Clutter - May 24 2024

 

Clutter

May 24 2024

I am at home in clutter.

Tchotchkes,

collectors of dust,

the stuff I dropped

and failed to pick-up.

Because why trouble myself

when I know exactly

where I left it?

Nor am I bothered

by a cluttered mind,

bursting with facts

trivia

plans;

with memories

I can’t recollect,

feelings

I don’t understand.

Perhaps, if I sought more clarity

I’d be better off.

If I sat

cross-legged

in a sparsely furnished room

in pin-drop quiet.

If the walls were white

blinds drawn

lights nicely dimmed.

Could minimalism

be a better choice

than hodgepodge gallimaufry?

Trouble is

I am comfortable with clutter

and prefer it here

in a place I call my own

that’s rumpled

lived-in

homey.

And after all

why neaten up

when it’s been so long

since I even noticed?

Nor am I bothered

by the racing thoughts

that ricochet off my skull.

An overheated cortex

that threatens to overflow.

The monkey chatter

that goes on and on

no matter what.

Questioning

answering

and wondering why.

Talking to myself

nonstop;

even out loud, sometimes.

My poetry is rarely autobiographical. The cluttered surroundings certainly are not. (I prefer order!) I suppose it should be more personal, confessional, authentically intimate. Most poetry is. Contemporary poetry, anyway.

However, the cluttered mind and monkey chatter are absolutely me! Even the talking out loud. But only when I’m alone, I hasten to add.

The white-walled room is a bit of a pet peeve. Because I’ve noticed how all the interiors in the real estate listings and house beautiful spreads are invariably this cold sterile white. Which I quite dislike. The clean spare look is fine if you want to create an impression of order and roominess for a prospective buyer. But it’s not any place I’d like to actually live. I prefer warm woods and earth-tones. I suspect that future decorators will look back on this fad just as we look aghast at the turquoise walls and deep shag rugs of the 1960s. I doubt it’s a look that will age well.

(Coincidentally, in editing this poem, the following article appeared in the weekend Globe. These are exactly the sort of interiors I prefer.

PHroouused

The Globe and Mail (Ontario Edition)

May 25, 2024

Read more...

Underfoot - May 21 2024

 

Underfoot

May 21 2024

The potholes have turned into pools

from the heavy rain.

Under a full moon

and far from artificial light

they glitter enticingly,

precious jewels

scattered

on the long gravel driveway

in the unearthly gloss.

There is found beauty everywhere.

Even muddy water

and badly graded lanes

trashed by freeze and thaw

have moments of grace.

No need to look up

or walk a straight line.

Just take care

to keep your feet dry

when it unexpectedly strikes.

A Long Weekend in May - May 20 2024

 

A Long Weekend in May

May 20 2024

Walking the dogs

beside the river

near the end of May,

the fresh spring air

is alive with scent.

It’s not yet summer here

but my nose is tempting me.

Not just the pine

balsam

spruce

that line the winding path.

Not just the fertile soil

that smells of loamy earth.

But also burgers

sizzling on the grill,

woodsmoke

from bonfires

they can't help building higher,

and fresh cut grass

mixed with gas exhaust.

The pong of wet dog,

who have braved the frigid water

still running-off

from a late winter thaw.

As well as a strong whiff of pot,

left behind

by other walkers

out to clear their heads,

a sweet skunky odor

that clings to the air

and won’t let go.

It would have been cigarettes

back when,

but who smokes these days?

We are visual creatures

and only notice smell

when it overwhelms

or strikes a chord.

The promise of spring.

Nostalgia

revulsion

despair.

A long lost love

a scent reminds you of,

and that golden summer

that overnight

turned to dross.

Tomorrow

a return to work

and the final month of school.

But for now

squeals of laughter

where friends have gathered

around a backyard fire,

along with the sound of breaking glass

and a few choice words

from hot-tempered men

downing too many beers.

And the roar of the river

running fast and high;

water

that in the fullness of time

will find its way to the sea

thousands of miles from here.

Sleeping Dogs - May 18 2024

 

Sleeping Dogs

May 18 2024

Surprisingly, the dogs let me sleep.

Instead of jumping on the bed

they retire to theirs,

and with a patience I’m incapable of

await my pleasure,

either defaulting to sleep themselves

or attentively eyeing me.

I wonder if this deference

is an expression of empathy

  —  which I believe dogs possess  —

or is simply a matter of hierarchy;

that I am the alpha

to their lower rank.

If only it were as simple

with our kind.

Who are never quite sure where we stand.

Struggle to find our place.

Revisit relationships

in a tacit back and forth

of concession and ascendency.

The pecking order shifts,

status is unclear.

But here, in this house, I am uber alles.

So it’s odd

that I obtain no licence

freedom

swagger from this.

Because despite my status

I am at their beck and call,

their utter dependency,

our compact of care.

At the mercy

of those liquid brown eyes

that both seduce, and implore;

looking up at me

with bright expectancy

inviting me to play,

or begging for food

and love

and belly rubs,

a scratch behind the ears.

The decider

and all powerful provider

who needs his rest.

They Tell Me to Breathe - May 17 2024

 

They Tell Me to Breathe

May 17 2024

This feeling of expectancy.

Of something impending

being on edge.

Not sure when

or even what

I’m so anxiously waiting for.

Is it the air,

somehow charged

electric

all pent-up,

that the minus and plus

can be kept apart

for only so long?

If only the calm would break

and this waiting be over.

If only I knew

when and what.

They tell me to breathe

in through my nose

all the way,

then slowly exhale

through an open mouth

until I’m all emptied out.

To compose my mind

cede control

surrender to fate.

But all I feel

is my heart race

jaw tense

thoughts scatter.

The endless before,

unknowable after.

Presence - May 15 2024

 

Presence

May 15 2024

The post-it note

I’d stopped noticing.

That had been so long in place

the ink had faded

edges curled

adhesive lost its stick.

Which is how it caught my eye;

its absence

like a vacuum

drawing me in.

As if the brain, in its depths

keeps track of these things,

reassuring us

as we go about our business

that there’s an order to this world

whether we know it, or not.

It had fallen to the floor.

Of course, the reminder meant nothing anymore,

so who knows

why I left it up so long.

Yet that empty spot

was calling out to be filled,

the way your tongue

keeps returning to the hole

where the tooth was pulled;

worrying the gum

and probing incessantly.

Even a blank note would do;

the empty space filled

order restored.

And now, there it was,

an eye-catching yellow

as distracting

as the emptiness had been.

Still, it felt right,

like something

on the verge of tipping

set firmly in place.

A reminder

that absence is not nothingness.

And that being present

is a thing in itself.

That showing up

is comfort enough,

no need

to speak up

or draw attention to yourself.

Name Dropping - May 13 2024

 

Name Dropping

May 13 2024

I have trouble with names.

Not thingamajigs

and stuff you do what with,

but people

proper nouns

first and last.

I come by this honestly.

Once, my father called me “Blackie”,

our mongrel dog

we wisely named

by the first thing we saw.

He’d reel off the other kids’

in a practiced litany

before hitting on mine.

He was known to have even called my mom

by the wrong name;

luckily

he had a merciful wife.

They say forgetting

is essential to memory.

I take solace in this,

and until I forget myself

I’ll take it in stride.

So I don’t mean to be impolite

if I’m at a loss for yours.

It will come, eventually;

just not, I’m afraid

when I need it most.

Writing My Way Out - May 12 2024

 

Writing My Way Out

May 12 2024

Once again

I try to write my way out

of despair.

Even knowing

that this is impossible.

That words on a page

or pixels on a screen

will most likely not be read.

And even if they are

nothing will change

no minds will be bent.

And while writing focuses the mind

and, for a time, can even distract from my distress

the futility persists;

like a coal fire

that smoulders underground,

spreading invisibly

for years on end.

So my last resort

is the defiant act

of venting my angst with words.

Like medieval medicine,

where being bled

lets the evil humours breathe,

the body

purify itself.

Leaching,

the universal cure

for dropsy

breakbone

ague,

the black dog

of melancholia.

Anyway, words clarify thought,

which is something I need

when I’m feeling overwhelmed.

They also comfort me

that I’m not sitting passively

while the world burns,

but rather

am the man of action

I always imagined I was,

stirring passions

changing minds.

And even though

I am last of all an optimist

I can’t help but try to reach across,

sustaining hope

to at least be heard.

So I write.

At best, tapping out words

and offering them up to a world

that doesn’t care to read.

Or, at worst

leaving them to posterity,

for whatever that is worth.

As if the long term

is the sure thing

our kind has always presumed.

As if the blunt force of faith

could rescue me

from existential despair

and creeping misanthropy.

Wind - May 12 2024

 

Wind

May 12 2024

It’s a foul weather wind.

The way it gusts.

The subtle change in light.

The hint of warmth

that seems unnatural

this time of year.

And how I feel in my bones

the sudden pressure drop.

But now, as well, the scent of smoke;

acrid

corrupt

unnerving.

An atavistic sense of dread

rises up in me,

some collective memory

embedded in my DNA.

I look southeast

and see a darkening sky.

The wind picks up

birds quiet

the smell of fire;

some ash falls

in coarse greasy clumps.

The world feels even vaster than it was,

and in my smallness

I am a whim

a speck

an afterthought.

And now, an uncanny calm

that’s even more ominous.

Children Are Starving in Africa - May 8 2024

 

Children Are Starving in Africa

May 8 2024

I’ve learned to eat slowly.

But growing up

around the table

3 teenage boys

would hoover, gulp, scarf.

While our mother grazed

and our father ate responsibly,

as you’d expect of a well-regulated man

who did nothing to excess.

The dog, of course, lurked between our legs;

more vulture than wolf

she’d go begging for hand-outs

lunging at scraps.

Since then, I’ve grown up.

Learned that no one is hovering

to snatch food from my mouth.

The lesson of temperance

has been well-digested by now;

the mission

to civilize the child

can be declared a success.

So I chew slowly.

Between bites

replace the knife and fork.

And for the sake of politeness

don’t finish everything.

Instead of competing

with 2 hungry teens.

Instead of eating for children

starving overseas.

Instead of cleaning my plate,

because in our family

waste was a sin.

It’s true

that in the fullness of time

all men become their father.

The eating responsibly.

The frugality.

The small mannerisms

and identical laugh.

Even looking in the mirror

the resemblance is obvious.

The well regulated man

who leaves a little on his plate.

And starving children in Africa,

who are still just as hungry

as my mother warned.

It sounds racist today (after all, there are children going hungry everywhere, even here!), and has the patronizing odour of “the white man as saviour” complex, but that’s what mothers said back in the day: clean your plate, because children are starving in Africa. Guilt and shame are always good motivators, even if they don’t make sense.

We do grow up to become our fathers, and I do see him in the mirror as I age. This resemblance allows me to look both back and ahead. Looking back, I have more sympathy with and understanding of him as a whole person and not simply as an authority figure and provider. And looking ahead, I get a glimpse how I will age. Which is not only sobering, but another thing that makes one question the notion of free will: that is, a reminder of the genetic determinism we carry in us from birth. (Not to mention, for the deterministic sticklers, the family culture of example and modelling that also enters into this question of absolute personal agency. Except, of course, that the environment in which one is raised doesn't show up in a mirror!)

Nowhere Fast - May 7 2024

 

Nowhere Fast

May 7 2024

I swim

between the buoy lines

counting laps.

Have settled in

to the rhythmic stroke

regular turns

back and forth.

Muscle memory

and the body as machine,

while my mind is free to wander

and life's adversity

is put on hold.

Which might seem pointless to you,

ending up where I began,

going nowhere fast.

But out in the lake

in open water

there is no keeping track

single lane

reversing course.

No straight lines

or tiled walls.

I am an automaton,

swimming as far as I want

if not as far as I can.

And one day

when the weight of the world becomes unbearable

I will jump in

on a whim

without a plan.

Will head out

just as the sun’s about to rise,

and the lake, a polished mirror

merges with the sky.

Will swim

as far as I can,

leaving in my wake

a trail of broken glass.

At least for the seconds it lasts,

before the surface smooths over

invisibly mending itself.

So in a heartbeat

there will be nothing left to show

I ever passed this way.

Pointless, you might say

to go nowhere fast

and do it blind.

To swim for your life

and leave nothing behind.

Choose your own metaphor.

For a nihilist like me, this poem has something to say about the ultimate meaninglessness of life. I don’t mean nihilism in the sense of anarchy, license, despair. I think it’s more about humility: a useful corrective to the solipsism and self-importance of our age. After all, we may have refuted the geocentric model of the cosmos, putting the sun at the centre of the solar system; but we still put ourselves at the centre of the universe. And even though there is no ultimate meaning — no higher power, no reason we’re here except for the random collision of molecules and an improbable chain of contingency, and only oblivion after we die — we are still free to construct meaning: that is, live like happy idiots because conscious self-aware life is a rare and precious gift, so why not dig in?

The poem celebrates the kinaesthetic pleasure of movement, the thing for its own sake. Although also for the sake of escaping from the pressures of one’s personal life, as well as from a world that seems more and more frightening. Nevertheless, an activity that in an existential sense seems pointless. Should that make a difference? No. At least according to my philosophy, as well as the poem, it shouldn’t.

High School History - May 6 2024

 

High School History

May 6 2024

In high school history

it all made sense.

The dates were set in stone

and we tried to remember them,

because not only were we told

how important they were,

they were on the test.

It was self-evident

that events happened in order

as if according to some cosmic plan,

intended to lead to us

in the here and now;

the end of history

and the beginning of kumbaya.

Although the biggest lesson I learned

was how short-sighted they were,

depleting the resources

they depended on,

fighting stupid wars,

submitting to tyranny.

Now, older and more cynical

I know what history really is for.

How it’s used

to serve the powers that be,

so whoever controls the narrative

controls what we think.

As well as how easily we forget;

of even the history

we ourselves lived through

a few short years ago.

If progress

is two steps forward, one step back

I can live with disappointment.

But it feels we’re not gaining ground

just losing it,

not only regressing

but pleased to go back;

fighting the same old wars,

dying of diseases

we thought needles had solved,

and happy to distract ourselves

while madmen rule.

We study history

so as not to repeat it.

But who’s to say

the textbook isn’t glib

simplistic,

superficial;

a version of a larger truth

we may never know.

I try hard to avoid poetry as political as this. Because prose works so much better for ideas, while poetry is more suited to feelings, moods, impressions. But I’m more head than heart. And sometimes, too annoyed to contain myself. So against my better judgment, I occasionally indulge.

I was reading Anne Applebaum’s recent piece in the Atlantic about the sophisticated and extremely well-resourced propaganda from China, Russia, and other autocratic nations that is not only intended to engender apathy and cynical disengagement among their own citizens, but is busy rewriting history (even while it’s happening!), attempting to discredit the democracies as corrupt and ineffective, and assiduously brainwashing the people of 3rd world countries who are poorly served by their own media. Most ominously, how the propagandists’ domestic enablers (such as Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene) use social media and their own bully pulpits to amplify and legitimate these patent falsehoods.

I was also thinking of Trump. How his relentless barrage of scandal, outright lies, outlandish discourse, and radical departures from the political norms (such as demonizing the media; threatening to weaponize the Dept. of Justice, politicize the military, and prosecute his political opponents; and labelling any dissenter or disloyalist as a hater of America and existential threat) numbs us to the next depravity and makes us forget the last one. How our memories are so short his followers actually believe his utterly disastrous Presidency was a triumph.

Not to mention how history textbooks are superficial, parochially Western in their worldview, and guilty of “presentism”. And how, above all, they present history as neat, fixed, and decided; while history is complicated, messy, open to interpretation, and never fully understood. Because history is an ongoing debate, not a chronological litany of accepted facts.

In 1984, George Orwell said everything there is to say about the weaponization of history:

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-russia-republican-party-relations/678271/