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

191. Marius à Javert

hours & minutes

après minuit,

your call

dings

several times in my

barely lit

apartment

smiling in spite of myself –

I check and answer

other messages,

stalling before I answer yours

yet –

out of fear, and

excitement

the purple & white

square

glows sunset amidst

notifications

I check the little litany of

messages

once,

twice,

thrice -

still in

queenly

defiance

your photos

illuminate my screen

once more –

I imagine us together

by that twilit

lake, your

dark eyes smiling

into

mine

the first

touch of your

tender yet

strong

hand

hours –

minutes –

past midnight

I am ablaze and

afire with

pangs of new love?

infatuation?

or is it precisely

the mystery

that keeps us –

me –

enthralled?

is it simply

friendship you want?

my own crazed

heart spinning

imaginations and

prophetic

fantasies?

I think of at the love

my partner

and I

share

finally, a

deep and

trusting bond

safe and perhaps

not so

intoxicating

isn’t all love

a thrill at first?

perhaps I only seek

these virtual

sparks

which will always

dissipate

I muse on

love and

faith

in the darkness,

on options

and time seems

such a feeble

foe

to

intensity

buzz

buzz

goes my

phone in the

dark

beckoning,

taunting

innocent

conversation,

I tell

myself

April 24, 2020

Montréal, QC

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

186. 3/4

I. A Library

It is the 2
of us:
china in the cabinet,
glasses on the side
playing house
in a borrowed
home.

You carefully
place olives, blue cheese,
and sundried tomatoes
on the
pasta sauce-slewn
bread.

We are eating.
You are talking of your
faithless
ex,
pink T-
shirt.

And I in a pink
tank-top.

Borrowed:

The room,
the plates,
the shirt,

and me.

On loan,
copy 2,
special archives.
Books do not
feel.

II. A Window

It is dark
and you
take the blanket off the
curtain rod

mesh separates us
and the
humming night

you want to see me,
you keep saying

but the light is too
harsh
we both
know

we kiss
in darkness

I tremble as I
melt in your assured
embraces,
helpless

as you reassure
and whisper
and pause to see
if I am
all
right

this is
care, I
think

this is
love

your lips on mine,
praising me.
I am so
desired in this moment,
so beautiful, so
divine.

A demigod has
discovered me
and thirsts for
me.
What must
I
be?

III. An Omelette

Chestnut lashes,
chestnut eyes,
chestnut locks:

I see you know
in the early
light

you see me see
you,
smile, and
return to sleep

you know your
power

we split an
omelette
four
ways

one for her,
one for you,
and
one for
me.

The fourth we
split between us,
like an
afterthought.

I sit next to
you on your
couch.
Our legs graze.

Your attention is already
on your
phone.

We have no
service

Aug 6, 2017
Halifax, NS

184. 2/3 Oranges

You are peeling the
orange
I have given you

The director
has my attention,
but my mind
follows the segments
torn, ligament
by
ligament.

The dressing room is
a circle of
smiling bodies...

Notes are done:

You are already
leaving;

All I see is your
backpack
out the
navy blue
door.

From the
hindsight of the future
you will
later thank me
for this
little
orange, but

as you sing your
aria do you
remember
the tender hand
which has
fed you?

Aug 6, 2017
Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS

183. Coro a bocca chiusa

All their mouths are
closed
to me:

final wisps of daylight
stroke their weary
eyes -
mother to son, to
daughter -

now is their sleeping
time;
halls long
devoid of footsteps
in their echoing
bellies

closed
to me:
wandering down their
silent paths -
birds muttering in the
dying
day -

closed to me -
a language only
cedars
know:
rustling in the twilit air:
rustling lullabies to passersby
who believe themselves
awake -


https://thevisionaryfolkphotographer.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/glow-dalhousieuniv_4191.jpg?w=810


https://thevisionaryfolkphotographer.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/glow-dalhousieuniv_4282.jpg?w=810

July 16, 2017
Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS

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!!

179. Love Betwixt Cities

Give me your eyes
and I’ll give you
mine –

Give me your love
and I’ll give you
mine –

Give you my heart
and you’ll take
mine - !

Give me your heart
and I’ll give you
mine!

These are what the
streetcars
sing…!

178. Torontonian for a Year

 

I am
full
of
goodbyes –

you
are full of
                 none!

I
  take

one
photograph for
posterity

in the room where
I would lay
wrapped with
you, early
mornlight
shadowing our
blind-checked
hearts

This –
room:
where once I played you
simple
Satie
while it rained outside,
and you were designing;

home of so many tears and
smiles and
ecstasies
and pains –

today I walk past
the apartment:
you are no longer
here, but here I
am,

waiting,
thinking,
remembering.

Strangers walk
by;
the time is long
past-

and yet the phantoms of a
desk, a bed, a bookshelf
                                       linger...

do buildings
                     stir
hearts?

Where was
yours?

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.

175. Cash or Debit

Time is a shameless
measure:
no returns and
no
exchanges:
final
sale.

Like a
holiday tape wrapping
gift
by
gift,
the holly pattern
always

Sitting on a shelf,
observing
the darkness
of
neglect

A fate
to
pity, of
senseless
indifference

or perhaps to
covet,
eternal and
proudly
beyond,
spinning mutely

We cannot see its
end,
only –
think we
do:

cut short,
it
proceeds –
old gifts and
memories
remain;
undying,
unreturned,
dust-collecting and
sitting unblinking,
unremembering

172. Meninas

Las Meninas, Diego Velázquez (1656)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Slanted
sits the
artwork: physical
body hidden
in a
temperature-controlled
vault-laboratory
hybrid thing;
exhumed to the present day,
mounted and dissected,
eyes observing,
dissecting;
essays
hum;
editors scramble furiously on the
Wikipedia
page...

Backing away,
curtain falls
as the
chamberlain
clears the exit

Two girls awkwardly caught
half-sentence in
curtsies, well
one –
the other still
unawares,
el búcaro outstretched
from her imploring
arms, fingers of
one curled in
mid-
persuasion

Despite her mourning
garb
the
guardian chatters
animatedly with the
guard, name
lost to
exclusive seats of
history

mumbling,
bumbling,
buzzing mutely:
as Two imported dwarves
form spectacle, one
obviously teasing the
peeved dog,
the other remarkably
solemn,
questioning.

Nineteen years and one
wife
separate the uncle from his
niece,
her arm tucked
protectively around
his?

The artist
rests: self-
portrait,
photograph?
Paint drops speckle his
boots in
real
time

Time ticks:
ribbons like
captive
wildflower
flare on the
alabaster plains;
ethereal, the
five-year-old
serenely gazes into
eternity

Bent knees
hover expectantly,
silk rustling, mute

Centrepiece, she
stands:
the business
frozen, betraying the
Purpose;
yet faces glisten,
inquiring,
else incoherent
of the
Moment:

The high
green-brown
panels silently
concur,
stolid,
enigmatic,
slumbering with the
weight of
centuries

Emptied,
its physical forbearer since perished,
imagination and
interpretation can only resurrect

Quiet,
the
noon
buzzes…

171. The Opportunist

American Robin at Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park

San Dimas, Southern California

Image Source: Two Birders To Go

Noble:
red head
raised high,

the robin
bounces
steadily, beady
eyes glimmering
with the
spring rain

in such splendour,
lone on the
beaming emerald
do I notice:

Stringy worms
dangling from
its resurfaced
beak;
munching, it is
a mortal like any other;
the rain,
fortuitous

Cantopop sails
in from the adjacent
living room;
eyelids painted and
eyes scrunched in
synchronous exertion:
dolled-up girls
and girly
boys

Things
seem not so
cheap
anymore…

170. Crabmeat

Scuttling over,
puts my hands on her
waist

“Breathe.”

We do so together.

Master and
novice,
experience seeping
through her
pores to
mine.

“Feel the depth of the
breath, it can
colour our
phrases
too.”

Soft flesh,
ancient and novel;
polyester fibres
crinkly and
taupe

As I am
processing,
understanding; we
breathe,
feeling the
depth,
discovering the
beginning

168. Cattle through the Peepholes

circles:
blinking eyes
beyond,
eyelashes long and
golden, dusty;
flies
interspersed

still yet
moving,
inches become
miles,
through alchemy
to kilo-
metres

skin beneath
metal,
air beneath
exhaust fumes:
and in the driver’s seat
the unthinking
be-jeaned,
be-plaid-shirted
blue collar
robot

driving,
surviving,

one eye:

glassy,
still, and
searching

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

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

160. X-Ray Machines

Indonesian visitors view escalators

HK Sai Ying Pun Third Street, near Centre Street (April 2013)

Image Source: Remyumksoa

Sea:
pink, identical –
What is this?
eyes
question

some
bespectacled,
others
bejeweled

All
imperfect from the
fuschia
crop

Crisps,
adverts,
nonchalant
passersby
regard
impassively:

one sees
more
than
the other!

Amazed by this
strange new
world,
difference
divides

and reveals: