Accident Report - Feb 1 2025

 

Accident Report

Feb 1 2025

It wasn’t an accident.

Not that it was intended.

There was no plan, after all

to intersect in time and space.

For the phone to distract me.

For the vandalized sign

I squinted to make out.

The collision happened

on a clear day

without much traffic

after the snow had been cleared.

Driver error, they say.

But like all bad luck

coincidence

what some would call fate

it’s never one thing.

It’s slices of Swiss cheese

lining up so precisely

that the holes overlap.

Or just a single hole.

Long odds,

but we count on that

to keep us safe.

I barely felt it.

The steel absorbed the impact,

crumpling, deforming

accordioning in,

while the suspension softened the blow;

the big car, that wallows anyway

dipping and swaying

on its plush coil springs

sway bars

and brawny shocks.

The sound seemed to come from somewhere else.

I felt detached,

as if watching from above

time had stopped

this wasn’t my reality.

So I sat

still in my seat and gripping the wheel,

staring blankly

straight ahead.

Until the new normal occurred to me

and you know the rest,

going through the motions

like some 3rd person character

I was watching perform.

Collision sounds loud, violent, destructive.

No turning back the clock.

While accident

is toast

dropped butter-side down,

a misplaced phone,

a butt-dialled call.

You smile, and excuse yourself.

I'm not sure which this was.

We collided hard

but who could see it coming?

Could be responsible,

have altered

the chain of events?

Could anticipate

my momentary lapse,

the black ice and bad tires,

the damaged sign.

That every cut corner

and unexpected delay,

every little thing we did

or didn’t

since getting out of bed that morning

had led to this.

Perhaps the day before.

Which — forget the semantics — is just life as it’s lived;

the countless contingencies

and bad decisions

that rule our fate.

Traffic safety guys prefer collision over accident: while the former describes the moment in time, the latter presumes a cause. Or rather, no cause. When there always is one; or, more accurately, are many: road design, signage, mechanical failure, driver error, bad weather.

Collision is like owning up to your responsibility. Accident is more like shrugging your shoulders. You can learn from a collision. While isn’t an accident just an act of God?

I once experienced something like this. I was probably in my late teens (so back when the mountains were cooling!), driving my father's gigantic (and indeed wallowy!) Grand Marquis (just the name tells you all you need to know), turning left at a significant intersection. So this is what informs my description of the actual moment: that big car cushioned the impact so well I barely felt it! Who needs air bags when you have one of those big old American cars: lots of cosmetic sheet metal and dampening mass.

The poem, of course, isn’t about semantics. (It just started there. The rest was riffing and letting the poem find its way.) It’s about contingency; the delusion of destiny; and the conceit of personal agency. Because shit happens, it’s complicated, and one can control only so much.

Ruled By Fear - Jan 31 2025

 

Ruled By Fear

Jan 31 2025



Standing at the top

braced against the frame

I would peer down through the open door,

eyeing warily

a set of steep narrow stairs

disappearing into the gloom.

They creaked, no matter how softly I stepped,

as if announcing the presence

of an uninvited guest

an unwelcome intruder.

The air changed abruptly

as I descended,

breaking the plane

between the warm air mass above

and the cool damp

sitting heavily below.

Between the kitchen’s savoury scent

and the subterranean must

of mildew and mouse droppings,

old hockey gear

infused with sweat.

I ducked

but still banged my head

on the heavy joists of darkly burnished wood,

rough cut

from old growth timber.

The concrete floor was cold, hard, and unevenly poured,

the walls

cinderblock.

But I’m told that before we came

it was dirt,

and an old coal furnace

rumbled in a corner

spewing soot and toxic smoke.

I suppose cellar

would be more appropriate.

Or perhaps crypt, sepulchre, catacomb.

And my childhood imagination

just made it worse;

straining to hear

scurrying feet and sinister moans

as I fumbled for the light switch.

The brush of spider silk

across my face

would rocket me instantly back

vowing never to return.

Which I can’t

ever since the old house burned.

Ever since the creepy-crawlies that thrived down there,

the rodents

that scurried and fought

and gnawed on the wiring,

and the spirits of the dead

that stalked zombie-like

through its cramped confines

either fled

or were caught unaware.

There’s no going back, they say.

Yet I remember this place

with chilling clarity.

Because fear and revulsion

leave the strongest impression.

Because in childhood

everything is bigger

and more intense.

So while the rest of the house is vague,

the basement

is vivid as ever.

And I’m still looking down

apprehensively,

still cocking my ears for threats.

Find myself going warily

into the unknown

and imagining worse.

Even when I know better.

Even when I know

that ghosts don’t exist

spiders aren’t threatening

and no one’s out to get me.

That the only enemy

lies within.

The Earth is Roughly Pear-Shaped - Jan 29 2025

 

The Earth is Roughly Pear-Shaped

Jan 29 2025

It’s not that the globe is a sphere

or the oceans separate.

There is, after all, only one great sea.

And unlike tectonic plates

grinding against each other

lines on a map can be erased,

redrawn

by acquiescence

or force of arms.

And while scholars may argue

that right and wrong are absolute

and man-made law is relative,

morality is private;

but we all know

the only real law

is what you get away with.

So is nothing as it seems?

Is even the ground under my feet

as solid as it feels,

or will it too

shake, shift, and liquify

open up and fall away?

I seek certainty.

But then, I sought comfort

and it didn’t bring contentment;

sought happiness

without knowing how to get it,

or more important

what it meant.

Perhaps it’s the word itself.

Too smiley, too trite

like pretty and nice.

A happy-face

eating a happy meal;

a happy family,

or one, at least

that makes it look that way.

Or is happy a word like interesting,

too ambiguous

to nail down?

How interesting

you say evasively,

the sort of wishy-washy compliment

that can cut either way?

Or could it be

that happiness was in the seeking

and there all along?

Or not in the seeking at all

but in absence,

not by addition

but by means of subtraction?

The renunciation

of status

stuff

desire,

the satisfaction of needs

instead of wants.

Because when nothing’s as it seems

it makes sense that less is more.

And why bother with right and wrong

when lawlessness

just makes the strong stronger

and the weak afraid?

Or bother with solid ground,

when the earth is mostly water

and continents collide?

In a world of uncertainty

attachment is unwise.

To your earthly treasure

admirers

success.

To your legacy.

Because this too shall pass.

Because even you

won’t last forever

or be remembered long.

I think I was looking at earth from space. At how from a distance our presumptions change: the shape of the planet; the coalescence of the various oceans into one great sea; the artificiality of national boundaries.

Where it went from there was more stream of consciousness. Some interesting ideas. But not so sure how coherent it is. I suppose the unifying theme is uncertainty, the illusion of both permanence and absolutes.

Although I believe there are universal truths: physical law, the nature of the universe. And that right vs wrong is clear. But also that morality is more instrumental than spiritual, and therefore perhaps not as universal/absolute as we’d prefer to think: that things like altruism, empathy, self-sacrifice, an ethos of collectivism, marital fidelity, shame, and guilt have all been selected for in our evolution as a social species, necessary for our survival. (Because we are tribal and interdependent: ostracism is a death sentence; the “self-made man” is a conceit; libertarianism and individualism only take one so far.) Have we chosen between virtue and vice? Exercised moral agency? Or are we simply the instruments of how we were made? So what we regard as good is really just what works, and in some other circumstance might come out differently.

The reflections on happiness are both borrowed and mine. Such a great history of scholarship, religion, philosophy here: what constitutes “the good life”; what does it mean to be happy, and how/where is happiness to be found?

40 Words for Snow - Jan 27 2025

 

40 Words for Snow

Jan 27 2025

A high pressure system barrels in,

dry arctic air

on a fierce north wind

I could lean all my weight against

and still not fall.

Or so it seems,

if I only had the nerve

to lean in all the way.

It scours the open fields,

freeze-drying the snow

into styrofoam.

So instead of slogging through

halfway to my knees

step by arduous step

I stride over the top.

As if I could levitate.

As if, instead of snow-stayed

the world had opened up

and I was free to wander

at will.

Traversing the frozen lakes.

Fording impassable swamps.

Making a bee-line

over uneven ground.

As if the roots and rocks and toppled trees

had been bulldozed aside,

turning the densely tangled woods

into a thoroughfare.

If they really had 40 words for snow

what would this be called?

Sprung, uncaged, unbound?

At least until the first warm spell,

when winter closes in

and the world once again

constricts around me.

And of course they had 40 words.

What else, when your life depends on it.

When snow can set you free

and keep you warm,

can beautify the world

as well as replenish it.

But also bury you.

Can trap your arms and legs

under its leaden weight

where even sound doesn’t escape.

Can leave

you gasping

for what little air is left.

Just a Tell-Tale Sign - Jan 26 2025

 

Just A Tell-Tale Sign

Jan 26 2025

They want to go to Mars,

the Red Planet

the god of war.

On to Mars

because it’s there.

On to Mars

because they want to be first

to set foot on the Martian regolith

and unfurl their flag.

Like the first footprint of man

on the moon’s pulverized soil.

Like Old Glory

planted there triumphantly

all those years ago.

But which by now hangs limply

and has lost its stars and stripes,

battered by sunlight

the solar wind

the passage of time.

The moon,

where we soon lost interest

once victory was ours.

And on to Mars

because there’s a chance that life once flourished there.

So we can reassure ourselves

we’re not alone in the universe.

That life

was not an accident

here on planet Earth

  —  so fantastically unlikely

it could happen only once  —

but arose elsewhere in the cosmos,

perhaps

is commonplace.

Might even be inevitable,

given the alchemy of stars

and what we know

of physical law.

Yet what an irony

that in our search for life

  — or even just a tell-tale sign

that on our sister planet

it may have once existed  —

when we treat life so contemptibly

down here on Earth.

Even starry-eyed dreams

of colonizing Mars.

But who would want to huddle underground

in that lifeless place

when we live in paradise already?

(Or at least, a paradise for now.)

If not the Garden of Eden

or Eden after the fall,

then this fragile blue and green planet

circling alone

in the blackness of space.

Or grimmer dreams

of Mars as escape pod;

fleeing earth

and setting out for the stars

when our one and only home

becomes unlivable.

When we will have left behind

  —  should any explorer

from who-knows-where come after  —

just a tell-tale sign

that life once flourished here.

This podcast — featuring the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson — kick-started this poem.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/92ny-talks/id905112228?i=1000685366793

He, too, is not fan of manned space exploration. Not just that his main area of interest isn’t planetary astronomy, or that the cost doesn’t justify the benefit, or that robots would be better, but also because the return to the moon and the race to Mars are more about geopolitical competition than science.

Instead of dreams of Mars, wouldn’t it be better to invest all the resources, wealth, and brain power of such an adventure into living better down here on earth? I’d much rather see us get things in order here than turn our eyes to the stars. Plenty of time for that. But later. Because right now, time is quickly running out.

Keeping Up Appearances - Jan 23 2025

 

Keeping Up Appearances

Jan 23 2025

Overnight

spider webs appear.

In the sheltering dark

precious silk

is spun into cobwebs

strung into kites,

lifelines

to rappel down and clamber up.

Dew drops

clinging to the strands

shimmer in the dawn,

transform the thin morning light

into precious little rainbows

contained neatly inside.

They’re tiny perfect spheres

and perfectly clear

but perfection doesn’t last,

and in the heat of the sun

are quickly gone;

from pearl necklace

to naked strand.

The spider waits,

poised on long delicate legs

exquisitely tuned

to any hint of quiver;

like a prodigy

fine-tuning her instrument

with an ear to the string.

Will stand stock still

for however long;

an ambush predator

lurking patiently

beside the watering hole.

Multiple eyes, the blackest black, look on, 

unblinkingly fixed.

Their cold indifference is unnerving,

bizarre geometry

disconcertingly alien.

A gossamer trap

to entangle her prey

in its sticky silver threads,

her victim's thrashing

just making it worse;

an unfortunate fly,

entombed

in a silken sarcophagus .

Where it will eventually succumb;

a brittle husk

sucked dry.

But I know none of this

microcosmic drama

game of life and death.

I simply tear down the webs

whenever they appear

because what will people think?

That I'm neglectful

unclean

ungodly?

All that clever chemistry

and engineering artistry

annihilated

in a single swipe;

a hand

brusquely brushing it away,

a broom

stretching up on tiptoe

just high enough to snag.

One impatient man;

keeping up appearances,

keeping nature in her place.

There is probably probably too much going on in this poem. But this sort of microcosm and close observation really appeals to me. I guess the reader has to be willing to surrender to that sensibility: to just be patient, take her time, go along for the ride. T0 take pleasure in the detail. To just sit with it.

After all, reading poetry should not be like surfing the internet or scrolling a text. Life is already rushed enough!

Egg-Shaped - Jan 22 2025

 

Egg-Shaped

Jan 22 2025

How to describe an egg

except to say egg-shaped?

If I was mathematically gifted

I suppose I’d devise an equation

of 3-dimensional space

to model it.

Was an artist,

then a clever trompe l’oeil

you could tell at a glance.

While a better wordsmith

might very well conjure an egg

in simile or metaphor

a pithy paragraph.

But I can do nothing more

than roll it in my hand,

feel its heft,

watch it spin lop-sidedly.

Or crack an egg

with a short sharp sound

and empty it.

Fragments of shell

tenaciously attached

to its jagged edge.

The gauzy membrane lining it,

thin as gossamer

and strong as spider silk.

The gelatinous white

which isn’t white at all,

sending sticky fingers out

until they stop.

And the cyclopean eye

of its boldly yellow yolk,

staring up at me

unblinkingly.

What shape is this, you wonder.

An egg, like any other

yet all its own.

If I have a criticism of the all-knowing Google, it’s just that: sometimes not having the answer is better. Because scientific words are not generally very poetical. And because questions can be far more interesting than answers: open-ended, as well as a spark to creativity.

Apparently, though, there are accepted terms: ovoid or ellipsoid. I also encountered oblate and prolate spheroid, although these two (rotated spheres that are respectively flattened or elongated) are too symmetrical for an egg.

The familiar shape of a chicken egg demonstrates the cleverness of natural selection: it doesn’t just confer strength (while using the least material, which minimizes the cost to the hen), but also helps stop the egg from rolling out of the nest.

Or so I thought. Apparently, I was wrong. After reading this article (below) I’ve reopened this post and added this paragraph and link. 

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/why-are-bird-eggs-egg-shaped/531261/

Dr. Strangelove (or Our Nuclear Family Watches Mushroom Clouds Erupt) - Jan 20 2025

 

Dr. Strangelove

(or Our Nuclear Family Watches Mushroom Clouds Erupt)

Jan 20 2025

Hugs were rare

  —  on special occasions,

or awkwardly

as social norms dictate.

There was no call to share

your day.

And it even felt daring

to say the word “love”;

not just out loud

but to myself.

Clearly, we were not a touchy-feely bunch.

Either repressed, or simply preoccupied

with making a living

getting through each day.

So when I saw my mother cry

  —  really, the only time ever  —

I was 10 years old,

and our nuclear family of 5

were seated in a row

before the silver screen

seeing mushroom clouds erupt

and hearing Vera Lynn’s voice.

It was 20 years after the war,

yet its bittersweet anthem, We’ll Meet Again

must have brought my mother back.

When early on

Hitler seemed unstoppable,

and most of the time

it was impossible to know

if it would end well.

5 terrible years

when hope was scarce

life hard

and friends were killed.

What overcame her

in that unexpected moment?

With all the bombs falling

not so long after Hiroshima,

was it the prospect of war

but this time apocalypse?

Or something from her life

before I came into it?

A time before

that I, a solipsistic child, knew little of

or didn’t asked about,

perhaps

never thought even existed.

But then, aren’t all children little solipsists?

That was the moment

I first saw her as a person

in her own right

  —  ineffable

with hidden depths

and separate from motherhood  —

and not as simply there, as she’d always been,

an eternal presence

taking care.

But what struck me most,

and now, half a century later

I still remember

was seeing such emotion

so openly displayed.

And so, as the bombs fell

and that iconic voice held us all in thrall

I sank into the plush theatre seat

and fixed my eyes on the screen,

unsure what to do

or how to feel.

Just one more lesson

in denial

deflection

detachment.

When the path of least resistance

was to bite my tongue

and pretend I hadn’t noticed.

When, as I’ve now grown to see

words of comfort

or an empathetic touch

would have been far more appropriate.

But wouldn’t she have turned away and waved me off?

To embarrassed by her tears,

too protective

of a private moment

she hadn’t the wherewithal to share?

Because in a family like ours

to cry was unbecoming.

While I was too self-conscious

to show myself,

too inept at emotion

to begin to know how.

When it’s best

to keep your hands to yourself

and eyes straight ahead.

To watch the credits roll

until the very end.

To wait

until the theatre has emptied

the lights have come up

and the curtain has closed.

To when all the tears have been dried

and it’s OK to go.

The waiting until the very end (and I mean “very”!) was actually my father’s thing. He used to be in the movie business, so perhaps he was honouring the hard workers who toiled behind the scenes to make them possible. But I always ungraciously suspected it was his frugality: getting our money’s worth by watching the whole thing. Not a second wasted!

Dr. Strangelove is in my top 3 all-time favourite movies. I love black comedy. It’s a brilliant film, and has beautifully stood the test of time. Peter Sellers’ performance is remarkable, while George C. Scott chews up the scenery. And who can forget the line “our precious bodily fluids”, repeatedly uttered by the cigar chomping general (Sterling Hayden)? I think the black and white not only suits the theme — the either/or of a familiar before and a fateful after; of the contrast in personalities; and of the binary moral choice — but adds to the allure. It gives the film a gritty almost documentary feel that seems both less distracting and less confected than colour. It also firmly grounds the movie in its era. After all, colour film was standard then (no?), so the medium of black and white was clearly an artistic choice.

But I also wonder how much my regard for Dr. Strangelove has to do with this memory?

In my first rough draft, 10 yeas old seemed about right. Later, I checked: I was born in ‘55, and the movie was released in ‘64. Which really seems too old. Not for the discomfort, but the awareness. Kids are not only smarter and grow up faster these days, but I think I was especially clueless: smart academically; but too self-conscious, as well as too inept when it came to managing emotions and dealing with vulnerability.