1 New Poem

Blood Strength

I watched your life drain
into vials, a red neon shade
coursing through plastic tubing loops;
lab coats and hair nets with Peanuts characters
blocking the view

from where I sat, distant on
uncomfortable plastic, reaching occasional
to give what breath and comfort
hands can manage when they shake
under their own torments.

Under cloud skies from beyond,
the coats try to add everything
as numbers on punch cards,
part of an equation hidden
behind veiled eyeglasses.

It never takes on the full flesh of Spring,
cheek cold dampness of deep winters
with you, in olden times we’d
suffer with our meanings,

now just wait for phone calls,
to read entrails again.

1 New Poem

Old Chairs

When I’m standing in doorways,
nose against fogged glass of time,
I see you:

You still have Batmobile clock.
the one from Forever,
not the Nolan films.

There is still a soot cover,
of cigarette ash,
gray market marijuana trimmings

on the table you’d toss
coins, affects from pockets
of jeans you don’t wear anymore.

You move with purpose,
full of reason for being,
rather than the peace made

with death’s relatives now.

1 New Poem

February (Victorious)

I feel best when the music
gets up loud enough to
drown chatter of restless
narcissists, the sense that I
am alone, complicit in
waving shards, stacks
flame on the night sky,
television crystals.

Somewhere in the neon canola glow,
I lose myself to rhythms falling
at feet, to marshal stomp of
marching boots down laneways,
smack of hard rain against
windshield glass.

I knew shapes shadows would take
against stone carving,
holy places brushed clean of snow,

Clean of accusations against
life and heart, some kind
of communal elegy,
carried through crowd,

When the shouts became too much
for me to pass on,
and I let others speak
in dark noon of who was
gone that they remembered
just as annoyance,
as apparition;

The same as I,
after the page turned.

1 New Poem

Air Loss

The paper bags on the
live edge table are surrounded
by faded roses, turning
pink to brown in humid air;

I look to the weeds growing
defiant of concrete patches
across the road,
stronger than those things well-loved.

On a hollow bark stage
in life I felt the
wounds of desire,
ghostly sheets trailing in time;

The balmy hypnosis of summer
lawns in front of the BBC broadcast
castle, where a sparkle shone over
every avenue I could travel down;

I turn blue from the altitude.
My wife sends me a picture of
a Holstein cow, a mental health
slogan, an unchallenging affirmation.

The breeze catches again, petals
strewn across floor, ready
for a sweeping hunt of time,
stealing the new moon from sky.

1 New Poem

Songbirds

If I go first,
in the next life,
as a sparrow,
I’ll wake you with songs;

Our love will be simple then,
no more ink-black stains
of deep feeling to clutter
the picture, no more
shattering shouts to break
the silence of summer hours.

We’d still have distance,
but sharpened points would
be gone, just the echo
of sweet language unheard.

I could only touch you from
afar, see you through
windows and wires, an apparition
of what we shared once;

It was a mess
of glass, blood, sweat, spit, tears,
hacking screams in dark,

Before we moved to our new
places,

Before I could love you
perfect, through air

With songs in morning light.

1 New Poem

Evenings & Weekends

One day, all our
bookshelves will be organized,
our basement won’t have rats,
the water won’t collect at
odd angles to the foundation.

One day, the tree limbs
will reach in a riotous tangle
to god above the sky,
not cower in a broken form,
from the slice of blades.

One day, hearts will not
be so mineral, I will
cast light from every piece
of skin I have to shine
against the coming gray.

One day, we’ll cast off our coats,
dance free in rain, snow,
places hidden from glare
of great ills, the blistering
peace that chills an arid land.

One night, when things come alive,
the sparkling illusion leaves space
for withering love, toughened by
the silence of years, passed
between us, unnoticed in their grace.

1 New Poem

 4:27PM, Thursday

I am thrumming with the possible:
pangs of protest, violence,
stomach stirring;

As I sit with echoes
(bannerman in shadow),
knowing our songs

Will all be silence,
forms made anew,
reassembled to journey,

Electric against sky,
waves breaking beach,
wearing the sand

Smooth and broken,
polished for a danse
macabre, dizzy with strength.

****

There was a before,
there will be an after,
there is a now between,

That I live in,
with all possible things:
coursing currents

In my piece of time.