A tree grows up from infinity. It branches out in cotton puffs of green. Which drop snow over lemonade. Until sorrow overturns the season to pink petals. Which land on the fox’s nose. Who sneezes. Each drops with purpose to the moss floor. They strike a long path through the tangled wood. Shielded …
This Dream of Ours Shines Fireflies: A Poem for Wanderers
This dream of ours sits on the water
buoyed by a flame of fireflies.
They dance on the edge of vision
before fading into the arms of the moon.
This dream of ours lives in legs of wood
framed in firelight. Making dawn out of darkness.
It feels smooth in a fist of hope at the edge of the lake
where we stand. Ready to walk the waves
and rise with the fireflies.
Into starlight, beyond thought.
This dream of ours. It breathes
sparks of fire light and flies into a sky.
That we touch with every hand which grasps wood
and walks on, into this dream of ours.
Calm as the Lone Rose in a Garden: A Poem for Introverts
Calm as the Lone Rose in a Garden
When the world echoes in one ear
out the other runs a voice
swinging in a flapper dress.
You have no choice to put on a show. Offs
any notion of peace.
And when they say, just carry on, the voice
runs a marathon of laughter.
It says, in a whisper haunting each step,
You’re an ant on a boot which walks the Milky Way.
Remember that. When you think you’re okay.
You try to scream for the red stop light.
But the voice careens mind,
metallic bits of self. Scatter, clatter, fall.
Bounce once. Bounce twice.
And they say, just carry on.
We don’t see any blood.
So you carry on, because the blood’s in your head.
Always there, dripping.
but outside you aren’t slipping.
It stays in the cave of the mind.
Stalactites and stalagmites grown through.
Waiting to spear you thrice the next time
you trip in life.
When the world echoes in one ear
out the other runs a voice
swinging in a flapper dress.
Your legs are not yet chopped. Don’t be weak.
Says the voice. The lights are up, the music started.
Just carry on.
Just carry on shouting to silence.
You’re only an echo.
A rose reflected in a camera lens.
In the Autumn I Walk Up the Mountain: A Poem for the Seasons
In the autumn, I walk up the mountain over dusty track, scratched with dry grass. Here I survey my world. It tumbles under me, in spatters of red, gold, evergreen then shatters. At the crest of the lake, shifting colour from sockeye salmon to rainbow trout. The sun sits in the far country, where the …
Muse: Upon the Mighty Quest for the Perfect Pool
Background
On the eve of my adventure to the UK for two years I went down to the dock below the house I grew up in. It fronts onto Kalamalka Lake in Vernon, British Columbia.
It’s a popular spot for tourists all over the world, but to me, it was dry, dull home. I rarely go down to that beach and that twilight. But as I sat on the dock and looked over the water, to all the mountains rising above the valley, I realised life is only as perfect as we decide to see it.
The Mighty Quest for the Perfect Pool
I made myself a swimming pool.
Long and deep as the sea.
I made it warm as bathwater
but as clear as the waves of Tenerife.
I made it for an afternoon
when life got long, grey and rough.
Like sandpaper concrete and construction
work that means no thought is free of a
cuss.
I made it and waited for the perfect
day. Sat on the edge. Toes dipped in.
I waited for the clouds to pull back
and sun to shine as white as a beluga
fin.
I waited so long my toes turned to
prunes
and dozed my way through the day. After
day.
After day. After day.
Until a friend stopped by. Head popped
over the fence.
Can I swim in your lagoon today?
I looked askance. Lagoon? I had but a
round, sterile pool.
I looked at my pool next. Eyes wide as
they soaked in water.
Full of weeds and algae. Fish and
fronds. A monkey and a waterfall tree.
I had waited so long to think my pool to
perfection.
It got there fine on its own.
It got there so fine it had started
living its own life.
Quite done with my bothering not to live
my own.
So if you make yourself a swimming pool.
Don’t forget to swim in it too.
Otherwise the dream will get bored and
do its own thing,
until someone comes along with a dream
to add to.
My friend has a lagoon pool now.
Sometimes I visit.
But I decided to make myself a tree fort
instead.
As tall and grand as the sky.
Only this time. I’ll remember to swing
off the branches.
Play football with the stars. Before
construction ends.
I’ll make myself a tree fort.
Rain Drops and Coffee Stains: A Poem for Cozy Days
Rain Stains Somewhere between chin on hands, elbows on table and the rattle and whistle of the world’s kitchen, I breath coffee. And know. I exist. Somewhere between the dream of I will and the thought of I want, I snort sugar. And laugh. I walk. Somewhere between the bedroom dance of nine o’clock dark …
Could Dream
When I was five I wanted to be a cat. So I could reach the sun and climb the apple trees. When I was ten I wanted to be a ninja. So I could leap from rooftops and defeat evil. Looking back I just wanted a katana. A samurai might have been better. …
Unknown, We Live by Soaring, Never Stopping, Always Exploring: A Poem
The Unknown, We Live
In the Blue Mountains Where the moon never sets. They say there lies treasure.
Far beyond the green land, the lakes, the rolling hills. The horses.
I travel the sink sand of faces on trains.
Getting lost in crowds. This yo-yo world.
We live as. Rocking horse horrors for a circus show tale.
Sometimes creaking around nineteen-seventies hotel corridors.
All beige and yellow diamond patterns. With cigarette stains.
As I travel, teachers giggle in corners, throwing wit and sarcasm
about classroom doors. Sometimes searching in drawling accents
for accommodation on a bike trip to Paris. A village called Groomsville.
Population sixteen hundred and seven. Website, under construction,
please contact Peter O’Toole (no not that one), at 07543 677 677.
That equals all the sums. Total, planet Earth’s existence.
A yo-yo, ukulele and back-packing bicycle trip to Paris.
What’s treasure to you?
Out here in the Blue Mountains. Where the moon never sets.
Note Left on the Door for a Hero: A Poem for Confidence
It is, if you like, seduction.
To feel flesh part
as a spoon through pudding.
Life. Blood. Sinking deeper.
Every lap of the dragon’s tongue
like a kitten’s caress. A kitten called Death.
So I want you to remember
as you stand.
During the rain of lightning
under the burning sun.
Time is ancient
in the eyes of young.
Long ago, we painted unicorns.
In a monkey bar imaginarium,
as red as ballerinas’ lips.
Bloody orange rinds
peeled back to an overgrown palace.
But then, you left. The sun is burning.
Buried beneath a million skins of paint.
A million molecules of sand.
Not a single one red. To mark your footsteps.
No more does the unicorn fly.
No more does the horn sound in the valley.
Shadows filch laughter into a iron chest
where deep below, the dragon whispers.
Why bother living when shadow
eats shadow.
The sun has burned.
Do you see me?
I stand here. Gaze reflected
on a world. Drenched in Rapunzels. Who drown in Shallot.
A Sisyphus world, where the children
of Fenrir walk the streets.
People sleep with open eyes.
Why bother
when the sun has burned
into a million grains of sand.
I am a waste of oxygen.
Counting eternity with every dance
between knife and flesh.
No. I want you to bother
because your blood drains
still. So still. Ever still.
It fills lakes, feeding dungeons
with drachma.
It is the metal which forged rings.
It is the lightbulb. Like a star,
that blinks and gazes from the window.
Calling you, oh foot-swept traveller, home.
When you hear the wind whisper
a dragon’s sweet nothings.
When the headless maid speaks
of posies and pockets.
When the raven cries blood
nailed to your door.
When the swan trumpets victory
bought with a thousand ships.
And you flee as a hopoe to the cloud
cuckooland.
Rise up, out of the ashes. Singing.
I want you to remember
as you stand.
During the rain of lightning
under the burning sun.
Time is ancient
in the eyes of young.
So when you next greet seduction
hear me call
We are all just stories
in the end.
Leftovers: A Memory Mused
I lost Life. Possibly down the side
between clock and computer.
Occupied scrolling photos,
making love to memories.
As if they made stretched
cirriform clouds.
That made overhead
personalized flurries.
Complete with lightning.
Ripe for paparazzi.
Nimbus clouds, too.
Whirling with baby snuffles
Rhyming to a mobile
Trilling Chopin.
Because babies need education.
In the Art of Angst.
I think Life might have dropped down the toilet.
Last week I lost my toothbrush.
My reflections fault.
I lost count of my pores. How many pixels
before I resemble sand?
I make up a tossed salad
Of halogen lightbulb dust.
A teaspoon of room temperature milk.
My body overheats to the taste
Of blue cheese electronics.
Blend and repeat.
Tie up the ribbons.
Dance with your childhood before
the grave drops life down the roots of a flower.