Author: William Cowan

The extremities pass & we coax the truth
into repeating the lesson left on a vacant shore.

Outside has become the new inside,
as the handhelds take the mind away.

What has me here so still,
the one word to hold so long?

Not on a road of sentences
will it will me a greater silence.

The nest is laid to final rest.
All the above was left at the rest stop.

It is a script of absences.
There is a picture in the word you hold dear.

Keep it safe.

the transgressions though minor
are multiplying and are stacked
in the closet out of sight

they form an obelisk of pure desire
to be chipped away slowly
until they form something

beautiful and permanently rewarding
to the eye
and the faint of heart

the caterpillar crossed
the great road

it took days
seeming only

a blip on a journey
without purpose

the caterpillar & the cars
were oblivious of each other

only the warmth
mattered

the ease
of movement

fulfilled
what passed

in this world
as intent

The evanescent clouds glide by
as dusk opens the vast starry heavens
to exposure, a rubric to a forever manuscript
dancing to an unheard melody.

The ticking of time is but an artifice
man created. No one alive will see it
cease as transmogrifying transition
envelopes the seer. The birds fall slowly

hypnotized by the tiny prey the breeze
in tall grass reveals. Pray that the harmony
once here returns with or without us.
Look at all there is to do, and begin.

am I brushing my teeth
or thinking about brushing my teeth?
I don’t remember brushing my teeth
I was elsewhere thinking
& going thru the physical rote
of not being where you are

though you are not here
I recall the strenuous togetherness
& the thick white foam running down

Wasps, tambourines, & jugglers filled the fair.
Tugging at your sleeves the crowd
ebbed & flowed around the water’s edge

in all its twilight rippling calm.
If speech were in disarray & piecemeal
in its distribution, it played amongst the birds,

music & drifting thoughts devoid of all purpose
but to be in communion with summer’s end,
& the last morsel of ephemeral, plasticene joy.

The community property of this moment
will go out in the dark. Though I know
none of you, we go on separately, together.

The sounds echo as we go away hearing
seagulls, accepting handouts for the coming political
rallies that talk on & on

about the reality of this country going
in a hand basket to where we do not know.

They’re so polite.
Hiding in reserve I’m sure
of nothing about their true
feelings toward us.

Covered in resolve
to see all their families
whole, even the Frenchified
& that British oriented lot

that hail the Queen.
The beer is sublime,
& taxes prime the coverage
of all in medical care,

so there.  I love
the tee shirt, on the front:
“what’s the definition of a Canadian?”
on the back:  “an unarmed American

with healthcare!”  And,
also I love you,
Alice Munro!

p.s.-if any of these “Thuglicans” win
the ’12 presidential election, I’m Canadian!

a clean, civil society not at war with anyone

We occupy the time it takes
to discover how to live a life:

confinement, searches, empty boxes,
trails, fresh fruit, the gift you riff on,

and on while something closes
way too soon, the deck tilts, missing cards.

Then coming up for air in an ancient city,
cobblestones shining in light rain refreshes
the palate.

The boombox in the sunglasses store
drove us on to the bistros & bars.

On the plastered windows a language spoke
of what I could only imagine: Rimbaud muttering
to himself.

Past tense continues to slog in the shadows
while about to arrive holds off the message.

I wait for you to grasp the gist of experience
to pull the rabbit from the hat & save us.

Everywhere we are all tourists and have aged
the land with collateral damage.

We march, sing, cry into the wilderness
carrying our sorrow before us, trashing
the remaining Caesars.

Yet quiche Lorraine in a deli on Avenue Cartier
as the rain ceases
soothes the spirit, lets much fall away if only
for a sliver of time.

I do not know how
to argue in this language

with traction that grasps at
straws as the clouds race by.

The summer peppers are late
for lack of heat. The closing
shadows slow all growth.

We plant a thought to bring
forth a story nurtured by the spring
of ongoing lust. How

to take the soil as what
we have & grow in it
lasts many seasons

with you flowering all
around our garden. It’s
never done. The harvest varies

from year to year. We mature
& stay steadfast.

I continue to walk out
on the limb with you.

The mind is wider than the eye
can see. All angles resolve
in prisms in the future glen
of composite restlessness.

Parts that issue forth for the taste
buds to separate color
from sound form a whole.

All comes together, trollop,
beggar & prince in serendipity’s
party of aspirations.

Once you realize the pattern
sticks to the windshield only
as long as you don’t turn the wipers on,
you can see this moment clearly.

Mind enough to see out,
and space enough to separate
the disparate from what they are.