Tag Archives: life

Dying Beliefs

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Dying on a Monday
like a battery
a moth
a match
a monarchy.

Dying like
a bombing comedian
embracing the inevitable
as if it were
a plastic comb in the sink
or a large fuzzy mascot.

Dying
on the pavement waiting
for a meandering street sweeper or a
half-drunken janitor
to lethargically
collect what is left
of this detritus
this tangle of limbs
this withering ruckus.

Dying
to sing like the bird on the sill
just don’t want the reviews.

Dying to beat
the crowd
the drums
the record
the crossword.

Dying in the sun
and in the rain
and in the filth of your charade.

Dying on wholesale
at Costco
aisle 4:
the album
the musical
the sitcom of your life.

Dying beliefs
painting my clown face
with all of the things
I’ve done yesterday.

Dream Home

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Inside there are
books piled upon
books piled on
tables.

Broken calculators
blanket the floor.
Factory beige.

Cracks run underneath.
Insects chatter.
Moss grows.

Dead flowers in black vases
grace midnight windows
under fluorescents strips.
A lurid spectacle.

Dusty mirrors show long neglect.
reflections shunned like criminals.

A staircase descends into darkness
on the other side of a door
torn from its hinges.

All the floors
beneath the floors
and rooms behind
rooms behind walls
change between visits.

A stranger not certain
what they should wear.

Webs in darkened corners.
suggest larger things.

An empty trophy case lingers
at the far wall
crumbling
like a forgotten receipt
in a back pocket.

Close as a buried trauma.

Once the wind gets into this place
things become scattered.
Unmoored.

Once the night comes in
it’s hard to get it out
and it’s hard to understand
why.

At The End Of Our Dream

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Mist white as a neighbour’s lie
spooks the immediate field of snapped hay strands
beyond the red-roofed townhomes
-rows of white walls facing down on
yards sloping towards me
sparsely populated by chickens with no heads.

A grey horse with an unruly mane arises
from lying on its side in a side alley
and ambles its way towards me.

It has no face
no eyes no mouth.

As I arrive at the dark sodden earth
of a farmer’s field where the houses ended
I knew that it was the end of the dream as well
and that there would be nothing beyond the tree line
etched into a morosely still overcast.

If I continued onward
I would simply awaken
and that this was what the end would be like
-it was not frightening or sad
but just was

and that in my life when I passed
I would simply be awakening from this dream
-our dream,
and I would end up here
somewhere passed those farmer’s fields.

I would go without struggle and
without ceremony

because this is
how things truly are
beyond the curbs and the lights
and the boxes in which everything has been placed
and carefully labelled.

A figure was approaching
from beyond the trees.
A tall, gaunt shape in no hurry.
It is not time to meet them yet
but they will come
as does the night.
As calm as a still sea.

Turning back I see
that the path had changed
from when I came.

The way back home
is a little longer.

It always is.

Father

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In the cold air
In the night
In the yard
Seeing my father out there
standing
facing me
with his eyes closed

He pulls down the
oxygen mask on his face
so that it dangles
below his neck

The hospital gown loosely
hangs onto him
Exposing his white chest
just like I last saw him

“Thank you for coming. Thank you so much for being here.” 
He said
and I can still hear it
everyday
in traffic
brushing my teeth
as I lie in bed and wait
for sleep

I didn’t know it at the time
but
those were his last words to me
before the monitors started flashing
the machines started beeping
and the nurses came rushing in
as he closed his eyes

A light switching off
on a living room family portrait
growing increasingly further away
until last words
are all that is left

He says something else now
He says it every day that
I’m here
And I’m trying to but
I still can’t hear it

Over all of this bullshit
that I call myself

but he's always been
standing right in front of me
the whole time.

Moment

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No matter how fast
you can’t catch it.

No matter how strong
you can’t lift it.

You can’t bottle it
You can’t measure it.

You can’t change it
and you can’t fix it.

But you can hold it
as long as you want to.

Some people
never let it go.

Like me.

So many times I
could have done it
differently.

So many moments
that I never left.

Things and People and Pets

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It catches up to you
over time
-the accumulation of things and people
and pets.

It just happens.
They spring up out of nowhere
like dirty habits
and Walmarts.

When you eventually own a home
some kids would be running around it.
They might even be yours.

No, you don’t know their names.
That’s what your wife was for
(Martha, wasn’t it?).

There may be a cat sauntering about
‘OMG THERE’S A FUCKING CAT!!’
‘We’ve had Buster for ten years.’ Your wife (Martha?) would say.

You look in the driveway.
There used to be one car.
Now there’s four.
Why do we need so many cars?

Why does the fridge have a screen
and the gerbil an Instagram account?

All these questions need answers!
And problems solutions!
But you don’t get solutions
even when you pay for them.
You only get more problems.

Things start to move too fast.
It becomes disorientating.
debilitating.

Suddenly you’re a tortoise
without a shell and it may
be best to hide in the basement
until this all blows over

in twenty years.

Introspection

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The head sinks
and disappears
between the shoulders.

The mind recedes into
a dark empty garage.

The hands freeze into fists
involuntarily and
legs threaten to abandon
the body.

The world becomes
all concrete and clowns.

Where is peace?
Where is your soul
but at home?

Just remember that
after you close and lock
the front door

shutter all the windows
pull down
the shades.

After you dim the lights
turn off the television
the radio and
close your eyes
upon the world
and yourself in it:

people
places
things

they never truly stop
bothering you.

Even when you’re alone.

Especially when you’re alone.

The door never fully
closes.

It all gets in
somehow
and stays there.

Lingering
across time and space

like dust in sunlight.

The Great Upending

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When it breathes
upon your window
and smiles

When it strolls in
through the unlocked
patio door
between the curtains
like a breeze
like breath

When it comes
walking barefoot
towards your bedroom

When it crawls
between the sheets
and settles in

When it takes
your hand
like the hand of a child

and it whispers
in your ear

What do you know
about anything
at all now?

The moment
it becomes
a living thing
breathing all over you

Your soul
suddenly
a piece of glass
falling
into a great black sea

Unexpected
it arrives
as a storm
at your window
a hound
at your door
a stranger
in your bed

The moment
that everything
changes

that you never saw
coming

I Am

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I float along
as a seed in the wind
a cloud in the night
a dream in the mind of a child
floats.

I am alone
fading into silence
a flash of light
in the darkness
a blast from a trumpet
a circus
a rocket
a riot.

I am
a drop of rain
on a weathered stone
an eye
through a keyhole
a wick in the candle
a gamble.

I am a face
in the window
a ghost
in the attic
a breeze
from the cellar
a bridge
and a river.

I am a saviour
a strangler
a stranger.

I am
the lifting of the curtain
the elucidation
the burden.

I am
the last bedroom light on
in the house
in this neighbourhood
in this world.

I am this world.