“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

I don’t think that flowers blooming make any noise or sound even.

I know for sure that fallen leaves crunch underfoot in retreat on October afternoons in Alberta.

I know that from chasing your scared soul across provinces, GMC Sierra in high gear over mountains; cigarette in clenched hand as you read maps and they all lead here all at once.

You are all the cherry blossoms all at once drifting down and snowing my earthed path.

You are my path.

I love you, Starfish.

-Love Sid

xoxoxoxo

The Nellie, she was a cruising yawl...

Your eyes, man. Your eyes are filled with all the death and hate and sadness with missing girls and lost homes and distant parents and even siblings of any man with eyes like that.
And a rifle.
And, man, those eyes have seen it all.
How can you do it?
How can I agree to it?

If you ever need a country to help you out and soften those blows and bandage those wounds and help you deliver those letters to your dead friend's family, well, I have a bumper sticker.

I have a plastic wrist-band.

It's yellow and says that I support the troops.

Run now. Mourn later.

Sometimes we are all ghosts and alone.
No feeling.

Sometimes we are the ghost bicycles.

But tonight.

I fucked it all up hard and you are in bed calling for me.

Remember Krazy Shack?

I think you are so much better than anything I could ever have loved or even be loved by.

Like the kayaks at Krazy Shack.

Like the beach at that cabin.

Like the time when we took off our shoes and threw them into the water for kicks...
Like then, when we kissed.

I am no longer afraid of your love.

And I will

ride

your ghost bicycle.

-Sid
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Sports bars.

Man, it snowed fucking hard yesterday. Winter miracles.
Anne and I walked to the bar and hit it.

Hard.

You never know why I don't quit.

It's my life.

You are.

Crowsnest Pass.

I love your California hair
in my face.
The way that you love me, too.
In the truck and on the way, you kept those mountains high
and those passes cold.
Frank Slide.
Crowsnest, from Vancouver to Edmonton up 22 the Cowboy Trail.
You kept me warm those nights.
Cochrane hotels and drunk on each other.
Vodka, too.
I cry when I make you smile because it's been so fucking long...
Have I ever made anyone smile like that. Ever? Ever?

When you lit my cigarettes as I drove the straight line roads
I hit the brakes as rarely as possible
because I need your momentum
you fucking angel.

I love that California hair in my face when I sleep.
When I breathe.
When I dream.

When I am awake.
And I am awake.

Stars and bars.

And here I am
All yours.
You brought me out and sought me through.
And poetry is the medium.
I love you and love you.
My city. My Edmonton.
I have been dreaming of you for years.
That river valley.
That flat land.
That hot sky.
I have been dreaming of you for years.
I am all yours.

Sometimes.

Sometimes
When I am alone here
And the lights are out
I imagine a slow-dance with you.

Sometimes
When my hammer swings
And the nail is hit just right
There is a spark
And I imagine building a house for you.

Sometimes
While tying my shoes or washing the dishes
Alone, here
I imagine your hand on my back or neck or even on my ass
Lightly, lovingly, longingly.

Sometimes
I just want to crank the wheel of my truck
And drive to you
Openly weeping and yours.

I say sometimes
But
There are no other times
When
I don't think of these things.

"...the diver descends to maximum depth immediately and stays at the same depth until resurfacing..."

Hit with it
Stung by it
Ruffled and fucked
by it.

Open your legs like an Alberta sky in August
Let me in.

I am all yours.

Hit with it
Stung by it
Ruffled and fucked
by you.

Open your heart like a Wild Rose in July
Let me in.

I am coming there, back there, for some kind of terminal end.
Some terminal finale, some everything. For you, just you.
I am yours, all yours.

Hit with it.

Stung by it.

Ruffled

and

tussled.

Get in love.

-Sid
xo

Winter Miracles.

I want to freeze again on those long nights from 4 p.m. to 9 a.m. when the sun is gone.
I miss the drifts of snow and the instant sobriety upon leaving a place.

Boots and toques, icy lungs and cold fingers.

I want you to miss my warmth at 4 a.m. on an Alberta morning when I get up to piss and make coffee. I bet you'd call my name softly between sleep and wake states.
"Sid, come back to bed".

I would, too, cold and naked, leap under the covers and tell you I love you. I'd run my fingers through your hair until you fell back asleep.

I think I should retrace my steps, but in different shoes this time.

I want my winter miracle.
I want my spring lust and summer freedom.

The hard trees, the brown, the over-frozen everything. I want it.

I want it all that winter miracle.

Snow in my boots and frost-bitten ears so hot that I can't fucking stand it.

I want the drifts and wisps and shifts again.

I want to jump under the covers when you whisper my name on a farm in Northern Alberta.

"Sid, come back to bed."

-Sid

Dowshi, Afghanistan. The cunt road.

Sentry was never done, but my shift was over at 0900. I needed sleep, water and new laces. I always needed to hydrate.

On my way back to camp I saw three boys playing soccer.
Their ball was a piece of shit. Cow shit, or something.
I didn't even care and hoped they would die before they were old enough to want to kill me.

When I thought that, though, that second, that fucking instant, I was suddenly beside you. Your scolding, your fantastic love, your compassion.
I was sorry for it, for thinking like that.

Dowshi is a tiny fucking town at the cunt-opening of a valley into certain death. A76 North, a suicide drive. We had patrols up there, but man, that road buttressed by mountains on both sides is death. Drones went ahead of us and we stopped every 500 meters for a sniff-check.

It rained all day Saturday and I was up it only 1500 meters. I kept the rear and made sure we didn't get flanked or pinched or drawn-in.

It was silent.

We drove and hopped and checked like that for days, for days.
I sang Neil Young songs and kicked rocks.

But fuck I loved you, through that dust. A76 was shit, deadly but so fucking shit.
Maybe the Terry had bucked it deeper into the valley.
Fuck, I hope so.
At night we tri-podded the M20 just for kicks.

I slept well on that road.
IEDs, mortars nor snipers riled us.

Two teams were on either side of the road at all times, sifting slowly and looking overhead.

But those letters from you.
They killed me.

You.
In Safeway.
In traffic.
In line to pay your SHAW and TELUS bills.

Fuck you.

I love you.