Europa Rising

Inspiration sometimes seems far away,
like I'd be better off
looking on a moon of Jupiter.

Of the many you can have your pick.
So it goes the grass is greener,
the atmosphere meaner, and

a rhyme that could have blossomed
is just Europa rising before Io.
But what do I know?

Listen Bird

Sometimes it seems
if I let anyone see
the secret little world
I call my own
I'd shrivel up
like a grape in the sun
until there was only seed.

Sometimes it seems like it's only me in the world,
a shade of what I could have been,
wandering,
turned crooked
(on the side of the phone
that stone chat,
that fell,
what could have been a crow).

Then there's times
I know
the right call --
know I don't have to hide.

So I got in a cab
thinking thank you for the listen bird
and leaving feathers behind and
pattered small feet on the windows
while the driver laughed.

I thought of you.

My soul breathed and listened to the world around me.

Untitled

How can I move across this space?

How can I make it so my soul
is not next to yours
when they resonate
like two reeds in the wind
to make one note?

How can I change that tune?

Sliver of Truth

You do not have to be good --
you must only let the
warm soft soul of your body
love what it loves.

Untitled

We fly our flags at half mast for dead soldiers...
Let's raise them up
to where they should be
and leave the banners in the muck.

Stuck in a dory on a stormy sea...

... oh my oh me... what will I do when the stormy sea falls in on me... will it make my eyes like those of the fish thawing in the sink... will I turn pink... blue... will I see you... oh my poor little beat of a heart... boo who for me... boo who for you...

Here's water's wisdom... whether rain or sea or river or tears... water keeps moving... without pity for itself... like the world under water... as it is...

So if stuck in a dory on a stormy sea remember... nothing if forever... not even water or storms... all things move to one feather... one brush... one tide...

Untitled

If you know night in Rockey Mountain House

you wonder,

is it the stars standing still

and me who sparkles?

Aubade (or to try and thank someone)

I wanted things to be simple like a sunrise... but that's not the way life is... it's not simple... for if it was I wouldn't have to write what I write... and that's the biggest truth... that all the bullshi* writing and philosophising won't bring back those times of regret and those moments that matter... and that yes... yes... I regret... and all those people who say that they don't regret are full of bullshi*... everyone regrets... otherwise they never really cared for anything other than themselves to begin with... and why won't some people just write and regret... why isn't it just that simple... you're a... ah... ah... never mind... never mind... like how it never rains when you want it to... like it doesn't snow on your sizzling desert... it's only a beautiful sunrise... wishing I was home... wishing I wasn't full of regret... like us all... like sunset.

Newfoundland Fantasy -- fragment

They say that the fair folk once lived among us, but that with the coming of modern technology and a population boom of people they sought quieter realms that exist amongst ours. They say that one of those realms is here, in Ferryland.

When my mother was young there were many who encountered the folk and most all believed in them, but since my generation they've come to be a myth -- there was only myself and one other person who ever claimed to see one, and whenever I told anyone about it they said I imagined it and that those sort of things only happen in tall tales.

Elephant and Castle

Don't you know
how to play chess
or what's e4 --
about a pawn storm,
the King's Indian
or Rui Lopez?

Don't you know anything
of art and war and
why people make a board game of life
when the best game
started with elephants and castles
a thousand years ago?

Check
your hat your
ego at the door.

I can't play around with life anymore.