my love is the like the XX album: "slow, brooding, extremely sensual"
and always in the background.

like a blade.

to wreath the moon in a head dress of neon flames
must take concentration from that heavy old bird.

Sent to a man who seemed to change his mind.

Since my heart placed me
on board your drifting ship,
not one day has passed
that I haven't been drenched in cold waves.

Alberta, I

have learned to love you,
like one learns to love
being a widow.
I have been thrown into you and abandoned
like a pair of African twins in the bush.
Your starkly composed yet beautiful complexion,
a path for me to trace;
your moods as unpredictable
as a mental patient.
So few loves are this difficult.

sweet treat.

if someone offers you some sugar,
you should eat it.

ice water.

briney waters singe their skins
icy waves drive them back again
helmets, oars and swords
are washed upon the shore.

the water demon's eyes are pink and green
scales of silver mirror mesmerize
the most beautiful thing you've ever seen
spits bile into your eye.

at the coroner's office (after Dani Couture).

The road that leads into the forest
may not be the one that leads you out.

The hand knows the will of the heart,
yet is unwilling to make the move.

Show me your greyhound-like strut, the graceful dip
of the knife into the skin.

At last, the tulips are in bloom
on Quinpool!

The sweet drip of your seduction is more intoxicating
and deadly than your anger.

Have you not always had such small hands?

A starling's hop on the lawn,
a blackbird's lost feather,

the way the finch crushes whatever comes across its beak --
that is, into nothingness --

you've got the attributes of a cold case romance.

another found haiku.

I should dig a hole,
to put dead ideas and seeds
where those things belong.

barges.

your love is like
a commercial freighter in Bedford Basin:
slow, yet steadily moving along the shore,
bull-headedly determined in its direction,
able to carry such heavy weight,
and easily recognizeable from afar.

an honest haiku about Alberta:

a guzzling pick-up
speeds down Calgrary Trail, and
throws dust in my face.

an addictive poem.

seems I got it made, then I begin to feel
like I'd give up all my winnings
for another chance to spin the wheel.

loving you is like drinking Bourbon in rehab.
You don't wear cologne,
but an intoxicatingly magnetic scent
of contradiction.
Swing your hammer down,
draw another line on the table,
pull me into your springtime
pole-dancing, ribbon-waving festivities.
You are a razor and I am a pale wrist.

to say you are bad for me
is to say the very least.

vertext #2.

The older I get
the more life starts to make sense
and the less I care.

vertext #1.

I pray to goodness
that I'll always be aware
and sure of myself.

Sometimes I wish we were an eagle.

The leafless tree looked like a brain
The birds within were all the thoughts and desires within me.

An eagle came over the horizon
and shook the branches with its sight
The softer thoughts: starlings, finches, and wrens
they all took flight.

The eagle looked clear through the brain tree,
emptying thoughts saved for me.
Maybe I'll make this one my home,
consolidate the nests of the tiny.

Then something struck him, wings of bone:
sweet desires and soft thoughts were all gone.
The eagle shrieked, "I'm alone!"

Well it was time to flee the tree.
The eagle snuck up on the wind, one talon at a time.
Being sky king of the sky, what did he have to fear?
All thoughts are prey to some beast.

like being 19 again.

A Silver Mt. Zion /// He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corners of Our Rooms
Do Make Say Think /// Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord Is Dead
The Azusa Plane /// Tycho Magnetic Anomaly and the Full Consciousness Hidden
Crispin Hellion Glover /// Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution. The Solution = Let It Be.
The Orb /// The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld
The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-la-la Band /// Born into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward
Godspeed You Black Emperor /// Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin /// Broom
The Unicorns /// Who WIll Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?
Arctic Monkeys /// Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

thunder road.

who gives an f about an oxford comma?

me&you.

like a hunger-striker.

you said you were man who does not lack conviction,
only its intensity.
I too long for commitment and dedication,
a path as straight as an airplane's smear
across the Alberta sky,
but temptation is a lionness
and I am her impala.

improvisation skills.

songs about horses.

Beck // Farewell Ride
PJ Harvey // Horses in My Dreams
Smog // Chosen One
Smog // I Break Horses
Smog // Let Me See the Colts
Cat Power/Smog // Red Apples
Will Oldham // Horses
Will Oldham // Stable Will
Tori Amos // Beauty Queen/Horses
Q Lazzarus // Goodbye Horses
The Rolling Stones // Wild Horses
A Silver Mt. Zion // Horses in the Sky
Mogwai // I Chose Horses
Godspeed You! Black Emperor // Kicking Horse on Brokenhill
British Sea Power // A Wooden Horse
U2 // Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?
Current 93 // All the Pretty Little Horses
Tenniscoats // Horses
The Dandy Warhols// Horse Pills

Josephine.

I've lived so long with shadows, I became one of them.

Travel (till morning reputations).

the hangman’s water is often sweeter
on these western roads.

my bones shall rise up anchors,
my feet are at the threshold,
and disaster warms our sails.

irony's arrow.

sooner or later, the irony hits you like a nail through the palm
all these years of swallowing pills have led you to this point.
take one path, another.
are they not reflections of the same face
in the mirror of fate?
martydom is your best colour
and you wear it so well.
with time, you learn the meaning of obedience
painfully, remorsefully,
trying to pinpoint the day
this wicked ball of yarn may have started
to unravel.
like a widow folding her hands
you begin to acquire the grace of resignation
as if death is already behind you,
as if you have faced its glorious gates,
and returned to tell the tale.

measures & scales.

Now I know it's not the player but the music that I miss.

chances.

oh, but I am just a dreamer wearing sensible shoes
and I still dream in colour even though I sing the blues.

the moon and the owl.

before they think of every endeavor
be it bright or be it subtle light
night and its insides sprawl across
the blue horizon
adding only black
to the face of a serious pale sky.

we're proof of it.

my life without you
is an endless wait in a medical office waiting room --
sterile, ornateless --
not lonely exactly, but filled
with crying children and miserable adults.
A room without a doctor,
a prescription,
or even a diagnosis,
just hour upon hour
of emptiness without end.
There is no solution for this kind of wait;
no absolution.

A ticking clock on the wall,
a spotless floor, a large window.
I'm attempting to settle
into this new reality
like a home.

redhead.

what does she mean she don't need the proof of my failure?

mt. st. vincent.

this is how I feel about academia: along the way you lose a few.

so what?

like a face.

What I wish for you
is nothing but fraud and petulance, camphor in
your proceedings, a brick in your mailbox, a wicked
bitter woman stealing your truck.

-- Erica Bernheim

the long way.

I cannot love you all and I won't.

The shoulder knows the will of the heart and its way around
a crowd. The clam-soft give. The crack of the shell.

Help me recognize your humanity -- talk in a low slow voice,
wave your lunch bone arms.

The children with keys at collarbone are building fires
in the tunnels, forts at every junction.

Let them go. The way is littered with leftovers --
pale white stalks, tender volva. Pick one. Another.

There are other ways home.

Brushed metal canines, the gate, will score
what you can afford to leave behind.

Impress me with your stones, your height.
The sweet dip of your neck.

All that you love,
keep high.

-- Union Station, Dani Couture.

corneal damage.

you are the eye that sees itself
in the cold light of early morning.
you have no shame, remorse,
but no love either.
be cautious in your daily proceedings,
as you may discover
you had forgotten the difference
between a thief and a politician,
a friend and a salesperson.
may you never be graced
with the curse of nostalgia, regret or reflection.

one day you might wake up to discover
you had been tying your shoes
with a dead man's hand;
you will stumble out of cabs and buses
and mistake a bright and low-hanging moon
for a streetlamp.

I had the blues, but I shook them loose.

sooner or later a bright day comes
and it digs into the cellar of the darkest hearts
that it is more rare than it is true.

burial.

I have joined the ranks
of fugitives, flightless birds, abandoned relations,
and orphaned diaspora.
at last, I have been thrown into adulthood
to live this grief by pretending that it doesn't exist,
by repeting
that most of us live like this.
no scholar can calculate
the distance between us
or the precise amount of time
it takes to cross it.
my life without you is a contorted animal carcass
on the road to nowhere.
you have set me free
like a hound into the empty field
with no aim.
I want to be a funeral director
so I can relive this death again and again.
I want know if it ever ends.

protection spells.

bleak, expansive, dust-blown lyricism with a heavy emphasis on haunted introspection: I would like this to be my jacket cover summary or tombstone.

why are we stopping on this road?

there has never been a good night for letting you friends down
there has never been a good night for being cheap
there has never been a good night for ripping people off
but there ain’t no law against it
obviously you don’t see no law against it
obviously you haven’t seen nothing wrong with it.

your love is like

the bright and distant refinery flame:
intense, never-ceasing, and a stark reminder
of things sacrificed along the way.
a wavering mirage in the hot dry Alberta air;
a mixed blessing.
too dangerous to get up close
for fear of explosion,
yet a comforting silhouette
for those seeking the way home.
a beacon, a singpost, a warning.
I don't know what to do with this kind of love.

where I want to be.

the space between your exhales,

1/3 of the city lives alone.

the dull glow of Costco lights remind me of my life without you.
these aisles filled with people whose eyes are emptily
searching for another fill,
these evenings spent
picking various fast-food outlets, like jewels.
drive for the sake of driving,
keeping death at bay,
like some sort of Jorge Semprun novel.
I am not lonely, but I am lone
some.
I am not proud of myself, but this is how I get through winter.

this poem

is for all those Albertans wishing they lived in BC:
take me with you.

along the way you lose a few.

I would like to believe my entire life is a struggle between worldly desires and the effort to make myself as empty and shallow as possible. Free from wanting to be.

animal spirits.

you love is like a dog
wandering the streets of Calcutta:
wild and untamed, and always hungry for more.

your love is the freshwater carp
in Lake Michigan -- an undesired visitor,
remorseless, strong, bull-headed
I cannot tell most days if I am the ill-fated
waters of Lake Ontario, suspended in anticipation
of attack,
or the shores of Mississippi
mournfully observing
your departure.

a suitcase of stones.

If I could make a necklace of your teeth,
I would wear it like diamonds,
like prizes of days spent
being made smaller & sharper,
like a photograph.
You wanted to be a photographer
and I only a lens,
an eye between Descartes & Newton,
never to succumb to Art History Laws.
Instead, I accepted the scars with piety
and devotion, like a bird
in the black garden of thorns.
Focus & shutter, precision & clarity:
virtues that lead to redemption.

how soon is now?

To change the world I would like to _________________________________
Wouldn't it be great if I could ______________________________________
Someone with purpose who I admire is ______________________________
I would have satisfaction in my life if I could ______________________________

white as diamonds.

some hearts are ghosts settling down in dark waters
just as silt grows heavy and drowns with the stones

shallow work is the work that I do.

Behind us, we left downfalls and sunsets.
All we need now is an unnoticed, invisible take-off.

I thought to myself, smoking a borrowed cigarette,
whatever happens, I'd only like to see the sun rise.

And so, go ahead,
jump on my back with a knife, from the trees --
it's wasted effort; even with a cut throat,
I will manage to see the sun rise.

We walked on the edge, then, so as not to slaughter them all, sleeping,
and suddenly I noticed, when they cleared the way:
a single, still green, unformed, yet responsive
sunflower
already turned its head
toward the east.

the numbers still add up.

List of great record titles c. 2009.

Bombay Bicycle Club // I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose
Damien Jurado // And Now That I'm in Your Shadow
Frightened Rabbit // The Midnight Organ Fight
Daddy A Go Go // Eat Every Bean and Pea on Your Plate
Lambchop // How I Quit Smoking
Badly Drawn Boy // Have You Fed the Fish?
Man Man // Rabit Habits
Cracker // Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey
Jason Lytle // Yours Truly, The Commuter
Paul Westerberg // PW & The Ghost Gloves Cat Wing Joy Boys
Major Lazer // Guns Don't Kill People... Lazers Do

the clock still runs clockwise.

Spinnin’ tops and weirdo magnets: a song for Buck 65


We didn’t want to be rapper thugs. We simply wanted to listen to records and cruise in an old ‘65 Buick (you know the science). Buck-y dun gun. We had no stellar moves, only some hand waves and steps jivin’ wit da musik in da livin’ room. Yo. Bring it back in style, said the poet who was not a poet. This isn’t rap and this isn’t musik. We went to no spoken word performances (what the hell is dat anywayz?) or concerts. We knew all the words by heart, even the math equations: Sum over shuffle sigma sign of sigma times open bracket A sigma one A sigma two A sigma n close bracket plus B one B two minus n equals zero. Can you imagine if people actually talked like dis? Jesus. We were no b-boys, sk8trs, jocks, emo punks, indie kids, cool dudes. We bought those records with our own money and wore holes into them. When we got older, the CDs remained. We remembered pieces of those text fabrics: “if they don’t begin to pedal, ‘cause when rain hits the metal, the parts that are wet’ll corrode if the drops settle.” We still knew da beats.