i cannot go on.

July 28, 2008

through the heat i trudge.
look at me, i'm raining;
watering this dry, dry ground.
with every step my strength is taken
drawn into the dust
which flies away; free.

i cannot go on.

my pursuer never stops-
not to blink, or sleep, or breathe.
arms outstretched, he moans and moans,
not for my death,
but that i am still escaping,
still running.

i cannot go on.

i will be consumed,
pieces of myself taken from me,
pulled with dull teeth-
drawn into that simple mouth.
my skin tingles,
waiting.

i cannot go on.

better to be eaten.
better to be torn to pieces,
to gorge this monster,
slowing it down, then to arise-
the unforgiven, the damned,
walking that shuffle-step.

i cannot go on.

vive la vidés

May First, Two-thousand Nine.

It was early afternoon and the sun was bright, yet she sat beneath the trees, a little before the sidewalk. There weren’t many benches along the Boulevard Saint-Michel- she sat in a wheelchair.

She viewed the May Day processions with her head tilted back slightly, leaning against the chair’s headrest. Her eyes were dim and unemotional, seemingly unmoved by the waving red flags, the crowd adorned with stickers that boldly proclaimed RÊVE GÉNÉRALE on their chests, arms, and knees.

Her long straight brown hair fell over her shoulders, onto her long-sleeved pink top. A white scarf was wrapped around her neck, and on the left side of her upper lip she sported a simple piercing. Her body appeared shrunken, slightly too small for her head; a subtle disproportion. Her legs were encased in jeans, and they were as still as the rest of her body, lying askew on the footrest.

The day was a full one, blaring music, cries of protest, and people everywhere. A jazz band passed by on a float, a troupe of clowns marched down the street; the crowd was colour-coded to identify what they wanted. The chants become a muddle of words: down with Sarkozy, up with socialism, stop the persecution of the Tamil Indians, join the Marxist Leninist Kommunist Partie.

What did she feel? Would she have marched, screamed, danced with the best of them, if she could? She sat beneath the trees, in the shade, watching. From what anyone could tell, she was alone.

Vive la révolution.

ghosts

I just realized that to my grandmother, this house is full of ghosts.

Not being able to remember anything, the sounds she hears from above, with Anh and her children on the upper floor, and the noises she hears from below, with me living in the basement with the radio going, are a quiet commotion that cannot be attributed to two octogenarians lying in their bed.

At times I am walking in and out of the living room, and perhaps she glimpses my comings and goings. She is surprised every time, and does not call out. Who does she think I am? Some phantom who stalks a path from basement to sofa then back?

The walls are covered in photos of past celebrations- birthday parties, anniversaries, and the like. There are grandchildren she cannot recognize, their pictures changing every so often as they age. All around the house there are families of strangers- happy, smiling people, all of them foreign and unknown.

Even as I sit here writing this, the door creaks open and a pair of eyes peer out of a darkened room. Before I can even raise a hand to wave the door is shut again.

Perhaps, taking this into account, it is my grandmother who is the ghost- haunting a house that does not belong to her.

birds of par[ad]is[e]

April Thirtieth, Two-thousand Nine.

The morning sunlight is warm and gentle, and falls lightly upon the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. Known to be a perfect spot for slow, romantic walks, couples walk through just as they would at any other hour, graceful and meandering. The walkways take you beneath the sun’s rays, and where it passes beneath the trees it is just cool enough to remind you that the day has just begun, and that the evening is a long way off.

The wall that borders the park is accompanied by trees, shading the sidewalk at intervals. On the pavement a man limps along, his big, brown boots worn and dirty. His left foot is slightly askew, and the sole of his left foot does not quite touch the ground with each step. A crutch under his left arm, he leans heavily against it, using it to take the weight of the bag on his left shoulder. His right arm is held against his body- twisted like a broken wing. He’s balding, and his thick beard has jumped straight from red to white in certain parts.

The man’s eyes are tired, but he continues to lurch forward, making his way down the sidewalk to some unknown destination. His awkward gait attracts glances, but on such a beautiful day as this there are not many walking along the outside of the park. His day has just started, and it will not end for many hours still.

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May Fourth, Two-thousand Nine.

Pigeons are dirty birds. The rats of the sky they are, always swooping down and pecking about at scraps on the sidewalk. They are completely shameless, flaunting their insolence as they waddle forward, eager to pick at crumbs by your feet.

She wears a ratty red sweater, the worn spots in the wool highlighted by the rays of the setting sun. She sits with her legs to the side, and underneath her is a large black sheet, like a theatre curtain. Beside her is a pile of twisted, broken baguettes. One is torn in half, and chunks of stale bread fill her hands.

The pigeons feast on the bread she throws before her, flapping their wings and strutting back and forth. Their heads bob up and down, as do their throats as they gorge themselves frantically. However some are already leaving; gratified or bored they have had their fill.

Old and worn, she watches them. Pigeons are dirty birds.

coming home

May Ninth, Two-thousand Nine.

-I sit in the bus station, beginning the two hour wait until my bus arrives. Staring through the glass, between the brick buildings, I catch a glimpse of a park and see petals dancing in the wind. Fluttering back and forth, they look like tiny white butterflies.

-A man buys a ticket for a friend, and spells his surname out ay ell bee ay are ay dee oh. It sounds like El Dorado, like the name of some lost city of gold.

- As the bus pulls out I spot some more of the petals riding the wind. One of them flies upwards, flies over the large brick building that houses the bus station. I don’t think wind should work like that. Maybe they were butterflies.

- The rain drums its fingers on the emergency hatch on the roof of the bus, and trying to peer out of the windows makes it seem like we’re underwater. The world outside is a complete blur, nothing but water.

- Passing by a field, I see a dead dear crowning a rubbish pile. The world is grey.

- Traffic lights hang on cables that run back and forth at an intersection. The wind blows them back and forth and they inform us that we can go as they wave good-bye.

- The sun comes out while we are at the Buffalo Airport. The clouds float over the air like giants. A stop sign motions us back, but we carry on.

- There is a tree, strong-looking yet leafless far below us. It is surrounded by the lanes of the highway, fenced in and dead.

- The clouds before us blanket the horizon, lying lazily above the city skyline. They resemble a slow-motion explosion, like some sort of natural nuclear bomb has erupted at our eventual destination. We head straight for them.

- At the border we disembark for customs. The wind makes the door weigh one hundred pounds- we all become weaklings.

- We wait in line, and as the door is closing it is blown open again- it closes slowly, shakily.

- I see a hill- the grass is long and has been smoothed over. The wind has brushed it lovingly, like a giant palm petting an equally giant cat.

- We are coming underneath the mass.

- A woman talking to someone on her cellphone says the word “beauty” and puts a lot of emphasis on the “u.” There is something in her world that is a “beauuuty!”

-There is a lake and it is probably Lake Ontario. Large clouds dominate the sky and the sun makes its way through like a spotlight on the steely grey water.

just dance.

If you have ever sat beneath Nelson’s Column facing south, then I’m sure you have had the immensity of the National Gallery fill your vision; just like on any other day. However, if you had been doing the same this afternoon, and if you have been so fortunate as to have been blessed with particularly keen eyesight, something peculiar might have caught your eye.

If you had been outside the main entrance of the National Gallery, your back to countless works of art and multitudes of noisy schoolchildren, leaning over the railing of the balcony, it would not have taken much for your gaze to be drawn down towards the square grounds.

Often times the section of pavement located before the Gallery was occupied by a street performer or some other not-as-entertaining individual trying to scrounge the public for their spare change. However, today was a Tuesday, and the likelihood of there being a crowd gathered around some street magician or people-pleaser was greatly diminished.

Beneath the hulk of the National Gallery one man stood where so many others had before and did it without an open hat or guitar case, without chains to escape from, without gimmicks and without music.

Without music anyone else could hear, to be precise.

In his right hand he clutched a Walkman, the record player of the 21st century. He wore headphones that swung back and forth with each and every step, every smooth, energetic step.

His feet stepped left and right, clad in black dress shoes. Moving upwards, dark slacks encased a pair of swaying legs. Despite his bulky frame, a too-large leather jacket came down mid-thigh, worn over a dark blue shirt. His hair was buzzed short, and all his emotion was shown in his dark-chocolate face and the movement of his body.

Eyes closed in confidence, his right foot came down, toe first, and his heel snapped left once, twice, three times. He spun around completely, fingers flung outwards on his left hand, Walkman again his chest.

The man jived and bucked his hips, and kept within that little patch of pavement. A kick left with the right foot, a step right, back, left, another spin around. He did the moonwalk, and from the sound his shoes made against the pavement you would have expected skid marks on the cement.

Every now and then there were a few spectators, people who stood and watched, both on the ground and from up on the Gallery. People snapped photos and spoke to each other under their breath; they were amused, confused.

If you had walked past him you would have seen the front of his shirt was dark with sweat.

For Renee [ poetry: what attacks? ]

The day we've all been waiting for
Addressed in movies, songs, and books,
Has come to our now-present's door,
Slyly, despite watchful looks.

There are no tripods, beams of light,
Our skies are flying-saucer- free.
They came to Earth a summer night,
To make their simple hostage'ry.

They came from planet aptly named
After the Grecian god of war
A heavenly body crimson-stain'd;
Burning bright vermillion star.

Perhaps they are around you now,
Over your shoulder this is read-
The unfamiliar firmly vow
To steal you from your creaking bed.

And when those bedsprings have released,
When your body's gone and left,
All the noises dulled and ceased,
Caused by fingers swift and deft,

You will be so far away-
In craft without easy depiction.
How long you'll be I cannot say,
This is a quick-writ work of fiction.

For Renee [ prose: written on a whim ]

The branches reached skyward, scratching the cloudy, troubled heavens and failing to leave a mark. Eleanor Ruby Greenway stood at the bus station and sighed; it should be illegal to have to wait more than fifteen minutes for public transportation.

Only a little past three on a Sunday evening and this weekend had already begun its slow, sullen march to its grave, filled with a heavy sense of resignation. Going to the park was sort of a social excursion, right? After all, there were a lot of people there, and she had even spoken to a man selling red balloons; they had been just like the ones the man in the park had sold in Curious George. Except, that of course there was no Man in the Yellow Hat to buy her one, and there had certainly been no antics or adventures.

A strong breeze blew down the street, as if a semi had roared down this quiet, suburban road. Elly clutched her bag closer to herself and shivered.

lights and sounds.

They huddled together, crowds of them battling the intense cold. In spite of warm jackets, scarves, mittens, subconsciously they knew that the warmest they would get was when surrounded by other people. Puffs of warm air streaming out with every gasping breath, their bodies pressed closer to one another for warmth, while their pride kept them from it.
 
The stairs leading up to an office building were covered with a thick blanket of groups and individuals. The groups were much snugger, friendships and family ties ensuring they would last the night without too much shivering; the individuals fit themselves in between the groups, breathing into their hands, shoving them back under their arms. Every one of them was waited, knees knocking, teeth chattering, feet stamping.
 
It was Chinese New Year. Looking out among the hundreds of people crowded around the square, black iron fence surrounding the grass and ancient trees, the crowd couldn’t have been more than twenty percent Asian, let alone Chinese. It was London, and here was an excuse to race to the Tube Stations towards China Town, fill the streets and restaurants and, especially, the supermarkets; as if the supermarkets were closed every other day of the year. That night was a night for foreign food, far eastern ethnicity, and, most of all, fireworks.
 
Underneath the overhang which protected the people on the stairs from the buffeting, frigid wind, two policewomen stood, presumably warm in the centre of the crowd and neon yellow vests.
 
The fireworks began abruptly at six p.m., and although everyone had been waiting for it, no one had really expected the intensity of the lights and sounds. They commenced with the launching of small, bright rockets which cracked like whips fifty feet above their freezing audience. Pinwheels high up on wooden poles had fireworks which trailed sparks and spun them around, turning them into white hot circles of light.
 
About five minutes through the excitement a line hanging between two trees burst into a shower of sparks, the individual fireworks igniting from one end to the other. They shockingly bright illumination fell upon the crowd like a floodlight, and everyone in front of another person became just a dark silhouette. It was like a waterfall of lights, pouring down on the grass, turning the world into bright and shadow.
 
It was after this that the large firecrackers began. Strings of them hanging down from poles went off like machinegun fire. To the Chinese there not London born and bred they were reminiscent of funerals, the sound never quite loud enough to raise the dead. Somewhere in the masses an old man heard the noise and watched the flashes of light and remembered.
 
They continued to go off, thunderous like the games of ninepins Rip van Winkle heard, bright like Hephaestus striking Zeus’ lightning bolts on his forge. A thick smoke, red and orange and brown began to billow out from the square, muffling the flashes. The bursts of light were like the flash from a dozen muzzles, the dissonant sound like modern warfare. Dozens of minds imagined that this was the closest they would ever get to an actual battle.
 
An eye twitched, and amid the booming like giants’ footfalls a heart beat in unison with the staccato discharge of the firecrackers and stopped. A man’s wrinkled face relaxed from the panic that had so gripped it moments before, and the mouth parted slowly to release a final breath, barely visible in the wintry air.
 
After the final two, a grand finale that forced glittering light from the ground up into the heavens, the crowds began to loosen. Blood was forced back into extremities and hundreds of minds, slowly draining awe, remembered how cold it was. They left the square in droves, pressed up against each other like salmon spawning. The crowds whose path took them in the direction of the old man flowed around and onwards, water against an obstacle it could not go over.

Purpose in every step they left for their homes, to be satiated at a restaurant which served £4.95 buffet, for a few warm, smoky hours in a pub, to go on with their lives.

just passing through-

She looked too young to be riding on a streetcar alone. Sitting there at the window seat in her blue-green dress, her soft brown eyes watched as she, along with the rest of the passengers, were rushed on into the city, immense office buildings looming overhead.
 
It was obvious that she wasn’t accustomed to riding on public transit. Veteran passengers who needed to get off at the next one to five stops never sat down- especially not next to the window; the momentary rest wasn’t worth the hassle of getting up and shuffling past the stationary wall of bodies.
 
Her fingers loosely held onto the neck of a guitar, slightly larger in its thick, black case. One hand traveled over to the other and pulled at the sleeve of a light sweater, stretching it over her wrist. Pale brown hair and freckles stole years from her face; she couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen years old.
 
The streetcar screeched to a halt in front of a subway entrance, a set of stairs leading down into the concrete sidewalk. She stood up awkwardly and did her best to squeeze past the woman on her left, gently lifting her guitar behind her. Hanging down past her back was a bag that matched her dress, begging for wayward fingers to reach down and shuffle through her belongings.
 
The last one to step off she heard the hydraulic doors close behind her. Behind the subway entrance a skyscraper towered above the sidewalk and the single-minded individuals that hurried over it. The buildings hemmed in the streets and made you smaller.
 
Something in those soft brown eyes hardened, and she strode down the tiled steps, into the bowels of the city.
 
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He took the steps two at a time, just making it to the streetcar as the last passenger got off. He caught a flash of blue-green in his peripheral vision, and his mind wondered at the hue marching along past the grey, city streets. He turned his head, but the streetcar doors closed and the colour was gone.
 
Over half of the passengers had gotten off to take the subway, and he strode down the aisle to the rear to take a seat. Looking to the left and right sides of the streetcar he saw that every seat available had someone at the window. A little early in the day to be tired, he thought, noticing the expressions and, more often, the closed eyes.
 
He made a snap decision and sat down next to a black man on the left of the aisle, his body falling a little too swiftly into the seat as the streetcar lurched forward. The man grunted, moved closer to the window, and stared down at his watch. A streetcar was not a place for conversation, though for another boy who sat next to that same man that afternoon there would be a chance to hear a fascinating tale.

Staring straight ahead at the backs of people’s heads, he wondered idly about what the day would hold for him. He gazed from head to head as he thought, a balding spot already dealt with pre-emptively with the magic of the comb over, and garish red hair dye on the woman two seats in front. It was just another day of work, just a little money into his bank account, just a bit more purpose to the last remaining month before college.