That time again...

The air
is blooming daffodils
And the sunshine
smells like grass
Our days are spent outside
Filling time
with the shapes
that clouds make
Do you remember
when we found speed cars,
Racing through the sky?
Every year I am reminded
Of a time
when it didn’t get any more pure
I was so sure,
That we would always gaze at the clouds
Come spring time.
Since then
The white puffy drivers
have disappeared
But every now and again
Ill look up
and be just as sure
That I see you drifting by
Higher than you had ever been
Higher than we ever would have spotted
as children.
Every year,
I look forward to the spring.

Avalanche

Buried.
Stone shovel, snow covered
Drip ice cold …
Moisture runs along your spine
to remind you,
You are alive.
You are alive,
You are alive…
Never before has the weight Of life
pressed so hard on your chest
has the weight of life,
kept you from rest
In white banks
Of exploration
Of glory turned desperation
We all wander away
Some day
The unlucky among us
Stay
where the kingdom
wraps them in chills.
The hills
seemed to stretch out for miles
And the echoes of empty searchers
were only beginning
That morning
when the sun promised
to guide their way
To where the unlucky among us
stay.

Bare Necessities

Survival comes on strong
As the instinct you thought belonged tucked in your back pocket
You are a city marcher, street parader
You believed you would never need to use this tool
That has you in life’s sparse good graces
Imagine what East Hastings St. feels like
when 4 am comes as quickly as the mid day nap
you’ve missed for the past 10 years
your tears, have long since dried up
and you keep flying up
up higher than a frat boys Saturday night
but his has become a lifelong nightmare
your arms rest bare to ashy
trash filled streetlight
tonight, you have scratched away the skin
that held addiction
in the shape of a bubble,
in the crook of your arm
the harm you have done to yourself far surpasses
that of the others you have affected
for right now, stay with me,
hide away, be safe with me,
There are bandages under my kitchen sink
For right now
you won’t have to see this damage
Don’t worry
Your mother will forgive you
Your father will forgive
Your brother will forgive you
Tonight, we know
that you have not been yourself
We know that you have not felt
the sunlight of mid day
The way we have.
We know that our anticipation of summer
Is not shared
You are still scared
Of what 4 am brings.
These things
Are much more important,
The warmth that may follow
Is the only part you look forward to
You… you my dear,
You are no longer you.
And when we see each other
on the street
Next week,
I will ask how you’ve been
You’ll tell me today is a good day,
you have your bare necessities
you have brought my pillow
back to your street corner
you have a sheet, your life and a coffee
today is a good day
you have your bare necessities

Stream of counsciousness

Im resting comfortably with the vaguely acknowledged presence of a pebble..
some large pebble that sits inside me , just bellow the surface,
bellow skin and bone and blood ties.
The comfort is one ive lulled into
after acknowledging the recurring pattern ive led myself to.
You see for a while there I felt torn apart,
like the pieces of me I needed couldn’t bring themselves to touch together
with the half that was lost, and in pain.
There was this gap that couldn’t be crossed with word bridges
or the sentence trails my friends were leaving me ….
But I had seen that feeling before.
Just never gotten a front row seat to one that was quite as far out of my control you see
its starts as a gaping fissure,
coming into itself until it is but a mere crack...
and then that crack pushes in in an attempt to make itself smaller
and ends up resting in our ribcage as a hole the size of a rock,
that you know, with time, will turn back into the large hole it was
before you got yourself into the arms
that cause the expanding fissures in the first place.
I guess this is the best stage to be in.
the furthest from heartache,
the furthest form accumulating regret and making mistakes.
I can live with a pebble in my chest

Notice:

clarification
i decided it would be good to just get myself writing. period
doesnt matter what or how well or how long or anything at all, really,
just as long as i write. So i have asked friends for prompts,
stating that said word or sentence could be something they find inspiring or just the first thing that comes to mind. and promised one poem per prompt.
so the most recent train of poems, all with prompt labels, are a result of that.
and if you care to leave a prompt, DO IT!
:)

build this skeleton with rainbows

The round shape your rib-cage takes
sends spades of laughter
around a lung filled with collapse.

you have let worlds form off shoulder blades
Written novels on the blank page
Of white bone turned paragraphs
Turned darkened rage
It was all right there, plain as day
As the sight refised to fade away
And i traced my life along the colours of your back

Dance

In this dark hooded sky,
The stars are dancing with opaque
With the mistakes our eyes make
When light tricks our shades
Of day
The way movement accumulates
through the distance of space
is beautiful,
to say the least
often wondering about the way our limbs can follow hymns or glory
our bodies tell the stories
our lips dare not
fluid movement hasn’t always been
the first thing I think of
when I wonder about the warmth of love
but after seeing these stars
dance
I know there are answers
Above
The illusions of grandeur we have

Bone Bruises

It's strangely still
It doesnt feel like it happened in this room
like these walls are doomed
to repeat history,
but they must be.
if you pushed your way [back] BACK
into the role you played when i was a child
tonight
i feel numb
strangely distant, detached
from the images of two hours ago
and ten years ago
replaying in my mind.
I guess its a good sign
because back then
i couldnt have taken my pen
in hand
this man,
has left bruises down to my bones
helped me discover the meaning of colour
as i traced this skeleton with rainbows
...
it's easier for me
to think about how it happened
than who i was afterwards
i dont know that woman
i just know that i dont want to be her
but this time,
you seem to have gotten us confused
whatever you were using me for back then,
you've used it all up.
leaning hard against my door I told you stop,
and it wasnt just a request.
this time,
these bones are mine,
and these memories will be too.
I want them to have nothing to do with you...
not the taste of your kitchen knives,
clenched fists or empty eyes
...
I tasted steel tonight
for the first time in a long time.
The setting had back tracked
and slipped through the cracks
of all the yesterdays between now
and when this was my life,
when the soft edge of a knife
was the only thing i found myself in bed with
were i to stay here,
i would have to kiss
the back of my womanhoods head
and send it on its way
to be degraded
youve underestimated
my power..
my pride is no longer something
i can part with.
if you push on this door again
be prepared for the shade of my own fist.

There are flowers on the bridge today

You asked what my favorite petal
felt like
I came close to telling you
it feels like the reason
they are here this morning
It feels like decaying love
Lingering on the steps of ‘forget’
Sitting patiently
on the lips of those
who don’t care to name their mourning.
This is a step
In the direction of next
Of say goodbye to antidotes
And wake up to clarity
…
To foggy, windswept, heart breaking clarity
…
You may need to fix yourself a stiff drink
But be wary of what lurks in the bottom of that glass
That too full glass
is no more than a hallucination
Do you really want to believe that it is still alive?
…
There are flowers on the bridge today
I left them there to commemorate
the absence of myself
At least parts that I had loved dearly
Pieces of honesty
that I am re-accumulating all too slowly

Sunday Fogsight

I found it in the fog...
found water weight
gone
heavy turn gentle to comfort,
rock on the brim of surreal
if youve ever been carried by a sail on a still day
you know it feels
like harmonizing with wake-tip
drag your fingers
longside boat movement
dip
into salt
i had been on a boat before
paddled away from heartache
and motored away from mistake
to find myself on redemption shore
but not even that had felt like this
...
like kiss rockign core
and split into another universe
more and more
i was overcome
i coudl have done
anything that day
...
i could have dissapeared,
drifted away particle by particle
by moisture drop in teh air surrounding us
i found it in the fog
before red sails turned to dust.
if you ever get the opportunity
to feel life dissintegrate
and be re-absorbed
pore by pore
like dense messages to be lifted
by pearling dusk,
some things, we must make time for.
...
I though i woudl find it scatering.
no landmarks, no path
but as steady sea spanned around me
i felt at ease
...
leave anchor to guilt and map-line to shame
when you float the way we do
distance is your only aim
the game we all played as children...
find smooth surface,
skip rock,
rickshay,
and watch the reality of your reflection
ripple away.
I was a sunday
when everything went out of sight
we huddled around charts
as though navigation were usefull
but with no trace bringing us back
we were suspended in time...
who's to say we shoudl have come back that day?
i still cant be sure how we foudn our way
back
to deck and harbour
back
to life in another universe...
it was a sunday

Beware

Beware when you meet the devil
His eyes are deep brown,
his hair is as well
His colours are rich
He is heavy with laughter
he can two step faster than any of you
And will tango you right out of the room
Beware, when you meet the devil
He is lurking around the bend of your neighborhood bar
waiting…
He is patient
Beware when you meet the devil,
you don’t need me to tell you he’s trouble
but he’s just so
god
damn
seductive..
you’ll know him
Devils breath on Sunday afternoons
Women swoon over gin,
but only
when they are with him…
He leaves dusty fingerprints
on your fine china
To remind you,
your womanhood
has been tainted
Has been painted
a new shade of red
You said,
you would never give up crimson

Sight Seeing

There is a deaf man,
who says he hears the children playing underwater
And the flames licking his home
suddenly feel hotter
than he remembers
He would rather go back and play with them.
Rather be submerged.
Drown my home with me, he says.
Let my memories float away
like ships decay
That someone is bound to use
as a life raft someday

The young woman at daybreak
Is still yearning for nighttime
When she is safe from daily obligation
The sensation
of forward movement
frightens her
Tightens her chest
until her breath pounds
strong enough to pull her on
when her feet can no longer

Little girl with the pearl teeth
And the golden locks
Has sold herself to misery
Have you read her story?
The pages are salty, stained
And now he needs to know why
Her story has made him cry
Made him shed tears of understanding
He was stranded somewhere between hatred and fury
Waiting for the safe haven
of sympathy


Have you ever tried flying along a birds wings?
The view from up there is scary enough to want to fall
Want to crawl on the ground
like an infant
And know you are among us all,
Down here in this world.
We follow the same streets
Paved of history beneath concrete

Id like to take you on a sight seeing tour
So you can see what all this life is for
We’ll peak through the windows of widows
And aftermath stampedes
My treat….

Maybe then you’ll understand why
some stand further away from the parade than others
Some people are trying to catch your eye
as you try to catch candy flying by
being thrown at you
by men in disguise
pulled by over-decorated rides and
silent
cardboard hand
goodbyes.

please promise..

that When you reach these parts of me
you will know to take your shoes off at the door
In fact, leave it all outside.
Your clothing and skin,
Any traces of the places you’ve been before
Leave this kingdom as clean as you found it.
Even if you find it in a dreadful state
because the taste of you will linger here
The taste of you will linger near the window frames
Your finger prints on its panes
Trying to send a message to the outside world
where I am this person you see right now.

I know you don’t understand
how I come about
How she disappears
if you aren’t near internal holy grounds
but
They have found
that honesty is not always the best policy
Believe me.
I do my best.
And the rest of my intentions
stay cradled warmly.
Waiting for another index.
Your palm is my safety blanket
You read my past on the texture of my skin
and now Ive been
looking for a way to tell you
Its not true
Everything that happened to me
Its not true.
And I wanted to say
It hasn’t happened to you
Lets not let anything happen ‘’to’’ us
Anymore
Lets not be those people
Left broken
Those people left sore
We are beyond that
We hold more
Than what our bodies once felt
I will make it feel differently
I promise

I will be your nursery rhyme
Telling you we have all the time in the world
To jump over the moon.
Ill hold you and sing hush little baby don’t you cry
I will sing you every lullaby
i know
But For now
You have hidden parts of yourself away...
I know where to find them
"hill and vale and slumber sleeping
I my loved ones watch am keeping"
And when I uncover them I will do so gently
Like lifting the soother from a baby
Just trust me.
My discretion quietly gloved
tonight
you will be the first woman I have ever loved

I will make you the kind of memory history is made of

I keep seeing poems as obstacles courses,
Littered with tacky intentions
You told me you have a soft spot for harlequin
...
I know a few stories

story-line

Her lips are like rose petals
That pale pink with just a hint of white at the tip
And her hips... are just strong enough for my grip
As I dip my tongue into her story line
Her life tastes like a brick of amber, the sweetness rising to the top
While the ash clings to my teeth, creating poetry in my mouth.
This poetry is how she defines herself, since she’s promised not to bind herself to anything else.
Her beauty is hardly a tool she needs to exceed expectation.
She is honest… but she is also nothing but temptation
And I almost hate him, for not letting me taste her.
Knowing he would be the last to chase her…
I don’t blame him.
Elle goute le miel, and honey is sweet but its also quite messy.
Perhaps it would be easier to resist, were he still with me.

you called me a goddess

Once upon a time
you called me a goddess
And I wanted it to be true
so bad
I tattooed it
On my hip.
The place where you rested the tip
of your fingers so gently,
It felt like they were part of me
But since then
I’ve discovered what shame is
I haven’t felt close to a god in ages
And let me tell you,
I don’t want to
Id rather own these pages
of words you’ve sent me to sort through
when you went on
about how
we all wish we could own her
The part of the earth
that doesn’t live between mall walls
Or public washrooms stalls
where women lay uncounscious
After a long night of too few responses
from a world she’d lost touch with
There are men wearing army green
like forest leaves…
But we all know these wars don’t grow naturally
It seems to me we’ve chosen escapes
That bring us closer to the place
from which we’re running away
But now there is ink in my veins
And its there to remind me
that once upon a time
When the world was mine
Before it belonged to soldiers
who fight for the right to peace
And women who want to fly
but cant help feeling too heavy
You called me a goddess
So let me write you an over-due letter
Asking you to help me find
What god is
And how he could let this
Happen so quickly,
Even if its been growing for centuries.

harmony

Harmonize with my pillow,
it knows sound too
and will teach you to make me sing
If you listen to its stories you’ll discover,
it knows better than I where ive been
my dreams have read it the novels
i have carried within

shame

Such a heavy little character
The captain of a breaking pirate ship
Wandering our hearts shore line for anything worth taking
It smokes a pipe filled with hazy memories and has greasy hair, heavy with fear and disgust
Its wooden leg the crutch of others’ judgment
It takes a seat.. unswayed by the steady less sea of pain
It invites me into the cabin
I have seen this cabin far too many times
I have observed its tacky tapestry and layn In its hard bed
Awaiting the captain
Preparing for him to enter me
Sometimes gently, he seems to creep in and sometimes with such brutal force
That I know he is stronger than these waters and consider jumping off-board
But this time I am wiser and turn down his advances.
I invite him rather, to a game of chess on deck
And this one time I am freed
The captain shame knows no witt or logic
I have outsmarted him, he knows only greed.

Naked

Stripped
exposed
Used and unconcerned
We have found our footing
A new stride based on a lack of confidence
No not stride,
Swim
In water murky enough to hide our skin
But not our faces
Our naked expressions

Classic

Theres something classic about a love of the sea
Lets have a black and white romance,
Ill love you like a multi-hearted octopus, 3 times over

Serenity

You are serene and beautiful
an angel walking on the water i bathe in.
The instant your toe touches the surface
i am soothed by the rippeling waves


you are devious and powerfull
the fire in your eyes blazes towards me
and i feel it scorching my once gentle heart .
Long ago before i fell apart

you are thoughtfull and saturating
the mind you use with ease
creates an enigma to fill my own
tearing open my intelligence
shielding my awareness

you are calm and cradling
with every moment that passes
i sink solumly into a norm of acceptance.
A form of resistance

you are my knife. My bottle. My record. My stage

you are my goal and my fear.
my smile and my tear.


you are my pen. My voice. My world

Touch me

touch me
touch every corner that my words have cast shadow upon
my knowledge, my desire
touch me with the tip of my solace that you have stolen
by letting me kiss you, and place it upon me once more
but gently… ease me into this world that is spinning away
touch the tip of my tongue the way you did moments before the highway running off of it hit an exit
that’s suction surpassed my resistance..
touch me. Because this moment has felt your caress
this moment is that where, opposing magnets FLIP and come together
pushing is painful, resistance tedious
mango tainted lips are more present at time than my mind
but they communicate well
they tell, stories of intimacy and tales of friendship…
they are trying to explain to you who I am
while yours probe and question,
your mouth lost and detached from the words I hear escape it somewhere in the distance but..
I pay them no mind, This moment is that where I try to touch you in the return
And I do so with a mouth full of lip and a hand full of hip guiding you towards me
Carelessly cautioning you NOT to follow
As I pull you closer to the me that Is buried inside myself
The me that you don’t usually get to see
But I am here
And you tell me, you can feel the goose bumps lining my spine as your hands
Wander the curves of my body, an OCEAN of strong waves, with gentle tips
But your hands, much like your lips, are just along for the ride
Leaving nowhere to hide when instinct takes over
You didn’t want me to show her
But.. it got me ready for THIS, you see.
It prepared us both for our moments of truth, wrapped in light sheets,
We leave our bodies open to dreams, and wake to sweetness even softer than that of the night
Because this morning is our
And months go by quickly, tomorrow you will be gone
This place has never been home to you, and it would be too much for your to become mine..
So we lose each other, to time.

93 cents

Lightly lift this soft pressure
Enjoy this gift of gentle weather
But the weather
Whether or not we wish it
Will continue changing
Enabling you to comprehend
The process of aging
Ever changing, ever growing
ever showing more signs of awareness
your understanding stamped on your forehead
as to show the world
just how much you’re worth
down to the last
93 cents.

Ketchup

I think Organic tomato sauce
Is just a nice way of saying ketchup
You think using ketchup
is just a nice way to teach our kids about blood
We live in a society
that’s obsessed with smearing it on everything
And that’s what you’d wear
when we played dress up
You said
‘’you see, i’m dead you just don’t usually notice it’’
And now I
sit in a swing set made of broken branches
in a playground of caskets
Wondering how such a beautiful young girl
ends up in a place like this
Rocking myself back to comfort
I’m comfortable remembering you with a smile
But I guess we don’t want to see the truth in the corn syrup
When we watch horror movies and pretend that’s not us
We pretend we don’t know what fear means
We pretend we don’t know how shame feels
We pretend that life’s stages has age limits
and at 13 a girl only plays dress up with dresses


there are tomb stones made of dry tears here
and the wind in these parts whisper lullabies and skipping rope tunes
right now
I am sitting on a swing set made of broken branches
in a playground of caskets
wondering how we let such a lonely girl
end up in a place like this
a long nights sleepover for kids
the kind for which they don’t need
to pack a toothbrush
you wont need you pijamas
we’ll make sure you’re comfortable
in silk lining
and say we did the best we could
by surviving
we don’t want to play in this playground
but you were already at home here
by the time you were found
but I promise from now on
ill remind people,
we don’t need to use
so much god damn ketchup



Because little boys also play dress up
and it messes their head up
when you tell them that G.I joe is good
but pointing guns at people is bad
it messes them up
when you tell them to be a good father
but to be nothing like their dad
they have followed your lessons of peace
and grew up to be sent to Baghdad
and now so many end up in a place
where the breeze whispers
through the few trees
the ashes haven’t suffocated.
They’ve ended with those
who play the games they always hated
The games they were taught were out dated,
Women play housewife, men brave the fight
This fighting game is new to you
And they DARE to say they knew you,
Before you were sent to the war.
No , they didn’t.
or they wouldn’t have let you go
We’ll hide away the corn syrup and
do our best to sweep the ashes..
this playground is yours.


Then there are the little boys
who played dress up with dresses
Or the girls who thought G.I Joe meant freedom
The ones who’s gender
people only venture guesses at
They have their playgrounds too
I’ll bet you there’s one buried right next to you
You see we all end up in the same place
But It seems cemetery’s these days
are segregated
When I walk down a line and read the names
I wonder about their faces
I wonder if their father called them faggots
If their mother called them dykes
I wonder if they died happy
Knowing a lot of them hadn’t gotten their two wheelers
We’ve beaten kids
who were still riding their trikes




Tell me how do we forgive people who’s
Idea of parenting is best depicted with a fist
Tell me how we tell people
that they just cant afford to live like this

that every time they hit these children
it leaves bruises they’ll see well into their twenties
when they have walked away from their tombstones
I’m sorry for the time your parents were too stoned
To remember
they gave birth to a daughter.
And that when she shaves her head and wears leather,
I still love her.


Right now
I’m sitting on a swing set made of broken branches
In a playground of caskets
there’s silk lining somewhere down there
and I know you’re not in it.
The faggots and dykes
The depressed and the children still riding their trikes
The ones who never made it back from the war
And some of the ones who did
only to find they couldn’t live like this anymore
Those are the people
this swing set is here for.
The ones
who didn’t follow the rules when they were playing dress-up
But at least I know you,
you aren’t anywhere near it..
You’re too busy
teaching your children about ketchup

Hide & Seek

You know, i’d never really thought about hide and go seek before
Never noticed the underlying tones that made it feel like more than child’s play
Well im not a child anymore and I still hide today, waiting for you to find me
And for the first time contemplating what it is you’re looking for
And seeing what you might come upon .. me twisted and sore
From a long night’s careless grip and pulsing friction
Is this what you had envisioned when you said you wanted to discover me?
Because I am weak, weakest in most recent moments of strength because I didn’t own them.
Call it a superstition but it seems like a bad omen
to play such an innocent game so far from a play-pen
Ruffling the sheets and tearing off the damn corners again.
You have to look a little further because the things I am hiding lay deeper than anatomy
You wont find them by pushing through it, you see
We’re growing up, but that doesn’t mean we don’t play game anymore
Granted its not quite the same as it was before…
Because now losing doesn’t hurt so much,
Just playing does.

carry me

...

Emma Lake

There is a place on the mainland,
North of city noise
Where emma lake is poised
Surrounded by glacial tops.
The sight, standing on the mountains ridge
Is pressing
Pressing on eternal night
Pushing combustible life
Out of a deflated chest;
Rest with me
You’ll see its not so hard to breath up here
Where even the lake knows its own beauty
And covers itself with a soft sheet of ice

Here the sky stretches out like water warped canvas
and the trees are yawning,
tilting towards hillside paradise
This is what beautiful British Columbia feels like
It is pressing,
this heavy grey shade of luxury,
pressing on eternal night.

Cherry Cherry woman

Cherry cherry woman
Phone lines have tied a friendship of mine
along the height of tree tops
And whenever it falls out of sight I
know there is a wire I can feed off
I will pick cherries of laughter from it
That will burst into the pit of what our days have been
Burst into early morning goodnights
you make me smile
if you could see my face at the moment…
you would be able to go to sleep ,
with the promise of sweet dreams
because I’m not always close enough to see what you’ve seen
but I know these sights have held weight
and when you tell me even if you’re early
you always feel like you’re running late,
that’s what it means
your life has held my weight
You suggested we find a fireplace
to burn 3 am fruit cores
and let the flames of everything we would hide, blaze
but all this was said in a daze of anticipated sheets
and words began to drop between pillow case and breath
you will continue to uncover the colour of our conversations while you rest
right after my voice lulls you to sleep
I tried to make it melancholy sweet
Leaving you with
the comfort of a wooden ship creaking in waves that you are ever aware can hold you,
can hold you and your loved ones.
its been a while since your essence was present away from the busy city you live in
lets go on another road trip
lets allow ourselves the time to sit
and write poetry about how we have become lovesick
with my space and your boy who’s eyes blaze a few shades brighter
when your reflection catches them
you will meet him on a bridge towards ivy fields
and I will sing you both away…

all my song will know to say, is, be beautiful..
beautiful like rip-tide devastating sand running through hands less callused
beautiful like red lipstick on a black and white photograph
beautiful like friendship
beautiful like a goddess
be beautiful, like a woman

ash- wednesday

"though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings"
-T.S Elliot-

Leaning silo

Be our leaning silo
let us fill you with the memories we keep alive in our closets
heavy with others' scents
let us breath in our past lovers
let us breathe in images of dusty summers
and the warmth of a grandfathers knee
and when we reach the placid memories
the gaunt and empty
fill yourself
fill yourself with life
these lives
these lives
fill until it threatens to tip
and pull at your very foundation
because knowing a world's worth of sensations
is overwhelming
letit overflow and with it we will know
to absorb what in it was yours
we the field you stand in
we are the creaky floorboards
and cloths dampened with chloroform
lulling you to sleep
we will drain ourselves
we will drain you
and we will sleep...