thirty years
since Mark gunned you down
thirty years, passed
like a long sleepless night
that ends with taunting morning light
no brilliant sunrise grandly pronouncing
a glorious new dawn of man
although that would have been your plan
with your entreaties to give peace a chance
and imagine, imagine, imagine

now I kneel in this rain gray park
like a reject from some holy ark
a pilgrim in doleful disappointed pose
after seeing what your earthly brothers chose
was not to imagine a world of peace and love
but to wear reality like a cast iron glove
making mockery of your martyred chants
proceeding like a billion scurrying ants
deaf to your childlike pleas

across the soaked soil where your ashes lay
yesterday and today…and tomorrow
I feel the soggy sorrow
that you would have felt
if you could still see
all the rage of humanity

(written 7 years ago on the 30th anniversary of the ****** of John Lennon)

In English,
we’re learning about
Winston and Julia
in 1984, but
it’s 2017
all I want to study is
you.

I want to study less
about the
control and freedom
Big Brother has
and more about
the calculation of your
moves.

I want to study the way
your knuckles could be an
infant’s home, small
hands reaching out
longing for you
or the way the veins in
your arm makes abstract art,
beautiful enough to be showcased
in any gallery.

I understand now why they say
“as pretty as a painting.” Because
you’re as timeless and
breathtaking as
Mona Lisa.

And your blue iris's,
swirl with dark and light
tones with a slight
a golden glint,
I could stare into them for longer
than any
Starry Night.

Maybe,
I’m just better suited to an art class.
I want to learn the primaries
so I can swirl them all together and
get your dark brown hair.
I want to add the most expensive
white, so I can paint the
faint freckles on your nose and

I want to mix blue and red adding water
until the colour is a perfect match
for the faintest birthmark
on your shoulder.

Instead of the History of Russia,
I want to learn the History
of you.
I want to learn what makes you smile
and what makes you cry.

I want to study you,  
I use each brush stroke to
perfect your skin,
each pen writes down
notes until
I have a whole book
full of each heartbreak,
so I can learn a lesson
in you.

let it come.
let it hit you as hard as it may.
let it sting; heartbreak always does...

then let it go;
you are stronger than this grief.

They are building a house
half a block down
and I sit up here
with the shades down
listening to the sounds,
the hammers pounding in nails,
thack thack thack thack,
and then I hear birds,
and thack thack thack,
and I go to bed,
I pull the covers to my throat;
they have been building this house
for a month, and soon it will have
its people...sleeping, eating,
loving, moving around,
but somehow
now
it is not right,
there seems a madness,
men walk on top with nails
in their mouths
and I read about Castro and Cuba,
and at night I walk by
and the ribs of the house show
and inside I can see cats walking
the way cats walk,
and then a boy rides by on a bicycle
and still the house is not done
and in the morning the men
will be back
walking around on the house
with their hammers,
and it seems people should not build houses
anymore,
it seems people should not get married
anymore,
it seems people should stop working
and sit in small rooms
on 2nd floors
under electric lights without shades;
it seems there is a lot to forget
and a lot not to do,
and in drugstores, markets, bars,
the people are tired, they do not want
to move, and I stand there at night
and look through this house and the
house does not want to be built;
through its sides I can see the purple hills
and the first lights of evening,
and it is cold
and I button my coat
and I stand there looking through the house
and the cats stop and look at me
until I am embarrased
and move North up the sidewalk
where I will buy
cigarettes and beer
and return to my room.
from "All's Normal Here" - 1985