Wild Horses

April 20 2010

I want to save the wild horses.

Not that I ride.

And I live a thousand miles away

from their steep-sided valley

their wild pasture

their Shangri-la.

I want only to know they are there,

inhabit this planet

with the same sense of rightness

entitlement, ownership

as us.

They could be mustangs, misfits, feral stock

who would not be broken.

Long-legged foals, dropped

in a bitter spring

a grudging thaw.

A stallion, glaring fiercely

zealously guards his harem of mares.

He runs free

snorting, stomping, pawing the ground,

flanks steaming

in the pre-dawn air.

I want horses in the world

somewhere

who will not be ridden, bridled, tied.

Who will die of cold, or starve,

wolves

nipping at their legs, clamped to their necks

dragging them down.

Where they will lie, panting

with the preternatural calm

of prey.

But no poison, shotguns, nets,

not corralled, hobbled, led.

Or even photographed.

Just tell me they live.

Let me know

wild places like this still exist.

Wild Horses came about in the most extraordinary way. I was reading the Globe book section, and an ad for a book about saving wild horses caught my eye -- really, just a quick glance. The ad consisted mostly of a picture of the book's cover. I didn't even read the copy. Instead, the whole idea utterly captivated me, and I almost immediately got up and started writing. I think the entire piece was completed in under 5 minutes, and at the time almost written out word for word as it now appears. There was certainly no research involved!

It's natural to mistrust a poem that comes this easily. Even the hot fire of inspiration is no guarantee, since it can obscure judgment as easily as it powers the writing. So I'm still not sure if the feeling of satisfaction I have from this poem -- in the immediate aftermath of writing it -- will persist. But it's certainly strong enough that I can't resist sending it out, as well as posting it on my blog.

In Touch
April 19 2010


She is stuck in traffic
idling,
worrying time
the way she chews on pencils.
The soft give of wood
between sharp incisors,
flecks of yellow paint.

She clenches the wheel, fingers drumming,
right hand at 6
left near 12;
noon, or midnight — take your pick.
She slips off her shoes, wiggles her toes, sighs gratefully,
liberated from fashion.
She feels rough synthetic carpet
through panty hose
to-and-fro,
the static charge
slowly growing.

And phones,
to explain
excuse herself,
I imagine.

Cell towers triangulate,
electromagnetic waves
beam up to the ether, bounce right back
to me
by laser, electron, diaphragm,
vibrating the air
with her words
her voice
exactly.
A couple thousand miles
to the other side of town.

She keeps in touch,
her lungs, her lips, her tongue
whispering into my ear —
the drum
stretched to its breaking point,
anvil, hammer, stirrup,
to the auditory nerve
firing-off bursts of words.
Then idling
in long uncomfortable silences.
A perfect simulacrum
of her.

Why she left, suddenly,
before I was up
saying nothing.

Rush hour traffic
lurches, stops
bumpers locked
in her thrifty compact hatchback,
craning to see
in the crush
of grown-up cars and trucks.
Under an overpass
of rusting steel, concrete walls
interrupting us,
signal lost.

“Must be breaking-up”, she says
voice cracking
static loud enough to hurt.
“Sorry, too much traffic.”
. . . “Call back”, I send out
hopeful.

Her answer is still beaming out into space.
Probably halfway to Jupiter
by now.

Her Majesty’s Royal Navy
April 17 2010


A quirk of topography.
Glaciers, receding
that carved into rock
scraped out the ancient soil.
And where the lake strategically narrows
funnelling the force of air.
So the prevailing wind pounds through
like a North Atlantic gale.

Against which these majestic trees
have stood their ground.
White pine
surviving wind and bugs, and clear-cuts
from the days before steam.
Their massive trunks lean leeward,
a gently windswept curve
formed by centuries of steady pressure.
Like a main mast, a mizzen
they are true,
prized by Her Majesty’s Royal Navy
for their height and strength.
And when the wind stiffens
I see a great schooner, under full canvas
heeling, groaning
holding its own.

Today
the elastic spruce were flattened,
poplars’ lofty branches snapped
like kiln-dried twigs —
too big for their roots
the rot within.
Canvas awnings, with festive stripes
went front to back,
like inside-out umbrellas.
Plastic lawn chairs cart-wheeled by
going helter-skelter.
And torn screens, left flapping
the fence, sand-blasted
by hurricane force.

But the trees stood, as always,
tired needles weeded-out
dead branches cleansed.

Tiny pine have taken root
scattered in circles around them,
already learning to bend.
So the whole place seems to lean downwind —
the main mast a tower of strength,
my land
a ship under sail.

A Sporting Chance
April 15 2010


I prefer standing.
On gently sloping rocks,
that held ice
were covered
when water ran high.

Sun warmed
pink-and-grey granite,
worn smooth
except for hard seams of quartz.
With little specks of glitter
when light hits
just so.

Or thigh deep.
Hip waders
on stubby suspenders
billowing around my chest,
calibrating distance, depth.
Legs braced
against the water’s weight,
impervious.

A flip of the wrist
whipsaw rod
inaudible plop.
A line, angled tautly
abruptly ends
in a glassy surface,
a pool
unplumbed.
Sun-lit ripples glint.

The terrestrial hunter
venturing out of his element.
This most formidable carnivore,
whose lunch
sits in a cooler on shore,
handicapped
by his attachment to land,
treacherous run-off.

Because sitting
on a cold aluminum seat,
bilge, sloshing at his feet
rainbowed with oil
the stink of exhaust,
hardly seems respectful.

A dark shadow
drifts over the known world.
Depth charges,
dropping down from the heavens above
trailing bubbles.
Because in their invisible domain
the silver-sided fish,
all tapered fins, sleek effortless muscle,
can’t help themselves.

You Can Only Go So Far
April 13 2010


You can only go so far
until it branches
peters out
runs into landscape.
A grand canyon
a mountain pass.

Off-ramps
pare away at traffic,
peeling-off commuters
in practical sedans,
short-hauls, and half-tons,
local taxi-cabs.
To a single lane of asphalt
scarred
by pot-holes and washboard,
flinching, as gravel shoulders
ping shrapnel back.
Bug splats, and last gas
next 50 miles.

In this silver birch
it ends in the growing point —
cells, dividing madly
manufacturing
captured sunlight
into shade.
And the tree of life, the same
just as Darwin imagined it.
Where we find ourselves perched
at the very end
of a single trembling branch,
a small green shoot
flattering itself
this is what trees are for.

Or on this forest path
where I take every branch, and fork,
getting more and more
narrow
erratic
overgrown.
In the past, someone must have come this way,
or at least headed back
I reassure myself.
Or was it animals?
Following the path of least resistance
the force of habit
browsing, prowling,
cryptic tracks, and hard scat
marking the way.

The further I go
the less well-travelled
the more alone.
Until the trees are so thickly packed
their limbs, so tightly thatched
it seems impassable.
I flatter myself,
the first human ever
to have come this far
night coming on,
the dark woods
getting darker.

So I turn for home, walking hard
the trail steadily opening-up before me,
like a leaf
unfurling from its bud.
I re-trace every branch and turn,
baffled, how unfamiliar
the exact same path can look
in reverse.

Yet, as always
it seems so much faster heading back.
Which I find a relief
a disappointment,
having gone not nearly so far
as I had hoped.

Passion Fruit
April 9 2010


Imagine
life in the tropics.
Bananas, you could reach up and pluck.
Coconuts, like little bomblets
dropping off,
the odd concussion worth the cost
of silky milk, and sweet white meat,
hard brown husks.
Suck the sweetness
from sugarcane,
hacked from luscious stalks.
Mangos, peppers
sweet or hot,
the seeds
of ripe pomegranate.
Breadfruit, arrowroot
sweet-fleshed yam,
passion fruit in season.

You are a barefoot king
in the Garden of Eden,
without the harsh austerity of winter
to discipline the soul
purify the soil
weed-out the overgrowth.
Until, as so often happens
disease and corruption take over,
casting you out
into Cancer
and Capricorn,
the temperate zones, and ice caps.
Eating potatoes, turnips, cabbage
boiled,
craving fat
to keep you warm.

And in the months of darkness
you imagine living
where food drops down from trees,
free-for-the-picking.
You long for sweltering days
and sultry nights
and sweet ripe breezes.
For a small grass hut
on a sandy beach
somewhere near the equator.
And there, giggling shyly
with an opulent offering of tropical fruit,
the brown-skinned beauty
you’ve been waiting for.

Last Breath
April 7 2010


Far enough up
you become aware
of breathing.
Precious air,
when your last breath
is 3 minutes from the end.

You run
out of breath
climbing a single set of stairs,
pausing, gasping
death-grip on the banister.
But there is a clarity to things
so close to the stratosphere,
the light more pure
the spectrum sharper.
Except the sun sets fast,
disappearing behind canyon walls
claustrophobic mountains.

And with early dusk
the temperature plummets,
as thin rarefied air
releases its meagre heat.
Sea level was a heavy blanket
a fluffy comforter;
2 miles up
is a single cotton sheet,
shivering, sleepless.

Here, the night is darker
the stars, laser-sharp
the sky
a hard black dome.
You feel you could reach up, on tip-toe,
strain just far enough
your finger-tips touch
the cold black void.
The vast vacuum
of outer space,
and the eggshell atmosphere of earth,
as thin
as varnish on a basketball.

Day breaks
sudden, late.
The morning sun penetrates
suffusing your body with heat.
Its unfiltered light
burns quickly
makes your eyes water,
will turn the soft clear lens
hard and dark.

Sound doesn’t carry
in this rarefied air.
Your voice is reedy, weak,
you feel deaf, and speechless.
So you listen to yourself —
your racing pulse
and rasping breath,
fevered thoughts
rushing through your head.

Down in the valley
the air is just as transparent,
but you can see it in the wind
against your skin
tousling your hair
running.
Its thickness fills your lungs,
and you breathe
unconsciously.
While here, every breath is a struggle.

Which keeps you grateful
and humble.
The intensity of existence
when it’s always
just 3 minutes left to live.

Disclaimer
Mar 31 2010


You and I have a past
we share.
Not a perfect understanding.
Not time-travellers
re-visiting hard established facts.
Because we don’t return to the past
as spectators
disembodied, hovering overhead.
Who could just as well
be watching a vintage film-fest,
home movies
in endless loops.

History is not fixed.
There is the version written by the victors,
and then how it looked
to the extras, and walk-on parts.
And how it improves with each re-telling
bit-by-bit —
how selective memory is,
the well-embellished anecdote.

Here, in the present, we co-exist
moving on parallel paths,
intersecting
slipping back,
imperceptibly drifting apart.

But always, walking into the future,
as if the future really exists.
This is the conceit of the definite article,
acting like a road-sign
on a pre-determined path,
where we’re all in silver lame jump-suits
drive rocket cars.
When, in fact, “future” has no singular
— they are multiple, unlimited.
Or nothing, perhaps.
Because every second
there are forks in the road
that, looking back, were actually crucial turning-points
— the car chase, and sudden impact,
the simple choice
that tempts disaster.

So we invent the future
re-invent the past,
as time inexorably carries us.
Disappointed
at how much faster it goes
the closer we get to the end.
Which is when the final credits roll,
as eulogy, epiphany
and epitaph.

Thanks to each other,
lifelong companions
the one true love.
Thanks to everyone
we inadvertently left out,
who helped make all this possible.
And thanks
to the fictional characters,
who in no way resemble
anyone living or dead.




I suspect it may be easy to get a little lost in this poem. It’s actually very simple. It’s about perceptions of time. In
particular, about the fallacy of the definite article: because there is no “the” future and no “the” past. The past is actually highly mutable: like history, it depends of who gets to write it. And “the” future presumes this sort of serene confidence that we pretty much know where we’re going, and that things will be pretty much the same once we get there. Or at least follow a predictable trajectory.

I suppose it’s the twin metaphors running through it – the movies, the road -- that may be a little distracting. Which is too bad, because I’m really quite pleased at the way I was able to sustain them; not to mention the rather cheeky ending.

Anyway, as is the case in any worthwhile poem, it may take a couple of readings. Which I think is worth doing: it’s actually not a bad poem at all!

The Night of the Shooting Stars
April 2 2010


The night of the shooting stars
the sky cleared
we craned our necks;
looking up,
but intensely aware
of each other’s presence.
We could connect the dots of the Big Dipper,
but the rest was lost to us
unacquainted with the night sky —
blinded by light
always rushing.

Most burned short and bright.
But some left long distinctive trails,
and we wondered if they might have survived the eons of space
to land, intact, on planet earth —
a sharp deep furrow
a small black rock,
charred, and smouldering.
The impact would be instantaneous
— death by falling object
the billion-to-one shot.
One of us, anyway.

Stuff raining down everyday
utterly indifferent.
So that so much depends
on random intersections in time and space —
good luck, or not,
love won
and lost,
forgetfulness
or holding on.
Even the constellations
are not fixed.
But it’s these unpredictable stars
streaking through the cosmos
we fear
and wish for.

It was the night of the meteor shower,
— when broken bits of asteroids
crossed paths
with this massive unstoppable planet —
I turned my gaze back to earth,
searching in darkness
only to see you were gone.