Boarding the Train
Poems from just before, and from the beginning parts of this adventure across Canada, and then across the ocean. One is the first French poem I had written for a VERY long time. Writing in French is a totally different experience. A completely different sort of work.
À L’Envers
Tu me rends complètement à l’envers
Je n’ai pas de terre à tenir
la monde entière n’est pas assez pour me sauver,
mais vous…
Tu me rends complètement incapable
complètement incertain
complètement fou.
Mon coeur s’explose,
Tout mon corps est imprimé avec vous
Même avant de vraiment vous toucher.
Je n’ai pas de sens d’amour
Je n’ai pas de sens de liberté
Je n’ai pas de sens de verité
Quand vous êtes proches.
Tu me rends complètement à l’envers
Je n’ai pas de terre à tenir
Je suis perdu dans vos mots
dans votre voix et vos yeux
et ton sourire angélique.
Vous m’avez sauvez
Vingt mille fois,
Je ne peut pas même expliquer,
Comment vous m’avez touché.
Tu me rends complètement à l’envers.
A Picture
A picture
my teeth
your smile wound round
my heart
I know each moment draws me on to the place
Where you go, where your lips mouth the words
“I have to”
and I, skin still stinging
with your kiss,
miss.
A snapshot,
your needs,
my hope,
Built up and roughly fighting to climb,
the cliff of this and even as I climb
I see your life apart from me,
And cannot see an empty space,
A place
To fit inside.
A photograph kept, alone,
In a drawer, in stone,
And one last look, it took to take,
Away the things you gave me,
Bravely,
And I fall, a winter blanket,
Years and fears beyond…
A picture.
Beyond
There is a pit of fear,
a nest of vipers we name shame
that come to tempt us
down
to hide our eyes
amongst nightmarish frames
so far apart from lives so dear.
There is a place where torment flies,
to curse love's brighter butterflies
the night is mine
to twist and writhe within
a curtain is certain to coat us with lies.
Beyond this place a spark renews,
a vast lake washes out and out,
and tears are only fonts of joy.
There is a place where mercy flees,
where hearts are brought down to their knees,
it is there I've hung my hat,
despite the looks and smiles,
Broken and beaten, heart loves this disease.
Beyond this place a minstrel girl,
a field of truth absolves the world.
There is a place where demons dwell,
Heart's every beat a step t'ward hell,
no sweet autumns spark to taste,
no mysteries, no touch of grace,
I'm missing, wishing here, I fell.
Beyond this place is where I see,
A dear sweet friend who looks for me.
She wears caring on her sleeve,
despite the rules and walls that cleave
Hearts apart like bitter tears,
A moment's rest,
relief,
from fears.
You save me.
Desire
Electric energy
pulses
in the space between our skins
the nerve endings twitch
with the anticipation of
something
so close
some lovelust lost
under the blanket of the superego
can’t we just let go,
and hold on?
Each breath creates ripples
the air like a pond
connection so strong
you are…
Fall carries a spark
simmering
Winnipeg has a sense of something more
unrealised potential
teeming hope, satisfied by dissatisfaction
in your eyes I find it too,
a longing to linger on
can’t put my finger on
heart’s fire set upon
ever reaching…
Autumn Distance
Layers of distance
are emphasized in the fall
the clear, clean taste of the air
keeps them close to your skin
to finger tips
tapped on tables
waiting.
The crisp crackle of fall
leaves you feeling
far off tingles slip as
a two tone dream passes
your walking, wishing
eyes
Each cool breeze,
each twinge up the spine
bears and edge of mystery
a toothy darkness whispering
longing
and doubt.
More is always sleeping,
just outside your vision,
a song heard only in an echo,
a voice lost in a storm
calling for the dawn.
Just too far
Just too soft
Just too late
To meet up with truth
Just too late
To bring you home.
It’s a tiny cut on your hand,
or the roof of your mouth,
ever open
too much tension to heal
not enough pain for tears
but just enough
to be distracting.
a tiny taste of the longing
we are all wishing for.
Under the sting of brambles,
a safe haven,
This space.
The Air Between Our Eyes
Swinging, soaring spirits meet and twist into knots,
the way that candle flames ignite and merge to lift the room in luminescence,
each step tingles somewhere along the spin.
There’s a building in construction somewhere,
a hulking ghost of a structure, in a wasteland of potential thunderstorms,
awash with images, fragments of people and touch,
freeze frames from films we were never in,
parts we never played.
A sigh is always building,
watching the way the timing tore us up,
the way circumstance brings us to our knees,
begging for something else to need.
Your eyes burn
I can see you through them
like liquid fire,
I’m living to drown in your flames,
to dive through the seas of incandescence
into the bottomless pools of your mystery,
I want to find you there,
find you
in your most silent, lonely moments,
find you
in the times you look inside yourself
when your heart speaks in a whisper,
I want to hear it.
A train chugs in the station,
Ready to surge out over the land,
Surge out over the ties
that bind me back to you
untied by the sacrifice we make
for loving and wanting that love to be
what all the singing and writing
what all the calling and caring and wishing is waiting for
wanting that love to be
truth.
You make me want to be what you think I am
you make me better than I am
you make me able to give up anything for the man I could be.
Wherever I am, whatever I do,
you will be there,
reminding me to be the person who deserves
a love like the love
that happened in the night
in that space between the seats in your car,
in the air between our eyes.
Whisper
A tingle on the back of the neck,
the missing feeling of your fingers in my hair.
Whisper
The missing feeling of a secret we kept
Of wanting and needing and fearing regret.
Whisper
The distance is long love,
But the sound can carry,
If you wish hard enough,
It will be heard here.
Whisper
Boarding,
Oceans crossed without you
Are the span of a thousand yearnings
Broken on the backs of the mares in the night.
Whisper
Once Epics.
Heroes breaking oaths and passing for strangers whom we never loved.
At the end of time,
When they are gone,
I will look for you.
Whisper
Whisper longing to me,
Love,
Whisper so loud I will hear you
Beyond Vancouver mist
Beyond my lost love’s empty kiss
Beyond the nights asleep on rails
Beyond the lies, adventures, tales.
Whisper so loud I will no longer miss you.
À L’Envers
Tu me rends complètement à l’envers
Je n’ai pas de terre à tenir
la monde entière n’est pas assez pour me sauver,
mais vous…
Tu me rends complètement incapable
complètement incertain
complètement fou.
Mon coeur s’explose,
Tout mon corps est imprimé avec vous
Même avant de vraiment vous toucher.
Je n’ai pas de sens d’amour
Je n’ai pas de sens de liberté
Je n’ai pas de sens de verité
Quand vous êtes proches.
Tu me rends complètement à l’envers
Je n’ai pas de terre à tenir
Je suis perdu dans vos mots
dans votre voix et vos yeux
et ton sourire angélique.
Vous m’avez sauvez
Vingt mille fois,
Je ne peut pas même expliquer,
Comment vous m’avez touché.
Tu me rends complètement à l’envers.
A Picture
A picture
my teeth
your smile wound round
my heart
I know each moment draws me on to the place
Where you go, where your lips mouth the words
“I have to”
and I, skin still stinging
with your kiss,
miss.
A snapshot,
your needs,
my hope,
Built up and roughly fighting to climb,
the cliff of this and even as I climb
I see your life apart from me,
And cannot see an empty space,
A place
To fit inside.
A photograph kept, alone,
In a drawer, in stone,
And one last look, it took to take,
Away the things you gave me,
Bravely,
And I fall, a winter blanket,
Years and fears beyond…
A picture.
Beyond
There is a pit of fear,
a nest of vipers we name shame
that come to tempt us
down
to hide our eyes
amongst nightmarish frames
so far apart from lives so dear.
There is a place where torment flies,
to curse love's brighter butterflies
the night is mine
to twist and writhe within
a curtain is certain to coat us with lies.
Beyond this place a spark renews,
a vast lake washes out and out,
and tears are only fonts of joy.
There is a place where mercy flees,
where hearts are brought down to their knees,
it is there I've hung my hat,
despite the looks and smiles,
Broken and beaten, heart loves this disease.
Beyond this place a minstrel girl,
a field of truth absolves the world.
There is a place where demons dwell,
Heart's every beat a step t'ward hell,
no sweet autumns spark to taste,
no mysteries, no touch of grace,
I'm missing, wishing here, I fell.
Beyond this place is where I see,
A dear sweet friend who looks for me.
She wears caring on her sleeve,
despite the rules and walls that cleave
Hearts apart like bitter tears,
A moment's rest,
relief,
from fears.
You save me.
Desire
Electric energy
pulses
in the space between our skins
the nerve endings twitch
with the anticipation of
something
so close
some lovelust lost
under the blanket of the superego
can’t we just let go,
and hold on?
Each breath creates ripples
the air like a pond
connection so strong
you are…
Fall carries a spark
simmering
Winnipeg has a sense of something more
unrealised potential
teeming hope, satisfied by dissatisfaction
in your eyes I find it too,
a longing to linger on
can’t put my finger on
heart’s fire set upon
ever reaching…
Autumn Distance
Layers of distance
are emphasized in the fall
the clear, clean taste of the air
keeps them close to your skin
to finger tips
tapped on tables
waiting.
The crisp crackle of fall
leaves you feeling
far off tingles slip as
a two tone dream passes
your walking, wishing
eyes
Each cool breeze,
each twinge up the spine
bears and edge of mystery
a toothy darkness whispering
longing
and doubt.
More is always sleeping,
just outside your vision,
a song heard only in an echo,
a voice lost in a storm
calling for the dawn.
Just too far
Just too soft
Just too late
To meet up with truth
Just too late
To bring you home.
It’s a tiny cut on your hand,
or the roof of your mouth,
ever open
too much tension to heal
not enough pain for tears
but just enough
to be distracting.
a tiny taste of the longing
we are all wishing for.
Under the sting of brambles,
a safe haven,
This space.
The Air Between Our Eyes
Swinging, soaring spirits meet and twist into knots,
the way that candle flames ignite and merge to lift the room in luminescence,
each step tingles somewhere along the spin.
There’s a building in construction somewhere,
a hulking ghost of a structure, in a wasteland of potential thunderstorms,
awash with images, fragments of people and touch,
freeze frames from films we were never in,
parts we never played.
A sigh is always building,
watching the way the timing tore us up,
the way circumstance brings us to our knees,
begging for something else to need.
Your eyes burn
I can see you through them
like liquid fire,
I’m living to drown in your flames,
to dive through the seas of incandescence
into the bottomless pools of your mystery,
I want to find you there,
find you
in your most silent, lonely moments,
find you
in the times you look inside yourself
when your heart speaks in a whisper,
I want to hear it.
A train chugs in the station,
Ready to surge out over the land,
Surge out over the ties
that bind me back to you
untied by the sacrifice we make
for loving and wanting that love to be
what all the singing and writing
what all the calling and caring and wishing is waiting for
wanting that love to be
truth.
You make me want to be what you think I am
you make me better than I am
you make me able to give up anything for the man I could be.
Wherever I am, whatever I do,
you will be there,
reminding me to be the person who deserves
a love like the love
that happened in the night
in that space between the seats in your car,
in the air between our eyes.
Whisper
A tingle on the back of the neck,
the missing feeling of your fingers in my hair.
Whisper
The missing feeling of a secret we kept
Of wanting and needing and fearing regret.
Whisper
The distance is long love,
But the sound can carry,
If you wish hard enough,
It will be heard here.
Whisper
Boarding,
Oceans crossed without you
Are the span of a thousand yearnings
Broken on the backs of the mares in the night.
Whisper
Once Epics.
Heroes breaking oaths and passing for strangers whom we never loved.
At the end of time,
When they are gone,
I will look for you.
Whisper
Whisper longing to me,
Love,
Whisper so loud I will hear you
Beyond Vancouver mist
Beyond my lost love’s empty kiss
Beyond the nights asleep on rails
Beyond the lies, adventures, tales.
Whisper so loud I will no longer miss you.