1 New Poem

Lost Something

It was the cross of

Dundas barn dance, the

heavy-lead eyelash curls

and cleanly-pressed silver

buttons;

where it wasn't.

Waltzing in the neon haze,

trenchant poises cutting colours

of grease-walled balti houses,

it was easy to think of ourselves

highly,

as something tragic.

Movement of triggering slip,

crises stare you keep to yourself

the bound book of reasons for

the tempest of slack grey loafer

I

wore funeral ready.

1 New Poem

Pieces of Silence

Endured in the fading hubcap lights

of 2AM taxicabs,

skin sweat pushing in pulse time,

breath set to clock radio thump,

we shone, haze-halo and dead diamond

upon the windowpane's unyielding stare.

It was so simple before words came in,

before we told ourselves in truism:

to give off such light,

we must suffer a burning.

1 New Poem

Midsummer Fires

The sniff-sallow of turpentine on lipstick,

lightning burst of maple shade, supple

hang-wire in coffee shop chandeliers,

little notes on fortune cookie paper to spark.

A heave of gin in new straw's sunlight,

drifting breath-to-breath whispering pine,

a kind of courage eroded fast as lucid

waters turned on heat-hearth in midnight's pitch.

As we drift cool as dying embers, floating

heavy in possessed denial past the fragrant totems

we worship in our ragged times, before we

figured we'd grown hides too bound in place for that.

1 New Poem

Days of Being Wild

It was then you stretched your tempers thin as table glass,

softest sound destined as star-burning shatter,

in those nights at the turnstile point,

swinging leg dipped to humid water of subway

staircases: flapper starlet in frozen hourglass.

Crane, swan form in flutter, licking of

light wounds in the tepid grace of dollar store

cross stations, mechanical reprinting of inspired

words we'd paint on the halls in teenage anarchy.

Slip-drunk in the tangle of construction beams,

garbled phrases you regret in funereal call

of 35 years and an oncoming train tunnel,

we looked toothsome aside, caricatures on washed brick,

when you asked about the point of all heavy footsteps:

“you had your being wild, I had my parchment pens.”

1 New Poem

That Part After
Strung out on concert confetti,

waiting on the primrose lock

for beck-and-call command,

we catch glances in the sodium light,

we clash gazes in form 782 whir

lit up in sangria shade for the season.

Some toothy minder's grin hit me,

some pained twinge of childrens' watercolour

crossed to meet the same in time,

winced and jangled in ragman's echo;

key and clock the very same,

confetti a chemical's trick.

1 New Poem

Surface Tension

The dapple-spark of rainwater, disturbed placidity

echoed in ever-spreading shade the caustic

knife-sharpening act we wear as ill-kempt

tailors tending to the tuning of heart string.

Immaculate as ever the cut of wrist-tied

string we used to trace as breadcrumb, pyre ash

a pagan pirouette sort of ceremony, ancient

dance of drum strike, of churning chemical.

I look redder still, in the mirror more thin

and of softer complexion than some tangled,

matter hair burden's beast where once I stood

in youth's snuffed-candle afterglow.

Still, you strike me,

I quiver as ever.