193. Victoria Park, July

Darren P. (Oct 12, 2013)

https://es.foursquare.com/v/victoria-park/4bdda1c00ee3a593bafd2db0

your eyes

glow gold

in the summer

sunshine

your smile

as warm as

Canadian

midsummer

can be

by the river

watching

swans and

children

play

time so

slow

and the

air so

sweet

even then

I’m not sure

I realized the beauty of

such a moment

simple,

wondrous

as you are

as we are

gold glints

shining in summer

sunbeams,

beaming

brilliant

March 21, 2020

Montréal, QC

190. To the pregnant woman

To the pregnant woman that
missed the
Grand River Transit
bus 7B to Fairview
Park:

I didn't realize you
just missed the
bus I just
left:

by the time I
realized, you were
running after it,
desperate:
did the driver not
realize either?

your dark skin
glistening in the
hot summer air,
late for an interview
or from one?

I wanted to offer a
ride, I thought as I
already started back to my
apartment, and you
were already walking
to the next
stop.

Stay put, I want to
say - the next bus
will be
by in a few
minutes - (I
check this later,
for my own
conscience)

I want to tell you
this,
too -

but I was tired and
sweaty and
wanted to
get home
myself -

selfish or just
a missed
opportunity, I
wondered, and
still
do;
with a
twinge of
regret and guilt
as I write this,
hoping.

August 21, 2018
Waterloo, ON

188. harbour dining

August:
and the seagulls
circle

smiling ship-sails
rest their
contented wings

scavenging above the
sapphire-strewn
surface,
cackling, boasting,
gossiping

children shriek
and call their
hungry
friends,
beckoning with strips of partly-eaten
lettuce from
lunch's ham
sandwich

sparkled concrete
blazes my
heat-soaked
toes;

gulls comingle with
assuming toddlers,
planes take-off of
life off,
unseeing

glistening, the water
hums and
whirs,
silver sapphire
in the
waning
sun.

July 3, 2018
Waterloo, ON

187. A Love - Backwards

Ari I

Scene: Toronto Music Garden

http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/whatson/music.cfm?id=8464&festival_id=0

In the green-dappled
shade; purple, yellow,
pink dots
flower the
foliage.

We wind the circle of
the Bach dance
and pause in the
quiet centre.

Only birds rustle
as you pull me in and
kiss me:
"I can be romantic, too"
you say, as I
smilingly acknowledge
its truth.

Well-played

despite your uncouth
tongue and
penchant for
alcohol; I
remember this
first kiss and your
last,
its opening charm
and beauty so
unexpected
and clever.

Ari II

Scene: City Hall

https://twitter.com/dilansen_/status/750419193774891009

City hall bench
finds us sitting in the
merciful shade
Kids in wisely light-coloured
T-shirts scream and chase each
other 'round sculptures of brains.
Just earlier we wound our
way around them, reading
the artists' reasons why
each one had a different
design.

The big, winding staircase
winds,
above and around us;
cool, stony
on its underside.
We are
listening
and you draw yourself
close to me,
calves grazing beyond our summer shorts.
You like me, I
can tell;
I smile at the thought.
It's been so long
someone has wanted to be near me,
to see through my eyes
and inhabit my
oxygen.
I revel in our
mutual presence
as we silently
flaunt our homo
love
amidst the breeders
with their
shrieking
tweens.

Ari III

Scene: Richmond Towers

Only breezes
shush the netting of the
window mesh;
a sliver smiles
through the half-opened
drape

early birds have not
yet began their day;
an occasional vehicle is the remnant of the
night's
activity:
your breath grazes me
dew-spun neck,
kisses trimming its
trembling surface

You:
selfish, steal my
dormant body;
I -
half-sleeping,
gazing out the tapestry's
small-squares

selfish, smiling in
my gloating beauty,
desired, embraced,
entwined, at
last.

June 28, 2018
Waterloo, ON

181. Torontonian Months

Sushi without
fish and
water without
ice!

Lessons back-to-
back and lessons just
alone;

Sweat and smiles and
suitcases and
backpacks -

birthdays and
cards and
Australia and
San
Francisco -

restaurants and
catching
up:

new friends and
old ones -
new buildings and
old -

smoke and homeless and
pizza and
LV:
these are the sights and sounds and
smells!

176. Toronto Half-Life

sketches of a relationship between _______

I – јабука

Beauty is a liquid gold –

The sun is

on you or –

you

are

the sun!

Gilt, your

silver hairs

glisten, caught like

rare riches

in a sea of ebony – every

marble Hercules

and god

incarnated.

my fingers burn

at the

paper

cup;

tongue burns

at the

apple

brew

I have nowhere

but to

melt,

gold glistening

everywhere,

You

Alone

shine

with its

molten glow - !

II - ноћ

breath crystallized in

the crisp, late

night:

ears still ring

with chords and

trills and

fioratura - mine,

at least –

Light meets

window;

glass meets

the

eyes:

Feet crunch on the

carpet;

soft as the

grudging

snow:

keys -

checks for

company –

it’s dark out the

window, but

lights poke the

tender

sky;

I am seeing,

seeing:

couch, table,

television;

there’s a

hallway,

and there are

rooms:

there is a

computer and a

swivelly chair and

a mattress with

a wolf blanket,

it’s mildly juvenile,

but

adorable –

embarrassed, expectant –

I’m not sure how I

should respond –

he has prickly pins

blacking out at

me

I ask to kiss him

he blinks,

bewildered, surprised

as we meet

eyes

again

like an animal,

a toddler, seeing for the

first time:

this adorable

mountain of a

man

I am moving,

shifting already

The lips linger on

me, until it

forms in speech:

in that moment

your petulant eyes

implore me to stay

and yet the

briefness, chasteness

of those hushed and

starry-eyed, unhurried moments

haunts

me

warmed me

in that still slowly blossoming spring

snow did not cover

the barefaced

sidewalk

we walked in

silence, the

lamplights smiling

two figures

splotching their

pristine

path –

III - јутро

From 21 stories high,

they form a

metropolitan fugue

below:

a sea of swishing

Doppler effects,

a griddle of frying

vehicles –

The tender spring sun

pours onto my

curious skin:

light pours on

everything –

the buildings, the

people, the

roads:

still amongst the

weekend traffic,

breakfast

sounds from the other

room:

frying, cutting,

tinkling,

splashing –

footsteps plod toward:

they slow as they reach me

and with your eyes,

glancing over an

already tried and

familiar

view,

mine –

fervent, young

join years,

and we walk together,

sun over everything –

the cups, the plates, the

cutlery,

as we smile,

and

eat.

IV - плажа

Blaring from the

studded sea:

yachts aflame with

spinning bodies,

booming pop;

it is a scene from

Michael’s Marble Shop gone

wrong: rejects

happly tanning in the

breeze

photo-strown,

his perfect specimen

lies before

me

he smiles,

not of joy, not of

mirth –

of self-

satisfaction

seagulls squawk the

brazen azure

canopy,

the fizzing beer

laughs below;

photos kiss my

dewy skin –

magnetized:

I cannot

look away

from –

you are opening your

perfect, perfect

mouth –

a word

forms – !

V - Зелен

My mind in

yours:

Hand,

smooth as marble and

warm as the

hearth;

black prickles kiss my

tender

skin –

in the darkness,

the dull

thudding of the

green-and-white

rustles through the

night

we aren’t alone,

but very well as may be:

our muted whispers

dissolve into contented silence, listening

to our few neighbours,

their

moonlit chatter

evaporating

in favour of our

bliss in shared tenderness,

two hands

in harmony, in

unison.

I lean towards you:

I am loved,

safe.

VI - сив

Air thick with

pungent, stifling

gas;

pigeons lick

splattered oil spots

on splotchy asphalt

sometimes sun

glistens on the

buildings

nearby

sometimes we are

grateful the rain exists

outside the

terminal

boundary;

so many hours of

lungs

filling with

cubes of noxious

fumes; time spent so

mundane, so

ornery –

in a time before

and

after, it’s

strange to

be here

alone –

yet the air is

still thick

and the

pigeons lick

splattered

oil

spots;

and time treads

on, lungs

fill and

empty;

buses fill and

fill.

VII - терминал

You are

thirty million feet

away:

I try not

to touch

you

cold, calm,

and unchanged,

oxygen and

napkins lie

between us,

only –

May-time

light between is now an

autumnal grey:

and windows

eavesdrop

with corporate

glints in

tinted

eyes

When we are here again,

I turn without a

word.

I am so angry, so

proud.

I see you

saunter away through the dashboard

as usual,

lonesome and

unafraid -

it is the Last Time

we will huddle in the

fumes of the

terminal.

I yearn for

the sun-scented

oxygen of

our

shared summer,

and the quiet of your

hand in mine

in the

gentle darkness:

It has been long

since my eyes smiled

into yours so

tenderly;

these are now eyes

which know

these gold-gilt dreams

spin further backward, backward,

as I spin forward,

remembering,

in spite of

me.

169. The Sidewalk Restaurant

Mapo Tofu (麻婆豆腐)

Image Source:
http://www.dianshu119.com/index.php?doc-view-881.html

Cheery chatter,
Mandarin,
surrounds like fumes;
we are
no longer
alone

cigarette smoke
deafens

the air conditioner
whirs,
green Tsingtao
bottles
glimmer,
translucent and
half-drunk

The noisy little
toddler
reaches for his
distracted 爸爸’s
tempting beer, reaches
to his lips

caught
(nearly too late), he is
smartly
rebuked

watching, I smile a
little

the 麻婆豆腐
is excellent

167. 天雅古玩城

Tianya Antiques City, Beijing, China

Image source: Sina

A strangest thing indeed:
round dishes on the roof;
the visitors, like ants,
all enter/leave the feast…

Escalators deceptively slow,
quicken
pace
excitedly as the shop-front
store owners
come to life as
visitors step upon their
domain

Smoke

fills the halls;
NO SMOKING sings
not to be seen
here

Teenagers,
arrogant old
women, and
what appear to be
street urchins also
man these
gates;
well-dressed,
well-versed
suited middle-aged
men and women, and the
exotic, distrustful
eyes of the
Uyghur:

Children eat rice
at the lacquer tables
as their parents
haggle
or discover yet another
childhood
acquaintance –

Some halls are filled
with more
idle
smoke
than others…

At the busiest:
count the tiny
diamonds
lining the precious
green jade
leaflets, glistening in
the
caged
light;
semiprecious stones
set in
much-handled
wedding bands –

How can we know
each
detail?
Each fold of
each leaf?

The grandiose:
purple cut agate a
basketball-player
tall;
jade and marble
slates,
cute in with
intricate tree-leaves,
lined with detailed lines and
anatomically impossible
people larger than the
pagodas on the
shining, speckled,
lithe green
mountains

Tea sets of
smooth
clay of
subtly different shades
of roam chocolate
and caramel feel
sandy to the
touch;
gold Bodhisattvas and
Buddhas line
shelves;
antique, or
not

Fragrant medicinal
wood,
cut
into
small
squares,
promise remedies:
Impossibly smoothed wood
create chairs
exquisitely painful
to sit
upon
(no wonder the
Emperors had
such bad
headaches)

People-sized plates
still sprinkle the
building top like
ribbons, red and
gleaming like a
kindergartner’s
First Day present;
gilt, the buttons
noon read, sprinkled
on the silver
elevators…

166. Princesses and Trashcans

Unborn embryos
gestate
in my head…

a poem,
I once
read?

My mother
checked out a
book from the
library:
portraits of women;

in poetry
(I secretly
read it
too)
things 10-year-olds
shouldn’t know:

I was
gripped:
it was horrifyingly
tasty

words.
images.

Was it all a dream?

I.
Witch doctor in
hot
Brazil,
summer heat
twirling the
plastic plug-in
fan

treatises on using
recycled fetuses
as
lotion,
teen mothers &
satin skin:
“semen is the best
moisturizer”…
(I didn’t know what
that word meant
then)

crony old
fingers dance,
translucent skin
framing her flaming
red cuticles
on the turquoise
counter

Bidonville…
“Eu chorei, perdi a paz…”
Portuguese flits through the
metal grille of the
portable radio,
yellow as
banana,
sound tinny and flat
like
botox)

II.
A mother trails the
blood of her miscarried
baby,
red on the
Michigan
snow

Poems on a
poem;
strange how one can
create in a
created universe,
it’s all very
meta,
isn’t it?

Little babies,
trapped in lotion,
loss painted
red on the snow:
these things will
stick within a
kid, or
would they

165. Smokey Beijing

grey in the morning
smog,
streets awaking
bicycles;
cars thread through:
awake,
smoky Beijing!

misty in the veils of
time,
museums stand,
tall and Junoesque;
antiques are real when
awoken,
smokey Beijing;

earthy, cigarettes mutely
fume,
lazy streams glistening ‘twixt
Mandarin;
words entwining,
awakening,
smoky Beijing:

humming, miles away the
tourists,
globe’s collection in bright sun
visors,
parasols out and wide
awake,
smokey Beijing –

from the stolen sands of
time,
progress lays its youthful
tracks,
resting lay the timeless Dragon,
in depths and
at the core,
smokey Beijing.

163. Source of Spiders

Truffle
tumbleweeds
millimeter-long
tiptoeing
‘long the
windowsill

estrellitas

sentient:
little cilia
pulsate
on the
PVC

Twirling countersubjects
twining and
intertwining,
curling
‘round the
windowsill

162. The Caged Rhinoceros

Robert Wiens: 1987

"Enclosure with Sections of a Horse and Soldier"

Donald Forster Sculpture Park

Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Image Source: hanneorla on Flickr

green grass
spiralling,
Spring Sun
echoing:

remnants of an
artwork lay
imprisoned in
lattice.

Jade
head
patina
skin

quiet,
waiting for
resurrection
Day,
silently sleeping
dormant;

Rest, oh
Dinosaur, ancient
and new,
dappled shadows
tattooing agèd
limbs

shadows of
leaves
mutely
caressing
scattered
               beauty

159. XP

A child with Xeroderma pigmentosum.

Photography By: Sarah Leen

Image Source: National Geographic

So.
much.
Sun.

beekeeper
alien

Black mesh:
mask
hijab

Swirling laughs,
sliding up and
down

Regarding
all alone,
shoes upon the
gravely
lack of
ground;

GO
Mom
says –

bare arms and
open smiles,
twirling pigtails;

Red:
burning,
metal igniting in the
toxic
leaden
rays

Sparkling in the noontime heat:
rectangle,
mass-produced,
delectable –

another
leaps to the
sand;
pounces, pummels:
siren sounds;
a group occludes,
greens and
blues and
reds too –

150. Com’è bello!

Unassuming,
silently presuming –
Two arachnids
tranquilly enslumbered:

Victim huntress,
paused the murderesses;
gentle yearning,
mute the Mother doting:

Golden doubles,
resting, still as marble:
Eight-fold digits
still and softly sun-gilt.

Se il destassi?

In the noontime daybeams
Venetian spun,
Gemini lay, Roman.

149. Cityscape

It begins again –
twilight dawns:
cars, like flecks of
light
upon the silken
highway
lanes

All ends,
all begins:
a kiss,
a touch, and a
city –

Peeking through the
tattered
blinds,
week-old socks upon
the
vintage
hardwood –

who would have thought?
bliss in simplicity
and
cityscenes

143. The Sublime

From: Jan Axel's Blog

swarm of vultures,
high in the afternoon
sun;
slow and circular,
like a baby’s
mobile, suspended in morbid
listlessness above the
Florida
flats:

restless,
tension hovers in the
unoccupied molecules
buzzing between the
unfashionably active
fat mosquitoes;

boxed-up fish suppliers and
phony Chinese restaurants;
ghetto Black-men at the
7-11:
tank-top children in the
avenues and
dried-up yellowed
grass
roasting in the
sunburnt air.

140. Visiting the Fly

In the midst of the
height of spring
robins bob their
crimson heads across
the earth again:

In a moment of
inspiration,
I am perched myself
at the hot metallic
school desk,
placed so wondrous
in the centre of such
impossible
artistry;

Flies rest calmly
on the spots beside me;
it is not mine, but
theirs:
having no place in our
domain -
here, we are reunited,
all at peace with our
own
ephemerality –

I wonder on our
hypocrisy,
the strangeness of our
condition, our
species,
our cruelty in the midst of such
serene hospitality?

"Dual School Bench" (2002)

Verne Harrison

Donald Forster Sculpture Park,

Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Photo by the very talented Hanneorla

129. Un giro sol

Dawning on me

there are eyes staring back;
that what I thought was
vacant air is
occupied
by eyes and a
soul

Startled,
I am caught in a strange
reciprocity
and idle musing is
no more

Here
for only a slice of 5
minutes, it impossible to say
more, to do
more

Yet it is precisely
this impossibility of a
mutual stare,

resounding through the
lutes of centuries
that fill our minds with
perplexed obsession and
our hearts with
unexpected
longing

Dark stranger on a
spiralling bike:
snow-tipped tree leaves shift their
skirts
and uncommon beauty
glints in the
dappled light;

107. Temps pour rentrer

Like a Turner portrait,
wild trees cut the soft sky
in aggressive rebellion.
The fields are aglow in the
impossible, perfect sunlight
painters only hope for,
or plagiarize.

In the middle of all of this
a green and white farm sits,
cozy and quaint, unassuming
over the twilight
shadows.

Soybean plants stretch far,
some frenzy of
golden fire.
They are glowing bright now
in the setting sun.

It is almost too perfect for a
photograph, there is a
humid mist rising from the
torrid August rains.
Everywhere, there is this
impossible sparkle, gossamer,
and I think perhaps it is all
too lovely to be real.

106. Insensatez

So soon forgotten,
nylon strings drift out the other
ear,
scarce registered
by one.

Bathed in the exotic, balmy
air,
sun-soaked and
carefree:
indeed these are sweet nothings,
measured not in single drops of
liquor caressing your
throat, rather
a forgettable nectar,
enigmatic, ephemeral.

It’s Portuguese to you,
it’s all the same lithesome
beauty that is so
foreign, so
unintelligible.

It is what tourists
accept, yet do
not seek,
experience but do not
remember.

I could not expect more:
sitting like Turandot
enshrouded by cross-hatched
palm-leaf shadows.
As one breeze carries my
voice, futile, one shadow
to the next, I am
the only constant,
alone in my
impossible artistry.



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