Observatory
May 30 2014


At sunset today
Gotham's steel and glass
will bask in gold
its concrete canyons glow.
Its beetling traffic pause, busy people stop
to notice the sky.

When a rigid grid of roads,
super-imposed

on a rustic island
where a river widens, and slows,
lines-up with the sun.
Which drops all the way down

between high-rise towers,
sighted

down long sheer thoroughfares
aimed as straight as telescopes.
It seems gigantic, so close to earth
hovering in a shimmer of light.

New Yorkers rarely see the sky,
living in shadow
under invisible stars.
The city that contains them is closed,
a buzzing cosmopolis
exempt from nature.

But for a single day
the purifying sun
penetrates all the way down.
To battered asphalt, sticky sidewalks,
squinting passers-by

who have stopped, in surprise.

Who, for an instant
have found themselves in a vast instrument
of concrete columns, and lines of sight,

a modern Stonehenge

observing the stars.
Where their sky-scraping buildings

seem small.
Where they look down the barrel of the street, its steep-sided walls
as it tilts against the sun.
Where they can feel the planet
wheeling beneath their feet;
enormous
unstoppable.

Where they see the sun,
burning oblivious
setting as it always does.
And like awe-struck Druids
can't help but watch.

I read an article today about the twice-a-year phenomenon, infelicitously dubbed "Manhattanhenge". This is when rigid grid of Manhattan becomes an astronomical observatory, lining up precisely with the setting sun; and when I imagine its busy, self-important, and mostly oblivious inhabitants are suddenly transfixed by the beauty and enormity of nature. It happened this spring on May 29.

I return often to this theme: the puniness and insignificance of man; the indifference of nature to us. Here, I tried especially to capture that sensation when the sun is hovering on the horizon at the bottom of a long canyon-like street. How the frame of reference can suddenly shift:  the sun fixed, while you feel yourself carried on the vast inertia of this enormous planet wheeling through the sky. It's all about solipsism, humility, looking up.

Many hundreds of years on, we aren't much different than our forbears, the ancient Druids: probably as superstition, and certainly as preoccupied with erecting monuments; but having lost much of their humility, wonder, and reverence. 

Inspiration
May 26 2014


It's as if nothing is original.

Ideas appear
holus-bolus, all at once.

Like motes of dust
dizzy in a shaft of light,

drifting about
on sun-warmed currents.

Settling by chance

or there to be grabbed,
plucked from thin air.

Free to anyone
receptive enough
to see, hear, touch.
And I am the medium,
taking dictation
writing as fast as I can.

They come
like those sub-atomic particles
that have no weight or charge,
passing through matter
as if it didn't exist.
Except when they hit,
chain-reacting, in a flash of light

like pint-sized Hiroshimas

too sudden to flee.

Sometimes, annihilate,
atoms smashed to smithereens.
And sometimes, ricochet
where someone else will think.

Or that afternoon, in my seat
at the sidewalk cafe.
A flaneur, a boulevardier
breathing-in the crowd,
the smoke, and smell, and dust.

When it struck.
And all the people

in their busy rush
never noticed a thing.

I tend to forget a poem as soon as I move on to the next. So on those rare occasions when I go back and read, I'm surprised -- even bewildered -- at the quantity and variety of ideas. And grateful, of course. That's where this poem began.

And I realize it's very reminiscent of another recent piece, Brainstorm. Which is fine. Because as much as there is variety, I realize there is also very much the opposite: not only how often I repeat myself -- the same themes, the same tropes -- but also how often I plagiarize myself (if such a thing is possible!) Anyway, it's great fun to have two goes at the same thing, and see how different they turn out.

I try to keep track of where my ideas come, the convoluted paths that converge on the sun-warmed upland of thought. That's part of what these blurbs are for: to record my thought process, before it vanishes into vapour. Often, it's something I read setting off sparks. But even then, it feels as if the ideas come as gifts, and writing is simply channelling. My job is to be receptive, and to sustain a state of flow. It's as if there are millions of fully formed ideas drifting about, and they simply drop in. Which would at least explain how the same idea seems to occur simultaneously all over; as much in science and invention as in art. (And as tempting as it is to invoke some sort of collective unconscious, I'll leave that to the more mystically inclined. Although I will add that some observers insist that there are repeated instances in which lab rats on one side of the world have suddenly solved an intractable problem at nearly the same time as rats on the other side did, and raised this idea of action at a distance, or a currency of thought. And with rats, we know they didn't Google the solution! ...Anyway, with "all at once" and "ricochet", this idea gets at least a tiny nod.)

As much as anything, my greatest pleasure here was finding an excuse to use such delectable words as "holus-bolus", "smithereens", and "flaneur"! The particle I had in mind was the neutrino. Which, unlike those favoured words, never made it. Just something about "neutrino" that doesn't pop. I very intentionally used "breathing in", so "inspiration" becomes literal as well as metaphorical. And, of course, it very conveniently allowed me to call back to "dust".

I'm picturing those passers-by in the final stanza all looking down, absorbed in their screens and walking on auto-pilot. Free ideas may be drifting about, but they will never land: all those "people in their busy rush" are as insubstantial to serendipitous thought as they are to neutrinos. Both pass right through. Because the real enemy of creativity is busyness. There is much to be said for indolence, unhurried leisure, unstructured time. So when you see me lazing around all day drinking coffee and reading, I'm actually hard at work! ...Not at the sidewalk cafe, however; I prefer my lonely garret ;-) .

A Fine Mist
May 20 2014


A fine mist.
More insubstantial than fog,
which curtains from thick to thin
rolling-in
in great enveloping waves,
as impatient
as a fidgety child.

While this mist is still,
an even softening
with its own internal light.

Dilute pastels, a muted wash,
and dense air, blotting up
like thick absorbent paper.
A watercolour world,
that seems primordial
eternal
reassuringly small.

I am in a snow globe.
Its hermetic dome
containing light,
its meticulously rendered scene
too still to be real.
If it weren't for the eaves-trough
steadily dripping
time would seem infinite,
the visible world
preternaturally fixed.

 You would not think of cats' feet or a cloak of invisibility with this mist. Because it's not as kinetic as fog, nor as thick. It is fine-grained and still, like a Japanese watercolour. The light is uncannily even, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. Time seems arrested, and the world an exquisitely rendered miniature, small and fixed. 

I think there are enough allusions to colour and light in this poem that it qualifies for at least honorary entry in my on-again/off-again "colour" series.

The Grass Greens
May 15 2014


After each hard winter
I forget how quickly it turns.

Brown, thatched, patchy,
the grass greens
the first warm day.
When snow is still in the shadows,
and it's cold enough at night
for the ditches and ruts

to crust with ice.

One morning, it's sunny and green,

as if it snapped into spring

as I slept.

If only I were so hardy,
even though I'm as hungry for sun
as tenaciously rooted;
and even though I, too
spent the dark season
hunkered underground.

I can see where the mice nested;
tufts of grass and thread,
matted fur
the shaggy dog shed.
The worn trails
where they silently scurried
under warm layers of snow.

Except for the explorers and entrepreneurs,
the adventurous few
who slipped under the door
after warmth and food.
And quickly fell prey,
my baited traps
the cat lying in wait.

Because winter takes its toll.
Leaving me
a little older,
skin pale, body weak.
And scattered patches of dead grass,
straw against the green.


I resist every time I feel the urge to write one of my so-called "nature" poems. But I live an uneventful life on the edge of a forest; so this is what I see, and what comes to mind. So every once in awhile, I relent. "Write what you know" they say; and I have to admit, it feels good!

This is a classic lyric poem: a description of nature, run through with subjective feeling and experience ("an intense personal quality expressive of feeling or emotion in music or poetry" -- Merriam Webster).

What caught my attention is actually how slow it is to green out here: all the lawns in the city seem to have turned from one day to the next, and I can almost hear the lawnmowers roaring. But here, it's unseasonably cold and spring unusually slow; and well into it, the grass still has that brown thatched look, desolate and drained.

I particularly like the power of using "green" as a verb. And also at the end of a line, where it especially resonates. And so the choice of title.

There are observations about mice and grass; which in turn say more about me, a decided homebody: how the survivors are rooted, while the casualties are the impatient and brave adventurers.

Do I protest too much by saying that "body weak" is more poetic licence than fact? Because really, I don't actually spend all winter in lazy dormancy! ...Although the poem is a rumination on the relentless passage of time, the slow toll of age.

(And while I'm claiming poetic licence, let me make it clear that there is no cat. Cats creep me out. I'm a fiercely partisan dog person, after all!)

In Transit
May 14 2014


In transit
having left, and not yet arrived
the usual rules of time
are on hold.

You relinquish control
to the law of physics,
the density
of invisible air.
To pilots, controllers
navigational webs.

The world spins
and you are temporarily exempt
from its forward motion.
Where life is suspended
and time feels heavy
and you have to let go.

At any given moment
half a million souls
have lifted off;
a good sized city,
out of touch
with solid ground.
Idle time
which doesn't strictly count.

Except when an early birth

jerks us back

to the real world.
A squalling girl

emerging into this small curved space,

her first breath

dry recycled air.
And then again, an alien
when she first arrives

on earth.
Who will be different, ethereal
a little mysterious
the rest of her life.

And where some

will unexpectedly die.
A dead body
discreetly stowed
in a cold cramped lavatory,
where a mile-high couple
may have just made love.

But mostly, a mid-sized city

high above the clouds,

whose inhabitants

are dispersed into thousands of planes

kept aloft

night and day,

scrolling computers, pretending to sleep
crying babies
and too much to drink.
And when they land
another half a million souls
are taking their place, assuming their trust;
their lives on hold
30,000 feet up.


In flight, in transit, time has a different quality: almost as if it doesn't count. "Free time " becomes more than metaphorical. And there is a fatalism, a ceding of control, that I think is especially liberating for tightly wound type-As. I have this feeling of "letting go" whenever I'm aloft, since I'm powerless no matter what: that is, letting go after the white-knuckling of lift-off is done!

This poem began when I read an article on in-flight medical emergencies. The fact that stuck with me was that in modern aviation there are always about half a million people in the air above earth: a good-sized city continuously aloft; and all those people in a similar suspended state. I thought back to 9/11, when the sky over the US was abruptly closed, and this small principality of 500,000 people were suddenly stateless, landless, stuck at 30,000 feet. (OK, not that many, since it was only aviation over North America that was shut down.)

In the article, he also talked about births and deaths in the air: that dead bodies are covered with a blanket, or stowed in an "out-of-order" washroom, or -- in the case of meticulous Singapore Airlines -- dispatched to a purpose-made corpse locker. I couldn't help but contrast these cataclysmic life events with the usual numb boredom of air travel. As in any real city, the tediously and obliviously diurnal co-exists with high drama.

The more I read it, the more I like "assuming their trust". I confess that it was originally only there because I needed a rhyme -- love, above, and up needed a 4th. Because who hasn't succumbed to the superstitious feeling that the only way this heavier-than-air machine can be kept aloft is by a collective act of will? Concentrate, or we may very well plummet to earth! It calls back to "the density/ of invisible air": giving the poem a nice concluding sense of coming full circle.

Interrobang
May 11 2014


The exclamation mark
is a loaded spring

lifting off the page.
And the little dot its bulls-eye

nailed.
“Hooray”, it seems to say
with a winsome wink,

clenched fist, punching air
first across the finish.
Pleading “please, come dance with me

in my victory parade.”

But sometimes, they're chicken scratch
scattered over the page,

indifferent to the power
of scarcity, restraint.

Like rampant inflation

gold standard, debased,

with careless abandon

exclaiming bad taste.

“And so yesterday”, I yawn.
The newest bauble
is the interrobang,
a question mark, eyebrow raised quizzically,
followed by the exclamation's
vertical slash.
That takes you by the hand
and declares, emphatically
“how witty is that?!!”

I was reading an article that had, shall we say, a rather idiosyncratic use of punctuation. Except I found myself tongue-tied for the word "punctuation" (one of those moments that leave one alarmed about impending senility). So when I eventually came up with it a few seconds later, I rolled the word around on my tongue with a feeing of vindication and reassurance. And found I really liked the "punchy" sound of the word. Writing a "punctuation" poem might be fun, I thought.

I use the unfairly maligned (and too frequently misused) semi-colon more than anyone else I read. But my beloved semi-colons aren't fun. While the most abused bit of punctuation -- especially in this era of email and texting, where communication is conversational but not face-to-face -- is the exclamation mark. I'm guilty of this myself: trying to enlist the reader in my own enthusiasm; or sometimes jumping up and down to point out -- in case they missed it -- how brilliantly witty I just was. There is a kind of triumphalism in the exclamation mark: in the poem, the triumphal wink of having nailed it!

Ever since I discovered the word "interrobang" a few years ago (which, btw, is not new at all; I believe it was coined sometime in the 50s), I've loved the word. And it's also a bit of punctuation I, too, am prone to overuse. Once I got into this poem and found myself stuck, it became a great way to find my way out.

Cute Brown Dog
May 10 2014


My cute brown dog
has no category for colour
no use for judging.

She caught her reflection, the other day
and made a bee-line
for the adjacent room,
sniffing out
this strange canine intruder.

So she doesn't grasp physics.
Is mercifully free

of vanity.
But more than that, has absolutely no idea
what she looks like;
that she is embodied, at all.

Because she never questions
herself.
She exists unselfconsciously,
all her senses
extending out into the world,

as existentially pure
as a Buddhist monk.

If she assumes anything, it must be she looks like me.
Because this is how we are, and have always been;
the two of us
as far back as she remembers,
best of buddies
2 puppies at heart.

One who is slower, taller
often perplexing.
And the other
the one in charge.

Are dolphins the only animal that recognize their own reflection? Elephants, probably. Primates, I'm not sure. But this sense of self -- this self-aware individuality, this grasp of agency playing out in the glass -- is clearly a sign of higher intelligence.

So it's no surprise that dogs don't get mirrors. And while I admire her lack of vanity, I've always recognized that it's more about her limitations than any moral choice. But before this incident, I never truly realized that she has absolutely no idea what she looks like. I suppose I always assumed that she must imagine she's pretty similar to the dogs with whom she plays. After all, she sees them, and sees her own four legs, her tail; scratches her ears and licks her unmentionables. But on thinking deeper, I realize she imagines nothing: because there is no category in her worldview, her intelligence, her cognitive framework for such a mental exercise to be either worthwhile or meaningful. "Imagining" is not the business of dogs. And perhaps this is even more admirable than a lack of vanity: because there is something pure about such an utter lack of introspection and existential angst; about simply living with serene unquestioning acceptance. ...All of which is a wordy way of saying what we all know and love: that dogs live in the moment.

And then I thought -- as it says in the poem -- that if anything, she must think she looks like me. Because I have always been there, and we have always been inseparable. As am I in our world, so too must she.

How unfortunate, if she feels this way. Because she is a gorgeous chocolate Lab; and I'm ...well, a middle aged guy -- enough said! One who does a lot of strange perplexing things, at least from a dog's point of view: cleaning house, picking up poo, sitting in front of the TV. Nominally in charge; but not really. Which is one thing I suspect she does know: one flash of those puppy eyes, and I melt!

One-Way Ratchet
May 7 2014


The one-way ratchet
turns, and catches
screwing down,
click, click, click
it crushes, grips.

Until it slips, in quick release
thread strips clean,
a hammer throw
linchpin cleaved.
As if the universe
no longer holds,
orbiting bodies flying off, scattershot
like shrapnel.

All my life
preconceived,
burning bridges, blinkered gaze.

Then whip-sawed free;
too elated
to be afraid.

In an article about crime and punishment, the author used this terrific analogy, comparing the prison system to a one-way ratchet. I immediately recalled the feeling of going one click too far, and being unable to back-track; when the more I fiddle about trying to disengage, the tighter it ends up.

But really, the poem began simply with the wonderful mouth feel of those words: "one-way ratchet". There are many ways to describe and dissect poetry. There are rhyme and rhythm and meaning and form and big ideas. There is musicality, shock, neologism, agit-prop. But I've never heard anyone except food scientists talk about "mouth feel". And yet this is the way I navigate my way through writing: reciting and responding with not only my ear, but my lips and tongue. Perhaps this is a poor man's version of synaesthesia: a pleasing conflation of sound and touch.

So it began as a playful word-play poem; and then ended up saying something about the power of choice and the paradox of freedom.

Brainstorm
May 6 2014


The brainstorm starts
in a far-off thunderhead,
black anvil cumulus

electric heart.
How ominous
when the barometer fell, temperature dropped.

How unsettled I felt,
pressurized thought
like dammed-up static charge.

Fireworks 

went off in my head,
spewing words
like comets, sparklers, exploding stars.

Synapses crackling with light,
concussion bombs
that left me deaf, and blind.

The page was a mess,
red lines, and palimpsest
illegible scrawl.
Rejected sheets, tightly balled
hurled like hailstones.

We sat around the table
to problem-solve.
"Brainstorming", they called it,
slumped in our chairs
well after dark,
cold coffee
in paper cups.

In the aftermath
of sturm und drang
the world washed clean, 
my body sagging
mind at peace.

The unnatural silence, blue-rinse sky,

rain-drenched earth

steaming dry.

And then
a flutter of leaves

a freshening gust.

And just as suddenly, sun.

There is nothing more to this poem than seeing the word -- brainstorm -- and suddenly falling in love with it. (Or if not love, then a passing infatuation!) I had this immediate image of fireworks going off in my head, and felt compelled to see what I could do with it. The brain is, after all, an electric device -- synapses sizzling like lightning bolts, axons firing, neurones building up charge.

There is also something about the creative act here: the intensity and absorption you feel, oblivious to time and space. I live for this experience, and have heard many writers/artists concur: that feeling of flow, of channelling; like taking dictation, or watching your hand paint by itself. To the onlooker, nothing's doing. But meanwhile, worlds are exploding in your head. This is something external, and bestowed like a gift: as the Greek was visited by his muse, and the Roman his genius.

(On re-reading the poem, I'm starting to wonder about another subtext, completely unintended. After all, doesn't that last part -- the " pressure relieved, body sagging, mind at peace" -- sound an awful lot like after sex; the spent lethargic pleasure, lounging in bed? ...Just saying!)

Marked
May 5 2014


Back when tattoos
were for circus people  
and sailors on leave
and mommy's boys
declaring their permanent love.

When a man's biceps popped
emblazoned with scrimshaw.
And the tattooed lady
was dangerously erotic.
And the jail-house artist
did it for smokes,
respectable folks
kept their God-given bodies
baby-bottom pure.

I'm not sure how she felt,

defiant?

       …transgressive ?

                               …regretful ?

It was on her left breast,
under her bra, over her heart
only her lover saw.
And a gentleman doesn't talk,
except to say
it was small, and beautiful.

We are all marked, scarred
scarified,
terrified
to let our secrets slip.
So what a privilege to see
her naked truth.
Her perfect breasts, golden skin,
the sins of youth
revealed.

She was a high-wire act, circus rider,
the tattooed lady
I so desired.
And with wordless tongue
I professed my love,
left my indelible mark.


I was listening to a TED talk about language: how texting is the first written language that comes closest to speech, and how some linguists have seen it as a rare opportunity to observe an entirely new language evolve in real time. He said he'd like to return in 20 years and see what happens. My immediate thought was that he'll find it long gone and unlamented, like any fad, as dead as Aztec: after all, since I have no use for it, and find it clumsy and unsatisfying, why would anyone else? Obviously, this is one of those generational things, and I'm an old curmudgeon, fuming on the sidelines.

The other generational thing that immediately came to mind was body art: piercings, tattoos. In my day, tattoos were transgressive and rare, and they marked you indelibly in terms of class and taste, not to mention bad judgement. Social class may no longer apply; but taste and judgement sure do. Daily, in the men's change room at the gym, I am exposed to these horribly ugly tattoos, amazed that people would want to so publicly and luridly proclaim their terrible taste.

So I thought it might be fun to write about tattoos. And I also -- unproductively, as it turned out -- thought it might be a handy way of continuing my "colour" series. I came close: "emblazoned with scrimshaw" was originally "with multi-coloured scrimshaw"; and there is, after all, "golden" skin. Other than that, the best I could do was "marked"!

I had no idea it would become a slightly erotic love poem. The turning point was thinking back to my university days, when tattooing oneself was unheard of. I recalled a couple of brave guys getting a small school crest inscribed on a butt cheek. Which is how it was done, way back then: private, discreet, only seen by one's intimates. Of course, a woman's breast is a lot more interesting that a man's butt. And so it went.

...Actually, I find tattoos extremely unsexy: the same superficial supercilious judgment, I guess, that makes me react just as badly to poor grammar and lazy spelling. (Which, come to think of it, brings me full circle back to texting!)

Coming of Age
May 4 2014

To be angry, and young
is what's expected.

At the old men
who run world.
At the parents
who circumscribe yours.
At authority, in general,
because you grew up on heroes

who refused to bend.

Just wait, they said
you'll see how it works,
we all settle, accept
lose our edge.
And now, looking back
you were hardly a rebel,
while the world never noticed
you were here.

You're not even angry at death,

just fearful, curious, annoyed.
Thinking back
to the self-righteous boy
who thought himself invincible.
Who thought he would rage, rage
at the end,
not fade away, invisible,
weighed down
by frailty, regret
betrayal.

It was love, not anger
you wish to proclaim,
but the young are too busy
to listen.

This poem began with a piece by Sarah Hampson in my daily paper, a writer whose work I usually enjoy and admire. I thought I'd share it with her, and emailed it along with this short letter:

Your piece about Marina Keegan in the Globe (May 2) inspired this poem.

You wrote about watching her perform her poetry on YouTube and being reminded of her English Professor Anne Fadiman's introductory quote: "a nimbus of angry energy". Your brief retelling of her life evokes exactly that: the anger, idealism, and confidence of youth. I couldn't help but think how much anger belongs to the young – self-righteous, eyes blazing.

You don't speak for all of us boomers when you lament the blunting of creativity and activism in middle age, but the generalization rings true. Perhaps there is a convergence in old age, when the idealism turns to disillusion, but is leavened with wisdom and understanding. I think the old man in this poem admires his younger self, but regrets his youthful impatience.

Black

May 3 2014

The little black dress

a simple set of pearls.

Strappy heels,

flattering her legs, her ass

her silhouette.

The hem

not too sexy, not too prim,

sheer against her skin.

The simple elegance

of the little black dress

is beyond fashion.

Because it’s not a matter

of obsolescence, or status

or the thrill of the new.

And every woman has one

or better had.

I will always remember her

that way,

a magnet for the male gaze

her power over men.

All eyes

under her sway.

The air in the room

electric.

Back to the "colour" series. When I thought about "black", "little black dress" came immediately to mind. Except having written a "little black dress" poem several years ago, I didn't initially think I was entitled to appropriate that topic again. And then I thought, why not? I've often revisited a theme. It's a great chance to see if my writing is improving, stagnant, regressing. And a great chance to finally get it right!

My first impression (I'm writing this blurb after the first draft) is that there's a lot to like about this piece.

It's short, punchy, clever. (And that's something already, because "short" is always a challenge for me!)

It says something important: how I despise fashion, and for exactly the reasons I listed -- the wastefulness of obsolescence; novelty for its own sake; and the competition for status and exclusivity, set paradoxically against the human compulsion to fit in. It's a challenge to say important and even complicated things in a poem without seeming didactic or pretentious, and while keeping it short, distilled, musical. Here, it seems to work in all those ways. The timelessness of the little black dress is the antithesis of fashion.

And I like how the poem becomes personal. I use the first person as much as I can. I have a tendency to intellectualize everything: that is to be analytical, detached, impersonal. The first person forces me to be more intimate, and I think it conveys to the reader a compelling sense of authenticity and immediacy. So the last stanza introduces a bit of mystery, while turning a basically descriptive poem into a story. And tantalizing in the way that the best short stories are: the end not fully resolved, the reader left to her own imagination.

I rarely use highly colloquial language; and even more rarely do I use "bad" words. But I think "ass" works really well here. The rhyme is a gift, of course. It fits the tone of the poem. It's sexy, and a little transgressive. And it certainly gets attention, making it hard for the reader to turn the page.

Pool
May 2 2014


Sitting at the river's edge
where it quickens, sharply bends,
slip-streams rocks
eddies in back of them.
Chatters against the outside bank,
carving
into hard glacial till.

The sound of moving water
has always comforted men.
All day, you can sit
and it's inexhaustible,
like an hourglass
that never runs down.
As if time had stopped, and you could endlessly watch
hypnotically gurgling by.
Forgetting how
in the doldrums of summer
it nearly runs dry.

And where it widens
running smooth and quiet
you could swear it was still,
a secluded pool
brooding
in its cool black depths.

Mostly, I'm the rapids,
my life, white water

racing quickly past.

My attention scattered
except for brief flashes
of recognition.
A kind of funnel, sieving through
my tightly cupped hands,

grasping
at what seemed to matter, then.

But when I mind
I'm the container.
Diving all the way down,
feeling blindly
through drowned branches

silt and sand

airless mud.
River rock
the eons wore smooth.

Where flotsam and jetsam
drift slowly downstream.
Their barely discernible motion
the only way I know
that even here, time flows,
the hourglass
inexorably empties.

On a recent episode of CBC radio's cultural showpiece "Q", regular contributor Torquil Campbell reflected unhappily on the ubiquitous smart phone, mourning how we are increasingly allowing ourselves to be distracted to death, to become more and more "narcissistic and stupid" (his words, not mine!)

He spoke eloquently about how our devices interrupt, intrude, disrupt; how they take away those empty moments of clarity and reflection and introspection and interior stillness. And how we construct a self-referential, self-affirming on-line universe that reflects exactly who we are, and so deprive ourselves of serendipity, of a wider world. (All this is paraphrase and near quote, listening again to the podcast as I write; so all credit to Campbell for all of the above.)

The analogy that really struck me was this: "you are creating yourself (sic) as a funnel instead of a container":  passively and impotently watching as life pours by; all surface, little depth.  Perhaps not many of us are inclined to introspection; but pretty much everyone is too rushed, time-starved, terminally busy for it anyway. I have the privilege of time; and I'm very much inclined to the interior life. This poem is an expression of gratitude for that. This is interwoven with a rumination on perceptions of time, as well as the existential dilemma of mortality.

Of course, I don’t have a smart phone, live most of the time where internet is unavailable, and prefer solitude. So perhaps I’m living proof of his thesis:  that cutting oneself off from the distraction and intrusion of this ubiquitous connectivity opens up space.

I love rivers, and water is a powerful recurring trope in my work. Especially how they run and run, seemingly inexhaustible. I spent the best years of my young adult life kayaking white-water, canoeing the back country. So it was pretty inevitable that funnel and container would transmogrify in a small rapid and a still pool.

The river bottom is a metaphor for psychological depth: the accumulation of silt, the darkness of mud, the dead airless things you keep as secrets. And the jagged edges, smoothed by time. When Campbell first said funnel, I saw water rushing through it. And then I saw an hourglass with its clear constricted middle, sand speeding up as it funnels into the pinch:  measuring time, while watching your life race by.

(An apology to the pedantic and punctilious reader, who will realize that jetsam is the stuff that flows just beneath the surface; so I suppose it's really only flotsam you can watch float slowly downstream! But "flotsam" doesn't seem to work without the whole familiar expression; so "flotsam and jetsam" it is. As well, I've gone and interrupted the "colour" series. Which may or may not be at an end. Time will tell.)

Pink
May 1 2014


The trouble with pink
is like the pipsqueak in the playground,
pushed around
by the primary colours.
Too pastel, pastiche,
a pale imitation
of the real thing.

Pink is watered down
namby-pamby.
While red is manly,
the stuff of blood and war.
And red is randy,
perfusing lips, flushed skin
and other unmentionables.

They paint prisons pink
to placate the inmates.
And there is princess pink
of little girls at play.
But a man in pink
is a serenely confident statement
-- I am secure
in my masculinity,
with a soft sensitive side.

My pink tie
knotted, pressed
slips up around my neck.
Her certain hands
deftly cinching it tight.

The latest addition to the "colour" series.

In the late 19th century, when this custom was conceived, boys were assigned pink, girls blue. Because pink was a watered down version of red, the manly colour of war. While blue was the sky -- innocuous and omnipresent, always there in the background. I have no idea how or when they became inverted; but today, pink is so thoroughly feminized that men are reluctant to even be seen in it.

This was a silly fun poem to write. "P"s are great for alliteration. And the slightly bemused confused man, who is brave enough to wear pink, but under the thumb of a take-charge woman, can't help but elicit a sympathetic smile.