your hand reaches in and levels a day upward
TRANSFORMATIVE
triple power stacks black fractious
an edge against the sky strips and connects
your vaunted moment to the next
what zings one to another what buzz
up in a head tremors slightly or calls
out loudly with 167 times pleasure
you push and the response is unpredictable
a risk of shock or the certainty of light
leaves you right here looking away, looking up
PLAINTIVE
lines volt another ephemeral gesture
sounds rise always from leaves and stones
pushed down, pushed around, stepped on
what green blasts through your mind
today a restless wandering carries you
blurs the edges of a scene black dream
you keep a sidewalk crack to slip under or step over
you do not wanna break some momma’s back
an urban beat, a wail bursting inside you
MISSIVE
light simplifies a complex grid
worn but illuminated holds a space
where your hand warms lines above some cloud
what slices a moon open now
or trees ragged in window edges
to mark your tableau render your scene
you pull black forward wash a blue
slightly to set a delicate nature
in the frame of this warmish day
PERSPECTIVE
port city sparks lift or heft
yet plunges at least three times
grey sky or mountain blue or not
what sculptures a port city
more than you sparking red again
up and up tri-symmetric spectacle
you photo document urban moments like
colour striates red upward, your perspective
pulls forward against a day like mine
COLLECTIVE
lines pull forward to frame a flight same time every
evening lunges a swung swoop a territory arrested
your development attests a swooning I felt flung such sky
what unseen hand parts the ways of delicate bones so
hollow and scorned so scavenging an ultimate relief
yet stiff and ready to return again to me here, right here
your contrast brightens a dull night cuts a grey drizzle
that seizes an artifact from wreckage and beauty
in the urban realm lining it up collecting it for me now
Section III: MONUMENTS TO AUDACITY
for Brennan @ 17
1. Monument: Propeller in the park at Horseshoe Bay
Feathery in a mindscape way
light but still trying to be brighter
sweet says what falls between us
you smell good sometimes
creases where teen sweat resides
but also folds of baby skin talc
it’s ridiculous to say you’re all ages
even if you are walking/driving away
if you say you’ll be back by noon/by midnight
you eat a lot and at all hours drink
milk again by the gallons or litres make
yourself food poured from cans
so much to tell you now that you’re
not listening so many books read out
loud, loud! and louder: get to the point
sooner in a cracked open way
no strength to tickle so much taller
and for all that towering, lording over
2. Monument: Tree encased in pavement, Granville Street
Sun, in a Vancouver way
that is, prepositional, get it?
between the rain
descending you were always my reason
for being here/even as a speck, a dot,
a fingernail’s width like they say in books
love poured over you, yes, like rain
anger too a glass smashed against a brick
fireplace you felt the tightening
why pretend otherwise just say it all
before they say it for you: anticipate
rage gauge your own response now
unfurling people will connect you
to trees, to paths, talk about journeys
clichés balm the unknown but really
a hand on a steering wheel/a ripped bus ticket
is more like it: I held you with the palm
of my hand your head heavy on my chest
3. Monument: Log house, Magna Bay, British Columbia
It is hard to be happy in fall before
your favourite season depth of snow:
I’ll call you from the beach where I am
I still say wear a helmet, take a jacket
you still tell me when you’re leaving
still hate to be the subject in language
and don’t like performances: transform
napkins into flowers, cranes at the back
of the room/draw what no one will see
light again, but this time an ache where you used to be
a cloud between us but white and somewhat fluffy:
lying on our backs in Magna Bay the sky moving
always a truck or a bird/truck or bird
rubbing your back until you fell asleep
woke up so early my head rattling with caffeine
sky wet with falling leaves now raucous yellows
shiny red and orange slicks and still green
where you navigate your own awakening
4. Monument: Digital billboard — Burrard Street Bridge
I want to say you’re fabulous
say thanks for passing through
I knew “[my] children were not [my] children
but life’s longing for itself”
what the hell is that supposed to mean:
damn prophets and what they always take away
you are the word independence made
tangible arms of it legs of it/a strong spine too
I want to say I’m not worried about you
spray paint my faith in you across every brick
wall billboards of wonder at our collaboration
I want to say I’m on your side, I’ve got your back
pushing you on a two-wheeled bike for the first time
wind in your wavy brown hair light in your golden eyes
I want to maintain these pictures in my mind
monuments to audacity to think I could have it all
to think for a second I have it all breathe breathe
in the palm of my hand/I have it all
5. Monument: Abstract dot works Eli Bornowsky paintings
Anticipate the day you leave, for practice
it is a break in contemporary terms
light says what falls between us
you balk at the few rituals available to us
won’t wear cap and gown your curls pushed
flat tie a shoelace for a headband instead
spend the photo day sleeping in refuse
again to be tied down won’t wriggle
like Eliot’s butterfly sprawling on a pin
what you know already is so much what I
know so little in comparison: it’s okay I
can hold the blame for now my hands obtuse
if I could paint, I’d talk to you in pictures
dripping and thick saturate the canvas in
light layers:
absolve what’s below the surface
I show you photographs instead days when you
were young/demanding/precious/shifting your
sense of self: a balaclava/knight/astronaut suit
6. Monument: Log carved “you are here,” Riley Park, Calgary, Alberta
Denude the cause: it’s completely natural
that you’re leaving, but so crunchy in the chest
we know too well that the heart is just a muscle
how it can still fuck things over by blocking up
burning down and stopping the progress: a doctor
once told me your heart had a murmur
I’ve imagined it whispering to me ever since
muttering slights, articulating plans: it’s physiological,
just the way your blood flows, but obviously
I cried because of your dad’s wrecked up heart
and his dad’s and his brother’s and his mom’s even
but yours has proven strong surviving every single
adrenaline rush you give it flying through the air
the end of a bungy cord suspended in blue
among my desktop photo display, I planned
for this break, logged the day: Friday the thirteenth,
ironically on calendars, in flowery notebooks, here
on this blank page where we have always lived/breathed
7. Monument: Times Square, New York
I know I didn’t raise you perfectly, didn’t even
try sometimes: let you cry a second too long
didn’t listen at the right time to stories
about boys arranging fights, I didn’t argue
with teachers enough didn’t sign you up
for the right activities on time maybe missing
what you could have been playing a violin
a black turtleneck sweater living in New York
your girlfriend a flautist in the row ahead
I want to say what’s between us is wood
like Rich said with a gift for burning
want to bring the contradiction into language
to say I am near and you are far and I’m also
far and so on: I want to crimp that
transparent thread, but I can’t break it
I want mountains for you, deep deep snow
while my back sinks into sand on the beach
transposing climates to play out this slow turn
Section IV: THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
FROM “A CASTAWAY” BY AUGUSTA (DAVIES) WEBSTER (1837–1894)
poor simple blog
no one cares
as the saying goes
what you had for lunch
it is not gen X to ask
for so little but rather rack
a larger scope or at least
care about the bees dying
as if I could be the veiled
future in France or iron w/
starch oh fresh laundry
whither your blowing sheets
a looking-glass answers? in
what soaked out universe
ripe with unctuous glow
lips seethe there is no brand
with grace? I’ll eat my beauty thus
orgasm pouring a pitcher of milk
smear red where red should be
triumph a canvas’s folded corner
here’s a jest: I’m not drunk
in the streets of infamous
intersections although I ache
with the loss of those who did
why do I play the hypocrite alone?
do nothing but teach half a dozen
names or more: let no one be above
her trade trace the velvet edge to here
and whom do I hurt? “’tis not such
a mighty task to pin an idiot to
your apron string” or look coolly
on what/why not owning one anyway
true, one cannot laugh alone or
there let it burn into night
crisp against cool sheets
back into a headboard
vex the old is a blazing tract
stupid clutch gathering useless
memory in ticket after ticket stub
no hackneyed dirge of better days
a wild whim instead here on the edge
pressing hands to hips pushing down
stride and stride again whisper tingle
shout tangle yeah render yeah again
snatch a chance and oust some
good girl or bring any half of us into
the fold of a dream “summer roses in
soft greenhouse air” to never guess ’tis winter
FROM “THE CASTAWAY” BY WILLIAM COWPER
(1731–1800)
Waves’ dark night not the moon
Breaks it apart cry or laugh
A seawall walk turns wretched again
Crunch of surf rocks imbalance
You need more friends obviously home
Works against you, you fucking loner
You mark the space luminous and sure
It sparkles at times when you’re brave
Hug the coast embrace the routine track
Loving them both again in vain
Who disappears in what despair
Today you’ll dive in hot from beach sand
Swim to the buoy at a leisurely pace
Resist the pull to/from shore or the crank under
It’s a cold kind of courage, always cold
A desperation of pleasure seeking wrecks it
Support weighs heavily in implication’s salt
He shouts and shouts and shouts
Hoarse to oblivion ragged
Furious with ordinary fear, fury in the sun
Forceful with perspective spews
All over the one left behind never fully spent
Until calm slices the deadly mood sick silence
Plastic glasses don’t clink loudly enough
Or at all, the wine of succour usually sparkling
Ragged ends of rope washed ashore among the logs
Waiting for the fireworks to start
Gaggles of girls, one boy, more girls visit
Social selection via rejection, “thought you’d like him”
Cruel talk after he left stomps the sandy imprint
What marks condemnation more than texting
Shouting “come back here you” playfully but with edge
Out loud with actual words, “naw” he says pushing further
Off bitter downturn head Etnies kick back sand
Deserted gap between this group and that
He survives a social ocean minute by minute
Upheld through headaches
To a future clan, a powerful cling
Through disdain propels selection
Sets iPhone timers to mark the ends
A help line on speed dial — arrest!
His tremor passes, his past birthday cakes
Laughing like a pirate, before
Shouting “hurry” or “hurry up let’s go”
So that now the silence hurts me
And he drops in the middle of everything
No stifle works here now, it pours and pours
“No poet wept him: but the page”
A comedian’s video rant broadcast
His name, his name again, “his worth, his age”
Cleaves from a digital screen slices my shoulder
Above the heart again te
ars of journalistic perspective
Immortalizes a call to be a role model to the drowning
I therefore act. I act act act. I act. Therefore I act.
The waving fate, not waving but drowning
The melancholic lyric, decry the listless turn to nostalgia
Make this page endure! Beyond the fractal tides
Abhor the inevitable repetition of events trace/erase
More apportioned misery, more unkind semblance: a plea
It hurts: a voice recorded yesterday on repeat, a post on Tumblr
Some light remembers, some shines glossy Hipstamatic photos
Ineffectual haunts, the digital trace that enlivens memory
Fake we all perish, “each alone”
But you moreso obviously, you you you
The deep and all the whelm as such, oh boy, as such
CASTAWAY SERIES, 9 PARTS [FOUND TEXT] + PRELUDE
TASMANIA
Prelude:
a bay named after a wineglass
and the blood of whales
is epic enough to provoke a vast
decantation for theories of sediment
that is, the chest capable of heaving
with loneliness recognizes yr
historical connection because the sand
pushes up and asks you to remember
when almost no one was here yet or
everyone was a frolicking picnic
spilling bright red juice on frocks
laden at the edges with salt like
lady this, or sir that risen on the
back of hard bone shards, but lovely
even here resting yr head in some
sailor’s lap
1. Castaway
dear sailor i can smell your approach on the salt air. every day i feel the wild beauty of this scene roar through me. i feel hollow and spent as the sun sets over this bay and your storm blows past through the dark night. you can’t be far behind. every edge of blue reminds me of you and i wonder if beauty can only exist in anticipation and memory.
2. Castaway
dear sailor every night the stars speak of you. the north star seems particularly infatuated with your image and whispers adagio as salty spray hits your worn back. a moment here is eternity light folds into waves and this world is rebuilt second by second, an ephemeral mirage. the tissue of our connection floats on the wind, a lost kite that may some day be returned to its flyer. i have cast out many strands, dear sailor, i have told the stars this story.