Alignment

Your smile illuminated a night.
The Moon is loosening Jupiter,
A cat is lowering bark;
Southwesternly, further too,
Venus, Saturn, mistaken stars
Are found aligned at last
As I walked with my dog
Through an unlit park.

Light rebounds from behind
God’s eyelid, a pinprick
In a twilight sky extracted
From the uncuttable diamond.
And if so dimly lit
After years of travel,
Like the last burning candle
On a galleon returning
With a South Atlantic vase,
If this could reach my sight
By quarter to ten
As I stand in awe
On the frightening grass,
Then I will see your smile
In a dampening daylight,
Restoring a long lost past.

Yellowknife

Yellow anaglypta sky,
Mulchy leaves like mirrors;

Yellows, pinkish too alight,
Grounded sky implied

And downward falling rivers,
Pre-crepuscular,

What was their objective, stripped?
To end here, nearer, those souls

With tanks trapped in sand,
Engines choked, gears stuck,

What was to be delivered
For all we held dear?

Are we this bored with ourselves
Because we did not go to war?

Dawn solo,
Lonely blackbird,

Forbidden sky,
Foreboding and with an egg

Frying on a bonnet in the middle,
Upside down,

Yellow clouds
So close to the surface

I do not know if we fell out.
Rain, thick and heavy as

Lovers’ heartbeats;
You were to go swimming

With your uncle
Who has not changed since

He was last seen way back when,
And which would not ever happen

In this duality, neither yours nor mine.
He took a bicycle without asking,

The one I cannot ride on,
Knowing full well the municipal pool

Is in that part of town
With thefts in spate.

I woke on a motel bed in Yellowknife,
No duvet, no sheets,

The side of my head was swollen,
A fearful headache,

Empty whiskey glass beside
A faulty bedside lamp

Which began to reach into my mind
And my only thought

As I heard their sex through
A wall behind my head, was this,

Of how war may well be madness,
But families, often, more so.

I used the toilet, sipped a drink
That was not there,

Then climbed naked back
Into that cold, uncovered bed.

Quicker The Clouds

Quicker the clouds,
Bigger and white
My widened delight,
Then cooling shade
From greys in flight,
Spooling earth,
Reassuring and
Impossibly light.

Then just as soon again,
Your warmth on my back;
There is no lack
Of peace I find
In solitude and
I am truly
Grateful for that,
And for you,
My autumn,
Reaffirming in this
Resurfacing,
To know I may
Survive
One more night.

Suspended

Seven Pigeons

Haiku #704

704.

Wide widdershins skies,
Dead warrior skies – red moon.
Wives wait patiently.

Haiku #680

680.

Low winter-soon Sun.
There’s enough room in this world,
Yes, for everyone.

Cloud Poem

I caught a glimpse of the lady
I would love eternally,
Retained in the shape of a bather
In a photo reflecting the sea.

The sacred four-horned oxen
Walked on stones in my heart,
I prayed I may evaporate,
And fall into her arms.

As my quiet prayer was calling,
Deathly forests distracted me;
From clouds I started my descent,
Ended in your memory.

In one such forest’s fated clearing
A brook of crystal waters dried,
A spring to feed the falling prayers,
A place of rest for a bride.

The clouds merged in to mountains,
Mountains gave birth to the sea,
If only longer I’d waited,
And brought an end to all misery.

God Of Kindness

Sometimes the sky seems as wide
And big as my sadness.

Sometimes I wonder how it was Permissible for you to step out,

While I was stored within a moment.
Sometimes I wish I was something else,

Less than my cobbled wheezy-sided,
Indulgent, obsessive false-comparison self,

And that’s just the better half
Of my kernel. On the other side,

A spider’s on my eyelids;
A paperweight, a floating shelf.

If I was a god of kindness,
By degrees I doubt it would help,

I’d be a god of putting things off
Instead, and drinking tea,

A god of missing you,
The goddess of missing me.

How can I follow my love’s path,
When there is no path to see.

Untitled Photo #3