A Good Cry
April 26 2015


The purple onion
on the kitchen counter
is so pleasingly round,
with a solid centred heft.
A generous middle
between a tuft of roots, and shrivelled stem;
like a fat-bellied man
with skinny appendages.

I tear up
chopping onions, blinking back.
This is not a good cry;
not the kind
that releases pain, expels the poison.
When the warm salt
is a close embrace,
and the blurred vision
makes you feel safe,
and the self-pity
is hot exquisite relief.

Layers
peel back easily.
Distinct, yet somehow continuous,
curve nesting in curve
smaller and smaller
spiralling-in.

I think of other works of art;

the chambered nautilus,

the tightly packed rose

before it unfurls.

Pearl-white shells,

with the sharp sweetness, invisible sting
of dark chemistry;
well-armed
for life underground.
My tears well up
running down.

Diced onions glisten,
immersed
in hot virgin oil
in a heavy pan,

cast iron, seasoned black.

Lightly fried, until they sweat,

soften
turn translucent
lose their edge.

My tears have dried
tight with salt.
But not a real cry
which has been too long to remember.
A good cry,
when I overflowed
with warm salty wetness.
Was so bereft
I didn't care who saw,
huffing, and blubbering
and sniffling snot.
Was overwhelmed
with incontinent feelings
and awful thoughts.

An onion
is surprisingly thin-skinned.
It appears tough,
but strips cleanly off

in long papery curves.

Or sticks,

breaking into purple flecks.

And under its skin

so many layers, so many intricate shells
you could never tell
just by looking.


I had no idea what to write, until I saw a purple onion on the counter: its beautiful skin; its fullness and heft; its complex pattern, in dark and light. I love onions in most everything. But, like everyone else, they make me tear up. It's an empty cry: one that stings, but without the cathartic release of deep emotion. The good cry may come during bad times; but at least isn't just irritated eyes and noxious chemistry.

The cliché is that "men don't cry". So here, the onion is a metaphor for the tough exterior and hidden depths. Of course, the cliché is a ridiculously dated view of masculinity: to be a man is to be strong; and strength is being secure enough to feel your emotions, and open and unafraid enough to express them. The personification of the onion -- the fat-bellied man -- foreshadows this, right from the opening stanza.

I needed a rhyme to make that 2nd last paragraph flow. "Snot" was obvious, but I was dubious it would sound true to the narrator's voice: too vernacular and irreverent. Surprisingly, it seems to work. And I think especially well, since it's a really visceral term, and so compliments the idea of unselfconscious release, expiation, catharsis.

I indulged in a minor tangent with all the detail around the onions sweating in the cast iron pan. I think I liked the visual here: the white and the black, the soft and the hard. And a little bit of mischief that means nothing at all: the virgin oil!

I like awful thoughts. Because it can be read in two ways, and so reclaim the word from its somewhat debased usage: that is, not just something terrible, but something that inspires awe. After all, we don't just cry out of misery: we cry from happiness; we cry when we are overwhelmed by some experience, by big thoughts, by feelings of transcendence; and we cry out of empathy, mirroring the emotions of others. ...And, going back to that hoary cliché, the lyrics to an Ian Tyson song come to mind: sometimes, it's just dust in your eye ;-) .

I'm pleased with the way the very last line brings home the theme of tough exterior, hidden depths: the way just by looking seems to come a little unexpectedly, and with such plain speaking. I often succumb to the neat rhyming couplet to end a poem: tempted by how that little punch of rhyme punctuates the ending like a big fat period. Here, just by looking does the opposite. By breaking out of the rhyme, it gives you pause: as if suddenly speaking in prose, speaking directly.

As usual, I've put a lot of first person voice into this poem. As I've said before, I love first person poetry: it's personal and intimate; it has the power of authenticity; it doesn't presume anything about the reader, leaving her free to either invest, or keep her distance. I'm always striving for an easy conversational tone, and I think I'm getting closer in this poem. By "conversational", I mean that it doesn't seem stiff and stylized; that the rhymes don't sound shoe-horned in; and that it sounds effortless, so the reader can fall into the easy flow without seeing the gears turn. The trick is to keep it conversational, but tight: without the flabbiness and excess verbiage of real conversation.

A Good Cry has a small ambiguity that works for me. There is good, as in thorough, effective; but there is also the good of goodness. Which creates a slight internal tension: the contradiction between good and a cry, which isn't usually thought of as a very good thing at all.

First Impression
April 24 2015


If I could return
to the first impression
I would forgive my haste.
How quick we are
to make, and be made.

The many iterations
of old relationships
move from draft, to manuscript, to print.

An impression, in permanent ink
bound, and fixed.

I have always written in pen.

My many corrections, crossed-out and x'd,

incremental steps

left to posterity.

So, should I use pencil instead?

Where erasures smear the page
and nothing remains
of trial and error

and early mistakes?

But forensic memory retains
each minute deformation
and pressure-point.

Like the tell-tale marks
on the legal pad

I write upon,

the table-top's

soft scuffed wood.

A few neurons, loosely connected
in the hippocampus'

inaccessible depths

are my rough first-drafts,

in the back of cabinets

stuffed into drawers.

The mind writes over
like reel-to-reel tape.
Where each tiny magnetic deflection
of second guesses

and lasting regrets,

of love, and friendship

impressions left,
persists
in static noise.


The poem is mostly about first impressions: how quickly we make them; how faulty they often are; and how they persist, at least subconsciously. Between Daniel Kahneman's quick heuristic thinking and slow considered thought (as described in the Nobel prize-winner's Thinking Fast and Slow), this definitely belongs in the first category. Unfortunately, a first impression is often inaccurate, and memory sticky.

Of course, first impression immediately suggested to me the literal meaning of the word: an actual impression, as in pen on paper, or a printed woodcut; and similarly in analog tape, where sound is impressed on tiny magnetic particles fixed in orientation and place. So the poem plays with this concrete idea of physically impressing upon, and inter-weaves it with the persistence of memory.

The nature of memory is a recurring theme with me. There is its unreliability: repeatedly conflated and re-made, each time it's called upon. And also its subversiveness: lurking in the subconscious, then unpredictably emerging as intuition and prejudice.

Although as powerful as first impressions are, and as hard as it is to see anyone as they truly are -- even ourselves, to ourselves -- if we stick with someone long enough, we eventually get it right.

(Btw, while I do write the first draft in pen, they've almost all been thrown out, and are now mouldering away under tons of dirt in some landfill somewhere, or are being put to good use as recycled toilet paper ;-) . Similarly, I edit on the computer, so all the intermediate steps are now irretrievably deleted. Unlike the ghosts of memory, and unlike the first impressions that harden into certainty, there are no first impressions of my writing left. My poems only look as if they effortlessly and fluently wrote themselves!)

Off-Centre

April 23 2015

Turns out
that eccentrics, compared to the rest of us
lead happier lives
are longer lived.

So that's what it's like
to be unaware
of the opinion of others;
to be utterly
impervious.
Who will tut-tut, and judge,
lumping you in
with the cat ladies, nut cases

plain old luckless.

Except we are all a little off-centre,

the nonsense, we tell ourselves

the wobble when we walk.
The shameful secrets, subversive thoughts
we keep from others
no matter what.

If only we had the passion
and clear-eyed certainty
of these strange amusing creatures.
Don't be so serious, they seem to say
about conventional life,
approval, belonging
the social climb.

Like wild flowers
they appear in the garden as if by grace.
Bursting through snow
in early spring,
a single bloom
against the white monotony.
Hardy perennials
in inhospitable soil,
they persist
amidst the gaudy annuals,

firmly rooted

inured to scorn.
A beauty that's subtle
but hard to resist.

No doubt, such oddity gives us pause.
Yet we envy their singularity
admire their toughness.
Like ugly ducklings
hoping for swans;
as if we too
might learn to love ourselves
and who we are.



There was an item on CBC Radio's The Current about eccentrics. They interviewed a film-maker about his latest documentary, and a psychologist who has written the book on them. Apparently, there is 25 item checklist which they linked to on-line. I didn't take it, but suspect I'd rate pretty highly! (Or am I mistaking misanthropy, alienation, and nihilism -- a different kind of difference -- for eccentricity?!!)

He mentioned such common features as non-conforming from childhood, curiosity, originality, and idealism. They often have several happy obsessive pre-occupations going on at once. In general, they are of above average intelligence, are opinionated and out-spoken (but not much interested in the opinions of others), and have unusual living arrangements and eating habits. They tend to have a lively mischievous sense of humour, and this makes them good company and appealing to others. Unfortunately, they also tend to be single or divorced, and drink too much.

I vaguely recall a previous poem -- many years ago -- about eccentricity:  far enough in the past to make it worthwhile having another go at it. I think the crux of this poem is that we secretly envy and admire eccentrics, even though we'd be too scared to emulate them. Because who wouldn’t want to be impervious to stigma, judgement, social exclusion? And that inside -- where we all think we're a little weird, anyway -- maybe we're frightened to have our hidden eccentricities revealed:  the inner lives we all keep to ourselves.

I'm not so sure if the metaphors/similes that appear in the 2^nd last stanza work. Because the wild flower appears out of the blue. And worse, the metaphor becomes mixed when the ducks and swans enter.

Here, the wild flower in the prim manicured garden is the true unselfconscious eccentric. And the ugly duckling is us: the inner eccentric we're too afraid to embrace. So the poem ends as a little homily on self-acceptance. Which I have to admit, leaves me cringing just a bit: a little too earnest; a little too new age and self-actualizing and preachy for me.

Incidentally, the opening is true, according to that expert psychologist: they do tend to be happier and longer-lived. So clearly, there is much to be said for congenial non-conformity.

Water-Dog

April 21 2015


Open water
between the ice and the shore.
As if the lake, locked in airless dark

can finally breathe,

a hopeful crack

in a hard winter.

In first light

a skim of ice
has quickly lifted,
rocks glistening
mud belching
its decomposing smells.

The dogs splash in,
impervious to cold
and heedless, anyway.

Do they remember spring,
the comings and goings
year after year?
Or is everything eternally new,
a circus of constant delights
in which to play?

How matter-of-fact they are, how blithely accepting,
when the entire world

has over-turned;

from frozen stillness

to warmth, and light, and wetness.

Because there is no questioning, in dogs,

immersed in the moment

and then the next.

While I worry

of freezing death, and injured legs,

retreating ice

the cutting edge.
But no such angst, for them.

Like opposite poles
a lake attracts a water-dog;
invisible lines
of irresistible force
draw her in.
And in the over-heated thickness

of her winter coat
she plops herself down
into blissful cold,
oblivious to chill.

How envious am I

of her bottomless dive.

The immaculate skill
as she shakes herself dry,

her blind faith

and singular focus.

Her freedom from worry, and cold,

the strangle-hold

time has on us.

Cat lovers won't get past the 3rd stanza. Many dog owners will persevere to the end. And those of us who are privileged to share our lives with Labs will thoroughly get it!

I really do resist writing dog poems. But every month or so, one comes of its own volition, and I reward myself with a little self-indulgence. Fundamentally, they're all different versions of the same poem: sentimental paeans to the abiding virtues of dogs -- their loyalty, athleticism, enthusiasm, and ability to live in the moment; their absence of vanity; and their unconditional love, free of grudge or judgment. And above all, their purity; by which I mean how true they are to their essential nature. If only we humans could aspire to such unselfconscious integrity. (Or maybe not; since I'm not so sanguine about our essential nature!)

So I keep writing different versions of the same thing, hoping that one day I'll actually get it right!

The expression "magnetic attraction" invariably comes to mind when I see her bee-lining to the nearest puddle. Here, the 2nd last stanza is a good example of not saying it, but showing it. And I quite like eternally new: because despite its inherent contradiction (if it's eternal, it's not new!), I'm sure this is exactly how dogs must feel: their eternal enthusiasm making even the same-old seem new.

I realize there are neurotic, angry, abused, and destructive dogs out there; while I'm lucky enough to have the perfect dog. So although it may seem as if I'm idealizing, I'm not: every word here is absolutely true (well, mostly -- she's actually pretty wary getting in if the bottom isn't clear). If not a paean to all dogs, then, this poem is at least an homage to the beloved Skookum, as well as her best buddy, Taz (canine buddy, that is!)

Stranding

April 20 2015

There is always the kid we know
who won't amount to much.

Even 10 year olds
see this unerringly.
The animal cleverness of boys,
weighing station, and status, and strength,
deadly accurate with shame,
and expertly trained
to strangle at birth
all fellow-feeling.
The pack dictates,
and we circle our prey
with the certainty of birthright.

He slouched in the back row.
Wore the same clothes, day after day.
Started to shave
long before the rest of us.
His future was fixed,
because even he
never doubted it.

I have no idea what became of him.
You lose track
of 10-year-old friends,
let alone
the scorned, and the laughed at.

Back then

he was not "exceptional"

but merely "dumb".

Yet he could have been a genius
in his own way,
some specialized intelligence
we had no inkling of.
Good with his hands?
Perfect pitch?

Like a sleek inquisitive dolphin
stranded at low tide.
His high-pitched squeals
inaudible,
his brilliant speed
impossible,
a beautiful creature
wrenched from of the water
in which he thrives.
A desperate eye
looking out on this dry inhospitable place,
searching vainly
for help.

The recent National Geographic (May 2015) had a story about dolphin communication. I loved this line, a quote from comparative psychologist Stan Kuczaj: "The question is not how smart are dolphins, but how are dolphins smart." It raises the question of multiple intelligences. And also the impossibility of truly knowing another -- not only across species, but within out own kind as well.

Back when I was in school, of course, no one thought about multiple intelligences. If you weren't good academically, or were slow to learn, or had some disability, there wasn't much help or concern. The system rewarded only academic ability. It was more competitive than touchy-feely, and more boot-strap (as in "pull yourself up") than caring. But in those days, you could have a successful life without even a high school education: an able-bodied man with a reasonable work ethic could always get a pretty good job.

One of the key things we've learned since then is the power of expectation. If you're thought of as promising, you respond. And if you're labelled as the dumb kid, you live up -- or down -- to it. It's sobering how early in life these things get fixed, identity imposed. In the poem, this comes through not just in His future was fixed,/ because even he/ never doubted it, but also earlier on, in the single word birthright. Anyway, I remember a particular kid. I think his last name was Sutton. I recall we called him "Sutpea"; or was it "Sutpee"? (Probably the latter!) I suspect he had an impoverished home life -- that is, impoverished emotionally and intellectually as much as financially. Today, he might very well be diagnosed dyslexic, and would not have graduated 8th grade functionally illiterate. So he probably could have been helped; but no one expected much -- him, least of all. And going back to the original idea -- the inscrutability of dolphin intelligence -- I wonder if he too might have had hidden talents that went unrecognized; if he could have been great with the right encouragement and opportunity. Of course, I have no idea how things went with him. Perhaps he's now a successful politician, or master of the universe on Wall Street. (Two arenas of life where surprisingly incompetent and unworthy people seem to do very well!)

Another thing this poem alludes to is the cruelty of kids: the fellow-feeling we don't fully get. Don't we all think back with shame and guilt on some horrible thing we did back then, and the only excuse with which we console ourselves is that our moral sensibility was not yet fully developed: our ethical compass stuck, our powers of empathy rudimentary? And conspiring with this is the power of group think, conformity, social signalling, and mutual reinforcement: the pack, from which we fear exclusion.

I hope that the dolphin analogy, dropping in at the end, doesn't seem to come out of nowhere. Because I think it's foreshadowed by the animal metaphor in the second stanza. And I like that the poem ends on a high note of empathy: as if the shallow child of the poem has grown-up to be its more thoughtful author.

Diviner
April 17 2015


In his plaid shirt
and mud-caked boots
the water diviner
doesn't look like a man
in touch with the mystic.

Even you can do this
he assures me.
Feel yourself flow, like-to-like

into the earth.

As all water seeks its level,

journeying down

as far as it goes.

His eyes slit.

He mutters, spits.
And the forked wand
goes taut as a wishbone
about to break,
hands trembling

directly down.
The dousing rod

has bulls-eyed its gusher,

tapping the earth

like a diamond-tipped drill.

In a more pious age
would he have been burned at the stake,
for witching water

Godless ways?
While nowadays

when the miraculous has become mundane

we take for granted his arcane skill.

Perhaps, it doesn't seem so fantastic
when all our technology
is a black box
and just as magical.

So I take his place,
trying to quiet
my chattering mind.
When something cold
runs up my spine
from the subterranean depths.

From cisterns, dense with brine.

Dark caverns,

walls dripping

into thick mineral lakes.

And fractured seams
where streams converge, and rivers rush

sweet enough to drink.

Water black as rock,

tasting of rust
and rain washed soil.

Not divine
in some exalted place, far above.

But a pagan god
in touch with the earth.

Until it seems absurd
witching water
with a willow stick.
How could it possibly work
I scoff,
suddenly dry
as desert dust.


I ran out of water. It could have been worse: turned out to be the pump, not a dry well. Drilling is not only extremely expensive, it's hit and miss: a few feet this way, and you hit a thick artesian seam; off a bit the other, and there is only rock. The well guys told me that they still use a water diviner. And I'd happily use one too.

I recalled that when we put in a well years and years ago, my father discovered he had the gift, and took great pride in his apparent ability to witch water. I wonder if I could. Or could anyone, if he tried hard enough to empty his mind, suspend disbelief, get in touch with the earth?

Part of this poem is about just that: the power of belief. As soon as the narrator doubts, as soon as he disconnects himself from the mystical and unexplained, the power leaves him. (And let me be the first to point out how flagrantly I broke one of my cardinal rules of poetry here. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep suddenly out of that penultimate line. I tried "going" dry/ as desert dust, but it just didn't seem strong enough.) Anyway, as the poem says, all our technology is -- to the vast majority of us -- as magical as any superstitious belief. We take for granted so many utterly amazing things (not to mention the basics!) that accepting the diviner's gift -- supernatural, or not -- hardly seems a stretch.

My favourite part of the poem is this: where streams converge, and rivers rush/ sweet enough to drink./ Water black as rock,/ tasting of rust/ and rain washed soil. I especially like the relief implied by sweet water and rain washed, so soon after the brine and that thick mineral stuff.

The poem began when I a movie ad in the paper caught my eye: a new release (although when you read this, probably old and forgotten) called something like The Water Diviner. I think I've previously written a piece on the same theme, but the title grabbed me immediately, and I wanted another go at it. This obviously had something to do with my recent brush with the well guys. But I think more important is the appealing grandiloquence of that term, water diviner, which hints at something religious, or at least deeply mystical; and at him as some sort of elevated being (and which is why the opening works so well for me). And also the delicious mischief of its synonym, the water witcher, which couldn't be anything but wickedly magical. Why there is a 3rd term -- dousing -- I have no idea. While the word implies wetness -- which makes me think the douser is a good man to call! -- it hardly equals the resonance of the other two.

Light/Light
April 14 2015


The speed of light is fixed.
Flight risk, for sure
no catching up.

The ultimate prime number,
indivisible
except by itself.
When light over light
cancels out
and creation blinks off.
So where is God, you wonder
in this fearful blackness?

Which happens every night,
so far from electricity
you are invisible,
gazing out
at breathtaking sky
alone in the dark.

Light that has travelled
a billion miles clear.
And you, reflected weakly back
in another billion years.



This poem began with a simple bit of whimsy, playing around with the speed of light -- the ultimate immutable verity.

What it means I leave to the reader.

But I think the key is in its implication of a zero sum game: which is there in the symmetry of God and His absence; in the big bang and its collapse; in light ping-ponging back and forth, and cancelling itself out. You can even see this duality in his ambivalence: seeing the night as simultaneously fearful and breathtaking.

I get a powerful sense of his smallness in a vast indifferent universe. And of man, constructing mythological bulwarks against the darkness of night.

I like the idea of invisibility here: like the tree that falls in the forest, you need not just light to be seen, but also a beholder.

When I write all this commentary, it's not as if I set out to say this stuff, and the poem is the result. Rather, writing is very much stream of consciousness. It's when I go back and revisit that I experience it much as the first time reader does, and try to puzzle it out. If there is some subconscious source of creativity, maybe this is what I intended. But I don't think intention has much to do with it.

I think this may be getting closer to the poem I've been trying to write. I like its ambiguity and concision. There are enough interesting images and fresh language to compel the reader, yet not a wasted word. It gets away from that narrative form I've fallen into, which seems too neat and tedious, spelling out everything. Most important, there is more between the lines than on the page. I think one will want to re-read this poem, then read again. And every time, it will have changed. Which, of course, is the whole point of poetry, and what makes it distinct from prose.

                                                                           ~~~

(P.S. For the arithmetically challenged, I'll just mention that the definition of a prime number is one that's only divisible by itself and 1. Of course, the real nerds will see that I've cheated: any number divided by itself comes out to 1, not 0. Which means creation doesn't blink off: there is still some singularity! Luckily, poetic license allows me to break all laws -- both mathematical and man-made -- at will!)

Unnerved

April 13 2015

I am restive in spring.

Water drips, carves, pools;
saturated earth
overflows.
The lane has churned to mud
small lakes have formed.

Days lengthen
with dizzying speed
that seems unnatural.
It's like watching asparagus grow;
you hardly believe
you can actually see 
a plant in motion.

I feel flooded with light
as the refuge of night
shrinks from reach.
The sun, as reluctant to sleep
as a mischievous child
past his bedtime.

I try to sit and read
but cannot concentrate,
unsettled by urgency, agitation
the speed of change.
So I set down my book
step over the threshold
and turn to face the sun,
no jacket, or boots, or gloves.

Warm air
has the loamy sweetness
of reinvigorated earth;
dead grass, with notes of hay,
waterlogged soil
reawakening.

Like a wild stallion, corralled for months
I pause at the open gate,
unnerved by freedom.
Hesitate, just long enough
then bolt;
my world no longer confined
to furious circling
in the prison of winter's cold.


I very much do have this unsettled restive feeling. I find I can't read nearly as long as in the dark cave of winter. This is the paradox of spring for me: as a nocturnal creature, I find it hard to adjust to the rapid increase in light; and as someone averse to change, I find it hard to keep up with its dizzying pace.

The poem touches on early spring's most salient features: the water everywhere; the plethora of light; the intoxicating smell of soil released from the grip of ice.

The stallion analogy came out of the blue as I wrote. I think the poem would work better if there could have been some foreshadowing or continuing metaphor alluding to confinement, or animals, or even wild horses. But anything I tried seemed shoehorned in; so I left the ending as stand-alone. It includes my favourite line, and what I think is the crux of the poem: unnerved by freedom. And although it's really pretty obvious, bolt works beautifully, and would only lose its impact if I elaborated.

Although I will admit here that the ending isn't really authentic. I not only quite like winter, I hardly feel confined. In fact, somewhat the opposite, as the frozen lake becomes a highway, and the ploughed road is restored, with all its potholes and depressions filled. So perhaps this is more a reflection of guilt: that I feel perfectly fine sitting and reading all day in winter (especially when day comes and goes so fleetingly!); but in spring, this seems somehow decadent, unworthy, unsatisfying.

Manuscript
April 12 2015


Shavings
curl off the blade
paper-thin.

A steady thumb

a practiced eye.

Like peeling an apple, skin deep,
the precise feel
of its keen edge

through yellow paint
blonde wood
soft black lead.
A standard pencil, medium hard,
tooth marks
on it badly gnawed end.

The point will wear,
smooth, round, glossy.
Silky graphite
on creamy paper,

moving over the page

with the perfect balance
of resistance, and slip.

Or break

at first touch,
brittle bits

of shattered shrapnel

snapping off.

But how sweet
when it's perfectly honed,
and words flow
like honeyed whispers
in a lover's ear.

The sloppy tongue’s

muddled endearments,
the cursive line

softly smudged.

The nub
of the old-fashioned instrument
is a measuring stick,
steadily diminished
as its letters empty out.
Which are mostly mine,
but sometimes, inspired;
as if the words came to hand
and I simply channelled them,
watching
as the page fills.

Writing in pencil
there's no fooling yourself
with illusions of permanence.
Because ink
is only a matter of time.
And even the printed page
will not survive
water, air, fire.

Like all good craftsmen
the writer's hand is sure,
taking care of his tools
honing his words.

I can't recall from where, but an image came to me of a pen knife in strong competent hands, sharpening a pencil. I don't use pencils. I write in pen, and edit on the keyboard. But I like the implication of craftsmanship, of practised expertise, of taking care. When you write by hand with a traditional instrument, you are focused on one thing. And you are applying yourself to a task free of the urgency and speed of modern life. The root of "manuscript" is "the hand" (manos); as in hand-made, hand-writing. This is not something a machine can do. Or at least do well.

I smile each time I read softly smudged. Even though I'm right handed, I have a terrible back-handed script: pencil smudges terribly; and even ink does, if it isn't quick-drying enough.

I wanted this poem to be sensory, tactile, physical. Especially the feel of graphite on paper: when the sharpness is perfect, the weight of the pencil is just right in your hand, and it's the kind of paper you like. Here, process is as important as creativity, and the act as pleasing as the end: the honed words, as much as the well-cared-for tool.

On The Rocks

April 7 2015

When a marriage

is on the rocks,

foundered, faltered, lost.

Or single malt

drowning in Scotch.

A barren outcrop, in a solitary sea,

where surf breaks

and birds drop

and the guano piles higher

until you’re ass-deep into it,

shoveling shit

to the lawyers, the cops

the other woman.

Remember when ice

spelled out S-E-X?

Coca-Cola, overflowing

a frosted glass

fizzing over cubes.

Subliminal, they called it,

but it wasn’t true.

Goes to prove

that the eye of the beholder

sees what it wants.

Absent mother.

Virago, harlot, whore.

Satyrist, lover

deadbeat dad.

But not lovers, exactly,

too middle class.

A drunken tumbler

in a cold sweat,

lips wetted, teeth clenched.

Ice crushed

hit me again.

Rum punched, boot-legged

dashed against.

Because the higher the proof

the more-and-more fluid

the truth gets.

I came across the expression "on the rocks". It was in the context of reading about rich entitled people on a country estate. I immediately had an image of gracious living, brittle elegance, and the secrets hidden behind wrought iron gates and manicured gardens; what isn't seen behind closed doors and high walls. I thought how human misery is the great equalizer: money buys a lot; but never happiness. (A nice earnest cliché. Except I have to admit, money helps. Or at least its absence doesn't!)

So in this frame of mind, this poem poured out in a stream of consciousness. Who knows in what distant watershed these streams arise, since this not at all my usual style, and certainly not autobiographical. But it was fun to write, and I quite like the result. I should try this more often!

Dust to Dust

April 7 2014

Objects gather dust.

The stuff you bought
with the best of intentions.

Or dropped

in some darkened closet,

lost behind the couch.

Walk past, inattentively,

as unquestioned as a bearing wall.

Dead skin, as we wear away
in dull layers
of grime.
Dust-to-dust,
starting from the outside
in.

How disgusting, you say,
the state of decomposition
in which we live.
The house

settling into neglect.

The accretion of time

things left behind.

Our messy residue

of dead skin, dried sweat,

indelible prints
with the sheen of human oil.

We are less and less,
steadily sloughing off.

When you live by yourself
things stay where they're put,
so familiar
they seem ordained.
The weight of possession
you never notice,
evenly coated

with dust.

And everyday stuff,

worn, and chipped, and scuffed

wiped clean.

You also see daily

and haven't noticed for years.

I came across this phrase: "the transfigured commonplace". I've repeatedly used the expressions microcosm and close observation to describe my own poetry. But I think this phrase may get closer.

Anyway, I thought a poem that valorized the commonplace and everyday would be worth trying. I thought of the few things I use over and over. And then all the rest, that sits in dark corners and low light, gathering dust. So unexpectedly, it became a poem about dust.

The first time I understood that a lot of this stuff is us, it was a story about pressure cleaning the grime off subway walls, the dark film that had accumulated over years of neglect. The story said that most of this dark grime was the dead layer of sloughed-off human skin. And although I once heard that most dust comes from outer space -- the stuff of exploding stars, disintegrated meteors -- I think I also heard that a lot of it is also us: more dead skin!

I ended up keeping the poem true to my original idea of inattention: so it begins and ends with things unquestioned, unseen, unobserved.

Still Life
April 6 2015


Eye the colour,
which you know, just by looking.

Bounce it once or twice,
like a juggler, loosening up.

Squeeze it for ripeness,
but with a light touch
as if you're being watched.
And think of all the other hands
that may have judged,
picking over, putting back.

Then bring it to your nose
and take a long slow inhalation.
Past its time
the scent is sweet, complex
fermented.
Because miraculous yeast
are everywhere,
turning water to wine
like minor gods.
Raising bread
keeping cheese kept.

Not yet ripe
a hint of fruitiness.
And at its height
a mix of juice, pulp, rind,
sour, sweet, acidic.
Is there still life
after it's been picked?
Rearranging itself
like metamorphosis
beneath the deepening skin.

But supermarket produce
is washed, gassed, dyed.
In tiered rows
flattering light
overflowing bins,

a cornucopia
free of any flaws.

Strawberries
from California
you know will taste like straw.
Tomatoes hard as rock.

The 4^th in my fruit series. This one came from a quick scene in a terrific recent release: St. Vincent. Bill Murray is terrific as an old misanthropic heavy-drinking reprobate. He’s walking past a sidewalk fruit stand, tosses a few of something, squeezes something else, then surreptitiously pockets another piece and carries on, never breaking stride. Hardly a pivotal scene. But I thought of squeezing fruit, and how one negotiates the social niceties of pawing other people’s food while trying to get the best stuff for yourself. (Often the best of a bad lot!)

I think I've used this title a couple of times already. But I can't resist, since it works so well here. There's the still life of the tantalizing supermarket display. And there's the critical question in the middle of the poem, asking if there is still life in this tasteless fruit. My first provisional title was very straightforward: Picking Fruit. But I prefer the vagueness of this, leaving the reader uncertain about just what's going on until she gets to the 3^rd stanza

But supermarket produce/ is washed, gassed, dyed. I think I'm technically correct here: That they gas green tomatoes to ripen them; that they paint oranges orange. Or so I once was told.

Ugly Fruit
April 3 2015


A few orphaned tomatoes
left in the bin.

Hard ones, picked green.
The skinny, teeny

twinned.

The rotten, softened, squished,
spotted

with blemishes.

The motley, oblong, odd
malformed, and misbegot.

The different

that languish unbought.

Which I have always preferred
to their uniform cousins,

pretty, but in-bred.
Tomatoes with character.
Determined contrarians,
homely, and various
much like the rest of us.
And maybe the self-serving thought
that looks, and flavour, trade off
-- delicious fruit, under the skin,
the virtuous man
with the plain exterior.

Romas are working-class fruit,
meaty, and modest, and tough.
A bunch
bask in the sun
on my kitchen counter,
the odd, the queer, the freaks,
the mocked, uncommon, unique.

The spurned
rescued from the bottom of the bin
now ripened, and reddened, and sweet,
redolent
of summer's heat,
the warm loamy soil
in which they grew.

Ugly fruit
I do not judge.
Rejects,
returning my love
with gusto. 

I really do always go for the odd and orphaned fruit. Especially tomatoes: the homely looking ones, the ones with character, the ones most everyone else passes over.

The other day, there was a pathetically small collection left in a corner of the bin. They weren't so much malformed as over-ripe and squishy. But romas are amazingly durable, and I figured the soft ones would still be good if I used them that day. In fact, they were superb: ugly fruit that would have soon gone off, but were at the peak of flavour. Glad they weren't wasted.

I love tomatoes. They are the most versatile fruit (and yes, they're technically a fruit, not a vegetable) and I use them in everything. I noticed my latest bunch soaking up some early spring sun on the kitchen counter, and realized that not only hadn't I ever written an ode to the beloved tomato, but that this would be the third in what's becoming a sequence of fruit-themed poems -- after Seedless Orange and Wild Blueberries. A nice trifecta of citrus, berry, and tender fruit!

I've used a lot of lists here. I have my doubts about lists: that it's lazy poetry, piling it on until the reader is sure to get the idea; that eyes soon glaze over, and the words stop computing; that the usual set of 3 becomes formulaic. One might even imagine that all you need to write poetry is a good thesaurus!

On the other hand, I like the celebration of words, the richness of language. I like the way the nuance builds, word-by-word. And when said out loud -- that is, recited (the way poetry should be consumed) -- the rat-a-tat sound of a tight list makes wonderful music.

There is an essentially contradictory push and pull in poetry: on the one hand, the urge to compress and distil, along with the delight of allusion and imprecision; and on the other, a celebration of language, as well as the power of words to precisely communicate to a listener the writer's vision. Lists belong to the latter school of poetry. Which is a lot less work for the reader, and a different kind of fun. The word "accessible" comes to mind. The only question is whether that word is said with approval, or with the supercilious sneer of the academic poet. As for me, I much prefer accessible (or, as Billy Collins says, "hospitable") to obscure.

Getting Lucky
April 1 2015


They would park an old Pontiac
out on the ice
in early April.
Or a Rambler, a Nash
your dad’s Studebaker,

a window cracked for air.
The Knights of Columbus, or local Rotarians
taking bets on the break-up
for annual charity.

When it would bury its nose
in softening slush,
slip slowly under, then quickly plunge
down to the muzzy muck,
a trail of bubbles, burbling-up
in its wake.

Sometimes

it would hang there, teetering,

tantalizing, teasingly.

Before the weight of water
swamped the empty compartment
and pulled it down,

soundlessly slipping from sight.

Someone’s treasured car

once tuned, and oiled, and buffed

now unceremoniously sunk

for a small cash prize.
And left behind,

the dream-catcher
that promised luck

dangling from the rear-view mirror.
The torn bench seat
where an awkward boy, ingenuous girl
first made love,
engine running, glass steamed-up
some hot and troubled night.

So the lakebed is littered with cars,
Ford Roadsters

and old De Sotos

and totalled Chevy Coupes,
stripped junkers, frozen in time

in the cold dense stillness.

An iron reef
of blooming weeds, shifting silt.

Where stalled traffic
sits grid-locked,

streamlined fish, darting past

with quick powerful flicks.

And fishing shacks
are firmly planted,
caught by an early thaw.
Almost upright,
as if he'd just stepped out to pee,

line left

hooked, and baited, and set.
Where beer bottles
were chucked by drunks,
and odds and ends
are stuck in mud,
and snow machines
are still gassed-up
but dead.

A postcard lake,
with a graveyard
of vintage cars
concealed in its depths.

I lost my bet, this year.
The Pontiac
of budding romance, and innocence lost
has yet to meet its end.
And even then
will still be there,
sinking-in to the muck.

That dangling thing, the back bench seat,
where fish spawn

and weeds spread,
and memory’s left

to rust.

Except it turns out
no one got lucky.
An unsold ticket
and there was no winner
the day the car went through.

I would never have known about this charming northern small-town ritual if I weren't a regular listener to Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion. ...Of course, Lake Wobegon is a fictional place, and Keillor has been known to exaggerate ;-)!

I started out with no idea where this poem would go. But I couldn't resist the litany of old cars. (All the while manfully resisting my favourite: no Buicks in this poem!)

And there is a familiar trope here that must have been fermenting away in my subconscious: the idea of concealment; of deceptive surfaces. All this junk, at the bottom of the lake: like some strange arrested Atlantis; an empty city, hidden from view. You could certainly read an environmental message into this, as well: our immense piles of garbage; out of sight, out of mind.

And fooling around in the back seat was really pretty inevitable: what else do you think of with big vintage American cars, after all? So once I went there, the cute double entendre of getting lucky was a natural.

But despite the playful narrative and slightly amusing air, I think the poem contains the usual ambivalence and regret that are part of memory: there in the troubled night and lost innocence; and there in the sense of obsolescence and passage of time, with old things vanishing as if they never existed. And this edge of darkness is also there in the ominous lake-bed, which is muzzy and mucky and cold and weedy and dense; not to mention a graveyard.

I wonder what's dangling from the rear-view mirror. I have no idea. But I think this unknown object contains the idea of something very personal and meaningful that is scorned, ignored, abandoned: like our ignominious end, when the world moves on, and we are soon forgotten; like fish spawning, where we once rutted; like our valued things, overgrown by weeds. Like discontinued cars, no one recognizes any more.

(Sorry about all this darkness. But if I wanted to write all unicorns and rainbows, I'd be writing for Hallmark.)