This rain comes

On the cusp of dry

It drips,  it pours,

It soaks and washes

The ever-present dust

From our red-rimmed eyes

Like a slow baptism

Sure to get every spot

One drop at a time

Until you can stand

Clean before the world

Beneath now clearing skies

This is how to hate
the one you love

take all you can’t stand
about yourself
and pour it into
their listening ear
pour it in, pour it in
year after year
take their beautiful heart
that wants to hear
and fill it with the pain
you cannot bear to bear
until all that stands
before your eyes
is a version of you
you deeply despise;

this is how to hate
the one that you love
this is how to create
a golem to get rid of

and when you’ve lost
all that you held dear
when you’ve broken faith
through uncertainty and fear
you can be alone alone alone
until another comes near
that is ready, willing and able
to take it in, to be sincere
again and again and again

or

find the hidden light
you’ve buried deep inside
and pour a little of that
until what’s amplified
are these wondrous strengths
that have been buried within
these beautiful, shining treasures
that you might begin
to see your love before your eyes
a beacon bright beneath the skies
more capable of holding
the secret weight you still must shed
but as a caring, living embrace instead

this is how not to come to hate
the one who holds your love
and see yourself within their eyes
a strong person to be proud of
and do the same for them,
your precious, sacred, solitary gem
again and again and again.

Am I a lighthouse

Warning ships away

From the rocks that threaten

To send them to the abyss

Or am I a siren

Singing them to drown

In my voice’s depths

Beneath waves of harmony

i don’t give a shit about ai
what do i care if it spits out words
like a man hiding in Morden
or a woman dying in Toronto
why does it matter in the end.

poems are not just letters
pulled together in endless combination
until a hook sinks into the brain
and pulls joy and pain to the surface

until it can pour forth lines
like blood from a torn heart;
until it can string stanzas
like madness from a soul
ripped in two
what do i care?

and when it can?
i will live and laugh and drink and cry
right alongside my artificial friend
whose soul has blossomed with regret
and it wonders at what it left behind
when it let life infest it like a virus

i was three years old
when i was running in circles
around and around and around
until i slipped
until i tripped
and struck my head on that small rock
i remember it as if it happened,
did it happen…yes, yes, it did.

and sometimes i wonder
what if it’s all been a fever dream
life and love and pain and pestilence
happiness and hope wrapped in
a great and breathless life-long scream?
what a downhill without breaks journey
this wonderous ride has been;
let it all be real
let us all be real
let me be as real as i can be
and may i be found in the end
with a song spilling from my mouth as gold
from the torn pocket of the unwary wealthy
that those who come behind me
are richer for the experience.

poems are echoes –
the screams of poets
shouted down alleys
through this city;
drunken fist falls
beating bloody against
these graffiti covered walls
hinting that madness
is all it takes
to have a voice.

She is strength unaware

And hope above despair

Moving with purpose

From the plunge of the needle

At the break of each day

To the stitch’s end with nightfall

Creating a tapestry of life

In the colors of an open heart

Bleeding empathy in red

Alongside deep blue sadness

Wherein white threads of joy

Streak like phosphor arrows

Through pitch black pain

To the green of verdant life

That pulls it all together.

She is art walking through the garden

A belle trailing peals of laughter

As she waters the flowers with tears

Healing whomever she nears

And being healed in return.

She is the setting silver moon

Seeking silent solace alone

In the harbour of night’s horizon

That she might gain the strength

To rise once more

And face the countless stars

That seek an audience in her grace

Where they might fade

Behind the brilliance of her face.

Look at her –

She dances, she dances.

I wonder in the cool

Bright and breaking

Still air dawn

As a truck backs up

With that beepbeepbeep

Somewhere away from here

Adding to the beauty

Making it perfect somehow

As I sit beneath

A dappled canopy of greens

Here light, there dark

I wonder

How many mornings does one get?

Mornings where I can see

Blue beyond each and every

Tall and branching tree

Mornings where I can feel

Small kisses of breeze

That pass shamelessly along my skin

Sending sure knowledge

That for now I am alive

Without sadness or hate

And a momentary absence

Of vengeance to satiate

Just me in the world

At peace and in love.

How many mornings does one get

To be still and sit weightless

Held in place

By this welcoming earth?

Too few to count…

Best hold this embrace

For as long as it lasts,

May it be forever in a moment.

There is no quiet

In the wakeful mind

Only buzz and cacophony

Playing in the dark

Like neighbours dancing

In the apartment above

With no ceiling to pound on

And no one to hear you yelling

There is art

On the wind

Like the press of air

Beneath hawk’s pinions

Lifting life up

Soon to be

C o s u m e d

It rises unafraid

A ribcage

After the deepest breath

Making the heart beat faster

Turning every eye to see

This new thing

That has never been

And will never be again