"proverbs! they are like the drugs to me!"

Rummaging around in my computer-files I unearthed a number of things I wrote in the summer-time, when I was in Calgary. I had very very little time to write anything while I was there but somehow assorted fragments of poems did find their way into my notebook & then I must have typed them when I arrived home in August (though I don't remember doing this!)

Most of my journal-writing while I was there was anthropological observations on international children & their behavior (& adventures with syntax!) & dwelling in the city of calgary. However, other little bits arose (because I really needed to get my mind off the other 16 hours of the day!) & I present them here. They are quite disconnected. Little bones in a pile. I don't think much can be constructed of them. But they make for some interesting archaeology.

* * *

this morning is
wrestling with sad eyes
& phone cards.
can’t get through to azerbaijan

but that's okay, because
bahar & arzu tell me over & over again
in their sweetly hoarse semaphore

“baku – azerbaijan – caspian sea
– beautiful – atlantic ocean – we are in canada
– will you help us?
yes, yes"

we are drawing pictures
& maps
on the foggy rainstained bus window.
“green grass!”

her voice of jet lag,
soft green rain & sleepiness.
cacaphony of interlingual voices
falling into my head.

at lloyd’s rollerrink
we stumble around holding hands,
braving the 80’s time warp
"hey meeekey you're so fayna"

as tall ostrich-like men in sweats
from that bygone era skate circles around us.
bahar stares at them: "not like azerbaijan!"

"yes, yes!"

* * *

(this one is bilingual. i remember getting so tired of analysing & explaining English that it came out in ukrainian first. it's not very good & the translation is lacking. & i think in ukrainian i sound like björk does in english at her least inscrutable)

there lives within trees
the warming thought of fire,
embryos waiting to burst aflame

as leaves send early
the ghosts to incubate on branches,
words held up on an iridescent skeleton;

now come the waxy unfoldings in the rain,
with vowels spreading luminous & fiery,
offerings on paper tongues,

fragments floating to the sun –

вже живе в щирині дерева
тепла думка вогню,
зародок чекає запалитися

та й рано листи пошлюють дух
щоб висиджувати на галузах слив
яких ростуть на райдужних кістках

та й тепер у дощі прийде
розгортання воскове
та й голосні звуки
поширяють по’лумяно і світно
як на папірних язиках підношення,

як носяться уривки до сонця...

* * *

[hwy 2]

i am in the backseat
& restless as a

row of windbreak trees
arching their black spines,
rolling up against a swelling sky –

the river’s flooding her banks,
washing across a widening prairie night,
rain hiding the city lights
in the spiral arms of their systems,
galaxies reaching out to hold
trees & farmhouses

in long glowing tendrils,
aching anchor in the void.

* * *

[14th floor sunset, over nose hill]

moving over the landscape
we go as clouds
on the face of the sunset,

embossed & ever rolling
over the earth –

deep green grassy dream, soft sky
feathered down
like a drumming partridge wing –

waves explode, deadly violet
disappearing
into the warm annihilation of sleep

* * *

sunset sky like smashed nectarines
beer & the hum of the pop-a machine-a lulls me
i am a noun declining in my sleep

* * *

[walking home from kinko’s, 11:30 pm]

downtown moon reflects
silence like a watery lamp in the
dryness of the heart;

my tongue well-honed now
by the sediment’s swift flow
smooth grains slipping through

the throat’s reservoir
where i catch this sadness, cache
it in the full pool of my speech –

* * *
the only poem that is entire.

[horseshoe canyon]

wandering down into the
bright erosion of the earth’s skull
reveals the ochred slate of the heart --
cactus blooming gold & harsh
as sunlight,
spikes like lightning-struck rock --

& lichen grows in the folds
of a sandy cerebrum,
the thoughts of water
running through rocky synapses,
paths so pliant
& shaped by the wind,
the flight of
the slippery waxwing,
a swallowtail hawk

dives in the soft sage,
through sand moving slow
as time’s insistent hands,
through
epiphanies of wildflowers –

those red poppytongues
speaking nascent & blooming
with so much life,
for here is
the essence,
the origin, the barest dream of earth --

* * *

[kananaskis to jasper]

i didn’t think summer
would haunt me

but ashes
fly like reverse meteors,
into a sky dizzy with stars

& elk move as soft ghosts
around those mooncoloured bones
we disturbed

& i will remember
your voices

* * *

[athabasca glacier]

the ice carves soft pictographs
with its harsh smooth palms,
the language of rock
lapping with glacial tongues,
the endless watermarks
a notebook i wish i could
understand

* * *
(please forgive me, william carlos williams)

forgive me
for i have nearly been kissed
by that young spaniard

who calls me 'leeetle preeencess!'
& is waiting at the airport
for me to say goodbye

i didn't see it coming
for he spoke so innocently
with that lisping accent
so sweet & so cold

* * *