Amygdala

July 28 2015

A poem about fear,

without immersion

loneliness

tip-toeing close to the edge.

Electric sockets

market losses

rabid dogs.

An airless coffin,

loose earth, scrabbling across

its burnished lid.

Or failure, unsparingly watched,

eyes, like spotlights

blinding hot.

I recite my poem

with sweaty hands, trembling voice,

and the audience softens, fidgeting stops.

Are they merely polite

beginning to slumber?

Or do they see me as a sensitive man, overcome?

Who, like me, fear death

abandonment

the loss of love,

and should I falter

would not judge.

Because they are merely grateful

for words that distract

from their own subversive thoughts,

welling helplessly up

in everyone's ancient amygdala.

So I imagine them naked

while feeling myself.

There are those who lead fearless lives.

But can anything matter

if there is no consequence?

And anyway, who wants to die young

instead of fight, freeze, run?

The intensity

of the reckless heart

electric mind

inexhaustible muscle.

And after fear

the glorious peace

having overcome.

I read an article about stage fright (http://nyr.kr/1MIigEO), and there was the usual statistic about the fear of public speaking: which is apparently near the top of everyone's list. I think this is because we're such intensely social creatures, and that fear of public speaking is really fear of public failure; which, in turn, is so intimately connected to feelings about judgement, shame, social stigma, and exclusion.

I reflect on my past, and often feel that I've led a life ruled by fear. Things like social anxiety, fear of change. Yet, paradoxically, public performance is easy for me. Public speaking, that is. Perhaps because language is the one thing about which I'm totally confident. If I had to get up on stage and sing instead of pontificate and speechify, I imagine the self-consciousness and fear of failure would be just as overwhelming as they are for everyone else.

There are universal fears, and idiosyncratic ones. And cultural ones, as well: the Victorians apparently shared a common fear of being buried alive; and there were lots of amusing contraptions invented so a wrongly diagnosed "corpse" could signal the surface from underground. Naturally, I couldn't resist shoe-horning that one into the poem! Along with more usual fears, like electrocution, heights, drowning, poverty.

And then there are the more powerful -- if less articulated -- fears, like loneliness, loss of love, and abandonment. There is a reason I repeated this variation on a theme 3 times. Just look back to the first paragraph: it's because the most universal basis of fear is one's status and acceptance in a social group; be it romantic couple, family, or tribe.

The description of the audience's state of mind -- ...grateful/ for words that distract/ from their own subversive thoughts -- raises another provocative idea: is art merely a distraction from our shared fear of death? A talisman, desperately held up to posterity?

There are people who don't experience fear. I don't mean people with great physical bravery; I mean people who actually have a congenital short-circuit in their brain, and are immune to the fight-or-flight response. (Which, as the poem says, is probably more accurately called fight, flight, or freeze.) Needless to say, they don't live long! Not to mention the pleasure of fear: we all know of adrenaline junkies, addicted to the intense neurochemical high. And then there is the character-building challenge of overcoming fear -- or, in this case, overcoming performance anxiety with a little cognitive re-framing. And finally finding yourself free of fear? Exhilarating!

(A final aside. The phrase a sensitive man is a winking homage to the late Canadian poet Al Purdy, his parody of himself as the proletariat beer hall poet. Here it is (or at least the version of At The Quinte Hotel I found on the ever reliable internet):

At The Quinte Hotel 
I am drinking 
I am drinking yellow flowers 
in underground sunlight 
and you can see that I am a sensitive man 
and I notice that the bartender is a sensitive man 
so I tell him the beer he draws 
is half fart and half horse piss 
and all wonderful yellow flowers 
But the bartender is not quite 
so sensitive as I supposed he was 
the way he looks at me now 
and does not appreciate my exquisite analogy 
Over in one corner two guys 
are quietly making love 
in the brief prelude to infinity 
Opposite them a peculiar fight 
enables the drinkers to lay aside 
their comic books and watch with interest 
while I watch with interest 
a wiry little man slugs another guy 
then tracks him bleeding into the toliet 
and slugs him to the floor again 
with ugly red flowers on the tile 
three minutes later he roosters over 
to the table where his drunk friend sits 
with another friend and slugs both 
of em ass-over-electric-kettle 
so I have to walk around 
on my way for a piss 
Now I am a sensitive man 
so I say to him mildly as hell 
"You shouldn'ta knocked over that good beer 
with them beautiful flowers in it" 
So he says "Come on" 
So I Come On 
like a rabbit with weak kidneys I guess 
like a yellow streak charging 
on flower power I suppose 
& knock the shit outa him & sit on him 
(he is just a little guy) 
and say reprovingly 
"Violence will get you nowhere this time chum 
Now you take me 
I am a sensitive man 
and would you believe I write poems?" 
But I could see the doubt in his upside down face 
in fact in all the faces 
"What kind of poems?" 
"Flower poems" 
"So tell us a poem" 
I got off the little guy but reluctantly 
for he was comfortable 
and told them this poem 
They crowded around me with tears 
in their eyes and wrung my hands feelingly 
for my pockets for 
it was a heart-warming moment for literature 
and moved bt the demonstrable effect 
of great Art and the brotherhood of people I remarked 
"-the poem oughta be worth some beer" 
It was a mistake in terminology 
for silence came 
and it was brought home to me in the tavern 
that poems will not realy buy beer or flowers 
or a goddam thing 
and I was sad 
for I am a sensitive man 
- From his book "Poems For All The Annettes" )

Skylight

July 26 2015

Looking up

as it came down hard

was like slipping into the narrow cleft

between glistening rock

and the waterfall;

the greyly filtered light,

a river of rain, streaming-off

its curved glass dome.

And in the sun-shower

like living in a glass house.

Not insubstantial glass

as fragile as a crystal vase,

but something light and strong

and open to the world,

almost seamless

in-and-out.

A photographic plate

fully exposed.

Clattering to earth

a handful of stones.

All winter, buried in snow

when I crave the light.

And in spring, all the windows and doors

thrown wide;

immaterial glass

and walls of standing  air.

And when the angle is right

a shaft

of sun-warmed light slants in.

Convection rises, gas expands

and dust motes dance,

as if materializing

from the shadow side,

the flat air

that had seemed so lifeless

in the cool dark.

Handprints

where I lean all my weight,

nose print

where I press up against

the triple pane of glass,

always longing to be

where I am not.

Saying Grace

July 23 2015

We never said grace.

3 hungry boys

at the family table

1 wheedling dog

underfoot.

We learned to eat fast

before it was gone.

When even people like us

-- of nominal faith, and hardly observant --

would do well by thankfulness.

And a ritual

to begin the meal

can be comforting,

a thoughtful pause, a formal start

before the free-for-all,

digging-in

chowing-down.

As well as a nod

to togetherness,

whether holding hands

or solemnly clasping our own.

But how to give thanks

when you don't believe in prayer?

When it seems hypocritical

deferring to God?

Back when we killed an animal

for its meat,

gutted, cleaned, butchered it,

we were obliged to be grateful.

A life for a life,

the intimacy

of the knife through the neck.

The hot spurt

of arterial blood

so exquisitely red.

But if gratitude

is the foundation of happiness

we can also give thanks

for steaks that come plastic-wrapped,

relief when the harvest

is in, at last.

For the company of table

the safety of home.

Each morning at school

began with the anthem

on a scratchy PA.

Then the Lord's prayer,

rattled-off like a formula

word-for-word.

And at summer camp

an insincere grace,

as irreverent as "Rub-a-dub-dub

thanks for the grub

yaaaay, God!"

Now, I say nothing at all.

Just stop

in humility, and wonderment

at the cosmic unlikelihood

of this
              ...me

                        ...us.

At the privilege of sentience,

the bounty

of enough.

The plastic-wrapped steak is kind of where this poem originated for me. That is, it began with how alienated we are from the sources of our food. (Which is why the preceding stanza is so graphic. For meat to be both halal and kosher, the main artery in the neck is cut while the animal is alive -- unlike the usual practice, in which livestock are stunned with a bolt to the brain. This is thought to allow the animal to be properly bled. And it means that the ritual slaughterer has no choice but to be intimate with the bloody essence of killing.)

The poem also began with how complacent we are about industrial agriculture, and our utter lack of self-sufficiency without it. Because we feel, in fact, no relief when the harvest/ is in: we never for a moment imagine it could be otherwise! But the reality is that when the oil stops and the fertilizer's gone and the trucks grind to a halt and we've pumped all the aquifers dry, and then one day out of the blue we're surprised to find all the supermarket shelves stripped clean, we'll quickly starve.

Although of course, the heart of the poem is right there in all the repetition -- in words like grace and thankfulness and thanks: it's a poem about gratitude; a poem that turns on the saying of grace. In some family cultures, this is automatic. Which doesn't presume that it's either meaningful or sincere: it can be an empty ritual, a comforting habit, a matter of inertia. And sometimes it's not the least bit heartfelt; instead, it can be the oppressive obligatory unction of austere religiosity.

I like the idea of grace and of ritual, but don't believe in God. So the language of grace usually leaves me cold. But I'm also aware of the power of gratitude, of the imperative of perspective and humility. So the poem offers a resolution to this conflict between my need for reverence and my disdain for its conventional form: an atheist's grace, if you will.

I'm not sure if the silly grace fits the mostly serious tone of the rest of the poem. It's here because it's true. And because I hope it will either invoke nostalgia or evoke delighted smiles. I grew up when the ritual expression of mainstream religion was still present in these public spheres: school, camp. In the Canada of that era, there was the unquestioned presumption that we were a Christian nation. (Today, of course, the imposition of such majoritarian values would never be tolerated.) For many formative years, I was involved with a YMCA summer camp (Pine Crest, run by the Toronto Y on a lake near Gravenhurst). Back then, the ritual of grace, along with vespers on Sunday morning, were the two surviving vestiges of its Christian foundation; but a grace, as the example attests, that had been corrupted to the point of meaninglessness.

Baffled

July 19 2015

The deafness crept up on me.

An imperceptible softening.

High notes

I never knew I missed.

A cotton-batten muffling

and everybody mumbling

and increasingly adrift.

Wondering

why everyone is miffed

I ignored their loud hellos.

Now, I watch the world

with the volume off,

somehow distanced, detached.

Sound's intimate tether

has been severed clean

and I recede,

a surreptitious observer

ghosting through unseen.

But the noise in my head is loud;

an echo-chamber

beating against

its own impervious walls.

I speak

but hear no words.

Too loud, too soft,

what heard, what not?

Would even bloody screams

be lost,

cut off

by the thick absorbent baffles

enclosing me?

Such silence is profound.

As if submerged

in the still black depths,

a salt-water body

in a salty sea.

The suffocating weight, all around

pressing inexorably down.

No air hissing-in, gas gurgling-out.

No rush of blood

no beating heart.

Just a stream of bubbles, rising up

through a dark dense ocean.

Until far above

the surface breaks

in a little stir of froth,

too small

to even notice.

I'm not going deaf -- yet. But don't we all become hard of hearing in old age? My mother, for example -- although, admittedly, on the other side of 90 -- is losing her hearing. It's frustrating to talk with her, especially on the phone. I can't imagine, though, what it's like for her: the feeling of isolation; the confusion; the inferences and connections and leaps of logic she must make in order to fill in the blank space between the words that do get through.

It would be so ironic for me to go deaf. Because my hearing has always been acute, and I've always been extremely sensitive to noise (actually, to light, touch, smell, and taste as well!) The poem is an experiment in empathy, a rough attempt to inhabit the experience of deafness. I'm trying to get at the frustration, the sense of isolation. I think the most telling line is this: Now, I watch the world/ with the volume off. It's as if the narrator is interacting with the world through a screen. It's as if he must concentrate on every cue and every action to keep track of just what's going on. And, like watching TV, it's a passive detached experience: watching, from behind one-way glass.

Although the poem didn't start with my mother. It actually began with a movie review; a new film called the tribe (the lower case is theirs, not mine). Apparently, it's about a highly unusual school for the deaf, has no dialogue, and is filmed mostly in silence; so the viewer has to concentrate hard to understand just what's going on. What a great way to immerse the viewer in the first-person experience of deafness: the confusion, the vigilance, the particularity of deaf society and culture. And how dramatically powerful sound becomes, when it eventually does emerge from such a disorientingly muted world.

Ambidextrous

July 15 2015

Hands at rest.

Or trembling hands

that worry beads

anxiously wring

or humbly entreat

clasped together in prayer.

And sure hands,

giving firm shakes, generous waves

thumbs-up, and A-OK.

That fist-bump, glad-hand

back-slap, and button-hole,

hand-clap in standing O's.

Human hands

that warm

make

touch.

Manly hands, that give and take

the rough embrace

of unaccustomed love.

That afflict the ticklish

'til he begs forgiveness,

tormenting with mirth.

That shake a fist

or flip the bird

or taunt him you’re in first.

You can pluck or pick, stroke or tweeze

scratch or rub

but be discrete.

Button-up, or zipper-down,

the strut, the strip

the tease.

Smash and grab, or snap the beat

tap-tap-tap, impatiently

rap sharply on the door.

Pick out texts

smoke cigarettes

count to ten, and more.

Or blow a kiss

her hand in his

her lips traced out with yours.

Her hand, beckoning

tongue, wettening

lips

glistening red.

Doodle, fold

print, or trace

the scrap, the pad, the page.

Because blank space

is irresistible,

just as we prattle on

to fill the awkward pause.

The sign of the cross, hands laid-on,

the crisp salute

the handing-off.

Because with the language of touch

you are never lost,

talking with your hands

for the hard of hearing,

consoling the anguish

of the lonely and fearing.

Or jammed in your pockets, and stopped.

How hard you'll find it

holding them perfectly still.

The Stuff They Always Forget

July 11 2015

There were no children on the beach

when we paddled up.

Just middle-aged couples,

soft-bodied and pale-skinned

glowing red.

Along with their dogs;

a motley collection of under-trained, over-fed,

of high-strung well-bred

and goofy love-bug.

Perhaps their children are grown

with kids of their own.

Or perhaps, like me, they are childless;

the uncomplicated affection of dogs

our only posterity.

Inexhaustible, despite the heat,

splashing after balls

snapping at horseflies.

Grilling meat

the smell of grease, burning-off.

A man sleeps, others gossip,

someone wading to her knees

in stagnant water.

Where there should be sand castles, and little shrieks,

double-dare teens

testing how deep it gets.

Although it's 9 o'clock,

and while the summer sun persists

it's too late for kids anyway.

Who, by now, would have piled into cars

feet sandy, bathing suits wet,

leaving an empty beach

and the stuff they always forget.

Trampled hats, and plastic toys,

an orphaned sock

so small

its sweetness is almost unbearable.

Middle-aged couples

are draining the last of the beer

and quickly collecting their gear,

hoping to beat

the twilight mosquitoes.

Calling out to the dogs

who pretend not to hear;

just like the kids

who whined, and dawdled.

I've realized lately the indolent languor of summer has less to do with the heat than it does with the length of day. I'm a very slow and late starter, but in July, there is no penalty for this: I can have a leisurely day, do tons of stuff, and never once bother consulting the clock.

Today was such a day, and by the time the pooch and I headed-off in the canoe, it was evening. We ended up at the main beach (a lot bigger than the boat put-in I recently wrote about in Beach), probably around 7:30. It's a nice expanse of sand, and such a gradual drop-off you can wade way out and still be up to your knees. There is a scattering of picnic tables, along with some hibachi-type barbecues welded to vertical posts.

It struck me that the place was entirely populated with middle-aged couples and dogs. No teens or twenty-somethings. No kids. Of course, this isn't usually the case. But it did make me think of the prevalence nowadays of childless couples (or, in my case, childless singles) and their (our) "fur-babies".

Substitute children? In some cases, yes. Except -- as in the uncomplicated affection of dogs -- a helluva lot easier!

Selfish, or selfless? That is, in an over-crowded world, is having children selfish, an act of genetic vanity? Or is childlessness the selfish course, living an irresponsible (meaningless?) life of personal comfort that contributes nothing to society's long term interest?

The poem, of course, is an entirely unsuitable medium to debate this. But if read closely enough, I think it does hint at a kind of dissatisfaction: maybe in the man sleeping away the day, or that the main activity appears to be the grilling of meat, or the almost desperate drinking. There is an implied questioning of the choice that's been made, of the hypothetical life that might have been. And there is a kind of inchoate longing, most notably in these 3 lines: an orphaned sock/ so small/ its sweetness is almost unbearable.

Community Garden

July 10 2015

In the community garden

people kneel

in rubber boots and floppy hats,

plunging calloused hands

into warm black soil.

Cultivate plants

in the allotted spot,

their fellow travellers

in adjacent plots.

In a city of concrete towers, walk-up flats

the renters, and transients

and temporarily landless

feel the urge to grow;

as if we were hard-wired

to prune, weed, hoe

glean, and gather.

There will be a harvest feast

of stunted carrots, blighted peas

that would have been so much easier

at the supermarket check-out,

where a cornucopia of vegetables

purged of imperfection

sell for cheap.

But it’s worth learning to farm,

immersing yourself

in the loamy smell, cool foliage,

sharing the earth

with slugs, cutworms

ravenous bugs,

aphids, sucking the guts

out of hard green tomatoes.

And urban strangers

from whom you’d normally turn away,

averting your gaze

as you hurry past.

Is worth

the grass-stained pants

and ground-in dirt

of work-worn fingers.

The puny carrot

that must have cost 5 bucks

but could never taste as sweet.

I read the words "community garden" (it was actually an illustrated piece in the daily paper about subway art in New York City), and was immediately struck with this idea of conviviality: the word "community" landing so much more forcefully than "garden". And then I pictured a smiling lady in a floppy hat, kneeling down in her plot and grinning up. So when the word "cultivate" came to mind, I naturally thought of found friends as much as plants. That was the start of the poem, and I let stream-of-consciousness take me from there.

Unnatural Sky

July 8 2015

You can look directly into the sun;

a small disc,

dull yellow

in the flat grey murk.

It feels claustrophobic, looking up,

an unnatural sky

too dim, too close.

And an acrid scent, a catch of breath

that's vaguely unsettling;

something impending

but what, and when?

The world on fire, tinder dry

somewhere west.

Standing forests are torched,

earth scorched

down to mineral soil.

And grasslands swept with flame,

ragged lines of half-burned smoke

racing windward.

The roar of a fire

is locomotives, hurtling by.

Where exhausted men

streaked with soot, and soaked in sweat

are unable to hear

even themselves.

But it is silent here, the air still.

An uneasy expectancy,

the calm that comes before?

Or are we exempt from calamity,

indifferent nature's

terrible power?

Avid oxygen, a random spark.

Trees ignite

in contagions of fire,

heat begets heat

and fuel dries.

And all we have is flight;

helpless

as forest animals driven out.

The humility of fire;

predator and prey

side-by-side.

It's a bad year for forest fires. Like pollen counts, I think from now on every year will be worse: the consequence of climate change. And combined with that dry heat, the pine beetle infestation has left the forests full of dead standing wood.

Even though we're far to the east, I've been smelling woodsmoke intermittently. The sky has been unnaturally hazy some days. You'd think we were far enough away to be exempt; but perhaps all those fires are affecting us as well. Just as there is only one ocean -- despite the many seas and straights we insist on giving names -- there is only one ocean of air. We're all breathing the same stuff.

(There is often some science in my poems, and I'm very fussy about keeping it accurate. The 2nd last stanza is such an indulgence. In the necessary shorthand of poetry, avid oxygen characterizes oxygen as the highly reactive poison that it is (at least if you're an anaerobe, or rust-free steel, or the target of a free radical). And heat begets heat describes the positive feedback effect of fire: that it is an exothermic reaction, and so self-propagates; easily escalating out of control until it exhausts all potential fuel.)