haiku

Like an old dog's bark
from which a host of birds flee
my surprised voice shouts

-Timothy Shay

WE SAY THE WIND SIGHS

Now i've sentenced myself to a window
high above the commerce of the street
it is the place i sit and yearn
and hold the sun like a missing cat
in the open nest of my lap.

-Timothy Shay

SPECTACLE
[fr styx]

I cross the river styx
and fail to understand
why the windows
are so thick
why like a turtle
my safety rests
in a shell of sleep
my memories dangle
so many ornaments
just beyond my tiny reach

The swim was very long
i failed
to notice my own arrival
and the walls are nothing
but old calenders yellowed as
crumpled petals of dry roses

Incomprehensible
this new literacy
since i lost
the broken spectacles.

-Timothy Shay

cherry bowlge haiku

a bowlge of cherries
a few left in the bottom
one really red one

-Timothy Shay

NOT TODAY


It was a strange and bright

morning

at first i thought i'd died

but then realized i had

arisen

earlier than usual to think

of my small beginnings

one noisy insect on a

blindly building hill of ants



A strange and bright

morning

the light of the forenoon

piercing like a needle in an

emporium of acupuncture

and

i am healed by the hours

of thinking without

realization

half my brain massages my

inner skull

in an act of random

buddhism



It is a woman weeping

who finds me

long after i'd gone missing

we have poached eggs

together

and see a big rainbow;

no flood today.



-Timothy Shay

8.VIII.01

THE GAMES

I have not spoken up

because you would rather not hear me

and I should be fishing

in a valley between empty mountains

somewhere on the Yukon border.

I have not spoken, at least not loudly

I do not whistle during furied hurricanes

or ape the patience and silence of an

arsenal of waiting bombs

when I meditate on the lotus and the lily pad

and carefully consume

the finer things at this last supper

this elegantly catered end of sense.

The recognition of

the fragility of our props

the phoney liquid of

the painted sky

Shakespeare composed by committee

while lucky monkeys

pluck the perfect dictionary

from a keyboard

Someone thinks they know the truth

But struggles with the most profitable packaging

So we are the fish-like skeletons

of the collapsed, the ravaged,

picked clean behind this yard of defunct

automobile parts,

rust and wavery white

flags on each horizon.

It seems like more than enough

yet I understand

the games are just beginning…

-Timothy Shay 14.V.07

PASTORAL NIGHTMARE

Eight weeks without rain
clouds of dust rise up
as my shovel explores
in the name of next year's garlic

Stellar jays eat stink bugs
my old house older now
the dog, deaf
barks at slight movement,
now surprised, now bewildered

Winter wood almost ready
food enough for the dark days
bottled and preserved and the
usual prayer to
the saint of leaks

And what do we pray to:
This ground that will hold the dog?
just a dog..nuance in the neighbourhood's history
legendary chicken killer of wightwick road
terror of free range farmers and
breezy low hung laundry.

And what do you pray to:
a song that made you feel good
on christmas
your mother's hypnotic concern
for well being in the unknown
environment of afterlife
or a hidden nook
ignored by the bowlge-like gods
of the limp patriarchy

We will hold..we will encompass
we will enclose you
nothing will arrive..nothing leave
like wally said
no prayer . no song . no dance.
and even when the mystic calls out
some pastoral vision burning
across the late autumn hills
before the long winter
this new winter that will not end.

Pray tell pray sleep and well.

-Timothy Shay

REQUIEM FOR

THE VICTORIOUS

My mouth is too dry

the sun victorious

because its g-d is crazy

like a big nasty kid

focussing a magnifying glass

on squirming ants

the sun a ray gun

of focused light, pinpoint

inescapable on the winding

ant highway

They have me on drugs;

One makes my riotous heart

slow down to the muffled wave of

a sleeping cat’s breath,

one has agents, armed to the hilt,

ambushes the languid sludge

of bad cholesterol as it festers

and tumbles toward the limited parking

still available along

my crowded arterial highway,

one decreases my

angry blood pressure

as it knocks over

letter boxes after

too many nights on the town

and another, the thin one,

has cut me off pie

and coca cola

and all the sugary goodness

of western culture,

yet another quells

volcanic acid eruptions

before they scald my throat,

while one other makes my blood

thin as a jogger

and finally there’s the anti depressant

which knocks me out all day and

causes me to laugh at

slapstick tragedy;

the prat fall of America,

our ass kissing prime minister,

and the discovery that all the food

in the store

is killing us, eating us and

extracting our breath

to carry us on to the edge of mystery

the rim of some continental saucer before

the enigmatic sea:

The world is left behind

like shards of day at nightfall

and memories rise up, smooth dreams,

their corners soft and shiny

from time’s perpetual erosion.

-Timothy Shay

12.V.07.

RED THEORIES:
[four voices & siren]
[chanted & repeat...]

If they are red
we will call them fire trucks
and children will like them
so will dalmatian dogs
and houses that are burning

If they are red
they are houses burning
and the world is full of them
this very instant
burning red
from cerebral movement
or single incendiary
sets of eyes
or simply
the sleepy dropt cigarette
in the darkness
its tip glowing
red and spreading
across the carpet
through the bedding.

Timothy Shay

PRAYER

To be not bemused
by great wit conceived
on the lap of decay
at the breast of disease

To not be enslaved
by the buy or the sell
in the city of sadness
the temple of hell

To resist the contrite
on Gargoyle Street
when burned and abandoned
minus retreat


THREE MERCIES SLEEPING

The body is not merciful
in its aging progress
like a highway filled with potholes
my spine becomes a torture test

The mind is not merciful
in its method of forgetting
a madwoman cleaning offices
disposes ordered documents

The spirit is not merciful
in its keening to continue
like the sister of a cripple
she runs and darts and laughs

-Timothy Shay