souvenance

to walk out of sleep
tired and helpless

to bow to a tree

towering before the balcony

sunday morning

foothills alive with

bird songs

human sounds

sun burns the shrubs
as it passes over
rough country

as you age

you become home
to distances

nowhere

nestles in your hand

no one
blooms in your eyes

mandrem, 20 december 2015

rising

yesterday
she had a name
blue moon
they called her

tonight
she is nameless
but close

she sheds her blue
for the ocean's dark
where the dead dream
of grasslands high
and times
irrevocable

pale
that face emerging
behind the durian tree
could be my own

ubud, october 2015

sayan

you tear the skin of sayan
to loop her with your flight

guide her voice through
passerby stones
and limpid skies

sparrows
kin in wounding
we are

dark river
you pulsates in us

september 2015, ubud

wednesday above waters

atlantic crossing
returning to montreal
same journey as years before
then it was a garden in england
roses to take you through summer
how much has changed
how much hasn't

time's remains
who's remains
who remains

where it matters
little matter for change
things go through turnings
yet the same breeze
arrests you at the threshold

yourself you are
endings and beginnings
of paths converging
paths effacing
journeys to come

montreal, 20 june 1984

i see your face

tremor of leafage
on black sand
torrid

across seascapes sketched
by voices now drowned
shadows ferry us

moment's pause in this heat

out of waves
we scoop the timeless

where rocks abide
where storms abide

in sleep you appear
then out of ripples
give me form
give me name
and anchor me
to the grief of reefs

where i remember you
where distances dazzle
rocks abide
storms abide

amed, 26 august 2015

kalampunian

her voice is still with me

she comes in waves
and prompts casuarinas
that line the shore to speak

by nature they rather listen
happy to offer passage
to tumults far and near

she prompts them to speak

her voice is still with me

murmur of spaces unknown
where what you can never find
what is lost to you
though out of reach
is safe

only the sea
offers such release

may it be so

kudat, 26 july 2015

words

words 

free to remain

shy away

return before fading

long besought

long forsaken

desired no more

what you longed to illumine

could not and was not

reached by their glow

unstirred by your quest

or abandon thereof

the urge to die

while still burning

fire’s last breath

consumed by silence

still

insects sing about the hills

flowers release their scent

deep into starry night

january 2008, nilemba

winter tales

year’s first snow

blankets late december slopes

white

everywhere

trunks barely visible

white

eye-white

mounding

snow levels forms

into no-forms

shrouding  stones

it unnames  

la rochette, december 2004

wheeloflife

have yet to taste the fruit of conversion

muted beast 

i eat my bitter fruit
alone

voice passing through this night
is not mine to reach

voice of snow

irrigating soils of arid sleep

lightening even minds of animals

with its soft echo

offering rebirth

in realms less dire

nice, 2003

winter retreat

walking uphill

to ei tai ji

late in coming

slow in falling

the year’s first snow

la rochette, january 2001

the wind

wind's conversation
reaches the high
while uplifting the low

clouds drifting
trees astir
shrubs too
the aging grass

windows rattle
as curtains unlace
hours lived not to the full

here and there
i am the stillness
in your restive voice

ubud, 2 july 2015

journey home

dwarfed tombstones
in neat rows aligned

roadside images
fleeting

the morning drizzle

in the distance

heavy clouds hover
above sleeping volcanos

trimmed to the bone
driftinng with salvation
in the breeze


klingkung, 30 may 2015

termites

here we are
fate exposed to the storm
dismembered and dislocated
captured in a pool of silver light

wingless
hauled on the shoulder of ants
down into dark chambers
where earth's labor
awaits us

ubud, november 2014

guidelines for the dying

at night
when hours thicken most
facing north
if you look outside of the window
you can see a cross
atop a copper dome
twinkling for you
in freezing cold

let breath drift away
let name drift away
freezing cold
let light drift away

it shall be as you wish
let soul drift away

from chimneys
white smoke rises
snow blankets roofs

this is time
leave the body behind
let sleep spill over the bed
run over sores and bed sores

it shall be as you wish
with life as with death
with coming and going
soul and soul no more

it shall be

you are a wish
no one's
a wish
a nothing

free

montreal, 8 january 2015

from the window

my room is looking out
on lush vegetation

trees are heavy with
sleep and morning rain
midnight rain and all
that falls in between

i see a man walking in tall grass
his walking captures the falling
movement in and out of nowhere


he is moving with the rain
with the sound of the temple gong
with music coming from branches
with all drenched things around
in the direction of a world
yet to be seen

ubud, 3 december 2014

down the wind

you no longer go astray
when loss becomes your path

still you will go astray
but wont feel it as loss

it delivers the seeker
from the sought
returning fire
back to fire


the village poor pass
one by one
gathering frangipani
strewn before the house
as the day rises

falling is what you have
when abundance comes

here
in the whereabouts
of the wind

ubud 2 november  2014

listening to you

something of you
floats in birdsong
rising from the trees

in scattered noises
down there on the road

cicadas' calling
an impromptu tide
rolling over me

something of you
is moving with
the abandoned grass

as heat slowly rises
in the morning

ubud 17 october 2014

notes made of borneo rains

I

the way i see it
the way you see it

stories
no one's really
simply stories

floating in the morning air
floating with dust that fills
the lungs of trees
before rainfalls pour

fables of floating
in the morning air
rising and falling
through dust

of absence come alive with words
words such as
you and me
sabah
mengalum island
the land below the wind

II

at the table across the floor
locals chain smoking
sipping ice-coffee
words again

conversation is a fire
we keep rekindling
heat where both
speaker and hearer
try to warm up

for it feels cold
suspended in mid-air
mountains below
light pools above
to rest alone
in the fold of clouds
invoking songs


 III

she writes to tell me
she needs more days
for pain to find her way
through the rocks
flow into a voice
run through the steppe

for now
we are part of a
longer poem
to come perhaps

for now we are left waiting
here at the bottom of this page
at the mercy of a finger
that alone decides
if what is left of us
shall one day reach the sea

kota kinabalu, 24 october 2014

take me to the other shore

day is dimming
across the strait

dying light that receives
early flicker of lamps
from java's shoreline
is still

is still the light that waits
is mute and still

still it rips through mist
shrouding land that falls
into abyss disappears

sense of something closing here
as distances carol
incarnate
undulations
pearly

voice
imbued by ocean speech
i hear you rise
cave in

i disgorge your vowels
one wave at a time


4 august 2013, gilimanuk

alter

dust on your shoulders
incense ash piling at your feet
not a flower to ornate your vase

bouddha
this oversight
is an indictment
to my state of mind

as without
so within
chaos merging
with chaos
seamlessly 

early morning breeze
passes through the window

ubud, 30 september 2014