Apple Pie Á La Mode - March 29 2023

 

Apple Pie Á La Mode

March 29 2023

The old friends

are at their customary table

at the local café

eating what they always order.

They're telling the same lame jokes,

listening to stories they’ve heard before,

and gently razzing each other

amidst the chummy hubbub

of the late lunch crowd.

And talking politics, of course;

as if their strongly held opinions

could actually change something.

“Old”,

as in long-standing

and of a certain age.

The friendship of men

unfolds this way;

not maudlin, sentimental

or whispered confessions,

no break-ups, resentments

or catty asides;

just pointless conversation

and good-natured digs,

the odd expletive

dropped needlessly in.

Sports is good,

pet-peeves better.

Like the younger generation

that damned internet.

But no matter what gets said,

it's the getting together

that counts.

The waitress knows them by name,

and they tip her well

despite their ingrained frugality.

Waitress, not server,

tip, not gratuity.

Because why change

a perfectly good word?

They all order dessert.

Apple pie à la mode.

And, as usual

  —  at least for little kids and old geezers  —

free ice cream.

Vanilla?, she asks

with a mischievous smile,

as if it's ever anything else.

Greedy for Light - March 28 2023

 

Greedy for Light

March 28 2023

Not snow blind.

Not yet;

but the spring sun

on the untouched snow

that still covers everything

bores into my retinae

like laser beams.

Even tightly closed,

my thin pale lids

feel transparent.

So much light

after a dark brooding winter,

when the earth was dormant

and I so adrift

lost track of the days.

But now

the sun is insistent

intrusive

unsparing.

I see the world through tears

and tightly narrowed eyes,

or stand with my back to the sun

a hand for shade.

Let there be light, God spoke,

and on the first day of creation

it was so.

Followed by land, water, life.

Each spring, the same,

as earth emerges

and pools of melt appear,

the first green shoots

poke through warming soil.

Or if not by God

then nature;

greedy for light

and born to grow.

Falling to Earth - March 28 2023

 

Falling to Earth

March 28 2023

The law of gravity.

Things fall.

We feel weighed down.

Law-abiding body parts

eventually sag,

and even scofflaws tip the scales.

Laws, of course, are compulsory.

And even in space

gravity rules,

because gravity doesn't stop

at the stratosphere.

So an orbiting astronaut

isn't as weightless as he feels;

he is simply in free-fall,

but high enough

not to fall to earth.

So why not a law of gravitas?

Laughter, yes,

but a little more seriousness

seems called for —

more substance, less froth.

And looking down

from low earth orbit

the gravity

of our shared dilemma

can be seen in a single take;

one small

blue and green planet

against the cold black vastness

of outer space.

Where we breathe the same air,

pee where we drink,

and stay where we're put.

The pull of home;

and nowhere else to go.

Saving Time - March 27 2023

 

Saving Time

March 27 2023

It's 5 o’clock, somewhere.

Even a broken watch is right

twice a day.

And, for the parsimonious

a stitch in time saves   . . .    .

Clichés

have their kernel of truth;

like stereotypes

there's something there.

But time flies

is irrefutable.

Now, more behind me than ahead.

5 in the afternoon

and darkness descends,

midnight

on the doomsday clock

is drawing near,

no stopping it.

Or cocktails, if you wish.

Because it's always 5 pm somewhere,

so drown your sorrows

and toast the day.

About posterity, I'm not so sure;

the end

really is the end.

We may be promiscuous

with words like “always”

“ever after”

“for all eternity”;

but there's no forever,

and people forget

so soon.

Just as there's no saves 9.

All that rush and breathlessness

and shouldering aside,

when in the end

there's no getting back

the time you kept.

Sinaloa - March 26 2023

 

Sinaloa

March 26 2023

This well-travelled tomato

arrived from Mexico

on a long train journey

having seen more of the world

than me.

An appetizing red,

but hard, tasteless, odourless.

Clearly, it has not travelled well

in its bulk container

from the industrial fields

of Sinaloa.

I think of August;

hot sun

and luscious tomatoes

that smell of summer

weighing down the vine.

The first bite

into a fat red ripe one.

A burst

of sweet savoury juice

dribbling down my chin,

the earthy scent

filling my head,

the pulp

toothy, but giving.

And this sorry specimen

after coming so far.

I gaze out

at the snow covered garden

and feel impatient.

Reflect

on the season of rest

and dormancy.

On all good things

in the fullness of time.

Revelation - March 25 2023

 

Revelation

March 25 2023

The first opening

is right beside the shore,

a thin black ribbon

of frigid water

between glistening rock

and receding ice.

Widening imperceptibly

as the days lengthen

and spring reveals itself.

So I can no longer cross the lake,

my winter miracle

of walking on water

impossible now.

Perhaps, if I were a taker of risks

or man of faith

I would venture across.

But not now.

Not when miracles are everywhere

in this season of rebirth.

Birds returning

on thousand mile journeys

to their nesting sites,

navigating oceans

headwinds

moonless nights.

Buds unfolding

leaves unfurling

temperate skies.

And the trampled brown grass

that's been dormant all winter

a miraculous green,

resurrecting itself

as soon as snow begins to melt

and soil thaw.

No need

for gods or saviours.

No need to believe

when you can feel the heat

and see for yourself.

I understand, now, why they worshipped the sun;

all winter

scanning the sky

for its hoped for return.

Never quite sure

if they had earned

a merciful god's benevolence.

Or the wrath

of a vengeful one.

Despite being a committed atheist, my poetry often has religious imagery. As is very evident here. . . . Or perhaps because of it: using it ironically, rather than as an expression of faith

Another recurring trope is demonstrated in this poem: a celebration of nature. And frequently with the theme of man vs nature (although not in this one); man as intruder, disrupter, destroyer. A misanthropist as well as an atheist! I guess not exactly a fan of my own species!

Spring Ahead, Fall Back - March 24 2023

 

Spring Ahead, Fall Back

March 24 2023

The clocks have changed.

The light is different.

The same complaints

as every spring.

My bedside clock

adjusts automatically

and caught me off guard,

awakening me

thick-mouthed and bleary-eyed

in unaccustomed dark.

The universe, though

did not spin faster

tilt a fraction

or pause expanding

to keep in sync;

indifferent, as always

to the petty squabbles

and breathless happenings

down here on earth.

So the sun burns

unchanged,

the planet turns

like clockwork,

and the galaxy

sails unstoppably through space

like some great majestic light show.

But we are still ruled by time, regardless.

Like money, another made up thing

we spend badly

and want more of.

Yet, like misers and hoarders

an entire hour

set aside for fall.

The Cutest Girl in Class - March 24 2023

 

The Cutest Girl in Class

March 24 2023

You won’t remember this,

but when there was only one phone

attached to the wall

with a coiled cord

that stretched only so far,

everyone could overhear

your most embarrassing moments.

It was middle school,

and when the cutest girl in class

called for help with her math

(because that was the one thing you were good at)

it was an out-of-body experience;

you had no problem solving for “x”,

but that 2nd X chromosome

made your head spin.

Who knows what you said;

but after that

she still ignored you.

As if you were a wrong number

or an irrational one,

a big zero

divided by itself.

The phone was a big black brick

and indestructible.

Before planned obsolescence.

Before plastic choked the oceans

and landfills overflowed.

It rang

with a shrill intrusive sound;

no personalized rings

no silencing.

The thought

still makes you flush   —

tethered to the wall

by that fully stretched cord

in the hot steamy kitchen

as your mom did the dishes

and listened in.

The girl now lives

in a mouldy extra-wide

in a dusty trailer park

where the dirt roads

turn muddy in spring.

She's living with a man

she never really loved

and their 3 young kids;

with each one, got a little fatter

and it hasn’t come off.

She no longer has your number,

would never remember the call.

The Time In Between - March 23 2023

The Time In Between

March 23 2023

Only looking back

does it all makes sense.

Or at least

a certain order comes clear;

the stages of a life

that got me here.

Not that I could see it happening

in the tumult of the moment;

the passions

and overcomings,

the busyness

annoyances

and daily mundanity.

How things take shape

only in retrospect.

So the end of winter, beginning of spring

has a gratifying certainty;

happening

in real time

as I sit here and watch.

The earth

turning as it's always done;

its constant rotation

and off-kilter tilt

as it circles the sun.

And the seasons

like reassuring landmarks

when you've lost your way;

mile-markers,

set in stone

and drilled into bedrock

on the side of the road.

And this time in between,

in which I contemplate the past

and consider what's ahead.

Will I look back

and see this as the next stage,

a new beginning

a crucial end?

Who I was

melting away,

My nascent roots

extending themselves,

frozen soil

thawing slowly

in this unaccustomed warmth.

Even if it is as messy

and back and forth

as the season of mud,

spring blizzards,

basement floods.

Or am I locked in

like the frozen ground?

Running on inertia

on my predetermined path,

a solitary planet

around a dying sun?

Subterranean - March 20 2023

 

Subterranean

March 20 2023

The after image

was burned into my retina.

But the eye perceives while the brain sees

and I was in denial;

only in sleep did it come alive,

turning all my dreams

nightmarish.

It’s said you can’t unsee.

Which is only true

if you don't practice forgetting.

And I am expert at this;

the sight

buried so deep

under mountains of earth

you'd think it must be permanent.

But the heat

so close to its molten core

just will not let it die,

the merciful death

one could only wish for.

Because eventually

it will erupt from under my feet

as red-hot rock

and clouds of toxic gas.

As tremors

and after shocks

and cracks in my foundation.

So now, I walk warily

on what I thought was solid ground

and could always be depended on.

Hyper-vigilant

       . . . bracing myself

                . . . looking out for broken glass.

Nanabijou - March 19 2023

 

Nanabijou

March 19 2023

The Sleeping Giant

is a long peninsula

of steep rock and sturdy trees,

an island

of rugged wilderness.

From across the harbour

from a height of land

in a city park,

it resembles a man

lying on his back

out in Lake Superior.

Asleep

through every kind of weather

for untold millennia

unmoved.

Before the Europeans.

Before the passed-down legends.

Before any people at all

were here to see him.

Of course, when the angle changes

he disappears.

Like the cloud overhead

on this sunny day,

looking up

through the crisp clear air.

Where, for a minute or two

I see a unicorn, a little girl

a tattered teddy bear,

before they vanish

in the cool wind

gusting briskly off the lake.

This is how the brain

tries making sense;

seeing reflections of ourselves,

what we know

want

expect.

Breathing life

into everything we see,

animating the world

like bright-eyed fabulists.

Like the slumbering giant

who will still be lying there

motionless

dreaming who knows what,

after the city has returned to the forest

and no one's left

watching over him

in his long unbroken sleep.

Salt Farm - March 18 2023

 

Salt Farm

March 18 2023

The salt

tastes of the sea

from which it's drawn.

You'd think water was all the same;

that it's all one ocean,

the blue

on the map of the world.

But this is only the surface

and we are blind to its depths.

Cupped in your hand, transparent,

and in the deep abyssal trench

black;

cold, sunless, airless.

At best, comparison —

tastes like, reminds me of.

But melting on your tongue

singular;

named

for its meroir,

its place, in the 3 dimensions.

As well as time.

Taste again

when the tide comes in.

A Thousand Feet of Ice - March 17 2023

 

A Thousand Feet of Ice

March 17 2023

Knee high

and still coming down.

This is how it begins

as everything must;

the first step

on a thousand mile journey,

the steady drip

that wears away rock.

How snow-stayed

becomes a glacier,

then a new ice age.

Which is how the parting

also began;

the infatuation turning stale,

and second thoughts

starting to niggle away.

But how beautiful, early on.

The world's imperfections

concealed

under a thick blanket of snow,

sculpted

by a brisk north wind

into fabulous pieces of art.

Just as that first chilly gust

was innocent enough.

An off-hand comment

you overheard,

a look

you took the wrong way.

That annoying habit

you couldn't stand,

but despite all that

kept holding your tongue.

Which is how, if you let them, things build up,

storm after storm

until there's a mountain of airless snow.

The old world

you knew and loved

under a thousand feet of ice,

and you're in the dark

in deathly quiet

feeling cold and crushed.

You saw it coming

that time you were snow-stayed

that didn't feel right.

The two of you stranded

in this small space

with nothing left to say.

When it turned dark

in the middle of the day,

the windows almost covered

with the white stuff piling up.

And where all you could hear

were mournful groans

and creaking sounds

that came from overhead,

the joists

protesting loudly

as snow fell and fell.

Because things give a little

before they collapse;

popped nails,

stressed supports,

an imperceptible sag.

The critical cracks,

extending invisibly

until the roof fails

and you're buried alive.

The Still Core - March 16 2023

 

The Still Core

March 16 2023

The shadows deepen, lengthen, sharpen.

The earth moves

under a full moon,

drifting clouds part.

And walking briskly

I, too, am in motion,

so it seems nothing stays still.

Even the rock

and bedrock

on their tectonic plate,

adrift on restless magma.

And the constant centre, the sun,

flung

on its spiral arm

through a vast clockwork cosmos,

expanding

at unimaginable speed.

Compose yourself, she counsels.

Find the still core

that simply watches,

the tranquil water

in which to float.

As if the universe orbits me,

its hinge, fulcrum, joint.

As if, as a matter of choice

I could simply stop,

my molecules slow

to absolute zero.

Brain on pause,

body cold.