Snowy owl with freedom singing in her eyes
She has shaken off a few backwards fitting feathers
Who had worn out their welcome
Now lighter and more free
She is everything she is meant to be
A window to shine out her undying light
The universe speaks through her fingertips
Mothering owl with a smile most comforting
Has hidden the truth beneath her quaking quills
Finding a new sun every day
She is sweeping the dust of her past away
Drained of her milk of misery… she is the purest of cacao
Radiating her rays to all who come across her
Her message is love
Her passion is life
Her heart was never as faint to be feared
Those off-beats of her rhythm
Were lessons to be learned
Blessings as blossoms to ****** her heart from the dark
Exquisite owl with eyes that kiss the daylight
A heart as open as galaxies
A voice as soothing as the breeze
Your hands will heal the world’s disease

When cats run home and light is come,
  And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
  And the whirring sail goes round,
  And the whirring sail goes round,
    Alone and warming his five wits,
    The white owl in the belfry sits.

When merry milkmaids click the latch,
  And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the **** hath sung beneath the thatch
  Twice or thrice his roundelay,
  Twice or thrice his roundelay;
    Alone and warming his five wits,
    The white owl in the belfry sits.

Gertrude, Stradbrook, River and Roslyn,
off of McMillan, my thoughts froze on Osborne
A drive through the Village on slippery streets
Bought records, drained pints
                        swallowed down summer nights
Back home in Wyoming--think I'll be fine
                         'til some night, filled to gills
                          trip through streets with a stranger
                          and sing "One Great City"
                          through swollen closed throat

And I remember...

Confusion Corner, commuting through cold streets
Watched you drive as the daylight died
I narrow my Focus,
                                     you eased into traffic
The Assiniboine ran and was watched by Riel

January.
Johnson's Terminal.
London Fogs.
Took Yellow Dogs for long walks
and Exchanged now for then. Snapped pictures, again and again.

Snow up to my hips
Spent a night at St. Boniface
We cased a cathedral, your friends seemed to like me.

Lines ran from reserves, over oceans and borders.
Your hair ran down shoulders, brown waves for a blanket.

Winterpeg, Manitscoldout
Portage & Main
Shivering, smiling
at a Tavern Uniting with friends,
'til we took the King's Head...
We took the King's Head.
Long live the king.

January.
Magic Thailand.
Curry soup, curried thoughts thawing,
melting, falling from pickled brains,
                      through lips chapping

I donned my Tuxedo, chopped down Seven Oaks...
Your Catholic heart spoke
     reached out for St. James.
     St. Vital answered behind Fort Garry's walls...

Our hearts, they were neighbourhoods
And the streets were all salt.

Blistered paint on your blue '02 Focus

To the City Center of the continent's middle
Form a Perimeter
Frame a city
Bullseye, center, a Gold gilded Boy
he leans into sky, as they sing, as I hear.
The road North Ended--November, it was.
I think, one year prior, in Robin's Donuts
front doors swayed, on hinges that sighed metallic,
I caught your eyes--organic, unplanned--
               through fog frosting lenses
Caught them, held on
               Held your deep brown
               In my gunmetal blue

Seasons will chase--haste to follow more seasons
White streaks to green
and the Red River runs.
When they score at the ballpark,
"Go Goldeyes!" the cheer sounds
Cheer. Cheer!
The Guess Who still ****,
but the Jets completed their round trip
"Go, Jets, go!" so the cheer goes.
"Cheers!" Cheers like bells.
             Bells
           Pealing
Peeling like your sunburnt back
            Bells
          Ringing
           Striking
Bells singing long
Bells sounding loudly from Grace Bible Church
  baptizing Baltimore as it kisses Osborne

Bells ringing. Round sounds.
Round rings for fingertips touching
Bells
Round sounds that hang on my neck
and sing me to sleep every night--
remind me how badly you wanted those bells
                I denied you.

They sing "Left and Leaving"
             and show me old scars
          they ring and peal and strike
                         and sing
                         unending.

I remember March of 2008
Dropping my toque in the mud-and-slush street
            We took Pembina Highway
              Ate Vietnamese.

I remember...

Confusion Corner,
Commuting through cold streets,
Watching you drive as the daylight died
In your blue '02 Focus
Ease us back into traffic,
The Assiniboine River.
And Louis Riel.

So tell me...

Comment-allez vous, ce soir?
Je ne suis pas comme ci, comme ça.

I took a paper and a pen and sat down to write
a plan on how I was going to make a time machine--
because I had to, I had to go back in time and change your mind--
but I flew past papers and entire diaries and I know there is
no more ink
left in this world to continue writing.
Yet, I still have no more than a mite of sense
in a huge mathematical mess
of fractions, functions and graphs, and sad handwriting.

I put together my math with metal and I scoured the earth looking for the exact things to perfect my monster creation
and satisfy the algorithms.
Time was not going anywhere and you are awaiting my perfect words that I actually tell you,
and stop you from taking the step outside the door.
I spent, seven years to just put together the courage
to finally plug the machine
into the socket-- a humble four-point in the wall and all it took was the turn of a switch.

I spent years and all my time and all my youth,
all my mind and all my life creating a time machine,
so that I fly by the light, going back into the time to that very day
when I first saw you and take a the seat in the back of the train
instead of the one next to you.
I would take the one opposite to where you sat and refuse to even look at you.
Because then, we will not begin something we would never be able to end.

I am here now and all it takes is the turn of a switch,
a time machine to end all of the worries.
A turn of a switch and I would be able to fix all my life;
I created this thing with all my life, so that I can forget you.

And glory! I am successful.
I forget you, but not by the power of a time machine
but I forget you nonetheless.

I set my room on fire and jump out of the window.

I've been told of love stories but what happened to all the mistakes made along the way?
Those stories of passion turned to regret...
Fondness turned to hatred....
What about being ******* over after being *******?
Am I supposed to believe that fairy tales are all that exist when I observe what reality really is?