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.)
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
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".
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.
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.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
“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.
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.
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.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, August 10, 2009
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, August 3, 2009
“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!
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!
Saturday, August 1, 2009
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.
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.
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