Carousel

"well damn.
You've got me
where I am
crazy enough
to think your crazy
and my crazy
cancel each other out.

I like it
but I do not trust it.

I like you
but I do not trust you."

well damn.

The Long Goodbye.

She stripped down to her bones
 folded her porcelain limbs
 and prayed

 but without her tendons
 there was nothing to keep her lungs in place

breath
after ragged
breath

while

 the poor thing
 poured herself out
 like water
 bones out of joint and
 a heart melted
   like an ikea candle (12 for a dollar) within her breast

She should have known
but she tried
and when her bones clattered in a pile she knew
that the worst was over.

Hanna, AB

--> I would sing when Joslyn played the piano

Sunday Mornings at First United

on Centre Street.

We'd walk down to the park,

dreaming.

She would tell me her stories:

colourful pills in dingy bathrooms,

strange men that tore her open for the heck of it,

heavy fists,

and his great hair.

But, my thrills I found on the edge of a wheat field -

stretched out like the ocean –

poured out like water -

where an endless sky reached down to touch an eager outstretched heart.

We both of us left  –

Searching, as restless wanderers are wont to do –

Joslyn was meant for greatness.

I wasn’t supposed to go so far.

I was never meant to see the world and love and laugh and dream new dreams.

But here I am

missing my home; knowing

she left this world

on highway 63.

5 years ago now,

while my world keeps getting bigger.

The Bride of Christ.

She is bent, and twisted,
a crone's wretched frame in dazzling white.

Her red hands drip
dusting rose and smearing crimson.

Baptised in wine -
clinging to a shepherd's crook - she steps out to meet her Love.

He is fair as a thunderstorm
with eyes so kind and ancient that she forgets herself
and smiles.

Cracked-blackened teeth
transformed
in those eyes.

He reaches for her foul hand
places it to His lips
and breathes her name.

She cries
and in her unveiled tears,
transforms.

Her tears dry;
she twirls,
she dances, and she laughs.

Finally.
At long last:
she has come home.

On Silence.

In the ceaseless temporal swell;
the ebb and flow,
the endless draught where dust eddies,
and pregnant storms withhold their bairns,
this aching heart can do no more.

I leave the rest to young magicians
and clever charlatans
my brethren who have yet to close their shops
they'll carry the torch these failing hands let slip

or they won't.

Church

We walk on
wearied shuffling feet
on and on
through cities dark and twinkling
and dirt roads
black as night
My wandering brethren
I would cry to you but my voice is in the dust
left long ago to blacken
as soot stained pages do
under the thousand feet trudging
after those calloused heels and raw worn soles
of the one hundred and forty-four thousand
the twelve thousand
the twelve thousand
the twelve thousand
the six 
the twelve thousand
the twelve thousand
the twelve thousand
the seven 
the twelve thousand
the twelve thousand
the twelve thousand
the eight 
the twelve thousand
the twelve thousand
the twelve thousand 
sealed
and those we forget to count

Revelation 7:4-17

Remember me

I am spinning dreams again
of the kind of beauty that hurts
too much
too sweet
a world remade
and your small hand in mine
and mine in his

I am spinning dreams again
of the kind of living water that is
too much
too sweet
the world remade
in one shared glass
of Apothic Red

I am spinning dreams again
and it hurts to know
that I dream thirsty
and without bread

but if you remember me
when you are spinning dreams again
and it hurts to know
that you dream alone

then maybe

just maybe

you aren't