May 2013
2 posts
11 tags
Secret Names
I have a secret name, you know.
I know that it is a secret, because
even when I tell it to people,
they don’t believe me,
or else they laugh and say
it’s strange, and anyway,
they never use it.
It’s mine, and it echoes in my head
in someone else’s voice
(always, always in that voice,
because I clung to it,
and ran it through the ridges
of my mind, until it formed a...
14 tags
Wheeeeeeee, Oof!
Wheeeeeeeee, Oof!
That’s the sound I made
Tumbling down into another decade.
Wheeeeeeeee, Oof!
That’s the sound that came
From the next ones who tumbled down the same.
They landed on top of
The ones who fell before.
We landed on the lot of
Those already on the floor.
The conveyor belt rolls on
And more are falling now.
There’s no way you can hold on,
Just shout on the way down.
...
April 2013
2 posts
11 tags
Balance
There is a balance to be struck,
and I am often struck by the balance:
it crashes down on my shoulders,
(wide, wide, look at the size of
her back, they said), and I am
Atlas. Stand tall, they say,
stand taller, and smile,
and the world pushes down on me.
We strike the balance,
and the balance strikes,
and we are pushed down,
down down to the ground
(stand tall, stand taller)
and the clock...
11 tags
Substance
I am the wind.
I am the wind
and people walk through me.
They don’t even have
to lean forward.
(I have leaned forward
on days when I was not
the wind. Now I howl,
and I howl, and I howl,
but I keep no one awake
but myself.)
People step outside,
and I ruffle their hair,
or toy with their skirts
just for a moment.
Sometimes I blow a little dust
into their eyes.
That bothers them,...
February 2013
2 posts
13 tags
What can I say?
Here’s a funny little poem about something that happened to me the other day:
“What the fuck!”
This would make a terrible epitaph,
I think to myself, and then
shout it again, and again.
The car honks,
insistently.
I suppose the horn is not
the most insistent thing
about it. The way that it
swerves around
pedestrians as they
scatter, the way it
speeds up as it...
12 tags
Crescent Moon
“I like your chin.” That’s what I wanted to say to the girl on the bus. I thought better of it, though. I thought it might not go over as well as “I like your earrings” or “I like your scarf” or the silence we usually hope for on the bus. Her face was like the crescent moon, and her chin was long and pointed and her mouth as she got up, two stops before mine, was long and pointed,...
January 2013
12 posts
13 tags
Fohnkrankheit
Woosh, thump, thud said the wind.
Jesus, I said, I get the point.
The wind didn’t believe me, though,
and it screamed at me all night long.
I lay awake, and sang and rhymed
and wondered what I
had ever done to it. (The wind has
never liked me—when I lived in
the place before, it would break
my sleep with strange dreams,
on the nights when it let me sleep
at all. That place...
10 tags
The Flood
The flood reminds me of home:
not my home, not any home I have now,
but the one I had,
before it broke (and can’t be fixed,
and they never made a patch or a stitch
that could sew back together what
they
took
from
me.
Us. I’m being selfish.)
But that was home.
Where I started to
figure it out
really, they way most people do
so much sooner, and the way
I wouldn’t...
11 tags
Winter Chill
Feet and hands are blocks of ice,
tips turning white,
and butter, left on the counter for hours,
does not soften.
I turn up the heat and crouch next to it,
waiting for a blast of warmth.
When it comes, it is
unsatisfying.
Come and curl up next to me.
I have no warmth to share, but you
seem to have more than enough
for two.
My breath mists in the air.
Let me tuck my hands under your...
9 tags
Click.
Click. Click. Click.
No students today.
Click. Click. Click.
One hour to go.
Click. Click. Click.
Good god, will
somebody
please post
something
fascinating
on Facebook
or on Reuters
or anywhere
at all that I will
see it.
Click. Click. Click.
This cold
has rendered me
incapable of
meaningful
action.
Click. Click. Click.
9 tags
The Cold
This cold is just bad enough
to keep me from being remotely
productive,
but not bad enough to keep me
comfortable, at home, in bed.
Mom. Mom.
I would like some more soup,
if it is not too much trouble,
given that you live
several
thousand
kilometres
away.
9 tags
Winter Storm
I was, I must admit,
caught by surprise
this morning, when,
only moments after
the sun slipped away
behind the clouds
(or so I assume—it got
darker,
anyway, but I was
making my tea
and not
looking out the window)
but at any rate,
only moments after
that sudden darkness,
a great rattle and clang
set my fire escape
ringing and dancing.
At first, I thought that
my upstairs...
8 tags
Distractions
I have been a bit
distracted.
I know this, because
I keep causing myself
tiny, but hilarious
injuries.
(They’re not hilarious
at the time, being
painful,
and embarrassing,
and resulting,
for the most part,
in hissed obscenities
and bloodloss
but in retrospect,
given about five
minutes to think,
I generally can’t help
but giggle).
Yesterday morning,
while slicing
a roll
for...
9 tags
Thaw
I was (more than)
ready for it to be Spring.
That’s why I left my apartment
without my gloves or my hat or
anything else that might make me
look like a sensible, well-prepared
individual. The sun was shining,
and it had been so warm for so
long (at least three days),
even though it snowed
yesterday, big flakes
drifting down with wide
spaces between them that
melted when they...
9 tags
Mumble
Does anyone else ever get
the feel of a word
stuck in their mouth?
Not the meaning of it
(meanings being the
strange and shifting
things they are)
but the sound.
The writhing, moving
round or sharp
tingling sound of it,
so it rolls around
your tongue and
traces its way up
your throat
and if it ever had
meaning
(whatever that is)
it’s gone now
and all that’s
left is...
8 tags
Red Door
There is a door in the wall
across from me.
I hadn’t noticed it before.
But then, I haven’t been here
that often
yet.
It’s red, or burgundy,
or a reddish brown (they say
that women are better at
distinguishing colours,
that we have more names
for them, but I have never
had the confidence to stand
behind such subtle delineations
in a thing that doesn’t even
exist in the...
11 tags
Old Woman
Look, everybody, more poems:
The woman was tall
And elegant
And old.
Her hair was drawn back
Softly, silver grey.
How did this happen?
She asked.
I am old.
I am old and I am ugly.
When I look
In the mirror
I don’t see me.
My mother took her hand.
I don’t know you
She said
But I see beauty.
The woman pressed her hand
And thanked her.
My mother looks in the mirror.
I am old
She says
I am old and I...
5 tags
Ritual and Repetition
Here, universe: have another poem.
Ritual and repetition.
My aunt painted it.
Two herons, each reflecting
the other. Their eyes meet.
Their beaks taper and swell,
indistinguishable,
and the setting sun
sets their wings aflame.
I know the reeds in the painting.
They are on fire, too.
Not in her picture. In my
memory. Burning torches
on an icy lake that I will not
fall through this...
December 2012
1 post
October 2012
4 posts
8 tags
10 tags
Supper Time
That salad was delicious.
But it was not enough
to keep me from helping
my roommates to decimate
some Indian take-out.
I say decimate.
I mean we ate it all.
Rather than a tenth of it.
Don’t be such a pedant.
8 tags
Dolphin Drills
The water is cold, but never
cold enough. In the lane
that should be two,
old ladies walk back and
forth and one thin, thin
woman lies back in the
water, her skinny arms
covered in thick hair.
Their movements are
awkward. But then,
that is coming from
the girl with the flutterboard
in the fast lane
a bifurcated mermaid
humping the water like
a thirteen year old
with a pillow
as...
September 2012
2 posts
8 tags
6 tags
Long, long overdue update
Poem for Fall.
[[MORE]]
Grey Sky
The sky is grey. It will be grey for a long time.
Under my feet, the leaves crunch crunch crunch
and smell sweet and soft. They decay.
I am pretending it is summer. I wear short
skirts and walk for miles in shoes that do not
protect my feet. Where are my socks?
The night air is chilly through my open window.
I will not close it or turn on the heat.
Shadows crawl...
June 2012
8 posts
7 tags
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May 2012
77 posts
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