Poem -- "Ottawa"

The best time
To capture Ottawa
Is when the wee hours
Caress its pale gray stone
During early October
In between the wild contrast
Of its seasons

That's when
The gilt-burnished leaves
And brilliant lights so clean
Snap fast
Across the dark dish
Of its lull

So rural
So oddly rural
Its nights rustle
Like a country lane
Full of slapping leaves,
Smattering sounds,
Clapping against tires
Whistling in the damp hiss
Of space

And even Vanier
Makes me breathless
With the way light pools
In the junk space
Between its houses

4 am

I love the pine boughs
At 4 am
When everything's wrong
But their blackness
Against the shaded
Deep navy blues
Of night
And that little hint of silvery light
Kissing the spaces
Between rooftops
Reminding me
To breathe deep
Look beyond
Swell the heart
Straining
Against something
So vast, so beautiful, so cold.

The Home

Expanded on some twitter micropoetry, expressing the experience of working in a dingy nursing home.

The Home

Florid sacks
Of fluid
We slosh around all these
Ghosts burning in our guts;
We give them
Names

Dribbling, moaning
They fester their last hour
Slumped, twitching
Against the dusty blue dusk
Of a tiled hall

Hugging their jumbled
Cold gray bones
We close our eyes

Poetry: "2013"

 Note: This was supposed to be a post and doesn't follow any of my usual rules for writing decent poetry, it's just an emotional mindspill and not intended to utilize imagery or anything remotely artistic. It's a diary entry that was easier to write in poem form, and that's all.

2013

Today I'm thinking

About the end of the world

2012, and all that.

Yeah, nothing happened--

The year ended,

Christmas cheers said as best we could

While my brother lie in bed

Head bandaged

And we didn't know

If he would ever be the same again

As he lay in recovery,

Our rabbit died, ten years of companionship

Became a pile of dusty shavings, ash

Gone out with the garbage

And seen again only

By the body swerving

To move around a cage no longer there

Goodbye, little friend.

As my brother suffered,

Struggled with life and death

Physically, and metaphorically

Someone decided it was okay to turn a corner

Near the end of our street

At twice the speed

You should

There went Daddy's nice shiny

Brand new car, ebony flecks

Of paint and metal

Bursting under the sun

Like confetti

And my father's speech slurred and his vision blurred

And nobody knew why until they saw

The scans of blood on his brain

Now he lie in recovery too,

And there was no money, no sick leave

No security, no, he'd never been that wise

Or any kind of wise at all

In 2012 we were going to finally

Move out to the country,

My waking dream since I was tall enough

To see out the car window and know there were trees,

Seas and seas of trees,

Somewhere out there

Now that was taken away, too

I'd quit my job in the city for it

I was left with nothing

But poverty

Real poverty,

Not you the kind where you shop

At Walmart

And can't afford the latest xBox games

And think all your friends

Look cooler than you do

The kind of poverty

That becomes your daily companion

Braying hunger and worry and uncertainty and

Fearing to touch anything precious to you

Because if it breaks, it's gone

And if it doesn't break

You'll probably have to sell it

The kind of poverty that eats at your dreams

Like it eats at your body

And convinces you it's pointless

Everything's pointless

There is only suffering

And bracing

Cowering

Frozen with rage as much as fear--

A burnt out tree-trunk

Standing jagged against the wind

Yes, we made it to 2013

There was no bang

But I think I heard

A whimper.

Poetry Feature!

One of my poems was featured on Cassandrapedia! I'm honored to have been chosen; thanks, Cassandra!

 http://cassandrapedia.com/a-poem-by-phoenix/

Elementary

Elementary
Whatever possessed me to walk
To you again on that
Overbearingly sunny day
I do not know

You are not
Remotely far away
And I passed you
So many times --
On my way to the store,
Walking in the rain,
Or to catch the bus
To meet new friends --
Not even seeing you, really

You became
An oblique house of memory
That sheltered a shard of self
I broke off me with gut-splitting force
And buried,
Somewhere,
Like an obscure footnote
I hoped no one would ever find--
Not even a nice old couple,
Quite by accident,
Who'd likely feel only
An indulgent kind of pity

Not for other eyes
Are these marks

But I guess on that day
I was lonely enough
To hoard myself back together,
Now that the new friends
Have become old
And gone

I set a nervous foot on your soil
Trying not to flinch
When I passed the place
Where the white-haired wild monster
Of a librarian roared at me for hiding
Among the books at lunch hour
And I sobbed,
Great rolling salty tears,
For all the hate in that small world

You are pretty much gutted, now,
Like the war-zone you were

Where your out-buildings stood lie patches
Of mute gravel
Your playground is mostly just stumps
In dark old sand
And the batting cage
In the yawning field out back
Leans tiredly,
One foot off the ground,
Like a weary old nag

You are a strange sight
Among all these bright white houses
And overly-kept stamps of lawn

Like me you are
A brown and fumbling smudge
On this gleaming suburbia,
Always half in a state
Of abandonment

Garden-Song

The world carries a soft perfume today,
One that sneaks up on the senses
From a distance,
Dancing in on the rustling breeze
As if from the silk of skirts
Bent as ladies laughed
During elegant teas
Taken in gardens long grown over
And gone to seed
With lacy ghosts

Their genteel murmurs come to us,
Still sung,
On the lazy breath of June

The Scar

An abandoned train-track

You roam, winding

Through the wilderness of me

Memories

And still I remember
The rustle of your dress on the marble stoop
The echoes of every muddled emotion in your eyes
How I held you against the creak of restless metal, and the cooling October air
As the night wind was singing through strands of your hair

I remember it all, in this gray heart of mine
Knowing that when each of our winding days of rain
Were laid to rest by this fire
We left them telling stories of rebuttal
Between collusions of desire

Oh to sleep in shadow
Of such passionate song!

There was mist in the vale, then;
Men in the lion's den.

Magic Mirror

Lamplight pools
Around yellow leaves
Collecting at my feet

My reflection,
Water-warped,
Darkens under shadow

Reeds

My heart
Veined with reeds
Cutting, keening
For the music of your voice

Apres Eau

My hair, sleek
Seal-brown sheen
Slaps against my back

Rivulets of water
Silver stars
Cherish every line of me

Hesitant Spring

Snow crystals crumple
Into soggy loam
The river sluggishly stirs

Yellow grass hunches
Few blades yet daring
To brace a silent world