Customer Service - July 10 2022

 

Customer Service

July 10 2022

The usual wait

at the customer service counter.

Refunds, exchanges, complaints.

People lugging torn boxes

used products

defective stuff.

Saturday morning,

a time for chores

as well as stewing in line.

Staff, in company T-shirts

lounge behind the counter,

chatting

flirting

bent over paperwork

taking their time.

While customers

mutter and glare.

One flustered girl

is left tending the line.

She has a forced smile

and beleaguered air,

pony tail flying

chewed pen

gripped in her teeth.

Her nimble hands

dance over the keyboard,

a landline

is tucked between shoulder and ear.

She is both efficient and polite.

Sympathizes convincingly.

Awards refunds

to grateful customers

as if they were lottery wins.

Who says there is no such thing

as multitasking?

She has my vote

for employee of the week.

I suspect she will manage the place, some day.

While the rest

who seem to be “on break”

all the time

will be facing irate customers

until the day they retire.

I told her I'd misplaced my receipt.

She refunded me anyway.

As I said, damned good at her job!

Back Then - July 8 2022

 

Back Then

July 8 2022

You never think of this

as the time before.

When we had it good.

When we were naive.

When the little things

and minor annoyances

seemed big and consequential.

Because there was always something

and now is always after it.

This is how we map out our lives;

we look back

at what just happened

and assume this is now

how things will be,

the new status quo.

If only we'd known, we think

back when we had it so good.

Forgetting

that there is always something

the next big thing.

Forgetting to think

that all it takes

is a second or two

for all to change.

That this, the here and now

is not the aftermath

but the golden age

back when;

the before-time

that will soon be bathed

in the golden haze

of longing and nostalgia.

In the harsh light

of rueful regret

we failed to appreciate

how good we had it back then.

Artificial Light - July 9 2022

 

Artificial Light

July 9 2022

How moths fly erratically,

pale wings

flashing like strobes

in the artificial light,

the porch lamp

attracting them

like an irresistible force.

I am told they have evolved this way

to evade the radar of bats,

a clever tactic

in the perennial battle

of predator and prey.

When even the cover of dark

cannot protect them.

Butterflies, the same

but for birds.

A matter of life and death

for these small defenceless creatures.

But we forget

how unforgiving nature is

and see them as poetry;

flitting through the air

over sunlit meadows

light as gossamer.

See their multi-coloured wings

not as a means

to confuse keen avian eyes,

but as beauty

for its own sake.

As if the natural world

was there for our pleasure.

As if nature was frivolous

instead of frugal.

The porch light

is a harsh bluish-white.

It illuminates the stairs, but washes-out the sky,

so even on clear moonless nights

only the brightest stars

are visible.

The sound is loud and distracting,

determined moths

attracted to he hot bright fixture

battering the glass

repeatedly.

As they fly into screens

collide with windows.

And by morning

a few exhausted moths

are resting there

too spent to have fed.

While so many more

are scattered underneath;

dead bodies

needing to be swept.

A Simple Turn of Phrase - July 7 2022

 

A Simple Turn of Phrase

July 7 2022

Confess your love?

As if they were holding you hostage

and beaten the launch code out of you?

As if you'd committed some heinous act,

only to break down

under duress?

As if this were some shameful secret

and your conscience demanded it?

No.

A confession

because you know she won't feel the same.

A confession

because it's a forbidden love

and dangerous.

A confession

because how you have felt

has been too long suppressed,

even to yourself.

But how much better

to declare your love

proclaim

profess;

unstinting

unselfconscious

unafraid.

A strange turn of phrase, confession.

Half-hearted

with a whiff of shame and guilt.

I say, use a megaphone instead,

announce it to the world.

Risk rejection

fail bravely

expose yourself.

Or live disappointed

and die alone

all for the sake of a word.

The poem started with just that: the opening line. I read the phrase, and it immediately struck me as mealy-mouthed and suspect. After all, one confesses wrong-doing, not love!

Rabbit Holes, All the Way Down - July 6 2022

Rabbit Holes, All the Way Down

July 6 2022

There are truths, half-truths

and illusions.

The things we know

don't know

don't know we don't know.

But I understand

how ignorance is bliss.

How simple-mindedness

would cut through all the angst

and uncertainty,

the ambivalence

wringing of hands

moral panic.

Why bother with mastery

when it's all rabbit holes

that ramify

into even more?

The sweet relief

of leaving the past behind

the future to its own devices,

and planting oneself

firmly in the now.

They say dark matter

occupies most of the universe.

Something we've never seen

measured

characterized.

The brilliant physicists

who model existence

simply waved their hands,

assigning a name

to what seems to be missing.

    . . .  And dark energy?

Don't get me started on that!

I will learn

from this solution;

banish ignorance

by bureaucratic means:

file it away

in some dusty cabinet of names,

sign-off on the paperwork.

Then go on

enjoying my day,

knowing I really know nothing at all

and can contentedly live

with uncertainty.

Because it's almost all dark matter,

and our brief moment in the light

is all we'll ever have.

Not that I can take my own advice. Especially since curiosity is so essentially human, and certainty — the need to know — so basic to peace of mind. And because one of the things that makes us the uniquely human animal is the life of the mind: our ability to visualize the future while learning from the past.

Also, in this benighted age of misinformation, disinformation, and persisting superstition, I revile the idea that all “truths” are equally legitimate, as well as the easy conflation of fact with belief and opinion: some things are knowable, and it's essential that we operate from a shared and accepted set of facts.

Nevertheless, epistemological certainty can be a real bugbear. For example, the devout truly believe they have a direct pipeline to God, who whispers revealed divine truth into their ear. Too much conviction, passion, self-righteousness; and not enough epistemological humility. And to speak more generally, the ability to admit one's ignorance is a fundamental attribute of the open and curious mind.

The Small Fox - July 5 2022

 

The Small Fox

July 5 2022

The small fox,

reddish-brown

sharp-nosed

hyper-vigilant,

darts across the road

not far in front of us.

Is he predator or prey?

I know the pack of wolves,

whose howls I hear

but never see,

will not tolerate his presence.

But small animals fear him,

rodent hunter

egg stealer

slayer of snakes.

Even carrion,

before the turkey vultures and crows

surround the steaming carcass

squawking and shrieking

and competing for space,

all sharp claws and beaks

and powerfully beating wings.

He is solitary

clever

inquisitive.

I am surprised

how small he is,

what a resourceful survivor.

The dogs

who were asleep in back

are now barking madly;

they have caught a whiff

of his feral scent

as we're speeding past.

The fox,

stopped for a moment

at the side of the road,

gives us a glance.

And I catch a glimpse

of erect ears

glistening nose

piercing eyes,

before he vanishes

into the underbrush.

A master of stealth, as well.

There are no road-killed foxes.

You never hear them bark.

And if they pursued him

he would toy

with my enthusiastic dogs,

two Labs

crashing through the woods

as if it were a game

tails wagging

breathing hard.

How easily

he would elude them,

endowed as he is

with the lithe grace

of a wild creature,

a predator's supple intelligence,

and the skittishness of prey.

My two heroic dogs,

left panting with exhaustion

and most likely lost.

Night Driving - July 4 2022

 

Night Driving

July 4 2022

Cold and dark outside,

but here

in this cocoon of steel and glass

the blower is blasting heat,

and the dashboard's muted light

feels like company.

I can only see so far,

the blacktop unscrolling

a short distance ahead

in the headlight's harsh glare,

their cone sharpening

as the first drops start to fall.

Wet pavement

glistens with rain,

the glass begins to fog.

I watch a sleeping world

racing past,

oblivious

to the only car on the road

and its own small contained universe.

A ballgame from the coast

fading in and out.

A preacher,

his southern accent tinged

with brimstone and fire.

All-night jazz,

and a host

whispering into my ear

with a voice of blended Scotch

unfiltered cigarettes.

I am lost

in space and time

eyes drifting shut.

It will be a long night,

but the solitude is balm

and the speed hypnotic,

the thwack of the wipers

sweeping back and forth

as constant as a beating heart

keeping company with mine.

Mental Status Exam - July 3 2022

 

Mental Status Exam

July 3 2022

In the mental status exam

the patient was asked

what to do with a letter

she found on sidewalk

sealed, stamped, addressed.

Deposit, was correct

drop it in the box.

But email, Tik Tok, text?

A young person

who has never written a letter,

received one,

or gotten a paper cut

opening an envelope?

Who never impatiently waited

to to hear from her lover

stationed overseas,

or get the news from her mother

clipped from the hometown rag?

Or every few weeks

dished gossip with a friend

who relocated West?

Who never sent in box-tops

to redeem for prizes,

along with “one thin dime”

to pay for handling?

Whatever that was.

Who never sent letters

home from camp

under a counsellor's watchful eye?

Received their final marks

from summer school?

Or the usual card

on birthdays and Christmas

on which dad was instructed

to add his inscrutable scrawl?

Hardly a fair question

when letterboxes

are few and far apart,

and actual letters

are special gestures

intended to impress.

When a clean inbox

is all one could ask for,

and how to empty it

the real quandary

no one knows the answer to.

Not a Wasted Word - July 2 2022

 

Not a Wasted Word

July 2 2022

Our hard-working dad

believed in frugality.

Would rebuke us

when we were caught

gazing vacantly into the fridge

and muttering nothing to eat

as usual.

Or left the front door

open too long,

with a sharp what are you doing

heating the world?!!

No plate wasn't emptied,

no damn the expense

was ever heard.

Lights off, when we left a room,

and there you go again

drinking milk

like water.

So I am well-trained

to abhor waste.

The sins of the father

and all that.

Except for me

it's not a wasted word.

No turgid essays

or novel length indulgences.

Simple language,

short, sharp, terse.

My father would be proud.

I keep the heat down

extinguish lights

conserve sentences.

Have saved enough to have earned the right

to waste my life

on bad poetry.

This, he might not understand so well.

We're not made of money, he'd say

and how right he was;

so many hungry poets

who earn nothing from it.

Who have all the time in the world

to write

just for the love of it;

yet still cut all the fat

and never waste a word.

This poem began when I read something that referred to good writing, which ideally is simple, tight, no fat. The Hemingwayesque approach. But while prose can easily get prolix and elaborate, poetry rarely gets away with offending that rule. It's usually at its best when distilled, compressed, edited closely. Not a single wasted word. Which suits me fine, because I was indoctrinated from an early age in an ethos of no waste or extravagance.

Which made this a particularly difficult poem to write, because I didn't want to contradict myself. Especially since I favour a conversational tone in my poetry, which means that at its best it reflects how people actually speak. And in normal speech, language is hardly so closely policed!

A Tropical Paradise - July 1 2022

 

A Tropical Paradise

July 1 2022

In early morning

when the tropical heat is not quite so oppressive

a thin older man

with dark skin

taut as burnished mahogany

rakes the beach by hand.

Crabs are evicted.

Dead fish

left by the tide

gathered up.

And skeins of seaweed

still dripping wet

disposed of out of sight.

The white sand is imported,

all the rocks

have long been removed.

The beach is cordoned off

so the locals don't trespass,

and picturesque palms

that were never native here

sway in the steady breeze

that blows in from the sea;

the same winds

that brought traders and cholera.

But unlike most invasive species

that land in virgin soil,

they need careful tending

to survive.

A tropical paradise

that is really a simulacrum

of island life.

Where vacationers

on all-inclusive holidays

get drunk

eat too much

and return to northern winters

with either tell-tale tans

or badly burned.

And the man

who manicures the sand

returns each day

to his small inland home

and large family.

Where there's no A/C

and spotty electricity,

and although there's running water

it's unsafe to drink.

The tourist dollars

he depends on.

And a tropical homeland

that once flourished with diversity,

but has now been reduced

to sanitized beaches

imported food.

Where the shore

is off-limits

to fishermen and crabbers,

and the garbage

is dumped out at sea

but not far enough to matter.

This actually came out of considering the ethics of a beach vacation in a place like Cuba: where you know the tourist dollars are essential for people's livelihoods, but where we also conveniently ignore that it's a repressive police state. But since I prefer to avoid politics, I focused instead on culture and environment. Of course, it's important not to idealize a precolonial past, which I'm sure was a hard life. But it's also important to recognize that our idealized image of a tropical island beach is just that: a stage set, constructed to fit what we've come to expect. And that it comes at a cost: reserved for foreigner consumption; ecologically unsustainable.

Transformation - June 30 2022

 

Transformation

June 30 2022

Winter is blue light

and long distorted shadows.

The trees are bare;

I can can almost see them shiver

in the cold astringent air.

But now, in June

it's earth-tones

and high relentless sun.

And in their glory

after so many years of growth

trees enclose the place,

looming over,

edging closer,

cinching-in

like a tightening green perimeter;

so I am in constant shade

and mercifully cool.

Grass, where there was snow,

and down the slope

a large body of water

that was an open expanse of white;

but now, instead of wind-whipped and barren

inviting me in.

A few months

of easy living

before winter again.

Yet all it takes

is the earth tilting a bit

as it circles its star

in a roughly elliptical orbit

on a slightly inclined ecliptic,

and it's as if space-time

had been wrenched apart.

So why

when year after year

there is no mystery to it,

am I so amazed

at such a vast transformation?

A short intense summer

with barely time to adjust,

before the sun starts descending

leaves turn brittle

the first snow comes.

The familiar sounds

of trees rustling

surf up

and a brief efflorescence 

of birdsong and bugs.

Then silence;

except for armadas of honking geese

heading south.

In the Pool Change Room - June 28 2022

 

In the Pool Change Room

June 28 2022

The middle school boys

are snapping towels

cracking wise

and laughing at inside jokes.

They're planning McDonald's

and calling their parents for rides.

Some are behind,

and retreat behind a locked bathroom stall

to undress.

Others, full of bravado

brag about conquests

more imagined than real,

pass rumours about girls,

and trade insults

with the good-natured humour

that bonds the male animal.

Their nascent fascination with sex

is light on facts

but enthusiastic.

They have learned too much from rap songs, I fear,

while health class

was strong on plumbing

and absent on relationship,

forget about fun

pleasure

connection.

But I also hear them grappling

with the hard questions and deep thoughts

with which all questioning minds

must eventually contend.

Not much of which

they will share with their friends,

but I can discern a seriousness

stirring beneath the surface

of good times

and male bravado.

So I wonder,

do they think about climate change

democracy

the world we will leave them?

Are they as hopeful as we were

coming of age

way back when?

I feel for them

and their dubious future.

But also envy

their high spirits

and camaraderie.

Adolescents

and their fierce need for belonging.

Young men

and the rough lessons of puberty.

Aspiring adults

contending with the big issues of life

for the first time.

Meanwhile, they leave a mess

of wet floors

candy wrappers

and forgotten clothes,

the smell of chlorine

mixed with testosterone.

Or perhaps that's too much product

fouling the air

with its cloying chemical scent.

The silence is deafening

in the empty chamber

after they've stampeded out.

It feels good

having the place to myself.

But I am left with a kind of longing

for misspent youth

and undimmed promise.

Tempered with sweet relief

to be passed all that;

the confusion

fear

uncertainty.

The innocence of youth,

and its many small cruelties.