swimming in thunder
Billy says he isn’t sure
and neither am I.
I just can’t see far enough over the ledge
to know. My hands grip the rock,
I’m clinging and wary. Jesus Billy.
“A storm’s comin” he yells,
“let’s do it!” and he’s up
and he jumps. The jump.
Billy screamed. In the air I saw a flash
toward the end of the lake.
Billy emerged laughing
just as thunder cracked overhead.
I looked back, high up to the rock
from where we’d jumped
and thought Jesus Billy.
“C’mon, once more” he
billy’s house
in the background there are voices
angry voices.
I can’t make out what is being said
but it sounds unpleasant. There is shrillness,
bitterness, yelling
and I decide not to knock. As I walk away
I hear a bang against the wall.
On another day, entering Billy’s house
I was greeted by strange, defiant smells.
the house was messy, strewn, chaotic
dishes piled and anger collecting in the corners.
the basement was oily and musty, unfinished long ago.
But it was cool in the summer, so what.
Billy and I would rummage through stuff
an archeology of secrets and shadows
adult ways looming.
I dreaded when someone would come home –
Billy’s father in his uniform, his mother in her stress
Or worse, his brother – wild and caged in the house
and who bit.
They are all dead now.
At funerals I still sense the smell of Billy’s house.
Coffins remind me of kitchen stains,
of worn lint filled carpets, oil smelling basements
and piled dishes.
All the flotsam of death, all the debris of a life
lived fully perhaps.
A life next door to mine.
Billy injected himself
with household cleaners the other day.
said it was how he could tell stories,
how poems would source from within.
indeed he is telling stories now,
convulsive stories, bedside tales
contorted
ecstatic
recalling much of our boyhood.
strange people enter the room
wanting to drink Billy’s piss.
I would let them, but Billy tells me no.
the tales they seek
are not the tales of the poet
he says,
not the proper tales
of the spasmodic and shivered.
as I watch him
his froth reminds me
of the time we sniffed glue.
Of the time we first discovered poetry.
I
after burning
the ashes must be spread
thinly upon the land
must be patterned on the smoke
that etched the sky.
it becomes a dance at this point.
II
the pounding of ash into soil
transforms Place
to Passage
marks the spot with heartbeats
guiding Phoenix through
the entrance of Emergence.
at the surface, two worlds –
whence we came, where to go?
you, of the perfect skin +
eyes of lunar ways
have been delivered from barbaric birth
easy prey/capture
first findings, innocent bindings
transforming
reptile questions
cold blooded.
Whence we came. Remembrance.
but where to go? symbols.
floating, peering half-above
half-below sea level
are tidal chances
water romances
sides of surfaces, yet one body
zone of prey in the hunted
hunting, long slow wait…
my heart beating.
but unlike the frog
hot blooded now,
pumping with a lust and a love
transcending duality,
birthing the great journey
of a first leap
first splash, first ripples sent
to stir surfaces.
I argued with Isis at the bar
as you slept
told her my house
was now covered over with sand,
my city now underwater
and I have moved to the trees.
We toast to waters
& shifting winds,
to past cities
and homes in transition.
but now you stir, awaken
that I may rest
while you stand watch
with Isis, with life
amongst the sands.
Spoken to me
that day over tea
you said to me "a house… "
we pause.
then notice a thing in the corner,
(a nameless thing).
*******
We orbit over this tea.
you say if we were planets
we must have rings
great coloured rings!
to revolve the things
only words can bring.
As we drove that highway
you quickly said
Look at that woman!
but we passed too fast.
you described her to me
as geographic + floral
sure she was the one
who sat one row over from you
in that forest school
where you and she
studied
the language of winds
& the music of trees
& the rising tides of destiny.
You whispered leaning over
but I couldn’t quite hear what was said.
It was of a child (I am sure)
but you said it not again
and we drifted up
high above the trees
that we may see
from where the waters rise.
As you thirst
Taste blood.
Today is said
The river runs red.
The battle goes poorly upstream.
Our mills are stained
our young go strange
our elders, changed.
Each day we watch the river for news
but find only red.
I pray for the river to run clear one day.
I pray for the wind
to comb from the trees
these bleeding memories
memories
hanging heavily over our words,
words, wordswordswordswords.
always wordswords
Perhaps I must learn to love the colour red.
The colour that, my elders have said,
is for Fools, Sentimentals
and the Dead.
sometimes, late at night
I find you staring off into space…
are you gazing toward Eden, my love?
have you touched the Eve within us
and felt the sin
of our Original Plan?
The townsfolk say
They passed this way
Many swords, threats + fear
Our sons are gone
Our daughters we hid
Power to the Sword that Pursues!
******
Pursuit.
I have spent my days in pursuit, aimless
long lost trail of seeking
scents forever past.
Old man of fading ways,
I drink now with the avenging Angel
Folly
This companion listless
+ distant with each swallow,
each half story
changing, transforming
to become the night spectre
Crow
Cawing & Mocking
my every step of Revenge,
my every portrait of Pursuit.