monsoon

is this fecundity
or something worse?

a horrorshow
or a ripening?

this ominous outburst,
this sadness in the clouds

prolific, neuronal
luxuriant, intertwining

abrupt, yet not unexpected
the dissolution after the dawn

stupa

narcolepsy
this drowsiness
laid on thick by winter's
monochromatic brush

take the night train
the catatonic express
nod off
with a head full of snow

there are stupas
at my doorstep
shard upon shard
stone upon stone

bardo

your face frozen in the window
I bring food offerings
to hieratic cats, their old souls
behind ancient eyes

your body entranced in the sacral bed
anointed and unguentine
once we were entwined
under the pyramids, under the sphinx

soul's boat rocking
in dark gelatinous waters
florid multiplex demons
stand at attention

this is not dying; yet it is
this is not a journey; yet it is
your face frozen in the waters
under the pyramids, under the sphinx

old bike, new year

familiar fragility of the New Year
old balance issues, repressions, reaction
formations, delusions, “the whole boatload
of sensitive bullshit” concatenate to
overwhelm you, shove you back into
the usual dark corners, the isolation wards
of bygone kalpas

but the simple sun and its colors, free air
in predictable orbits and the fresh chill
revive your sluggish mind and ganglia
the old ones, groaning, chant again
in the bare broken branches as you swing down
Baltimore Avenue, calling out the season

you nurse your ancient bicycle, lug it
up the stairs of the Firehouse as though
shouldering an aged parent up the slopes of
Obasuteyama – friendly anarchist takes possession,
promising it fresh life and a new incarnation

free bikes, free people, free streets
old anarchist vistas open before you
in the cold -- frigidity of decaying eons, meat
possessions, dread hierarchies, slave chain gangs
of the mind and body, cosmic evil –- amid sad
detritus, victory chants of new beginnings,
as you swing down Baltimore Avenue

hidden acres

stone house in Canadian snow
rock solid womb, down the road
from Stratford hospital, where I
first emerged into the big chill,
anxious faces of novice parents,
and the old ones murmuring
in German, in Algonquian,
creased faces of the elders
welcoming the papoose, bundled
up in gentleness, into the little room