Work Days - Feb 27 2025

 

Work Days

Feb 27 2025

I watch the commuters

on this grey blustery day

scurry purposefully by

in their bulky overcoats

and unflattering hats.

It’s a wind tunnel between the towers

and they lean into it,

shoulders hunched and chins tucked,

coats

buttoned-up to the neck.

The faces I can make out

look grim,

teeth clenched and jaws set

as one does in pain.

The snow

that fell lightly,

leaving the streets a frosted confection

the night of the storm,

is, by the morning rush

grimy and soiled.

And now, has turned to slush,

while the wet stuff still coming down

doesn’t last

adding to the soggy mess.

Commuters slosh through it

in gumboots or galoshes

stained with salt.

There’s even an umbrella

looking oddly out of place;

no match for the wind,

it flaps

with a wet slapping sound

like a madly luffing sail.

City folk, I chuckle,

who think umbrellas work in snow,

and that fancy leather shoes

or chi-chi high heels

are perfectly adequate.

I sit, waiting for the bus.

No rush

because what’s to be done but wait

when the bus is late

as it usually is.

The schedule

in definitive print

on the official city sign

seems as theoretical as theology,

medieval scholars

debating how many angels can dance

on the head of a pin,

rumba

on the edge of a dime.

Work days

and winter weather.

A heated bench would be nice.

A warm sun

even better.

Hoedowns and Shopping Lists - Feb 26 2025

 

Hoedowns and Shopping Lists

Feb 26 2025

The feel of a cheap pen.

Pack of 10

mass-produced.

Clear plastic

lost cap

medium blue.

A generic pen

with no style, heft, or pedigree.

Writing

with a utilitarian pen

is more prosaic than poetic.

Where’s the pleasure in that

when what I want

putting pen to paper

is a sense occasion?

Because what a Stradivarius is to a fiddle

a great pen is to a Bic;

a finely crafted instrument

that calls for seriousness

and effort,

nothing so frivolous

as hoedowns and shopping lists.

There’s the sense of touch.

The feel

of a pen in your hand,

its balance, weight, and girth.

The fingertip precision

of applying pressure

and forming letters

as unique as your fingerprints.

Teachers called mine “chicken-scratch”;

hard to decipher,

sometimes, I admit, even for me.

There’s the connection

between body and brain;

like muscle memory

you remember

what you’ve written by hand.

There’s the improvisation

a blank page invites,

lines shoehorned in

margins ignored.

Where you’re free to doodle and draw,

overwrite

highlight

underline.

And unlike the keyboard warrior

tapping away

on a virtual page,

the ink-stained wretch

crosses-out instead of deleting;

so there’s no concealing

the false starts and dead ends,

no evidence lost

of how he thought his way through.

My father prized a good pen.

A precisely milled ball

that rolls smoothly

but not too.

A chunky barrel

that fits your hand

as if bespoke.

And one with elegance

gravitas

character,

a handsome pen

that’s built to last.

He passed his favourite down to me

but I use it sparingly.

Even now, I’m on a keyboard,

writing in pixels

instead of paper and ink.

It occupies

a place of honour on my desk,

waiting, I suppose, for an occasion important enough

to pay homage to him.

In the same navy ink

as the letters he penned to me

in my misled youth

and nascent adulthood.

Sometimes

the things that face-to-face

are hard to say.

The sound advice

I sniggered at

and largely ignored.

In Another Life - Feb 23 2025

 

In Another Life

Feb 23 2025

Like the socks lost in the dryer,

the homework the dog ate,

the girls I was too scared to ask,

where have all the names gone

I forgot?

Which happens a lot;

the hot flush, rising in my neck,

the cold sweat

already clammy,

and a hastily improvised hey.

Because I’m bad at names

  — people I’ve just met,

casual acquaintances,

even friends.

But like someone who can’t read

but is smart enough to compensate

I’ve learned to buy time

deflect

evade.

Nevertheless, I suspect they’re on to me.

In my defence, I come by it honestly.

My father confused our monikers,

calling my brothers me,

or going through the roll call

until the right one came.

And more than once

I was Blackie, the family dog;

as if the first initial

is all that counts.

Then the time we’ll never forget,

when he called my mother, the woman he loved

someone else.

A cheap tryst, mistress, or paramour?

Not the man I take after,

our absent-minded dad

who was as faithful as forgetful.

When I lose my faculties

to either age or rust

whatever proper names are left

will doubtless go first.

Perhaps off

to where those socks hang out

damp and mildewing,

that take-home test

still resides.

And to wherever, in their multitudes

the unattainable girls are;

who might just have said “yes”

in another life.

It's All About Longer Arms - Feb 22 2025

 

It’s All About Longer Arms

Feb 22 2025 

When my big brother wanted to torment me

  —  either because it’s fun to tease

and I was an easy mark,

or I deserved it  —

he held me off

with a straight arm to my head

as I futilely flailed at him.

It would have looked cartoonish

if you’d been there.

It’s all about longer arms

and the pleasure we take in power.

But we’re older now

and have learned to punch up

not down.

Learned how unbecoming it is

to lord it over the weak

instead of resisting

the plutocrats and oppressors,

or even better

mocking them.

Kids fight.

They struggle with empathy.

They need to be civilized.

Or perhaps not,

if the state of civilization

is as imperfect as ours.

And while brotherly love sounds nice,

siblings also compete;

some animals even eat

their kin in the nest.

Fortunately, mine let me live,

and with time

the difference in age

has become negligible.

We fight with words, not arms.

Have learned to forgive

live and let live

admit defeat,

agree to disagree.

Our opinions, after all

don’t make a difference in the world.

He’s still bigger than me

and magnitudes more conservative.

While I still haven’t learned

that passive resistance

works better that flailing my fists.

At The Speed of Flight - Feb 21 2025

 

At The Speed of Flight

Feb 21 2025

There’s always something.

Perhaps the cat’s gone missing

fridge sounds funny

car’s on the fritz.

Or a bird in the house.

Which is bad luck, or so it’s said.

It was a bat once,

flying erratically

darting and swooping

buzzing my head.

Is it the same for mammals,

or do only birds

portend calamity?

Either way, it seems unnatural

for a wild creature to be confined

the outside to be in.

It eventually found the open door

or simply blundered out.

Except now, I feel vulnerable;

my sanctuary

no longer sacrosanct,

the contamination

by carriers

and the impure.

Then the bird

beneath the picture window

I stumbled on,

a weightless thimble

of meticulous feathers

lying still.

Something happened

in a fateful instant

at the speed of flight.

Not just a bad day

its last.

Meanwhile, the cat came back.

And I’ve learned to welcome

the day after, and the day after that;

when anything is possible

and life goes on.

Prodigal Son - Feb 16 2025

 

Prodigal Son

Feb 16 2025

Big beefy men 

are out on the deck

in the cold depths of winter,

hatless and gloveless

and cheerfully hovering

over hulking steel rigs

that are sleek as a Ferrari

in brushed stainless steel.

Contraptions

adorned with all the levers, gauges, and knobs,

and accessorized

with every utensil a man could want

grilling burgers, dogs, kebabs.

As if winter was incidental

As they don't feel the cold.

As if they were Napoleon

marching on Moscow

and shrugging off the weather.

And anyway, doesn’t cold sharpen the appetite?

Spatula in hand, they stand attentively,

anointed

with the sweet smoky smell

of singed beef and burning fat.

Proud

to be master chefs

providers

manly outdoorsmen.

No domesticity for them,

toiling in the kitchen

preparing a wholesome meal.

Instead, they are hunters

not gatherers,

braving the elements

in the great outdoors.

And then

at the perfect doneness

breezing in

with a triumphant stride

in a waft of ice-cold air

bearing a steaming platter of meat,

grinning expectantly

like the prodigal son

returning to his admirers.

He Says It Like It Is - Feb 15 2025

 

He Says It Like It Is

Feb 15 2025



If we all said what we meant

shared the thoughts we say in our heads,

talked freely

about religion and faith,

ethnicity and race,

forbidden love

or plain and simple lust,

would we gain trust

or lose it?

Would others open up

as if we’d given permission,

or shut their ears

and fleeting ?

Or should we say what they want hear?

Harmless gossip

and weather talk,

chitchat

about the innocuous day-to-day?

Yet they preach honesty

and tell me to speak up,

admire the forthright man

who is fearless

and says it like it is.

Trouble is

a con man sounds sincere

and even straight-shooters can be wrong.

Or right, who’s to say?

Is there only one truth, absolute and singular,

or is truth multiple

  — your truth

half truths

the sworn truth,

what once seemed true

but no longer does;

proven truth

that was immutable

but later fails?

And if so

whose truth do I accept?

As for me, I’m prudent

keep my thoughts close to my chest.

Especially

the transgressive and offensive ones

that might make me a pariah

upset accepted norms.

(The impulsive ones

  — when I see red, and all bets are off —

slip out

despite myself.)

The rest, I edit

before measuring out my words.

Even though they don’t always emerge

quite as I intended,

neither untruth or truth

just misunderstood.

So like most of us

I speak tactfully, and show respect,

saying what’s expected

supporting the consensus

keeping friends friends.

Trying to be popular

or at least fit in.

Which sounds better than cacophony,

scandal and shock,

broken social bonds.

Because while honesty is good

don’t they also say go along to get along,

that nothing is wrong

with a little discretion?

(The magisterial “they”,

the voice of authority

although no one knows from where.)

So I speak softly,

monitor every word,

know when to stop.

The voices in my head

I keep to myself.

Truth is under attack these days: liars and hypocrites in positions of power; jaw-dropping shamelessness; facts, cynically twisted or invented.

So when Trump supporters laud him for “saying it like it is”, steam comes out my ears. Because he just says what people want to hear, or makes stuff up to further his agenda. He even lies when there’s nothing to gain and no reason. He denies what he said, even when it’s on tape. Because he knows people forget, aren’t paying attention, or hear and see through prisms of ideology and tribal loyalty. Not to mention that “flooding the zone with shit” (à la Steve Bannon) makes it impossible to keep track.

But this poem isn’t political. It’s really about that inner dialogue we guardedly keep to ourselves; the forbidden thoughts we all have, but would never admit.