For a second

I could have read you somewhere once
Like poetry on a page
Transcendence of what was, what is, what will be

You know existence because it has touched you, once
When both doors were open, the season was different
and the air wept with a breeze

How you were in that moment!
Smiling sun, whose rays warm the skin
Before a cold night follows

I stood on you and observed
Did you wonder about time, about tomorrow
While we existed outside it

"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas (1951-52)

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightening they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Ishtar by Judith Wright (1953)

When I first saw a woman after childbirth
the room was full of your glance who had just gone away.
And when the mare was bearing her foal
you were with her but I did not see your face.

When in fear I became a woman
I first felt your hand.
When the shadow of future first fell across me
it was your shadow, my grave and hooded attendant.

It is all one whether I deny or affirm you;
it is not my mind you are concerned with.
It is no matter whether I submit or rebel;
the event will still happen.

You neither know nor care for the truth of my heart;
but the truth of my body has all to do with you.
You have no need of my thoughts or my hopes,
living in the realm of the absolute event.

Then why is it that when I at last see your face
under that hood of slate-blue, so calm and dark,
so worn with the burden of an inexpressible knowledge-
why is that I begin to worship you with tears?

New home

Sunlight pours itself onto grass
our home is cool in the shadows
in the awning birds circle and pass
the sky is blue on the windows

boxes in lines along the floor
down the hall all the way to the door
upstairs I have to unpack my things
I must put everything in drawers

but where are you, send me a text
a sign that you are well
just one message, I am not stressed
just how are you? I cannot tell.

Don't complicate things

Don't come near me today
I am not defined by you
I have my colourful surroundings
and the little things I have to do

Today I am ageless
for me, you do not exist
those that are with me see
I am quiet and smiling

My life is ending
yours will too
we are both better off
doing what we must do

Separation

I didn't know who I should listen to

I tried listening to myself

tried sifting through nature and nurture to get at my soul

tried finding my self by separating it from others
tried love by not loving.

Well, that is how I came apart

there remained no me you could be with

no I I could love you with. 

Turbulence

I am fighting through an ocean

dipping spinning pulling

pushing floating boating

with such absolute clarity that to you

it looks like I'm dancing. 

the Statue

she is the goddess of loss

the naked form of a woman

her weak sex exposed

ridiculed beyond belief

she is armless, headless and bare

without voice, shelter or comfort

and still 

you beg her for favours. 

A rip in the fabric of life

Love is the cut of life
the necessary hurt
the inevitable pain
that leaves your edges frayed
your self changed.

tender

If I had to write

I would write to you

what are words without an audience 

I would think of nice things to say

like Look, 

how white my walls are!

they are so tender

their hurts disappear into their skin

leaving no roughness, no callouses. 

Destinations by Bruce Meyer

Think of ways to explain
where we are now on a highway

at midnight north of Toronto
as we run at a curtain of snow

and standards on the medium
are king palms ripe with light

and lamps on the sideroads
are thin nuns bent at vespers

as the stacks of dark factories
are men smoking in doorways

and imaginary bridges float
above us to connect those places

that have not yet been imagined;
yet this is the way we find our way

and everything is as real as love
and as determined to advance

because what is true is true
no matter how it might be said.

Food

The Illustrated Man - Ray Bradbury

“A big pot of coffee for me,” panted Simmons, smiling. “And a pan of cinnamon buns, by God . . . Simmons yanked the door wide. “Hey!” he yelled. “Bring on the coffee and the buns!”

“He stood for a few moments, looking about. Behind him the rain whirled at the door. Ahead of him on a low table, stood a silver pot of hot chocolate, steaming, and a cup, full, with a marshmallow in it. And beside that, on another tray, stood thick sandwiches of rich chicken meat and fresh cut tomatoes and green onions.”

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis

“The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle on to the snow and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very center and Edmond and never tasted anything more delicious.”

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dhal

“Mr. Willy Wonka can make marshmallows that taste of violets, and rich caramels that change colour every ten seconds as you suck them, and little feathery sweets that melt away deliciously the moment you put them between your lips. He can make chewing-gum that never loses its taste, and sugar balloons that you can blow up to enormous sizes before you pop them with a pin and gobble them up. And, by a most secret method, he can make lovely blue birds’ eggs with black spots on them, and when you put one of these in your mouth, it gradually gets smaller and smaller until suddenly there is nothing left except a tiny little dark red sugary baby bird sitting on the tip of your tongue.”

The Brotherhood of the Grape - John Fante

“The kitchen. La cucina, the true mother country, this warm cave of the good witch deep in the desolate land of loneliness, with pots of sweet potions bubbling over the fire, a cavern of magic herbs, rosemary and thyme and sage and oregano, balm of lotus that brought sanity to lunatics, peace to troubled, joy to the joyless . . . the altar a kitchen range . . . the old children, lured back to their beginnings, the taste of mother’s milk still haunting their memories . . . the wicked world receding as the old mother witch sheltered her brood from the wolves outside. Beguiled and voracious Virgil filled his cheeks with gnocchi and eggplant and veal, and flooded them down his gullet with the fabulous grape of Joe Musso, spellbound, captivated, mooning over his great mother.”

Ulysses - James Joyce

“Mr. Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.”