halloween

with the fog he
could smell east van from miles
its gunpowder pungency
seasoning this cold thick soup.
with his ears he
could hear fighting past
the dusty orchards of normandy
cracks pops whistles a
patternless ceaseless cacophony
to match a war's meaning.
maybe at least the ducks
found cover somewhere
in the black of the north shore
in the blacker shadows of the
towering doug fir. they could
wait it out with the geese.
still the unquiet youth are here
swallowing processed sugar gobs
smashing pumpkin globes
beneath the flash glory of
roman's candles and
witch's whistles and
forever night shades
of a city's yellows cast.

of Kenko-ji

Shunmyo Masuno came here
to speak of zen dryland gardens
and of beauty in imperfection.
robe black sandles white
head shaved and bright to match
his graciousness. he spoke (read)
with english broken. yet
answered our queries with
eloquence foreign to our
assumed mastery of a tongue
barely second to him. we listened
with hearts eager to learn of the
purity of his practice but
left the belly of the planetarium
knowing more of our greater selves.
I am my creations, he said.

welted with spikes

despite his embrace too slim
to secure half an armhold about her trunk
he would take her down. he would
given days of patience or much less
with his brothers of sleeveless gusto.
---
they would pull her to the earth and deliver her
wet and horizontal and on rails
mirrored steel glass laid yesterday.
a double seam of silver it snakes still
mid slope through the passes.
they rode here as cattle
and still are
nights ago in the echoes of a steel can.
---
a true dubstep cut was all their ears knew
for two days in the dark. a rhythm granted only
a shadow of life to the chorus of cicada and cricket
and grasshopper
present in memories of east.
---
occasional lines of brilliance would flicker
attention away from the audible gaps in the rails
and frame the long doors to either their sides.
doors shut to movement
the only company to keep flesh and skulls
from greeting bleached ballast. 
---
she was here in the valley. quiet for nine
centuries she believed in the pace of the trickle
and drank generously
until they erected their thin walled camp
alongside the opaque rapids of screaming glacial melt.
above the constant rounding of stone under water
their glass and their metal
brought out by nightly spirits
sang her absence that would be and is still. 
---
they are here deeper and again to bring her in
for pulp and planks and pay for one more day
while hope lingers on the breath of the silent planters
who will follow with long shadows
again to begin with haste
what for millennia knew only the balance
of eagle and bear and the musk of salmon carcass.

new river

a future myth past

my thoughts leap
out of the blocks
there is no pistol
---
the images i know of
you
are mostly still
yet i walk with them
across ancient lawns
now a dim cedar sea
---
i was here before
when we blinked existence
and believed in myths
of progress and apocalypse
of buying and fixing things
---
i was here before
when we were
relearning love
and all that is all
---
we were still unsoaked
with boundlessness then
and bet on a dog named death

nitto

Tokyo Fixed visits Nitto from Tokyo Fixed on Vimeo.

why it's men who frequent bars alone

you flutter like a shapeshifter flirting with shadows
here as your best only when i don't want you.
this city your home moves along countless horizons
unsynchronized ceaseless conveyors
manned by infinite gears greased to silence.
this might be for each a playground if not for the glass
all swept under before it shatters.
–––
i once knew art and walking about barefoot
and waiting for sunrise to sleep
and i now ponder life breathed into
half versions of me
to again afford discovery a chance
everything again (for it) for the first time.
i want to be there when it finds its last wildness
so i can reassure the beauty without:
the light we don't see in between stars
the sounds wide enough to find harmony only
with moving crust and a massive wall of
opaque water.
–––
you are here before me plenty these days
offering that half (to me) or to any other joe
finding this sidewalk solid this hour.
you have my apologies but i am the light of myself
and you are of a spectrum i cannot yet see.
it still glows back east and
i can see this as the valleys there are the oldest.
but the rains here have ceased
and the western dogwood has blossomed 
white once only.

dwelling portably

thank you for the spot
of english red bush miss
and yes, i prefer milk
and honey. and
if not for it i might
hadn't the time to think
and drift (eventually and)
knowingly and grinning
into the world of
thrice hidden bridges
and candied salmon.

reefer ridge

the trinketmaster

brilliance paints facade geometry a bit taller and facing east as hope crawls from its dens edged by dreamless sleep and hollow belly. an indigenous carving with china-made odds sits on sale amongst brittle wind-up detritus ordered upon a cardboard welcome mat.
---
we stroll through lost in thought of the girth of childbearing and tiny toe morsels so unbelievably alive.
---
we without thought cast lunch into the crumpled cap of the trinketmaster. he is asleep faceless and sunken into the shade of his chest and heavy concrete while the carving ungiven yet dances on one paw. it shrugs rare sun or common rain with dreams of altitude and shaping stone and clean forms of stories that outlast their vessels.
---
but we forget these stories. we forget their weight upon the life of the next born and the trinketmaster still sleeps and we still stroll feckless.