Poetry

Under a Billboard at Bathurst and Eglinton

Under a billboard at Bathurst and Eglinton
Using nothing but my eyes
I bought some clouds?
Because they were big and self-sufficient

but I bought them too for protection?
Since a friend of mine
Once safely walked this same street
under similar clouds

They passed over the same sidewalks she passed over
But the past can't be touched, and you can't touch clouds
And there's something wrong inside me
and the clouds might solve it . . .

I bought them also because they're grey without being depressing?
And slow, but not in a way that makes me impatient
Because having nowhere to be or go
Doesn't stop them from being or going

They travel like jokes
So I accept them as natural
See how they activate my wit
without taking credit

Because they ask nothing
And pull me gently away from
the great loneliness
to which no one gets accustomed

but the clouds.

He Just Happened, She Occurred

She implied, he inferred
She decided, he concurred
He was frightened, she was stirred
She got well, he was cured

She was voice, he was word
He encouraged, she deterred
He was tree, she was bird
She made obvious, he obscured

She objected, he observed
She subjected, he served
He upset, she unnerved
He just happened, she occurred.

Nine Extra Thoughts (No Extra Cost)

Why, at this point, would anyone want to make history? Humans have been making history for 10,000 years?the time has come to make something else.

A bird-watching word butcher is both word botcher and bird watcher.

The problem troubled people most often face is recognizing when there isn't a problem.

If talking stops working stop talking.

If you're really beyond it, there's no reason to behave as if you're above it.

Now when I look back I wonder why I ever looked back.

If you can't join them, judge them.

It's easy to see through people, much harder to look carefully into them.

How can people live with themselves when they know that they have to die with themselves?