Cold Front
Dec 28 2009


The plough came early
most of the world asleep,
high-beams bleaching the pristine surface,
hazard light blinking
like a Martian lander,
electric blue.

The shiny steel blade
breaks the deep cold stillness,
carves a wave of snow
peeling smoothly off
in its wake.
It rumbles
over asphalt,
clatters
over frozen gravel,
groans and scrapes
over hard concrete roads.
And the diesels, thrumming
belching smoke.

We hear it, half awake
through triple-pane glass
bolted doors,
the ghostly light invading our bedrooms
swivelling swiftly past.

The midnight world
of muffled whiteness
wind-sculpted curves,
ditches filled
fenced buried
roads and fields blurred,
is now neat, geometric
— order conferred.
The grid emerges
between steep snowbanks
and scoured streets
scarred by sand,
that will turn into wet grey slush
come rush hour.

At 4 am, my footprints were all that marred
the untouched surface
perfectly preserved,
like the fossilized tracks
of a long extinct animal,
pacing restlessly, aimlessly
unable to sleep,
caught
in a maelstrom of thought,
quashed
by the weight of feeling.

But the snowplough came, and went
obliterating every evidence
of my existence, then,
between the end of the storm
and the lighter grey
of morning.

Cocoon
Dec 21 2009


The shortest day,
a few seconds less
than yesterday,
according to meticulous astronomical observation.
The sun, setting in the afternoon
unnoticed.
So low, it pours on the windows
horizontal,
illuminating neglected corners;
as if to compensate
for so brief a stay.

From here, lengthening imperceptibly
until 6 months hence,
when the day will seem endless
the heat oppressive
and light
penetrates everything.

But for now, an excuse to eat
to sleep
to dream
through the long luxurious night.
To throw another log on the stove
until the iron box glows;
the flame greedy for fuel,
hypnotizing us
to feed it.

Embers, by morning
grumbling awake in the cold.
Still dark outside,
so I roll over
return to the warm cocoon of covers
and sleep,
at least until first light.

Neatness
Dec 13 2009


It’s a nervous tic, I suppose
picking away at things.
A loose corner, a thread.
A broken nail
you worry at
with your teeth, your hand
your teeth again.
How you unerringly find the crack
pick away at it, distractedly
until you feel it give,
gone too far to fix.

You prefer an even surface,
smoothing over things,
endings trimmed and clipped.
Neat
and uncontested.
Not so much neurotic, or obsessed
as convention
what’s expected
better left unsaid.

Trouble is
things smart small
get bigger
and you can’t go back.
So you’re embarrassed by your ugly hands —
nails chewed to the quick,
even the skin, nibbled at.

You pull at threads
and feel things unravel.
You pick at chips
until your vessel cracks.

Unsightly scabs
you dig at, pull-off, scratch,
and never give a chance
to heal.

Pursuit
Dec 11 2009


This road seduces you.
Its vistas, beckoning,
its generous curves
luring you further on.
Its softly sloping shoulders
draped in pale snow.
Its slender straightaways
posing
in your headlights’ focused gaze.

It flows like water
indirect, uncharted;
adhering
to the natural contours of land,
seeking-out the path
of least resistance.

And down this grade
a reducing radius curve,
that has claimed so many others
who came before.
Turning harder, as it falls away,
the grip loosening, lost
slipping-off
into virgin forest,
an unmarked graveyard
of cars.

The treachery
of heart-thumping speed.
The temptation
of switch-backs and S-turns that weave
through still black forest.
The lure of the unknown,
over one more crest
around the next corner.
And lulled
by compliant motion,
just on the edge of control.

Until this steep descent
this tightening curve
brushed you off the road
with awful unsuspecting suddenness.
Your journey’s end
never reached;
punished, for your love
of speed.

In Line
Dec 9 2009


We wait,
keeping our place
in line.
Make polite conversation,
glance at our watches,
affect the insouciant posture
of cosmopolitan man —
awkward hands
holding-on to our partner’s,
or slipped into pockets
self-consciously.

The impatient ones
push that little bit closer
bunching-up.
And we are uncomfortable
with this violation of personal space,
the cool distance
a northern people
have wordlessly agreed upon.

While the complacent ones
shuffle ahead
step-by-step.
And the deferential
make note of scofflaws
who break into line;
but can only glare
in silence.

It’s this gritting grinding reticence
that infuriates me
waiting in line behind them.
But I, too, clench my teeth
bite my tongue
keep silent,
eyes boring into their backside.
Because there can be no self-indulgent outbursts
here
on the sidewalk, at night,
in our long proletarian coats
salt-stained boots
hunkered-down in the cold.
Where considerate voices
murmur softly, exhaling fog,
chuckle at tasteful jokes.

This is the rough equality of lines
— the rules, unspoken;
the belief in progress
however slow.
And at the end
a lighted wicket, a paper ticket,
general admission
the evening show.

I always favour the aisle —
extra room to stretch my legs;
shimmying-up the plush spring seat
as strangers enter, exit.

Lines
drawn between us.
Lines drawn to connect
2 distant points.

Sound Carries
Dec 7 2009


Sound carries, in winter.
Moving faster
through frozen air
— the density of cold,
its slow and noiseless molecules.
And reflecting, rapidly,
turning icy surfaces
into hard cacophony.
And farther than you’d imagine
— through the bare branches
of brittle trees,
over ice-bound lakes
crusted fields.

You can hear yourself think,
walking in late afternoon
already dusk.
You can hear the squeak
of freshly fallen snow,
out before the plough.
And things only dogs can hear —
the sudden stop
ears cocked
straining forward.
With one foreleg delicately poised
tail fully extended.
Like a sensitive antenna,
receptive to the least vibration
stirring the air.

You envy her focus,
her hair-trigger burst
into certain motion.
She is not distracted
by intrusive thoughts, stray conversations,
declarations, innuendo
cutting remarks.
In her universe
everything means what it says;
no words to interpret
or miss.
Only sound.

From across the lake, perhaps,
or the far side of town.
An impossible distance;
but in a cold dark winter
you imagine secrets,
and believe everything you hear.

Graveyard Shift
Dec 4 2009


We recognize each other
by the puffy pale skin
the pre-occupation with sleep.
By the constant squint, in daylight,
the craving for sweets.
The sun is our enemy,
blocked out by heavy curtains
drawn tight,
by well-trained kids
who walk on tip-toe, whispering.

Nights are usually slow.
The absent bosses,
the eccentrics and misanthropes
drawn like moths
to artificial light,
to pot-luck lunch
at midnight.
Then the deep black hole
of 4 am,
fighting sleep, fending-off boredom
trying hard not to watch the clock.
We are like burrowing moles,
blind and colourless
toiling invisibly underground,
keeping the power on
manning the pumps.

So late, it’s early
on our way home,
we pass grid-locked traffic
against the flow,
feeling smug, even triumphant
to be done.
And nod, bleary-eyed, at other night people
in the sterile morning light,
like members of a secret society
initiates in a cult.
Acknowledging our communal misery,
our battle with sleep,
our lives out of sync
with the world.

And the guilty pleasure
to be free
when everyone else is a work.

For Better, or Worse …
Dec 2 2009


She left him for another man.
In a town, not far away
— for the children’s sake,
for their absent father.

It was leave, or go back,
no middle way.
No way to love
2 men, at once;
which seemed to her, perfectly reasonable.

Or to appease the one
who felt rejected, stung
to have been abandoned.
Yet he made no fuss,
knowing his wife
her mind made up.

Because she firmly believes
that love is not a zero-sum game —
she has more than enough
for the both of them.
Nevertheless, someone always gets left
and someone, unavoidably, hurt —
her husband, at first
then her lover’s heart, burst,
when she returned
eventually.

5 years later;
and he took her in
no question.



This piece was inspired by the love affair between Glenn Gould and Mrs. Foss; who, 5 years on, returned to her former husband. The poem indirectly raises questions about the basic presumption of monogamy, of the heretical notion of polyamory.

Primary Colours
Nov 29 2009


Children in snowsuits
on a field dusted with snow,
are a box of new crayons, assorted colours
scribbling all over
the smooth white surface.

Cold enough for clouds of breath,
like cartoon word-bubbles
over every head.
Containing the carefully traced letters
of childhood,
head bent, pencil gripped
in concentration.
Their shrieks and giggles
the recurring sound-track
to a barely remembered past.

I know how untrustworthy memory can be,
constructed out of family mythology
and flashes of imagery,
confabulation
filling-in the blanks.

We played Red Rover —
the fiercely gripped hands
the taunting chant
the charge,
veering at the very last moment
for the weakest link.
And falling in a heap
as the line collapsed.
Wet snow down your pants,
something torn.
Wool mitts
chunks of ice frozen-in,
numb toes.

How hours could pass
in giddy action.
And how warm sentiment
preserves everything
in primary colours.
With the brilliant reflection
of sunlight on snow.

Scat
Nov 30 2009


I like it, in jazz
when they say “Take it, man”,
handing-off
to guitar, the bass, the brass
the piano, finger-fast,
the melody somehow intact
as they riff and raff and scat
in snazzy suits that snap
of style.

But always coming back
to the line that runs through it,
watching, listening
the feel of the music.
I am amazed at their mastery —
playing by ear, rarely speaking
using a nod, a pause, a wink
to communicate.
So immersed in sound
they are weightless;
their boundaries precariously thin,
effortlessly breathing it in.

And the singer is tall and black
and beautiful,
a class act, nothing cheap or flashy
— the only girl
in an all-boys band.

Everything stops
when she sings
in a voice all smoke and honey,
all soulful sinful amber.
But holding back,
so her restrained power
keeps me on the edge of my seat;
hoping that she’ll let it go,
waiting for release.

By Degree
Nov 27 2009


“It’s warm
once you get used to it”
they always reassure,
splashing enticingly.
And give it long enough
it usually works.

Every day, a little colder,
from invigorating
to brisk
to bone-deep chill.
So you swim hard, non-stop
all the way out.
This reminds me of the frog
who hops out of hot water
every time.
But when the water’s warmed slowly
he sits, contented
— boiled alive.

I hop in, regardless.
In early mornings
with steam coming off.
In late fall
through a skim of ice.
And in winter
when it’s a hard 6 inches,
and it takes a long-handled axe
a gas-powered auger
to open up.

I swim in darkness,
pressing my face
up against the ice
in the shallow pocket of air
trapped
beneath the frozen surface,
steeling myself to be calm
methodical.

It never gets colder
than 30 degrees.
Where my heartbeat slows
my skin loses feeling
and my mind is at ease.
Wondering only
how far can I go,
will the hole freeze over.

No Visible Injury
Nov 27 2009


No visible injury.
A cast, on the other hand
would explain everything;
the story, that much more embellished
with each new telling.

Black felt pen
on smooth white plaster —
“Miss you, get well soon”
she wrote,
“i”s dotted with hearts
happy-face “o”s.

But when you had your bell rung,
the warm gelatin of cortex
shaken
stirred
thumped,
you looked the same;
despite the hard remembering
the stumbling aimlessly
the losing track of time.

And when she broke your heart
the despair
sucked your marrow dry,
cut you to the bone.
But you are a hard man, a stoic,
and no one ever noticed.
You remember being told
that time heals all,
and like a prisoner marking his wall
you took it day-to-day.

This diabolical clock,
as if every second
a drop of water bore down into your skull
in the same infernal spot —
the incessant tap-tap-tap
the eternity of seconds,
about to drive you mad.

Daily Walk
Nov 25 2009


I’m a half mile in.
Down a winding gravel lane
packed, 2 ruts,
pot-holes wallowing in water, mud
now glazed with ice,
in this indecisive fall
that will soon tip into winter.

It softens in the sun,
recording deer tracks
a stray dog, running
after squirrels, rabbits,
the layered shadows
of scent
to which I’m blind.

And the steep curve
where the tires slipped, spun
dug down into soft brown dirt,
left their mark.
And unfamiliar treads,
wrong turn, someone lost.

This is like Sumerian clay
Pompeii’s ash,
inscribed with the drab routine of days
on a palimpsest tablet.
. . . Except this won’t last,
wiped clean by freeze and thaw and rain,
leaving only guesswork
each time the weather changes.

And when I tire of mud
perhaps I’ll pave it under.
Hot asphalt
smelling of rich black tar.
Or concrete
for hardness.
When my daily walk will seem that much farther,
day after day
reading the same blank page
of pavement
underfoot.

A Glossary of Fog
Nov 23 2009


I drive
in the clutch of night
through pea-soup fog.
Half my body hangs out the window
in the goose-bump air
as if about to launch,
eyes glued to the shoulder
— on a gravel road, nothing marked
in the-middle-of-nowhere darkness.

It dropped down
from a cold wet sky
in the dead of night,
like mid-Atlantic
like bad film noir.
Or a bachelor uncle from out of town,
settling-in
for an unexpected visit.
No choice
but carry on.

In a town like this
we need a glossary of fog —
the cold black water,
the warm moist air
that funnels-up from the tropics,
conspiring together
too often.
Stranded again,
perched on the northern edge
of this inland lake,
a backwater place
a thousand miles away
from everywhere.

I find it comforting
enclosed in fog like this —
soaking-up the light
as if it never existed,
making sound play tricks,
turning the world so small
it feels nearly liveable.
As simple as an arm’s length
in any direction,
a candy-floss confection
of white.

The foghorn wails
out on the sea-wall
of the inner harbour.
The crunch of gravel
as I crawl along
no faster than walking.
The concentration is exhausting,
driving through fog like this.
When the road dips
and the fog suddenly lifts
for an instant
of brilliant clarity.
Until I plunge back in —
a solid wall of mist
swallowing-up the world.

Each feeling his way home
on gravel roads, and black-top.
All alone in the fog,
so slow
the world might well have stopped.

Transition Zone
Nov 18 2009


We man these borders
with quiet persistence.
And the usual inquisition —
identity checks,
the purpose of your visit,
contraband fruit.

I brought fresh-cut flowers, instead;
conveniently dead
on arrival.
A peace offering
a non-aggression pact.
Emotional blackmail, perhaps.
A week later
they sat in cloudy water
in a badly chipped vase.

I think of sentries, and one-way glass,
of floodlights, and dead zones —
the no-man’s land
re-claimed by wilderness.
I think of lines in the sand
that soften with the tide,
that a steady breeze
smooths over.

In nature, there are no borderlines
just transition zones.
So am I a nation-state,
sovereign, inviolable?
Or am I mortal,
unavoidably packed into crowds
rubbing-up against the others?
And only sometimes
permitted to enter as one —
the molecules of smell
our vision, our skin,
vital fluids, intermixed.

I can feel the border thickening,
the shadow of the wall.
They say, from space
the planet is borderless,
too high
for the fine-grained view up close.
Where we are preoccupied
by the narcissism
of petty differences,
by the outs and the ins.
Where desire ends
and belonging begins,
and all of us
are immigrants.

Whatever
Nov 15 2009


Another Sunday, mid-November
of thin light
cool wetness,
with the hollowed-out feeling
of giving up.
Patiently waiting
for whatever comes.

The masters of destiny
we once believed in
were false gods
all along.
We felt driven
moved mountains
re-invented ourselves,
all for naught.
Because change is random, swift
indifferent.
While we are miniscule
and insignificant.
Even the stars and the planets
magnificently wheeling through space
are slowly running down
growing dim,
coasting to the end of time
on the energy
with which they began.

We want to believe
in good deeds
posterity
remembrance.
We resist fate,
but in the end, surrender,
clutching our gizmos
posing
warding-off the dark.
Because underneath
we are ancient, naked,
appeasing our gods
convinced we are exceptional
constructing our flimsy vessels
of meaning.

I like this passive feeling;
the struggle was far too much,
submission becomes me.
An angry ocean
has turned calm
and bottomless.
It grows dark
as I go under,
a slip-stream of bubbles
is a single frayed strand,
a life-line
extending up.

Eye-to-Eye
Nov 10 2009


The sun struggles up,
hovering just above the trees.
Finger-like shadows
stretch across the gravel
reach as far as the lawn,
so it feels as claustrophobic
as a prisoner
rattling his bars.
Afternoon is brief,
night falls fast and silent
like solitary confinement
until spring.

Nevertheless, light floods-in
short and sweet —
to the far corner of the kitchen
the picture window, incandescent,
illuminating every dust-ball
every crumb.
Almost horizontal;
fully unforgiving.

What a contradiction
in this cold dark season;
that I can be overwhelmed by light,
by the sun
giving its all.
I bask in its heat,
blink, in its blinding brightness.
Tomorrow, they’re calling for cloud,
for rain, turning to snow.
But for now
I am a hot-house tomato,
feeling as fat and lazy
as summer.

The purification of light,
looking out at the sun
eye-to-eye.

The Yips
Nov 6 2009


The pup whimpers when she’s tired,
when she needs to go out
wants in
would like to play fetch —
a well chewed stick
soft with dog saliva.

Her deep brown eyes
imploring,
tail motoring
nose boring
into mouldy leaves,
abandoned rabbit holes,
stagnant puddles
bubbling-up
with soft green sludge.

She gets the yips —
frantically circling,
hurtling her sleek brown body
in kamikaze sprints,
ears pinned-back by speed.
Of which she has exactly 2:
flat-out full,
and catatonic.

When she falls into instant sleep
oblivious,
first pawing like a fussy mother
at a mess of towels, covers,
then squirmed against the crate.
Or flat on her back, dead-weight;
forelegs dangling, back legs splayed,
her soft pink tummy
undefended,
head cranked hard to left.

Lying in bed
I can hear her dream —
legs thrashing, teeth gnashing,
yips and growls and pants.
And we thought only higher animals, like us
dreamed
the great thoughts of human consciousness.
While this pup, asleep
pursues simpler things —
chasing groundhogs
that quiver with winter fat,
sniffing bigger dogs,
unleashed walks
bounding along beside me.

She makes me feel old
when she stops
and cocks her head behind her,
baffled at my slowness

And she keeps me young,
living every moment
as if that’s all there was.

The Invisible Hand
Oct 29 2009


Loose change
weighs down my pockets
jingles as I walk
glitters on the pavement,
not worth stopping.

At the end of the month
it litters the dresser-top —
slag heaps of copper,
small silver stepping-stones,
islands of gold.

A tall glass bottle
of coins,
waiting to be rolled.
Lugged to the bank, or thrift
where a real live teller
will roll her eyes, thin her lips,
corral then through the wicket
issue a deposit slip.

Then light as a kid who’s skipped
Latin, or calculus,
it’s a quick trip to the corner store,
where I break a 20 for silver.
And on my way
slip spare change
into a busker’s open case.

I am a patron of the arts
a generous man,
who finds time to stop, and listen
to a street musician
play for petty cash —
Bach’s Cello Suite,
free for all who pass.

Snag
Oct 31 2009


The tall poplar
upwind of the house
is a ton of punky wood
waiting to drop.
Its high sparse crown
looked like fall, all summer —
bare branches, bad shade,
a memento mori, on sunlit days
looming above us.

Poplars grow fast, die young
in tall reedy bunches,
sprouting on runners underground.
So this stand is really one,
colonizing the upland field
the air above.

The chainsaw rattles, roars,
growls at rest, belches contentment.
Then smokes and revs,
impatiently panting
greasy teeth flashing
the cheap combustion smell.
It bites, binds, frees itself,
tearing through rotten wood
with ease.
As the great tree leans,
toppling backwards
away from the house,
gets snagged by its brothers
angling-up.

I leave it like that,
birds nesting
trails of ants,
the wood turning dark
and soft as cork.
Where it will eventually settle to earth,
return
to rich black soil.

Fugue State
Oct 27 2009


A change of scenery
they concurred.
A warm dry climate.
Salt-water pools
that hold you up
like form-fitting mats
of body temperature fluid.
A sudden move,
to exotic tastes
foreign tongues
sultry women,
who flash their eyes at you.

I seek the geographical cure
for this gnawing ennui
these frayed attachments.
From the familiar landmarks
that remind me of flawed starts
false hope
things that end badly,
or not at all.

I travel in a bubble of glass,
the illusion of stillness
as the world moves past.
I travel in any direction
a fugitive, defecting,
not speaking out loud
for days.

I make distance,
but only the scenery has changed.
Far enough
on a spherical planet
and you find yourself home, again.

Fat Pink Bottom
Oct 25 2009


A half inch of snow
transforms the world,
a soft democracy of white.

Which reminds me
how susceptible we are to surface,
struggling to unearth
the thin and tenuous
from what is deep, authentic.
We take-in the world through our eyes —
the selective aperture of gaze;
the narrow spectrum of wavelength;
the beguiling deception
of glitter, paint, and blinds.

I watch a mother
with her infant son,
holding, stroking
burying her nose
in the newborn baby smell;
looking through trusting up-turned eyes
directly into his soul.
She coos nonsensically,
dandles on her knee
his fat pink bottom,
feels constantly astonished
at the one-off beauty
of his boneless body.

She utterly absorbs him
through all 5 senses;
fell in love long before
he ever emerged
into a world ruled by sight.

Lost
Oct 22 2009


You ease into an all-day pace,
the walking, unconscious
your mind
free to wander.

Time unravels, dissipates,
so only distance remains
— how far from nightfall,
how badly you’re lost,
the world you left well behind.

Grateful this body
which demands so much of you
— needing to be filled,
soft with pain,
the light and sound
entering incessantly —
can disappear
in automaticity,
in the soothing rhythm
of stroke and gait.

You try hard to walk
on uneven ground
every day,
pushing through underbrush
stumbling on roots
black mud, sucking at your heels.
You step away from your body
and look back in wonder
at this steadily breathing shape
warmed by blood,
its ineffable complexity
carrying on by itself.

While you roam far away,
effortlessly ascending
beyond the pull of earth.

One More Winter
Oct 15 2009


The scent of wood-smoke.
Crisp leaves
crunching underfoot,
whipped into tiny whirlwinds.
The relentless descent
into darkness.

Who isn’t melancholy
in the fall?
Literally “black bile”;
which sounds envious, mean,
instead of that bittersweet feeling
of loss
and repose
and time’s indifferent speed.
As bodies grow older,
the cold penetrates deep,
and you find you’ve lost a step
bucking wood
raking leaves
bringing-in the sunshade and deck chairs
you hauled out last spring —
too flimsy
for winter.

The woodstove eases
your aching joints,
you can’t look away from the flame.
The forecast is calling for snow.
You imagine drifts against the door
half-way up the windows.
You can’t wait to be storm-stayed,
certain you’ll make
one more winter
at least.

Enclosed
Oct 13 2009


I take comfort
after dark,
the warm lights in the windows
waiting to welcome me home;
the world shrouded in darkness
except for the silvered circle
close-by
that moves with me as I walk,
looking down
taking notice
of a small circumscribed world
that seems transformed.

There is so little time
as I move through fall;
the days getting shorter
so it feels like peering-out at daylight
through a quickly narrowing slot.
Night encroaches
from both ends at once,
making us all nocturnal creatures
— the early risers,
those who prefer the dark.

So we hustle through daytime
getting things done,
then eat and sleep
and watch;
close observers
unintentional poets,
conjuring a whole universe
from the microcosm,
enclosed by night.

The Perpetual Now
Oct 12 2009


There was snow
the first week of October;
fall, hardly over,
its sepia-toned carpet of leaves
frozen
‘til the reprieve of dawn,
when the thin white cover
imperceptibly lifts.

In her first 8 weeks of life
this puppy has seen brief high summer
a rain-soaked autumn
now her very first snow,
snapping at fat wet flakes
her nose, white frosting
bounding with unrestrained delight.
One more great mystery
to explore.

She is pure, uncorrupted.
She has only known love
has no malice or judgement
implicitly trusts.
She lives
in the perpetual now.

A wild carnivorous beast
shares this space with me;
a plush brown toy
when she sleeps.
In this ambivalent season
of endings, and beginnings
I watch her grow strong;
hardly a puppy for long.

Home in Time for Dinner
Sept 24 2009


They used to sell chewing gum
in the shape of cigarettes.
We couldn’t wait to smoke.

There’s that shelf
that runs the length of the back car window.
When I was little
I’d curl up to sleep there
on long road trips.
The white noise
of wind, engine, asphalt,
the sudden light
of passing cars.

We rode our bikes
from morning to night,
one gear gliders
that became motorcycles, spaceships,
in baseball caps and Keds
(which were canvas sneakers
that came in white or black
high-top, or regular.)
“Just be home for dinner”
our mothers had said,
and we were gone.

Back then, they could strap us in school —
holding-out our hands
palms up,
the sting of leather.
It was almost worth it,
a minor celebrity at recess.
Back home, we’d get our butts slapped
again —
“for good measure”, they said.
Because the teacher was always right
“and don’t you forget it.”

We ate white sliced bread
powdered milk
TV dinners,
sat around a small screen
black and white, together,
getting-up to change channels
adjust
the rabbit-ear antenna.
There were only 5
3 of which had bad static,
so we pretty much left it
as it was.



In the precarious days of our youth, when everyone smoked, no one wore seatbelts (or bike helmets), corporal punishment was OK, and we deferred to authority, we somehow managed to survive into adulthood. And not only that, but probably enjoyed life more when there was less choice (shoes and channels, for two!), but so much more freedom.

Another Poem About Fall
Sept 23 2009


The leaves change quickly, here,
a burst of crimson, orange
and then they’re gone —
a sodden brown mat,
heavy raking.

The days as quickly shrink;
and me
craving sleep, sweets,
my body still confused
by the end of summer,
winter, coming.

It’s hard to write a poem about fall;
what hasn’t been said before,
and falling leaves
is too easy a metaphor.
North of the Tropic of Cancer
north of the temperate zone,
more rock than earth
everywhere, standing water,
where even the needles soften, drop
as spruce and pine
prepare for snow.
While I grow fat
and lazy,
and frosty nights grow long.

The air, this time of year
is cool and dry,
so the sky at night seems bigger —
stars, laser-sharp,
the black void, infinite.
I become aware how thin it is,
the egg-shell atmosphere of earth;
its frugal warmth
its precious oxygen.

Looking up
through poplar, birch
— bare branches,
which seem to shiver
all through winter —
I snug-up my red wool sweater
that smells vaguely of wood-smoke
and begin to gather leaves;
still wet with dew,
shadows already lengthening.

Everything Gets Worse
Sept 22 2009


Everything gets worse
at night.
In the murky muffled quiet
of your queen-sized bed.
On sheets
you can’t remember changing,
a comforter
that’s way too hot,
the itch can drive you crazy.
The pain
that says metastases, a heart attack
some gruesome infestation.
Or grief’s
unbearable weight.
When sleep, that sweet escape
won’t take you.

If you’re alone
you think of neighbours,
eventually calling the cops
— the door locked,
the mail untouched,
the pervasive smell
of rot.

If you have company
whose name you just forgot,
you lie beside her, wondering
will she flee
or stop?

And if she’s your lover, your wife
you want to believe
she’ll hold you,
stroke your hair,
spoon your body against her
until dawn,
when the busyness keeps you from thinking,
the cold grey light
makes you small
again.

Then Saturday, you sleep all day
catching up;
the curtains
flung-open wide,
every dust-ball
illuminated.
When the monster under the bed
recoils from the light,
squeezed
into one tiny corner.

Looking Up
Sept 21 2009


When the power was cut
I stood stock-still
in sudden darkness.
But the silence
is what surprised me most —
the fluorescent buzz
the whirr of a clock
the fridge’s comforting hum,
all abruptly gone.

And then my eyes adjusted;
to the sliver of moon,
the stray light
of stars.
Nothing to do
but go outside, and walk.

As our ancestors have done
for tens of thousands of years
before the last century;
when night became glamorous
and we fought-off sleep
and felt ourselves fearless
and stopped looking up.

Until a night like this
is given to us.
When constellations crowd the sky;
and ever fainter stars
appear in bunches,
filling empty space
with light,
looking all the way back
in time.

My eyes area open wide
drinking-in the universe,
my ears
on hair-trigger alert.
And the clocks
have all stopped counting;
which feels like time is free
like permission to finally breathe.
As houses empty
the streets are filled,
politely excusing ourselves
as we gently bump into each other.
Everyone, out walking;
in wonder, looking up.

Hand-Push Mower
Sept 19 2009

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” (attributed to Gustave Flaubert)


The hand-push mower
whirrs through the grass,
carving green manicured strips
clipped as close as boot camp.
The scent is succulent, sweet —
fresh-cut hay, mixed with summer day.
Sunday morning
when the dew has barely lifted.

It’s a heavy machine;
built before obsolescence,
cheap tinny knock-offs
with high-gloss paint.
The blades are elegantly curved
disappearing in an egg-beater blur
the moment it's set in motion.
The wheels are big, black, permanent,
the grips, contoured to fit my hand
smoothly,
hot, in thick leather gloves
stiff and stained with grass;
but inside, soft as a chamois.

I walk along, behind it
my pace steady, measured,
concentrating on long thin rectangles
ruler-straight edges
the margins of beds.
And the base of the chain-link fence,
where mutant weeds
send up grotesque stems
their curdled leaves.

Every two weeks, all summer
I perform this chore;
intoxicated by smell,
reassured by the well-oiled whir,
unaccountably pleased
by the even surface.

The unexpected pleasures
of the bourgeoisie.



I remembered the opening quote as “Live your life as a bourgeois, so you may seek passion and risk in your art.” Which I think may be better, even if he did say it first! Anyway, they both fit the poem. And I think it would be terribly disrespectful not to have stuck to the original.

Parallel Universe
Sept 16 2009


I’m trying to explain colour
to a blind man.
So I ask
what is the essence of blue?
Where is the synapse
that lights-up on red?
How does the vibration
of electro-magnetic waves
affect us as deeply as music
— a blue funk, a purple haze
a jaundiced expression,
the snarling black dog
of depression?

The optic nerve
fires-up the brain,
and colour occurs.
So, is that where colour resides
from the first?
Or is the brain a blank slate,
waiting for the eyes to open
and open-up the world?

He was 2, when it occurred
the accident,
and vaguely remembers looking-out
at the green beginnings of his world.
He doesn’t miss it, he says,
just curious.
“I can’t miss
what I’ve never really known.
And sound is rich enough
touch intense,
especially when I focus;
with nothing but deep dense blackness
to distract me.”

Like the vast orders of magnitude
I can’t see past.
Like the surface of things
I cannot penetrate.
Like the future
that may, or may not, happen.
And like the extra dimensions
only physicists understand,
I, too, am colour-blind —
living the conceit that I’ve mastered
a material world
my eyes can never capture;
my mind
never truly grasp.

Unseasonably Warm
Sept 14 2009


It’s desert dry
the sun high, and merciless.
The road goes by
50 feet from my door;
mostly sand, bits of gravel
spit-out like shrapnel
from passing cars.
They rumble past in a fury of dust,
usually oblivious
to the small frame house
hammered-up
in the middle of nowhere.

It’s been 2 days
looking-out, a hand shading my eyes
since I’ve seen anyone go by.
The road bakes.
Heat waves
rise-up, shimmering,
turning the stagnant air liquid
— like a parched tongue
licking dry cracked lips.

Cicadas buzz;
only the males, I’m told,
signalling their loneliness, desire
their loud abrasive fitness.
And I swear, I wouldn’t be surprised
to see a tumbleweed roll by,
out of the spruce and pine forest.
A diamondback
slither past on its silky belly,
rattler poised.
Or an armadillo
sunning on the road.

I hear voices
on the radio,
reassured I’m not alone;
that the world hasn't ended
quite yet.
For days, now
they’ve been saying rain;
but the sky stays clear, relentless.

On a rough dirt road
through a tinder forest;
way too far north
for rattlers, and sand-storms,
for bleached white bones.

In The Land of Shy Children
Sept 13 2009


I was a shy child.
Adults were pant-legs
and sensible hems,
the tops of shoes;
hands reaching down
from the high plateau of grown-ups,
permanently shrouded in cloud.

Other kids
were quick-sand,
sinking under their scrutiny
confused by their exuberance.
While solitude was freedom
in our small fenced yard —
digging dams, and earthworks,
conjuring whole cities
from dirt.

Until I was abruptly dropped
into kindergarten,
its hot-house soil
overgrown with carnivorous weeds —
giggly girls in pink,
bigger boys
loud, snatching things.
And a teacher
whose smile frightened me.
What I best recall is nap-time —
transported by daydreams;
eyelids firmly shut,
the red-tinged darkness
keeping the world at bay.

Eventually, of course
I came of age,
found my place,
learned how to behave
in my small familiar universe.
The air up here is thinner.
The light
still penetrates.

Where I never stopped seeking solitude
to decompress, escape.
Digging away
in my small backyard,
a poorly tended garden,
a wild ravine.
Still inhabiting
the imaginary ziggurats
piazzas and arcades
the child once dreamed.

The Anatomy of Feeling
Sept 11 2009


The heart is a muscle
like any other.
Except for its built-in beat,
pounding out the pace
from the stern deck,
while the rest of us
dutifully leans into its oar.
And when aroused, worked-up
hammers-away like war-drums —
swelling-out our chest,
sending pulses of blood
flooding right through us.

While the brain has no sense
of rhythm,
firing-off
in all directions at once.
Even in sleep,
juicing our dreams
with random apparitions,
flashes of absurdity.

So I think erratically,
tend to feel with measured intensity;
the head and the heart
pulling in different directions.
And then, in the end
it’s the gut that decides,
that visceral feeling of right
and wrong,
instinct, and intuition.

When I feel my skin crawl
sphincters pinch,
fists clench
and the hair on my neck
bristle
with fear
and rapture.
When I am raw —
nerve-ends exposed,
jaw dropped,
eyes wide open.

Precambrian
Sept 10 2009


I’m following the path of least resistance
through the woods,
where plants are trampled, roots exposed.
I scoop-up a small grey stone,
take pleasure in its heft
its cool density
its smooth round edges.

From countless centuries
spent on an ancient lake-bed.
Or pebble beach
pummelled by waves,
gently rocked
in long slow swells.
Hard to tell
how it found its way
to this land-locked path,
the forest floor
worn down so fast
by human foot-steps.

It feels warm, now
in my hand,
worrying-away at it.
Like a nun
compulsively fingering her rosaries,
asking forgiveness
giving praise.

I am brief, evanescent
compared to this ancient object.
And in my hasty irreverence
toss it off into the forest,
where it will remain
undisturbed, unchanged,
utterly faithful
to its nature.
To be picked-up again, perhaps
in who knows how many millennia;
as if passed hand-to-hand
reaching across the ages.

Sit-coms From Other Planets
Sept 8 2009


The radio keeps me up-to-date on things.
The date
is 1990,
when I stopped paying attention.
Music was OK, back then —
disco dead
hip-hop, not yet invented.
The news, pretty much the same;
so once I got used
to war, disaster, starvation
I’d stopped hearing, anyway.

The announcer is smooth, breathless;
no less for lost pets
than bomb threats, pandemics.
In sports, someone’s worse, someone’s better.
And I can always look out the window
for weather.

There are acts of God, acts of Man,
and I’m not sure which are more hurtful.
But I know the first are easier,
because we can throw up out hands
proclaim ourselves helpless.
And the last
are too easy to blame
on someone else.

So I set the dial between stations.
They say the static hum
is left-over radiation
from the Big Bang,
the slow descent of the universe
toward absolute zero.
But who knows, perhaps
I’ll tune in to some inter-galactic chatter —
aliens, sending a message to earth;
extra-terrestrial girls
dishing juicy rumours;
sit-coms from other planets
reaching us eons after.

And the news from Utopia,
coming over the air
faint and crackly.
Which is what I’d hoped for, all along —
the perfection of Man
a benevolent God,
from a dim cluster of stars
not all that far-off.

Ground Level
Sept 7 2009


I felt manic, that day.
Or maybe some lunar phase
or alien rays
from the Kuiper Belt
that made me so restless.

So I set out
without maps, or direction.
The city looks different
from ground level
at walking speed.
I follow its steep descents,
dipping-down into the cooler air
left over from dawn.
I step into its street life,
spilling out of storefronts, noisy bistros
in Greektown
Little Italy.
And by a corner market
overflowing the sidewalk,
where the Chinese shopkeeper
guards his stalls.
There’s the smell of home-cooking
from narrow brick houses
where immigrants start out —
masala, souvlaki
cilantro, creole.
And behind closed doors
voices raised,
a girl practicing piano chords.

The concrete is hot,
asphalt even hotter.
Weeds push through the cracks,
and trash
accumulates like flotsam
in the lee of benches, garbage bins.
Which archaeologists will uncover
a few hundred years from now;
learning all about us
from soda cans
tobacco tins.

The walker’s geography
is all about the density of crowds,
the feeling of menace
on bad corners, back alleys.
Time is speed,
so the slower I go
the more there is of it.
And it’s not so much lost in the city
as losing myself here;
a flaneur
a voyeur
a fugitive,
just passing through.

Where I’m as invisible
as lines of gravity
or cosmic rays.
And feel I stand-out
like a comet’s tail
trailing sparks.
Like the full moon
at ground level.

Odds
Sept 5 2009


A bird flew into the car.
As if shot from a gun,
no one saw it coming.
Even at cruising speed
its airy body
— hollow-boned, plumage puffed —
did not dent the metal;
just a smudge
of iridescent feathers,
something wet.
A hawk, I think
wheeling in the tricky breeze,
its telescopic gaze
distracted
by a flicker of prey
in the underbrush.

So our intersection
in time and space
was as improbable as falling frogs.
As the man who took a bullet to the heart,
stopped
by his pocket Bible.
As future lovers
bumping into each other
on a crosswalk at rush hour,
in the tide
of human bodies.

Which happens all the time.
The unlikely, not impossible;
no need of divine intervention.
And all those others we brushed against,
conveniently forgotten.

The bird, of course, instantly died.
Which is how we console ourselves
— “instantly”,
no pain, no warning.
Death, dropped into our path
from a clear blue sky.
Like everything else does
looking back;
as if all of it was planned
to perfection.



This poem is about magical thinking; about the illogic to which the human brain is prone.

Things like selective memory and confirmation bias (paying attention to the things that confirm our preconceptions and prejudice; and conveniently ignoring all the rest.)

Things like the misattribution of cause and effect.

Things like the inductive reasoning we use to make sense, looking back.

Things like our intuitive misunderstanding of probability and dumb coincidence.

Because our genius -- the unique ability of the human brain -- is to seek out patterns, to make meaning. Which, in my opinion (admittedly, the opinion of a rigorous skeptic and confirmed atheist) is what leads to magical thinking, to superstition, to religious faith. And we've all seen where that eventually leads: Crusades, Jihad; the Promised Land.

Make Love
Sept 3 2009


Teenagers with kalashnikovs
make me nervous.
They draft ‘em young, he said.
Hormones and guns, I thought — perfect.
We came armed
with bandannas, water, onions.
Onions?!!
For the tear gas — face covered
by a wet cloth,
breathe-in the onion.
Seriously?, I wondered.
But there I was, looking like all the others
— black hoodie, good runners.

40 years after Woodstock
I think about music, free love
more innocent drugs.
Of course, the adrenaline rush is an upper,
getting high
charging police lines, shouting slogans.
Even half-hearted protests, like mine.
Feeling kind of hopeless,
knowing that we’ll also grow old
get fearful
become accustomed to the status quo.

Before Woodstock
there was King, Gandhi —
bus boycotts,
the unstoppable salt march.
All those long hot summers;
but Jim Crow did eventually end
the British left.
So why not make love
sing folk songs instead?, I mutter;
throat burning
eyes on fire,
running blind.



A pretty obvious poem: about non-violent protest; about civil disobedience. The thing about the onions, by the way, is true. Or so I'm told. (I owe an acknowledgment here to CBC radio's "Dispatches": both for the onion thing, and for the first line (which, I must admit, I took the liberty of "borrowing"!))

Guess-Work
Sept 2 2009


You imagine yourself
the hero of a novel —
getting the girl,
carrying the plot,
now quite sure how it ends
or when.

Although most days
you feel more like a minor character —
the best friend,
someone the narrator
owes a favour.
Certainly not a play,
all costume and dialogue
sweating under heavy make-up.
Because you’re more a listener, than a talker.
And how to explain
all the witty badinage, the bon mots, the clever send-offs
that came to you
a minute too late.

No, more a short story, I think.
Dropped into the middle of things,
trying to figure out who’s who
what just happened
where the real truth lies.
And some great weight
something unsaid
you won’t know ‘til it ends,
if then.
Which is never does, really;
more a sudden stop,
the unresolved ending
that both maddens and exhilarates you
with its endless possibility.

Just a few close friends
a simple plot
an intense love interest,
as intricate and condensed
as poetry,
as spare as a single idea.
And people whose inner life is guess-work,
often even to themselves.

No, you’re not a novel
with its vast universe
its neat conclusive ending.
More a book
of linked short stories,
where it’s just one damn thing after another —
a cryptic plot
that lets you briefly in,
then carries on without you.

Hydraulic Pressure
Aug 31 2009


I’ve been told the past
is bad for me.
That I immerse myself
in its tepid bath-water —
knees poking-out
like 2 pale craggy islands;
the grey grim ring
sloshing-up against enamel;
my goose-bumped skin
marinated nicely.

I talk back
about lessons learned
trajectories into the future;
nostalgia, regret
recrimination.

If only I was a master of Zen,
I could float in this perfect temporal plane
in body temperature water,
conditioned with soothing salts
some healing fragrance;
the isolation chamber
of the ever-forgetful now.

But what they don’t take into account
is the hydraulic pressure of memory.
How it seeps through
cracks in the bedrock.
How it gushes-up
unexpectedly.
How incompressible,
it makes its way out.

Continents are worn away
sand, ground down finer,
and a human body emerges
cleansed —
water sluicing off impervious skin,
long hair streaming,
skin tingling
from the bracing cold.

As I grow old
the future shrinks,
time moves faster.
Without memory
a man’s soul desiccates
turns to dust.
So if I pour out the past,
soon, I would be nothing.

Under the Bed
Aug 29 2009


I peer under the bed,
the whites of my eyes
mooning into the darkness,
blinking as they adjust.
Missing socks.
Coins, dropped from emptied pockets.
Dust bunnies
reminding me of ancient tombs,
the magnitudes
hiding in plain sight.

Twice a year, the sun is low enough
to stretch a finger of light
into this secret fortress.
After all those millions of miles
in a straight unbroken line
its journey over,
revealing dust mice
in bleached white relief.

But the furthest corner
is still out of reach,
where dust bunnies cavort
wantonly,
and dust mice shamelessly breed,
miscegenating
proliferating
contaminating the entire place
with their progeny.

When we moved the fridge
dust bunnies scattered like tumbleweeds.
Word went out.
Under the bed, they prepared their defense.

So even after they drop the bomb
all that will be left
are cockroaches,
furiously scurrying for shelter.
And tiny balls of dust,
rolling along
picking-up the survivors
growing to gargantuan size
— mutant dust mice
colonizing the world,
contemptuously out in the open
in the eerie greenish glow.



An excellent poem -- Whirlpool -- by one of my favorites, George Bilgere, was posted on the Writer's Almanac recently. He used the expression "dust mice" (not "dust mites", but "dust mice"), which didn't seem right at all: I've always only heard "dust bunnies". After reading that, the expression stuck in my head, and I felt this overwhelming urge to play around with the idea. This poem, for better or worse, is the result (so far).

(I can't reproduce Whirlpool here. But if you'd like to see it, here's a link: ....no, the link isn't working. Instead, just type "writer's almanac" into your search engine, and then type "whirlpool" in the "search poem titles" line.)

Comings and Goings
Aug 23 2009


You return home
for weddings and funerals.
And in between, keep an eye on the weather
down East,
remembering
how you used to love a winter storm.
When traffic was snarled
school closed;
and snowflakes pelted horizontal,
turning streetlights
into snow-globes.
December wedding.
Funeral in May.

You come and go,
crossing time-zones, re-setting your watch,
as if propelled into the future
still jet-lagged, groggy;
or travelling back through time.
How absence
makes everyone look older.
How you feel far too young
in your childhood bedroom,
quickly regressing
to the rebellious daughter
the insolent son.

Funerals can’t be helped, of course,
And at least in May
the ground is soft
flowers, abundant.
But you can’t help wondering
who gets married in December,
in the stingy light
unforgiving cold.

Except it’s then you remember
the beauty
of freshly-fallen snow.
And the brand new year
just around the corner,
when everyone re-sets the clock
gets to start over.
And begins looking forward
to the first green shoots,
the final thaw.



This poem is about the malleability of time: how we effectively inhabit all the stages of life at once; how, in the geologic sweep of time, we are all essentially contemporaries, despite any difference in age, despite the conceit of the young. So there is a lot of playing around with conventions of time and age: in moving back and forth through them in both memory and space; in the inversion of expectation, with the winter wedding and the funeral in spring. In other words, the "comings and goings" here are both literal and metaphorical, physical and temporal.

There is also the malleability of perception: how the winter storm that, in the 1st stanza, is threatening and disruptive, becomes, in the last, full of beauty.

I think the last line is critical. The "final thaw" calls back to the previous stanza, to the interring of bodies in May's "soft" ground. This is the inevitable inexorability of the cycle of life -- which is easy to grasp intellectually, but we often fail to fully appreciate emotionally. So here, there may be newlyweds; there may be the anticipation of spring; but death still intervenes regardless, as suddenly sobering as the resonance contained in the closing line; and, in particular, in the word "final".

Out of Africa
Aug 24 2009


We are all Africans, they tell us.
And I feel the pull
of the dark continent.
Of fine-boned children, smiling shyly.
The cacophony of tongues.
And dusky-skinned women,
from caramel to coffee
dark cocoa, to plum.

Somewhere deep in my DNA
I crave the desert sun
the grassland
the jungle.
The Great Rift Valley
ancient, dusty
where my forbears walked upright
gathered and hunted
huddled by fires at night.
And in the great rift blackness
looked up at billions of stars,
wondering.

My pale caucasian body
turns dark in the sun.
I sink into the heat
drifting back millennia,
igniting the primordial urge
to return,
to the native land
the common ancestor,
who came out of Africa
and colonized the planet.

They will beam at the rich white tourist,
defer to his odd habits,
serve him for hard money.
And laugh among themselves
at how funny he smells
his burnt complexion
his exotic clothes.

You cannot go home again
they tell us.
Especially men like me,
born in a land of lakes and snow.
Where I will remain
for one more winter,
at home in this place
yet somehow an exile as well —
unsettled,
still wandering.
As if blood and belonging
were inescapable.
As if we were all one tribe,
destined to return.



I guess if I wasn't sensitive about sounding pretentious and sentimental -- sounding like a Hallmark card, in other words -- I'd say this poem was about the essential unity of man, the narcissism of small differences.

But I think what makes it work (and I can't be sure it does, of course) is the inversion, the confounding of expectations. For example, it's the African who is the colonizer, not the European. It's the white man who feels singled out and ridiculed, his clothes which are "exotic". It's the privileged North American who desires to ingratiate himself, not the other way around. I also like the implied irony that begins the poem -- the "dark continent". When that designation was originally applied to Africa, it assumed European superiority -- both technological and moral. But the darkness, as I use it, is self-mocking, and refers to our ignorance, not any backwardness inherent in Africa. What I hope I avoided was not only romanticizing and exoticizing and patronizing Africa, but making a caricature of that vast and varied continent .

There is also the provocative idea of destiny, of biologic determinism, of "blood and belonging" (which I orignally wrote as "blood and memory"): that we are not necessarily the free willed creatures we presume ourselves to be; but rather that we are subject to inexplicable urges and animal drives, and sometimes find ourselves powerless instruments of our own biology.

The Poet Dreams of Writing a Screenplay
Aug 19 2009


It was boffo, block-buster
box office gold.
With the A-list
of Hollywood stars,
ageing divas
in walk-on parts,
heart-throbs, starlets, crashing cars.
A laugh-riot tear-jerker stylish noir,
a duster, sex farce, auterish art.
They called it epic, biopic
borsch-circuit shtick,
a sure-thing teen-flick summer-time hit.
There was song and dance
and computer tricks,
romance, seduction
lots of skin.
We laughed, we cried
wanted more of it.
And in the end
some unfinished bits,
just in case there’s a sequel.

And in less than a week, it died.
Bad timing, they said.
Didn’t get
the word-of-mouth, the crucial buzz,
enough thumbs-up.
But just you wait
for the DVD
pay TV
overseas release;
it’s sure to kill
at 30,000 feet.
A captive audience, I thought
— just what it needs!

It closed
a stinker, a loser, a money pit,
the big block-buster
that broke to bits.
Yet after all
the producer got rich —
typical Hollywood ending, I sniffed.

“A Mix of Sun and Cloud, 40% Chance of Showers”
Aug 18 2009


Intermittent rain
in the forecast;
barometer up, windy gusts
unseasonably cool.

Or he could just have said
“sun-showers expected”.
The air washed clean.
The unexpected heat,
basking
as the sky breaks open.
The light almost 3-dimensional
in its clarity.

Overhead
it reminds me of torn denim, well-worn —
flaps of blue
patched with roiling clouds,
smoky, soiled;
the smell of fresh-washed clothes,
rain-rinsed
sun-dried.
In August, it feels like autumn;
single digits, tonight.

Odd mushrooms
have materialized all over,
domed, flat-topped, fluted, smooth
burnished, orange, flesh-toned.
The quickly rot,
turning black, shrivelled, shrunken.
I imagine spores settling
in the dark wetness
of the forest floor,
where they will fruit again next fall
on a day much like this one —
with sun and cloud
and sudden showers,
the pungent scent
of wood-smoke.

5 Full Stops
Aug 17 2009


Hot pink polish on her toes.
Tanned feet
leather sandals
calloused soles.
Summer dress, earth-tones, hemmed low,
a long blonde pony-tail.
She reminds me of a flower child
sprung from some cryogenic vat
40 years after,
a hippie-wannabe back-to-the-lander
with a brand new pedicure.

I sat across from her
5 full stops,
until she got off at Union Station,
wafting across the platform
like a dancer,
almost weightless.
And in her wake
I caught vanilla
orange essence
the heavy resin of pot.
Sitting, slack-jawed
as the subway jerked to a start,
watching her long lean body
get smaller
and smaller.
‘Til the tunnel
plunged us into darkness.

Hot pink . . . or was it neon red?
I wonder.

Unadorned
Aug 13 2009


His body reminds me of scrimshaw,
ivory skin
inscribed in fine black lines,
every square inch
carved, whittled, etched
heiroglyphed and limned
in brilliant India ink.

Just a glimpse
beneath a rim of cuff;
the intricate wrist
when his sleeve rides-up.
The face and hands
left blank,
an open book
in which the viewer sees what he wishes.

At the beach
he is a spectacle —
impish kids
run up, compulsively touching;
thuggish adolescents
interrupt their horseplay
to ogle, call him names;
and sun-bathing babes
reach-up to adjust their shades,
look down their noses.

The tattooed man
is proud of his art,
parades his body
unselfconsciously,
cannot bear
leaving any part
unadorned.
To most of the world
he is grotesque,
almost indecent.
But he feels brilliant, immortal.
He feels like a sailor
far out to sea —
filling time in the doldrums,
setting-down his story,
writing love letters home
in indelible ink.

He will grow old.
His canvas will sag and wrinkle,
his beautiful art
become incomprehensible.
And 6 feet under
he will slowly decompose,
refuting the conceit of the artist
who preserves his words between the covers,
who carves his vision in bone.
Reminding me
that our art so rarely out-lives us;
that we send it off into the world
and then must relinquish control.

Cul-de-Sac
Aug 8 2009


I grew up in a cookie-cutter suburb
attached to a grim provincial city
that looked longingly overseas
to the mother country,
looked askance
at anything but Church
on Sundays,
and looked down its Anglo-Saxon nose
at immigrants,
who were strange, and uppity.
On a tidy cul-de-sac
grass cut weekly,
a Buick, or Pontiac
parked out front.

Downtown is now polyglot
cosmopolitan
status, and money-mad,
but still feels insecure
about its place,
calling itself world-class
like a teenager seeking approval.
Meanwhile, the outskirts are stuck
in the same bland decade
I grew up.

I return, as if travelling through time,
except the trees are bigger
the house has shrunk.
And unlike us
no kids are playing in the streets,
there’s no one to be seen
behind tinted glass,
as driverless cars
purr
into remote-controlled garages.
So no one ever walks,
and next-door neighbours nod
politely.

Old people, mostly.
In empty nests that are worth a fortune,
which they will soon unload
for a condo
with a narrow view of the lake,
if you crane just so.
And my old house
sold to newlyweds from Hong Kong
or Bangalore,
who will fill it
with the smell of foreign cooking,
re-paint in crimson and gold,
and raise kids
who can’t stand suburban living,
moving out
as soon as they’re of age.

They say such places will die
when the oil runs out.
So these kids will return to a ghost town
a museum of the 20th century, post-war,
a world we thought was normal
and permanent,
but turned out to be exceptional;
a short time-out
from history.

Which immediately comes back to me
walking by a postage stamp lawn
on a tiny downtown lot
— a lawn mower, clattering;
the smell of fresh cut grass.

Afterlife
Aug 6 2009


She had worked hard
to believe in an afterlife.
Not judgement, so much,
and she hardly had need of forgiveness;
but perhaps reuniting with loved ones,
a gauzy tableau of childhood,
the density of life
when you’re young.

The house seems almost impatient
with the kids gone;
a hollow dry-walled box
waiting
for a new family to fill it up.
She keeps the doors shut,
3 museums to adolescence
— old posters, an empty desk, closets still messy.
So she can’t understand
how so much dust
accumulates.

She has gotten used
to marriage;
even better, since the separate beds.
The rituals of daily life
are comforting.
Sometimes, they go out.
But he looks his age, and then some,
and in a certain light
unrecognizable.
She sees how many minutes
he sits in the driveway
with the engine off,
before hauling himself out
abruptly,
as if mustering-up the will.
She imagines him, one day
turning the key
zigzagging back down the lane
driving out of her life
and into his next one.
But of course, he never does.

She doesn’t mind
cooking for two.
They eat
to a game show, the news.

He goes to his workshop
watches golf
takes the trash out.

She grows plants
— sprouting seeds from scratch,
watering, re-potting
pollinating by hand.
And keeps track
of birthdays, and anniversaries.

The house fills up
Thanksgiving, Christmas.
He has plans
to down-size to a condo —
time to move on, he says.
But she’d rather go back;
working just as hard on the past.

Blank Slate
Aug 4 2009


20 pages in
it becomes clear I’ve been here before,
on this gloomy street in Prague
drumbeats of war.
Yet I can happily read on,
my mind, a tabula rasa
wiped clean.
And the movie, last week, I’d already seen,
but the ending had me fooled once more.

So how different would life be
hopping out of bed, refreshed
to a bright and cheerful morning
exactly like yesterday,
like the day before it?
A vigorous stretch,
a long languorous breath
and exhalation,
then steel-cut oats
coffee, black
the morning paper.
And so it goes,
the bliss of ignorance
the small diurnal pleasures.

Because even on days like this
which dawn new, and unpredictable,
I have come to realize nothing essential changes,
— the same headlines, breakfast,
the seasons re-played.
We move in tight self-contained circles.
We grow old, our places are taken,
the same rites of passage
the same conceit of change,
the painful incremental progress
that is too slow to notice,
too easily undone.

The philosopher envies this
— the perfectibility of the moment,
all memory freshly expunged.
And we would be happy,
excited kids on the merry-go-round
to the circus sound of calliopes.

But it’s the roller-coaster I’d rather ride —
scream my lungs out,
lose my lunch,
feel the adrenaline rush.

Or move on to the sequel, at least;
catch the latest release.



I was reading a magazine article. A few paragraphs in, it was starting to seem awfully familiar. But it was a great article, and I kept on: after all, maybe I'd started it once, but put it down. By the end, though, I knew I'd already read it, from start to finish. Still, it was a great piece, and I enjoyed it just as much as the first time.

So, what lesson to take from this? That we are idiots, that we learn nothing; that we keep going in circles, ploughing the same old furrow? Or that we should take our pleasure where we find it, on its own terms; live in the glory of the moment, of present time, and not worry that we've been there before? Which is, after all , the Zen ideal (the philosopher in the 4th stanza) -- to live in the moment; to not be attached to outcomes.

This happens often, of course: you pick up a book, it seems oddly familiar, and a chapter or 2 in you realize you've read it before -- but might as well not have. Or rent a movie -- same thing. Does this represent the utter futility of self-improvement, of life itself? Or should you be eternally grateful instead; grateful you're actually able to re-visit that pleasure, and find it undiminished?

On one level, this is what the poem is about. But on another, it's also about 2 diametric world-views. One is the world of the ancients, our forbears; who saw the succession of life as changeless and cyclic. The other other is the world-view that defines modernity (which I'm tempted to say began with the Enlightenment, but probably really began with the Hebrew Bible), in which we take the notion of progress for granted; in which we live with the conceit of perfectibility, with the burden of both history and the future.

To our jaded modern eyes, I think the older world-view often seems full of wisdom and consolation. It reminds me of Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day". The idea of historical progress, on the other hand, seems a lot more exciting -- and probably the truest version of reality. (I'm a creature of modernity, so what else can I say?!) Except, like the roller-coaster in the poem, the day that "dawns new, and unpredictable" can be a wild ride ...and you might just lose your lunch! And don't forget that the Bill Murray character, once he realized what was happening -- that the same day kept repeating itself over and over -- felt trapped and frustrated, and wanted desperately to escape.

Early Spring
Aug 1 2009


Maybe it was me
sleep-walking through daylight,
going slow, like a man underwater —
lead weights
tied to his feet,
the sound of air
moving mechanically
in and out.

The sky was always grey, it seems;
everything monotone,
stone-cold after dark.
There was an inch of slush
top layer frozen,
dirty snow
piled too high on street corners,
abandoned cars
turned into blocks of Styrofoam.
Days were short
like peering through a letter-slot,
impervious night
blocking the way.

I wore a red goose-down parka,
faded, water-stained —
the down, mostly thinning-out,
the zipper sticking
half-way up.
The boots were good enough,
but my feet always felt cold, or wet
or both.

When spring came
I remembered nothing about that winter.
So when I think of it now
I fill in the blanks,
with hay-rides, and carolling
and skating hand-in-hand.

But the early spring
turned out to be false
— another promise, broken.
It snowed in June.
In July, a killing frost.



I heard the Environment Canada weather "guru" -- Dave Philips -- say we've had 8 solid months of below average temperatures, confirming my strong impression it's been unseasonably cold for far too long. It's summer, but it feels like fall. We've had a week of cold and grey and driving rain. The lake is too cold to swim comfortably, even in a wet suit. Needless to say, all that gave rise to a very bleak poem. I can't explain why it's largely set in winter; that's just what came to me.

I like it: it's an atmospheric poem that I think says just enough. I like the unresolved allusion to some deeply painful event. I like that it's left to the reader to fill in the back story, however he wishes. It's hard for me to tell if this works (because I know what's coming!), but I like the surprise at the end: how it momentarily re-creates that feeling of hope; then abruptly pulls the rug out.

“Do You Read Me, Houston?"
Aug 1 2009


When his foot touched the surface
we pumped our fists
hugged the nearest body
cheered ecstatically.

His boot, actually.
Which means we haven’t been to the moon,
not really.
Haven’t felt its ancient sand between our toes,
basked in the warmth of earth-light,
made brobdingnagian leaps
unencumbered
by clunky pneumatic suits.
But this
is close enough.

We watched
in grainy black and white.
We listened
to distant voices
crackling through space.
And as the fragile suit dangled stiffly
from the rickety ladder’s bottom rung,
I worried he’d fall
tumble backwards
pierce the fabric,
and who knows what would happen to a human body
in that perfect vacuum.
And I worried he’d step
into soft bottomless silt,
sinking beneath millions of years
of moon dust.

In the end, he mangled the momentous pronouncement.
We heard only “Man”.
He insists on “a man” —
the humble indefinite article,
even if he was the most famous man in the world.
Nixon also had a speech prepared
in case no one returned.
Something like “3 lifeless bodies
forever preserved,
a monument to human yearning.”
And made himself scarce,
afraid of the taint of failure —
typical Nixon, politics first.
Kennedy was already dead;
both of them.
In ’61, he had rallied the nation;
but apparently
didn’t much care for space exploration.
No, we sent men to the moon
to put Russia in its place.
. . . So much for “one large step”.

A flag was left
waving in an ersatz wind.
The whole world may have travelled with them
holding its collective breath;
but they were sturdy patriots, nevertheless.
They brought back rocks,
which seems a long way to go.
But as they say
it’s the journey, not the destination.

But I kept thinking back
to Collins —
stuck in lunar orbit,
so close, and yet so far.
I thought about duty
and self-abnegation
and the luck of the draw.
I knew Armstrong and Aldrin
were cut from different cloth
than me.
I was Collins,
looking down from above
detached,
winning Miss Congeniality
a door prize.

When the lunar lander lifted-off
we felt a surge of pride
— we all owned the accomplishment,
our common humanity.
And forever after
“Houston” will evoke powerful feelings
of safety
and home.

The footprints are still intact
40 years on.
The astronauts are now elderly men;
and I’m older
than they were then.
I gaze at the full moon
on a clear summer night,
walk in its silver shadow,
remember how precious and small
this planet looked,
looking back.
Except there is no one circling above us now;
and Houston is hot
and over-crowded.

We got bored with moon-walks
soon after that.
Some still claim it was staged,
Walter Cronkite notwithstanding.
Or even that the earth is flat.
Which is how it feels, flat —
when we never went back,
40 years on
and counting.



This was written several weeks after the commemoration of the first moon landing. I was at summer camp 40 years ago, and we all gathered around a small black and white TV to watch. We certainly felt the weight of history, as well as a powerful sense of pride (undeserved by us, of course!) in human achievement.

This poem began, believe it or not, as an attempt to write a short story. Of course, it inevitably turned into a poem (what else?!): it seems I'm no good at narrative or character, only sentences. Nevertheless, by my "one page" standards, it's a veritable epic!

I was attracted to the short story because, among other things, I thought it would let me say more, be more expansive and declarative; that I could get some relief from the discipline of cutting, of leaving things unsaid , of the stern dictum of "more is less". But by approaching this as a prose poem -- kind of talking my way through it -- things seemed to work out just as well. In the end, it's a bit of a mongrel -- some prose, some rhythm and rhyme. And it says what it says, no fancy metaphors or multiple meanings. In other words, a pleasure to write!

Transcontinental
July 31 2009


I’d rather take the train.
In a slick aluminum sleeper,
with a clever sink
a drop-down desk
a nifty fold-away bed.
The Denver Zephyr, perhaps,
or the Empire State Express.
As the world scrolls by
outside the glass,
to the comforting clatter of tracks.

Or bump along in the bar car;
with ruddy-faced men making wise-cracks,
and heavily made-up women
who refuse to act their age.
The Choctaw Rocket, perhaps;
or the Narragansett
the Dixie Flagler
the Coastline Florida Mail.

The dome is close to empty
sailing through the prairie night.
I look up
at jet black sky,
as if the roof of the world had lifted
out to the edge of space.
And look over
a moon-lit ocean of grain.
In the Land O’ Corn,
the Man O’ War,
the Commodore Vanderbilt.

You feel in constant motion
as the carriage jerks and sways;
but there is no sensation of speed.
And no urgency, once you enter,
as mileposts steadily recede.

Hanging on, by the skin of your teeth
to the non-stop Atlantic Blue Comet,
as the Peoria Rocket takes-off.
To the high-buff stream-lined dream cars
of the glittering Egyptian Zipper,
the more intimate Arrowhead Limited.
Or to a one-way no-return ticket
for a trip on the Tex Mex Express.

But nowadays, trains are numbers,
crunched
by bean-counting time-study types.
So the Empire Builder's done,
the Electroline is over.
No more Missouri River Eagle
New England Wolverine.
We commute to work, elbows touching
in double-decker diesels;
and “fly-over country” disappears
at 30,000 feet.



I read a great David Sedaris short story in the New Yorker -- it takes place on a train. I heard a Garrison Keillor monologue, and -- as he so frequently does -- there was the romantic invocation of exotic names of trains, of idiosyncratic destinations. It struck me that this wealth of evocative names offered a great opportunity for a "found" poem. I got my list from Wikipedia. Which means that it may not be accurate; but I guess good enough for poetry. The trick was to figure out how to extract the music; and how to draw the reader in, and then keep her. I'm not sure if I succeeded; but either way, here's the result. At least I hope I captured a bit of the romance of the train; if not of another age.

Urban Geography
July 28 2009


Something sticky
on the floor mat.
Fabric worn
windows smudged,
where hands touched, noses pressed
all-night heads
slumped against the glass,
sleeping-it-off
a chesty cough
the fog of human breath.

The cabbie sneaks a smoke;
idling, unoccupied,
the lull before closing time.
People leave things behind
he finds,
dropped forgotten treasures,
like empties
wedding rings
lipsticked addresses.

The geography of the inner city
depends on where you sit —
night shift
navigating rain-slicked streets,
or on the back bench seat
of a cab.
Noticing
a brilliantined head,
the back of a neck,
an accent, vaguely menacing.

As street lamps flicker past,
light briefly enters
shadows sharpen, and lengthen
the mat brightens, a second
in the cold electric glare.
I expect condoms, vomit, clotting blood,
incontinent bodily fluids.

But there’s only rotten fruit
I see, relieved,
briskly shifting my feet.



The idea for this poem came from a quick glance at a review of a book called "Taxi!". The review was in the Globe's "buried treasures" section, and the book was published way back in 1975. I didn't read the book. I didn't even read the review. But the accompanying photo caught my eye -- a driver, arm perched in the open window, head facing out and into the camera. Something in her face conveyed intelligence, skepticism, toughness, compassion, and a kind of non-judgmental alertness. Yes, I somehow managed to see all that in a glance! Anyway, it made me want to write about taxis and cities. This is the result.

Talking Politics
July 26 2009


We talk about politics.
Anything, actually —
celebrity sightings
religion, sex.

He rails against
all those smirking bloated phonies,
with slippery handshakes
and gravy-stained shirts.
While I rant and rave
about pay-offs, and pandering.
Which leaves us feeling smug, self-satisfied.
We reward ourselves
with cold imported beer.
The situation in Uzbekistan is scandalous, I rage,
premium foam
clinging to my lip.
The new administration is in over their heads, he proclaims,
almost gloating.

He refrains from mentioning
my mother, his wife,
who is not permitted, yet
to leave the ward
unescorted.
I wait for him to ask
about my brother, his first-born son,
who haven’t spoken
in months.

We exchange a “fine, thanks ...and you?”,
shake hands with manly insouciance,
race, reaching for the bill.

I notice his distracting habit
of folding, unfolding
a paper napkin,
tearing-off long even strips
as he talks.
When I notice my own busy hands
nervously twisting a napkin,
and drop it, fast.

Bad manners, I reproach myself.
And try extra hard
not to notice anything else.



2 things converged to kick-start this poem.

First was hearing Frank McCourt (author of Angela's Ashes) recount meeting -- as an adult and after many years apart -- with the father who had abandoned them as children. Who, while never asking about the family, was content to to talk enthusiastically about the situation in N. Ireland, about the usual Irish martyrs and tragic heroes (something the Irish are apparently particularly good at!) In my family, I don't think we talk at all easily about personal or emotional issues; but politics is always easy, almost a relief. A convenient form of evasion and denial, I suppose.

Second was James (Arthur), who in a recent email strenuously asserted that he was not interested in politics because they're all "self-interested liars and cheats" (I paraphrase). (James, isn't it possible -- and, as a good citizen, desirable -- to ignore the politicians, but still take an interest in public policy?) Which gave me that colourful opening.

This poem is mostly about denial: the unconscious, as well as the deliberate, kind. How even the conventionally "forbidden" topics of politics, religion and sex are easy, compared to the personal and confessional. And about how we are all helpless creatures of the family culture in which we were raised; how -- to resort, again, to cliche -- "the acorn doesn't fall far from the oak".

Flight Path
July 22 2009


Living under the flight path
is a distraction, at first;
‘til soon, you stop noticing.
But thoughts of departures
of flight
of taking-off,
pre-occupy you, nevertheless.

There are steep ascents
under full throttle
rattling windowpanes and cutlery.
There are landings at night
that make your gut clench.
Bright lights appearing out of darkness
from over the adjacent low-rise,
indistinct rumblings,
then this great gleaming creature
directly overhead —
arms outstretched
landing gear grasping
the thrusters’ ear-busting roar.

Where a row of windows
like a string of festive lights
encloses a small orderly village
of convenient strangers,
sipping drinks
in the muted glow
of the oddly still interior.

So much coming, and going.
The strained smiles of seat-mates,
the great airport concourse
where important people hurry by.
You listen from your modest bungalow,
imagine picking-up
lifting-off
rising above
this earthbound melancholy,
so high
the sun always shines.

You will descend
eventually, of course,
through the clouds
into turbulence,
over the brightly lit node
of some unfamiliar town,
nod at your seat-mate
and go.
You will find a place
with the sound of planes
and the scent of jet exhaust,
where you will settle down
among convenient strangers.

Until the restlessness
grips you again.



I think what this poem is about is the delusion of escape; the notion of salvation somewhere else; the idea that others have bigger lives. It is the false promise of the journey itself that seduces him, the fugue state, the taking flight: where he "rise(s) above/this earthbound melancholy", and "the sun always shines"; where he demurely rubs shoulders "in the muted glow/of the oddly still interior."

His disappointment is foreshadowed in the 2nd stanza -- I hope not too clumsily, or too much over-written -- by the rather mercenary and visceral personification of the plane.

It is because of this false hope that he never commits; and so repeatedly finds himself living marooned among "convenient strangers", no more intimate with them than one is within the transient artificial intimacy of an airplane fuselage.

This poem had its seed in a brief image from a DVD I recently rented: dusk; the low rent part of town; a blaze of light in the sky, and an airplane suddenly appears, sweeping in low and loud and menacing. I immediately had the impression of it as a living thing. And there was this sense of stark division: the low-rise people trapped on the ground; contrasted with the freedom and escape offered up by the flight path -- so inaccessible, yet so temptingly close.