~took a walk in the city today,
and this happened in the O'Henry traditional way~


the blind man crossing E. 15th,
does not look, nor does he care,
all foes on-coming,
come hither, he dares

his light is red,
yet his cane extended,
he click clacks steadily ahead,
unaware and unbeknownst,
his new step by step sidekick,
Sheriff Natty,
is writing an air poem to a
taxi driver with his
shotgun *******,
a NY gesture of
welcoming *******...

a green light means passage
is a taxi's right,
but my left shoe firm
attached to his bumper,
plus multiple looks mine,
any of which could ****,
his argumentation poses
do somewhat chill...

the sheriff of the city, his motto,
sic transit finger gloria

~

among the sadder sights
of city life
is contrast...

the dark-only coolness
of an Irish bar,
on a bright spring day
when life and love
is bud sprouting
while old white men,
on single soiled solitary stools,
their colored cheeks green
from the reflection of
TV emerald diamond fields,
sipping many pre-game $3
Guinness draughts

around the second inning,
they switch, onto
boilermakers to make
the languid afternoon stretch on,
this I know for sure,
for in the large gilded mirror
behind the bar,
see the barkeep's back asking me,
"what will it be for you
this fine spring day?"


~


next to the bar, in the corner market,
an old man's hands tremble in an old man's way,
in a way I only know thru his testimony,
as he does his daily self-feeding,
his wallet removed, fumbling for two
single soiled solitary one dollar bills.

the shopkeeper's fingers
beat the counter impatiently,
the old man's beer brown bagged,
transport ready, though the old one
rather be next door,
the extra Dollar saved causes
a last minute delay, shaky fingers,
asking for an extra purchase,
a small can of dog food please,
so he can watch the game at home
and share the same meal
with the man's real and best,
and only true spring weather friend

~

the mayor proclaimed as a matter of
public safety, public decorum,
a pack of three or more woman
wearing all black Lululemon athletic wear,
were now banned from being outside after nightfall

later this night, in Carl Schurz Park,
many vamp(ire) voices were heard
singing the lyrics to
"i want to do bad things to you,"
but they staked him only
to a free color reeducation

~

these takes I witnessed,
all or some,
these tales I took
some or all,
from beneath my skin,
where city streets grit
injected beneath my skin
came with the title,
City Boy,
and honored me
with its O'Henry life and lore,
and the vision to believe what is
in my bloodstream
just another true tale of life in Manhattan.com~

Shuffle
Skip
Repeat

He played his usual game of pretending to consider the palatable array of music which graced his iPod before settling for an Arctic Monkeys song, as always, just in time for the 7AM school bus that revved up the road with a satisfying crunch of gravel. The morning had a deliciously crisp quality to it, with swirls of fog swathing the trees in mild ambiguity while the sun danced a waltz in a rose and custard sky, the colour of cakes sold in Pastéis de Belém, the best patisserie in Lisbon.

He realised he hadn't eaten breakfast just as he boarded the bus.
Ah, well. **** it.

The sun skipped between the spaces in the leaves, playing hopscotch with his imagination as he dazedly looked out the window, lost in his music. Although the people on his bus were nice, he didn't exactly like them. The boys wore low pants and branded caps, the girls caked on makeup and tittered vapidly at everything the boys said. A few others quietly occupied the back seats like him, engrossed in their own world. He felt a stronger connection with these people, although he'd barely spoken to them before.

He lapsed back into his reverie while looking out the bus window, lazily tracing patterns in the cracks of the broken walls of the empty restaurants and hotels that passed by. The economic crisis had rendered hollows of places previously choked with people, now haunted with the after image of busy commerce and make-believe vignettes of scenes occurred in these skeleton remains. They were darkly beautiful, modern bones of the city that held a history too close to his own.

He forcefully snapped out of his running internal monologue just as the bus pulled up the driveway outside school. The distance of a block stood between him and school, a block fraught with danger, for he'd been robbed on a previous occasion (not that his school bag had much else besides lunch money and books). At least they hadn't nicked his iPod. He'd be helpless without it.

Music was his poison. He drank it in like the alcoholics of the night drank scotch. Every drum beat was a ricochet echo of his own heart, every guitar string picked was a twanging of his veins.

And music got him through the day. The last bell had already rung and school was over. The kids rushing out the hall blurred into an exquisite pointillism of neon clothes and benevolent cusses at each other. He picked up his bag and walked to the bus, lost in the sleep deprived haze of his thoughts.

On the ride home, he wondered where he'd be in a few years. He wondered if he'd find a place in the cascading chaos of a society ruled by the anarchy of physics, and the fear of inevitable oblivion. He wondered if he would be remembered, if his footsteps would have an echo.

But for now, he thought, his microcosmic life in Lisbon would do. There were dark alleyways to explore and museums to visit and pastries to eat. Somewhere, a waiter put a tablecloth on a dinner table with a flourish, where two lovers would later dine. Somewhere, a boy ran down some abandoned train tracks with his dog, laughing at the summer sun. Somewhere, a girl with auburn hair picked seashells from a glimmering beach as the waves crashed around her fragile legs.

Somewhere, in his heart, a flicker of nostalgia coursed through his blood.

The next song on his iPod came up.

Shuffle.
Skip.
Repeat.

1                                                                ­    4
she offers me,                                             a spot of dust
she raises me                                              under the couch,
on platitudes and warm bread                I know it’s
in return for my devotion                         there

she loves me like the boats                       today, I start spring-cleaning,
she keeps out on the ocean                      (this alone
she loves me to be molded,                      should receive
not to be unfolded                                     more recognition than it will)
                                                           ­           I pull out the couch
she bore me bones                                     the vacuum doesn’t quite
the lacrimal bone                                       reach the dust lying
the breastbone                                            on unused carpet,
all the cervical vertebrae                          the head
I use them to simulate                              keeps hitting the wall
her expectations                                        unproductive
­
                                                                ­     I put the furniture back
2                                                           ­        in place
I have names,                                             no one will see the lack
I wear them like badges                           of progress
inspired by something not quite
earned yet                                                   5
         ­                                                            while­ lucid dreaming
I assigned                                                   conste­llations were on
each name                                                  my skin
a compartment                                          and freckles in
of me                                                           the night sky
If I name them maybe
they will become                                       pollution drowned out
real, not just necessary                             two thirds
                                                          ­           even if most imploded
                                                        ­             before they were seen

3                                                          ­         6
with enough necessity                             were it not for shadows
anyone can tell a lie                                  I would surely learn to
                                                              ­       hate the light

I
        Dawn

The greenish sky glows up in misty reds,
The purple shadows turn to brick and stone,
The dreams wear thin, men turn upon their beds,
And hear the milk-cart jangle by alone.


  II
        Dusk

The city’s street, a roaring blackened stream
Walled in by granite, thro’ whose thousand eyes
A thousand yellow lights begin to gleam,
And over all the pale untroubled skies.


  III
        Rain at Night

The street-lamps shine in a yellow line
Down the splashy, gleaming street,
And the rain is heard now loud now blurred
By the tread of homing feet.

~took a walk in the city today,
and this happened in the O'Henry tradition~*


the blind man crossing E. 15th,
does not look, nor does he care,
all foes on-coming,
come hither, he dares

his light is red,
yet his cane extended,
he click clacks steadily ahead,
unaware and unbeknownst,
his new step by step sidekick,
Sheriff Natty,
is writing an air poem to a
taxi driver with his
shotgun *******,
a NY gesture of
welcoming *******...

a green light means passage
is a taxi's right,
but my left shoe firm
attached to his bumper,
plus multiple looks mine,
any of which could ****,
his argumentation poses
do somewhat chill...

the sheriff of the city, his motto,
sic transit finger gloria

~

among the sadder sights
of city life
is contrast...

the dark-only coolness
of an Irish bar,
on a bright spring day
when life and love
is bud sprouting
while old white men,
on single soiled solitary stools,
their colored cheeks green
from the reflection of
TV emerald diamond fields,
sipping many pre-game $3
Guinness draughts

around the second inning,
they switch, onto
boilermakers to make
the languid afternoon stretch on,
this I know for sure,
for in the large gilded mirror
behind the bar,
see the barkeep's back asking me,
"what will it be for you
this fine spring day?"


~


next to the bar, in the corner market,
an old man's hands tremble in an old man's way,
in a way I only know thru his testimony,
as he does his daily self-feeding,
his wallet removed, fumbling for two
single soiled solitary one dollar bills.

the shopkeeper's fingers
beat the counter impatiently,
the old man's beer brown bagged,
transport ready, though the old one
rather be next door,
the extra Dollar saved causes
a last minute delay, shaky fingers,
asking for an extra purchase,
a small can of dog food please,
so he can watch the game at home
and share the same meal
with the man's real and best,
and only true spring weather friend

~

the mayor proclaimed as a matter of
public safety, public decorum,
a pack of three or more woman
wearing all black Lululemon athletic wear,
were now banned from being outside after nightfall

later this night, in Carl Schurz Park,
many vamp voices were heard
singing the lyrics to
"i want to do bad things to you,"
but they staked him only
to a free color reeducation

~

these takes I witnessed,
all or some,
these tales I took
some or all,
from beneath my skin,
where city streets grit
injected beneath my skin
came with the title,
City Boy,
and honored me
with its O'Henry life and lore,
and the vision to believe what is
in my bloodstream

London fashion designer ­Carmina De Young is bringing her first ready-to-wear collection to market with the support of two local fashion mavens, wardrobe and image consultant Susan Jacobs, and business mentor Gloria Dona.

De Young’s Spring/Summer 2016 collection is now available by appointment at the Pop with Purpose studio,

The studio recently held an informal fashion show featuring De Young’s collection.

De Young was born and raised in Puebla, Mexico and discovered her passion as a young child, taking inspiration from her mother’s creative flair for fashion and design.

A graduate of Fanshawe College’s Fashion Design program, De Young’s clothing has been showcased locally and on national platforms, including at Vancouver Fashion Week and at the Caisa Fashion Show at Western University.

De Young started her own label in 2012 and now has a 25-piece ready-to-wear collection ranging from office to casual activities to a night on the town.

Each piece is available in size XS to XL with prices ranging from $79 to $259.

Instead of trying to break into the notoriously-difficult retail market, Dona and Jacobs offered to bring the De Young collection directly to London women through the Pop with Purpose studio.

“We love that we can offer women locally designed and manufactured clothing where they know the designer and know that they are helping make dreams come true,” says Jacobs. “There’s power in that. It’s incredible.”

Topspin scoops award

London-based Topspin Technologies Ltd., has been awarded the Synapse Life Sciences award for innovation in health. Their product, the Topspin360, beat out more than 60 invited applicants for products that demonstrate an innovation in health in Ontario.

This award follows the London-based Techalliance “Techcellence” award the company won earlier this year.

The Topspin360 is the first patented training device that helps improve neck muscles to reduce concussion risk.

Theo Versteegh, who earned his PhD in physiotherapy from Western University in 2016, developed the device after watching the Sidney Crosby hit in 2011 that caused his concussion.

Versteegh found that many sports concussions are the result of the whiplash effect.

The Topspin can be used in all sports, especially those at high risk for concussion, and also in military applications.

Northerner joins Fortune

David Ramsay, a former cabinet minister in the government of the Northwest Territories, has joined the board of directors of London-based Fortune Minerals .

Ramsay has more than 20 years of elected public office experience in the Northwest Territories. His cabinet portfolios included industry, justice, transportation and public utilities.

Fortune is working with three levels of government on infrastructure projects important to the success of the company’s NICO gold-cobalt-bismuth-copper project in the Northwest Territories.

One project is a 94-kilometre all-season highway to the community of Whati, northwest of Yellowknife.

The road is supported by the Tlicho Government, a Dene First nation and would reduce the cost of living and improve the quality of life in the outlying Tlicho communities and promote economic activity. Fortune has already received environmental assessment approval to build a spur road from Whati to the NICO mine.

Delta hosts bridal show

The London Wedding Professionals will hold their second Bridal Showcase at the Delta London Armouries on April 30.

The event offers a smaller, more intimate experience for brides to meet local wedding industry experts, ask questions, and get inspired for their wedding day.

The show features products and services from professionals including gowns, photography, florists, venues, DJs, hair and makeup and wedding planners.

The showcase also puts a focus on inspiring brides with Vignettes throughout the space showcasing different themes or colour palettes.

The show runs from 11 a.m-3 p.m. and admission is free.

Student makes his pitch

Sean Cornelius from St. André Bessette Catholic secondary school in London is one of 20 teenage entrepreneurs heading to Toronto May 8–10 to compete in this year’s edition of the Young Entrepreneurs, Make Your Pitch competition

Selected from the 204 two-minute video pitches entered, Cornelius earned the right to participate in a Dragon’s Den-style pitch contest at Discovery, Ontario Centres of Excellence’s annual innovation-to-commercialization conference, to be held on May 9 at Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Hamilton Road looks ahead

Business people in the Hamilton Road will hold an information meeting Wednesday about the creation of the Community Improvement Plan that could lead to the creation of the Hamilton Road Business Improvement Area. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the BMO Sports Centre on Rectory St. and guest speakers include Mayor Matt Brown and MPP Teresa Armstrong.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/****-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/vintage-formal-dresses

True Stories #1

This is the first of what will be a series of little vignettes.


When I was fourteen,
I was the alienate hipster rebel
In a private school hellhole.

Hair long, tie knot never pushed up,
Unbuttoned button-down shirts,
Camus lover,
Siddhartha disciple,
Small acts of disdain,
Expressions of teenage hell-pain.

One day, the principal
Threw me out to get a haircut.
Went to the nearby barbershop,
Which was in the underground,
Subway stop.

Returned to school where It was
Pronounced unacceptable.
Twice more this charade-escapade,
Went on, till the barber cried and would not
Charge me anymore.

Shorn like a lamb,
My mother roared like a lion.

The next day, the man in charge,
Who would marry my second son,
Three decades later,
Called me in and sort-of-apologized.

From that day, I never respected authority,
Only learned to fear tyranny.

See photo of my latest protest!

i.


the stars do not shine
loneliness presses the air
into a tangle of last years withered
leaves,
loneliness in summer leaves
that whisper to a grey moon
a song of regret.


ii.


dreams of midnight,
cool rain,
songs more alive
than this low-roofed night.


iii.


teardrops like the ghostly moon, lost
against the heart that
flutters like a dark sky
breathing stars.
  

iv.


the mottled horizon
pools into greys,
tender eyed with
soft sadness,

in these dim hours when silence
cloaks the woods and
human laughter disappears

we sink against the softer sky
and the slow fade of moon and
long for dream, for everything
to reawaken and unwind.


v.


we are swimmers heading as far
out as we can get. surreal silver
stars, opening like flowers,
refusing to drown.

I
My five-five-fingers of my hands
Zestfully lived In serenity.
The three thrill fingers of my right hand:
Thumb, index finger and *******
Stoutly lived civilly and gleefully
Amongst her BROTHERS:
They rested gleefully upon the placid,
SHARP-SABLE-POINTED-DART.

II
Sharp sable pointed-dart;
Perched in the midst of the three thrill fingers
And laid rest upon the hungry,
****** DUSKY-SHEET, which sprawled
Bear flat on the glossy desk.
The glossy desk accompanying the earth
The earth accompanying its depth.

III
The other ******* of my right hand:
Ring finger and little finger
Calmly leisure, plopped on the hungry,
****** dusky-sheet
And lent ears to the Sharp-sable-pointed-dart,
Sharp-sable-pointed-dart,
Muttering vignettes of yesterday
Muttering vignettes of today
Muttering vegnettes of tomorrow.
Upon the glossy desk
My five fingers of my left hand too
Laid rest, and eyeballed the sharp-sable-pointed-dart,
Muttering deep thoughts.

IV
Look,
All you who waded through lines:
All you who unearth the heart
Of this earth, hunting for treasures
Pore over my ten fingers.
My ten fingers,
As pure as a full ****** moon.
I have dunked deep my five fingers
Of my right hand with my progenitors
In a bowl of sweet dishes
And nibbled singed YAMS amidst
The thriving vegetables.

V
But my forefinger of my left hand
Never been raised above
To curse the heavens
Never been raised up to pinpoint
My progenitors' homeland
Never had it tasted any depravity
And never will it be licked
Or bit by the savage butchers of Meat
Who loved to fatten themselves on ******
And gratified their heart with
Juicy cup of blood and gore.

i.

the grass in the meadows
has grown high,
it melts like an emerald
sea under the sun.

ii.

summer stretches
robotic and angular
everything larger than life
sunshine and the childish rains
pouring stormy drops
on the window.

iii.

the sky is perfectly white
the cloud is an unbroken
line, no dots or dashs,
no hyphens or metaphors.

iv.

i dress in the morning and
undress at night let the
pools of the night tether me
to the sky.

"where day is.... dreams of a summer sky."

i.

the sky floats up,
gazing out with lips
of steel, a
shiny branch
surrendering
to summer’s sigh,
her iris a cats
eye, marble blue,
her pupil a dark
wand.

ii.

play with me,
draw me out of the
dark,

let me sing to
you a sea-song
where the waves
somersault and
crash to the shore,

where the wind, wild
as wild, faints to breathe
the wakening sky.

iii.

see how i write in passages,
faint-waves  of
summer’s mists where
the rain dips her pen in
the grey-ink cloud.

iv.

searching for your ghosts,
the deep whirling of the streamy sea
with its wine-red roses like
coloured glass
dance as i gather
whispers of strangeness
and sun, blossoming,
shrink-edged like an
opalescent pool, all
of it, you.

v.

days of watery rags and rubber
tyres, red snake of
summer’s ribs, the
stones of the stormy sun,
gathering the landscape
where tonight the
moon will rise for love
you will loosen my hair
and i will kiss your throat.

Yeah I am young once more morn late,
Call it the year of somebody's lord,
Call it nineteen sixty eight,
Hair to my shoulders
Makes me see better,
Parted down the middle,
The older black ladies,
On the new.york city subway,
One and all, bless me cause this Jew,
Looks just like Our Lord
In them Renaissance picture-books.

Ironically, that winter time,
I wear a white sheepskin jacket,
Purchased in the Old City of
Jerusalem, but don't tell'm that,
Cause they would have marched up to Harlem,
No telling what might've happened next...

Next summer reality intruded,
Money in pocket aid and ain't not enough,
Riding the bus on Euclid Ave.
To go downtown Cleveland, the Flats,
Drag racing and watching,
The river Cuyahoga burn,
Kinda of a bus drag, but very very, kinda cool.


Summer next,
Worked in a Republic Steel mill,
They called me the Macaroni Kid,
Cause stoopidly I told them that is
What I et,, with ketchup Heinz sauce,
Desert, a heath bar!
Cause I was saving my pennies,
This college kid they loved to hate,
Caused he bicycled to work and
Wasn't one of them.


Put me, little ole wiry me,
In the boxcars,
Loading and loafing the
Rebar, twisted and straight,
Came it, sent it all over,
Me, black as a
Pennsylvania coal miner,
A San Fran homeless man.
To this day, can't get my
Fingernails really clean.

At night, me and the boys on the porch,
Gettin ******, ****, music and a view of
Cleveland East, the sirens rushing around,
To the houses on fire, the next ******.

First freaked us out,
Coming to get us,
Then it became the best, finest ***
"That was so stony cool" light show.
The girls looked like Joan Baez,
And if they didn't,
We still took 'em to bed,
Pretending it was Janis,
If Joan was busy
In the dorm room next store.

Hey babe,
Wanna come back to my dorm room,
And drink wine, listen to Blood Sweat and Tears,
Make some of our own,
Cause my roomie gone down to Canton,
To visit his cleaning lady mom.

I loved that guy liked he was the first
Real person I'd ever met.
On my first day, without asking,
Ran his hands both all over my head,
Looking for the horns on the Jews head,
According his parish priest, we all had'em,
God's official representative on the consecrated earth of
Ohio.

In those days, I applied to schools
Farthest away from home,
That the student discounted airfare was no more than
59bucks which I could afford so I could go back to
NYC, and find out what was really
"Happening" man.

The summer next, worked in the East Village,
Summer Office Boy for a big corporation
In a part of town where you could buy
Leather fringed vests and the headshops sold
The paraphernalia to get hookah high,
And if you hookah lookah right,
That wasn't the thing they sold for cash money.

Took my steel mill blues money,
Bot me a '65 red mustang car,
That needed to be jumped to get started,
Courtesy of the Cleveland special hell called
Midwest winter.

That car, the floor was made of cardboard,
The four cylinders were bolted to the car,
So when u opened the hood, you saw mostly
The pavement of the parking lot,
Some tiny engine,
In between holding on for dear life.
Always kept extra brake fluid in the trunk,
In case the leak got bad on the Heights.

Needed to do what I needed to do,
So I wrote a resume of whom I was,
And whom I ain't, so I could get me a
Real big time job.

More on that someday,
When the resume is resumed,
Getting updated, that will be kinda funny,
Cause it will run about 500 pages long.

Right now, strange,
I am hard by hard by the Frisco bay,
The Ferry Building and the tripartite
Disposal systems of three garbage cans,
And who should appear, but
Otis and Sara B., (live from the Fillmore)
Singing to me about a dock on this bay.

Got me those 'high flying blues,'
The kind that say;

"Lord, look at me here,
I'm rooted like a tree here,
Got those sit-down, can't cry,
Oh, Lord, gonna die blues."

Missing that dock of mine,
In the picture next to my invisible head.
You want to know my face?
Maybe when back east,
I'll find that photo of that long haired college boy,
Leaning in on, so proud against that red Mustang.

Right now all I got these here old vignettes,
True stories one and all,
Making me miss my dock, my shelter,
On that old adirondack chair,
Where my **** aches, and my mind fevered
With poems of love children and a life that
Tho dim recalled, I see it all so well.

Purkyně lux lit lunatics conjure vignettes of geomancy.

There is mischief enchanting the wake: xenophagists fiending tricks.

For invokers, who bathe in moonlight, death is a good nights sleep.

Some say
she is lost to writing poems
snippets, little vignettes of beauty
so much nature inspired, obsessed
with green, botany driven desires
forever in skies, blue, or black with stars
meteor showers, falling, melting
like the liquid silver, red sea of mars
crashing waves, her days
tossed, tumbled, stumbling onto poetry
there is no fault, in words
no shame to be made
would be a sorrowful price to pay
she is writing to find
some truths, a sleuth, a seeker
of going within, without doubt
writing to find herself
most days searching out signs of life
to feel what it would be like, to be
in trees, in leaves, to sleep in green towers
of garden lily bowers
to finally dream in lucid colors, surreal
climbing invisible ladders
in orchards of apple blossom Springs
to sing, sing, sing

i.

autumn’s leaves
scattered in pools,
a cloud of fine gold.

ivy scented skies
break free.

ii.

trees conjure dreams,
flow like a night breeze.

iii.

the sun is remote,
the fires of a wild sea,
damask shores
where we sink
to the floor....

iv.

sink further,
where quiet walls and skies
pierce our yearnings,
uncover a naked flame.

Words are made of thoughts.
I wish they'd intrude. I am lonely,
unemployed with a nine to seven routine
of various activities.

A malignant trend courses through the head.
Broadcasting it outside in the realm of trust
where I am blank but set to go, it would have
the appearance of a finely ambient glass of chocolate milk.

Sometimes I'm asked why the relevance hinges on me.
If I had to say, it's because I keep getting vignettes, like something
out of a beggar's bowl, a wooden saltiness
that becomes increasingly less involved. And, like, everytime
I think about it, it's something similar to trying to walk
on John Carter's Mars; and all of this trivial, like, asinine
things can never match up to the draw, the pull of
whatever has been dropped, whatever has been shorn
unevenly like a badly eaten candy-bar. Or something.
I don't know why it has to be about me.
I don't, pull my weight, and recently I feel cold in the summer;
I have slept under a bedsheet since June.
That's not what this is about, or what I, want to project.

This isn't a prerogative, a jarring hiss of due-dates
incoming inevitably. I just ****. Which is not a surprise,
like organic web shooters is a surprise, or, thinking up
something like a dead polemic of a sewer draining
the sordid leftovers of a consciousness.

when you only
see the world
through the prism
of an Instagram filter,
the spectrum's
overshadowed
by black and white
vignettes.

brick-by-brick
you build that wall
around yourself,
closed off to the plight
of every one else.
who needs borders
when you refuse to see
beyond the periphery
of your iPhone's screen?
refugees? border patrol?
endless war?

merely fragmentary
snapshots
in off-kilter
snapchats
casting grim light
on contemporary
outcasts, rebels
built to outlast
the vitriol leveled
at modern-day martyrs
by tyrants and overlords.

'cause when you neglect
to read the passages
of history, you scapegoat
the brave, can't see
the forest for the trees,
reduce the complex
to Manichean binaries
of Good vs. Evil,
Left vs. Right,
an infinite etcetera
of demagoguery.

noses glued
to illuminated screens,
ignoring the visionaries
for illusionary fantasies:
one-click—purchased
happiness, bread
and circus.
advertising
has us chasing
a feeling fleeting
as a riptide when we
ought to be rallying
on the front lines,
punching Nazis.
a black bloc
tossing bricks into
storefront windows.

In the fog
streetlight glow:
Will-o-the-Wisps

Embers wrapped in gauze
harsh yellow light
spills into grey monotony

The world has shrunk
confined
to the pools cast by floating lamps

All else
is a faded
grey blur

A stagnant breeze
stokes the down air
into writhing ethereal vines  

Vision clouded
permeated by whisper
mist caressing  

Everything is painted mute
a drear uneasy blanket
cast into the valley

I drift
strung along
by the luminous spectral splashes

Unseen
Unnoticed
a smudge in a world of vapor

Am I
anymore definite
than the intangible fog?

March today
despite being January
At least  a good day for a walk

Ice in sepia speckled with black
wilted under
the Water’s surface

Ridges and islands
           of white ice protrude
from the murk

Delicate ripples
roil from
inky black wells

Drab and tattered
the snow trodden grass
sways in the wind
Murk
Murk
The color of tea

steaming
Chai
In a floral mug

A warm up from
the chill
  walk

I drink down
to the dregs
satisfied  


It’s still March
as if January resigned early
and February forgot to come

Forty Degrees
clad in shorts
and sweatshirt, I walk  

Air perfumed by thawing soil
and melted pond pools
painted robin’s egg blue

Ice bent trees
bow towards the road
like children’s hands

Reaching towards
pothole puddles with trickles
trailing like balloon strings

Reflecting the sky
inverted vignettes
Caste in brown

Framing the trees
skeletal fractal fingers
reaching across the tableaux

Peering through the clouds
the Sun silhouettes
black bottle brush pines

This poem has been submitted for possible publication.  It will be reposted as soon as possible upon final determination.  Please feel free to peruse my poesy at your leisure.

Thank you so much,
PrttyBrd

It has been 268 days, 1 hour, and 27 minutes since you left the world Mel.

I felt you the other day,
As the leaves were changing their colors
I felt you the other day
Just like the trees feel the breath of winter upon their backs
and Fall inevitably turns to Winter
And the leaves disappear
And just like the leaves fall to the ground and get carried away
So do my memories of you
One at a time, I’m losing them
Since the day you died, fall has been in season
I had a tree full of brilliantly colored memories
And as time has passed on
The weather is having its way with my mind
No season lasts forever
And this one,
I wish it would
Because every day brings me another 1440 minutes
Away from your existence
I’m forgetting.
The first to go was your smell
So I held on tighter to every moment I spent with you
I wrote them all down, you know.
But my mind doesn’t understand how badly my heart needs to hold on
I’m forgetting
Your voice.
Your eyes.
Next it was your laugh
And all your little corks that I held so dear.
It’s been a while. Hasn’t it?

I felt you the other day
Without even thinking of you at all
I just knew you were there
Looking down at me
You know, sometimes I sit for hours
And focus solely on you and try to remember
And I torture myself
With the thought of you being gone
Until I feel a little bit of comfort,
And in that comfort, I know you are there
But as of late,
I don’t feel better
Sometimes I sit for hours and cry until I can’t see,
Until I can’t breathe,
Until I can’t speak
I have to.
Because if I don’t,
Then it makes me ashamed
I feel guilty
For forgetting to miss you.
I miss you everyday
It’s just sometimes, it hurts harder one day than it does the next

I felt you the other day
I felt your presence in mine
It was comforting
And shattering
I’ve learned that the wound never really heals
We just find a stronger medicine
I felt you the other day
As I sat in the red chair that people you didn’t know
Decided to dedicate to you
As an act of kindness so that we’d remember you
It’s been here for 218 days, and a little change
I’d like to burn it and pretend you never left
I’ve noticed that it’s easier to talk to you during the night-time
When I’m looking at the stars
Because it’s easier to remember when it’s darker
The sunlight just distracts me

I’ve breathed a million breaths since the day you left
Inhaled life and exhaled the stale air that somebody else
Will fill their lungs with
Yesterday is gone and tomorrow hasn’t happened yet and
I’ve spent today missing you
Today turns into yesterday
And tonight bleeds into tomorrow
And I’m still denying the truth
That you’re gone

Your voice will never reach my ears
Your heart will never pound upon your chest
Your breath will never pour into the atmosphere
And you've left us all here
and maybe we’re resentful cause none of us were ready
Goodbyes **** the passion out of you
Put your reality on pause while the world continues spinning
They take your breath from you
While reality drowns you and your lungs give out.
And you end up panting for breath
As you choke back the sobs that the world needs to hear

I sat next to your grave today
And the wind, made drunk with your presence,
Breathed against me
We talked, you and me
I talked
And you listened
I saw your mom
She told me that “you’re better off than we are”
And maybe you are
But it still makes me bitter
I’ve heard that nothing is destroyed,
everything is just transformed
So the trees are cut down and thrown in a fire
The logs are turned into ash
And blown away with the wind
Your shell is resting 6 feet below me
Flowers are growing
The grass has come back
You are in them
And that is eternity

And I hope you went
With a smile
I hope it was as easy and as quick as
Leaning back in a chair the color of the sun
while listening to lazy piano music
Can we reverse time?
Or has the timing been assigned?
Every moment has a purpose
Maybe death is misunderstood
Grief can cloud the mind
You roam free, no longer confined
Your destiny no longer follows a design
Wherever this journey took you
Don’t forget to paint the skyline
With your presence

It’s a little unfair and a little unclear
As to why you had to leave
How can life be so cruel?
It’s hard to believe
That moments turn to memories
And some memories turn to regrets
Regrets turn into lessons
And lessons paint vignettes
That become your background
Just a part of your past
We may be through with the past,
but the past is not through with us

Life changes and seasons go on
People pass away
Memories live on
Sceneries shift
Faces are interchanged
Life keeps on keeping on
And hearts get maimed
Human connections
Are all that truly remain
The fragile beats of the heart
Never stop when you’re in pain

I. My mother once had a dream about the blue hour and I spent many evening car trips with my cheek against the cool glass of the window and asking her “is this the color of the sky in your dream?” To which she would reply in gradients: a few shades darker, a few shades lighter. It became my own personal mythology. The blue hour in winter lasts ten minutes, but when I’m walking home I think about my mother’s dream and it feels like a dream that I had. Then my breath freezes and the streetlights come on and the sky gets dark.


II. You know the way the atmosphere can seem thick and the sunlight comes like its being reflected in honey? And everything you look at turns orange and gold? Distances fading to sun-ghosts and loosing their edges? More than once I stood in a field and watched the waves of light break over the summer grass and roll off into the trees. When the light is that way it looks like there’s no such thing as winter or cold beds or questions or death or war. Do you know what it is like to stop your car on the side of the road and watch the sun break itself on your bare shoulders? I think you do.


III. The worst night was the time I cut both my hands on the ice and snow near the porch of someone’s house in New Paltz, NY. I will tell you about it with surgical precision: it was the kind of ice that forms after the temperature gets over thirty during the day then freezes at night into a sharp crust; two week before Christmas 2009. I had been drinking hard; I had already cried but swallowed it down. I fell through the ice and cut up both my hands. I didn’t go home. I drank gin straight from a cup that had already been used and left by someone else. I told someone that I loved him. I didn’t, but neither did he. Words dripped out of my mouth, I still didn’t go home.


IV. That’s not the only time I did those things. Sometimes it was worse. I lost my shirt once. I lost some friends too. I pretended like I was high when I wasn’t. I got scared of the police in the back seat of a car while my friends told me to stay cool. I thought about dying in a VW bus that was swerving down a small mountain loaded with stupid kids loaded with drugs and I was sober and thought about how the paramedics would pull our bloated bodies out from the wreckage. Rough patches. I imagine growing up was hard for you too sometimes. Let’s not talk about it.


V. Just give me the benefit of the doubt.


VI. I could have been a cello player but I was too restless and I quit. I imagine you could have been something too. Perhaps the trumpet or the drum. Maybe you sing. I can imagine you with a little boy’s bowl-cut squirming on a piano bench as a Ms. So-and-So played scales over and over with her pale cigarette fingers. And you let your eyes wander off to the bay window where the strong and true July sunlight was shining and you thought about a stick you found that morning that was the perfect shape and weight of a rifle and how the neighborhood boys were running through the streets making POP POP noises at one another. “Pay attention!” You tear yourself away from the glorious blue outdoors and place your fingers on the ivory keys.


VII. Sometimes I think love is a rare and flawed thing; perhaps a kink in our genetic makeup. I think about the past twenty-three years of people telling me that I am pretty and they don’t understand why I can’t find someone because I’m nice and smart and interesting and not strung-out on drugs. Sometimes it hurts when people touch me, even if it’s the cashier handing me a receipt, and a voice in my head asks me how will you ever be enough for a man when you hate brushing up against strangers on the train? I’m truly sorry for telling you this, you can leave if you want. It won’t hurt my feelings.


VIII. Did you have a dog as a small child that you loved as fiercely as a small child can?  Was it named Bruno or Max or Buddy and did it flop down next to you in the grass on hot summer days panting with pure and simple and absolute joy? Did it swim in the lake near your house and run with you along the long white fence in your yard? Did it get out one evening through the back door and not come home all night, even though you stayed out past one in your pajamas with a flashlight calling Bruno! Max! Buddy! Did your father find it’s body on the side of the road in the morning, dry brown eyes, broken legs, tongue hanging out on the asphalt? No? That’s good, none of that happened to me either.


IX. In every nightmare I have ever had I am running away from something. I am going to the bank and taking out my savings account in cash, I am stealing a car and driving to Walmart in a strange city to buy platinum hair dye, new clothes, and sunglasses. I am going to the airport and buying a ticket to Canada, where I will go to a different airport and buy a ticket to an undisclosed location where no one can trace me. On a related note, do you ever have a dream in which you are deeply in love with someone and when you wake up you reach out for them but find you are alone, and everything seems hollowed out and your life seems like it has become the dream?

X. Wake up, it’s your turn.

He is ancient steadfast
I am sure he was here when the world was created
I am sure he will be here when it ends
His gentle face carved with hard lines
He poured forth knowledge in his native Persian tongue
He called me Shohre
I learned it was his sister's name
He looked at me like a granddaughter and treated me just as sweet

“Ghabl az enghalab...”
Before the revolution...
After which would follow painful reminiscing of
The days before the current regime
When wine bubbled out from Shiraz
Men and women danced late into the night
And soft voices wove love songs in street cafes

“Ghabl az enghalab moalem dar daneshgah boodam.”
Before the revolution I was a university professor.
“Yeki az daneshjooyanam Ahmedinejad bood.”
One of my students was Ahmedinejad.
And in English, clear as hate,
“He was a *******.”

One night I stayed back for extra lessons
We ate cherries from Costco and
Read excerpts from his autobiography
Pages crafted from right to left, vignettes of
His military service in Mashhad
And consequent teaching career

“Ba'ad az enghalab...”
After the revolution...
Was always followed with war stories
Political dissidents lost to Evin prison
Sharia law imposed on moderate minds
Escaping Iran by night with a phony visa

“Ba'ad az enghalab dar ketabkhane bayad kar konam”
After the revolution I had to work in the library.
“Khoastam yad bedahm, pas man o zanam be Amrika raftim.”
I wanted to teach, so my wife and I came to America.
He has not been home since 1981.

On December third of 2009 he walked smugly into the classroom
Setting a tape player happily on a desk.
He opened a folder from right to left
Produced a well-worn cassette
And played Happy Birthday, in Persian, for me.
He smiled at me with hands folded throughout the song
As I’d imagine he had smiled at
All the other special women in his life named Shohre.

He never played Happy Birthday for any of the other students.
Or gave them cherries,
Or went to their weddings,
Or held them while they cried when their grandfather died.
I do not know what he saw in me
But in each other we found family years and miles away from home.

The eccentricities of nature
Leaving us at its mercy
Sun and rain are taking turns
To play with us, caught unaware
Mood swings of nature
Blatantly leaving us perplexed
Sometimes raging with fury
Or its calming nature acts as a balm
Another moment tornadoes
Ripping across the hearts of habitats
Leaving us bare and unsheltered
Earthquakes depriving the ground beneath
Leaving us with open chasms of darkness
Erupting volcanoes, burning away
Glowing rivers of lava, taking its own course
Not showing any mercy, drowning dreams
Icy cold glaciers melting away the past
To drown away the future of our existence
And the vast seas encroaching shorelines
So many vignettes of nature
We can only be mere spectators
To the eccentricities of nature