Storm Warning
June 26 2008


All day, storm warnings
— risk of hail, lightning bolts, heavy rain.
The sky is dull, the breeze fitful.
There is a sense of things pent-up,
of watchful waiting.
The world is holding its breath
and the suspense exhilarates me
— like electricity,
the knife-edge of change.

I can hear rain, pounding down
the tin roof deafening.
I can see glass, streaming
like a ship at sea.
I can feel my heart race
the ground, shaking underneath me
— thunder directly overhead
like 2 freight trains colliding full speed.
And the wind, smashing the shutters shut
rattling the gutters and eaves.

Or maybe, more of the same,
the wind shifting, indecisively
the birds unnaturally quiet
and the claustrophobic sky
made of wet concrete.

I am tantalized by heavy weather;
which is neither blood-lust nor death wish,
but more my own powerlessness
at such overwhelming force.
So I watch and wait, impatiently,
helpless even in this.

Chopin’s Heart
June 25 2006

When I read this, I just happened to have a CD of Chopin playing. So I couldn’t resist! And it made me think of these bizarre cults of veneration and preservation: the mystical force attributed to pickled body parts!


I read that Chopin’s heart is kept in Cognac
in a crystal urn
in the Church of the Holy Cross.

While a grotesque Lenin floats in a vat of formaldehyde,
his puffy face
flattened-up against the glass.
And didn’t they preserve Mao,
his bloated form decomposing in some air-conditioned crypt
— the ultimate indignity.
Hitler, we are reassured, was crushed in his bombed-out bunker;
but rumours persist he was whisked away to Argentina
where he yet may live,
a stooped old man, tending his precious vines.

So in 1849
they still believed the heart contained man’s essence,
his courage
his soul.
And here is Chopin
stripped-down to his essentials
immune to time,
still toasting us
with fine French wine.
While the others are impostors and idols,
their preservation
a desperate denial of death,
their display
an obscene veneration of evil.

Chopin was dead at 39,
a short magnificent etude of a life.
His body long ago returned to earth;
but the heart is pure,
and the music
immortal.

Con-Men and Grifters
June 24 2008


We are all con-men and grifters
— with the curtains drawn
the porch-light burning
we keep our secrets.
And deceiving ourselves even more than others;
believing in love,
finding meaning in numbers,
and then hoping that ours
will never come up.

We admire the con-man,
even if we’d never admit it
— the quick-talking fixer,
the utter conviction,
the self-confident slickness
of the man.
And though he doesn’t leave pictures
— all evidence quietly spirited-away —
he is an artist of human nature
zeroing-in on our weakness like a shark
— blood in the water;
the fast swimmer
here and gone.

I want to believe the just are rewarded.
I want to believe in a merciful God.
And I want to believe the world will go on
like perpetual summer.
So when he thunders his sermon
like an old testament prophet
I, too, will shout “Amen”,
and bow my head to be blessed,
and tithe my 10 percent.

Last Dance, Slow Dance
June 24 2008


Last dance, slow dance.
The girl with mismatched pants, bad teeth,
who knows she won’t get asked.
Two boys, smirking
jabbing elbows, talking trash,
relieved they won’t have to chance
some ice princess
too stuck-up to hear them ask;
and class-mates, laughing.

And awkward kids
hands clasped, skin clammy
swaying stiffly together.
A girl’s body, rake-thin
pressed-up against;
and his eyes fixed on her neck,
several inches taller.

And the glitter-ball
casting sparkles around the walls,
where the basketball hoops are festooned with balloons
and posters make it look like Paris.

A slow waltz, that seems to go on and on.
And the good thing is
as long as the music plays
you don’t have to say
anything.

Waiting
June 23 2008


What does it come to
adding-up the time;
waiting in line,
waiting for your luck to change,
waiting in the rain?

You were once eager, unfazed,
pacing impatiently.
Sometimes, they’d hold your place,
or save a cold plate of leftovers.
And after a while, it started to grate,
hearing “take a number”
“hurry-up and wait.”
And then, you gave in to laziness,
arriving too late
making mistakes
deferring the necessary changes.

And in the end, you were left,
with the same old questions
the answers unsaid.
After so many years of waiting, hopeful
you were sure the revelation was near,
but nothing’s become any clearer.

If only you’d stayed
impatient,
pushing your way in to the front of the line;
had lived for today
instead of waiting to die.

Tall Grass Turning to Seed
June 21 2008


There is the smell of fresh-cut grass.
There is the levelling,
decapitated weeds
for once, obedient.
And there is the surgical edge,
carving order out of chaos
one mower-width at a time.
So, finally finished
I stand hands-on-hips and survey
my contained little world, neatly tamed
with bourgeois pride,
no irony.

Black-fly season, the first hot day,
in long sleeves
gumboots
bug hat,
squinting through mosquito net and tinted glasses.
I work up a sweat, cutting grass,
and wonder about giving back
to nature
what I imperiously claim to possess.
Because, like so much that we have
it can start owning us, instead.

I picture wildflowers
and tall grass turning to seed
and whatever wind and birds may bring.
Or will it be weeds
— black-flies breeding in the cool moist undergrowth;
and wary neighbours
staring icily,
too polite to speak?

French Immersion
June 18 2008


The best way to learn how to speak
is falling in love.
You smile, you shrug
you make signs, you touch,
fumbling with unaccustomed shyness.
Your speech is child-like,
which keeps life marvellously simple.
And the first time she whispered in your ear
nothing was lost in translation.
And now, making love
you forget all about
syntax and conjugation,
because her tongue has a language all its own
only the two of you truly know.

This is like a river
where it runs-up against the sea,
the bracing mixture of salt and sweet.
And the tide, pushing back,
turning fresh water brackish.
Or ocean currents, when they collide,
welling-up in new life
churning the air into weather.

Because it’s on the margins
on the edge
where differences rub-up together.
Where two people meet
with just enough friction for sparks,
and tongue-tied lovers
learn a new language by heart.

Collecting Art
June 17 2008


The very rich
do not brag about gas mileage
or wait in line.

They collect art.
They sniff wine.
They pronounce upon the relative merits
of domestic vs. imported
nannies.

They itch to drive,
the chauffeur crammed into the back seat
of the Masserati;
but can’t
because it wouldn’t do
for the help to sit idly by.

Peacocks roam the estate,
the dogs get walked
daily,
and towels touched once, then replaced.

Me, I’ve started with a garage sale masterpiece,
original frame.
It hangs above the sofa,
where the dog dozes noisily.
An island in a wild lake,
wind-whipped waves,
the sun breaking through.
There is room for a single tent,
a secluded beach,
one canoe.
My money is useless there.
The dog jerks
. . . chasing squirrels in his sleep.

The First White Man
June 15 2008


So far, the year without summer.
Plenty of rain
and cloud all day,
hugging the earth like wood-smoke.

At least I have an excuse to let the lawn grow.
And the peepers are still loud, still mating
in overflowing swamps and ponds,
condominiums for happy frogs.

I walk down by the zigzag creek,
now a swollen mountain torrent.
Where familiar rocks are submerged,
and small drops
pound-down, deafening,
and the cool mist
quickly drenches me.
A massive tree
is newly lodged in the narrows,
picked-up like a twig of kindling.
I tight-rope across
the wetly treacherous log,
to find a virgin forest
unexplored.

Because perspective changes everything,
and on this side
time could have turned back centuries.
I am a voyageur
the first white man to leave his steps;
where starving black flies
are keen to try
my pale piggy flesh,
and the primeval forest
is green and fresh.

I think I might just stay.
Back when the world was undiscovered,
and there were long hot summers,
and the silence
was deafening.

State of Nature
June 15 2008


It’s June that brings me closest to my mortality.
Not September
with its skeleton trees,
and dead leaves, swirling in the lee of the shed.
Nor January
when winter locks-in,
the month of night.

Because in June, nature presses-in
relentlessly.
Raspberries, with their subterranean tentacles
sending new shoots poking-up through the grass.
And trees, strangling the stairway
that make me duck, brushing past.
And picking weeds from the cracks in the patio
by force of habit,
bending each time I pass.
Yet tomorrow, even more come back.

In June, I am pre-occupied by order,
when nature seems out of control
in this ferocious window of growth.
So if I should miss a single season, or even a week
the place would go wild,
as invisible as lost Mayan cities
swallowed-up by the tropics.
And I realize that what I have built will hardly last,
my illusion of permanence a constant battle
against disorder,
the natural state of things.
Like me, it will disappear without a trace,
consumed by forest.

Perhaps, in some unimagined future
they will excavate this place,
re-construct my ancient way of life
from scraps of paper
faded photos.
Or, more likely, all that remains will be a cracked foundation,
overflowing with ripe red raspberries
and songbirds, gorging.

Rounding Error
June 13 2008

This started with a radio documentary I listened to on CBC, called “Children of the Holocaust”, an award-winning piece produced by Karen Levine and narrated by Timothy Findley. In it, he quotes the numbers I mention in the poem; which got me wondering ...


Collateral damage can’t be helped
in modern war
— nervous pilots, with hair–trigger fingers,
friendly fire,
settling scores.

Civil wars are worse,
brother against brother
civilians held hostage to blood.
Where famine takes the children first,
and disease comes quickly after.

The thing about genocide
is how efficient it is;
orderly queues,
industrial ovens,
cattle-cars
pulling-in on time.
I read that 1 million children died
maybe 1.3,
murdered by Nazis.
300,000 lives
as rounding error.
In Rwanda
they were burnt, in a church, alive.
I picture people down on their knees
calling-out to their Lord for relief;
who must have been pre-occupied, just then.
Cyclon-B is heavier than air,
so they clawed over bodies to breathe
— emaciated corpses
piled-up as high as the ceiling.
While in fire, the smoke tends to rise.
So they died sucking air on the floor;
mercifully dead of smoke
before the flames spread,
before the smell of burning flesh.

Sometimes, war takes a rest,
but despots still kill with neglect
— mass starvation,
refugees festering in squatters’ camps.
While the world watches and frets
apparently unable to act.

Back then, they chose to be passive
and millions died.
Now, we take a stand
then ring our hands, and sigh.
We proclaim the end of genocide,
condemn crimes against humanity,
strike conferences and sanctions.

In this brave new millennium;
too much like the last one.

The Smell of Wood-Smoke
June 11 2008


I like the smell of wood-smoke
fresh-cut grass
green hay,
stacked in a tin-roof barn
where light angles-in between the slats.

And the first thaw of spring,
with its pungent smell
of decomposition
and snow mould.
Later, the earthy scent of fertile soil
you can’t resist digging-in,
bare fingers
raking through its sun-warmed wetness.

There is one day late in spring
you would freeze-frame, if you could
— every leaf fresh
on its firm thick stem;
every blossom unblemished;
and the lawn, newly cut
luminescent.
The shadows are long
and the birds have been calling for hours.
The early morning mist lifts-off
leaving every blade and petal
with tiny pearls of water.
And the smell of hot black coffee
and fresh cut grass
perfumes the garden.
Even the weeds can’t offend,
dandelions, scattered about
like yellow polka-dots on a cotton dress.

This moment soon will end
in the decadence of summer.
So I drink it in,
inhaling its sweet intoxicating scent.
Until I forget
in the bittersweet smoke
of fall.

Dark Ages
June 10 2008


“The most violent feuds in developing countries
are motivated by women
and pigs.”
So says my daily paper
quoting a British academic on the Dark Ages,
sifting the fertile earth
over mass graves.

Fortunately, we are now fully developed.
And our age is one of constant light
— cameras in our faces,
and billions of blogs
breathless with self-regard.

But I fear he’s confirmed the worst feminist’s belief
of women as men’s property
— as esteemed as pigs,
worth less.
Me, I just see our pretence
and men, the most despised sex.
Because despite living in the future
the conceit of enlightenment
the essential things never change,
men still driven
by conquest and wealth
— still helpless
at a woman’s naked beauty,
still greedy
for the greasy spoils.

But unlike them, we will leave no mass graves,
our wounded consumed by fire
— cities razed,
our final solutions,
dead bodies
bull-dozed and burned.

Hanging On
June 9 2008


One day
something overtakes you,
the sudden realization
the future is gone, vanished,
and there is only looking back.
Hope has turned
to disillusion, disappointment,
and all that forward motion
seems pointless.
If you were capable of faith
that might sustain you,
but as it is
you know you’re alone
and the universe magnificently indifferent.

Force of habit makes another day pass
uncounted,
and seasons blur into years.
But you hang on
because ingratitude is the worst sin imaginable,
and because unlikely things do, in fact, happen
— like falling pianos,
like the phone call
you don’t know you missed.

A Few Days of Steady Rain
June 7 2008


What refuge to take
when the earth beneath your feet betrays you?

Live long enough
and people will turn on you,
lovers disappoint,
children drift away.
But without solid ground,
how to have faith in anything again?

I have never lived through earthquake
— showers of plaster-dust,
crystal tinkling on the sideboard,
the bedrock you counted on
unsure.
When great cracks appear in the earth,
and soil can liquefy
into quicksand.

But there were days when the rain
kept on-and-on,
the way water can be implacable
wearing its way through canyons of solid rock.
Until rivers roared
and culverts burst their load
and water undercut roads,
turning sand into slurry
and sweeping the fractured asphalt away.
There comes a tipping point
when the water suddenly rises
with unstoppable force,
leaving you stranded on this tiny island of higher land.
There is nothing solid left,
and you can’t take a step
without the earth sucking you under.
And the world that may re-emerge
will be unrecognizable.

That’s all it takes;
a few days of steady rain
to rip away
the world you never imagined
breakable.

Family Man
June 2 2008


The man who snapped,
who heard voices in his head
or was occupied by demons
or thought he was blessed,
executing the will of God.
And we are lost
to explain,
not a loner
or a failure
or unloved.
He was middle aged and middle class,
and incapable of so horrendous an act
say his friends.

Which would make anyone wonder
if we, too, have a switch in our heads,
a little toggle, where a random slip
or bad genetics
or some nasty rejection
could make us tip into incomprehensible evil.
How far a step
from swatting bugs
to the slaughterhouse
to this?
Because we have all consorted with death.
And he is everyman,
too close for comfort.

He was a family man
never known for violence.
And in his terrifying love,
would leave no one behind.

What Keeps a Prairie Boy Humble
June 1 2008


Out west, they get their backs up
when you call it flat.
Because it’s the absence of trees that makes it prairie, not flatness.
You can feel it in your legs, walking
— the swell of the land, rising and falling
like a vast land-locked ocean;
and the steady wind
waving through grass.
And the sloughs and bluffs and moraines,
the footprints of ancient glaciers.

And it’s a sky as high as heaven
with its clear blue light
that reminds you of your place,
a tiny speck
on a treeless plain.
So you can stand in sunshine
looking hundreds of miles away
at clouds as black as anvils,
and dark curtains of rain,
and bolts of lethal lightning
strobing down
— all utterly soundless.

Which is what keeps a prairie boy humble:
the indifferent sky
that overlooks this patch of earth.
And how a minute of hail
can smash a season’s work.