Brian MacMillan

Once a month the bills come due.
What I won’t do to make rent.
Don’t want to be homeless.
Don’t want to be cold.
Don’t want to go hungry.
Don’t want to be poor.

I can pull you east and I can pull you west but I cannot rule you.

A red-black lock of hair falls upon your shoulder,
perhaps displaced by a ray of light.
Suddenly there’s motion.

My plane chases the sun across a sky that is divided into hemispheres of
retreating light and advancing dark.
Looking forward I cannot see my destination and my origins are dim.
Yet the shadow over my shoulder does grow longer
as the darkness creeps west
Glow, afterglow, gone

Sent to London: It was like he was asking me to go on a suicide mission, not meet with our London team.

Still air, calm lake, silent trees.
There is no time when nothing moves.
Listen to the silence.

Outside the serious sounds of night:
The wind in the trees, the rustling of the leaves,
So immediate and yet so distant.
Your head lies upon my shoulder,
A picture of serenity:
Your resting face is so very beautiful.
I shiver and pull you closer.

Stirring sounds in the fading night,
Echoes of day in the broken light that shines through our window and gently warms us.
I caress your cheek then kiss your forehead.
You open your eyes, awake.
Dawn: my lover smiles.

Light touch withdrawn then refrain.
Love’s simple beginning:
We touch again.

A moody breeze rustles the flowers surrounding a weather stained cross.
It simply marks a forgotten loss,
Perhaps a life stolen or death met with aged dignity.
We persist as ash.
We persist as dust.
We persist in memory.
Eroded by the rain.
Scattered by the wind.
Faded by the sun.

I thought that this was the subway,
Not a Fellini film full of freaks and dwarves.
My linen suit is drenched in sweat.
Worse, this beggar keeps hassling me.
Sure I’m sad that you’re homeless and dying of AIDS.
And I’m amazed that you can play jazz with your palsied hands.
Just don’t touch my power tie.

The force that moves us forward
The inertia that keeps us still.
The chaos that wreaks havoc with stasis and will.

I sit alone in my room.
Everything seems so slow.
But the world keeps turning.
The world keeps turning.
Turning.

There is movement,
There is change.
Everything is getting heavier.
Everything is turning to lead.
Slower.
Heavier.
Slower.

Reflection kills my passion.

Consonants sure can be sharp.
Ever been nicked by a K?
And don’t get me started on vowels.
O’s, what a pain!
Impossible to pack.
To say nothing of dipthongs.
You think Ous and Aies fit in carry on luggage?
No way.

How does your lover look?
Her beauty varies with the light.
At dawn she is translucent,
Skin tinted by the sun’s quiet rays.
Afternoon she shines and
Evening time somber hair,
Pale skin, grey eyes.

How does your lover move?
Let me tell you how she moves.
Oh, how she moves.
She moves like wind.
Each step a gust,
Which gathers leaves then scatters them in a frantic autumn dance.

How does your lover dance?
She dances like morning with the measured gait of an early breeze,
She lingers like twilight then explodes in darkness.
Her steps spin the world.
Slow dawn, still dusk, fast night.
Oh, how my lover dances.

Dawn you wear a translucent gown,
A scarf of wind, a shawl of dew.
Mid-morning turns the gown to gold,
The wind is hot, the day grows old.

After noon your clothing turns to grey,
Highlighted by colors from the sun’s fading rays.
Evening time, cold, brittle light,
Blanket yourself with sable night.

I’ll have one of those pink Martini’s.
Not to be outdone I order something that James Bond might drink.
A kick start to the evening.
Two drinks appear.
So soon. Too soon.
And perfectly mixed.
I don’t trust this bartender.

The next hour is everything that a Manhattan date should be.
My date has enough wit and charm for three Dorothy Parkers,
And nicer eyes.
I’m less convincing as James Bond,
But I know my strengths and play to them.

Another round?
Certainly, we reply in unison.
Our drinks appear in the blink of an eye.
Perfectly mixed.
I wonder what made me mistrust this bartender?

More wit, more charm, more repartée.
Another round.

The alcoholic energy that propelled me forward just one hour ago has become gyroscopic:
If I slow down I wobble, if I speed up I will surely fall down.
I’m keeping a good pace right now but the bartender – he is a demon – has an evil plan.
Another round?
What was that?
Another round mixed and served before I process the question.

Time for a reality check.
My neurons are indeed still firing but in a random way, like shells in a burning munitions dump.
This most recent drink is like lighting a match in that dump.
An emblem of destruction but hardly the cause: the damage is already done.
I better make this my nightcap.

My date certainly looks beautiful right now.
She’s flushed, animated and friendly.
Unfortunately she’s speaking some foreign language, maybe French.
Strange phrases like “capital markets” and “return on equity” float out of her mouth like quotations from
Goethe.
No, not French, she’s speaking German.
Too bad I never studied German.
I think its time to move the date onto a more physical plane.

I look at her,
She looks at me,
We touch.
We continue to look at each other. We keep touching.
Is this love or is she trying to steady herself?
There’s only one way to find out.
I reel off my stool and into her arms.

Something is wrong!
Passion shouldn’t be this moist this soon.
Sorry, I spilled your drink, let me clean it up.
Let me help you.
Thud.
Sorry, I spilled your drink.

I think its time for you two to go home.

We were lucky that night.
We were let off with just a warning.

To my partner in Martini crime: a fictionalized account of my first date with Amanda at Monzu. Written July 4-5 1998.

Everything turns pale as red disappears for another day.
A moment passes,
Yellows fade to blue,
Deepening blue,
Limned by the yellow and white of man-made light,
Prolonging day, denying night.
Even these lights go out one by one.
The tempo on the street stills and stops.
The last light goes out.
Darkness.

The fields are very bleak this winter.
The soil is clumped and hard and covered by dirty snow.
The trees are skeletal and the birds have long since left.

I know in time that this will pass and life again will be renewed.
But I won’t be here.
I’m going to where the sky is dark and the air is cold.
I’m going there as I lived my life here,
Alone.

We try to dance, but her rhythm is not mine.
I persist: keep dancing, have another drink.
Another drink? I’ve already had two.
She excuses herself and leaves.
I dance until dawn, and at dawn before I sleep, she rises and goes for a ride in the park.
At noon I awake in my Soho loft,
Alone, because she was Uptown and I was not.

June 30, 1998.

Shimmer shimmer summer pool.
Sparkling water diamond cool.
Slither slither water snake,
Whither whence slither through your fate.

A moody breeze rustles the flowers surrounding a weather stained cross.
It simply marks a forgotten loss,
Perhaps a life stolen or death met with aged dignity.
We persist as ash.
We persist as dust.
We persist in memory.
Eroded by the rain.
Scattered by the wind.
Faded by the sun.

September 10, 1998 train ride from NY to Toronto, reflecting on my father’s mortality.

Life

The force that moves us forward
The inertia that keeps us still.
The chaos that wreaks havoc with stasis and will.

Silent Dusk

Still air, calm lake, silent trees.
There is no time when nothing moves.
Listen to the silence.

April 13, 2000

Solitary Cross

A moody breeze rustles the flowers surrounding a weather stained cross,
That simply marks a forgotten loss,
Perhaps a life stolen or death met with agéd dignity.
We persist as ash.
We persist as dust.
We persist in memory.
Eroded by the rain.
Scattered by the wind.
Faded by the sun.