Cinnamon Winter, Ginger Spring, Sugar Summer,
Chocolate Autumn
In the nautical night
I was captain & captive
of my own windblown ship
The Apocalypse
I hung onto ellipses
of empty early hours
steering the boat of my bed
until it crashed into the absolute
madness of another morning
Half-dead with dread of alarm-clock-red electric tick
tock terror
of having to be somewhere
at some serious accurate minute
for alcohol poverty money
Lost on Boston’s bank clock face
Lid of all official offices
Panic attacks in bathrooms
hidden from The Team
Anxious against-my-will work contracts meant
Cork Stuck in My Green Glass Gorge
to stopper all opinions visions solitude silence
freedom & time
with only the faux-liberty
of the lunch hour to cheer me
with its bland unpaid taste of vacation
Sated sadist grimaces
of plastic bastards who cut my check ~
one quarter of it cut off
for my fat illiterate country’s illusory liberty
plus hospital hospitality
How they savoured
muffled power laughter
when I stepped through
the always-open closed door
My heart-shaped face
stuck out like a second moon
lost & looking for the sky
on the corporate hypocrite horizon
brow bare enough
to reveal real feeling
& confidential doctor’s office distress
Stress of refusing to report for duty
in a casual cardboard outfit
paid to have my face painted beige
Depressed undiagnosed days passed
I called in sick to drink at home
Fast forward to France ~
at ecstatic spoken word gatherings
I sang poems on the stages
of open secret séances
Stellar cellar fevers
of Poetics Begin at 9 O’Clock
in the crowded good company
of my one true family
Artists Writers Orphans Lovers
AWOL in the basements
of penniless Paris
weekly poetry parties
Eternal student
attracted to every soul
on the stage of the Spoken World
Paper face of Earth
Brothers Sisters Children
of In The Beginning Was the Word
do what makes you feel God
in your closed closet chest
with a wrenching in the heart
like falling in love
Sweet silences between the lines
of every honest Song of Songs
Seven rounds of cinnamon Winter
ginger Spring
sugar Summer
chocolate Autumn
chased down with cheap sparkling wine ~
bubbly & bitter at the same time
Sons & daughters of days with flavour
let's give this life thing a whirl again
dammit because the beat-up bass drum
of our own persistent heart ~
hearth of humanness ~
keeps its beat
freely as a forgotten clock
I must shut up ~
it’s time to sing in verse
for a few minute minutes of warmth
wrapped in the rapt attention
of fellow human beings
in love with meaning
Music made of words
Soundtrack to the quest for
silent contentment
The fluid fluent breath
of Song-intoxication
whispers blissful liberation
Do you mind living in a haunted house?
“Were it not for your love of the Light,
you could not keep your home here,
in the sunless house where
I took my own life,”
said the ghost of my belovèd friend,
star singer who could not live
with her own mind ~
I could hear her
through her old closed door,
which my wide-eyed cat
obsessively wanted to enter.
“When you sing your Sanskrit prayers,
as you did with my dog on your lap,
you clean & clear this air of despair.
“I couldn't taste the type of silence
that sings your strange & sacred songs,
but I sang the most inspired electric music,
while I leaned on anyone I could find,
as a thin lifeline.
“David, please forgive me & let me go…
I'm so sorry.
Do you forgive me?”
“Helium eased the breath from my bones,
rather than fill birthday balloons.
My car could not contain my pain,
& my hangings never held.
“I am glad I could light a smile inside you the night
after my traumatic, dramatic, exit ~
asking in a dream
‘Do you mind living in a haunted house?’
“Thank you for keeping these walls
alive with song.
“Your life is strong.”
Heart-Rust
Gone is the rust of the heart that clogged so long the
visions in my veins
Shaken off the reins of failed rules I’d made to cage
myself
Free indeed yet everywhere in chains & mind-forged
manacles
I raged with ragged attempts to control the flow of raw
shapes around me
Gone the dust of moonlit thoughts
Night’s violet room fallen mute
Where is the prodigal son of the sun
The golden boy I thought I was
Lost is the frame that held everything
My pages of past years
held in the hands of the mind
But still in sight of highway fog
so dense I barely let my wheels roll
“Slow down & behold your own heart”
I heard from within
I remember the atmosphere
of the huge blue-light meditation room
where my Other Mother said ~
“Visualize the golden column of light
that extends from the base of the spine
to the crown of the head”
It is said that the world is real
by blind ghosts who can’t see past
the bricks & blocks & plastic trucks
on this toy-strewn playground on the stage of Earth
A relentless heaven entered my head & made me sane
for a few momentous moments as I sat silent
vibrant ocean of calm
next to the lamp I had had to close
since I’d used it poorly to paint my room
in muted tones of habit seeming solid & long familiar
I couldn’t see a thing or notice I’d grown blind
from listening transfixed to the rattle & prattle of
my mind
walking the holy road to nothingness
with a radio strapped to my skull
Self-crowned Napoleon of poetry
Well-dressed prince of nowhere land
now careful what I hold in the hands of my mind
that flail like aimless dancers with no partner
What is the bandwidth of my consciousness
the impedance to energy in my body circuitry
How long have I gone without knowing I know nothing
I feel the heat of my heart the hearth of my body
& hear the echo of my own deluded words
A sign to fall silent & still
from Words Heard or Seen in Dreams
IV.
“How I learned to
write a sonnet ~
a bird sat in my
heart pocket.”
*
“I am a magnet for every kind of creative success.”
*
“And what is the cash equivalent of these feelings?”
*
“We just have to confirm that our numbers are correct.”
*
“All this is the News, so pay attention.”
*
“Who’s going to light the fuse? It has to be you.”
*
“Light is might.”
*
“Ecstasy in stillness.”
*
“He raised them from the bed.”
*
“Alone is he
who waits madly
at the door of
sleep.”
*
“I’m falling into heaven.”
*
“Crystal tranquility
can be found in the
spine.”
*
“Someone left this map of everything
right here on the
table.”
*
“The town gave us the honour of oblivion.”
*
“I pray that I be present
in the real world,
not just the
spiritual world.”
“There is only one
world.
Just as you are
present to nature,
be present to the
Light.
Just as you are
present to the Spirit,
wake up & sing
the song of breath.”
*
“If it weren't for SpokenWord,
I'd be sitting alone
in the corner
of a garage, writing
by the light
of a single candle.”
*
“What words do you have to contribute
to our human
journey?”
*
“I want to play some music.”
“Does it have a
beginning & an ending?”
“Yeah.”
“Ah, then I don’t
want to hear it.”
*
“If you don’t write for Now,
how will your words
endure?”
*
“I talk, & yet worry that you’re trying to speak in my mouth.”
*
“Why don’t you speak the truth?”
*
“Pain is the highest insight.”
*
“I’ve decided to finish
the mountain poem,
climb up
the slope of words
to the circle of
sky.”
*
“You ask me, & I immediately know after ~
I draw myself by
kindness.”
*
“The ones that come out perfect
are the ones holding
anything at all.”
*
“Did you want to know the answer?
You should dance with
her.”
*
“Hold the c(h)ords between us.”
*
“The poem goes off at noon.”
*
“I’ll give you some dust.
It’s free.”
*
“Why did this wisdom come to me?
I didn't know that much.”
*
“B is the key of blue.
Be sharp, it’s up to you.”
*
“God is the only thing that’s real,
& holds this whole dream.”
*
“The show must go on without a curtain.”
David Leo Sirois is a Canadian-American poet published 127 times, in 20 countries. His work has been translated into 12 languages (Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, French, German, Czech, Spanish, Greek, Romanian, Chinese, Turkish, & Doric). He hosts Spoken World Online, the Zoom continuation of SpokenWord Paris. His first collection is called Humbledoves (poems to pigeons & plants). He won Third Prize in Winning Writers' Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest, & his poetry has appeared in journals such as The Bombay Review, The Poetry Village, One Hand Clapping, Indian Periodical, The Sunday Tribune Online, THE BASTILLE, & Terre à Cièl (which also published his translations from the French). David is often featured at global events, such as the Panorama International Literature Festival, & 100 Thousand Poets for Change, as well as in many international podcasts & interviews. He is also a singer/songwriter, radio DJ, & a film/TV/theater actor. He is currently submitting 5 finished manuscripts for publication, & writing several more.
