Season’s Greetings
Dec 20 2010


A Christmas thaw,
the streets awash
in gritty slush,
salt-encrusted fenders.
A van with a red velvet bow
on its bumper,
and a rusty truck
sporting a festive wreath.
A standard sedan
has a green button in front,
an adorable nose
of plastic mistletoe
to kiss someone under.

Even the lifeguards at the pool
wore cute little Santa hats.

The seasonal spirit
is contagious,
an epidemic of decoration
overtaking the world.
A white Christmas
with teeth-clenching carols
to afflict us,
from tinny speakers
hidden in storefronts, and parking lots.

The streets will freeze
into minefields of congealed slush.

My next door neighbours
are off to the Bahamas
for the next two weeks,
where they will celebrate beside the pool.
Their house is dark,
except for an elegant tree
trimmed with tiny white lights
framed in the window.
I appreciate
this modest display
their tasteful restraint.

I think of the tree
in that over-heated house
dropping more needles each day,
until its lush green branches
are scrawny twigs.
A skeleton tree
festooned with lights.
Like a wizened old lady
with too much make-up
who can’t disguise her age.

But from a distance
a perfect scene —
the angelic tree, pure and simple,
through a picture window
touched by frost.


All true. The Bahamas, the 2 weeks, the elegant tree. Even the cutely decorated cars and lifeguards. I’ve never noticed people decorating their cars before. So it’s either something new this season; or I just haven’t been very observant! Anyway, it’s this almost unseemly proliferation that gave rise to the rather bleak metaphor of contagion and affliction.(The "teeth-clinching" carol is -- what else! -- "Little Drummer Boy".)

I think we all feel torn by the season: a religious celebration appropriated by a secular world; the clash of the spiritual and material; the blatant excess in a time when nature is all about scarcity and hunkering down. Which is how the poem works, whipsawing the reader between beauty and tastelessness, between cynicism and hope. So the incongruity, interruptions, and modest misdirection are all very intentional.

I end on an uplifting note. So there: I'm not as negative and cynical as you'd think!

Birds Who Mate for Life
Dec 17 2010


Birds who mate for life,
who return
to the same tract of trackless forest
same tree, same branch,
in another spring
a thousand miles after,
still sing
to each other.

His song of seduction
is not intended
for the young receptive hens.
But instead, to cement their attachment.
Just as they mud the nest,
having survived
to mate again.

Like an elderly couple
married forever,
who squabble and peck
ruffle their feathers
then quickly forget.
Who complete each other’s sentences,
are snugly content
in silence, together.

The trouble is
they have studied the DNA,
and birds who mate for life
apparently stray.
Frequently.

I see the elderly couple
on the park bench,
tossing stale bread
to a scuffle of gulls.
I wonder if one, or both, ever cheated,
if they’ll take the secret
to the grave.
Or did the guilty party confide,
and still, the marriage survives?

And does he sing to her
at night?
Or doing the dishes
his turn to dry?
An old song
off key,
with words he’s not quite sure of.

And, deaf in one ear
she joins in the chorus,
with a clear pure voice.


I've been listening to "Between the Covers", on CBC radio. This is a podcast, where they present audio versions of contemporary books. The latest is Elizabeth Haye's "Late Nights on Air", which won the Giller Prize a few years ago, and which I'm quite enjoying. Anyway, there was a single simple sentence I heard on one instalment, and it stuck in my head. It seemed a good first line for a poem So I wrote it down on my usual blank white sheet, and let my mind wander. This is how it turned out.

A nice combination, I think, of the cynical and sweet; the romantic, and the ornithological!

At The Confluence of Rivers
Dec 17 2010


Ft. Charlotte wasn’t really a disappointment.
No, there were no palisades, no log cabins,
no re-enactments, like Disneyland.
But I could tell men had left their mark
on-and off
for hundreds of years
in this New World wilderness.

At the confluence of rivers
at the end of a long portage,
this was once the outer limit
of exploration,
connected by a tenuous thread
of blood and sweat
and manual labour
to the civilized centre
of life.

At the confluence of rivers
near a Great Lake port,
this could have been a great city
like Minneapolis
New York, New York.
It was a gentleman’s chivalry
to call it “Charlotte,”
after some virgin princess
a patron, perhaps.
And a grand ambition
to call it “Fort.”
Because the frontier would quickly move on
leaving Ft. Charlotte deserted,
stillborn
in its virgin forest.
Where there was nothing as rich as gold
to hold them,
the fabulous Orient
luring them on.

Standing here, I feel as if I had stepped back in time
in my own small city
at the confluence of rivers
where a forest once stood.
Where by chance, or larceny
settlement took.
How it , too, would look
if you lopped-off
the girdered buildings,
the bungalows
on cul-de-sacs, and circles.
Stripped away
the concrete surface
and grid-locked streets.
Plucked out
ornamental trees, and well-kept gardens,
roughed up
manicured lawns.
And underneath
pulled cables, tubes, and conduits,
replaced
the blasted rocks.

Leaving wilderness, like Ft. Charlotte,
as hard a journey as it ever was.
A walk back in time,
when all our cities
were modest clearings
in a vast unbroken forest.
When an entire continent
felt impenetrable, closed.

Which you’d think would make me feel claustrophobic,
over-towered by trees
underbrush, entangling my feet.
Except that suddenly
I was in an alternate future
in the middle of a 6-lane street,
gleaming black walls
50 stories high
crowding the sidewalk,
angry horns
bearing down on me.
The Ft. Charlotte, that might have been.

Where, like every city, I cannot breathe,
sprawling beyond the horizon
traffic crawling by.
Desperately seeking an edge
I can step out over,
and hear myself think.



There is a long hike, at Grand Portage, near the Minnesota/Ontario border. The highlight is a spectacular waterfall, the Cascades. But for some reason, the trail is very poorly marked, and the more obvious path leads to another site, grandiosely called “Ft. Charlotte”. Not much to see; but I’ve missed the cut-off a few times, and found myself there. And each time, the germ of this poem was always lurking somewhere in my subconscious, but never managed to get written.

How, back in the day, this place called Ft. Charlotte was as civilized as it got. Minneapolis or Thunder Bay or Duluth either didn’t exist, or were just as rudimentary. So what alchemy chose them to become the cities we know, and left the ambitious “Fort” to be nothing but a plaque in a modest clearing?

And how would it feel for someone 400 years ago to be standing on the original site of one of these modern cities, and then suddenly transported into the future? How utterly gobsmacked would he feel? How could someone from 400 years ago even assimilate a tiny bit of the modern world?

And conversely, standing on the site of Ft Charlotte made me feel as if my whole city had been whisked into oblivion, and its original virgin state somehow recaptured. An impossibility, of course; but a tantalizing mental simulation.

Anyway, the poem became a bit of an epic. It kind of reminds me of Gordon Lightfoot’s famous Canadian Railway Trilogy. If it’s anywhere near as good, I’ll be thoroughly pleased.

Swim Class
Dec 15 2010


In swim class
back when I was a Tadpole,
hoping for a bright red badge
to sew
on my swimsuit.

We were earnest listeners, learning to swim.
They showed us how to crawl, tread, kick;
the daunting fly
was for older kids.
How to throw a big orange life preserver
past the drowning man,
then pull it back
shouting reassurance.

I always pictured him splashing madly,
like blood-in-the-water
a froth of sharks.
But sometimes
it’s just a look in the eye
of quiet desperation.
Parting the water like a sharpened knife,
slipping silently under
the undisturbed surface.
Maybe twice
before he vanishes.

And sometimes, a frugal wave,
like a benevolent Queen
to her adoring subjects.
The final gesture
of a dying man,
I acknowledged with a nod of my head
an open hand,
politely waving back.

Exposure
Dec 14 2010


The shortest day of the year.
When a month of winter
is enough, already.
I console myself
that soon, the darkness will begin lifting.
Imperceptibly, at first,
until the shadows shorten
and I feel myself emerge
into light.

But the season is indifferent
to sun,
and I can count on 3 more months
of blizzards
arctic fronts.

The lake is locked in ice,
an immaculate field of white.
A tabula rasa
waiting to receive my footprints.
Where a machine would make a perfect path
mine seem to stagger across its surface.
Bundled up, so just my eyes appear
I walk erratically;
drunk on life, perhaps,
or simply lost
in thought.

Shadows are sharp enough to cut.
The sky, a high blue bowl
inverted.
There are rabbit tracks
a lone wolf’s massive paws.
But I haven’t seen a deer since fall.
When the bucks were in rut,
flanks steaming, nostrils flared
tossing their noble heads.
When they’d emerge on the back-country roads
hungry for salt.
Now, for months, they make themselves scarce,
hunkered down, burning fat
easy prey.

A wolf, without its pack
might starve, as well.
Because we are all the same
when exposed skin freezes in seconds.
A solitary man
walking into the wind,
squinting in blinding brightness.

Their Houses Set on Fire
Dec 12 2010


The science of fire
is simple —
oxygen, fuel, ignition.

It’s the art of fire
I’ve been missing.
How to catch lightning
before it strikes the earth.
How to pull away
from hypnotic flame.
How to feed
its inexhaustible appetite,
without consigning myself to the blaze.
Because it’s either incinerate
or burn slowly,
decomposing
in warm fertile soil.

Not every circle of Hell
is white hot, molten.
There is the Hell we make
right here.
Scorched earth,
diabolical air.
The acid sea,
that will strip you of your outer shell
reduce bone
to nothing.

The fields of the vanquished
were sown with salt,
their women taken as slaves.
And their houses set on fire,
the men who remained
left inside.
So for years
the smell of burning flesh
clung to the place.
Teeth, and fragments of bone,
sifted from cooling ash
disgorged from fertile ground.

Grass, succeeded
by saplings, and trees,
a dark dank forest.
Until lightning strikes.
Or a match
accidentally tossed
into tinder.


An environmental poem about the perfidy of man; the creative destruction of fire; and the regenerative cycles of nature.

There is lots going on here, and probably lots I don’t know about. It was a kind of stream of consciousness thing, on a freezing day when I made a roaring fire: a day when my mood was darkened by the black dogs of futility and despair. Which probably explains a lot!

Dying Tongue
Dec 9 2010


The last one left
alive.
Old friends, buried,
brothers and sisters, passed away.

How the last speaker
of a dead language
must feel,
who has no one in the world to talk with
to criticize his grammar
or recall, for him
a forgotten word.

You begin to wonder
which memories are true
did the past really happen
when only you
remember.
Even your childhood no longer exists
when there’s no one left
who witnessed it.
And the man, impossibly young, in the pictures
could be anyone, at all.

The old man
stooped and grizzled
was always thus,
according to passers-by.
Who see him on the park bench
tossing bread at pigeons
drowsing in afternoon sun,
almost biting his tongue
when some reminiscence
startles him.

You always felt
you were an old soul
in a young body.
So perhaps it’s only just
you’ve finally caught up.
And now, the final custodian
of a long ago world
you’ll take to the grave.

All you have left is the past tense
the future imperfect
the passive voice.
Talking loudly
to yourself.
So that mothers with little children
warn them sternly
about strangers,
herd them quickly on by.



This poem is about how, without memory, we are nothing, we cease to exist, we lose meaning. And how memory has to be shared to be authentic. And how it’s only once we are forgotten, once there is no one to remember us, that we truly die.

It’s also about the loneliness of old age: how the world can move on, how you can feel like the last one left, how you can even question what's the point of going on. I’m really pleased with the analogy that is at the heart of the poem: how being the final custodian of shared memory is like being the last speaker of a dead language. So there is no one with whom to speak; and when you die, the language – and the world view that is inextricably part of it – might as well never have existed.

And finally, it’s about how we see old people as if they were born that way, were always thus. A silly conceit, of course, that ignores your own procession through life. And ignores how in the fullness of time, we are all contemporaries, all occupy the same continuum. And ignores how the child, the adolescent, the young adult remain alive in us, however old we become.

The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company
Dec 8 2010


At A&P, it was Eight O’Clock coffee,
a no-nonsense name
for the well-regulated life.

Strong java in the morning.
Back when the percolator
burped frantically on the stove,
burning the bitter liquid
but infusing the house
with glorious aroma.

As a boy, I loved that big red machine
in the aisle chock-a-block with coffee.
The powerful grinding noise.
The silky sluice
of finely ground beans,
that stopped
just short of overflowing.
The intoxicating smell.
So that I yearned to try
the grown-up drink.

The first cup
is like a rite of passage.
Up there with the first kiss,
accidentally clinking incisors.
With learning to drive,
your dad on the passenger side
clenching tightly.
A delicious aroma
but the taste was bitter.
Until, that is
I was initiated into the ritual
of milk and sugar,
transforming it
into a rich brown elixir.
Because a child’s palate
is so much more sensitive,
not yet jaded by life.

Eventually, I learned to take it black.
A well-roasted blend
filtered through acid-free paper.
As I learned to drive
with the roof down, the tunes cranked up
a girl nestled beside me.
And learned to kiss,
not just lips, but tongue
all over her body.

My first cup of coffee,
a gateway drug
to all the pleasures of life.

Snow Take Its Time
Dec 5 2010


Snow takes its time
getting to earth.
I can see the flurry in the distance,
snow in the shape of wind
swirling, hovering
even rising up,
suspended
on cold dense air.

Or perhaps, in winter
the law of gravity is inconsistent.
No different than everything else, it seems
this time of year.
When I walk on water,
awaken, in darkness,
constantly crave
sugar, fat, and starch.

Rain simply falls,
in sprinkles and showers
and cats and dogs.
In summer
a drenching sun.
And night, descending
at a sensible hour
all at once.

But the snow won’t come down
without tempting us
with mischief.
Watching it dance on the wind,
form bottomless drifts,
festoon the trees
with glitter.
Invite us to burrow in
to its unexpected warmth.

The man in the 3-piece suit
puts down his briefcase
scoops up a handful of snow,
and when no one’s looking
aims for a passing bus.
Perfect packing snow,
before the plough
carves an ice-hard snow bank,
before the salt and sand.

A small perfect window
when there are no rules.
When even gravity has gone out to play;
back, in a minute or two.

Longing
Dec 1 2010


The flightless bird
looks ridiculous.
A fat body
on stick-like legs,
waddling bobble-head.
Prehistoric feet
awkwardly grasping at earth.
It adjusts its useless wings,
iridescent, elegantly feathered
longingly feeling for air.
Gracefully stretching, then tucking them in
against a well-muscled breast.
That has yet
to atrophy.

A fish out of water
flops spasmodically,
one unblinking eye
aiming directly up.
Into heaven, perhaps,
a bright and endless sky.
Scales glisten, drying quickly
fins gritty with sand.
Its delicate gills flare,
drowning
in the thin sharp air.

A man, in the darkness
of an arctic winter
desperately longs for the sun.
Not so much heat
as light, and shadow,
the going down, the rising up.
He remembers how tired he was
sleepless, all summer,
when sun penetrated everything
boring relentlessly in.
Now, just a glimpse
would reassure him,
the world might recover
from ceaseless night.

He sleeps, constantly.
Like a land-locked bird
unsuited to earth.
Like a beached fish
turning putrid.
Still trying to find
his element.

The Longest Night
Nov 30 2010


The longest night
of winter.
The moon, extinguished,
the feeble light of stars
at the end of a million years.

Out here, I can see the porch-light for miles
welcoming me home.
It looks like a snow-globe
gently shaken.
The ground glows,
its soft white cover
reminding me of innocence,
never touched.
And forgiveness,
excusing the sins of fall
of things not done,
in a year
when winter came so suddenly.

A flash freeze,
a messy thaw, like false spring.
Now snow
relentlessly falling.

My footsteps are sharply etched
in the soft wet surface
here, in the 40W light.
But follow them back
and they fill-in, gradually
— a precise map,
conflating time
and distance.
Until the last footstep disappears
in a field of perfect white,
all evidence of my passing
erased,
and who would ever miss me?

Like starlight
I decay in time and space;
not quite so far
as the galaxy’s outer reaches,
but ending here, as well.
Where the light of a single bulb
is strong enough to overwhelm
a thousand suns.

One Kind of Everything
Nov 26 2010


I got them at the liquor store
or supermarket;
which was a longer walk
but felt more deserving.
Where I shopped
for macaroni, and dented cans
bruised bananas, going black
and produce past its due-date
— as good as perfect fruit,
at least for scurvy.

And have stayed with me on every move.
Filled with books
I haven’t cracked since college,
but find I cannot part with.
Sometimes, don’t even unpack
before moving on.

The boxes are cleverly nested
in a crowded closet
or musty basement,
marked with vintage logos
and discontinued brands.
With the faint whiff of vinegar
that old cardboard
and cheap paper give-off,
going brittle, and brown.

How these books weigh me down
I’m not quite sure —
are they an anchor
holding me back,
or a solid foundation
that keeps me grounded?
Either way, I feel reassured,
home-made shelves
filled with familiar stuff
like some sort of talisman.
The book as object,
its contents immaterial.

Of course, they’re useless now,
when tiny silicon chips
contain whole libraries.
The boxes, though
remind me of that old supermarket
that was as small as a modern convenience store.
Not much choice, back then,
nothing foreign, or exotic
or terribly fresh.
Oddly, we were probably happier, shopping
in that modest emporium —
no second-guessing, or regrets
when there’s one kind of everything.

The books, too, contained all the truth,
their received wisdom
irrefutable.
And, like me, hardly up-to-date.
Weighed down by words,
no one there to hear.



This poem has a certain nostalgic power for me. I remember collecting boxes, before a move, at supermarkets and liquor stores. I remember this A&P from the late 70’s, in downtown Kingston: no one today would believe that this actually called itself a “super” market; not in this era of big box stores and hypermarkets. I remember that distinct smell of age and decomposition when I was cleaning out old cardboard boxes from under the stairs: the sort of stuff you know you’d never use, but needed to “ferment” for a while before you could, in all conscience, toss. And I remember vigilantly watching prices and searching out discounts, when there wasn’t much money for basic food.

There are a lot of small details that paint this character as a bit of failure; and, at the same time, elicit a certain sympathy for him: he’s too poor to have a car (or at least early on he didn’t); he moves a lot, presumably looking for work; his shelves are still home-made (I picture college dorm style, made of bricks and 2 x 4’s); and he’s a long way from college, but still seems unsure of his place in the world. He’s not me. But in the final stanza, I guess my subconscious discontent broke through, and he and I end up sharing not just a jaded view of modernity, but the frustration of unpublished writers.

There is a lot of truth in the way we haul around boxes of old books, and how we ornament our shelves with them: books we’ll almost certainly never open again. Perhaps it’s because of the reassuring sense of continuity they provide, a link to our past. Perhaps it’s out of respect: how throwing out a book is such a philistine and irreverent act. Perhaps it’s the mystical sense of knowledge attained, simply by proximity to it. Perhaps it’s a way of proclaiming who we are to the world: not necessarily trying to impress people, but simply that the books that formed us are almost a template of our inner lives. Or perhaps it’s just the usual good intentions: that some day we’ll re-read (or, in some cases, read them for the first time!) Again, please don’t mistake this for autobiography. I actually don’t have this talismanic collection of old books. But I know people who do. I suppose it’s odd that this character seems as sentimental about the boxes as he is about the books. It may not be sentimentality, though: it could be efficiency, or thrift. Or perhaps just plain laziness!

I used “One Kind of Everything” for the title because this is my favourite part of the piece. First of all, because of this strong memory of that old supermarket, and how today something like that seems so quaint and distant and hard to believe. And second, because “happiness” research (something called “behavioural economics”) actually shows this to be true: our purchases give us more happiness – and we’re more likely to buy – when there is less choice! Our terribly destructive consumer society is all about obsolescence and choice. And yet when we see 20 varieties of jam on the shelf, rather than 6, we’re more likely to be paralyzed by too much choice into not buying at all. Or, if we do, we’re more likely to second guess ourselves, and feel regret.

I quite like this poem. I think it evokes a sense of nostalgia and loss and mild failure, in which most of us can see something of ourselves. And I like the way the final stanza ties things together, conflating the character with his collection of books: the weight of words (both metaphorical and literal); the feeling of anachronism and futility.

Superhero
Nov 22 2010


In the old part of town, where I live
there are still alleyways,
running between backyards
like some feral no-man’s land
— a hidden grid,
that shadows
the city streets.

You can tell the neighbourhood
by the wooden fences —
custom-built, and thick,
higher than by-laws permit.
Or over a bit,
where they’re chain-link
and leaning,
anchored in cheap concrete.
And hedges
with sharply trimmed edges,
or moth-eaten, and growing wild.
There are manicured lawns
like a real-estate ad,
or hard dry pads
with weeds, and bare spots,
and a plywood sandbox
with its cracker-jack prize
of plastic toys
and cat shit.

Some good citizens
diligently cut the grass
of the verdant alley, out back;
either civic-minded
or defending their sovereign border
from weeds.
Others ignore it,
a temperate jungle
gone to seed.
And some cheat
going fenceless,
plundering several square feet
of public property
as their own.

I walk the dog here
after dark,
feeling vaguely incognito
an object of suspicion, even.
I can see into windows
where curtains aren’t drawn,
this private world
of quiet backyards.
Rooms blazing warmly with light
looking out
into pitch black night;
so they are blind
to the outside world.
And I am a superhero
in my cloak of invisibility
— the impunity
of darkness.

In winter
the alley is a rutted path
of frozen footsteps
dog scat
a child’s lost mitten.
For a week in fall
there are raspberries,
free-for-the-picking.
And summer is a cool refuge of green,
passing people in their backyard sanctuaries
escaping the street.
Where I can hear ice cubes clink
sudden laughter
kids, splashing in a wading pool.

I hustle on past
avoiding eye contact.
Feeling like a stranger, a voyeur,
intruding on a private world.

Complicity
Nov 21 2010


I was born in the middle of the 20th century.
Which history will remember
as the bloodiest,
ever.
Even the word genocide
had to be invented.

The rich got richer
nothing new.
We were urged to consume
and complied, gladly;
yet happiness
somehow eluded us.
And in the end
bequeathed our debt
to generations to come.
Bu inattention, perhaps
or simple gluttony —
a hot-house earth,
bills deferred
printing money.

So who in the future will believe
I never went to war,
never saw
a dismembered body?
And that I paid my way,
obeyed
my frugal father —
didn’t gawk, fridge door open wide,
lights off, behind me.
And even though I watched the news
faithfully
every night,
couldn’t really do much;
except disapprove,
lead my life
as honourably as possible.

When I reach 100
they will marvel at this old man,
a witness to so many portentous events
that radically changed the world.
Not knowing that all I remember
are sweet corn, and ripe red tomatoes
fresh from my garden.
The only child,
my nose still buried
in that newborn baby smell.
And how it felt
first time ever in love.

And that my main regret
is how helpless I was
to change anything.
My complacency
when the world burned.
When the screams of its victims
were nicely out of hearing.




A political poem, a rare indulgence: about bourgeois complacency, complicity, and powerlessness. The key is in the very first stanza: “Even the word “genocide” / had to be invented.”

I wrote this poem because I feel terribly embarrassed by, and ashamed of, “my” generation; of which, paradoxically, I don’t really feel a part. We baby boomers, squandering the noble legacy of “the greatest generation”, who saved the world from Hitler. Consuming the planet in an orgy of greed. And shamelessly leaving a mountain of debt to out children – having borrowed against the future for immediate gratification; having heedlessly spewed CO2 into the oceans and air.

History will see me as complicit; even though distance and circumstance have somehow left me exempt from the cruelty and depravity of my era.

I see myself as complacent and ineffective.

The truth probably is that most of us really are powerless. And that our small diurnal lives go on despite the great machinations of history; that they go on much the same as they always have; and that the essentials remain unchanged.

And also that bourgeois values may be both our undoing, and our salvation: tending to our own garden may be too little; and, at the same time, just enough.

Safe Passage
Nov 19 2010


The trees were loaded with snow.
Spruce are spindly, this far north,
bending nearly to the ground
in graceful arcs
with their burden of fresh white powder
— like the palace guard
bowing respectfully.
Some trees broke
bare and jagged,
barring the path like scattered spears
abandoned
on the battlefield.

There is a delicate balance of forces,
like deterrence
in a cold war —
the stickiness of snow, the springy wood
the warmth of a frugal sun.
When a sudden gust
can disrupt it all.

Until I walk
along the path
beneath this arbour of gently bending trees,
a triumphant arc
glittering brightly.
And brush against a branch,
springing-up lightly
in a shower of airy snow.
That powders my fleece,
sits, like epaulettes, on my shoulders,
clings to my lashes,
filling the world
with cool translucent light.
Melting quickly,
and, when the mercury plummets
freezing my eyelids shut.
Struck blind, suddenly.

The trees grow towards the path
in a lattice-work tunnel,
competing for open space.
Which will be choked off by forest
swallowed up,
when I no longer come.
Because the trees always win the war,
and safe passage
for a neutral observer like me
is never sure.

The path
as if it never existed.
History, as usual
re-written by the victors.

Illumination
Nov 14 2010


A brisk wind
and the stove draws nicely.

Dry wood
from last winter
seasoned another year,
stacked by the hearth all summer.
Where it sat
adding a nice warm touch
of home.

Birch bark burns
with a strong clean flame,
flaring-up at the touch of a match.
And kindling
becomes instant embers.
Beneath a ziggurat of logs
criss-crossed, then topped-off
with an all-night behemoth,
consumed by fire.

The tree stood for 40 years,
when the man who planted it
found himself old
suddenly,
looking in the bathroom mirror
one brilliant morning
in the cold white light
that reflects
off the first fresh snow.

In a week of fires
the tree is gone.
40 years of sunlight
compressed
into 7 days.
Leaving a dark patina of ash
on the slope of snow
that blankets the roof
undisturbed.
And its elemental atoms
diffusing out
until they cover the earth.
Because nothing is wasted;
matter re-shaped
energy conserved.

An exothermic reaction
sustains itself
until the fuel is gone.
A spark of ignition
steady oxygen,
giving-off
heat, and light.
Breathing in, and out
how many times
in the course of a life?

Like rust
he burns slowly,
the oxygen he needs
consuming his body
from the inside out.
Every cell
re-building itself
many times over
in the course of a life;
until they, too, exhaust themselves.

An urn of ash,
fragments
of unburned bone.
His body heat, as well
left behind,
warming the earth
ever so slightly
all these years.
And perhaps, if he’s good
and lucky,
some light.


I’m very pleased how the last line transforms this poem. Or, at least, abruptly pulls all the threads tight. Not just pleased at the line break between “good”/ “and lucky”, but the reference to “light, left behind.” Because despite the optimism in the idea that matter and energy are ultimately conserved – even fire does not destroy – it is the angst of this man in later middle age that sets the poem’s tone. Until you get to the very last word, that is; where there is the possibility that his life might be redeemed by the light he gave to the world. This metaphorical meaning of “illumination” is very powerful: there is light, and then there is illumination – insight, truth, revelation.

The poem didn’t start with this intent at all. Rather, it was given to me by means of that mysterious stream of consciousness, that exalted state of free association that somehow manages to break down the brain’s rigid compartments. I’ve previously referred to this inspired process as “channelling”: an exhilarating and intensely pleasurable creative state that feels like automatic writing. Let the analytic and critical gate-keepers stand down, and see where that inner voice takes you.

So the poem actually started as a simple descriptive piece: with the first snow and first fire of the season. The key turning point was the word “behemoth” (which was itself given to me by the intrinsic music of language: logs/crossed/top, and behemoth.) I couldn’t help but think what an ignominious end to a life of such longevity and beauty. And what an irreverent act to simply toss a log on the fire, another log to be quickly and casually consumed. That, conflated with my apparent subconscious preoccupation with getting older, made this poem much more personal; and I think, that much more compelling.

I think it would also nicely qualify as one of my notorious “physics” poems. I like the way it plays with time and perspective. I especially like the way it shows natural law unifying such seemingly different phenomena as a growing tree, a fire, human metabolism, the oxidation of metals, and a material interpretation of the after-life.

You Can Close Your Eyes
Nov 8 2010


Our version of fall
is a frumpy librarian
in a modest dress and sensible shoes,
glaring sternly at noise-makers.

No loud displays.
No scarlet show-offs
suffused with light
against crisp blue sky.
No, our trees are quiet, studious
well-behaved.
Mostly yellow foliage
that’s gone in the first stiff wind
well before the clocks turn back.
Gloomy days, and colder rain
waiting for snow.

But this fall was golden
— warm and dry
and slow.
Like a hushed reading room
with clerestory windows
lined with darkly polished wood.

I hear myself crunch
through crisp piles of leaves,
filling ditches
thick to leeward
blown into windrows.
A thin skim of ice
clings to the shore,
tinkling like a million tiny wind chimes
as open water
laps at its edge.
And a rustling in the airy woods
as small furry creatures
dig-in against the cold.

In the honeyed hush
of a fall like this one
you can close your eyes.
Find a place
in the afternoon sun
between long low shadows
and listen carefully,
feeling the unexpected warmth
on your up-turned face.
More literary fiction
than best-seller,
more Haiku, than epic,
the attentive reader
will get her reward.

This northern fall
this fleeting season
is like a single page
between summer and winter,
quickly turned.



After wavering between summer and winter (never spring!), this golden fall has made me think it’s my favourite season after all – as fall always used to be. As the poem says, unusually “warm and dry/and slow”, unlike the cold wet gloom of last year.

It will never be a visually spectacular fall, this far north. But that just encouraged me to tune in to its subtle beauty; and especially its sound. Just imagine, experiencing the beauty of fall with your eyes closed! So the 5th stanza is really where the poem began: crunching through thick piles of leaves; the delicate skim of ice, that literally tinkled in a light breeze; a rustling in the woods, followed by the appearance of a juvenile porcupine, about to experience his very first winter.

I don’t know why the librarian came to mind, except that I was thinking about the unnatural quiet, and immediately pictured her stern glare and strenuous shushing. So, of course, I had to let the metaphor lead me through the rest of the piece – through the reading room, the brief poem, the single page.

It’s challenging to write another poem about fall that anyone would want to read. Hasn’t it all already been said? And these lyric poems about nature can get pretty tired and formulaic. So I hope I managed to meet the challenge, and come up with something worth reading.

A Fresh Fat Cuban
Nov 2 2010


There was the smell of cigars.
In the den, where he read the evening paper.
In the car
always a late model Oldsmobile.
Smudging the windows
with a dull blue haze,
crumpled in ashtrays, the blunt remains
of stogies
dark with spit.
Rolling around his lips
not paying much attention,
the way a couple kiss
after 40 years of marriage.

Stale cigar smoke
is like a beer parlour at closing time,
better in low light
urgently opening windows.
But when someone puffs
on a fresh fat Cuban
you can’t get enough,
inhaling the 2nd hand smoke
with greedy pleasure,
nose extended, nostrils flared.
Impatient to be grown up,
when you will be ushered in
to the secret society of men,
who can knot a bow-tie, eyes closed,
tell off-colour jokes,
light up a stogie
old-school.

My glamorous uncle
would come all the way up
from New York City,
stashing a box full of hand-rolled Cubans
in his matching bags.
The thrill of contraband
immensely improving
the long slow draw
of well-cured tobacco.

My dad quit
a few years after I left home.
I never did learn how to smoke.
But I still love the smell
of a good cigar.
The thick smoke, uncoiling;
the rich brown leaves
with a little green
in the wrapper.

I can only hope
that one day
I will have something to celebrate
worthy of a fine cigar.
Passing around
a well-stocked humidor
to comrades, and co-conspirators,
swapping backslaps
and manly laughter.



The closest I ever got were those cheap wine-dipped and plastic-tipped Cigarillos: in my defence, a mercifully short-lived form of adolescent rebellion.

The rest is largely true. With embellishment (poetic license?), of course. My father never really smoked that often; only on special occasions. And he never drove an Oldsmobile; but the brand has that nice archaic sound, and evokes a past era delightfully – well before the age of political correctness. Back when a prosperous executive bought a new car every two years. And fits nicely this whole archaic notion of “manliness” (Which, needless to say – except somehow I feel I need to say it – I’m using entirely ironically!) I don’t think anyone says “late model” anymore, either. And while newspapers still struggle gamely on, the evening editions have altogether disappeared. The New York uncle always did seem glamorous; and I’m sure those illegal Cubans tasted twice as good because of it. And the smell of stale cigar smoke is really quite revolting, while the smell of a freshly smoked cigar is intoxicating: better, I think, 2nd hand than it is for the actual smoker.

My mother eventually had her way, and my dad quit. My brother, too: also to the eternal relief of his own long-suffering wife!

I’ve been watching a TV series called Boardwalk Empire, set in Atlantic City at the time of prohibition. The men here drink too much, step out on their wives, wear gorgeous suits and great hats, and smoke big fat cigars with impeccable style. I don’t want to emulate them. But these archetypes do strike me as the essence of manliness, and the well-savoured cigar is an indispensable part.

…I just realized that when the paternal side of my family first came over from Europe in the 1800's (from Amsterdam, actually) they were in the cigar business! In fact, the precursor to a fairly big chain called United Cigar (which may not still be around; but was when I was a kid.) So perhaps there's a cigar aficionado's gene lurking somewhere inside me, and I was destined – sooner or later – to write a cigar poem!

Giving Comfort
Oct 30 2010


You sit at the side of the bed
fuss with the covers
reach for the pale hand
that feels like a tiny captive bird,
hollow-boned
resting limply.

You are unsure what to say
why you came
who is this person, really?
And when can you make your escape
not seem ungracious.

You want to give comfort.
You were told your presence alone
was enough.
You remember how hard
it is to take;
so why isn’t giving
easier?

You watched the tears roll down
the smeared makeup,
how she would not brush them away.
Remember the salty taste
that burned, almost sweetly.
Still feel bruised knees
and awkward hugs,
stiffening up
with manly resistance.

You hate hospital visits.
The friends of parishioners
you are asked to see,
people of little faith
who want to believe.
You wish you were as generous
and forgiving
as you preach.
Not a hypocrite, so much
as somehow incomplete.

No wonder
a man like you
has such meagre comfort to give,
who hardly feels comfortable
in his very own skin.


I was listening to a talking book version of Marina Endicott’s “Good to a Fault”. (I apologize if I misspelled her name.) One character is a very conflicted Anglican priest, who has had a recent trauma in his personal life. This poem began with him in mind.

I like this idea of giving comfort simply by being there. Sometimes, we agonize about doing the right thing, when all that’s really needed is being present.

I also like the idea that it can be harder to take comfort than to give it. After all, taking any offering, any gift, should be easy. But pride and shame can get in the way. While, on the other hand, the magnanimity of giving can more than repay the giver. (Altruism, after all, has been programmed into us by thousands of years of natural selection.)

The man in the story is not comfortable in his own skin. And generosity to others is impossible if you are incapable of being generous (acceptance, forgiveness) to yourself.

I suppose it would seem odd for me – a militant(!) atheist – to be inhabiting the persona of a clergyman. But this is the kind of clergyman I like: more prone to doubt (even if it is self-doubt) than sanctimonious conviction.

Absent-Minded
Oct 30 2010


I lost track of time.

As if the hands of the clock
tick-tocking off in the corner,
went racing on
to the small hours of morning.
And the relentless drip-drip-drip
of the leaky faucet
stopped cold.

Days blinking past
the earth spinning madly
and rocketing ‘round the sun.
And the cosmos
majestically circling above,
glimpsed briefly at night,
obscured
by the light of day.

I found I could go either way,
reversing back through life
to the singularity
at the first moment of consciousness.
Or slip into my dotage
and perhaps beyond;
although here, it all gets blurry
and nothing seems sure.

Which is when I looked up from the page
in this cone of yellow light
enclosed by darkness
and picked up the trail again,
tracking time —
marks in the sand
washed clear by incoming tides,
what happened by
while I was distracted.

Blissfully
transcendently
absent;
my cold cramped body
left behind.



This is when writing – or any creative endeavour, for that matter – gets so enjoyable. It’s that highly desirable state of free association, when the compartments in your mind break down, there is this easy focus and flow, and you feel as though you’re channelling: taking dictation, transcribing what’s already out there, waiting to be realized.

In fact, I was tempted to call the poem “Ayahuasca”: not just a beautiful sounding word that would make an irresistible title, but also a word that connotes a similar transcendent state. I chose not to, though, because I didn’t want any reader to think I was referring to an actual drug-induced experience. Of course, the act of writing is not specified, so this would be a reasonable interpretation, which the reader is free to chose. It’s just that, since it’s not what I intended, I’d rather not point him/her in that direction.

The poem started with the first line. (Believe it or not, this isn’t as obvious as it sounds, since it’s often not the case!) I wanted to play around with this familiar expression, deconstructing it in a very literal sense: so I become a tracker, literally on the trail of time. I suppose I’ve done essentially the same with “absent-minded”: where the creative act is an out-of-body experience, and the metaphorical absence becomes actual.

Cardboard Crates of Pumpkins
Oct 26 2010


Cardboard crates of pumpkins
lined-up outside the superstore,
tractor-trailer sized
crammed with bulbous orange orbs.
Like expressionless orphans,
waiting for some family
to take them home.

Someone bet the farm
on a single day
in the festive calendar.
And now, there’s a cornucopia of squash —
a loss-leader
at cost.

The rich pumpkin scent
returns me instantly to childhood,
which is when I last carved into one.
And the vaguely menacing entrails,
like cold spaghetti
or hollowing out brains,
scooped onto yesterday’s paper.
I’m as bad an artist
as I was back then,
plunging in the kitchen knife
— a toothless smirk
a walleyed stare.

I choose one with character,
lumpy, and asymmetrical.
A homely gourd
that some might take as ironic
mocking the excesses of this holiday,
but I mean with all sincerity.
So now, the house is redolent of fall,
a pumpkin
filling the window,
staring out
almost longingly.

I hate waste
and would love to make pie,
harvest food
instead of ornaments.
But I bake as well as I carve.
So the pumpkin will end up
broken, on the sidewalk
waiting to be trucked
for landfill, or compost.

For awhile, though, the company is nice.
And the sweet pumpkin smell
it leaves behind.

Beyond Precious
Oct 20 2010


The first person who ever died
was my grandmother.
We may have been close, once
but I don’t remember much.
Baked goods, mostly.

Back then, children did not attend funerals,
not in our tribe, anyway.
Perhaps, we were being protected from death
in that brief bright world
of the very young,
when everything is as it was
and forever will.

My mother’s father eventually moved in with us
in a basement room
that was always cold.
He smelled old.
His strong hands
looked wasted.
Even a kid could feel the tension
— the sins of the fathers
conveyed down the generations.
So, will I be as distant
as my own parents age?
And when he too eventually succumbed,
the vague sense of endings
became hard-edged fact.
And life, in turn
beyond precious.

Language, and abstract thought
make us human.
The opposable thumb
a social culture, passed on.
But most of all
when we learn we are mortal,
and our beautiful innocence
is irrevocably gone.

Ignorance, though, is never bliss.
And I’m glad I know
we are not for long.



I’m always resisting the urge to write about death. Perhaps it’s that I don’t want to be seen as so morbidly pre-occupied. Or my belief that people don’t want to keep reading about death. Or that it’s just self-indulgent and pretentious: a big subject, where anything you say can appear profound.

But I guess it seemed time, again. And I’m pleased with the way I entered into a poem with such a heavy philosophical message: that is, keeping it small and personal. The message, of course, is that despite our fear and avoidance of death, it really is essential to the full appreciation and enjoyment of life. Everything would change if we lived forever. I suspect we’d lose our drive, our edge; and would spend eternity fighting boredom. And also that what separates us from the other animals is not empathy or culture or the use of tools, but the unavoidable awareness of our own mortality (and language, of course.)

I also like the celebration of that fleeting interval of childhood innocence.

The allusion to inter-generational friction hints at nothing dire or deep. It’s simply a product of a non-demonstrative family, whose interactions are more head than heart. We weren’t the touchy-feely types! Although I guess my mother did have some baggage from the past. (Both brothers, though, are very much touchy-feely with their own families. So perhaps this is the generation that stopped passing it on.)

A Small Utilitarian Building
Oct 19 2010


A small utilitarian building
on a minor street
of laundromats, and repair shops.
And plain post-war houses
rented out
by working-class owners
counting on the future of real estate;
and so far, disappointed.

It is single story,
rising like a corrugated island
in an asphalt sea,
cracked by weeds
that have gone to seed
and look like mutant transplants
from some alien planet.

I noticed a new sign, today
fresh paint.
A hopeful entrepreneur
determined to make his fortune,
as sure of success
as the last one,
the one before him.
Because this modest building has been abandoned
and resurrected
abandoned again,
in a morality tale
of bright-eyed hope
bank foreclosures.

So I admire the pluck
of the latest owner,
this budding small tycoon.
And wonder if he knows the history of this place,
if he feels the taint
of failure
I can’t help but see,
attached to these tattered walls
the layers of peeling paint.
I’ve seen other buildings like this,
scattered about the seedy streets
of depressed commercial districts,
where a black cloud
hovers permanently over them.

The sign says “Children’s Toys, New and Used”.
I hope they make a go of it.


I repeatedly drive by a place on Red River Road that looks exactly like this. It has corrugated steel walls, an air of abandonment, and the same dismal history. It keeps getting re-invented as some new business – a business that inevitably fails. I can’t help but admire the entrepreneurial spirit, and feel deeply for the crushed hopes of these small tycoons. I’m too cowardly to even try. They deserve a better fate.

Yet at the same time, I wonder why they didn’t see it coming; how they missed the oppressive sense of destiny that hovers over this decrepit building; and how they could allow themselves to be so deluded and seduced by possibility.

I know there is no such thing as “false hope”. Hope is hope, after all. Still …

A Sad Song
Oct 13 2010


A sad song
comes on the radio.
I turn it loud,
let the sound
push the world away.
So space becomes small,
just me, and this plaintive voice.
While the seconds grow long
as if there was all the time in the world
— the metronome paused,
entire lives, unfolding.

The surrender to sadness
the salty warmth of tears
feels good,
almost self-indulgent.
When the world is a comforting blur,
and we all regress
to childhood.
There is self-pity, yes.
But connection, as well,
immersing yourself in a sad song
of hard luck
a life gone wrong
— the hard swallow,
the warm fist
opening slowly inside your chest.
Because we are hard-wired
to feel each other’s pain —
to console, and commiserate,
find strength
in numbers.

We rarely acknowledge our sorrow
in public,
reflexively mouthing “How are you …
Fine …and you?”
Both question, and answer
more handy
than insincere.

But if you’ve been listening to a sad song
you might just slip,
let go your burden
shed a tear.
And there would be stunned silence
an awkward pause;
after which strangers would flee,
acquaintances
carry on, regardless.

And just a few would stop,
take one step closer
give the time you need.
Then join in, a cappella, in a minor key —
the high lonesome sound
of grief.



I like listening to sad songs the most. I think most of us do. (Or at least those of us with a naturally melancholic temperament!) In the first stanza, I try to capture how, as you immerse yourself in a sad song, the world seems to shrink, there is this intimate feeling of enclosure.

Later on, I sneak in a little bit of evolutionary biology (my favourite explanation for anything that has to do with human behaviour!) to explain why feeling sad so effectively lights up the reward centres in our brains. That is, how we’re hard-wired for empathy, and how feelings of empathy can help us survive. Science tends to come across as didactic and dry, so this is not an easy thing to do in poetry! Especially since I found I couldn’t use either “empathy” or “empathic”. Both sounded far too technical. And both verged on transgressing the cardinal rule of poetry: which is to show it, not say it.

Of course no one wants you to actually answer when they ask “how are you”. It is, after all, simply a rhetorical device, a formulaic greeting: a call and response, that contains no actual meaning. But occasionally, it’s awfully tempting. So the poem goes on to wonder what would happen in case you actually did take the question literally, and answered with the truth.

The ending calls back to the opening. Because the saddest songs are bluegrass — those high lonesome harmonies, sung in a minor key.

Enough Solitude, As It Is
Oct 11 2010


The sidewalk is wider here.
With spindly trees
sticking-up every 10 feet, or so
in a circle of meagre soil.
Which will never grow enough
for shade.
Because when their roots invade
water-pipes and cables
start buckling the pavement,
a crew of men
in hard-hats, and bright orange safety vests
will work their way down the street
in a cacophony of back-up beepers and chain-saws,
lopping them off
one-by-one.
A day’s work
and all the trees are gone.
While the men move on,
quenching their thirst
at quitting time.

People streaming by
on this downtown thoroughfare
have the 6th sense of city life,
slipping seamlessly past each other.
Distracted by phone calls
lugging packages
they never collide.
Like a school of silver fish
flicking left and right,
a flock of birds
veering suddenly,
they move with unconscious precision
collective purpose.

But no one notices the trees
with their stunted dusty leaves
struggling
in dry compacted soil.
Which were never meant to grow
as solitary ornaments,
so impoverished.
And isn’t there enough solitude
in the world
as it is?
So perhaps, this is all for the best.

And now
no one will ever object
to the loss of their magnificent shade trees.
When the city fathers decree
the street is inadequate,
and more men are dispatched
to jack-hammer the sidewalk
for traffic.


This poem started with “there is enough solitude, as it is”. It’s from Philip Roth, as quoted by interviewer John Barber in a newspaper interview on the occasion of his latest book. He was explaining why he had moved from his Connecticut acreage into a New York apartment: not just the rigors of age, but because his friends there had gradually been passing away, and that was solitude enough.

Which made me think he had arranged his life – in his austere apartment, writing compulsively – with just as much solitude. And also that cities, despite teeming with life, are paradoxically full of solitude – the easy anonymity, the isolation and alienation of metropolitan life. (Hardly a new trope for me!) So he hadn’t escaped his solitude at all; he had simply exchanged one kind of solitude for another. And his feverish writing, in a way, was/is an heroic effort to write his way out of it.

I think what happened was this line of thinking became conflated with an essay I recently heard (or was it something I read?): about mature urban trees being chopped down to make way for a road widening, the impotence of a local resident, and how this had impoverished both the physical and social landscape of this downtown neighbourhood. (Another familiar theme with me: trees!)

In this poem, the unnatural isolation of those pathetic and neglected urban trees becomes a metaphor for being lost in this mass of uncaring and self-involved people. And also a bit of a political commentary on short-sighted urban planning. In this sense, “city fathers” is somewhat ironic: they are hardly the caring stewards and protectors the name implies!

It kind of breaks the flow of the poem, but I wouldn’t change the closing lines of the 1st stanza. I wanted to convey the nonchalance, the lack of reverence for nature, the utter indifference of these disinterested men sent out to do just another day’s work. This is especially true in the context of a mature shade tree, which might be a century old. “All in a day’s work, and it’s gone”(to paraphrase myself) I think captures perfectly the quality of vandalism in such a destructive and irreversible act.

Personal Space
Oct 6 2010


The doorbell rarely rings
since it’s been fixed.
There used to be hard knocking
muffled voices,
the screen door
slapping closed.
Sometimes, a face
pressed against the glass
squinting in,
as if they knew
something was there,
a deeper shadow
holding its breath.

No one goes door-to-door, anymore.
Selling subscriptions.
Man-handling vacuums
with hoses, attachments,
a handful of dirt
tossed on the floor.
Except, that is, for the nicely dressed Witness
beaming with well-scrubbed faith.
And the politician, of course,
who glad-hands his way
converting voters.

I have issues
with personal space --
the foot in the door,
pamphlets and tracts
shoved brusquely towards me.
Five feet
is my minimum distance,
quarantined from handshakes, hot air,
the sweat of ambition
with its perfumed scent.

The doorbell really was broken
when I moved in.
I only had it fixed
after the big announcement.
When you said, grimly
we both needed time away
a change wouldn’t hurt.
And just as you left
“who can say for sure?”

Follow the Path
Sept 24 2010


The driveway is long,
hard-packed dirt
blind curves.
With one steep grade
that is slick with ice, in winter,
deeply furrowed
by heavy rain.
Or blocked by fallen trees
that lie, fell-length,
like sinners
prostrating themselves.

Acts of God
the fickle odds
of weather,
that leave us stuck, for days.
And each time, we eye the hill warily,
as if in homage
to a worthy opponent.
We drive fast, getting over it,
gear down
in a slow controlled descent,
the engine whining its joyless noise
as if to protest
the first commandment
of gravity.

We trenched it, this year,
filled potholes
culled the rotten trees.
So it will depend on freeze and thaw
blizzard and drift,
the flimsy spruce
we missed.

We should all have a road like this,
a convenient excuse for lateness,
for skipping
unwelcome engagements,
to be storm-stayed
in virgin snow.

Only guests with 4-wheel drive
dare make the pilgrimage,
bearing gifts of wine
some sacrificial offering.
As for us
our daily passage is a kind of sacrament,
a sermon
on the natural world —
keeping us humble
about the things we can’t control.

And so, we are acolytes of weather,
witnessing clouds
beseeching capricious winds.
Attending closely to forecasts,
like parish priests
to a papal bull,
oracles, their omens.

Today, the path is clear,
the road
bestowing forgiveness.
Praise be the plough
this coming winter.



My neighbour does most of the work maintaining our shared driveway. (Actually, 3 of us share it.) He was out the other day, filling in these deeply eroded ruts, as well as digging ditches to help divert the rain. I felt like one of those stereotypical city workers, who spend all day leaning on their shovels watching one guy do all the work. Of course, my excuse is my bad hip! (Not to mention taking advantage of the fact that he tends to OCD, and so takes it on himself to get everything perfect. His property, needless to say, is immaculate.)

Anyway, while he worked, I wrote. (And please excuse the royal "we". It's just that I much prefer writing in the 1st person; and under the circumstances, couldn't very well have said "I"!)

I seem to be stuck on this religious imagery. This poem had none of that ...until the line about the parish priests came over me and wouldn't let go. So I went back and re-worked the whole thing. I'm hoping I showed just the right amount of restraint. Because it's easy to get carried away, showing off one’s cleverness: the sin of pride, you might say!

Rough Draft
Sept 17 2010


Some days, I write on the back,
the blank side
of the rough draft
of an old poem,
surprising myself.
Because I move on to the next,
forgetting what I wrote
a year ago
the day before.

And without the hard evidence
of false starts, and missteps,
the finished piece would seem almost effortless.
As if the ink had flowed smoothly
onto vacant pages
in sure lines, perfect cadence,
each clever rhyme
the trenchant turn of phrase.
As frugal with words
as I am with paper.

So these rough drafts
are like archaeology,
a painstaking excavation
into process.
Or like a blow-by-blow account
of my bare-knuckle brawl
with myself.

And when both sides are crammed to the margins
I can crumple them into the trash
with untrammelled conscience,
the champ, by acclamation
unopposed.
Some day, I suppose
my literary biographer
will be greatly disappointed I’ve buried my past,
smouldering in some landfill,
or recycled
into rough sanitary products.
So allow me to apologize
in advance.

Today, though, I began
a fresh white sheet,
letter-sized, unlined
loose-leaf.
The kind of day I needed a fresh start
a clean break,
all original sin
expiated.

There is much to be said
for the luxury of the pristine page.
The way a newborn babe
comes unencumbered by the past,
a blank slate
waiting to be filled.
And as each word
mars the perfect surface
it’s like a child’s first step —
triumphant, if unsure.
Both of us
making up the future
as we go.

Arranged Marriage
Sept 15 2010


The Elvis Chapel in Vegas,
no waiting.
A stranger, paid to witness,
confetti extra.
Casual dress,
and a single photo
captured by phone.
Then, a toast
of pink champagne, in plastic
slightly flat.

And after the nuptials
it’s off to the honeymoon suite,
in the capital of love
and greed.
In a Cadillac, vintage 1950,
a pink Coupe de Ville
once actually driven
by the King himself.
The ultimate wedding singer.

And the morning after
our newlyweds eat
at the International House of Pancakes,
a complimentary
spousal feast.

Quickie weddings
our specialty.
(Shotguns, and pre-nups
not necessarily included.)
Oh, and incidentally
thanks for choosing us.
. . . And please, come back soon!

All the Answers
Sept 12 2010

Doubt is not the opposite of faith,
conviction is.
Because the faithful are almost all afflicted
with doubt.
Who talk to their gods,
then hear nothing.
Who see evil
go unpunished.
Who wonder about the after-life,
and still have fear of death.

An atheist like me,
who scorns superstition
only believes
in what can be seen, and measured
has always envied people of faith
— their serene certainty,
the succor of a personal god.
Not knowing
they, too, have dark nights of the soul;
kept awake by doubt,
the guilt of their betrayal,
the constant work
of faith.

My universe is cold, vast, indifferent,
without meaning
or purpose.
Where I find infinity
almost as difficult as God.
So lying in darkness
at 4 in the morning
I know I’m alone.
There is no consolation.

All I can do is wonder
at the complexity of things,
feel humbled
by my ignorance,
and concede
not all can be fully known.
But unlike the others
I cannot fill this void with gods.

Still, the believer and I
are not as different as I thought.
Because we both take delight
in praising creation
the intricate beauty of life.
And content, despite
not having answered it all.

And remain wary
of men of conviction,
who hear daily
from God.
The fearless leaders,
the solipsists, and sociopaths,
too self-absorbed
to even ask.



I sent this poem off to my sister-in-law. It was New Year’s on the Jewish calendar (Rosh Hashanah), so I began my comments this way:

Happy New Year to everyone. I have to admit, Rosh Hashanah makes a lot more sense than the conventional calendar: September -- with the start of school, the change of season, the melancholy of impending fall -- has a lot more sense of endings and beginnings than Jan 1.

Here's one I think you may like, because I know you're fond of the philosophical ones: which I, on the other hand, am extremely reluctant to write. Mostly because they can be self-indulgent and pretentious. And also because they tend to be written in a more pedantic, argumentative way: that is, saying more than showing. And also because I'm more about style than profundity, more about privacy than confession. But for some reason, I felt it was time to write this. And since this poetry business is about going with the gut more than the head (which I tend to be a lot better at!), I decided to go along.

I think I was somewhat influenced by that idiotic Florida preacher (the Koran burner and canny self-publicist), who must think he has a direct pipeline to God. Always be suspicious of people who insist on a personal and revelatory relationship with God! Sensible people of faith have doubt because they approach their faith with humility and a sense of nuance. Conviction, like this man's, is accompanied by a desire for simplistic solutions and the comfort of absolute authority. I like to use the word "literalist" instead of "fundamentalist", since their belief system is based on a literal reading of scripture, rather than an allegorical one. And, paradoxically, this means that they usually stray a long way from the fundamentals, which have (or should have) more to do with tolerance, love, forgiveness, and humility than rigid notions of good and evil, ex-communication, heresy, and hell. (I wanted to get the word "megalomaniac" into that last stanza: but it was just a little too much. Would have been a nice rhyme, though!)

I was probably influenced my Mother Theresa, as well, who apparently despaired for several decades before her death at no longer hearing God, at feeling abandoned and perhaps betrayed by Him. Imagine, Mother Theresa afflicted not just by self-doubt, but by doubt in her basic faith! What a telling contrast to this despicable narcissist's utter conviction.

I will also add that the second last stanza was influenced by something I heard an Orthodox Jew say about the nature of prayer. It was that in Judaism, supplicant prayer is unbecoming, and that the purpose of prayer is not to ask for things, but simply to give praise: give praise for His creation. As an atheist, the natural world fills me with unspeakable wonder. I don't need to believe in God to feel this; and I'd even venture to say that being mindful about the wonders of creation is a form of praise, and maybe even of prayer. (I use the word "creation" intentionally, and a little mischievously, since I know it has strong religious overtones that must sound strange coming from a confirmed atheist.) I should add that this idea of a "personal" God is, I believe, a lot closer to the Christian version than the Jewish one, whom I understand keeps His distance; that is, gives us the free will to freely make our own mistakes!

The 3rd last stanza -- about the limitations of science, and by implication of human knowledge -- is not to suggest that I’m agnostic. That’s not the kind of uncertainty I’m talking about. Because I’m an unrepentant believer in a material universe; one without gods, cherubim, or extra-terrestrial visitors. Unlike the agnostic, I feel no need to keep a bargaining chip in my hip pocket, just in case I may need it some day to pass into heaven. But this stanza is an acknowledgement that science may not be able to answer all the questions, and that we can be humble about our limitations without having to wave our hands and invoke some superstitious explanation to fill in the blanks. It’s also a bit of a repudiation to the so-called “new” atheists, who can sometimes give an unworthy (and probably unjustified) impression of intellectual arrogance and infuriating certainty.

That’s because I’m not trying to convert the religious to my world view; which is how some have viewed Richard Dawkins’ proselytizing. Because life is hard, and whatever gets you through it. So if faith works, then who am I to judge? And why hold everyone else to my version of intellectual integrity? As the poem says, faith is an enviable consolation, and probably a lot more congenial way to get through life than my astringent rigid rationality. I may not be willing to allow myself the delusion of God (incapable of it, actually) just because it makes me feel better. For me, that would be intellectually dishonest, and therefore unforgivable. But if someone else is able to sustain that delusion, and it works for them, then all I can do is encourage them. …And maybe even honour them with a touch of envy!

The militant literalists of every faith have recently (and probably always) been putting religion on the defensive. Which is too bad: that we’re always held hostage by the extremists. But I’m perfectly OK with “the believer” of the penultimate stanza. It’s the final stanza’s “men of conviction” I’m wary of.

Reading,
On a Dull Afternoon
In a Quiet Room
Together

Sept 9 2010


We are a contented couple
the pup and I.
The dog is at home
on the leather sofa,
breathing noisily
occasionally yelping
thrashing her legs.
Going after imaginary rabbits
flushing birds.
Perhaps even catching one
as she has always dreamed.

What does she think of me,
looking at paper
rustling pages
adjusting light?
The sudden outbursts,
the quiet chuckles?

This is her gift,
that she does not judge
does not need to know.
Is simply content
with keeping company
with supple leather,
the grudging warmth
of afternoon sun.
And to give unconditional love;
which I return
as best I can.

I think
how truly exceptional it is,
this enduring connection
between our separate species —
the well-armed carnivore,
and the human
who preys on everything.
So I feel privileged
she allows me in.

And she thinks
of dinner,
will leap up instantly
at the sound of the leash.
The feral dog within,
vigilant even in sleep.

Yellow Paisley Shirt
Sept 9 2010


Busy fingers pick
at loose threads,
finish tucking-in.
Then she licks her hand
tames my cowlick with a few firm strokes
— glued with spit
into presentable order.

And corrals me
in bony arms as strong as a mother grizzly,
holds me to her soft warm body
in the suffocating scent
of old lady
and too much perfume.
I resist, then grow limp
with a kid’s brief forbearance,
‘til I can make my escape
from such an unmanly display
of affection.

I preferred wrestling
tousled hair
canvas sneakers and sweats,
to this yellow paisley shirt
with the scratchy neck,
and short sleeves
that made my arms look even skinnier.
And these wool pants, cuffed and creased
cinched into pleats by a skinny belt,
leaving a long curved tongue
stuck stubbornly out front.

It could have been a wedding, a funeral
a family feast.
This is all I remember
of her.
Not the colour of her eyes, her voice
the kindnesses
and loving gestures.
Just a single hug, the rebellious hair,
the desire to be anywhere else
but there.

Now, the hair is almost gone
and paisley is back in fashion.
And I still dress myself
in T-shirts and sweats,
faded and frayed
from too much washing.

And if it’s memory that makes us
then I’m a few sizes too small —
unfinished, pre-shrunk,
with dangling buttons
unravelled threads.
Pull just one
I could easily come undone.

Nocturnal Creature
Sept 6 2010


I am nocturnal, by nature.
Hard-wired, I’ve always claimed.

Sometimes, though, I’m still awake
to see the sun come up.
To see black night
turn indigo,
the horizon blush red.
And flat shadows
take on depth,
begin to look familiar again
Then, to bed,
as the diurnal world
carries on its business.

But after dark
it’s as if the top was lifted;
this hot-house earth
given a glimpse
of vast unknowable space.

As I keep watch
fainter stars appear,
take me out even deeper
back further in time.
And the Milky Way
in the incomprehensible distance;
and yet, we’re a part,
a minor system
in an unremarkable arm.
Then the red planet, the warrior god
moving fast
against the background of stars.
As a satellite goes blinking past,
in constant free-fall
in its long predictable arc.
And a shooting star,
a piece of dust, burning up
that looks as big as galaxies.

Until the full moon rises,
filling the yard
with its ghostly light,
blocking the heavens from sight.
Our planet’s fellow traveller,
a lifeless rock
in a tightly linked dance
of gravity and tides,
of romance, and sleepless nights;
this familiar celestial object
we find so reassuringly constant.
Here, in near space,
where we once flattered ourselves
we were the center of attention,
instead of outer space
just an inconsequential speck.

On cloudy nights, of course
we are alone,
an impoverished cosmos
of one.
When the surface of earth is everything,
and nocturnal creatures like me
have no reason to dream.



I wanted to write about the night sky. Because we've had some beautiful clear nights lately. And because these views make me feel privileged: light pollution prevents most people from ever seeing such spectacular sights. But I first had to overcome some reluctance. First, because I've written numerous poems like this, and re-visiting the same old stuff gets tired after awhile. And also because these astronomical efforts tend to be purely descriptive, which makes them essentially souless and impersonal. I'm not sure people want to read them; or, if they do, will stick them out to the end. Nevertheless, I gave it a shot ...and this is how it came out. Not quite sure if I succeeded in injecting some soul, or made it very compelling. It has some good bits; but does the whole thing work? So feedback, as always, is most welcome.

The Old Lady is at it Again
Sept 5 2010


The old lady is at it again
walking down the side of the road,
raising her arm in a graceful arc
breaking into pirouettes
bouncing up on tip-toe,
stepping with the unexpected lightness
of a ballerina.
She wears the same muddy gumboots
shabby jacket
bright orange safety vest,
ignoring traffic
impervious to stares.

This is what enchanted little girls
who dream of princesses
insist on tutus and tiaras
skip all the way back to school,
and dance, like long-legged colts let go
become;
growing up
just as they imagined.

This old lady, who is the object of fun
the taunts of thoughtless drivers
inspires me.
Because she still contains the little girl,
has stayed undaunted
despite living long, and hard,
remains a dancer at heart.

I watch her go
tripping lightly down the side of the road.
As the voice in her head
calling her to dinner
goes unheard,
drowned out by the sound
of the overture.




I’ve actually seen this lady many times, driving on my rough two lane road. She’s out on the unpaved shoulder -- in all kinds of weather, always dressed the same -- walking with an odd self-contained determination. The first impulse is to label her crazy, walking in that idiosyncratic exaggerated fashion of hers. But the other day, in a sudden flash, I saw her in a different light: that this is what those mysterious ethereal little girls, who live in their own enchanted world, would grow up to be; that is, if life didn’t get there first and beat it out of them. So I saw her more as an exemplar, than someone to be pitied or shunned.

She actually looks a lot less graceful than I’ve depicted, her movements more stereotyped and strange, more flappy and stiff. So she probably is a little “off”. But the way she comes through in the poem is how I’d prefer to see her.

I think “ethereal” is the perfect word to describe this type of little girl: the type who lives in her own magical world in her own little head, utterly innocent and unselfconscious. But it just didn’t work in the poem: maybe because it doesn’t sound right, or takes too much semantic processing, or has an unpleasant “mouth feel”. I had to let it go. On the other hand, it’s always better to show something than say it. So perhaps the poem works best like this, anyway.

My apologies for the unattractive graphic layout of the last several poems. For some reason, I've been unable to download complete pages. What this means is that the "create new post" page lacks the controls for type size and fonts. This is why everything is uniform. I'm also unable to add italics; which aren't essential, but which I'm sure astute readers will fill in for themselves.

If anyone reads this entry, and can advise me on how to fix this, I would greatly appreciate it. The problem occurs with all downloads from the internet, not just blogspot.com. Is this the fault of my service provider, my wireless router, or my computer? Help ...anyone?

Brian

Social Graces
Sept 1 2010


How many milliseconds
are a fraction too long
not to look crazed, obsessive
rude?

Is it only the clueless, reclusive, elusive types
who are shifty-eyed,
look at anything, but you?
Casting their eyes around the room
like a wounded bird,
desperate for any resting place.

I can excuse
the thyrotoxic stare
the myasthenic droop,
the executioner’s
self-protective evasion.
But I knew you had something to hide
not looking me in the eye, like that.

Which made me wonder,
do sociopaths
make eye contact, at all?
Or are they such astute students
of human behaviour,
they can replicate warmth, caring
commitment,
a breezy bonhomie?

I never quite learned the secret
to the reassuring gaze,
the manly handshake, firm and dry,
the frothy banality
of small talk.
Was there a memo, some time
in my adolescent life
I missed?

The anthropologist from Mars
the autistic savant,
the socially inept, who lives in his head,
know how complicated
human engagement can be.
Recalling names.
The recognition of faces.
The touch that doesn’t linger
a fraction too long.

The locking onto of eyes.
Her black bottomless pupils
opening wide,
you could take forever
falling.




I was reading a review of a new biography of Peter Gzowski (the famous, now deceased, writer and CBC radio host). I was always a terrific fan and dedicated listener, but I wasn’t surprised to read he had messy personal life, or that he wasn’t always the best behaved or best tempered. What I didn’t know was that he was notorious for not making eye contact with his guests. This factoid came up a few times in the review. And on reading this, I immediately saw all the possibilities of evasion, self-doubt, and manipulation that can be implied by too much, or too little, eye contact. And also the precise and inscrutable choreography of correct human behaviour that we subconsciously absorb; or, the case of autistics or the socially inept, painstakingly acquire. And also how complicated these seemingly simple tasks really are: facial recognition, for example. This simple task is the product of eons of human evolution, and has a specialized dedicated area of the brain, unique to us. (I recently learned, by way of further example, that Oliver Sachs – the renowned neurologist and celebrated author – is unable to recognize faces, a disorder that goes by the mouthful of a name “prosopagnosia”. (And to whom I gratefully owe, by the way, “the anthropologist from Mars”.)) Needless to say, I dropped the paper and immediately started writing about eye contact. This is how it turned out.

My medical background rarely enters my poetry. Which I suppose some might think a mysterious lapse; or at least a waste. So for anyone who has been waiting for this (as if!), I’m pleased to have shoe-horned a couple of references into this poem. I hope they aren’t too obscure for the average reader.

The mysterious woman who infiltrates this poem is an act of pure imagination: I was never exploited by a sociopath about whom I have mixed feelings! Some of this is close to the truth, however: I’m terrible at remembering names; normal social graces never came easily to me; and I am an introvert who often prefers “liv(ing) in his head”.

The final stanza is the kind of ending I like best. That’s because I am too often susceptible to the rhyming couplet: which does nicely tie up the ending, but has the too neat quality of the Hallmark card. Here, though, the ending not only sneaks up on you; and not only leaves things open and unresolved; but it slightly transforms everything that preceded it, which makes you want to go back and re-visit the poem from the start. I’m quite pleased with that quality of ambush, the lack of a hard conclusion.

The Hygiene Theory
Aug 31 2010


My mother’s mother was a devout believer
in germs.
She was a modern woman
of the early 1900’s,
who was confirmed at an early age
in boiling, dousing, scrubbing,
brought a missionary zeal
to dusting,
gave praise at the temple of hygiene
for indoor plumbing
Louis Pasteur.

She was immaculate
with her children as well.
And with the fervour of the recently converted
renounced cuddling
refrained from touch
went stiff, when hugged.
Kept her kisses
a prudent distance
from susceptible skin.

Which gets contagious, I’m afraid;
a generation starved of touch
tends to do the same.
So my family was never much
for public displays of affection
physical reassurance
easy expressions of love.
The sins of the mother,
if I may paraphrase.

But something miraculous
overtook my brothers,
who hold their children close,
are deeply engaged
in the minor calamities
of 6 year olds.
I have no family of my own;
but as I approach old age
I may just be learning to let go
as well.

I still believe in germs
have faith in science,
but unlike my fundamentalist grandmother
I am a shameless back-slider,
not nearly pious enough.

She died far too young;
her faith could not save her.
I barely remember grandma Esther
who may have rarely picked me up,
who never let her only daughter
really feel
her love.




I think I struggled with the title of this one more than anything else. I quite like my choice; but I’m afraid most readers may not get the irony. Because the actual “hygiene theory” is an explanation for the epidemic of allergies and auto-immune diseases in the western world. Why was there more asthma in West Germany than the heavily polluted East? Why is inflammatory bowel disease uncommon in Africa, where people harbour all kinds of intestinal parasites? The theory is that chronic exposure to microbes (bacteria, parasites) down-regulates our immune system. So living in the relatively sterile environments of modern 1st world cities, our immune systems rev-up, get hair trigger and hungry for action. The irony here is that my grandmother might have been better off letting her children muck about in the dirt. Of course, it’s easy to judge from the 21st century. In the pre-antibiotic era (and, I fear, perhaps the coming post-antibiotic era), when a simple fever could take a life, those invisible “germs” were an eminently legitimate source of fear.

This is one of the rare poems that’s personal and true. I’ve always felt I would have turned out differently if I had been touched and hugged more, if my family had been more emotionally open and expressive. A few days ago, my mother confided in me that she regrets she wasn’t physical enough with us. But more than her regret, she also gave this explanation …and a lot of things suddenly made sense. The part about my brothers is also true. It’s as if they learned from their own upbringing what not to do, and went about with deliberate intent to do the exact opposite. So they are both very involved and very touchy-feely fathers, and I’m very proud of them for that. As for me, I suppose it’s my dog who gets to be the contented beneficiary of all my repressed affection. (Happily, she’s the least neurotic and best adjusted pooch I know!)

I'm quite pleased with the way I handled the religious metaphor that runs through this poem. There is a tendency to have too much fun with something like that, and over-do it. So I think I managed to impose just the right amount of restraint. I generally dislike confessional poems. I usually find them self-indulgent, more an imposition on the reader than something shared. (Not to mention that I’m far more into privacy than sharing!) So I'm hoping this one has a light enough touch and a congenial enough voice that even the most disinterested reader would find it worthwhile. And aside from that, I suspect a lot of readers may identify with the emotional repression alluded to here.

Too Small to Notice
Aug 30 2010


Somewhere on earth, lightning strikes
several times each second.
We get just a few storms, each summer,
so who would have thought
the sound of thunder was endless;
rumbling around the planet
uninterrupted
almost since it began.

Just as it’s always day, and always night
all seasons all at once.
So on the cusp of spring
the first wet snow has come,
succulent flowers opening up
as withered petals slump.
And a man and woman making love
her screams, his expert touch,
and someone mumbling final words
her Lord and Saviour snubs.

The noise is deafening
relentless.
And seen from outer space
the planet is electric —
jagged bolts of blue-white light
sizzling around the globe
like a high-voltage barricade;
the smell of ozone, acrid, singed,
smoke, where lightning hits.
The place must look uninhabited
its atmosphere lethal.
Ye we live in this pleasant greenhouse
under soft blue sky
a constant yellow sun,
in air sweet with hay
and grass, freshly-cut.

Because we are too small to notice.
Under this thin eggshell of air
that towers over us.
On this tiny point of land
on the vast expanse of earth.

I only hear silence,
basking in afternoon sun
in the last gasp of summer.
But somewhere, night’s begun,
a baby cries
uncontrollably.
And somewhere, lovers touch,
an endless ecstatic moment.
And somewhere, someone is struck
by a random heart-stopping bolt,
cracking the sky
under grey-black thunderheads.

Nothing at all is happening;
yet it happens
all at once.

Long Hand
Aug 26 2010


He told me he wrote long hand,
no keyboard, no dictation.
I imagined block letters, black ink, blank paper
both sides, nothing wasted.
He folded his hands awkwardly,
and I’m sure I made him self-conscious, watching —
the thickly gnarled fingers
callused skin,
hands as big as catchers’ mitts.
Well-worn leather
supple, strong.

I had never seen an author
with such massive hands.
They should have been mucking-out barns
wrapped around hammers
tearing things apart.
Instead, I pictured a pen
swallowed in his grasp,
a brittle twig
accidentally snapping.
Hands that had lived
another life,
working hands
enabling him
to write.

Power restrained
impresses me more than cheap displays of strength
— strongmen flexing, heaving weights,
Goliath taunting David.
I find myself imagining those giant hands
as big and thick as bear paws
cradling a baby girl,
and she would disappear
and the crying stop
and her eyes lock on to his,
bright with wonder.

He writes with the lightest touch
kinetic, deft, insightful,
and I would love to see him at work.
To see these hands
grasp the pen precisely,
ink flow smoothly
onto thick white paper,
words emerge
as if channelling some inner voice.
To see these hands,
unselfconscious
full of purpose.

How the hands of Samson
in the arms of Delilah
become gentle and sure.




I try hard to follow the cardinal rule of poetry: that less is more. Which not only means trusting the reader, and not only means ruthlessly cutting adverbs and adjectives (adverbs especially!), but also means avoiding big words. Because big esoteric arcane words stop the reader in her tracks, require too much processing, and make the poetry seem formal and inaccessible instead of conversational and welcoming. Which means I resisted the temptation of “brobdingnagian” hands. And also that I forced myself to throw out this opening rhyme, which was probably more about showing off my cleverness than good communication:

He told me he wrote long hand,
no keyboard, no amanuensis.
I imagined block letters, black ink, blank paper
both sides, palimpsest.

Anyway, the sequence “dictation”... “paper" ...“wasted” flows better, and says the same.

We think we can judge people by their hands: the firm handshake of the “manly” man, warm and dry; the big competent hands of the working man, that seem to proclaim competence and integrity; the aesthete’s long thin fingers, which feel like a damp fish in yours. I’ve always been very self-conscious about mine. I have Reynaud’s Syndrome, which means they’re often cold as a corpse, and mottled blue, red, and white. But they’re also large (relatively, that is) and strong and callused from hard labour (well, from years of paddling, actually) . A patient commented once how unusual this was for a doctor, which caught me off guard: I’d always been embarrassed by my hands (especially since I made my living touching people in very private and intimate ways), and never recognized that they were hands that had worked, and been worked over. How nice to feel differently about myself – for once, anyway!

The poem actually began with either a radio interview, or a magazine article (can’t quite remember). Anyway, the author who was the subject of the piece was introduced this way: how his hands struck the interviewer, how incongruous and telling they were. I immediately thought there was a poem here, and off I went. So it’s not about me at all (especially the “kinetic, deft, insightful” part, which would be awfully presumptuous if I was talking about me!) But I think it does make the point that the best “art” is informed by real life; that the best poetry is not some rarefied aesthetic exercise, but is rooted in personal experience and hard reality; and that poets rarely fit the effete, limp-wristed stereotype.