Friday, December 30, 2011

Precious Metal
Dec 28 2011


This anniversary
is 65 years.
They must look back
proud, but astonished.
My parents, married
in the last century
go gamely on.

A small ceremony,
suitably modest
owing little to God
all the witnesses gone
by now,
but still, they keep their vows.

No milestone number.
No precious substance
to commemorate 65.
So I will call it steel,
the tensile strength
that holds against
temper, and minor transgression.
That is not compressed, or deformed
by the pent-up storms
of argument
annoyance.

Some might say
duty
force of habit
fear of change.
So is this inertia
or is it love?
I don’t mean infatuation
consuming passion.
I mean the grown-up love
of fondness, attachment,
that only comes
with the passage
of years.

A weld so tough
2 become 1.
Solid steel, just a little rust,
drop-forged, hot-rolled
well-honed.
Strong enough
to last a lifetime.


I originally wrote this as “63”. (My counting ability leaves something to be desired!) Of course, the poem works much better that way, since “3” rhymes with “steel”, and “63” is suitably uneven:  more like the number you pass on the way somewhere than the destination. Furthermore, I consulted Wikipedia, and apparently there is a precious metal for 65 — the Blue Sapphire. On the other hand, so few people make it to 65 that hardly anyone knows this, and even fewer care. So in the end, “65” works almost as well. …And one can hardly let those 2 extra years go unrecognized!


Suds
Dec 28 2011


I have not blown bubbles in years.
Perfect spheres
that disappear
into insubstantial air,
a little pop
of wetness.
Dish soap, and breath,
blowing through my plastic wand.

Small ones sail off
at the mercy of wind.
Big ones wobble
don’t last long.
Surface tension, and iridescence
squeaky with light;
a delightful froth
if whimsy
and giddiness.

I have been doing dishes for years,
yet nearly forgot.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Out of Phase
Dec 27 2011


When you are a child
everything is as it should be
no matter what.
A green planet
that circles a yellow sun.
A single moon
that comes, and goes, each month.

Later, you will realize
your parents have a life of their own.
The teachers do not live at school.
Bad people
look perfectly normal.

If there were 2 moons
the tides would pile up-and-up,
swamp us
as we slumber.
Blue moons
would happen more than once,
miracles
become ho-hum.
We’d sing romantic songs
still croon
our soft seductions,
but in the brightness
feel humbler.
Too shy
to get undone.

Still, their light would shine on us
half a world away,
we’d both look up
and see the sky
the same.
Sharing a view
may be small consolation,
a multiplicity of moons
confusing.
But try to see the lunacy
of 2 full moons,
of intersecting phases.

Still, I am grateful
things turned out as they should.
A sliver of moon
I foretell for you
half a world apart.
A yellow sun
that lights you up
wherever on earth you are.

In my mind’s eye.
And all the more
at night.

Monday, December 26, 2011

Small Fruit
Dec 24 2011


Small fruit
is intense,
sweet tart crisp.
Does not expend itself
in the gaudy glitz
of bigness,
showing-off.
Like a beautiful girl
who let herself go,
the ingénue
who lost her freshness,
blousy, soft
debauched.

There is the peak of perfection,
the elegant stem
and delicate blush,
redolent
and on the cusp
of ripeness.
Before corruption
worms its way in.
The apple of his eye
he cannot resist.

There is low-hanging fruit
to sate appetite,
forbidden fruit
to arouse
his desire.
Teeth, tongue, lips
breaking through the glossy skin
then rich flesh, sinking in.
To the hard nub of seed,
containing all that’s needed
for life.
The esoteric knowledge
of DNA,
that may, or may not
breed true.

A moveable feast
of small fruit.
Because less is more.
And sure to leave
him wanting.

I almost always select small fruit. It's usually more flavorful, if less gaudy:  more nuanced, concentrated, intense. I was reminded of this while reading a recent New Yorker article about apple breeding (the SweeTango, in particular). Which gave me the first 2 lines. From there, the poem pretty much wrote itself.

I'm not sure what it is about apples, but this is my second "erotic" apple poem. (The first was Red Delicious.) Although I suppose the Garden of Eden might explain things. That is, if the corrupting knowledge was sex. (After all, it may have been the dawning of self-consciousness, self-awareness. Or perhaps the questioning and resentment of God's presumed omnipotence.)  ...Although, according to the article, the Biblical apple of Adam and Eve was more likely a pomegranate than an apple!
Space-Age Material
Dec 5 2011


In the small vestibule,
where my breath condenses
in the frigid air,
and frost has formed
on the clear glass door
in curlicues
and lacy patterns.

Where the floor is strewn
with boots and toques
abandoned, scattered.
Mittens, mismatched
gloves, one-handed.

And where you can smell the cold
that swept-in, as I entered
like an arctic blizzard,
I stand
fingers numb,
can’t unlace, unzip
unbutton.
Congealed beard
dripping, running.

This small cubicle
my mother used to call
the decontamination chamber.
Enclosed, self-contained,
like a space station airlock
sealing-off
the frozen vacuum
from the warm bright interior.

So here I stand
waiting for the temperature to rise
pressures equalize,
eyelashes thaw, beard soften.
Waiting to regain
manual dexterity,
extricate myself
from these heavy protective layers
of space-age material.
And enter into a blast of heat,
dry winter air, the smell of cooking
that will not be vented
‘til spring.

I could see the place forever
walking home
along the bleak rural road,
the lighted window, plume of smoke.
A tiny outpost
in a vast and trackless space,
like a small star, in the distance.
Just one, of millions,
but growing bigger and bigger;
looming large
preparing to dock.

Unless my trajectory is off
just a bit
 — a near miss,
and I would go drifting on
into infinity.
A tiny astronaut, falling farther and farther,
oxygen, close to exhaustion
the cold
seeping in.
A frozen body
tumbling through the cosmos
non-stop.

A simple winter walk,
lost
until it thaws
next spring.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Season’s Greetings
Dec 23 2011


The British say “Happy Christmas”.
This strikes our ear like a minor chord,
a confusion
of holidays.
How terribly British 
understated,
the proper distance
for strangers.

Here, it’s “Merry”.
The forced gaiety.
The jolly elf
stuffing himself
with pillows,
some liquid refreshment.

But this makes sense.
Because “happy” is complicated.
We think we know what we want,
then waste a lifetime
learning
what makes us happy.
While merriment is easy to fake.
Like the obligation
to get wasted
on New Year’s.
The celebration
of some arbitrary date
in undifferentiated winter.

“Season’s Greetings” is always OK.
It does not presume faith
or festivity.
Its meaninglessness conveys
the perfect balance
of non-committal
conviviality.

So praise
the rebirth of light.
Kiss her
under the mistletoe.
Resolve to find meaning
and contentment.
Make merry,
and let the happiness
take care
of itself.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Inscribed in Stone
Dec 22 2011

“You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour’s.”


The broken rule
lay shattered
where it had slipped from my grasp.
Rules are meant to be broken
I consoled myself.

The golden rule
we melted down for cash.
The fatted calf
my neighbour’s ass
I’d always secretly coveted.

The 10th commandment,
that banished even thoughts
of envy,
his wife, his ox
his anything.
The first thought crime
of an Orwellian God,
who is devoutly believed
omniscient.

I admit, I am flawed.
My mind
is a law unto itself
resists all jurisdiction.
And who among us
isn’t?

The game is fixed
the rules rigged.
The winners win,
the rich
get even richer.
Where they smugly sit
secure in the myth
of self-made men.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Hard Water
Dec 20 2011


My water well is going on 30.
The steel pipe, still holding
straight down
into fractured rock.
Where the temperature
is constant,
darkness
absolute.

It is topped by a steel cap
that long lost its lustre,
now a rusted earthen dun.
Lifted off, I peer down to bedrock,
letting sun
come flooding in.
Where light
is unnatural, alien,
perhaps awakening
the bowels of the earth,
dormant
for a million years.

Hard water, inky black
seeping into the shaft.
How long
since it went underground?
Since it was warmed by sun,
gave life
or drowned it?

The well has been bad;
silt, perhaps
a shift in the strata,
tilted, compressed
collapsed.
Up it comes
tasting cold, metallic,
water that fell from the sky
some summer long past.

All this time
in the lifeless airless depths,
sweet water
waiting to quench me.
Then spread into vessels, capillaries, cells,
like a river
churning through its delta.
Branching out,
sinking
into the rich alluvial soil
of my flesh.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Best Before
Dec 16 2011


A carton of milk
half full
expired.
At the back of the shelf
shadowed by leftovers.
Best before.

I squint, contort
reaching in,
when the sour smell
hits me cross-eyed.

Pasteurized, pure
half-empty, turned,
this is surely some kind of miracle.
Virginal milk
bubbling with life.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Half Right
Dec 15 2011


The end of the world came
and went.
He had proclaimed the date,
then fretfully awaited
the apocalypse.

The second time he’d missed.
Just half wrong,
because the world will end
it's the date that eludes him.
If not divine intervention, then tectonic change
if he lives that long,
in a cosmic fireball
burst of gamma rays.

So all his worldly goods
are gone
and he must rely on providence.
The kindness of strangers
the grace of God.

Skyscrapers hum, streets are bustling
the sturm und drang.
Intrigues of the schoolyard
going on and on.
So while he adds up the begats
parses prophecy,
interrogates Scripture
for hints and signs,
the world is indifferent
the end is nigh.
He will predict again;
sure, this time.

If only he had realized
that with every death
a universe ends.
So he will be half right
6 billion times.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Closed For the Season
Dec 14 2011


I slip into the park
in winter.
How odd, to be alone
where it was green,
busy, buzzing, lush.

No one wants to trudge
through thick wet snow.
Or be exposed
to the skinny limbs of trees,
stripped down
to bone.

The ground, the sky
are both a lumpy white
      concrete, left to set,
the dull weight of lead.
The land is at rest,
restoring itself
in this cool dormancy.

Summer’s excess
cold sober,
perhaps contemplating its regrets.
A brief sojourn
in this white asylum
for the badly behaved
and over-heated.

A strutting crow
caws accusingly;
a murder of crows
joins in.
Do they close the park
this time of year?
Some unwritten rule
I have transgressed?

Black mischievous birds
are contemptuous
of seasons.
They own the place
all year.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

No Harm Done
Dec 8 2011


The well-kept distance
averted glance.
Malicious whispers
snickering laughs.
Moms shield kids
herding them past,
or cross the street
and never look back.

Refused food, service, gas,
graffiti-tagged
and broken glass.
Even their trash
went uncollected.
Until it came to talk
of burning crosses
brake lines cut.
From objects of fun
to vandalized, shunned
run out-of-town.

Rumour was
they were carriers.
Some virus, or bug
but wouldn’t succumb themselves.
Or was it some vile idea
that could subvert the good people
of this God-fearing town?

We’re entitled to protect ourselves, after all.
So we resented being presented
as credulous peasants
armed with pitchfork, and torch,
fire-breathing preachers
exhorting us on.
I mean, who’s the underdog here
who’s been wronged?

In the end, they left on their own
no harm done.
So now, we can let out our daughters
after dark
disarm our sons.
Thank God
we were spared
from who knows what.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Hungry for Sleep
Nov 24 2011


I burrow into sheets
quilts, duvets, and fleece,
huddle underneath
heavy comforters;
a thin-skinned infant
clutched in fetal warmth.
But must eventually emerge
into the cold dark world
of morning.
Its leaden sky
gun-metal light,
wet snow
thin blanket of ice.

Hungry for sleep
craving sweets
my reserves are low.
Then after work
I again return
to dusk,
its sullen skies
and stingy light,
ruts of frozen snow.
Stumbling through days
in a sleepless haze
I am an automaton,
going through the motions.

While friends have returned
from getaways
red from tropical sun.
Who, for the rest of winter
will never adjust,
chill cutting right to the bone.

But still
I can’t help but imagine
hot dry sand,
underfoot
between my toes.
Even as I chose to stay
stoic, and staid.
Smug to have endured
adversity,
a snob of weather.

Including those postcard days
that have me wide awake
    the brilliant light
and cobalt sky,
the blinding white
of perfect virgin snow.
When a high pressure system
blasts its way in,
and sleep
can happily wait.

My One Great Adventure
Nov 24 2011


I find I am living in the future.
Not a grim green-house planet.
Not flying cars.
Not disembodied brains
floating under glass
on life support.
But when there is way more past
than looking forward.

Like a long road trip, unplanned,
that began
with bright-eyed hope
on a well-scrubbed morning
travelling light.
Plenty of time
to accumulate baggage.
Where I went without maps,
slept badly
in flea-bag motels,
depended
upon the kindness of strangers.

Towed, ticketed, and limping-in
out of gas
on thumping flats.
Exits missed
and hitch-hiker lifts
and stuck
in icy ditches.
The body dented and dusted and spattered with bugs,
rust
bubbling-up
just under the surface.

Until the novelty wears off.
The drudgery
of making time, and mileage.
The radio on
with the same sad songs
of love, and loss.
They come in strong, then fade as quickly,
passing in, and out, of range.

Because I was not Kerouac
or Hunter S. Thompson.
There were no gonzo riffs
psychedelic trips,
or even a hint
of excess.
Not at all
what I started out
expecting.

Because at the end of the road
the future is much like the past.
Except for new gadgets
to distract us;
and that all of a sudden
everyone
seems to have gotten that much younger.

Now the old car is grounded,
and I have settled down
with only minor regrets.
Not much left
of the stuff I once valued.
So I will leave
much as I came 
with a minimum of fuss
and baggage,
helpless
unselfconscious,
in a natural state of undress.

At best remembered
by the next generation
before the future completely forgets.
A journal, some photos
all that are left
of my one great adventure.