The Owl in the Dark

Out of the still waters of night,

     crashing through a light beam, burly

        feathers, curved beak invisible, talons

            grasp phantoms, reflex, like my head

                jerking back in the heated seat.

                    Wings scythe silent, blades snap

                    through air wrought arctic above

                    glazed highway and its sunken cheeks

                    bearing arthritic willows and red cedar

                    rods stripped of clothing, naked structure

                    housing nocturnal prowler. Impossible.

                The snowy or horned one berserkered

            from out of some darker, thick-wooded

        kingdom where rodents willingly drop dead

    before the banshee shriek. I refuse to believe

this killer spooked from a telephone pole.

I Am Alien

Once glimpsed, in concave,

two humans writhed on the outer wall

of my residence, slight sibilant suck

of mouths, I watched in pristine

isolation, fascinated, disgusted,

jealous of the slurping tongue,

a knee knifed into thigh, I am alien,

I thought, can this ever happen,

as it happened right in front of me,

bulging eye pressed hard to peep,

holding breath to side shuffle eye,

adjust what I must, four feet between

breasts kneaded and a night of reading,

rush into shower, they’re still here,

have they no fear of a knock, shout,

a knife into the back?

When they separated like nourished,

mewling cats, I was boiling supper.

Hard spaghetti elasticized in cloudy,

burbling water and I was holding a knife

over a piece of strawberry cheesecake.

Or was that later? Leery of knives,

I thought of the pocketknife’s power,

sheathed, flung out, flexible, perhaps dull

like the old blade that cut me at ten,

blood and ecstasy, not wrong to conflate

passion with violence, sudden cuts.

Aliens know nothing, watch like fools,

but all young bodies crave, so I slurp

spaghetti in blood into my mouth,

no butter, no sauce,

not tonight.

A Dog Into a Porcupine

Why did I write to you

like a fool, gouging my eyes

out, hard dream, hard to dream

of anything before, syntax

and synapses unspooling like thread

of a baby’s ratty romper, oh the baby

boy, defenceless, I tell myself,

but overwhelming too, never forget,

she says, from the perch on the balcony,

kissing rougher, younger hands – oh,

so not age, I muse, lighting a fuse

beneath words I should have clipped

with shears, sever and gouge those

eyes, those balls, young and dumb

innocent bull.

No, that is wrong,

but what does it matter if I was a little –

boy of twenty-five – too complimentary

or the cousin of today’s limerents,

a blonde and pale arrow in flight

swallowed by fetid hot springs

bubbling under barren skies – ah,

fuck metaphor. You confused me.

With one photo, see, seeds can spread

malignant, diseased dreams, no roots,

call me fool, foolish, fine, I know nothing

about plowing furrows, seeding

a life with someone else,

unlike you, princess.

So we stand apart, socially

removed, lately, not proper

friends, border wall draped

in bubble wrap I’d like to prod, poke,

pop! Pretty geographic features

dulled as you wish, patina

never meant, flecked skin

never meant – for me. Harder

is forgiving oneself for blundering

like a dog into a porcupine,

not knowing the pain inherent

in attempting to cross the borderland

without armour

or history.