~
Setting out in the leaf boat.
What can possibly remain?
Fruit of the wild rose?
Hypnotica?
These little fictions:
petal and stem
—maintenance drugs,
turning strangers into friends
and friends into customers.
The only unforgivable thing:
snow catches on her eyelashes
and bliss is unaware.
~

The row of medals

divert people's attention --


from his worn-out suit.

If you Google it, the search comes up as a dot it is so small
growing up years ago they said the population was 500
but that had to have included the people passing through
for we had an ESSO, Schell, Gulf, BP and Texaco gas station

Being on the way to cottage country we were that stop
far enough from the big city for cottagers to be ready
for a bathroom break and a fill up at the pumps
Crime was something we only read about in the papers

Our claim to fame the lake, and ice fishing
You could drive your car to the island in the dead of winter
passing by fish huts painted in an array of colors
The ice road delineated by trees to avoid getting lost

Sure we had the odd break in at a cottage but nothing
that got our name in the news
Oh, we also had two churches and a one room school house
we arrived when I was in grade two, Miss Mitchell was the teacher

Growing up in those days meant hours playing
If we weren’t swimming, we were future hockey stars
or baseball players, Ian and I at the back of the school
pitcher and hitter challenging each other

Hours upon hours at a time spent with kids from down the street
Sure there were the petty fights but mostly with my brothers,
but what can you expect when you have four boys growing up
each vying to become adult like

Those were, in my mind, the days of innocence
before computers and the world became larger
and the internet allowed you to see it all,
the poverty, the deadliness of war, man’s cruelty

Once a place I wanted to desperately get away from
to get lost in the city, an introvert looking for a place to hide
I now find myself reminiscing of those long lost days
where life was simple and a day could be spent daydreaming

Andreas Simic©

On earth, stars twinkle

untouchably far away --


Close by they die out.

Aren't delusions of grandeur just as good, if not better?

Finally famous,

for some photos half naked --


next to the toilet.

~
Moving beyond the sun
to where our minds
are a fraction behind us,
believing they've found
the other-side.

I am glass shattered by redemption,
and I am now the shadow
of a mirrored divinity,
for somewhere out there
is a god resembling my face,
and its nakedness stares me down.

Raising eyebrows at the moon
as if this is love's culprit,
yet, opening arms and minds welcome
the thereupon lust as if
some devoted era:
bow and arrow shapes
of you and me,
falling out of love without travail,
but of constant ease.

I look better in black and white
than in vulnerability,
my exploitation of
private earth looms casual,
though I'm well aware
of the vibrations it sends.

Manipulators of love and war
were all we really wanted to be,
cheating destiny
by falling for the future.

And from this side of our mind
the sun was always cold,
just a vague old relic in a fresh grave:
a princess ruling among
the ruins of past decisions,
and happily she gives
a stagnant kiss of consequence.

Recommitted wind breaks
through, like turning, burning
pages desperate to speak.

But I'd rather that her white lies
take me now, than a waking grasp
or a skirmishing wave
terrorize me,
as this black [media] plagued sun's
desecrated heart bleeds
and recalls to mind
the coming blasphemy.
~

I will, for I can, go beyond my station now
Wherefore should I be confined? And how
You will wonder at me in the future,
Which I shall make my present, forgetting the suture
That has held my mouth - It is not a scar;
And I have a million things to say as they are,
Or as they might be - I will ape Almodóvar
And outshine Solovjov, and will I go far!
I will be She of the next generation;
But I must get beyond this station
I must move beyond the static,
From the bedroom to the attic,
And from thereon, to the world,
When my courage has unfurled;
And I will seize this with both hands
And deal you wonder, charm and reprimands:
I will paint you images, and write you songs,
Celebrate your joy, and right your wrongs,
Pick at the intricacies, and throw the obvious,
Show humankind as honest and oblivious,
And I will do this all, and watch me so -
I just need to ready, set, and go.

Their names still burn your throat with the same fire that lit their pyres 3000 years ago.
And yet you still have the audacity to call them dead?