The Lavender City

Suppressing yawns o’er my lavender city
Awash with a glower of morning freeze
Heaven bends, embracing the receding tide
Its stole of angora settles soothingly above Coal Harbour
About the inlets and sounds
Absconding the waters’ mountains
Stripped steeples lift twiggished limbs
Stark outlines against the winter-white sky
Such a long line of weepers

Sometimes you might think
These buildings weren’t moving at all
Hunkered down amidst cinderblock beds
Seemingly cemented shockingly still
But when noon skies skim somber
Maudlin clumps of crisp slate
Below the Lions and rain come down
Shimmy up the sidewalk glens
Melt a bit to slide and glide west

Darker and darkened yet
Skies bleed as the sun sets and rests
Flags on pavement, as gaffs drip silent songs
A pattern-less patter through tattered awnings –
These mere spots of green ‘mongst grey
Whilst stony gryphons nod to passer-bys anon
Just awaiting the limen, that forgotten positive
But nay-sayers prosper ever
And the spineless do yet live anon…

a semiquaver

coffeehouse breakups
hope lost in each petulant stir
a horse runs on fire
past the mind’s montage film
“the disintegrated reign of the hallmark queen”
a cothurnal of the smiling goose
(who tells tall tales each mild monday eve,)
‘mongst the summer’s dawdling dusk
and budding-up bundles of rose petals lost,
(of buttermilk lush).
these eyes glowering as skies glow low
mundanely murmurs all this warbling woe,
stricken sudden,
a gasp
as sprinklers spout
shattered and broken as this bitten lip
fallen as the dandelion’s spores
where tangerine skies await the woken
scatter the scarper’s borrowed pearls
(tarnished as the wearer)
dainty asperity paints a sliced scene,
this a mawkish canard recounted
(such a silly song to be sung)
redundant spondees splattered
quibble o’er lyrics lauded by loons
just bread and bullfights and bed-ridden troglodytes
a semiquaver later forgotten

seasonal treason

fall asleep like Raspberry Truffle
cotton balls, afloat, surround
angelic renderings of
six, seven steam ships in Still
mayhap a stitch’ed sunset, red
as backdrop flush set
lost Wax Moulds broken
shards swept ‘way, wasted
pandered Smirks gainly giv’n
breathing in, then out, in Symphony
murky water swilling
glance about, a steadied gaze past
raised Figures of Cardboard cut
beyond his shadow-screen partition
plaster that grin of disembodied ease
time’s hooks abandoned
(or yet to be found)
for tea and orange marmalade on scone
how robins may stroll
a side-walk paired saunter
Shadows flung from sun and shingles
grounded to hardened warmth
a minute and five, but soon enough
recalling Wings, soar forth
ember-led under blush’ed cloud wisps
and views from Crab Park
the self-deceiv’ed core stutters on
a curious shell of Once Upon

Petals

hesitant petal pulling,
fully knowing the End in sight
to let it sink with the gloaming
or glide and rise
little by
little as it does
to a steady wavered pause
give it not Name, then fright
rifts in the pavement
a surge West in the salt-scented tide
careening, wings slanted
graceless gulls and blackened hawks
be downed alike
afore this wall of a wind
that tentative gale and ride sublime
no entry for the feigned or strained
the strangled of Heart floundering in flight
soul shallowed, then swallowed
wretches coarsened through that Meter’s grit
the sallow-face’d One still singing softly
come all, petal-pull
slowly
ever again
slighted Below

under may moons

white petals pepper the blacktop
mimed child walks white dashes of the dogwooded lane
on asphalt wet and air curtained close
dangling aerosols doddle in wordless wonder
cold and rain and warm fog clings
an eventide embrace still reminds
of dim mind-side photographs that pass in
pass and pull out the colour to grin in all grey
filching promises of yesterdays come
as two magnets pulled upright together
under may moons bright and summery
seen at the brink, but not beyond
the salt water surges, pools
diminishes at a will, a hand-waved breeze
and a determined stride of the white dashed lines.

entitled: home

this video has been making its rounds for a while now, but I can’t get enough of it.   I’ve called this city “home” for a few years now.  watching it may help you understand where some of my poetic inspiration comes from…  or it might just make you want to move here…  :)

cheers.

on the Delta

’tis a misted morning, grey ahead
a sunless sunup in the Echelons
and all a-glow’ring in the Eastern Sky
Dryads embalmed in moss stand still
as willows dance, sway slow
out on the Delta silt filters through clear blue
to the tragic haze of Neptune’s depth
strange fragments, burnt orange pigments
momentary mirrors, frail filings of Sun, subdued
the reigning Mysts lift their weighty robes
scatter and scamper up crag’ed mountain slopes
vague ashes of aubergine expire and rise
these trickling sun shafts simmer ‘way
each faineant cloud-lace below

the newspaper bird

slip on the stars and spilt milk
heartbreak falls
through failed attempts to sleep
blink once, twice
carry on in a stroke-splintered state
this girl breathes in and flutters still
waiting, drumming ink-smudged digits
yawning anon
and clutching her coffee close
folded like a paper bird

The Good Year

The Good Year, we will call it
All these shuffles and that stutter
Preludes and after-words and worlds
Ponder short at the post-crypts
These smudge-ed tombstones unfinished
Broken chisel deposited, flung asunder

The Good Year, they shall call it
Bit by bit the odds and ends will fit
Just so, and comedy be made
A feast, a wedding, of fairy tale make
Of hoarish toads and twisted roads
My prince, my prince will come…then run.

fridge poetry

question the new truth.
make woman wander.
discover & speak wisdom.
must begin strange, beautiful tome.
create fictional world.
never whisper easy.
find man of spine.
tell ancient epic.
she uses empty drama.
a monster can inspire romance.
how we amuse you!
could you imagine every good escape as though from a story time dream?
explode! give fight or laugh hard. then poetry is magic too.
see my hero? like him?

chosen to hold up wedding invitations:
another happy after. answer, grow, desire.
they have science. enter full heart. explore favorite soul. that vivid life long search.

*all punctuation added