Paper
On Sundays my love is paper thin
In Biblical black cyphers it helixes in my heart
Valves collapse in cartwheels of joy
Spinning sheets over past wounds, dripping as they do
Cascades of lustrous black memories
On Sunday afternoons my love blossoms in checkout aisles
My husbands and wives grin and grimace
On Sunday evenings I wince for
Bestiary
My anxious thoughts are grey-cheeked thrushes
Squabbling for space on my balcony’s black metal.
My queasy stomach’s a mangy green dog that shivers & howls,
Muting its growl as I cradle & stroke it.
My jumpy heart’s a plump red chipmunk,
Tracing serrated parabolas of hope,
Digging its claws into my tender bark.
August 29th, 2020
Bless
God bless the broken heart
Medieval knights collapse on Friday nights
Masking their sobs in steel cardigans
Their gunpowder tears tremble and shake subway lights
Ventricles burst with sorrowed smoke that strangles their sinews
They limp forward in cubensis catacombs
Praying for the holy pitch of pain to subside
The clouds lift warily with bitter glory
Hallelujah to the heartless!
December 2018
Sunkiss
I kissed the sun for sixty seconds in the park
Empress in a yellow dress sublime and stark
Fluttering ferocious fears of getting burned
Alchemically awkward but my luck turned
Only to have learned
My mouth wasn’t meant to smile this wide
I need four more faces for my grinning stride
Eight more hearts for this elated electric joy
Bones of a steel stolen from no known alloy
For the time her bright cheeks bubble up hope
Gorging on gorgeous gratitude to cope
Summer’s just ended and begun again
September 15th, 2018
Hope’s Away
when Hope’s away
she’s the bittersweet blue sparkling on snow
she’s the honey & crisp of an afternoon apple
she’s the smiling soul in my Spotify playlist
she’s the sunlight bouncing off buildings
she’s the darkening fear that blackens the sky
Winter 2019
Oceans
unbearable beauty and oceans of tears
sinking on a Sunday buried in a baby blue blanket
cantankerous cries of broken ties
nearness of her nose she didn’t like
foreheads crestfallen together
limbs writhe for emotional tithes
no mercy for the lonely just Pennyroyal Tea
smoked salmon flowers picked from the downtown core
mental mold taking hold over this ashtanga spine fold
spores of doubting malice sup the chalice of the Lord
the light within you & Ihigh hopes in bags under her eyes
stillborn chrysalis of cardiovascular craving
star-green nebula supreme; distant, yet all pervasive
reflexive nicotine rush tarred inside
a rough bristly brush that left scars
on my empire of neat dreamsbismillah arrahman arraheem
arabesque womb to schizophrenic tombbismillah arrahman arraheem
engraved portraits in the etchasketch cemetarybismillah arrahman arraheem
sewer green confessions of St. Augustinebismillah arrahman arraheem
faded fashion dream compassion fatiguebismillah arrahman arraheem
womb to tomb; no room to pity the whole teambismillah arrahman arraheem
Lord have mercy, my cursive’s not what it used to be
Summer 2018
Mount Royal
O, backpain!
O, woesome, loathsome pain!
You are the bitter pitter patter of palpable precipitation
Prescott the lawyer or the kingly saint they sold ochre liquid to
And not just any embers of light,
Not just “Justin of Patua”
Of street corners mixed with light and
Edited without fright or loss of disemboweled ideas
And entrails of friendly stringent
Academically oriented gastronomical eloquence
Will you respect me?
Or will you recollect me as a dupe?
A hulk? A floral despot?
A tiny ampersand without a face?
A brick laying a forgotten hindrance, long assimilated
But not now unseemingly making an appearance
Fashionably on time!
Right on the mountain, the raggedy assassin shapes
Fate will take trite cake; it took a rook from my
pawn’s bishop’s battle with a hook
Got a captain’s engine with a lassoo and a book
Nabukov’s illiterate windshield wiper of a novel
Grisham’s last hour: My dagger pierces his forehead and
Blood oozes out & smiles upon my wicked soul
Trot…
Trot…
Trickle in a pot…
& I’ll eat you Grisham!
Grish your guts and nab your hat!
Or was that the prequel?
Or are you my dreamy crush of a groom?
51 fractured minds begotten to the lost unidentified cause of pain
On the left and traveling upwards, spherically and obliquely
Delivering eulogies to Euclid
A laquer loving Tristan Tzara shucking oyster licking genre painting
Embalmbed in fresh flowing ink of pebbles in Shanghai rivers
Marooned in hong kong, a castle of our towering friendship
Forever expanding into a
Bleak
Frozen
Ocean
Winter 2018/2019
A Loan
Alone with validated veins and friendly femurs
Alone with bilious thoughts and iliac crests
Jutting out below spandrel breasts
Fortified rice milk
Face cream smooth as silk
Knowing nipples hope for abracadabra abs
Glistening in the morning with gratitude
In a mood
Alone with incognito mode & open door commode
Commodore 64, Nintendo, playing games (a loan)
August 25th 2018
Ropeburn
hope ropeburned drama trope
unendurable breath renewable
acetylsalicylic acid searing esophagi
vital amines placebo star dreams
salacious sentiments on black browser proxies
medusan moments of stone cold
sophistry in the sleep clinic
weeping daggers of reverse joy
misplaced keys and misfired tempers
September 9th, 2018
Languish
Leaning in closer languishing farther away
Leading cemetery lines luring us astray
A shallow sarcastic grave sporting snapped bone
Blue to black skies with odds stacked on precious stone
Mysterious mosquito like insects swarm together alone
The next day
Grey skies leading mercy astray
Abandoned weak that stand on bluffers peaks
Shallow is the grave that bit the dust
Of bloodsucker ashes
Feelings fell silently
September 5th, 2018
Strep
text & trachea honest past twilight
tethered sternum strung up by wi fi
her name in something like helvetica
a phosphorescent blessing
no rush just unceasing blush
strep throat on the summer sofa
August 30th, 2018
Pier
steps near the music’s rumble
under a white tent, crammed bodies in bliss
grabbing cold kind hands into a stumble
feet criss cross and miss
faces locked in smiles for a while
sober but drunk in something
a river of joy as wide as the Nile
moving to the shadows for movement
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, echoed the boardwalk
frozen ballet amid midnight murmurs
August 26th, 2018
Rip
out of the billions of galaxies and
thousands of Montréal streets
we ended up in this café
I see her every day
in morning by the window
her posture makes her silhouette glow
her clothes giggle with the joy of her scent
it takes a while for our eyes to meet
but when they do
she’s brighter than daylight
our pupils tickle and play
“did you sleep okay?”
she asks
“I licked your belly and drove you wild
& told you I can’t live without you
in my dreams”
I want to tell her
but instead I say
“not really”
any day now she might
rip my heart out
and I’ll just have to let her
Winter 2019
Blister
the best flower blisters in the sun
it takes refuge in the west edge of the forest
its white stalk trembles feverishly
from the rumble of nearby automobiles
only the most heartfelt notes of birdsong
pushes its petals to flush and glow
a cranberry red of the sacred heart
August 9th, 2020
Bookboys
bookish boys grown old
cleaved by cold oceans
broken on sclerotic waves
kidnapped by dyspeptic currents
yet glittering with precious blue
from the light of new sons
August 2nd, 2020
Lost & Found
I think I found my soulmate
But she’s dim lightyears away
Perched on wintery windowsills
Barricaded by walls of shooting stars
and cold sharp comets
Past Saturnalian wedding rings forged in
twin moons of broken hope
While I’m underground
Melting in muggy puddles
of broken air conditioners
shimmering in high noon Indian summers
Lord I’m lost when she’s found
I think I found my best friend
But she stirs in frozen forests
where redwood regrets fall soundlessly
I’m the forgotten flint and drowned matches
My sparks singe my own teeth and tendons
Lord I’m lost when she’s found
I think I found the rest of my life
But I’m already thirteen years behind
And each day drags on like bones
crumbling in soil
March 2019
Escap
the thought of you wont escape me
even when Im satisfied and grateful
for every little thing in my life
you make my heart surge with tickly blood
streams of possibilities and ecstasies
mixed with fears of disappointments and aches
April 2019
Stink & Strut
God knew the chicken expected
seven out of the six eggs to hatch
God knew that the lion’s paw was infinite
crossing boneyards of trilobytes
God watched as the slime grew a sharky spine
March 2019
Old
I’m getting old and food hurts going down
My head hurts and the ankle’s sprained again
Can’t take pills cuz my liver’s shutting down
Must be all those years of not drinking a drop
Lord I’ll see you in hell cuz eternity’s too long
not to find some happiness
March 27th, 2019
Left
the day you left me
for the second time
and i cried in front of you
again
and you seemed to feel nothing
again
and you mumbled you love me
again
and i could barely walk
and i cried until my head hurt
and cursed you for being in my life
and i wanna believe it’s for the best
but you keep tugging at my heart
waiting for the last stitch
to snap
March 27th, 2019
Prayer
Lord have mercy
I can’t think, I can’t eat, I can’t breathe
from the gnawing burning stinging clawing pain
from the future of watching the looks of my loved ones
turn to horror
as they watch me die
slowly, painfully
abandoned
I want
to revel in the
glory of creation
just
a
little
while
longer
just one more morning
waking up next to her supernova smile
just one more dance
where her body melts the city
just one more night
embraced by the kind soul of her eyes
just
one
more
March 26th, 2019
Stone
sat on a sunny stone ledge
surrounded by walking saints
in a daze of love where my
aches cramps and pains
melted into her gentle fiery eyes
and the embers of a forsaken hope
flashed brightly like a prayer in rubble
and in that narrow, quiet street I dimly saw
a future overflowing and rushing
with her;
her happy chapped lips
her neverending honesty
and that kiss
that makes the world weightless
March 25th 2019
