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the space in my life where I left you gapes a chasm only the wind crosses stealing the chill through me to my fingertips the part of myself mirroring you has been shattered torn out left behind sorrow and loneliness creep into the void learning to ignore the pitiful bereft self that wails for mercy begs me to turn back go home try again learning the hard way how to break a heart destroy the thing you love the space where once I had you echoes frigid and aching learning the hard way how to let you down. |
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in the changing season, finally alone with myself, I can hear you - on the shore of molten winter; in whispering, tentative green and pendulous droplet - isolate what creates me; your voice separate from my thoughts - you surround the surface of my mind like frost on clear glass. spring comes - the sun warms; you melt from me and I am not less, only unhindered. |
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the joy of motion: I feel, therefore I must go forward. I live, therefore I must go elsewhere. never so alive as I am with a plan; perfection in departure. I breathe, therefore I cannot remain here - so I leave, and therefore I rebuild my world. striving to find the place I belong in, and once I have found it - to set off again. |
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I ask myself more times than there are pebbles on the beach: why now and here? did my path divide? would I have gone another way? yet. the wheel turns, and things do change. and to see this place alight with warmth and laughter; to feel the sun on me and all the living things that grow and thrive; to smell the ocean, a glimpse of waves - the wheel turns and my path is clear: I was always coming here. |
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just because you cannot see the majesty of this night sky doesn't mean I will close my eyes lay down my head become blind because you freeze at winter's touch does not mean I also wrap up and miss feeling the North, the thrilling chill on my own skin you can reject this place in favour of somewhere different, called home unwilling to understand but I was born to inherit the cold lands the forests, prairies and oceans just because you follow your narrow road and you don't catch the rain's scent does not mean I stick to the given path so I run for the fields breathe in the storm just because you choose not to belong here does not mean I do not claim this place that belongs to me. |
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illusions like scales from the eyes fall and now I see it. take me back to believing it was that easy. I have seen into the hearts of others, and now I see that what faith I held in you was fruitless. perception changed and vision altered so I can see that vain hope for better was a pacifying drug exhausting my reserves of courage. and now I see it: becoming alien to myself in naive distraction I can't identify the body attached to my soul but I can see that I was lost the moment I began trying - it was never going to be that easy. |
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sometimes I am still and the world spins around me and I am the centre of a great wheel going round; I'm the axis in the storm's eye awake, I hold my breath and wait for the floor to decide throw open the window, drink cool dark air which tastes of the sea and calls me, like a needle finding north, to the ocean lost in chaotic tides, and the sand revolves beneath me I am the axis of earth, ocean and sky, circling I am still and the world spins around me in the storm's eye I sleep, breathing the salt air, and wait for the ground to decide. |
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we go on somehow. each day as your flame grows dimmer and fades the distance each moment draws and we go on. somehow. even without your light your spirit. because you were, I am better. and now I feel you everywhere you make us strong; you make us free our glowing hearts aflame, for you we go on somehow, even now. and I light this candle for you. [ My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - Jack Layton 1950-2011 ] |
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it was never - you were never. there's nothing here to see. looking over my shoulder, I find you were not following me - and now, at last it's clear that it never was; will never be. find me in the glow of dusk, streetlights - lit up in your bright headlights - smell of summer asphalt, your tires and the speed, my pulse. find me - I will get in and we'll go. scent of your skin; your closeness lingers in me - this scene that never was, and now I know will never be. and I didn't see: we did not miss our time - you had no time for me. so find me in the dark with your search lights, your headlights - I will ask you nothing; I have somewhere else to be. |
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goodbye. goodbye. [the only good learned from constant leaving - trailing from one place to yet another] goodbye, goodbye [is that you can take it with you: home is nothing to do with where you are] goodbye - goodbye [the only good in any number of partings is to discover you lost nothing and are whole] and so, goodbye; goodbye. |
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restlessly wanting, I hear and follow and chase the echo I ache inexplicably for a thing I do not recognize or grasp so I fill and overflow with this: a desire I cannot make real toss and turn tonight, sailing out the storm of wide-eyed hunger perpetual scanning of hallways and corners fearful of missing it hopeful of some sign show me which way epiphanic insomnia endlessly craving, I wander in the wake of a dream slipping a ghost I pursue to edges of meaning and then... beyond. |
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the wind changes shifting senses dry summer heat and now, late, the storm arriving these days spent learning never to expect anything, fate altered and restless air is electric, my signals crossed or I'd have gone elsewhere but you drew me - inexplicable magnet - chance transformed wanting to reach for you, a new path just to know how it'd feel, holding you to discover if you'd taste as I imagine like the summer storm these days I never expect anything, only wonder and hope and feel the air shifting something electric in you pulls me in signals crossing, wires sparking want you to see I am here, open, if your path changes a quiet storm in the summer twilight. |
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a house divided against itself must fall. and a life divided? sectioned into fenced-off areas; keeping pieces in separate boxes - mirror: I see your mistakes in both of my own eyes, so I never get to be whole, and I never reconcile - how can I? halves, at odds, are parts of you and repel if you couldn't stay together, then how can I unite myself? if you couldn't love each other, how will my own bonds be strong enough? two sides recognize each other - I can't be one when I am both the pressure imploding divided, like you, against myself, I fall I am not equal to the sum of my parts, so I fail you shield your flaws from blame, and history repeats: I fall divided, like you, but against myself, my fate is sealed: I fall. |
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before towers took root; before train tracks splintered out like veins, the rolling foothills, the river valley belonged to the man at the station who asks if I can spare a dollar, because I remind him of his daughter. he explains where I can catch my bus (I look lost) he says he's been there all day hoping to net that spare change - no luck yet. and all I can see is the prairie - once, before the sidewalks, before the stores. that's the kind of change we hand out to those who wait. I remind him of his daughter - but I'll look after my father for all of his days; and this daughter has let him down, just like the land that should have been his. I don't have a dollar to give him, so I go, but my soul stays beside him - on a bench at a station in a city on the prairie - also hoping for change. |
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all of it beyond me now, floating away I'm trying to learn that I can't stay - yet I still reach back, grasp the next solid thing I know to be true and feel it dissolve - the foundation I'm built on is washing away; all of my elements unstitched, I'm adrift. |
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an education in the fine art of goodbyes; a lesson in loving and letting go. acceptance: last to arrive in sorrow - the passing of all that I thought I held. teach me how to let go, and release me. I open my hands - finally, freefall - I see now: all things are transient. |
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gravity intensifies my orbit slipping sideways until you become the centre drawing me in spinning me round these parallels |the things | |that might | |have been| the membrane between alternate worlds force you into being, in the future, and to exist a little closer to my core. |
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and I don't know why you should have any hold on me now except once in your eyes I saw the sky reflected and though I could never see beneath your surface for a moment at least I knew your mind though you elude me when I try to look deeper I yet sense your longing; your intention to fly earthbound as I am, you fill me with wonder the rush of your intensity and inscrutable ways, subtle hint of your darkness drawing me, inexorable, and the thrill of the thought of a moment upon your wings. |
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(in my dreams) no time at all has passed so I go and I find you and there you are, before me (and in dreams) there are miracles so I end up in your arms how could it be otherwise? (and in my dream) you open the door and I see your face - so perfect - and I'm relieved: you're real. I thought it might have been a... and I wake (of course) in a room I recognize and you're a million miles away not knowing I think of you nor that I ever did I find your photograph and there, your perfect face not smiling for me - only in dreams do you look at me that way. (and you are far away and I... don't want to wake.) |
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unlearning what came with the price what I paid dearly to know: that life has walls and you stay in yours once you find them unlearning ways of seeing to bleed away the poison of thinking I know anything at all unlearning to remember what the words were like the bloody elves and that idiot shoemaker, words turned the world for me until I looked for them to find they were never there I'll lie here in the dust of my ruins serenading poetry until it returns I'll unlearn every snare, every trap and trick to capture words taught by every teacher of every creative art until I return to the base of the temple of language where I worshipped before I believed I was god I'll take any oath submit myself to be blinded from the eyes of the world at my door I cast the jury from inside my head to judge my feelings no more becoming stone in silence until the universe is gone from here until I remember that once, ages past, I was a poet in my soul until I recall where my soul is and that writing's in my very blood I'll continue unlearning until I'm worthy of the words' return. |