montgomery street, montreal
a babys' cry emanates from the courtyard
bounces between walls
in the space between buildings
and gets caught up in the clothes lines,
strung up like a web, and crystalizes
a stolen dream in a backward dream catcher
backward, because the dreams
are our bodies
and the web is the system
and we are caught there stuck
and sucked dry like fodder
like food for no spider
food for pale, rich fathers
truths you wont find in reality tv
or in breaking corporate news
truths we find when we take the music
out our ears
when we take the blinders
off our eyes
i am sitting at the top of trees
on a balcony down a city street
where the tourists, with their bubbles on
warn you not to go
and i am looking out over
the humble people passing
like leaves
a small man waits patiently
holding a bundle of black-eyed susans
cut from some small island, presumably
some square of fertile earth
not some small feat
in this tumultuous ocean of cement
he fiddles the things around him with his hands
which are apparently working badly,
which look like they've known work
though now he trips over his feet, the curb, his eyes are
bashful, just about
i wonder
will it be romance or insult?
to assuage a lovers anger
or to express what all is happy and sweet?
and after a bird lands
on my balcony
my attention is diverted
and i see
up and down this street
cat's are strolling
business or happenstance
it's not plain enough to see
but they look hungry
they look independent
they look tired
is that what we call free?
an old woman snailing along the sidewalk
is tap-tapping with her shell-like walker
her body more and more the trail behind
what all moves before her
i wonder, what moves inside that wisdom
that ancient gait
that out-and-out been-here-longer-than-you-could-understand
corporeality?
and when some voice behind her
sounds so much like speaking
and she turns her head so surely
and she is sure that she is being needed
and she is sure that her life still has meaning
her eyes, just as slowly
drop down with sadness
because she has been here
before, and it was only a whistle
in the wind, this time
and no one is needing
or near
so she turns her head on forward
as someone on a long journey learns to do
and she continues, meloncholy and tired
on her way, which she has learned to do
and this the world keeps turning
constant as the angles of the sun pass through
and this the world we keep passing by
thinking the future is always brand new
but every moment the poor are not new
the homeless sleeping in city crevaces are not new
the women being trafficked and enslaved are not new
oppression is not new
privilege and weaponry are not new
this gaping
and then looking away
this is silence and this is power
to pass clean through
to crawl the web
and suck the blood
of old dreams
each time caught anew
bounces between walls
in the space between buildings
and gets caught up in the clothes lines,
strung up like a web, and crystalizes
a stolen dream in a backward dream catcher
backward, because the dreams
are our bodies
and the web is the system
and we are caught there stuck
and sucked dry like fodder
like food for no spider
food for pale, rich fathers
truths you wont find in reality tv
or in breaking corporate news
truths we find when we take the music
out our ears
when we take the blinders
off our eyes
i am sitting at the top of trees
on a balcony down a city street
where the tourists, with their bubbles on
warn you not to go
and i am looking out over
the humble people passing
like leaves
a small man waits patiently
holding a bundle of black-eyed susans
cut from some small island, presumably
some square of fertile earth
not some small feat
in this tumultuous ocean of cement
he fiddles the things around him with his hands
which are apparently working badly,
which look like they've known work
though now he trips over his feet, the curb, his eyes are
bashful, just about
i wonder
will it be romance or insult?
to assuage a lovers anger
or to express what all is happy and sweet?
and after a bird lands
on my balcony
my attention is diverted
and i see
up and down this street
cat's are strolling
business or happenstance
it's not plain enough to see
but they look hungry
they look independent
they look tired
is that what we call free?
an old woman snailing along the sidewalk
is tap-tapping with her shell-like walker
her body more and more the trail behind
what all moves before her
i wonder, what moves inside that wisdom
that ancient gait
that out-and-out been-here-longer-than-you-could-understand
corporeality?
and when some voice behind her
sounds so much like speaking
and she turns her head so surely
and she is sure that she is being needed
and she is sure that her life still has meaning
her eyes, just as slowly
drop down with sadness
because she has been here
before, and it was only a whistle
in the wind, this time
and no one is needing
or near
so she turns her head on forward
as someone on a long journey learns to do
and she continues, meloncholy and tired
on her way, which she has learned to do
and this the world keeps turning
constant as the angles of the sun pass through
and this the world we keep passing by
thinking the future is always brand new
but every moment the poor are not new
the homeless sleeping in city crevaces are not new
the women being trafficked and enslaved are not new
oppression is not new
privilege and weaponry are not new
this gaping
and then looking away
this is silence and this is power
to pass clean through
to crawl the web
and suck the blood
of old dreams
each time caught anew