Ezekiel Bones

let the prophet
cry alone in the snow

because words made of god
do not flow to the full
all rooms need emptiness
spaces between the spokes
make spinning wheels work

so let the prophet
cry alone in the snow

words made of god
hunger for lonely souls
self-exiled and stern

someone who I haven't seen since before
I-moved-away-came-back-again
asked about the woman I chased
back to the city

"she broke up with me within two weeks"
I said, "she found someone else"
then I laughed and said
"that's why I came back
there is no one here who can break my heart."

I meant it as a joke
but it was true

furious bliss

for Lauren

if you could measure the extent of my furious bliss
you would be astounded by just how shallow joy is

a full belly, fresh air, a good night’s sleep and water that’s clean
now the luxuries: the ability to read, a good book and a glass of wine

i go about my morning routine
my automatic actions

every simple miracle of it etched banal
pouring cold coffee from yesterday
into the ceramic mug, shipped here
from the place i’ve never seen

i don’t even think about the coffee beans
let alone the organic sugar (how moral & responsible!)
and the milk drained from udders of bovine prisoners

i couldn’t make a pencil
let alone a bicycle
all of Adam Smith’s invisible hands
choke me, complicit and pathetic
swaddled in the labour of millions

& damn the bug-eyed hungry children
who make me change the channel
with their implicit accusations
leveraged by rich pale skinned pseudo-celebrities
who ask me for money to pay them to care
so i don’t have to

this poem was supposed to be about satisfaction
it was supposed to have a happy ending
but my pious peacock social consciousness
my ideals strangled by post-modernist bullshit
can’t accept satisfaction

isn’t it lovely to have the luxury of language?
& lovely to have lots of wealthy internet friends?
it’s lovely that we can whisper together & feel cosmopolitan & connected
just like it’s lovely that i can afford to drink myself stupid
so i can say witty things to beautiful women

maybe we should burn all our books
hide in the woods
and wait for the world to die

or we could just drive and drive and drive
to anywhere but wherever we are
keep busy, keep occupied
accelerate to decline

inevitable deliberation on futility

My ache howls impermanently
with undine swirls of debatable sorrow
those crackle pop crocodile jaws
snap brittle cucumber rotten

(a forgotten name
a forgotten face
written in blue pen scrawl)

I can't conceal the lust that congeals
at the edges of my quick glance
my hasty and averted gaze
can't hide my baboon ass blushing face

Deciding should be easy
but I have no where to go
but an empty home

I wish it was raining
so I could walk alone
and watch the clouds
drifting across mighty mountains
as they dip and drip

or I could paint the color of go
reflected on the sidewalk
with an invisible brush
and thick gristle determination

I hate being alone
I can't stand to be crowded
staticians guess at satisfaction
but I know the nod driven yes of it is
the sky was bluer when I was a kid
and the dusk was less like blood

murders of crows caw cacaphony
while phoney hipsters on Vancouver streets
compose poetry about their blackbird grace
those excess feathers born of waste
and the ancient Greek in me
cries an augury of wars
simple as glowing iron Mars
looming red and large
in the fuzzy orange haze of city night

There are eagles at the Terrace dump
watching over heaps of bicycle parts
piled like summer days in the mind of a centarian
I want to eat garbage like the eagles
perfect and proud
but I'm not noble enough

I'd take to the streets
and sit and talk philosophy
but most people are too busy to listen
they don't have two three five or ten minutes
time is money
money is metal, paper and digits
to measure the production of widgets

and

I don't care anymore
I don't want anything anymore
except a warm touch
and someone to ruffle my hair

Mnemosyne: godmother of Cicero

"memoria, intellegencia, providentia"

stretch me back, a rubber band
tense, remembering past power

let me see splendor of is
and discern ravelling pattern
of future destiny unwinding from me

"quod ab inertibus dicitur"

"as the unskilled assert"
that knowledge is meaningless
a bore for the boring to busy themselves
I would revert to the opposing dissertation
that ignorence is ignomious
dull for the dullards to drown themselves

"imaginis autem agentibus acribus, insignitis,
quae occurrere celeriterque percutere animum possint"

manticore coloured a thousand hues of red
jaws agape, dripping electric blue acid saliva
standing at the pinnacle of a pyramid
master of a hunded steps

unicorn standing on one leg, on the edge of a burgundy cliff
below a purple sea crashes with lightning bolt waves
hundreds of swallows dance infinity symbols
in the liminal space between earth and sea

one eyed wolf, laying in a place where three roads meet
azure eyed, watchful, guardian of the triple path
above the mangy canine the moon ripples, yellow-hued

Cicero! Cicero! Cicero!

bittul ha-yesh

annihilate ego
i eye glass static
conceptualizations
grasping clinging ignorent
to illusory individuality