The Queen

For the longest time
The blue metal was hung
To decorate the shitty station.
Strangers climbed up
And the vintage bourbon
Pumped up the ghost town.

It was around the tenth night of March.
I dreamt of my lost straw and Billy Holiday.
The queen. Not queens.
I woke up to ‘My Man,’
The spade.  The chaos.
We talked about the David guy
And asked for the second one!

Damn! It tasted just like paradise!

-s
Toronto, April 2016

Paper

There was the time when we had our back to the camera,
Atop a pile of papers and patched sweaters.
Remember when we studied the age of roses
And worshiped a humourless God?

Midnights passed.  Moon stayed in half.

We took up space to make us visible lovers,
To be heard and to be watched.
Ah, those curious eyeballs. We owed it all to our
Vulnerability and profound lack of tolerance.

That’s right.

We had each other to dissolve our complexity
And move forward to even more lost and found nights.
Block, block, block. All was blocked.

We did flip the page that summer of cruel summer
When one more time she said it best:
“‘No’ is still a complete sentence.”

-s
Toronto, March 2016

 

 

Full Stop

Their earbuds,
Hanging in the air unlike
Sir Isaac’s off-white apples.
One, indulging
Guns N’ Roses’
Summer reunion.
Two, rhyming
Cigarettes after Sex’s
‘Affection’.
Terrified of the turn-aways,
Lifting the silence
To the next level.
While the next level
Was a rope bridge over
Their coming stop.

Full Stop.

-s
Toronto, March 2016

Ephemeral

In you I saw the
Soil crawling down
Your fingertips
And the ink on
Your left wrist.

I heard the
Velvet Sound
Of the solo darkness;
The unspoken.
I kept busy.

In you I felt your
Half-closed eyes and
The breeze that sang me
“Your song.”
The goddamn breeze
In that ephemeral beauty.

I played with the strings,
With the white sand
From the Riviera;
I made another you
out of the clay.

And then I had to look.
You don’t know
Where to look.
You are the ecstasy.

-s

Toronto – January 2016

 

One Tragic

His non-existence

And the sweetness of the

Unknown bottle,

The trashed poem,

Unexplained in one tale.

The tale of drowning

In the truth of her blond curls,

In the altitude above the water,

Unlevelled.

In all for one

And one for

All.

-s

January 2016, Toronto

 

 

 

Newborn

It is you,

Who bring me

Good news.

And what if two lives

Barely daring to stand by the gates,

Dragging the virgins and their Christ?

Embrace.

Direct.

Make.

The month of miracles is

about to show off.

-s

Dec. 2015, Toronto