. the tumblers

sparkle joyous; your name
is remembered

when

watermelon tourmaline
cascades string upon string:

Ethiopian opals, unheated,
untreated, wink like delinquent
pearls in fecund oysters

jewels as silken
as sari sashes,

spider eyelashes.

irridescent beetle backs
crunch under tooth, el dente

my dead darling.

I am the gatekeeper
of Cemetery River End

 

and I submit respect
to those who live where I must work,

an unending undertaking.

gloved

he carries you down;
you claim it is enough
meaning time
has overswept

we are collected
in bins
ungalvanized, unsanctified

is there ever a final
fairy tale? a story
so ghastly, so grim

that your small heart
flip flops, entangles
upon a branch
of someone else's making

Second Guess Avenue

Now that my chance
lies diluted in an hour glass,
I may visit the almost street
that still yearns to be a boulevard.

Courtyards and balconies
yield to hardscrabble
alleyways and the stained glass
kiss on your rosewater lips
clots in its very own
unflowered yard.

eternity shore

when your bed
is a raft, a cave turned
inside out,
a heartbeat pressed flat,

remember me
and our most gentle ride
beyond  all known shorelines

in between lives.

fool's gold and lies

did we truly meet
in the city of gold

with mud-caked boots
and pans outstretched?
we copied the art of silt and sift

tossed feverish,
poker-faced, gin-breathed.

and once again
the Chilkoot Pass
beckons; the allure
of alchemy fools

our mineral eyes to death.

if words had wings

in flight,
balletic like a winter bird

a soldier in mildewed
issue dreams

of a Russian cigarette, a Turkish
delight in an oval box wrapped
with rose velvet string

if words had wings,
this settled coffin could be a nest,
not a box of stupefying being.

in the backwash

each room is turned
inside out, the acrobat

fails to be precise. meaning
stammers holed with doubt.

your life is pasted
with serrated postage stamps.

ghost ride

your last traces,
smoke and vapour
a smudge of regret

lingers without texture.

recycled time
and time again,
you create a slice
of space for me
during this white ride
to Elsewhere.

Joshua's Tomato Heart

these plump bulbs like
homely noses, promise
changing hues before the month
of June and I visit

always on the other
side, your devoted daughter your
garden bride. love

shape-shifts
through stucco walls,
catches me, cuts me:
a tomato heart on a slab

 

pearl with the girl earring

you are mistress
of old evidence,
yet that does not stop
me from sanding you to death.

a simple bruise—no fancy terms

your house tilts
within winds of my bloody
imagination

and therein
lies the bruise,
beaten like a beefy heart

dragon-dead, still slippery
with scales of steel betrayal.

ah, my mercenary
smoker. there was never

a fire, merely ashes
too damp for a final drawing.

Lady Falter and Sir Bumble

slide on the same avenue
each same day just after noon

they bob, curtsy, bow, nod
longing only to text
from afar—that intricate hieroglyph
of deformed thoughticons.

he wonders if her fur
is true or false, a shade just warmer
than ice-castle blond.

she questions his slapstick
intentions when he offers
her bouquets of bleeding umbrellas.

they attract
waves of pedestrian attention
during tryst-session as it may become
known all over an ever- peeling dilemma.

lady vagabond madpath

my feet delight
in dust and clay;
it has been such a long,
maddening journey

all the silk ladders
that lost their knots
the picnic baskets
weaving smoke and rot

it was always about you,
every step, each hushed thought

now I learn to foil shadows,
roast chestnuts and tumble opal clots.

rustic love

when I saw
you without a head,
it made me shimmy
out of my snake skin;

it made me fall
in love all over again

your parts
so much tastier
than the whole

of you never

forget-me-not.

joshua island

collected for the beloved,
we, the uninvited
fumble with our petty woes

grievances the colours of dun and beige
we are neutered so deep into nothing

that our imaginations collapse—unbuilt bridges,
unsung lines that might travel back

in time to You, Joshua, the beloved,
the only righteous one
among us, your disheveled, shore-torn islands.

moonstone love (for Joshua)

Finally,
I will not divide
precious from base,
love from denial

your smile
follows with neither
nor guile nor desire

we need no revolution
to be humbled and silenced.

 

sometimes a solution in tulle & froth

how clean this design
for the chimphouse, turquoise tiles,
shower curtains that feature dolphins.

I concoct a bubble bath
that bleeds and froths
tangerine gold with seahorse mirth

years and years of panic
in labs can be burped away
after a platter of home-baked
fauna and aubergine tonic.

my donation ring-tosses
past a thousand. a volley-ball
sized drain sucks fecal matter
and pituitary tidbits far and farther
from your farthest surgical disaster.

a matter of kindness

stalled upon a carousel,
it is no longer the story
of what is true or false,
but awkwardly becomes
a matter of mere kindness.

July Is A Swimming Pool

the trailer park kind
stocked with nubile girls

a red two-piece on caramel thighs
before they swell to fat

lips stung sugar-spun pink
cologne that mimics bubble gum

and the unforgettable aroma
of coconut oil.

the summer before you folded.
Underwater
your limbs revert to amphibian
and each blur
is a secret smile.

ugly, old man in a bad suit

you muse them
these young girls
from Bucharest and Sofia

their sturdy tanned legs
run toward you

posed on a rock or bench
often holding a frayed hat

that flops like a neglected pet

and there you slump,
your slouch as sullen
as your mouth

that cannot open proper
with its fence
of rickety posts

what the earth brings home

my garden hums
with venom and slugs

yet I discover
a tiny plastic shovel

dig shallow
nudge a teaspoon of earth
uncover

a juicy worm
disturbed from haiku sleep

I am inconveniently reminded
of your words, brown misshapen pearls
that bite like loosened teeth

the clumsiness of veronique rough

this clumsy path
whose title you claim
is mammalian shaped, so warm, so soft.

at the end of a picnic
or beginning of a funeral
when outdoor hearts
scratch fear,

I stall.
the presence of your absence
turns all celebration
into a recurring snag.

with amulets and chants
I call you back,
recall, recall,
abruptly at this final cost.
each fall, every doubt
is dipped in code, plated in chance.
What hope is there of landing unlost?

during the third freefall

metro riders
hold gilded memories
of the carousel

archetypal and mighty,
it haunts our flimsy shells

a Nigerian child
in white tulle, organza rosebuds,
hair plaited crisp, tight

I remember
the collective, drones or angels,
who can say?

sail with me on the tale
of neverending air.

always in blue

you drizzle keepsakes,
always in blue
on curbsides and cross-walks,

my back bends
my fingers snatch

I know how hard it is for you.

moral sense

how is it
that you always knew
which line was yours?

Never once did you
double cross, criss cross,
cross over to the side of gloom.

Perhaps—
it was the tin crucifix
that kept you safe,
that guarded your worth,

that
and the silver bullet
which nudged your thinnest cloth.

Rue De Terrebonne

hips and hearts thrust
tangled on Rue de Terrebonne.
forever shaded,
arthritic branches do nothing

but remember. Before rose-red,
before clotted pink, green silvered
in moonlight, rotten yet sweet.

watching you die

almost everyone wants
to be so many places at once
until—it stops

infinitely, the curiosity
you used to trap
in bakelite jars
and intricate boxes

now brutally unwrapped.

the year of my recruitment

post-apocalypse V,
I was recruited as Juicy, cartoon character,
with only a partial path back.

not quite stranded,
I reshaped every feature
and fantasy: hollyhock, starfish child.

doors opened in and doors
opened out, but I was always alone,
glittered in doubt.

enough

's enough I
will string you up

make you choke and dangle

daughter you have taken
my money and my marrow

what causes you to believe
in an unlikely tomorrow?

on the intricacies of memory

you're wrong but then again
perhaps not. my memory

languishes in a polyglot cell.

And love
lingers, a shy teenager shuffling
scuffed shoes on a coarse welcome mat.

First you're in then
you're out. Your grin

enchants me with its optimistic doubt.

research into nothing

she cannot
stop. birdsongs feeding
into bloody eardrums

flattened palms
pressed tight; sticky gauze
wrapped not at all

right. time vanishes,
water balloons pop
inside deep velvet pockets.

good stuff, poet

and you too, poet.
thank you for posting
in your eye, poet
in your park, poet

your handkerchief is slimed
with pus and snot but

what is that crack in your skin?
it lets the sun in; it burns you
into cigarette holes.

disease rules
as in times of yore
when a sneeze
spelled doom and a kind word
meant a truce and nothing more.

end me to the dance of love

rough words spill
into a cardboard suitcase.
round and round the park
I go—foraging for

your scent. May is here
in name alone. Life closes
firm upon ghost lore.

"a shame," I can almost hear
you say; your liquid voice
so far, so far away.

when you tango me

back to this room
where wallpaper never seemed to begin

and I collect scent:
amber, woodrose, truffle oil,

it all ends somewhere,
yet I cannot forget
your birdsongs
and calls that dance untroubled
in our urban wildnerness.

scent collector

that cardboard satchel
you tote so jaunty
collects shavings
of memories

stones and dust.

And what would you catch
if bravery were not absent?

perhaps lakewater and scales,
mudcakes and pigeon eggs

a pebble in a nude boot—
your eyes are pearlized;
they haven't forgotten
the fishy treasures of the sea.

wishtale

Susan said, "take the deepest of breaths
and write about everything you've recurringly dreamt.''

Father carried me onto the next true adventure.
His colours wheeled around shades of off-blue.

When I recoiled at that unthinkable notion,
they urged and cajoled, "there is nothing
to fear."

Nothing—that magic word, the one
that eliminates each object until

I am saved from all that is left.

staged

the texture of your lies,
tulle scratching soapstone,
becomes a new kind of song,
a misbegotten poem.

criss-cross double cross

like the mismatched shoe,
cunning in rebellion
family members
smudge floorboards

chess pieces bowled
every which way

in taunting horizontal vantage
point. I could be any Alice

in this lethargic melodrama

and all because
the hero died—the one
with ambivalent sceptre.

January in March

round feathers fall
tricking the senses,
but most of all

kinetic memory is tossed—
rubber against brick

pink Indian ball
and the tangoists
raise high  fox collars
outside a defunct hall.

next time

someone pauses lost
in thought and you happen
to be target

you may think "do or die"
but precisely what to do

in extremis

all crises pass even
Stalin retreated,

unbelieving.

you scour
and sulk yet
the blues arrive

in startling tones of blushing burn

and you are jilted
in your vial of unlikely return.

irregular choice

when I pinch plump
pistachios out of soft jackets

and instruct saffron threads
to bleed into porcelain

once again
a cautionary tale
nips under shin:

choice of shoes, irregular.

eyelids like sinking ships

on Lost Avenue
I drop my list:

dragon's breath cabochon
in reverse intaglio

umbrellas overturned
saucy fabric boats

that bob this way
and that

czech glass mermaids

wink and glow I've swum
so far to watch you conjure

bitcoin amulets
from air and bone.

these women—driven

by ambition
so fierce it paws
dirt, slender she-bull
in the ring

pierced by foreign
history, stammering
"no" until

it arrives,
soft yet scratchy,
an old-school memory burn.

mr. precedent

you were ahead
in age and intelligence

Mr. Precedent
when did you get
locked in the palace
of endless regret?

meditation for a refugee: do not come here

Are you still there? in that vast expanse
of ghostliness

kettle steam, sandalwood smoke
from an almost forgotten dream

I glimpse you
across a lake
of diamond tulle and ice,
your aura winks
rose and gold

there is nothing
for you here,
in the land of Overlook.

may your pagan steps
bring you to a rock of no regret.

triptych

three is magically
cursed or wished
upon stars, quests and wedding guests.

all these new phrases
that I ingest then forget

collect—dyed daisy chains.

listen to the hem of my shadow.
I have become
so quiet; call it stilldeath.

inside outing

awkward position
process—repetition
muscular definition

from the inside out,
I reject all doubt.

shoe spew

listening to you IS
shoes in the dryer
banging

barging into my brain

repeated clatter

clutter of the dungeon order.

Posen The Second

In the spirit of show, not tell,
I offer exhibit A: Albert Speer
on trial,

caterpillar eyebrows
punctuate his confession.

collective guilt
is an ingenious defence;

it saved him from a patient noose.

His wife
displayed equal mercy
when Hotel Europa required
removal of a bagged adulterer.

everybody has at least one

Posen.

The time you were there
yet neglected to hear

nothing is as false
as memory denied

The Speer you could have become
redeemed through lucid apology

discarded despite
twenty years of  sincere masquerading.

the banality of

evil or love,
choose your toxin

step up.

your history extends
beyond the bounds of propriety.

but who are you?

We smile full
behind a cedar fan, a mintchip notion

of win and lose,
lie or some state

so subtle that even Albert Speer
would select the fifth and shudder.

faceless

on which wrist
do you flaunt your watch?

you are sinister
enough without pretending
to negotiate left-handed

all those plots—
verdant assassinations.

sochi hopeful

to see you again ! but at sochi,
of all places. it is not the terrorists
who perturb my senses;

it is that inappropriate
mild weather.

flotsam emporium

codes ravel, cobwebs of recollect
fingertipped—the too late
understanding.

murdered because of a sharp
tongue and bandit uterus

and as I read languid
on a carpet of curves and jerks,

I breathe renewed false memories,
the fetid Treblinka curse.

The Canadian Dollar

sickeningly,
I sink just like
conservative Canadian
currency.

Eleventh Act: The Janus Profile

in profile, you are,
Stalin, could you ask for more?

every father a tyrant,
each daughter, an uncertain raft.

deathbed rituals are
everything until they fade
and disappear.

and what
of love?

does it list
toward prior or beyond?

Father,
your smile was
all

I knew of sense.