Still,

this solemn December fog,

drawing us further,

towards the even,

when January stars overtake the dry day,

still,

nary a breath of February swish,

no March wash or toss,

snow crystalline,

upon the resting ground,

still,

those foggy December places,

brushed by winter freeze and beats,

still,

wrapped by frost and snowy traces,

sapped by winter's testy feats.

Staring hard at the landscape,
I recognize the faces of my ancestors,
We're not really here for the Universe,
We're here for love and for ourselves,
The Universe wouldn't really notice,
If we disappeared,
Vanishing into the landscape,
Dematerializing into nothingness,
Fading deep into space,
That iconic place where we began,
God gifted us with life,
Living to love and learn.

Life is us,
Like the living cosmos,
Eternal love supports performance,
There isn't much the moon will tell us,
Reckoning craters and tears and heartaches,
All those trials and tribulations,
Existence here on mother earth,
All these earthly trails,
Leading us through the quavering Universe,
All those wavering songs of Hallelujah,
Reverberating from galaxy to galaxy,
God's trembling songs for us,
Molding the mysterious Universe,
Everything ordered and behaving,
All these weaving hymns,
Trill quivering throats,
So much unforeseen and more,
We're grounded here with our inherent yearning,
God's cosmic gifts for us,
Life and love and learning.

All these dreams,
Spatial reality so it seems,
All these visions of freedom,
Like a population of kind smiles,
Nodding compassionate acknowledgements,
Empathy expressly shared,
Wand'ring through the extravagant crowd,
All this song-like poetry,
Up lyrical Baker street,
Left on Victoria to Ward,
All those brilliant memories at 29 Claude street,
Past venerated Ainsworth and upstart Kaslo,
All the way north to Porter Creek,
One damn reality to the next,
One giant step for neo-discovery,
One freestyle cartwheel to neo-recovery,
This artful Canadian dream,
Where deep canyons,
Carving their practical way,
Meditating over eons,
Shape an impatiently fragile world,
White water and cold water and blue water,
Drop after sacred drop,
Blessed drips of water,
Chiseling prophesy into hard rock,
For sacrosanct love and water's sake,
Reciting inviolable poetry,
Echoing across the reticent landscape.

All those groomed love songs,
Looming ash piles of incinerated hearts,
Artistic bits and pieces of broken lovers,
Blowing in the autonomous wind,
Tomorrow will be reshaped,
Dreams can be landscaped,
If we listen carefully,
We'll hear revealing poetry speak,
Perhaps we'll even see the light,
If we turn a blind eye,
Turn and even sometimes run,
We shall surely stumble,
Tumbling as we try so hard to fly.

We are held captive here,
Enslaved by this oppressive atmosphere,
Impressive chemistry constructing visions and other realities,
Chained by life to this virion earth,
Gone viral with so much epic fear,
Overcome by so many skeptical mysteries,
Labouring to be tuned in,
Trying to feel and see and hear,
Gone are those virulent dark days,
Stark episodes when a remarkable moon,
Marked social life and human history,
But now we are blinded by some sordid light,
Fortune has beckoned us forward,
Toward that legendary edge,
Where humankind stands to call,
Atop that majestic yet scary ledge,
Where we either heroically fly or tragically fall.

Love won't catch us,
As we fall,
Love can't save us,
When rigorous destiny calls,
That arrow you unforgivably shot,
Piercing my bleeding heart,
Still a gaping wound there,
Lamentably gashed as love doesn't care.

Far beyond those dangerous canyons,
Past all those petrified dreams,
All those blessed liquid drops,
Water configuring the world,
Atmospheres of love and chemistry,
Styling the colour of the wind,
Admitting without blue oceans,
Blue sky would not exist,
All these hopes and dreams,
All these atmospheric motions,
Simply could not resist,
Breezy twisting love,
Shifting lusty notions,
Down busy Baker street,
Past Ward and Richards,
Into the din of the resilient mountains,
Haunted forests where dreams are found and lost,
Old growth visions waking the soul,
Jungles urging rapturous love to intervene,
Encouraging this bionatural cost,
Remodeling pitfalls and deep dark holes,
Where love is always lost it seems,
Where lonely hearts are pierced,
By fearsome love with all its cruel means.

There is no such thing as unconditional love,
Provisional love,
Indivisible love,
But conditions exist in physics,
A shrewd molecular structure,
Synapses radiating beyond aperture,
Fixing variable light into reality,
Dreams into contextual rights and wrongs,
Discoloured love waits impatiently,
Banging out love songs,
Conditionally expecting more,
All those pangs and heartfelt wanting,
Clanging helplessly against love's black and white door.

Yet in the end there is precious life,
Midst transparent trying love,
Crying dependent love songs,
Chained behind love's rapturous door,
Atmosphere remains key,
Divine water washes over us,
Prophetic flotsam arriving on love's distant shore,
Washed up like bottled prayers,
This plastic world,
Like plastic love,
Strangling whales and mermaids,
Choking Poseidon himself,
Expressive chemistry matching Rapunzel's impressive braids,
Love stretching those outer limits,
Towering above fantasy's blissful realm,
Casting spells that love dreads,
Precious life at Nature's helm,
Losing treasured love in uncharted chasms somehow,
Stitching true love into that loveless abyss,
Pitching hope where we never really know,
If honest love will truly hit or abjectly miss.

All those Sundays at the altar,
All that 11:00 a.m. sunlight,
Streaming in through tall church windows,
Congregation backlit by some sort of faith,
Concepts and wise shafts of light,
Steaming words falling on half asleep ears,
Paul's Anglican smile permeating the congregational din,
Shrouds lifted by holy thought and deed,
Veils drawn for a view of divine supper,
Who served the fish stew?
Even if it was thin soup satisfaction was guaranteed,
Blood of Christ,
Body of Christ,
Eat and drink,
For no man shall enter heaven,
Barren of this validating meal,
Dessert was a foregone conclusion,
But not at this supper table,
Wine was liberally drunk,
Apostles preferred wine,
To meat or fish or flesh,
Or bread or the word of life,
All things suffer,
First premise,
Long before the cross,
Epochs before Golgotha,
Suffering was born with first thought,
Thus all things suffer,
Longing for no one suffering,
Longing for more wine,
Not wanting to be a cannibal,
Dining on consecrated flesh,
Perhaps blood is thicker than wine,
Prayers more important than flesh or wine,
Divinity didn't intend cannibals,
All the beasts of the field,
All those birds in the air,
Waking at the divine altar,
Praising God for all this suffering,
Wisdom doesn't come from wine,
Truth can't be digested out of flesh and blood,
Some spectrum seems necessary,
Like joyful singing and happy dancing,
An eternal flame,
So many people on fire,
Self-immolation abounds,
Strike the match,
See us burn,
Such a humiliating conflagration,
Just what did we learn?
What wisdom did those agonizing flames teach us?
Yet every spark,
Igniting our souls,
From light,
Into night,
Into light again,
Eternity clothed in its divine refrain,
Just the same,
All this destructive fire,
All this torrential rain,
So when the sun shines,
We rejoice,
Every voice lilting,
Sweet upon summer's breeze,
All this planetary tilting,
All these prayers whispered by sacred trees.

Winter holds high court,
All that dank and dangerous,
Legal structure held in fortitude,
All those brave and courageous,
Arresting this and that,
Sorting emotions and actions into fractions,
Factions don't fret,
They'll bleed you,
They'll toss you over the edge,
Remember me as I was,
Not as I am,
For I have given up all hope,
Balancing on the apocalyptic precipice,
Knowing every box canyon ends the same,
Entrenched by towering castle walls,
Created treachery at its best,
Winsome folk need not apply,
These are airy elevations,
More than rare,
That very thin atmosphere,
Scratching the stratified ionosphere,
Attempting to see beyond the blazing stars,
Atomic eruptions blinking back at us,
Like we are a crowd of starstruck fools,
Too cool to care.

Scantily clad summer with its heady perfume,
Fragrance adopting that scented forum,
Still winter court comes to order,
Snow white elements arduously selected,
Showy jurors with their stealth and limber,
Citing additions and multiplications,
Rounding down a fine line,
Sums of frozen speeches and rancid cream,
Sentences of deprivation and even death,
Probabilities will never equal reality,
Only lightning can save us now,
Hurricanes are not enough,
I am tattooed with angst,
Branded by that cur called love,
I surrender to the converse universe,
Realizing there are no imparted givens,
Slipping artfully past all those happy endings,
Radical shadows mock those that partisan love has convicted.

Courtroom walls loom,
Dank air fills that stolid room,
Dark and stale in that solid din,
Searching for a rare black pearl,
Hidden deep in roiling sin,
Finding cold unhappiness,
Nothing truly ranks first,
Cruelly it's all or nothing,
One and one,
Two by two,
All in all,
Majority rules,
Something enumerated then found,
Something numerically lost,
Only empty pods,
No peas or pearls,
Appeasement is creased,
Those seedy jurors condescend,
Rescinding all of love's God given rights,
Time shall be the final judge,
Even courtrooms must abide,
Seconds and minutes and hours and days,
Months into years and decades,
Life sentences,
Blocking the stairway to heaven,
Wrenched here and then there,
Sensibility seems only a dream,
Each hour a xenophobe nightmare,
Every day a calamitous scene.

Bigotry has strangled the beloved,
Crazed sprites dance wildly,
Watching Rumpelstiltskin rejoice,
Spinning chaff into riff-raff,
Burning justice at the righteous stake,
Only cinders and ash remain in the end,
Rash words into sentences,
Penalties leaving wounds and scars,
So winter court is finally adjourned,
Each juror inclined t'wards their own make-believe peace,
Reclined temperance the true culprit,
Skewered love on a spit,
Brashly braised and publicly roasted,
Cannibal chauvinism devours life,
Every bigot cowers then drowns,
Smothered by lower life in the end,
Only compassionate warriors can survive,
Love retreats to another foreign camp,
Creating fire and shelter like in the old days,
New reality in this overwhelming vamp,
Escaping high court and its dim flickering lamp.

When I woke,
Excited,
Ablaze in that starry dream,
Words,
God spoke,
Lying naked in the cold stream,
Where love's legions ruined us,
That mighty two edged sword,
Piercing our pounding hearts,
Such a terrible fuss,
Oh Lord! Oh good Lord!
Swift currents have swept us far apart,
Our love has been submerged and drowned,
Every rapid and every barrage,
Sweeping love away,
Such a hazardous undertow,
Deep into unknown depths,
Where the world is blind,
Heartstrings entangle us so,
Captivating love is seldom kind.

You're not as primitive as me,
I'm more tribal in my thinking,
My bare bones have me rooted in the trees,
Your full breasts have me dreaming,
Drinking thirsty bliss into all of this,
Knowing I can't live,
Give you all of this,
Caressed by bliss,
You're modern standards,
Bandied about on city streets,
Staged in my primitive mind,
All this circus,
So much ruckus,
Times that oft weren't kind,
Oft those crazy beats,
Where two vanities often meet,
A dry rind,
Withering under the intolerant sun,
My wavering mind,
Drifting in an indolent sea,
Blood rushing through its jeweled course,
You and me,
Dredging love from the bottom of the sea,
You and me,
Dodging cupid's arrows which that devil shoots with glee,
Codging on my own,
Revolution such as the stars have shown,
Action compacted into drone and moan,
Harken to ringed Saturn,
Trailed by red Mars,
While the grail moon,
Hides its shy and sultry face,
Convex curtains have hidden timeless glory,
Vexed for certain such an inglorious story,
I'm on my knees,
Repenting before the final fray,
Still you tease me,
Not black or white but always gray,
So I wander hopelessly cloaked,
Revoking destiny before the night comes,
I've set fire to love,
Watch it burn,
Love soaked in grief,
So much disbelief,
My tears are like rivers,
Flash floods across my face,
Grace has abandoned me,
Left me with shivers,
Watching love burn,
Watching you turn away,
Again and again,
Today just like yesterday,
Hearts can't feign love,
Love like water,
Blessings from God,
Inattentive us,
Letting love like water,
Run through our disbelieving fingers,
Such a disappointed fuss,
Love with all its extraordinary mess,
Like a flash flood,
Carving a dangerous way,
Twixt rock and muck,
Sluiced into some disagreeable channel,
Unrelenting until the raging storm has passed,
So we raft down love's rank canals,
Beneath the surface of the crackled earth,
Far below crevasse and cave,
A seismic berth where hidden love raves,
Causing hearts to break,
Causing love to make,
Mistake after mistake,
Like a ray of light searching,
Seeking some reflective surface,
So in time love might truly find,
A mirror heart that cares,
Braving crazy love in kind,
When we're drowning in a sea of love,
When joy and happiness have been stolen away,
Only gracious light can save us,
Only truth and right will find us,
Before we finally close our weary eyes,
Before we tragically die from heart ache,
Only tragic love will cure us,
Only brutal love will ever care enough to make us wise.

First encounters,
Are sometimes,
Fucking,
Terrifying.

Second time around,
Often the same nervous thing,
Preparation and suffering to learn,
Experience eventually saves us.

We're not conceived then born,
Knowing just how to fuck,
Myriads of critical moves to learn,
So many genuine encounters needed.

Great dancing and a passionate lover,
God is splitting a universal gut,
Somewhere hidden in the cosmic din,
Rooting from the dark back row.

This is where we make our stand,
Brave and naked on this earthly stage,
Craving universe our captive audience,
The craven moon our adoring relative.

Rivers of unpolluted water,
Generous rays of pure sunlight,
All these fragrant forests and earthly delight,
God applauds the perfect day and flawless night.

Often we forget our faultless lines,
Stumbling onto the blazing stage,
Indifferent footlights blinding us half the time,
Somehow we sing in tune as we perform and age.

Each vital breath,
All this basic consciousness we flaunt,
Every crucial heartbeat,
All this euphoric love we want.