Poems

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

The Colonel

WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD is true. I was in his house. His wife carried

a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went   

out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

To be a good

ex/current friend for R. To be one last

inspired way to get back at R. To be relationship

advice for L. To be advice

for my mother. To be a more comfortable

God the Tea Master

All the weapons we marshal to confront the day

You ask to be left by the door before entering.

The sword in its sheath must lie on the grass,

the quiver and bow hung off a branch.

Low Tide on Grand Pré

The sun goes down, and over all

These barren reaches by the tide

Such unelusive glories fall,

The Clouds are Buffalo Limping Towards Jesus

"weeping                 blooms

epistrophe and epistrophy

some ekphrastic evening, this will be both criticism and poetry and 

failing that fall somewhere that seems like in between. this both/

and and/ or neither/ nor machine comes in having been touched

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Call the roller of big cigars,

The muscular one, and bid him whip

In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.

Interesting People of Newfoundland

Newfoundland is, or was, full of interesting people.

Like Larry, who would make a fool of himself on street corners

for a nickel. There…

Under the Answering Sky

I can manage being alone,

can pace out convivial hope

across my managing ground.

Someone might call, later.

What do the dead make of us

that we’d flay ourselves trying

Light Shining out of Darkness

God moves in a mysterious way,

His wonders to perform;

He plants his footsteps in the sea,

Sonnet XXIII: Methought I Saw my Late Espoused Saint

Methought I saw my late espoused saint

Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave,

Whom Jove’s great son to her glad…

Deto(nation)

There’s a joke that ends with — huh?

It’s the bomb saying here is your father.

Now here is your father inside

your lungs. Look how lighter

the earth is — afterward.

Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes

’Twas on a lofty vase’s side,

Where China’s gayest art had dyed

The azure flowers that blow;

Barter

Life has loveliness to sell,

All beautiful and splendid things,

Blue waves whitened on a cliff,

Shots Rang Out on My Street Today

Boyakka! Boyakka! Boyakka!

Boyakka! Boyakka! Boyakka!

Boyakka! Boyakka! Boyakka!

Shots rang out on my street today

Three Black yoots lay dead

shot inna dem head

Homeworld

this is the growing of things birthing of skin

and bone stem     and leaf     this is planet

earth beneath snowlight and desert sand

The Cold Green Element

At the end of the garden walk

the wind and its satellite wait for me;

their meaning I will not know

Love poem

The woman I love

braids her hair. She’s Eve

and Eve means breathe, to give life,

my wife, from Eva by way

of the Hebrew havah. At dusk

I unlock her hair

An Online Friend Dies Somewhere Outside the Internet

Freezes, goes blue screen, shuts down. Dead pixel, dark.

Ghost echoes, lossy in the source code. Time zones away,

people who have actually shaken hands with my online friend

Love Armed

Love in Fantastic Triumph sat,

Whilst Bleeding Hearts around him flowed,

For whom Fresh pains he did Create,

confirmation bias

at least in our waking life

most commemoration

doubles as force

since even

the most benign

zodiacal conceptions

are tinged eurocentric

when brown women die

Declaration of Intent

let the colonial borders be seen for the pretensions that they are

i hereby honour what the flow of water teaches us

the beauty of enough, the path of peace to be savoured

Tide

Would I have seen her?

The tide tugging her gently past

the Comfort Inn; houses, tall and gabled,

All About My Grandmother

Wheat daughter, prisoner of sneaky pigweed, mother

to the five corners of the world and your three hectares,

beak-nosed carpenter’s wife and the potter’s lover,

Before the Birth of One of Her Children

All things within this fading world hath end,

Adversity doth still our joyes attend;

No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,

The Boxers

We were combatants from the start. Our dad 

Bought us boxing gloves when we were ten — 

Champions like Euryalus, say, or Epeius 

in this house

in this house

the body of a poem, still warm,

hangs on the nail of the mundane

touched to its core

like a reproach, like proof,

that i was here

and you were here

Editing the Prairie

Well, it’s too long for one thing

and very repetitive.

Remove half the fields.

Then there are far too many fences

interrupting the narrative flow.

Get some cattlemen to cut down those fences.

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

Song to Celia

Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

At Melville’s Tomb

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge

The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath

An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,

The World Is Too Much With Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; —

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

Internet Safety

My dad taught me to never give out my real name, age,

address, or photos. This seemed obvious to me. My fake

birthday entry was always my crush's birthday plus a

We Wear the Mask

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, —

This debt we pay to human guile;

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

monday thaw

On TV it looked like a high-speed photo of a milk drop

the dying leader of the Pana Wave laboratory cult smack in the

centre.

Acres of white cloth streamered his followers, who

Life in a Love

Escape me?

Never —

Beloved!

Invitation to Love

Come when the nights are bright with stars

Or when the moon is mellow;

Come when the sun his golden bars

Drops on the hay-field yellow.

Come in the twilight soft and gray,