You say, "When I knew you then, I said it'd be like
an abyss or an architecture; there would be silences,
but oh! they'd be noisy!" And I liked that, when I
knew you then.
--
My balcony housed bumblebees;
they came for my morning glories
and you teased them with your
architectural pens & eyeglasses,
ridiculous Spanish mules and gaudy
paint colours you teased me with your
panacea tongue, purple teeth.
--
Call me twenty, but I'm eighteen,
flingin' off words on your lint-carpet,
into the cigarette-butt planters, and
over your shoulder; staining the grey
fabric all down your back. I write
words all down your back.
And I say, "When I knew you
then, I liked you for your sharp
penmanship and the quirks
collected around your mouth.
And you said when we met again
we'd be twenty,as gaudy and
architectural as ever, but
I'm eighteen, and our silences are
grey with stranger-noise.
reunion saints
marmalade air
it's obvious, like chocolate,
it's a raspberry hot-eyed afternoon teacake
choking you when you talk of
the sour cream boys I call friend
like I ought to call them cornbread enemies;
it's obvious like chocolate that you
disapprove.
but it's necessary, like custard,
for me to be here, apple-dear
I am the slice green cucumber I miss you
but it's necessary, like melon and meringue
that I be sometimes here and sometimes
in the land of ginger crackers and cinnamon tea.
but meet me downtown in the marmalade air
and I have a secret I will tell you.
Gallery #4
There were no surprises; they decided it would be
easier that way. There were your teeth in your
mouth and there was your tongue resting there
gently against them. There were your bones in
your hands and your blood running thin around
them. There were your steps in the hall with
echoes and pauses. There were the gilt frames
there was a momentary lapse in ideal worlds.
But darling! I have my feet in my shoes but they
run in arches through a street-tunnel; I have my
heart in my ribs but my ribs misbehave regularly.
Foxhole demons and family demands pull you but
darling-- all the bones in your hands are fishhooks,
they're telescopes so catch me, so stand by me like
a fearless sea-captian. I gather in storm-clouds at
your ankles in your boots with all the charm of a
water-blue wind. I pass at your shoulder in your
shirt with all the surprise I can collect.
crosswalk endurance
you were a street he had to crossand he was a blind student
with black hair, son of shadows
with a shadow hand; he knew magic
made of diamond stars, swirls of
black sparkles, while you hid in silk
he felt for your hand.
you were a street he had to cross
and he was a boy with a crooked leg
with cynics in his teeth and straw-coloured
forehead hair. the traffic he dodged never
slowed or turned but he said "life feels like
a remix." the crack of dust and the doom of
disease that his mother knew, it brings you
to your knees on the median.
you were a street he had to cross
and he couldn't think straight anymore;
a slanted blur of orange hand in your eyes
it seemed alright, it seemed alright to him.
because i like storks and you like camera stuff
Today in the backyard:
A bald-faced stork bobs among the long grasses that you missed cutting, and the twine and tin can birdfeeders. Throwing stones at a squirrel through the broken glass, you see him, laugh, and run for your camera. I am at the counter, slicing green onions on an abstract wood cutting board and I am alert and rings of music fall past us. Awkwardly, the stork flies away, and awkwardly, we follow one-by-one.
- - - - - - - - - - - dynasty boys - - - - - - - - - - - -
they were tea lantern faces bobbing in the darkthe front porch. each of those six string-headed
dynasty boys held a topiary full of rabbits, each
knew a secret no one else dared to know. three
of them were you, they were you, my own boy.
they had ankle-twisted wrists and match-burned
eyes that flashed across the 11pm like fine bones,
and a fervor on their tongues which a middle-aged
Viennese man translated into their laughter at me.
three times the tongue, Ming china, and four scar-
tables, and I don't much mind you laughing at me,
my own dynasty boy, my own quick-lipped mocker.
if you're full of rabbits and tea lanterns spilling over,
then rest on the moon, sleep on a raft, you're my own.
isaac asimov eyes
The weary lines in your
mouth, forehead, skull
dug deep into my mouth,
face, regrets, boring holes
I didn't dare fill in. We have
little left but our tearing coughs
tugging fishhooks over our throats,
and our delirious pewter bones.
And I miss you, your isaac-asimov eyes,
your thick 1956 tongue reading books
with stories of boys called Robert and
nuclear mysteries. The chops, my frying pans
and saucepans I was given on our wedding day,
I miss your jazz records from the bookshelf
and your feet beside me in the bed.
Flowerpots shatter as you slam the door,
Steamshovels and sidewalk tiles dragging
your furious ankles; oh love,
erase your face and come back to me quietly!
lila demi-wood
It's what you can see when you close your eyes:
bottles of cigarette wine suspended in dust on basement shelves,
begging pardon in a white-eyed dress through the wind,
and the vein-laced tongues inside your eyelids.
It's the thick taste of toothpaste miracles
you can't escape on long summer afternoons,
and I believe your nirvana shakes will
pass after a time.
Suitcase after suitcase scuttling full of
crabs and moonflowers through your hallways,
trains skip the tracks, chains of clover and ballpoints
collect dust in a sun-wet field and you peek over smoked glasses.
My dear, so time runs out... well, what if it does?
Marcel with a turquoise pencil crayon
In 1946, we ducked under an orange
spangled tent curtain, over the bare
grass-dust. Smells of dark tobacco and
tinny phonograph songs. Marcel as a
sharp-whiskered fox; when he caught
a wisp of me, he held me like an Indian
snake-basket. I write him ink-alcohol
notes of goodbye, d'origine montreal,
cinnamon bread-dough. at midnight,
in the main tent glittering like hard stars,
Madame DuPont sang soaring sentimental,
dressed in clothing from the continent, while
we try out sinning in a vacuum.
--
reclaim us, reclaim us from our
drum-circle dances and tuneless
piano captors. Marcel with his
quiet francophone voice, making
faces at my accent while the
phonebooths collapse and a lady
on a unicycles wobbles past, I
receive a danger & save me whole.
--
Marcel with a turquoise pencil crayon,
I wish on the back of his neck-
leather notebooks and gazing balls
build him monuments. And he builds me
micro-Victrolas, so we fall back to dancing,
to tuneless, tiny waltzes.
cardinal rule
ugly and disbelieving friends stare you down, but
I believe in you when you talk, and look at you--
wavering-- under the cover of my green eyes.
tricks of the light, my dear, tricks of the light:
you know things that aren't real but cannot
edit them out from the sunweed tangle of
what you mean to believe. but I believe in you.
and your eyes are blue, and silhouettes against the
dark sky, and thick with jungle-root deities.
I think of you as Velocity, murderous pale-white arms
spinning webs of colour and science with
laughing mouths like oatmeal with cinnamon.
and so I break my cardinal rule, and talk to you.
I trace a line on the dark-tinged pavement,
in blue chalk soot on your eyes. can I call you
names I shouldn't? can you believe the way
a crackling silence shoots you through your ribs?
tricks of the light, my dear, tricks of the light,
but I believe in them.
count me
if you can count, count me: deliver my hands (two)
from the scarlet tracings of late autumn, deliver my
mouth (one) from English grammar rules and then
my wingtip brushes (four) will paint you picture
of my cousins (eight) on seaside in dubrovnik.
if you can count, count me: the travesty and mirage
swiveling under my eyes (three) and you remember
bad seeds of my past: nick cave and bjork and a room
with wood paneling where the piano once was. and me,
my thoughts chink apart like bronze drawer knobs (six),
and you, your mouth stays open when you're close to me.
deliver my hands (two) from the scarlet frays of my scarf,
deliver my mouth (one) from the highwaylines rules of
English grammar. my grandmother (one), my aunt mirjana
(the rich one), and tonko (one) give me love that i send you
from under the red rooftops (several hundred). can you taste
coffee and spice when i write? you are supposed to. count
me. i spent the whole day in the old town and now i am here.
p.s. it says that "trubadur" is "hard jazz caffe". ha.
cake and summer
ginger green newts skipping over your
facial features and feet; meek kitten-
whiskered worker-bees and droning
high-eyed snails at the foot of your tree.
wise owls and cro-magnon men buy
illiteracy in shell-pink currency and
bamboo lovers curl sharp ribbons
over the dusky grass. it is july; time
doctored by hoaxmen and mafia ticks
off like old profligates and the tyre
tracks skip over the faces on the road.
I lick my lips to taste the dust gusting
off the road you left by. "darling," I say
"your backward tongue and your feats
of daring captivate me and I do believe
I am all contented to lie in the sun beside
your jean-jacket shed shell." I sleep; I know
you'll come back for it before summer ends.
wall candles
shot across the chest with light
and pieces of mirage; it's that way
that thunders so quietly
and share the quiet jests of your smiles in jeans.
paul & i call socially on one another on nothing street
the lanky fingers of him, like a cat;
i long to trickle and dance through
park benches in mid-november
and in his hands i see myself dancing.
his wide white face is like a snow
goblin. i whisper, a wind in the
himalayan mountains. he is an
unimpeachable snowman. i laugh.
untimely secrets, left under armchairs
where the dusty wood meets the green plush,
and on doorsteps where the grimy street
meets the cobwebs growing up. can i lose you?
his slow mouth thinks up a smile while
children and dust-rabbits play in the
carpet of his winding mind. he gives me
self-containment in a box with string in
the nicest way a friend knows how.