October sixth

Whether through giant, pre-historic trees that dwarf

The big strip-mall-people

Or great rolling deserts,

sleeping in parking lots

or in hammocks by the sea..

You can take sweet California

and these strange metal boxes that

sweep us in high-speeds across vast places:

The greatest leaps occur in our strange hearts.

Swallow some madness,

let smiles invade those stony cheeks

softening the curve in your back

until you melt, brain first, into

the sea of rolling trees and stunt-man-madness.

Wait until we are curled up, purring at

the feet of some Sea-God

feeding us the golden grapes of Eden…

murmuring stories of the Ancient East…

Let the elves run over our naked bodies

Let us lie to the dawn, draw straws,

Take turns turning back the sun.

Jerusalem

It's true, Jerusalem. I said those things
when I thought you couldn't hear.

And now that I sit in your streets
(wrapped in purple poncho)
drinking dark coffee (it's ok,
but not great),
praying to the gods of yogurt and honey,
doing my best to ignore your stubborn winter chill
which has occupied space in my fingers
since I stepped off the plane,
I am not embarrassed; I do not take them back.

I drink some sun and listen
to this old man in a white hat
strum Bob Dylan songs in French
and wonder politely about your madness,
and my own...

We always hurt the ones who love us,
Jerusalem,
we are too chilly and
nonchalant,
and you don't even have a good scarf.

I don't mind the cute way
your people, confused, disembark
from the train just as they do everything else:
The system is "there is no system."
Push, shove, ignore, throw
garbage on the streets

because you've got bigger fish to fry.

But what happens, Jerusalem, when the day comes
you're tired of frying fish?
You'll just sit here in silence
with the white-hat-man and his covers
of songs from the sixties
smoking stolen cigarettes
from Palestine.

I am not your prophet, Jerusalem.
i will not hold vigil, smudge your walls with sage
or hummus, pour coffee grinds in your gutters,
unlike you, Jerusalem,
I will just go.

The streets line up
with empty cars, with that exquisitely blank
stare,

blinking, I try to gaze into the heart
of that grey and concrete path.

I ask the painted yellow lines for directions,
am faced with awkward silence;
pine cones roll across tarmac,
hoping for some more fertile
landing pad.

the path is not so straight, nor so fraught
with
blinking red and yellow lights.

Open your eyes and drink in the sweetness
of making your own map,
of being your own great compass.

...

I cannot breathe with windows closed.
blankets become serpents,
swarm my limbs, twisting with the sheets,
slide down my mouth,
to make babies in my belly.

I give birth to three thousand women, fully formed,
and name them all Medusa.

I lock them in a tower where they wait
for a frog prince to come along
and be eaten by their hair.

I travel to hot places, sending them postcards
of my favorite statues
(for my sense of humour is dry like the negev).

I imagine my life if only Canada hadn't captured
my sweet youth in her suffocating winters
forcing me into
the serpents nest, whose temptation
I could never resist.

Better to have cold toes
than accidental babies.


--------

We chose this path of life in bursts
and then mill and weep and studying, waiting
for the next breath of air
- fresh, or stale (from fucking) -
don't joke. We must live in the space between,
go crazy for sad movies...
I can't be with you,
but from a distance, treasure your
softer spots.
My home is not in sparse rooms
cleverly placed paintings in grey
or those primary colors, used in moments
of unexpected freedom (leaping fearlessly from walls).

There are too many straight lines.
they don't fit the curves of my body
(and while I sputter, try not to qualify
these experiences,
I am still a child of the universe,
and somehow existing in opposites)

trying to live between the yes and no.

I like old things, heavy with color and shape,
my imagination supplies the stories
that leave others bored, staring at blocks of
aged stone.

Someone's hands. a spark of life. carved this..
I have been here since the stars were born.
I know them without words.
When we forget this, we begin to draw these
strange shapes ---

a manifestation of our ability
to not see things as they are..

float off in purple.

seek some rocking motion in the madness
close your eyes and try to feel
the spinning of the earth.

---

Someday I dream I might let go of the addictive madness --
my best, my only company in these dark and cold days --
and if I lost those words, or let them go, what matter? i'm full

of words, it makes me ill.

I'll try, this time, to distill them into some
more intoxicating brew before I spew them back
at you, and gaze widely, play harp
with a daft smile on my dirty face.

thoughts that come about when in yoga land.

graceful inspirations drag,
draw trails in colored sand
(meaningless when organized +
bottled ~ chaos
is my home.)

the quiet of many sleeping
minds drives through
our small practice (daily) for
the Final Savasana
(if you know what we mean...)

some hoax, coaxing tired minds
into a gnawing ---
hot tub. cold swim.
c.o.n.s.t.a.n.t - chatter.

run. now.

-----------------


these paper dolls who
flutter here
and there ~ causing asanas
to bloom in unexpected places;
the mating rituals of slugs.

(to make love and slink away
both heavy with
hermaphrodite children)

---------------

words unhinge and swing away,
creaking, come loose
grow wings and flutter off
desperate for the distance -
test envy, tempt -
with thoughts of That Grand Adventure
the will have across
the quiet sea.

---

call the walls back
make playgrounds of these postures

to find some aching movement
in swaying with the wind.

take back the surf, make
puppies, or find them, little and mewing
at the bottom of the sea.

baby,
fish fins that held string words
tell the stories of deadly currents.
our eyes will never take us there.
never take it out,
never go.

Alice brings in the daily catch,
decorates tea pots with
bleeding flowers... bleeding.

somewhere nearby my hips
build a home from bricks
(and thick oatmeal. raisins)
kept out some wolf
too sick with alliteration to know
he's better off outdoors..
better off to leave the pigs,
go veg,
open up a mountain retreat
(Set Goals)
for girls with self esteem issues
"my! what big teeth you have!"
(he thinks my teeth are fat)
The better to eat you with, my dear.

Eat tofu; not deer.
phone in sick. take the bus
out to some rocky coast
to climb, to sit,
to think of my aching hips
in another lifetime:
a knot in my trunk,
my limbs reaching into that
infinite hazy blue.
waves crash on waves.

break pace with the electric fire
to search the forest floor
for small bugs, pieces of dry wood
or just build a home in
a big old tree.
big. old. trees.

you all get fancy
mobile phones, to keep us
current in your lives,
just as though you're never
(ALONE. SHH.)

she said something about navel gazing
(misleading poetics, 'cause
if everyone were really just looking at their belly buttons
I wouldn't be so bothered. The iphone doesn't come
with an umbilical cord...it's sold separately.)

(and notice how my margins drift..
notice the way your cat moves,
indifferent to your angst, your guise,
the invalid things you say. ugh.)

so document your life in low definition photos,
that stick to your facebook wall like ketchup stains
completely eliminate silence from your life
you know what's best - or you just don't want to
(to know!)

I battle my depression with some compostable cutlery
and itunes genius
and music that mutters about sarcastic shit
to an acoustic guitar
(doesn't rhyme)
(who needs rhyme)

pretend we know each other.
pretend I want you to read this.

Worldfuse. or why a poem is not just another temple.

Bring book everywhere. write everything. no rest. words.
words till words give out,
deny words, so thick. words like molasses,
words like crowded halls and bathroom lines,
words like the quiet of cold mornings,
like mist pregnant on the water.
words like mountains, being born.
with words we shall conquer this
sacred mouth, full of spit
find a cure for all..
...all the nonsense

talking.