A Sea of Hats
Aug 5 2010


I wear practical hats
— washable,
broad-brimmed, to keep the sun off.

I’d like to go back
when everyone wore fedoras,
or the working man’s cloth cap.
Old newsreels, photos
at the ballpark
in grainy black and white.
White faces, mostly
and a sea of hats,
well-shod heads
turning to follow the ball
rising-up in chorus.

A neat fedora,
soft grey felt, jaunty brim
a well cared-for crease
down the middle.
The inner rim
was probably stained by Brylcreem
or some other manly pomade,
the hair underneath
thinning
flecked with grey
a small bald spot, conveniently hidden.
When they wore a suit and tie on planes
held doors for women
flipped the doorman tips.

Until the 60’s, that is,
when JFK doffed his
and the hat was finished.

There is nothing classy
about ball caps
worn backwards.
So today, I will go out
in my Dad’s old fedora
whistling Frank Sinatra, or Cole Porter
and take my seat on the bus.
Or better yet, like a gentleman, stand
and offer it up.

As I try to jump-start fashion
in my classic hat,
dare to imagine
a more elegant version of man.




Even as I started this poem, I realized that it was an image, as well as a kind of vicarious nostalgia (I say “vicarious” because it’s not a personal memory, it’s a memory concocted out of old movies and newsreels) that I’ve gone to before. So I used the “search” function, and came up with a couple of previous efforts. It might be interesting to compare. (Of course, even if “A Sea of Hats” stinks, it’s got to be a keeper just for the clever (if I do say so myself) rhyme of “fedora” with “Cole Porter”!)

I see that I’ve used exactly the same combination of “fedora” and “working man’s cap”, and the same invocation of JFK. Not to mention the same romanticized notion of a bygone era in which people were more considerate, in which life was slower and more elegant. Since people don’t really change, and culture evolves slowly, I doubt this is really the case.

I think these poems go back too far to have been up-loaded onto the blog. So I’m glad they’ve now made it. I quite like some of the imagery in “Old Telephones …”: the sense of solidity, of a material world, of physicality. And “In the Lighting …” is a rare personal/biographical poem. I like it for that, since I’m much more likely to take an ironic distance, to avoid being confessional and overly-emotional. I also like it for the conversational tone. It’s closer to a prose poem than most of my work, and I love prose poems. I’d write way more of them, except that I find them unexpectedly difficult. So it’s nice to see I was able to succeed here.

Of course, going back 5 years or so is a two-edged sword. It’s nice to know that I was writing so well back then. It’s probably not as nice to know that I may not have made much progress since!

Enough commentary. Here are “Old Telephones and Coal-Stoked Trains”, and “In the :Lighting Business, A Man Knew Where He Stood.” (Hmmm, something else: I must have had a thing for the long title 5 years ago! Which isn’t a criticism; I actually quite like both titles.)

(P.S. I did some minor editing on both pieces, mostly punctuation and line breaks. An improvement, I think!)



Old Telephones and Coal-Stoked Trains
March 6 2005


I prefer old telephones
that were heavy as iron ingots
and came in black.
And coal-stoked trains,
huge locomotives, churning out steam
hammered out of massive bolts
and two-inch steel.
And cars with running-boards, and solid rubber wheels
that would rattle your bones to pieces
over unpaved streets.
And the hollow thunk of a baseball
— hand-stitched and leather-wrapped —
against the sweet spot of a wooden bat
played in sunlight
on real grass.
And even in shirtsleeves, the men in hats
— crisp fedoras
or a working-man’s cloth cap.
An era before short attention-spans
and suburban cul-de-sacs,
when plastic had yet to be invented
and we’d never heard
of obsolescence.

Now all that’s left
is reminiscence,
on the silver screen, in smoky light
in flickering impressions
in black-and-white.



In The Lighting Business, A Man Knew Where He Stood
May 19 2006


My father was in the lighting business.
In those days
a man left in a suit and tie for work in the morning
and a white shirt his wife had ironed the night before
and a hat, perhaps a snazzy black fedora
and entered a world of men,
in the rag trade
or auto sales
or an office in a granite bank.
Although after the Kennedy administration
when a dashing young President bared his head
going hatless was suddenly acceptable.

In the lighting business, a man knew where he stood.
My father is not much of an artist
and electricity makes him nervous
and he’s never been handy with tools,
yet somehow, they manufactured from scratch;
original designs, not tacky mass-market stuff
— in other words, fixtures that were made to last.
In my parents’ new kitchen
the big overhead light is good as ever,
and just as I remember
from the old house where I was a child.
A gleaming copper cowboy hat
turned upside down;
as if left-out overnight on the trail
to fill with prairie rain.

And when my father takes his grown son for a drive
to show-case his city
he slows down, deliberately
pointing-out his work,
pride barely restrained.
Heavy fixtures, guarding long driveways
in the classy part of town.
And this fancy diner
where his handiwork hangs even now,
bathing corned-beef-hash and grilled cheese
in a warm yellow glow.

Business was never easy.
There were bad customers
and worse debts.
And the taxman, first in–line for cheques.
And the weekly payroll, that must be met
leaving the boss to take what’s left
on the long drive home
after dark.

But there’s something to be said
for work that outlasts its maker
in the city he helped build.
Not that you can take it with you
after death,
but that an old man can take pride
in a life of honest labour,
a legacy, left
— the sturdy pieces
of beaten copper, welded steel
he leaves behind.