None will see much grey hair;
Each knows too much sorrow
And fracture to ever
Be whole again.
The Busses are Running
The busses are running
This predawn awake,
Too early for daylight
Or tourists or trains,
The lonely hearts, broken,
The addicts, the whores
All gather and wander
And pool their change
It’s 5:35 and already the day
Brings a sadness
Long before the sun.
Their teeth are not perfect,
Their bodies are tired,
Their jokes are too forced to be real;
They’re single, they’re fractured,
They’re pockmarked, they’re pricked,
And like vampires they’re hiding
From all the sun’s tricks,
And they all share the night
‘Cause it’s dark, safe and warm;
It’s a quarter to six and the
Shadows are starting to form.
If the world is an ocean
(And some say it is),
Then these would be deepest by far,
Yet there’s something like friendship,
Like kin-ship, like trust,
When you’ve gone so far down
You can only look up,
And the first train goes by,
And the first crack of light,
And the first morning bird takes
Its first morning flight,
And there’s something like sadness for
The slow death of night,
As the rest of the world now awakes,
Thanks their Jesus for giving them day,
While the lonely hearts, broken,
The addicts and whores
Fade away.
Under Overhead Train
Traffic rolls
Under overhead train
I watch its slow flow
Head pressed white
On cold glass
As we pass into
Night
And the city lights
Waver and wink
Slow crawl
Barely moving at all
Red lights brake
Lights pulse
To the Beat
Of some forlorn song
Strummed on the underside
Of this lonely
City
Alone in the vastness
Of millions
Hearts bleeding slowly out
A story
That no one wants to tell
No one wants to hear
Each one a sad page
Each one turned without
Consequence
Or care
And if that book burnt
Another volume would
So soon replace it on
That bottom shelf
Where the traffic
Black with night
Crawls on its
Bloodied knees
Under me
On this slow
Overhead train
British Columbia
Bus on Boxing Day
High whine, wide-eyed driver
Wheels the full-bus, slow;
Who’d have ever thought on
Boxing Day,
With all this snow,
There’d be so many
Lonely people.
Christmas day,
Not even
Twenty hours old—and all
These strangers gathered from
The cold. I wonder:
Where are all the smiles
Now? Those laughing tears?
Boxed and packed away
With wreaths and lights
And other Christmas cheer?
Driver speaks: at this next town
There’ll be a break,
Enough to smoke a cigarette,
To urinate, to grab a cup of tea.
But no one is moved,
At least not
Visibly
December’s Dogs
Skis stand tall
Never slouch
Always ready like
Stiff, faithful dogs
Silently sniffing the
Open-door air
Waiting for December’s
Snow.
Shrouded Forest (west van 12/06)
Walking in the shrouded forest
Freshly trimmed by winter’s breeze
Mossy blanket, soft, under foot
Dancing creek between walkways
Sun exploring, piercing clouds
Sending rays between tall bows
Fungus grows on low deadfalls
Buds now ready to explode
Strolling in this West Vancouver
Shrouded paradise
Walking with our matriarch
As she shares her sound advice
On this early, Tuesday morning;
Nowhere where I’d rather be,
With my sagely, white-haired auntie
Leading my family and me,
Stopping frequently to feel and
Smell the parkland fair,
Breathing in this fresh, cool mountain air.
Summer on the Shuswap
Summer on the Shuswap means
Snailing behind Alberta’s rubbernecked drivers
It means being an impressive local
To swarms of tourist chicks
It means smiling—all the while
Counting down the days till September when
She is our lake again
Walking Home on a Snowy Evening II
snowing silence
windless night
stifled by
this mothball void
no crow
no owl
just black on white
everything is crystal clear
swallowed by this cold perfection
I’m mute,
minute and terrified
naked
blinded
slowly
buried
still
alive
Victorian
Rose-bellied clouds slow crawl
Daybreak mosey, Victoria morning
That celestial shock of salmon-spawn pink
Is so short lived
Replaced by dull grey
And strengthening sun
Swipes that orgasm of first light—
A reminder from the ethereal to the real:
It’s just another day
First frost on lawn
Each blade
Heavy like a forest
Somehow lovelier under
Weight of backpacked ice
So fragile: as if each blade would
Break, but thoughtless
Sun soon resolves this crystalline
Landscape
Into simple Victoria lawn: dull green
Under dreary, high grey sky
Ice stretches out on small
Victoria pond—impossibly thin
Hoarfrost fingers painted around and in
Its mirror reflecting the slow
Rose glow in such
A fresh winter yawn
But sun again,
With day’s slow growth, again, will push
Platelet holes in surface sheen
And by high noon only borders will
Remain of what was that morning's
Mirrored perfectly
What then of us, my lovely summer queen,
In midst of this impermanence?
When sun, ice, cloud, and winter’s snow
Seem prone to constant change
With such callous indifference,
How do we, such ants to this,
Hope to hold on forever
To our warm love’s winter bliss?
White-Water Creek’s Argument
White
-water creek
Folds over woodland park
Rare gale-forced winds
Have left this forest floor
Strangely
Opened
Soft sunlight slowly pierces
Running water as it drops a foot
Forms ponds, then ponders, wanders on
Down to ocean’s edge past
Ledge upon rounded ledge
So carved by soft flow’s ceaseless
Argument
Not so long ago those wild winds
How they did laugh and blow
Trees tried to test their argument
Which ended in splinters of descent
Tall trees humbled to their knees
And backs all bent and broken
Should not have taken up the strange debate
Should not have argued with wild wind’s
Harsh words spoken
And now
Lain down
As white-water creek
Continues its relentless speech
And takes submissive leaves and branches in
Its persuasive gurgling din,
Its watery argument,
Down to the ocean’s edge
Over soft-spoken ledge,
After ledge
After ledge.
England
London
London, Oh London,
Where did you go?
I cannot afford to
see the Queen’s home
Can’t you see
how you’ve destroyed
the romance of this once
so noble town?
Oh London,
I shed no tears
for you see no wrong
has been done
your heart
rings true
where only pounds sterling
will do.
Trafalgar Square
The lions of Trafalgar Square
In chilled May rains sit
Still and stare
As tourists brave the cold downpour
To pet and comb their metal hair
How many climbs do they withstand
As tawny tourists gather 'round
And click their cameras just to
Show their friends they've seen
These bronze four
Who guard this war-like ground
But tourists, locals, all the same
Like candles all they wax and wane
And birth and die
And come and go while
Stoic lions ever there
Lay proud and stern
And guard the air
That covers all
Trafalgar Square
France
Pillow—a harmless little ditty
Her name was Maria
She came from France
She embroidered my name on her pillow
But then came the dawn
I had to move on
And find something to rhyme with pillow
Greece
Greek Heat
We wait in this
lean-two highway
bus stop
standing still
trying to
capture
the minute
difference
of less hot
the shade brings
stand like
donkeys
lined up
behind
the sliver of dark
stretching out
from the single, leafless tree
in a barren field,
as motionless
as the
oppressive
heat
Peloponnese
Old man sits in a rented room
Not so far from home,
Reads a page and edits, slightly,
Like he’s done a hundred times before
His aging wife waits, patiently, not
Thirty miles away;
She smiles and rearranges
Home-cut flowers
In a slightly different way.
When he was young, and full of
Pride, his words flowed surer, then.
There seemed to be such unity between
The writer and his pen,
And she would wait, so hopefully,
Their home so spotless clean;
She believed all his energy
Would compose something worthy,
Of a sale, something so they
Both could buy that seaside
Villa in the postcard Peloponnese
But days turned weeks turned
Decades passed, his weary pen
Never neglected, each new piece,
Each new rejection,
And she would hold him, cold,
At night and quietly say, “Darling, it’s
it’s all right, it will somehow be ok.
I can still clean
Their houses, and make enough
To keep those wolves at bay,
The bill collectors far away.”
His compact nod,
A slight response to her
Kind words of faith,
But doubt seeped in, like hoarfrost,
And began to crumble him.
He took odd jobs, he edited,
He brought in autumn apples, and
All the while composed lines of passions,
Imaginations,
Memories, of hopes and dreams,
That would, some day, sell wonderfully
And send them to their waiting vacant villa
In their postcard Peloponnese.
His eyes, now old, she holds his hand,
His shallow breaths unsure,
His manuscripts all typed and bound,
All boxed, on shelves, and on the bedroom floor
Close to where he’s too soon to breathe his last death breath.
She knows it’s all been wasted,
But she cannot change the past.
He dies, she dies, the manuscripts
Are burned and tossed away,
The cleaner finds the postcard,
And adds it to the flame.
So was his life then wasted, as the
Words he whittled down to length,
Words to be read by no one,
Words, he thought, of such poignancy and strength?
What is the value in creation?
The strength of conviction?
When nothing he created ever
Made the printer’s press—
Or is the value the creation, the
Imagination, and the conviction, regardless
Of the rest, regardless of sales and salty dreams:
The blue and white villa in their
Sunset Peloponnese?
Song
Grasshoppers singing
while I’m dry song
sitting, widows-open-crawling
through this part of Greece…
like poking along
the blistering
Okanagan
in early July
stuck behind a whole mule
train of Albertans
who’ve never seen a corner before,
let alone lakes and mountains,
god forbid, the odd garbage-can bear appears—
worse yet,
my father’s too cautious
(chicken shit) to pass;
never stops at the lakes
for a swim
like all those tourists do;
after all, we’re from this
tumble weed and rattle snake valley,
littered with old mines,
ddt canisters,
and timber-ribbed,
flumes, gone-dry.
Grandpas on both sides
worked on the new (now 50-year-old) flume;
both were fruit farmers,
both died of chemical cancer
using stuff the
government said
was perfectly safe.
The grasshoppers sang
all day there
in waves of heat you
couldn’t even walk in.
Had to stop picking
from noon till four
almost every afternoon
during cherries.
We’d go to the lake then,
almost
mournfully,
knowing we’d have to get back
up 14 foot ladders
and pick till near dark.
I was 14, then, and worked for
my school clothes;
now I’m 34 and sitting on an aging
bus
crawling up a steep, chalk slope
flanked by ancient chapels
set in the bone-dry cliff-sides
in this so-dusty part of Greece.
All this comes back to me
12,000 miles away
because the grasshoppers
are singing that same
song
under that same sun—
but this time in the scorching Peloponnese.
This bus only goes so far,
only as far as
the next Okanagan town
where I will
again
remember —
And no matter where I
get off, find some room
and lightly settle,
there will always be some small thing,
like a malevolent noose,
that will pull me back
over oceans
to my land of sage and cactus—
there can be no escape from home.
Holland
Ruddy-faced European Girl
Ruddy-faced European Girl,
with your charms all well preserved
in ancient ink and on canvass,
would you walk with me
through Amsterdam
and gently hold my hand?
I will buy you flowers
from he who sells them
by the water...
you know the place where
the bearded man
fishes daily in the mired canal.
Ruddy-faced European Girl
your limbs are well pronounced;
you’re sturdy, like a farmer,
but you’ve got such a
pretty, tempting mouth.
Your bones were built for birthing
large, bull-like men,
your wide hips invite imagination;
you smell of sweat and flowers,
what could be either a wholesome
or a prurient blend.
Ruddy-faced European Girl,
I don’t want you for a lover—
would you simply walk with me,
take me to the galleries,
show me all your favourites?
Would you let your laughter
jump out loud
as we share a morning sidewalk coffee?
Could we run a beach together,
feel the chill of cool, cool sand?
Would you simply
escort me