In endearing silence,
Exists the stillness of black and white,
The painter holds the palette against their chest,
And their heartbeat colours in the pigments,
As their brush strokes the canvas,
Droplets of light begin to surround you,
Like floating fireflies, or stars on earth,
And in your eyes, colour blooms,
You sit, framed, in black and white,
But the smile you wear when you stare at wonder,
Brings your colours back to life,
The painter captures a portrait,
Made from the paper of destiny,
A picture of you finding yourself,
As the silence waves goodbye,
Leaving behind echoes of your hopeful laugh.

This femme fatale
A girl that captures
She be bright and skin tight
Shiny white with youth implied
Conversing in quirky loops
As we jump through her hoops
Slowly showing error codes
Could it be the alcohol
Clap snap of bear traps
Broken from within
Signs of white lines that fracture
Reactions to vast echoes of her past
Trauma tinged before the dawn
Soft but informed
A hardened persona with claws

Tides continue to turn
Though Rome has changed
The sun still circles as people pray

Prompted to pace
Echoes of rage
Darkness seeps in the shadows
of her longest day
Still we afraid

Little bubbles rise from the fireside
Frustrations heard on the mount
Count in reverse internally and observe the confusion or clout
Why do you serve one of the two when collision rules for the powerful

brief echoes of the past
arrange themselves in my present
like shadow puppets on the backs
of my eyelids while i sleep.  

there is an uneven fulcrum
digging into my lower back no
matter how i turn my long
body.

my eyes open into
the same familiar room, with
the same familiar speckles on the
ceiling that they always do.   the
shadows resume their innumerable
forms and i wake
to write another step towards
the beveled edge of immortality.

Hands held and submissive breathing, walls taking, walls caving. No translation needed
Pride taken, tap left unopened

Here i am making the most of a something i can never have for myself.
Sistine chaples made on a canvas i might never touch again.

In the North we had the cold war. Sirens screamed; we crouched under desks, thin arms covering thinner heads. We were post Pompeii petrifies waiting for a future dig. We never left an atomic shadow.
This  sums up all life-threatening fears of the Boomers, the Echoes, the A's through Z's. Of course, Boomers then were too young to worry.

We've never had planes or bombs fall from our skies (there was the Arrow disaster).
We've never had a crop blight, famine or drought.
Food has never been rationed.
Hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons or tornados don't happen here;
We get snowfalls we plow through till they melt.
We're non-tsunami. Flooding is seasonal, geographically isolated, and dealt with.
We've had no great fires or earthquakes like San Fran or London.
We've never been drafted, and only go to wars of our own choosing.
We have not been invaded or occupied;
P.E.I. has no extermination crematoriums.
We avoided Inquisitions, Salem witch hunts and Small Pox blankets.
We've had no Race Riots, but a few barricades have gone up and down.

Death comes to us as to all. Car accidents, dumb-*** accidents, and even ******. Though never expected, always anticipated. We grieve, some longer than others. It's not easy, but we manage the shock.

When the glaciers glide past the coast of Nova Scotia, on the way to New York, my generation (and probably yours) will have been replaced.

But now! We're asked to Social Distance and wash with soap and water. In Canada we have plenty of both. I'll occupy my three square feet of space for several weeks (knowing there are only 52 in a year). No complaints. No asinine TP runs. Just behaving myself, HUMANELY.