What You Said Last Night - Jan 30 2024

 

What You Said Last Night

Jan 30 2024

News you can use.

That they're calling for snow.

That pork roast

is on special this week.

That the neighbour's husband was seen

kissing someone's wife.

Useful stuff,

unlike the gossip

on the nightly news,

the all-caps scroll

alert on your phone.

We mostly shrug our shoulders

at breaking news

big events

distant tragedies.

Soon forget

what the President said,

the op-ed

in yesterday's paper,

the pompous punditry

on CNN.

Tune out

the commentators

bloviators

and breathless agitators

who alway have something to say.

The enablers

and self-promotors,

the thin-lipped haters

with red faces

and bulging veins.

Either commiserate, or condemn,

but then shake our heads

and get on with it,

feeling helpless and overwhelmed.

Turn in, instead

to our small lives

and daily concerns.

To snow tires and shopping lists,

catty whispers

dirty smirks.

To what you said last night

after turning out the lights

I keep replaying in my head.

Not the perfunctory luv ya

you usually say,

but the muttering under your breath

when you turned on your side

facing away.

And that husband

who got in trouble

and denied everything.

Who protested too much

for his own good.

Talking Politics - Jan 29 2024

 

Talking Politics

Jan 29 2024

We used to talk politics.

Like Monday morning quarterbacks

we replayed the games

rated players

traded strategies;

more horse race

than public policy.

But now, since the sides have hardened

it's become too quarrelsome

too fraught.

Ideology

had replaced innocent fun.

Even talking sports

is complicated,

what with big money,

corporate double-speak,

race and misogyny.

Our fun conversations

has been reduced to banality

   —  celebrity gossip,

bad TV,

the weather report.

Awkward pauses

we never had before.

So we drift apart

like slow-motion divorce.

How I miss

the civility

of our superficial disputes

mock outrage.

Didn't matter

that whatever we said

never made a difference;

the powers-that-be

were oblivious,

nothing ever changed.

They took away our fun

since it all became so serious.

Politics

in the old days

was just entertainment.

Now, stakes raised

what once were friendly rivals

are seen as enemies;

it's life and death,

existential threat,

the end of the known world.

Mid-Winter Thaw - Jan 28 2024

 

Mid-Winter Thaw

Jan 28 2024

Water gurgles through the downpipes.

A big slab of snow

sluices off the roof,

landing soggily

with a dull wet thud.

Eves drip

steady as a second hand;

it's almost hypnotic, drop after drop,

and I can't help but watch

entranced

for far too long.

Too warm, this time of year,

the sun above the trees

sky clear.

I head out to the street.

Ball hockey, on the cul de sac.

Kids in shorts and T-shirts.

The insistent clatter of sticks

as if to shout

pass it here.

Catbird voices talking trash,

ribbing their friends

as only buddies can.

I look on,

and for a moment

the chatter in my head quiets,

thoughts settle,

the pressure of time relents;

I'm a kid again

focused

on only the ball and the net.

When winning was everything

as well as nothing at all.

The mercury will drop tonight

leaving the partial thaw

frozen in place.

A still life

a postcard tableau.

Like the timeless image of kids

with flushed faces

playing children's games.

Who never ask permission

to take over the street,

making way

only grudgingly

with curt shouts of CAR.

Who trade good natured insults,

break sticks they can't afford,

and will be late for dinner

running up the score.

Forgiveness - Jan 27 2024

 

Forgiveness

Jan 27 2024

I try to count up

all the times I've been forgiven.

The times I let go

and forgave myself.

The times it wasn't deserved,

but generosity of spirit

prevailed.

If back then

I failed to express it

I'm truly grateful for this.

It's said forgive and forget,

but it seems the forgetting is harder.

Like went the judge instructs the jury

to ignore what just was said,

can they truly disregard

inadmissible evidence?

After all, once heard

there's no unhearing.

If you believe in such things

they tell us that God forgives our sins

if we truly repent.

Which is seraphically magnanimous,

but I wonder if making amends

shouldn’t be a part of it.

And that should we transgress again

His Old Testament wrath

will come down that much harder.

But back to counting up.

Which turns out be zero;

I have yet to forgive myself

and move on,

the past nullified

lessons learned.

The example of a loving God

is lost on me;

I suffer for my sins.

Like the tortured monk

in his spare ascetic cell,

taking ice cold baths

and flagellating himself

to subdue his carnal desire,

I am hard on me.

Forgiveness is a high art.

Perhaps, with a lifetime of practice

I will master it.

But for now, I'm learning to live with myself,

who I was

and who I hope I’ve become.

Like an old couple

in a bad marriage

still trying to make it work.

The Viewing - Jan 27 2024

 

The Viewing

Jan 27 2024

Mould bloomed on the ceiling

like a creeping black malignancy.

Bloom, because it's alive,

like a deadly plant

that flowers enticingly.

It had a perverse beauty

that fascinated me

and I couldn't pull my eyes away.

Like the compulsion to jump

when you’re standing on a precipice

peering over the edge,

a terrible femme fatale

men cannot resist.

Not to mention the musty stench

behind the closet doors,

the mildew in the basement

tainting the stale damp air

with its wet sock smell.

So I could barely breathe.

And wondered

if there were dead bodies

under the concrete foundation,

whether the basement would flood

in a wet spring,

if I’d be on the hook

for taxes owing.

Nevertheless, she said it had good bones,

a little fixer-upper

handyman’s dream;

which is real estate for money-suck

and sinkhole.

The little house of horrors,

where someone actually lived

before it was sold

and burned for the insurance.

Bad wiring, they claimed

short circuit.

Spores of toxic mould

billowing off

in clouds of greasy smoke,

seeding the world

with a black poison

impossible to kill.

I noticed a little mould where the counter meets the wall. The air conditioner was dripping quite heavily there, and I would often let the wetness sit too long. It reminded me of that unpleasant little rental from years ago, as well as the mildew I used to have in the basement. So the first line was a natural. And from there, it was just the usual stream of consciousness. Which feels more like automatic writing than it does focused creativity: I'm as surprised where it ends up as the reader!

Teacher's Lounge - Jan 26 2024

 

Teachers' Lounge

Jan 26 2024

The closed door

kept us out

but couldn't keep in the laughter

smell of bad coffee

and cigarette smoke

that made us wonder what went on in there.

The teachers' lounge,

where they retreated

during spares and breaks

and before the bell.

They had no first names.

We knew them only as Miss, or Mr.;

the women

who were surely spinsters

disappointed in love,

and the men

who must have settled for teaching

when their ambitions failed.

Who favoured bad sports jackets

or lumpy suits,

while the women dressed better

but still would have never

turned your head.

And when class ended

and they drove away

we couldn’t imagine where.

But in that privileged space

they were somehow transformed

into real people

even glamorous ones.

So what was it like in there?

Perhaps a gentleman's club

with port and cigars,

tiki lounge

leather bar?

Or just fancier

than the rest of the school,

with wall-to-wall carpeting

upholstered chairs?

Did they gossip, bitch

blacklist the mouthy kids?

Smirk at dirty jokes?

Hit on the hot young teacher?

Or just mark papers,

call home,

eat brown bag lunches

that were as boring as ours?

When I peeked in one day

all I saw were some saggy couches

with wonky legs,

soiled microwave,

and drip coffee-maker

with a badly stained carafe

burnt brown on the bottom.

The lounge looked bleak

in the thin winter light

of a drizzly day.

A grey-haired man

snoozed loudly.

A zaftig blonde

with bad roots

was filing her nails.

And my math teacher was on his knees,

mopping up the coffee he'd spilled

when he failed to carry

and missed a step.

Well-Meaning Friends - Jan 26 2024

 

Well-Meaning Friends

Jan 26 2024

At first, they come away with the comb

and you don’t even feel it,

clogging its teeth with each swipe,

brushing them off your shoulders

with the back of a hand

like sweeping dandruff away.

Then clumps and swathes

and whole geographies;

thinned

      . . . mottled

             . . . bald.

A smooth scalp.

A fresh start

smooth as a baby's bottom.

Which wasn't so bad,

could have been a fashion choice.

People even wanted to touch it,

like patting the stomach

of a mother-to-be.

But the eyebrows also went,

and one morning

the lashes were gone.

This is what the movies miss,

the well-meaning friends

who shave their heads

in sympathy.

Yes, eyelashes catch dust,

react

like cat's whiskers.

But eyebrows don't just protect the eye

they make us human.

Who knew that without them

expression flattens

emotion drains,

that even in the bathroom mirror

you aren't yourself.

There’s a disconcerting distance

to that mask-like face;

not just ambiguous

inscrutable

impassive,

but an absence

as if a part of you had gone.

Detached

like having a foot in the grave.

Like everything bad

it happens gradually

then fast.

But you get used to it.

And just think of the advantages.

The cute wool cap.

No need for hair product

or fussy coiffure.

The receding hairline

you're no longer trying to hide.

Not to mention

that mere vanity

isn't what it used to be

in the time before.

Not now, in the after

you can't control.

Primal - Jan 24 2024

 

Primal

Jan 24 2024

 A false spring.

The midwinter thaw

that happens every season

went on and on,

until the snow softened

subsided

retreated,

the ground thawed,

and even the first green shoots

of flowers appeared;

hardy trilliums,

early crocuses,

unlikely looking snowdrops

bowing their delicate heads.

They poked up like soldiers

peeking over the parapets

to see if the siege-machines had left.

Who knew

nature could so easily be fooled?

That the life force

was so powerful,

the drive to grow

so primal?

That a killer frost

was worth the risk?

We were out as well,

wearing T-shirts and gumboots

and blinking in the sun.

In the fever of spring

feeling our own life force swell.

The earthy scent

of freshly thawed soil.

Our colour high

blood warm.

And as happens every spring

the primal drive

that can't be helped;

turning our minds turning to love

and bodies to lust,

judgment gone to hell.

As I've said many times, I have no idea where a poem go. I feel like a stenographer, simply taking dictation.

An image appears, a sentence or word catches my fancy, or some vague concept demands to be explored, and then it's all just riffing: forming my stream of consciousness into something reasonably coherent.

Although the sound often precedes the thought. It comes to me in sound. Like a singer songwriter who composes the music before the lyrics.

Getting On - Jam 23 2024

 

Getting On

Jan 23 2024

All those past lives

only to find myself in this incarnation;

undistinguished

mediocre

dispensable.

And to think, once a Pharaoh

prophet

leader of men.

I know this;

feel it in my bones,

have visions

in my sleep.

Can only hope

that next time

when the circle turns

my trajectory resumes.

Destiny, after all, isn't to be trifled with.

Karma, I’m not so sure of.

But then, while I've been heathen

apostate

and true believer,

shaman and animist,

I never followed Buddha.

So I should slip through,

sins notwithstanding.

Anyway, it's hard to do much damage

when you're powerless.

But please, just not a long life;

I need to get on with this!

Why, in past lives, was no one ever a stable hand or field slave?!!

Childhood Friends - Jan 23 2024

 

Childhood Friends

Jan 23 2024

I envy the people

who are still friends

with someone they grew up with.

Who knew you when.

Who has no illusions.

And who, you know for certain

won't question, judge, reject you

no matter what you say.

In the art of friendship

they are Picasso

Modigliani

Vermeer.

Or perhaps even more

Norman Rockwell,

whose sentimental illustrations

celebrate the familiar.

And in its challenges

they are endurance athletes

who do the hard work

of maintaining relationship.

In our turbulent lives

where little is reliable

life-long friends are constants;

like those round bottomed dolls

you try to knock off-balance

but always right themselves.

Or like an old majestic oak

that's been there all your life,

its gnarled bark and massive trunk

immovably fixed;

you know you can lean on it

with all your weight

no matter what.

Your in-laws

blood relatives

one great love

are all obvious;

no one doubts the importance

attachment

sacrifice.

While acquaintances

are exactly that;

ships, that pass in the night.

Friendship, though, is too often taken for granted.

Forgetting

that you may tire of your lover

or be betrayed,

and may very well dislike

the family you're stuck with.

Old friends

who, after years apart

take up where you left off

and it feels perfectly natural.

Who happened to live next door

when you were both in grade school,

dared, and double-dared

who'd go first.

And now

half a century on

are still childhood friends;

there to the end

until the last one goes.

I’m not entirely comfortable with the sentimentality here. Not at all my thing, or the poetry I like to read.

Which doesn't invalidate the opening statement: it really is extraordinary, and I am envious!

Darkened by Fire - Jan 22 2024

 

Darkened by Fire

Jan 22 2024

We used to live in caves.

Ochred hands

pressed to cold stone walls,

smoke

darkening the ceiling.

In the far reaches

in total darkness

there are piles of discarded bones,

what's left

of millennia of prey.

Or was it burial rites?

Human sacrifice?

The ancient hunters themselves?

Living underground

huddled in caves

in the dank and chilly damp,

where the only source of light

is precious fire.

Where my hand, pressed against the wall

matches perfectly;

like reaching back

across incomprehensible time

to touch an ancient one-on-one.

So what will we have left

to our distant descendants,

presuming anyone even remains?

A thin stratum

in the geological record

of molten metal

micro-plastic

radioactive waste.

And because bronze is indestructible

some monumental sculptures

and the busts of famous men.

Whom no one will remember

or care about

in the coming post apocalypse.

Perhaps bones,

marked by machete scars

and bullet marks

and countless traumatic breaks

that only partially healed.

Or darkened by fire

from when the evidence was burned.

But nothing to make them feel

our common humanity.

No simple artistry.

No faith in posterity.

No single hopeful soul.

No indelible hand,

reaching out

from a distant past

in a wilful act of hope.

All I had was the first line and an image to go with it, and thought I'd play around and see if it would take me anywhere. As usual — and I kind of regret this — it ended up in a dark place of despair. Why do so many of my poems end up there?!!