14.02.16

Things to Do around Vancouver, an Imaginary City

(after Gary Snyder)

Watch another one come down
Wait for the big one to bring it all down
Tread with irony and an eye to harvesting patterns
Feed a man lying on a bench before tossing crumbs to pigeons
Float down the Fraser smelling salmon spawn

Track piles: sulphur,
coal, red fife, chipped
old growth, demolished
homes, rubble, dog shit

Lie naked at night, listening to storms pound rooftops
Flirt in a crosswalk in passing as the light turns to amber
Seeking residue of the radicalized 70's
Un-real estate your conversation while living apart together
Bike to Finn Slough and picnic amid
      stilted shacks and blackberry thorns
Count food counters on Commercial Drive or eat
      pho along the King's Highway, now Little Saigon

Waiting in line at the same grocer for thirty years
Renaming a street after a forgotten lover
Drink pints, call it pinting
Invent a game, name it flinch

Seek a new edge beyond the seawall or tree-line
Sit on a bench and count strangers
Chase crows flocking to Willingdon
Trace the ridgeline separating lost streams
Stare into holes
Shades of grey
Names for rain
Counted layers