Ineradicable
July 31 2016


I swear, these weeds appear overnight
fast enough to see them grow.
As if I could lie, ear to the ground
and hear the sandpaper sound 
of fine particles of soil
pushed aside.
Greedy plants 
thrusting up into the cool layer of heavy air,
stems unwinding like time-lapse film,
unfurling leaves
beaded with dew.

Determined, insurgent
subversive,
they colonize the lawn
infiltrate flowerbeds. 
This one is a sickly green,
alien, toxic, malignant.
And tough, resisting my strong right hand;
until a thick fibrous root
erupts from the sod,
angling-up across the lawn
from cold dark earth.
Where night-crawlers, and grubs
and unspeakable bugs 
flourish,
an infernal netherworld
hiding in plain sight. 

Metastasis by sucker
grass on death-watch.
While I manically tear up roots,
cross-crossing the lawn 
this way and that;
as if a crush of groundhogs
had been at work.

But even deeper down,
tap roots
plunging like daggers
straight to the heart.



Frankly, my so-called lawn is mostly weeds, anyway. Good ones, like low-growing clover; and bad ones, like dandelions. Not to mention  entire phylums of unnamable things. 

They propagate by sucker, and grow unbelievably fast. I’ve gone about trying to tear up the hidden network of horizontal roots, but my effort just leaves the lawn a mangled mess, and hardly makes a dent in that secret subterranean network. 

Of course, we designate what is and isn’t a weed; nature is indifferent. So I could easily eliminate my problem through a simple act of definition:  call everything desirable, and declare victory!

I think the best definition of a weed has to involve this invasive quality, this opportunistic occupation of any vacant space. Which should be a mark of superiority; at least from an evolutionary point of view:   because wouldn’t this confer a tremendous survival advantage, be an indicator of superior fitness? Ahhh, but we human beings like control and consistency. A manicured lawn attests to our mastery, our dominion over the world. While a chaotic lawn screams failure, fatalism, submission.

Who’s On First?
July 30 2016


The New York Yankees
in all their pin-striped swagger
remain coolly nameless;
numbers only
of those corporate jerseys
stitched in black. 
Are they so famous
we’re expected to know?
Disdainful, even of the fans.
Or are they humble; 
the whole greater
than its anonymous cogs,
as they methodically go about the business
of playing ball?

We love underdogs.
So only a New Yorker
could support this team,
with its strict comportment,
its enforcement of hair length, and facial trim,
the smug glory
of its winning heritage.
The Big Apple
Gotham
the straw that stirs the drink.
Frank Sinatra, singing New York, New York,
the bleacher bums
hurling raspberries.

My team
which won a championship decades ago
plays gamely
on a hostile field.
Because on any given day
the Yankees are beatable
  --  and how sweet that is.
Although I must admit
a certain grudging admiration 
for their unequalled tradition
for expecting to win.

First pitch, final out.
But who’s keeping score, anyway?
Because isn’t leaving it all on the field, playing with heart
what really counts?
The consolation
that’s become all too familiar
for fans like me;
our boys, shuffling off the diamond
heads slumped in defeat.



Like dog poems, I could write a baseball poem every day! I recall one from quite a while ago which I think is called Try Easy; although with its pretensions of the philosophical, it was a lot more ambitious than this little puff-piece. But baseball invites that kind of writing: the more I watch, the more I affirm the notion that baseball really is a metaphor for life. 

I recently pointed out this small detail to a brand new fan of the game. I think their uniform is intended as a kind of psychological warfare, connoting either disdainful swagger, or the kind of  methodical  efficiency that comes of dedicated teamwork. Anyway, ever since then, this factoid has kind of stuck in my head as something that might be worthy of a poem. Apparently, not really! Still, every once in a while, it’s nice to write purely in the spirit of fun. 

This season, we’re nicely ahead of the Yankees, battling other teams for first. So far. But that Yankee mystique always persists. And in baseball, even the best team and its fans have to learn to be good losers; because there is a lot of losing in baseball.  Not to mention, as the legendary Yankee catcher Yogi Berra notoriously said, “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over”.

The First Law of Thermodynamics
July 28 2016

“energy can neither be created nor destroyed  ...so that the total energy of the universe remains the same”


Who knew I would find beauty
in the strictures of law?
After all, Picasso scorned the rules.
And isn’t the law blind, even-handed,
while beauty 
is for the privileged few?
Like a ravishing woman
the ineffable view?

But the first law of thermodynamics
is so simple, and absolute
it’s a Haiku of existence.

It talks about a closed system,
but implies how hypothetical 
this truly is. 
And what is beauty
but the illumination of life
as universal?

It states that energy
is neither created nor destroyed.
So our boundaries
a more permeable than we thought.
One, flowing into the next, passing it on;
touch
reverberating down
to posterity.

And how beautiful
this symmetry is;
energy equalizing,
an exquisitely balanced scale
that never tips.

The conceit of the poet
is that beauty is created by man,
his language, his hand
his inspired eye.
But there is also beauty
in discerning an absolute truth,
always out there, in the ether
indifferent to us.
And then, how elegant
the irrefutable proof.

Like this foundational law
distilled down to its essence.
A universal truth,
told 
with the simple beauty
any poet would envy.



The scientist, humanist, pacifist, and thinker Ursula Franklin died at age 94. Here’s something I read in her obituary (Globe and Mail -  July 27, 2016):

‘ “She loved the beauty of a good, well-structured argument,” Dr. Orbinski said. “She loved the beauty of crystals and the laws of thermodynamics. She loved the beauty of nature and its intricateness.” ’ 

( I would have preferred “intricacy”, but so it goes. James Orbinski is chair of global health governance at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, in Waterloo, Ont., and former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières.)

Beauty in the laws of thermodynamics?!! This struck me as brilliant, and true. It really resonated with me, because I too admire its simplicity and truth. It is convenient to divide the world  between  artists and scientists:  the former attuned to beauty; the latter dry, reductionist, unimaginative. But even though you don’t invent facts, science is highly creative. Mathematics is pure play. It challenges its practitioners to make  leaps of intuition and  illuminate unexpected relationships.  It rewards them with its elegant proofs and unembellished purity. While the insurgent insights of Einstein were inspired, original, and perfectly realized.  To see the world clearly is to be gob-smacked by the transcendent beauty of creation. You don’t need to make things up, or  believe in a supernatural power.

I also admire the beauty, simplicity, and power of this fundamental law. Poets often talk about beauty. So as  someone who sees himself as mostly a poet but also a scientist, I couldn’t resist taking on the challenge of honouring Ursula Franklin’s memory with this.

Tracking
July 27 2016


The dog is a sundial
following the day as it circles the deck.
Flopping down in the patch of heat
her chest rises and falls,
hot breath
cooling the blood. 

An eye opens, tail thumps
as I approach.
But an old dog 
lying in the sun
will only be moved
by cloud, cataclysm
food.

Small children, and other innocent creatures
sleep like this,
immersed, and utterly unquestioning. 
I bargain
calculate the hours
toss with anxiety.
But sleep is her default
and she is effortless.

Her body stiffens, legs thrash.
Excited yelps
escape her throat.
Doggie dreams 
are not existential, or filled with angst;
they are chasing rabbits, running with the pack.
Or perhaps, trailing me.
A trusting companion, awaiting my command,
dogged in her constancy. 

So I let sleeping dogs lie.
Her thick brown coat
lightening to blondish,
one half-open eye
tracking my every move. 



A long time since I let myself write a dog poem. I think the key word here is constancy. It conveys exactly what we love about our dogs:  their  loyalty and fidelity, their sure companionship. 

It’s clear that the narrator envies his dog, and this shouldn’t be surprising. Because we have much to learn from them:  their ability to live in the moment; their unconditional and nonjudgmental love; their lack of vanity (not to mention lack of  materialism); their unfiltered and uninhibited enthusiasm. And also their unerring integrity. By this I mean how true and consistent they are to their essential dogginess. Because unlike us, they do not question, manage impressions, or pretend to be someone they’re not. And, of course, we envy their ignorance of death. Because even though our awareness of mortality gives life its urgency and ambition, ignorance seems an enviable kind of freedom. 

I often use cliche ironically. But even when it’s not ironic, cliche seems to have an attraction for me. Maybe it’s because poetry is so carefully constructed -- each word weighed, the cadence and music so obsessively tuned (even though, ideally, it appears effortless!) -- that a cliche is almost like taking a deep cleansing breath. Or maybe it’s the challenge of interrogating a tired cliche in a way that reinvigorates its meaning, gives it new life. Anyway, I quite like let sleeping dogs lie. It reads so seamlessly in a literal sense that its familiarity, once the line is done, almost comes as a surprise. I’m amused by this, and hope the reader is as well. 

The opening stanza came to me out on the trail, walking with Skookum, word for word (with just a little tweaking). Walking is an excellent invitation to poetry, but hasn’t been happening much lately. This writing of this poem was was also very unusual in being done directly on the keyboard. I’ve always felt that the tactility of pen on paper was very helpful to the creative process. But clearly, not essential!

Small Town
July 21 2016


Even though I’m only here for awhile,
a few strangers have caught my eye
apologized
asked which way.

Do I have that settled look
like I’ve lived here all my life?
A man whose directions
won’t lead you astray?
Non-threatening,
like some hail-fellow-well-met
who waves at every passing car
squinting through the glass,
back-slaps random passers-by
like long lost friends.

It’s a small town, on a back road
a few traffic lights.

And I thought I looked so worldly, so self-assured.
A mover-and-shaker
on his way up.

But it appears I’m that guy in the barbershop
with the small-town brain trust,
solving the world’s problems
with common sense.
Who never doubt their belonging,
feet propped 
on the arborite table
with wobbly chrome legs,
stacked with well-thumbed magazines
well out-of-date.
No one in a rush.
The usual haircut, Joe.

The sweet smell of emollients
the tang of shaving cream.
Exotic blue bottles of barbicide
that have never left the shelf.



I read this poem (which appeared in Writer's Almanac, Garrison Keillor’s daily on-line selection ) and loved the idea of a stranger being asked directions, and how secretly pleased he is:  the sense of legitimacy, belonging, exoticism it confers. 


Directions 
by Jim Barnes 

On my way back from the Tabac
two Dutch businessmen stopped to ask
which way and how far to the Metro.
I tell you it felt fine: I felt

Parisian and tried to sound it.
Walking to the Crillon, Caroline
and I were stopped by a chic couple
who asked if they were near the Ritz.

We pointed diagonally toward
place Vendome, then shared our Michelin.
Only in Paris, as they say,
can an American be so French

that Europeans ask directions
and seven strangers wave at you
from cars and waiters read your mind
and offer Chateau Neuf du Pape.

“Directions” by Jim Barnes from Paris. © University of Illinois Press, 1997. 


Of course, my version is quite the opposite:  instead of becoming an honorary Parisian, the character here gets to toy with the undeniable appeal of belonging to an archetypal small town. It’s not cosmopolitan and it’s not ambitious, but there something very reassuring about stability, familiarity, routine. And about knowing your place in the world. If this scene isn’t somewhere in a Norman Rockwell painting, it should be!

The Documentary of My Life
July 20 2016


The documentary of my life
will never be made.
And if seeing is believing
perhaps I never was.

As a kid, we had an old box camera,
the mechanical click
that gave ko-dack its name.
But few pictures were taken, and fewer remain;
small prints
on brittle paper
that are fading fast.

Before video.
Before smart phones.
Before every moment
was obsessively preserved;
posterity served
in place of the now,
self-consciousness
in place of immersion.

Yes, we fear death,
compulsively filling our time
with living colour,
anxiously showcasing lives
with meaning, and breadth.

Yes, we exist only in others’ eyes,
curating our brand
to be seen at our best.

Yes, we compete for adventure,
to prove    ...whatever.

Another  thousand pictures,
like reassurance
for the insecure.
As if every smile must be framed
to to be validated,
every second documented
or we question its worth.
While the unspoken secret
is they will never be viewed
and surely not shared.

Because mere possession 
is more than enough,
archiving ourselves
for posterity.

The illusion 
that bits and bytes
will out-last our lives.

The odds 
of cheating death
in pixels of light.

The hope
we’ll be forever young
when memory dies.

Hearing Is The Last To Go

July 18 2016

Hearing is the last to go.

The rattle of dishes

from the modest kitchen

down the hall,

the being present

the busying themselves.

The voice of the man

who fell for her

decades ago,

off in the murk

of peripheral vision

squeezing her hand.

The faint rattle

of the last breath

through dry cracked lips.

Then the long sigh

of expiration

as she finally comes to rest;

lungs slackening

chest at ease.

It starts this way, as well,

muffled by fluid, diffused by flesh;

the beating heart

the world out there.

Smell is subtle, taste too blunt, touch goes numb.

And vision, interrupted

around, behind.

While sound jumps,

frozen, frightened

startled flight.

Like running into his arms;

the voice, in the hubbub

she recognized.

Warm breath, wet lips

directly into her ear,

5 o’clock stubble

against her skin.

The speed of sound;

so ravishingly quick

so unerringly clear.

I was reading a New Yorker piece about  hospice nurse who does home care. This line jumped out at me like a found poem:  “Hearing is the last to go.”

And even if it’s not, hearing is still the most powerful sense:  the primordial and most essential; the medium of language and the means of survival.

I’m pretty sure I’ve written this poem before, but haven’t bothered to go through the archives to unearth it. Although even if  it has been written, it’s always  worth another go. Maybe this time, I’ve gotten closer to making it work. 

I’m partial to the semi-colon, that scorned orphan of punctuation. I probably let myself get carried away in this piece. But the reason it’s so useful in poetry is because poems are written to be read out loud:  that is, recited at the speed of the human voice. So punctuation becomes a road map, telling the speaker where to pause, and for just how long. The semi-colon does this beautifully, sitting strategically between the comma’s brief pause and the period’s full stop.

White Noise
July 17 2016


The generator’s been running for hours, now.

Its cacophonous start,
pistons firing, turbine grinding
that high-pitched rattling sound.
And then the comforting rumble
the steady hum.
Like white noise
you only hear when it’s gone,
suddenly loud
in the heavy silence.

Because the ear accommodates.
Like the seat I no longer feel.
Like the pain that recedes.
Like the loss I refuse to honour,
unconsciously gnawing
away at my gut.
Because you do what you must.
Because denial
has much to be said for it.

When the power went
the peace hit unexpectedly;
absence
dropping like a dead-weight.
So I was almost resentful
when it so urgently kicked in.
As if the machine mirrored our need
to fill the emptiness;
our aversion to quiet
our fear of  the void.

Now I have light, and noise
and every convenience
of modern living.
While outside, it’s too noisy to talk.
Internal combustion
fouling the air,
as shuttered slats
vent waves of heat,
water-drops dance on its steel.

But I think of the silence I’m missing.
And wonder
if I’d stop hearing that, as well;
the racing thoughts, the monkey brain
that fill my space with chatter
no matter what.

Or would I luxuriate
in the quiet I’ve always craved;
the dark stillness,
the measureless wait? 

The Missing Sitter
July 14 2016


Whistler’s Mother
was actually entitled 
Arrangement in Grey and Black 
No. 1.

So was there no No. 2
because there was no doing better?
Or had he hit a dead end, and moved on?

Grey and Black
because he was a painter
pre-occupied with composition, technique, contrast.
Not politics or narrative
but shades of light.
Not subject matter,
but the aesthetics
of paint on canvas.

And as it turns out
she was only sitting-in
because the model didn’t show up.
Yet we all know Whistler’s mother.
And think of James
as the dutiful son.

Forgetting
that in some alternate history
he was smitten by the beauty of the missing sitter
and spent the rest of his art
rendering his new-found love
in salacious colour, immodestly garbed.

The banal beauty of youth
so many others have painted 
countless times.
While the grey old lady
in the shapeless shawl
still fascinates us.

You let your art out into the world
and it’s no longer yours.
Each viewer remakes it,
each reader 
has her say.

Even titles change. 
The immortal mother
in black and grey.

I read about this in Garrison Keillor’s Writers Almanac, which consists of a daily poem along with a small vignette of literature or history or art, and drops into my inbox each weekday like a delightful little indulgence. (So if it turns out this story is apocryphal or embellished, don’t blame me!) 

When I read Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, I immediately realized that Whistler had a whole differently take on what he was trying to do with this portrait:  very different than the take Whistler’s Mother would lead us to presume. And when you learn about the missing sitter, it’s especially clear that the painting wasn’t about his mother at all! 

So I begin with a literal dissection of the formal title. It seems to suggest an artist pre-occupied with aesthetics and technique, not content. There is a purity and single-mindedness to this that appeals to me. 

Although I think the delight of this poem is my whimsical little alternate history. Instead of the sober upper-case “Artist” and dutiful son we think of, Whistler becomes infatuated; running off with his lover and spending the rest of his life making second-rate art.

The story of Whistler’s Mother made me think of unintended consequence and happy accident. Would the painting have ever become as famous and loved if things had gone as planned?

It also made me think about ideas of beauty:  the conventional propinquity of youth; and another kind of beauty that comes out of dignity and perseverance and attachment. 

And also, as the poem ends, about the distance between an artist’s intent and how his work is perceived. This may be more true of poetry that visual art. Each reader inhabits a poem differently. She see things the writer never intended. (Not that I’m reluctant to take credit!) A different reading at a different time and place can transform meaning. So you let your work out into the world, and then must let it go. Creation is a collaborative act between the writer and the reader, the artist and the viewer. 

After You ...
July 10 2016


After you,
snatching the door, catching her eye
flashing a smile. 

And after you,
a grateful man, a step behind
tagging along in your wake.

And after you,
the women who came
to stand, for a time, in your place. 
That quick succession
of expectance
lust 
pretenders.

Who were never as glamorous
or mischievous
with your back of carbon steel.
As breakable, or pervious,
maddening
or real.

They say when a door slams shut
a window opens.
But in a barren age
when chivalry is scorned
and conquest frowned upon
we squeeze through all at once;
all elbow jabs, and shoulder shoves
and shards of broken glass.



The expression after you you caught my eye in something or other I was reading. I naturally pictured a held door, a politely inviting nod. And then the playfulness of language struck me, setting the cliche against its literal meaning. So I let my stream of consciousness take me on this shallow dive into the murky waters of male/female relationship, courtship, expectation. It doesn’t specifically come from personal experience. But most of us have someone in our past we regret losing, or we idealize, or whom absence heightens.  

There is more resorting to cliche in the door closing, the window opening. But again, it’s slightly reframed through a literal lens. And, as I often enjoy doing do with cliche, it’s used ironically:  a kind of amused invocation of those earnestly inspirational self-help bromides.

I like the contradictions contained in her description. Because we are all that complicated and contradictory:  an amalgam of strength and weakness, frustration and ease. Even though memory and distance conspire to reduce us to a single dimension.

Stylistically, I was very pleased with the the recursive short “a” sound that cinches the poem tight.  It begins with the first after, and ends with the final glass. This kind of word-play can be very self-indulgent, and risks getting in the way of the poem if it sounds forced, or shoe-horned in, or like showing-off. What makes it gratifying is when the perfect word works:  that is, when even without this constraint of rhyme and rhythm, that word is the most natural choice; when it doesn’t jump out or interrupt the poem’s easy flow.

Scorcher
July 9 2016


The scorcher never came.

That summer day
with waves of heat
boiling off the blacktop,
the smell of tar
gone tacky-soft.

When the air is thick, and motionless.
When rivulets of sweat
trickle down the hollow
at the small of the back.
When necks turn red, collars grit
faces flush
heads spin.
When clammy skin sticks
shirts hang limply.

When there’s an electric buzz in the air
and sun is relentless,
so even the shade
is hardly bearable.

When sleeping dogs lie
grass browns
flowers sag.
When tress stand stoically,
roots probing deep beneath the soil.

When teenaged girls
in skimpy swim-suits
worship sun,
bored boys
listlessly run.
And their elders lounge under-cover,
nursing icy tumblers
of convivial stuff.

And when only fools, or the hard up
go about the business
of the working day,
even they are dreaming of cold lakes
a cleansing rain.

Einstein was wrong;
time dilates with heat, not speed.
Because when it’s a scorcher
seconds barely tick 
minutes seem endless
days stand still.

We wait all winter for this;
only to wish
for blessed relief. 



The weather  forecast looked like hot, humid, clear. I was hoping for the first scorcher of the summer, which has been disappointingly cool, late, and  wet. But it turned out pretty temperate, with a lot of cloud. More of the same! 

My imagination drifted back to those hot muggy days of bone deep heat that seem interminable, enervating, oppressive. If they weren’t so rare here, and if they truly felt endless, they’d be unbearable. But as it is, we revel in the heat. Even the muggy humid stuff.

It was important to involve the senses here, so the poem has sight, sound and smell, as well as touch.

Fault Line
July 7 2016


I read how unpredictable
lightning is.
That it can cover vast distances.
That it can appear
out of clear blue sky.
That it can blind-side instantly,
indifferent
to innocence, or guilt.

That the faintest rumbling, sinister cloud
on the other side of the mountain
might not be too far.
And, like a sniper’s target,
dead
before you hear the shot.

Shit happens
fate determines us.
Like the accident of birth.
Like the anarchy of chance, the injustice of luck.
Like living in an earthquake zone,
where the ground below
can turn to quicksand,
and even clear blue sky
cannot be trusted. 

But then I also read
it doesn’t strike just once.
Because whatever set the odds
still holds
  --  the highest up, standing tall,
colliding fronts
exposed.

So while I’m reluctant to blame myself
when the universe conspired, there were no signs,
should I have known
wrong place, wrong time?

That there is somewhere on earth
lightning never strikes?



A National Geographic documentary about lightning I once watched left a powerful impression. It told the story of a cyclist who was out for a ride on a beautiful day, and was left severely brain damaged after having been struck by lightning that came out of the proverbial clear blue sky. There was an electrical storm many miles away on the other side of a low mountain range, and a stray bolt sought him out. So whenever there is even the faintest rumbling in the distance, I am wary.

It also dispelled the myth of lightning never striking twice. Because it does:  what made a favourable place to strike still applies, and so there is a higher likelihood it will strike there again.

The poem revisits a familiar trope of mine:  that we have far less agency in our lives than we flatter ourselves imagining; that contingency over-rules the best laid plans; that things can change in an instant; and that we are insignificant and the universe indifferent. There is the illusion of safety, for one -- no matter how carefully we construct our lives, there is no such thing as being safe. I have never lived on a fault line, but I can imagine the feeling of constant uncertainty. Yet we all live under clear blue skies, and think nothing of it. 

The fact that you would be zapped before even hearing it is what’s most frightening: that because there is no warning, you could theoretically spend every second fearing the sky is just about to come crashing down. Of course, we don’t live like this. We are excellent at denial. We are not paralysed by vastly unlikely calamities . Nevertheless, low probability but high consequence events make an impression. And that’s what I tried to convey in the poem:  a feeling of uncertainty and helplessness. I think the seismic analogy captures this well: like  caught in a vice between heaven and earth, the feeling that not only can’t you trust the ground you’re standing on, but also the sky overhead.

Ground Level
July 5 2016


Rip-stop nylon, stiff from wear.
Then a dead half-inch
of exhaled air
stoppered-up.
And the thin layer
of miracle fibre
your bag is stuffed with,
between you
and cold uneven ground.
Which has lost much of its loft, 
either clumping-up
or nothing at all.

Where the cool air bottoms out.
Where one ear
is pressed close to earth
listening,
as if privy to her whispers
no one else can hear. 

You are never this alert
on your feather bed
enclosed by 4 rectangular walls,
the trapped air
you’ve breathed already.

A twig snaps, leaves rustle
nocturnal creatures call.
And at the break of day
before even the sun dawns
the songs of squabbling birds
penetrate your dreams;
still groggy with sleep,
a little stiff
from damp rheumatic soil.

You lie on your back, looking up
at fabric sagging with dew,
the light through the trees
infused with chlorophyll.
You yawn, the land breathes;
a  promising breeze,
as warm sun 
stirs the cool layer
sending ripples across the lake.

Before the listless air, August heat
make the tent unbearable.



Anyone who’s canoe-camped will recognize this:  the thin wilderness air mattress, the old sleeping bag you thought had one more trip in it, the thin material that separates “out” from “in”. On a hot night, you’re grateful to be on the ground, where cool air pools. And the absence of noise, the acuteness of sound.