Prayers, Portraits, Post-Its (24)

Snack

So many creeps and hustlers
had used her
she was ready for his
good, dull arms.

Dependable as waxed
paper he would
wrap her from the world.

(And eat her
in silent chews, of course,
while his mild
attention strayed elsewhere.

That was the part
she never
got or believed.)

Prayers, Portraits, Post-Its (23)

Centrepoint Mall

Fountain geysers
backlit grey water

a tired, endless spurt
amid chrysanthemums
beneath a clock

At the lottery wicket
a woman tells
another “You must

have been pretty
when you were young”

Children follow the
man with a kitten

Prayers, Portraits, Post-Its (22)

Periodic

To be taught by time
the completeness of rhyme,
from portent to birth
to recension in earth.

Prayers, Portraits, Post-Its (21)

“Pine trees are brushes”

Pine trees are brushes
while their own hair grows;
dead, they are combs
broken bald in the snow.

Prayers, Portraits, Post-Its (20)

On Stealth

Here's a good trick that I learned as a kid:
People won't look if they don't know you've hid.
Why flame like a sunset to tell them you've gone?
Just melt like a star behind sentries of dawn.

Grove coda

dryad near dusk























satyr at altar of bacon

Prayers, Portraits, Post-Its (19)

The Elevator

“Don't forget me,” she murmured, which he thought was absurd:
She'd dumped him, after all, and was sleeping with some turd;
But she knew what was up in that box going down:
There's getting to Amnesia, and there's settling into town.

Prayers, Portraits, Post-Its (18)

A Street in Kelowna

Anytime of the day or night but especially
after 2 a.m. we could get
into it:
“You piece of shit you're not crazy
you're just using that as an excuse
to see HER.”
“That's an exaggeration.”
“Who sat beside you two days THE OTHER
time you OD'd and right after your
discharge you buy her a fucking bathing suit?”
“That was before.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“After you.”
And then there were the
gestures accompanying this soundtrack:
a fist through a cabinet door
(mine)
ASSHOLE painted in 3-foot-high dripping
red acrylic on a car (hers)
slammed doors shattered plates shredded letters
(mine and hers).
She said she could never decide
if I was plain crazy or crazy
like a fox, though I maintained
the answer was always both
for everybody
she kept looking for traces
of sanity, i.e. guilt,
it was the last thing
we had left to decide
and my competency hearing
dragged on far longer than
was wise.
I think the craziest thing she ever
saw me do was on a street in Kelowna,
10 years and a thousand miles from
where we'd been together;
she saw me coming and bundled
her little girl across the street
to keep her from meeting me
and I pulled up short and
acted surprised.

Prayers, Portraits, Post-Its (17)

When His Mom Found a Lover in the Neighbourhood

We were all much happier.
Ian's learning wasn't always under
attack and my teaching
wasn't always under surveillance.
We actually got more done–
like times on the boss's lunch
when you just relax and do the job.
Afterwards, before I left, Ian
would show me a new card trick
he'd learned from the Internet.
The Vanishing Jack, The Stubborn Ace,
he was getting good.
Beside my water cup Alicia
started setting out a cookie or a tart,
a ham and cheese croissant
or a bowl of homemade corn chowder.
Instead of hovering dismayed
she'd just see us started
then fluff her hair in the mirror,
smiling at herself
and knotting a new scarf, then
“Be good, Ian,” and off
she'd walk lightly down the steet.
It was a good six months.
Then one day in April I
opened the door and Ian
was his old hyper-sullen self,
no sign of the Bicycle deck,
Alicia's hair was limp, her shoulders
round, she radiated murk
and I was back to plain old
tapwater again, we all were.

In the Grove

waiting grove
























dryad 1























satyr 1























gratuitous rainbow























dryad 2























revellers 1


















satyr 2























revellers 2


















remnants

grove by day

grove by night

vacant throne