On Visiting the Barber

Been thinking about doing this a
while now; the equinox was yesterday:
Helios and Kriós syzygy'd full Artemis
and Zeus in Zygós. And up-road

a white pole spins a blood spiral
down in the new sun toward a hall
of clicking blades' door. Inside,
an old man sweeps spent hair

from the floor as his proteges
spin unshorn men about the
axes of spiral chairs suspended in
air that is still, but for hair's falling.

Day and night have become equal
again, and the time has come to begin
again, as the sun begins, as the moon is full,
as the tide is strong - as the ram runs on.

I put my head into a cloud of spinning blades;
in seconds, the floor is covered in my years:
keratin that could have been blood. How many
meals, most of them had in another city

with far friends, in places that are now
fragments of my imagination – strands of hair
the old man now sweeps into a void of which
I know nothing?

A Young Man Puts His Head

I walk up to the blooming cherry tree,
put my head in its crown.
My head is enshrouded in
an intricate blur of biologic,
the mycelial ecos,
the endless concatenation of life,
the field.

There are no questions,
no answers,
no truth,
no lies here.

Countless interactions: nonlinear harmony.

There is no life,
no death,

only the field,
this crown of blossoms.

A fractal constellation of ladybugs and their spots is a screen played by my mind,
and my mind is a screen for blossoms.

This is the circle of the field,
its infinite circumference.

On the brink of the circumference,
this is the radius of the field.

Pi is a desperate man's last grab at reality.

There is no equation,
only the circumference,
the radius,
the field.

Equinox

The sun is hot on this last September Saturday,
after the shortest Summer in memory.

Work is not even a memory;
The back of my mind is vanished.

And though I am surrounded by
birds remembering
what's to be done -

gathering red berries from the ripe bush,
and dew-drawn worms from the dawn grass -
the only sound I know is the sun's chorus,
and I harvest.

) The English Dept (Tells Me Anew (Word): Chiasmus

Q.
Who the hell are you?

A.
Who we say we are.

A.
Who we say you are.

Q.
Who the hell am I?

Poem For the Girl Across the Street

Four layers of glass between us and
two are resting on our noses and
you have never seen me through them

my glasses point through a tinted window
you have never been on side to see through
where I am always watching you

across the busy street you are wiping a table
and putting glasses of beer on it and
I have a cloud of smoke around my head

and you have never seen through it
or through those glasses of beer
but your grace tells me you know

I am here watching every day and you
are washing the windows and opening
and closing them and taking empty glasses away

if i knew your name it would be grace and
you would sing as I whispered it in my sleep
and our glasses would be folded on the bedside table

and the bedroom window would be open to
let in the sounds of the night singing and to
let in the darkness from outside

but everyday I am behind this mirrored window and
you are always busy and always being watched
and moving like air across the calm ocean of mirrored glass

where waves are a memory that fell with titans
where shipwrecks are unthought of and
sailors drink lemonade and sing hymns to you

as I sing to you here with this breath of smoke and
you dance in the clouds across a busy street.

Remembrance

Before I left Toronto for Victoria
we ate oysters at your place,
bought in Chinatown, unshucked and alive;
Eryn couldn't eat them, only cast their shells in bronze.

We always ate well together,
but that night, oysters and shells,
opening them together, eating live flesh:
we were starfish on an ocean bed.

I opened the last oyster, the shell with heat,
the flesh with my teeth. You were there.
I bit into the flesh and found a pearl,
a real one. I still keep it in a tin.

I rub it on my teeth from time to time,
hold it at an angle in the light to
see its rainbow.

We left Toronto for Muskoka once,
went to Eryn's cottage on the river.
The moon was full, pines and earth fresh full of snow;
you and I drank liquor and tea until paint dried.

We were always busy until paint dried,
but that night snow and tea were underfoot,
opening us together, spirits in flesh,
stars made invisible by the full moon.

I held the perfect icicle in the heat of my hand,
a wand, plucked from a blasted rock by Eryn;
you were there, we bit into the flesh of the night.
I still have the taste in my mouth.

I wear it on my face from time to time,
hold it in my heart at an angle to
see its rainbow.

Riddle

A blue bridge spans a gap
allowing passage.

Its own death trap,
a passage across a Gorge
built by a master's young hands
before he grew old and
left a legacy to stand
from time to time
allowing passage.

The sky is often blue,
then the ocean follows suit,
sky and ocean in cahoots
with a passage that disappears when it stands.

An invisible passage spans a gap in time,
between past and present.

A blue sphinx,
when it lies down
across a passage,
asks a question:

You have heard it before,
and you know the answer.