It Depends on your Definition of Spring (A Love Poem for PG)

*
Lady Liberty stakes her claim on Victoria St.
surrounded by dirty cafes’ who sit as comments on cognitive dissonance
Preaching realistic bullshit while rearranging red
drapery over her breasts.

*

The imaginary girlfriend who recites Hemingway & Yeats
while brewing homemade beer.

She’ll wink at Monroe when passing by garbage bags full of Budweiser empties
that are only noticed when they give a residual shutter
but otherwise remain as a claim to how much one can sustain.

*

Bob Marley sings
from every other car
while the hordes trample into the woods.
Crystallized breath no matter the temperature
flip flops & hiking boots
manipulate Summer into appearing.
A trek to Shane Lake introduces
dancing on thin ice and (un)invited advances
by the future.

*

Forest for the World’s opposition
under a canopy of machines.
With communal growth protecting
a frozen patch
creeping audibly through dead leaves.
The fallen trees & broken branches
breakdown trying to maintain a barrier
between circular & linear.
The (im)balance caught inside past & present
bounces & flutters in vivid colors
directing the conversation
around winter’s defense.

*

There stands a man on Edmonton
whose sunken eyes no longer see the world
instead has a person stare at his words in
horror / approval / dislocated ignorance
inside of him there once was a woman
in some form or another.

*

Clustering associates on the curb’s edge
away from the half hearted shelter of the bus stop
Save On bags discontent with their contents
shouldn’t have/should have bought that cheese cake
exhaust from the 4X4’s
lingers with that scent
protruding off the cutbanks
as it slides on it’s belly, fondling the bowl and
licking the heights.

*

Pick up gasping hitchhikers
swaying on the highway outside prison gates
w/ a cardboard sign that says
“Going Anywhere”
Paying for fuel with vague generosity
while contemplating social hygiene.

*

The Northern Identity thru Art
Space of comfort for the unknowns.
Spirit Bear humor
sprouting from the stately deformity
of flailing architecture that hugs its snow banks.

*

The surprise of the North
and its people who scatter the streets.
Stereotypes fling themselves into hiding under the
haze of the mills.
Dismayed by its shift in consciousness and
collapsing ideals.