cool evenings: the cats & the alleys

listening: coffee, entire cities
drinking: lukewarm & decaf

it's the feeling of elongation, with my arms stretched out every direction. betwixt, amidst, elastic. resin borrowing the inverse object shapes of your bodies. tonight i trespassed home through the seminary & the wet grass brushed against my knees & i was walking east toward the stillblue & thinking of seagulls & oceans & sitting on the vernon street doorsill with you. (an appendage: suburbia is dull, but it surprises me with verdent pathways, lavender blossoms of meringue trees, a pair of middle-age identical twins, drifting pollen, 1930 ford convertibles, robins clutching at wires.) it smells of mock orange & the cedar-smoke of summer cottages.

last week, i went to a show at the canadian textile museum of war rugs from afghanistan. 'after three decades of chaos, the customary flowers on rugs have turned into bullets, or landmines, or hand-grenades. birds have turned into helicopters and fighter jets. landscapes have filled up with field-guns and troop carriers. sheep and horses have turned into tanks. there have never been rugs like this before.' my reactions to news-stories, to real life is hardly ever visceral, but i ached for the threads of this close-woven violence. walls & walls of such uneasy tapestry.

right now there is a moth fluttering soft at my bedroom window; i am tired from birthday parties & the main-tent at the jazz festival, still not sleeping in the night. tomorrow my grandfather and i are developing film in the basement & tuesday i'm on the train to kingston for a few days. there are two books to finish before i leave: swann's way & the inheritance of loss and about ten thousands loose ends to be tied (if you are reading from nearby -- my last toronto hurrah will be the jill barber & ohbijou concert at harbourfront centre on saturday june 28th). i was sitting in m.'s backyard this weekend, surrounded by endive & radish & two-days of elegant appetizers. we watch tree-shadows on blades of grass, against the pool's surface, crosslegged in lawnchairs, sipping beer, discussing camels. all a sudden, i realized that without waiting for time, i already think of right now as radiant, soft-spoken & entirely happy.