I think I shall never see...

I think I shall never see
a poem as lovely as
a cat wrapped around
the leg of a chair
finessed in Grand Rapids,

Grecian columns
scarred with
claws and
the slashing dents
a gnawing provides,

A calico's hair
that makes me sneeze
napping
in the puddle of sunlight

until
a sudden noise
makes the animal
straighten and go rigid,

claws splayed,
insanity in its eye,

writhing on its back
as if break dancing,
tearing at the air
until it winds up on all fours

ready to tussle, rumble,
a hiss the sound of
fast, panicked air
streaming from a hot pipe,

until
it sits
and grooms its electric
tongue
with a tongue
that has tasted
the oddest things.

motor way: driving to Ontario

as far North
as my neck would turn
and see so muddy, crusted roads
winding through woods
that could be future pencil boxes
or a half used reams
of wheat hued paper.

lights dance
on the rim
and underscore the rime
collected at the
edges of things
made with a torch
and an assortment of hammers.

these tall buildings
ring the public square
as we play chess
on hard cement tables
sitting on chairs
with backs made of
grey, weathered slats.

somewhere on this road
lies a guitar that fell from a truck
driving through Ontario
toward the Ambassador Bridge.

a half used notebook
full of poems in
the slang of two warring languages
lies face up in a drainage ditch
outside a factory
specializing in cyclone fenced
ringed with barbed wire,
big pipes feeding brown fluids
to the river.