Tag Archives: mental health

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

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Daydreamer

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Daydreamer
with my eyes up to the sky
slowly slipping away
from the earth
when the pull
becomes too much.

This anti-gravity
gravity
gently tugging me
out from the room
up through the window
and into the clouds.

Weightless,
untethered,
I fall upwards
enveloped in blue.

Carefree;
I have become
so far away
-a ghost from a childhood story
living above the rain.

No time.
No fear.
No regret.

I’m never coming back
down
to this place.

At times
old,
webbed,
dead.

A vacant lot.
An abandoned garage.

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.

In Defiance of Everything

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My cat just lies there
as the mice run free and wild
copulating all over the lawn
as the birds fly into the windows
and throughout all the rooms
with an air of casual ease
and the dogs knock down the fences
shit on the deck
and light cigars.

My cat just lies there
as the pool pump is broken
the finances are in ruins
the shed is on fire
and the vacuum salesman is back.

My cat just lies there
as the rich eat the poor
as machines eat the planet
as the forests burn
from Asia to LA
and democracies crumble
like wet sand through hungry fingers.

My cat just lies there
as I grapple with
the five year plan
the taxman
the diet
the front door
-the weight of
being human

Now
my cat and I
are both lying there
on the floor
on our backs
on a sunlit patch of linoleum
together
in defiance of everything.

My cat Knowing that the
secret to existence
and endurance
is a fine meal
and some good rest.

And perhaps
forgetting everything else
for a little while.

Sitting Here Beside You

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I struggle internally
With things of no real importance.

Take, for instance
That tonight the moon
Is important
The fire before us
Is important
The music, yes, the music
Is always important
The wine the wine the wine
Might be of some importance
Our friends
So important

And you beside me
Well,
That’s most important of all

And I want to be here
Right now
In every way

Because one day
I won’t be here
You won’t be here
The fire will be gone

Funny that I think of
such sad things
Funny that I steal time
from myself away
from where I should be
funny that I do that
at times like these

funny I can’t help it.

You of Raging Self-Importance

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A piranha in a power shirt.
A vacuum cleaner salesman at midnight.
An emperor at a garage sale

at my door
under my car
in my backyard
down my shirt

ten carat
thousand watt
billboard
colgate
prime time
smile

It’s never enough
to rule the world
ask anybody
at the chalet.

All of you
of raging self-importance:

I am tired.
You need to stop
being so rich.

I’m running up a
descending escalator.

I’m always out of breath
out of time
out of mind.

I’ve got to get to work.
I’ve got to survive.

I lost my shoe…

Welcome To America

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It could be my father.
It could be the traffic.
It could be your skin.
I’ve got a gun.

It could be tomorrow.
It could be today.
It could be right now.
I’ve got a gun.

It could be a church.
It could be a school.
It could be a stadium.
I’ve got a gun.

It could be a stranger.
It could be a neighbor.
It could be your son.

And I’ve got a gun.

Lost and Found and Lost Again

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Poetry like
a fierce violin or
a gunshot and then silence.

Poetry like
an atomic bomb
inside of the skull
-blinding,
incinerating.

Poetry that
like a night river
takes you with it
wherever it may go.

Poetry that
after you let it in
never leaves.

Poetry
that will make you abandon God
leave your wife and kids at the airport
steal.

Poetry that will make you
rich
with madness.

Where is it?
Where is it?

It’s definitely not in this salad.

It’s not down the fire escape or
under the sink.

It’s not in your flatulent rhetoric.

No, no, no…

It’s in a child’s pencil.
It’s in her laughter at the station.
It’s in the myriad shapes
of the breaking waves at dawn.
It’s in the lilies and the lawnmowers.

It’s in the way we always
fall apart after the miracle
of coming together.

It’s in the defeated posture of
a torn curbside recliner.

It’s nowhere
but everywhere.

I never tire of finding it.
I’m always looking.

Lost and found and
lost again.

Like me.

Corporate Melancholy

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Oh, but to button up your salmon shade shirt
as first light suffuses the sky
to grab your leather case
to head out into the utilitarian
concrete venues
the slow murder of the freeway
the stone faces behind desks
the clerks the admins the accountants
the space between eyes like
air between walls
the cubicles lashed together
under fluorescent strips of lights.

The unsettling labyrinth of hidden voices
hitting their sales targets.

It can skew your sanity
itch at your primordial mind
that this isn’t and never
was intended to be
the way for us so long
hidden under rocks and leaves
our soul.

This isn’t really you
beneath this artificial skin
thin as paper on a desk
but the children require cellphones
and your wife a new look.

As slowly your face
moulds into that shit-eating grin while
thanking your next client
your blood wants blood
your past cannot forgive you.

You measure yourself
with false advertisements

and spend all night
locked in dreams
mocking your life.