// For You Alone, I Kneel //

There are titans on the apex
there are monsters for the flame
I think I was a mountain too
when Jesus was my name

I think that someone moved me
when Allah was a quake
Seven billion hopeless prostrate
to a thousand war mistake

You went dancing in their flowered wakes
we went rolling in their smell
There are urges in your silken dress
to scream sweet proof of hell

There is nothing but the infinite
the universe impressed
The space between our trembling lips
The songbird in your breast

// Inspiration//

I went to the temple
to topple the Lord
but I found him an old man
with dry thistle sword

I went to the graveyard
to drown in the death
but the trees burst from bones
fast renewed every breath

I went to the evening
to be spoiled by its lust
but each entwining tryst
felt too much like trust

I went to the silence
to listen for love
the silence came and went
like each word penned above

And this is a rhyme
in behest of a poem
our gods have all faded
now we are alone

Would love to get to know some of you fine folk that read my scribblings. Write me why dontcha?

// Elemental//

Cry me a river
Buy me a boat
Breathe at the mainsail
Keep me afloat

Cradle a sapling
Raise it a flag
Harden your bones into
mountain and crag

Burn me a sacrifice
Leap like a flame
Scar sacred earth
in the shape of my name

And flow like a river
compelling a kite
suspended like starshine
against our goodnight

Goodnight to the river
Goodnight to the fire
By your dangerous graces
the daylight expires

I loved a girl once
(when I was a boy)
who with great disdain
saw so many things
as a penis

“Come back to bed”
I would say
“don’t sexualize the line”
as she whispered incantations of fire
upon the man-made landscape

Men had hurt her ancestors
I would hurt her too
because some people are so transfixed on hate
they can’t even stomach breakfast in bed
and the screaming in their heads
drown mixtapes

But everybody needs to be loved
I was just never much for making heroics
out of smiles
that leapt like licks of flame from lipstick covered coffee cups
on the busy city streets

Still though
every now and again
I look out from my balcony
onto sleeping Toronto
and wonder if she’s looking too

while the penis evergreens
battle red brick chimney erections to be noticed
she takes another drag from her fiery phallus
and sleeps in her soft round bed
to dream of I’ll never know what

// Every Idea is New//

David pressed his wretched mind to pen
to exorcise the word
of the voice that the future
of the lonely
crowned the lord

While the peasants in their silence
the dead without their ears
have no demons
turned to stories
churned to worship
by the years

Never forget why the wars wage
in their rages much better than you
When the winter won’t loosen its frostbite
Love, every idea is new

There’s a dark Parisian street
where fashion went to die
all the skeletons
who mourned her
wiped the hole
missing an eye

There’s a dank Venetian bar
where Mozart got the blues
where with classical
compassion
he drank the
devil’s dues

There’s a green Manhattan park
where no lovers spoke a word
lest the ghost of
Woody Allen’s
decent writing
overheard

And Toronto has a concert hall
no names on the marquee
I wait each night
for music
till the morning
sets me free

I know kneeling’s for prayer and pleasure
from the one star motel to the pew
everyone needs a mouthful of something, I guess
Love, every idea is new

An animal is dangerous
until you make it tame
A monster is
an animal
till you give it
a name

A man becomes a monster
when he abandons his regret
From man to beast
to animal
Now I’m your
little pet

And I say it like I’ve known it long
I swear it’s ever true
but in my heart I swear but this:
Every idea is new

We hopped that 8 foot fence
into a mystery back yard
got naked
and swam

When the jig was up
you broke the cop’s flashlight
like a prism
into rainbow
onto the inflatable whale
we christened “Carl”
and I thought
surely this is something

Years later
you are lost
and I have needs

I clipped my fingernails
like tulips stretching towards the sun
down the drain
with no regard for the food
my body turned into
an excess of shell
Show me what you found in the nothing

Front page of today’s newspaper
“New milestones in sight for stocks”
Show me what you found in the nothing

A car crashed in front of my house last night
The driver ran (abandoning his dog in the car)
The news teams arrived
and a friend and I postulated that to onlookers
this might be a step back
in the fight to give dogs cars
Show me what you found in the nothing

The river flows and is never the same
but is water
all drank and pissed a thousand times over
before it becomes the blood
pumping from your valentine chest
this very beat
Show me what you found in the nothing

I’ve loved every woman
with fire in her eyes
They’ve all gone now
and I am not sad, nor happy
because the world is half full
of the only thing I’ve ever desired
and equally full of fools vying for that same attention
like some sick 80 year long symmetry
sometimes harshly punctuated with disease
or a shotgun in the mouth
Show me god damnit!

Show me what made that night
burst into spectrum
so that I can kneel to something
-call it savior
like it wasn’t an erection
that found it’s way to my heart
making me believe in angels

I started writing poetry because I fell in love
I stopped when I remembered it
I offer no objective rules
but a poem should be written on the scorched skin of your eyelids
after diving into the sun
or should be whispered accidentally through the leaves of a poplar
by kite-flecked wind

I started smoking because of a girl
who was so smart
that I thought maybe that smoke went in
and set fire to all the bullshit we’ve all been eating
but her breath always smelled like spearmint

Somebody should tell the teenagers
that a poem is a death
and nobody can die
here in public
every day
fresh

I think haikus are for the daily
and smoke is for the haikus
and sooner or later
something more stable
something harder broken
must take its place

Tomorrow I’m going to stop smoking
and I’m not going to write
not until
I’ve died some secret death
that harder days hammer
into the words of a poet
without lung cancer

I swear the heavens open
and the why of the violin
screams raw like a banshee
from the windows of solo master bedrooms-
his and her sinks-
you and me-
till sweet death do us part
I tell you the world feels
as blue as it looks
when I see a man remember
love gone
and say that dislocated knee of a phrase
those jestered words
that buckshot lie

“It was mutual”

// Other People’s Words//

I awoke late today
sped to the train station
“You’re here late.”
posits the sage at the ticket booth
“Yes, and adequately stressed about it
please do the job you did for hundreds of others
a literal minute and a half ago
no problem
with a shit-eating grin plastered on your face
and print me a ticket
so as to not find me further so”

On board, the “Service Manager”
I believe his name was CONRAD
thought my ticket was a forgery
as if I had embossed white and yellow cardstock at home
and thought I’d take down the system
from within
that oubliette
of a seat
he so protected.
A fifteen minute phone call later
beady eyes all the while fixed
on my new blue jacket I used to like
and he says:
“Perfect”
My thoughts exactly, CONRAD

The cab ride home
the driver showed me a “shortcut”
which was to drive north until you get to my street
and then drive east until you get to my address
but stopping a few times randomly
and just saying
“Here?”

Now I am home
and in my underwear
and my bedroom light burnt out while I was away
and I’m terrified

I don’t know why
so I’m going to go to sleep

I guess this is just a long winded way of telling you
that my heart still works sometimes
even though you’re not around

Don’t fade like the immortals
with no memory dear to keep
You have no soul to call your own
no ghost to watch you sleep
just flesh and creaking floorboards
to the music of your bed
Don’t fade like the immortals
Don’t die before you’re dead

// On Sleep//

Don’t sleep when you’re angry
He waits in the dark
under each lonely queen bed
in each hollow remark
that the drawer by your bedside
is for your loaded gun
Don’t sleep when you’re angry
The devil might come

Don’t sleep when you’re happy
I think we have eyes
like a lighthouse to save
all the infinite lives
that we carry within us
that we bury down deep
Let the light shine upon them
Don’t give them to sleep

But sleep here beside me
We both to protect
We both bent and battered
from the long day’s effects
No devil so daring
No lighthouse ignored
In the crook of my arm
In the warmth of my word

Wrote the last poem in my sleep…

Livvy
we were blazing suns
eternal, ever new
the world revolved around me
in those long days before you

Livvy
we were map corners
a whole world worth of sky
to separate our birthplaces
then man began to fly

Livvy
we were warriors
in the wars our fathers fought
our supple skin advanced, advanced
the world began to rot

Livvy
we were strangers
in a city like a veil
of subways, sex, and sleeping pills
and yet our hearts prevailed

Livvy
we were lovers
pure enough to make the cello true
and the flute a simple mockingbird
just trying to be you

Livvy
we are best friends
and our limbs entwine like roots
a thousand little kisses
and no dirt upon our boots

Livvy
we are drowning
and you always feel so cold
in the darkness of these blankets
Livvy, now we’re growing old

// For you, dear M. at the end of all things//

You built a bar from birch trees
and we’d guessed we’d sail upon her
drinking triple gin and miseries
and poisons even stronger

We always were the kind of friends
to make light the others’ sadness
You only felt your bleeding heart
I only thought my madness
Then the day felt like a tourniquet
when I felt your sister’s thighs
You thought that Rome was burning
I could see it in your eyes

So let’s begin this sacrifice
your ignorance began
You were never one for wisdom
I was never much a man

Blessed are the lonely
Blessed are the blind
Blessed is the whiskey
as a surrogate for mind

And damned is your solitude
when damned are these words
as damned is our daily bread
to crumbs left for the birds