Litany.

We are two abysses -- a well staring at the sky. (Pessoa, Book of the Disquiet.)

some things last a long time.

Your picture is still on my wall.
The colors are bright
as ever.

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.