Sunflowers
Too many eyes have drawn them out.
If you weep before them, don’t feel alone.
A yellow that shouts, a yellow applied
with a switchblade or a lame à cran d’arrêt.
Follow no one. Let no one follow you.
Find a quiet hour. Find an hour, or two.
You’ll feel alone.
Don’t feel alone. Remember the universal.
Everyone will feel alone.
Everyone has felt so.
Let them come out. They will thud you.
They will squeeze your heart.
Remember the universal, the universe.
Their place in it. Yours.
Superseding sublime
they brush the divine.
Wintering
Passing Canada geese in pewter skies,
unseen but heard clearly.
Forecasted snow
creates a dichotomy.
This is north, not south.
What compelled them to stay?
Namesake ties,
a kinder, better cold.
But these folks here
wear their feathers most likely.
No winning anywhere
the chimneys smoke.
Holding Pattern
The walk tests me each time.
The uneven pavement, the steep hills.
I always work up a good sweat.
I stop at Arthur’s flat for a beer.
He’s moving west this spring.
“Got a cousin in Jasper,” he says.
“He’s gonna set me up there.”
Nothing’s holding him here.
Arthur used to be the super
in my building but lost that gig
after his heart attack. He’s
doing better now and probably
shouldn’t be drinking beer.
Never know if it could be his last.
But maybe because of that
he should drink as many beers
as he wants. And maybe one
of them will be his last,
but it will taste delicious.
Nothing’s holding him here—
and what’s holding any of us
to this particular point in time
and space, besides gravity
and maybe loyalty to someone
or something, or love? Love
can hold us. But you can crash
letting go of it or being let go.
Time to finish my walk.
I need the sweat, the release.
I need to keep moving
to stay my own crash.
I thank Arthur for the beer
and hit the road. He promises
to write or email from Jasper,
but I would never hold him to it.
Stories Always End
A single light in the darkness
triggers a dust-mote maelstrom.
Love was in the air.
Now a war has begun.
Fingers coil fingers.
Both sides claim victimhood.
Each knows the role assigned
at the start of the play.
One holds an atlas, the other a knife.
A radio plays
If You Could Read My Mind
in the background.
The word castle creates
a quiet space
where the enemies reflect.
Chests heave,
flesh gleams
under the bare lightbulb.
No one can read anyone’s mind,
the two conclude
independently.
Worship
The stained glass windows
surrounding us exhaust the eyes.
The sermon exceeds all
expectations, shatters records
kept in dank church vaults
memorializing men of lung
as we call them in this context.
Men of lung, filling up, nostrils
black as horse-drawn hearses
clopping over cobblestones,
flaring to the graveyard, man
the man goes on as such
to stone another man seeking
only comfort in the chapel.
Can the bored be redeemed?
Nothing that a simple miracle
wouldn’t remedy right quick
—something loud as hell or maybe
just a light show, or Jesus
in the stained glass windows
telling us where to go.
