They say that it’s so cold here folks will gorge on ice cream to warm themselves up. It’s the kind of day a puck will feel relief— freed from being thwacked because it’s adhering to a glassy pond’s veneer, like a sucker that is stuck upon a seat— engulfed in someone’s slobber. No one’s drilling holes upon the lake, juddering with their poles like masochists. Trout are forced to bore beneath the silt, assent to muddy quilts of hibernation. And no one can bait with worms, since

There are times that the snow looks pristine enough to eat. Or possibly drink.  The meta- morphosis of melt. Everything will be clean that final day. And then there are times the buds will stay clasped as a purse, unwilling to divvy the touch of maquillage; a huddled sort of beauty, like scallops in their armor, refusing the egression from a mouth— till the buntings trill their octaves to the stratus, hoisted beyond what auricles can hear— the limit of our lobes—   before the

Those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. —Matthew 26:52 Sword must be the mightiest word in the world. See it for yourself: word is already contained, its double- daggered w left unsaid, mistaken for a pair of muted v— fleet-footed samurai set to slice; on tiptoes like the shrouded a in stealth. It’s the hero’s weapon of choice— unsheathed in half-a-second— the honour that it brings, a rod for Thorian bolts, epitome of Herculean effort.   Conan was its servant n

In space, no one can hear you scream.  In space, there is no need to. Only humans make us shriek. Well, the occasional bear and shark, perhaps. But they’re not up in the cosmos. Silence does not speak louder than any word. Silence can’t even speak louder than silence. If it could, you’d be donning earbuds in the forest, banging to Iron Maiden in order to drown the din of leaves, the streams of rock, translucence. The way a hummingbird stays aloft. We cannot make a plane that

There’s a man so attuned to the Earth, that whenever it quakes so does he. The doctor assumes it’s Parkinson’s. The priest? Seismology stigmata. Perhaps it’s empathy gone amok, juiced like Barroid Bonds. His mother thought it strange— as a boy he keeled to the carpet, as if a bullet struck him through— blubbered for dear Old Yeller till the set was off for good. He’s much too sensitive. His father will straighten him out just like an iron.   It’s obvious that he didn’t— concu

My book has been in your TBR pile for an awfully long time. I notice it’s getting bumped within the queue, by that tome from Poet X— still toasty to the touch— the one you boast is a 21st-century Rumi. I get it. You said you’ll do a blurb. Posting it up on AssFace when you’re done. But Gray’s Anatomy—really? Just look at yourself in the mirror if you’re unsure where everything is. Robert’s Rules of Order would be commendable— if you actually showed for meetings. I’ve never ev

I don’t note an ocean  in the seashell that I’m pressing to my ear but a puddle. It’s clear but laced with silt. The streetlamp will be rippling in its sheen. Some creeping sort of bugs will flit within, as though a stagnant pond. If I were nano- scopic, I’d coast along its arc in a catamaran. A person has been running for their life— the shell, discernibly perturbed— squirming in my hand as if a baby armadillo. In 3.14 seconds, a shoe will splash this entire shallow world up

The adage goes the beholder will determine what is glorious. The line of shine/penumbra on our evening’s ghostly orb; how the craters take on depth we never notice in the day. Everyone else is focused on the stop of coagulated red. Your eyes are never more lovely as when they’re fastened. Spirited, stirring worlds   beneath your lids while you are dreaming. I tell the tour guide that Rodin was overrated. The rock had been the master throughout his chiselling of The Kiss. Jus

And today an earthquake will level the suburbs of greater LA. No one will be slain since thoughts & prayers will work for the very first time. And today the bosom of ICE will thaw in piercing sleet, the needle in 99 trillion sheaves at last pinpointed. Mexicans will be assembled to share a cake, provided reparations for 1848. And today no soldiers will be needed. Either in plastic or in flesh. Hasbro will give its profit to grieving widows. In every single country on the plan

A baby never chooses to be born. That much I can tell you. If presented with the option, I would have turned & climbed up the birth canal— if I’d seen  the copious dolor which awaited, fanning out its talons, seducing like a salesman, ever- willing to beguile, with the lie of love and life,   how much sorrow you can take,   that you’ll bounce right back like the balls in every lottery there is,   the one you’ll never win,   like a worm that arises to the surface,   failing to

There’s a call centre where all the expired years are phoning people, demanding that they return what isn’t theirs. 1991 called and wants its mullet back.  It was a haircut gone awry, my barber wearing the specs his grandma must have donned in ‘49. When 2005 had phoned, it wanted the reason you still need to burn CDs, lamenting laptops of today no longer house that primitive feature. I’m the kettle to your pot—spooling cassettes with the end of a pencil. ’86 will ring about

—a small flake of soot or other dirt Oxford English Dictionary To say my brand- new book of poems is just a magnet for the dust is an egregious understatement. It’s the maid in fishnet stockings, feathers in her hand, bending over with a twerk, whenever I enter the office. It’s the Swiffer that’s ascending to the ceiling (comprised of teasing glass)—   dander thudding upon its clarity like a lark.   It’s the Dirt Devil drafted into service— like the cavalry on horseback, fire

When you called me a pea brain it was the most colossal laud you could have given. Peas are Einsteins in a shell, wise enough to swell within a pod, knowing together  they’ll survive, waving to the turnips as they ascend their soaring trellis; a height that even the cauliflower—our cerebrum’s doppelgänger— cannot fathom.   The Theravada monks are quite astonished at their savvy— their gift of rolling off a spoon no matter how mindful they may be   and they should know—   chan

Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. —Ruth 1:17 There are not enough words for love.  Maybe in other languages but certainly not in English— which is obviously the case since we’ve co-opted every variant of amour. Fervour  and enchantment? Riffed from Latin class. Eros  from the god of Acropolis. A thesaurus isn’t needed when you mean it. Hear it in the patience of another diaper change. I wipe although we’ve never had a baby.   Jacob waited 14 years for Rac

You say I should hang up my quill. Everyone’s grandma & her dog are posting poems. It’s not the grandmothers I’m concerned about, their odes to larks & scones— it’s these drooling sons-of-bitches; their ghazals, villanelles—to a flea-filled water dish; the couplets on their human's forlorn crocs, laced with bites & upchuck since he passed; the plop of meat from a can, its rings from tin chiselled in its jelly, like some avant piece of shit at the Guggenheim. Competition from

… they found among all those hideous carcasses two skeletons, one of which held the other in its embrace. —Victor Hugo And my poor bar-ba-loots are all getting the crummies because they have gas and no food in their tummies —Theodor Seuss Geisel   I know a man who claims to have devoured every Tolstoy in half-a-day. It took me half-a-decade to get through the fucking Lorax. Hugo, he said, was just a little tougher. Spending 13 hours to down both Hunchback  and Les Mis.   By t

My window is an extra eye, one that tells my brain it isn’t raining, how gusty the gales might be, that the city has sent its crew to furrow the street, that a dog is doing its business in the hedge my neighbour planted—to keep the unwanted away. My window never blinks although it can— with a placid tug-on-blinds.   And should grit get stuck on its pupil, a splash & swipe  from a Jiffy Wipe will surely put an end to that.   But this is in truth a poem about the things we cho

We haven’t walked the park in twenty years. Marriage will do that sometimes. My knees, your hips. Your shoulder, my neck. I can no longer turn my head at the sound of the finch. Your hearing’s flown the coop— oblivious to its existence. It can’t be what it was, when both our bloods were surging  under sun. Time may not regress with our feeble tread, but maybe we’ll awaken evocation— ours as well as its.   Nestle your hand in mine— the other one, my darling , which lacks a di

they would say. Your parents could not concur on much at all, but on that they spoke as one. When your father spat it out, his squint was from your supple countenance. Once, he suggested that you strum an air guitar. Your wrists are limp enough. Bestowed a sky piano. As gay as Elton John’s. Hoping you’d start a band up in the ether, get out of his fucking sight. With mother it was worse. Catching you in your sibling’s training bra. Curiosity of a child,  it was embarrassingly

You were five when you had spelled your family name—aloft with crow & owl— Fisher & Son, and you without a brother, though you’d wait for years for one, hoping he’d take the pressure off your shoulders, like Simon of Cyrene the cross of Christ; and it surely wouldn’t have been as bad as that: beatings till you swelled, thorns inside your toque, a hammer thumping nails into your wrists and not the barn.   Instead of evening chores, you lay upon the straw as if a manger—   the