Son of Raurus falling sound
King of water all around
That fills the sky with dew
The fractals of these waters high
Climbing down to meet the tide
Sweetly in November rain
Eroded tongues that stick on out
To catch the falling endless spout
Even in still of winter blend
These rocks that climb up rung by rung
Forever climbing to the sun
To greet the morning light
The endless water ever falls
Enormous water-winged wall
Wetting all that pass on by
Jan 8, 2018
Jan 8, 2018 at 10:39 PM UTC
As I cross slender golden gate Québec sunset
I dream of the old Golden Gate; long lost psychopomp
drunk at typewriter in rheumy-eyed fog
and old Golden Lion, gay and howling in firelight New York
building fond memories of the old man back home
imparting wisdom in a cloud of mint smoke
Driving out past clear blue sky in early autumn heat
great iron bridges with drooping sleeping half-moon eyes;
their yawn the endless moving waters below
The stone children hiding underneath a quilt
of dirt brown and green and mycelium grove grey
who turn slowly as the ground turns as sleepless nights are had in the underground kingdom of a lost Eastern mountain range
The valleys are wide and I sometimes find myself looking straight down over a crest, into the edge of a picture memory of the Rockies back West
Feb 20, 2017
Feb 20, 2017 at 6:17 PM UTC
Roads in the West;
dynamite is cheaper
than asphalt
Feb 21, 2016
Feb 21, 2016 at 4:14 PM UTC
I can't for the life of me keep an orchid alive.
I've had three or four but they never survive.
I may try once more in hopes to achieve,
the most beautiful flower I've ever perceived.
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 14, 2015 at 8:53 PM UTC
I'm tired from work
But I'm close to home
My parcels are heavy
As are my feet
I stop on the tallest hill
I light my last cigarette
And sit
And stare
Over half the city
For the first time
There's a girl in a bottom window
She wipes the oven clean
And prepares her meal
She has raven hair and wears plaid
I can't see her face
I finish my cigarette
And head downhill
Home
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 12:39 PM UTC
It's all about the moon
the moon knows everything
about you and I and them and that!
The moon saw the holocaust
saw Caesar get stabbed
saw a miracle grow in Mary's belly
was there on your first birthday
puts France and Zimbabwe
and Brandon, Manitoba to sleep
every night
and still has time to shine
with the sun some days
-Melissa Nadine Flowers
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 12:36 PM UTC
Throw away your brooms and your mops
and all the tops to your good old canned goodies
and in fact throw your little cans of goody foods
with soups and little fruities away down
your flight of stairs and flight of windows down
those shining new linoleum walls
no need to worry about garbage here in these streets
so clean so clean so mean, and lean
and here everyone cries their child cries
and their bottles whistle that empty milk whistle
red wine milk drink drunk drank drinker
old clean city blues I see your dirt musings
can’t hide from me this great dirt
more dirt here than dirt itself has to offer
all things candy coated sticky nightlife
sticky affluence all your feet
stick to the black tar candy sucker floor
and I see you’ve been rat-free for thirty years
no bugs no slugs no moss
only late night sad sauce
always empty and wanting more
no rats no cats no dogs here
only cowboy hats
and all those old boys move
on down South anyway
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 6:32 PM UTC
I stared catatonic nonstop and could not pull my eyes away or scream
except for the great internal scream and I felt like death was upon me, or nearly so.
And my body asleep but my mind twisted and my eyes awake wide-open
and no dream this was but real things and then my thoughts put outward
and all these things terrible formed into death-shadows
and flowed down through the fabrics above my head.
Flesh undulating in darkness that creeped
and I found ten seconds of courage to sit up and stare
at the wall as the rippling fabric became a thousand black snakes
crawling down from the ceiling and out from my dreamcatcher
that did nothing at all but release these terrors from the wall.
And I thought it was sordid wind that came in gusting through my window that made my sheets become like a mechanical sea
but it was not so, and these vile snakes poured out like *****
from some gaping maw above and went underneath my bed
and all through the floor to the four corners of my room
and then came together again above on the center of my ceiling
and murmured death-talk and horror-faces from the walls and ceiling
and even closing my eyes would bring nothing but flashes
of demonic children and things with no jaws or eyes
hollowed out and terrible ghosts I procured and almost choked out laughter because this was it and I've finally gone and gone mad
There was a man at my closed door wearing my jacket that hung on a hook
and his face was the face of a skull that hung above my door
and from the corner of my eye the man with the door on his back with the coat still attached walked with silent step toward my bed, and I turned to look at this figure
and instead of snapping back against the wall like all nightly visions should;
he stood there, and as I stared at him I saw slow moving black legs receding against the wall
but the horrors of his feet were ten thousand worm bodies and black leathery fingers of bats and crawling things
and my carpet floor was no longer static but a creeping madness,
and my body trembled as if it were being continuously dropped
from heights a hundred times over and great odious black
pillars and monoliths slid steadily up the corners of my room with arms
that then burst out to the middle into nothing but a smiling cheshire grin
and I could not move anymore and just stared until my mind went numb
and like the first sunlight upon the last fog before dawn, I awoke.
Nov 28, 2013
Nov 28, 2013 at 9:56 PM UTC
Everybody claps out of synch
in the midnight elegance of “Wine Ohs”
but the bass player hums
at the twitch of the sunken keys
that man who leans back crying a New York cry
and sweet daddy saxophone wailing a New York wail
and they all pale and bow with respect
to the young drummer with bright eyes that nobody knows
and nobody knows where he came from or how old
Who’s soul I remember meeting from Easterly winds
only to find himself on stage with strangers
in a plane of rhythm and ruthless time
in a freedom jazz dance
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 2:05 AM UTC
We had wanted to leave our homes before six in the morning
but left late and lazy at ten or ten-thirty with hurried smirks
and heads turned to the road, West
driving out against the noonward horizon
and visions before us of the great up-and-over
and tired we were already of stiff-armed driving neurotics in Montreal
and monstrous foreheaded yellow bus drivers
ugly children with long middle fingers
and tired we were of breaking and being yelled at by beardless bums
but thought about the beards at home we loved
and gave a smile and a wave nonetheless
Who were sick and tired of driving by nine
but then had four more hours still
with half a tank
then a third of a tank
then a quarter of a tank
then no tank at all
except for the great artillery halt and discovery
of our tyre having only three quarters of its bolts
Saved by the local sobriety
and the mystic conscious kindness of the wise and the elderly
and the strangers: Autoshop Gale with her discount familiar kindness;
Hilda making ready supper and Ray like I’ve known you for years
that offered me tools whose functions I’ve never known
and a handshake goodbye
and "yes we will say hello to your son in Alberta"
and "yes we will continue safely"
and "no you won’t see us in tomorrow’s paper"
and tired I was of hearing about us in tomorrow’s paper
Who ended up on a road laughing deliverance
in Ralphton, a small town hunting lodge
full of flapjacks and a choir of chainsaws
with cheap tomato juice and eggs
but the four of us ended up paying for eight anyway
and these wooden alley cats were nothing but hounds
and the backwoods is where you’d find a cheap child's banjo
and cheap leather shoes and bear traps and rat traps
and the kinds of things you’d fall into face first
Who sauntered into a cafe in Massey
that just opened up two weeks previous
where the food was warm and made from home
and the owner who swore to high heaven
and piled her Sci-Fi collection to the ceiling
in forms of books and VHS
but Massey herself was drowned in a small town
where there was little history and heavy mist
and the museum was closed for renovations
and the stores were run by diplomats
or sleezebag no-cats
and there was one man who wouldn’t show us a room
because his baby sitter hadn’t come yet
but the babysitter showed up through the backdoor within seconds
though I hadn't seen another face
and the room was a landfill
and smelled of stale cat **** anyhow
and the lobby stacked to the ceiling with empty beer box cans bottles
and the taps ran cold yellow and hot black through spigots
but we would be staying down the street
at the inn of an East-Indian couple
who’s eyes were not dilated
and the room smelled
lemon-scented
and kept on driving lovingly without a care in the world
but only one of us had his arms around a girl
and how lonely I felt driving with Jacob
in the fog of the Agawa pass;
following twin red eyes down a steep void mass
where the birch trees have no heads
and the marshes pool under the jagged foothills
that climb from the water above their necks
that form great behemoths
with great voices bellowing and faces chiselled hard looking down
and my own face turned upward toward the rain
Wheels turning on a black asphalt river running uphill around great Superior
that is the ocean that isn’t the ocean but is as big as the sea
and the cloud banks dig deep and terrible walls
and the sky ends five times before night truly falls
and the sun sets slower here than anywhere
but the sky was only two miles high and ten long anyway
The empty train tracks that seldom run
and some rails have been lifted out
with a handful of spikes that now lay dormant
and the hill sides start to resemble *******
or faces or the slow curving back of some great whale
-and those, who were finally stranded at four pumps
with none but the professional Jacob reading great biblical instructions at the nozzle
nowhere at midnight in a town surrounded
by moose roads
moose lanes
moose rivers
and everything mooses
ending up sleeping in the maw of a great white wolf inn
run by Julf or Wolf or John but was German nonetheless
and woke up with radios armed
and arms full
and coffee up to the teeth
with teeth chattering
and I swear to God I saw snowy peaks
but those came to me in waking dream:
"Mountains dressed in white canvas
gowns and me who placed
my hands upon their *******
that filled the sky"
Passing through a buffet of inns and motels
and spending our time unpacking and repacking
and talking about drinking and cheap sandwiches
but me not having a drink in eight days
and in one professional inn we received a professional scamming
and no we would not be staying here again
and what would a trip across the country be like
if there wasn’t one final royal scamming to be had
and dreams start to return to me from years of dreamless sleep:
and I dream of hers back home
and ribbons in a raven black lattice of hair
and Cassadaic exploits with soft but honest words
and being on time with the trains across the plains
and the moon with a shower of prairie blonde
and one of my father with kind words
and my mother on a bicycle reassuring my every decision
Passing eventually through great plains of vast nothingness
but was disappointed in seeing that I could see
and that the rumours were false
and that nothingness really had a population
and that the great flat land has bumps and curves and etchings and textures too
beautiful bright golden yellow like sprawling fingers
white knuckled ablaze reaching up toward the sun
that in this world had only one sky that lasted a thousand years
and prairie driving lasts no more than a mountain peak
and points of ember that softly sigh with the one breath
of our cars windows that rushes by with gratitude for your smile
And who was caught up with the madness in the air
with big foaming cigarettes in mouths
who dragged and stuffed down those rolling fumes endlessly
while St. Jacob sang at the way stations and billboards and the radio
which was turned off
and me myself and I running our mouth like the coughing engine
chasing a highway babe known as the Lady Valkyrie out from Winnipeg
all the way to Saskatoon driving all day without ever slowing down
and eating up all our gas like pez and finally catching her;
Valkyrie who taught me to drive fast
and hovering 175 in slipstreams
and flowing behind her like a great ghost Cassady *********** in dreamland Nebraska
only 10 highway crossings counted from home.
Lady Valkyrie who took me West.
Lady Valkyrie who burst my wings into flame as I drew a close with the sun.
Lady Valkyrie who had me howl at slender moon;
who formed as a snowflake
in the light on the street
and was gone by morning
before I asked her name
and how are we?
and how many?
Even with old Tom devil singing stereo
and riding shotgun the entire trip from day one
singing about his pony, and his own personal flophouse circus,
and what was he building in there?
There is a fair amount of us here in these cars.
Finally at light’s end finding acquiescence in all things
and meeting with her eye one last time; flashed her a wink and there I was, gone.
Down the final highway crossing blowing wind and fancy and mouth puttering off
roaring laughter into the distance like some tremendous Phoenix.
Goodnight Lady Valkyrie.
The evening descends and turns into a sandwich hysteria
as we find ourselves riding between cities of transports
and that one mad man that passed us speeding crazy
and almost hit head-on with Him flowing East
and passed more and more until he was head of the line
but me driving mad lunacy followed his tail to the bumper
passing fifteen trucks total to find our other car
and felt the great turbine pull of acceleration that was not mine
mad-stacked behind two great beasts
and everyone thought us moon-crazy; Biblical Jake
and Mad Hair Me driving a thousand
eschewing great gusts of wind speed flying
Smashing into the great ephedrine sunset haze of Saskatoon
and hungry for food stuffed with the thoughts of bedsheets
off the highway immediately into the rotting liver of dark downtown
but was greeted by an open Hertz garage
with a five-piece fanfare brass barrage
William Tell and a Debussy Reverie
and found our way to bedsheets most comfortably
Driving out of Saskatoon feeling distance behind me.
Finding nothing but the dead and hollow corpses of roadside ventures;
more carcasses than cars
and one as big as a moose
and one as big as a bear
and no hairier
and driving out of sunshine plain reading comic book strip billboards
and trees start to build up momentum
and remembering our secret fungi in the glove compartment
that we drove three thousand kilometres without remembering
and we had a "Jesus Jacob, put it away brother"
and went screaming blinded by smoke and paranoia
and three swerves got us right
and we hugged the holy white line until twilight
And driving until the night again takes me foremast
and knows my secret fear in her *****
as the road turns into a lucid *** black and makes me dizzy
and every shadow is a moose and a wildcat and a billy goat
and some other car
and I find myself driving faster up this great slanderous waterfall until I meet eye
with another at a thousand feet horizontal
then two eyes
then a thousand wide-eyed peaks stretching faces upturned to the celestial black
with clouds laid flat as if some angel were sleeping ******** on a smokestack
and the mountains make themselves clear to me after waiting a lifetime for a glimpse
then they shy away behind some old lamppost and I don’t see them until tomorrow
and even tomorrow brings a greater distance with the sunlight dividing stone like 'The Ancient of Days'
and moving forward puts all into perspective
while false cabins give way
and the gas stations give way
and the last lamppost gives way
and its only distance now that will make you true
and make your peaks come alive
Like a bullrush, great grey slopes leap forth as if branded by fire
then the first peaks take me by surprise
and I’m told that these are nothing but children to their parents
and the roads curve into a gentle valley
and we’re in the feeding zone
behind the gates of some great geological zoo
watching these lumbering beasts
finishing up some great tribal ***********
because tomorrow they will be shrunk
and tomorrow ever-after smaller
Nonetheless, breathless in turn I became
it began snowing and the pines took on a different shape
and the mountains became covered white
and great glaciers could be seen creeping
and tourists seen gawking at waterfalls and waterfowls
and fowl play between two stones a thousand miles high
climbing these Jasper slopes flying against wind and stone
and every creak lets out its gentle tone and soft moans
as these tyres rub flat against your back
your ancient skin your rock-hard bones
and this peak is that peak and it’s this one too
and that’s Temple, and that’s Whistler
and that’s Glasgow and that’s Whistler again
and those are the Three Sisters with ******* ablaze
and soft glowing haze your sun sets again among your peaks
and we wonder how all these caves formed
and marvelled at what the flood brought to your feet
as roads lay wasted by the roadside
in the epiphany of 3:00am realizing
that great Alta's straights and highway crossings
are formed in torturous mess from mines of 'Mt. Bleed'
and broken ribs and liver of crushed mountain passes
and the grey stones taxidermied and peeled off
and laid flat painted black and yellow;
the highways built from the insides
of the mountain shells
Who gave a “What now. New-Brunswick?”
and a “What now, Quebec, and Ontario, and Manitoba, and Saskatchewan";
**** fools clumsily dancing in the valleys; then the rolling hills; then the sea that was a lake
then the prairies and not yet the mountains;
running naked in formation with me at the lead
and running naked giving the finger to the moon
and the contrails, and every passing blur on the highway
dodging rocks, and sandbars
and the watchful eye of Mr. and Mrs. Law
and holes dug-up by prairie dogs
and watching with no music
as the family caravans drove on by
but drove off laughing every time until two got anxious for bed and slowed behind
while the rambling Jacob and I had to wait in the half-moon spectacle
of a black-tongue asphalt side-road hacking darts and watching for grizzlies
for the other two to finish up with their birthday *** exploits
though it was nobodies birthday
and then a timezone was between us
and they were in the distant future
and nobodies birthday was in an hour from now
then everything was good
and everyone was satiated
then everything was a different time again
and I was running on no sleep or a lot of it
leaping backward in time every so often
like gaining a new day but losing space on the surface of your eye
but I stared up through curtains of starlight to mother moon
and wondered if you also stared
and was dumbfounded by the majesty of it all
and only one Caribou was seen the entire trip
and only one live animal, and some forsaken deer
and only a snake or a lonesome caterpillar could be seen crossing such highway straights
but the water more refreshing and brighter than steel
and glittered as if it were hiding some celestial gem
and great ravines and valleys flowed between everything
and I saw in my own eye prehistoric beasts roaming catastrophe upon these plains
but the peaks grew ever higher and I left the ground behind
Oct 16, 2013
Oct 16, 2013 at 3:28 AM UTC