I can hear
The sounds of the surf
Waves crashing upon the earth
Wearing it down
Through the night
Year after year
Persistence in motion

Or maybe
It’s simply the traffic
Endlessly churning past
On Steeles Avenue
Doing the same thing
To the bedrock of my mind
Turning it to sand

Either way
It helps me sleep

sometimes
as i lay in the dark
beneath a blacker cloud
the moon slips her harbour
and comes to earth
to bring me silver lights
amidst my sleepless nights
a naked beauty of beneficence
singing of the coming dawn
and her notes weave as sutures
holding together my torn heart
keeping it from flying apart
in a rare and hope-filled embrace

if they choose the bear
there’s something wrong with us
not them

if they choose to fear
and you wonder at the fuss
and condemn

step away
step away
leave the fray
let them alone
to sing in the day
until you find a way
to be human, safe and ok.

they take you
they beat you
they mark you
imprison you

they kill mother
they kill father
and sister, and aunt
and uncle
and beautiful
and bright
and new
little baby
little brother

they gas you
they burn you
they use your ashes
to feed their fields
their rivers and swamps
they bury you
try to erase you
they hate you
for
just
being
you
as you survive
to spite them all

and then

they have the balls
to call you the monster
and wonder why
you get so defensive
when you’re screaming PTSD
made manifest in the world
carrying the weight
of a million would have beens
bourne bloody on your back
and into the future
a weight that cannot be shed

A small ladybug

Hidden beneath the oak leaf

Red against dry brown

it’s ok
to write mindless words
about a cool beautiful morn
where the sun shines red
as a spotlight through thin hearts

it’s ok
to not crush our love in jealousy
beneath the ever-present me
but to sing songs of simplicity
and watch our cats just be

it’s ok
if these phrases are understood
and not so brick wall enigmatic;
to let go of the black thematic
that has become so automatic

it’s ok
for silence to be filled with
a trinity of holy syllables –
i love you
i’m happy

it’s ok
in the quiet of emerging day
to believe for a moment
that we are beautiful
and sit in the warmth of this truth
it’s ok

if separation is death
than who have i been resurrected as?
there i was, living for a time
on the verge of drowning in the dark
until i stopped the struggle
and sank to the depths
only to wake on sunnier shores
now recreated and newly yours…

as something new
as something bright
as something true
as something light

did i rise like a plague
as the walking dead
to terrorize these lovely lives
or did you call me forth
like Lazarus lost in the grave
falling confused into your embrace
a man you very well might save
simply with the truth of that smile
unfolding like golden sunrise on your face

i was a pretty young man
tall and slim, blue-eyed like mum
with dark brown longish hair
and naive tattooed upon my face
who the older men would find as
pigs snuffling out hidden truffles
safely buried in a dark, french forest;

they came one after the other
like the fat man from Gatineau
who would spend his time
relaxing in the university hot tub
eyes next to the naked showers;
he would cajole and encourage
“come with me at the end of the day
we’ll have dinner together
and you can see my cottage in the hills”
and i, not wanting to offend
i would simply respond with
“no thank you i have class to go to”
and slowly wander wet and away.

there was the old man in the limousine
who pulled next to me late at night
as i was walking from somewhere
to another somewhere still off and away.
“how about i give you a ride home?”
and he would beg and beg and beg
stalking slowly for blocks in the dark
and again the answer was a quiet
“no i’m good but thanks for the offer”
trying to get smaller and fall into shadow.

or once when i was stuck in Toronto,
i had missed my connecting train
and was wandering lonely with suitcase
through Christmas Eve streets past midnight;
and finally under the Royal York
sitting in a closed cafe with two others
a silent, sleeping middle-aged stranger
and an elegant, wealthy old man
who was prowling the tunnels
like a snake in the tall grasses.
“you should come to my room upstairs,
i have food and wine and we can talk
and pass the time…come with me, come with me
and i will give you money and a car to take you home
we could be the best of friends my small maus…”
but weary of it all i simply said no thanks
and wandered to a private corner to hide in fitfull rest
full of dreams that saw me beating him to death,
as a proxy for every blood-soaked wolf,
pounding my ever-present pain into his brain.

i was a pretty young man
with a thin film of agency
learned from having been
a beautiful boy
whom the men would find
and take into the darker evenings
with their pick-axe hands
where they would mine innocence
until i was empty and hollow,
a haunted house abandoned
of the dream that created it

i was a beautiful boy
unwrapped and consumed
then thrown cold to the street
left crumpled without the promise
of what once was new
of what once was fresh
that lured them from their corners

i was a beautiful boy
who learned too late that ‘NO’
was a wielded word of power
thrown like a life-preserver to chaos
that i could hold onto
until i drifted to safer shores…

instagram lies to me
and tells me
at the click of a button
i can ‘create’

ah if only it were that easy
and if it were
what terrors would we unleash
given the terrors we have unleashed

let us be content
as we seek to pleasantly present
a plate of delicacies served fresh;
a face after 600 attempts
at just the right angle;
or the horror of my loved one’s death
beneath the bombed out rubble
of another crumbling facade.

no need to make anew
when we could teach great Shiva
a dark and tortured thing or two