Storm above a Walmart

White so white
gulls cycling
near the bottom
of battleship grey clouds.
Holding, barely,
against the stronger winds.

Lightning and long dark drapes
of rain to the west.
But not here quite yet.

And the parking lot
of this bastion of commerce
seems wholly
inadequate.

-2009/10/03-

Daunting

How relaxed can you be with such an undertaking,
so despotic of my time, and sorely attempting?

When the time to heal will stretch on for months and months?
Can it be surprising that my tries feel in the hundredths?

Excitement flares so briefly in my head
that my trudging hardly falters. Instead
I keep starting. Worrying about quality
and freshness fuel procrastination ability.

So why try?
Because it’s worth it. That’s why.

-2009/09/07-

Blocked

Lowly it seems
I uninteract
and the vast space between atoms and passing electrons
is so everyplace I look.
Swimming in it really.
And so lethargy,
that word so dull and rich,
is too…

Too much whipped topping.
Too much good thing.

And there’s nothing so gifted
that I stare at.

hoping for a change

-2009/08/25-

Last stand

Flailing at entropy
I use ratchet set
and screw driver
to collect organization
such that I can
go on cycling.

-2009/07/26-

Tide of Humanity

The rain that summer
came in endless waves,
flooding down grass,
soaking furniture
and undermining whole swing sets
and we
hardly acknowledged it at all.

The mould under some chins drew comments
it’s true
but there was little to
  disrupt the life of our party.

And we laughed
and clinked our glasses
  of imported Douro Port
  heatedly discussing global warming
  and all those other current events.
  As if we knew
  what happened.

But we were all caught
unaware
  and this stump of
  pencil is giving out
  like the light from my last candle stub.

It won’t be long before scavengers
  find me.
But the food’s almost gone
  so
  so
  so there it will have been.

Another wave
  washes away the footprints
  and, then, nothing.

-2009/07/25-

Green Tea from Wai Wong Chung

A poem for Wai Wong Chung of Jamaica who generously purchased green tea for myself and my coworkers when his daughter Helen was visiting Hong Kong with him and told him how desperate we were for REAL green tea in Canada.

綠茶

微妙的味道
  從龍的福祉
    讓我今天上午光明。
浸泡葉，
  倒立在溫暖茶杯，
    感受山區清新空氣。
茶在手
我可以處理任何事情。

Thanks for the translation help Dave. Here it is in the original English:

Green Tea

The subtle taste
  from the Dragon’s well
    makes my morning bright.
Steeping leaves,
  doing handstands in my warm cup,
    smell of mountain sides and crisp air.
With tea in hand
I can handle anything.

-2009/07/13-

Double Agent

Closed to poetry
I come, expectant, to a moment
where prose just won’t work.
So I sit and wait.

Is the muse jealous of my stories?
Is the rhythm lost?
The stream damned?

It’s such a leap
and I tense those muscles
to cross from something like a simile
to a metaphor unbound.

But I learn the lack doesn’t sit elsewhere.
I’m the one who’s out of touch.

The flow is still there.
But what is left to betray?

–2009/6/17–

They Go

The kids are so different so
raw and exposed to the elements
as they wander off slowly to the boats.

Very long transition, they say.
Everyone thought 20 years WAS long.
Let me tell you. It isn’t.

Left behind to die.
I know, it’s the way of life,
nestling kicked out and all.
Going to make their own way but you can’t help but feel it.

And we’re obsolete with our supplements.
Way too old before our time.
A few letters to show the years.

Yellowing walls we just stare at.

20090227

Brav3 N3w W0r1d

This downloadable world
is so
immediate
I find myself
ludditely wistful
for days
when all was retained
in that
love and pain space
that other memory.

Now there’re tapes, hard disks, CDs and USB keys
to keep
everything
nothing.

My anecdotes are
no longer
portable
but take only an allusion
like that episode with the low talker.

We dance to that
algorithm
you know how it goes
it’s a short-term
one two
but no
only zeroes and ones allowed.

-Dec, 2006-

Tis the Season

Holiday aches into consciousness
pushing me along
in a shopping cart out of control.

I’m consumed with trying to grab objects as I rush past
but these don’t brake me. You would think
they should slow me down
but they don’t.

I see an exit but I can’t orient by leaning one way
or the other.

I’m doomed to wait until the end
of the aisle comes
smashing
into the new year.

-2008/12/26-