Index

The White Cat

The white cat was my brother,

He rubbed my beard, He ate my food

and He drank my water,

and this is how I know it.

The white cat was my brother,

He loved the same flowers, the same woman,

the same child.

And I know so that the white cat

was my brother,

for He gave his warmth when I was ailing

and He ran to join me

through gardens and fences

when I came back home.

The white cat was my brother,

He was lost when He found me,

and I have been lost ever since He left me

And

I know He was my brother,

for I was the last who held him

and the last thing his eyes saw

before He took my happiness away.

in memoriam Perdido...

The moon rose silvery...

The moon rose silvery from behind a cloud,

and a thin veil of vapour made her appear

like an old time Hollywood star

in a glamour picture

On the way home

Spring moonrise by the sea.

(The moon is on fire.)

I wish we could share the joyful sorrow

of its ephemeral beauty.

(I must hurry back home, safely...

to pour this words into a page.

If I die carrying a poem,

will it die with me?)

On the way home the old litter

nobody has gathered,

I recognize as familiar friends:

A wrecked can of beer,

A yellow take-out food container,

The slug that crawls on it,

That I don’t remember.

Time has passed...

The clouds have eaten the moon,

The night has grown hostile

and the poem is dead.

The poet stares bewildered

at the lifeless keyboard.

I love starry nights,

& all animals on this earth,

& women with buttocks like mares’...

I love the smell of coffee,

& the softness of young cheeks,

& the freshness of the air on a sea-night.

I love to love,

Because loving soothes the anguish

& after all, I am utterly lonely here,

with my anguish, waiting for her

to ready up and take me home

Warrior

She came to him in a dream,

but he knew he wasn’t dreaming

she said "I won’t stay long,

when you’ve fallen asleep they’ll take me."

He asked "who are they?"

and there was no answer but a kiss.

He fought sleep for what seemed ages,

he drank coffee, and took up smoking again,

he watched out for her, night and day

and they wouldn’t make their move...

He drank coffee, smoked and paced the room.

She sat and looked at him,

and a sour smile began to dwell

at the birthplace of her lips.

The time dragged slowly

and he became tired and enraged.

Soon they grew weary of each other,

and they remained together only for the battle.

When he woke up, there was no trace of her.

They had taken her. Even her smell was gone.

Gabriela

The deep seated fear. The need. The absence.

The toil of love itself,

lying powerless at the feet of ecstasy.

The countless stars that share your name now,

forever.

Your arms like twigs and grass

building nests every night.

My sorrow in your chest, vanishing like a shadow

at nightfall.

Our child, our boy, our man

- soon to be our barren lot -

our joint and single destiny, our immortality.

Our struggle to remain together.

Our struggle to grow apart.

The brutal sounds of love and fight,

the whispers.

The toys, our ambassadors the toys.

Our ambassadors: the flowers,

the carefully prepared meals,

the bed well tended - with tight fresh sheets

and crisp pillows, the books.

The returning birds of the lazy mornings.

The unassuming gestures

and the various misreadings.

The unanimous choices.

Chamomile and coffee.

Waking numb after a nap that outlasted its welcome.

The anguish without warning,

the need to bury my face in your lap.

The spontaneous beauty of the animals,

the joy we get from it.

The communion in the joy,

and the rebirth it brings.

Every inch of your revered body.

Bring them back to me,

safely.

I love you.

Alioscha

Victoria, BC. 3:13 am. Monday, January 11, 1999

4 o’ clock in the Morning

If I could sleep...

A shadow crossed my window,

a rather slight shadow.

My back was turned to it,

but I could still see how the moonlight

fainted on the dresser

and in the nightly horizon

of the bedroom wall.

Friday, January 29, 1999

the way you cling to me some nights

... the way you cling to me some nights,

when you are afraid perhaps of death

and other things lurking in the dark,

and then you fall asleep calmly

leaving me fearful

fragile

awake

the light the leaves filter . . .

The light the leaves filter . . .

What’s left outside,

Who gets it?

The shiny faces stare back at the sun,

All at unison.

A choir of monodic leaves.

The house is fresh, and liveable

The breeze sneaks in every once in a while.

The music of a distant mower

buzzes through the siesta mood.

The sheets are white

and the pillows puffed anew.

The cover carefully rests

Folded on the seat,

The water glass is full and clean

on the night table,

the glasses folded on top of the book,

the bookmark propped neatly,

- three quarters in and against the spine -

The hands are crossing lightly

at the summit of the chest,

The legs lie together

conspicuously stretched and parallel,

There is no smile

- there has been no smile for some time -

The eyes are closed against all nights,

against all lights,

against all hope.

Tuesday, May 18, 1999

Song of Yearning Rain

to Dean and Lily

Let me be the touch under your hand,

the choir of the rain

beyond the window.

Let me be the silk over your chest,

the shadow of your flesh

timidly beneath your skin.

Let me be the breeze between your fingers

and the prayer flowing through your lips.

Let me sit the night outside your door,

keep bad dreams at bay ,

until the day breaks

Let me be the warmth against your toes,

the nightmare of your foes.

Let me be tomorrow.

Victoria, Wednesday, November 22, 2000

untitled

Why am I visited by this winter nights of graying moonlight?

This bright blue gray piercing implacable light

that permeates it all, invades sleep and wake me

to this place where time and space has been frozen,

where you can see it all, and recognize none,

where nothing is far but everything is distant.

This merciless moonlight brings me unwanted wisdom:

I wake with a raw awareness of the whole.

I am privy to the secrets of death and of the infinite,

-of which only a small fraction are the secrets of life -

And yet I can not touch this things with my mind,

I can not search them for answers.

Or solutions.

I am locked outside of their understanding,

while intimately aware of their inexorable truth.

I turn around to seek comfort in the warmth of your body.

I hug you, but we remain two.

I even make love to you on those gray and cold nights,

And we still remain two.

For there is no one-ness in the cold light,

There is a sentence to loneliness in knowing the proportions of things,

How little time we have to love each other,

before spending such long lonesome eternity.

Victoria, Monday, June 25, 2001

Moonlight ghost

Pursued by the echo of my own footsteps

I thought of you as I crossed the big plaza.

The moonlight leaning on my shoulders

I remembered how much you had wanted to be there.

And as the light grew colder and thinner and bluer,

so my heart grew.

I tried to see the night with your eyes once again,

I often fancied that I carried you with me.

But as each step brought me further from my destination,

the plaza grew bigger, emptier, colder, meaner,

and so my heart grew.

In timelessness lost, of time rid and excepted

by the moonlight transparent, lifeless, hollow cold,

I knew I could not wish we were together,

for I could not wish you this moonlight death.

The steps grew louder, and then dimmer and then faint,

and so my heart grew

Victoria, Tuesday, June 26, 2001

The many things you were before

You asked me if I could ever live

with the many things you were before

I let on that the gist of memory

is how it only fails us when we need it the most,

but that i’d aways remember to forget

anything you might tell me about yourself.

You borrowed my name for a moment,

you moaned it a couple of times,

as I recall, you called that loving me

and while our bodies were pressed hard against each other,

I believed you,

And I was satisfied.

You always said you’d leave me without warning,

-I guess that was a warning of some kind -

I had no reason to be surprised.

No right to be sad or feel dejected.

I looked around just for the sake of the gesture,

and to make certain you had ever been here.

Victoria, Friday, March 22, 2002

Final Flight

Final flight

She said: "It’s not that I am out of love,

for I don’t think I have ever truly loved you.

I just don’t want to try to save you anymore."

So I fell eternally when she let go of my hand.

I fell past the routines and the sex and the warmth,

past the aloofness and the pain it always brings,

past the begging for love, the humiliation of denial,

the feelings of un-worthiness and emptiness.

I saw myself clawing at them,

trying to grab them to break my fall.

It seems that in worrying about the drop

I chose each time the heavier burden.

Perhaps I was too afraid to turn myself around,

look towards the sky rather than to the approaching earth,

and for whatever time was left

faithfully hold that I was finally flying.

Victoria, April of 2004

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My Other Homes

Index

The White Cat

The moon rose silvery...

On the way home

I love starry nights,

Warrior

Gabriela

4 o’ clock in the Morning

the way you cling to me some nights

the light the leaves filter . . .

Song of Yearning Rain

untitled

Moonlight ghost

The many things you were before

Final Flight