Beach too

there on the bright yellow beach, with her footsteps sunk behind her, a staccato scattering of shadows and sand. there, tracing her passage up from the surf where the sea filled each step with glimmers innumerable. there to the crest of the dune where stubborn grass snubbed it’s stalks at the wind and calmed the chill. there where the day seemed a little less like the east and a little more like the west coast. there, not some far away hotel california with the patchwork of dreams she had outgrown, or sent on ahead till they had flown on other’s hopes, to be recalled only in moments like this, when the ocean hushes softly and the sand is warm grains between her toes. there. there was where she set down the red tresses of her life, from the mundane to the entangled supernova god damned fuck me now. there, in all it’s glory impermanent traced in semblance each character crablike one after the other. there for strangers to find, the treasure hunt prize, embarked upon unrealized. there are already unknowns, where the wind has undone the truth her fingers told. there will come a time when you unwind the blanks on your own bright yellow beach.

Beach

a mouthful of whatsits
traded for tickets
nantucket island,
massachusetts or bust

more bucket than bullet
but silver nonetheless
annabee rode eagerly
in carriage to the coast

kitteh

you came to me haphazardly,
despite the odds,
filling perfectly a kitten shaped hole in my heart.

you were my sister’s cat first;
runt of the litter;
from a private stable in the middle of the canadian prairies.

squatter than other cats,
you walked funny and breathed funny,
and on the rare occasion you meowed it sounded more like a wheeze

it never seemed to bother you,
and I treasured how you turned adversity
into a lesson on how to make the most of life and thrive

one evening you didn’t come home.
I spent days walking the neighborhood calling for you.
it’s funny how loss brings love into stark relief.

my girlfriend found you, yowling pitifully
near a friends distant house. i am forever grateful
to the web of chance and interconnectedness that reunited us

you have been my most constant companion
on this crazy journey into adult hood,
across four provinces and four times as many years.

when I was at my lowest,
with all taste for life washed from my mouth by heartbreak
and the tides of childhood trauma, you saved me.

climbing onto my chest as i lay on the floor,
cat heart beating twice as fast as mine,
cat eyes asking, “Where have you been?” insisting softly, “Do not stray.”

when you were to old to accompany me on my travels
I left you with someone who loves you as much as I do,
and visited as often as I could

and you would greet me as though no time had passed,
as constant and amiable as ever.
what a gift your company has been.

And how precious it is now.
Thank you for everything.

Vancouver Sunset
2011
Oil, Canvas, Digital Media

Petals

mist on the mountains
rain on the roof tiles
bamboo waterspouts burble
around a walkway
around a courtyard
around a cherry tree

fall

from each empty intersection the streets offer invitation

send your ghost to dance down us

footsteps hushed into the night

Lambs

Guitar acoustic. Words sung. Hung indecipherable.
Stripped of meaning by reverb and tunnels.
Subway.  Spadina.  Bloor.
“The street finds it’s own cadence for things.”
Emergent. Complex. Station. Staccato.
Raised to signal against the ground.
Some Eastern European grist mill.
Form shaped by the long tail of dysfunction into white noise.
“It puts the coin in the basket or it gets…
Lambs.”

Saturday night

Empty subway, staccato of light and shadow. Her ghost sways, inertia and momentum laid down like tracks. Lips touch, fingers pass through cotton, tracing need upon skin in phosphor and afterglow.

heat
and
breath
nuzzled close
closed circuits
ourobour unending
wheel of fire and all
coalesce through the body
electric into aching flesh and
hair stood suddenly on end
we start again “in
the beginning”
thunderclaps
before after
in silence
from if
only
to
is

Mixedtape 18 (Covers)

And a bunch of really great covers…

Click to listen…

1. First Aid Kit – Tiger Mountain Peasant Song (Fleet Foxes)
2. Emiliana Torrini – Sound of Silence (Simon and Garfunkel)
3. Kyte – Solsbury Hill (Peter Gabriel)
4. Hot Chip & Peter Gabriel – Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (Vampire Weekend)
5. Takka Takka – In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)
6. Natasha Bedingfield – Ray of Light (Madonna)
7. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Born In The USA (Bruce Springsteen)
8. The ELF – Dancing In The Dark (Bruce Springsteen) [cause you can't have too much of the boss ]
9. ? – Build Me Up Buttercup (The Foundations)  [Anyone know who's covering this?]
10. Lykke Li – Knocked Up (Kings of Leon)
11. My Brightest Diamond – Tainted Love (Gloria Jones / Soft Cell / every other band since)

Got any suggestions for music I might like?  Please leave a comment.