180. Part-Time Torontonian

i am
yet a
stranger,
tourist -
             visitor!

without your hand in mine,
it is all still magic and
miracle to
me!

the bustle, the
people, the
music, and
the
food!

But how it was nicest,
your hand in mine -

The fresh
breeze
in the October, bright-lit
city -

Breath entangled in
eager bliss!!

174. A Shared Mile

The hills describe in pink,
of yawning suns descending:
it is an ode to love:
it is their adoration.

Our hands are interlaced;
our hearts are wrapped in silence;
it is the twilit dusk,
it is her mauve entreaty.

Paired in sylvan joy,
road the winding way
smiling to infinity
past the rose-gilt, silent trees;

My bliss swelled past our smiles
beyond the gold-drunk forests:
a love, that shared with them,
now separate, still remembers.

125. Immolates

Adorned in sumptuous silk,
cherry red, as on the
wedding
day;
phoenixes climb,
iridescent gold
along the
hem

It is cold;
it is late autumn;
mourners line the burial ground

Wails adorn the
grey and limpid
sky

Flames touch;
fabric and skin
ablaze in
leaping
flames

there are screams
and there is
crackling

They are victims of an
undying love;
too young,
naïve,
I know
nothing

Only to obey in
servitude,
fed and clothed in the
finest lies

only to live
in eternal solitude,
bound to an old
man who
so loved me
that he could not bear
to leave me living

so carved the
two characters
of my
lowly position

in an unrelenting
damning document
of
sacrifice.

121. Śliczny chłopiec

In the flurry, we
went our
separate ways
yet I return to you,
ablaze from a recent
victory

Conveniently,
the spot beside you is
free

Slipping next to you I
observe the last rounds
and you likely know such
tedium
is not my
aim

When they have cleared,
we take up cards:
I struggle;
you are a stronger
player than
I

Not a victory,
it was a ruse

Pulling the cards away
from my puzzled,
earnest fingers,
I see, I hope it is
I,
my words you
desire

Such tedium is
not your aim
either;
I hope
it may be the same
as mine.

Separate ways:
as we part
you seem anxious,
confused,
timid;
I never know
what you are thinking –
eyes are not so helpful
after
all

I am descending the
stairwell
myself,
alone;
I am passing a
display of books
biographies, calendars, and
things –

I greet the night
sharp breeze reminding me
how early and how
late it
is

It was November
when I wondered if I
had become a
wonderful thing to
you;
walking along the
dry cobblestones
I am smiling:
maybe it is best if we
do not know

Such simplicity, such
novelty
is one such
irreplaceable victory
I will remember,
often and
forever

115. Strange leaves

Chapped lips and
home-made mitts;
youthful couples in the
crisper air:

Simple pleasures,
sights that cause a smile to
form –

Children gather treats
beneath
advancing winds;
cars lay rampant in
hazy, oil-soaked coffee
lines

To see as sights,
to smell as smells:
never to feel
the warm embrace of
commonality –

winter dawns, and
solitude
shows its weary
head too
prominently
to ignore.

112. Miss Anonymous

Cold cement,
scaffolding and
C. Dior.

Passersby
race by quickly,
unamused:

plaintive eyes
penetrate air,
dazed and mute.

Straightened, teased;
chemicals and
strange shampoos:

Turquoise eyes;
nude lips and brows,
pallid skin.

Gawky limbs
rendered comely
instantly

Alien,
frozen, timeless,
pondering:

Stamped upon
cardboard billboards
ten feet long

here, beneath
the apartment
complexes.

Coming soon:
promises are
beckoning;

autumn leaves
swirl and simmer
recklessly.

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.

73. Skeumorphism

In a simpler time,
I smiled easily.
Littering the paths,
the sunlit grass,
smiles charmed the
wakened earth.

Follies of my innocence:
unrequited smiles
traverse the emptied
lanes;
I am alone today,
reflecting on how times have changed:
smiles do not come easily anymore,
and when they do –
they are relics
of a simpler time,
when I was young
and love flowed easily.

66. Waiting

I am waiting for a friend today.
People keep asking what I am doing, sitting
alone
and I keep saying:
I am waiting for a friend today.

Saying it over again,
over again,
will somehow make it come true:
repeating it as my fervent mantra
over again
will cause you to solidify from my
daydreams
into life
and you will appear before me,
ridente.

All these things I tell myself
to pass the time,
to delude my fears, dilute
my yearning:

You did not come that day,
nor the next.

No, I did not ever see you
ever again.
Not that day, not the next,
no – never again.

It is so strange,
si – è strano!

You gave me the greatest 1 month
and 4 days
of my life,
but it seems that another lifetime
and forty days
could not fill the
emptiness, the grief I feel
at the would-have-saids and
should-have dones.

Time puts us further
away,
yes –
but even years cannot put the
distance away
from this perennial
heartache, this
permanent loss.
I still miss you today;
I will forever love
you.

36. Le plus doux rêve

You gave me something more than friendship
- so I thought,
and I, my youthful self, so foolish,
followed close -
through sunlit paths as daylight faltered,
heedlessly.
Such radiance seemed otherworldly:
in such light,
I was illuminated by you,
loved and praised.
We watched the leaves twirl, golden-dusted,
rains had danced;
the dying autumn sang its prayers.
Wrung of words,
I watched you say goodbye one final,
final time –
oh, just for one more fleeting day in friendship
such as this:
a thousand grand, exotic operas
could not know
the simple happiness you gave me,
my sweetest dream.

34. Amor platonicus

"Spring is Officially Here" by Hazel Berger

Could stand here, ages,
praising such beauty:
hair spun of gold,
eyes carved of lapis
lazuli;
wasting away,
immortalizing you into
posterity.

But you know this –

you are not
like a wildflower,

desperately beautiful,
basking in sun-charms,
unaware of
how lovely you are.

We pick flowers,
letting them die at our hands,
withering for our possessive admiration.
Instead, everywhere you go
I die a little
knowing it must just be:
this –

Georgia Wildflower by Hazel Berger

32. Fire!

Autumn in forest (image credit)

Rebellious teenage girl,
quite new to life –
ignites each passing gaze.
The passers-by
gawk curiously, in awe.
Her blazing hair –
it’s redder than the birds!
August, aloof –
her parents, petrified,
stand ignorant –
she is - some foreigner –
But forests talk;
the whispers burn the air –
some bolder time
is quick approaching now:
decorum dies!

1. Tornerai

Return to me, return to me
my cherished, cherished memory –
when sunset etched your pearly face
in everlasting, autumn grace

And dancing in the fall-time air,
immortalized in sweet despair
return to me, oh hopeless love,
return to me, my dearest love

And in the emptiness, and in the pause,
bereft I stood –
eternities in our final steps

and with that casual wave
dismissed me to the common world

and there I stood,
and here I rest,
remembering

and only memories
return.