Cul-de-Sac
Aug 8 2009


I grew up in a cookie-cutter suburb
attached to a grim provincial city
that looked longingly overseas
to the mother country,
looked askance
at anything but Church
on Sundays,
and looked down its Anglo-Saxon nose
at immigrants,
who were strange, and uppity.
On a tidy cul-de-sac
grass cut weekly,
a Buick, or Pontiac
parked out front.

Downtown is now polyglot
cosmopolitan
status, and money-mad,
but still feels insecure
about its place,
calling itself world-class
like a teenager seeking approval.
Meanwhile, the outskirts are stuck
in the same bland decade
I grew up.

I return, as if travelling through time,
except the trees are bigger
the house has shrunk.
And unlike us
no kids are playing in the streets,
there’s no one to be seen
behind tinted glass,
as driverless cars
purr
into remote-controlled garages.
So no one ever walks,
and next-door neighbours nod
politely.

Old people, mostly.
In empty nests that are worth a fortune,
which they will soon unload
for a condo
with a narrow view of the lake,
if you crane just so.
And my old house
sold to newlyweds from Hong Kong
or Bangalore,
who will fill it
with the smell of foreign cooking,
re-paint in crimson and gold,
and raise kids
who can’t stand suburban living,
moving out
as soon as they’re of age.

They say such places will die
when the oil runs out.
So these kids will return to a ghost town
a museum of the 20th century, post-war,
a world we thought was normal
and permanent,
but turned out to be exceptional;
a short time-out
from history.

Which immediately comes back to me
walking by a postage stamp lawn
on a tiny downtown lot
— a lawn mower, clattering;
the smell of fresh cut grass.

Afterlife
Aug 6 2009


She had worked hard
to believe in an afterlife.
Not judgement, so much,
and she hardly had need of forgiveness;
but perhaps reuniting with loved ones,
a gauzy tableau of childhood,
the density of life
when you’re young.

The house seems almost impatient
with the kids gone;
a hollow dry-walled box
waiting
for a new family to fill it up.
She keeps the doors shut,
3 museums to adolescence
— old posters, an empty desk, closets still messy.
So she can’t understand
how so much dust
accumulates.

She has gotten used
to marriage;
even better, since the separate beds.
The rituals of daily life
are comforting.
Sometimes, they go out.
But he looks his age, and then some,
and in a certain light
unrecognizable.
She sees how many minutes
he sits in the driveway
with the engine off,
before hauling himself out
abruptly,
as if mustering-up the will.
She imagines him, one day
turning the key
zigzagging back down the lane
driving out of her life
and into his next one.
But of course, he never does.

She doesn’t mind
cooking for two.
They eat
to a game show, the news.

He goes to his workshop
watches golf
takes the trash out.

She grows plants
— sprouting seeds from scratch,
watering, re-potting
pollinating by hand.
And keeps track
of birthdays, and anniversaries.

The house fills up
Thanksgiving, Christmas.
He has plans
to down-size to a condo —
time to move on, he says.
But she’d rather go back;
working just as hard on the past.

Blank Slate
Aug 4 2009


20 pages in
it becomes clear I’ve been here before,
on this gloomy street in Prague
drumbeats of war.
Yet I can happily read on,
my mind, a tabula rasa
wiped clean.
And the movie, last week, I’d already seen,
but the ending had me fooled once more.

So how different would life be
hopping out of bed, refreshed
to a bright and cheerful morning
exactly like yesterday,
like the day before it?
A vigorous stretch,
a long languorous breath
and exhalation,
then steel-cut oats
coffee, black
the morning paper.
And so it goes,
the bliss of ignorance
the small diurnal pleasures.

Because even on days like this
which dawn new, and unpredictable,
I have come to realize nothing essential changes,
— the same headlines, breakfast,
the seasons re-played.
We move in tight self-contained circles.
We grow old, our places are taken,
the same rites of passage
the same conceit of change,
the painful incremental progress
that is too slow to notice,
too easily undone.

The philosopher envies this
— the perfectibility of the moment,
all memory freshly expunged.
And we would be happy,
excited kids on the merry-go-round
to the circus sound of calliopes.

But it’s the roller-coaster I’d rather ride —
scream my lungs out,
lose my lunch,
feel the adrenaline rush.

Or move on to the sequel, at least;
catch the latest release.



I was reading a magazine article. A few paragraphs in, it was starting to seem awfully familiar. But it was a great article, and I kept on: after all, maybe I'd started it once, but put it down. By the end, though, I knew I'd already read it, from start to finish. Still, it was a great piece, and I enjoyed it just as much as the first time.

So, what lesson to take from this? That we are idiots, that we learn nothing; that we keep going in circles, ploughing the same old furrow? Or that we should take our pleasure where we find it, on its own terms; live in the glory of the moment, of present time, and not worry that we've been there before? Which is, after all , the Zen ideal (the philosopher in the 4th stanza) -- to live in the moment; to not be attached to outcomes.

This happens often, of course: you pick up a book, it seems oddly familiar, and a chapter or 2 in you realize you've read it before -- but might as well not have. Or rent a movie -- same thing. Does this represent the utter futility of self-improvement, of life itself? Or should you be eternally grateful instead; grateful you're actually able to re-visit that pleasure, and find it undiminished?

On one level, this is what the poem is about. But on another, it's also about 2 diametric world-views. One is the world of the ancients, our forbears; who saw the succession of life as changeless and cyclic. The other other is the world-view that defines modernity (which I'm tempted to say began with the Enlightenment, but probably really began with the Hebrew Bible), in which we take the notion of progress for granted; in which we live with the conceit of perfectibility, with the burden of both history and the future.

To our jaded modern eyes, I think the older world-view often seems full of wisdom and consolation. It reminds me of Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day". The idea of historical progress, on the other hand, seems a lot more exciting -- and probably the truest version of reality. (I'm a creature of modernity, so what else can I say?!) Except, like the roller-coaster in the poem, the day that "dawns new, and unpredictable" can be a wild ride ...and you might just lose your lunch! And don't forget that the Bill Murray character, once he realized what was happening -- that the same day kept repeating itself over and over -- felt trapped and frustrated, and wanted desperately to escape.

Early Spring
Aug 1 2009


Maybe it was me
sleep-walking through daylight,
going slow, like a man underwater —
lead weights
tied to his feet,
the sound of air
moving mechanically
in and out.

The sky was always grey, it seems;
everything monotone,
stone-cold after dark.
There was an inch of slush
top layer frozen,
dirty snow
piled too high on street corners,
abandoned cars
turned into blocks of Styrofoam.
Days were short
like peering through a letter-slot,
impervious night
blocking the way.

I wore a red goose-down parka,
faded, water-stained —
the down, mostly thinning-out,
the zipper sticking
half-way up.
The boots were good enough,
but my feet always felt cold, or wet
or both.

When spring came
I remembered nothing about that winter.
So when I think of it now
I fill in the blanks,
with hay-rides, and carolling
and skating hand-in-hand.

But the early spring
turned out to be false
— another promise, broken.
It snowed in June.
In July, a killing frost.



I heard the Environment Canada weather "guru" -- Dave Philips -- say we've had 8 solid months of below average temperatures, confirming my strong impression it's been unseasonably cold for far too long. It's summer, but it feels like fall. We've had a week of cold and grey and driving rain. The lake is too cold to swim comfortably, even in a wet suit. Needless to say, all that gave rise to a very bleak poem. I can't explain why it's largely set in winter; that's just what came to me.

I like it: it's an atmospheric poem that I think says just enough. I like the unresolved allusion to some deeply painful event. I like that it's left to the reader to fill in the back story, however he wishes. It's hard for me to tell if this works (because I know what's coming!), but I like the surprise at the end: how it momentarily re-creates that feeling of hope; then abruptly pulls the rug out.

“Do You Read Me, Houston?"
Aug 1 2009


When his foot touched the surface
we pumped our fists
hugged the nearest body
cheered ecstatically.

His boot, actually.
Which means we haven’t been to the moon,
not really.
Haven’t felt its ancient sand between our toes,
basked in the warmth of earth-light,
made brobdingnagian leaps
unencumbered
by clunky pneumatic suits.
But this
is close enough.

We watched
in grainy black and white.
We listened
to distant voices
crackling through space.
And as the fragile suit dangled stiffly
from the rickety ladder’s bottom rung,
I worried he’d fall
tumble backwards
pierce the fabric,
and who knows what would happen to a human body
in that perfect vacuum.
And I worried he’d step
into soft bottomless silt,
sinking beneath millions of years
of moon dust.

In the end, he mangled the momentous pronouncement.
We heard only “Man”.
He insists on “a man” —
the humble indefinite article,
even if he was the most famous man in the world.
Nixon also had a speech prepared
in case no one returned.
Something like “3 lifeless bodies
forever preserved,
a monument to human yearning.”
And made himself scarce,
afraid of the taint of failure —
typical Nixon, politics first.
Kennedy was already dead;
both of them.
In ’61, he had rallied the nation;
but apparently
didn’t much care for space exploration.
No, we sent men to the moon
to put Russia in its place.
. . . So much for “one large step”.

A flag was left
waving in an ersatz wind.
The whole world may have travelled with them
holding its collective breath;
but they were sturdy patriots, nevertheless.
They brought back rocks,
which seems a long way to go.
But as they say
it’s the journey, not the destination.

But I kept thinking back
to Collins —
stuck in lunar orbit,
so close, and yet so far.
I thought about duty
and self-abnegation
and the luck of the draw.
I knew Armstrong and Aldrin
were cut from different cloth
than me.
I was Collins,
looking down from above
detached,
winning Miss Congeniality
a door prize.

When the lunar lander lifted-off
we felt a surge of pride
— we all owned the accomplishment,
our common humanity.
And forever after
“Houston” will evoke powerful feelings
of safety
and home.

The footprints are still intact
40 years on.
The astronauts are now elderly men;
and I’m older
than they were then.
I gaze at the full moon
on a clear summer night,
walk in its silver shadow,
remember how precious and small
this planet looked,
looking back.
Except there is no one circling above us now;
and Houston is hot
and over-crowded.

We got bored with moon-walks
soon after that.
Some still claim it was staged,
Walter Cronkite notwithstanding.
Or even that the earth is flat.
Which is how it feels, flat —
when we never went back,
40 years on
and counting.



This was written several weeks after the commemoration of the first moon landing. I was at summer camp 40 years ago, and we all gathered around a small black and white TV to watch. We certainly felt the weight of history, as well as a powerful sense of pride (undeserved by us, of course!) in human achievement.

This poem began, believe it or not, as an attempt to write a short story. Of course, it inevitably turned into a poem (what else?!): it seems I'm no good at narrative or character, only sentences. Nevertheless, by my "one page" standards, it's a veritable epic!

I was attracted to the short story because, among other things, I thought it would let me say more, be more expansive and declarative; that I could get some relief from the discipline of cutting, of leaving things unsaid , of the stern dictum of "more is less". But by approaching this as a prose poem -- kind of talking my way through it -- things seemed to work out just as well. In the end, it's a bit of a mongrel -- some prose, some rhythm and rhyme. And it says what it says, no fancy metaphors or multiple meanings. In other words, a pleasure to write!

Transcontinental
July 31 2009


I’d rather take the train.
In a slick aluminum sleeper,
with a clever sink
a drop-down desk
a nifty fold-away bed.
The Denver Zephyr, perhaps,
or the Empire State Express.
As the world scrolls by
outside the glass,
to the comforting clatter of tracks.

Or bump along in the bar car;
with ruddy-faced men making wise-cracks,
and heavily made-up women
who refuse to act their age.
The Choctaw Rocket, perhaps;
or the Narragansett
the Dixie Flagler
the Coastline Florida Mail.

The dome is close to empty
sailing through the prairie night.
I look up
at jet black sky,
as if the roof of the world had lifted
out to the edge of space.
And look over
a moon-lit ocean of grain.
In the Land O’ Corn,
the Man O’ War,
the Commodore Vanderbilt.

You feel in constant motion
as the carriage jerks and sways;
but there is no sensation of speed.
And no urgency, once you enter,
as mileposts steadily recede.

Hanging on, by the skin of your teeth
to the non-stop Atlantic Blue Comet,
as the Peoria Rocket takes-off.
To the high-buff stream-lined dream cars
of the glittering Egyptian Zipper,
the more intimate Arrowhead Limited.
Or to a one-way no-return ticket
for a trip on the Tex Mex Express.

But nowadays, trains are numbers,
crunched
by bean-counting time-study types.
So the Empire Builder's done,
the Electroline is over.
No more Missouri River Eagle
New England Wolverine.
We commute to work, elbows touching
in double-decker diesels;
and “fly-over country” disappears
at 30,000 feet.



I read a great David Sedaris short story in the New Yorker -- it takes place on a train. I heard a Garrison Keillor monologue, and -- as he so frequently does -- there was the romantic invocation of exotic names of trains, of idiosyncratic destinations. It struck me that this wealth of evocative names offered a great opportunity for a "found" poem. I got my list from Wikipedia. Which means that it may not be accurate; but I guess good enough for poetry. The trick was to figure out how to extract the music; and how to draw the reader in, and then keep her. I'm not sure if I succeeded; but either way, here's the result. At least I hope I captured a bit of the romance of the train; if not of another age.

Urban Geography
July 28 2009


Something sticky
on the floor mat.
Fabric worn
windows smudged,
where hands touched, noses pressed
all-night heads
slumped against the glass,
sleeping-it-off
a chesty cough
the fog of human breath.

The cabbie sneaks a smoke;
idling, unoccupied,
the lull before closing time.
People leave things behind
he finds,
dropped forgotten treasures,
like empties
wedding rings
lipsticked addresses.

The geography of the inner city
depends on where you sit —
night shift
navigating rain-slicked streets,
or on the back bench seat
of a cab.
Noticing
a brilliantined head,
the back of a neck,
an accent, vaguely menacing.

As street lamps flicker past,
light briefly enters
shadows sharpen, and lengthen
the mat brightens, a second
in the cold electric glare.
I expect condoms, vomit, clotting blood,
incontinent bodily fluids.

But there’s only rotten fruit
I see, relieved,
briskly shifting my feet.



The idea for this poem came from a quick glance at a review of a book called "Taxi!". The review was in the Globe's "buried treasures" section, and the book was published way back in 1975. I didn't read the book. I didn't even read the review. But the accompanying photo caught my eye -- a driver, arm perched in the open window, head facing out and into the camera. Something in her face conveyed intelligence, skepticism, toughness, compassion, and a kind of non-judgmental alertness. Yes, I somehow managed to see all that in a glance! Anyway, it made me want to write about taxis and cities. This is the result.

Talking Politics
July 26 2009


We talk about politics.
Anything, actually —
celebrity sightings
religion, sex.

He rails against
all those smirking bloated phonies,
with slippery handshakes
and gravy-stained shirts.
While I rant and rave
about pay-offs, and pandering.
Which leaves us feeling smug, self-satisfied.
We reward ourselves
with cold imported beer.
The situation in Uzbekistan is scandalous, I rage,
premium foam
clinging to my lip.
The new administration is in over their heads, he proclaims,
almost gloating.

He refrains from mentioning
my mother, his wife,
who is not permitted, yet
to leave the ward
unescorted.
I wait for him to ask
about my brother, his first-born son,
who haven’t spoken
in months.

We exchange a “fine, thanks ...and you?”,
shake hands with manly insouciance,
race, reaching for the bill.

I notice his distracting habit
of folding, unfolding
a paper napkin,
tearing-off long even strips
as he talks.
When I notice my own busy hands
nervously twisting a napkin,
and drop it, fast.

Bad manners, I reproach myself.
And try extra hard
not to notice anything else.



2 things converged to kick-start this poem.

First was hearing Frank McCourt (author of Angela's Ashes) recount meeting -- as an adult and after many years apart -- with the father who had abandoned them as children. Who, while never asking about the family, was content to to talk enthusiastically about the situation in N. Ireland, about the usual Irish martyrs and tragic heroes (something the Irish are apparently particularly good at!) In my family, I don't think we talk at all easily about personal or emotional issues; but politics is always easy, almost a relief. A convenient form of evasion and denial, I suppose.

Second was James (Arthur), who in a recent email strenuously asserted that he was not interested in politics because they're all "self-interested liars and cheats" (I paraphrase). (James, isn't it possible -- and, as a good citizen, desirable -- to ignore the politicians, but still take an interest in public policy?) Which gave me that colourful opening.

This poem is mostly about denial: the unconscious, as well as the deliberate, kind. How even the conventionally "forbidden" topics of politics, religion and sex are easy, compared to the personal and confessional. And about how we are all helpless creatures of the family culture in which we were raised; how -- to resort, again, to cliche -- "the acorn doesn't fall far from the oak".

Flight Path
July 22 2009


Living under the flight path
is a distraction, at first;
‘til soon, you stop noticing.
But thoughts of departures
of flight
of taking-off,
pre-occupy you, nevertheless.

There are steep ascents
under full throttle
rattling windowpanes and cutlery.
There are landings at night
that make your gut clench.
Bright lights appearing out of darkness
from over the adjacent low-rise,
indistinct rumblings,
then this great gleaming creature
directly overhead —
arms outstretched
landing gear grasping
the thrusters’ ear-busting roar.

Where a row of windows
like a string of festive lights
encloses a small orderly village
of convenient strangers,
sipping drinks
in the muted glow
of the oddly still interior.

So much coming, and going.
The strained smiles of seat-mates,
the great airport concourse
where important people hurry by.
You listen from your modest bungalow,
imagine picking-up
lifting-off
rising above
this earthbound melancholy,
so high
the sun always shines.

You will descend
eventually, of course,
through the clouds
into turbulence,
over the brightly lit node
of some unfamiliar town,
nod at your seat-mate
and go.
You will find a place
with the sound of planes
and the scent of jet exhaust,
where you will settle down
among convenient strangers.

Until the restlessness
grips you again.



I think what this poem is about is the delusion of escape; the notion of salvation somewhere else; the idea that others have bigger lives. It is the false promise of the journey itself that seduces him, the fugue state, the taking flight: where he "rise(s) above/this earthbound melancholy", and "the sun always shines"; where he demurely rubs shoulders "in the muted glow/of the oddly still interior."

His disappointment is foreshadowed in the 2nd stanza -- I hope not too clumsily, or too much over-written -- by the rather mercenary and visceral personification of the plane.

It is because of this false hope that he never commits; and so repeatedly finds himself living marooned among "convenient strangers", no more intimate with them than one is within the transient artificial intimacy of an airplane fuselage.

This poem had its seed in a brief image from a DVD I recently rented: dusk; the low rent part of town; a blaze of light in the sky, and an airplane suddenly appears, sweeping in low and loud and menacing. I immediately had the impression of it as a living thing. And there was this sense of stark division: the low-rise people trapped on the ground; contrasted with the freedom and escape offered up by the flight path -- so inaccessible, yet so temptingly close.

Body Heat
July 21 2009


Such sultry heat
there is no relief,
the sun so high
it drives our shadows
straight into the ground.
Even the bugs have hunkered down,
their hard black bodies
cinder-dry.

We move slowly.
We sit motionless.
We revel in the brief wisps of breeze
that stroke our shoulders
stir our sun-bleached hair,
the fleeting shelter
in a puff of cloud.

We are naked, eyes shut
heads tilted upward.
Our bodies are engines of heat,
dark skin flushed with blood
radiating barely contained desire.

I picture your body underwater,
smooth as polished rock
golden hair floating up,
your nipples stiff
your body slick,
the muscles in your arms
strong and hard.
Small bubbles of air
cling to your skin,
your measured breath
released as slow as blown kisses.
I follow your legs
rising up to the curve of your ass
the small of your back
your shoulder blades,
like delicate wings
rippling beneath an even tan.

We will make love
in this sun-warmed water,
weightless
frictionless
out of breath,
bursting out into air
where the sun will dry us
in seconds.

Except the wetness, where I entered you
running down your leg.
And the sweat, intermingling,
where we hold each other
our bodies touching
our skin still flushed.

Open Arms
July 20 2009


She was good in an emergency.
It was the every day
she had trouble with.

This woman of a certain age,
who loved men too much
to stay with one.
Who could cook up a storm,
but left the whirlwind
for the rest to clean up.
Who never owned anything,
but made herself at home
wherever she was.

She couldn’t resist
a road-trip
anywhere warm.
She sought out the adrenaline fix,
the high-octane fuel-injected lift-off.
She danced with her eyes shut,
content to live in her head
but thrilled to have you join her there.
Needless to say, she was always late,
if she showed-up at all.

So I was surprised, impressed
to see her focus
when the alarm went off
the lady was robbed
no one could stop
the bleeding.
A good woman to take charge,
when time went too fast
for the rest of us.

But let her get bored
and she was off —
her man confused
and helpless;
her kids
coping hard,
as usual;
and her friends
juiced when she appeared,
feeling as if all the light in the world
shone only on them.


This is called "Open Arms" as an homage to the novel of the same name by Marina Endicott, since it was inspired by her character Isabelle. I confess, I didn't read it; I cheated by listening to the audio-books version (on CBC's "Between the Covers" series of podcasts). Still, pretty impressive for a first novel!

Road Work
July 17 2009


Road work season.
Big yellow machines, belching smoke.
Guys leaning on shovels,
orange vests, muscles, sweat.
Some engineer has decreed the order of things;
but they’ll tear it up next summer
I bet.

We squeeze into single file
under a broiling sun,
heat-waves shimmering-up
windows shut
air-conditioners humming.
The flag girl looks bored.
She is a goddess
in all this testosterone,
in tom-boy clothes
fretting about a farmer’s tan
the blister under her toe.

In real life
she is an English major
working summers.
And in 20 years
a famous author,
she will write about road work.
The line of cars, crawling by.
The man, who caught her eye
for a moment —
tapping his fingers to jazz,
the case of wine, riding shotgun,
the classic Panama hat.
And like all of us
story-tellers,
we never recognize ourselves.

Unwittingly
plagiarizing each other,
making it up
as we go along.



This is how we all go through life, telling stories about everyone we meet, or even incidentally see -- professional story-tellers, or not. We project and we empathize, trying to imagine other people's lives, filling in the spaces, making presumptions, re-playing our own history, shamelessly invoking our prejudices and smug certainties. In other words, "making it up ...as we go along."

I like the misdirection here: how a relatively straight-forward descriptive piece about something we all immediately recognize takes this unexpected turn; how an incidental character suddenly becomes the story; and, ultimately, the conceit of the author in allowing himself to imagine all this about her. Because this is how it really happens: all these enigmatic and mysterious people, flashing past in real life. This sets up the final stanza, in which he is also the object of someone's story ...which, in turn, raises further questions about objective reality ...truth ...self-knowledge.

Of course, I've always been more of a stylist than a philosopher, which means that these big pretentious themes don't interest me as much as nailing a good line, crafting a fine sentence. So my favourite part is actually this: "She is a goddess/in all this testosterone ...". (I had some misgivings over the line "under a broiling sun", such an obviously tired and cliched expression. But what it loses in impact, it makes up in precision, since I was really unable to come up with anything more cogent than "broiling". So I let it stand.) ...I like the title, too! If I saw that listed in a table of contents, I'm pretty sure I'd turn to it first. Which is how I like to test a title: by imagining the table of contents as a delectable box of assorted chocolates, and trying to make every title scream "choose me! choose me!"

Antipodes
July 16 2009


Even in summer
it’s cold enough to see one’s breath.
At least they’ll know when we’re dead, we joked,
black humour
not yet spent.

Near the end, a man becomes irregular —
flurries of shallow breathing,
long slack-jawed spells.
You can see who’s next
huddled in the blanket where we left him,
beard thick with frost.
And this poor sod,
teeth chattering
breathing shallow, rapidly
desperately imagining
rescue.

While the rest of us, lost
are resigned
to God’s persistent deafness;
conserving our energy
breathing slowly, steadily
the acetone scent of the starved.
Cupping black and blistered fingers
around warm moist breath.

Some talk to themselves,
each word expelled
in a heavy cloud of mist,
as if speech could turn to ice
on contact —
flash-frozen letters
clattering down.

When we sleep, it almost stops;
slow regular breathing
probably dreaming
of sun-drenched beaches,
hot luxurious sand.

As Antarctic winds roar
and the flimsy shack shudders,
and this cursed continent
blows its lungs out.
A single candle flickers,
feeble shadows jump.
Our breath condenses on the ceiling
dripping down,
hardening
into stalactites of cloudy ice.
Breathing is no longer automatic,
and the effort
seems almost too much.

Even in summer
this place sucks the life from us —
wasted bodies
freeze-dried;
our dying breath
preserved in ice.




No, I wasn't reading about Hillary, or Franklin, or any other extreme explorer. Just a few unseasonably cold days in July: overcast, drizzly, incessant wind. I suppose it made it feel warmer, writing about the cold.

I don't know what I had in mind when I started this; but I ended up in Antarctica, holed up with Shackleton, dying heroically. I think the key here is the way, at the start of the penultimate stanza, I anthropomorphize the wind, and how this calls back to all the references to breath and breathing. It is almost as if a metronome runs through the poem, air moving methodically in and out, counting down in resignation to the end.

A bit of a departure here, as well, in that I let my medical background sneak in a bit: the Cheyne-Stokes breathing on the verge of death; the fingers blackened by frost-bite and dry gangrene; the acetone breath of starvation, a result of the ketone bodies produced by lipolysis. Just something for my literary biographers to make a fuss about. (As if!!)

...I was just about to sign off, when I remembered how the theme of "breath" became so instrumental in this poem. About the time I wrote it, I had been listening to the audio-book version of Lawrence Hill's "The Book of Negroes". There is a part where Amanita first arrives in New York from the South, and is shocked to see her breath. As I started in on this piece, that powerful image came immediately to mind, becoming an obvious hook and a natural point of departure.

Pollen Season
July 15 2009


The pollen was thick this year,
leaving a high-water mark
ringing the shore-line rocks.
It sticks to the deck
under the overhang,
a layer of heavy yellow dust.
And still, billows from the trees
when wind is up.

The lake is rich with it,
little golden motes of light
glinting near the sun-lit surface.
It feels like swimming through soup —
a nutrient broth for grazing fish,
the warm turbid liquid
a petri-dish
of life.

By September, the lake will be cold and clear,
its flat grey surface
uninviting.
Then ice,
locked-in
camouflaged by blowing snow.

Somehow, the fish survive,
pitch-dark
freezing cold.
And spring
seems impossibly remote —
when a yellow haze
blankets everything;
and ravenous fish
will feast,
the promiscuous trees
once again
serving-up their riches.

Fourth of July
July 9 2009


There was a mad dash
when the rain hit,
coming down in sheets —
wind-driven, sharp bits
of hail.
Heavy drops
ricochet-off the hard-baked earth
like bee-bees shot by drunks.
The sky goes dark,
thunder rumbles imperiously.

We scoop up blankets, basket, little kids.
Paper dishes
spiral up like water spouts,
vortices
of plastic, napkins, cups.

The say the car
is the safest place in a storm —
wet bodies
crammed-in,
windows fogging-up.
The radio was marching bands
baseball, static.
We sat, time stopped
breathing-in the sweaty fetid air.

We felt it rock,
could almost imagine
being whisked off to Oz
in the hundred year tornado.
Lightning going-off
like flashbulbs at the ball park
on opening day,
its ghostly strobes
freeze-framing the world.

Later, we learned the county over
was hit hard —
houses vanished,
little shafts of straw
impaling trees.
We were lucky, I guess,
just a picnic wrecked.
But the fireworks
were free.

Estate Sale
July 7 2009


The old poet
had run out of words.
All he had were the spaces,
punctuation
blank verse.

But all language is metaphor
he consoled himself,
meaning exactly what he said
no more, and no less,
purged of the clever misdirection
he used to serve-up instead.

Young poets breathe fire
chain smoke
sweet-talk the girls,
convinced they will save
an unwilling world.
His ambition
is far more humble —
to rescue himself,
to make sense of death,
and to use up what’s left
— the straight-ahead words
he found hard to express.

Like
“I could have loved
so much better . . .
or “The imagined transgressions
I forgive, and forget . . .
or “My magnificent debt
of gratitude.”


His entire life’s work
in a battered blue desk
— locked drawer, bottom left —
auctioned off, in a single lot
to the highest bidder;
desk, plus contents
sight unseen.

Ride the Wind
July 5 2009


This island is 10 minutes
from end-to-end.
Its trees are ancient
shrunken, twisted,
from cold and fog
and stony soil.

I pace
like an animal, caged.
The sea contains me
as surely as prison walls,
peering out
at the cruel temptation of freedom.

But it’s the wind
that makes me crazy,
a deafening incessant living thing.
I scream
at the top of my lungs
from the bottom of my soul
and hear nothing,
the words torn from my throat.
Yet the sound
is inescapable
— clear plastic
flapping frantically,
the mad percussion of air,
a thousand jets, taking-off.

I watch sea-birds soar
wings taut.
They ride the wind
dipping and veering and holding their own,
never setting down.
I wonder what they see
from such privileged heights,
looking far beyond
my claustrophobic horizon.
And when the water
will overwhelm this stubborn rock,
bashing the shore
with all its magnificent force.

Or the wind
will carry it off.
How a kite stalls and starts
tumbles and darts,
all the way
to landfall.

Posterity
July 1 2009


We had road-side ditches
a kid, in rubber boots with a pointy stick
could busy himself
all day.
Culverts under the driveways,
gravel roads.
Then streetlights came,
the big pipe
buried, then paved,
sidewalks, finally —
concrete, still soft
where we left our mark,
and fled.
Dares and double dares
still there
40 years on.

Which is how the sky looks today,
concrete, freshly poured
wet and grey.
Which I would also write on, if I could,
something to commemorate the day
the old place burned —
only charred beams left standing,
cracked sidewalks
dark with ash.

The forecast calls for skies to clear.
As I imagine the remains will be flattened —
the foundation razed,
sidewalks jack-hammered.
Fate, as usual
amused
at youthful illusions
of permanence.

Moving Pictures
June 30 2009


I remember stepping out
from the dark air-conditioned space
— a cartoon, a short
a western shoot-em-up —
into white-hot sun;
eyes squinting, tearing-up,
an ice-pick headache.

The doldrums of summer
tagging along with older brothers
to Saturday matinees.
Sticky floors
crappy speakers
kids shouting at the screen,
at the old Glendale theatre
on Bathurst St.,
now a parking lot.

It cost a quarter, I think,
the precious coin tightly in my clutches;
but not enough
for popcorn, candy.
Part 2, next Saturday.

We groaned when “To be continued . . . ” popped-up.
Not that the plot ever changed that much,
just black hats and white hats
a boring kiss, some bad guys bucked
rows of whistling hissing kids.

Because the movies were our first great love,
back when “cinema” was French
and “film” meant snapshots.

The manager must have hated Saturdays.
We couldn’t get enough.

Hauled Away
June 28 2009


The car died
on a country road, near dusk, in its 14th summer.
It bucked once, and was done.

The wrecker came in the morning,
hauling it away to the scrap-yard
no charge,
where it will be reborn
as white hot ingots
of steel.

I wonder if I will go so easy
in useful old age,
no call for crash carts
adrenaline
CPR,
deferring to nature.

I’ll admit, we tried a jump-start.
And I peered under the hood, knowingly;
still, utterly clueless.
If there was a ghost in the machine
it had seeped peacefully away;
perhaps, in that last gasp of steam.
A ton of steel and glass
stranded on a gravel lane,
sagging, lifeless.

They will find my body on a wilderness trail,
no sign of struggle
still fresh enough.
Natural causes, they’ll say
hauling me out for burial.
And 6 feet under
the earth shall reclaim me;
feeding
a small green patch of growth,
warming the ground as I go.

Mileage
June 29 2009


20 miles
30 years,
I’m not sure how much distance
it takes
to write about the past.
And then
when you get far enough away
it all becomes clear,
the incomprehensible
obvious.

Because forgiveness
is so much easier than hate.
Because gratitude
displaces envy.
Because age wears away
a young man’s intransigence,
and distance makes things seem small
receding in the rear-view mirror.

It was a road trip to who knows where,
stopping
for the first hitch-hiker you saw.
She had blue-streaked hair
a pierced tongue
a rising sun, tattooed on her left shoulder.
You smoked dope
sat closer
listened to baseball in the middle of the night,
a tiny dot
hurtling across the prairie
— the dial, glowing green
hi-beams, like feeble pin-pricks
miles, flashing by hypnotically.
It felt
as if this small universe of steel and glass
was everything.

And then, when you ran out of gas
the car stopped,
the journey began,
the odometer
clicked over.

Taciturn Dads
June 22 2009


Fatherly love
is more like jazz
than mothers —
no two versions the same,
always partly improvised,
and to some
it all sounds like noise.

My dad
was a stand-up bass.
His voice could carry,
but you didn’t really notice.
He rarely soloed,
deferring to the flashy sax
the vamping diva, scatting alone.
And always there
playing back-up,
solid, reliable
setting the tone.

Dads were stoic, then.
They brought home a paycheque
never wore shorts
drove 4-door cars from Detroit.
They could seem overwhelmed
by fatherhood
as if it were more than they’d expected,
finding refuge
behind evening papers,
in a workshop basement
puttering.
And the first diaper he ever held
was a grandchild’s,
pinching it gingerly
wrinkling his nose.

The bass player drives a Cadillac,
the only trunk big enough
for his man-sized instrument.
His hands are strong
with sinewy wrists
deeply callused fingertips.
He wears a skinny suit, a narrow tie,
but when called upon
can really swing it.
Which catches us by surprise
every time
— the secret jazzman
hiding inside.

And the inner life
of a taciturn dad
who spent so long
on the road
away from home,
we could never really know him.

The Power-Plant of the World
June 23 2009


I recall endless summer —
sticky heat,
black-top
softening at a 100 degrees,
and hard-baked fields
with base-paths worn to ruts.

But now, I notice its intensity.
Just a few weeks, it seems;
and days so long
the sun barely sets —
twilight, more than darkness.

I could pull up a chair,
watch hostas
unfurl before my eyes,
grass multiply,
trees erupt.
Or put my ear closer,
and hear the ratchet and squeak
of asparagus
growing.
Chlorophyll is ferocious,
sucking-up light
churning–out sugar
fragrance
cellulose
— the essential molecule,
the power-plant of the world.

An evening thunderstorm.
They will drink it in
greedily;
and then, at dawn
race head-long to the sky;
crowding-out, straining higher,
shallow roots
competing for the richest earth.

And in this short fierce summer
we, too, are determined;
soaking-up the sun,
scratched, and bitten, and burnt.

State of Nature
June 22 2009


I am no green thumb;
my brief conceit as a gardener
undone.

Although the pin-cherry
which was so long to bud
has put out blossoms
for the very first time.

And the hostas
are indestructible,
their giant leaves
unfurling in the shade.

Dandelions
tapping into deep moist soil
have turned to puff,
a hundred long thin stems
sticking-up —
like veins
post-dissection.

Day lilies, as I’ve come to expect
will bloom all summer,
despite my neglect,
The dogwood, though, looks spent —
a few shrivelled leaves, brittle stems,
their vibrant red
faded.
And vetch
winds its way everywhere,
the exacting grass
long dead.

I survey my garden
with dread,
too long left
to nature.
But the excess
the disorder
the wildly exuberant green,
are a kind of Eden.

My garden
reclaiming itself.
And how a wild world will look,
liberated
from out brief despotic
occupation.

Treed
June 20 2009


The dogs treed it,
black claws scraping bark.
He was surprisingly agile,
scampering up like a heavy-weight wrestler
gone to fat.

Arms and legs hug the trunk
clinging as tight as a frightened cub,
immoveable.

The dogs bark maniacally
triumphant, intense,
springing up
inciting each other.
All it takes is 3 dogs to make a pack,
turning pets
into wolves, and jackals.

I call them off,
dragging the big black one by its collar.
The blood-lust of dogs
when bear’s in the air,
reeking so bad
even I catch it.

He was a juvenile, kind of small;
his first encounter with man.
And I knew
he wouldn’t be back.

The dogs were rewarded
with table scraps,
fish, freshly caught.

I wonder if he’s climbed back down
by now.

Euclidean Geometry
June 17 2009


We were taught
parallel lines go on forever
and never intersect.
That a point is dimensionless,
and exists in solitary splendour.

I find comfort
in this geometric universe.
So easily rendered
with straight-edged rulers,
my trusty compass
twirling on its needle-sharp leg.

And when they showed us
how glass, cut precisely
could split light,
give order
to the rainbow’s kaleidoscope,
we felt we had mastered
creation’s basic rules.

But they forgot to warn us
about fault lines
and pressure points,
how easily glass can break.
About the complications
3 dimensions make,
how all things change
given time.
And how light relieves the darkness;
but look straight into it
you are left momentarily blind.

Shared Silences
June 15 2009


An elderly couple
sit across from each other,
sipping tea
choosing dessert.
Beneath the table
she has removed
one of her proper comfortable shoes.
Her toes, in sturdy stockings
find the hem of his pants
brush up-and-down his calf,
in slow familiar strokes.
He glances over,
knows her too well
for words.




There is the silence of strangers.
Hunched into themselves,
whose body language declares
no trespassing.

There is the silence of anger.
The space stiff with tension,
bodies rigid
teeth clenched.
The last word
suspended in the air like an echo,
so it’s easy keeping score.
Or a flash of red
to the blood-shot eyes of a bull.

And there is silence, shared.
This is the ultimate intimacy,
so at ease with each other
nothing need be said.
The space between them
full,
the silence
understood.

Indelible
June 14 2009


Her autobiography
is written in skin.
In the laugh lines
permanently etched by her eyes.
In stretch-marks and scars.
In surgical incisions
that march across her body
like battle-hardened troops
in a long exhausting war.
And tattoos
that once belonged
to a young and foolish girl,
as reckless as a drunken sailor
in a foreign port.

She makes love in the dark.
She only looks in mirrors
fully clothed.
But her hands know,
in the shower
touching herself
— strongly scented soap
steam, billowing.
What she’d rather forget,
and takes pride
remembering.

An entire chapter inscribed
in the livid scar on her breast.
Scrubbing hard;
lightly brushing against it.

They Called for Rain
June 8 2009


They called for rain.

But this cool mist is like walking on mountain-tops,
the hard-edged world softened
enclosed in fog.

Then there is all-day-rain,
relentless, soggy.

And showers, on-and-off;
hope dangled, then snatched away.
A rent in the cloud,
a ray of sun, slanting down.

In late summer, it pours,
heavy drops
like water, shot from nail-guns.
These are monsoons, biblical floods,
so the world overflows
nearly drowning us.

I prefer the sturm und drang
of thunder
— the wind, whipped-up,
the clouds
black towering anvils.
How the air feels charged,
the sense of power, barely contained,
and the light
ominous, exhilarating.
And when it breaks
there may be hail
frogs
horizontal rain.
In the end, the earth left cleansed
and glistening —
torn branches scattered,
wet leaves, splattered
on cars, asphalt, glass.

This cool mist
is like kissing your sister.
A thunderstorm is elevator-sex in a black-out —
you and your lover air-locked,
in the very last kiss
on earth.

Bedtime Stories
for Grown-Ups
June 8 2009


When the tides stopped.
When the muddy flats dried-up
hard as rock,
and scuttling crabs dropped
dead as door-nails
— flipped on their backs,
picked-over by gulls, squawking
turkey vultures
hogging the fat ones —
we knew
the cataclysm had come.

No moon rose, that night,
and the constellations seemed to burn up the sky.
Showers of falling stars
bombarded us.
Meteorites
gave rise to prophecy
and awe.
Until all we saw was dust,
blotting-out the universe.

We wondered if the sun
would rise, next morning.
The devout prayed.
Sinners repented.
While the rest sought comfort
in lovers
and friends.

They say our bodies are too small
for tides to affect us.
And we all felt insignificant
that night —
the planet
wobbling in its orbit;
the ecliptic, shifted.

And the moon
a whimsy, a figment,
told in tales
to get fussy babies to sleep.
Such childish dreams;
all moonshine
and lunacy.

Pure White Light
June 4 2009


We burned the chairs first,
splintered, kindling
kiln-dried wood.
The table, next,
fed, leaf-by-leaf
into the stove.
And beds stripped bare
screws, worked loose;
sagging mattress
stacked against the wall.
We pried-up floorboards
crow-barred 2-by-4’s,
exposing joists, and gaping holes.
But still, the cold.

You’d think books would be easy.
But they smoulder, blacken, smoke
douse the stove.
So we burn them page by page.
The heat
has us in its trance,
feeding it, hand after hand.

Floor to ceiling
shelves stripped clean.
They stand against the walls
like skeletons,
ribs sagging
spindly spines.
They too will burn
eventually
— the marrow bone after the meat.

The unmemorized lines
are gone.
But the work of words goes on —
a flare of pure white light,
illuminating us
one last time.

Afraid of the Dark
June 3 2009


They come out at night.

Delirious dreams,
sheets twisted
sweat-soaked.

Nocturnal creatures
stepping tentatively from hidden lairs;
over-sized eyes,
dark fur, black carapace.

Fear of the dark,
projecting our inner worlds
upon the outer one.

How deep
does sunlight penetrate translucent skin,
traverse cytoplasm and corpuscles,
illuminate the deep recesses
we always believed
inaccessible?
How, at night, all is made equal,
turning us inside out
flat as shadows
edges blurred.

At night, the stars come out.
Light that left billions of years ago,
we glimpse for an instant
its journey over.

Twilight
June 1 2009


Dusk
imperceptibly settles.
You feel the weight of air,
the light
getting denser.
Unsure if it fills the world
or empties it.

And then
the colours of darkness disappear.
A charcoal etching
in all the shades of grey —
softening its edges,
smudging the space
in between.

At night
all of us are colour-blind;
more likely to touch
and be touched,
snuggled-up
beneath its soothing cover.

Afterlife
June 1 2009


Who knew
there was a hierarchy of angels.
Arrayed at the right hand of God,
all celestial harps
and beatific smiles,
they elbow and jostle like little girls
competing to be queen of the schoolyard.

The Seraphim, the Cherubim, the Thrones,
looking down their nose
at Powers and Principalities;
and the lowly Archangel
who hovers down near earth.

Even hell has its circles,
also 9.
Or so says Dante’s Inferno,
purgatory not included.

And in between, we work out our own
internal order,
unsure what is a need
a want
a desire;
which one burns inside,
and which will consume us whole.

Even skeptics and atheists
cannot decide.
Who are greedy for everything
in this brief secular life,
eviscerated of all its mystery.
Where death is final,
and relentless rationality rules.

Driving on a Backroad at Dusk
May 22 2009


If I could, I’d slip the belt off,
press my face to the glass
crane my neck skyward.
Or peel the roof back,
a jagged lethal lid.

Just as dusk descends,
magically lit
from over the planet’s curve.
When the sky is too immense
to be satisfied,
peering through this slit
of safety glass
— my neck crimped,
the view, misting up.
When its luminous blue deepens
and the surface dims,
flat and featureless.
And the distant hills
are paper cut-outs,
dark against the light.

I feel so small
down here
at the bottom of this ocean of air,
heavy, earthbound.
Standing on a gravel shoulder, looking up
at cornflower, azure, cobalt,
then baltic, violet-black.
And then transparent,
as if the air had boiled-off
— a blanket lifted,
the cosmos suddenly clear.

When the first star appears;
the sky now midnight black,
the softly glowing land.



Self-explanatory. At least it is to those who are privileged enough to live out in the country, far from downtowns and suburban sprawl. Where you can really see the sky -- unobstructed by buildings, unpolluted by artificial light.

On a cloudless day, when there is no humidity in the air, there is this quality of light at dusk that is utterly compelling. The sky is illuminated, the surface recedes, and you can't keep your eyes off it. You can feel the cold air descend as you watch. The sky seems immense. It goes through every shade of blue imaginable, and you wonder if there are names for them all. But by the time the first star appears, it's almost over: the sky will soon turn black and disappear; the land will re-emerge.

You're usually driving when this happens. You feel constricted blinkered blind, trying to see out. You want to peel the roof back. ...More practical, though, to stop and get out!

The First Hot Day
May 19 2009


Frost, last night.
Today, a scorcher,
the sky as clear as optical glass
refracting only blue —
the ozone, peeled back,
the sun
pouring through
unfiltered.

We emerge from winter
pale, sluggish,
unused to this molten heat
to light, that could ionize matter —
searing our outlines to asphalt,
like body-shadows
left by a nuclear blast.
Our eyes water, blinking back blindness.
We take our shirts off,
turning red as lobsters
boiled alive.
The first hot day, and we can’t help ourselves
soaking it up.

Cloudless tonight,
low-lying frost.
The first moths
fortified with anti-freeze.
And crocuses, about to erupt
like unaccustomed spring
— brilliant,
but brief.



This poem needs no explanation: a classic lyric poem, a personal reflection inspired by nature.

It was a hard winter, and now a late spring. On a cold evening, weeks ago, I was surprised to see the ooze of a hardy moth on the windshield -- the first of the season. Despite the cold, the same old crocuses I've watched for years have persisted, sending-up bright green shoots in a sea of brown. Some have even flowered. Last night there was frost. Today, it was chilly, overcast. But tomorrow, the forecast calls for the mid-20's, under clear blue skies.

The seasons transition quickly here. But at the same time, they're indecisive, whip-sawing us from heat to cold and back again. So I wanted to convey that with extreme language and strong contrasts.

I try to avoid purely descriptive poems. They have no soul, no compelling reason for the reader to re-visit them. They are like a photograph of landscape without a human subject: bland; no drama; nothing to draw in the viewer. So writing this in the first person was essential. And also essential was creating that instant identification with the reader: how we all get impatient, push the season, go overboard ...on the first hot day.

Here's another one that somehow got missed. A year too late ...but still worthwhile!



Big Fish
May 9 2008


Turns out, I’m a little fish in a little pond
— fooled, all along.
It must have been refraction,
an accident of light,
or eyes fixed, either side
confusing the picture.

But at least it feels roomier, getting littler.
And not so much keeping-up appearances
looking fierce
consuming upstart little fish,
that taste like spiny Styrofoam.
Although I still bump-up against the glass,
and tiny flakes of food
raining down as planned
is getting old, fast.

So that smooth surface, looking up
still tempts me,
the source of sustenance and light
of mystery, and excitement;
a cold dry world,
so big
no one would ever notice
a little fish beside the bowl,
flapping on its side
gasping.

This is a pretty good poem. So I was surprised when I searched, and nothing came up. The answer, of course, is that it was written just before I started the blog, so it just missed the cut-off. Anyway, I've decided to add it.



A Moment in Time
March 28 2008


To fix a moment in time.
Pinning-down the here-and-now
by its coordinates
— a new millennium,
not much different than the old one,
a week into spring
night closing-in.
As lights blink-on cheerfully all over town,
this small city
somewhere in the middle of a vast dark continent.
And my own small pool of light,
enclosing a cluttered desk
and a blank page
and a well chewed pen,
now 15 lines in.

To fix a moment in time.
Like nailing jelly to the wall
— how nothing sticks
and memory plays tricks,
transforming everything.

To fix a moment in time.
As if I could reach back
and change one small thing.
The way a butterfly fluttering its wings
half a world away from here
can stir-up a hurricane;
or gently setting down,
tip bedrock
into earthquake.

Or to surrender, instead,
and let time drift.
Because what happened in the past can’t be fixed
and this exact moment is ineffable,
slipping from my grasp
just as I think I’ve captured it.

It's a complete mystery to me how this one was missed. I wrote it quite recently; yet somehow, it never got posted. And it should have been, since it's a pretty good one!



At Last
April 21 2009


You feel like an impostor,
dancing faster and faster
to stay on top,
keep your head above water.
Or risk looking down;
surface tension
all that keeps you from drowning.

You are a self-proclaimed agnostic,
your theology modest
your conviction soft.
But actually, you proclaim nothing at all,
preferring to get along
by default.
Words like “evil”, and “wicked”
seem anachronistic,
too Old Testament
for how we now live.
Mild condemnation’s OK,
but nothing any stricter.
He couldn’t choose his parents, after all;
so whose fault is it, really?

It’s mostly muddling through
making do,
too pre-occupied, and harassed
for the longer view.
Which all feels too much
like nailing jelly to walls,
trimming the lawn
with scissors.
Or counting grains of sand
as the pit collapses around you.



So when the planet slammed to a stop,
the sun froze
at the top of its orbit.
When buildings toppled
and we were catapulted-off
over the edge,
like tiny specks
on sudden helpless tangents,
you had no way
to make any sense of it.

But what a relief
to have space to think,
at last.
When time took time-out,
when you let yourself go,
when fate
was all you had faith in.

Such exquisite decadence,
surrender.

Past Tense, Future Imperfect
May 12 2009


Mistakes were made.

In the passive voice.
In the virtual notes
of diminished chords and overtones.
In subjunctive
imperfect
the simple past.

If deterrence really worked
they could put us all away,
no appeal.
But these three words
defer the blame
make it sound like fate,
and we were helpless.
The subject
conjured out of ether.
The object
unspecified.
The victim
only vaguely implied.

There are mistakes, errors, and crimes.
There are misdemeanours
and lies,
of commission, omission
from black to white.
And mistakes that go unrecognized
but fester;
to the ends of our lives,
our children’s children.

We will be at it the rest of the night,
rain drumming
wind singing,
leaves flapping wetly
like wild applause.
And eavesdropping trees
that groan and creak,
leaning hard before the storm.

Confession is good for the soul,
but you must own it all.
And there is no confessing alone —
both of us
talking, listening
taking turns,
letting-go
our burden.



The passive voice always seems like a cop-out to me, like a weasly quisling sort of pawning-off of responsibility. So when I read this sentence -- "Mistakes were made" -- I couldn't resist playing around with it.

There is something very Bush and Nixon about this expression! "Mistakes were made" has this sense of relegating everything to some remote past, one with no connection to the speaker. And it has this sense of some vague nebulous subject, some unaccountable actor who isn't really that strongly attached to the conveniently conjugated verb "were made".

What I particularly like is that I finished it in exactly the opposite fashion: the liberal use of "you" and "us" and "our", in stark contrast to the unaccountable sentence that begins it. In the end, it becomes a couple, and they are taking ownership. There is nothing specific here: no narrative of wrongs and reprisals and thoughtless acts. I think most readers are more than capable of projecting themselves into this, and can probably come up with a lot more -- and a lot worse -- transgressions that I could ever pen.

I also like the pathetic fallacy in the second last stanza: the stormy night, the leaves applauding, the trees listening-in.

By the way, the "virtual notes" in the first stanza are supposed to imply the "third voice" of a duo, or the so-called "fifth voice" of a barbershop quartet: it's that virtual voice that is magically produced when people sing in perfect harmony. So in that sense, there is -- like the passive voice -- a smugly self-satisfied sound, but no one is really accountable, no one is taking ownership. (It also foreshadows the conclusion: you can't produce that virtual voice without harmony and communication, the same kind of harmony and communication needed when two people are talking and attempting to reconcile.)

City Diamond
May 11 2009


The dust, in the garage, has made the grease gritty,
the chain stiff,
the frame dull
and listless looking.
Both tires are flat,
trapped inside all winter.

I want to ride —
the wind at my back,
the sun
casting sharp shadows on greening grass,
the hum of rubber
on warm asphalt.

The rites of spring
are modest —
rake the lawn,
hose the bike off,
stop
to watch kids playing ball.
On city diamonds
with hard-packed dirt around the base-paths,
the first weeds
poking-out of bumpy fields.

Their bikes lean against the backstop,
or lie scattered where they dropped them, running-off.
Choosing sides
talking trash
shagging flies —
pick-up baseball, and riding bikes,
on the first nice day in spring.

While at the far end of the field
on the shadow side of trees,
a tiny patch of snow
still lingers.



I suspect this represents more nostalgia from my youth than it does anything I might experience today. Back then, our mothers kicked us out of the house, and expected us to entertain ourselves all day -- outdoors -- just so long as we were back in time for dinner. Today, kids are more likely to be holed up in their room in front of a computer all day, engrossed in multi-player on-line games (or something equally incomprehensible to me); or in some official activity organized by adults, riding around strapped into the back of a van.

I like the sense of "pushing the season" this poem conveys. Which is how it feels in the northern part of the continent after an unusually long winter. Actually, I'm not much of a biking enthusiast. (Baseball is something else entirely, of course!) But here I'm thinking back, to when a bike was more than a means of transportation or a congenial form of exercise; when it represented freedom and independence (as well as the end of winter!)

This is the first poem I've tried to write since I was completely shut out of the local poetry competition. I found this "loss" very demoralizing, and thought I'd shut it down for awhile. But despite the obvious temptation of retreating into my cave and licking my wounds , I think a better antidote to losing confidence is writing; and that means writing anything -- good, bad, or indifferent. I'm not sure where this poem fits (good, bad, or indifferent, that is); but I'd be happy to put it (or any other of mine) up against the "winners" any day!

I was doing some re-reading, and realized that "Someone Really Should ..." and "Physics -- for the Practical Man" are really the same poem: about detachment; apathy; the paralysis caused by feelings of helplessness and futility.

Hmmm, a disturbing theme; which probably says way more about me than I'd probably like said!

Brian

Someone Really Should …
May 7 2009


I watched the grease-stained wrappers
swirl, scatter
across the fast-food parking lot.
Someone should do something about that, I thought,
and kept-on walking.

I watched the long black Cadillac
double-park;
scofflaws, who stop then start
on red.
Someone should do something about that, I scolded sharply
shaking my head.

I watch
as grizzled weathered men
sleeping over hot air vents
accost up-standing citizens
for change.
Someone should at least complain
I thought,
but never said a thing.

I slump, half-asleep
in front of TV
watching,
when I hear a woman screaming
somewhere outside.
I press close to the glass
peering out into bottomless blackness
— like when the cable goes out
and the screen is impenetrable static.
I listen for sirens,
but now there is only silence.

Which is when I step back
pull down the blinds
and turn the volume higher.



We've all heard, said, and thought this countless times: "someone really should do something about that ...". I was listening to a radio interview, and the subject was environmentalism; and, what else, these exact words were said.

(In particular, the subject was state of the oceans; and even more specifically, the unconscionable hunting of dolphins by the Japanese (not to mention that a dead dolphin is so full of contaminants its body might as well be a toxic waste dump.) And in this case, the interviewee did, in fact, do something -- he made an apparently moving and brilliant film (called The Cove, if you're interested). But I digress.)

I thought this would be much more effective if it was about small things (rather than the death of the oceans!); things we can relate to from everyday life. I tried to construct it so that there is a gradual escalation in the severity of the transgression. (In the 3rd stanza, I'm not sure just what he feels someone should complain about -- that we allow homelessness and scandalous disparities of wealth in a society as prosperous as ours; or that we permit panhandling by people who make us feel uncomfortable! I left this intentionally ambiguous, probably because we all have the virtuous thought, but we also all still find ourselves feeling uncomfortable nevertheless.) And the first person observer is just that: a passive observer. He watches. He distances himself. He is behind glass. The world plays out on a screen. The virtual world and the real world eventually become indistinguishable.

This example of apathy reminds me of the famous poem by Martin Neimoller, about the rise of the Nazis and the moral hazard of silence. Here it is:

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
Then they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
Then they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, I did not speak out; I was not a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.


(I've been re-visiting some recent pieces, and realized that "Someone Really Should" and "Physics -- for the Practical Man" are really the same poem: about detachment, apathy, the paralysis caused by feelings of helplessness and futility. Hmmm, a disturbing theme; which probably says way more about me than I'd probably like said!)

The Divination of Weather
May 6 2009


They’re forecasting storms —
tropical air coming,
full of wind, hail, thunder.
What next, I wonder ...
frogs raining down,
a plague of locusts?

Unsettled weather suits me, though,
my mercurial temper
my frequent lows.

I stand outside, looking up,
soaked to the skin
hair streaming.
I count the seconds
‘til lightning and thunder come together,
the air fully charged.
I tempt fate, taunt the gods
with my foolishness —
a drenched scarecrow,
scaring-off nothing.

And then it turns to snow,
filling up the world
slowly covering me over.
An unlikely snowman
in this unseasonable spring,
when the world feels out of sync
and I feel giddy,
that such fantastic things
are possible.



Nothing profound to say about this. I must have been in a magic-realist mood, is all I can imagine.

There were supposed to be thunderstorms today. I think I was up for a bout of wild ecstatic weather; and so ended up a little disappointed. Then I looked at the forecast and saw there was a possibility of snow, of all things!!

I've been thinking for awhile how darkness appeals to me, how all this light makes me feel exposed, somehow under pressure. Which is nothing new: I always seem to have this vaguely unsettled feeling in spring. So I pictured myself hunkering down in dark overcast weather -- in the comfort of darkness, in the protection of a sound building. And then I pictured myself leaving the shelter of the house and immersing myself in the driving rain. The poem is a succession of these images. I simply described what I was seeing. And, as usual, I let the sound of the language take my by the hand and guide me through it.

I also wanted to write something very simple, and something about feeling more than thinking -- which I think I succeeded at. I also wanted a very unstructured conversational tone, which may not have come off quite so well. All in all, though, I'm very pleased with it!

Physics — for the Practical Man (or, A Mile-a-Minute)
May 5 2009


Speed
equals distance over time.
Distance
equals speed times time.

Time
is pointless to calculate,
beating-on under everything
relentless
— a deep full-bodied rumbling,
far too low to hear.

Velocity
is speed plus direction.
But does it matter
on a spherical planet
when you can head-off at any angle
and eventually come right back?
Here, where you began.

Distance
is directly proportional
to indifference.
The slaughter of innocents
on the far side of the globe
is a sad fact,
but hard to feel
— abstract numbers;
still photos, in black and white.
And after it’s happened
enough,
even simple geography gets confusing.
While it’s hard to detach yourself
from the whimpering dog
licking itself, hit,
limping-off to the side of the road.

But you drove past, nevertheless
— at 60 mph
watching through glass.
Which you would come to regret
60 miles on;
exactly 1 hour later.



I think I may come to love this poem. (Too early to tell, of course.) Yet it came so easily, it almost wrote itself. Actually, this isn't that unusual: most of the time I find writing easy, a pure pleasure; and most of them come embarrassingly quickly. (I say "embarrassingly" because if you haven't sweated bullets over it, it's hard to think of something as worthy of being called "art". But the truth is, the final editing, as well as these blurbs, probably take more time than that critical first draft.) I've often called this feeling "channeling". I know this has a mystical -- almost supernatural -- sound to it: which is not me in the least! But that's how it feels. It's not so much a logical process of analysis and crtitical thinking as it is an intuitive one.

Anyway, this poem's starting point was a book review (by Samantha Nutt) of SIX MONTHS IN SUDAN (by James Maskalyk). She finishes the review with this quote from the author: "That which separates action from inaction is the same thing that separates my friends from Sudan. It is not indifference. It is distance. May it fall away." I thought how perfectly indifference and distance go together: both in terms of the sound of the words, and in term of our identification with the suffering of other human beings. And once I started playing around with "distance", it was only a matter of time (no pun intended!) until I eventually stumbled upon those old familiar equations from high school physics.

I guess the reference to "still photos, in black and white" betrays my preference for good old-fashioned newspapers; since I get my news that way (or radio), instead of television or the internet. And also my age, perhaps; since papers are no longer just black and white! The good old Imperial system of measure, though, will never get too old for poetry: try kilometres and seconds instead of miles and minutes, and you'll see it just doesn't work!

Contact Tracing
May 4 2009


The epidemiology of fear.

There is no index case,
its reach vast
its onset lost;
breaking-out in back alleys,
the chants of mobs.

We debate its origin —
innate, or contagion,
a cultural artefact.

For you, it began
in terrible silence,
the scant seconds before she cried
— how such little time
could seem so endless.
Her first breath
tiny and wet,
bruised all over.

In the middle
you imagined yourself immune,
love or faith or strength
your antidote.
But by old age
you felt it again,
the endemic fear of death
gnawing away at you —
what comes next,
how you will be taken.

They say fear prepares us for survival
inoculates against complacency.
We learn to live with it,
and some days, even forget —
a chronic affliction,
the human condition,
wired-in
to our DNA.

While the fearless die young.
The rest of us
feeling envious,
but careful not to touch.


I imagine it's pretty obvious where this came from! Lots of talk now about pandemics, about the epidemiology of disease, about the race between unreasonable fear and contagion.

Of course, fear of one sort or another accompanies us all through our lives, so the message here isn't exactly earth-shattering. The pleasure in writing the poem was a more a stylistic one: weaving in all the references to illness and the study of disease. And of course, compressed into such a short piece, the allusions to social pathology; the movement from the moment of birth, to the verge of death.

Teaching English Overseas
May 3 2009


I smile and nod a lot.
Point at things.
Feel eyes, discreetly size me up.
I surprise children,
who stare
at pale-skinned strangers,
as if aliens had come to earth.
And the light, this time of year
seems slightly off-kilter,
the sun
an unfamiliar star.

I feel clumsy, lumpy
among these nimble people,
looking up at me
with bright brown eyes.
I long for conversation,
to go unnoticed,
for the plain food
that gives me comfort.

Here, I spend too much time watching satellite stations,
depend
upon the kindness of strangers.
Where we bow, backing away.
Handshakes are limp
and feel unfinished.
No way to hug
or be embraced.

Even my hair has gone uncut.
When the most meagre touch
would make this so much easier;
how close I’ve come
to running away.

But the ocean
might just as well be inter-planetary space,
and me, an extra-terrestrial
— stranded
light years from home.



Each weekday In the Globe and Mail, in the "Life" section, on a page called "Facts and Arguments", they publish a personal essay submitted by a reader. Today, it was "Lost in translation and losing my hair" by a contributor named Leah Giesbrecht. Her story takes place in Korea. (I've assumed she's there teaching ESL, although this is not actually specified.) She evoked a sense of displacement and distress that I wanted to have a go at in the form of poetry.

The hair loss in the story is both literal and, I assume, metaphorical. When she finally finds an English speaking hair-dresser -- in the most unlikely of places -- and gets the best and most luxurious feeling hair cut ever, she not only feels restored in terms of appearance, not only as a result of the effortless communication, but even more so by the intimacy of touch. I think this is what made her story powerful: how this small crucial intimacy made all the difference; and how its absence intensified the sense of isolation. (Of course, the fact that she had blonde hair was also a great literary device, making her that much more noticeable and self-conscious.)

I suppose my effort demonstrates a distinct lack of imagination, in that I've also made it about a foreign teacher in Korea. (Yes, it is Korea; or at least as I imagined it. And the "limp handshake" is Korean as well (I looked it up!): apparently, they go in for longer handshakes than are customary in the West; but the firm handshake is deemed tasteless and impolite.)

I'm kind of pleased the way I echoed the references to aliens and extra-terrestrials in the astronomical imagery: the sun (especially re-framing it as just another star); along with satellites, extra-planetary space, and light years. I think it's especially alienating, in this era of easy and unthinking intercontinental flight, to see the ocean as it was seen through most of history: as impenetrable, as a barrier as absolute as space travel is today. I also like the self-restraint of having saved the word "home" until the very end, where it really resonates, lingering in the ether for a few extra beats in that privileged position. Because ultimately, this is as much a story about the notion of home as it is about displacement and isolation.

Here is an excerpt from the essay, ending with the one short line that seems inconsequential in the story, yet brings the whole thing home:

"Armed with a Korean phrase book, I navigated streets and back alleys until I found the shop. All the stress of the past 12 months welled up in me as I stammered out the phrase I hoped would get me into the hairdresser's chair. The young man behind the counter looked at me a moment and said, "Don't worry, I speak English. I trained to be a hairdresser in London."
Soon-jin, the hairdresser, swiftly chopped off my long ragged ponytail, let it drop to the floor and kicked it aside. He lathered my head in warm water and shampoo that smelled like cinnamon and massaged my ears. As he trimmed my bangs, I realized this was the first time someone had touched my face in a year."

Sea Level
May 1 2009


At 2,000 feet
and climbing.
The engine groans
on steep inclines and switch-back roads,
straining higher.
Gears shift
the clutch slips
the revs dip lower;
tires spin-out
on gravel shoulders.

I wonder what it’s like
back at sea level
— the neutral ground, the great leveller
that is the measure
of all things.
Mired
in dead calm, the doldrums,
a flat Sargasso ocean
all the way out to the edge —
water
gently lapping at the shore.
Land and sea
in perfect equilibrium.

Here, every foot costs,
a hard slog
covering ground, heading higher.
The thin air.
The sheer drop
off to one side.
The sun, gone early
behind the steep horizon.

Until I finally reach the continental divide,
its jagged peak
as far from the exhausted shore
as possible.
Where I may stop;
occupy the high-ground,
my sightlines unassailable.
Or coast all the way down the far side,
free-wheeling
to another ocean.
A fresh start
at sea level once more.

Where the air is thick,
the land easy,
the setting sun
lingers.
And I will take big nourishing breaths,
replenished
and cleansed.





Looking back, it’s hard to know where this poem came from. I do recall sitting down with an idea that I was rather excited about ...and then after running around doing a bit of busy work, completely forgot about it!!! (I guess if it was that forgettable, maybe it wasn't worth pursuing anyway ...lol!) So all I can remember is sitting there (here), chewing on my pen, having no ideas, and seriously considering abandoning the effort; then kind of free-associating until I latched on to an image that stuck. I may have been thinking about driving out on questionable back roads to Debbie Metzler's to pick up the bird house she’s made for me, and then got this image of the Jeep digging through dirt roads, climbing higher, wondering how far above sea level ...which is when the central idea of that powerful and ubiquitous reference point -- "sea level" -- came to me. I quite like the line “the measure of all things”. It makes me think of how we conveniently measure everything in the length of football fields, or how much you can fit in an Olympic-sized pool. But with this essential additional sense of “levelness”: a calm, level-headed default position. So it goes ...

This is also another poem about escape and re-invention. The road-trip, in particular. The shore left behind is an exhausted place, a weedy Sargasso sea, where the author risks being mired, becalmed. Or he has already become so. While the high ground becomes a fortress. And on the far side, sea level represents a kind of level-headedness; a return to sanity; the sort of calm that is predictable and welcome, rather than stultifying. (I probably over-did it at the very end!)

As usual, of course, the most fun part is the word play: “switch”/“shift”/“slip”/“dip”/“spin”, for a start; and then later on "costs"/“slog”/”drop”/"off"/”gone”/”stop”.