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Wednesday, August 20, 2008

A Poem inspired by the film "The Visitor"

Love is something that happens
to someone else.
Until it happens.
In which case we’re all involved.
The case in which we carry
our wounds –
scabs inside, fresh pus, blood,
plasma without –
breaks the moment we let
love inside
breathe.

Let love breathe, I say.
If it founder in impossibility,
it shows us how to try anyway
so our imps
of base feelings ossify
and only their scars remain.

Briefly, papers fall out of the case
creased, scattering in the wind.

You can chase them.

But if you catch one, look at it closely.

Words, bloodied and paled
on pages too barren for speech.

Signs, showing you the way
to forget. To fulfil promises
without remembering them.


Thursday, August 07, 2008

An Homage to India

I have received an increasing number of readers from South Asia. I have long since received hits from Korea, mostly because of my stint of teaching English there. But an increasing number of people in India are visiting my website, and for that I thank them. This is a dedication to my Indian readers, especially those who may or may not be affiliated with the 50 million-strong Communist Party in India.

Please bookmark this page and come back often. I update it about once a week. Also, as usual, I ask that you please visit the sponsors listed at the top and bottom of the page. I put a lot of work into this blog, and these advertisements are a way to get reimbursed (however slightly) for this work. It really doesn't take that much time...

Thank you all.

Friday, August 01, 2008

One Line Missing

It's quiet nights like this, as bumptious
blue lights flicker across curtains suggesting
northern lights, on streets of narrow houses in a row,
with wind disappearing and the smell of sewers
weaving up into air above steel grates; it's quiet
nights like this that remind me of those evenings
of boredom on endless couches in front of televisions,
when hands slip into your
boxer shorts, bedspread allocating
a radius of warmth difficult to resist, and fingers find
the damp curvatures of desire,
torsos wasting away, growing alongside mould
in tv dinner packaging
cluttering the surface of a chestnut coffee table,
under the natter of roommates upstairs gossiping.

Turning on to Bloor, full of drunken celebrants
giggling, arms linked, lights glinting off passing cars,
I avoid the eyes of passers-by, and keep focussed.
This has to be done. It has to end.

Words string themselves together to make sense
of mental decay, of the lead weights attached to our
ankles, attached to each other, fixtures
on each other's walls, sconces hiding burnt-
out light bulbs, words that fill the silence
in which lives the fear that you will be relieved

by the cut line.