Flow State by Ryan Racine

“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water.”

 -Bruce Lee

Graffitied train carts mock the lineup of
halted vehicles, forcing us to direct our attention
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡to the tower in
the distance whispering
the swelling breath of
tourism.

Thick mist plays hopscotch on
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡the front windows, shielding us as spectators
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡from the Falls’
‡‡‡‡flow.

Upon parking on the Hill,
our newspaper umbrellas
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡become wishing wells,
where cacophonous cellulous break down
to form
unfamiliar intimacies of newly amalgamated
‡‡‡‡‡‡narratives.

As we get close to the
seventh wonder,
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡secreted ink
swim into
a symbiosis that roll further down our face, where Bush is
‡‡‡‡‡seducing Bin Laden and police
brutality has
become a national sport.

Ryan Racine earned his master’s of English language and literature from Brock University. Racine is currently working as a high school teacher and college instructor in Ontario. His poetry can be found in The Steel Chisel, Pauses/Words/Noises, The Brock University Anthology, Pictures & Portraits, Ekphrastic, Joypuke, Weekly Poems, and PACE Magazine.

See other poems by Ryan Racine on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project website:
•    Sorting Skins
•    Worldly Wounds