192. sonneries de la STM

https://dcmontreal.wordpress.com/2017/06/20/montreal-to-allow-recognize-rear-bus-door-entry/

ding

ding

ding

light

green flashes in the

wintry dark lit

artificial by the

pasty

metro

lights

beep

beep

beep

go the sleeping

passengers

one by one

three by three

through the

turnstile

gates

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

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

185. My Shoulder

As we laugh
and joke of stupid
things -
your tousled hair leans on my
shoulder.

I was recovering from the
awkward lack of
conversation
earlier in the
bar

so I am taken
by
surprise

I graze your arm,
hesitantly.

Your breath
smells of
cider

(I know
later on
it's also
halitosis)

You are a
puppy

I had no choice
but to sit, stunned,
silent

night continues swishing
past the
muggy
car windows

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

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!

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?

173. Beacon

blares gently in
the black

quiet, night revolves,
mute in the hour;

a flash
a flash

ignites the
drop-sown dashboard

and closer
and closer

draw

the
humming spheres,

buzzing halogen
deafening
when not heard

colour, blurred

impression:
signal

meaning
yet none;

supreme in the
last visitation

as the final
tires
turn
left

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

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

161. 6 Cubicles

I.
Dark amber:
disfigured, wilted
chrysanthemums drift
swirling, smiling,
half drunk
in the
half-drunk tea.
(lips still
stain the
porcelain rim
with DNA)

Deep green:
drops rest,
suspended; silent;
strown across
paths to
a docile
pouring spoon:
[BENZODIAZEPINE HYDROCHLORIDE
the dark
words read
upon the
clear white
label canvas;
plastic bottle
mutely glistening

Cheap silver:
chocolate toonies
dollar store
trinkets and
Monopoly
                 pieces

Red & Blazing:
computer logos
company slogans
chant like
mantras on
the forlorn
desktop,
haunting the
lack of
space, the
unoccupied, empty
ergonomic
                chair –

2.

Photos:
Mommy & Me
stuck
all over on
mottled
construction
paper,
grainy
If you pay attention you can
see the pulpy
wood fibres

There is a Mother’s
Day poem pasted on a
pink teapot,
carefully cut by eager fingers of
a five-and-three-quarters-year-old,
pencil markings denoting where
the stencil once
lay -
still intact:

Mom’s hair is
angry purple,
she’s much too
young, she should still
by sipping margaritas
sleepless Friday nights at
the nightclub,
fratboys still buying her
Tequila,
flattered:
I’m 30 ;)

III.
A Family of Five:
Three Noses similar,
distributed as such;
Eyes squinting at the sun
as Florida divides:

The pack of smiling Mice:
The Mom & Son are not;
Oh, 20 hours long
does not bode well for kids –
The Preteen Hormone Price.

Three graduations framed:
One Kindergarten grad,
One junior high, one High;
the Eldest in “That Phase”:
Much Angst, as God Ordained.

IV.

Polish greets:
ł, sz, ć –

Pierogi, Kielbasa,
soups, Zrazy,
cabbage rolls;
recipes in
jargon,
we trust makes
feast
depicted each
month.

reminders of old
country,
Happier
, less? –

5

CATHY
on a brazen blue
background
didn’t have her
sexy Latin
name
I guess

faux license plate
letters raised and white
cacti mixed with
pink desert
flower

sheets and
trinkets: souvenirs
to make a magpie
jealous,
totally

Coconut Palm
Cashmere Sheen,
mmm…
“for silky smooth skin”
glitter shimmers in the
frosty lilac-
musky – dusky –
mauve-ish –
bouteilles

Pictures from the wedding:
Frog Eyes Husband

slightly chunky for the
white wedding
dress,
green grass,
black tux:
everything was just
SOOO perfect,
OMG
espesh
our
Carib
honeymoon
                  getaway

Ooh
Caribou calendar:
fun facts sprinkle
the months like little
taunts

Did you know?
      Did you know?
            Did you know?

Nature,
science,
seasides, and
Canada

Shut up.

VI.

half-abandoned
plant
experiments
yearn toward the
asphalt:

Burrito Nacho Man
with a grayish
Sombrero, action
figures betraying
bad humour and
bad taste

half-eaten
chip bag
partly stale

Mm, sour cream and
onion
flavor

funny
how the mind turns
criminal
in such
stillness

half-
experiments
yearn
towards: - ?

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 –

158. BUBBLE

For whom?

do the
hollow shelves
wait

the dusky
archives and
yellowed
magazines
beckon –

The
ants still
mill about,
carts rolling,
volumes flitting
back
upon
shelves;

Frictionless
vacuums
where
children
play

algorithms and
formulae
[formulas?] and
conservation of
energy &
mass and
momentum;

acceleration,
inclined planes and
laws of
Newton:

Silence on the floor,
despite the
creaking of
cubicles,
clicking of
lights,
buzzing of
4-year-old
Sony
Vaios…

157. Au Cinéma

Electricity
moments
before the film
begins:

lights dim,
lips meet.

flesh on
flesh,
wet saliva
inter-
mingling:

Anticipation
requited at last;
darkened theatre in a
back-row
pair:

155. Lingua Ignota

Wings flutter;
flyers in the
door-made
breeze:

lurid,
almost
desperate pleas
for
attention:
shadows remain of
careful, tack-
rent fingers

One, absorbed in
his
book,
does not
see
and yet –

unseeing
of the words
at hand:
eyes covertly
search
the gathering crowd

My then-self:
as exposed
as a half-tacked
flyer upon the
wall,

for a glimpse,
a single
glimpse
of my
beloved

who, despite
my careful
planning,
could not
alter what was
to be:

One poster
upon
another,
plaster on
plaster and
paper on
paper:

154. Salon des Refusés

He sits beside me,
only seat at a
crowded
intersection:

Old –
what a horrid
word;
wrinkled up,
frail, and
gauntly
tall.

Why are you here?
I would like to ask,
not judging
nor rudely,
but genuinely
curious

Abstracts
flicker
flacker,
dancing ‘cross the
pixels,
zebra manuscripts
painted
in cathode rays

Treatment
Medication
Lifestyle factors
Genetic component

headlines

Headlines:
receding,
newspapers clippings saved,
lay study
summaries

And yet isn’t science,
isn’t research
a mystery,
as cryptic as the
things they
study

153. Leftover Love

Case for contacts:
plastic,
green and white;

Green absinthe
-tinged
Listerine;

Toothbrush,
orange;
used weekly
only
once:

souvenirs,
promises:

Pedal for an
oft-used Casio
keyboard,

CDs left for private
consumption;
glistening jewel cases
in the
shining
sun:

memories and
traces left
for another
weekend
away:
a life left
closer,
trinkets gathering,
apparent laziness

in fact

the
utmost
care