Published on: 9/28/2011
Something cheerful

Something cheerful
comes from failure

Not happiness
something much better

Having failed for years
I begin to feel it
as clearly as the cool days
at the end of summer

The wind blows strong
for a moment
through the trees

You carry it with you
long into the night

Published on: 9/28/2011
Blue jeans

Blue jeans
as blue as water
as tight as congested sinuses
against the railing
before the river

The smiling freckled
Irish woman
bends one knee
and shifts her hips

Down into the silent water
with Joni Mitchell's guitar
10 dollars in change
and a sketchbook

Down into the fast forgiving arms
then back into the air
sometime later
puffed up with silent water

On the ruined paper
in the sketchbook
they found drawings
of the Louvre

Published on: 9/28/2011
You Can Rest Now

You can rest now
It is dark and quiet here
The stars are going out
I lick my thumb
and extinguish them

Tsss tsss is the sound
my wet thumb makes
on each hot star

Published on: 9/28/2011
Tony Bennett

Like Tony Bennett
I left my heart in San Francisco
Someone put it on a bus to Seattle
I went down from Vancouver
To collect it
That was the summer
Of 1998

Published on: 9/28/2011
I cannot sleep beside you

I cannot sleep beside you
Though you are soft and inviting
Because you snore like a bear
I cannot walk home through the snow
Because my legs are tired
And I have to lift my feet so high
To get over the drifts on the sidewalk
I cannot tell you I love you
Because I do not love you
And I cannot lie
I cannot tell you I love you
Because you snore like a bear
And because I am lost in the snow
And because I cannot lie

Published on: 11/30/2010
Today was most excellent

Today was most excellent
I got off the bus in front of Arthur's apartment
Carrying two packages of dry noodles
Which we like to eat

- Hello, Drew.
- Grunt. Grunt. Ark.
- What are we today? A dog? A bear?
- Mmmph.
- A fish? A bird? Some other animal?
- I'm crazy, he said.
- Crazy is for teenagers.
- Grunt.
- A shark? A star?

We boiled the noodles and ate them in front of the computer

- Things are unclear in my head, he said.
- Tell me from the beginning.
- All right, he said. There is a patriot, lost in imitation, in the long, lonely fields,who sings, Glory, glory, when the mood moves him. His feet fall quietly on thelemongrass. His heart is raised to his knees. Summer is ending. Glory, glory, singthe reddening leaves. Glory, sings the silent brook. Glory, glory, glory, cries theAtomic Bomb. Glory, says the breast pocket of his best suit. Glory, rafting over thesonic geography. And there is a lion, lost in the lemongrass. Like a city singingsweet songs, he wants to regale with his vision of God in the trees. Glory, sings thepatriot, in his shaky voice, alive to the hips of the world. Glory, glory, declares thelion. It is a fine day here in the thick matter. It is windy and cold, and the sky isclear. This is the beginning of clumsy form. You know, the average river wouldrequire a million years to move a grain of sand one hundred miles. That's 160kilometers. The farmers' crops, dead from a dry summer. Glory, glory. The goldensunset, squinting over the lemongrass, touches the lion's mane, with Glory, glory.And the patriot sees that the wall of skin is sacred, the air is sacred, the sweatysheets are sacred, the cool of evening is sacred, September is sacred, clarity issacred, and the day has culminated in clarity. The sky is clear, the light is gritty, inhis mind there is clarity. Then the moment passes. The stale wind of war begins toblow, and, because of our faults, he disappears among the untrimmed hedges andmushroom clouds, the stale, smoky spheres of war that devour planet after planet.Glory, sings each radioactive mushroom. Glory, sings the unused machinery.Kafka falls dead to the evening Glory. Glory greets Kierkegaard as he folds up hispant leg. Glory, declares the empty footprint. I am back where I began. The eternalblanket is my home. I have not hung onto the clarity. The patriot falls victim to thelion. Blood rolls over the lemongrass. I am left with the Glory, only the Glory, andthe windows sing, Glory, the lion, asleep with the blood of patriots, dreams ofGlory, the peeling paint reveals Glory, and my confusion is the noise of Glory.

Published on: 11/30/2010
Sometimes I think

Sometimes I think my heart is broken but it's just gas
I go to the bathroom and then I'm ok

You came into the bar and walked right past me
As if we'd never lain for hours in the morning

By the window in my bedroom
Naked and quiet and in each other's arms

Published on: 11/30/2010
We empty out

We empty out
Of the graduate bar
Leaving the drunken
Professors of literature
And go westward over the foot bridge

The headlights of a car
Parked in front of the all night diner
Make big bright fists
In the falling snow

Published on: 11/17/2010
Are you

Are you lost where you are?
Europe or South America, one of
The two; I can't remember, I can't
Keep track

I'll bet you're lost
Sweating heavily
While a stranger looks at your legs
It gives me satisfaction
To think that you might need me

But the more I think the more
The satisfaction gives way
To a hackneyed fury
And I want to murder the man
Who cannot protect you

It goes on like that
I pace for a while
And eventually the fury fades
Into boredom
And I choose to forget you
For another few days

F--- you and your travelling
F--- Europe and South America
I am alone in a rented room
On a residential street
In Toronto, Ontario
Near the Don River

Published on: 11/17/2010
In the unending falsehood

In the unending falsehood of your character
there was probably a little truth
or at least something natural
just enough of it to convince
an old dog to call his nose off
and ride with you down through the country
patient and happy for a while

Published on: 11/17/2010
The garden is dead

The garden is dead
The grass is dead
Ice on the railing
breaks under my hand

From the undaunted curve
to the girded swing
and the swollen angles
of the snowy ground

Comes the sound of the horn
to beckon us on
from sorrow and boredom
the last tyrants of the world

Published on: 11/17/2010
The contributor's heart

The contributor's heart
is not cracked by frequent rejection
nor dulled by a wall of smoke
rising through an elevator shaft
into a twelfth floor apartment

The contributor's heart
is goddamn magnificent and
if you do not know this it is only
because you have not yet
read his poems, which are
inclusive, thoughtful, and correct
without losing the value
of twelve stories, smoke

uneventful evenings
a lack of good will
and frequent rejection

The contributor smears
a certain aspect of his heart
across the short white page
much as the Lithuanian cleaning woman
leaves a streak or two
on the window in the hallway
every Wednesday

Then, sitting on the edge of the mattress
in his socks and underpants
he checks to make sure
the alarm is set
for 6:45 am

Published on: 5/19/2010
A World of Good

I need to wake up earlier
It would do me a world of good
Last night I didn't sleep at all
And by one in the afternoon I was bored
So I went downstairs and sat on the porch
The light was just right
It was coming over the rooftops
I sat there with a cup of coffee and a cigarette
For ten minutes or so
And I think I'd like to do that every day
Usually I stay up late and sleep till four
And while there are many other things
I am frequently told to do
Sitting in that sunlight
Is better than saving money
Or learning to eat right
In fact
I think it deserves prior attention
You may not know my meanings otherwise
Perhaps no one will read these poems
Death may come early or
As an even less pleasant surprise
Life may be very long
These secrets may exhaust me
Until they are
At last and completely forgotten
And the batteries empty their yellow juice
And the sink fills with dirty cups
And a rolling wind breaks the high green hill
But I will relax in the light

Published on: 2/11/2010
The Whirling Worlds

The neighbours were noisy
They woke me up early
I went down the street
To the coffee house

The whirling worlds of night
Were hidden by
The blue atmosphere of day
But they still
Sent out their messages
Which I received fragmentally

Two girls sat
Facing each other on a bench by a birch tree
I ordered a coffee and sat
Nearby

They leaned in to laugh
And leaned back to laugh harder
Talk to them, a message indicated
Say something funny

The girls stood up
And unlocked their bicycles from the birch tree

I stayed

A while longer

Evening came
The messages grew stronger
And the hours of disintegration
Were upon us