Poem

Before any words are spokenI can hear you in the dark

I can hear the snap as your tongue dislodges from the roof of your mouth

I can hear your lips as they separate

I swear I can hear your muscles moving as

you start to shape your mouth around a word

In the dark of my room miles away from the dark of yours, these sounds alone arouse me

Your voice bouncing down from hundreds of miles north, late at night when we miss each other most makes me want to weep with pleasure

Whiplash (JG)

The things I want to say to you,

to do to you, overwhelm me.

Your voice the other night pulled me back with such force that I am still reeling.

I don’t know what it is about you but there is something that leaves me wanting more.

Just the sight of your name on my screen has me in a gorgeous panic.

The best kind of panic, the same panic that came over me when we pulled up to my house on our second date.

You remember…

that moment when I was getting out of your car and then this invisible magnet held me fast to the seat.

It’s the moment you recognize that there is no turning back.

The roller coaster has chugged up the tracks and from your front car seat you see the horizon and it looks like the tracks are about to end and it’s the same moment-

you have no recourse.

You just grip the handles and decide- as if you had the power to actually choose- to let go.

Your voice is that moment on a loop.

And I fight, but I’ve got nothing.

I am unarmed against you and I am lost.

Quote

For the man who is beautiful is beautiful to see

but the good man will at once also be beautiful

 

-Sappho

On My Mind

This poem creeps up on me, no that’s not true. This poem lives in my head all the time just most if the time it sleeps. Lately its been popping up more frequently. Spring fever? Second thoughts? Who knows… Its a kick-ass piece and the rest of her work is pretty dope too. Recommended.

http://www.hebrewmamita.com/poetry/PMFGA.htm

Poem

The words that ended up meaning more to her as time went on

were not

I love you

but rather

the less often heard and somewhat less poetic

You don’t have to smile

Bird with the broken wing

Desperate and scared you held on to me as if I were a lifesaver

Like you were a drowning man and I a buoyant ring of hope.

You kissed me then and I let you.

Your lips were like pillows; down-filled, soft and warm.

You reminded me then of a bird I once found.

Its wing was broken.

We put it in a box and gave in an ashtray of water.

We did all that we knew to mend the fractured wing.

After the shelter came to pick him up

We were told he was poisoned too.

We had tried so hard to make him well,

But sometimes you just can’t tell what needs fixing…

That’s what I thought of then, with your mouth against mine

Of whether the hurt in you that you wanted me to fix was really the problem,

Of whether the pain in you that I was trying to numb

Was really what needed attending to at all.

Poem

SACRED SPACES

In libraries, in houses of worship, in the back rows of movie theatres. In dark corners and dimly lit salons.

In damp spaces where life starts to grow.

This is where I see you when you speak to me,

I reserve these places for your voice only.

Conspiratorial and hushed

A little boy with a secret he’s not yet sure he wants to share

A grown man not sure if he has any secrets left to tell and scared for it.

Poem

Insomnia

Sleep will not come.

I blame the hooka. I blame the drink. I blame the drugs.

I blame the almost full moon and the fact that tomorrow is Monday.

I lie here with you body beautiful and warm beside me and

I want to blame everything but you.

Everything but myself and how my breath changes

ever so slightly when I remember

(as if I could even momentarily forget)

that I will inevitably see your hair fanned golden and silk on my pillow.

I want to believe that it is everything, anything but the simple

fact that your mere presence affects me more then I care to admit.

Poem

Ode to my feet

Thank you for being with me always and for never deserting me. Thank you for taking me where I wanted to go, even though sometimes it was against your better judgment and thank you for taking me out of those same situations and for not holding a grudge and saying I told you so. Thank you, my feet, of 10 perfect toes for leading me to victories and for holding me up during times of failure. Thank you for feeling happy with me in cool mud and hot sand. Thank you for precious memories of dancing on dashboards from Cape Breton to Halifax to New Brunswick to Montreal to Toronto to Thunder Bay and beyond. And while were at it many thanks for endless nights of dancing at clubs, on beaches, in fields and perhaps most indulgently in our living room. I will always treasure our pedicure time together. The feeling of polishing up pretty. You always looked so dapper in burgundy. And do you remember your first kiss? And have I ever apologized for my taste in footwear? Well I do apologise, I may not change but I *am* sorry… Thank you oh arched ones for ballet classes, jazz classes, modern dance classes and taps. Thank you for holding out during endless portages and miles of fundraising marches. Thank you for helping administer that kick to Dave and bruising his armThank you for having the common sense to grow calluses and hardening yourself against the world when you needed to. I think I could take a nod from you.

Thank you for countless walks around my various cities. For rain drenched meanders around Montreal, for self-possessed jaunts home in Halifax. For self-righteous marches into the offices of people only scary for their faux bronzed name plaques, for pre-sunrise hikes up mountains in the holy land, for powerful ‘I’m-not-a-tourist’ walks through Italian cities.

Thank you my feet that miraculously have managed to grow just in time with the rest of me. thank you feet, whom I refuse to refer to as ‘dogs’ for always being the same size and for not changing with the whims of my waist. I especially love you for that.

Poem

Proof

 I wish my body would hold the imprints of people I have held

To keep me warm,

And as proof.

I wish for once the folds of my body

Could be made beautiful

By moulding themselves in your image.