Low Winter Sun

Oct 29 2015

I begin with windows.

The sash, the frame, the glass.

The small ledge

that catches bugs,

black, scurrying, hunched.

Cobwebs, of gossamer thread,

with tiny jewels of dew

like rainbow pendants.

Because winter's low sun

is unforgiving,

long thin fingers

probing every recess.

Like thumb-screws, an inquisition of light,

extracting dust-bunnies, spatters

neglect.

So now, I stand erect

before floor-to-ceiling glass,

admitting its green-house heat

permitting its clear-eyed view.

The honey-coloured floor

is immaculate,

wood waxed-and-buffed

each mote of dust

eradicated.

My long shadow

is bending up the back wall,

projecting like a giant

astride his world.

I was cleaning some windows today, and figured there must be a poem somewhere in this.

Not done too fastidiously or too often, cleaning can be deeply satisfying. There is the sense of virtue in doing what needs to be done, in doing well. There is the sense of control: one's small universe, brought to order. There is the tangible accomplishment that has a definite end -- something you can actually see, even measure. There is the gratification of manual labour -- tired, in a good way. (Conveniently forgetting to mention, of course, the sense of futility that also accompanies cleaning: that it's an endless cycle, and will shortly need to be done all over. And that for a lot of people -- like mothers, cleaning up after kids -- it's a largely thankless task.)

Once again, a poem that starts in microcosm and close observation. And which I think at its end captures some of this satisfaction: the narrator's small defined place brought under control; disorder subdued. I see a back-lit Ayn Rand-ish figure (notwithstanding that my philosophy is almost diametrically opposite hers) -- hands on hips, head held high.

...Although no doubt with a good deal of poetic license: the picture window is too inaccessible (from the outside) to ever get really clean. And the floor could still use a lot of work!

I'm very pleased the way the short "a" sound (that is, the "a" of "glass") runs through the poem. I was aware of this in the first stanza, and massaged it to work. But for the rest, I wasn't at all aware. Which is interesting, and gratifying: how my ear seems to unconsciously tune-in to the music of language, taking me by the hand and leading me through.

All Day Rain

Oct 28 2015

All day rain

dribbles down at such a steady pace

it seems it's always been this way

and always will.

The air is uniform grey,

an even mist

giving it stillness, weight.

The light hasn't changed since dawn,

and you wonder if time is out

the planet stopped

the sun's begun to cool.

Yet never accumulates,

soaking into soil

sieving through strata

collecting into veins.

How water seeks its level

all the way down to the sea.

No puddles, pools, streams

overflowing, running-off.

All day rain

on insatiable ground

in a steady-state earth;

a perfect balance, in and out.

Where, like cold-blooded creatures

we sleep-walk through time,

apathetic

as the nearly dead.

An underworld

of damp dripping wetness

where we dream of a heaven

that's warm and dry.

A poem I've put off writing for a long time. Because I've already written an "all-day rain" poem. And because I resist weather poems: it's too easy a default, sitting down at the table to write and looking out the window. But that poem was years ago; and the strong impression you get in this kind of weather seems worth writing about.

I tried to create a feeling of changelessness, stability, uniformity: the feeling you get when the rain is steady, the air heavy, the light timeless. When there isn't even a rising puddle to measure by, pooling water to gauge. But there is also a kind of serenity here: a steady-state earth, a perfect balance. The over-all feeling, though, is of laziness. Which led me to the nice metaphor of the final stanza: the zombie-like walking dead; a damp underworld beneath the low unremitting cloud.

Soft-Bodied Creatures

Oct 27 2015

The concrete poured

in a wet slurry

into its wooden form

leaden grey.

I could sense its weight;

the heaviness

pressing into the corners,

the layered pour

settling out.

Where it sat

like cooling lava

and began to set;

smooth

                 ...warm

                                     ...level.

Which is when the maple leaf

drifted onto the slab

dead centre,

translucently thin

brittle with fall.

Its filigree of veins

branching, and branching again

left a fine impression

in the setting cement;

such granular detail

in so coarse a substance,

such evanescence

in so durable a slab.

Ancient fossils

have lasted millions of years,

soft-bodied creatures

in indelible rock.

Like this passing leaf's

permanent mark.

The incalculable odds

that made a fragile leaf

immortal.

And like a found poem,

the random chance

that graced a plain slab

with unexpected beauty.

This is a true story: the single fragile leaf ending up dead centre; the unlikelihood of such a true and fine impression in so coarse a substance.

Although "found poem" usually refers to finding unintentional poetry in overheard conversations or random fragments of prose, all poems are "found". Especially the kind I'm attracted to, which are mostly about the small inconsequential things of daily life (what I've previously referred to as "microcosm"), and which become grist for poetry when I keep myself obervant, receptive, open. That 4th last line found its way into the poem as almost an afterthought. But I think it really makes the piece. Because, in the sense I just described, the poem itself is "found". It says to the reader: " ...look, and listen; there is poetry everywhere, if you pay attention."

I could have pushed this idea and called the piece "Found Poem". But I'd rather leave that to the end, as a sudden change in direction. (And, after all, everything I write could go by that name!) Also, I rather like both the misdirection and intrigue of Soft-Bodied Creatures. I think it pulls the reader on. It doesn't re-appear until well into the poem, an echo that gives the phrase that extra resonance. And I like the way it clashes with the first line: the sharp break, going from soft-bodied to concrete.

Catching Air

Oct 26 2015

A solitary bird

surfing the current of air,

body sleek

wings outstretched.

It leans ahead, pulls in

dipping into shallow dives.

Then feeling with its leading edge,

levitates

catching air.

Where, with a few brisk flicks

it seems to hover,

lift and speed and wind

exquisitely balanced,

gravity and mass

cancelling out.

A white gull

against blue sky.

Like a surfer, tanned and lithe

catching waves,

trimming, feathering, shifting weight

sussing-out the sweet spot.

Every move precise

muscle taut.

Gulls swarm, swagger, squawk,

gang-up on smaller birds

fight over garbage.

They stare me down

with hooked beaks, beady eyes,

batting their wings

and crow-hopping after me.

But this bird is beautiful,

elegantly riding the wind

on knife-edge wings.

As if purified

by clear blue sky,

elevated

by distance.

And the beauty of play, pure and simple,

cavorting with the breeze

mastering its game.

Until he leans

          catches a gust

                          and peels off,

flapping lazily

beyond my gaze.

A bit of a departure for me, playing around with the left margin, the geography of the page:  the words and the bird, flying off together!

I wondered whether to go with "it" or "he" in the last stanza. I like to avoid the default masculine. And technically, "it" is probably more accurate for a non-human creature. After all, "it" begins the 2nd stanza.

But I think by the end of the poem there is a familiarity with, and an admiration for this bird, that justifies personification: after observing long enough, it's time for me to replace "it" with "he". "It" just seemed disrespectful here. Unfortunately, English offers no gender neutral 3rd-person singular (unlike the plural "they"). And in the end, it was the conventional gender that won out (a disputable call, I know): I just felt that "he" calls back more strongly than "she" to the aggressive and threatening birds of the previous stanza.

I've had some unpleasant experiences with gulls, having been dive-bombed and intentionally bombarded. We had good reason to call them "shit-hawks"! They can also be beautiful, like their sleek black counterparts. Monochrome black and white: gulls and crows (or ravens, that other mischievous corvid), the two birds (other than pigeons) that have best adapted to cities and co-habitation with humans.

Now Sleep in It

Oct 24 2015

All the beds you made

in a lifetime of sleep,

all the empty beds

unmade, unclean.

Together
or unaccompanied.

Covers tossed back

in a rumpled heap.

The depression left

the latent heat.

She sleeps in a fetal curve,

rounded back

knees clasped

arms tightly wrapped,

like an open bracket

closed.

Her body shudders

with each beat of the heart

her breathing sounds submerged.

If only she would turn this way,

perfect fists clenched

transparent skin

sharply angled bones.

Eyeing the ceiling.

the wall

her back.

The tyrannical clock’s

ghost-green light

that’s spilling time like sand.

Is there meaning

in making a bed,

only to have it undone

again and again?

An even number

and you died bravely

or young;

affairs unsettled, room untouched.

Odd, and it was a peaceful death

in your very own bed.

Or hard, fearful, spent.

Soiled sheets stripped

mattress, as is, left.

Throw open the covers

of the unmade bed

and leave it free to breathe.

The purification of light

and cold astringent air.

An empty bed

that was slept in well

reminds me of a messy house;

full of life

even when no one's home.

More of a stream-of-consciousness poem, instead of my usual more logical sequential approach. So my comments are also a little disjointed.

The title's unspoken first line: "You made your bed, ...".

Just as T.S. Eliot counted out coffee spoons, I'm counting out life in the daily making of beds.

I was told it was healthier to leave your bed unmade: because making it traps all the moisture from sleep, promoting mould. Let it breathe, as the poem says.

I was reading an article about the prevalence (surprisingly high; maybe 40%) of couples who sleep apart: a sensible arrangement for people with very different sleep needs and habits, but apparently a shameful secret because of what loving couples fear others might think. There is sleeping together. There is sleeping alone. And then there is sleeping with someone you've grown apart. (And anyway, what has sleep to do with sex? Why should "sleeping together" be a polite euphemism for sex? And even more, why should healthy sex call for a euphemism in the first place??)

I know an unmade bed looks sloppy, lazy, undisciplined. But I think of those soulless Home Beautiful photo-spreads of showpiece houses -- where everything is perfect, uncluttered, uninhabited -- and contrast that with the warmth of a lived-in home, with its scattered toys, and sat-on furniture; its fingerprints, and sink of dirty dishes.

Inamorata

Oct 20 2015

To be taken with

enamoured of

besotted by,

infatuated, gob-smacked, starry-eyed.

Inamorata, soul-mate, heart's desire,

hoped-for, and fantasized.

Dream-girl, lover-boy,

surrendering

and falling for.

Flirt, seduce, coquette,

the perfect words she said.

When capture, smite, bewitch

turn amorous

lascivious.

Cuddle, neck, caress

undone, unzipped, undressed.

In heat, in lust, in bed,

in delicto

                     ... spent.

Tangled sheets, and cooling sweat

unguarded skin

untroubled flesh.

Sated, emptied, fed

kissed and spooned and slept.

Belly-up

and snuggle-in against;

contented chest

rising and falling with hers,

legs enmeshed like nesting dolls.

Your hot breath

in the curve of her neck,

warm breasts

enfolded in your arms.

I encountered the word inamorata: a word I've rarely heard and have probably never used. But I immediately loved the sound of it, and felt compelled to build a poem around it.

I rarely write about love, and even less about lust, so this is a nice departure from my usual puritanical habit. What I like the most is how much time the poem spends on the anticipation, the state of mind; and then, after the fact, on the sense of utter relaxation and the pleasure of intimacy. What a departure, when you can see explicit sex everywhere, to distil the actual sex act -- the clinical mechanics of copulation -- down to a simple 2 word line: in delicto. ("In flagrante delicto" was just too much to shoe-horn in. Which is too bad, because I think "flagrante" is the best part!) So it's all about the before and after; the actual sex is left unsaid.

I also like the way the language, in the final stanza, seems to decompress. Everything up to this point is closer to list than poetry: related words, accumulating nuance and weight. (Which doesn't just look as if I opened up the thesaurus and transcribed: that's exactly what I did. Judiciously edited and elaborated, of course!) It's only at the end, after all the anticipation and energy and pent-up desire is spent, that the poem is able to speak in sentences: taking a breath, opening up, slowing down.

I like the very beginning, with its promiscuous use of different prepositions. Especially because I had to work against my usual reluctance to end a line on a preposition. I know this is an archaic "rule" of grammar, something borrowed from Latin and pedantically applied to English. But I follow it because I think the last word of a line is privileged, and therefore should be occupied by powerful words. The last word acquires a special resonance: it seems to hover in the air for an extra beat. Prepositions are too mushy and meaningless, have no strength or finality, and so waste that privileged spot.

Prepositions come up again in the middle stanza. I rather like the rhythm set up by in heat, in lust, in bed; and then how the sense of in is given a little tweak with in delicto.

I feel I should comment on sated, emptied, fed. The line seems contradictory; but it’s true:  how you feel the emptiness of release, but also the satiety of satisfaction. (Not to mention that fed gives me a convenient -- and necessary -- rhyme!)

I like belly-up. Belly is a great word (verb or noun). It has a kind of innocent intimacy and lack of self-consciousness. It conveys a warmth and physicality and familiarity that I think works very well here.

All The Time in The World

Oct 17 2015

It was the sound that struck me

as I crunched over the lawn

thick with fall;

the sound of autumn

I almost forgot.

Because we take in the world through our eyes,

the brilliant display

of luminous yellow and crimson and flame,

swirling windrows

piles raggedly raked.

Except that here

in this nordic landscape, with its dour folk

the leaves are modest, restrained;

mousy yellow, and burnt toast

a listing freighter’s

rust-stained hull.

Yes, a few are fire-engine red;

but we find these suspect

too full of themselves.

But the sound is still crisp,

a thick blanket

still cushions my steps.

Reminding me

how fall follows fall

no matter how forgetful I am.

How the planet circles

and the seasons turn,

the cycles of life

recur and recur.

Which both reassures, and taunts us

as we measure out time

from birth, to bloom, to death,

our small linear lives

that briefly intersect

these great eternal spheres.

As we forge blindly ahead,

believe in progress

and take the quickest route there.

A fine illusion

in a universe that circles back, begins again

predictable as clock-work.

Unrushed, and unafraid,

and majestically indifferent to us.

Another fall, the leaves have changed.

If only we knew

that there was all the time in the world.

That the year

will endlessly replay.

That this harvest of leaves

is as good as eternal.

There are a couple of things going on here.

One is the contrast between the central conceit of modernity and an older and more primordial way of thinking. Modernity confidently assumes that life improves; that history is linear and progressive, marching inexorably into a better future. While ancient wisdom has it that we are relatively powerless and subject to fate, and that human life is as cyclic as the natural world. In this worldview, people don't move from where they were born, the future is the same as the past, and there is nothing unusual about communing with your dead ancestors. (After all, if past present and future are all contemporaneous, then the dead are still with us. As we too will be present, after death.) So there is a linear worldview, that seems rushed and urgent. And then there is a more cyclic view, that seems fatalistic and measured. (I think you could also put this in terms of east/west as much as ancient/modern: Eastern philosophies tend to embrace this cyclic and fatalistic worldview much more than ours.)

The other is simply an attempt to write in a fresh way about autumn leaves, which have pretty much been written to death. And also an attempt to deal with the bittersweet sense of time's headlong passage; which may be something I've pretty much written to death!

I think the narrator here is very much the poet. He is observing closely. He is focusing on microcosm; but using it to illuminate the big picture. He is stepping back from the urgency and immediacy of life to take time out, to be in the moment, to cultivate a more philosophical and less solipsistic perspective.

I'm pleased with the last line, which I think really nails this. In as good as eternal, the poem achieves a sudden calm: the phrase implies that you can fear mortality and pine for a thousand more autumns; or you can fully immerse yourself in this one, and in so doing experience them all right now. So in this final line, the narrator detaches from the future and invests fully in the moment; the future and present co-exist. (Which is very Zen: the philosophy of freeing yourself from attachment and desire; and also of being in the moment, centred and surrendered. And which is one example of why I said it could be as much an east/west distinction as an ancient/modern one.)

These are the hardest poems to write, and still keep readable. Because poems that touch on complicated philosophical issues can so easily get wordy, pretentious, boring. This stuff is so much easier to write about in prose, where you can write in a direct, comprehensive, and sequential way. So I hope there is enough here to not only keep a reader engaged, but reward her for making the effort. In general, I probably don't give my reader nearly enough credit, don't trust her enough. It's as if the hypothetical reader I have in mind is distracted and uncommitted. So I always try to make it easy, accessible. I write almost as if trying to seduce her, dangling some shiny metaphor or clever analogy right up front! Maybe this time, then, I'm doing well by asking a little more of her.

Contained

Oct 15 2015

The lake is dark glass,

absorbing the light

it used to reflect.

The way parched soil

soaks-up rain

as if it never fell;

hardpan earth

bottomless lake.

An overcast day

and the lake is exquisitely still;

its flat surface

an inscrutable mask

an eyeless face.

While underneath

small fish

silently slip

from out of the murk,

only to vanish

with an effortless flick.

The weight of water

to the silty bottom

retains its August heat.

But it will cool, day-by-day.

First a skim of ice

then a thin continuous layer.

That will harden, thicken, sit,

sealing-in the lake

for the duration of winter;

invisible

beneath its burden of snow.

Where vegetation is dormant

in the absence of light,

and fish still swim

contained by ice.

A zero-sum game

of predator and prey,

who graze, scavenge, mate

hunt, and fight.

A closed system

in perpetual night;

feeding on its waste

sustaining itself.

I like the idea of a self-contained ecosystem: with all life's diversity and complexity, and no less of its intensity and struggle for survival.

And I like the idea of an alien world existing beneath our feet: out of sight, out of mind. The winter lake might as well be a water-world beneath the frozen surface of one of Jupiter's moons, an exotic body of liquid water where some day extra-terrestrial life may be first discovered.

In winter, the lake is absent from our consciousness: reduced to a frozen surface covered in snow, just like everything else; a convenient shortcut to the other side. Although the poem didn't begin with visions of winter. It began as a purely descriptive piece: one thinks of glass as reflective; yet this smooth glassy surface is almost black, absorbing what little light there is on an overcast day. The trouble with purely descriptive pieces is that they're more exercise than poem: readers are going to stick with pretty or inventive descriptions for only so long. I think a poem needs some narrative drive; it has to tell at least some kind of story. So from there, I thought about the fish as it gets colder: kind of like the proverbial frog in the pot of water that's slowly brought to a boil. Except here, the fish are adapted to cold; they continue to methodically go about their business, undisturbed. Then I went from cold to freeze-up, when the lake is literally locked-in: a closed self-sustaining system; no energy in, and very little out.

Poems about fish. There seem to be a lot of them; almost as many as dogs and deer!

Vacca

Oct 13 2015

It seems that nouns

have always itched

to turn into verbs,

plating food

impacting anything.

Because it's hard simply to sit

while all the other words

are in on the action

having fun.

Proper names, of course, resist;

privileged, smug

capitalized.

Notwithstanding

bobbing for apples

    ... petering out

           ... miking the band.

The verbing of nouns

can tell us more

than we might ordinarily wish.

How it feels to be mothered

loved, cared for.

And how to father a child

can simply consist

of conception,

end

at giving birth.

To father.

A verb

that keeps its distance

or disappears.

To vamoose, vanish, vacate;

from the Latin for "cows"

who stray from the herd.

Wandering-off, in search

of greener pastures.

I'm a purist about language, and tend to scoff at innovation. Which is ridiculous, of course, since that is precisely the strength and beauty of the English language: its vitality and creativity; its ravenous ability to steal words from foreign tongues (both "veranda" and "bungalow" from Hindi, for example). Which is a big reason English has become the universal language. And which is so unlike French, with its snobbishly prescriptive Academie Francaise; with its jealous guarding of purity, uncolonized and uncontaminated by English, the insidious natural enemy of French.

One way English is so creative is this relentless tendency to turn nouns into verbs. For me, this first became most evident with the widespread use of "impact" as a verb: a practice I always regarded as lazy and imprecise, until I was told that "toast", like hundreds of other verbs, also started life as a mere noun. And also became evident when it was pointed out to me that "parent" was rarely a verb when my generation was young. Which brings me to "father" and "mother": how, as verbs, they so tellingly illuminate what we think of the traditional role of men.

The poem started out as light and punny, and then somehow took a serious turn into deadbeat dads: the idea that to father, at its most reductionist, is to be a donor of sperm; while to mother implies so much more. I'm not at all sure this abrupt change in tone works. On the other hand, it offers a certain misdirection, which might be even more impactful. (...A word I do truly hate, and vow will only ever use ironically! Much better: " ...which might have even more impact".)

"Vacca", by the way, is the root of "vaccinate": a natural, since Jenner's original smallpox vaccine was based on cowpox. My understanding is that the Latin root "vacare" -- which is the basis of "vacation" and "vacancy" and "vacate", and meant emptying-out, being free -- has a similar derivation: that is, it reflects the nomadic nature of herd animals in the wild, which became the seasonal migration between highland and lowland pastures of domesticated cows. ...So if it turns out that vacate isn't from the Latin for cows -- that it isn't also based on vacca, which I've always assumed -- then I guess the poem also doesn't work!

This poem started off as something completely different, and all that remains of this is the word plating. I saw a picture of a renowned chef bending over a plate in deep concentration, carefully arranging the food. This idea of presentation is very big in the culinary arts: after all, we eat as much with our eyes as our mouths. A few days prior to that, I'd heard a bit of a radio interview with an artist who makes disposable sculpture: out of ice, out of things that quickly decompose. Both these impressions came together in the idea of the purity of the artistic impulse: that the artist's creativity is expressed not in the final artifact, but in the actual doing; that it doesn't matter what happens to the work once it's put out into the world. A poem, of course, has the advantage that it can be memorized: the impoverished poet may have nothing material to sell; but there is also nothing material to be eaten, melt, or decay. ...Which, it turns out, has nothing to do with this poem; but maybe will with another, some day.

A Well-Placed Shim

Oct 11 2015

The ladder came with the place.

Along with the deep orange shag,

firewood

that was mostly dry rot

infested with mice.

A step ladder,

paint-spattered

on wobbly legs

a little battered and bent.

Which would do

for a man who’s hardly handy;

a rickety ladder

in need of a well-placed shim.

Like a deck of cards

under a bad chair

so long as you sit still.

Shakily ascending

I swapped out bulbs

cleared the gutter

cut the low-hanging branch.

How useful is that?

A simple shim

to restore life to balance

steady, level, safe;

a temporary fix

until things inevitably change.

Which is good enough

for a man who’s hardly handy

and all one can expect.

So now

I’m back on solid ground,

anointed by light

and nicely set for rain.

Let the mice

fend for themselves.

Pretty much a true story. The ladder was left by the previous owner, and there’s no doubt why:  it wobbles badly, no matter what; and a good workman would have long since used it for firewood. But I’m not; and I make do. I was using it today on uneven ground:  shimming it up, gingerly testing it. I don’t know how that word came to me, but there it was:  shim. What a great word! What a great concept! Because all of life is improvising, making do, constructing temporary little fixes to get us through. Is a white lie a shim? Buying take-out, instead of home-made?

… And yes, I also inherited some deep-pile shag. Beige; and it’s still in the basement. No mice, but there was a snake in the woodpile. The wood, though, was good.