pemberton winter poems (a bit after the fact!)

my lust painted you with virtues,
i hoped to rub them from your skin
onto my skin.

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we cast our bodies and minds like nets into the great ocean of life because we are hungry for the fish of experience.

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in motion

dawn-time bus ride,
bumping and weaving out of the pemberton valley,
bleary-eyed commuters all face forward,
i sit sideways and joyously see the sky turn bright behind the mountains,
pink glaciers across a frozen lake,
and we're almost there,
i remember how i love to move,
to be moved.

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work on monday

how can i express the immediacy,
the directness,
the guilelessness of that moment?
stepping out the front door,
not so early, but it's late winter and so dawn is moving slow,
i'm walking with a straight back because it's fresh and not too cold,
the light is so soft that even the petrocan can be forgiven its ugliness,
this little town is still rocking in its mountain cradle
but the birds!
the birds fill this morning with the keenness of their desire,
desire for life,
desire to say yes to everything,
desire for its own sake and nothing more,
i love them for their ecstatic voices and their wings and their promises of spring,
and i envy them their hollow bones.

desire

i was slicing an apple when the blade of the knife darted across my finger pad,
i watched it to see if it would bleed, slowly it did, and then more than expected,
it ached dully, like desire aches, like yearning aches,
and while i ate that fruit i thought about sin,
Original Sin, Forbidden Fruits, and what temptation is,
I thought about Eve, a rib, and Adam, dust,
and i thought about snakes that tease our minds.

i used to be saddend by the full moon,
i thought its luminosity belonged to one man,
i see now that it belongs to all of us who sleep outside,
to all who take time to contemplate the sky.
--for fede

shivalik surrender

the smell of earth, pine and wild roses in the sun,
i cold have fallen down and died in that scent and it would have been ok,
the mythic sized ravens and wooly mountain dogs would have feasted on my flesh,
and wild strawberries grown up upon my clean white skull,
little dirty faced children would have played with my ribcage,
or turned one rib into a spout for the freely gushing springs,
everyday a family could have drunk from my abandonned bone,
i would have been the bringer of sweet nectar and the lifeblood of their home,
the smell of earth, pine and wild roses in the sun,
i could have fallen down and died in that scent and it would have been ok.

YOUR NAME
IN SILENCE
IS THUNDER

jungle swim

i'm slashing through the jungle,
blinded by sweat and the flies attracted to my stink,
spinning in fear of suspected tigers,
hoping to make them shy at the sight of my face,
the creepers are tripping me, grabbing me confusing me,
have i been along this path before?
the jungle grows faster than i can cut,
my face is sticky with spiderwebs,
and my claustrophobia screams for a clearing,
screams for an unobscured view of the sky.
but i'll tell you, strangely it feels more like swimming,
like dreaming,
my feet may be trapped in mud,
but i'm as light as the morning air.

thirsty apocalypse

i watched a dust storm on the far bank of the ganga,
i watched the horizon blur as the earth headed into the sky,
people stumbled on through the city,
masked like bandits,
a city full of desperadoes,
trying to save their eyes.

there was a tornado twisting across the kshipra,
full of grain and fertile soil,
it crossed along a footbridge
and died amongst the saints and temples,
where mosquitos made the river boil.

on a day full of sun, sun showy with his strength,
i laid in the dry bed of the betwa
using rocks to rest my head and giving in to violent heat,
feeling stones smooth from endless waters,
and i wondered where they'd went.

o stagnant sacred rivers,
banks dusty, thirsty, foetid,
will the next rain be enough?
is this one stage in your journey
or just a slow and dirty death?

o stagnant sacred rivers,
i saw light in the storm clouds today
and imagined michaelangelo's angry god,
thundering and threatening,
but threating what i was not sure,
will he bring floods for your salvation,
or will you die with cracking lips?
will you die with us sucking at your throats?
will it be a thirsty apocalypse?