Fluency

May 31 2015

There is a word

on the tip of my tongue

I cannot rush.

Or go at head-to-head.

More wrestling, than knock-out punch,

where I must circle, feint, huff

use misdirection, and bluff

until the synapse connects

and the word suddenly comes.

Just where it was

all along.

If only it worked like a frog’s,

stabbing bugs

too quick to see.

The delicate tip

sticky, slick, flicking-out

unerringly.

Those long moments of brain lock,

when I marvel at words

panic

when they abandon me.

When I pause, and hem, and haw,

sure they will come

soon enough.

Because without language

I, too, am lost.

Bug, butterfly, moth

locust, weevil, wasp

leave a bitter taste

unnerving crunch.

Rolling off

the tip of my tongue

with fluent aplomb.

And like a fat Buddha

in his accustomed spot,

a puffed-up frog’s

contented gulp.

I just read an article about optogenetics, in which a neuron is genetically modified to be activated by light. This allows neuroscientists to tease out brain function, down to a single synapse. It sometimes feels like this when you've lost a word, and then it comes: that tiny obscure neuron, suddenly making its connection, lighting up.

I also just saw the brilliant movie Still Alice (for which Julianne Moore won the Best Actress Academy Award). I found it very hard to watch. Her loss felt very close, since -- of all people --I'm so much about language and intellect. And because I -- like everyone -- is constructed of memory, and little else.

So every time I have one of those common little brain farts, I wonder about the beginning of the end. And -- like that fat smug frog -- feel triumphant when the word does eventually come. I'm great with faces. And somehow getting better with proper names. But sometimes, simple words fail me. I feel it in 2 places. First, in the brain, where I can sense all the ingredients of the word, and feel oh-so close, just waiting for it to spark. This is the wrestling. Because you can't go at it directly. It's all circling and feinting and misdirection; the strategic pause. And second, on the tip of the tongue (clichéd as this is!): where you feel the word just about to roll off; where you want to flick out and stick it, as if out of thin air.

I think the serious part of the poem can be discerned in panic; as well as in the emptiness/ when language has left me. The rest is all fun. Especially the part where I swallow a bug!

The part I'm most pleased with, believe it or not, is huff. I wanted a word that implied empty threat, bravado; but it needed to rhyme. Huff materialized, and somehow seemed right. So I looked it up, and it meant that exactly: one of those moments when I shake my head disbelievingly, amazed once again at the perfection of the English language.

(I've assumed weevils fly -- like the rest of the bugs on that thesaurus-like list -- since they're a kind of beetle. Not that a frog can't flick an insect off a branch. But out of thin air is even better!)

This Way or That

May 30 2015

In high summer

when the heat is unbearable

I realize how close we've come

to fever, delirium

death.

Since winter's miserable depth

when bare skin froze

on contact

the globe has tipped

a few degrees south,

its brilliant blue-green surface

a tiny fraction

nearer the sun.

How infinitesimal

the sliver of life

on this Goldilocks planet.

How marginal we are

in a vast universe,

mostly cold, and dark

and lethal.

So we are going to Mars

just as we peopled the earth,

when men set out on wooden boats

to follow the stars

past the far horizon.

They say we must colonize space

because our time here

is finite.

Because we’ve treated the planet unkindly,

as disposable

as plastic.

And isn't it natural

for Man to explore?

Too restless, curious, dissatisfied

to tend to our garden

giving thanks.

The extremities

of heat and cold

are perilously close;

this immense planet

wobbling a bit
this way, or that

so nearly at its tipping point.

But, indifferent to us

will continue circling the sun

for many more billions of years;

blistering rock, boiled dry

or locked in miles of ice.

Flirting with life

in its narrow band,

a little this way or that.

There is lots of enthusiasm for exploring Mars: that exploration is our destiny; that that our species is doomed on a planet that will die with the sun, and this is the first necessary step away; that we have trashed this planet beyond repair, and are in need of a life raft.

I share little of this enthusiasm. Because there is still so much unknown right here: about life on earth; about ourselves. And the supernova is an unimaginably long way off -- our species has lots of time. And, most of all, what terribly tragic reasoning, to imagine "terra-forming" another planet after our stupidity and greed have nearly destroyed this one; a place so full of such wonder and beauty, so singular, so perfect for us.

This poem is about fragility, gratitude, humility. It's all there in words like tiny fraction and infinitesimal and marginal and sliver and perilously close and tipping point: that is, the unimaginably small window of conditions suitable for human life; the Goldilocks planet that would be our death if it were to wobble just the tiniest bit more. But if you read it as an endorsement of manned exploration of space, then I failed to make my point. I very much intended the opposite. I'm a "tend your garden guy"; not a "seek out new horizons" type.

(My thanks for this poem to Elizabeth Kolbert's PROJECT EXODUS: What's Behind the Dream of Colonizing Mars?, from the June 1 2015 edition of The New Yorker.)

Mist
May 29 2015


Mist envelopes the lake.

The familiar, transformed
into beauty
menace
thrill.

It's as if I'd been whisked
so far north
no one had been there before,
some impenetrable forest
no man ever saw.
An intruder
in some boreal Shangri-La,
a small disturbance
in unearthly calm.

Mist flattens distance;
the shore, almost lost,
the island, a little way off

improbably hovering.
Cool greens, and muted browns, are insubstantial
wreathed in shifting fog.
Rocks are liquid, grey, soft.
The water, washed of blue,

tree-tops

obscured in cloud.

Nothing stirs,
no breeze, no sound.

Except for me
on this unmarked path.
Leaf-litter crackling,
downed branches
snapping underfoot.
Trip-wire roots
set to trap.

Am I being watched?
I feel its wary eyes
tracking every step.
Some knowing presence,
keenly attentive
taking my measure
sure of its ground.
Some brazen creature
whose place this is,
scampering nimbly
at one with the mist.

A mysterious beast
on a shape-shifting lake
where once I felt at ease.
And neither
has since been seen.



In a cool mist, with twilight descending, the familiar lake seemed thrillingly mysterious. Looking out from between the trees, where the path edges down to the shore, it was as if I'd been transported to some deep forest somewhere far to the north; a place no human had yet set foot. The muted palette, the absence of sound, the shifting light: all gave it a faintly menacing feel. And the view seemed timeless, universal: the archetypal northern lake, distilled down to its essence.

I try to capture this here: the beauty, the menace, the evanescence; the unnerving sense of being an intruder, of being watched.

A Sound Roof
May 27 2015


A sound roof,
then work your way down.

Bearing walls, partitions
double-glazed windows
facing south.
Joists laid, doors hung straight,
then wired, and plumbed
and covered in paint.
A concrete slab
for a solid foundation,
immovable
as bedrock.

From where

you're supposed to set off.
After all,
jobs and careers
go bottom up.
You don't start at the top
to build a life, a family.

But a sealed roof,
ventilated, drained
and safe from the elements

is the basic necessity.
Perhaps, even sufficient
to shelter you, and yours
beneath its shade;
the strength of its beams,
the load

it shoulders.

You look overhead
and feel protected, enclosed.
Until the roof goes
and water drips
and rot sets in,
and living like this
becomes unbearable.

A simple thing, a roof
a house
a home.

But the old asphalt shingles
are near the end,
trapping wetness
and mould infested
and beaten by merciless sun.

I suspect the new roof
will be my last.
With 3 decades left, at best
the weight of years
will sap us both.
As my head is topped with snow,
face grows haggard
frame sags.

Predictably
from the top down;
until something gives way
and we both become
uninhabitable.


My shingles are looking rough. Especially on the steeply pitched part of the roof with the southern exposure. That unremitting sun is hard on asphalt shingles.

They advertise 30-year shingles. Which is probably a lot of hype, in real world conditions. But if true, would just about take me to the point I likely couldn't live here on my own any more, anyway: my new roof, as well as my last.

Not much in life is top down. But building begins with the roof: certainly necessary; and possibly even sufficient.

The roof in the poem is vaguely personified. I project my own future onto it, as it accompanies me to the end. There is an identification with the building that has an air of resigned melancholy. Because the roof isn't just an object; it's also a house ...a home.

I think I've gone too often in this poem to lists, to neat sets of three. Three is a seductive number. It has this pleasing symmetry, this sense of completion. But I suspect that here the reader may find it tiresome and predictable; too neat, too wordy.

Hung By The Neck . . . 
May 26 2015


Doorknobs
pass hand-to-hand,

like batons

in a marathon relay.

Constant use

has burnished them smooth,
the dull patina
of sweat, and skin
and manly grips
and grand dramatic entrances.

And we all know what it means, wink-wink
when a tie dangles

the key's been changed.

When the card proclaims

"Do Not Disturb”

in its demur, but certain, way.

Although here, in my shuttered garret
I never see it turn;
if impervious
at least free of germs.

The perfect spot
to toss my jacket
when I return.
Where it's hung by the neck;
soft cloth

lightly propped

atop the gentle curve.

But levers

work better than knobs.
Where hands full
you can elbow or knee
and shoulder in.

No dead-bolt locks
or awkward pause.

No dead-fish handshake
sweaty palms.

No many-roomed mansion
whose keys I've lost.

A kind of stream-of-consciousness effort that doesn't really go anywhere, or necessarily say anything coherent. It's more of a jumble of false starts and whimsical word play.

The one imperative I had in mind was my aversion to doorknobs (as well as other public surfaces, like washroom faucets and office banisters, or social niceties like the conventional handshake). I'm definitely a germophobe when it comes to touch. I'll pull my sleeve down to open doors. Or grab a paper towel. In the brief 4th stanza, this turns into a kind of social isolation, a walling-off from human interaction.

The 2nd last line is a bit mischievous. The Biblical reference (John 14:2) alludes to something a lot bigger than the poem justifies. But I think the open-endedness fits the poem's loose structure and scattershot allusions. And certainly gives the reader lots of latitude to go wherever she wants with it. The title, too, is mischievous. I think it invites the reader to complete the line like a stern judge, handing down his sentence: "hung by the neck until dead". Another playful aspect is the jumble of body parts, including necks, elbows, knees, shoulders, and hands. Not to mention sweat, skin, and sweaty palms!

The First Hot Day
May 24 2015


The first hot Sunday
and the place is festive with boats.
No motors here
on this self-contained lake,
small enough to circumnavigate
human-powered.

Calm blue water,
where canoes and kayaks bob
in a rainbow of primary colours.
Where silver rowboats
muscle by,
oars, squeaking drily
thudding against the gunnels.
Aluminum, glinting brightly

hot enough to fry.

But it's been only a few weeks
since the ice went out
and the water's still freezing cold.
Where only dogs
are foolish enough to swim,
too excited to notice.
How quickly seasons change,
the stillness of winter, replaced

by summer's manic leisure.
But this is how it's always been;
because northern people
do not leave good weather to waste,
this brief interregnum of heat
the seemingly endless days.

Bug-free
until the first good rain.
When the air will buzz with life,
hit-and-run mosquitoes

blackflies' bloody bites.       
And we will flee indoors
or far from shore
out on the cool bay.

Colourful boats
look like fantastical toys
in a world devoted to pleasure.
As if to say
come out and play
on this perfect Sunday in May.
The first hot day,
when the fishing is good
and the walleye are hungry
and everyone's gone to the lake.

I don't think I've ever seen the lake so busy as it was today.

It's a Conservation area, so motorized vehicles are prohibited, and only a privileged few get to live on its shores. My house overlooks a narrows, which is like the bar connecting two rough dumbbells: a large and small one on either end. So the brightly coloured boats funnel through, like intermittent processions. It's as if no one has the patience to wait a few more weeks, even though the water is still freezing cold, and dumping could be dangerous. (The dog, of course, doesn't hesitate. Over-heating in her winter coat, she wallows in every puddle and ditch, and launches repeatedly into the lake: kamikaze-style, chasing balls.)

The day started out bug-free, a rarity this time of year. But it's been dry, and the bugs are behind. Which is a close as you get to paradise on earth. So no wonder everyone's gone to the lake! ...Except I cleared some brush, and stirred some up: so the blackflies are here, after all; lying low, waiting for rain. Oh well. Still, close enough to call it perfect!

I think I managed to capture the impression I set out with: the sense of care-free festivity; the toy-like boats, in all their multi-coloured gaiety. Although my favourite bit is manic leisure. I like the tension in its oxymoronic illogic. But also its absolute accuracy. Because that's how we are in our short sharp summer: greedy, intense, all too aware of the season's precious brevity. (And the bug-free part, even more brief!)

I don't fish. I don't even know if fishing season has officially begun. So the reference to walleye (also known by the less evocative name "pickerel") may be a bit of poetic license. Not to mention that most of those rowboats have electric trawling motors: the only muscling going on is the lifting of cans of beer!

Human Waste
May 22 2015


The first dandelions
of early spring
appear on the septic field.
Their long fibrous roots
must reach down deep,
tapping in
to its warm subterranean soup.
Into human waste,

nutrient-rich
but shunned.

Of all our embarrassments, and shame
we are never more disgusted than this.

Or fastidious,

going about our business

as we euphemistically say,
excusing ourselves
for nature's call.

Yet when I see the first weeds of spring
-- succulent, and bright,
shooting-up before my eyes --
I can't help but think
of human waste.
And imagine
the flowers that will grow on my grave,
the after-life
of carbon.

Which, in a few short weeks
will turn leggy, menacing
unsightly;
sheathed in long razored leaves,
a ghostly halo
of metastatic seeds.

The cycle of growth, senescence
life, and death
that connects us
to posterity.
Because nothing is wasted
where flowers bloom
and soil feeds,
the neat succession, intricate web
enmeshing us, as well.

In the antiseptic city
we are not much troubled
by consequence.
But here, I can glimpse my fate.
When hungry weeds
will over-run
my fallow space,
fertile earth
reclaim me.

I know this sounds pretentious; yet looking at the bright succulent dandelions shooting up on the septic field, I couldn't help but think of the cycle of life, of the almost miraculous transformation of its basic stuff. So, am I death-obsessed to have immediately conflated this view with the image of a dead body, interred in the bloom of spring?

My wish is to be buried in a cardboard box in a shallow grave at the base of my favourite tree. What better expression could there be for the succession of life; for trying to extract some meaning from the oblivion of death? Since I don't believe in the supernatural, or the divine, or an after-life, this is the best I can do. So to me, this profusion of flowers is an uplifting premonition of the end; not a morbid pre-occupation with death.

The poem is a bit wordy. And perhaps it belabours the obvious. Less is more, after all. So if I had to distil it down to its essence, I think I would stick with these 3 irreducible lines: Because nothing is wasted/ where flowers bloom/ and soil feeds. Finally, perhaps the Haiku (if not the technically correct 5 - 7 - 5, then at least close in spirit) I repeatedly say is the ultimate aspiration of good poetry!

(The biologist in me feels the urge to add that disgust is one of our basic emotions, and a very useful one: that it's biological, not cultural. Communities that kept living space and excrement separate survived; disgust protected them from bad things like cholera. So evolution has programmed us; not just the niceties of polite society.)

Tidal Pull

May 19 2015

The tug of family

is like a tidal force.

Blood’s gravity

exerting its pull

over vast distances;

so weak, it acts negligibly

in daily life,

but irresistibly

when immeasurable objects

are sufficiently close.

You bear the resemblances,

bad teeth, wonky nose.

The odd behavioural ticks

only others notice.

The definition of home

is where they have to take you in

where you’re truly known.

Where everything seems smaller

than you recall,

the narrow bed, suburban street

childhood desk

and kitchen sink.

Only the trees have kept up,

towering over the shrunken house.

The place you were desperate to leave,

but now seems warm, protected

sweet.

They still embarrass you;

are never happy, like on TV.

But you are enclosed, here

under their wing.

And when the tide comes in

and raises us all

you are grateful

for this ramshackle boat,

dutifully bailing

and safely afloat.

I never read this article. But I was scanning the first couple of paragraphs to see if I wanted to set it aside, and something stuck with me:

More than most contemporary writers, the Irish novelist Anne Enright finds it hard to escape the tidal pull of the family. In a series of funny, bleak, radically unsentimental novels, she has examined the engrossments of such life and has poured over the social genetics of family inheritance—the unhappiness we bequeath, the pleasure we inherit, the tyranny of biological contingency. (All Her Children, by James Wood; from the May 25 2015 New Yorker.)

The tidal pull of family is a perfect description: invisible, inexorable, and operating at a distance. I realize I recently wrote another "tide" poem: Tide Table. Since I like series (I recall the "colour" series), this may be the beginning of another. One more will make it three, the bare minimum to qualify! Anyway, since I was at a loss for a title, I decided it might as well be an homage to Wood's fine writing, and it became Tidal Pull.

I was actually thinking of extended family: how you occasionally assemble, from the corners of the earth; and how no matter how much you may be tempted, cannot disown each other. But the poem ended up becoming more about the actual family home: the old house, and returning there as an adult. Which I know is a bit tired and a bit clichéd, and has all been said before -- even by me! Which is why, if the poem works, it's the ending that does it; neatly calling back to the tidal motif.

This theme of blood and belonging recurs with me, and is not necessarily positive. Because tribalism is one of the great poisons of human history. Its xenophobic impulse underlies racism, nationalism, and sectarianism; and is as much a basis of war as conquest and greed. On the other hand, family is the basic unit of society. And -- as the poem says -- when worst come to worst, is all you can really count on.

This poem is a little unusual for me, both in its sentimentality, and its small runs of regular rhyme. But despite how perilously close it gets to Hallmark and doggerel, it came easily, and was fun to write; which is good enough for me.

The Eyes of Men
May 18 2015


The slim young women
who guard the pool.

She patrols the deck

like a barefoot nymph,

a goddess

with the power to give, mouth-to-mouth

the kiss-of-life.

But seems too girlish, too slight

to be in charge,

let alone

tow a struggling body

to shallow water.

A flotation device

clutched to her chest,

she looks earnest, intent
yet never notices.
Oblivious
to her power of sex,
the eyes of men
upon her.

From her coquettish "have a good swim"
to the one-piece suit, on flawless skin

that hugs her body.
From the curve of her legs
to her tight pert bottom,
from sun-kissed arms
to bleached blonde hair.

A pony-tail, bouncing along

as she lightly walks,

unaffected, athletic

the girl-next-door.

Were there girls like this
when I was young?
Anyway, I would have been tongue-tied, invisible
even then.

But I am older
and think I know
how insecure she feels.
And how naive
that this dazzling pulchritude
the effortless bloom of youth
is all too brief.
That she will soon disappear,
then turn middle-aged, and wistful;
more self-critical
than even adolescence allows.

Why is beauty
so evanescent, so unaware?
I want her to revel
in this hot-house moment,
the apotheosis
of coltish youth.
I wasted mine
and would hardly begrudge her
some swagger, and strut.
The cruel flirtation
of beautiful girls.
The vanity
youth deserves,
no matter how unbecoming.

The slavish attention of boys
who will flock to her.
And the eyes of men,
who have learned to repress
their wistful longing.

I rarely reveal much in my poetry. I prefer amused detachment, and inhabiting others' lives. So I was extremely uncomfortable writing this one, let alone posting it: about as confessional as I'll ever get.

But the girl here is innocent, and I am repressed. So despite the clearly unintentional "coquettishness", the poem becomes less about her sexual power and my inappropriate thoughts, and more about the fleeting nature of youth. And after all, I end up on her side -- in effect saying "you go, girl" -- instead of resenting her power. Enough said. ...Except to say that all men look, no matter how old or how attached: it's not sordid, furtive, or dirty; it's what men do. And that beautiful young women are better off knowing that they have been, and will always be, the objects of male desire, expressed or not.

I think the best part of the poem is the very last word. Longing really nails it. "Desire" might have worked; but not as well. Longing seems to dredge deeper; and it seems more complicated than mere lust. Wistful, too, works well: the call-back to the older version of her invokes the inexorable passage of time; and even more important, our common humanity.

I may have gone a bit overboard in this poem with "big" words -- words that may not be immediately accessible to the average reader. I usually avoid this, because difficult words stop a reader, interrupt the flow, require too much processing. So I apologize if evanescent, pulchritude, and apotheosis seem indulgent. I chose them because either the sound and rhythm, or the nuance of meaning, made them indispensable. I always talk about not trusting the reader enough. So in this case, perhaps I'm trusting that if the reader stuck with me that far, she'll sail on through, surrendering to the richness of language and letting the context do all the work.

A Stand of Trees

May 17 2015


A stand of trees.

It's the stillness of the word
that works so well.

Like sentinels

standing shoulder-to-shoulder,

straight trunks, tapering up

far above my head.

Where they endure, year after year,
and if left undisturbed
will long outlast me.

I take refuge

in its welcoming shade,
as if entering the towering vault

and thick stone walls
of a cool cathedral.
The same distilled light,
having made its way
through illuminated windows
translucent leaves.
And the purity of sound,
where intimate whispers

carry unaccountably clear,
raised voices
are softly diffused.

A wood, or thicket, or copse
would not affect me so strongly.
Because there is a calm
in a stand of trees,
a sense of permanence.

Even as early morning fog
makes them seem unearthly.
The shifting veil of white
eerily distancing,

thin tendrils of mist
witchily twisting
in and out.

Which sun
will soon burn off.
While the impassive trees
silently drink,
thirsty for water and light.

Every once in a while, another tree poem overcomes me. Like dog poems, I know I should resist, but can't. I say this because I know I've written it all before: same poem, over and over; just different words.

I know I'm treading dangerously close to cliché here, since the image of the forest as sanctuary is hardly original. So I hope I kept it interesting enough to hold the reader's attention.

The key, though, is the connotation of stand; reinforced by such words as stillness, undisturbed, refuge, calm, permanence, impassive. The trees are sentinels, unmoved by man's transient conceits, impassively overseeing our follies and vanities. So perhaps "cathedral" is particularly apt, since there is a strong undertone of pagan nature-worship here.

I like the subtle paradox implied by the ending. Because at the same time as they seem inanimate –  unmoving, silent, almost permanent – they are not only greedily drinking, but performing the marvellous feat of turning energy into matter, of living on light.

                                       ~~  ~~

(I'm sure I could have found a much better picture:  I'm thinking of cedars, wreathed in mist. But the first picture -- the one on top -- is the actual one that triggered the poem. I came across it illustrating an Atlantic article from May 15 2015 called "Tapping a Maple on a Cold Vermont Morning".)

Lethal Colour

May 13 2015

If you were to judge a man by his shoes

they would be supple leather

under-stated

finely stitched.

Brogues, loafers, wing tips

in patent black

creamy brown.

Hand waxed, mirror finished,

as if the gloss

gleams all the way down.

But these were oxblood,

like the hard man

beneath his fine tailoring.

A knife plunged

into the sturdy neck

of a dumb lumbering bull.

The beast of burden’s liverish blood

spurting-out,

dark red

still hot.

Ox blood

does not wash out.

Only a man of means

would sacrifice his beast,

some thin-lipped patrician

stepping nimbly

around the spreading pool.

A silent killer, ice-pick cold

in immaculate shoes.

But the colour of blood

is continuous,

deepening with time

drying hard.

And I bleed the same

bright red.

If I ever meet a man

in oxblood

I will stand back, avert my eyes.

Defer

to the jackbooted fellow

in the steel-toed, hobnailed

darkly clotted shoes.

In the latest New Yorker (Many 18 2015) Malcolm Gladwell reviewed The Dark Art, the memoir of a retired DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) operative. Here's a quote he takes from the book: “He carried himself like a true Ibo prince: dignified, impeccably dressed in a tailored tan suit and gleamingly shined oxblood shoes ...” . "Oxblood" stopped me cold. For a fraction of a second, I had no idea what this meant. And when I recognized the colour, I couldn't resist its power: because what colour could possibly be more dangerous, violent, evocative? A woman's shoes would never be so described. And the sneakered, sandalled, and casually shod bourgeois masses of modern life would never wear oxblood; and if they did, it would go by any other name. I recently did a series on colour. So how could I possibly have done pink and orange, then miss the delicious possibilities of oxblood? In what frame of mind would one possibly come up with that name for a run-of-the-mill colour?

The ending was originally ...as if he wore jackboots,/ steel-toed/ soaked in blood. I went for the actual ending because hobnailed is such a delightful word. I not only imagine thuggish skinheads, I picture some kind of hobgoblin -- a deformed little devil figure. And because soaked in blood is a little too much, a little too explicit; implication is almost always better. And also because if the poem is about anything, it has more to do with the style of dress concealing the man than it does actual violence.

Of course, you can't judge a man by his shoes. His sense of fashion, yes; his vanity, yes as well. But as far as character and moral worth, it may very well be the opposite: the man oblivious to fashion probably has more worthwhile things on his mind. The Ibo prince was a drug lord. The wages of sin include impeccable tailoring.

(It was only after I finished the poem that I thought to look up "oxblood" in the dictionary. How disappointing: "a moderate reddish brown". I was hoping at least for a deep rich reddish brown. Oh well. Nevertheless, the dark sinister connotation of "oxblood" still works for me.)

Short Tales
May 10 2015


Why are tall tales
distinguished by height?
Is it the dark lengthening shadows they cast,
from slender strand
to monolith,
from outright lie
to clever omission?
The black gargantuan slab
just this side of tipping.

While the merely fantastic
exists in a gossamer light
of mischief, magic

sheer delight.
Learned by heart, and handed down
by word of mouth,
the patient art
of listening.

A poem
is a short tale
but no less intricate.
It doesn't lie
so much as hint at the truth,
or confuse you
with more than one.
And just as the sun's concentrated light
may leave you blind,

a poem penetrates.
Because a poem is like a prism,
splitting white
so you can see its difference.
And because truth is also plural,
in its subtle colours and shades,
coming in givens, and glimmers, and wished-fors.
So look a little behind, or off to one side
but never directly in.

With each re-telling
tall tales grow;
lies, inch-by-inch

until you find yourself imprisoned.
While short tales are honed,
pruned, reduced
encrypted.
Distilled
to a single truth,
the telling line

the clincher.

Or the falsehood
that just feels right,
and you cling to unremitting.


I think of self-serving lie-after-lie, falling like teetering dominos. I think of that black monolith that begins the film 2001, with its self-referential truth. Light is a bit of through-line, which begins with dark shadows, and finally reappears in the shades of truth and the metaphorical prism of poetry.

If tall tales are false, then poems are short tales that convey a different valence of true and false. Because ultimately, we read ourselves into it, and take away what we will.

This is a poem that begins in word play, which is always fun: the metaphorical "tall" of tall tales actually takes on height, while the shortness of poetry becomes less about literal shortness and more about truth. But it's also a poem about the insular and arcane world of writing: and I think it's hard to expect the average reader to be interested in writerly stuff. Too much "inside baseball", as they say. So if you're reading this, have you made it all the way through the poem? Or did you skip down to see what the hell I was on about?!!

I like the reference to the clincher, which is then immediately followed by one: all that stuff about precision and meaning in poetry when truth is relative and multiple, and then we end up making our own truth anyway. We love tall tales, and this love has nothing to do with objective truth -- even if there were such a thing.

Tide Table
May 11 2015

You can look up the tides

in an official guide
that's down to the minute,
a clockwork universe
predictably turning
on its predetermined course.

How reassuring
to feel yourself in orbit
around vast invisible forces,
going about their work
with supreme indifference.
How powerless, and small
you see yourself.

Stop for just a minute
and you can watch its steady rise.
So unlike life,
where plants grow, and age declines
imperceptibly,
until that day you realize
how fast, how short.

I have always resided
on an inland lake,
land-locked
in the middle of a continent
of ancient rock.
Its water cold and sweet
its constant shore.

Dead, compared to the sea,
with its smell of fish
and decomposition
and briny weeds.
A living planet
breathing in and out
and in again,
its steadily beating heart
inexhaustible.

Leaving a damp apron of sand
packed down hard.
And small lines of froth,
where its tongue
has licked the beach
as water slowly recedes.


"Journal" is derived from the French "jour": similar to the origin of "journeyman", or day-worker. So if brianspoetryjournal is to be taken literally, I should be writing daily. Which, as it turns out, I pretty much do. But now, it's been over a week, and this poem indirectly explains my absence: I went south for a few days. An uncharacteristic journey, since I prefer travelling in my head far more than the rigours of actual travel. Anyway, I couldn't write away from home. And I there were even some niggling doubts as to whether I would ever write again, notwithstanding getting back. So I'm pleased with this poem. And especially pleased that it didn't turn out too prolix or complicated; because the pressure of language builds up, and can all too easily burst out and overflow.

"Long walks on the beach" sounds like a dating profile cliché; but that's what we often did. It was a narrow beach, so we needed to time it by the tides. I learned that there are printed guides to this celestial schedule. And I felt what it was like to have your daily routine determined according to vast, indifferent, and invisible forces. Living on lakes all my life, I've never had to contend with tides.

As usual, I've taken some poetic license here. In particular -- and to defend the Turks and Caicos -- there was none of that fishy maritime smell. Not only is it a coral island with a relatively unproductive near-shore, but the steady trade-winds scour the air of anything unpleasant.

I like the idea of orders of magnitude that operate in parallel and never intersect. Here, it's on the axis of time: the geological scale of time and tide, in contrast with the human scale of life. I also like the telescoping in and out, from cosmos to microcosm: so the opening stanza has giant spheres circling in space, while in the closing one the aperture narrows and the focal length shortens as the reader's eye is brought down to earth and back to the beach. My favourite poetry is mostly about microcosm: the close observation of small daily detail. So this is a fitting way to end.

Vista
May 1 2015

The sheer cliff
overlooks the city, the lake beyond.
A straight drop,
like cartoon coyote, stepping-off
  –   just don't look down.

On the commanding heights
you feel small,
the permanence of rock
the vast horizon.
And masterful, as well,
like a general
in his aerie fortress
impregnable walls.

There is something in us
that loves a view.
The stunning vista
from that higher hill,
the panorama
from the mountain top.
And then beyond,
where the curve of the earth
comes clear.

We have seen to the edge of the cosmos
and back in time.
Peered in,
all the way down
to DNA, atoms
matter's basic stuff.
Even looked inside ourselves,
trying to understand, but mostly baffled
by the why and what
of us.

Standing on the edge
like lords of Creation
we pronounce it good.
Yet all our works
look insignificant
from way up here.
The rust-red freighter
a bobbing bath-toy
on the placid lake.
The smokestack, belching grey,
you could pinch between two fingers
and snap away.

I like the tension here between mastery, the commanding heights, and the underlying sense of insignificance.

I also like the telescoping of the view, which plays with the whole idea of “vista”:  the aperture narrowing as we focus down to the microscopic; then the big reflector gazing out into the vastness of space, gathering up every scintilla of light. And then the metaphysical view:  the self-knowledge; the spiritual and psychological.

I have no idea why, as a committed and passionate atheist, I keep salting my poems with Biblical references. Maybe I’m indulging my sense of irony. Anyway, I kind of like lords of Creation …pronounc(ing) it good, as I think God is said to have done on the 7^th day. Perhaps what I like here is the reflection on our hubris:  our presumption of godliness, which is then swiftly contrasted with our smallness and insignificance.

We are attracted to views, prefer to occupy the high ground. Perhaps this is aesthetic. Or perhaps it has to do with power. I recall hearing a biologist comment on bears’ selection of denning spots. He had noticed something odd, and was wondering if one reason they choose the sites they do is for the view; because they often seemed to have spectacular outlooks. All else being equal, perhaps they do notice the view. As usual, animals are more like us than we imagine. Or perhaps we’re more like them!

The cliff, by the way, is a real place. And easily accessible. I was just there yesterday.