counting distance between blinds

something pale, off colour
the curtains leaning and open
revealing dark moments in the day
if i were to draw them now
let light in,
the feeling of waking up past noon
the counting distance between blinds
i would have lost the dark
i would have spent the time in another way

rhubarb

saw myself outside
below a warm bed of earth
saving the heat, internalizing
all the clean dirt - plunging
my hands into the roots
gripping the fruit and holding
it in my hands.

it was offered as a gift, very
much free.

i wish you would have accepted:
baked a pie.

g-d

averted my eyes, left the check
brushed my hair and made the look
or how not to look into the window as i walk
averted my eyes, but stared at hewn teeth
my hair with that hasidic jew curl again
g-d damn.

your mother holds your face

i was scared that the holy spirit left the earth
scared the very ground was moved
that my tracks through golden leaves were not beautiful at all
i was calmed by the sound of hands on my cheeks
a rough palm
an ivory ring
that stereo sound ringing-afterwards
that immediate silence
the touch of mother holding your face

the book and the yearning

the comfort of the warmest pages
and the lightest bulbs, keeping
boys in their own heady late nights like
blankets or bedrooms or kisses or moments
forgotten before i opened a new book

i am short of breath and still
under the clutches of two sheets.
one is the page, and one is the comfort i felt
under the blanket where we toasted to our futures

i left it there, the book and the
yearning - only to open it again
and find you in both.

three wars of ilene

ilene, you are the last of your kind -
bringing a beautiful name across the
ontario plains and through three wars

the first was fought when you were young
and slain grandparents loved each other,
writing in passion and writing often.

the second was fought when you were old
enough to know haste, and a heart it belongs to
it belongs to ideals, and boys, and dead ranks

the third was after your time -
you saw husbands pass, and children grow
eyes closed as you were set in the ground

ilene, you are the last of your kind -
leaving a beautiful name in three wars

old wine

i felt the weather give way underneath the dryest tinder
so the splinters cut my hands and fed my curiosity:
kissing and sucking my own skin, i wondered if my blood
was an old wine, letting my ego tell stories and get drunk.

fighting against your lungs

oh my love
you are fighting
against your lungs
and i against my eyelids
that seperate our time, spent away

oh my god!
we are fighting
against the threads
by the very fabric that seperates the time
spent today

i met you at the border cross
and gave up kisses like the winters frost

long shoulders in an overcoat
i seen your eyes through a mouth of smoke

i should fix that old thing someday

when i placed a finger
on top of the lamp it burned me bad,
and burned me quick.
i fell asleep with the pain
and woke in the morning
to cool it under the water.
it didn't hide the beautiful scar
or change the fact that i wanted light
and got hurt in the process.

unpainted sill looks for a new coat

soft brush and a piece of tape
on my drawn hands
masking the corners, protecting them from paint
open hands, open windows, open mouth
i know the taste, i know it now

father, let your daughter go

i filled you up
and put down my eyes
i layed down
but could not find my legs
all the strength i've lost
all the time i've spent
i brought you up
and in this valley i will rest.

i resisted love
and shut down my eyes
i layed myself down
but forsook what i knew tonight
all the people i've lost
and all the time i wanted
your sleeping eyes
and the kisses uncounted.

my ride

a loving taste and then
i leave a morsel
for the salten birds to pick apart
for the antique cloth to pill and fray
and break in half (clutch and hold)

it's daylight now and i stay
and i stay past the hunching man
seated prim and his younger brother
eating dates, i even stay up past
an opera, a cadenza, a cadaver

my timing is pursed
placed inside, behind, between
a coin bag and a glasses case;
the rummage sound bringing tears
and frantic kisses on my cheeks
i must away, and ride into a wind
blown down my coat.

more unfinished so and so

i'm alive and that's good!

my body
in transcendance (in purpose)
is just a vessel to carry my
living heart
through this time, then into a new placement.
keep this heart next to a safe place
but not locked away
to remember my spirit with
all the clicks and pops
and all the exposures and apertures
and all the debris of life.


a note

the letter came through, or i hope it did
and found you in a state of rest
somewhere with a back reclined
pressing through your spine to
tug a finger through the seam

or a kettle, boiling hot
moving along the glue that my tongue
didn't enjoy

find a lamp or a light to read by
my writing is blocked or cursive
sometimes both, mostly straight

i hope your spine and your throat are
relaxed; tense hands are to be expected.

the gold light!

girl running.

i am running as fast as my legs can go;
full out, on top of myself and living
outside of this small body.
i am running in my red gumboots;
risking a callous, risking callousness
from my father (raking leaves)
i am running towards the end of the day;
taking time only to notice a perfect
sky and how cold my shoulders are.
i am running to catch up to my age;
past the old oaks and through fresh leaves
dancing on top of the soil when i sprint.


my bed is uncomfortable, and i know why.

you are a fair weather
and blow towards a new sail
and cast my care like rocks into a silent water
do not protect my eyes from your form
or become an effigy, standing above form.
you are divine, and a divide
splitting my nose or my cheek in a soft way
to repair my eyes, my strength, my time
and keep me inside a hearth.
but i will keep my stones and cast them onto
my bed, and sleep on them in memory of you.

the sad woodsmen leaves for the new war

cold night
warm gloves
touch wood
sit down

look past
your eyes
and know
that tonight

you'd wish
this time
could last
past tense

i leave
next morn
felled trees
keep you

'til then.

the hunter

his failing strength shines through his teeth

stepping lightly through the snow
the hunter gathers his running speed
and notch'd quickly on his silent arrow
his failing strength shines through his teeth

and lifts up a voice to shout below
"the valley is gone you humble elk,
the valley is gone you carrion crow"
and the land was gone, of honey and milk

eden-town with it's back all broke,
where a hunter stood to shoot it down.
"i am man and i prevail, so
let yourselves be present now"

and the woodlands bowed
and said to the hunter in a growl
"you have asked, and we say no
can we not live amongst the proud?

you men are so quick to chop our oaks
and burn our soil for gold.
can we not live with simple folk
who appreciate our olden toil?

the hunter let forth his arrow
and struck the forest's bones
and when he exposed the marrow
he laid down and died alone.

such is life, i guess.

a sharpness and a poignancy

i have found a sharpness and a poignancy
in the arms of a strange embrace
and i will pull my weight onto your back.
do not scratch your pride, and i will keep
you; not in hesitation but in a pure voice.
displace the feeling, my love -
that when we come together and touch
our bones and eyes and cheeks and scars
from a falling step, we were cursed to
love each mistake and remain perfect
and loyal to our own hearts.

-aidan knight

a higher branch

jump rope

creased and cracked
your jump rope
it whips and skips
it creaks under my feet
giving in - to persuasion
binding my tongue to the roof of my mouth
lifting me up into a higher branch
pushing my feet and guiding my hands
its cord gating my hips and sizing my in-step
it is a measure of what i am and who i am to be.


-aidan knight.

a t.

manech and mathilde

the torso flecked with a candle stick
and a pavement cheek that made to run at it:
the road has touched both from the underside,
curving down a parchment piece
and bleaching through a cotton'd stain.
for i have stood the tests of time and
i will remain o'er the underside of the
wanton game i play.
for the fact is mine, oh lovely spark
that i have half the heart and an equal mind
to sum it up in but three ways -
to love, to speak, to learn.

-aidan knight.

charmed i'm sure.

socialiste

charming man
you are a fickle man.
when you are watching your wrists
to see if they are perfect,
you cannot see that without
balance
you will topple and snap
that lovely cufflink:
but would a loss like that
stop you from wooing
a lonely heart or a
set of sharpened teeth?
no
i do not think that a
smudge mark or a broken cuff
would stop the fact that
your wrists are perfect.

(gold) lamé woman, you have not escaped -
i see your ways
i see your games.
but do not think for a moment,
not for a beating pulse
or sloven glance
do not think that your heavenly
air will not buckle under the weight
of your purse.