The bus whirrs and shakes and brakes and errrs
and I think of you.
It stinks and clanks and clinks
and I think of you.
Its silence is screaming, its distance is gleaming
and I think of you.
I'm far away and exhausted and the bus excretes exhaust
and I think of you.
I burr and shake and brake
and I think of you.
and I think of you.
and I think of you.

I know it’s selfish
... but I wish you spent six weeks in a hospital bed.
I wish that I could have spent seven fifty on parking slips
every day for those six weeks
Just to say goodbye,
properly.

I wish that hospital smell
grew familiar in my nostrils.
that I could walk the route with my eyes closed
to room whateveritis
and sit in a familiar chair,
slowly watching,


waiting,


for you to die.

I wish you had a nice view out your window

one filled with trees,
one that birds flew in front of regularly
because you loved watching them.

I wish I didn’t leave you
drinking merrily with friends
joking about everything
because I wanted to spend your last moments by your side.

I wish I could have observed your strength




slowly fading



as your smile was
quick to appear.

I wish we could have talked
once more would have done
although I wish that conversation could last forever.

I wish you could have ******* about hospital food
like you did when you were sick before,
and I wish we could have laughed about it.
         wish we could have joked about sneaking beer into the hospital.

I wish the beeping of hospital things drove away silence.

I wish we could have stared at the ground
as we discussed life,
death
and other important things.

I would have wished

that it wouldn’t have been awkward
but we would have known
what to do with your ashes...

Instead of leaving them on top of your sound system
and never looking at them.

I wish you were able to stand with us today
instead of swimming in a pool of regret,
instead of somewhere else.

I just wish you didn't die

and take a part of us with you.

I start with a single idea,
smoldering sweetly like a single
piece of coal.
If I leave it unattended,
too much time and moisture will combine
to cool the sweet heat
of creation.
If I write before it's ready,
time again becomes a factor.
A hot coal needs time,
the unwise smother an otherwise fine fire
with sticks and leaves and logs.
Some are attracted to the
bright sheen of gasoline,
but all I see is a brilliant facade
that fades within seconds.
It burns too hot,
the heat isn't appreciated
and the living leave for darkness.
A good poem, like a good fire,
needs time and tact to survive.
It needs to be nurtured, worked
and tinkered with. A good poem
needs varying heats, complimentary conditions
to grow.
It needs time to breathe, room to
become a bonfire or a forest
fire. Either way,
I try to bring the bright heat
from the warm coal of creation.

Thousands of pounds
of dark, shiny, heavy
metal light soars over the
moon-glittered mirror.
No shadows block
water from the sky.
I float, eyes looking
inward as I hope that
today will be forgettable.
For hours, I have no idea where
I've been or where I'm going,
hearing only engine and
praying its whirring doesn't slow.
I'm a chicken ****.
I keep trying to
fade away from my own
mind. Terrified.
Hell-bent on tomorrow,
I stumble off to sleep.

Suddenly, six years haven't passed.
I'm driving home from my first official job,
sun rising behind me and moon setting in front.
My hands stink of grease, grit, metal,
as a byproduct of lugging greasy, gritty
metal around the plant through all of the night. I'm tired.
My body cries out. It feels good, but I know that
Fall will give me something that makes sure
I don't have to come back here next summer.
My back burns, every movement bringing a new spasm.
I know I've got two Tylenol Extra Strength
waiting patiently for my arrival at home. I pull over at the side of the road to capture the moment. And maybe that's
why I remembered it tonight. Tonight,
six years have passed.
I'm several summers and a handful of jobs
removed from pulling metal bits around from sundown til
it rises again. I've got a piece of paper that says
I spent four years studying but I only really
spent a few weeks total, to be honest. I'm driving home
in the middle of winter, sand and salt rusting
my edges as the sun falls behind me again,
the moon acting as a guiding light to my front.
I'm coming from a place I never want to leave.
I'm going to a place I never want to leave.
It's easy to be torn, especially now,
without even taking notice of it. I'm happier for
it.

I was buying a parking pass from a sketchy, one-room portable office because the people that designed and built my building forgot that people have cars and
I keep my phone on silent so I missed the first call and
I knew my Grandma was having surgery that morning to replace a valve in her heart and
I knew my Mom wouldn't call unless there was a reason so as I was walking back to the bus stop, I gave my mom a ring.

It was mid-September and
we cried together but apart and
I decided to walk the 5 km home 'cause I didn't want to break down on the bus and
it was a beautiful day and
I knew that people would stare.

Mom said there was a 4% chance it would go bad and
we knew the odds were ok but she was 92 years old and
she never really was one for odds, fighting and becoming one of 3 female doctors in her graduating class. Mom called her on her days off and
they always talked for a few hours and
I know that Grandma really valued that time.

On my walk in this unrelated town, nothing seemed out of place, but I wasn't really there at all. The beggers begged and
the students drank and
studied and
the thugs thugged and
the cyclists cycled past me as I put my headphones in and
tried to disappear after saying goodbye to Mom because she had other calls to make.

And
Kim texted me wondering why Mom wasn't picking up and
I told her that she would be calling shortly and
I put my phone away and
walked on with my head down.

*

That Christmas season, we had no real family get-together for the first time, but I went with Mom and
3/4 of her siblings and
various other family members to Grandma's favourite restaurant that we went to together a few times and
everyone seemed genuinely happy and comfortable. And
I know they all missed her, of course, and
she was a doctor and
my Grandpa a surgeon, so they had a bunch of money to hand down to their children and
Grandma's family was the most important thing to her, so I think she would be happy knowing that everyone she loved and
that cared for her was a little more comfortable, was able to pay some student loans or a mortgage or a trip (which, also, she spent most of her life doing).

And
it seemed strange to me that on the day she died, nothing really changed, but as time moved on, she has continued to make all of our lives a little easier, a little brighter, a little less gloomy in the months that followed. And
this isn't an "Ode to Money," but rather an "Ode to my Mom's best friend" because all she ever wanted came true, directly
thanks to her.

I know
that every cliché is true.
And every comparison, like the one about
your eyes shining lonely but brilliant like the moon, well, it is too. The one about your kindness,
a scout helping an old woman cross the road. The one about your brilliance, leaving me feeling both blessed and a little intimidated, yes that one too.
Of course, the one
about your smile
and the whole room, like a christmas tree; yes that one too.
Thank you,
for granting me some time
with a white winged being;
but of course that one is true,
too.

A city incomplete. Orange vibrance directs every corner. Its
edges are rough, each turn of the
wheel testing my shocks
as asphalt ebbs and flows
beneath me. Each turn is chaos,
each location new and different. A city lost among itself. Still, each
turn brings with it cobblestone roads and ancient paintings, museums and tourists and beggers, some sitting under bridges, huddled around
a fire. I burn, too, teeth still chattering,
at home among the chaos. A city with plenty of past, looking forward. It
isn't hard to relate.

This isn't about me, but I can only
speak from my own lips. This is all
about you, really my perception of
you, so excuse the bias.
You're gold.
From the inside, you shine by
giving your time without personal
benefits. You glitter my littered eyes
with a blistering brightness. You're fearful,
so I'll give you an ear full of whispered compliments and knowing glances.
The world doesn't give
a ****, but you're without a any left to share, having cared every **** to the ******. You are the new dew on morning grass, you are light in darkness, you are gold among rubble, you a sandwich to the starving world, you are everything I could ever hope to be (with).
You are gold, shining on those who've forgotten their lustre.

I've been climbing that hill for a long time
Every time I ascend on my way home,
     I see the red and blue lights that were
     strewn across my lawn
just the one night.
     And I still don't know what that means,
that I'm reliving the one moment
before my world came crashing down.
Maybe it's my mind trying to return to the uncertainty,
     sitting in that little blue car just seconds before
     catching a glimpse of paramedics trying to
breathe life into my dad's lungs.
              Maybe I'm trying to return to a full family
or maybe it's just a memory
              that won't go away

until I stop climbing that



hill.

While you lay asleep and dreaming,
          I sit, conscious,
                             writing and thinking and
                                                                     dreaming.
When you awake to work as the sun rises,
            I lay in bed
      asleep,
                              but not dreaming.
When you work
        and complete all your given tasks with relative ease,
                I dreamlessly rest.
This, so that we may dream at the same time
                                                             about similar things
                                                    and I can trap our dreams in print
                                         always together,
                                                                   harmoniously
                                                                                                       like us.

"No one asks to die" she tells me.
I listen, eyes glistening as she pains
even just to feign an ounce of joy.
"And no one asks to be born,"
I answered curtly.
She laughed.
I thought it was odd, but decided
to continue on
"And no one asks for a peanut allergy.
No
one asks for a midnight shiver or
a hungry night or
a lifetime of accidents
or cancer."
And she stopped laughing. And she
looked at me, all serious, eyes shining,
and she sneezed.
Debris flew all through the room,
and a little got in my eye.
We laughed, and the hospital bed that held us up finally gave way to something
important. We stopped looking
towards my bitter closing end, towards
the tunnel and the light, and we
spent thirty seconds giggling about a poorly timed explosion of nasal debris.
Thank you, dust particle,
for a second of anything
but silence.

A fourteen year old borrows five bottles of his dad's daily beers, puts them back with ache at a brisk pace, and spends the night growing acquainted with an unfamiliar porcelain throne.
He wakes up with the bathroom spinning, and laughs with friends of friends about all that stuff he pretends not to remember (because that's what alcohol does, he's told).
And he does it again, and again
and one time he ends up alone
on the ground on a brisk autumn morning,
and he's moist and chills define his spine.
He goes home and still alone,
he lays on a bed that his parents bought.
Hours later, he wakes up to a glass of water and an advil that appeared on his nightstand, as if delivered by an angel.

Yesterday I wore boots and a winter coat.
Today, running shoes and a sweater, and
today I lost a friend that I met last fall.
It lingered on a branch long after
loneliness took hold. As cold and wind
tried to dim its golden glow, this friend
shook and slimmed but never did it go. It held on through fading warmth, fighting with every inch of its existence to see another day. Time passed.
Every blast of icy breeze cast doubt on
my last remaining leaf on the tree
just outside my house. Today,
I lost a friend that reminded me to hold
on.
Tomorrow, though, I know that in its place a green bulb of life will take shape.

The battle will not have been in vain,
because together we lasted
through the darkest shade of rain.

I'm at the edge.
behind, open
clear
free space, green in all directions. Blue skies
that I've met before, become acquainted with,
and have become my dearest friends. They
stand tall behind me, pushing forward,
encouraging
when fatigue becomes too much.
They are my sword, my shield.
in front, closed
full
just unknown. Trees piled high, no sky seen. No blue, still green looks down from above. This time,
though,
it's dark. It looks on, expectant.
Of what, I'm not exactly sure.
in front, there is thick brush
built of brambles, raspberry bushes, and dense, low
branches. They cut,
scrape skin and burrow deep for the
unexposed. They have no aim,
no end goal, but
they keep on growing, pushing up,
spreading, acre after acre,
demolishing what I aim
for myself to be. They swallow
me whole, or try, but . . .
Still, there is only one direction
I can go
from here.

Sometimes you've got to stare at your feet.
Like when time stands still,
blood curdles with news
and shock takes over your
already white, emotionless face.
Like when you see past, present, and
maybe a lack of future,
all at once. Like when
you yearn for morning sun
because sleep eludes you.
Sometimes your feet aren't the
most interesting thing in the world,
but a bore might just delay or mend the cure.

It's a game you never really cared about.
Still, I spent every waking moment giving all I had to this game.
Still, you spent nearly as much time ribbing me about the soft sport that didn't matter til the last few seconds.
Tonight, my team won a championship against all odds.
Tonight, despite the distance between us, I think of you.

Old man, I want to thank you. Cause if you didn't show me hockey, or baseball, or lacrosse, or football, I would have never found my life. I owe that to you.

Mom, I want to thank you too. Cause if you never took me to every soccer practice, if you never listened to my persistent sports ramblings, if you hadn't taught me what it means to be a good teammate, I would never have found this life. I owe it all to you.

Everything and turns it into something else.
Loss fades, work fades, life fades
til all you've got left is joy.
The Kingdom glistens. You walk down
American Dream Street, each square foot free from filth. Every
cast member greets you, as does
each and every guest, with joy. There
is nothing else permitted in the parks.
What you came with gets better, food tastes
better. Better better better.

Unimaginably better. A place
where disease melts away in the Florida sun before
a drip of it can fall to the pavement. We come
in droves, maybe unsure, but leaving with nothing
but mouse ear souvenirs
and awe, of course.

Not all cages have barred windows,
some captors build walls
around
themselves.
The mirror holds me, keeps me
captive,
bleeds me, leads me
only to loneliness.
I sit with the door
locked
and the window
locked
and my life
locked down.
Comfort
holds the key,
and I'd be best to
break free from my confines.

He abandoned me when I needed Him most,
plucked my heart from my chest
and let me bleed out,
much like the rest of my family.

He was hidden in the bushes nearby,
as we all lay in a clearing,
quivering from everything but the cold.

He saw us staring into space,
seeing everything fall apart,
watching me slowly stand up.

He watched as I tried to lift my sisters,
mom,
as I still try to do so.
I don't know what gave me the strength,
what keeps us all moving forward,
but He wasn't there for us.

We were able to lift ourselves up
from the wreckage,
and keep moving forward.

Sometimes I still look back,
past the clearing to the bushes,
and I see nothing hiding,
                                 as nothing hid before.

We smoked.
Half a cigar, shared between brothers, that one of us brought back from Cuba, leaning
on the cars of strangers. The three of us friends since. . .
forever, as far as I'm concerned.
We stood, hesitant to talk, just as
I'm hesitant to
type.
Eyes averted, we whispered,
as not to be heard by each other, about
beginnings and endings. Slow inhales,
even slower exhales, half of which we wished
would get caught up in the stagnant
air that still holds me in that moment. I cracked
jokes, because that's what I do, and they both
laughed, uncomfortably,
eyes meeting only smoke that is still slow
to dissipate. Conversation cut by
coughs, we smoked
all that there was and then some,
scared to retreat, to return knowing
what we now know.

Someone you know dies. Or someone that you know has someone die. You apologize, as if it's your doing. You send them your thoughts, whatever that means, and it does nothing to relieve their grief or your own sorrow. You do it anyways.
They're in a long-term rainy day and your thoughts and prayers do nothing. You say the same things each time, even after having gone through a similar even in your own life. And the cycle goes on.
Grief fades through time and
your or their loved one continues on only as a memory. The sorry and the prayers fill an awkward gap where we feel something should be said.
I see no solution, it's just strange.

I reach
for colourful images, while trying not
to sound pretentious. Often, I fail
but that's alright.
I hate that poetry
has to be searched for, and
is not understood by the masses. I want to write for people, and not just those who took a creative writing elective, or those
that went to high-profile schools. I want to write
so that people have something to read,
to inspire others to create. Art is only for those that can afford the time,
and it seems to me that
there's plenty
to go
Around.

A minivan sits in a parking lot.
Nothing exceptional
but 3 red
"don't text and drive" bumper stickers
and another white one
too.
Projecting
angst and loss, they want to tell
the world what to do.
Can you blame them?

I hear you,
and I'm sorry that someone
else
wasn't listening.

Mom,
We'd like to give you the world
since it's exactly what you gave to us.
Given our current financial limitations,
it isn't possible at the moment.
So how about a winter coat instead?

Burn the acrid tobacco.
Pour the bourbon
all the way down.
Empty the memory
bank
of whatever you choose
not to remember.
Hold on
to what time won't take,
and what you
refuse to give.
Breathe in
and out
or don't.

I've spent hours, days
wrestling with grief. I've watched
as it gnawed at flesh, taking
pieces of all of us... as if we never needed to be whole. It
doesn't care what you've
been through, what you've done. If you
let it, grief will nibble every inch
until there's nothing left.

It creeps through everything I do
now, nibbling. I see it there,
taking from me
what I never knew I had. No,
mine is no different,
but I refuse. It will not
define me. Grief can feed
all it wants, but my
patience
makes it mute.

No,
I refuse the blues. Excuse me,
for I fail to see as you empale
my ecstasy. Reflection, I will
not mend our relationship. I'm
not seeing you anymore.

The cup is full.
I can no longer absorb the things that retain our attention,
their burden is too much to bear.

I'm saying goodbye to what I don't need.
Goodbye, gunned assailants
Goodbye, facebook-shared liver cleanses
Goodbye, hatred
Goodbye, self-help anything

You're not welcome here anymore. All seats are taken. Move along, I'm sure there are chairs at other tables for you.

Goodbye, current events
Goodbye, whatever new political campaign has us up in arms
Goodbye, looming darkness that lingers in our periphery

I haven't time for you.

Goodbye, road to nowhere
Goodbye, helplessness

I'm moving on from you, old friends. I'm too tired to do this anymore. It's time for life, nothing less.

Goodbye,

Good riddance.

Mom put "White Christmas" on
and we sat around the TV
while yelling and talking and not
really watching. We drank and I thought
of Hemingway and Bukowski, because they
drank and wrote a lot.
And I sat down to write,
without worrying about editing,
and I wrote this particular poem. 8 glasses of
cider later,
I sit in silence, listening for inspiration.
I don't think any is coming, but
often good times don't result in poetry.

We're surprised when our 93 year old grandparents die of old age.
And we don't seem to see failing fires
in our relationships until
the Passion for battle
is the only thing keeping the couple together.
I'm no exception; my dad died three years ago
and I still laugh at the joke he told 3 times,
5 years removed. I still hope to make fun of his beloved Maple Leafs.
But, I guess I'm saying that
some couples just need
to alleviate their molten skin
from the furies of battle.

I could never really tell you,
because love in my house was shared using laughs and insults.
Just know
that when I say
"You make me want to *****,"
I don't really mean it.
And know
that just because I can never find the words,
it doesn't mean
I don't feel them.
I'll always regret
not being able to say what you mean to me,
but just remember
you smell truly awful.

An elderly woman signs forms
with a hand that is steadied with effort.

"It's terrible," she says,

pride turned to shame by time.

I wish I could steady
what shakes her, but
time claims all victims.
Strength today turns to,
like anything else, dust.

Light is a funny thing.
In abundance, it
blinds.
In lacking, it
blinds.
Sometimes the right light seems to fade,
evading those who need it most. Sometimes
just enough shows through an
overturned car,
reflecting off the shards of glass,
showing those with aching bodies
what they need to see.
Sometimes light
is wrong,  but
who's to
say?

Stay naive.
Keep believing in people. Keep believing

that destruction only creates more
destruction.

Keep looking for
the beauty in every second, even if

you work for $11.25 an hour and don't really like

what you're doing. That reminds me,
don't do anything

that doesn't make your heart work when you think of it.

Love.
It's simple and nothing is more important.

Finally, do yourself a
favour and create. Create, create, create.

Every now and then, I'll steal a glance.
On the train going to a Jays game. Sitting watching TV. Driving to yet another apartment viewing. While you're working at an adjacent desk and I browse the internet.
I see your eyes, glowing blue like the lakes in Banff. I see your nose, rising far from your face. I see your lips, soft. I see the freckle on your right ear. I see your shoulder shimmy that comes whenever any pop song comes on. I see you, every single time, like it's the first time.
I am so lucky.

To those of you with screaming demons,
I ask you to speak with conviction, with
pride,
because behind even the most tired eyes
lies empathy. And if you see no listening ears, please God seek them out.
It's true that there's no voice as loud as your own,
but as you lay awake just know
that all great heroes have at least one weakness.
I'm listening, waiting and hoping to hear
anything you have to say. Please,
don't hold back a single syllable.

There's magic in the moments we share.
Hands holding memories up with fingertips on each end like clouds in a drought. There they sit, unencumbered, until time necessitates rain.
Clouds can be made up of many things. That concert with two thousand people chanting the same words. The moment of knowing pause between sentences of a last conversation. What sometimes becomes remembered as THE last conversation. Brunch shared among friends. These are the things that matter. It's here that sparks are born. It's here that a dry mouth is drenched.

I hope I gave you half of what you gave to me.
Both pups, grass-stained tussles; bites and scratches
that lead to misunderstood anger.
No, I'm not playing anymore. It's
time to go inside. Followed by
no more than five minutes of silence between us
until we were at it again.
All teeth and arms, pushing and grappling, clawing
like pups are apt to do.
When you were sleeping in the crate for
those first few months, I'd put my hand between
the bars, searching for my buddy; only
finding gnashing teeth, a wagging tail.
Our roles were well-defined, as far as you were concerned.

It wasn't overnight, but
I stopped rolling around (as much) and
your joints stiffened, in part because of the
years passing through us, in part
because of that one time (we're pretty sure)
you fell off the deck.
We both seemed to be fine
with it, taking the time every winter,
when your allergies would subside,
to throw snowballs and wrestle until
we were both too exhausted to get up from the snow.

The rest was calm, mostly, me
feigning excited chatter to incite
a tail wag and a big smile from you, maybe even
a **** wiggle if I was lucky. You, begging
for food at 6 PM, then 5 PM, pushing 4:30
dinner like the elderly tend to do. Your coat, not shining like it used to. Your smile, a little more offset as each ancient tooth
struggled to hold on.

I have no more to say.

You helped get me here, so thank you.

Thank you.

I get lost in the content. My eyes ache at the pain that burns around the world. No visine will ease the heat. I scroll and see a shooting followed by a dash cam of an accident followed by a cute puppy followed by some family drama followed by a selfie followed by

it's unending, and there's nothing to be done, so I scroll and scroll and scroll, giving as much attention to the meaningless and the meaningful. It's all the same to me.

everything dies/ and some things are said/ to have lasted a century/ or more/ but how could that possibly be/ without variations/ changes in how things are done/or perceived/ how could a nation/ that once saw slavery/ as the norm/ elect a black president/ how could/ a nation that saw/ two centuries of change/ call themselves by the same name

everything dies/ and the world keeps/ crawling forward but we still insist/ that time does/ not evolve/or devolve/ what once was into something/else

to what there is to hold.
what is will someday become what was.
there will be loss. and it will be without limits.
keep your grasp firm.

Today is windy. The thawed, muddy earth is restless.
Spring is here, slowly creeping forward.

Today there is nothing to be done. It's a work-free Saturday in April. The cats laze in windows while I sit on the couch and she does a puzzle.

Today is not notable. None of the many life explosions that we will face, will we face today. They will come another time.

Today, I look over at her. Her concentration is unwavering, her gaze fixed on that missing piece that just can't seem to find a home.

Today, I can't look away. She is content, beautiful, strong, smart. All that, with ease, and she chose me.

She looks up. "What?" She smiles, knowing full well that I was staring.

"what?" I respond. She laughs, for the millionth time, and it makes me float, for the millionth time.

Today, I'm home.

A friendly smile makes
distance irrelevant. Home is
where your friends are, and time
will pass.