two poems

Two new poems written yesterday. Inspired by my hometown:

This is where it all began, they said.
In the darkness of the wholly body,
disfigured and scarred, incapable of birth.
This is where I began: in the recesses of my mothers
womb, in the dry open air of Lake Huron,
of the Saint Lawrence.

They said this town was made up
of war homes for widows or those returning
with missing limbs, missing minds.

I wake up coming back here always, with fingers swollen,
with my brain a wretched piece of machinery,
metal and screws.

My father told me that anything can be fixed with
enough time and chemicals.
(so come home, sweet heart, come home).

This city is always drawing me in.


Through the low slung businesses,
the wires that drape on poles, hungry and resolved.

The streets here could be nameless and I would still find my
way through the cracks of cement, that fasten themselves
onto the dry sands, that buckle under the weight of passing

transport trucks, garbage trucks and school buses.

In the crowds I can make out those victims of
the outside who have stumbled back like I.

Even the churches in this city do not have bells to ring.


Untitled Free Verse; Youth.

In July I recovered from your lies,
dug a hole in my backyard
stuck the pink and fresh bottoms of my feet
into the darkness of mud and established castles;
built them up to wash away when the tides of rain
moved through
and I was forced to cower and hide behind
the garage, pressed against fresh summer greenery and yellow siding.

There, you refused to find me.

I made you maps and manuals ,
well researched revelations of my heart
but you made a campfire with your lover
and burnt them up into smoke signals

Left them up to interpretation and the wind.

When you came back
I could feel you in my city, and I constructed
joyous verses upon arrival,
wrote that I could be saved even if you failed so many
times before. I preached and reached for
you only to find a hand more removed.

All I wanted was your fingers, but you have yet to
understand how.



I wonder how at my age, I can dare attempt to conquer the concept of "youth." I think that's funny that I meditate on it.

I am effectively home in Ottawa now after nine hours of greyhound boredom. If only we could teleport. oh science fiction movies, why can't you be real?