molded ***** sky
broody welling grey udders
rain to be cast or snow ?

life
distant
  and smudged by impurities

viewed thru aging window

When I passed into hibernation
My tastes began to sour
Birds of prey
And emergency vehicles seemed to attend

It's for medicinal purposes
I'm in hibernation again
For it's that time of year
I've left my blood under soup skin
And my mind's in books and pieces

Winter passes

Perhaps time to take on life once again
And the disease-beats in between ?

The seasonal change excites me
My heart beat increases
And returns to normal
My breathing quickens
My blood wakes me

The seasonal change excites me
My feet were turning black
My eyes were folded heavy
Now I'm flowing back
Victory !

My blood likes my limbs now
And I take in moisture through the skin
I lick my lips for the sensation
And my thought tilts with sin

I stretch to my full height
...but cramp up :
Hey !
This doesn't belong !

This is muffled
This is unsane !
I excercise my muscles
Then shrink back in pain
It's not meant to be ...
Hibernation once again.



Previously published [Show Thieves 2010 : An Anthology Of Contemporary Montreal Poetry - 8TH HOUSE PUBLISHING]

scupper the dawn
   with curtains   redrawn
a self made mourning

morning
the city is gruffly petted with heat  
       buildings quiver in the primeval whither
wide mouthed and whiskered
         the catfish thrive in the sewers
taking aggression to the air and fixing to the trees
        the insects speed into vigorous breeding

in the populated afternoon    city is sternly scored    
pressed down on    its wilted fur pushed    from back to front
each itchy person   is its own greasy hair
salt beads from brows    and stinging eyes are blinded

scolded and bonded      the witless humans slow
natures patient pace is not kin to their will
          antsy
ticking noises and electric whines whittle the air
discomfort makes life immediate
       a deal to be flustered with
every enduring breath is consciously felt
       alive and in suffering

i crouch my form in shelter
a jilted couch to lean against     bordering a grown over lot
watching the foxes patrol in sweltering sun
what expected prey   brought them into the light ?
i release my hurt understanding   (it patrols also)
my hurt snakes through the long tough grass   and tacky broken glass
it moves further   raised in a mirage hover
over welting heat from the melting tarmac
this way   i please my way into nurture
this way   i ease my suffering
hum with the wires
and smile at a good day putrefying

can’t sleep   in summer night swelter
beetle clicks on its back
the cat (and cause)   watches it 'do the Kafka'

butterflied flay of cloud
Rorschach blots
                  cricket white on nursery blue
skilled autopsy of the summer sky
i feel like raw skin having a plaster removed

muddied skies muffle
clarity that was winter
season blots

gallows on the rooftop
where window washers go
                            to suspend
metal gibbet
            quick hinge, raise and lock
secure against the weather

whipped                                
  combed and packed snow
    ice crusted dunes
strain the winds over the buildings roofing
                                 an extreme combing exposure
                                
doubtlessly
they'll be no labor done today

On the seventh floor
i watch from behind
              an environment sealed window
              wolfing my lunch on a short break
                                in the warm fire escape

i watch
a solitary worker is ejected from a hatch in the exterior wall
                                      cuffed by a spasm of wind
he descends a short bolted ladder
              and makes a geared approach
crouching
his weight against the wind  
          he drags a heavy kit
            mummified in protective clothing
              passing my spot and he then heads outward
                    towards the bounds of the rooftop
he mends a stable stance
one foot close to the edge
the rest of him
in a low defensive pose
clips his harness to the gallows
stands to take a confident beating
            of the breath stealing
                      brawling winter gale
he radios for the gantry to be raised

Little by Little
He softened in the Head
He drank from his own Spittle
Stored in Jars
Under the Bed
He said Daily Prayers
And waited for The Girl
But Drowned in his own Pale *****
Then Stiffened
In a Curl








© Jon Thenes 2005

. clean giddy winter day
  my five year old ;
“The moon’s following me !”
  ally with the world surround
  when did i unlearn this bond ?

evening summer   overlooking the lake
                                from behind the fly screens
a lit stove   has yet to widen its warmth

my father-in-law strums his guitar
my three-year-old snuggles
pinching the notes  into his mothers hair braid

combined effort
      moonlight, trees, autumn breeze
  form bobbing shadows
a humorous theatre
     mocks my solitary mood

mist forgives the city scene
                          of so much
it permits us a slower pace

over the hospital chimneys
a preditor *****
until it catches the heat exhaust and rises
in a tight spiral

begin the day ; a **** taught of features
in need of clean linen,
    unswallowable meds
    and a diaper change
routine ; that'll teach ya !

they ask her the day of the week
   her name
what year it is
   when is your birthday ?
do you feel any pain ?
   do you know where you are ?

flailing in memory
they just turn off the overheads
  and let her settle into her senility
attend to the physical basics
whilst she's suckered into her own storage unit
  operating like a humming fridge
   with its door slight ajar
    and the small hot bulb
     finking on and winking off

                      - perish well 
                       & in comfort Dear

humidity broke
a cooling pavement littered
with Cicada chaff

an animal - what animal ? - a fox
peeling off it's pale socks    bit the hems between it's teeth
slimmed feet
it walks now   to more silent a world
viewed in billowing gladness
many doses thick     veil it from our dull sense ability
we are a haunting to its realm

please-please   add your waxy scrolls
   truths   to the panic pyre
madden   an inflamed swarm of intelligence
worm warrens    into the collective of our brain
maybe
   having been riddled
      it'll collapse under the corrective strain
      and start blinking a genuine signal
process recognized    compassionate inkling

hand on feather
I swear to you
I intended no harm
I just played by the weather
and found you in shared experience

a charm was built
and I was refracted
(prism motes)
like an animal channelling
I played aspects as bones
when all you wanted was human touch
and not this ;
this baffling mating behaviour

every cloud i've ever seen
has demonstrated God to me

                          there is no aspect of nature
                          that hasn't handed God over
                                        to my custody




[negative version / includes extra verse]



No cloud has ever
Demonstrated God to me.

                          No aspect of nature
                          Has handed God over
                                        To my Custody.

    (yet still I pray)

No father figured
In lord all recreation.
It seems but a rambling animation
Even under scrutiny

     (yet still I pray)

knee high sea of grass
tussled like groomed fur
  spry winds lashing
distribution of lifted seeds
life in correspondence

His :

i make my travel
reseeding you
                my dear heart
                      into a compact unit of storage

i relieve from our nesting comfort
dismiss our established downey base of cooperation
                                   cleave from our snared compromise

instead to bed and thieve an unshared atmosphere
guilty joy followed by joyful normality
no stale thing

unravelling light
  lifted
(secure
  that I've a capsule world
  when i turn
  toward our lap again)

goodbye of you i am mended
made completely free
                    on the first turn of a corner


& Hers :

you leave me
      on your travels (you-were-my-travels)
you leave me susceptible
my heart alters to become
       a weak permeable tissue of easy tamper
       membership structure is dissolved
         returned to the vital spill
           welcome fluent contamination
               villainess and godless vibration
                  of the goddess confession

dress hooked up past my waist
i'll power-**** away my morality on day one
each day following shall be made easy
  ushered along in brutalities slip steam
                        and the prom of eddies

back in time i've been working on something..
       i'll call it The ****** List
criminal joys and tasks of double self daring
committed
     (not folded over
       or veloped in the knicker drawer)
           it operates as a basking lurk
                               tucked discreetly
                                 correct behind the eye
                      a charm feature of the unconscious
when released
   it's something melkish and larking with energy
   tacking harm to my activated mischief
      kinetic value and uncontrollable spur

in your absence
     i am permissionless
abyssless
i account for nothing

nooks of the apartment
the memory of us quickly forms a ***** coral
i've stopped washing to suit this mode
my body, a journal of stains and earned bruises
i holla and bay at mementoes of our brace
and then stop at the near point of the neighbours tolerance

time has crushed in on its own thesis
become gummy and tenseless
skipping about in haphazard spasms
  backstep, bow and reversal
     now
          observably organic in motion
           and proud of its many personalities

Oh, You're Back Again !
    no, it is your ghost
is it a spy ? ... i doubt you knew you even had it
it threads in and out of my company
seeming baffled and far from its comfort zone
did i put you there ?
i don't call you
the physical you
because you said 'no phones'
              and 'only in emergencies' (is-this-urgent ?)
Is This Urgent ?!
i restrict where i live in here
     keep the windows widowed and veiled
it makes for an unreal canvas
i'm weeding for a correction
sensual precarious highs
violate
in a spate
with this time alone
i'll make our home a vile space
a defication
and i can make no sense assessment of it any
i fight against digestion within these premises
i stay still long enough i am softened and palped
            by a dense atmosphere and salivations of contact
and outside..

the streets are exhausted
and i've quite the nasty reputation
violence, baiting and thievery
inebriation and toxic language
i shall soon be policed
no doubt i've lost my job
for now our place is a dare for vandals
             when i am an insensible heap
                 and perspiring over you in delirium
                    they devalue the exterior

unearthing
i'll find my creative sprite
that is good
i had missed it
now this is urgent (this-is-mine-was-always)
i take up a notebook and puke it full
i take sticks in my mitt and scrawl my charcoal visions
the blood visions
   the primal mud
  on all our walls

can i piece back our home by your return ?
can I sufficiently correct the blurring history I've smutted ?
do i care to ?
no more fading into 'partner'
lease is up
you'll not find me here destroyed
or waiting
    naked but an apron with my hands cupped and mouth open
i'll have ravelled myself up tight
- having stoked my inhuman malady -
     i'll mate my own travels

                                                        ­             - aborted

tended
   in dreams    i am flossed at sea
only to be
   muttered and lost
           once upon awakening
un-present and tense

pleasant-to-be duney minded    sediments of mood-blooming    yet to calcify          light wind and arbor    harbour from record heats          meat fed steaming sun    looming life    bawling upon the venue    hosted with joshing glee    but experimenting with confused bratty states          mottled and strobed    in the brushed shade          for now    a stood peace

faded Ladybirds swarm    my buildings intercom
Are they responding to an electric hum ?

faded Ladybirds swarm
a yellow painted wall
desperation
it is an unyielding prayer
no nourishment before the freeze

with disciplined guilt
i can spill a kind of pornographic hemorrhage
                   provoking a spell into the mind
                        deluge
                      a spiel
so many illicit thoughts to priss a label on
             laxed into this state
              i imagine my punishments
               received in swollen glory
and   in turn   for this ungated imagination
                         i may earn further punishment
(no glory / dunce / head hung)

skirting dirt for promise
opening the aperture to the wild dark woods
    and beyond natures primal propeller
seeking out opportunities for submission
  under a church weight
          of my own mined and kinkled cranium

the dog night salivates and commands
                                     and commands
but i am abroad from that
  asleep with my family
  under the open windows
as others stew in the clubs, bars
     and packed terraces

while building static warmth
  unbiased night has nurtured strain
now! ;
  breaks akimbo in filling veins
  silver branches
  lipping open flare across the sky
stimulated charge raised
  through our earthed souls
  greeting heavens kindle above

my eyes are heady    **** bloating
                                       from within the sun
       white embellishment lasers out  
                  lending provision
     setting life   to the organic cog and clock
provoking muted growth  to retch a bloom
              leading
                                     ­ spending
                                                       ­         seeding

my tread  destroys nothing
each step    frictionless  
patterning little hovering eddies
                              a fraction above ground
minimal is my disruption
enough    only to promote a deeper observation
    tender fanning     of the life that i am fawning over

how to feel this spritely at all times ?   t'would be a spell
                                                 a fondled thing

         it’s from our night of shared tether
our infection threw out an extra pleasurable souvenir
it carried its energy    into the ensuing day

i am launched affection
beckoned     into the true employment of my surroundings
carrying my socks and shoes in one hand
and my heart?  it is a possession of the senses
i am truly led
i am emitting

‘****** is Meat’;
The Victorious Say
as the Spoilings of War
are tilled over in a Latrine
Gore-Flowers shall overthrow
and the next Eden Project is fed :
a Beacon for The Lovers to uncover
....and disregard
    ungratfully fertile

carpet forrest view
smells of vacuum hose
reminds my stomach to churn

a troubled little wisp of waxy death   punches from my lips
(is it the exhaust   from many thriving microorganisms ?)
there it is   a clearly visible tiny cloud formation
(is this an indication?... the breaking down my over ripened form ?)
married also is its appearance  in the bathroom mirror
(confirmation that   it is no illusion)

i was quite casual about the event (thank you)
but not enough
              to stop me noting it here ;
call it   'the death weather report'
it shall be journaled further
i already feel observed
   as though by some bored student mortician

move to the countryside
(cities crowd judgement)
   and carve a tree upon my heart

span life in walks
   and scrapes with harsh weather

soon to leather myself
   into a practical creature

earn lighter being
  seldom to pass stressful thought

piloted
plough tills the plot
overturns one season
for one of greater potential profit

flying ants are 'the business' today
differing species
clumsy as ducks in landing
unclear of their randy goals
they bat about scorching streets

sunset bleeds out the day
depleted
thoughts take charge and toy with me

Raw Meat and Red Teeth
I'm a Bow to the Moon
I Click over Cobbles
My Mad Energy
Bailed in my Stomach
I Task Myself
Open
And Daring Prey to Cross the Tension
Strung on my Senses
All Hot Gut and Wire
I'm Playing at Being
A Wild and Mean Thing
And I am Dedicated to this Wound.

wake up pup
eager those linkers
blink your blinkers
unsink from sleep
and stretch

Four Crows fly over
the rear gunner ***** twice as hard
            to keep his mates
Gaps in his Wings
   from history with a Predator

Clammy weather
                       preceding
                 grey summer rainfall