THROWN
You know that old expression
“you threw me when you said that”
Well “you threw me when you said that”
I was on a quarter horse once
turning a barrel like only a quarter horse can
when the cinch broke
Centrifugally flung, I hung
a long moment speeding lateral in the air
before I remembered
how to roll up and hit the ground
without being hurt too bad
“You really threw me when you said that”
I didn’t have time to remember to roll
IN MEMORY STILL
(or computers byte)
You keep popping up in my memory
On old disks I find love notes
still as loving as when they were entered
Faxes, letters, poems, thoughts
full of beauty full of trust
Valentine’s poems, three of them
overflowing with sensual exaltation
wisdom exchanged, depths plumbed,
promises made
Fresh and clean and bright
as the day they were written
lines that would go on forever
lines that still do go on forever
I don’t know how to tell the little ones
and zeros that we’re now apart
it might break their heart
SLAVE
I react badly to slavery
because my first instinct
is to succumb and survive
I react badly to slavery
because I am a very bad slave
always plotting the death of my master
ELBOW ME ELMO
They are Xing out Xmas again
at the big department store chain
In the land that has taken the job
of saving the world from the mob
Pushing and shoving, mean and obscene
with a frenzy that a last crust African
or boycotted Iraqi has never seen
And the red in the Amazon river
is not the blood of the cow
But a million piranhas
blushing in shame
EVENINGS SO QUIET
You can hear the chameleons
changing to their darker suits
CANADIANS SPEAKING
In the apologetic case
type eh? behaviour
PERHAPS IT ISN’T BY CHANCE
Woman is shaped like a wound
man like a lance
MADRID, MARCH 2004
God, Spain again
scraping Guernicas from
walls of trains
ALMS IN THE LAND OF ALLAH
And it will all be returned to you
multiplied ten fold
heaped up and running over
WE ARE THE FISH
So afraid of other fish
we crawled up onto the shore