Winters can be tedious.
Sun dips into early dusk.
A dead fire refuses to ignite.

There's a quick repetition
of opening and closing blinds
over a barred window.

In need of reflection
I search a familiar face
in an unfamiliar landscape.

I have her in my grasp,
half illusion, half real,
a symbolic mask denies
her true face,

her glittering crown
divides us by its radiance.

Groping in darkness,
I stumble over objects
of wood and stone,
my unsteady tread tripping
over their contours.

I light a candle.

Bathed in amber light,
our shadows merge.

A new door opens,
stretching the perspective.
No formal borders here,
they wouldn't survive
the present climate.

In their place,
intricately carved
figureheads and totems-
a vision of the past.

My eye is a camera,
retinas branded with imagery
for the photographer's delight-
coloured pebbles, carved wooden animals,
tin cans, bones.....

....A Glass Sentinel
(though she isn't visible)
I can see right through her-
a vision of smokescreens
and subterfuge.

Past stumps of driftwood,
past the uncut grass,
a few flowers...

...to the fabricated backdrop
of a burning house, black smoke
rising
in
a
thin
stream.

At the open door -
The Guardian,
(I know her inside out)
unmoved,
(she didn't bat an eye)
defiant in a new skin,
a softer version-
The Mother protecting her children,
arms splayed, prepared
for fight or flight.

A russet flame
Licking her spine exhales
'Get out of my way!'
but she wasn't listening.

Smile fixed,
eyes of a phoenix,
a lion,
a raptor,
protector.
We all need feeding,
but not this way!

Throw me a cloth,
a napkin,
a man-size tissue
a lifeline!

She wanted this,
no, wished it-
this symbolism,
this burning of ironic portraits,
to clear the deck,
make way for new.

It shook the house,
its fate sealed behind closed doors.

I compose myself,
pull her back from the perilous edge,
gather her in my arms.

Fragments of shattered words
flutter in the ether.

What is real?
What is fiction?
A carbon copy of thousands?
A charred corner?

A forgotten candle?






WARNING:
'Eating fire' is a risky business
but can attract a large audience.

I.

Sunday mornings in Vancouver
even pigeons sleep in till 10 A.M.
Undaunted, I walk down Granville shortly before 8
seeking lox bagels with capers, red onions and cream cheese,
two breve lattes, and a newspaper. In truth,
panhandlers on the corner of Robson
have far greater chance of scoring.
An unexpectedly sunny February morn
suffices to spur me on. I am attuned to all vibration.
Breath of the awakening city
exhales manna upon the shop awnings.
Bagels rendered superfluous,
I scarf images instead ---
trolley buses, an umbrella shop, falafel stands ---
delicious Canadian visual cuisine.

                                 II.

Vancouver is a nymph. Of that I'm sure.
I hear flirtatious giggles trill
from darkened alleys between hotels.
Spotted her once across the street on Dunsmuir,
seated on a walk bench reading a Margaret Atwood novel.
Bus passed between us and she vanished.
Caught a later glimpse through the window
of a walk-up dim sum restaurant in Chinatown.
Flew the stairs, only to find an empty table and
discarded napkin smudged with candy pink lipstick.
She watches me.

                                                III.

Turns out there are no Sunday morning papers in Vancouver,
but I locate the bagels and espresso backtracking on Helmcken.
The barista smiles as I approach, sets down her Atwood novel.
I leave a Toonie in gratuity.
B.C. wind pushes ******* my turned back,
as I rush our breakfast back to the Executive.
A nymph goes roller-blading by toward False Creek.
The Gastown Steam Clock whistles that it's 10 A.M.
A flock of pigeons lifts in flight.

The inadequate bookshelf that sat near the door
that my sister used to call her own was
mostly made up of adolescent reads,
books better suited for preteen girls rather than
intellectually budding young ladies—
juvenile vocabularies and simple, non-complex
plot lines do little to craft and create
worldly, knowledgeable women.

I thought I must spring clean the
naiveté away and replace it with
the works of great authors like
Sylvia Plath
                        Simone de Beauvoir
                                                              Virginia Woolf
                        Margaret Atwood
Betty Friedan;
ingenious femme fatales that cut down
to the brittled bones of the misogynists
and burned their marrow along with the
ashes of bras and aprons and 350 degree oven heat.  

Growing up, to me, seemed like a wonderful epiphany
chock-full of ideas and opinions and
clever, ironic remarks that chased satirical witticisms
like felines to rodents and wolves to deer—
being an adult would guarantee me a say,
a vote
           prior 1920’s America
                                                  play dress up as a suffragette
           women’s rights
femininity personified by dolls in plastic houses.

To be eighteen-years-old,
the goal, the legality, the bright light at the end of the tunnel;
the official womanhood it would bestow upon me
seemed like something almost tangible
with the way that it loomed over my head.

Get good marks
graduate high school
travel back in time sixty years
meet a nice boy
become a “good wife”
have dinner ready by five
bear two beautiful heirs
clean up the messes left in the kitchen
fast-forward to the twenty-first century
go to a good college
find a stable career
settle down if the fancy strikes you
live non-docile and full of passion—
the parallelism of times are severely
di
    lap
          i
            dat
                 ­ ed.

1950’s America would never be a home for me
because I am much too wild to be contained.

Divorce is not
A bomb or a wrecking ball

It is before that, and warmer:

The midst of the storm, the midst
Of the war
The poorly patched walls
In silence where we stand
Distanced, avoiding contact

The midst of the growing fire
Where we reluctantly and with shame
At having given up after
So much

We are not trying to melt the ice

We are learning to make fire.

It's always the moment just before the gunshot.

Why do I remember it as summer all the time, then?

They gaze at me and see a chainsaw ****** just before it happened.
You think I'm not a goddess?
Try me.
This is a torch song.
Touch me and you'll burn.

THE MOMENT**

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

from Poetry of Presence An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems

The yuppies are by the
  Cotto Café, asking those
not to call them hipsters.
  An auburn feminist drinks
Mexican blend, black, while
  reading Margaret Atwood.

I gave up smoking, I say,
  about a month ago.
No one really listens, which
  I sometimes find comforting.

After I walk my isolation off,
  I stumble into a Taco Bell;
one of those hybrids: this time
  KFC. The cashier is curly in the
way that broken legs are curly.
  Her eyes are green but I dare
not objectify her, I hope I don't
  say out loud, because I fear
nothing more than being
  patronizing.

Construction loudly stutters
  and cars squeak and shush.
On this griddle of a sidewalk,
  I feel alone. Vehicles vroom
while I stand silent, a monument
  to my generation.

Took a trip on the Belafonte,
Bound with Cuba to forgotten Sanz.
Dinning on tin canned Del Monte,
A glass of Suntory always in hands.

Lloyd Faversham gifted salacious devices by John Cleese.
Used as props in Mike’s next gin stained showpiece.

The drum-line seemed irksome to J. Jonah.
He’d heard Zach Hill before.
Given limited time, despite the persona.
Interstellar fault found in a **** metaphor.

A swift change to an even more marketable sound.
Sparks didn’t fly when trying to appear profound.

Tiny teen dreams tending to tiny skirts.
Fidgeting with the hem-line.
Their just unintelligible flirts.
Stripping to avoid the breadline.

Dystopian fiction led to dissolution of fact
Can’t seem to see their world isn’t intact.

Atwood to Collins, Collins to a stupid ******* maze.
Alternate choice being a criminal thrill.
Simplistic fantasy whose only benefit is praise.
Popular opinion seems to be well over the hill.

“…where painfully and with wonder
at having survived even
this far…we are learning to make fire.”*
- “Habitation,” Margaret Atwood

slowly, our failed attempts drift back to us
on breezes thick with unfurled smoke.

we gasp for the cold air that stings
our throats, and lay our ears to the earth.

the heartbeat hums through the dirt –
steady and slow, so we wrap our arms

around each other and exhale.

but we are learning to make fire,
to lift embers with our fingertips

from damp leaves, to tickle them
in our palms, and wish them away.

we watch them dance along twigs;
we weave our fingers together;
we whistle to the flecks and the sparks.

and they kiss – with innocence,
without hesitation.

the earth hums low

If I were a writer
I’d actively seek
A mild patina
A mad mystique
I’d write about death
As something good
I’d sign my name
Edgar Allen Atwood

If I were a writer
There’d be Tom and Huck
A great big world
That didn’t give a ****
Bout the little guy
Floating down the main
And I’d call myself
Charley Dickens Twain

If I was a writer
I’d have a golden plume
I’d write about
That day of doom
I’d write about
Laughing at fear
And I’d call myself
Mordecai Shakespeare

If I was a writer
And I had a page
I’d write about
The good old days
‘Bout what I’d ‘ve done
On a day with you
And I’d sign my name
And I’d sign yours too

" I would like to be
the air that inhabits
you for a moment only.
I would like to be that unnoticed & that necessary"*
    Variations on Sleep
                 Margeret Atwood

to be inhaled
into your essence
to become your
breath in this world

to  inhabit the marrow
of your soul

is but a dream

for we are,
different components
different aspects

needed to compliment
needed to inspire
the pthers aspirations
needed to question
the motive
to mobilise the heart
to gain forward momentum

we do not subsume each other...
we are become,
to one another
catalysts
gunpowder and fuse
lit.....to make the world explode...

we are not each others breath....
but,
we are each others,
reason
to breathe...



What do you dream of
my love...
I watch you twitch and murmur....
are you a big brave hunter....
or something less ferocious...
tis no matter to me....

i love you and if you could walk me dreams with me
you would know that there
you are a gentle hero

“My shadow said to me: 

what is the matter


Isn’t the moon warm
enough for you

why do you need
the blanket of another body?”
— Margaret Atwood, excerpt from “The Shadow Voice”

by margaret atwood


I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen
I would like to watch you
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head 
and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear 
I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway 
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in 
I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

I remember you'd carry me on your shoulders
Watched as my clothes and smile got older,
I remember you held me in your arms,
To drive away the meaningless harm,
I remember cancer erasing your strength
And your hair became shortened in length.
I remember that my first word was your title,
Father,daddy,dad,pa like I was at a recital
But it was less Margaret Atwood, more shakespeare,
Because there was no happy ending to be had here.
I remember the way we wilfully fed the fishes,
But then I remember your back with all the stitches.
I remember you telling me you loved me in your final days,
But things that I've come to remember, are all but a haze
Because the things I believe I remember are stories
Told by mum, and I'll hold them to way past my forties,
Because I have nothing left of you except your DNA.
All the stories of us I've come to appreciate,
But...
What was a four year old really suppose to remember?
Is there really a Christmas miracle every December?
Come January, will I be able to walk any farther
As a man without ever knowing or having a father?

I know. For a while now, I've known. I must be a writer. It's not a wish, a dream, an aspiration. It's a need. A feeling that if I don't find a way of putting my thoughts unto paper, they'll claw their way out, and leave me a carcass of miasma. Leaving me to rot.
I may not write beautifully. Make grave mistakes. I have no idea if there are any rules, hell I might've broken all of them by now.
But I don't care. I don't strive to be great. I won't be any Gaiman, Atwood or Tolkien (Yes those are the first names that popped into my mind). Not taught in public schools, probably never published.
But all that doesn't matter to me. Writing is not a choice. It's a necessity.

All great creative storytellers know,
As you do, Adams, Asimov, and Wells,
The time machine was built so long ago

Expression chassis, tonal power cells,
The primary engine, sending us with word,
As you do, Adams, Asimov, and Wells

The second engine, flashback, and a third
—portend, exhausts each piston-fired clue,
The primary engine, sending us with word

The epoch steering, future or review,
Remember back, or forward fantasy
Portend exhausts each piston-fired clue

Captain Imagine, Wingman Memory,
With engines run on image, tone, and phrase,
Remember back, or forward fantasy

Like Atwood, Pratchett, Liu, and Philip K,
All great creative storytellers know,
With engines run on image, tone, and phrase,  
The time machine was built so long ago

you see me imagining you
imagining you
believing a lie I told,
a lie about knowing good and evil
and that I can imagine
William Blake's little
lamb was once me,
in thee
I am yet, not a jot or tittle of child
like
fool-ibility, I am a thought you caught in your
default mode me-andering mode, a modality oft

left idle. A rest for weary idle words bouncing
in browns from amber to ochre, dry
light leaking from piles
of idle thought meandering thoughts piling up behind
goddamliarcheatertheiftake take
take
take, rewind and replay, keep the takes ignor

the sequence...

Margaret Atwood knows how to build worlds of words.
I blow bubbles.
kiss em a will in a whisp
per
haps a single
one,

becomes this one we hide in, not from evil, for goodness
sakes, we be
peace making,
hidden, safe
as any ancient sapient's sacred secret
knowledge, hidden, useless.

-ah, no. right use of peace is the rest, after the heroes
and wizards and witches and priests and humble teachers,

after the recognition of old ideas, tics
the talking point and we, once more, see our selves,
selves,
we see ourselves as the passengers on the autopiloted
biosphere, terraforming itself for us, since

the first idea you knew was from beyond you,
began to bubble in your soul...

-- rest my soul in the bosum of abraham, whoa ain't woe,

but no is no. be wise or wish you was.

An old man's wisdom hides here in stasis.
Horded as weal and woe,
and debts owed to a foe
xtatic urgent
voice stages a starting boom, in the empty room,

our exspansive space
where peace is made in wisdom used for knowing,


wisdom, a place, a quest
ion
launched, aimless yet
now,
we be, and we do not comprehend gripping being life
for any preconceived gnotion
so

I asked for the living water, I was the receptor, the door
to within me,

where the kingdom of marybabydaddy lay.
wait. "within you", ever'body say Jesus said... some heavyshit,

maiden formed milksop grown to full warrior maturity,
empowered

(laid, by god, can you imagine that feeling? Wow, right?}


basic a gift so basic a power to employ at will

catch
oops.

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” Margaret Atwood*

Spring is here
The awaking commences
Marching green explodes into life
Buds transform into leaves on the trees
Flowers explode across the timeless stage
There’s just enough time to plant what we need
Sprinkles rain down on this hallowed ground
Sprouts run up from the roots to play
The sun tickles life from the wind and the rain
Across the field the purchase is made
Grazing is easy on the tundra in Spring
We’re lost in the movement of wings on the breeze
Content with the dance that our reason believes
We settle our thoughts with the buzzing of bees
And capture the moments we’re so glad to receive

I remember the hatefulness
Resting between corridors
Watching as doors opened
Waiting to pounce, suddenly,
On someone with mousey hair
Who was studious and square.

The undercurrents ran like
Tram lines, intersecting,
Infecting others with mockery
The pulling of hair, kick on shin
I feared break with its milk stains
And so many broken bottles.

My good looks saved me the bully
As I was seen as an asset to be used
A symmetrical form unnoticed
As I hurried past the stair wells
Hoping today it would remain quiet
Today, I think of Margaret Atwood .

I wait in anticipation,
for god's own diet.
It must be on its way- she must be on her way.

Somewhere along the hall,
my entire diction is placed and dusted as a prized possession-
For she knows my Atwood from my Manto.

And ever so often,
my resting abode feels like the comfort of a thousand feathers.

I wonder how she does that with two paper-thin sheets, one cushion, and a single blanket.
- Must be her attempt at magic.

In any case, my mother is an artist.
The one that hides in plain sight.

Her audience today, is old and grey
Some having lost the sense of sight even!

But there she goes, holding an invisible paintbrush.
“So what if I was married into a house devoid of art?”

She says,
The world is her canvas.
And myself? all her colors.

we were sitting on atwood street
drinking beer and admiring the students
i was stumped:
"how come only women
came back to college this year?"
it was pointed out to me
there were just as many males as females
but i failed to see them

If I were a writer
I’d actively seek
A mild patina
A mad mystique
I’d write about death
As something good
I’d sign my name
Edgar Allen Atwood

If I were a writer
There’d be Tom and Huck
A great big world
That didn’t give a ****
Bout the little guy
Floating down the main
And I’d call myself
Charley Dickens Twain

If I was a writer
I’d have a golden plume
I’d write about
That day of doom
I’d write about
Laughing at fear
And I’d call myself
Mordecai Shakespeare

If I was a writer
And I had a page
I’d write about
The good old days
‘Bout what I’d ‘ve done
On a day with you
And I’d sign my name
And I’d sign yours too