After you left and my office walls grew
Ominously wide
And summer smoke was thick with choke

I saw you
Changing rapidly
Growing: fangs claws horns dullish eyes frustrating day at the mall and you wanting to stay in all the time and too much work and

In my terror I saw you felt myself
Solve unresolved love like an anagram
Reformatted with subtitles and projected back

I want to rewind and pause and cut you out around the edges
Carefully
Then press you like a flower innocuously between the pages of my heart

But your delicacy is mercury and lead
I shred you like last year’s tax returns
Dull confetti

Then piece by piece you back together
With scotch tape and leave you
Filed away in case of audit

We fell into step with one another
And made meaning of an ease
Found faith in elegance
Saw significance in happenstance and circumstance
Poets forging senti-mental lines
With heavy rhyme

If we were free verse darling
Would you any idea
What words come next
And why they do

Just jumbled noise
The Cantos and Finnegans wake
And a million other drunken tags
Dreams interpreted

Nonsense imbued
Translated haikus
Ring crisp

They seem to glow so
Charged with meaning
Forget Christ on the cross
Show me another Chinese symbol
On a white boy’s arm

I think I’ll write in blank verse for a while.
Or in prose, at least until I can be sure I’m not just writing what comes next. And while I’m at it, could you make sure you call the landlord today?(Carl - 604 310 9032)

-grapes
-eggs
-scotch tape
-coffee

I’ll find meaning in the wind again
I’ll find meaning in the wind

Abandoned I’ll be taken up and moved
Letting myself become yellow with August
I’ll find meaning in the wind

When my motor fails and its rhythm is tripped
The tin begins to squeak it’s empty squeal
I’ll find meaning in the wind

In the last afterthought of sunset’s
Over eager fingers night on skin
The hungry mouth of Fall not far behind

I’ll rouse myself and shudder to the yawn
Somewhere outside of Kansas’ aching sprawl
Outside of suburbs’ storm of the routine

I’ll find the zephyr’s force has filled my mouth
And I will find my meaning in the wind

O! Great God Pan! Hidden amongst a’
Is thou enraged that no one kens ya?
No shrine built up ta not forget ya
Except this song
That begs and calls ya goat like figure
Honourable faun

I had a crack and heard on vine
That thou had wilt’d past your prime
Now in some cavern sootie and grim
Thou’s left ta dwell
Enraged as trees fall ‘ll round ‘im
Cre’ting hell

But now your glorious hour’s upon us!
As Christ no longer quite impresses
So now I wake ya to awake us
An’ in through this verse
I beseech ya, please protect us
An’ lift this curse

Your flute, which hasn’t made a sound
In thousands a year, now let abound
From grotto dim ta lofty ground
Let’s hear the reed
Is time ya now took up ya crown
Across the tweed!

Sip me slowly like a cup of tea
Although the heat may burn your lips a bit
Or send a shock to seeking fingertips
Persist.

Let splashes of me spill across the brim
Leaving stains on worn kitchen counters
Or table clothes caught innocent bystanders
Do not mind.

Take me gently like a cup of tea
Pass breathes across my rippling surface
I’ll feel your every meaning only wordless
Be quick.

I am just nervous.

Yawning cup I am who cannot tell
If I am me or I am steam that blows
Or if I am half empty or half full
Or why you wait.

Or whether it’s because I am not herbal
And caffeine late at night won’t let you sleep
If so then gulp me back stay up with me
Drink me down.

Or did you fix me up just out of habit
Of loneliness just brewing to keep busy
Well I am just a lonely cup of tea
So sip me slowly.

There is already enough to go around by now
You could go ahead and take two and no one would care to notice
We have designed and redesigned gone back to the drawing board
Enhanced and streamlined every stitch

But I couldn’t count the ways you filled my pockets
I only wish I had cut holes in the bottom
So as not to be weighed down when you took off

Tibia or not tibia?
Is a stupid question
The one-two staff
Keeping the rhythm of life on track

Oh metronome of movement
The pair of pillars for the coda
And the reeds or pipes beneath
Catching wind under feet like Hermes

A duet will only do
Your solo career is a nosedive not worth investigating
(And monotheism is a dull state of affairs)
Better yet, take Paul to John:
You took your lucky break and broke it in two

Lakeside petro
I dragged my feet
You were dragging on cigarettes

Raven bread sandwich
Can you turn it up?
Windows down is cold, but worth it

And I guess we caught the same thing
Cuz, when that song came on
About the black canoe
we both turned an eye to the sky

I like them.
not all poems but sometimes
sometimes i read a poem and
it catches me by surprise
maybe once you've left it to find something
a word a line an idea the whole **** thing
and you go back and you think anything about something
and you leave again
and then if you're lucky you find $20 on the ground and use that $20 to buy candy and cigarettes

Someday
You will wake up
And the day will be stretched out before you

Time
Having run through its to-do list
Will have eased to a crawl

You
With all your different acts and words and movements
Will have become the epitome of yourself

And you will inhale each moment deeply
And you will feel each blade of grass beneath your feet
And whispers of tomorrow won’t ever reach your ears

Someday
You will wake up

Ballooning tissue
Lips chewed raw
Surprising blood and horror
A dog’s chew toy
Skin pressed tight swollen to bursting point so tight splitting
Synapse stretched and snapping
Sinews torn like bits of cloth like flesh from bone
Numb
Day by day on
Screens

If - Vancouver was born
“Quite fun. Ran up this with my partner on our first time
  up to the top of the Chief. Great fun!” - Juler 2011-09-03

Then - The alpine was created


Mountaineers started at sea level and they walked
into a


“Million thanks to the one who put
permanent draws on the bolts” - calvinclimb 2011-09-07


veritable howling wilderness
to counter this foreign *******

Thus the alpine was created by us:
Learned cosmopolitan alpinists

Would not could not cannot popularize
The exclusive sport of learned cosmopolitan alpinists
To popularize was to vulgarize


“My buudy took a big fall fell clipping,
lucky falls are super safe” - boulamania 2013-06-05

Take for instance Art Cooper’s statement:
You've heard about the Squamish Chief,
The way they go up that rock wall
I don’t think that’s climbing at all.”

No Art, certainly not
Now they do not stay long enough to feel diminished
Unlike us learned cosmopolitan alpinists
“Everyone in the free world has climbed this uber-classic!
Should you get lost, ask the party in front of you where to go” - rock climbing.com
Who drove our teeth through our lips for our
Exploratory climbing
Now
A well used recreational area

Today I am a bubble of oxygen
Surrounded by water

Today I am available
Actions are the water

Water is water

With the untouchable soon-to-be
Touched at my back

The untouchable only
In touch with me

Within touch

But I know I’m heading south when i am done
But I don’t get it sometime

I’ll get to it sometime

I spent the morning my morning looking into windows and listening to glass inside of her so still skipping past the cell would be towards unless ideas and stop the run going to be sick
Flattening in full anyway I recomposed in my absence night had fun already it had grown dark
Still so shut the blinds and render through the window that carry me through and less I do use to connect me to all who said Evers of still deadly between worlds

Highways pass beneath the north shore structure moving in all directions
above the ancient growth in-cedes
and falls tangled softly at the foot of her bed

inside the building it is always the dull morning hours
clicking clocks rise and fall moving cars
waiting for the morning to rise

as i entered one morning i swear an arm of fog followed me inside
fluorescent glow smell of cleaner
she's having trouble

keeping food down
walking
her ****** prolapsed again

six years ago was six months
and six months ago was six weeks
a teddy bear too loved falling apart at the seams

the woman next door came into my bedroom last night
she had someone cut the key
i’m startled even though i know this is coming

she used to make blackberry jam in the summer time
and the juice stained everything it touched purple
but that word is foreign to her now

and she told me that she was a nurse on the beach at d-day
and even though i know she wasn't
she knows she was

the tea is nicely guided along its next sip
it's like you always said if you want water make water
if you want tea make tea

Plant the seeds of words within your mind
And there they will grow larger in due time.
Don’t be afraid to mix them with the soil
That in your mind does translate the world.
Feed them often through photosynthesis
By reading lamp upon a creaky desk.

Don’t worry what ideas I had when
I dug up words by trowel of my pen,
Then placed them neatly down upon the page
And closed the book to leave them in the shade.
Now the leafs lie waiting for your eyes
To water them and watch them come alive.

What plants will you grow when you close the spine?
What seeds will you plant with these words in mind?

And where it began: I said I’ll have
Olives in my drink. To feel alive
In my drunk mind I think all love is near
So sip me quickly like a martini

I saw once in a movie this before
(I’m not supposed to watch the ***** bits)
But eye can see between my little fingers
And I can do exactly what he did

So here I wait just hoping for a lover
I’ve searched all over, up and down this cup
Found pitted little olives floating on their own
Salty burning down my throat and tongue

Experi-mental drinking isn’t safe
It cannot find a single (stand) to reason
But don’t attempt to (under)estimate
You end up with a headache and can only

And where it began: I said I’ll have
Olives in my drink. To feel alive
In my drunk mind I think all love must be
Near by, so sip a sip of my ****-tail.

I saw once in a movie this before
(I’m not supposed to watch the ***** bits)
But eye can see between my little fingers
End I can do exactly what he did

So here I wait just hoping for a lover
I’ve searched all over, up and down this cup
Found pitted little olives floating on their own
Salty burning down my throat and tongue

Experi-mental writing isn’t safe
It cannot find a single (stand) to reason
But don’t attempt to (under)estimate
You end up with a headache and can only

Love comes and goes like Autumn wind that blows;
It whips us up like dead seeds from the mud,
When life has left us grounded from the flood,
That dripping downward Fall upon us throws.

We can’t control just where or when it grows,
Nor where our fragile souls the gust may thud.
Nowhere can we see our flower bud
As up and down we float like rhythmic prose.

Yet love, oh love, your tale must surely not end here,
When Winter holds us frozen in its grasp,
For soon the sun will shine when skies they clear,
And melting snow Spring’s forth our love at last!

Though next the Summer sun will warmly shine,
The Autumn wind cannot be far behind…

h/th/everywh/
ere

i meet myself again

someth/com/laugh/
ing

tells me where he is

how many times a day can a heart break
stretching bending sinking
at small things
like

shadows falling sideways across
paths you often walk
a funny joke
a shoe

yearning and yawning as the wide world
a great big changing world
one which breathes
and dies

and one which sighs and wakes
a heart that's always open
never has a chance
to heal

but the breaking of a heart does not mean pain
hearts break when they fall in love
hearts break in the spring
a heart

can hold a moment close
but must let it go again
and again to feel
the world

THe two on tHE right

      OFfer no appeAL

     They the city their

     with shiny metal and

      Reflect
     only unnatural lights

      And longwinded rushing

      Or stop.    And go.  That

      sound of cars

Left      of these the me, I, am,

     is drawn in
     Siren Songs Touching
        
     my ears sink

     The only bridge with high arches

          And spelled out latin
     Words that house two Mermaids:

      Mermaids on both sides (responsible
     for the 'coos         ' )

     And near the middle of the bridge,
     there is a small plaque, only
     Visible when crossed properly
     (on foot) and reads:

     "BY sea and land we prospER"

     but by now i think it must be the other way around

It's no longer what would I do if,
But what should I do because...

I think someday now
You'll come 'home'
(Or, where you’re supposed to be)
Too much the same
But far from me

I wish we could have spoken deeper
(Though I shared my thoughts with only you
And was always left the better for it)
About where we'd gone
And where 'home' could be.

You did, once, mention your father
(And only how his mother died)
A poor barber in a frozen town
Who dreamed of life and death
(I presume)

How on a cold December, early century morning
His mother’s hearse, slick with ice and snow
Lost its way
And the horses brought it crashing down
To put her body on display

(Now all this time my wide eyes
And searching soul wondered:
Why the hint of a smile forming on your lips?)
You thought the whole fiasco
Could be out of a great Dickens’ tale

Yes you did, once, mention your father
But only how his mother died when he was young
(Just like your own) but nothing more
So tell me where is 'home'?
(Or where I'm supposed to be)

Sometimes in the mountains
On a wall up in the sky
I hear music

It’s not the wind through trees
Or falling rocks
(Those these chime in
From time to time)

But within my chest
My heartbeat thumps
My breath
Floats to my ears

A song you sang
I can’t recall
Is sung again
In me

They say if you can't go one day
Without thinking about it, then it's
Love.
But I don't love cigarettes,
Or that day my Uncle died.
I was seven
And I wasn't sure why I cried
But my dad stayed silent.
And where was my sister in all this?
I don't love my phone
Or email. In fact
I don't love books and words,
Or the softest stroke and scratch
Of pen to paper.
So when they say that,
I do my best and think of you.

every slight from you
even the smallest little gesture
speaks to me in words

sounds
which not misheard to foreign ears
form into thoughts

with vibrant tone and
run amuck
throughout our souls
and now this page

just enough to understand
but never there to translate

The artists all asked me
What does it feel like?
Gathered tight together round
A small black table
And they bent their bodies
To every touch
Then fell away

I couldn't form an answer
The creeping of my nerves
Down spine to spindly fingers
Sharp as rusty screws
And dull as achy bones
It felt like nothing

The writers all asked me
What were you thinking?
Sprawled out sedately upon
A sleepy couch
Tell it all but not too much
One said
And make sure it is true

The howling wind
And deathly silence
The great valleys of snow
Which stole my mind
A muffled cry in the bleak north

I the
Buried of
Meaning poem
This because
Just wasn't
There At
One. not
Least i
That find
Could...

Am I convincing?
When I try and act cool
And hardly say a
Word

Lately I've been quite skeptical
Of myself
As you drift through me
And I get nervous

But there are ways of being convincing, like,
Writing words,
Doing drugs,
Checking the time,
More than twice.

Are you convinced,
I don't care?

This morning,
When I couldn't stop thinking about you,
Or maybe the idea of you,
     (You see I don't know you rather well)
And I couldn't get anything done,
I went for a bike ride.

After fifteen seconds
Of fresh air
My tire popped
And I fell on my face.

And while I'm not writing this
To blame you,
Or make you feel bad,
Per se....
I just think you should know
How much I go through
For you.

The Winter is chained onto each of my bones.
It has been in my father’s bones, and it is in mine.
When deafening silence fills fields of snow,
And whispers of death around the valley
Reassure that all is right in the world.




The Spring is mixed within with my blood.
It has been in my father’s blood, and it is in mine.
When we remember what the world can be,
And senses flourish to sweet and soft,
It all begins again.




The Summer is melded with my skin.
It has been in my father’s skin, and it is in mine.
When we remember our hopes and dreams
And everything is possible,
In that perfect sunset.  




The Fall is nestled deep within my heart.
It has been in my father’s heart, and it is in mine.
When quiet talks blow mouth to mouth,
And echo creaking floorboards of far off footsteps,
On a Sunday afternoon.

everyday we wake up
and do our best to impersonate
that who we think it is we are

It's cold out you said When will the cold go away?
And I told you there was no such thing
Just a lack of heat

And we walked together
Through the rain
And we both knew that really
The cold was there
We could feel it.

We both decided it was a clean slate
That we want
To have not felt the heat

When I lay in bed below the moon,
And drift away into the land of night,
My thoughts and journeys merge into a tune.
I miss all of the songs I wish to write
In light of all what is missing in the day,
I yearn to understand all that I've missed;
Those lovely thoughts that once bestowed my brain
But vanished from my soul into the mist.
Yet if such imagination grasps me here,
And takes me far away from where I am,
Then death provides me not with such a fear,
But the bliss of knowing more than I can fathom.
          If my dying hand could only grasp the pen
          To tell you of my vision at the end.

I was summoned this morning - who knows who or why
Called out by the silence of the whispering city
Called out to come and watch the light grow
To sit in silence; icy feet, icy toes

As the drunks cuddled up together in bed
     Alone I sat by the sea
As their passions resolved, and their hangovers grew
     Alone I sat by the sea

For this is time to escape to the North
Where the birds hide their secrets desperately from us
Like the world of before, whose life still exists
And each death is but change - no me, and no you

And we cannot get their together you see,
Nor travel alone. For we've always been
Like the waves of the sea: Separate, yet everywhere
As we are to the earth that separates us
It is only if we believe. From ashes to ashes
Dust to dust, until the end of time.

Didn't you think!
“What if he doesn’t finish the whole thing?”
“What if he falls asleep before he’s done,
    Before someone finds his lost son, or frees Mr. B”

Then what?

Left with dreams not to what you intended,
Stuck between chapters with characters not finished
      What they still have to do.
On the brink of disaster! Alone with suicidal friends…

Then what?

Will he do when he wakes up?
And he’s lost without purpose alone and undone,
Without the strength to even look past the cover.
Didn't you think,
What if!?

I thought of you today
when I cut    
               myself shaving.          And you
Whose fault it was?


I remembered my first lesson
you gave me
     I cant rememberwhichway it went      
  Was it up my chin?
                  Or across my neck?


I know whose fault it is I didn't listen
or thank you.                    Standing
                   with bloodonmychin just
What I deserve.

Left**                                                           ­                                                    Right
The­ shadowy outline of my closet is                                               A window
Too dark to see. I imagine                                         The lights and people and
The closet door out of place                                                 endless­ thoughts.
And Shirts that I don’t have,                                            I lie awake thinking,
                                          (Tonight in/of the imaginary closet)

While you stay young and I grow old,
It would be something to behold:
A tiny sparkle in the sand
Before those waves come crashing down.

And leave you in your shallow pool
Wet, and ragged, looking quite the fool.
Without an end, if things don’t pass
Everything is meaningless.
I suppose we couldn’t watch the flocks,
And I may as well give you a rock.
Flowers bloom against bluest skies,
And smell so sweet, but also die.

A rock however, so sublime
Sits cold and lifeless for all of time.
A rock never fades into the fields,
And Winter will not change its appeal.

A rough tongue, a heart of gall
The one whose sorrow’s never fall.
The greatest hero in all the land
Must go skyward in the end.

You may think you have it all
But someday dear the sky will fall.
If to these delights your mind might move
Then leave me now, you’re not true love.

And So Boys Dream Of Motorcycles

- Girls Of Their Horse

It’s funny how I’ve gotten to know you
(The real you)
Since the moment I decided I did not.

It’s strange that I feel close to you
(The real you)
Now that we spend less time together.

It’s odd how I can tell just what you
(The real you)
Is thinking, and block right out what you
Say.

And it’s quite frightening, darling,
That I understand you
(The real you)
Better than I know myself
(Who?).

I heard a song last night on the radio
Driving back with...
What unbeknownst to me was...
A last kiss on my lips.

The girl sang to me in the sweetest voice
Along side piano keys
And what was I think a violin
Teaching me of love and things

Years later I think I heard this song again
The melody long forgotten
Who's to say
In my core I felt you shifting in your sleep

I've got three people to thank
I'll be frank:
     The alcohol that's in my blood
     And The music in my ears
     Everyone who’s done more than me
It's you who's made it clear.

Don't wait any longer
Just remember:
     Not where you make your living
     Not where you rest your head
     But where your mind goes to
When you lie alone in bed.
    
So fear me please
But be at ease:
     I’m closer than you think
     Know I’ll be that last attack
     Realize that I'm the end
But never let me hold you back.