1 New Poem

So Well You Take It

This tangle swings open, about,

rusting screen door slamming

in causeway bravery breeze,

the meeting across rickety

pizza shop tables in broken

tumbling slot-blind, the still

life snapshot I take of

rolling hillside slopes,

how they remind of bittered

white branch sawed, hanging

in half-steps, up to bright

suburban siding, up to darker

alleyways stirring in the limelight,

and back criss-crossing the

Interstate Highways.

Your Midwest accents keep a

flame, stain smoke on the billboard

backings, between city spires.

1 New Poem

Kitchen Fixtures

It's those dragging-sharp knives,

those stinging cuts soaked in

kosher salt licks, acidic pungent

of spices tangled on tongue,

that take me, cap in hand,

to again the cobblestone corner,

the wildly-walked pacer's place,

you take in still bed sheet crease.

Homecooked presence staining memory,

there was your hand in handle,

wishing upon tablecloth settings

we could share in that heart smoulder's

glow, that quick candle-shadow

diamond commercial silhouette,

the coupling kind for those who've

never worried an egg timer's second

of diving a foursome's cookbook

for one.

1 New Poem

Space for Pill Bottles

This flushed, spiced blood reeling

back, boxer's punch glove in

still-life smile, made the bones

more visible day by day, watch hand

by green oven clock light,

never could quite tear from plastic

hands, never could push away your

candy-sweets and oiling slosh.

When you'd nail your will name

to the Lord's house door, shameful

in the Sunday tea time sun, I'd

take down to thumb the pages clean

of ink shrivel wrapping blank stain

left in fingerprint cascades, the

same marking of greasy tripwire

facade you fake in the theatre hour.

1 New Poem

City Blueprints

There still panics the crystalline glow

of Mac's Milk CIBC instant teller

flickers, hearts pounding a pulse

increased by measure stick, pressure cup,

bitter over stage-fright sweats, nothing

you were

calmly embarked, canoeing clank,

river's middle in the ever-flowing

effervescence of time, clinging to

branch and vine before the concrete

poured, the gun powder bleached,

boots trammeled

the navy blue shimmer, chest medal

and all we wore in splendour ignorance,

all vestige tumult spilling down the

stoplight corridor crossing, Popsicle

stick and chewing gum twine in

living construction.

1 New Poem

Floating Weeds

It's still amazing, the speeding grace

the kind of hum-drum bleat the Gatineau

gypsy cab clamour has to me,

a river's rhythm unheard but to

an ear attuned past cruder shouts,

past tick-board tin clatter,

to shaded eyes it draws forever in

coattail chasers, dreamers and all.

It makes your half-bent heresy some mocking

wake of itself, blonde lock in blue framing,

scolding the untamed space this bricken tangle

used to be, in all form of torch-light ache.

I float with my fingers, though, ivory

on spring-chord clang against the newness

of skin-touch, against the brutalist

fires you conjure in places long hidden.