"catan" poems
I know the contours of your face
just like the streets of my hometown
you'd squint your eyes
when laughing
at the corner of Main and Dow.
Blacktooth Brewery
on frigid Friday nights
frosted glasses, fogging breaths
and laughs caught up
in tightening chests.
Kendrick Park can keep its towering trees
and midnight charms
if I can keep your laughter with me
when I sail for newer shores
Something in familiar signs,
buzzing blackened Bighorn skies,
keeps us just above the water line--
afloat for one more night.
Sheridan Iron Works
Red, rigid lettering a raised, distant hand
Watch it wave from on the hill
above the Kendrick boardwalk,
soak December in our smiles
choking back our April cries.
Snake's head yawning
from the I-90 exit
slithers down Coffeen and tails
our icy footsteps
Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.
Shake this town to its bones
with our Thurmond Street jokes
and our glowing Gould Street hearts.
I hope
this is enough
to buoy our ***** up
against the weighty ballast
of this tiny, yawning town.
Settlers of Catan
played on a windy Wednesday night
over another drowning round
of clinking Wagon Box pints.
The contours of your face,
icy streets of our hometown,
our squinting, gasping laughter
on the corner of Main and Dow.
Blacktooth Brewery.
Frigid Friday nights.
Fogged up glasses. Frosting breaths
and laughing, clutching tightening chests.
This freezing town
will test your mettle.
Settle up and bring your friends.
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 12:36 PM UTC
Lately when you’ve looked at the Facebook chat bar, you’ve noticed names that you haven’t spoken to in a long time.
As if Facebook knows what has happened and is saying “Look! Other people exist in the world! You had a past before all of this.”
Too soon, Facebook.
Even memories excluding him somehow manage to involve him all the same.
You spent 5 years in Toronto, and only at the tail end did you two learn each other and find a love that was ******* brilliant.
And now Toronto is a landmine.
U of T is tarnished and bleak.
The ROM, the TTC,
Every quaint and adorable breakfast cafe, Mexican eatery, Starbucks.
Tragic.
And **** Queen’s Park.
And **** High Park.
**** dog parks too because maybe at some point you walked past one together.
And the bookstore.
Never again.
You loved that bookstore
(it brought you him).
And death to bubble tea, and 0 calorie vitamin water.
(No one should ever experience the misfortune of 0 calorie vitamin water, but it’s a memory, so it hurts).
And **** board game cafes. Even though the only game you actually managed to finish was Jenga.
But that’s because you were falling for him and you would rather talk for hours than look away from his face to read too-long instructions.
Catan could wait.
A different world ago you suffered in a city too congested for the likes of your small-town spirit.
And somehow you found life there.
Would have gone back there.
And he will never know.
Jan 1, 2019
Jan 1, 2019 at 2:24 AM UTC
Though thine two grown
former babes in crib age,
now lead checkered lives,
no longer monopolize my time
as though their persons went backstage
either one embracing, judging,
and negotiating positive
chutes and ladders with courage
evoking glee this papa
helped both beautiful lasses
avoid being risk averse
navigating life with minimal damage
though to get ahead of the class,
(asper the eldest Eden Liat)
credit karma fairly and squarely attributed
to herself with encourage
meant from this papa, who oft time
felt he lacked any clue
akin to a hobbled battleship left
to drift at sea, whence,
upon landfall sub
sequent lee forced to forage
in a foreign dominion (akin to being
among Settlers of Catan),
plus devoid of instruments to gauge,
an optimal strategic operation,
thus figuratively groping in the dark
(unaware of a brewing twister)
guided by blind faith
doth admit saying sorry,
but apologetic homage
would disqualify thyself,
a "FAKE" mastermind
undeserving of just desserts,
unfairly via diktat plucking sweet treats
awash within Candy Land,
a deceptive image
entrancing, luring and, spellbinding
ultimately incurring trouble,
particularly when Shana Aubrey
(younger by about
twenty six months)
garnered lion's share of parental attention
necessitated mandatory intervention
due to language
skills, plus pronounced
developmental delay,
where supreme social service
sages gentle massage
wrought divine prestidigitation
as one after another
case worker did overencourage
to counteract congenital
cognitive setback (coalesced in utero),
now finds das dada envious
(cuz, aye got mired, hogtied,
and bogged down with
obsessive compulsive trivial pursuit,
hence warrant so lucky as thee Punim)
steers ship shape body electric
round her uncharted cerebral
cape of good hope passage.
Jul 9, 2018
Jul 9, 2018 at 11:00 AM UTC