When no stars appear to welcome the scent of leaves
no pride is released –
the empiric beat within goes to sleep,
dreary rain pressures the snoring gruel of worldly morning
children hear the weird angst of father serpent
learning a new spell

in the livid pull of train wreck desire
the followers’ sneering crimes become awake
to the rush of the wading horror
that thrives innocently on beer and hate,
while our nonplussed singing escapes

into the cruel driven spines of the wicked slink of fame
shining like hosts in a steaming ballroom of creative play
and shaved raspy throats blunder over towers of hypocrisy

the engraved mores of hunger and celebration link together within
insane aesthetic duality
to please the entranced few
on a skinny pathway
across ever-shrinking pores of history
wearing narcotic bracelets and shaming our alien tours
with priceless need

in the random chores of spurious fornication
on bedside hordes that tame the blue African skies to dried jungles
that feel free with desertified lies

in the political waves of a corporate shark ruled tribe,
swearing and leaning into the hounds of biblical law
at the foot of copied royalty

images of a curse
emanating clearly
from the anxious gore of the Queen’s swollen photographic paste
that fires the furious majority

corpse-woven emotion
against the greed and force of a colonial tour
imagining caves of settlement prized in the outdoor weed
to be bought and traded for the value of life

a compromising
a swift vulnerability

we are still afraid of corn/maize
the sacred ear of landlocked peace

relief from the pain of English greed
stops waterfalls in the didgeridoo light of a fugitive
from the muscular breast of musical moods

blended in a spastic trust and unblinking tomb of bedroom noon
lounging immobile in a downtown moat of antagonistic blame
the weak time
order ensuing
in the blistered flat dome of wind
rousing us to walk in sleep and dream the east

away

to a sense of wishing
in her Mayan home
ringing with such personal truth
unknown

My Love’s apartment, downtown Calgary, January 2010

Profile: Rusty Kjarvik