Gnawing at my tranquility
Chafing my marble surface
An agonizing feast
Of deformed and defunct emotion
Medley of past regrets and shortcomings
Laying stubborn eggs
That exponentially multiply

They do not come softly
But ruthlessly blister remnants of peace
Each an erupting bulbous membrane
That screeches at the edge of my resilience.

Dismembered promises
You speak
And my resilience deviates
Deep reluctance festers
And arid attempts
Configure dreams of little worth

A slump characterizes me
I am a concave branch ready to split
A mere whiff of you  suffices
To stifle my budding flowers.

The  ones I tended to
Shielded from invasive sun
And guarded by gaping  moon
With tenderness so deep
I could have rubbed combs through them

But yesterday’s flowers are blighted today
Harangued in spiteful midday light
And frayed with want they are

Want to be tended to
Want to be encircled by fertile mounds
Want to  be wanted

Describe me in a few words
What do I mean to you?
To what degree am I a priority,
and where do I stand?
Am I memorable?
What color do I inspire?
Am I the torrent of an ocean?
Or blunt as a knife?
Do I carry weight like my mother?
Or am I the shimmer of an ephemeral birdsong?
I just want you to know
I am willing

Cinnamon bark, cloves and cardamom seeds
Clean in running water
Fill a *** with water
Add spices and light the fire

Five minutes in breathe in the aroma
And allow the sensation to seep through your selves.
Allow  the spices to guide

The jolting spices quiver
And their essence gently begins to alter the water
The spices are a microcosm of what happens when you are near him
They jolt like your laughter,
And the shifting color mimics  yesterday’s dim lights
A symbol of his encircling, dominating presence

Once again you lower your head and the profundity of the scent
makes knowledge faint and redundant
You place your cup by the stove
And you quiver as the tea rides the cup.

“How are you?”
“What is new?”
A question as rich as a  promise
A sincere invitation.
You are my repository and the branch I grasp

Like an eager child
I bring my selves forth
All of them are welcome
My inner life trembles
A  mélange of anticipation and nervous excitement

Pain, yearning, doubt make yourself known
Unfurl and unwind
Derail if you must
Pour forth and expand your crevices
And just as well
Shame be banished

On the threshold of a new day
The seconds seem to crawl
To stall the aching sensations
I tell  myself I will go out, to the bookshop

The door sounds off and I enter
Every bookstore has a scent
The appeasing quietude stirs me
This is an enabling atmosphere
I synthesize the stimuli
A crisp new printing
Pearl, magenta, ruby red
Bold, italic, plain and pretty

I exit the enthralling world
The street’s beat has shifted
The cacophonies have subsided
The shift is replete
Rejuvenated and resplendent I return.

The valve that holds me together
A location out of place
A thorn in the woods
The pressure of a current


A mystery worth knowing
A code worth deciphering
The blister that won’t heal
A morning that never rises

An eclipse of consciousness
A national holiday
An emotional stalemate
The stewing of celestial juices

A lapse of vision.
A tear for my forsaken stability

Spiraling cycles
Reluctant approaches
Exhaustive conjugations
Paths crossed are nothing more
As my hand strokes yours
Nothing stirs
In my mind’s eye all is mud
A murky vision enshrouds you

We have entered a rupture, a stalemate
You don’t feel like a scent
There is no accompanying rapture
Your edges are blurry
And I am leaving.

To live in this world
That perpetually suspects and inspects
To live in cycles
Once a rose
Soon a wilting flower, dregs, and left overs.

This is no place for woman
Woman
Of man, made from man’s ribs
Woman
Deficient in thought and temperament
I think of Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath
And the conjecture imposes itself
This is no place for  brilliant women

What at once should be resplendent  
Stunts and sedates
Because the climate
Cannot reconcile with woman.

Is it worth the wrestle, sweat and toil

The hollering irksome voices

The encumbrance

To simply say “I made it?”

Of what worth is strength?

To proudly proclaim you weren't  trodden on?

To firmly shoot “I'm here!”

I endured when it was “do or be dealt with?”

But what solace sought does strength preserve?

There was no rapture
No long forsaken greeting
No angel wings upon me
No grave to lay to rest

I met death with no grievings
It’s consummate glare I welcomed
Laid bare in death’s celestial stare
And ultimate homecoming

But in the moment of our union
A flutter, a pausedeath
Had life been worth living?
Of what worth was this breath
This ignited candle
That death’s muttering
so sublimely extinguished

Cliches that rot each verse

Feigned depth and grandiosity

Prairie of disheveled words

Bland prosaic songs of loss

Imposters of life’s drawing power

An exodus of trees takes place

A new familial abode

Past man’s cursed appetite

And choking steam of soot

That stripped their loved ones bare


Out into the night they soar

Their roots afloat

And leaves glistening under the moon’s glare


Into the ocean they file one by one

With hope, full hearts and glee

The resolute intention of the tree

Is one with the sea’s gift of mystery


Free from man’s brutality

And lamenting their land’s demise

A New resurrected breed

Shooting forth will rise


Rooted bark, oceans bark

Redemptive to the core

A festive home for weary trees

Will witness spirits roar.

I reach for a peach
Indulging in its bounty
Sly caterpillar

Sinner me this,

Sinner me that.

Each sinner is sin’s sinner,

How about that?

Night beckons me

Mute as stone

With its staggering weight

To the truths it forces me to bear

Like the force of bygone days

I succumb and beg it to lead

I faintly shed all its talons

Wanting to strip it bare

One star at a time.

There is a velvet  petal

An eagle-eyed strawberry

Arms bejewelled with anklets that crinkle

Embellished and embalmed

her walk a swirling  dervish dance

Carrying the sweat of lurking eyes

Luscious, juicy, resolute, with a gaze as hard as snow.

Glaring and  transmuting the world

Singing a song for bygone days

dance the hazy dance
protract guiltless remedy
feel the moonlight glow

It’s circular winding
And within its rhythm
Eachmovement a solstice
Strewing thoughts
As stewed as clay
Inner workings
Of mind’s foremost crevices
That dazzle and daunt
Protract and engorge
Consume and exhume
Fire flows
And water gushes through
The rocking chair is the messenger
From me and to you

I won’t speak of love

That ****** exhausted joke

Pretentious those whose spirits flow

To chase the funky adventure

They speak of love

Like it’s the fingerprint of their palm

Reeking residue of pompous ways

Ridiculous their pursuits

Bedazzled illusion so little serves

Once the twirling dervishes have gone

Bedraggled bewildered you shall be

Was that hazed existence really me?

They tell me let it go

Like it’s a nursery rhyme

But I’m pinned and stranded

And painfully aghast

It coils me mercilessly

I want to plead and beg

The numbing pressure delves deep

And lethargy spreads wide

I can’t let go

Birds of prey cry out

demon fed infested fiends

feasting on your fears

When I’m thin I’ll be a meteor

Thin will thaw my troubles

The path will be gold plated roses

No blues will ever come my way

And I won’t need to ask him to stay

Fear the great glutton

Eating through the mind and flesh

Innermost marrow

A  morning haiku
drifting shards of sunlight
leaping dance of fate

Coffee granule melt and sing

Coffee granule this instant bring

Breathe new life

Shake up my nerves

Jolt me up

From this stubborn slumber

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

The hit is swift

Right on the spot

What once was dazed

Can thump and knock

This poem garnered momentum

And imposed itself on me

I began with little inspiration

But she urged and said write

Words can never wither

No one can outwit truth

It inevitably distills

cradle me along
long foreboding night time glow
existential moss

Willow weep for me
grieving tidings for my dreams
mercy set me free

I won’t let you in the shore of me

Where the endless marvels of the sea

Glide the tide and kiss its core

The shore enjoins, entangles And lays bear

And the foam of the ocean

Neutralizes,  rushes along

And meets

The sentient sun chafed earth

At once golden, healing and abrasive

That’s where you’ll find me

But I won’t let you in

The shore of me.

Sitting, waiting, pondering

What will the sum of my efforts yield for me?

Day in day out

I reach for the far

Grumbling, grouchy perennially irritated

And uneasy

What attitude brings forth?

Attitudes

See me

Wherewithal

Yearning for he threshold

To be the sum of my hopes

Afraid of waiting.

In the toilet

With the funk and ****

Abandon myself

In the abode of feces

A brick

A block

A thump

A knock

Palms on my face

Flush myself down the gutter

Unleash the parasites that feed on me

Exhume the fires that consume me

Slither my bare self on the

Rough chafed ground

Can’t quiet the mind

That feasts on itself

Laid out on a platter

For the demons dance to devour

Twirl

Undulate ululate

Snake hands and figure eights

chest circles and shakin’ hips

The boys wanna look

But they can’t see

The only one I’m twirlin’ and swirlin’ for

Is me

Can you remember your first friend?

It was my heart’s glee and my soul’s anchor.

The yearning is so deep.

beauty cemented by the desire to share

the beautiful tenets of friendship.

The wrong faculty seeks to understand

Crucial crux of life

Sustenance embalmed nourishment.

When in the throes of collosal  pain

The road leans treacherous.

friend can sever that sentiment.

Like the heaven’s alchemist

Sacred beloved

Fist of garden raging sweet

Honeysuckle dew

Still mind speak I pray

I plead come and trod with grace

Unfold hold my hand

Abandoned babe

In a rat infested fix

Ensconced with the dogs

Clenched palm bruised fingers

Ears chewed up bare

Draped in the cry of merciless times

I count the rain drops

Seemingly traversing earth

A crystal snowflake

Breathe in reach in me

rooted bark and flaming leaves

Seeking embers free

You reach within me

Leverage pull feast mesh love

Incandescently

The truest path

The smallest gesture

The biggest cop-out

The residual pain

I am home writing a poem

Elbow on thigh

Cheek on bended knuckle

Mind on furrowed eyebrows

Honest to god

I've been cradling hard times

uttered words that aren't alone

sensation overtakes them like a milestone

It is a blinding ray

A fiery putrid stench

And I am left

Faintly chasing the migrating birds

Livelier than the dull outside

Women gather in the washroom

Smear and smell of peach lipstick

Guffaws so sweet you never wanna leave

Fun and gossips on the boy outside

Chewin' gum and speakin’ flames

No **** party will ever be the same

Drop that fork or you will see

What it means to disobey me

Run to the corner and fetch my coat

Before I lay this iron-fist on your throat

Shut your mouth, not a word

Before I ****** upon you

With my manly sword

Blessed child

Till the earth

Blessed child

Breed new births

Scent of petunias wild and fresh

Intention pure as snow

Rowing boat of heaven

Bestower of a cool night's glow

Dreamlover

Keep your promise

The one you whispered in full bloom

Like no one would ever need to know

Dreamlover

Keep your promise

Like its etched on the permanent face of the moon

Steady and predictable

In constant flux but there.

Dreamlover

Its hard to dream

But I've entrusted them to you

Keep them safe

Dreamlover

You cannot back out now

You have me where you want me.

Now go

I confess that I am guilty

Of the shame that entrenches

Of my hand that doesn’t clutch

Yet recoils and dampens stiff

Of my joints

Weary

Of my gaze

Strained

Of myself

Harmed

White phosphorous
My other spleen
The rocking chair
Chanted dreams
Sweet cherubic moon
Vast ocean floor

I knew it would be
The fleeting flesh succumbing
To the dance of me