cacophony I (november, 2011)

blood and bone
and an age
of skinsoft decay and disease.
the taste of skin
and the foreign fear
of your own body
as something alien

the dreams where
reality doubles
when the mirror
is all of you and more
and you're left
with a tearsoaked clutch of teeth
rampant
in your ransacked, messy halls

sweat finds you awake
still somehow different
older
and made less for it
by the driving divide
of anarchic alien flesh
that fills you all up
when your bitter brain tries
on the real, helpless world

never cold in his life until recently (november, 2011)

though
I'm sure
is the most hateful clause
breaker

and so, you sting it out
undoubted
in the crushing freeze
and cancerous rush
of a cigarette
below freezing

sting the letters out
syllable by syllable
until your fingers turn blue
with ink and frostbite

you treat the silence
as seeds
sow spaces
with craving
and fill up the empty
with the hint of potential

perhaps it's a lie
the comfortable fiction
you gladly glaze
over
tell yourself
that old lie
again and again

all senses become acute
in the crispcrusted moments
of realization
as the slowdown
inches in
and takes it all away

this time
I'm leaving nothing behind

stormchaser (november, 2011)

and I in silent wonder stood
hove as a storm-splayed tree
swaddled
in the black breath of night

"Oh, there you are"
as the line
slid into silver perfection.
quick.
too quickly
for the ember and ash
for the hissing crush
of words forcing their way
down into my lungs

grasp those phrases
snag the cord
with branchflayed hands
hammer the reflection
of light and heartbeats out
into that canopy of clouds

it's there.
just there
in the breakwater crash
the firstflight of birds
returning to other places
and the shatterdrum of ice
lapping at the shores of a lake
like the fiery thought of peace
on the frozen form
of a stormdreary
never-thought-it-would-happen
troubled dream

and even as the cloud passes—
the chaos of a fresh-sewn idea—
the drawing-in dark
whispers back to life
those daylightsaver seconds
when the sky was just the sky
and no embers creaked
in their gyre and gravity
or flickercrack fissured
the simple silence
of a second of a skydrunken night

interspace (october, 2011)

her body tenses.
hold that moment
clear in the golden light
of floorlit beer and memory
and there's music

it's not so poetic as it appears
this isn't a case
of singing spines, rib rhythms
and the tempo of her heart
no
just a song

piece those stitches together
and it's something
about memory and forgetting
time, sadness
and perhaps continuation

claim all those thoughts
as your own
out of the lamplazy windingdown
dripsplattered table times
with their coffeestain thoughts
on old folded napkins
sealed with lipstick smudges
and the remains of the last sip
—the one that near spilled in reaction
to a voice or a look
but solidified
as the drip down the side
to be caught instead
in serviette seconds
at a dimly lit bar—
take it from them
to your booktrodden walkways
and secret altars of failure and fame.
keep it.

she'll remember you
as a quiet and distracted lover
and she'd be right
unless she could hear time sing

memorial hall (september, 2011)

a wall
take a name
transfer the sound and person
to a scratching on paper
and fold it into your pocket

one, two, three steps up
that column, no. just to the right
four or fourscore down
near the bottom, between some longer lists
and it's there
in the safety of distance
far from the unknown others.
take it.

unfold that penstain
into a space
that's a first thought
give that name a life:
birth to a mother and presumably a father
some formative years
probably motivation
choose from:
duty, love, fear
or all of the above.
give that name a life:
fill up those hours
with the hum of a happening.
give that haunting a ghost

the wish of a whisper
hides under the calling of a name
that has forgotten who its person is
while it scratches at the proper nouns
and claws its way out of the substantives

take a name
and unfold it into a person
make the ghost
into a series of memories
and press that paper down
down to your blood and bone
down to your nerves and neurons
down to your syntax and soul

maybe you're the same, after all

attic (may, 2011)

I want to talk about light
that ponderous
pendulum time
when the rays run golden
yes, I'm sure it's sunlight
but it's also
a kiss
suspended in a room
filled with dustbecome cobwebs

listen
you can see the seconds
creep on around photoboxes
in this late attic instant
as we fold down blankets
and lift the dust covers
off of a last summer

turn, smile
eyes
beat
and that, with lips,
is that

open a book
and it will run its fingers
through yours
like so many strands of hair
trapping the blues and greens
and shining out with the colour of time
kept close by the whisperclasp of the cover

it's an invocation
a glimpse into a present
removed only by the different pathways
of neurons and synapses

candle-small
little voices peer into that idea
and fill it up with a symphony
of sneezes and stubbed toes
and etch each panel in the walls
with echoes and heartbeats

we were young once
but this is no lament in the key of grey
young once
just once
but
again and again
we pushed deeper
into our unknown common store
opened that kiss
and each spider-spun second
we rescued from becoming the past
or future

it was a dust filled room
that taught me to love
the secret moments of potential
suspended
in a once
and only once-again
suncluttered memory of light

whitecaps (june, 2011)

sing to me
of summer and spring
rain or cloud to the detriment
of the sun-loving
and I'll say
that the storm-struck waves
were almost like
flakes of fire
on the sea-surface skin of your eyes
beautiful
in the rainstruck windowpane light

and when you're away
I pray for those storms

in medias res (september, 2011)

open the frame
and these words
are meant to jigsawfit
into the puzzlepiece memory
of an unstarted life

call it.
your feet finepound a rhythm
that's step one
two
three
and you're still sinking fast
through crushedleaf lines
dancing on an autumnstruck road

those wickerwishing moments
lie under a starpillow of night
you can rest your head up to

pretend protest
that you 'think' these words
were meant to lie as lovers
next-and-part-of each other
under the blanket
of language and form

it's a lie, of course
and you know nothing
of the sort
your brain
is as empty of that thought
as your bones
and your acidpit stomach

but it hums
of unknowing
and the crackledance of sound
catches fire in your heart

though you want
to whisper words
and have them be
true, lovely things
they wait
heavy as ghosts
in your stopgap
stuttering
not yets
and soons

and even so
you try to kiss it out
as your clenched hands
try to forestall
the shutterbuzz hum of dawn

open the frame
and hide yourself
in the thousand words
of a picture of people
trying not to let the sun come up

I dare you
to turn photons to phrases
and scratch that ink on the wind

each
tumbling breath
each
handtried squeeze
each
hushrustle of cloth
muscle spasm
and
second of silence
between the start of a thought
and the first sound of a word
the quiet

I dare you
to feed those shutterbug slices
to your 'way with words'
and render a thousand thousands
against its store

open the frame
and take just one jigsaw cut second.
put it to words.
I swear you'll find
that one
will be more than not enough.
I dare you.

roadtrip (may 2011)

that faint syllable
put us together
in the solitude
of a soundstruck silence
on the road

and line by state line
he tries to pull close
that flicker of fire
draw a circle around the wind
and put a price on
the paper and penmarks
of heartbeats and candles

lovely, she said
or it was imagined
a rustle of vocal cords
or cloth and stitching
familiar, cool
let's go

so, let's
and he says
that I swear to know
how to dance
and be a dancer
while feet are both left
over and over
my sternest desire
are right

with silent frenzy
let's
hit that road
and run for thousands of miles on the water
let's
twist the turnpike
deep in the wood
where we forget we have names
and each rainshaking arbour
says his own

this isn't even what it appears
and doesn't come close
to the balcony breeze
that flicks eyes closed
and trails on
that great bird floor
over the sea and see
to a time and place
permanent, immobile
and temporarily everyhere

let's
talk in whispers
until we can't hear anything else
and the day's events are a series of firepits
let's
be so silent
that we can't hear anything else
that we forget our noisynames
and fall back asleep

he swears up and down
in the coldwrapped halo of the air
that I don't know how to sing
but every drop of that quiet
whistles out another to another
let's
go

and she says
in a rustle of leaves
let's

prememory (may 2011)

leatherbound crush.
I want to tell you something
let it kick down the stairs
and rattle on the floor
for a few more generations.

mossy. that was the word
or at least the closest
to describe that air
or light
that crept in
billowed the shadows
and cast curtains in the sunsoaked room

things were a little hectic
and slower that the long growth
of a cedar sapling
seemed those scant seconds
when I left the room
for a refill of coffee
to keep my eyes open on you
for every moment of your surprise

and that's what it was, I think,
a surprise,
when men first looked out to the sky
peered with their telescopes
to listen to that great black song of night
and shivered and shrugged
back to their palaces and beds
confused, small
and full of wonder

see, in that, there's something,
if I can call it how it feels,
the root of language,
humming in that great chasm
a dark hunger to call out
and touch something
to say: "Hello.
This is me.
Here I am.
Hello."

it all seems pretty big, I know
but, caffeinated, I saw you again
and it's all small stuff
when there's rain rattling the window
and cats sitting in the yard.

and while that great abyss
can wheel and wend
I looked down and saw
that this tiny fragility
that I can hold in my arms
is bigger than the universe
holds every star, galaxy
nebula, quasar
hypergiant and subatom
and yet
is here, asleep in my living room
minuscule against the great cave of the sky.
and every leaf-strewn sidewalk,
crying out for puddles
or grass-shot cobblestone,
begging for a slow walk
or windwarped branch,
scratching at the out of reach clouds,
can't come close
can't cross that great starry plain
to how beautiful you are

and these things are facts.

and I can only call out
into that great brimming void
to make sure you know
just how real you are
in the dust-bright
light-choked thought
of one afternoon in summer

Oh you are gorgeous
you are gorgeous
you are
you are
you are
oh yes you are
hello
hello
aren't you beautiful
you are
you are
hello
hello
Hello.

Daniel (april 2011)

in the bone-stretched
frightening dark
I held your hand again

the last time was years back
when a warm gaze
cool as freshfallen snow
told me everything you knew

that you were still that boy
standing with siblings
and that young man
above the construction site
and the new-minted grandfather, again

those were eyes, then,
filled up with seeing
brimming so much
that the memory of light
forced its way out
as tears in a church basement

still, that grip, those fingers
clasped as strong as they must
on some tool, or hand
those which lifted me up
when my thoughts
were small enough to carry
in your hand-me-down wallet
filled with secret memory

I only talk about you
like a code, a cipher
for you always spoke in silence
and peace
and me only memories of you
are given to the lens-flare
of eye-filling light

fitting, somehow, that it was
in the dark
where I saw you again
and whispered those words I never said
while holding your hand
against the fall of night
and the heartbreaking of the world

lids firmly shut,
I kept my head on your shoulder
knowing, perhaps, in the dark
that to make contact
to dip into those wells of years
would be to draw out the light
of decades of love
seen through tears of sorrow
and joy

and that was enough.

sketches (march 2011)

"In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery." - Cormac McCarthy

deep enough in the woods
that night
could be found, boys
young and unafraid
turning into trees
huddled in front of the campfire

arms outstretched,
as if to wave into being
a canopy,
they stand irregular
as an adult flits between them
an elder amongst the alders

there were words, then
something to give the fragment
context:
the voice of a father
speaking of snow, or spring
of weather and motion
of something logcabin old
but new as the turning of the seasons

no doubt, the words were lost
on them, as to time
but, in those hunched firelight moments
when, arms resting at sides
they were filled with a temporary wonder
at the world around them
leaning in on their tiny spark of flame,
some deeper seed took hold

and they were
for those crackling seconds
saplings, vines and roots
flowers and mulch
bark, branches, leaves
the sky itself
and could shed their arbutus skin
and be those fragile creatures
we recognize only
in the smoky firepit glow
of a half forgotten memory:
ourselves
at an age when all the woods
were deep,
the caves and moss
hummed of mystery,
when the fire blended
with the stars,
and our fathers spoke to us
out of the dark.

faith (february 2011)

God.
for lack of a better word,
and that's a funny concept
not a word fitting for the Word
but when it comes down to it
I don't know a lot about it-
you?-
because whenever I go looking
I can't find you anywhere
but when I turn my head away
closing my eyes in resigned frustration
there you are
seen ever so briefly-
because when I feel out
and find this fragile world
to be ephemeral
I fall back into the mist
and I'm caught-
because when I speak
and ask questions over
and over
and hear nothing back
nothing. nada.
I surrender myself to
'hear you in the silence of my heart'
and still get nothing
when all of a sudden
you're speaking through my pen-
and even though
I don't claim to be looking for answers
I tell a lie
but I've come to know
that when given a binary 0 - 1
you always take 2
and though I know it is foolish
to anthropomorphize you
I always have to remind myself
that the god I don't believe in
is different from the One that I do
and that
for the fractional moment
when the universe cracked open
that repeats second by atom-smashing second
I could see
that nothing I ever believed was true
and that you were always telling me that:
the Most Beautiful thing in the world
a word
your name.

in foxholes (february 2011)

and this is the moment
that I think we can say something,
where I'm getting
a little bit closer
to dialogue

maybe this is just a flutter
a contraction of muscles
and the fire of synapses
but for just a moment
things were tilting on their axis
and I knew.

that even though I'm playing cards
and you want to play chess
and
that we all here move
so frustratingly close
and mind the gap so well
I knew.

when we tilted the world
dropped it on its side
and saw, knowing it for the first time again
I could not help but wonder
if we should set it spinning

and you whispered
loud enough for me to miss it

and even as this madness recedes
I might recall what you said
if only I could get past
the medium

because
if I say I draw inspiration
from the mountains
or the sun through the clouds
or a crying child loved
or the hope of young lovers
I would be lying

for I have never confused
a speaker
for the sound of his voice

definition (october 2010)

This is an idea
that can't be written down.

There, right there
did you see it? -
lurking on the page
on the brink of decipherability.
No?

It didn't manifest as a comma,
splicing the semantics into the syntax.
No, nor was it a matter of breathing
an emphasis.
And even in the gravid space
between words and the lexicon
it was absent.

But I swear to you,
it may not be evident,
but it was there.

An impulse, stuck in the subvocal space
between thought and word,
a feedback of the phonological loop,
a collection of neurons firing
in response to an unknown impulse,
a demand to be realized
as a fitting description
of a void
full to the brim.

fiat lux (january 2011)

you creep and emerge
silent beyond a far hill
and I am breathless
to every second of your surprise
your slow unravelling
and scattering of photons

and this happening
at over a thousand miles an hour
conspires with the speed of light
to be a monument to alacrity
but from my window
it is only a slow creaking
the subtle breaking open
of a hidden pearl beyond my furthest sight

you and I are locked in a perpetual moment
a gradual processing
and for a brief eternity
I can imagine that moment in Genesis
took ten thousand thousand years
and this secret fire was shared
drop by drop
with the young eyes of the universe
and each flake of that fire
gently released into the deep darkness
sung out from one to another
fiat lux!
fiat lux!
as they collided into that first dawn