Timothy Yan, that was his name
I miss him, still, 71 years later
I don't know if he's alive now
Nor, really did I know then in 1942
We were kids, he was 11 and now
would be 82 or 83
I don't know if he'd remember me
But, I remember him
and will forever
He was Canadian
He was my best friend
His family was Japanese
We'd come from Ontario, Burlington
Work brought dad west
So, we settled in a suburb of Vancouver
Tim's family had been here for a few years
There weren't a lot of Japanese in Canada
He was the first one I saw
We didn't have any in Burlington
So as I know
We lived on the same street
Went to the same school
He was Canadian
We played baseball, road hockey
football, we were brothers
blood brothers, we were a team
We moved west in 1938
I met him that fall in school
We were instant friends
The day I saw that St. Louis Cardinal hat
stuck in his pocket, all rolled up
He'd be Stan The Man, I'd be Red Russer
He was Syl Apps, I was Sam LoPresti
I was Turk Broda, he was anyone he wanted to be
We were both Joe Di Maggio
We were brothers
I remember the noise first
Great big Army trucks,
Olive green
All up the street
Not just at the Yan place
The Yokishuris, Wans, and Timmy's Aunt too
Soldiers, loading the trucks
We weren't allowed out to see
Notices had been posted though the door
We could only watch and wonder
They were being moved
They scared the powers that be
Little Japanese families
Many born here
Scared the powers of  King in Ottawa
And they had to be moved
Inland, to the Okanagan Valley
To Camps, in Canada, their country, Camps
Canada was at war
With it's own people
With 11 year old Timothy Yan
Ever since Pearl Harbour
Ottawa got scared
Japanese fishermen in the west
Japanese fighter planes from the east
There had to be spies in British Columbia
Tim Yan was apparently one of them
They were told their property was safe
All their goods in storage
They were lied to
A month after they left
The auctioneers came in
Everything was sold
Everything...
I hope he kept that hat
Dad bought what he could
So did other neighbours
I still have the boxes
Never opened
Waiting for the Yans,
I miss Joe DiMaggio
I didn't understand it then
And I don't now
My teachers couldn't explain it
My minister said it was the best
That didn' t help either
What best?
Who decided what was best?
Best for who?
It wasn't best for me, or Tim
Nobody asked us
He was just gone
I spent years looking for him
He never came back after the war
They were moved further east
They were sent to Japan
He was from Canada
Why would they send him to Japan
He was gonna be the first Japanese big leaguer
I hope he made it
I grew up and became a lawyer
A citizenship lawyer
This was not going to happen on my watch
To anyone again
Not while I was around
I miss him
He went to war
And never fired a shot
He went to war
And never knew why...

i  don't want  to live in  the
                            s p a c e s
between   your   words,   i
want to be  found in every
syl-
                    la-
                                     ble

Gain...ing access to my heart

Reveal...ing such pain

Stepp...ing over me to her

(7/5/7 Syl count)
1st August 2012

Weaving words,
so carefully. Every
syl
la
ble, crafted.
Spectacularly
laced, though the
unforgiving blue lines.
Wonderfully
chased by the
deadly silent black pen.

These words,
meaning or no?
Mischievous and
deceiving. Or
hopeful and
believing?

Where do they go?
Where do they lead?
Follow them, yet
could they be
seen?

Fortitude and fragility.
Miles apart, yet
undeniably the same.
In the world of words,
it's all just a game.

Coincidental rhymes, and
sentimental times, or
simplistic virtuosity, and
complicated philosophy?

These worlds in words,
are never as they seem.
But who are we to judge,
when the words in the world
are never what we mean?

2016 saw a year of structure and measure,
a year of coun-ting syl-a-bles.

Now is a return to form.
Shapeless but congealing.

I'm just like you;
trying to find the right words,
in the right places
&
at the right times

to make art worth the air I waste
and the space I steal.

The dark brown shades of my skin
Only add color to my tears
Oh, oh
That splash against my hollow bones
That rocks my soul
Looking back over my false dreams that I once knew
Wondering why my dreams never came true
Is it because I'm black? (Uh huh)
Somebody tell me, what can I do?
Oh Lord, oh
Something is holding me back (uh, huh)
Is it because I'm black? (Yeah)
In this world of no pity
I was raised in the ghetto of the city
Yeah, oh Lord (uh)
Momma, she works so hard
To earn every penny (yeah, oh lord)
Something is holding me back (uh huh)
Is it because I'm black? (Ahh)
Like a child stealing candy for the first time, and got caught
Peeping around life's corner somewhere, I got lost (oh)
Something is holding me back (uh huh)
I wonder, is it because I'm black?
Somebody tell me what can I do?
Will I survive, or will I die?
Oh, oh
You keep on holding me back
Keep on holding on
Keep on picking on me
Oh, you keep on holding me back
Keep on holding on, keep on holding on (uh)
You're holding me back
I wonder why, you do me like that
But you keep on holding me back
Keep on putting your foot on me
But I, I, I, I've got to break away
Somehow and someday
'Cause I wanna be somebody so bad, so bad
I wanna be somebody, I wanna be somebody so bad
You see, I want diamond rings and things, like you do
And I wanna drive Cadillac cars (uh huh)
Oh, I wanna be somebody so bad
But you keep on putting your foot on me
And I, I believe, I believe I can break away
And be somebody, somehow, and someway
Ya see
I heard somebody say one time
You can make it, if you try
Oh, and some of us, we tried so hard, we tried so hard
I want you to know that I don't speak for myself
But I speak for y'all too right now
Uh huh, ya see
If you half white, light-brown skinned, or high yellow
You're still black
So we all got to stick together right now
Mhm
This I wanna say to you my sisters and my brothers
Right on sister, mhm
Right on brother
Dig this
If we keep on pushing, y'all
Oh, we've got to make it a little bit further
We've got to make it a little further
All we got to do is try, try, try
And some of us, we've tried so hard
We've tried so hard, we've tried so hard (uh huh)
We've tried so hard , so hard to be somebody (um)
We've tried so hard, although, they're holding us back
And it stands to reason
That they're doin' us like that
You know what? It is
I believe, it is because we are black (uh huh)
But hey, we can't stop now, we can't stop now
Got to keep on, keep on, keep on, keepin' on
We've got to keep on, keeping on
I know and I know and I know that you know, that I know, it ain't right
Oh, it ain't right, it ain't right, it ain't right
That they hold us, hold us, hold us back
They're holding us back, they're holding us back
I wonder, sometimes I sit down, sit down and I wonder
I sit down and I think about it
Sometimes it makes me so mad
It makes me so mad

eyes that drink it in,
eyes that glaze, eyes tempted sin,
walk, drive, hear or see,

        scent or feel,
what has this to do with me,
is it all the outside objects of desire for poetry,
is it for a friend,
is it at the end of the day, in a wild free-
verse way, is this a dress rehearsal for after-play,

in love,
of love, gone astray
of self-image, renovation reconstruction,
but you can no longer see the dysfunction,
but,
but;
the broken exploded pieces of your heart,
are lodged in every nerve, you can only writhe
to your pain.  

you have meter, you have mitre, cut the rhythm so
close to perfection, a pentameter of frustration, first
name, iambic.

Will you be content,
with the content,
language sounds
hard and rounds,
soft supple syl-
lables slipping silently,
off your tongue,

the strongest muscle,
a double edged, an implement,
sword for word play too.

Poetry is special, as those who strive
to write it,
they may be life lessons shared
to right their ship,
poetry may be long,
it may be short,
you may
write in
privacy,
and no one will
ever read your poetry,
but if they do, you may know, that their
life has changed, and they may never thank you.

And as I often do and this is not an insult but
sometimes true, though I write poetry from
that awful place of woe in me, I seldom
see myself a poet. But my Muse I believe
and it tells me that I am.

I once dreamt that there were nails in my forearms,

from the soft inside of my elbow to the thin skin around my wrist,

and someone pulled them out one by one.

my blood was deep crimson and thicker than honey, but there was no pain.

I wonder if I’m really living when I’m not enduring excessive hurt;

I wonder at how so many lights don’t seem to lift the blackness.

beckoned by fire and sadness,

even Syl broke trying to be her own. how can I make it?

it gets difficult exactly when it needs to be easier.

more dissatisfied with the silence than I’ve ever been before

but the words I say don’t rustle the quiet either.

I know my epitaph would read:

“I was nothing more than this.”

I even know exactly what my hell would look like,

a brimful and just a little more, sensory rapture of the silliest kind.

why don’t I change? why is the same sky above me and the same gloom in my throat?

there’s so much I wish I was but will never be.

only I remain, always –

an outcome unpleasant and undesired, but the only outcome that has ever been.

only I remain.

you. called. me. beautiful.
{I can't lie}
it was nice to hear
but >your >words >and >your >motions
don't own {the same} grace
you spil~led ~so ~many ~syl~la~ble~ssss
about being vulnerable
//owning//moments//
workedmyselfuptothechallenge
you-had-the-nerve-to-claim-   it
a_ w _ k _ w_ a _ r _ d
no| consequence| to| me| in the end
youhavetowakeupwithyourself
{my dear}
i have only sadness for you
----and-the-parts-of-you-you're---
FooLinG

The merged generations, emerge from first
cold night in the mountains,
announcing,
This is screen-free Sunday.
I say this is the first day of ever after.
I read a bit
-- Infinite Jest, just a stream that contributes,
from time
to time, finity to finity, a dead man's former
mind fitted into words,
emanating from
the audible version of the words processed
in the Nineties, flowing through the
post I-Mac realm of words to the wise
and otherwise,

flooding the lexagraphic learners of grammar
for sense in silence,
self-reading silently,
breathing commas,
allow our pauses to perpetuate se per
selah… say

la la la
as time flows by, like a wild river in the spring,

Infinite Jest, there is a thread
through environs unimaginable to me,
until the inventions were given as inspirations,

did you know, I heard,
Steve Jobs yoosta
stand in the comode,
and flush it, gnoshit. In a state
like meditation,

zoned out of bounds in mere mistaken chance,
ping ping ping

a good idea, a bell of a thought.

We think in words, not all minds do.

Plenty punishments puns provideo please
if -ish is sortalike… shitilised, four syl-lables
la la la
ra ra ra, boom

sort on those, and mix up the story,
in the bubble you be reading in,

give us a universe, fit into the final bubble,
beyond imagining minds,
this world of words.

Here is where we word wise do as we heard,
when we read what the prophets say,
the angels said… re-
conciliation - nation to nation, peace
on earth {as in heaven BTW}
goodwill… the real deal, to fill the flaw, in the law,
which allowed imaginary places power
in carnal minds.

Jesus fixed that. Jah, no joke, he took it,
the joke on me, I traded for the
joke on you, he said,
I heard.

If I can’t have pages
and pages
of pure brilliance,
then give me

one
word
drips
that
slow-
ly
fill
the
cup
up
to
its
tip.
I’ll
grate-
ful-
ly
take
every
sweet
syl-
lable
that
I
can
get.

there is a vastness
beyond the reach of words:

 " clumsy clowns "
tumbling through minds
drunken
self-important
   grasping...

while they themselves
unwitting
wisps of Meaning
  elude
   like silken threads
     grey-matter fingers'
    potentially suffocating
            grasps

they curl and stumble
all over themselves
in a fractal psychedelic haze
  smirking at their own
   linear
    self-important
     longings

while
wittingly
  the poet persists
   quixotic and earnest
      sanely
   flinting    syl la bles
       " s p a r k s "
           into the   void

illuminating
  if only for an instant
    the infinite expanse
      of their ineffable
        suffering

and we catch a fleeting glimpse
   of the excruciating
     birth
      of mean-ing