"Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past." 

JAMES JOYCE, Ulysses

Bottleneck

April 30 2012

Spring thaw,

and melt has collected

in a small depression

in a sheltered glade.

A perfect mirror

reflecting clear, and still.

But water never stops.

Molecules in motion,

popping-off

into warm dry air.

A breeze

ruffling the surface.

And the puddle

emptying

through saturated earth.

To glistening mud,

then dull brown summer.

Because water seeks its level,

inexorable

as the force of gravity.

And up

to the stratosphere,

powered by sun.

I look at my reflection

in the standing pool,

after run-off has settled

before leaves unfurl.

A brief glimpse.

As if the present

was a minor bottleneck

in the flow of time

from future to past.

Just as ice turns to rain

and clouds

to weather.

Overcast

and the mirror turns black.

Search Engine

April 26 2012

My computer has a search engine.

This sleek machine

that connects me to the world

at the speed of light.

With soft mysterious whirrrs

and unaccountable bursts

of static purring,

its bright all-knowing glow.

Yet a name that evokes

Victorian factories.

Iron-works, and steam,

the hands-on ambition

of industry.

Who knew

computer guys

could be so tongue-in-cheek?

The delightful incongruity

of a search engine

on the digital freeway.

The rent and squeal

of steel-on-steel.

An iron behemoth, belching steam

cinders, soot
and grease,

hellish firebox

blistering heat.

Stoked with low grade coal

that turns everything

black.

My lap top is cool, clean, sleek.

As weightless electrons

do my bidding.

And the keyboard, willing

effects its silky

tap-tap-tap,

entrancing me

in a crisp blue glow.

So distant, detached

from the power-plants, and servers

vast optical-cables

that gird the earth.

Like Archimedes, given a long enough lever,

I feel as if I could move the world

with a single stroke.

Spoken

April 25 2012

I realized the power of words

when I wrote them down

spoke out loud.

Its cold reptilian neck

pressing in from behind, nuzzling mine.

Its fetid breath,

its heaviness.

The sound took to the air,

carried less

than I could throw

in a voice that almost broke.

A brief unnoticed vibration,

smothered

by the weight of air.

Please, do not mistake this

for confession

or forgiveness.

I doubt anyone was even listening.

But it had been spoken,

a formal statement

unequivocal.

As if a sworn witness
weighed in,

and the court stenographer

made it permanent

a judge, somewhere, had heard.

And what could be more visceral

than passing throat, tongue, lips,

the dark intimacy of the mouth

the swallow
the kiss?

Or a hand-written letter

that may never be read.

The nullifying power

to have simply expressed.

Because bloodless words

are harmless,

disarmed by the light of day.

There, I said it.

Now go away. 

Impression

April 23 2012

In sedimentary weather

it is uniformly grey.

The eyes adjust.

Silt drifting down
settling, steady,

around my feet
in even layers

creeping up.

The atmosphere is thick,

and with each perturbation

of current, and wind 
I sway,

like a neutral object

immersed.

Yet motionless, in a relative sense. 

A fish

in water.

A passenger, on planet earth

hurtling along

through space.

Enough heat, and pressure

and silt hardens to rock

encasing me.

Or at least my impression

left

in a thin indelible layer,

they will date, someday

to early this century.

When the air was clogged

with electromagnetic waves,

the dust, stirred-up

by our meddling.

Where once
unlikely creatures dashed

on wet volcanic ash

unintended clay,

like water-walkers

almost weightless.

Or footprints baked

into river mud. 

A swift escape

some hot dry day

in paleolithic sun.

The climate has changed.

Weather never does. 

A Bird in the House

April 18 2012

A bird in the house

portends misfortune

bad luck.

For us, as well as the bird.

People have always envied

the power of flight,

the freedom

of ascending,

commanding heights.

And now, we are both confined

to intersecting walls

a low ceiling,

barely glimpsed sky.

I’ve had bats, before,

who can squeeze through dime-sized slits

and veer and cut and shift

with breath-taking dexterity

regardless of light.

But they are cave-dwelling creatures

and find a way.

Birds panic

then go quiet.

Enclosed, contained

they are out of place,

unnatural, inside.

And the world

will be out of balance

until he escapes.

He crashes into walls

attacks picture windows

flutters, and flaps.

We cover our heads

feel his distress,

wish him out.

Which he does, eventually

through an open door.

And we are left

to face the inevitable.

Because only bad luck

will restore the world

return it to balance

set it straight.

Who knows if a bird can be grateful,

now free

to dive, and soar

and stretch its wings.

While we remain inside,

behind closed doors

apprehensively.

You may have noticed the personal pronoun “he” becomes “it” in the final stanza. For some reason, I preferred the sound of “it” here. But then I realized that in this case, inconsistency is a virtue, and that this subtle transformation was meaningful:  the bird is now free, indistinguishable from all the other birds, as it vanishes into the distance. He has now become a generic bird:  more a symbol of freedom and uncorrupted nature than a personal nuisance or threat.

I dislike adverbs. I particularly avoid ones that end in ~ly. The more apparent reason is that adverbs insult – or at least patronize – the reader:  is it necessary, for example, to say “suddenly”? Why not trust the reader to infer this from the context? The less apparent reason is that, inexplicably, I dislike the sound. Which naturally raises the question:  why, of all words, end the poem with an adverb? And why with it’s very own line, no less? The simple answer is that the rhyme scheme dictates this. But the more nuanced answer is that it’s a great word. And that it encapsulates the superstitious sense of unease, of things being out of balance, slightly off-kilter, that I’ve tried to evoke through the whole poem. So, in this case, I think an adverb actually works.  (As does actually in the last sentence! Which, in my defence, I don’t think is hypocritical. It’s in poetry that I don’t like adverbs. Prose is different.)

Semaphore

April 17 2012

The first day

it feels like spring,

I will race through the house

empty hampers, snatch towels from their racks

strip linens

gladly pick-up-after.

Then wash, rinse, spin

fill the wicker basket

man-handled, damp,

out

into fragrant air.

And with clothespins clamped

between my lips,

test the line

that sat all winter.

Dew lingers,

tiny perfect spheres

clinging to the wire

catching light.

I whip it out

spooling spray,

whirrrs, and returns

on its squeaky wheel.

The line sags in the middle

with every colour imaginable,

snaps

in short sharp gusts.

Fresh laundry

flapping in the breeze,

like Tibetan prayer flags

a colour guard

marching past.

The semiotics

of laundry

in spring.

A semaphore of happiness,

signalling all my neighbours

good weather, at last.

Slow Film

April 16 2012

I'm a detail man.
Like a nervous tic,

obsessive

distracting.

I watch movies eagle-eyed,
pounce on anachronism
continuity lapses.
A gladiator
with a wristwatch,
a chair
there, and gone.

I study pictures
with forensic intensity,

look past the glad-hands
complicit smiles,

as some quirk in the fringes

arrests my eye.

I use slow film

so the action may blur

but depth of field is preserved,

a universe

of backgrounds.

It’s surprising

the reality I construct

connecting the dots, drawing lines.

Because the big picture

is mostly empty space.

The real truth

is in concealment, evasion

the details, marginalia

that mistakenly

slip through.

So if I seem absent-minded

  —  walking into street signs, tripping over furniture  —

please forgive my clumsiness.

It’s all in the details,

not what I missed.

For As Long As It Takes

April 7 2012

2 dogs

out for a walk

in the woods, off-leash, in spring.

They have anointed me leader,

the alpha male

in a pack of 3.

Which strikes me as odd,

deficient in tooth and claw

olfaction flawed,

my 2-legged walk

at best.

Their pathetic boss

who envies and admires them,

inhabiting the permanent present

with such eager intensity.

While I find myself lost

in time,

dissecting the past

and best-laid plans,

recrimination, regrets

what might happen next.

How sad is this?

The conscious effort

to drag myself back

from inside my head,

when I should focus, instead

on them.

Their athletic beauty

and utter absorption,

the pure life force

they express.

The simple privilege of their company,

on this rugged path

on the cusp of spring.

And their mute consent

to let me walk with them,

my fitness, unquestioned

authority 
uncontested.

Here, in dog heaven

on this glorious day.

An honorary citizen

for as long as it takes.

What was actually distracting me, pulling me into my head, was this poem; which started to write itself as we walked. I think we've all experienced something similar:  walking, or driving, on auto-pilot; not remembering how we ended up where we did.

A “meta” experience like this – much like the incessant picture-taking during significant events – is most unfortunate,  a fine illustration of just how hard it is for us to fully occupy the present. Of how we detach, analyze, anticipate; listen to the running commentary and play-by-play in our heads.

The dogs, of course, are utterly immune to such nonsense. Needless to say, I envy and admire them.

Lost Causes

April 4 2012

Lost causes

accumulate somewhere.

Like odd socks

in the dryer,

dust-bunnies under the bed.

Pregnant pauses, dropped trains of thought

collect unaware,

shunted-off onto sidings

where they quietly rest.

The junk you bought

shoved back in the closet.

The harm you wrought,

or couldn't bother to care.

The eyes you caught

when you were young, and flirty.

The feeling of not

being even worthy

of looks.

The lessons taught

when the odds were long

and against.

Because history is written by the victors

while the vanquished 
lick their wounds.

Lost causes

are soon forgotten,

and noble losers doomed.

Balm

April 3 2012

I swim indoors

off-season.

Canned music

contained by concrete walls.

Kids, doing cannonballs

all kibitzing and caterwaul.

The sound, enclosed

is shrill, hard.

The light’s unnatural, but bright,

a tonic

in winter’s dark.

Well-used water

gives off

its chemical smell,

chlorine’s caustic whiff

whatever elixir

shocks it clear.

I dive head-first,

a frisson of cold

an effervescent burst.

The startling sharpness

until my goggles fog.

And the uncommon balm

of silence.

Just my heart

the pull of my arms

the surface, rhythmically breaking.

I am weightless here.

I disappear

from earth.

Which a lifeguard may notice

or not,

in her regulation singlet

flotation device

clenched tight to her chest,

as if protecting herself.

Who seems far too young

to save anyone.

To have already become

disappointed by life,

Olympic dreams

reduced to this.

Kids run on the deck

too pent-up

to resist.

She makes herself stern

tries sounding older

than she is.

So instead

they speed-walk, on tip-toe,

the letter of the law.

And she returns to watch

the grown-ups

steadily patrolling their lanes.

Swimming nowhere

back and forth

all day.

Whirligig

April 1 2012

The whirligig

is built for wind.

All spinning gears, and rattling limbs,

furious motion

going nowhere.

Weathered wood

has weathered the worst,

original paint

bleached, flaking.

The whimsical figure

with its weather vane.

Idiosyncratic art,

its maker, long forgotten.

On the family farm

that too, will soon be lost

to a trailer park, or housing tract.

Antique machinery, auctioned off,

battered barn-board

suddenly rich.

Funny how the whirligig

was worth so much

as folk art.

Highly prized

by collectors.

Who will display it proudly

inside,

protected from weather

deprived of wind.

Where the whirligig will die,

a decorous death

of uselessness.

Fondly remembered,

like old family farms

where we no longer live.

Sold

to the highest bidder.

I'm a big fan of Antiques Roadshow (the U.S. version, on PBS), where I am often astounded by the value of aesthetically simple and utilitarian objects like baskets, jugs, and folk art. “Highly prized by collectors”, as is often said on the show. The whirligig is not only a great example of this, but a wonderful word on which to hang a poem.

It seems that the simple fact of age and survival can confer exceptional value on a simple object. But also crucial is the importance of nostalgia, and of patriotism:  Americans love Americana; and in particular, stuff hand-made by working people, the salt of the earth.

What attracts me to these is not only their ingenuity, but their purity. That is, the purity of a creative act that is motivated simply by the joy of the maker, the whimsy of his imagination, and the love of idiosyncratic beauty.

Ball-Point Pen

March 31 2012

Writing longhand.

A ball-point pen

on unlined paper,

which rests

on a cluttered table

expectantly.

I am a cartographer

piecing together his map

from fragments

of other journeys,

the myths 
of fantastical worlds

where sirens sing

sea monsters lurk.

The exhilarating freedom

of the blank page

is unconstrained

by deadlines

bottom lines

a story-line.

Because a poem

on its whirlwind trip

can dispense

with beginnings, middles, and endings.

Nowhere near a novel,

where the destination’s been fixed

before the mast first dips

below the horizon,

and wooden ships

over-winter in ice

disappear

in search of spices.

A poem

comes on a whim,

short, and self-contained

no need to resolve

or explain itself.

Beginning with a blank page

that patiently waits,

mute, receptive

non-judgmental.

As I chew on my pen

sip hot black coffee

take the dog for a walk.

The smooth flow of ink.

The pleasing friction

of the hard steel ball

on the porous surface.

Leaving a trail of words

I follow, reverse

follow again,

over the edge

of the known world.

Where there are no maps,

at least not yet.

Fiercely gripping my pen,

in the hope

it carries me safely back.