The city is calm in the corona sea

If you try to breathe, normal,
in through the nose
out through the mouth,
you know your breath will stutter,
come out in a gulping, unsteady way

Because your heart is too fast
(as always)
Your mind is too unclear,
stuck in a haze of fog.

So you will breathe
through only your nose,
keep the panic curled and tight
until you are all alone,
and it can lash out fast and furious,
and harm no one but you.

Like a muscular drummer drumming,
    the Big wind
It gathers itself, twirls its sticks
Then swooping suddenly lambasts its
     kit
Thrashes the coast, sways the trees
    and rocks the boats
Lathers into it;
Its cymbals crashing are the smash of
    the sea against the rocks
The trees running amok over the
    rising mountains.

                                    II

With a draught of this air drawn in to
    fill my sails
To have the big windmills of my blood
    rotate
And ******* out then across the bay
Up over the headland, out over the
    wide open sea
A Colossus emerging and none to
    stand in my way.

Curdled cream and three separate drafts of a memory I can't quite pen properly.
Disappointment inbound, pouring the first cup of freshly brewed coffee down the drain.
Had I checked the date this wouldn't have been a waste of $4; but a solemn reminder of analogies leaping from my brain.
Cycle of sleeping all day to lie awake during the nighttime, overthinking. Curtains of feeling bad about inability to wake normally, darkness of the evening encompassed I finally pull myself out of the bed.
Despite this current pattern, last winter undoubtedly worse with feelings of self destruction and loathing.
For currently I do not cry every waking hour, just wish I was different with no apparent response to change.
Cats continue to be stricken with yet another upper respiratory response to declined immune system of an exotic breed.
Lost debit card, jobless flounder.
No appetite or desire to binge eat for the first day of my existence.
Headlight reflections crawl across the ceiling and I'm suddenly five years old again, afraid of almost everything.
Summer evenings when the whipper-well called out haunting symphony of their nighttime songs.
I never quite believed they were birds, moreover monsters and I never heard those calls other than childhood.
My father outside, and I in the grass.
Childhood wonder as he climbed a ladder to retrieve me a piece of the moon.
Wide eyed awe at this miraculous feat, my father could reach the moon.
Unnoticed by young eyes, the moons sphere just out of reach by trillions of lightyears.
A rock plucked off the driveway.
He must've been proud of his farce, my bewilderment and excitement beaming.
I love you.
Twenty five years later, a memory I haven't connected to in decades.
Perhaps the next time I look to the man in the moon, I'll see your face etched softly on the surface.
That radiating glow reminding me things will be alright.
It's been an odd winter, my heart is cooled more than our weather as of late.
Somewhere through the forests of Sandilands Provincial forest a deer crunches across the snow.
Silence, except for its breath, a softness.
Trees encompass, nurture and protect.
You are home.

O! the lives I've wasted
The lives I could have led
If different paths I'd taken
And different people I'd met.

O! what friends were lost
When just around the corner they lay
Their voices heard but their faces
   hidden
O! why had Destiny to steer me this
   way.

                              II

With my life here in my hands
My impulsive moves and slow
   meanderings
My efforts regulated by my will to
   abstain
In gaining my present position
What have I lost elsewhere
And what have others lost
Because of my absence there.

I was the king with no throne,
             I only sat upon the curb..

My crown was my neighbourhood,
   and all that did surround...

I'll never disrespect my brethren,
             for they stand by my side,

behind me, in front to protect we, us
           all from the idioms of who


think that this land is free verse,

     never this is a rhyme of colours
           that'll write that this is our

street and others neither may stand

                              or bellowing there

right to stand on land sacred to our
                                                  families.

we don't fight with swords,
           but our metal will pierce like
cut from a far we are the knights of
                                our neighbourhood.

I don't sit on a thrown, on a kerb I gaze
              around I wear no crown...

But everyone knows I'm king and ill
           bury metal in you like a sword
pieced the stone.

Like that you'll be cold,
metal not pulled but
                          rather calved out..

i never got to hear your heart beat
i never got to choose a name
i keep losing you before i have you
and all i feel for you is pain

i never got to hold you
or comfort you when you cried
because again i’ve lost you
and no longer have you inside

they say that healing helps you
and moving on is for the best
but how can i sleep peacefully
knowing now you’ll forever rest

i’ve cried a million tears for you
and sang a thousand songs
because in my arms my love
is right where you belong