The Smell of Napalm in the Morning - June 6 2026

 

The Smell of Napalm in the Morning

June 6 2026

Weeds push up through the cracks,

buckle concrete

and over-shadow the grass.

The dandelion

on your average suburban lawn

and bordering the driveway

is a stoic survivor,

too sturdy to stop

too strong to kill.

They are like the hard men

who go to war on our behalf,

and do unthinkable things

we’d rather not know about.

While the orchids write poetry,

wallflowers stay at home,

and hothouse plants grow fast;

but their long slender stems

are weak and pale

and bend easily under the weight.

They are the boot camp rejects

and  conscientious objectors

who stay in their cushy jobs

at Dow chemical

pushing pencils

in some grey office cubicle.

Or study philosophy

normative ethics

introductory Zen,

and join in campus protests

against the war.

Meanwhile, the lawn looks terrible,

an embarrassment

for all the neighbours to see.

You can bomb it with chemicals

drop napalm like hell

or pave it over with concrete.

You can subvert language

and redefine your terms,

where war becomes peace

freedom slavery

and ignorance strength.

Because truth, as we know

is the first casualty,

and words are malleable

  — so they’re now wildflowers

and the garden intentional.

Or you can sue for peace

and learn to love the weeds,

or at least

live and let live.

In the first stanza, I was thinking of a quote often (probably incorrectly) attributed to George Orwell:

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” This is what led me to the martial metaphor that ended up running through the rest of the poem. Where my poems go is far more a result of serendipity than intention."

The lines war is peace / freedom slavery / and ignorance strength are an homage to Orwell as well. Although really, the designation of “weed” is rather arbitrary, and as much a function of aesthetics as anything. So any redefinition isn’t so much untruthful as a shift in perspective. Perhaps we should be admiring their strength rather than reviling their persistence and fecundity! Learn to live and let live, as it were. (Detached acceptance. Ahhh  . . . if only I was Zen enough for that!)

In the film Apocalypse Now, Robert Duvall’s character Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore famously says: “Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ’em, not one stinkin’ dink body. The smell, you know, the gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like… victory.”

My title is but a pale imitation!

Between dandelion and orchid, I’m afraid I’m the hothouse flower.

Lost Dog - June 5 2026

 

Lost Dog

June 5 2026

My neighbours’ house burned down.

There was no one home.

Friendly, but not friends,

we would say hello

exchange pleasantries

occasionally lend a hand

— as I recall, when their dog was lost

I locked my keys in the car.

The firefighters, all volunteers

raced there from their jobs,

but could only rake the ashes

to make sure it was out

and salvage what they could.

An all-wood house

burns fast.

When you lose everything

overnight

except the shirt on your back

life is reduced to its essentials

and a year of hard work.

So I think about fire

take extra care.

Think about neighbourliness, as well.

About proximity

  — which, I admit, can be both good and bad.

About reciprocity

and helping out.

And about the distance I tend to keep.

Because the volunteer brigade

with their old pumper

and hand-me-down gear

don’t live nearly as close as me,

and the people they help

are total strangers;

yet it seems they’re better neighbours

than I’ll ever be. 

The morning after

we stood outside the caution tape

standing shoulder-to-shoulder and hand-in-hand

  — too close for comfort, if you ask me —

looking on

as the cleanup began,

mourning the dog

who couldn’t get out.

Did I say no one was home?

Because someone definitely was.

So gut wrenchingly sad

to imagine her 

madly scratching at the door,

her family gone

and all alone

in the acrid smoke.

The trust,

the love and loyalty

of a good dog

we often don’t deserve.

The lost dog

I can only wish

could have run away once more.

As autobiographical as I ever get. No elaboration. No glossing over my flaws.

Fabulous Odds- June 1 2026

 

Fabulous Odds

June 1 2026

Let time run backwards,

trace the branches back

until they converge,

and imagine the primordial cell

where we all began.

How many billions of years have passed

since the common ancestor

of every living thing?

The we that supersedes

the narcissism of small difference

on the planet we share.

Contingency,

serendipity,

an accident of chemistry

on an airless rock

that barely had time to cool,

a small planet circling a random star

in a remote arm

of a minor galaxy.

It took 6 days for God

and they call it a miracle.

But I’d rather consider the fabulous odds

of life beginning like this,

than a father figure, made in our image

who summoned-up existence

with a wave of his hand.

Who watches over us still,

yet keeps a careful distance

as we fumble through life.

An endless 7th day

on which absent God

persists in his rest.

So the Buddhist

who refuses to kill a fly

is truly his brother’s keeper.

How can one not admire

his reverence for life

and abhorrence of suffering,

no matter how bothersome or humble

a life form it is?

What, then, would LUCA* think of us?

Distant cousins

who kill our own kind.

Who imagine ourselves

overlords of the world 

doing what we like with it.

Who believe there’s a plan

and its purpose is us,

a Creator

who made Man on the final day

by breathing life into dust;

as good a metaphor as any

for the the virtue of humility,

even if it somehow still does 

put us at the centre.

Yet what could be more humbling

than cultivating gratitude

for the accident of birth?

For having beaten

such unfathomable odds;

surviving, for 4 billion years

all the wild contingencies

of life on earth? 

*LUCA: “Last Universal Common Ancestor”

(According to “Perplexity”:

The hypothetical ancestor from which bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes all descended. Recent studies suggest LUCA may have lived about 4.2 billion years ago, very early in Earth’s history. It was likely a complex microbe-like organism, probably anaerobic and able to use hydrogen and carbon dioxide for energy. LUCA was not the first life form, but the last population from which all present-day life shares common ancestry. That means earlier life may have existed, but its lineages did not all survive to the present.)

I was reading about an experiment involving exposing octopuses to Ecstasy (MDMA). Apparently — despite a decentralized brain organized with completely different anatomy than ours, and despite 800 million years of divergence from a common ancestor — we share a serotonin-like molecule that still binds with Ecstasy and produces similar behavioural changes. (Some commentators have offered an alternative hypothesis, finding fault with the experimental protocol. But never mind!) 

So it would appear that back in the mists of time a direction is taken or a choice made, a random accident sets life on a certain track, and then these fundamental features are conserved. Because they work. Because nothing better comes along. And we still share them: a striking commonality despite our apparent differences.  

Or think of the symmetrical body pattern so many multi-cellular organisms share. Is this the optimum architecture, or the result of some random choice back in the day? Intelligent aliens certainly won’t look like this — two arms and legs, 5 digits, topped by a 2-eyed head — no matter how unimaginatively most science fiction depicts them. 

So the similarities of life on earth are arguably more striking than our differences. One can’t help but think of Sigmund Freud’s trenchant observation of human foibles, “the narcissism of small difference”. 

Of course, the difference between us and a banana is bigger than a different language or skin colour. Yet bananas still possess 60% of the genes found in the human genome; presumably, genes inherited from a common ancestor. Or in looking at similarities in another way, back to the octopus, who evolved eyes on a completely separate track than we did, but with both of us ultimately converging on similar solutions. Necessity is not only the mother of invention; its offspring often seem singular and inevitable.

Looking Up - June 1 2026

 

Looking Up 

June 1 2026

I look up

as I pass underneath,

sporadically keeping track 

as I putter about the yard.

At the maples

that tower over me,

their bare branches

forking into smaller ones

that angle out and elbow up

until they taper into twigs;

a great canopy

of naked wood

spread against the sky.

Then at the tightly packed buds

they set last fall,

succulent green nubs

bursting with life.

I watch as they open

them steadily unfold;

in no rush 

to expose themselves 

to a temperamental spring.

Then at the leaves,

precise little miniatures

in translucent green.

Sparse, at first,

then growing slowly

over a couple of weeks

in the strengthening sun.

Which is so unlike the weeds

that shoot up overnight

  — opportunists, invading any open space

like battle-hardened soldiers

greedy for the spoils.

Because the trees are here to stay.

They’re like the settled residents

of a quaint vacation town, 

who resent the summer people

and their loud city ways.

Impatiently waiting

until the maples are fully leafed-out.

For the rustling of leaves

that will lull me to sleep,

the welcome shade

that will cool the house

on hot summer days.

While the trees

pay no attention to me,

just another season

of drawing up water,

drinking in the sun,

and fighting infestation

while adding to their girth.

Magnificent trees

I planted as saplings

in some distant past

when I was also impossibly young.

How their stillness

and sturdy presence

have become a constant in my life,

grounding me as well.

How their eye-squinting height

magnifies

my insignificance.

And how their shade comforts me,

lying on the ground

beneath a cool canopy

in the softly filtered light.

Where the sun-starved  grass

is stunted and drab,

with patches of open ground

where even weeds struggle.

Looking up

the shade I’ve been waiting for.

While looking down

the give-and-take of nature;

the slow-moving battles

we fail to see,

the fitful alliances

uneasy peace,

and the temporary balance

we would all wish to achieve

in our own brief lives.

Often, Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” is survival of the best co-operators. It’s not all “red in tooth and claw” (to quote Tennyson); it can be mutuality and symbiosis. 

Weeds, though, are greedy mercenaries: hardy survivors who simply out-compete.

While underground, the trees benefit from cooperation with the fungi that intertwine with their roots.

Both the battle and the alliance go on quietly underground, imperceptible to us. 

And nothing stays the same. Eventually, conditions shift and the balance sorts itself into a new equilibrium.

Unafraid - May 30 2026

 

Unafraid

May 30 2026

Waves are different out at sea.

Not breakers

with wisps of salty spray

boiling off their tips

and lashed by the wind.

Not chop or surf

or tidal surge.

And not the calm water

on a torpid day

somewhere in the tropics.

Where the glassy sea rises and falls

almost indiscernibly

as languid waves pass through,

like a living creature

taking slow measured breaths.

Perhaps a jungle cat

crouching in the underbrush

stalking its prey,

or the heartbeat

of long-lived creature

who has no need to rush.

In the open ocean

great rollers

sweep across the surface,

rising as high as a 10 story building

then steadily bottoming out.

Floating in the sun-warmed water

out of sight of land

and all alone

in its staggering immensity

you would hear a low-pitched rumble,

the background noise

that comes from the heart of the earth;

would feel gently rocked

in its amniotic embrace

and oddly unafraid.

I long for that distant sea.

Where boundaries dissolve.

Where urgency sloughs off

a time-worn body,

slipping away

and disappearing

into the deep black depths.

Lost at sea, they’ll say.

The man who fell overboard

and hoped he wouldn’t be saved.

I suppose this could be taken either as a recounting of the ego dissolution experienced by a mind on psychotropic drugs, or the escape fantasy of someone feeling overwhelmed by life. Perhaps even suicidal.

But it’s neither. Rather, it was inspired by a recent story I heard on The Moth podcast. The image the storyteller Amanda Burrill so beautifully evokes has stuck with me all day, and I felt compelled to try to reproduce that feeling in my own words, as well as use it as a jumping off point for my own tangential musings. I don’t have a link, but it’s included in the May 29th (2026) edition of the podcast. You can google that, as well as “Amanda Burrill”: such an intimidating and highly accomplished woman that I’m sure her biography will put you as much to shame as it did me!

I actually quite dislike the ocean. Except maybe the view from a distance, or the hypnotic sound of surf. I don’t like its saltiness. I don’t like the cadaverous smell. I find the unusual buoyancy disconcerting. And its power and immensity scare me. I’m an inland lake person: fresh sweet water (I know, bears shit in it, I pee, and fish ooze their slime  … but never mind!), and never out of sight of shore.

Hitting the Curve - May 30 2026

 

Hitting the Curve

May 30 2026

The smell of red meat

sizzling on the grill,

and the yeasty pong

of over-priced beer

spilled from flimsy cups.

 

The sound

of the gravel-voiced announcer

reverberates over the wall,

a cheerleading booster

who knows the hometown

of every fresh-faced player,

and enthusiastically shills 

for the small business owners

who sponsor the team

  — local luminaries

who stand beaming proudly

when they hear their company name.

The crack of the bat

carries through the air,

the sharp clean sound

of hardwood

on tightly wound leather.

How satisfying

after all the fouls and whiffs

and unbearable tension

 —  the finality

of a ball squarely hit.

Followed by the cheers of the crowd,

rising in a chorus

that swells to envelope me

in its raw collective power.

I can’t help but think of the throngs

jumping to their feet

at triumphal rallies,

a charismatic leader

feeding them the red meat

they love to hear.

All joining as one

in the thrill of belonging.

But this is a ballgame, not politics.

I am walking by the stadium

unaware there is a game,

and the brief moment

strikes me as iconic

 — minor league baseball

on a perfect summer day.

I love the game 

and am tempted to watch

but haven’t time to stop.

College players

and bush league hopefuls

who have crossed the northern border

to a place they never heard of.

Do they think it’s exotic here?

A great adventure 

in the far north?

An experience to weave stories from

when they return home?

They say travel is enlarging.

But these kids just want to play ball

drink beer

meet girls.

They are mercenaries, like the rest of us,

living their best lives

in the bloom of a youth

they imagine will be endless.

I envy them;

that one’s life purpose

could be hitting the curve

from a side-arming leftie.

And the fans, as well,

committing themselves

at least for one afternoon

to this singular thing

 — at the ballpark

on lush green grass

under clear blue sky,

grilling meat and drinking beer

and cheering for the home team

as if it really mattered.

I think there’s a certain yearning to this poem: an observer, who would rather be taking part.

And a celebration of being immersed in the moment: when the here and the now are all that matters.

And, of course, there’s no avoiding my abiding cynicism:  the oblique reference to Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, her notorious and rather chilling film of the Nazi rallies; the ungenerous (and I’m sure unfair!) depiction of these earnest young college players as shallow. Even the team sponsors get a little sideways sneer from me — entirely undeserved, I’m sure: the picture I paint of small businessmen beaming proudly as they leverage their association with the team to pose as big-shots. 

But mostly, I’m just trying to capture and reproduce that sensory experience: a descriptive poem that doesn’t presume to have anything important to say!

Consigned to Trash - May 29 2026

 

Consigned to Trash

May 29 2026

On the internet, all my missives

are labelled “Messages”.

Like the ones tacked up 

by the supermarket doors

thumb-tacked into cork.

Lost dog,

cat found,

kittens

looking for a home.

Local handyman

will clean gutters, cut grass. 

And anyone driving to Moose Jaw

(will happily split gas)?

Phone numbers on tear-off tabs.

Like shorthand,

saying what needs to be said

and nothing more.

Utilitarian messages

not real letters.

No formal salutation

or complimentary close.

Not even full sentences,

let alone

bad penmanship

or a cursive signature

with curlycues

and hearts dotting the i’s.

And for sure no brownish ring

from coffee sloshing over

a favourite mug.

Quick, clean

and unsentimental. 

Messages

never meant to be kept,

but rather, consigned to “Trash”

somewhere in the limbo

of the omniscient “Cloud”.

There will be no fading letters

on yellowing paper

in a loved one’s hand

for descendants to discover, decipher, and treasure;

forgotten

in a musty box

in the attic of the family home,

amidst the clutter

of stuff no one wants.

Instead, just a dead phone

with a cracked screen

without the secret code.

Or if the trove does get recovered,

all they will find

is dashed-off rubbish

and unsolicited junk,

disposable stuff

with an alphabet soup

of abbreviated words

and cute emojis

no one uses anymore.

Digital messages,

but nothing personal, or introspective.

No heartfelt connection

or secret thoughts.

No confession shared,

weakness exposed,

fear professed.

As worthless as the household trash

you cart to the curb

each garbage day,

where it gets magically deleted

by men in orange vests;

an empty bin

as if your waste never existed.

The dump, like the cloud

some notional place

no concern of yours.

I recently accidentally deleted all my emails (yikes!): in too much of a rush while trying to declutter my Inbox and Trash. I managed to recover them and then reorganize, which meant spending a lot of time staring at the app. 

I have a box I made for myself called “Letters”. This takes a special box, because it seems emails are presumed to be something less:  not even “electronic mail”, but rather just “Messages”. A utilitarian word that immediately evoked a cork message board. This thought was reinforced when I saw that most of the supposedly valuable emails I’d rescued were utterly disposable.

Perhaps correspondence with email is too easy. I think a little more friction would encourage more thoughtfulness and care. Real writing, not shorthand. Writing worth preserving. Personal letters, not just quick missives that can be as quickly dismissed. Can you imagine a modern equivalent to the letters from soldiers in Ken Burns’ Civil War? I think not.

“Trash” brings to mind the real stuff. I find it disturbing how, in our consumer society of abundance and waste, so-called garbage (a lot of it with lots of value left!) is so easily disposed of. There appear to be no consequences to promiscuous waste when each week like clockwork our trash is cleanly whisked from the curb and magically disappears.

So I guess it’s for the reader to decide if this poem is a lament for the lost art of letter writing, or an environmental screed against mindless consumerism. Can it be two things at once?!

Missing Eve - May 25 2026

 

Missing Eve

May 25 2026

I am not an artist.

I work in words

not colour, shape, and line.

At best, I'm still a toddler 

drawing stick-men

with pencil arms and pneumatic heads

beneath a smiling sun;

the unspoiled world

of an innocent child. 

But while I find it all hard

I’ve been told the hardest by far

is the human hand.

You’d think 5 digits and a palm

would be simple enough,

even for dabblers

in the visual arts.

Would it be bold to see this as telling

   . . . even as metaphor?

Because the hand

is no mere extremity

but how we encounter the world.

How we reach out and touch,

clasp and hold,

make passionate love.

How even in darkness, we feel our way,

and how the blind go eyeless

the lost are led.

How a newborn on her mother’s chest 

grasps reflexively,

snuggling into her warmth

and feeling her hand

envelope him there. 

How we give a hand, and lend one.

How hand-to-hand and hand-to-heart

we solemnly declare. 

And how we reach down,

proffering a hand-up

to those in need.

Even the space we give

to this small body part

is telling,

the homunculus’ huge hands

 — the hunchbacked ogre

that is the brain’s funhouse mirror

version of us.

Its fingers and thumb

like the real ones

bristling with nerves

and pulsing with sensation;

humongous tongue

busting out of its mouth;

and ample manhood

that’s basic anatomy

but still seems pornographic.

I think of the ceiling

of the Sistine chapel,

and of Michelangelo

on his back

on a hard wooden scaffold

painting his masterpiece;

the hand of God

reaching languidly out

to an unsuspecting Adam,

leaning back

in all his manly splendour. 

So the Creation of Man

begins with touch.

The first man

brought to life 

and sent out into the world,

granted free will

and on his own.

In God’s image, but ungodly.

An innocent feeling his way

in an unspoiled Eden

as an innocent sun shines cheerfully down.  

And how all alone, his one great desire

is for someone to touch

and, in turn

be touched by. 

I originally called this Missing Eve. Which I still feel ambivalent about. I think it would have provided a satisfying sense of closure in  to the poem. But it also anticipates I'm the unexpected turn the poem takes, which I suspect might have given too much away. 

In the meantime, “desire” is a powerful word. So the title I went with does the basic work of a good title: it entices the reader in.

Below is a representation of the human homunculus, demonstrating the highly enervated tongue and hands, which take up such a disproportionate amount of space in the brain's cortex:

I dislike ending a line with a preposition (or pronoun, for that matter), let alone an entire poem! Not because there’s any grammatical prohibition, but because it’s a weak word in a privileged place. Yet I think by works here. First, it resonates with desire, so kind of cinches the ending shut, the way a rhyming couplet does. Second, it’s open-ended, seeming to trail off unfinished, and so invites the reader to complete the implied question: by whom?  

If you doubted my lack of artistic ability, perhaps this will convince you. My masterpiece: