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.

spasat'sia

hardship
of the kind only prior
lines could know my

sweetest Magyar countess.

Duress
could not compel
my thinning tongue
to babel

sounds and syllables unstressed.

Rodion Romanovich

There was a blitz,
evening glitter in pulses
of gold and rose

History a dragon,
bleeding scales and Arturian daggers

Petrograd
shuffled awkward Finnish feet

recoiled.

This flimsy power outage
summons patience and candles.

I lie in a still warm
den with poets
and liars.

in-win chagrin

I side-step
villains and vampires

to suggest

that you were never the first, and seldom
convinced the Test. I confess.

Life digests,
resurrects. You were always my

alibi, my one and lonely best.

just shows to go

that I can be
beautiful in the method
of Monroe

but where does that plug grow?

you know;
the one that turns ON or OFF,
like a satori in Alexandria
or an afterthought in Cairo.

more is the same

geometer beware
your focus
cannot triumph

over the conspiracy
of sheep devouring crow.

society does not collapse;
it merely despairs.

woebeggon consumerist

licking vinyl lips,
our pleonexist
shimmers to win

a bird of paradise,
erotically perverse
my hips narrow,
throat opens

to ingest all these heady
Christmas scents.

beautiful automaton

I long
for steel in place
of bone, the perfect anatomy,
no decay—bloodless stone.

pagan icons

Papa

you caught her
perturbed on your river rock

smelling of Sobranie tobacco and salt

I still have a red square
of your flannel fishing vest

your pipe collection
went to firstborn son

his Tudor bride blooms
roses—silver shot with gold

but we both know, you and I,
that green is the eternal pink

icons are born; they blossom
then die.

Life

is a fish, hooked and misbegotten.

Pleonexia In Petrograd

each winter,
Princess hems gleam higher,
the luster of pearl on rose,
sheen of ever-youngening skin

snow-globe dreams
tumble, shaken by faceless
fathers and fast-forwards
to the taiga of babushkas

dolls within dolls,
lacquer smiles
the cracking of the world into two

and the opening of New Year gifts:

techno-clones—the spit of silk.

Croatia, Mon Amour

Ah, to be so
unloved

defies defiled
memory,

albeit collective
or solitary.

My skin
is pale with a tint
of ballerina pink

My weapon of choice:

infidelity.

Random Sunday Musings

(Just Because)

My hair is too long, attention span
quite the reverse

driving skills:
atrocious

grammar and syntax: decent plus

interests:

Vladimir Putin and Yushenko, Anne Boleyn, 11th sin, today and may be tomorrow

Crisp spelling appears lettuce green and bland

no contraband
no reprimand

even as I lie
dying, pale mermaid hair

I long
for your sticky betrayal.

"They" say,

Trust him not; he is a quicksilver fox.

I say,

I trust him
to kill me over and over
and over

again.

land of worms

in the land of wormy worms,
you clench all force
to be unearthed.

Dreamy Dreams Defence

In defence—
I was always and only absent,
my intent spent

upon defunct centuries
and ancestors

who never saw my negligence.

behold your bloated ghost

that bloated ghost
is a floater who boasts
the palest eyes in the kingdom of green

mine are alive and I pause

in the memory of the Boleyn-Tudor legacy

how Ann would have lost her sallow
head again to view her daughter as aged

ill-tempered harridan. I lose sight and sound

of continent: old worlds turn new then await
an alchemy.

that sweet-tart instant before
the sword descends. Friends and foes

scatter, dandelion dust, yet Marie est malade,

and one ought to invest: reams and skeins of Rumplestiltskin
gold. I admit.

There was never a Veronique at that court—no truth
to abort.

intolerable

the stains that blot
your shadow, the X,
a tilted cross that windmills
through most lies and doubts

the smile,
pinned wings—

curtains in a state of severe distress.

no author, not even one
who understands harmony
in death, can heal

the cuts you hardly meant.

each dream brings me

further away than
I could have imagined

all that fear
rolled into a winter ball

hard, precise
bowled between your elsewhere eyes

all those shapes

traced lines,
gaunt reapers of bone and gold,
let us mine

these fallen shapes
crisp under heel

memories with the sheen
of shadow sculptures

near shore, upon lawn
loyalties must be drawn.

meet no evil

your breadcrumbs harden,
stone pellets that dream
of sea glass

voyages tossed
from shelves where evil
is a neighbour who calls
himself uncle in a truce
of pit and bone.

the uninvited

at times such
as this, any old guest
will do: dahlia stalks
with dinner-plate heads

bob odd like Alices
in happenstance land

or the litigants uninvited
to tea who whine and
demand but never
think to simply leave.

the Ugliness of Veronique Rough

Pulled from a Carmelite trance,
my tongue flaps its confession
of irrefutable and bitter
ugliness—the kind
that pales to its own ghost note.

zone bleue

fashion spits on style,
which amuses the French

and Siberian women
understand nothing

yet are the loveliest by dint
of skin and leg and golden glint.

My screen fried
today; it simply colourized
and died, and I recalled

the sparkling toddler shoe
left on display four doors

down I yearned
to scoop it up, claim its milky occupant

but

one must not take what one
does not own,
and my camera said, "no, widowed woman, kindly let
it go."

lost

I lost a post about
loss and shoes, sparkling ones
ditched on the curb side.

I lost a monitor; it colourized
then fried. I lost

four daughters: a toddler

Sophia who was not quite replaced
by Lysandre, Natasha, Sarah.

These black-haired girls
enchant my nordic blonde eyes.

I snowshoe over Siberian taiga.
My "why" is the only endearing
quality, yet I toss
Rapunzel out of her tower,
insisting her biography
is my  rightful flower.

Arachnocampa Luminosa

Third skin shed,
hunger glows. I cast
my sticky thread

and wait. should no prey
mistake bait for star,
I blindly eye a juicy mate.

floorboard lesson

the old and the scarred
respond to kindness.

Glamočko

pebbles and crippled starfish hide
under seaweed and swept glass.
in a tinsel crown and tissue cape
I am dizzy with so much treasure:

curtains and netting,
twigs and stones

my hands, in those days,
were never idle. seamstress
and daughter

stitching shorelines
to ravelled landscapes.

you promised solemn, not once,
but always, the colours in nature
move the brushstrokes of God.

post office exchange

letter clutched, a last resort
fisted against unholy skies

the happiness of dreamy times
picnics before you had to die

dresses in tulle, silk lace
stitched with cunning detail
blossoms tucked inside pockets
as deep as wells.

who could predict; who would dare
to interrupt the sleeping fair?

appendage to mouth and ear

I wanted July
to be black hollyhock,
rosy dahlia and a host
of gunmetal dawns.

Instead
ear and lips embrace
assault on the streets
and sidewalks, uncountable
contrivances that glint
and call for absolute devotion.

When asked to choose
between cave or balcony,
I can only clutch my flapping heart,

relieved she's not a mouth.

chaos and inertia

Lost
inside a vortex
of cleaning products and chaos,
the foreign woman
raises the roof and then collapses

into hysteria  or historia;
we know, false friends,
nothing, not even matter,

matters.

June's Artichoke Heart

a delicacy a shade
rough of tender, June's final
curtain is so soon forgotten

I hide a tattoo of your seaweed tongue
inside my languid grotto.

I yearn to show the audience
a swoon-song that convinces
all the while you snip syllables
into dragon fans and stroke
your softened honour.

sometimes a seated posture

greetings remind me of collisions,
that jolted moment when cheek meets
glass. how to convey the texture
of surgery while standing
above an ampitheatre in a gown of moss?

legs are stems; feet uprooted
from native soil. we just keep
adding syllables to the gauze
we know as life.

there is never a cure
for what we fear most.

Master &

Master,
your lashes exhibit
such lofty restraint,

I am humbled, bunioned
reduced to a fleck
on corporeal chain

Should I kill
you for your kindness
or forgive all those quirks
that transgressed into stains?

religions clot
only to bleed
in their own lonely ways.

undoingness

enough—
backstroke to the empty
vignettes:

snuff the hot coals
slow, the caviar dragons
spotting your delicious loneliness.

artifice and artifact

numbered days. lettered nights
your trajectory waned so complicated

I  dusted off the catacombs
of former lives, my selves
always so much the same,
never at fault yet often to blame.

Exceptional Death Rattle

You may be the exception
to every rule: burning roses
in June, the death rattle
after the cure

your quest for emptiness
trumps nothing, yet you never learned
the intonation of mu

in Old Tokyo
we sojouned.
I was besotted with Osu.
the concept of nothing and kindness.

I take your hand politely
after tending your home site
a grave you share with three greedy wives.

time slips
shoddy and my feet are ruined
but high arched.

No one cares; it matters not—
such a cold and lonely afterthought.

 

flutterby night

tricked by unseemly
light, cave creatures blink
once, then twice.

this is about the book
you have yet to read, pages
flapping—oversized moth wings

the actress invents the curtain
for the stumbling diplomat
who forgets how to lose

between tense chapters,
your future scolds your past
for those sullen little lies you told
when you hoped I would be watching.

I was.

in the corridor of many returns

door after door,
my fingers leave prints,
smudged reminders
of a slipshod quest.

I claim this pause,
an intake of breath
remembering, not remembering
the secrets we spent.

the ballerina and the moth

blindsided by a fate
too pale to protest

ballerina and moth
collide inside
an eaten quest

skin pressed
against wing

modifiers and ribbons
tumble, laundry refuses
to come clean.

the gardener demands
a confession: who has chewed
all of my June-thriving weeds?

Not I!

the chorus complies
with denial; I am weak,
tricked by artificial light,
lunaticking toward
airborne respite.

what says the telltale heart?

no promises, I promise
the telltale heart,
despising it as tattler.

treachery hides in cannisters, in all
charmed containers.

icons pop from mechanical boxes
and endings stalk beginnings
with intent to curl vicious,

dust devils prompted to hitchhike
without any chart.