The stars remember us

In time, all ripples disappear in sand,

In wave, in sound, in line and gravity

No deed or being, word or ampersand

Will ever find true immortality.

But death, while welcome, never is the end

As ripple joins to current joins to sea,

And all we are, subsumed, will ever bend

The wave which bent us in totality –

While all of us will die without reprieve,

The stars remember us – and do not grieve.

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Lighted windows

In the dockside towers the windows slowly light,

One by one, as their owners carefully file

themselves and their lives away

I see curtains and plants, posters and vases

Tiny tastes of their lives, little scraps of their being.

Inside these boxes a million worlds evolve

Betrayal, passion, boredom, lust

An opera of emotions on every floor

And the elevators divide them, shut in and alone

And I wonder, what is it like, what is it like

(I inhabit this city, but cannot say I live here,

Here in this palace, all curves and glass and light –

Beautiful, hateful, hopeful, doomed

I wonder and wonder, where it is that I am?)

In the blank spaces, where nobody lives

Under the bridges and underpasses

Unlooked-for, unloved, the places nobody creates,

there is a sort of beauty

A beauty of endurance, like those who grow old alone,

And on the bare concrete wall, I read my name:

No one.

 

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She writes sad songs

She writes sad songs with fancy pens
And written, scratches out again
And again she writes in smeary scrawl
A song of love and loss (et al)
And draws another damp, thick line
Through verses good or bad or fine
She writes sad love songs with her pen
Again, again, again.

She thinks, if only she were free
Her songs would spark, would simply BE,
Would simply soar across her breath
And not demand a speedy death.
Her eyes would blaze with verses true
As that is what true artists do.
She writes sad songs and strikes them out
And out and out and out.

I wish I could relate the end
Of my sad-love-song-writing friend
For all I know she writes them still
For good, indifferent, or ill;
And if her pen sleeps peacefully
I hope the same is true of she.
This is the most we can aspire:
Continue on, if we desire,
And find some happiness if not,
Forget – and be forgot.

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Simple pleasures

The simple pleasures remain, at least.
If nothing else, they do remain –
A sunlit glow through a covered pane,
A breeze, a scent, a sudden taste,
A fine-turned phrase or a soft embrace,
They remain. They remain.

If nothing else, hold on to these
These quick-sweet moments, darting bright
Hold on to life and hope and light
All you who breathe, here, now, and still
And still beneath the ocean’s swell
We remain. We remain.

There is no answer, no way to peace
The rot within us will come out.
No cure, no change, no turnabout
This is the fate our hearts maintain.
But the simple pleasures, they do remain.
I do not know how long.

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New poem

Toronto poem

When in the dusk the postern lamps are lit
And over fallen leaves the padded feet begin to tread
Of leashed dogs circling blocks in friendly packs –
the evening air assumes a quiet gentleness;

as lighted streetcar windows pass, all headed east
towards dark red velvet pubs, all brass and firelit
And every syllable’s weight begins to hang
so heavy, as I and nature return to soft
and dark and sweet and smooth and bed.

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John Yoo stares into the abyss

Note: If you don’t know who John Yoo is I suggest starting with his Wikipedia page. Then listen to The Torture Memos by my band, the Parkdale Revolutionary Orchestra. As you ought to know, this is a piece of creative writing that in no way reflects on the life or experience of the real John Yoo. I’m sure he has absolutely no trouble looking at himself in the mirror these days.

 

 

JOHN YOO STARES INTO THE ABYSS
A dialogue

YOO

I am not an evil man.
In fact I am rather a good one,
kind to animals, generous to beggars,
a good son, a timely taxpayer, a good neighbour.
I always pay more than my share of the dinner cheque,
I never leave my bins out after garbage day,
and my house is well-kept, neat, painted,
in accordance with the bylaws
of my Home Owner’s Association.
So tell me, Abyss, why I see your face
in this perfectly clean mirror
on this perfectly ordinary day.

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Untitled #whatever it is now

This will count as yesterday’s post if I manage to write another one today. The challenge, I am not failing it…yet, but I am not doing spectacularly well, either.

Anyway, here is poem I wrote on the train ride back from London, asking the all-important question: What would the suburbs look like after the zombie apocalypse?

Along the line the houses stretch out
backs facing, blank windows like empty eyes
these human habitations, cells in the hive,
I see nothing within and nothing without.

Impossible to say, if all of us died
tomorrow, that anything would change –
the blank back houses would look the same,
impassive, distant, petrified –

and all along the silent line
to stretch until the end of time
the silent houses would remain
forever and ever. Amen.

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