Turtles

I walk one way
And you lie down to sleep
Expecting celestial dreams
While fires burn
And waters flow
Over the green bodies of men
Their mountainous hearts
Lost again
In the blameless dark
Of holy notions
Like moon-streaked mirrors of dew

Gautama Buddha
It is what we are capable of
Dreaming nature
Until the mind-wall cracks
And the heart sinks to purple fathoms
Then deeper still
To cruise the emptiness
Of thoughtless form
While the blind seekers
Rescue us from Hell
One dumb ape at a time

Lakeshore Benediction

Living in Toronto
Changes how you love
Or maybe it's just
There's so much to covet
That you are hopelessly fractured
Unable to focus the totality of your affection
Into a person, artwork or discipline
But only and always, the city
Her streets inviting
Her histories, rich
Enough for any sorry Romeo
To die for
If he doesn't expect a sorrowful parting
In this city circus
Of a thousand stages
Where the dreamers dream
The greedy prosper
And the lost can wander in peace

Careful Now

A light in me is fading
Already I see less and less
Of my landscape
And the unaltered places
Once limitless plains
Of ease and honesty
And the roaming masks of the past
Now mystified
By the coming shift
I know this beyond reason
The way animals know
Which silences are safe
And which come dangerously

Game Time

Stamp your ticket and settle in
Here come the tanks
The main event
You paid good money, waited in line
For a rockets red glare to deliver your share
Of a peace so pure
It leaves no trace
Of blood or brains
Or the crippling shame
Seeing savage grins on ivory skin
And a coach
In fatigues
Trading jokes
Over tea
What murder? What greed?
It was part of our need
To kill who resists
Our infallible lead
And if children have died
They're safe in the sky
Where God is a man and women comply
Like any good team
Some smile, some scream
But the score is what counts
And the magical dream
That winning is right
And losing obscene