Friday, October 28, 2011

Carry On
Oct 27 2011


I jog on grass
on cinder paths
in manicured rows.
Granite stones, and marble
flashing past,
fresh cut flowers
that will not last.

How many years
to weather this rugged rock,
names and dates worn-off
to a smooth dull finish?
I sometimes stop
and trace a stone with my hand,
the cool surface
inscrutable words,
families, forgotten
ancestors lost.
I gather they frown
upon joggers
in this public place
full of private sorrows.
So I tread softly
and carry on.

In one far corner
where the ground drops off
into dense brush
a frugal creek
I come across smaller stones, set oddly closer.
Children do not die
nearly as often now.
But back then families were large
and seemed more accepting of death,
early ends, almost expected.

I take my time, and read their ages,
sentimental inscriptions
cherubic angels.
A small cemetery
within a large graveyard,
within a middling city
that carries on.

And where I jog,
until I go to my rest, as well.
I do not mean
to be disrespectful.
I believe I honour the dead
with effort, and sweat
a life well-lived.
And think of the children
loved, and missed.


I no longer jog. And I only jogged there a couple of times, at most. But I still remember the poignancy of coming upon those small stones, in an overgrown corner, set slightly off. I love exploring old cemeteries, deciphering the old headstones. As for me, I’d rather be thrown into a cardboard box and buried in the forest, at the foot of a tree. No grave marker necessary.
One Free Hour
Oct 27 2011


The clocks will change,
that precious extra hour
we banked in spring
reclaimed
interest-free.
Then the lake will freeze, snow deepen,
until the longest night of the year
when spring seems barely possible.

But in the tropics
neither north, nor south
there are only two seasons 
day, and night.
Precisely 12 hours, on the equator
day in, day out
month after month.
Just hurricanes
to break the monotony.
In the doldrum heat,
where underneath, there’s rot
and the soil’s exhausted
and you can set your clock
by the sun.
No deep freeze
to reset the earth.
No season of rest
and latency.
No burrowing pests
killed by killer frost.

I know the living is easy
weather, an afterthought.
But at what cost?
No long hot summer
to measure out our lives.
No mid-winter night
with its glimmer of light
that proclaims the world reborn.
No extra hour
on a Sunday morn,
cocooning closer
and doing whatever we please.

In this illicit hour
we needn’t account
to anyone for.


A poem of gratitude for 4 distinct seasons.

And a rare poem, in that I conclude with a preposition – not just a line, but the entire piece:  a very weak word with which to end. But the word “for” not only works with the rhyme (reborn/morn/for), it flouts grammatical correctness, and in so doing creates a feeling as free as that illicit hour.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Skipping Rocks
Oct 26 2011


How many tries did it take
to skip my first stone?
At an age
when wonder was possible.
Before the world would become mundane
stopped surprising me.

Rocks sink,
and an unsuspecting boy
could also drop
through insubstantial water
and drown,
diving blind, unsupervised.
The treachery of water
as I had been told;
yet not always so.

A gentle chop to the surface
the ripples a purchase
for rocks,
smooth and cool in my hand
from a million years
of washing up and down the shore.
Or a dazzling mirror, as hard as tempered glass
that can counter-act
the law of gravity.

My record is 7,
until it stutters to a stop
and vanishes
for another million years.
Like Zeno’s  paradox
the arrow that goes half the distance, then half again
and never gets to the end.
At least as far
as theory goes.
And the rock
losing distance with every skip,
and me imagining
it never quite finishes.
An unsinkable rock
that may be out there, still.

Now, all grown-up
I sometimes feel I'm that smooth flat rock
skipping across the water,
the mirrored sky
the glare of light.
But never breaking the surface
penetrating deeper.
The perpetual mystery
of the bottomless lake,
its cold dark depths.

I don’t remember how many times;
but I recall feeling triumphal.
That I had acquired
this compulsive knack
that would serve a lifetime.
That I had the power
to overturn the laws of nature,
if for just a second, or two.

A mere child
toying with all the rules.
When the entire world
was delightfully new.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Something Is Out There
Oct 22 2011


Fall is fleeting, here.
Summer ends abruptly,
and winter comes
with an early snow.
So this uncertain season
is all the sweeter;
as common things are cheap,
as we seek out
the rare, and ephemeral.

Leaves turn briefly,
trees, stripped clean
in the first big blow.
The sun is low, shadows long
and nights hang on
as if darkness
will overtake the earth.

This is the season of in-between
chores all done
last leaves raked-up,
and we’re given permission
to eat, and sleep.
The air is sweet
with wood-smoke,
the light is pure, and soft.
Time to wonder
about a hard winter
an early thaw.

But the dog
is piss and vinegar,
hackles erect
at the door again,
this dog who rarely barks.
Deer, on the move
and something is out there,
beyond the cedars
that mark off  my yard
from the darkened forest beyond.
A cordon of green
on guard.

She charges
like a cannon shot,
a born predator
honed for pursuit.
But with the sense to stop
at the property line, the circle of light
barking furious.

The deceptive cedars,
a single row of majestic trees
evenly space, manicured neat
that mask the wild wood,
where creatures lurk
and even the dog demurs.
Will go
no further.

Out there,
where winter comes
that much earlier.
The season of hunger and cold.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Gumboots
Oct 16 2011


Fine-grained, sun-drenched.
Beach sand
under bare feet,
which have toughened up
through half a summer.
I can still feel the heat,
silky softness
sinking in.
All ten toes
giddy with freedom.

Fall, though, is the most indelible.
The crunch of leaves
in crisp October,
the earthy smell.
A dry rustling, in the breeze;
and swept before a blow,
skirling, swirling
hurtling to leeward.
Then half-submerged,
a soggy reminder
of worse.

When it’s cold enough
and freshly covered with snow,
you break the perfect surface
with a squeaky rub,
felt, as much as heard.
No secrets, this time of year,
the tell-tale tracks
of your comings and goings.
Until the next inevitable storm
makes over
the world.

And after the annual thaw
gumboots on
you’re a kid once more,
striding through puddles
the slurping suck
of mud.
When a boot gets stuck
and you pull out, suddenly,
a sorry sock
dangling off.
In a mad dance
on one good leg,
accompanied
by tuneless expletives. 

But even then
I think of fall,
that luminous carpet of leaves,
the satisfying crunch
beneath.
Under a high transparent sky,
too blue
to believe.
Made by Hand
Oct 15 2011


Get a hobby, I was told.
All successful people
have one.
It will do you good
make you less morose.

Music, though, would offend the neighbours,
the painful strains
of the tortured viola.
And art seems a waste
    really, is there anything left to paint?
So I thought about things made by hand.
Of the pleasure
of esoteric knowledge,
of immersing myself
in something small.
Like bee-keeping, brick-laying
messing about with wood
   — the satisfaction
of mastery
over the physical world.

So far, my hobbies consist
of cataloguing life’s minor annoyances.
Firing-off
letters to the editor,
that must have got lost in the mail.
Leaving stale crusts
on the deck
for hungry squirrels.
Which they’ve now come to expect,
busily chattering
with a vaguely threatening edge.

Trouble is, the older I get
there’s less and less
that interests me.
Even sex
has withered.
And young people
fail to impress
    the age-old lament
of successive generations.
While my so-called contemporaries
endlessly kvetch
about the expected infirmities
pension cheques.

So I have settled on poetry,
which no one reads
and keeps me from feeling my age.
Or at least as young as all that verse
stuffed into bottom drawers,
in adolescent journals
angst-filled
lovelorn.

Some have mistaken this
for autobiography,
my ill-tempered rants
for disappointments past.
But as poetry, my annoyance ascends
to the lofty status of art
    embellishment, and fakery
disguised as creativity,
the artful lie.

Yet no less substantial
than brick and wood,
honey from my own backyard.
The artisanal,
things made by hand.
That may even out-last
us all.


I think the immortal Winston Churchill not only painted, but also layed bricks and raised bees. Perhaps that's why this unlikely assortment of potential hobbies came to mind. He was a great wordsmith, of course; but as far as I know, more adept at prose than poetry.

One Clear Shot
Oct 18 2011


I had the deer in my sights.
Squinting through the glass, the circle of light
it filled my vision.
As if all of existence
had constricted down
to a single beast.

A magnificent buck
8-points, scarred from the rut
pawing the ground
snorting steam.
It swung its head slowly
to and fro,
testing the air
perhaps vaguely aware
of my presence.

It stood motionless,
balanced on the thin black line
of the cross-hairs,
as if on the cusp
of life or death
and I would be the instrument.
Knowing a bullet is simple
my distance, safe.

I had intruded into his woods,
the fugitive snow, the wet and cold
branches skeleton-bare.
This wilderness
all he’d ever known,
the territory he’d fought for.

I watched
as if privileged,
held him in my sights, lost all track of time.
At the zenith of life,
his feral power
fierce
with testosterone.

When a branch snapped
and he looked directly at me,
a dominant creature
unwilling to flee.

I could not pull the trigger.
The buck went free.

Which is when snow began to fall,
soggy crystals
clouding the lens.
I never hunted
again.


This poem started with a piece by the novelist David Adams Richards, published in the Globe’s Focus section of Oct 15. It was entitled A View to a Kill, and I think it was an extract from his just released memoir Facing the Hunter. Either that, or a teaser for it.

Anyway, the story is all his. But I process things differently, and his prose style just didn’t seem tight enough for me. So I have shamelessly appropriated his experience, but rewritten it in my own way. All credit goes to David Adams Richards; while I will assume modest credit for this small poem.

I used the same technique here I used in a previous poem about a deer, which may have passed unnoticed, or seemed unintentional The subject starts out “it”, but in the 4th stanza transforms into “he”:  as the hunter becomes obsessed with awe and admiration for this magnificent animal,  the generic “it” will not do. The buck becomes personified and honoured with the more exalted “he”.

6 Notes
Oct 17 2011


The wind chime
has 6 notes.
They sound one-at-a-time,
like a clear bell
struck cleanly.
Or in volleys
too close to tell.

They reflect every nuance of wind,
speed, direction
and shift,
a percussionist
with no innate sense
of rhythm.

They sustain
bleeding into the next,
persist on eddies of air,
or abruptly vanish
ripped
out of ear-shot.

Overtones
cancel out, reinforce,
conjuring new sounds
never heard before.
There is no such thing
as pure vibration,
the naked tone.

Incredibly
these 6 notes
ring true
but never repeat themselves,
composing a constant stream
of new music.
A blizzard of sound
as different as falling snow
    a million frozen flakes,
divulging the wind
deadening noise.
The infinite permutations
of 3 molecules
6 notes.

The alphabet has 26.
Just imagine
how many poems.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Body Language
Oct 9 2011


Her body language
was impeccable.

The eye roll
she had perfected,
the weary sigh
that shoulder gesture.
Curtly dismissing the rest of the room
but coolly enlisting you,
a minority of 2
in mute forbearance.

And demurely crossing her legs,
toes en pointe
ankles caressing.
Perching coquettish
showing-off those endless legs,
all eyes on her.

Then tossing her hair,
so casual, it seemed an afterthought.
But she knew its effect on men,
her shameless power
over the weaker sex.

And when the tip of her tongue
teased her upper lip,
red, and glistening.
Not quick
like a snake's flicking hisss,
but languid, sensuous.
An innuendo
no one could miss.

She laughs at your jokes
and bats her lashes playfully.
She matches you
move for move,
uncannily in sync.
Even the way she sits
with perfect diction, perfect pitch.
A wicked smile,
eyes fixed on yours.

And somehow
her hands find you
across the starched white tablecloth.
Skin soft, nails long,
elegant fingers
and strong tanned arm.
Her posture’s cool
but her touch is hot.

The conversation stops,
not awkwardly
but as natural as if it were scripted.
Because talk is clumsy, words an encumbrance
when the signals come
so unambiguous.

And later on
you will trace her with your hands,
like a blind man reading Braille.
And she will be your amanuensis
translating every detail.

That tongue
which touched your desire
now insistently probing your ear
with hot wet urgency.
As you strain
to hear under her breath,
make out the wordless whispers.


A good title on paper, but I think a better one to hear recited. Because then it’s both “body” and “bawdy” — not just the semiotics of movement and expression, but a wordless seduction as well.

The poem started with a short comedy bit I heard about eye rolling. (Which wasn’t actually that funny!) I thought this might be a promising start to a word-play poem, along the lines of “eye roll …head toss …knees cross …eyes lock”, or something like that. And it took off from there.


Friday, October 7, 2011

Posterity
Oct 7 2011


This is a true story
of crime, and consequence.
The dark art of graffiti
which he practiced in the subways of New York.

In Pompeii, graffiti have outlasted
vast and glorious Rome,
preserved
by congealed mud, volcanic ash.
The same juvenile braggadocio,
the same rabble-rousing bad-mouthing slanders,
but in Latin, of course.

And in the caves of France
prehistoric children
marked the walls with their hands,
fine-boned fingers
clear enough
to guess their age.
Wondering who they thought would come
and seeing what
in the subterranean darkness?
Or if their art would last
so unimaginably long.

So this young man
hauled ladders and spray cans
into the cold dripping labyrinth,
rolled-on
a white latex canvas
and left his tag.
Not the usual graphic flash
rivals taunted, showing-off,
but his entire autobiography
written down.
More than 200 instalments
all over Gotham’s dark underground,
where no one could read them at all. 

I imagine he needed
to leave his mark.
Shout into the silence
the indifferent dark.
Or find some closure,
setting down his story
then letting it go.
As if the act
of having written
was sufficient,
the unheard confession
of verse.

He was eventually nabbed,
for public mischief
the impersonation of a maintenance man
in pilfered clothes.
I’m not sure
if his words will stand.
If a thousand years from now
archaeologists will pump-out the tunnels
disinter the walls,
and presume to know us all
by this singular man.

Which leaves me to ask,
is graffiti art
was he a vandal?
And who is this man
who defaced public property
in the underbelly darkness
of New York?
Who tried to erase
his faceless obscurity,
proclaiming himself
to bored commuters
in a noisy blur.
Steel on steel, screeching through curves,
returning home
then back to work.


I had the urge to write a poem about the act of writing:  the pure joy I feel when I’m immersed in words, the creative fire. The act of writing itself. The satisfying finality of having written. I thought I might do something on the conjugation of the verb “write”.

Then I remembered this piece I’d heard on the latest edition of the podcast/NPR radio show This American Life. The theme was cat and mouse. The story – at true one – was exactly this. Which is how I began:  like a pulp crime thriller.

As I listened, I thought about not just his resourcefulness, but his neediness:   how squelched and invisible and  unimportant and futile he must feel, as if he had spent a  lifetime shouting into the wind. And what drives us to seek out posterity. And how we seek meaning in seemingly quixotic acts. And isn’t this the highest expression of art:  the purity of something created for its own sake, for which there is no expectation it will be admired, rewarded, or even seen.


As if the act
of having written
was sufficient,

Which may not be the best line, but I think best captures my original intent.

Talking about getting off a good line, I like the off-centre humour of this one:  " ...the impersonation of a maintenance man". Of all things, who ever impersonates a menial manual worker?!!

I'm not thrilled with the title. I suspect I've used it before. It sounds kind of pretentious. And perhaps it gives away too much of the as yet unread poem. Suggestions are welcome.