Montreal, I am a stranger to your concrete bosom.

I am a schooner, navigating your grey and rocky pulse,

Pointing a finger at your blank spaces, fixing upon them.

Saying, “That one. That is mine. And that.”

As I lie to myself and the world I can feel a drawing breath

rushing from the wounded mountain whose name you bear,

Lying still and placid, limbs stretched out in a spreading star.

Montreal I hated you when first I came.

This admission comes not

without remorse, for I repent today. But then

today is special. Today I am myself and you are you

And I love you for it. But then

Then I was young, and borne on the backs of giants

who shrugged me off at port, left me in the cold.

Your October chill struck me like the cruellest of children.

I was taught a lesson,

though words, I feel, would do the lesson an injustice.

Montreal I am trying to tell you something.

I am trying to

I am trying to

I am trying to break free of the stuff. The thing, the composition

I am trying to escape the solution and its cold mix,

that I might find words to call my own. My wielded words

are blunted by whiles of war on your wild weir.

My petty tricks are but cheap and senseless parlour games.

In their mean meaning, they mean nothing.

My god. My god, what red, what red fire.

What red fiery hate I feel, and still you lie, star-limbed,

back arched and ice-capped in March.

Montreal you are patient. You bear my little wanderings and pretensions

as the teacher does the child in his wildest, silent yearnings.

I am myself and you are you, and we lie together for it.

25th March, 2009.