Sweet Jane

She started with a kiss and a hurricane.
There was no memory of the events, just muffled sounds.
There is always a baby
no one talks about.

She came to my house to unwind.
Like so many years
that won't dissolve.
The pain lingers on the open air.

Her voice was still good.
Her body, a little lighter.
The nicotine patch and AA
kept the secrets and we had nothing

to say really.
The haunting had stopped
when we dried up.
The house seemed just like any.

I think she's in San Francisco letting the songs
guide her.
Or so she says.
I wanted to hear

her real name.
But sometimes all a person
can give
is evidence.

American Idol

You're the bomb
or the eggshell
Your teeth make me quiver,
those perfect pearls

I want to sign you
with Lysol or bring you home
for turkey
(how embarrassing)

Maybe I will meet you
at the Oscars
We can bring your tiny dog
in that canary yellow

tracksuit

You are like the best hog
at the county fair
I'd put on my Sunday trousers
to meet your dad

even, that kind of special

In Hollywood I take my map
The names of old dead actors
I don't know - Where are you
young breed of lovelies

My life is something
lighter
just seeing you grasp
the microphone and take flight

I can tell you understand me
as only the young
and truly beautiful
ever can

Husband and Wife

when he looks
for it
you look for it
the world has room

he can caress
and you can bend into the
swan
or the demon

the world of possibilities
we keep
noiseless chatter
and unrest

he will prove
and you will prove
that neither one is capable
of truth

On birds and hopelessness

It's been awhile since I last blogged about anything other than poetry, but I am not feeling especially creative today.

Tomorrow I am heading out to witness the cormorant cull at a nearby provincial park. I am not looking forward to what has been described as a morbid free-for-all shooting with hundreds of cormorants dead and many injured, left to die of infection, dehydration or predation as a result of their injuries.

Aside from the misery, I am tired of our constant attempt to "control" nature through violence, especially when we created the imbalance (if it is even that) in the first place. Despite the numbers of cormorants, the fact remains that we simply do not like nature when it imposes on our pleasures. We encroach, manipulate, placate, engineer and pluck what suits us, and have the nerve to be offended by the smells and sights of another species.

The ridiculous bias of media and hunting/fishing groups makes me sick. The cormorant has been morphed into the demonic. Language used to describe the bird is even more insulting, associating blackness with ugliness - a highly offensive parallel to anyone intelligent enough to understand the racist subtext in assigning negative qualities to colour.

A sampling of the almost propaganda- like descriptives applied to the bird include: "black, fish-devouring bird" "voracious fish-devouring bird "hopelessly geeky cormorants" "cormorants are black, ugly and have a vicious-looking hooked bill " ...

And so it goes. What's more disheartening is the trend in shooting cormorants just across the border, with States like dominos - one cull announced, then another, then another.

I wonder how much of an impact this one action will have when the enormity of the trend has already taken hold. Like the white-tailed deer, are we in for another system of species management, so entrenched in our world we barely notice the target.

The horrible consequence of longing

In the land of the living
you have been a witness to the sights
grandmothers' gloves -
an old drum - the dog
you thought ran away but instead
tells you things

like a promised swim
the heat and hornets
and your dad with a gun
of quiet

In the land of the dying
a moth is an angel
A moth
made of insignificant
stories

an angel of memory

In the land of the living
the noises of everyday
the kettle - your husband snoring
the cat's impatience
You thought it was all wrong
somehow
but it is like water making its way
to the sea

In the land of constant shifting
you have stopped to listen
like the only sound
in a world - what you knew was coming
and like the dog - his desperate longing
a fatal moment
you who should forget the sting

At the office

I live in fear of what's going on at home
I try to extinguish my fears
by humming Phil Collins songs
but all I can think about are the microwave
wires or the cat asleep by the stove

People talk and type so loud
it causes me to staple my t4s to my '05 reports
I’m sure there are evil forces behind this
making numbers look like tuna fish or
little fanged dogs

The guy to my right picks his nose and eats it
(I swear - I saw him do it an hour ago) It's brutal
the germs that wage war in the invisible
I had the flu last week
or maybe was it typhoid fever

The president is well guarded
His jokes come over the PA system - retold by
a whiney-voiced woman I have never actually met in person
I think she was once a taxi driver
or a matinee attendant

Something strange is on my skin - a fine dust made of dreams and aspirations
It could mean I have not yet been fully transformed
I open the window and everyone
disappears in a gasp or
an explosion