whither

birds cupping their beaks into breasts then back out for chorus, the new green shoot of sun just freshly unfurled,

you can smell the gorgeous clean birth right in the air of this timid sun and little does and little bucks blink their big eyes and stand on spindly limbs,

The piss of berri uqam kicking around in the flattened cardboard cups and ciggy butts, wrappers, the universal scattering of stuff. The smell leads you sipping disgusting black coffee and too much whiskey (café cowboy) down the steps to the dep with the iron bars and gratings advertising blue on white expanses of pabsts to buy a vape. And a two four if all your friends hadn't gone wild now already towards ketamine in red strobe light warehouses and dime bags sticky from the bathroom floor.

Far from dew falling onto us not asleep in the foggy morning of the park that was blurred by misfired acid and shrooms, cocaine, the 8th joint and cigarettes.

No I am far from schizo montreal who waits outside of restaurant bars at closing for the release of her grease streaked firebrand losers who are big of heart and come stumbling into the fresh tree and trash and dark scented yellow lamppost night, who picks them up on her bike to go home, bike over shoulder, up 36 stairs, rusted iron balconies that still whisper échos of boisterous greeting and beer caps. Who creeps on slanted wooden floors to sit in the corner of a fabric-decorated room to wrap herself in smoke, light the projector and send her line cooks to sleep in their work pants.

the shock, the skittering glass

they must've heard, it made you freeze

staring at the bared light

still lit, still struggling to provide

I was in the midst of making my bed

lost in the mist---you had just gone

I was alone with the roommates and cat

once more i was reminded of how high i hold you

i love you to death i wish you the best

in this poking and prodding life

come as you are and let me care for you

don't go; you are part of me

i want to hear your breath as i sleep

and feel the warmth of your soul

next to mine like a compass, like a friend,

like the hope you kindle in my breast

if there were only more like you

to spend time with to learn and love

it would be a brighter place

the lightbulb shines from the floor

you've caught your metro

glass shattered on my bedroom floor

I watched you till out of sight

But I wish you'd missed it and crawled

back to me I would've

slowly, because it is stuck to your tongue

like the bark of a rough willow

and it seems like a madness.

you slip into the grooves where shame runs

like sap and it comes up to your chest,

a rushing ice river in april.

You do not know how to say anything.

The current makes your tongue lose its footing—

it doesn't matter anyway.

I do not matter in this particular case.

Written by an Italian poet from the 13th century.

And every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coal!

Pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul, from me to you

Let's reinvent the gods, all the myths of the ages. Celebrate symbols from deep elder forests. Have you forgotten the lessons of the ancient war?

I am the film over one's eyes

The way one's hand shakes

as it passes the ceramic

cup from counter to lip

I'm the space that coffee satiates

dullness in the bright morning

The weight of sleep busy

depressing one's aspirations

"I'm tired, it's okay"

Sky-changing:

I am the space between dreams

and waking, I am the lack

of blood tingling one's hand

I am the forgotten stain

and the way back.

I'm the reason seasons dawn

The shifting smells, the warming

and cooling suns.

I am the uncomfortable peace

in seeing currents shifting

Sky-changing: