Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Salt
March 28 2012


The way it pours
and  sounds.
Into my palm, cupped
free, dry, rustling.
A perfect mound
of white.

Each crystal exact,
melts into my sweat
nips my tongue
with briny sharpness,
a suggestion of blood.

From the sea, the sun.
Underground
from its crystal fortress.

I will eat rock
and die for water.
I will live forever
preserved in salt,
a desiccated stump
gnarled, hard.

I will bite my love
mingle sweat and blood,
season her lightly
with my tongue.
I will add a pinch,
lick her down
and up.
I will pepper and zest
pickle and cure,
dissolve with her
in lust.


I could have called this poem Salt of the Earth. Because that’s how salt seems:  stable, basic, earthy.

There is no narrative, or even sequence, here. It’s more a stream-of-consciousness piece on this confounding and contradictory substance.

Because salt is all contradiction. It’s a rock, yet we eat it. Too much will kill, as dehydration kills. Yet it is necessary for life, and also preserves. Salt is universal, from the salinity of all the world’s oceans, to the salinity of our blood. But it also has the particularity of terroire, since unprocessed salt carries the trace contaminants of its origin. It is ubiquitous and cheap; but before geological salt was discovered, it could only be obtained by evaporation, which made it rare and expensive; so much so that it shares its Latin root with “salary”.

We sweat salt, and taste it in all our bodily secretions. And so it adds spice in more than the literal sense:  because salt is the taste of sex. But it also makes language coarse, and wounds scream. 

Soundings
March 27 2012


A ship, at sea.
Time measured in days  —
how many to go,
how many out
from home.
Next port-of-call,
where dark fragrant women
await.

Countless fathoms beneath.
An infinitesimal speck
on the endless breadth
of sea.
Stale air, in hollow decks,
held aloft
by the law
of displacement.
A leap
of imagination,
that fails
the instant
you see yourself.

Steady as she goes
knot by knot.
Unravelling in back
pulling her taut.
Vibrations in the steel hull
that thrum unheard,
phosphorescent wake
goes unobserved.
As the big screw churns,
and bulkhead doors
clang shut.

Looking down
at a flat green sea.
Rising up, in our sleep
to engulf us.


This poem began with the simple attraction of a word:  “unfathomable”, and the related verb “to fathom”.

This is a good example of frequent phenomenon in English:  the “verbing” of a noun. The same thing happened to “toast”; and, more recently, “impact”. I think it was a brilliant piece of writing, the first time a daring author took the mundane measurement "fathom" and applied it to impenetrable thought, to deep and insightful thinking. This is especially so because the word takes you underwater, into utter darkness, and so makes the illumination of thought and mind that much more dramatic. 

(In my notorious conservatism, I still find “to impact” inelegant. I silently cringe when I hear it, and – despite the undeniable economy and clarity of this usage – avoid it myself. Of course, I realize that this is antithetical to my professed love of the English language, since the great strength of English is its flexibility and creativity; not to mention its voracious appetite for words appropriated from foreign tongues. This is very different from, for example, French, where the notorious Academie Francaise strenuously resists neologism, and valiantly stands guard against the contamination and anglicization of  that precious tongue. English, in all its vitality, quite rightly scorns such Gallic notions of purity.)

This led me to explore the language of fathoms and knots, the exotic nautical, the ambiguity of “at sea”.

Here, I see the ship as a metaphor for the steady trajectory of a life, violently interrupted by indifferent nature.

How a ship out of sight of land is an island, a world unto itself. Just as we are all ultimately alone in our journey.

At its best, the poem is an exhortation to live mindfully, and in the moment:  observe the phosphorescence; don’t let the steady thrum of the hull lull you into complacency.

The narrator is detached, mostly observing from the 3rd person (with a single unavoidable instance of the more intimate “you”). Only with the very last world of the entire poem does it unexpectedly shift into 1st person, forcing the reader in.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Another March
March 12 2012


Winter is letting go,
a presumptuous spring, impatient.
Old snow
excavated layer by layer,
giving up
its treasure.
Chilly rain is soaking in,
a heavy slog
through cold porridge.

The palette of early spring
is damp green
dirty white.
A dishwater sky
low enough to touch,
as mist thickens to fog
softening up
earth’s rough edges.
The air is heavy, at rest
and silence deep,
except for the muffled drip
of sodden trees.
The world feels changeless, primeval.
Only the light shifts
receding into night,
closing in
claustrophobic.

But tomorrow will be warm and bright.
When winter’s grip
will have slipped
past the point of no return.
Or is this the false promise
of another March?
Toying with us,
like a cat
its warm-blooded prey;
small furry creatures
so sure they were safe
into spring.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Black Swan
March 8 2012


A ballerina
levitating, lifted,
in diaphanous pink
seamless slippers.
The dancer’s feet
attempting
the clean perfection
of a girlish silhouette,
free of earth;
that acquiesce
in the contorted ideal
of her esoteric art
 —  en pointe, glissade —
are ugly, sexless.

Broken, and hard
and immensely strong,
they are hideous instruments
in the cause of beauty.

But we watch from afar,
miss the sweat, the grunts
the wooden thump
of weightless jumps,
the frantic crush
in cramped and anxious wings.
The punishing routine,
and nagging hunger.
Suspend
our disbelief,
let artifice deceive;
lifted up
in the rush
of applause.

The ballerina sleeps
in her tiny apartment,
bleeding feet
wrapped in ice.
Dreaming sweetly
of unnatural acts.
Of standing ovations
triumphant encores.
Of lily-white swans
and a black impostor.


The title is an homage to the movie that inspired this poem.

The final line is key. Not so much by transforming the poem, suddenly shifting perspective, but that the line nails it shut:  like a lawyer to a jury, closing.

The black  swan is the white’s doppelganger:  conniving, seductive, stealing away her prince. And in the poem – as in the film – it stands in for the black underbelly of the performing arts, the deceptive artifice that conceals hard and precarious lives.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

People My Age Are Running the World
March 5 2012


I imagine at some point
I will feel all grown up.
Certainly, I will get old
and look the part,
which is to say
invisible.
A kid
insecure, and immature
in someone else’s body.

Most likely
this was not a question
considered by my parents,
when children followed marriage
and what was expected
of man and wife
easily went unsaid.
Because when money was tight
and the day-to-day a flood,
treading water
took the place of philosophy.
No time for solipsists
indulging 
in existential angst,
paralyzed
by introspection.

Of course, they had a war
to make them tough,
a depression
in which to grow up,
imprinting lessons
of thrift, and loss.
So was it peace and prosperity
that made us soft?
Are we the centre of attention
long after
the admiring gaze has gone?

Like them, we carve a notch
for rites of passage,
the milestones
of house, and spouse
and child.
But feel like impostors,
bad actors
who will eventually be caught
and shamed.
Which would be OK
if it weren’t that people my age
were running the world,
and it’s so clear to see
should have never been 
in charge.
Naked emperors
in their finery,
in mortal fear
of discovery,
just like me.

So I will continue to feel inadequate
while my parents simply got on with it,
and their parents
re-invented the world.
As we 
let our ennui, and greed
tear it down,
exhaust its wealth, and beauty.
Adolescents
never thinking ahead,
'til inertia
carries us over the edge.

When will we feel like grown-ups
who think for ourselves?
Manifestly believe
in our virtue?

Paper Trail
March 3 2012


You wouldn't think shy people
make an impression
leave their mark.
But this is the paradox of the shy,
who keep to themselves
and their intimate circle.
Who firmly shut the door
on an agitated world
and interact by the written word,
settled at a well-used desk
in a pool
of incandescent light.

Sending off
scribbles, missives, epistles,
penning memos, letters
encyclicals.
RSVPs
begging forgiveness,
formal notes
that decline, and defer.
Pushed out under the door,
appearing unannounced.

A paper trail
for historians to navigate,
a treasure map
for future biographers.
Rough drafts of themselves,
anatomically imperfect
but workable.
Like instructions
translated to English from Chinese,
full of amusing errors
and unintended ironies,
one can’t help but forgive.

We introverts are good
at living in our heads,
which are prudently kept
well below the parapets.
We prefer stillness, and quiet,
the beating heart of solitude
all that’s keeping time.

We are hard-wired, we say
born this way.
Popped out into a world
that was too cold and bright,
scrunching up our eyes
wailing unselfconsciously,
barely consoled
by our tears’ salty warmth.

Or wide-eyed
and preternaturally quiet,
already collecting impressions
making poems in our heads.
Which we will someday retrieve
when there’s time enough to think;
and the world
is ready to listen.


I elected to use "shy" instead of "introvert" in the opening stanza. I prefer the sound. I prefer the emotional power of a word that is more visceral over one that seems more analytical and detached. But they actually mean quite different things, and my intent is a lot closer to "introvert" than "shy"

Because shyness is a fear of social judgement. While introversion is what I've talked about in the poem:  a preference for a lower level of sensory stimulation.  This could be an intimate tête-a-tête in place of a cocktail party; or a DVD at home in place of a crowded movie theatre. One can be an introvert, but not at all shy. 

Introverts are not only misunderstood, but easily go unnoticed in a culture that celebrates self-promotion and brash confidence; that is more about personality than character. The poem began with the New Yorker Fiction podcast of a story by Bruno Shulz. He was described as painfully shy; and I appropriated as the central image of the poem the description of him taking refuge in his secluded room, writing compulsively and pushing stories out under the door. Needless to say, I immediately identified with him!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Shovelling Snow
Feb 29 2012


Shovelling snow.
Shedding clothes
layer by layer.
The ruddy glow, the frozen nose
sniffle-dripping.

Giving-in
to my inner obsessive,
fussing over ruled edges
sheer cuts.
I begin straight down the centre,
and finish by sweeping up
the last dusting of snow.
And then, the shovel is neatly stowed
in its appointed place.

This is how we serve our cars
which are otherwise ignored,
left out in the storm
salt-stained, and stoic.
As they convey us faithfully
shuttling to and fro
in dryness and warmth,
peering out
at winter.

I grunt
heaving and lifting,
think
about heart attack victims
who were sure
they were far too young.
About minor victories
that go unsung.
Propped
on my trusty shovel
in contented smugness,
bourgeois duty
done.

And think about sun
that will surely come
in 2 short months,
melt it all
to nothing.
Make my pride ridiculous
my precision embarrassing,
such neatness
hardly necessary.

But in the dead of winter
it’s hard to figure
on spring.
So I clean.

To keep nature in its place
the next ice age
from grinding our homes
to smithereens.
Crushing
human conceit
under mile high mountains
of snow.