Moving Pictures
June 30 2009


I remember stepping out
from the dark air-conditioned space
— a cartoon, a short
a western shoot-em-up —
into white-hot sun;
eyes squinting, tearing-up,
an ice-pick headache.

The doldrums of summer
tagging along with older brothers
to Saturday matinees.
Sticky floors
crappy speakers
kids shouting at the screen,
at the old Glendale theatre
on Bathurst St.,
now a parking lot.

It cost a quarter, I think,
the precious coin tightly in my clutches;
but not enough
for popcorn, candy.
Part 2, next Saturday.

We groaned when “To be continued . . . ” popped-up.
Not that the plot ever changed that much,
just black hats and white hats
a boring kiss, some bad guys bucked
rows of whistling hissing kids.

Because the movies were our first great love,
back when “cinema” was French
and “film” meant snapshots.

The manager must have hated Saturdays.
We couldn’t get enough.

Hauled Away
June 28 2009


The car died
on a country road, near dusk, in its 14th summer.
It bucked once, and was done.

The wrecker came in the morning,
hauling it away to the scrap-yard
no charge,
where it will be reborn
as white hot ingots
of steel.

I wonder if I will go so easy
in useful old age,
no call for crash carts
adrenaline
CPR,
deferring to nature.

I’ll admit, we tried a jump-start.
And I peered under the hood, knowingly;
still, utterly clueless.
If there was a ghost in the machine
it had seeped peacefully away;
perhaps, in that last gasp of steam.
A ton of steel and glass
stranded on a gravel lane,
sagging, lifeless.

They will find my body on a wilderness trail,
no sign of struggle
still fresh enough.
Natural causes, they’ll say
hauling me out for burial.
And 6 feet under
the earth shall reclaim me;
feeding
a small green patch of growth,
warming the ground as I go.

Mileage
June 29 2009


20 miles
30 years,
I’m not sure how much distance
it takes
to write about the past.
And then
when you get far enough away
it all becomes clear,
the incomprehensible
obvious.

Because forgiveness
is so much easier than hate.
Because gratitude
displaces envy.
Because age wears away
a young man’s intransigence,
and distance makes things seem small
receding in the rear-view mirror.

It was a road trip to who knows where,
stopping
for the first hitch-hiker you saw.
She had blue-streaked hair
a pierced tongue
a rising sun, tattooed on her left shoulder.
You smoked dope
sat closer
listened to baseball in the middle of the night,
a tiny dot
hurtling across the prairie
— the dial, glowing green
hi-beams, like feeble pin-pricks
miles, flashing by hypnotically.
It felt
as if this small universe of steel and glass
was everything.

And then, when you ran out of gas
the car stopped,
the journey began,
the odometer
clicked over.

Taciturn Dads
June 22 2009


Fatherly love
is more like jazz
than mothers —
no two versions the same,
always partly improvised,
and to some
it all sounds like noise.

My dad
was a stand-up bass.
His voice could carry,
but you didn’t really notice.
He rarely soloed,
deferring to the flashy sax
the vamping diva, scatting alone.
And always there
playing back-up,
solid, reliable
setting the tone.

Dads were stoic, then.
They brought home a paycheque
never wore shorts
drove 4-door cars from Detroit.
They could seem overwhelmed
by fatherhood
as if it were more than they’d expected,
finding refuge
behind evening papers,
in a workshop basement
puttering.
And the first diaper he ever held
was a grandchild’s,
pinching it gingerly
wrinkling his nose.

The bass player drives a Cadillac,
the only trunk big enough
for his man-sized instrument.
His hands are strong
with sinewy wrists
deeply callused fingertips.
He wears a skinny suit, a narrow tie,
but when called upon
can really swing it.
Which catches us by surprise
every time
— the secret jazzman
hiding inside.

And the inner life
of a taciturn dad
who spent so long
on the road
away from home,
we could never really know him.

The Power-Plant of the World
June 23 2009


I recall endless summer —
sticky heat,
black-top
softening at a 100 degrees,
and hard-baked fields
with base-paths worn to ruts.

But now, I notice its intensity.
Just a few weeks, it seems;
and days so long
the sun barely sets —
twilight, more than darkness.

I could pull up a chair,
watch hostas
unfurl before my eyes,
grass multiply,
trees erupt.
Or put my ear closer,
and hear the ratchet and squeak
of asparagus
growing.
Chlorophyll is ferocious,
sucking-up light
churning–out sugar
fragrance
cellulose
— the essential molecule,
the power-plant of the world.

An evening thunderstorm.
They will drink it in
greedily;
and then, at dawn
race head-long to the sky;
crowding-out, straining higher,
shallow roots
competing for the richest earth.

And in this short fierce summer
we, too, are determined;
soaking-up the sun,
scratched, and bitten, and burnt.

State of Nature
June 22 2009


I am no green thumb;
my brief conceit as a gardener
undone.

Although the pin-cherry
which was so long to bud
has put out blossoms
for the very first time.

And the hostas
are indestructible,
their giant leaves
unfurling in the shade.

Dandelions
tapping into deep moist soil
have turned to puff,
a hundred long thin stems
sticking-up —
like veins
post-dissection.

Day lilies, as I’ve come to expect
will bloom all summer,
despite my neglect,
The dogwood, though, looks spent —
a few shrivelled leaves, brittle stems,
their vibrant red
faded.
And vetch
winds its way everywhere,
the exacting grass
long dead.

I survey my garden
with dread,
too long left
to nature.
But the excess
the disorder
the wildly exuberant green,
are a kind of Eden.

My garden
reclaiming itself.
And how a wild world will look,
liberated
from out brief despotic
occupation.

Treed
June 20 2009


The dogs treed it,
black claws scraping bark.
He was surprisingly agile,
scampering up like a heavy-weight wrestler
gone to fat.

Arms and legs hug the trunk
clinging as tight as a frightened cub,
immoveable.

The dogs bark maniacally
triumphant, intense,
springing up
inciting each other.
All it takes is 3 dogs to make a pack,
turning pets
into wolves, and jackals.

I call them off,
dragging the big black one by its collar.
The blood-lust of dogs
when bear’s in the air,
reeking so bad
even I catch it.

He was a juvenile, kind of small;
his first encounter with man.
And I knew
he wouldn’t be back.

The dogs were rewarded
with table scraps,
fish, freshly caught.

I wonder if he’s climbed back down
by now.

Euclidean Geometry
June 17 2009


We were taught
parallel lines go on forever
and never intersect.
That a point is dimensionless,
and exists in solitary splendour.

I find comfort
in this geometric universe.
So easily rendered
with straight-edged rulers,
my trusty compass
twirling on its needle-sharp leg.

And when they showed us
how glass, cut precisely
could split light,
give order
to the rainbow’s kaleidoscope,
we felt we had mastered
creation’s basic rules.

But they forgot to warn us
about fault lines
and pressure points,
how easily glass can break.
About the complications
3 dimensions make,
how all things change
given time.
And how light relieves the darkness;
but look straight into it
you are left momentarily blind.

Shared Silences
June 15 2009


An elderly couple
sit across from each other,
sipping tea
choosing dessert.
Beneath the table
she has removed
one of her proper comfortable shoes.
Her toes, in sturdy stockings
find the hem of his pants
brush up-and-down his calf,
in slow familiar strokes.
He glances over,
knows her too well
for words.




There is the silence of strangers.
Hunched into themselves,
whose body language declares
no trespassing.

There is the silence of anger.
The space stiff with tension,
bodies rigid
teeth clenched.
The last word
suspended in the air like an echo,
so it’s easy keeping score.
Or a flash of red
to the blood-shot eyes of a bull.

And there is silence, shared.
This is the ultimate intimacy,
so at ease with each other
nothing need be said.
The space between them
full,
the silence
understood.

Indelible
June 14 2009


Her autobiography
is written in skin.
In the laugh lines
permanently etched by her eyes.
In stretch-marks and scars.
In surgical incisions
that march across her body
like battle-hardened troops
in a long exhausting war.
And tattoos
that once belonged
to a young and foolish girl,
as reckless as a drunken sailor
in a foreign port.

She makes love in the dark.
She only looks in mirrors
fully clothed.
But her hands know,
in the shower
touching herself
— strongly scented soap
steam, billowing.
What she’d rather forget,
and takes pride
remembering.

An entire chapter inscribed
in the livid scar on her breast.
Scrubbing hard;
lightly brushing against it.

They Called for Rain
June 8 2009


They called for rain.

But this cool mist is like walking on mountain-tops,
the hard-edged world softened
enclosed in fog.

Then there is all-day-rain,
relentless, soggy.

And showers, on-and-off;
hope dangled, then snatched away.
A rent in the cloud,
a ray of sun, slanting down.

In late summer, it pours,
heavy drops
like water, shot from nail-guns.
These are monsoons, biblical floods,
so the world overflows
nearly drowning us.

I prefer the sturm und drang
of thunder
— the wind, whipped-up,
the clouds
black towering anvils.
How the air feels charged,
the sense of power, barely contained,
and the light
ominous, exhilarating.
And when it breaks
there may be hail
frogs
horizontal rain.
In the end, the earth left cleansed
and glistening —
torn branches scattered,
wet leaves, splattered
on cars, asphalt, glass.

This cool mist
is like kissing your sister.
A thunderstorm is elevator-sex in a black-out —
you and your lover air-locked,
in the very last kiss
on earth.

Bedtime Stories
for Grown-Ups
June 8 2009


When the tides stopped.
When the muddy flats dried-up
hard as rock,
and scuttling crabs dropped
dead as door-nails
— flipped on their backs,
picked-over by gulls, squawking
turkey vultures
hogging the fat ones —
we knew
the cataclysm had come.

No moon rose, that night,
and the constellations seemed to burn up the sky.
Showers of falling stars
bombarded us.
Meteorites
gave rise to prophecy
and awe.
Until all we saw was dust,
blotting-out the universe.

We wondered if the sun
would rise, next morning.
The devout prayed.
Sinners repented.
While the rest sought comfort
in lovers
and friends.

They say our bodies are too small
for tides to affect us.
And we all felt insignificant
that night —
the planet
wobbling in its orbit;
the ecliptic, shifted.

And the moon
a whimsy, a figment,
told in tales
to get fussy babies to sleep.
Such childish dreams;
all moonshine
and lunacy.

Pure White Light
June 4 2009


We burned the chairs first,
splintered, kindling
kiln-dried wood.
The table, next,
fed, leaf-by-leaf
into the stove.
And beds stripped bare
screws, worked loose;
sagging mattress
stacked against the wall.
We pried-up floorboards
crow-barred 2-by-4’s,
exposing joists, and gaping holes.
But still, the cold.

You’d think books would be easy.
But they smoulder, blacken, smoke
douse the stove.
So we burn them page by page.
The heat
has us in its trance,
feeding it, hand after hand.

Floor to ceiling
shelves stripped clean.
They stand against the walls
like skeletons,
ribs sagging
spindly spines.
They too will burn
eventually
— the marrow bone after the meat.

The unmemorized lines
are gone.
But the work of words goes on —
a flare of pure white light,
illuminating us
one last time.

Afraid of the Dark
June 3 2009


They come out at night.

Delirious dreams,
sheets twisted
sweat-soaked.

Nocturnal creatures
stepping tentatively from hidden lairs;
over-sized eyes,
dark fur, black carapace.

Fear of the dark,
projecting our inner worlds
upon the outer one.

How deep
does sunlight penetrate translucent skin,
traverse cytoplasm and corpuscles,
illuminate the deep recesses
we always believed
inaccessible?
How, at night, all is made equal,
turning us inside out
flat as shadows
edges blurred.

At night, the stars come out.
Light that left billions of years ago,
we glimpse for an instant
its journey over.

Twilight
June 1 2009


Dusk
imperceptibly settles.
You feel the weight of air,
the light
getting denser.
Unsure if it fills the world
or empties it.

And then
the colours of darkness disappear.
A charcoal etching
in all the shades of grey —
softening its edges,
smudging the space
in between.

At night
all of us are colour-blind;
more likely to touch
and be touched,
snuggled-up
beneath its soothing cover.

Afterlife
June 1 2009


Who knew
there was a hierarchy of angels.
Arrayed at the right hand of God,
all celestial harps
and beatific smiles,
they elbow and jostle like little girls
competing to be queen of the schoolyard.

The Seraphim, the Cherubim, the Thrones,
looking down their nose
at Powers and Principalities;
and the lowly Archangel
who hovers down near earth.

Even hell has its circles,
also 9.
Or so says Dante’s Inferno,
purgatory not included.

And in between, we work out our own
internal order,
unsure what is a need
a want
a desire;
which one burns inside,
and which will consume us whole.

Even skeptics and atheists
cannot decide.
Who are greedy for everything
in this brief secular life,
eviscerated of all its mystery.
Where death is final,
and relentless rationality rules.