A Perfect Swish - Aug 20 2024

 

A Perfect Swish

Aug 30 2024

On a good day

I will have made a list,

and one by one

crossing off

completed it.

But most are bad.

New chores get added on

missed chores remain,

and the list accretes

day after day.

So I remind myself

that life is process

not a final resting place.

And that when life ends

 —  which will be unexpected

and unlikely to announce itself   —

there is always a list

you were in the middle of.

That will boxed up with all the stuff

no one wants;

which, you have to admit

is pretty much everything.

Unfinished,

and just as well

left undone.

Because the leaves can rake themselves

for all I’ll care,

someone else

can wait on hold;

bad music

in an endless loop,

burrowing in

like an ear-worm

you can’t evict.

Because most of what we do

is holding fast

 —  airplanes circling

waiting to land,

beds getting made

you’ll just unmake.

Nevertheless

there is much to be said

for completion

in and of itself;

the satisfaction

of one by one

crossing things off,

the illusion

progress was made.

A sort of accomplishment,

even if the bar is low.

And close the end

looking back at all the lists

you managed to dispose of.

Sheets of paper

crushed into balls,

and with a flick of the wrist

sent over the rim,

sailing into the bin

with a perfect swish.

Your nifty overhand

that rarely misses.

What a lifetime of practice

has left you with.

Uneven Ground - Aug 27 2024

 

Uneven Ground

Aug 27 2024

It’s not so much getting used to it.

The stink of exhaust.

The concrete

radiating heat.

The press of bodies

on every side

until you feel you can’t breathe.

People

in an endless stream

with elbows out and eyes on screens,

shouldering you aside

without a simple sorry.

Not even a nod

to acknowledge you exist.

It’s more that I blocked it all out.

It’s that I numbed my senses.

Focused-in on straight ahead.

And with my blinders on, and a lethal stare

detached,

so the horde became dehumanized;

objects

placed in my way

simply to obstruct.

So when I found myself alone

in a cool glade

with nowhere else to be,

I felt not only replenished

but overwhelmed.

Oblivious

to the buzzing insects and chirping birds,

the gentle breeze

that stirred the leaves 

and cooled my face,

the earthy smell of early spring

in that first pungent thaw.

The senses I’d let atrophy

until they were numb,

had armoured

until they were impervious

were drowned in the flood,

so unaccustomed had I become

to subtlety and nuance.

Instead of used to it

I was deadened;

no colour got in,

and only the most insistent sounds

could intrude on my attention.

I was an automaton

who walked without intention;

never having to spot

where the path angles off

or crosses another,

never looking down

at uneven ground

to check for roots and rocks

and rotting logs

to hop or dodge or rest on.

Never paused

and simply ignored the throng;

a river rock

water flows around.

Never stopped

to take a deep breath,

expanding

into all the space

I no longer had to share.

And never slowly exhaled

to the last gasp of air;

all the way

until all my cares

emptied out with it.

Swing Set - Aug 25 2024

Swing Set

Aug 25 2024

The swing set is old.

Rusty metal poles

and heavy steel chains,

the seats

worn leather slings

slick with age.

A shipwreck,

marooned

in a sea of sand

that's booby-trapped

with scattered pebbles

broken twigs

and delinquent dog shit,

buried

like land-mines

just out of sight.

Wads of gum

that have turned hard and pink and dense

and will last for centuries,

and the usual assortment of stuff

dropped, chucked

or left behind.

The sand was smooth, deep, and golden

when they dumped it there,

fine-grained

and sun-warmed.

But now

wear and tear

and years of weather

have left it dark and coarse,

a thin patina of sand

over hard-packed ground.

I pass here everyday

but never see kids at play.

Sometimes

some teenagers smoking weed,

laughing and flirting

and blasting their music,

distractedly kicking at turds.

One

will be slumped on a swing,

peddling idly back and forth

pawing at the dirt.

I can't quite be sure

if it's world weariness I see

or a look of irony;

a smirking adolescent

too grown-up for such childish play,

but who sometimes secretly wishes

he could just be a kid again.

But mostly

the playground apparatus

stands in a field of weeds,

abandoned

as well as unsafe,

a relic

from back in the day

when even I was young.

Back when parents didn’t hover

and we were free to fail.

Back when no one raised an eyebrow

at the slippery seat

and unforgiving ground,

ot thought it odd

that the whole thing wobbled

like a sozzled drunk on stilts.

Soon enough

they’ll tear it down,

then put up plastic

with real padding

and caution signs.

But for now

it’s an abstract sculpture

stranded in time.

As well as a place to walk your dog.

And either pick-up after,

or, if no one’s watching

move discreetly on.

Invisible - Aug 18 2024

 

Invisible

Aug 18 2024

The tap-tap-tap

of the blind man’s cane

as he scuttles along

the crowded concrete walkway;

like a water bug

on long thin legs,

skittering over a pond

of polished glass.

He pauses here and there

to feel out the terrain;

a seasoned mariner

sounding the depths.

He is exquisitely adept,

gripping the cane

like a douser wields his stick,

witching water

from barren earth;

as if his touch

extended to its tip.

And owl-like, cocks his head,

picking up sounds

you’d never know you’d missed.

I watch,

admiring his deftness

while trying trying not to stare.

Because it’s impolite.

Because what would others think.

And because even knowing he can’t see

my self-conscious self

feels his eyes on me.

Behind glasses

tinted almost black

he is inscrutable.

They not only conceal his wandering eye

but make him seem apart;

indifferent

to the flashing neon signs

and loud window displays.

Serene

amidst the juvenile men

and their adolescent swagger,

hungering for attention

and hogging all the space,

the skimpily dressed girls

who revel in the male gaze

yet also shrink in its glare.

I’m grateful for sight

but also somehow envy him.

To be out in the world,

yet so self-contained

he could just as well be alone.

To be as confident as Moses

raising his hand to the sea,

forging ahead

as if the throng will surely part

to usher him on.

And despite never lifting their eyes

from ever tempting screens,

the crowd of passersby

does seamlessly part;

as if some sixth sense

lets them know he’s there.

While I, with all my senses intact

feel out of place

and in the way.

And despite habitually trying

to make myself small,

feel the spotlight

falling on me;

its hot blinding glare

follow everywhere

I go.

With age, I've gained enough wisdom to realize that no one is actually paying attention to me. Or, really, to anyone. We are all so self-absorbed and solipsistic, anonymous strangers simply don't register. You can easily ghost through the world, hide in plain site.

It also helps that we most often only see what we expect to see. The eye registers the light and the brain processes it, but the higher centres simply have trouble mapping anything unexpected, anything that doesn't have a pre-existing template to fit it into.

One Among the Stars - Aug 14 2024

 

One Among the Stars

Aug 14 2024

English has no word

for what I can only call

that moment of ecstasy

when you cease to be;

leave your body

are no longer yourself.

Cease to be,

but not extinguishment, as in death;

which, after all, has many words

to soften it.

But rather, that moment of transcendence

when a clear night sky

opens overhead

and swallows you whole.

Like the time

you stood outside

in the great sand desert

or on a mountaintop

and simply took in the sky,

its vast black dome

impossibly thick with stars

all the way down

to the edge of the world.

More and more

the longer you looked.

When you felt like an astral traveller

riding the planet

as if hitching a ride.

When the earth

shrunk to a small round ball

before falling away,

leaving you weightless

in infinite space.

Which is it exactly,

that moment

your boundaries dissolved

and you were one among the stars.

And when, ever after

you felt a release,

a peace

you never knew before.

How, like the fatalists you’d always scorned

you felt your burden of worry

melt away;

content

to surrender

any pretence of control.

Because, for the first time

you realized how small you were

how inconsequential.

Because you understood

how every cell of your body

belonged to the universe,

would persist

in one form or another

for as long as anything was.

And because you’d experienced flight;

slipping gravity

and shedding your container,

a disembodied spirit

expanding ever outward.

Isn’t it odd

how this humbling enlarges you?

How, when you feel at your smallest

you’re at one with the cosmos?

Surely German

has a compound word for this,

some tongue-twister

that’s fun to say.

But for us

I suppose transcendence

does well enough.

To overcome.

To rise above.

To catch a glimpse of the sublime.

How all it takes

is a clear night

and stopping to look up.

And how, from that moment on

you’re never yourself again.

I have the feeling I’ve already written this. And not just once! So, if you plagiarize, is it OK if it’s yourself?

Still, sometimes it takes a few go’s to get it right!