Experience

The north wind blew me here,

A trickster,

Leaving me stranded in the tempest of my mind.

Whispered breezily of "experience." 

An elder apparition in a red shawl once warned me away from her home,

Now she guards the the bridge so I cannot leave.

Her hair falls in long braids,

And her face is marked with wisdom. 

"Experience." She seems to say with her gaze.

The tempest rages on.

I have made the wolves my friends,

But they are not tame.

Sometimes I feel as savage.

Sometimes I feel nothing at all. 

Sometimes I feel the harsh hand of experience. 

I watch the village burn away in my mind.

I close my hands around the burning embers.

The bridge has sunk.

The woman in red becomes the red earth,

And I become the north wind,

Rushing and wisping away,

Until I realize.

I am the tempest.

And I can't escape experience. 

Imperfect Love

Counting down the days 'til a broken heart,

I am broken.

I wish you could fix me, 

But all the shards in your hands

Can't be bound by love.

Only time heals

And a beg your patience,

My heart bleeds and my mind blanks

And there is only numbness.

Love me and I will love you,

This messy, difficult, imperfect, beautiful

Love. 

Inspired

I thought at first
I had the words but I lacked the experience;
Now I have the experience,
But can't find the words.

I am reminded of more inspiring times,
Of literary figures
Who rose like the sun,
Illuminating my journey.

Many of them have now faded away,
Drifted out of sight
Perhaps extinguished
With the suddeness
Of a candle being snuffed by a draft.

I hold the last lantern,
Straining my eyes in the gloom,
Dragging my feet in slow loops,
Like pencil lead
Rewriting the chapters of my life.

Scandal

This poem is a creation using 15 words from a random word generator. 

Have you heard the scandal?

I had the appointment from hell!

I tread lightly into my boss's office

Wearing my red anorak with the fur lining.

It was my birthday, 

And overall I would have preferred

A fix of hot cocoa

To that talk.

Popping my head around the corner,

My boss started in on me 

About the commercial,

And how my stray innovation

Was earning me a place in the doghouse.

Needless to say it was the meeting of the century! 

Dragonless

You used to amuse me,

To muse me,

My audience

My critic

My patron.

I'd dream of dragons

Soaring free

In cloudless skies,

But now it's grey.

And you are gone,

My inspiration fades away.

I dally through a silent night

And sleep away a lonely day.

My muse is gone,

My thoughts have dulled,

My pen is stashed away.

Smoke Screen

My world burns,
Literally and metaphorically.

Toxic smoke covers the landscape.
The wind wafts the scent,
Of one of God's greatest campfires.

Climate change is real,
But is this a product of it,
Or is it part of the natural order of things...
Weather that ebbs and flows?
Nature is not as predictable as we like to believe.
Men and women like to dominate nature,
But in the end the Earth will outlive us all!

You can deny climate change,
Species will die,
Until the Earth cannot sustain us.
And we will be just the latest of the mass extinctions;
We'll go the way of the dinosaurs,
But Earth will survive us
(And cockroaches).

We live unsustainably,
Pursuing a culture of mass consumption,
Poisoning ourselves slowly.
Is it too late to reverse this devastation?
World leaders pretending not to see it,
Denying science,
Silencing dissent.

Our world burns.

And Mother Nature will be cooking s'mores
Long after we are gone,
Telling ghost stories about humanity,
Cautionary tales whispered in the fossil record,
Left for future species to find.

Pepsi

In my dreams

Monks laugh

And drink Pepsi 

Under tarps in markets

Where the air is thick and warm

Wafting scents of spices and fish

Coking sausages

And pungent durian

Eyes adjust from glaring sun

To shadowy passages

Between stalls

In my dreams

I weave my way 

Through colourful crowds

In loose clothing

Past jungles of ferns and orchids

And crates of fresh yellow mangoes

Spiky rambutans

Plump dragon fruit

Chasing a woman on a mission

For fried potatoes and plantains

The monks in burnt orange

Have nowhere to go

Content drinking syrupy liquid

Relaxing in the afternoon heat

Present and aware

Motorcycle

You sweep a wide arch in front of me

Black on black

Gleaming in the sun

My foot falls fast on the pedal

As your life flashes before my eyes

One short instant

Torn apart by greying asphalt

Before you ride clear

Leaving me in awe of life’s fragility

Sharpening the landscape

Casting the afternoon in a dream-like glow

The Wind's Tricks

 With apologies to my mother.

South Wind, you mock me
As I grieve.
I implore the heavens for a vision
And instead am blinded by tiny snowflakes.

These tears that stain my face will never dry.
They are my gifts, left unspoken, to the children.

I think of my mother's face, creased in crowsfeet,
Lines of laughter and joy.

Mother, I am growing older too,
But my face is etched with a furrowed brow,
Lines of worry and despair.

I always dreamed of laugh lines,
Carving out memories of a happy life,
But fate had its own mind.

You were always the strong one,
A shining example to look up to.
You have vision.

I forsook that path for rebellion,
Teenage angst and a will for adventure.

Now I stand in the ruins
Of wandering whimsy,
The North Wind's winding path,
Abandoning me like an Ijiraq.

I will shed these tears for the children.
I hope they will grow old,
With faces lined with laughter.

Cosmic Dreams

For E and Troy and Vicki

I remember all my shooting stars

Shining so bright, lighting the way,

But the atmosphere was too great 

And space was too dark,

So they fizzled away.

And I want to be a rising star

But I feel like my orbit is too low,

And my spark is too small.

I try to shine brightly

But the darkness closes in

Threatening to engulf me.

Where are all my shooting stars?

They shined so brightly 

But too soon they were gone,

Leaving me all alone

In this empty vacuum of space,

Thinking, wondering, dreaming,

Cast upon a different path.

I am no star,

Just a faithful planet

Plodding my course,

My path preset by fate,

Dreaming I was a shooting star.

Clarity

It seems that God has come to me,
A religious tourist,
Bidding me to walk across hot coals
To find salvation.
He baptizes me with tears,
Cleansing away my demons
So that I may walk without fear
Of the shadow of death.
He snatches me from the teeth of wolves,
Breathes holy spirit upon my face,
Then leads me through the curtain
Where at last it is unveiled.
God undresses to stand before me,
A woman.
Then she chuckles and turn around to reveal
Another zipper.
My fingers fumble
Until, at last, I am assailed with the flash
Of the Big Bang.
And all the Cosmos slowly slip out...
So that I am but a tiny speck,
And it seems that God has come to me,
Because my body is a temple.
And within it shines
The same cosmic light.

A Woman's Intuition

Women are taught to trust their intuition.

Men don’t have to, because men don’t need to.

Women have to look over their shoulders,

Be afraid,

Because even though

This is a safe neighborhood,

There is still that flesh memory

Of wrongs done

Imprinted into our skin

Since the time we were born.

“Such a pretty girl.”

We have to be pretty,

But that makes us sluts.

We’re asking for it

By the way we strut,

In those shorts,

Down the sidewalk,

When the sun’s about to set.

And now we don’t answer your catcalls

So we’re bitches

And we’re whores,

Because whores are people who don’t sleep with people.

It’s a new definition, just in,

And you better agree,

Because your opinion doesn’t matter

And your voice isn’t welcome

In this discussion.

Just do as you’re told.

And even though this is the West

I still feel that tingle on my spine,

When I walk one block after dark.

I feel the Mulveyian gaze upon me,

My eyes and ears are alert,

And I’m probing the darkness

With my sixth sense.

All the while there are visions in my head

Of men jumping from bushes,

Of girls going into the fields to relieve themselves,

Raped and slaughtered.

It is our collective memory.

Our gender wears it always,

Like a yellow patch.

And if we try to fight it

We’re hysterical,

Unreasonable.

We are fragile and feeble-minded.

We haven’t a clue what we are talking about.

So now you are going to look at me and say,

I’m a feminist,

Throw that label on me like some sort of slander.

But I am female.

And until I can step outside my door

Not afraid of my own footfalls,

I am going to put these words out there,

And dream of a better world.

Midnight Bullet Train

We don't sleep here,

At the edge of dreams,

And nightmares, 

The city sprawled somewhere near

And glowing softly,

Where ideas flutter in a flurry,

Furious wing-beating, and competing,

The brain rides a bullet train

From station to station.

And in the next room...

A muffled cry

For, in the shadows

Our deepest fears lie.

They bubble to the surface,

Inky black,

And while the city sleeps,

I weep

...

And later while the sun rolls out,

I'll nap! 

Shapeshifting

The wild dogs are there,

To bite away the parts

That no longer serve me. 

Each bite frees me from myself,

Until I am just the fire of spirit.

I rise from the ashes

Of a misguided past,

As a phoenix, reborn.

I am present.

I am aware.

I am a tree,

Whose roots reach deep into the earth.

My branches stretch up tall.

My leaves brush the heavens.

My core beats in time,

With Mother Earth.

Out heartbeats are the same.

I see through her eyes,

Each living thing,

Tinted with the hue of serenity.

Each flaw,

Makes us perfect.

The North

There is an urgent calling in the middle of the night,

That the north still owns my soul.

It is like the growling of a pack of restless, wild dogs.

It plucks me from tender sleep,

To a nightmarish land

Defined by isolation and the peculiar characters

The stillness draws.

Babies cry,

Wind howls,

And we are separated

By shifting, shattering ice,

And blowing storms.

I batten down the hatches of my mind,

To weather out the worst of it.

My spirit takes on the edge of survival.

I feel the frost-bitten burn of desperation.

Children cower,

Wolves circle,

Enter in the dark of a midwinter's day.

The north holds me in its frozen jowls,

And I can never slip away.

The Jagged Chevy Waltz

Meandering in the tangled corn,
I chanced on a barn, looking so forlorn.
What happened next, before my eyes
Was startling, such a surprise!
The music of radios and dusty old horns
Echoed out among the corns,
And suddenly tires started to spin.
The barn dance was about to begin.
Such a sight had never been seen,
By me or any human being.
Old cars from abandoned fields and lots,
Filed in to start the old fox trot.
It was a strange mix of sharp turns and halts,
The jagged Chevy waltz!

Not A China Doll

I hate it

When you think

I'm fragile like a china doll

That you need to hold me tight

And shelter me from the world

So I try to be silent

So you won't worry about me

Or act like you are walking on eggshells

Then you say

You want to hear my opinions

You say you love to know what I'm thinking

So I speak

And then somehow

Between my lips and your ears

Misunderstanding occurs

And again, you try to put me on a pedestal

Your little china doll

Silent painted lips once more

 

Words

I will try on writing styles

Like I try on shoes

Slip them on

In silky comfort

Ease of mind

Like it's natural

Every time 

I lift a pen

Words will blossom

Like a new spring

Writing me into

My summer

Integrity

The Dream

At night I go to sleep

And dream of a black-faced beaming woman

Who is better than me in every way

And in my dream I post a picture of me holding an eagle feather

To cheer up a good friend

And I get called a racist

But then I go to my friend and both of us wrap ourselves up in a star blanket

To dance under the northern lights

Meanwhile, all is not well in Gotham city

A villain has plans to ruin some political bigwig's media circus

By wiring the area with a dangerous electrified explosive

Luckily I have done some fancy legwork

And the authorities were called

Just in time to "diffuse" the situation

And I wonder why I am a teacher when clearly I should be

A private eye

I also have a dark secret

I steal away to public washrooms

To try things I've seen on YouTube videos

Like putting water on ultra absorbent disposable diapers

To see if they really swell to 4 times their regular size!

And then I wake up

And my mouth is dry

To a darkened sky

And I wonder why

And my thoughts drift

To the black-faced beaming woman

Who is better than me in every way that counts

And I wonder if I could ever post a picture holding an eagle feather

And not be called a racist

Or is that not something a Métis should do?

And I wonder if anyone else at 2am

Is wondering about fantastical things from dreams

And wishing they could be wrapped up in a star blanket

Dancing beneath the northern lights

Because crime doesn't pay

We need to learn to build peace

And do what makes us happy

Even if it is diaper experiments

In public washrooms 

Or making someone smile

At the cost of your reputation

If we cannot dance in star blankets

Perhaps we can weave a hammock out of starlight

To rock us back to sleep

So we can dream fantastical things

Until the morning's rays come to warm our face 

Ghost Eyes

White man wanders over the land and seas like a pale ghost
So why
Do I look into the eyes of children
And see that they are ghosts too
Lost like me on the winds of change
Stuck in a time almost forgotten
Wild hair
Soulful eyes
So wide
So troubled
Wandering with the wind
Ghosts of a place long forgotten
Thrown away
Like a tattered kite
Left to the devices
Of the harsh North Wind

There are no secrets here
Where big brown eyes
Tell no lies
Burn with insatiable hunger
Search for a cure
And all I have is this tattered broom
Trying to sweep away
The scars of history
Which re-tracks mud
Faster than I can sweep
Ripping dust from the Earth, herself
Plastering it on floors, and walls, and windows
Under the cloudy sky

There is nothing here
Except ghosts
They plague my dreams
Waken me each morning
Moaning
Things I'm not ready to understand
Lashing out with tongues
As harsh
As the North Wind
Plastering my face with frozen tears
There are no secrets here
Only
Ghost eyes
Haunting me