Oh, my dearest,
It is the Fourth of July.
Today, you would be 49.
With laughter, I light all the candles, twinkling a spirit light
Path to join me in silent celebration, and think of
Your story of confused youth, wondering why so many
were celebrating
Your birth.

There were fireflies this evening;
I sat in the twilight's gleaming, as the sky poured watercolours upon the garden,
And I imagined you breathing with a certain hesitance.

In a quiet moment, when I could not help myself, there, in the dark,
With the slight mist of eve, and tumbling seconds of years and thoughts
Bringing the dark and the lanterns into a kind of gentle swaying,
there, in the silence,
I sipped sweet wine's nectar, dreaming of your lips brushing mine,
Softly in the kind shroud of twinkling lights.

The dry cling of pressed grapes, and my closed eyes
Brought them closer, and the fireflies approved,
Glinting suddenly near my misted eyes.
I was sentinel, and queen, at once,
as you ordained.
The palm trees only made it again so,
And the eyes were dark, and near mine,
And wanting me, again,
Beautifully,
At Last.

How soft, the question. How sweet, the answer.
How gentle, the night, amidst the velvet of blanketed stars
Twinkling their sighs, and clasping prayers,
Amidst the passing years.

The sleep seems a kind encasement, dreaming.
I shall not mind waking, tomorrow, remembering.

What do I think of You?: Answer.

I like this roundness. Said so simply, but...
It seems solid to me, the way it curves around my hand, when I press into the skin
Gently.
Such a gentle peak, that rises and smiles and points to the sky.
Is it me?

Surely, I cannot be that high.....
But perhaps I'll try.
Pity: I cannot fly.

I guess, then, I will make
You sigh.......Ah....(a quiet laugh, here, then)

Morning, awake! This tired rhyming, (an impatient contempt, at self and such) when
I have pressed the mountains of your Being
Towards Me,
and
You Tremble at
The Being with
Me, shuddering to be
My
Complete.
Oh, beat, Heart, beat!
(What a thing to say to me,
Coursing through the rocks of Time....)
And then, she just smiles, quietly, at last,
Moved.

Roads to Carry You to Better

This dust is me.
I blow out, across the universe, leaving specks of my thought, moments of my touch,
Pieces of my smile
Amidst the gardens of others.
If I am myself, I help them grow into their beauty, strange shifting shells,
as I see them; and
As it bursts and blooms, kindly, stretching outwards,
instead of lying curled and quiet,
Small pea seed of self, hiding. Strange Mother Being, then, Despite Void Status;
But I am just Dirt, at last,
Without myself,
Blowing quietly, Within, to the
Without that waits,
Wanting.

Mac Box set.

Here is a Mac box, which you present to me with a flourish.

"Your favourite", you say, simply, tearing open the box, grasping the plastic coated toffee, standing there in front of me, maddeningly, and warming the package between your hands.

Thinking the entire moment completely unfair, I stand still, saying nothing. My mouth is watering madly, and I remain rooted. A tiny bead of sweat has formed on my upper lip: tasting caramel, wanting caramel, needing caramel...and yet....I only stare, longingly, thinking you momentarily cruel.

The feeling is intensified, as, breathing softly, you shift the toffee parcel to one hand, bending it, slowly, slowly, slowly, and staring into my eyes, to show me how pliant it has become.

We stare at each other. I worry that a sheen has formed on my face, making me look amazingly like a plump girl, sweating in front of a really attractive man waving toffee in a kind of "you might get to be a fat girl again" moment...and after all those bloody salads. I wince, ..and say nothing, struggling.

I try valiantly to make my eyes look hooded, not really knowing what that means, exactly, except that it sounds very mysterious, and possibly the result of something illegal, watching the bendy movements in the toffee with a tormented, furtive glance. Raising my gaze, I am intercepted, and you smile - a trifle cruelly, I think to myself....I sigh. Oh, toffee, torturer...when, oh when, hast thou become tormentor to me! Ah...such........bent love, really.....

"Come here", you say, with a kind of gravel in your voice that has made my toes curl. There is, in fact, a newly formed cramp in one, even as we breathe.

I take one step forward, lurching slightly, due to the cramp. It ruins the drama, somewhat, but I manage to stamp, although I want to...to get rid of the cramp. I control it, stupidly, and will pay for it, later, I know, with a huge throb in my arch.

Madly, you tear open the toffee, rip off a piece, stick it between your teeth, move towards me - and abruptly thrust my end between my lips. I close my eyes, as the caramel hits my tongue, and our lips meet.

"Mmmmmmmm." My God: we've even said it at the same time. Oh, ecstatic caramel passion, I embrace you. I would say something - but my lip is stuck to your moustache. Oh, happy sticky thrill! I feel wonderfully wicked, and wise....

Star Secret

There is the ink, reeling above me; void black page of melted night sky,
My mind's secret sable, seeking imprint -
And here I am, standing;
Suddenness: dragon star bursting unexpected glacial, temperate, celebration fire, lighting the buoyed above seas with twinkles, gleaming, and at peace;
Mirthfully shaking,
And I feel
You fall,
Smile sighing.

Table Setting

Luscious, this day, with fruit of grape, the juice of new knowingness staining lips with
Flush, and such:
Even the fullness of this skin cannot kiss the fullness of an orb containing, and not
Smile.
Fullblown, Fullsweet, full bodied, ripe with life and Fire...
Zero sugar, zero briques....
Sturdy-legged, clinging to the blown round edges like
Silk Grassed nectar, appled and dipped,
Sliding toward your eyes, and
Taken in with a
Sigh.

Melded Art

I awoke to two glimmers in my universe, shaded by the lids of Time.
Absorbed into Space in this Way, I sought to Touch the Universe, within it,
Finding, within the Ebb and Flow of Movement
The Warmth of Its Being, cradled in a
Haze of Smile.
Heartened, thusly, image became Itself, and I -
Possessed by Thought, and Void-Longing -
Its Complex Cubist Half,
Fitted.
What so, within the Confines of Picassoesque Layers?
Sinew, bone, and skeleton, all?
Wave upon Wave said Nothing, Breathing, except
Ah.

A and B...(and C, and D..etc..xo)

Ah, first flush, when skin seemed but a thing to be explored
A journey that never ends, as it changes, with time;
To see the ebb and flow of life within its shelter in thee
Brought a different reason to be me, perhaps, they said:
And then, time; time with different views, time with different news:
Of Power, and Others' Pain, and Shared Love of Possible - Time, and New "Us" es,
Beyond What We Have Become, to What we Can Do.
Such Realization!
The Humility a little shocking, even with the Power, but they turned, and there were
The Each's Other's Eyes, Sharing, and it was ....."Of course, Still to Do...Right?" And the nod.
And the knowingness of admiring the skill of the other - even when no one else did;
Even in the small successes, beyond the Obvious Ones: there, and there, and...there.
What Joy!
Finally, then, like a Garden Blooming with Love Flung Far and Wide
A Celebration of the Formality of It, Uniquely. Oh, Hurry, Day! More Smiles.

P Funk

I recall, and am recalled:
Seconds in a crisp fog of breath, where the lip clung to mine in the blank
Of iced air, warmed and chilled within that same breath;
Press of finger on burned arm, browned by sun, and wind, and earth, pained white;
A fleeting smile, beneath the swirl of wool, before the cool of autumn teared
the blurred vision of fleet and flight of feet, met;
Choked in smoke and smirk of clubs and clubbed, vilified and verified,
Having supported and, crutch-like, become a wooden stick wielded not for
Higher Mountains travels, but welded men, and wilder egos;
Bid farewell in strange heat of regret and recognition, inconvenient, and
Misunderstood, within the larger scheme of patience, and the Importance of Being Earned, in Earnest;
Saddened, trilling New Age Grace's Amazing Solidity, amongst the Remembering,
Organ accompanied, stopped by imaginary lumps, and invisible throat lumps,
Inexcusable in the Controlled, and
Unimportant, even as I counted the steps the bearers were supposed to take,
As it appeared on Paper.
One cannot ride that
Sheet.
How dry the comfort.How smug the Pointed. How
Sharp the Edge.

My Retarded Social Development

(Stage Direction for Reading Aloud)..."assume a soft, intimate, almost secretive voice while saying this, and include the reader, as ...oh...almost a confidante, really..... Begin by taking a long breath, and close, serious, and committed attention to the gift of God that is literature's road map indicator: punctuation, in all of its rapturous stops and starts. And....go:"

Confessor (don't actually say this, and start again, if you did. This is the character's name, in a play.) :

Apparently, unbeknownst to me, there comes a time in every middle aged woman's life - who has realized, with clanging clarity, that her RRSP fund sucks the boner - or, worse yet, has flown into space with the sadness egg called "I have no life" - when she feels an overwhelming desire, (having been abandoned by both sanity and any known human being who can speak in full sentences)to run screaming into the street, yelling madly of thrilling ends to heretofore steamily imagined sexual encounters.

(Some, over a long period of time, even. Bugger! No offense to those who might assume that it would alway be both thrilling AND successful. Also, no offense to those who actually consider plebean activities like...oh...getting a job, for instance. ...do read the previous bracketed words out loud, but not this part, as its meant to explain the concept of an intimate aside...ahem. Also, don't SAY ahem, just kind of cough, instead.)

And I thought the glamourous world of scrap metal recycling security had people breathing heavily.....where HAVE I been?

Yet another sadly realized example of my retarded social progress, I fear...sigh.(don't say this last word, just actually DO it, in a way that does not provoke or expect any kind of sickening reaction like...pity, for example, which often pre empts vomiting.)

The end. (Don't actually say that last bit out loud.)

Hark the Herald Angels Sing -inciting the drone in you

Ah, sweet seasons of sessions of silent thought!

It's enough to make even the Heralds stop and cease provoking, this Memorial Weekend....and I do mean weak end.

In fact, I'm so thrilled at the prospect of the utilization of a heretofore honourable pastime - writing - to heap scourge upon another artist - NOT - that I have decided to celebrate the true staying power of the "drone in us"....otherwise known as your friendly neighbourhood assembly line worker...or "blue collar Baby jane", as I like to call us, by outlining the positive qualities of said underpinned, undervalued, and underestimated.

The Canadian variety, particularly, boring as we may be, have the self-discipline of the most stoic rocket scientist, the staying power of a nurse, and the patience of a saint, as anyone who has managed to "stick it out" for longer than 24 hours in anything other than blathering on about an outburst of temper tantrum and a lack of work ethic, will tell you at the drop of a hat.

Let us celebrate, then, friends, the successful among us, who move beyond the day-to-day use of both repetition and the musicality of it, to achieve such mortal succesess as: books, documents, operas, symphonies, perfection in piano, equisiteness in line, meter, pitch and rhythm, and delicacy in quality, quantity, and visual beauty in any product produced by two hands.

Even as we share this stoicism, now, with our heretofore ignored brothers and sisters in Mexico, who now will be responsible for erecting the lowly pickup truck, to service farmers everywhere, let us hope they value this "sharing of space and time", even as we strive to maintain balance, ethics, and a decent working wage for the general populace, in tandem with a benefit plan, a lack of destruction of the environment, and the necessity for making a living - plebean as it may be, for those whose lack of understanding of both "robotics" and the discipline required to control one's activities within this infrastructure, so as not to be replaced by the mechanical, ever asserts itself, with a certain ....aplomb.

Ah, Keanu: ah, wind; ah....success. Its quiet self continues on, unabashed, unabated....undaunted. There is a sweet rhythm to it, is there not? If only envy was always replaced by the comaraderie of pride in the achievements of those we love and admire...but, alas, the "line worker" mentality is not for everyone....

Methinks life might do well to consider it, within the framework of an insistence upon itself. But then, Jon Bauer, why would I ever "sign in" to respond to anything I view as incorrect, misunderstood, and immaturely provocative in nature?

Wink....perhaps the Gort in us is freer than we think, if only as a result of robotic restraint.

Kind Regards, as ever...

Proximity Shock

What spark, then? What, the glowing, hence, just there, in you?
Oh, speck of fire in glint of eye
That glows and glimmers with its mirror:
Too soon, too late, too early, eerily, when met - back, apace, leaping recognition:
What of this? What is this knowing, beyond immediate,
Beyond speaking, beyond a seeing...only heat of fire and ice?
Is't so late, that being met of self,
Joined is met, and blend, and spark, and speak, at once?
What, this strangeness? Oh, sweet welcome madness; move, oh tremulous timbred throat, thundering near cadence measured, ever, in trill, and sigh, nearer:
What, this spell of letter, light, and love?
What, of round, and square, and orb, and ear;
How, of in, and on, and of, and us:
When, of is, and are, and be?
What, of we?
'Tis two; 'tis one...'tis three - must be.
No face, no fire could light, myself, (yourself, ourselves,) but thee(mewe), so
Quietly.

A Stir in Stillness

What starlight gaze, in its quiet path of gleaming,
Could light such a way as this?
Ah, gleaming; see, only see, this path, this path of stillness,
Written, as it is, in all the secret places
Held so closely
They cannot be spoken,
Only known
As
Before,
Found, as they are,
On rocks, and deep, loved places,
And walls that are
Ourselves,
At last,
Understood.

League Alert!

Hearken, Known League!

We welcome in our midst, the following:

Sir Saving Grace, Sir Peaceov, and to the first level: Library Man.

They are known to us, henceforth, as brothers in effort, in heart, in Service.

May Love strengthen us all.

The Chair.

Good Verse Rescueth Mime

Cultural exploration, vernacular particles of self, realized,
I salute thee:
Were it not so, I would suffer the fate of far lesser banality,
Suffering madly for art, and
Wallowing wildy in aphorism, alliteration, and allegory -
Lest I swear.

Far better, an incorrect salute,
Than a mouthed
Fart into Space; especially in mixed company.
Yay, it approacheth...high irregularity!
(Perish the thought...dear down under...he says, mildly, if somewhat..slowly,
In response, trying to breathe between suppressed laughter)

Luckily, verbiage rescues - anon,
And I utter,
Swaying wildly;
Lest mammaries cloud vision
And ears slip away, erstwhile....I sigh:
Ah, to feel elfin! It's driven to dervish, I am,
Though flit be far - and flat the soda:
I bloom, then, and blush, sweet lodge sheen upon the
Hills of Morning,
Shivering....

.....remembering Latin.

Easy Rider, Random thoughts, and Caps.

"Oh, to be a roaming, there, aboot the gloaming....."

Remember when they used words like that? Well, I don't either, but I remember people reading them to me, and they sounded real; in the moment; vital.

The years slipped away, and became someone else's now, fifty years ago, with a different haircut.

Not as easy, then, with feelings; not as easy, then, with lives; not as easy, then.
Funny thing, that word: easy.
"Easy come; easy go."
"Easy like a Sunday Morning."
"Easy enough for you to say."
"Oh, she's...." (cough) " Easy." (That last worse than death, in some quarters. They wore gloves, had perfect darts where their breasts fit in, swished when ogled at(probably where the males who do it, learned it - both swish and ogle, to be sensitive - in thoughtful retrospect), and had murderous beauty routines and murderous instincts, when their date cancelled. Both led to Valium, later in life.
"Easy enough to get."
"Easy, breezy, highly attractive." (Not to be sued. Easy to be sued, dammit, even when attempting flattery, which is often mistaken for inaccurate plagarism, instead of brief reference.) Easy, my ass. See above murderous beauty routine. Most gene combinations "blew", as they say - somewhat indelicately. You got at least one zit, and did not look or act nicely during menstrual cramps. This last you never discussed. Or skipped gym because of it, risking potential embarassment to prove your toughness in a hideous, ballooning jumper designed to make you look astoundingly like a human showercap. Imagine my amazement when I discovered that the plant holders in the dollar store were actually mini shower caps, complete with elastic around the edges, and flower designs. Swear to God. "Shit: those people love their flowers", she thinks to herself, seeing the "made in China" label. I mean, shower caps for your plants....is there a name for that, that isn't anthropomorphic, or insulting, in a language I have not yet learned to swear in, with both gusto, and a certain polite hesitance?
Ah, too easy, I expect. Now I have twenty seven shower caps, in sizes far too small to fit any known head, but my God, all my plants will never, ever ruin my furniture, and may also become doctors one day....
Just like that! (Wink.)
At moments like these I realize how sensitive people in every part of this world are, when you understand them.
Also, when you eat food you're not used to, don't throw up, and compliment them on how unique it is, unless it's eyeballs, which really are both an acquired taste,
and only available in season, unless you want to get asked for
Your license. And they'll know if you lie. Eat tapioca next time, and don't be a Hero.
Easy stuff.
Sometimes it's the poetry of the idea - and a lot easier, too, on
The Bear.
Smile.