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| fall comes in a whirlwind of strobe lights, leaves - panicked! frantic dancing between crunching feet in fits of multicolored hallucinations; sharp colors bursting into iris like crimson daffodil pumpkin red yellow orange wind trumpets, river-water provides a string orchestra my hands are the percussion section, seizuring in two-two, six-eight, three-quarter time, trying to catch these frenzied ballerinas hip-hopping the rumba salsa tango foxtrox jazz-jive boogie-woogie on the blue backdrop, the sky stage that shifts and swirls to black and then -- ! here are the kettle drums, the rumbling thunder bass line, strings pick up to provide harmony to the electric guitar rock god in the lightning filled sky. soon it will be winter, and the symphony will be muffled by the snow. | | |
| aurora is what i will call my daughter, named for the green lights that fill the fall sky
crisp with the smell of campfire smoke
and burning leaves. she will be a dancer, graceful body bending to
the contours of the earth like the northern lights – gaia and uranus making love above the clouds, their passion refracted into a musical melody piano keys playing scales through the night. she will have eyes like constellations, and the darkest night-skin, black like the ocean, reflecting the polluted stars. her hands will make music, strum guitar strings and
fill houses with magic and darkness | | |
| the sky reminds me of london, blue/red underground,
wind rushing through the tunnel,
train playing catch-up to the leaves in my hair,
lights rocking sleepy travellers into dreams of new places,
their faces pressed against windows
staring at the unfamiliarity of cramped sky and
crowded streets.
we've left airport and train stations behind,
traded dollars and bills for thick gold coins
(heavy in my pockets - i like how they feel
in between my fingers);
and english has become exotic and unfamliar -
same langugage, different words; they have voices like
trombones and movie stars and paperboys. i love the streets that have felt the weight of
hundreds of years of feet,
the way the vehicles and the people fill the streets
[going the wrong way]
(pleasant signs painted on pavement to help you avoid
being killed in the backwards confusion);
and i love the
markets that smell of mothballs and antiquity,
checkered trainers feeling old cobblestone underfoot
indian spices, exotic colors, stray dogs, cigarettes -
pigoens that look like chickens and
squirrels that look like small badgers. how we took the bus to stonehenge and it bounced
down the wrong side of the road, double-decker weight
breaking branches and tossing around its passengers;
and how we crested the hill and there it was
this huge thing that just seemed so surreal, like we
never really believed it actually existed,
and how we wandered through this ancient monument
(to whoever and whenever)
just existing with the rocks and the sky.
or how we visited versailles and
[gaped]
at the gardens that stretched out until you couldn't see -
pools of swans and marble statues,
hidden roads through swarming hedges
flowers that were fairies and trees that were gnomes. there were cathedrals that touched heaven and
crypts that led down the paths to hell,
and in-between we saw the whole of the city
stretched out beneath us [transparent glass]
as the sun set over everwhere we wanted to be,
the only thing separating us from the sky was
a bubble, five hundred feet over the Thames.
we saw castles and queens and rock stars and
girls in punk-rock pinafores and men
with neat blazers and shiny black shoes, hair combed
neatly [tube wind wouldn't dare bother it].
and we rode trains and planes and sang songs about
each other and the london underground,
which was blue and red and
reminded me of alberta's skies.
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| she's somewhere between midnight and thunderstorms,
watching pieces of herself disconnect and slip
into places that she cannot understand; blackness that
doesn't fit in with her neon-and-sparkle life.
she wears red lipstick, reapplying twice a day in
bathroom mirrors, brightens her eyes with green
and hopes the nobody asks her what's wrong
(because she really doesn't know either).
the rain fits her mood, making ripples in puddles
in the mcdonald's parking lot, swirling patterns on
her windshield that are lost with the swoosh/swish
of the wiper blades. her mouth hurts from the salt
but she keeps eating because she thinks maybe
if she's not hungry, this will all go away, and
besides, it's really not that bad for her, is it?
even his hands can't make this feeling go away,
she's pressed against his tshirt and even crying is
too much of an effort. she's deadweight, slumped,
hands clutching desperately for anything she
used to feel. he strokes her hair and whispers love
in her ear, but the night makes this worse and
it's so dark here, so dark outside, so dark inside (her).
she sleeps twelve hours at night and still feels
exhausted; wakes and lies in bed, staring at the
patterns on the stipple ceiling, thinking about
everything that makes her feel this way and how
to make it all just go away (she's hungry again).
she dresses, showers, washes away the mood and
dresses in neon, hoping that nobody will ask her
how she's feeling, or what's wrong. | | |
| wandering eyes bleed poetry on an electronic page,
dazed; smell of lilacs and dollar-store sunshine.
she keeps her memory in black-and-white snapshots,
dizzy angles, fragmented body parts in fluid motion --
fingertips, iris, filaments of fake dyed hair, fingernails,
and knitted hands clutching fuzzy remnants of them.
indicate to what extent each emotion has influenced you today.
these mostly immaterial; recurring metaphors
that just can't live up to her expectations...
she would feel hurt, but it's just a waste of her time;
instead, fills in:
moderate anger; extreme happiness; mild irratibility,
and no, she didn't feel like drinking today.
dancing would be nice, though; nightclub lights, time warp seizure,
smell: sweat, pot, tobacco, semen, vomit, heavy perfume,
cracked lips like eating broken glass from the palm of his hand.
green sugar crystals dissolving the worry, taut cement-heavy emotions
that come when eyes don't meet and tension knots them
tightly apart. now is loud, now is breaking static gravity;
collective goosebumps forming in-between her fingers. | | |
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