I Am Winter
Jan 29 2015


I am winter,
my temperament stillness
my passion cool.

Where the permanence of cold
holds time at bay,
its congealed grip
its brittle strength.
And snow blankets the world
concealing its ugliness;
then wind-whipped, forgives
begins afresh.
The season ruled by night,
its balm of dark
enclosing me,
transparent sky
to the edge of space.

My pace is almost hypnotic,

as I walk

lost in thought

on freshly fallen snow,

so dry and cold, every step squeaks

as if in protest.

Then turn for home,

the trail cresting

moon setting
and clear air, on a high pressure system
barrelling-in from the west.

On a height of land

the view stretching for miles,

where I stop to rest

and the wind goes dead
and the woods in precious silence.
Bundled-up
in fleece and wool and down,
I have walked this far
only to stop
immersed in stillness,
my torrent of thought

mercifully calmed,

whip-sawed feelings

softening.

Clocks move slower
near the speed of light.
But the laws of physics
say nothing of winter
or moonless nights.
When molecules hardly vibrate

and the world is rendered soundless.
Too dark
for time to even count.

About halfway through writing this, I was pretty much resigned to calling it an exercise and filing it in the trash. Sometimes this is worthwhile: I can come up with a good line, and set it aside for some future work; I can help exhaust my tendency to over-write, which may make my next poem better. But I think I may have rescued this one.

And it's true: winter very much suits my temperament. I find the darkness comforting. I like how things slow down (not unexpected in someone so averse to change!) I love having an excuse to hibernate. I find the cold refreshing, bracing. ...And need I mention the absence of bugs?!!

I think my favourite part is this: The season ruled by night,/ its balm of darkness/ enclosing me. Ruled and balm really nail what I wanted to convey; and the idea of enclosure -- of containment, of being held -- brings it home.

I also like the push-pull of having walked this far/ only to stop. It illustrates the pointlessness -- and therefore the point -- of walking a trail: you're not going anywhere; there is no objective, and nothing to accomplish, but the thing itself.

Count works well as a double entendre: to [even] count as in tallying, and to count as in mattering. I'm pleased to have the poem end on a strong verb, as well as a word that packs significance.

The basic themes here are nothing new for me: the perception of time ...a lyric observation of nature ...allusions to a turbulent interior life. And some of the imagery I've used before. But still, it's an OK poem that puts it all together in a new and different way.

Sanctuary

Jan 28 2015

You notice the trees, when you've been away.
How they’ve towered and spread
and the house seems smaller, weathered
vulnerable,
seems to have settled into earth
as if it, too
had grown there.

The paint is peeling, faded
showing its age.
The shingles are stained
from dark tannins, dammed-up rain,
leaves, decomposing
in sagging gutters, badly plugged.
And the grass, thinned by shade
is sparser, tougher.
Gnarled roots
knuckle-up from the soil
like gothic horrors,
rough, and muscular.

When I departed
the place looked raw, the house exposed,
a bull-dozed tract
of sun-bleached grass
beyond the suburbs.
Now, under cool shade
and looming trees
it somehow seems warmer, cosier
welcoming.

And I feel old
to see how much they've grown,
how fast time passed
unnoticed.
But there are compensations, to ageing.
The beauty of this place
in graceful decline.
The saplings, I long ago planted
now giants.
And a home
where memory resides,
a rootless man
finds refuge.


The newest in a very long list of tree poems. As well as another very long list of poems about age, regret, melancholy.

My heating oil tanks had to be changed. My old ones were perfectly good, but they had passed the 10 year mark, and no one would certify them safe. The waste, arbitrariness and astronomical expense were incredibly annoying. But the passage of time was what was truly shocking. Until I checked the paperwork, it seemed as if I had just had those "old" tanks installed. And when the same guys came to do the work -- in a freezing wind in a cold January -- one commented on how he remembered the trees almost as saplings, and how startling it was to see how much they'd grown. It was as if my subjective sense of time (like his) was way off; unlike trees, which do not deceive, but stand like sentinels of the hard truth. ...Or maybe not so hard, since trees improve with age, along with the view.

I spend too much energy fretting about growing old (which sounds at least a little more positive than "getting" old!) And society/culture certainly reinforce that message. But there is also much to be said in favour of age and maturity. Which is the point of this poem. Yeah, the place is older; but it's improved. Have I, as well?

I think my favourite bit is settled into earth/ as if it, too/ had grown there. I like the personification of the roots as gothic and muscular. And also the final two lines: the call-back to "roots", and ending on the powerful word refuge. In the middle, there is a nice through-line of rhyme: just enough that it flows, but doesn't seem heavy-handed or over-stylized. If you hadn't noticed -- and I hope you didn't -- it goes plugged, gutters, tougher, knuckle, rough, muscular, sun, suburbs. And just now, on re-reading, I was surprised to notice how well house and vulnerable work together, sharing the same unusual vowel sound. (At least for Canadians; doesn't work with the American pronunciation of "house"!)

As always, the poem is not autobiographical. The place was never a bull-dozed tract (at last not when I bought it), and it's lot closer to wilderness than subdivision. There were always mature trees; just not so close to the house. And I never left -- the last man you'd ever call rootless! (It could us a coat of paint and a good gutter-cleaning, though ...and the lawn sure leaves a lot to be desired!)

Singularity
Jan 26 2015


In grade school science
we crowded around a cow's brain,

shoving, inching

sidling in.

Ooh'd and aah'd

at the water-logged lump

glistening red.

A respectful gaze,

as ancient hunters honour their prey

leave no waste.

A noble animal, sacrificed
for the sake of instruction,
which I would never have thought
eating roast beef, on Sunday.

Gratitude

to a slaughter-house animal

I'd always taken for granted
as plastic-wrapped meat.

I recall how special this felt,
the sense of reverence
at so deep a mystery, revealed.
That an object so small
could contain such power,
an immense animal
in a few pounds of flesh.
But mostly, how fragile it was
and therefore us;
squishily quivering
in a kitchen bowl,
like jello
that never fully set.

Now, my questions are deeper
my awe more profound.

And I feel all the more
how fragile we are.

Each of us
in possession of the most complicated thing
in the known universe,
sloshing skin-deep
beneath its brittle bone.
Carotids, like fire-hose
the skull's sharpened edge.

I imagine how mind
arises from matter,
consciousness
from a clump of cells.

How all reality
is virtual,
reconstructed
in neurochemistry
in 3 lbs of meat.
The world as seen
from a darkened cavern
enclosed in the head.

How trillions of cells
must be errorless,
prune, reconnect
remember, forget
understand, and affect,
but with no sense of themselves
or how it all works.

Not just improbable birth
through countless matings, accidents

random chance,

but the ghost in the machine
as unique
as we are.

Gazing at our small grey brains
is like observing ourselves
in a hall of mirrors.
Seeing only the surface

of unfathomable depth.
And even then,
nothing but virtual
tricks of light.



I set out want to write something about the brain. Which started off well enough -- by which I mean small -- but kind of got out of hand!

We take delight in mystery. We seek out moments of transcendence and wonder. We see magic in easily explicable things. Yet we need look no further than what we carry around every day in own heads: the most complicated, mysterious, magical, and awe-inspiring object in the entire universe! 7 billion of them, and counting; all right here, on this minuscule speck of a planet. While our telescopes are all pointing out and our microscopes in, as if amazing things can only be exotic, remote, impossible. The dullest and least interesting human being ever born is still in possession of the most sophisticated and complex object anywhere, ever.

(The word "awesome" would be perfect here. Or at least in its traditional sense of "inspiring awe". Unfortunately, like much of language, it's been debased by over-use and word inflation. So now, a good cup of coffee is "awesome, man". And writers like me are left with fewer superlatives and thinner language from which to choose.)

There are a few great mysteries that may never be solved.

What happens after we die?

Is there a purpose to life? Or is all of biology simply an accident in an inorganic cosmos, driven -- for as long as it lasts -- by the meaningless imperative of survival and reproduction? In man's relentless search for explanation, this is the fundamental "why" behind all the "why's" repeatedly asked. (Although I guess only an atheist would wonder about this. Believers have their explanation ready-made; and for them, faith, as proof, is good enough.)

What is the nature of consciousness? Is it a meaningless epiphenomenon of the brain as it carries out its vegetative functions? Or are intelligence and self-awareness not only instrumental, but inevitable? Are mind and brain indivisible? Or is there a soul, a duality between the two? At what point does the singularity of self-awareness occur: is there a critical mass of cells, a key revelation, a paradigm shift from cognition to feeling? (In other words, is it only a matter of time before robots become sentient?!!) Which, in turn, leads to questions of free will and moral agency.

All of which is ridiculously complicated to address in the sparse language of poetry!

And little of which I try to address here. But I do touch on the duality of mind and brain, the slipperiness of perception, the mystery of consciousness, and the wonder of "self". And how this brilliant organ can produce great works of art, can peer into the depths of atoms, while having no inkling of itself. As I said, tough subjects for poetry. ...Although if you've read this far, perhaps I haven't totally failed.

I called it Singularity because this is one way to think of the dawning of consciousness, of self-awareness. It alludes to the ultimate mystery of brain giving rise to mind, as well as our unique individuality. And thus to the nature of self; which may seem obvious, but is really a spectacular mystery (and as frustrating as a Möbius strip!) That is, "why am I me, and not someone else?"

(I'm not sure if that brain was, in fact, red. You'd think grey, as in grey matter. But I strongly recall a kind of washed-out pink colour. Let me know, if you do. Let's see how good memory and perception are, 50 years on.)

Succession
Jan 22 2015


Wild blueberries grow
in the blackened scars
cleared by fire,
in eerie silence, acrid smell

a sign of life.
Under charred trees
in scorched soil,
where shrivelled roots, starved of light, begin to die.

The way raw earth
on a freshly dug grave
quickly greens,
invading weeds
fill vacant space.

Wild berries
are small, dark, intense.
At the peak of ripeness
I rake my fingers
through green confetti leaves,
and they fall, easily
into open hands.
Unless there's been bears,
bushes stripped
where they gorged,
blueberry scat
like posted warnings.

And now, in the depth of winter
I mine the freezer
where they were frozen, fresh,
for pancakes, porridge
banana bread.
Or straight, by the handful.
Blue-stained fingers
as in summers past.

The succession of seasons
is like the inexorable greening
in the wake of fire.
As bushes, to trees
aspen to pine,
winter leads to spring
and summer follows.
August heat
another crop.

As is often the case, the desire to write -- all caffeinated, and immersed in words -- but no idea what. So I suppose there is something to be said for snacking, since it was my "famous" blueberry/flax/banana bread that handed me an obvious subject, and one I'm surprised I hadn't already honoured. Because who doesn't love blueberries? And after my rant about climate change (Contented Frogs), it's a relief to return to my usual preference for microcosm -- for the diurnal and small.

Several things I think work well in this poem.

In the opening stanza, I was playing around with overwrought words like "barrens" and "wasteland". But eerie silence, acrid smell is so much better: not only does it show instead say, it recruits both sound and smell: a nice complement to my usual emphasis on the visual.

I like green confetti leaves. It started as small, green leaves. But "small" is not only anodyne, it appeared just 3 lines before; and when confetti somehow came to me, I realized that it was the perfect description of those little leaves.

Earlier, in the same stanza, it's an omission that pleases me, because it not only required the discipline of less is more, it made me renounce a clever rhyme (and if nothing else, I always like to show off cleverness!) It was originally Unlike their farmed counterparts/ wild berries are small, dark, intense. Which I found not only a bit digressive, but a lot less punchy. This way, the line better reflects the sharpness of small, dark, intense.

And since I'm confessing my weakness for the clever rhyme, I might as well note a delectable one here: gorged ...warnings ...porridge. It was originally "oatmeal", and took me a awhile to realize why porridge slipped in so much more mellifluously!

I know blue-stained fingers is pretty prosaic, not to mention obvious. But again, it's the use of all the senses that pleases me: in this case touch, because you feel this as much as see it -- cool, sticky, wet. Just as hands -- and hence touch -- preceded it in rake my fingers, and open hands, and straight, by the handful.

Inexorable seems to be one of my favourite words, insinuating itself into nearly every other poem! Maybe it's the sound. Or maybe the way the sound, to me, seems to contain its meaning. (I think it's that short "e", which almost invites you to draw it out.) Or maybe it's the idea of inexorability itself: slow, irreversible, almost predetermined. There is a powerful feeling of inertia and inevitability in the word. Here, as well, it conveniently picks up the short "e" of succession.

The theme of this poem is a familiar trope with me: discerning patterns; taking comfort in cycles, natural rhythms, predictability. It didn't start out that way. But as I began by considering the succession of plants in a regenerating forest, and then later found myself eating blueberries out of season, it was natural to think of seasons the same way: one following the other, as predictable and timeless as the succession of plants in a burnt landscape. And so the poem pulled together, found its form. Although really, all I wanted to write about was blueberries; and all I had in my mind's eye were those blue-stained fingers!

Of course, any blueberries you find in my freezer will be found pre-packaged from the supermarket: they may be wild; but sure weren't picked by me!

(A note for any foresters and botanists and boreal forest fans. I think jack-pine precedes aspen. But aspen (along with the other predominant deciduous tree, birch) definitely precedes white pine. So I think the poem is technically accurate. And if not, then I can always claim poetic license!) 

My Mother's Purse
Jan 20 2015


My mother's purse --
which some would call a handbag
or pocketbook
but never her --
has always seemed bottomless,
with its many small compartments
partitions
darkened depths.

The unplumbed mysteries
of the fairer sex.
Which she lugs everywhere,
tipping slightly left
from the heft
of the big leather bag.

With a compact purse
for fancy events,
clutched against a formal dress
in her folded hand.
Essentials like lipstick, cigarettes
a spritz of scent,
fresh Kleenex
in case of emergency.
The ubiquitous tissue
every mother seems to have.

I'm afraid the fully-packed purse
is the affectation
of a generation that soon will pass,
like stiffly sprayed hair
fashionable hemlines.
Women today
carry tablets, and all-purpose phones
wear backpacks, and unisex clothes
but will never own
the indispensable bag.
Unlike the woman of a certain age
who would never be seen without.

I have never transgressed
the sanctum sanctorum
of my mother's purse,
never explored
its mysterious depths.
Its supple leather, well-worn strap.
Its brassy clasp
snapping shut.

Which will accompany her
to the very end
then be left to us,
her scent, lingering
the familiar things
she once touched.
Who will rummage through it
I can't be sure,
resting, on the bedside table
where she kept it
close at hand.

For the first time in her life
left behind.
And also the last.

The first thing I'm compelled to say is that my mother doesn't smoke, and pretty much never did. So I'll claim poetic licence for having sacrificed accuracy to an irresistible rhyme.

I'm not sure the tone of this poem is consistent, and so not really sure if it works. Because it starts off with a rather amused sentimentality, but then takes a somewhat morbid turn.

I usually record in these blurbs the often convoluted and mysterious process of thought that led me to a poem: getting it down before I forget. Because I find it's interesting, and sometimes instructive, for me to remember. And it often acts as a kind of diary of my days, as well as a record of my intellectual and interior life. Not to mention that I think it might bring the reader a little insight into the often bizarre workings of my mind! But here, I have absolutely no idea -- even though I write this having finished the final edit of the first draft. Was it just a big handbag suddenly appearing in my mind's eye? And then a reflection on that oddly inscrutable term, "pocketbook"?

Is the post-mortem handbag woman's work? Will it be left to one of my sisters-in-law to rummage through, to risk violating my mother's privacy? As I said, I have no idea. But I hope it will be a good long while before I find out.

Contented Frogs

Jan 19 2015

Some frogs do jump
as the water is brought to a boil.
But most grow somnolent
in the slowly warming bath,
squat green bodies
simmering on their pads.

To be alarmist, or apathetic
as the greenhouse steams up?
As oceans grow acid
diversity dies?
As croplands wither
and water goes higher?
As a brilliant planet
is no longer resilient
enough to survive?

But if there's nowhere left to land
why jump from the pan
into the fire?
And when the blanket of gas
has already been trapped
hasn't inertia
already fried us?
Have the feedback effects
of permafrost thaw, and loss of albido
made it futile to set
enforceable limits?

Especially when we have our precious stuff, our small ambitions,
our presumption that things
will stay much as the present.
When even now, in our daily struggles
we can barely keep heads
from going under?

Every day
a tiny bit hotter
craning our necks
in the rising water.

So we all agree

to stay a bit longer,

enjoy the unseasonable warmth. 

Contented frogs

wallowing in our waste,
trusting in God
to keep us safe.



I feel so much despair and futility at the state of the planet, so much anger at our politicians and ostensible leaders, so much revulsion at our culture's materialism, smugness, and short-sightedness, that I've pretty much given-in to my innate nihilism: I’ve become an unhappily sitting frog.

The ultimate despair was hearing Senator Inhoff (I think that’s the name) -- who, unbelievably, is the new chair of the Senate committee that oversees science (a Republican and a Christian fundamentalist, of course!) -- quoted to the effect the global warming can't be happening because he doesn't believe God would ever permit anything to harm His creation or the creatures he made in His image. (I'm still not sure if it's out of respect, or out of sneering contempt, that I capitalized the pronouns.) What superstitious nonsense! What abysmal ignorance! What frightening fatalism! What uneducated, unimaginative, and utterly childish literalism! If this is one the critical leaders of "the indispensable nation", then all is truly lost.

I very much dislike writing poetry like this. Climate change is, like most things political and scientific, much better explored in essay, article, and debate. Written as gentle allegory, poetry can convey the emotional truths of these topics powerfully. But when it veers into advocacy and polemics, I can see eyes glazing over. So there is a temptation to just leave this poem at the frogs, and let the reader make the (too obvious?) connection.

Except that I feel too strongly -- have been bottling up my frustration too long, writing poems about trivial stuff while avoiding the only truly defining subject of our time -- to leave it at that. Because while we debate about the actual existence (unbelievable!) of climate change (or whether it's man-made, which is just as absurd a debate), dither about solutions, wait for someone else to act, and generally lack the imagination and distance to question the ridiculous presumptions of our economic and social system (cancerous growth, rampant consumerism, the blinkered focus on GNP, corrosive inequality, and free externalities that should drive a conservative market economist mad ...I could go on!), climate change has already won: how can I not talk about the atmospheric inertia from the greenhouse gases already there; how can I not talk about the exponential positive feedback effects of methane release from thawing permafrost, from the loss of albido due to melting polar ice? Our civilization is over; but we dance on, while the city burns. (Reading back, I realize that this paragraph contains what must be the longest sentence I've ever written. Hope you were able to stay with me to the end!)

I've repeatedly said that I think my natural medium is the essay, not verse; and that I take on poetry as much out of the challenge of doing something hard as out of the pleasure I take in language. So perhaps it would be best to see a rare political poem like this as an added challenge: that is, the challenge of expressing complicated ideas and of saying more than I should without entirely losing the reader.

In The Dead of Night
Jan 17 2015


It's too cold for deer.
So I find myself complacent
on the winter road.
After the rut
when lust-mad bucks are rampant.
And before the thaw
when hunger drives them out.

I have lost the discipline
of the eye tuned
to peripheral vision,
the habit of vigilance
for movement, and shape.
The telling reflection
in big brown eyes.

You'd think they had a death-wish
how they blunder out
into the open road,
transfixed by light
confused by noise.

Unpredictable deer,
who hesitate, then launch
on tightly-sprung legs
just when you think you're clear.
Who skittishly tongue
coarse clumps of salt,
edging out
bit-by-bit.

But now, they must be hunkered down

in trackless forest.
Pawing at crusted snow
for frozen grass.
Or rearing up
to strip the low-hanging branch;
for tender buds,
for the stone soup
of poorly nourishing needles.

Or in huddled herds,

a cloud of steamy breath

hovering.

Conserving precious heat
in this mortal season
that culls
the old, and the weak.

The wolves are out.
Black crows
circle like vultures.
While foxes discretely scout,
darting in
to poach the leavings.
And on the winter road
how could he miss the car,
passing
in a rush of wind, and light, and sound?

The unlikely confluence
of time and space
instinct, and intent
when the two of us met
in the dead of night
intersecting exactly.
Because so much depends on chance;

contingencies of ice, calculation of traction,

the vagaries of light

reaction time.

But the buck
emerged alive.
And the drive was uneventful.

I've written this poem numerous times before. Which means I'm plagiarizing myself, poaching the best parts. But there is something to be said for coming at the same thing time after time: because even though I've done it before doesn't mean I can't do better ...and perhaps I'll finally get it right. It can also be a nice gauge of my progress as a writer: does the new version work better; or have I already written my best stuff (and might as well give up!)?

There is also something compelling that draws me to this theme. There is the intersection of man and nature, our thoughtless intrusion on the wild world. And there is this idea of contingency and chance: that our notions of free will and agency are just reassuring conceits; that we control a lot less in life than we comfort ourselves believing.

It's not a trick ending; but there's definitely some misdirection here. I like the way the poem builds up, creating this sense of inevitability (from death-wish to mortal season to vulturous crows, to intersecting exactly). It even starts with the title, which I intentionally chose for the ominous Dead. And then, in a few brief lines, nothing happens. There is this "could have" fork in the road that might very well have spawned a parallel universe of terrible outcomes. But life went on, as if by inertia. You'd think there should be some sort of gratitude for this, some sense of perspective. But, of course, there isn't: no one goes through life overwhelmed by appreciation for the infinity of bad things that didn't happen! (Although pessimists -- like me -- come close!)

For me, the sine qua non of writing is the sentence. Not the story, arc, character, or dialogue. Which is why I could never write a short story or novel, and why the instant gratification of poetry so appeals. There are a few good lines here, which make me think it's a good poem. (Which, by the way, isn't true. You can string together beautiful sentences and end up with a lousy poem. While simple conversational language that, taken on its own, would seem artless, can come together to make an incredibly powerful piece. In fact, what really makes it sing is just this:  that something so complex and ineffable can be conveyed with such simple language.) I think my favourite here is this: After the rut/ when lust-mad bucks are rampant. Another is something I didn't write: that is, deer in the headlights. Transfixed by light does much the same; but at least avoids the obvious cliché!

Death Row
Jan 16 2015


Death row
is a long corridor
of windowless cells.
Where bright fluorescents buzz,
white light
on pale skin
starved of sun.
And hard concrete blocks
echo every sound,
so the noise is loud, and constant.

Which is hard,
since all the men on it
are innocent,
convicted in a court of law
but not, apparently, the eye of God.
Or so they swear,
up to the final prayer
and intravenous.

Such solitude
would drive a man insane.
A tiny room
in the shape of a coffin.
The absence of touch
with no one to talk to.
And a last meal, tasting of straw
you swallow dry.

How would it feel

to know the day you will die

down to the second?

To focus the mind
on what comes next,

if anything.

To grieve your own death,

because for you

it's no longer hypothetical.

To spend what time is left
contending with evil, redemption, regret,
seeking forgiveness
or to simply forget.

The killer, pacing
his victim at rest.
How ironic
to mourn the shortness of time
while so sorely oppressed
by its glacial passage.

Eye for eye, and leg for leg,
the symmetry of vengeance
finality of death.
This is Old Testament justice
on our behalf,
the taking of life
the cruelty of chance.

Which makes us all complicit
in the execution
of an innocent man.

I watched a deeply affecting 6-part series (on Sundance) called Rectify. It was about a man released into a largely hostile community after 20 years on death row. Institutionalized at the age of 18, he is the living dead, struggling to adjust to life on the outside. I found two things about this drama especially brilliant and brave. First, how low-key and slowly paced it was: instead of going for sensationalism and melodrama, it was this naturalism and authenticity that gave the series its power. And second, that the issue of guilt was never fully resolved. At the start, I reflexively identified with the supportive sister and the wronged man, falsely convicted and coerced to confess. But as the piece went on, I felt myself whip-sawed with doubt. The ending is inconclusive. Nothing is really resolved. Which is not only a lot more like real life than television, it's why Rectify sticks with you for days and weeks.

This is the same way a good short story works. It drops in and out of a moment in time, so you have the sense of what went on before, and of life after. Which is very unlike a novel, which contains it’s own complete world, and which leaves no loose ends.

So I guess that's why death row came to mind. Although it's not really the sort of poem I like to write, veering too close to advocacy, politics, agit-prop. Especially since I go back and forth on the death penalty, while the poem isn't nearly so ambivalent.

Hard Cider

Fruits

contain their own seeds.

Are mostly luscious

brightly coloured

sweet.

From apple-a-day

to eye of temptation

to rot.

And when left to yeast

the intoxicating drink

of the gods.

Who knew

tomato is not

a vegetable?

And when left to fall

not far from the tree

would lead to soup, not Eve?

I almost never go back over one of my poems without thinking I've used too many words. And I almost always set out hoping I'll write something with the compression and distillation of a Haiku. At least this gets me closer! What the reader doesn't get from such a short poem is that finding these exact words isn't nearly as difficult as rejecting all the words and tangents and digressions that flood in when setting out on a topic as wide-open as this. "Less" is a lot harder than "more"!

I like the whimsy here. But I think what might make it work (if it works at all!) is the hint of opposites, the push and pull: from wholesome to erotic, from exotic to mundane, and from sacred to profane.

Something about tomatoes would have been a more sensible title. But once Hard Cider came to mind, I couldn't resist. I think it invites the reader in, in a way Beef-Steak or Vine Ripe don't.

(By the way, tomatoes -- which certainly do contain their own seeds -- are, technically, fruit. The transformation from exotic fruit to wholesome vegetable was the result of canny marketing in the early days of industrial agriculture, when trains and refrigeration allowed the transportation of perishable items from coast to coast, and made the ubiquitous tomato possible.)

Boiler Room

Jan 12 2015

The boiler is heavy and squat

as a bank vault,
thick steel walls
sealing in
precious heat.

It sits in a small dark room
that bears its name,
on a cold concrete foundation
bare bulb on-a-chain.
Pipes radiate out

every which way
like some madcap invention,
a basement lab, chockablock
with valves, and gauges, and pumps.

In this ungodly cold
it feels like home
when the boiler fires-up.
With a reassuring rumble
it comes to life,
pipes clicking, gurgles rushing
chimney exhaling exhaust.
The warm heart of the house
its comforting gut.

Except one day, it will be taken by rust,
the house fall silent
windows glaze with ice.
Or oil run out, ignition fail.
The life and death of winter.
The thin thread
on which we depend.

It seems I can't write a poem that isn't utterly pessimistic and depressing! I've said before that if I didn't discipline myself, every poem would be about death. I sure didn't think this one was heading that way; but there it is, slipping in to the 3rd last line. (Although if I really wanted to only write affirmation and cheery doggerel and sweet nothings, why bother? I might just as well sign on at Hallmark!)

I've written on this theme before: the thin thread of dependency in a civilization such as ours. Because like any system, the more complex, specialized, and just-in-time it gets, the less resilient it becomes. So we depend on long inter-connected chains of production and supply for everything in our lives: the food and fuel and shelter that serve our most basic needs. Without fossil fuel, our gorgeous high-tech cars are reduced to massive obstacles of rusting steel; without heating oil or that thin umbilicus of natural gas, our warm hospitable homes are reduced to empty shells of 2 x 4s and sheetrock, wind whistling through abandoned rooms; and without convoys of tractor-trailers crossing the continent from California day and night, we'd soon starve. Without each other, we are helpless. (Except, that is, for that tiny minority of paranoid survivalists; and the even smaller minority of off-the-grid and self-sufficient counter-culturists.) And we seem intent on making ourselves even more helpless all the time: as if we really need self-parking cars, thermostats set by our smart phones, and fridges that tell us when we're out of milk.

But despite all that, I had no theme in mind, setting out. It's just that lately, there have been some issues with my oil tanks and deliveries; so I've been watching a little nervously as my fuel gauge slips lower, listening a little more carefully for the reassuring rumble of the boiler starting up. Looking for something to write, why not about my small but powerful boiler in its cozy little boiler room?

Mile-Post
Jan 11 2015


I travel the same route daily.
The small sedan
in its appointed lane
on settled pavement,
worn down
by the weight of wheels.

Where I navigate
automatically;
my sly reptilian brain
keeping track
while my mind wanders,
the car in its comfortable rut.
Until I'm there, suddenly
not knowing exactly how.

Which is much like life
looking back,
surprised to find myself
so far along;
the years lost,
the age that sounds
like it belongs to someone else.

And looking ahead
to a time I stop making sense.
That moment of clarity
in the dementing haze
when I realize where and when,
overcome
by fright, longing, despair.
Suddenly aware
of the familiar things
that anchor me,
the drawn faces
that have somehow found their names.

So the destination is fixed
but the journey isn’t.
There’s always a side road
you can take,
until the pavement runs out
the houses thin
the glow of town
disappears.

Arrive late
with a story to tell
and time well-filled.
Make mile-posts
of memory;
they will serve you well
when it goes.


We're all familiar with that feeling of driving on auto-pilot, when time disappears: finding yourself suddenly there, as if teleported. I rarely vary from the same route (although the bad road and frequent bad weather and a heavy population of deer make it hard to default to auto-pilot). I had in mind an aerial shot of a boring sedan beetling along, like a slot car along its track.

As I contemplated this, I immediately thought of an article I just read about Alzheimer’s. It's an interview based on a recent book called The Long Hello (great title!!), in which the adult daughter writes about accompanying her mother on her descent into dementia. Not only are there those precious moments of clarity when her mother is suddenly aware, but also unexpected pronouncements of subtle wisdom and delightful juxtaposition that emerge from her clouded consciousness. When the author begins to accept her mother's altered state as a kind of re-invention instead of loss, and when she comes to appreciate how she now has a chance to see more deeply into her unguarded mother's essential self, she begins to take far more delight from their interactions: that is, giving up her futile resistance and going with the flow, despite the acknowledged frustrations. It's the first part of this -- those precious moments of sudden clarity -- that made the connection for me:  how it must feel to emerge from that haze, and suddenly find yourself marooned in this untethered time and place ("fright, longing, despair"); just like the sudden surprise of arriving, no memory of having driven.

The poem touches on the nature of memory and the perception of time:

That we aren't a linear recording device with limited space, but that the brain is inexhaustible. And the more memories, the more cognitive reserve: the more we can lose without missing it.

That our sense of the passage of time depends on how busy we are. And the paradox that our sense of time is diametrically different depending on whether we're in the moment, or looking back. That is, in the moment, time drags on and on when we're not engaged, when we're bored. But looking back, the absence of memories make that period of time seem infinitesimally short: as if for those days or months or years, we had vanished into a black hole. While time races by when we're busy. Yet looking back, that's the period of time that is full, and seems to have gone on forever.

Of course, the poem’s conclusion is obvious, and I'm afraid it makes the end kind of anodyne: the journey/destination stuff; the trope of the open road; the invocation to take chances, err on the side of doing, seek out new experiences. And also rather hypocritical, since of all people I'm the poster child par excellence of routine, of conservative (fearful?) living. But I have no choice except to go where a poem takes me; so that's where I went.

I used "suddenly" twice. It's a cardinal sin of writing to use that word at all. But here, it somehow works; and I can't seem to come up with anything else. At least the duplication contributes a useful coherence to the poem, calling back from the Alzheimer's tableau to the driving scenario.

Why?

Jan 10 2015

Small children ask why?, and why? again.
As if those 3 letters
could bore right down
to the essence of things.

Because it's only then, too young to know better
you see the world fresh.
Which, like kissing

your first girl,

or reading a poem
for the first time
you can only do once.

Incessant questions,
like pokes to the head
with a pointed finger
in the same sensitive spot.

Because more often than not
there is no answer,
no prescribed plan, no cosmic sense.
So you improvise, simplify, deflect.
Find yourself explaining
the how, and what, and when,
while the why? must be left to God
faith
tautology.

Luckily, children are easily satisfied
with circular answers.
Children, who will grow to be men
who are sure they possess
the essential truth,
the purpose of living
of life after death.

I hope mine are content
with uncertainty.
Will pick up pens, and express
their angst
and quest for meaning,

write poetry

that goes unread.

While the true believers
will pick up arms;
defend to the death
their infallible gods.

A very serious poem. But it started in a New Yorker article about something entirely different. In The Talking Cure (Nov 24 2014) Margaret Talbot describes a "Head Start" type program in Providence Rhode Island that teaches low-income parents of pre-school kids to increase their verbal interaction: the richness of vocabulary and grammatical forms, the receptivity of their back-and-forth, the favouring of affirmation over prohibition and chiding . The article reminded me of kids' incessant "why's": not only how they try our patience, but how they challenge us to re-examine accepted verities.

Mostly, when we answer "why", we're really saying "how". The metaphysical "why" is too deeply buried, too inscrutable, to interrogate.

The poem touches on my atheism, my nihilism, and some of my frustration. But it's also informed by the immediacy of world news in a week when a couple of Muslim fundamentalists killed 12 (still counting) and wounded several others in an attack on a satirical magazine in Paris. Because when you presume to answer the ultimately unanswerable "why", you become susceptible to orthodoxy and dogma, to self-righteousness and unjustified certainty. While in this case it's uneducated literalists who have hijacked a fine religion (and probably, as well, alienated failures who are seeking validation, identity, belonging) my point is that all religion is, by the very nature of religious faith and received wisdom, fertile soil for extremists. There is something to be said for having more questions than answers.

I very intentionally wrote "the essential truth", instead of the broader (and perhaps more mellifluous sounding) "essential truths". Only the definite article would do, since nothing illustrates extremism better that its insistence on absolutes and singularity, on intolerance for any kind of deviation or original thought.

I try to avoid big ponderous presumptuous words; but "tautology" was essential here. Because any time you attribute something to God, it seems to me you're simply re-stating the question -- moving the goal-line of why? -- without getting down to any real truth: that is, the hand-waving argument of answering the question with the question, which is the definition of (the all too frequently misused term) "begging" the question. I also may have pushed the rhyme (the short "e") a bit too far: because once the reader starts to see the wheels turning and gets out of the flow, she steps out of the poem. I know I have a tendency to be far too clever for my own good, to show-off with word-play; and I may have done that here. (But since I never get to read a poem of mine for the first time, it's hard to tell!)

Makers of Ice
Jan 8 2015


Sound carries in the cold air,
which settles densely
on hard-packed snow.
The dull thud
of pucks against the boards.
The rhythmic swish-swish-swish
of steel cutting ice.
The clatter of sticks
battling for possession.

The neighbourhood rink,
with makeshift nets
and a string of hundred watt bulbs
dangling overhead.
With a tired dad, up at 2 am,
cold hose in frozen hands
flooding.

He is a man-child
who loves the game
and remembers playing
until it was too dark to see.
Remembers sitting
in a warm kitchen, with numb feet
picking at laces with freezing hands.

In his imagination
the stands were thronged, and the cheers deafening
when he scored the game-ending goal.
Because in memory, it's always sudden-death.

Now he stands
at the kitchen window, back-lit
looking at circling kids,
who are their own referees, coaches
cheering section,
no adults present.
Where they will learn to be women and men
governing themselves.
Will eventually turn, like him
into nailers of wood
haulers of hose
makers of ice.

Where the secrets of the perfect sheet
come hard.
And every goal
is over-time.


Roy McGregor recently had a terrific piece in the Globe and Mail about backyard rinks. Considering the subject and the writer, you can imagine just how sentimental, nostalgic, and gently nationalistic it was. But I loved it!

I live in a neighbourhood of rink enthusiasts: upper middle class dads who are determined to give their kids the same experience they had growing up. (Saying "dads" may come across as sexist. But it's true: so far, the backyard rink seems to have remained the purview of dads.) There is one in each direction, half a block away. I walk the dog through the snow-covered alleys that run directly behind them. A few more blocks away are two outdoor regulation-sized municipal rinks, side by each: manicured sheets of excellent ice with full lights and boards, and a heated change-room. In an age of global warming and weather volatility, I fear for the future of rinks like this. Thunder Bay isn't far enough north.

I have a "hockey dog". (Or better still, "puck dog": a telling variation on "puck hog"!) She absolutely loves charging onto the ice, chasing pucks and playing keep-away. You can hear the tell-tale thud of pucks on boards from many blocks away: as soon as she hears this, her ears prick up and she's off like a bullet to join in the fun. I, too, think of sound when I think of games of shinny: shot pucks, clattering sticks, cutting skates. Which is where the poem begins.

The great Jean Beliveau recently died. His life left such a great impression on all hockey-loving (and even hockey-indifferent) Canadians that he had what can only be described as a state funeral. I read in his obituary that his mother installed industrial strength linoleum under the kitchen table so the young Jean could come in to eat without removing his skates. Which is how it was: inhaling a quick meal because you couldn't wait to get back out on the ice. I thought of this when I wrote about the warm kitchen and the freezing hands.

I like the pick-up game on outdoor rinks. Because kids will never learn self-regulation and civilized behaviour playing organized hockey on indoor ice under adult supervision. Shinny teaches a lot more than simple skills. And it's mass-participation; no sitting, no driving to and from.

I apologize for such a predictable and sentimental poem. Not only is it perilously close to cliché, it's almost prose: it says what it says, and it's that simple. Still, it was fun to write (and, I must confess, incredibly easy) , and I hope will be as much fun to read. But I very much doubt it will meet the single most important criterion of a good poem: which is that it invites re-reading; and that re-reading opens up new thoughts, images, and meanings. (Although I have to admit, I've re-read it several times. Not because it's profound, but because it's just plain fun!)

(You can see how easy this poem came: as if I was taking dictation. My raw hand-written drafts (which are later revised on the keyboard) never look as clean as this! (I imagine Allied Electric needs some explaining: simply a note jotted down during a phone call that interrupted the writing)):

Sleeping Together

Jan 5 2015

Going to sleep with her.
The difference between
sleeping together
and going to bed.

The difference between
loving her
and making love.
To make, but hardly the same
as amassing money, or building stuff,

the force
of compulsion.

There is the hug
you give your maiden aunt --
pulling back, a motherly pat.
And then the embrace, the clutch,
the meld-into-one

all-encompassing hug;
like a seasoned sailor
returning to port
after years at war.

That famous kiss

in the city square
when Victory in Europe was finally declared

was apparently staged;
they weren't even a couple.
But we see what we expect
and wish for.

Just as we hear the words
but can never be sure
what was meant.

I had trouble explaining a relationship to someone. Sometimes, categories are difficult. Later that night, I was watching the cable series The Affair. As I remember it, Noah Solloway (played by Dominic West) was asked what he did when he got home that night. "Went to sleep with my wife", he said. The ambiguity struck me: did he go to sleep with her ...or sleep with her? Somehow, this simple answer conveys his growing ambivalence toward his marriage.

It seems my subconscious must have been chewing over these two things. Because that night, in the twilight between wakefulness and sleep, this poem came to me, almost fully formed. This rarely happens. But when a fragment of a poem does come, I would normally feel compelled to write it down before it gets lost. This time, though, I felt serenely sure it would be there for me the next day; or would, if it was worth writing. And later that day, it did come back, pretty much as it was.

I like poems that explore the nuances of language and meaning: the subtlety of words; ludicrous euphemisms (as in "making love", which just diminishes the meaning of "love", and could better be said using that eminently serviceable 4-letter word). And language is certainly the basis of this one.

"See what we expect" very much calls back to The Affair. Because the first half of every episode is an event shaped by Noah's memory, and the second half the same event processed through Alison's. Neither is being self-serving, or manipulating the truth (so far, anyway -- I've just gotten started watching!) because both points of view are no less valid. In fact, the definite article should never be attached to "truth", since truth is never singular -- there are only "truths" -- and memory is never reliable. It's subjective and fraught and malleable, distorted by confirmation bias and expectation and selective vision, as well as the incorporation of new information each time a memory is recalled. Which is why the entire notion of eye-witness testimony -- especially in criminal law -- is utterly unreliable. As the poem says, we see what we're primed to expect and predisposed to want. And between speaker and listener, something is almost always lost.

Hard-Boiled
Jan 3 2015


When the egg cracked
the hard black rim.

When the egg splat, the cast-iron pan
all sizzle and spit.

When the egg sat
on simmer, a minute,
white whitening

grease turning crisp.

And as the skillet smoked, yolk glistened
a practiced hand
exactingly finished,
flipped

over-easy
with a flick-of-the-wrist.

Or sunny-side up,
left, as is.
Whose wide-eyed yolk
stares out, unflinching,
a mutely accusing
unrealized chick.

So it's boiled, or poached

scrambled, or Benedict,

because no one wants breakfast

to be argumentative.

Just a fun poem with lots of word-play. ...Or, if you prefer, a dense theoretical treatise on which came first!

I found myself paralyzed by all the possible titles. Hard-Boiled appeals for a few reasons. I like the inherent tension -- subtle as it is -- in the hyphenated words: the wet of boil and the solidity of hard. I like the misdirection, since I immediately think of a noirish detective. And I like how it makes the reader pay attention, since the poem takes all the way to the final stanza before there is anything close to hard-boiling.

I find my poetry is very visual: I'm usually looking out at the world, not smelling or touching or listening. And hardly ever tasting! So I quite enjoyed the beginning, which is full of sound. And the way the short sharp words have this onomatopoeic quality, as well as this satisfying "mouth-feel" when said out loud.

Here's the original ending:

So it's boil, or poach

soufflé, or scramble,

because breakfast on toast

should never talk back.

But since the entire poem is mostly silliness, I figured the more clever rhyme should by all rights win.

Trackless
Jan 1 2015


Where the lake narrows
and the ice thickens
and the steeply rising shore
funnels the wind,
powder snow
in dust-devils, eddies

and gusts.
We are spectral forms
emerging from swirling curtains of snow
and as quickly swallowed up,

forging on

heads bowed.



The surface, cleanly scoured.
And our tracks, covered
ahead, and in back

in untrammelled white,

as if we were weightless
or had learned levitation
or been dropped-in from space
and stuck at this very spot,

planted in trackless snow.
How enlightenment must feel,
no future, or past
just the eternal immaculate present.

All the evidence
air-brushed away.
So no one will know
where we crossed the lake
ascended the slope
slipped seamlessly into the trees.
How escape must feel,
untraceable
and unrecalled.



All winter long
walking on water like minor gods.
But come the thaw
we will stand on shore, and gaze across,
finding it hard to believe
the world once lay at our feet.

That we could so lightly walk.

And anywhere possible.
And no one would know we were gone.



These are things I think about, crossing the narrows (which really is a wind tunnel!): trying to locate the path, filled in by the wind with powder snow; the feeling of tracklessness (not to mention the feeling of being so insignificantly small) on this featureless white expanse; and the brilliance of freeze-up, opening up travel in otherwise impassable back country. But mostly, it's a poem about escape and anonymity; a kind of fugue state that white-outs the past.

There is a hint of magic realism here -- unusual for me -- with its spectres and spacemen and levitation. I like the slightly mystical feel of air-brushing away origin and intention, past and future, all evidence of having passed. And I've always enjoyed the paradox of winter, when mere mortals gain the supernatural power of walking on water. So it's playful poem, with a glint of mischief in its eye.

I'm also pleased with some of the imagery here. Especially the "spectral forms/ emerging from swirling curtains of snow/ and as quickly swallowed up,/ forging on/ heads bowed." (I had in mind old black-and-whites of polar explorers.) I like how, early on, this sets a tone and establishes an image I hope will stick with the reader right to the end. But I think the line that succeeds best is "immaculate present": how the depiction of a man on a trackless path becomes instantly metaphysical.

Romaine
Dec 31 2014


The leaves of lettuce
are tightly nested,
having grown together
like yin and yang.

A perfect match
each overlapping the next.
The intricate net
of bloodless vessels
branch-for-branch.
The frilly edge
one must tease apart
or tear.
And flecks of dirt
pressed vice-like in-between,
trapped for the life of the plant.

The head of lettuce unfolds
lead-by-leaf,
the inner, revealed
as the outer is peeled back.
Like a clenched fist, opened slowly,
pried apart, finger-by-finger
joint-by-joint.

It ranges in shade
from pale stem
to dark green ends,
coarse, to delicate
the further in.
Down to its shrivelled heart,
drained of colour
sun-starved.

Like a man, white as a ghost
heart-stopped.
Or a man, newly exposed,
with translucent skin, and rickety bones
who has lived for months in the dark,
squinching his eyes
in the painful light.

What good is a leaf
without its chlorophyll?
Or a man
afraid of life?

I'm disappointed with the title. I like to use titles like a carnival barker's spiel: to entice the reader in. But sometimes, the title has to do some work as well. Because while there are many types of lettuce, I had romaine in mind, and -- to make the poem work -- needed to establish that image from the get-go.

I hope the foreshadowing (the clenched fist ...the trapped dirt, tearing, bloodlessness ...the shrivelled heart) well as the metaphor (fist and head and heart) are neither too subtle (as I write this, I'm thinking hardly that!) nor too heavy-handed. When I started I had no idea (as usual!) where this poem would go. So it was kind of constructed back to front (again, not unusual!) It's easy to get far too clever with this.

My favourite part is "yin and yang". It will surprise me if many readers agree. But I had a helluva time getting the opening to work (usually, it's endings that are hardest), and so was very pleased with this neat and expressive solution.

As you can see by the date, writing this poem was part of my celebration of New Years Eve, 2014. Considering the alternative -- stumbling drunk and reckless kissing and an over-heated hall/restaurant/bar full of too many people trying too hard to have a good time -- I'd say it was a successful evening, no matter how the poem turns out. ...Spoken like a true introvert, who prefers solitude to crowds, and would make up just about any excuse to get out of the party!

Which is really a recapitulation of the poem, isn't it? And I admit, even though my writing is not autobiographical (or at least not consciously so), I often feel I don't grasp onto life hard enough, and will have many regrets when I reach my end. The idea of leading "a consequential life" has been coming to mind these days, and seems to capture this disappointment as well as anything. ...On the other hand, that pale shrivelled heart of romaine is often the sweetest part!