189. The hours between

You have been asleep for hours -
three and a half,
approximately.

Here
I am:
not anxious (a
welcome surprise
)

the night is though,
I hear an occasional
car and a distant
party rumbling
incessantly;

I am reading
emails and
Instagram comments,
half-aware of the
black-and-white episode
of "What's My Line"
playing
at my left
nightstand.

I am at peace;
I could drift off at
any point, half-
conscious;

and it is not
that I have too much to do,
but I revel in my
Bohemian nocturne
as I squeeze the
last drop
of possible waking.

I briefly fantasize of a
day job
where I earn
a decent salary, benefits,
2 paid weeks off -
the thought! -

where I wake and sleep
at the same two times
every
single
day - the
horror!

Such a regular life,
such a square
existence.
And I did have a taste -
for three months
teaching Grade 12 chemistry
to six
teens who will
grow up to
do the
same:

I leave the
regular hours to
you:
waking, sleeping, and
otherwise:

as I spend these
pensive few
dark ones,
brooding, contemplating,
creating.

Living solo
for just a few
more
moments.

Aug 15, 2018
Waterloo, ON

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

151. PILOT

Still lay the
body,
blood
sprayed upon the ashen
cheeks,

blue uniform
specked
with
white
          debris.

Laying on the
tilèd
       floor
of what was once
the second
bathroom.

Gentle
          Face,
do I look upon thee with
sadness?

At one time
still upon the
mantelpiece, yet
full of life,
and yet here,
now in life
and full of
stillness –

You rest in
death so
quiet -

I want to say:
“We are reunited
once more;
how I have waited for
this fateful
day –”

Or should I stand in
silence,
full of pity and
reverence,

or Hate:
shouting “Muori
                         dannato!”,
over a body
             “Muori”
I didn’t
             “Muori”
kill?
             “Muori!”

Oh, as still
in death
as in
life,
the same
coldness and
neglect

I think I might
stay a while,
observing this
strange specimen,
at once so
new and so
familiar –

Except it is
not my house the
plane collided
with, not
my bathroom the
Pilot
died peacefully,
my puzzled eyes
beholding
this face
once more

But here in the
dark, star-lit
museum of the
mind,
the body can
rest,

eternal in its stillness;
quiet in its
permanence.

148. Mr. Canada

Image source:

http://blog.rogersbroadcasting.com/andycole/files/2009/10/oympic-shirt.jpg

I answer the
voice –
scarcely believing
such a beautiful
creature is
greeting me;

No, I am not
a student,
I answer
dismissively,
in a daze –
CANADA
sits comfortably on
his
crimson
chest

foolish, I do not realize
what I have done
until he
leaves –

Oh!
If only I was,

vulnerable and
innocent,
young and
fresh departed from a
foreign country;

Alas, I am
returning to a
homeland
where I
don’t belong

from roots
I do not quite
understand,

lost and
disillusioned.

If we could only return
to the fresh, enthused
wide-eyed
gaze of
youth,

if only we could
escape with a
handsome
stranger at a familiar
airport
and
rediscover joy
once more

130. Kindness

In your eyes,
I see only coldness;
in your smile
I feel only hardness

In my mind, I
see only joy, I
feel only warmth

Only after have I been
informed
plainly,
nonchalantly

that you had not cared,
I realize how foolish I was,
how naïve I had been again,
fooled to believe in
a world of
false illusions,
forced again to return to
a bleak and
unchanging reality.

Could I have believed
a mere mortal
could transport me out of
this misery, this
eternal, natural world?

All we have are empty trees,
empty skies,
empty oxygen
filled with our misguided
dreams, lofty
expectations –

Stripped down to molecules,
what are we searching for:
meaning from our
atomic structures?
How could beauty assuage
fears, solve
insecurities?

Is it really only
escapist tendencies,
wishing to pretend there is
something more, there is
meaning?

In vain, searching
the same cold irises for
truth

Beauty is not truth;
beauty forces us to
examine, to
struggle from, to accept
our condition,
our destiny:
our frailty
and our
mortality.

127. Sylvan Daphne

Farewell,
shadows

You brought wonderful darkness
to my life,
imbued it with
strange, special
meaning

Always searching,
we can never win when we
vie with shadows

All around me
are happy faces,
all smiling;
it is my birthday,
it is Black Friday,
they are smiling all the
time

Taking my place amongst
their artificial
joy,
I realize their artifice is false
and mine is
true

it is only I who is
pretending

My only regret being
why I could never
figure out why I was so
unhappy

Always questioning,
always wondering,
always
dreaming –

Perhaps there was only this
world,
these trees,
and that is what made me so
sad

In memory of Sylvia Plath, who committed suicide on Feburary 11, 1963 at about 4:30 AM.

111. Irresolution

Photo by: Steven Hausler / Reuters

Something is lost in the
delivery:
cold words.

Unresolved cadence of
distant trains whistling;
the world becomes real when we step
outside, the searing
pitch
tugs at skin,
sketches
eardrum

Cold words cannot make me cower
unintelligibly on the
carpeted floor,
huddled in strange
depressive ecstasy

But it is the beginning
of that,
the start of something, of
everything;

little muddy footprints on the
Colorado snow
plains,
insignificant, leading
nowhere, leading
somewhere

105. A Record of Stock Characters

Everywhere I go,
there are people.
Little people, big people,
large people, small people.

I envision I am
taking them all in,
breathing their essence into my
brain,
bottling them up in
invisible, infinitely small
vials, for
reference.

I like to think that I could
pull one out, anytime:
but of course, there is the
modification, and tinkering.

It is all such strange and
interesting work.
There is just no place for them
yet, or
ever.

103. Pentimento

Reflections paint the night;
streetlamps are overlaid with
my tired eyes –
when had the night been so
unsure, and shifting?

Things were so simple;
there were just – images.
Light, sound, smell, touch –
left to the mind, it is a
frightening chasm, there is
so much uncertainty.

I no longer know if I am
a reporter, a portraitist;
if I am supposed to
capture these scenes, or
alter them and place
this pedestrian here, or
make it rain, or
take the moon away.

Or if I must capture the
impressions on the impressions,
and interpret them, or
manipulate them.

Things were so simple
when we could watch the world
like a work of art.
When we caught butterflies
and observed how wonderful
they were, rather than
failing, time after time,
trying to capture something
we could never
know.

102. Caenochrysis

Image source:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/329223/bgimage

Dust settles mutely,
silent snow on gilded spines;
sunlight dyes the untouched leaves
more acrid shades of sand:

Turquoise glistens in the naïve lights;
photons dance upon the lacquered orb.
It is a scarab, it is some ancient
relic:

Pausing in the untold centuries,
a single timeless beauty rests,
beckoning amidst the desert of
celibate academia;

There is the long-faded scent of
crushed cigars, the strange perfume
of crystallized ink.
There are forgotten letters left
half-written on the desk:

How do we reconcile –
colours?
A catch of azul light,
ephemeral on the patio
furniture
reflects in the flower-stamped dress
of a young girl next door:

Some unknown beetle specimen
hovers soundlessly, brief on the false
lilies of the polyester fabric:
it’s like a factory, there is this
lovely hue everywhere –
but there is only one shade like this,
glistening everywhere,
landing noiselessly in the
obscurely dappled shrubs;

all others steal the eyes
for just as long,
but it is this precise,
indescribable swatch
we struggle the rest of our lives
studying, searching,
never truly describing,
recreating.

99. after

After we die,
our parents continue making
grocery lists;
the ones we loved
take long walks in the
forest with their
lovers,
and our friends wonder
how we became
a statistic.

After we die,
the world still moves on;
people, too, keep moving in their
predictable paths.

If I were still
alive, I suppose
I would still be
spinning, rotating.

But I wanted to be
free,
I wanted to create
something.

Stupid thing,
is what I was told
I was
when I still lived,
until I accepted it.
Yes,
I am a stupid thing,
I could do everything but
none of it
right

There was no
funeral.
I lay in the place I
died,
hand outstretched,
eyes gazing at the
mid-day sun.

Finally,
I had the courage to look
straight at the
sun.
People always told us,
don’t look at the sun
directly; it’ll
hurt your
eyes.

But I dared to look,
I tried to live.
Life was simply not
meant for
me.

98. Chocolate

Deep and dark;
bitter sweetness on my
eager tongue.
Soft and sensual;
little florets
bloom within my
captivated
mouth.

When all the children are asleep
and the evening’s work is
done:
how nice it is to sit in the
silent darkness,
thinking of nothing
doing nothing
but enjoying this sinful
morsel

in a moment’s
single, solitary
bliss;
alone and awake
in the dark hours,
only with a box of chocolates
and nothing else.

92. Visiting Mr. Guggenheim

To look at a painting –
look, not touch –
behold beauty at
arm’s length.

Sitting
on a quiet weekday after
-noon,
looking at a
painting.

Alone in the silence of
imagination,
musing what was and
might have been.

I wish I could
look at you like a
painting,

walking back out into
the hum-drum day,
recalling the colours,
the proportions,
the brushwork

and simply forget,
lost in other images, other
realities, or
remember, from
time to time,
cold and
unassuming.

84. Tosca is Lost

Tosca is lost:
Tosca is lost!
Tosca is lost at the grocery.
Tosca is lost;
Tosca is confused –
the flyers said the mushrooms were on
sale today;
Tosca does not even like mushrooms,
but Tosca does not like this new diet
either;

Tosca is lost:
Tosca is lost;
all is lost at the
checkout line.
Tosca glares enviously at the row next to
hers;
fatsos with pounds upon
pounds of
FOOD.
Tosca wishes she could still eat that much,
picks up a magazine to distract
herself;
skinny bitch, this is what she’s become
too;
Tosca throws it down;
gastric bypass wasn’t such a good
idea…

Tosca is lost,
Tosca is lonely.
Tosca is not liking the piles of music left unread on the couch.
Tosca takes her up her
Scarpia (little yipper) in her
weary arms;
groceries will wait…
Tosca is lost,
but Tosca listens to her
doctor.

Tosca is lost,
Tosca is out of breath:
Tosca has gotten herself lost in -
Central Park; Tosca is not used to this -
exercise thing -
Tosca sits on a bench,
jealously watching the runners jog
by.
Goddamn, your glistening bodies are
perfect, stop flaunting them at
me!
Tosca does not -
understand -
why people continue -
to masochistically -
put themselves through Hell when -
they already look like the -
Greek pantheon,
maybe
better –

Tosca is lost…
Tosca is lost…
Tosca dreams she is a
skinny model, impossible size
-2,
walking down the catwalks in
Milano,
but the audience is not applauding.
They want her to sing, but
Tosca –
Tosca can’t –
she can’t sing a
Goddamn
note!

BEEPBEEPBEEP!
Tosca is late!

Tosca is found,
Tosca is found in the dressing room.
Tosca to stage in 5.
Tosca slips her black wig
over her itchy hairnet,
tiara in place, red gown wrinkle
free, clip-on diamond
earrings on each
lobe;
scales run themselves automatically
in her insured throat.
“Vissi d’arte, vissi d’arte…”
she finds herself chanting,
adding “Fuck Scarpia” in between
iterations, for good measure.
Tosca to stage, Tosca to stage.

Tosca is found, Tosca is finally
found, running dramatically,
breathlessly onto stage:
Tosca sings, Tosca
Goddamn sings the
bleeding chunks
away.

Deborah Voigt's transformation.
Left: Aida, 2011 (before).
Right: Salome, 2006 (after).

83. The Hermit Rediscovers Humanity

Such beauty:
leaves shimmer with unspoken secrecy;
dragonflies dance in iridescent hues.
Languishing under shade beneath the
mid-noon oak
there is joy, and
peace.

But another human eye,
like mine;
an arm, a mouth,
all like mine:
movement, speech –
like mine:

this is some strange and clever game!

Unlike trees with their sullen rules,
suns with their odious paths:
I am mystified, baffled by this
unpredictability, this
depth and unobservable,
attainable mystery –

and for you to feel the
same;
to feel the world begin anew with
me:

is this what every being
should desire!

Emerging from my vigil
of the bottom of the
lake;
Rusalka, selkie, Naiad:
return from the lonely depths
and regard these
creatures silently,

transfixed:
it is no wonder they have risked their
fragile hearts and sparkling realms for
centuries:
to live and breathe and love –
how grand!

80. Forgetting

I am always forgetting my dreams these
days.
Late hours, inattentiveness,
maybe –
or, I have also read:
impoverished dreaming indicates poor mental
health, or lack
thereof.
My dreams these days are
infrequent,
sporadic,
blurry and
meaningless.

Hazy vignettes of the
past,
strange scenes of things that cannot
be.

If my reality does not
compute, how can I –
how can I expect
my madness to be any
clearer?