exhausted, I bend to kiss
the burning dark,
I find your lips
blinded by this cold eclipse.

the winter's first love was spring,
but they lost each other in the fires of July.

after some time,
they became friends

forever

across from me
she is playing the guitar
and I love her

hands curl so tightly,
I can see the strain in your back as you pull yourself up
to the next hold.

silence falls across the hollow space
as we watch you in awe.
your hands rain white dust on our faces.

you turn sideways, press against the wall, dyno up and across,
and then you reach the top.

the snow is a siphon

are you pulling me in
or am I pulling you toward me?

are you pushing me out
or am I pushing you away?

it blows into the windshield so we pull to this side,
let the transport pass us by,
hazards flashing in the dark.

silence hangs between us like the edge,
so feebly teetering between tears and peace
I want to spill my guts out to you,
but I am worried it will distance us.

my dear.

I heard you in the shallow waves
whispering to me.

I do not speak the language
of the ever changing sea.

I wade into the waters,
now they sift so steadily

looking for the anchor or
the other half of me.

what is existence?
the mountain's life in mine is so very slow,
but even it sees the same, unending horizon as I do.

gently, I devour
the music that you play

the strumming and the sway,
the things you can convey

subtle, but the power
of the songs, the silent way

you make the unsaid there
and it becomes

real, authentic, ours.

the strummer violently strums,
a glassy stare, and makes it into a graceful nell.
vibrations in the air tell me what she is saying in silence.

there is a scene in my day
when I leave the wretched white-walled windowless building
and a blast of the freshest air hits me,
and it feels like my first breath in hours.
The sun is a glory on my skin,
and I take off my jacket to feel the air on my arms
for the first time in a season.

do they know of the uproar,
the unrest,
the tirelessly shifting waves
of wind against the window?
So harsh, all through the day,
but it is a severity I can feel safe by,
watching the gusts and hearing the voices
while, in this alcove, everything is still.

if I am being honest with myself for a moment,
all I want is to kiss you now.
I was too afraid to know it.

Distance has made me look back

the hierarchy of learning is in the institutions
that rob you of your money and then spit you
out into the world, shaking.

Learning is a form of art, I think,
yet it has lost its lustre.

Curiosity is no killer,
but the cruelty of what "education" has become, is.

I pick and choose
among the reeds,
which one will give me fistfuls
of sticky fur.
They stick onto
my palm, within the
lines of skin that
tell the future. I suppose
they know where I will be
better than me.

I do not know the sheer sweep on the bow of the heavy and weightless sword as it cuts like a river through a century of bark in an old growth forest -
only the wind knows the fabric of its edge and the balance between death and silence,
only the sun knows its blinding metal glistening in a summer afternoon,
a slow-motion dance in the song of the birds as they flutter from the stark gleam of the dancer.
It slices through matter and vibrates the continuum of air, ripples delicate waves against the cliff of the body whose extension is the knife
slashing at nothing with utter precision and grace.
I do not know the cost of what such a weapon demands, what scars tattoo themselves into skin with every stroke.
Perhaps it is a race of endurance, but still it is an endless battle of balance -
the loneliness condemned to the sheath of the human,
and the longing of the blade to be freed.

The horizon's obsolete
I want to appear mature,
so I stare at it for forever.

It is worth all that time
next to you.

The lady of burdens,
she who walks unseen, in darkness,
with stealth and blade.
She comes unsummoned and slices shadow.
She knows only remorse,
cursed always to follow one path.
She slays all things of dissonance,
and is deaf to the songbirds.

What could have saved her from this life?
If only she had turned to see the morning -
light beyond a castor of shadows.

the delight of love:
the pain you cannot surrender
in exchange for forever

it is easy to know the despicability of living,
and a surprise to see the kindness when it comes.

sunlight's strung the bow,
and the kiss of the wind strikes
the waltz of flowers.

The myth of what is real -
I want to know the truth.

Does the winding river feel,
does the tree speak of its youth?

passion is a flame,
the body is just an urn.
let your soul be free

legs burn and weave the story,
a tapestry of snow

and wind yawns in a flurry,
a sanction that we go.

there is anger in me and I have smothered it for so long.

this love,
or not so sure,
but something close,
naive, or pure

it is enough
to sustain me
into waiting for you,
until we

or I
am brave,
and the timing is just right.
Like a tidal wave,

I hope we will look
into each other's eyes,
and see the truth,
beyond the guise,

beyond just love,
meek or concentrated,
whatever.
it is just right.

brewing,
steeped so long
the tea is hot,
almost too strong

darkened;
a burning tongue
with steam that also
burns my lung.

porcelain;
tea-cups clamber
broken pieces,
cutting anger.

confess to the wind,
who knows only of freedom
and bears no burdens.

(I am your breeze)

finally the snow
comes in a steadfast,
overnight blow

and we expect,
depend and know
that lovely quietness
of winter.

everything hushed,
more still and so
we whisper

the river never met the shore,
though knew it in a dream.
    
     the ocean never knew the moon -
     love based on tenuous beams.

perhaps the lesson here: implore!
on all those things that you adore.

at the end of winding roads, you still follow.
I believe in everything you are
to me, you are the reason and the means
to anything and everything I need.

still waters sicken
at the ephemeral stream,
whose current is dream


Wading in waist-high water;
and I love you so violent,
more than maybe I can do.

the emerald pines breathe
through the cold, forbidden prayer
of Winter's old mass.

the ancient, forest steeple

A breath held;
a mollusk in the sea,
its shell
so small and fragile,
overtaken
by the wild ocean in a great, swirling motion.

It will be empty now.

I speak so loudly
and in anger but you do not hear me
because in anger
I will hold my thoughts like breath
hoping, needlessly
that you will see and hear
my wrath;

only away does it subside into the atmosphere

burning in the cold,
breath heavy and thick like clouds
that keep us apart

Tired, dry, sick, and yet
the snow has never stuck
so wet
instead, it rains
or snows and melts
forget the muck
the pain is felt
without the Winter to deflect us.

Wasps buzzing in figs,
a sharp sting for the sweetness
that gods claim to own.

It is cold and dark in the morning.
Night passes from evening until noon,
Short hours of daylight in June -
the clouds reveal sun without warning.

seduced by that
innocence
sounding so cruel like deer who
do not know to wait
they run head on
and live or die by chance

that is always the fear -
not even the timing
but the doing

an entire world is waiting
on the other side

so admire the grass
say things
ask.

The asylum is the biggest building;
we called it the spider because from above,
its wings looked like legs with a body at the centre.
The windows are framed by metal grating,
and crosses mark each of them in the middle.

Now it is no longer an asylum.
It's marked as private property,
yet trails surround it in the fields of tall grass and the woods behind.
In the morning, runners sweep past it in a dreary march,
and in the evening, kids bike past in a race against the sun.
Sometimes they get off their bikes and peer into the windows on the ground floor,
plaster their faces against the metal grating,
see the peeling wallpaper and the over-turned tables,
but mostly the empty rooms and the view across to the next window.
Inherently they look through the building, onto the other side where a window, parallel to the one they are looking in, transports them to the other side of the walls.

On the second floor, there is a broken window,
forced from the inside since glass covers the lawn and pavement.

Maybe it is tragic,
all the people from the north side of this land shipped up here and trapped,
some of them sterilized,
confined to a labyrinth.

Now the building sits empty and deranged,
locked up from the outside world,
not for any purpose anymore except to sit there,
expired.

tongues tumble things together until there is a stream,
sewn like a river,
so fluid it rushes in movements,
nonlinear, random waves, curving 'round bends and bays.

gizaagi'igoo - all of us love you

that was probably the string of sounds that stuck with me most.

The autumn grieves in muted colours
of life in warmth, stuck in twilight's hold.
Wolves stay away from the edges of the city
and howl in the cold.
It was spring the last time I felt real,
and now it has been half a year moving in phases, through to tomorrow.
I love the autumn, the fall of summer's empire,
the way I can be cold without trying, only warm if I want to.
All the hype about mittens and toques and sweaters gives overrated expectations,
because a short while ago autumn was the death of life, and winter its mourning
because nothing grows.
Is life seasonal? No, its always,
and I will always love you,
love the little ways you live.
The hermit in me is tired and malnourished and I am grieving for memories that feel too good.
Because life is swell.