2. love’s labour’s lost

XVII Midnight Sun

More than curvature
in the mirror we don’t
see as the other whether
expectations stay or await
viewing and shuffle slides
but I caught you once one
sober after sunset response
and in that countenance lit
by a watt we can’t transfix

Can trance and figure
somnambulance destination
digger of a million lives
bigger than romes catacombs
she roaming goes fitter be-
lower than a tempestuous lion
or bull bitten can bellow and
detect a tremolo in the roar

Here is more than glancing
blows by which pause—
but a light in the attic a
string swinging nursery
stalk of our nocturnal vigil
eternal we can kill an envious
sun on our brilliant approach
a most thoughtful wick still
burns our not quite ordinary
quaternary flicker endures

XVIII Maple Leaf Sugar Sugar

Number one with a rock
candy rocket in the summer
of the moon landing and out
of Montreal of all places to
pen it a tune to the delectable
requisites of sweet things
good enough to eat things we
agonize absences as Anne
and her ice cream and sure
as Hemmy and his absinthe
we do in the name of the
vain species social socialize
and friction floating in flakes

Sugar sugar you sinful
killer of more adoring
partakers than any other
substance you can name
but you’re not to blame for
your compromised position
its in maltodextrin or any
syrup that ain’t from trees
so easy to squeeze copious
bellies unbuckle laughing how
sweet it is can be misleading
as molasses you get stuck in

Extract extricate exclaim
the trick’s not in a sap or lost
in hopefuls knotholes got hold
of bark and boxes biting tims
horton out on a limb now in
widespread production needs
truncation to blend mug smug
or balloon to resume the other
worldly walkabout one small
step for a giant, one leaping
poet or poetess addresses
excesses beyond the leaf—
stand by what stood alone

XIX Cat Paw

Whiskers on kittens we
questioned when we were
kids what is it for but silly
looking loopy with their 24,
12 muzzle flanking pairs
of vibrating hairs testify
from where the air itself is
coming but absurder bare

There are sleek and short
ones short hand drawn on
long shore abandoned man
as a cat arched upon the stick
broom zooming me oh my bad
vibes and reverberation finds
the fatuous feline lie spread
by mouths without the word
fouled as the familiar hood
false howling it involves

An instinctual manner
that has to appeal to you to
me more than fur deep gods
honest curiosity and leaping
without the need of faiths so
graceful display this play is
more amazed with the chaser
as all it entails escapes her

But for how long apart
until the culminated hunt
end, its fulminated prey
tomorrow’s aftertaste when
today‘s is of the flesh re-
membered dismembered mice
and men sometimes sufficed
to advance an end and then some

XX Snowflake

Also thick as snow that snew
that’s new blankets we used
to play in and under no
circumstance should have
lost the snowball fight desire
toss and turned the old toboggan
to her current bugaboo of not
understanding what’s under you

Hyah! and get along
I get to watch it slide
got to get atop and ride
it out a bluster hail that
storms blew or collisions
brew dizziness through ex-
posure or mortified by what
the cold hides vitals gone blue

Class came with paper
folded eight ways and shears
slicing through you cutting out
how much of the design is what
leaves and how much the left
behind grades didn’t rise
naturally but as remnant of
what you naturally believed

Super! Once more the empty
spaces raise empty praises as
you see the new fall fumbled
next to you and through a
window presently stain free
how many seasons just to reach
the blemishless first pack and
have it land or jump from tongues
(at core temps and heads back)

XXI Fireweed

Multiple lessons were branded
into the elemental branches as
yielding as striplings come on
the dangers of a conflagration
and its smoke, toasty doorhandles
and scorched portions of rug
to the floor forlorn if you had
not planned your exit before
the need to route escaped you

What didn’t entirely flee
was desire primeval to play
with fire and its animated
evocations grip me vestigial
evolutionary remnant to revere
the mysterious sway of naked
flame that is not contained
in a chemist’s hypothesis

Fire work wall water side
fighter plug place wood bug
bomb ball arm fly proof light
man brand back to the wild wind
we never fully can cease cross
me heart ignite and burn slow
going over done and through the
moment enticed set alight

Where’s the fire at and what
is all the rush? it’s an archetype
and a memorial torch not just for
the literal deed mere decades there
undertaken, but a lust they can
never contain as the crackle lives
in sizzling you snap to

XXII Falling Star

Asterisk at risk her nova
to the novice stare as fixed
at her just another asteroid
belt she won’t wear your face
a blip among the stellate high
up you were never sent to be
above or even reach starry
eyed as you were raised, a gazer

Star let starlet starlight
look and listen with a jiminy
crick in your neck by shine
taken and starling flight sur-
mise miser my misery ain’t
mine I absentmindedly clung to
until now found a luminescent well
worth a glint in the milky (way!)

Can a star be truly up
sidedown because that was
quite the concern when I was
young and what about counting
the points, five makes for a hand-
ful, six a kick ass shield, less
it seems shapeless more and
definition is squandered but
such was the quandary of
the more enlightened soon
a glare blind and blinding
bending everyone unable to
sleep or wake according to their
case so tense intent on shedding—
wisdom shuffled off like skin
liken the ocean to the night-
sky and when the fire falls
extinguished it isn’t it is
a star
fish

Falling Stars by Rainer Maria Rilke

Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes–do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.

XXIII Harvest Moon (Waning Moon)

May it never be said— and
it never was— that I’m lacking
imagination but this fantasy
of a man in the moon was
someone’s delusion that flew
off my radar patrol car far
out of full gravity that cheese
tale had more credence (to me)

The green green grass
of my valley how tranquil
I pretend to be portend it
is pretty as an omen a mum
wore inside her high cut collar
silvery lining and shining brow
she smiled however low the
rover that she knows sunk
in the floury top of the moon
to you tall she told the pall tale
where there is more than exploring
glory in the incandescent eve

The moon does have a face
incapable of constancy but
not afraid of it. The moon
has faces permanent as
devoided dunes but not
afraid to shift for traffic
and drift and wind will lis-
ten aloud while flotsam is
allowed to pock it but still
a distant sneer, still the luminous
blue immune to importuning
men crossing the empty
boastful of nothing they brought
but the rocks they got off with
imagine that, only gravel kept
them from empty handedness

XXIV Loon Folly Not

I’ve been crazy for so long
without you nobody knows
secrets I’ve been holding on
to till you loomed what and
why as conclusive as the sky
writing behind a victory sprawl
scrawling definitude to cloud
compelling of its own substance
propelling out of sight and check
check pattern monochromatic

Druthers is a word
we jacketed inhabitants
of the bin turn purpose free
absent the evidence of such
a condition or thing and so
it can’t be had as counter can
be sat upon as our hands seem
to be beneath unwieldy straps
this frustrated in-patient slips—
and best laid as was planned
needs lifts flaps it happens—
the surly to fly premeditated
mouths premedicated never dry
neither battery nor brain duh-are
dead and drained— electrified

You are a beauty effortless
to perceive but trying to
obtain many say the same
of lunacy a treat to explain
but demon to exemplify or
is it twisted widdershins
easy to be tricky to tie
to a definition begin to see
a dream may be begun as mad
yet bear import for humanity

XXV Loon (Wanderer)

Divers, diverse, the first in
equal opportunity bloomers
flow or pantaloons look at the
plumage forget your dimorphic
attire or colour, cousin loon,
spot your spot and clutch your
clutch so much depends on
the location of a nest and
we know all about what can
be known above the water
line but not behind and aqua-
line posterior sleeked posterity
post or poster(boy), placard
of all that’s affable in the
laughable and the insane in
faith and black and white (inane)

Divers, assisted by the web
footed pulling you and your
plump body through as stubby
wings try, you airborne and dry
but I’ve seen you struggle to take
off who’s hooting now I won’t
mock the ungainly gainer to
gain altitude you are truly
transmigrant and enduringly
whether the need weather
uneventful or forceful fully
forced to take flight likewise I
leaped and leap who needs feet
to go walking in these hollow
adornments erected in an age
of petroleum and tin, listen in
the call whistling from nothing
but the thought of you within

XXVI Harvest Moon

Transit and occult the moon
and you take the parallactic
view an instrument attuned
to the celestial and frequent
all frequencies freak of nothing
but nature betrayed in these
shades of waning autumn
of face and day and race

Darkness, elbows deepen
in the dirt a hurtful extremis
flirts into the oblivion as man
earthbound and cheek in hand
has respite counted on in long
burning hours of sun to you
the muscle confronts order
with a love only the dumb
can unflinchingly up hold

Stilly we lay us down with
belly to the earth and her
grrrr girth first in mind from
the ground up with forearms
hold your head up more so
the heavier the pull universal
of little notes you made in a
margin of rotational drives
and their upset just a touch
at this distance and whirls
can’t avert her collision

Brighter days and balmy
on the lit side of satellites
you smile at after gleaning all
you have embracing bracing
shoulders to the lower sun
lowered once the reap shows
ribs as crinoline exposed and
we as vivid leaves let go

XXVII Falling Star

Stardust, older than us
and our blue corona looking
always up at particulars that
didn’t fit the system did
not resolve to revolve from
day one reflect the cosmos
composure composition com-
promised by countless suns
reflected reflection lends less
gravity than previous ends

Dust, interplanetary and
cosmic the stuff brushed
off of gods own toolkit stiff
bristle and stiffer chisel still
wedged in an acute millinery
seam you didn’t see from the
outside at the outset madly let
to land on any passing heads
but above all the dazzle of it
all this time life lapses still

Bolder, boulder and debris
to leave, read be left to and all
the kings scientists fall in, to think
to see craters, see devastation
can create or break careers too
bad a serious mind is outside
the convolutions of design or
humour sooner delivered in
extraterrestrial litter we need
play instead of studies to teach
what awaits imaginations and
get the dustpan behind thee
when every volition to sweep
rubs gloss off your handle

XXVIII Fireweed Push

Plant not valued for use or beauty
but who defines either in the
eye of the fire, ire of the
scorched and scorned forgot
when their clearings got hot and
ditches residents got tossed in
daises nary a singe but oops an
alley trodden bloom suddenly
less cute for a bit of the boot
pressing an inelegant service

Hot spur and lavender
gallop at approaching marches
garter a month of sunday comforts
doesn’t become rough and tumble
weeds of men, resilient and not
relenting when eve and her god
or serpent bent on bringing blight
to the bliss and blossoming
brought of the bang, tidy as
patches wrought by fire-work

Widow’s weeds the black she
wore the morning after moaning
mourning made her succumb to
wailing that overthrew all modesty,
of grief, humility of feeling
decreased by the deceased
we each averse to flowery
affectations feigning devised
while being morose so pick a-
gain daisies as they’re springing

(push-up)
Dazy days he does dozing
under sudden overlays
laying cold to his toes
tags and inwardly intoned
how we hushly spoke of it
growing more so in a tomb

XXIX Snowflake Snihyati

“He gets wet,” translation
of the word, perfect, for in
the beginning it was with god
was not foreign in speech
the tongues besought so much
precipitated from the above
thinking of language as wires
where did the birds hang out
before your earth went uniform
behind telephone poles plotted
even the remote was dotted
and always on the line as if
crows co-evolved with it the
code unspoken you transmit

We let it in sensitive to
the cold but can’t expect the
expectant to be wind-blown when
crystalline bombardment comes
down an outer atmospheric pay
load grade and master of ice
formation taking shape of
conditions in descent halfway
to froze or thaw you may remain
in awe at that elaborate lattice

Implicate the intricate
and delicate delegate cloud
what is up must come volley
volatile as proximate heat
defeats the unique–hedron we
recollect and flatter for flakes
we don’t need microscope or
zoom lens to revel the reveal
of an icy audubon-like white-
out flight we don’t mind getting
lost even or blind behind and
be first found or perished

XXX Cat Paw

30 and dirty either way
buried contra contrarian
a canary cheep in a coal
stocking lump a brazen
front for games we kiddies
play guns a blazing the way
I always saw saturday
mornings wishing to draw
first for panels, strings, finally
for straws to lay and pull away
pushing allay up at the ceiling
and post scratchings re-lapse
into unequalled satisfaction
that of the ample cat

That sated reverberation
shakes the watchful to wakeful
limber limbs lowered to slumber
and lifted afterward to climb
outside the tree, house and box
langorous clamber glamorous
as clamors under us unfold
until we jump neither impotent
nor in poor taste by your leave
and grace importante on stage

Put the negative press
to bed of an animal inside
deemed to be conniving aside
and outside aloof to signal
proof of dubious doings on
the side and dealings none shy
to be hidden and hide hided
vocation chided vocalization
the growl of ages can’t be
answered by one, night, alone

XXXI Maple Leaf Trefoil

May it please the leaf
to make-believe upon it
the imagination trust we
impose upon our brains or
have returned on us the right
folio to the final file card its
so hard to part with a solid
way of life and limb state
stating stakes of the staid
old forest still stands in
the sticks hatchet in hand
the job to land as many
storeyed branches as can be

Having that belief est-ablished
by columbine winding on high
seas on scatters of ancient trees
iberia leaves predestination
up wind shattering again
hull and bone cannon ball and
hard-wearing wood would splinter
to be picked out of meat,
people, an obscene reversal
of hygiene, oral, as orders came
through you remove the slivers and
answer to or for a force in force
yew forced into new positions
erections influxing spheres in-
fluence the fluent of pursuant worlds
words grantedly enforce confusion
franca endorsement given
the indigenous indian
giver never gave a quiver
or shaved fo’c’s’le follicle one
hair lacking fair incite recite a
litany livid as autumn leaves
the insight after questings end

XXXII Midnight Sun Concomitant

To look out and know that
without concurrent conjuring
we are lit up in our hours
formerly dark, but before now
how little we belonged as shadow
free, formally, to the extent
two kindred care to maneuver,
the layabout bone holding on
all to see the socket, woo-won
and wider by a brace of smiles

We have felt the burn of
what turns persons inside-out
for all world that’s blown-up
stat in a satellite photo
or that glow at the fringe
of illustrious but artificial
artifice this country of suns
shunning blackouts drunken
as oxen husbanded from hubs
till distances our shudders still

It is fair in the dawn
of a day separated from
dwelling and tread and audience
to dunk the shine of your hair
in borderless the river we’re
here to hold council as of old
as radiant predecessors did
littering their inland plain
with nothing but light, but
the imprint of living bodies
in sum, the living didn’t leave
one stitch more than needed