Sunday's Post

Breathe, remain calm. Breathe in, breathe out.

Tai Chi

delicate movements

arms sweep by

weight transfers

back to front

one hundred and five

classical yang

raise

hands

step

out

stork cools its wings

brush left knee

relax as your chi flows

flows up your spine

flows through your arms

flows as you pass it on

flows

flows

flows

flows

flows

© 2010

I found something I wrote last November 11th.

In Flanders

Fields, mostly green, dotted with red

As far as the eye can see

As far as a wounded man can walk in a day

Think back to days of WWI

Think back to John and his friend Alexis

Search for the patch of land when many lives were lost

Search for the memories they want to forget

Rows of crosses mark their final rest

Rows of soldiers fall, gently through the fields of grass

Hear the shots

Hear the cries

See the pain

See the futility of all this bloodshed

Of all this waste of youth

Of all this waste of generations

Fields, mostly red, remind us of the past

And pass the torch along

© 2010 Surrey, BC

It's been too long. But I'm back.

John MacRae

Row by row,
peace by peace,
Poppies grow in fields
where men had died before.

Now snakes wriggle through short grass.

Don't tell the men below
of what occurs above.
Don't tell the world above.
Let peace find itself.

[Copyight 1999]

Time Off

I'm on holiday now until January 5th. Now the muse can let go her words.

Long Since

Long since the world was
a young girl in a long blue gown;

now harsh and peevish fingers thrust
out at her mind.

Then beat it to death by balloons.
Slowly, courageously spent,

the girl regains her former grace;
rebirth brings its own reward.

[© 1998]


Along the Shores of Georgian Bay, Ontario

The wind that blows
and the snow it throws
carve glyphs

in the cold rock scree.
Imprisoned they are
for millions of years

relaying their tales
of sleet and rain and hail.
Only a select few tilting

fir soldiers remain
on duty watch, till
the next barrage commences.

[© 1998]



Clear Night - Wolves

Still
abstract.
Dark pack, canis lupus,
screened by slender strokes of twenty
feeble saplings, show no fear, but look at
you
directly,
sense presence, but cannot make you out,
show respect to an equal member.
Now they know,

they melt away.

[© 2000]

Unknown Experiences

They say write what you know. Ha!

I say write what turns you on, what stretches your existence, what ruffles your mother's feathers. Write to expand you.


(You want a) Divorce

I grab your wrist
under never-ending dinosaur-movie skies.
I can’t take my eyes off of you.

Dancing in the dark of
crisp November nights,
hidden from others by pine cones,
I slap your face.
You want to end it.
It’s not your money I want,
it’s you.

As raindrops drown my heart,
your tears blend in and
I break down,
consummated in
pain.

[©1999]

Fridays are made for posting

It's Friday. I was busy this week. The world went by and missed many things.

Sometimes when I write I'm someone else. Sometimes a different sex, sometimes a different colour, sometimes a different species. Sometimes I'm just me.


Brothers on Lennox

Jazz ­─
smells of fresh-brewed tar
amid the sirens
after the thirty-fifth gunshot heard
by never-virgin ears (baby, I wish for
you a better home); shutters only
shut out white light truths.
Sweat peels off my black skin, around
the comer of a black past saving,
even Louis finds a fly a crunchy
meal (too hot for squab this week).
The hand-me-down trails ends here. Mama
wishes for a new bonnet for Julie
instead of beans and franks. An empty pot,
filled with yesterday's invisible desires,
beckons a cook holding tomorrow's
breakfast,
lunch and
dinner
in the palm of her
delicate, but deternined
hand.

Colour­ ─
holds the package for the man
with two gold teeth
and a Tweety and Sylvester lie
(pass the brown bag on its way, my brother)
until he seems amused by
only twenty youths in
toques, not scarves, surrounding
ibis week's prize ─ Call the fuzz,
regret the dime ─ Pay for another
can ofbeer for Mama instead. Julie's
bonnet covers up the blood (three
shots back) and reassures those
checking up from social services.

A home (four walls,
a ceiling and a floor)
refuses shelter, though
as poor, the rights are
filled.

[©1999]

Weekends are made for wasting

It's another beautiful sunny day in September. Weather affects different people you in different ways. Both inside and out. So does geography. In subtle ways that you don't realize until you're confronted with something out of the ordinary.

Who says I am not coloured?
for Maya

And this day too will pass
onto a blackened nightfall;
I see you from the inside out.
The skin to a cover only (not a brick wall;
not a locked door; not a
sentence of death) to keep the weather
from the heart and lungs.

Do you see me crawl?
I do not call for help
from any of you back-boys.
Must you shout the truth about
our destiny? Is it not yours also?

The mask you wear reflects the light
of all returning souls. It is the
brightness of our lives that gives
the heaven fruit. Not the
pigment of our skins.

I am as black
as white will
closet you.

[©1999]