Driving on a Backroad at Dusk
May 22 2009


If I could, I’d slip the belt off,
press my face to the glass
crane my neck skyward.
Or peel the roof back,
a jagged lethal lid.

Just as dusk descends,
magically lit
from over the planet’s curve.
When the sky is too immense
to be satisfied,
peering through this slit
of safety glass
— my neck crimped,
the view, misting up.
When its luminous blue deepens
and the surface dims,
flat and featureless.
And the distant hills
are paper cut-outs,
dark against the light.

I feel so small
down here
at the bottom of this ocean of air,
heavy, earthbound.
Standing on a gravel shoulder, looking up
at cornflower, azure, cobalt,
then baltic, violet-black.
And then transparent,
as if the air had boiled-off
— a blanket lifted,
the cosmos suddenly clear.

When the first star appears;
the sky now midnight black,
the softly glowing land.



Self-explanatory. At least it is to those who are privileged enough to live out in the country, far from downtowns and suburban sprawl. Where you can really see the sky -- unobstructed by buildings, unpolluted by artificial light.

On a cloudless day, when there is no humidity in the air, there is this quality of light at dusk that is utterly compelling. The sky is illuminated, the surface recedes, and you can't keep your eyes off it. You can feel the cold air descend as you watch. The sky seems immense. It goes through every shade of blue imaginable, and you wonder if there are names for them all. But by the time the first star appears, it's almost over: the sky will soon turn black and disappear; the land will re-emerge.

You're usually driving when this happens. You feel constricted blinkered blind, trying to see out. You want to peel the roof back. ...More practical, though, to stop and get out!

The First Hot Day
May 19 2009


Frost, last night.
Today, a scorcher,
the sky as clear as optical glass
refracting only blue —
the ozone, peeled back,
the sun
pouring through
unfiltered.

We emerge from winter
pale, sluggish,
unused to this molten heat
to light, that could ionize matter —
searing our outlines to asphalt,
like body-shadows
left by a nuclear blast.
Our eyes water, blinking back blindness.
We take our shirts off,
turning red as lobsters
boiled alive.
The first hot day, and we can’t help ourselves
soaking it up.

Cloudless tonight,
low-lying frost.
The first moths
fortified with anti-freeze.
And crocuses, about to erupt
like unaccustomed spring
— brilliant,
but brief.



This poem needs no explanation: a classic lyric poem, a personal reflection inspired by nature.

It was a hard winter, and now a late spring. On a cold evening, weeks ago, I was surprised to see the ooze of a hardy moth on the windshield -- the first of the season. Despite the cold, the same old crocuses I've watched for years have persisted, sending-up bright green shoots in a sea of brown. Some have even flowered. Last night there was frost. Today, it was chilly, overcast. But tomorrow, the forecast calls for the mid-20's, under clear blue skies.

The seasons transition quickly here. But at the same time, they're indecisive, whip-sawing us from heat to cold and back again. So I wanted to convey that with extreme language and strong contrasts.

I try to avoid purely descriptive poems. They have no soul, no compelling reason for the reader to re-visit them. They are like a photograph of landscape without a human subject: bland; no drama; nothing to draw in the viewer. So writing this in the first person was essential. And also essential was creating that instant identification with the reader: how we all get impatient, push the season, go overboard ...on the first hot day.

Here's another one that somehow got missed. A year too late ...but still worthwhile!



Big Fish
May 9 2008


Turns out, I’m a little fish in a little pond
— fooled, all along.
It must have been refraction,
an accident of light,
or eyes fixed, either side
confusing the picture.

But at least it feels roomier, getting littler.
And not so much keeping-up appearances
looking fierce
consuming upstart little fish,
that taste like spiny Styrofoam.
Although I still bump-up against the glass,
and tiny flakes of food
raining down as planned
is getting old, fast.

So that smooth surface, looking up
still tempts me,
the source of sustenance and light
of mystery, and excitement;
a cold dry world,
so big
no one would ever notice
a little fish beside the bowl,
flapping on its side
gasping.

This is a pretty good poem. So I was surprised when I searched, and nothing came up. The answer, of course, is that it was written just before I started the blog, so it just missed the cut-off. Anyway, I've decided to add it.



A Moment in Time
March 28 2008


To fix a moment in time.
Pinning-down the here-and-now
by its coordinates
— a new millennium,
not much different than the old one,
a week into spring
night closing-in.
As lights blink-on cheerfully all over town,
this small city
somewhere in the middle of a vast dark continent.
And my own small pool of light,
enclosing a cluttered desk
and a blank page
and a well chewed pen,
now 15 lines in.

To fix a moment in time.
Like nailing jelly to the wall
— how nothing sticks
and memory plays tricks,
transforming everything.

To fix a moment in time.
As if I could reach back
and change one small thing.
The way a butterfly fluttering its wings
half a world away from here
can stir-up a hurricane;
or gently setting down,
tip bedrock
into earthquake.

Or to surrender, instead,
and let time drift.
Because what happened in the past can’t be fixed
and this exact moment is ineffable,
slipping from my grasp
just as I think I’ve captured it.

It's a complete mystery to me how this one was missed. I wrote it quite recently; yet somehow, it never got posted. And it should have been, since it's a pretty good one!



At Last
April 21 2009


You feel like an impostor,
dancing faster and faster
to stay on top,
keep your head above water.
Or risk looking down;
surface tension
all that keeps you from drowning.

You are a self-proclaimed agnostic,
your theology modest
your conviction soft.
But actually, you proclaim nothing at all,
preferring to get along
by default.
Words like “evil”, and “wicked”
seem anachronistic,
too Old Testament
for how we now live.
Mild condemnation’s OK,
but nothing any stricter.
He couldn’t choose his parents, after all;
so whose fault is it, really?

It’s mostly muddling through
making do,
too pre-occupied, and harassed
for the longer view.
Which all feels too much
like nailing jelly to walls,
trimming the lawn
with scissors.
Or counting grains of sand
as the pit collapses around you.



So when the planet slammed to a stop,
the sun froze
at the top of its orbit.
When buildings toppled
and we were catapulted-off
over the edge,
like tiny specks
on sudden helpless tangents,
you had no way
to make any sense of it.

But what a relief
to have space to think,
at last.
When time took time-out,
when you let yourself go,
when fate
was all you had faith in.

Such exquisite decadence,
surrender.

Past Tense, Future Imperfect
May 12 2009


Mistakes were made.

In the passive voice.
In the virtual notes
of diminished chords and overtones.
In subjunctive
imperfect
the simple past.

If deterrence really worked
they could put us all away,
no appeal.
But these three words
defer the blame
make it sound like fate,
and we were helpless.
The subject
conjured out of ether.
The object
unspecified.
The victim
only vaguely implied.

There are mistakes, errors, and crimes.
There are misdemeanours
and lies,
of commission, omission
from black to white.
And mistakes that go unrecognized
but fester;
to the ends of our lives,
our children’s children.

We will be at it the rest of the night,
rain drumming
wind singing,
leaves flapping wetly
like wild applause.
And eavesdropping trees
that groan and creak,
leaning hard before the storm.

Confession is good for the soul,
but you must own it all.
And there is no confessing alone —
both of us
talking, listening
taking turns,
letting-go
our burden.



The passive voice always seems like a cop-out to me, like a weasly quisling sort of pawning-off of responsibility. So when I read this sentence -- "Mistakes were made" -- I couldn't resist playing around with it.

There is something very Bush and Nixon about this expression! "Mistakes were made" has this sense of relegating everything to some remote past, one with no connection to the speaker. And it has this sense of some vague nebulous subject, some unaccountable actor who isn't really that strongly attached to the conveniently conjugated verb "were made".

What I particularly like is that I finished it in exactly the opposite fashion: the liberal use of "you" and "us" and "our", in stark contrast to the unaccountable sentence that begins it. In the end, it becomes a couple, and they are taking ownership. There is nothing specific here: no narrative of wrongs and reprisals and thoughtless acts. I think most readers are more than capable of projecting themselves into this, and can probably come up with a lot more -- and a lot worse -- transgressions that I could ever pen.

I also like the pathetic fallacy in the second last stanza: the stormy night, the leaves applauding, the trees listening-in.

By the way, the "virtual notes" in the first stanza are supposed to imply the "third voice" of a duo, or the so-called "fifth voice" of a barbershop quartet: it's that virtual voice that is magically produced when people sing in perfect harmony. So in that sense, there is -- like the passive voice -- a smugly self-satisfied sound, but no one is really accountable, no one is taking ownership. (It also foreshadows the conclusion: you can't produce that virtual voice without harmony and communication, the same kind of harmony and communication needed when two people are talking and attempting to reconcile.)

City Diamond
May 11 2009


The dust, in the garage, has made the grease gritty,
the chain stiff,
the frame dull
and listless looking.
Both tires are flat,
trapped inside all winter.

I want to ride —
the wind at my back,
the sun
casting sharp shadows on greening grass,
the hum of rubber
on warm asphalt.

The rites of spring
are modest —
rake the lawn,
hose the bike off,
stop
to watch kids playing ball.
On city diamonds
with hard-packed dirt around the base-paths,
the first weeds
poking-out of bumpy fields.

Their bikes lean against the backstop,
or lie scattered where they dropped them, running-off.
Choosing sides
talking trash
shagging flies —
pick-up baseball, and riding bikes,
on the first nice day in spring.

While at the far end of the field
on the shadow side of trees,
a tiny patch of snow
still lingers.



I suspect this represents more nostalgia from my youth than it does anything I might experience today. Back then, our mothers kicked us out of the house, and expected us to entertain ourselves all day -- outdoors -- just so long as we were back in time for dinner. Today, kids are more likely to be holed up in their room in front of a computer all day, engrossed in multi-player on-line games (or something equally incomprehensible to me); or in some official activity organized by adults, riding around strapped into the back of a van.

I like the sense of "pushing the season" this poem conveys. Which is how it feels in the northern part of the continent after an unusually long winter. Actually, I'm not much of a biking enthusiast. (Baseball is something else entirely, of course!) But here I'm thinking back, to when a bike was more than a means of transportation or a congenial form of exercise; when it represented freedom and independence (as well as the end of winter!)

This is the first poem I've tried to write since I was completely shut out of the local poetry competition. I found this "loss" very demoralizing, and thought I'd shut it down for awhile. But despite the obvious temptation of retreating into my cave and licking my wounds , I think a better antidote to losing confidence is writing; and that means writing anything -- good, bad, or indifferent. I'm not sure where this poem fits (good, bad, or indifferent, that is); but I'd be happy to put it (or any other of mine) up against the "winners" any day!

I was doing some re-reading, and realized that "Someone Really Should ..." and "Physics -- for the Practical Man" are really the same poem: about detachment; apathy; the paralysis caused by feelings of helplessness and futility.

Hmmm, a disturbing theme; which probably says way more about me than I'd probably like said!

Brian

Someone Really Should …
May 7 2009


I watched the grease-stained wrappers
swirl, scatter
across the fast-food parking lot.
Someone should do something about that, I thought,
and kept-on walking.

I watched the long black Cadillac
double-park;
scofflaws, who stop then start
on red.
Someone should do something about that, I scolded sharply
shaking my head.

I watch
as grizzled weathered men
sleeping over hot air vents
accost up-standing citizens
for change.
Someone should at least complain
I thought,
but never said a thing.

I slump, half-asleep
in front of TV
watching,
when I hear a woman screaming
somewhere outside.
I press close to the glass
peering out into bottomless blackness
— like when the cable goes out
and the screen is impenetrable static.
I listen for sirens,
but now there is only silence.

Which is when I step back
pull down the blinds
and turn the volume higher.



We've all heard, said, and thought this countless times: "someone really should do something about that ...". I was listening to a radio interview, and the subject was environmentalism; and, what else, these exact words were said.

(In particular, the subject was state of the oceans; and even more specifically, the unconscionable hunting of dolphins by the Japanese (not to mention that a dead dolphin is so full of contaminants its body might as well be a toxic waste dump.) And in this case, the interviewee did, in fact, do something -- he made an apparently moving and brilliant film (called The Cove, if you're interested). But I digress.)

I thought this would be much more effective if it was about small things (rather than the death of the oceans!); things we can relate to from everyday life. I tried to construct it so that there is a gradual escalation in the severity of the transgression. (In the 3rd stanza, I'm not sure just what he feels someone should complain about -- that we allow homelessness and scandalous disparities of wealth in a society as prosperous as ours; or that we permit panhandling by people who make us feel uncomfortable! I left this intentionally ambiguous, probably because we all have the virtuous thought, but we also all still find ourselves feeling uncomfortable nevertheless.) And the first person observer is just that: a passive observer. He watches. He distances himself. He is behind glass. The world plays out on a screen. The virtual world and the real world eventually become indistinguishable.

This example of apathy reminds me of the famous poem by Martin Neimoller, about the rise of the Nazis and the moral hazard of silence. Here it is:

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
Then they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
Then they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, I did not speak out; I was not a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.


(I've been re-visiting some recent pieces, and realized that "Someone Really Should" and "Physics -- for the Practical Man" are really the same poem: about detachment, apathy, the paralysis caused by feelings of helplessness and futility. Hmmm, a disturbing theme; which probably says way more about me than I'd probably like said!)

The Divination of Weather
May 6 2009


They’re forecasting storms —
tropical air coming,
full of wind, hail, thunder.
What next, I wonder ...
frogs raining down,
a plague of locusts?

Unsettled weather suits me, though,
my mercurial temper
my frequent lows.

I stand outside, looking up,
soaked to the skin
hair streaming.
I count the seconds
‘til lightning and thunder come together,
the air fully charged.
I tempt fate, taunt the gods
with my foolishness —
a drenched scarecrow,
scaring-off nothing.

And then it turns to snow,
filling up the world
slowly covering me over.
An unlikely snowman
in this unseasonable spring,
when the world feels out of sync
and I feel giddy,
that such fantastic things
are possible.



Nothing profound to say about this. I must have been in a magic-realist mood, is all I can imagine.

There were supposed to be thunderstorms today. I think I was up for a bout of wild ecstatic weather; and so ended up a little disappointed. Then I looked at the forecast and saw there was a possibility of snow, of all things!!

I've been thinking for awhile how darkness appeals to me, how all this light makes me feel exposed, somehow under pressure. Which is nothing new: I always seem to have this vaguely unsettled feeling in spring. So I pictured myself hunkering down in dark overcast weather -- in the comfort of darkness, in the protection of a sound building. And then I pictured myself leaving the shelter of the house and immersing myself in the driving rain. The poem is a succession of these images. I simply described what I was seeing. And, as usual, I let the sound of the language take my by the hand and guide me through it.

I also wanted to write something very simple, and something about feeling more than thinking -- which I think I succeeded at. I also wanted a very unstructured conversational tone, which may not have come off quite so well. All in all, though, I'm very pleased with it!

Physics — for the Practical Man (or, A Mile-a-Minute)
May 5 2009


Speed
equals distance over time.
Distance
equals speed times time.

Time
is pointless to calculate,
beating-on under everything
relentless
— a deep full-bodied rumbling,
far too low to hear.

Velocity
is speed plus direction.
But does it matter
on a spherical planet
when you can head-off at any angle
and eventually come right back?
Here, where you began.

Distance
is directly proportional
to indifference.
The slaughter of innocents
on the far side of the globe
is a sad fact,
but hard to feel
— abstract numbers;
still photos, in black and white.
And after it’s happened
enough,
even simple geography gets confusing.
While it’s hard to detach yourself
from the whimpering dog
licking itself, hit,
limping-off to the side of the road.

But you drove past, nevertheless
— at 60 mph
watching through glass.
Which you would come to regret
60 miles on;
exactly 1 hour later.



I think I may come to love this poem. (Too early to tell, of course.) Yet it came so easily, it almost wrote itself. Actually, this isn't that unusual: most of the time I find writing easy, a pure pleasure; and most of them come embarrassingly quickly. (I say "embarrassingly" because if you haven't sweated bullets over it, it's hard to think of something as worthy of being called "art". But the truth is, the final editing, as well as these blurbs, probably take more time than that critical first draft.) I've often called this feeling "channeling". I know this has a mystical -- almost supernatural -- sound to it: which is not me in the least! But that's how it feels. It's not so much a logical process of analysis and crtitical thinking as it is an intuitive one.

Anyway, this poem's starting point was a book review (by Samantha Nutt) of SIX MONTHS IN SUDAN (by James Maskalyk). She finishes the review with this quote from the author: "That which separates action from inaction is the same thing that separates my friends from Sudan. It is not indifference. It is distance. May it fall away." I thought how perfectly indifference and distance go together: both in terms of the sound of the words, and in term of our identification with the suffering of other human beings. And once I started playing around with "distance", it was only a matter of time (no pun intended!) until I eventually stumbled upon those old familiar equations from high school physics.

I guess the reference to "still photos, in black and white" betrays my preference for good old-fashioned newspapers; since I get my news that way (or radio), instead of television or the internet. And also my age, perhaps; since papers are no longer just black and white! The good old Imperial system of measure, though, will never get too old for poetry: try kilometres and seconds instead of miles and minutes, and you'll see it just doesn't work!

Contact Tracing
May 4 2009


The epidemiology of fear.

There is no index case,
its reach vast
its onset lost;
breaking-out in back alleys,
the chants of mobs.

We debate its origin —
innate, or contagion,
a cultural artefact.

For you, it began
in terrible silence,
the scant seconds before she cried
— how such little time
could seem so endless.
Her first breath
tiny and wet,
bruised all over.

In the middle
you imagined yourself immune,
love or faith or strength
your antidote.
But by old age
you felt it again,
the endemic fear of death
gnawing away at you —
what comes next,
how you will be taken.

They say fear prepares us for survival
inoculates against complacency.
We learn to live with it,
and some days, even forget —
a chronic affliction,
the human condition,
wired-in
to our DNA.

While the fearless die young.
The rest of us
feeling envious,
but careful not to touch.


I imagine it's pretty obvious where this came from! Lots of talk now about pandemics, about the epidemiology of disease, about the race between unreasonable fear and contagion.

Of course, fear of one sort or another accompanies us all through our lives, so the message here isn't exactly earth-shattering. The pleasure in writing the poem was a more a stylistic one: weaving in all the references to illness and the study of disease. And of course, compressed into such a short piece, the allusions to social pathology; the movement from the moment of birth, to the verge of death.

Teaching English Overseas
May 3 2009


I smile and nod a lot.
Point at things.
Feel eyes, discreetly size me up.
I surprise children,
who stare
at pale-skinned strangers,
as if aliens had come to earth.
And the light, this time of year
seems slightly off-kilter,
the sun
an unfamiliar star.

I feel clumsy, lumpy
among these nimble people,
looking up at me
with bright brown eyes.
I long for conversation,
to go unnoticed,
for the plain food
that gives me comfort.

Here, I spend too much time watching satellite stations,
depend
upon the kindness of strangers.
Where we bow, backing away.
Handshakes are limp
and feel unfinished.
No way to hug
or be embraced.

Even my hair has gone uncut.
When the most meagre touch
would make this so much easier;
how close I’ve come
to running away.

But the ocean
might just as well be inter-planetary space,
and me, an extra-terrestrial
— stranded
light years from home.



Each weekday In the Globe and Mail, in the "Life" section, on a page called "Facts and Arguments", they publish a personal essay submitted by a reader. Today, it was "Lost in translation and losing my hair" by a contributor named Leah Giesbrecht. Her story takes place in Korea. (I've assumed she's there teaching ESL, although this is not actually specified.) She evoked a sense of displacement and distress that I wanted to have a go at in the form of poetry.

The hair loss in the story is both literal and, I assume, metaphorical. When she finally finds an English speaking hair-dresser -- in the most unlikely of places -- and gets the best and most luxurious feeling hair cut ever, she not only feels restored in terms of appearance, not only as a result of the effortless communication, but even more so by the intimacy of touch. I think this is what made her story powerful: how this small crucial intimacy made all the difference; and how its absence intensified the sense of isolation. (Of course, the fact that she had blonde hair was also a great literary device, making her that much more noticeable and self-conscious.)

I suppose my effort demonstrates a distinct lack of imagination, in that I've also made it about a foreign teacher in Korea. (Yes, it is Korea; or at least as I imagined it. And the "limp handshake" is Korean as well (I looked it up!): apparently, they go in for longer handshakes than are customary in the West; but the firm handshake is deemed tasteless and impolite.)

I'm kind of pleased the way I echoed the references to aliens and extra-terrestrials in the astronomical imagery: the sun (especially re-framing it as just another star); along with satellites, extra-planetary space, and light years. I think it's especially alienating, in this era of easy and unthinking intercontinental flight, to see the ocean as it was seen through most of history: as impenetrable, as a barrier as absolute as space travel is today. I also like the self-restraint of having saved the word "home" until the very end, where it really resonates, lingering in the ether for a few extra beats in that privileged position. Because ultimately, this is as much a story about the notion of home as it is about displacement and isolation.

Here is an excerpt from the essay, ending with the one short line that seems inconsequential in the story, yet brings the whole thing home:

"Armed with a Korean phrase book, I navigated streets and back alleys until I found the shop. All the stress of the past 12 months welled up in me as I stammered out the phrase I hoped would get me into the hairdresser's chair. The young man behind the counter looked at me a moment and said, "Don't worry, I speak English. I trained to be a hairdresser in London."
Soon-jin, the hairdresser, swiftly chopped off my long ragged ponytail, let it drop to the floor and kicked it aside. He lathered my head in warm water and shampoo that smelled like cinnamon and massaged my ears. As he trimmed my bangs, I realized this was the first time someone had touched my face in a year."

Sea Level
May 1 2009


At 2,000 feet
and climbing.
The engine groans
on steep inclines and switch-back roads,
straining higher.
Gears shift
the clutch slips
the revs dip lower;
tires spin-out
on gravel shoulders.

I wonder what it’s like
back at sea level
— the neutral ground, the great leveller
that is the measure
of all things.
Mired
in dead calm, the doldrums,
a flat Sargasso ocean
all the way out to the edge —
water
gently lapping at the shore.
Land and sea
in perfect equilibrium.

Here, every foot costs,
a hard slog
covering ground, heading higher.
The thin air.
The sheer drop
off to one side.
The sun, gone early
behind the steep horizon.

Until I finally reach the continental divide,
its jagged peak
as far from the exhausted shore
as possible.
Where I may stop;
occupy the high-ground,
my sightlines unassailable.
Or coast all the way down the far side,
free-wheeling
to another ocean.
A fresh start
at sea level once more.

Where the air is thick,
the land easy,
the setting sun
lingers.
And I will take big nourishing breaths,
replenished
and cleansed.





Looking back, it’s hard to know where this poem came from. I do recall sitting down with an idea that I was rather excited about ...and then after running around doing a bit of busy work, completely forgot about it!!! (I guess if it was that forgettable, maybe it wasn't worth pursuing anyway ...lol!) So all I can remember is sitting there (here), chewing on my pen, having no ideas, and seriously considering abandoning the effort; then kind of free-associating until I latched on to an image that stuck. I may have been thinking about driving out on questionable back roads to Debbie Metzler's to pick up the bird house she’s made for me, and then got this image of the Jeep digging through dirt roads, climbing higher, wondering how far above sea level ...which is when the central idea of that powerful and ubiquitous reference point -- "sea level" -- came to me. I quite like the line “the measure of all things”. It makes me think of how we conveniently measure everything in the length of football fields, or how much you can fit in an Olympic-sized pool. But with this essential additional sense of “levelness”: a calm, level-headed default position. So it goes ...

This is also another poem about escape and re-invention. The road-trip, in particular. The shore left behind is an exhausted place, a weedy Sargasso sea, where the author risks being mired, becalmed. Or he has already become so. While the high ground becomes a fortress. And on the far side, sea level represents a kind of level-headedness; a return to sanity; the sort of calm that is predictable and welcome, rather than stultifying. (I probably over-did it at the very end!)

As usual, of course, the most fun part is the word play: “switch”/“shift”/“slip”/“dip”/“spin”, for a start; and then later on "costs"/“slog”/”drop”/"off"/”gone”/”stop”.