A deciduous puzzle: how snapshot
flashbacks fit the deceitful,
slipshod narrative.

Here, lost, stumbling past grove
after grove, you are a botanist,
cataloguing, classifying,

denoting, achieving a
particular kind of
amnesia.

The Structural Integrity of the Gardiner Expressway Comes Under Scrutiny (v2)

rose-red in the hardwood grooves,
blooming at your wrist–

the geography, the history, the
charts, the graphs–

aster-pink in the porcelain cove,
no stemming this tide–

no unlearning
the facts,
now.

With each gift another
seedling stems the flow.
You damn the future with
each one that transpires;
you soothe the fortunate,
present in your passing.

Soon the hiss and sputter
of kindling voices would
subside–

Soon only the coals
would remain,
whispering on
our tongues.

The Structural Integrity of the Gardiner Expressway Comes Under Scrutiny

Once a quarry, once
granite falling from the sky–

Once the fist that holds
the stone that beats–

Now valedictory silt– blood;
water; silence.

Flurries In Washington

Thanks to Freesound for the samples, and to Laura for not letting me call it “Furries in Washington”, which, it turns out, is a totally different thing altogether.

You are the meditative bird, perched
between here and the where that will be–

You are the noblest horse, conquered
and conquering in equal bits–

Your tri-annual lunges frenzied,
determined, brutal, expected–

I am not certain what to you with you
yet.

Sentences are their own blindness,
the blinkered and wayward
laden and handed
down.

If there is anything to be said,
it is that no-one pay attention:

Sentences are their own sadness,
to be spoken in haste and
digested at leisure.

If you can remember one thing,
it is that no-one remember
a word.

Sentences are their own silence,
the place where nothing might be,
or something might be,
regardless.

If a ship, then cut it free:
no-one should give berth
to a conclusion.

Scrape a tragedy from your glory, your history,
your all-too monumental
mourn that you forgot to build
a mausoleum for the memory
of the everyday and unremarkable.

Snatch victory from the jaws that you
failed to create, from beyond the walls
even your dullest sons scaled:
leave your grandeur there to die.

The stone
cannot avoid bolstering the wall, like

You
are more than a collection of

Arms.

There is no-one left to fight. I have killed them all.

I am on the wrong side of history. The mundane victories of simply being alive have become my sustainance. There are no more villians; we don’t make them anymore. There is no more evil; we have forgotten so quickly what evil is. What evil can do.

We are ashes. We are remnants of our former glory. We are tame and satisfied and glad of it.

I sit above the city, looking down. I am a shadow. Obsolete. There are no more villians to fight. There are no more heroes to fight them.

Except for me. I live to fight another day. Only… which side will I choose?

You should remember this day. Write it down.

The first day I haven’t been sure.

Tomorrow, a stranger
closes your eyes.

For Albatross

There are lines to cross and lines to keep reciting.
Some days the sticks are woven in the spokes.
There are things to keep and things to keep from fighting.
Days to pause and days to go for broke.

Does it sting a little, peeking over to tomorrow?
Are you measuring the means to the end?

I think I must have told them that I only write poetry
and lose weight when I’m unhappy,
or someone has jostled me to the core;
I don’t quite remember what I told them,
except that you can’t always get an accurate picture
of someone by their creations,

though sometimes you can say,
Mr Poe was a depressed and melancholy soul,
or, it appears someone has been reading
Bukowski again.

He knew a lot about racetracks, Mr Bukowski,
or perhaps he made it all up,
much like Bob Dylan made himself up,
stepped into a booth, and made music
I could one day be compared to.