we walk in a fog

Silence

                                      Mia: Don’t you hate that?
                                      Vincent: What?
                                      Mia: Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it’s
                                      necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be
                                      comfortable?
                                      Vincent: I don’t know. That’s a good question.
                                      Mia: That’s when you know you’ve found 
                                      somebody special. When you can just shut
                                      the fuck up for a minute and comfortably
                                      enjoy the silence.                                                     

                                         from Pulp Fiction (screenplay by Q. Tarantino) 

This has to be the longest anyone has gone without speaking. I read somewhere that there are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves. Maybe I’m supposed to enjoy the quiet.

The morning smells like rain and cinnamon. I can’t imagine what normal people talk about. Maybe I should swing my arms more when I walk.

The houses on this block are much bigger than ours. I have to sneeze. Maybe we feel alone when there’s no noise.

The clouds look wispier than usual. I can see words hidden between your teeth. Maybe we can only be honest with strangers.

We used to hold hands and walk to the video store down the street. I can’t remember the name of it. Maybe we fear being uninteresting.

The street cats meow at each other. I hate the way your hands sweat. Maybe we don’t like to hear the sound of our own voices.

The tape I bought you is still sitting in your drawer. I wish I didn’t know that. Maybe we’ve reached our limit of words per lifetime.

The sun doesn’t make a sound when it falls out of the sky. I think there’s a rock in my shoe. Maybe I’ve gone deaf.

Touch lightly

In each touch we recall
there exists a small start of forgetfulness
in each creation
there must be a modest beginning of end
and all over again is a phrase that must be
temporary. Youth means once more
because we overlook everything: the dim
constant akin to a touch of lips.

In this moment, the less travelled darkness we rest on,
the path of rainwater our souls have been drenched with,
the slender kindling sensing deprivation, we do not recall the colour
of our optimism, scarcely above water.

We touch lightly and the forest beneath streetlamps is yet again.
The corridor of moon we grasped like railroad tracks
is beyond us. Hardwood trees, perhaps, or evergreen, every petal
feels the frost, the most terrible we’ve had for decades.
And then lay to rest
a murmuring sound once more and yet again,
each weightless touch a longing.


                                             translation of Sue Goyette’s “Kiss”



A translation poem calls for the writer to do whatever she thinks translation means. It’s free, welcoming and challenges the boundaries of whatever you thought your comfort zone was. 

We were stars once

radiant in everyday deserts
between ends and beginnings
and the faces we make when we yawn

We were thirsty
filling space
between lungs with
loose threads streaming from our fingertips

We craved comfort
and rummaged through words
a calculated search for pieces
                                              pieces
between pieces of a puzzle
with no sides

Now we sift through the insides of others
and unearth familiar constellations
between glances
we do not remember

I hear the laughter of a girl lost in your celadon galaxies

We were stars once,
but we dare not look back
at the moon

52 minutes and 59 seconds

                                                                       For Alfred Hitchcock

52 minutes and 59 seconds,
no music no colour.
The great length of human obedience
and a single, necessary truth:
We are ordinary.
We would not have changed a thing.

Read More

(Source: video.google.com)

David McGimpsey: 10 myths about poets

Hot damn, it’s National Poetry Month. And while so many of us will be busy at our annual National Poetry Month Taco Parties (or “PoMo Taco Jams” as the kids call ‘em), some people are wary of poets. This is understandable. Poets, despite their reputation for using phrases like “circular heart,” for sullenness and for not understanding the subtlety of the phrase “I promise to pay you back,” are not bad people at all. Fear not, celebrants: here are a few pointers which I think should clarify the most common misconceptions about poets.

1. Not all poets are introverted. They aren’t always thinking away at some clever line they can’t actually speak of.  Poets are just alone because of their poor life choices. So, when you see a poet, don’t think of some wild bard whose pent-up verbal hurricanes may suddenly destroy your world, think more of a sad kid holding the scrap of a recently punctured balloon.

2. Not all poets are poor. They just dress that way because their craft has a complex relationship with irony.

3. Poets are not just trying to use words to get into somebody’s pants. They are trying to get into your mind, to create a beautiful illusion. An illusion that eventually creates co-dependence and a willingness to buy them lots and lots of wine.  This not so bad because if you are a person who ends up being being seduced by a poet, you will definitely need the wine too.

Read More

(Source: cbc.ca)

The dream thief

The leaves are always longing for the ground.
Light searches for itself in endless mirrors.
Who are you with no one else around?                                

You hide your mysteries somewhere in this town
and never leave the key for hidden drawers,
but leaves are always longing for the ground. 

I reach for you but you do not come down.
I cannot solve your riddles anymore.
Who are you with no one else around? 

I ache for something that cannot be found
and yet it also cannot be ignored.
The leaves are always longing for the ground. 

You hide your puzzle pieces underground
but rain uncovers all that was before.
Who are you with no one else around? 

The spiders in my bed don’t make a sound.
I wait for night and steal your dreams once more.
The leaves are always longing for the ground.
Who are you with no one else around?

 

This is my first attempt at a villanelle. The form requires six stanzas: five tercets and one final quatrain. Lines 1 and 3 of the opening tercet alternate as line 3 of the subsequent tercets and together provide lines 3 and 4 of the quatrain. The rhyme scheme is ABA in the tercets and ABAA in the final quatrain. There is also a steady rhythm and rhyme pattern throughout.