bombay

in the last city where parsis live and die,
i watched the buzzards swirl above the tower of silence,
i found their temple when i stopped looking for it
and thanked india for opening herself to me,
for opening me,
red bombay sunset soothing me
wading through a few million souls
watching the ocean move
and feeling my self move with it.

to new york and back

this city,
so familiar through images, ideas, sounds, and my dog eared copy of Catcher in the Rye that i loved so much,
this city,
a place that we all know without knowing, familiar and strange,
people burst from subterranean chasms like jack-in-theboxes,
grim and grimey, a city upon a city,
with half never knowing the snow and sun,
half never knowing the dank odours that emanate out of human existence when it goes underground,
ice skating under the christmas tree in rockefeller centre,
billboards on broadway eclipsing the sky,
beautiful in a grotesque way, bigger than life,
and is there happiness here?
cafes, clothes, and a pit in the ground that made us all gasp,
explosions that we still feel the tremors from,
and is there happiness there?
black kids beat box on the bus,
signs in spanish,
shopkeepers light their mennorahs,
and is there happiness there?

as a pilgrim, one is always homeless and yet always at home,
wandering down strange streets and savouring their names for the unknown promises they conceal,
imagining the day when they are familiar,
imagining life in this place.

when one crawls into a cave,
the walls of comfort grow thick with the mosses of fear and apathy,
only when one bursts forth out of hibernation
does the whafish intensity of the winter sun hit eyes that have grown dim and useless.

white boots aren't meant for heroes,
they dirty and scuff in ways that a 10 gallon never seems to,
no,
white boots are meant for crime
and for love that comes out of a hungry spirit,
a wandering spirit,
a spirit that only finds satisfaction when it is consumed, overwrought and perturbed,
a spirit that wants to be shaken with art and filth, poetry and constant love.

drifting over this familiar and wild geography,
contemplating those little lights of scattered homes,
distant as stars that burn and churn in galaxies I will never venture to or know,
so many lights,
so many lives,
with vastness of oceans and space in between,
bless my wings.

It takes more than that

You may roar but that doesn't make you a lion,
You may shine but that doesn't make you the sun,
You may come but that doesn't make you a lover,
You may jump but that doesn't make you a flea,
You may rise but that doesn't make you a loaf of bread,
You may climb in the mountains but that doesn't make you a goat,
You may live alone but that doesn't make you a hermit,
You may fly through a wheat field but that doesn't make you a locust,
You may sing but that doesn't make you an angel,
You may write but that doesn't make you a poet,
You may roll but that doesn't make you a stone,
You may howl but that doesn't make you a wolf,
You may be hungry but that doesn't make you a stomach,
You may struggle but that doesn't make you strong.

It takes more than that.

The rain has come with blackness

Pale, skinny, bare feet inside of wet shoes,
My blackness is enveloped by the liquid blackness of the night
And I fly like a specter towards my warm, butter coloured room,
The gutters rebel against waste management, water treatment and civic planning
By expelling when they should be ingesting,
A madness of yellow leaves and chestnut spinepods chokes the rapids,
Swirls the potholes,
And adheres to my expensive wet shoes that are being ruined,
The rain has come with blackness
Sure as spilled India Ink spreading through a rented carpet.

Late nights at the library

I came down from the mountain and went to my little house. It was much as I left it, neat in its messy, bare sort of way. Simple, temporary. I arranged some fall squash on the counter with a ring of chestnuts, ate some unremarkable food and headed out into the night time. Lots of people in my neighbourhood freaking out, as usual, generally in their own quiet ways. It's getting cold now but Shelly wasn't wearing her shoes. She'll be alright though, Shelly is long-term crazy and knows how to get around. Past the things that are open at this hour between the early and the late. Cafes offer warm beacons for lively ideas to float about and lonely people who clutch their coffee cups at 9 at night. What are they staying up for and what is shifting behind those watery old eyes? Grocery stores, convenience stores, darkened restaurants and various other holes to crawl into, my stride is quick past them all tonight. I finally ended up here, maybe to reinforce my solitude by checking on everyone who isn't here. To open emails and not know what to say. To try to remember the clarity I felt on the mountain, in the forest, I wanted to write something about it down before it fizzled away. I can feel this little place pulsing all around me with connections, memories, faded tendrils floating around my life, ensnaring it. I can remember the first time I climbed Mount Douglas, how proud Kerria and I were to find Beacon Hill Park, discovering QV's, the cage under the Johnson Street Bridge. So many little places, pockets of memory, delight and discovery, places that I still love. People that I still love. So when did we get so tired, set in our ways? When did we decide that we'd learned it all, knew what to expect? My time is counting down now, a minute left before the library closes and I'm still where I started

For others who cannot sleep

Sometimes I can't sleep,
I feel this mortal body dying all around me,
The details are just fireworks that you see long before you can hear.
Sometimes I end up tangled in the sheets,
Sometimes I read,
Sometimes I smoke,
Not because it makes things better,
Because it makes things worse.
I'm turning up my collar,
This season stretches traffic lights across the asphalt,
and I hate that that's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,
The perfect body wears a scar.
The perfect body wears a scar,
Eerily smooth,
Feeling flesh replaced by unfeeling,
Electric rivers changing green to red,
The pillow when I rise to work before the sun does.
Eerily smooth,
Eerily smooth.

how i am learning patience

maybe i am not meant to see you until my hair is long like it once was,
not until your beard has grown in again,
so that we can braid them together,
and be woven into love.
and i know that i must go to you,
because you will not come to me,
i am proud, but not so much as you are,
i am stubborn, but not so much as you are,
i will,
and i am,
just slowly, as my hair grows.