I’m on the beach

Reading Noor Hindi

And her poetry shoots fire

To purify and/or destroy

I don’t have the SPF for this

“I want to understand you,” I think

“No, you don’t,” she says

“No, i don’t, ” I agree.

How could I? her’s is a different world

And I’m on the beach

Next to my $2,000 bike

In the quiet

In the peace

Watching families swim in privilege

And I will dive in again and again

today i/we/you are like a fog
barely there and insubstantial
as mist dewy wet upon our faces,
but still somehow, we exist –
a mass that is moved through
and rising up from the earth
in the cooling night-swept air
to not be burned away
by a rising singular sun
but lifted as clouds to a bluer sky

i approach poetry
like the fat man
at an all-you-can-eat buffet
loading my plate high,
fearful that they will run out,
then returning to my table
gorging myself on the words;
the juicy meat and marrow of metaphors
barely have a chance to convey
before they are consumed;
i am a pig for meaning,
rooting out the best i can
but failing to savour a single simile
like a shark in feeding frenzy
as i walk away drunk and disgusted
while the polite people hurl contempt
and spend hours mooning over
one tasty dried out morsel of meaning
waxing on and on about that

delicious haiku
lovingly prepar’d for them
to be eaten slow

as i throw up in the corner
making room for more.

i’ve replaced my books of theology
with books of aching poetry
that tell me more about god
than the dusty old tomes ever did
bringing their presence close
while Farrokhzad and Sappho whisper
dreams of an unseen world –
possible but just out of reach
as Layton and Bukowski scream
ever of our eternal need

who needs the absent father
mother is the creator of us all
bearing savage witness
as poetic lullabies to dull the pain
(or maybe enhance it)

let’s be who we were supposed to be
let’s be abstract and absurd;
do you remember the draw of the rainy days
when you wanted to lie naked on asphalt
and lick the surface to feel the course small stones
rough and wet on the tip of your tongue
as the warmth of the downpour flowed over you?
i know you still want to the do that
and probably never will
until the day you die.

it’s ok because somehow you’ve already done it
sitting inside this bright robin’s egg
and writing your innermost self to the world;
nakedness is nothing new to you,
it’s more of a state of being…prone;

prone is lying in a field with a rifle
your right leg slightly bent to stabilize
while you look with one eye at the target,
take a breath and squeeze the trigger
letting it go to become whatever it will become
and you crawl forward through the ivy…

this still evening

quiet after a snare drum day

now slack and at rest

with only echoes flying away

as evidence of a crazed tempo

that left us sweating breathless

this still

that glows as candles

quivering upright

in a silent falling twilight

that slows the pulse

and lays the bellows aside

this still

leads the quivering mind

to the welcome grave

prepared by night dark and earthy cool

as she spread her black wings

stealing worry from our weary hearts

singing softly

let it go

that this day’s death might come

to dream of morning’s resurrection

Maxime Bernier, the founder and head of the People’s Party of Canada, has officially announced he will run for the PPC in my riding of Portage-Lisgar in an upcoming by-election and presumably in a future federal election. The announcement can be watched here: https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1OwGWwkqQljGQ and I urge you to watch it so you know what we’re in for. He starts speaking around eight minutes after the video starts.

If you don’t feel you can watch it here’s a handy Bernier Announcement Word Cloud (patent pending):

Immoral, patriot, freedom, Trans, Drag, Values, Family values, extremist, radical, radical left, morally bankrupt, populist, fight, sanity, attack, common sense, Canadians, revolution, inflation, debt, broken, immoral, degeneracy, Marxist, anti-life, anti-family, gender ideology, destroy, traditional, insanity, woke cult, twisted, sick, nation, evil, pervert, elites, intolerance, racist, corrupt, climate hysteria, cult of abortion, battle…

It is in the dark

Beneath the shade of night

When every demon creeps forth

Those I have slain in the light

They seek me out

They crowd ’round me

For the warmth of my own hell

That glows as a fire from within

this shark
in the waters of the modern world
writes and writes and writes
and if he stops he dies

this shark
in the waters of the modern world
bites and bites and bites
consuming everyone in his path
without malice, or ill intent
it is simply his nature
and the hunger never ends
and the ink tastes like blood

this shark
devours the things he loves

i know the weight of a child’s life
in the hands of a blind, angry nation
i know how much it takes to tip the scales
away from a place where the fearless live
and toward the dark, entombing earth –

just 3.88 grams

it doesn’t take much
to tear the fragile ones from our grasp
and send them hurtling into oblivion
leaving them empty on the hard floor
just fear, just selfish desire, just cold hearts –

just 3.88 grams