without a word

Some know,
though they stay quiet
They meet your eyes
steadily, knowing you know,
they would change it
if they could
let the comfort slip off
and stand flayed and flawed
as they see you,
past the layers of nuance
you worked a lifetime
to layer into a thick bark
now peeling away
under their gaze
leaving you breadth
to forgive and
breathe again

all (a)part

A few steps on
and details will blur
The errors and slurs
looking back will concur
It was just life
making itself heard
above the din of clinking
glasses raised to chins
under eyes glancing
to catch sight of daggers
advancing to nail them
to a whim for the night
Some are flung,
some take flight
from the orbits of ones
skillful at hunting
for fillers and props
to their cheap thrills
While others watch
the slaughter of hearts,
uttering remarks behind
napkins drawn to lips,
hungering to be part
of the scene

tuning out

I’m a master of last words
gone unheard
Running faster
towards disaster
than fall leaves under foot
Still, I stop to capture
stillborn laughter bursting
forth from yet another
struck dumb with wonder
at their footing crumbling
and the bridge giving way

I stopper the song
from seeping into my veins
It cannot stirr my senses
to see through the haze
I tune into debates
on the uselessness of faith
And think of time wasted
waiting for change
to come from beyond
and release me from blame

peripheral

You kissed me
in the cold, or maybe
it wasn’t that cold, or maybe
we had stood outside too long
that spring night,
but it was night, and we were
under the street lamp.
And the kiss did pre-empt dawn.
And I said nothing. As I said
nothing everytime after.
Because I saw everything
and couldn’t tell
which or what was, only
all that could be, and
it all jostled funneling
to my gut where everything
churns and eventually drains. Everything except
the wisp of breath that rose
from that first kiss
and joined the stars
to be what was
for one moment
a bright spot among
all of them doomed
to entropy.
And still, sometimes
when I look steadfast
at guiding Polaris, I can see
a twinkle taunting
in the periphery, vanishing
when I try to fix on it.
Perhaps, it too, is
no longer there.

in living colour

The violence of violet
and pink glimpses
of things best hidden
from accusing yellow
fester under the umber
of experience and
the bitter rust of sienna
excreting ochre
in their secret shame
as blue and green
span blamelessly on

bricolage

Thinking yellow
on cyan blue and white
breathe simple
apple blossom smiles
Fingers pulling away
freeze and burn in layers
For special effects
peel splinters
from their body
Spiking laughter
indigo and umber
rusts in creases
Corrosion-blocked clots
blood-red on concrete
Discrete bittersweet
bulbs culled and mulled
in a broth of thoughts
hurriedly swallowed

word on the street

To know one was to ask, “What street are you from? “While our parents asked each other what province or which village, those were fabled places. The street was where we were from.
Each street had its ball game (dodgeball on De L’épée, badminton on Champagneur, wall tennis on Durocher). Each street had its rules : the stumps to Tony’s yard, count to twenty, no tagging, for hide and seek; no leg lift, no cartwheels below ear level, for jumpsies. Each street had its boogeyman: the lame bachelor, the rhinoceros woman, the babushka witch. Each street had its token WASP: Brian, Richard, Lianne crossing our orbits like comets leaving trails hinting at a world beyond these streets, whose rules were interpreted through the word on the street. And the word on the street was sacred.
Word on one street said it was suicide, on the other, too much drinking. Word on one street said he touched kids there, on the other, he was on too many pain meds to ever care. Word on the street said she was a slut, an atheist, a communist. The word trickled down from the balconies where our mothers hung laundry on the lines, the pully wheels squeaking in punctuation. The word was passed with the dime bags from the half rolled down windows of the Trans Am that floated down one street, up the next until wanton hope was subdued for the day. The word rose from the smoke of fathers washed and ironed, watching over their cars in case kids used them as benches, as each waited to be called in for supper. The word was tossed onto doorways by older kids on bikes who had earned the right to ride up and down streets other than their own. Sometimes they followed the tranny. The word was fluid and swift, changing shape to suit the giver, changing aim to fit the target. The word was unstoppable and the message the same. This is where you are from.

Inspired by rag tag daily prompt

after the day John Lennon died

The morning after the day John Lennon died, we dolled up for another dull school day. “Imagine” played from every speaker we crossed: the café where we skipped our first class; the ice rink where we spent gym class; the radio of Eva’s boyfriend’s Monte Carol, (I hate this fucking song, he said turning it off at the first “ooohhoooo”); and at the diner after school, where we avoided home, gathered like crows pecking over one order of fries with gravy. That’s when I brought up what the song was about. “Who gives a shit what you imagine, God exists, and this is what is” Eva retorted, dropping the last of the three fries into her mouth.

Beyond our reflection in the storefront window, the first of many snow flakes fell and melted.

upturn

Renovations are fully underway,
Buldosers, shovels,
boards and trenches splayed
with no hint of design
I look for metaphors
to turn ruin
to revelation
But see the debris,
of the house torn down
upon which ours was built
Wires, broken bricks and tiles
jutting out of clumped mud
As winter whispers
of sink holes
and fresh starts,
elsewhere, away

sum (some?) worth

I startle at the beep thinking someone is calling, but it’s just Aida prompting for input. I still get fooled, after all these years. It’s been months since someone voice-called me and then, it was an automated survey. Some smaller independents and luxury providers still use human callers, but the permission forms are odiously arduous and they still have to link in their data.

I’ve lost my flow. Game over. The stats will be skewed but they will know why and adjust them. I need to reach my participation quota by supper to skip having to watch a series. Two years ago you could still do stuff with it on in the background if you had stuff and room to do them, that is. But then they added the expression recognition and eye tracking to this participatory service too.

This is what most of us do now to receive our Contribution Allowance. We participate in the CommUnity. Of course you can opt out, but then you have to pay for premium access with alternative revenue from an external contract job, or win the lottery, same odds. This post will earn me about an hour of off-line or untracked activity, if I get enough likes. But few still like the truth.