I read a year of your life
but part of it was locked
i'm already too old to develop crushes
in the nonsensical foolhardy way

i bruised my shin on my lifestyle
& instead of hoping around
like a wounded fish
i sat & counted polynomial thereoms

in a hand my hand belongs sometimes
on a field or river bottom my bare feet go
my eyes belong on the wide blue sky
a smile has it's rightful place on my cheeks

love is a crock
love is a game between pre-teens
with handwritten notes on lined looseleaf
complete with doodles of hearts & such

i'd rather just be. with you in scenery
befitting of those whose hands belong in hands
and whose lives belong overlapping
like venn diagrams of zen being

i healed a bruise with pragmatism
but pragmatism has no hands to hold
every thing that in theory knows
cannot prove what love can be.

January 16, 2004

i read two months of your life
in which you could not stop spamming
an ending in death like autumn leaves
two hundred and fifty million butterflies

have I told you i'm afraid of them
anything black + yellow + winged
so i get this sick feeling of joy
as if the worst black bile were sweet

it's troubling to think of you
back there like an abandoned hitch-hiker
thumb out, dejected, strung-out, dissillusioned
while you're sitting here shotgun

and i don't pick up hitch-hikers often
but you've got that special glow, like they say
i've only known you two days
(and a year and two months, retroactively)

i have trouble reconciling you with yourself
i feel guilty about leaving you back there
& wonder with trepidation
if you & him have talked (dead-boy gets around)

January 19, 2004

i read two months of your life
after i denounced my own + made myself into a reverend
preaching to the streets of cats like lepers and hounds like heathen souls
(yes: i, the saviour of cats and dogs)

i believe you that you no longer believe
in anything real, i can laugh at a moment past (after the fact)
but here and now are no longer. do you know that in a heartbeat we lose
billions of eternal + fragmented seconds

i wish that i could be pure light
or wind gone glad on summer wine and unsmoked cigarettes
if you find yourself again so (artificially) joyous close your ears to those around you
who will do nothing but congratulate you

for only you and i (+ a few can know)
the depths to which this madness can plummet (can sound) (+ have you heard):
gnothi sauton + let me tell you: two stones can break each other open but
both die in the process. we can bury them,

you and i: i will sprinkle
the holy water, you can intone the words, or maybe
these two stones instead can never break. (one drop, all stones know, can a river make;
but one stone can change the course that it will take.)

January 20, 2004

i read two months of your life | the happiest + the saddest two months of your life
where were you on my birthday | I passed out in the lake, the coldest of lakes
dreary as the sun gone gray | in a breath i took out all of my rebuttal
i had my hand to the summit chained | none have seen such cold contained

i read two months of your life. like salt on a wound | skin like ice
the greatest + poorest and strangest of days | the greatest of days
some say i'm a miracle + i say yes | if i knew don't you think i'd tell you.
i had my hand to the summit chained | eight governments in the pouring rain

i was on a mountain when it happened. i was on a mountain on the day. | no
i came down from the mountain under the glare of the gray sun | and washed my hands
where were you on my birthday | i was in the hotel | in a straightjacket | with the lights off
i had my hands to the summit chained | and only i could take the blame

physician, heal thyself
c'mon, with a good smile
go, madman, heal thyself
i had my hand chained. where was I on that day

January 21, 2004

i lived ten hours of your life with you
i was aware of strange circumstances
i know the feel, pressed gently between gravel
and your long form
so possible, so real, touchable
like waking from a dream to find
that the dream has woken with you

i remember leaving a hotel room
many months ago, suitcase in hand
the fog, the rain, my sunglasses useless
but still affixed above my nose
i thought of all the people who would ever sleep
in that room. i woke in the night
and someone was there

i think of all of the people
who have ever kissed your lips
some deserving, some only seeming so
i have left that bitterness behind
in favour of the comfort of knowing
that i'm not alone, that i found you so becomming
quick, take my hand, lest i wake; wake with me.

January 23, 2004

I read two months of your life
no journal entries for this day
i caught a glimpse of you at that moment
changing into who you are
halfway between the boy and the man
halfway from hormones to humanity
intentionally hurt to add to hurt
these things we do, they wound so much.

I read these things you laid bare
and none that you had hid
who are you? looming shape above a gravel hill,
framed by city-lit clouds
i know what you say you are. shadows and shapes
and the man sitting next to the fire in the cave;
we are always held between. these things
we cannot know, they wound so much.

the crib is unsafe in this twice-damned house
no monster greater than yourself can loom
blackest in the closet; if you can
take all of these things with you that you ever knew
and the knowledge of all those you ever loved.
move aside and leave the things of hate
these things of hurt piled upon hurt,
these things we do, that wound so much.

January 24, 2004

i read two months of your life, and saw
that to move is stranger than friction
on all this ice you cannot stop gravity
no matter your conviction

there is no culmination for this
life is a disease whose cure we cannot take
and so time and life speed us on our way
twin blades punched into a frozen lake

i left a mark once on the ice
covered quickly by a thousand lines
as other skaters took their turn
and i sat on the shore with tea and the pines

you horde your candy greedily, but i laugh
you cannot horde your life away
wasted on worry and doubt and grief
but nothing cold can stay.

January 29, 2004

it was somewhat sad
i read two months of your life
as thirteen small days

you disconnected
and left your audience lost
scattered like new snow

as if pills were just
pills, and blowjobs just blowjobs
so you walked upstairs

January 29, 2004

i read two months of your life
and in that time a lot of people died
a prayed too when the shuttle fell
held myself tight, my eyes gone wide

i saw the men at ground control
their jaws gone slack, they could not cope
with the signal lost and wreckage found
but not a single breath of hope

sometimes a quick death is all we need
rather that, than to slowly lose
too many of us walk on feet
already in their funeral shoes

tell me, would you trade it all
to live forever, or die fast?
i owe everyone i've ever known
to hold on, as long as i can last.

all of us are dying.
these precious moments giving
a miracle each second.
not all of us are living.

January 29, 2004

i read two months of your life
the stamp of the daytime, the rush of night
you in your wig and boa, me in my spiked collar
riding the bus in the warm prairie evening

again the books; open, closed, open
the beep of the security alarm
they found four books in his jacket
and more in his pants, a destitute bookworm

the stamp of feet on linoleum
echoing strangely in the night-time restaurant
saving coins found in the parking lot
waiting for the lottery

watching the news as the president
of the united state of hysteria
declared a war for safety and glory
why bother with the truth when bullets suffice?

again the suitcase; open, closed, packed, unpacked
all stationary but unable to stop moving
a thousand apartments and suites
condensed into one changing space

yesterday someone caught a married businessman
masturbating in the gay fiction section
which finally brought the tabloid magazines
but looking for words, not literature

i finished your drink for you
long after i'd stopped drinking
when you passed the pot pipe i turned it down
to satisfy my wrong-function of superiority

again the door; open, closed, open
you don't post much these days
or let us into your world or your space
as if such space existed

January 31, 2004

i read two months of your life
two root canals, two jobs at a time
a learned experience, the change into
a learning experience, the loss of loss

i spent my time and paid a call
on an old friend i didn't have at the time
retroactively an old friend
go on, ask me five questions

i wonder if he'll reply as late as i did
but you don't think of things like this
while asserting your ultimate control
over all that is fundamental

the process is very slow
the conversion from boy into man
or from man into boi
i slept on the front step

i found your graduation photo
framed in yellow, set in a rainbow
elevated beyond the circumstances
of the time in which it was made.

January 31, 2004

i read... two months of your life in five minutes... i can see... the panes of glass fill with snow... in the middle of summer... it's dry... and cold all the time... when you answer your phone... put me on the line... i want to know what you're thinking... it's cold all of the time... in this vacation... i can feel everything is changing... things are looking better... no criminals inside... i read two months of your life... AND THEN I SWERVED

the feeling is creeping... softly in the night... that everything is going to be allright. it's only the fear of good things. it's the fear of being lost. inside of the parcel is a gift from an old friend. love is a real thing. love is a true thing. hold on to these moments. hold on. hold on... AND THEN I SWERVED

January 31, 2004

i spent two hours with you
able to see but not hear you
deaf but i could still talk
should have been sleeping

but there was a revolt in us
against the subconscious kingdom
who needs dreams of fantasy
when you can dream by webcam?

in a word, i would put
no space left over in which to move
i would fill it as full of meaning
as to liberate the sound

but there is no sound, i am deaf
and you still cannot hear me
we keep talking, as though
voices meant nothing

move again, i watch you move
wishing i could move you
but i've already moved you
all i need now is to feel

February 1, 2004

i read two months of your life
which linger still, that bitter taste
like immovane, a metal thought
twisting slowly in the brain

i see that you and he have talked
and bound i watched you struggle
and when it seemed that all was lost
your victory could only be alone

i watched you take half a cap of e
and dance where i can never dance
stubborn arms crossed, i stated
i cannot possibly be jealous

i watched you make love to them
smiling, recording a movement
that cannot be objective
i declared myself your poet laureate

i watched you become yourself
from the vantage point overlooking
that noble bridge over the bow river
which we both loved, but not yet together

i think i could span a million miles
and carry on my back a million feet
or even span a space of years
with the strength of poetry

i know you. i've already seen
you standing there in the wet snow
admiring the view until
you passed out

i see you and he have talked
and all i could do was listen
and with reservations incomplete
i watched you turn your back again

strange. i could never have you
i could only ever share you
exactly that is all i ask
and all i have to offer

February 1, 2004

i read two months of your life
and this is where i walked in, dressed in scars,
pirating your ideas, crawling all over the night
and into your bed
where i held my tongue again and again
while i watched you live your life
thinking-- interesting, what a person
pity he's not my type

but you've grown on me, and i'm not a zombie
i am the life that ebbs and flows
through the street, into your store
and down the drain with a deep sigh

this is where i walked in, unconscious
wary at first that you were miles above me
and years behind, jet-lagged and unsure
but there i am in you, and you in me

and then i raised my hand and solemnly
blocked out the world from my bed
and raised a door with an easy latch
and settled in with a blanket to watch dr who

only to find, months later
that there was someone there, unexpected
like a stray cat adopting new owners
with a sheepish grin i asked you

what would you think of a man like me,
the ultimate ascetic work in progress
i can deny you anything you want
or provide, fully, with humility
i found i liked to make you smile
i found i liked the way you made me think
i heard what you said that day in the classroom
champion for the undertow, the inevitable change

i read two months of your life
and left this poem, your belated gift
blessed christmas to you- where are you of,
this man you are, who are so much my type?

February 3, 2004

the sweep. the snow. the ice. the daily grind
coffee. cigarettes. a walk in the park
i heard your voice. happy new year's
the sleet. the cold. the ice. buy good shoes

we say such things with good intentions
we make a vow in a perfect world
we craddle the next would-be summer
in the sweetest and deepest of winters

the stop. the date. the ice. the services
a kiss. a touch. a tremble in the theatre
i heard your voice and saw your smile
the park. the hill. the rocks. into a new ravine

we feel such things with best intentions
we watch the stars in a perfect sky
we hold the moment of redemption
in the sweetest and deepest of kisses

the work. the rest. the ice. a new day dawning
the sweep. the snow. the ice. the daily grind

February 3, 2004