Carry On

Oct 27 2011

I jog on grass

on cinder paths

in manicured rows.

Granite stones, and marble

flashing past,

fresh cut flowers

that will not last.

How many years

to weather this rugged rock,

names and dates worn-off

to a smooth dull finish?

I sometimes stop

and trace a stone with my hand,

the cool surface

inscrutable words,

families, forgotten

ancestors lost.

I gather they frown

upon joggers

in this public place

full of private sorrows.

So I tread softly

and carry on.

In one far corner

where the ground drops off

into dense brush

a frugal creek

I come across smaller stones, set oddly closer.

Children do not die

nearly as often now.

But back then families were large

and seemed more accepting of death,

early ends, almost expected.

I take my time, and read their ages,

sentimental inscriptions

cherubic angels.

A small cemetery

within a large graveyard,

within a middling city

that carries on.

And where I jog,

until I go to my rest, as well.

I do not mean

to be disrespectful.

I believe I honour the dead

with effort, and sweat

a life well-lived.

And think of the children

loved, and missed.

I no longer jog. And I only jogged there a couple of times, at most. But I still remember the poignancy of coming upon those small stones, in an overgrown corner, set slightly off. I love exploring old cemeteries, deciphering the old headstones. As for me, I’d rather be thrown into a cardboard box and buried in the forest, at the foot of a tree. No grave marker necessary.

One Free Hour

Oct 27 2011

The clocks will change,

that precious extra hour

we banked in spring

reclaimed

interest-free.

Then the lake will freeze, snow deepen,

until the longest night of the year

when spring seems barely possible.

But in the tropics

neither north, nor south

there are only two seasons  —

day, and night.

Precisely 12 hours, on the equator

day in, day out

month after month.

Just hurricanes

to break the monotony.

In the doldrum heat,

where underneath, there’s rot

and the soil’s exhausted

and you can set your clock

by the sun.

No deep freeze

to reset the earth.

No season of rest

and latency.

No burrowing pests

killed by killer frost.

I know the living is easy

weather, an afterthought.

But at what cost?

No long hot summer

to measure out our lives.

No mid-winter night

with its glimmer of light

that proclaims the world reborn.

No extra hour

on a Sunday morn,

cocooning closer

and doing whatever we please.

In this illicit hour

we needn’t account

to anyone for.

A poem of gratitude for 4 distinct seasons.

And a rare poem, in that I conclude with a preposition – not just a line, but the entire piece:  a very weak word with which to end. But the word “for” not only works with the rhyme (reborn/morn/for), it flouts grammatical correctness, and in so doing creates a feeling as free as that illicit hour.

Skipping Rocks

Oct 26 2011

How many tries did it take

to skip my first stone?

At an age

when wonder was possible.

Before the world would become mundane

stopped surprising me.

Rocks sink,

and an unsuspecting boy

could also drop

through insubstantial water

and drown,

diving blind, unsupervised.

The treachery of water

as I had been told;

yet not always so.

A gentle chop to the surface

the ripples a purchase

for rocks,

smooth and cool in my hand

from a million years

of washing up and down the shore.

Or a dazzling mirror, as hard as tempered glass

that can counter-act

the law of gravity.

My record is 7,

until it stutters to a stop

and vanishes

for another million years.

Like Zeno’s  paradox

the arrow that goes half the distance, then half again

and never gets to the end.

At least as far

as theory goes.

And the rock

losing distance with every skip,

and me imagining

it never quite finishes.

An unsinkable rock

that may be out there, still.

Now, all grown-up

I sometimes feel I'm that smooth flat rock

skipping across the water,

the mirrored sky

the glare of light.

But never breaking the surface

penetrating deeper.

The perpetual mystery

of the bottomless lake,

its cold dark depths.

I don’t remember how many times;

but I recall feeling triumphal.

That I had acquired

this compulsive knack

that would serve a lifetime.

That I had the power

to overturn the laws of nature,

if for just a second, or two.

A mere child

toying with all the rules.

When the entire world

was delightfully new.

Something Is Out There

Oct 22 2011

Fall is fleeting, here.

Summer ends abruptly,

and winter comes

with an early snow.

So this uncertain season

is all the sweeter;

as common things are cheap,

as we seek out

the rare, and ephemeral.

Leaves turn briefly,

trees, stripped clean

in the first big blow.

The sun is low, shadows long

and nights hang on

as if darkness

will overtake the earth.

This is the season of in-between

chores all done

last leaves raked-up,

and we’re given permission

to eat, and sleep.

The air is sweet

with wood-smoke,

the light is pure, and soft.

Time to wonder

about a hard winter

an early thaw.

But the dog

is piss and vinegar,

hackles erect

at the door again,

this dog who rarely barks.

Deer, on the move

and something is out there,

beyond the cedars

that mark off  my yard

from the darkened forest beyond.

A cordon of green

on guard.

She charges

like a cannon shot,

a born predator

honed for pursuit.

But with the sense to stop

at the property line, the circle of light

barking furious.

The deceptive cedars,

a single row of majestic trees

evenly space, manicured neat

that mask the wild wood,

where creatures lurk

and even the dog demurs.

Will go
no further.

Out there,

where winter comes

that much earlier.

The season of hunger and cold.

Gumboots

Oct 16 2011

Fine-grained, sun-drenched.

Beach sand

under bare feet,

which have toughened up

through half a summer.

I can still feel the heat,

silky softness

sinking in.

All ten toes

giddy with freedom.

Fall, though, is the most indelible.

The crunch of leaves

in crisp October,
the earthy smell.

A dry rustling, in the breeze;

and swept before a blow,

skirling, swirling

hurtling to leeward.

Then half-submerged,

a soggy reminder

of worse.

When it’s cold enough

and freshly covered with snow,

you break the perfect surface

with a squeaky rub,

felt, as much as heard.

No secrets, this time of year,

the tell-tale tracks

of your comings and goings.

Until the next inevitable storm

makes over

the world.

And after the annual thaw

gumboots on

you’re a kid once more,

striding through puddles

the slurping suck

of mud.

When a boot gets stuck

and you pull out, suddenly,

a sorry sock

dangling off.
In a mad dance

on one good leg,

accompanied

by tuneless expletives. 

But even then

I think of fall,

that luminous carpet of leaves,

the satisfying crunch

beneath.

Under a high transparent sky,

too blue

to believe.

Made by Hand

Oct 15 2011

Get a hobby, I was told.

All successful people

have one.

It will do you good

make you less morose.

Music, though, would offend the neighbours,

the painful strains

of the tortured viola.

And art seems a waste

  —  really, is there anything left to paint?

So I thought about things made by hand.

Of the pleasure

of esoteric knowledge,

of immersing myself

in something small.

Like bee-keeping, brick-laying

messing about with wood

   — the satisfaction

of mastery

over the physical world.

So far, my hobbies consist

of cataloguing life’s minor annoyances.

Firing-off

letters to the editor,

that must have got lost in the mail.

Leaving stale crusts

on the deck

for hungry squirrels.

Which they’ve now come to expect,

busily chattering

with a vaguely threatening edge.

Trouble is, the older I get

there’s less and less

that interests me.

Even sex

has withered.

And young people

fail to impress

  —  the age-old lament

of successive generations.

While my so-called contemporaries

endlessly kvetch

about the expected infirmities

pension cheques.

So I have settled on poetry,

which no one reads

and keeps me from feeling my age.

Or at least as young as all that verse

stuffed into bottom drawers,

in adolescent journals

angst-filled

lovelorn.

Some have mistaken this

for autobiography,

my ill-tempered rants

for disappointments past.

But as poetry, my annoyance ascends

to the lofty status of art

  —  embellishment, and fakery

disguised as creativity,

the artful lie.

Yet no less substantial

than brick and wood,

honey from my own backyard.

The artisanal,

things made by hand.

That may even out-last

us all.

I think the immortal Winston Churchill not only painted, but also layed bricks and raised bees. Perhaps that's why this unlikely assortment of potential hobbies came to mind. He was a great wordsmith, of course; but as far as I know, more adept at prose than poetry.

One Clear Shot

Oct 18 2011

I had the deer in my sights.

Squinting through the glass, the circle of light

it filled my vision.

As if all of existence

had constricted down

to a single beast.

A magnificent buck

8-points, scarred from the rut

pawing the ground

snorting steam.

It swung its head slowly

to and fro,

testing the air

perhaps vaguely aware

of my presence.

It stood motionless,

balanced on the thin black line

of the cross-hairs,

as if on the cusp

of life or death

and I would be the instrument.

Knowing a bullet is simple

my distance, safe.

I had intruded into his woods,

the fugitive snow, the wet and cold

branches skeleton-bare.

This wilderness

all he’d ever known,

the territory he’d fought for.

I watched

as if privileged,

held him in my sights, lost all track of time.

At the zenith of life,

his feral power

fierce

with testosterone.

When a branch snapped

and he looked directly at me,

a dominant creature

unwilling to flee.

I could not pull the trigger.

The buck went free.

Which is when snow began to fall,

soggy crystals

clouding the lens.

I never hunted

again.

This poem started with a piece by the novelist David Adams Richards, published in the Globe’s Focus section of Oct 15. It was entitled A View to a Kill, and I think it was an extract from his just released memoir Facing the Hunter. Either that, or a teaser for it.

Anyway, the story is all his. But I process things differently, and his prose style just didn’t seem tight enough for me. So I have shamelessly appropriated his experience, but rewritten it in my own way. All credit goes to David Adams Richards; while I will assume modest credit for this small poem.

I used the same technique here I used in a previous poem about a deer, which may have passed unnoticed, or seemed unintentional The subject starts out “it”, but in the 4th stanza transforms into “he”:  as the hunter becomes obsessed with awe and admiration for this magnificent animal,  the generic “it” will not do. The buck becomes personified and honoured with the more exalted “he”.

6 Notes

Oct 17 2011

The wind chime

has 6 notes.

They sound one-at-a-time,

like a clear bell

struck cleanly.

Or in volleys

too close to tell.

They reflect every nuance of wind,

speed, direction

and shift,

a percussionist

with no innate sense

of rhythm.

They sustain

bleeding into the next,

persist on eddies of air,

or abruptly vanish

ripped

out of ear-shot.

Overtones

cancel out, reinforce,

conjuring new sounds

never heard before.

There is no such thing

as pure vibration,

the naked tone.

Incredibly

these 6 notes

ring true

but never repeat themselves,

composing a constant stream

of new music.

A blizzard of sound

as different as falling snow

  —  a million frozen flakes,

divulging the wind

deadening noise.

The infinite permutations

of 3 molecules

6 notes.

The alphabet has 26.

Just imagine

how many poems.

Body Language

Oct 9 2011

Her body language

was impeccable.

The eye roll

she had perfected,

the weary sigh
that shoulder gesture.

Curtly dismissing the rest of the room

but coolly enlisting you,

a minority of 2

in mute forbearance.

And demurely crossing her legs,

toes en pointe

ankles caressing.

Perching coquettish

showing-off those endless legs,

all eyes on her.

Then tossing her hair,

so casual, it seemed an afterthought.

But she knew its effect on men,

her shameless power

over the weaker sex.

And when the tip of her tongue

teased her upper lip,
red, and glistening.

Not quick

like a snake's flicking hisss,

but languid, sensuous.

An innuendo

no one could miss.

She laughs at your jokes

and bats her lashes playfully.

She matches you

move for move,

uncannily in sync.

Even the way she sits

with perfect diction, perfect pitch.

A wicked smile,

eyes fixed on yours.

And somehow

her hands find you

across the starched white tablecloth.

Skin soft, nails long,

elegant fingers

and strong tanned arm.

Her posture’s cool

but her touch is hot.

The conversation stops,

not awkwardly

but as natural as if it were scripted.

Because talk is clumsy, words an encumbrance

when the signals come

so unambiguous.

And later on

you will trace her with your hands,

like a blind man reading Braille.

And she will be your amanuensis

translating every detail.

That tongue

which touched your desire

now insistently probing your ear

with hot wet urgency.

As you strain

to hear under her breath,

make out the wordless whispers.

A good title on paper, but I think a better one to hear recited. Because then it’s both “body” and “bawdy” — not just the semiotics of movement and expression, but a wordless seduction as well.

The poem started with a short comedy bit I heard about eye rolling. (Which wasn’t actually that funny!) I thought this might be a promising start to a word-play poem, along the lines of “eye roll …head toss …knees cross …eyes lock”, or something like that. And it took off from there.

Posterity

Oct 7 2011

This is a true story

of crime, and consequence.

The dark art of graffiti

which he practiced in the subways of New York.

In Pompeii, graffiti have outlasted

vast and glorious Rome,

preserved

by congealed mud, volcanic ash.

The same juvenile braggadocio,

the same rabble-rousing bad-mouthing slanders,

but in Latin, of course.

And in the caves of France

prehistoric children

marked the walls with their hands,

fine-boned fingers

clear enough

to guess their age.

Wondering who they thought would come

and seeing what

in the subterranean darkness?

Or if their art would last

so unimaginably long.

So this young man

hauled ladders and spray cans

into the cold dripping labyrinth,

rolled-on

a white latex canvas

and left his tag.

Not the usual graphic flash

rivals taunted, showing-off,

but his entire autobiography

written down.

More than 200 instalments

all over Gotham’s dark underground,

where no one could read them at all. 

I imagine he needed

to leave his mark.

Shout into the silence

the indifferent dark.

Or find some closure,

setting down his story

then letting it go.

As if the act

of having written

was sufficient,

the unheard confession

of verse.

He was eventually nabbed,

for public mischief

the impersonation of a maintenance man

in pilfered clothes.

I’m not sure

if his words will stand.

If a thousand years from now

archaeologists will pump-out the tunnels

disinter the walls,

and presume to know us all

by this singular man.

Which leaves me to ask,

is graffiti art

was he a vandal?

And who is this man

who defaced public property

in the underbelly darkness
of New York?

Who tried to erase

his faceless obscurity,

proclaiming himself

to bored commuters

in a noisy blur.

Steel on steel, screeching through curves,

returning home

then back to work.

I had the urge to write a poem about the act of writing:  the pure joy I feel when I’m immersed in words, the creative fire. The act of writing itself. The satisfying finality of having written. I thought I might do something on the conjugation of the verb “write”.

Then I remembered this piece I’d heard on the latest edition of the podcast/NPR radio show This American Life. The theme was cat and mouse. The story – at true one – was exactly this. Which is how I began:  like a pulp crime thriller.

As I listened, I thought about not just his resourcefulness, but his neediness:   how squelched and invisible and  unimportant and futile he must feel, as if he had spent a  lifetime shouting into the wind. And what drives us to seek out posterity. And how we seek meaning in seemingly quixotic acts. And isn’t this the highest expression of art:  the purity of something created for its own sake, for which there is no expectation it will be admired, rewarded, or even seen.

As if the act

of having written

was sufficient,

Which may not be the best line, but I think best captures my original intent.

Talking about getting off a good line, I like the off-centre humour of this one:  " ...the impersonation of a maintenance man". Of all things, who ever impersonates a menial manual worker?!!

I'm not thrilled with the title. I suspect I've used it before. It sounds kind of pretentious. And perhaps it gives away too much of the as yet unread poem. Suggestions are welcome.