Suspension
Jan 26 2011


After the storm
the world seemed unnaturally still.
Like an animal of prey, exhausted and dazed
the chase on hold,
catching its breath
in the brief interregnum of snow.
As the land rests quiet,
beneath the weight
of an arctic high
under smooth undulations of white.

Snow is the great equalizer,
concealing the wounded trees
the half-done things
the mess that emerges in spring.
Even the road is a blur,
its high snow-banks
almost submerged.
And suspended between
in a graceful arc
a perfect span of white
— a long unbroken bridge,
unmarked
uncrossed.

Before the plough,
before the road is scraped to gravel
margins sharply carved,
I will be first
to leave my footsteps
mar its perfection
signal
the end of rest.

When the struggle for existence
will begin again;
predator, and prey
resume the chase.

Defying Gravity
Jan 25 2011


Toboggans like this
are relics.
All wood
heavy as a garage door.
A graceful curve, on the leading edge
steam-bent
by a master craftsman.
The pad, for our frozen bottoms
long gone,
consumed by mice, or mould
in summer storage
in a dank corner
of the leaky shed.
And wax, for slickness
or it would stick —
all front-to-back, tightly packed, ready to go,
marooned
in clumpy snow.

The ultimate gravity sport.
And metaphor
for faith.
No steering, no brakes
no control, except for bailing
into snow that looked deep, and fluffy,
but was rock-hard, underneath.
And trees, flashing past faster and faster.

But back then
before seatbelts and helmets
and even doctors smoked
we were sent out to play
all day, Sunday,
and told don’t be home ‘til dinner.
Where we duly arrived
glowing with cold,
unimpressed that we had survived
a whole day
of falling.

20 minutes, trudging up
hauling that pig of a toboggan
for a minute of giddy pleasure —
not for us, instant gratification.
We surrendered to fate
with the bliss of ignorance,
and learned uplifting moral lessons
about the virtue of work.

While our parents stayed home
together,
probably not deferring pleasure.
And instead of surrender,
defying gravity, exhaustion, age
in their own private way.
More than content
to let work wait.

A Leg of Deer
Jan 21 2011


In the depth of winter
a leg of deer,
dismembered.

The cloven hoof
tapered sleekly,
like a ballerina en pointe
in stiff black slippers.
The lower limb
tawny fur intact,
too thin
for such a big animal.
And above the joint, gnawed to the bone
it seemed almost festive,
flecked white and red
with fat, and flesh.

The dog bounded out of the bush
triumphant,
the prized leg clamped in her jaws.
Wolves, I thought,
prowling the forest
unseen, unheard.

The dog would be easy pickings
out in the yard.
I can just imagine hard barking
tail, furiously carving the air,
the mock bravado
of the pampered dog.
Outside, it was a cold locker,
so I hung it by the elbow
in a grisly “V”,
well out of reach.

And all night, I listened hard for their howling,
the full moon glorious
a fresh kill to gorge.
There is something primeval
and thrilling
about the sound of wolves,
this far from the end of the road.
The atavistic fear
of wolves.
And wolves,
who fear men …even more.

Practice
Jan 19 2011


I practiced badly
on the 2nd hand piano
at the far end of the basement rec room,
kitty-corner from the ping pong table.
It was layer-on-layer of dull brown paint,
with the crackled finish
of a real antique.
Keys like coffee-stained teeth
a spinning seat,
cork-screwing up and down
as I sent it flying.
Which was vastly more entertaining
than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star;
about as far as I got
in piano.

What fascinated me more was the metronome,
keeping its steady pace
unflappable, self-contained.
And in all these years
I see they haven’t changed, or been replaced
by some electronic gizmo.
How attractive,
the simple elegance
the perfect balance
of this mysterious mechanical device.
Like a jewel box, tastefully unadorned
its smoothly tapered form
is burnished wood,
dark, and deeply polished.
And its inexhaustible tap-tap-tap,
as magical
as perpetual motion.

I am told
even the greatest pianist insists on one.
Because he is susceptible to the common problem
of acceleration,
playing faster and faster
absorbed in his art.
Much as life gets faster and faster
as we age;
until all of a sudden
the music runs out.

With an exquisite touch
first hard, then soft
he caresses the keyboard like a man making love.
Infatuated with her beauty
with his power to make her sing, and sigh, and shriek
he must learn to practice restraint,
the subtle pleasure
of patience.

I want to set the metronome in motion
just to feel its measured beat,
the satisfying tap-tap-tap
as it ticks, hypnotically.
Exactly what I need
when I see her again,
my pulse quickening
my heart skipping beats.

When a man
who is badly out of practice
will go far too fast.
Become a falling star
that briefly flares
. . . and is gone.

Contented Circles
Jan 14 2011


A goldfish
in a small glass bowl
circles, nibbles, hovers.
Tiny bubbles
like a broken string of beads
ride up
from the steadily humming aerator,
niftily hidden
in a sunken ship.

An ornamental fish
flashing bronze and copper,
who only exists
for my occasional amusement.
Does he wonder
at the vast world outside the glass?
Does he miss
the company of other
beautiful fish?
Does the blue plastic mermaid
reclining on gravel
make him wish
for more?

Once a week
I dutifully change the water
drop in flakes of food,
not a lot.
Bend down
and look into a hard black eye
that stares inscrutably back,
out from the side of his head
unblinking.
A panopticon creature
ensconced in glass.

And when he dies
I will promptly buy another decorative fish
no different than him,
who will also swim in contented circles
in a safe aquatic world.
Where he will appear
for all it’s worth
immortal.

Open-Concept Plan
Jan 13 2011


I write on the dining room table.
A place I rarely dine.
And the room, more idea than place,
since I knocked down the walls
to let in the light.

So I easily forget
that this hard smooth surface
is illusion,
matter mostly empty space.
And that no matter how hard I try
to represent the world,
reality is unreliable
there is no singular view;
]just a rough simulacrum
I need to believe
is true.

Because I am only sensitive
to a limited spectrum of light,
my narrow aperture of awareness.
Because I see what catches my interest,
my memory is filtered through prejudice,
I quickly forget.
And because every time I remember
I reinvent the past.
I see the world through glass.
looking out my window
concealed by dark;
through a screen,
where faraway people
leave me indifferent, mostly,
are easily clicked-off.
Except when it feels so intense
it’s happening;
when fiction contains more truth than fact.
Even granted
that knowing is impossible.

It takes so much effort
to recognize how small I am,
to see the other as more
than body, object, obstacle.
Which is overwhelming
and inconceivable,
7 billion parallel universes
lighting-up
with pain and angst and love
all at once.

Only a supreme act of imagination
lets me escape
the trap of scale.
The tiny order of magnitude
I occupy.
My solipsistic sense
of the passage of time
in a slowly unfolding universe.
The levels of consciousness
to which I am blind,
can hardly imagine.

So it suits my purpose
to sit at this large dining room table,
with its distressed pine finish
the extra leaf, in the middle
two tall candles
patiently unlit
in the natural light
the windows permit,
and write my version of reality
distil myself into words.

Gratified that my pen
glides freely
dispenses ink,
does not penetrate the surface
of this handsome wood.


I think the meticulous detail at the end is the writer’s solution. That is, both mindfulness and living in the moment are his solution to the problems identifies earlier in the poem: the subjectivity of reality, the impossibility of knowing, and his narrow aperture of awareness. He’s effectively saying that he’s content to accept these limitations, and content to leave the mystery unexplained; choosing instead to invest fully in the version of reality he’s been given, however unreliable.

And I think what the opening does is establish this uncertainty about what’s real, since even the words he automatically uses for the most mundane things are quickly revealed to be poor approximations of objective reality.

The “open-concept plan” is an architectural metaphor for this uncertainty: that reality is constructed (in a way that’s useful for us, that makes the most “sense” – given the limitations of our senses); and that reality is more concept than fact. Perhaps “plan” here should be taken with a grain of salt, as a kind of irony. After all, what hubris to think we can plan out our lives, that we have this degree of control and predictability – irrespective of what one believes about the metaphysics of reality.

Desert
Jan 12 2011


Dessert was store-bought.
Apple pie
some kind of loaf.
Banana, possibly.
Supermarket recipes
that were sweet enough to make your teeth buzz.
Sugar must have been cheap, back then.
And there was shelf-life to think of.

In TV commercials
in the hot studio lights
apple pie a la mode
was made with a scoop of mashed potatoes.
Which looks surprisingly like ice cream.
The industrial pie, I’m sure
could have handled the heat.

3 boys, and never any leftovers.
The handy tin-foil tray, just crumbs
glinting hungrily.
I still remember my first spelling mnemonic —
“dessert” with the double “s”;
for seconds, of course.

My mother had rare spurts of ambition
in the culinary arts.
I remember something called ambrosia,
with marshmallows, and mandarins
maraschino cherries
and pudding mix.
Needless to say
she felt her efforts went unappreciated.
Not to mention her own mother,
an intimidating presence
who baked wonderfully
without recipes,
in the secretive kingdom
of her cramped apartment kitchen.

The store-bought apple pie
had a glutinous interior, a heavy crust.
But add ice cream
and it was ambrosia,
with never enough
for seconds.
So much for learning how to spell.

Last Words
Jan 10 2011


Words have consequences.

When you think you won’t be heard.
When you’ll say whatever it takes.
Even the words you never said,
and now regret
you didn’t.

You can always wait
for time to heal, memory blur.
You can retract the nasty attitude
take back slurs,
or assert that they misheard.
Politicians, especially.

But when the encouraging word
eluded you.
When you failed to return
the call.
When last words were said in anger,
deathbed left to cliché.
When you wanted to tell her
I love you,
and thought you had time to wait.

We appropriate hateful words
as empowering,
like faggot, nigger, nerd.
But when she called me an asshole, a bastard
it stuck,
her diatribe well-deserved.
I sulked in silence,
wanting to call after her
as if language still could work.

Trouble is
words aren’t sticks and stones.
They’re more like barbed hooks
razor-sharp.
The work their way in.
Leave permanent scars.

Progress
Jan 4 2011


Washing laundry by hand.
Wind the alarm clock
before bed, each night.
Dial one number at a time,
then wait
while it whirrrs back to zero.

Back when TV began
as a point of light
in the middle of a thick glass screen,
then expanding, slowly
into a universe of 3
local stations.
Fiddle with the rabbit ears,
get up to change channels.
A flickering picture of an Indian chief
after midnight,
when every sensible person’s asleep.

Labour-saving devices
that make us slaves.
How we pilfer from sleep
to serve.
There is not enough time in the day
to get things done,
and how work expands to fill
the space available.

And when the power goes out,
in the sudden silence
in accustomed dark,
the universe shrinks
to these 4 walls.
Alone, for once
you make polite conversation
with yourself,
find out if you like your own company
can somehow keep talking.
Maybe even stop
waiting for the light to break.

Do you notice how your eyes strobe
in the unfamiliar darkness,
your exhausted retina
firing at random?
Like static, on that old TV
on the receding edge
of reception,
even at the speed of light.

The phone still works when the power’s out
casting its ghostly glow.
So you turn it off,
immerse yourself
in the dark.
Perfectly silent, and black,
like before time began.




I’m probably guilty of romanticizing the past in this poem. The beginning was clumsily lifted from Ian Frazier’s Family: I heard him read an excerpt (on the Dec 31 2010 edition of A Prairie Home Companion), and couldn’t get it out of my head. (You can listen yourself, by going to the PHC website – prairiehome.publicradio.org.)

The main idea is how, living in a culture of constant distraction, over-stimulation, and dizzying obsolescence, we have trouble being alone with ourselves. And how true silence and darkness are so rarely experienced in the modern world. Even our labour-saving devices don’t do that; they just raise our expectations, and cause even more work. I’m thinking about generating laundry: tossing a shirt in a hamper after wearing it for a few hours, which you’d never do without the machine. And standards of house-cleaning: without a vacuum cleaner, you’d probably tolerate a lot more dog hair and dust. This isn’t an original thesis, and I’ve heard an academic (of social anthropology or home economics or some other obscure discipline) expound on it with much more authority than me. Actually, I’m not sure I totally buy it: washing laundry by hand was bloody hard! But our forbears expected less. And they lived more circumscribed – and not necessarily less happy – lives. So there’s probably some truth here; as usual, the law of unintended consequences at work.

My first inclination was to call it Big Bang. I tried to sustain this metaphor through the piece (I suspect not terribly successfully), since the cosmology of the Big Bang so tellingly impinges on these two ideas – time, and progress. Because this model of the origin of the universe could mean an infinitely expanding one, which ultimately leads to oblivion: like progress, a feverish expansion which ultimately results in a thinner life and more shallow relationships. Or it could mean a yo-yo universe: one that constantly creates, and then annihilates, time.

All in all, kind of complicated and obscure ideas that I tried to make palatable and interesting. I’m not sure how well I accomplished that. So I’d be interested to hear any feedback on how well this poem works. And also what you may have thought it was about, before you had the chance to see what I had in mind.

Dregs
Dec 31 2010


The dregs of a dying year
are like the grounds of yesterday’s coffee,
dumped in the trash.
A stubbed-out butt, lipstick smudged
in a clump of ash.
Open another can
a fresh pack.

I’m not sure if I should lament its passing,
or feel glad
to be done with it.
Not that the new one will change much;
it never does.
I will tear a page off the calendar.
There will be sun
wheeling steadily west.
And, as it’s always done,
the 3rd planet in this minor system
will follow its trajectory.
The heavens move,
and I feel nothing
down here on earth.
On January 1st,
in the exact same winter.

Even in the inevitable thaw
that comes somewhere in the middle
it will be wet and dull and grey,
and I will still feel invisible.
And even though
there will be a little more light each day,
I will see the same horizon
the same face beside me
will still turn away.

When we first met
had greedy animal sex
we could feel the world move
again, and again.
And now, the beginning of the end
in a brand new year
will start with me
sipping hot black coffee
in a cold kitchen.
And you, still in bed,
fumbling for a cigarette.



It probably would have been easier if this had been autobiographical.

Actually, it didn’t start out as lovelorn at all. What I had in mind as I set out to write takes to the 2nd last stanza to make its eventual appearance: “the inevitable thaw” that seems to come sometime every winter. (Because we just had one, and will shortly have another: always a mess in the middle of winter.)

And then I thought it’s December 31, so how can I possibly get away without writing something about the passing of a year, the beginning of a new one. Which always makes me think of the cartoon depiction of the bearded old man and the newborn baby …and then want to subvert that by perhaps making the old year the one full of promise and vigour, and the new one senescent and decrepit. (In the end, both years came out rather bleak!)

The whole astronomical bit, the mechanistic universe – the wheeling sun, the planet on its pre-ordained trajectory – is there in order to get at this idea of the indifference of nature to man, as well as the arbitrariness of the calendar; and especially so, since the beginning of the new year inexplicably falls right in the middle of an undifferentiated season. (“ …January 1st / in the exact same winter.”)

And that, in turn, led to “the heavens mov(ing)”, which brought immediately to mind the obvious sexual connotation of “feel(ing) the world move”. And so, without the least intention, the poem gave this to me, and told me where to take it. Of course, I was pleased to be able to write something about sex …and even use the word sex. (“Greedy animal sex”, no less!) Because, for a self-proclaimed poet, you have to admit my stuff is pretty damned sanitized and safe. Hardly anything erotic at all. So it’s nice to have the nerve to go there, for once.

I quite like the “call-backs”: how it gives the poem a coherence, and pulls the strings tight (a coherence which the description of its haphazard genesis makes hard to believe!) What I’m referring to here is the coffee and cigarettes, as well as the heavens moving/earth moved bits. I think I’ve managed a nice restrained use of metaphor, allusion, and ambiguity. And I particularly like all the things that go unsaid, the back story that’s left to the reader’s imagination. And finally, I like the misdirection: yes, it does start off rather negatively (what else is new!); but still, I think the direction the poem ultimately takes is quite unexpected (just as it was in the writing).

Department Store Santa Claus
Dec 30 2010


I went to the mall
in the week after Christmas,
my annual expedition
to its frenzied halls.
The festive green and red
over-heated air.
This secular temple
to the fashion gods.

The seasonal music
via satellite dish
was jingly and bright,
but seemed shrill, and inauthentic
going over the heads
of determined shoppers.
Seeking out sales.
Bearing unwrapped gifts
jammed back into boxes,
clothes that don’t fit.

The food court
was unaccountably popular,
with the smell of fried grease
I’d almost forgot.
Stalls for Italian, and Chinese
rendered bland, and salty-sweet
with “special sauce”;
fast food and finger-lickin’
shoved down quickly.
Pre-occupied folks
who keep in touch
by phone,
and walk and talk while eating.
As well as toys-for-tots
and Santa Claus
and a Salvation Army kettle,
just as you’d expect.

I dashed in
did my business
and quickly went.
Out to the far end of the parking lot,
where the ploughs had piled a frozen wall of snow.
Perfect for tobogganing, I thought,
or snowballs, and forts.

But the kids had all gone home,
transfixed by screens
playing war.



All very true. I strenuously resist going to the mall. But the old camera couldn’t be fixed (as usual, a complicated electronic device rendered obsolescent: either by the frenzied pace of dubious innovation, or the impossibility of fixing deranged chips and cheap plastic), and I needed to pick up the new one. It was the week after Christmas; and the camera shop was right next to the food court.

It’s darn hard to be cynical about Christmas, and not sound both stale and pretentious. So I at least tried to show it, not say it – the usual cardinal rule of poetry, of course. And I tried to add some amusing observations – to at least reward the reader for his indulgence and perseverance. And I tried to tie it up into a bit of narrative – if one can be persuaded that walking out to the parking lot constitutes an actual story! (I especially like the ersatz ethnic food, that all ends up tasting the same!)

The poem can be fairly criticized for making too much of a virage in the final stanza. In terms of tone, that is. (Virage is French, but I think it may have entered into Canadian English in the last few years. It means a sudden change in direction – like the standard English “swerve” – but works much better, I’d say.) On the other hand, there is a natural progression from snow fort to games of war. And it’s a neat sideways rhyme, as well: fort and war, that is. I love the word “transfixed” here. I can just picture the body immobile in a chair, leaning slightly forward; and the fixed unblinking eyes (not to mention blood-shot and demonic …lol!) Anyway, it’s true. In my day (sneered the old-timer in his usual superior tone), we were sent outside to play, and spent the entire day doing just that. We didn’t sit in front of screens (as this hypocrite has been doing for the last couple of hours!) And other than that, I’ll take any chance I get to decry these horrible video games that are full of explosions and guns and blood; that dehumanize “the other”; and that celebrate violence without consequence.

I’ve said before how much I try to avoid adverbs (especially the word “suddenly”): how they patronize the reader; how they’re superfluous if the writing is good; and how they clutter things up and get in the way. So I have to point out that I used “quickly” twice here. I tried cutting it out; but in this case, it seemed to work. I hope you agree. (In this regard, I strongly suggest that you check out Billy Collins’ recent poem Suddenly.)

Going Blind
Dec 25 2010


It’s always that much rougher
away from shore.
In the deceptive calm
in the lee of the forest
the water invites you on.
The same blue as the sky
but darker,
a gentle chop
concealing the cold black layer
that lies, like a heavy weight
on the very bottom.

When the wind blows in
the surf washes up and down the beach,
a steady comforting beat.
Not sand
sinking into its heat,
but small round pebbles
cool, and treacherous,
rattling together
in the powerful surge.
And when it blows off-shore
it’s almost glass,
with tell-tale ripples
as the wind dips.
Racing across
on cats paws.

So you head out
in an open boat
paddling alone.
How a man has 10 minutes, at most
in such cold water
this far north.
How the squall blew up
at most, an hour.
With the setting sun
pouring into your eyes,
going blind.

It’s all timing, in life —
random intersections
fate
good luck.
Or bad
if it so happens.

Because who doesn’t judge
from a distance?
And what’s another
sudden gust?

Hunger
Dec 24 2010


In winter, there is food and shelter
and not much else.
Except for the holiday season
of gifts, with receipts
well-meant greetings
New Year’s eve.
The forced gaiety
of vague beginnings,
according to the calendar.

In the forced-air heat
my lips crack, and bleed,
dry skin
feels tight, and prickly.
As if I’m shrinking
slowly.
It’s hard to feel desire
under all these clothes,
prudently layered
against the cold.

But the shovelling over
the stores all closed
we sit by the fire
almost touching,
stoke it up ‘til it roars.
Entranced by flame,
the dance of shadow
on the wall in back.

In the unaccustomed heat
we begin unbuttoning.
Unfasten zippers and clasps,
wiggle out of tops,
peel off
thermal underpants
skin-tight skivvies.

And thinking back
to a bad year
the one we’ll usher out, the beginning of another
in the vegetative funk
of darkness,
we are overcome by lust,
naked skin flushed, and hungry.

Hoping desire, at least
has come
to rescue us.