In a single day the sky
has swallowed the leviathan of night
and every cloud that veiled the light.
The stars have folded their maps away,
leaving only the pale grammar of day.
Now that you have peered into its eyes
it is up to you to write
with the same clarity
in which time is lost.

The last “yassou” in Greek Town
Made ouzo shots fly up as one.

A Greek, Italian and Australian
Created madness therein.

The divine imagination
Was at least equal to the heroic sum.

A taxi drove us home at five am,
The meter set at sunrise’s minimum.

The Haitian cabbie hesitated
As though on voodoo we had visited:

Like the wing of a soaring sun
Countless gulls lifted as one.

“Montreal Drinking Story” celebrates one night of creative energy, as a Greek artist, an Australian musician, and the Italian poet—together embodying “divine imagination”—move from revelry to a mythic dawn witnessed in the rise of hundreds of gulls.

Along forest paths
between city streets
among people

how often I’ve changed places
with empty spaces
diving into shadows
to swim in the backs of my eyes

something told me
they were the cracks
in which death resides
the places
in which truth hides

and I tried to leave a piece
of my dreams in each
for those who come after

The days carry heavy spirits,
Evil airs float over the land.
Why today should I find
A feather from the first sky.
Why today this immaculate thing
Like the infant origin of a cloud,
To offer me the lightness of this moment
For having kept my own mind.

Ice Music

        for Roger

The used bookshop’s cat has died
Exactly where the dust of time decides.
Alfred sat among the books in silence
Like the living presence of the past tense.
Always in tuxedo, he was mysterious
As Max Beckmann, and as serious.
A collector of voices and browsing faces
He was his own book of thoughtful places.
Goodbye, sweet tiger of the stacks.
Life is fiction and books are cats.