Snakes.
Some are poisonous,
but only when they bite you.
Only when you make them.

come into me, like a snowflake on the pine
and I'll infuse my sappy kisses on your eyelids, love
and you'll become an emerald song in the wind

or crash into me like an icy wave in mid-November
and run your fingers between the spaces of rock on the breakwater,
chilling the birds.

Tumble into the fabric of my arms. Embroider your love into my skin.

"we can keep going, or stay right where we are -
because a fighter comes back with at least one invisible scar..."

I'm asking genuinely now, not that I ever knew  
to be true, it is hard though plain;
it is phone calls in the summer, on the cusp of rain
and glad to know you do not see my face, although
my voice gave me away within that hour (or two?)

I've spent
years of tears
and now I'm broke.
But, my darling,
it's not worth so much
if it cost you all that anyway.

You were only a song I'd heard,
one that I had loved almost immediately.

Years and a thousand lakes between us, till we met again,
on the cusp of sorrow and memory,
my love.

I see her there, the lady you will make
a mother out of. Oh, look at her youth,
she is a child herself, a girl forsooth,
with comely features lust will one day take.
Oh sweet child, hear my voice and do not wake,
you'll say. Inside you slithers God's sharp tooth,
his precious boy who'll die for sin and truth:
And then you'll watch him burn upon a stake.
She stirs now, with demons clad in white
or angels in the frost. My darling girl,
I'll shield you of the things they'll do with this:
A robe of heaven's blue, to catch starlight
and frame your face; let loose your swarthy curl
and let me wake you with a sacred kiss.

After lifetimes of silence,
the whole world quiets down
and we can see the beauty we have destroyed
from our windows and t.v screens.

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.

sunflowers, peonies, dandelions, maple trees,
daisies, buttercups, forget-me-nots, lupins,
the lilac bush, white, pink, purple, all over the city for a brief time
the apple blossoms in the dying apple tree,
helicopter leaves on bushes, fragrant pollen for honey bees,
cool air and warm sun, the spray of a windy day on the air,
the smell of summer sun weaving through my hair,
I forget the youth of may, the long sunset-glare
across the lake, the twilight moon, the taste of pear
and fresh strawberries, and the feel of dew
seeping through the mesh of my shoe, freezing my toes,
fires into midnight and fireflies and flights of freedom,
and sublime
woven into spring and summertime.

nothing I can do, except
fall in love with you, and then
I'll be stuck inside the luck
of having you pretend that
you love me and you want me
even though you taunt me
nothing more could please me
if you would just believe me
I'm drowning in suppression
and I think I need suggestions
for I might just fall instead of fight
but give me wings and I'll take flight

You look for me in the stars,
but I am really in the space between.
I am not one star,
but the invisible lines that connect them
that create the constellation.

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.

To know you, I would risk our love carved into pillars, declared to history.

It is enough for me, to love you in silence,
without your consent.

Oh how would I cope if this was reciprocal,
but to die with you in my arms
and hold onto you forever?

Where there is lightening, there is thunder.
Sometimes never to be heard.

and though, I know, the winter comes,
I see the paint upon your thumbs,
the blues and hues of dappled thyme
that scar a world from a nursery rhyme;

and there, written, lightly, in pencil,
a paragraph for a time stenciled,
adjectives and flavoured truth
a place made up for our innocent youth.

Two strangers waltz beneath moonlight
where life is full --
swells high with the fish
in midsummer:

...on little nameless rivers or hidden brooks on whose banks Naiads might have sunned their white, wet limbs.

A pretty little precipice as I look down.
Oops, I went over. I am going to drown.

I have listened to the strumming of your song
and the way your fingers move is something I'm afraid I will never understand

the veins in your hands are flooding like rivers
like when swords are grasped and ****** into battle

you fight the air with your songs
and the water with your melody

and orpheus might turn, again, at you who plays for the pleasure of the gods -
yet it is not for them you play,
but for yourself.

and that is purity.

I miss being a little girl,
ignorant and happy and loved.

She was surrounded in summertime.
Her name was written in the wildflowers and she was surrounded in summertime.

of how things used to be,
I want to say
come back

so constant is the lapping shore of change

she washes her face with cappuccino cream
her eyelashes are showered in burnt coffee.
It's never been so hot in June
and it has been months since she's peeked at the moon.
One month left, she tells her reflection -
that is, one month left until summer truly starts,
one month left until papers are due and life is true
one month until you swim in purple stripes
and ticks take hikes
and lines catch pikes.
One month left and then you can let go and fall apart.
And then...
What will hope behold?

Under the sun we are beautiful beings.
I want to spend my moments in this light with you

i am tired
of this old routine
what does it mean?
ask the mayor
or the minister -
im sure their answers might be sinister
but why should I care now
when i never have before
because i see a little piece
which is a little less plain
than the traffic and the cranes
building more for my complaints
i am strained
i am trying to retain
but the knowledge i have gained,
it is vain and retiring
i am fine
just fine
just tired and trying

blue days follow through
and I remember the taste
- sweet - of loving you

the pelicans swoop
in a sea of cloudless blue,
tethered to the sky.

does a voice ruin the wind?

I worry about the words I will say, forgetting that silence is charged with meaning,
and is easy to share with you.

I have  been grieving for you
every goodbye,

my entire life.

I sip away my sorrows
by drowning them in the heat of my tea
and pay better attention to the nice warm feeling of it sinking to the bottom of my stomach
rather than think about the stranger that wouldn't look away

Je pense, soulement.
Je me souviens les jours de toi.
Pour quoi?
Je ne sais pas.
Je t'adore. Je sais que tu sais ça mais je dis-le anyhow.

Slippery, as a fish.
You were born to the sea,
and breathe only by moving.

holy light
on my skin
cool air
patience thin

asylum walls
brick and stone
windowless,
so alone

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.

do it,
the duet
the one where you turn and I grin and you stop and I spin
and the music never stops and becomes white noise and then one with silence
and when we still the clocks stop but the music never slows

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.

the fly which buzzes incessantly
gets caught first by fatigue.

in your eyes
a monster lies;

in your smile
a steep beguiled
beast.

in your hair
flames that flare
and cease.

in your mind
what will I find?
an ever delicious
feast.

and in your song
a siren call,
a melody ever
triste.

je ne parle pas le français
mais vous,
vous êtes couramment

j'essaye
cependant,
vous n'avez rien répondu
et je crois que le silence est ma réponse

she likes to draw
and paint
and she likes her avocadoes.

she is afraid of the dark
avoids people in the park
and she likes her avocadoes.

her hair is copper blond
and this girl is ever fond
of green ripe avocadoes.

she has more fluorite
and lepidolite
than avocadoes,

but man oh man
does she love avocadoes.

These waters shimmer with memory;
watch as they glisten, flowing on the cusp of this age and the next.

Earthy, brown, depthless pools;
lacustrine, surging on the precipice of pearly shores,
enriching me as I look in

and see the tide's truest nature looking back at me.
Ancient and clandestine, too,
the place where youth and wisdom dwell

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