Foundation
Mar 31 2009


This time of year
the ground softens
the house settles
the soil thaws.
Here, a rent in the wall,
a window cracked,
the foundation
buckled.

You’d wish a house to be bedrock;
a bulwark against the world,
a refuge
for weary bones.
But this
is a leaky vessel at sea —
ground-water
rushing against its prow,
concrete hull tottering,
drips
and blooms of mould.

The ground subsides, the house settles
sinking deeper still.
Until it finds its level,
locked solid
into mother earth.
So there are no straight lines, anymore,
where walls lean
floors pitch
and doors stick closed.

This is when a house
is home;
with all the blind-spots you no longer see
with all its idiosyncrasies.
It fits easily, here.
And the strong foundation
underneath your feet
is all you could have wished for.

The Wright Brothers Flying Slack-Jawed
Mar 30 2009


There were 2 babies
pre-boarding,
intricate strollers
folded, stowed.
Cute, asleep like that.
Please . . . , we all silently hoped.
Some prayed.

Every seat filled.
A late arrival, breathless
stuffing luggage overhead.
If you need to be told how to buckle-up
I silently chuckle,
perhaps you should take the bus.

Taking-off
excited kids in window seats,
white knuckle grips
about to bleed,
and bodies pressed back, stiffly.
And some happily chatting away
indifferent.
A loud clunk, wheels-up.
Then full thrust
that feels like a moon-shot,
rising impossibly steep.

They said heavier-then-air machines
were impossible.
Plastic
had yet to be invented.
And a bare electric bulb
dangling from its cord
made visitors ooh and aah.
A hundred years, is all
and the Wright brothers would be flying slack-jawed,
rocketed into the future.

The lights dim
jet engines throb.
A fitful baby, screaming,
a jilted lover sobs.
While cokes are sipped and pages flipped
at cruising speed,
40,000 feet closer to God.

Running With Scissors
Mar 23 2009


Running with scissors.
Running on empty.
Running out
of your last chance.

Being run ragged,
feeling run down,
running it into the ground.

Running in place,
the run of the place,
the run of luck
that just ran out.

It runs like a dream,
a run on the bank,
running quickly
out of thanks.

Run on the spot
run ‘til you drop
run
like you'll never get caught.

It runs in the family, you say.
Like the long distance runner
still lonely,
trying to run away.

Locked-In
Mar 23 2009


The mind weakens
letting go of names.
Confabulating
for the sake of dignity.
Awakening in the dark
confused, and fearful.

They found you wandering
circling in freshly fallen snow,
mismatched slippers sodden,
thin pyjamas
slipping down.

You peer out
eyes suspicious, darting
from this robust body
you cannot quite control,
tough as sinew
from long hard years of work.



Or will that be what betrays you
in the end?
Dependent on them
to piss
to bathe,
the humiliation
of soiling yourself.
Perhaps wishing
to be as unaware as he is,
for the merciful bliss
of ignorance.

You still know
how to mix a highball,
the scent of a good cigar,
when to hold your cards
or fold.
But all they see is this frail old man,
breathing hard
after a few faltering steps,
locked-in
sore and stiff.

Hearing’s gone
sight is going fast
and food all tastes like styrofoam.
So you tell stories from the past,
talking to yourself.
And they can’t understand
how this old man could be smiling like that,
his eyes still bright and fierce.

Sudden Calm
Mar 23 2009


I love diving-in
on a stormy day.

When the choppy surface
is pock-marked by rain,
and a heavy froth
churns the breakers.
Water in my ears, the wind
carry your shouts away,
and the world shrinks inward.

I slip under
into sudden calm.
The light filtered, grey.
The swell, rising and falling
reaches invisibly downward,
gently rocking.
Where I hover, weightless,
all silent
except for the thud of my heartbeat
filling my ears.
Salt water, blood
equalize
across my skin’s thin membrane,
and I become formless;
as insubstantial as a jelly fish
wafting effortlessly by,
trailing its deceptive tendrils.
I wait
my molecules diffusing slowly outward,
the infinite ocean
holding me.

Then hungry for air, bursting
I claw my way back to the surface
and rocket out breathless
into frigid air —
the stinging spray, the roaring wind;
squinting
in unaccustomed light.

Blue Work-Shirt
March 21 2009


How many cycles
normal wash, double rinse, warm
reefed out on the line, creaking,
in winter, stiff,
or filled by wind
basking
when the sun’s too close to earth,
when dogs lie panting,
and the vinyl cladding
scalds your fingers,
and brown grass is thirsty for shade
to make
this shirt plush, and perfect?
A blue work-shirt, gently faded,
or red plaid
chamois-soft.

And if we shared a closet,
would you sweep it to one side,
demote it
to a wire hangar,
bequeath it
to a thin creased man
at the Salvation Army shop?

Or would you defer
to a man’s perverse affection
for old friends
for prized possessions,
who accompanied him
against his skin,
breathing-in
his sweat, his scent
all day long,
before he knew your touch?

It can only be washed sparingly, anyway —
gentle cycle, cold.
While you keep him warm
give him cover
enfold him even closer,
button his mouth
with yours.

Out of the Blue
March 15 2009


The lightning came
from a clear blue sky.
An act of God, someone said.
I scoffed
“Why, that’s just insurance talk
for no one’s really responsible.
Why bring Him into it?”

Because while those mythic gods
messed about with vengeance
and lightning bolts
and lusting after mortals,
the prophetic God
leaves well enough alone.

It split an ancient oak,
the singed branch
fallen,
the scarred trunk smoking.
When it hit,
I felt my hair stick-up
my skin prickle
my muscles twitch;
then couldn’t remember
what year this is.

I awoke,
soaked with rain
the sting of hail
the sky as grey as cinders.
We wondered whether the tree
would live or die.
We were surprised
there never was a rainbow.
A reminder of His promise
after 40 days and nights
of another Biblical storm.

I still have trouble remembering.
I feel His absence
even more.

March
Mar 11 2009


Baseball started
somewhere south of here.

Today, a foot of snow fell,
wind blasted,
the mercury froze.
And now, it’s still,
the sky blue
the surface blinding
sculpted smooth.
Later, a full moon will cast its shadow,
causing shapes to shift
objects vanish.
When I will walk
in my white pneumatic suit,
lost
in the beauty of snow.

On the radio
the boys of summer play —
emerald fields
sun-drenched fans
the crack of bats.
I listen
to this improbable sound,
as inaccessible as
Antarctica
Saturn's moons
the black abysmal depths.

Restless for spring;
yet hoping March
will never end.



I wanted to write about the mercurial nature of March: how it’s the most unpredictable month; how the weather can change in an instant; how it whip-saws you from winter to summer, then back again. But I can’t just come out and say that; which would, after all, violate the cardinal rule of poetry: "don't say it, show it." (No, that would be far too easy; not to mention that it would make the opening sentence of this little paragraph a perfectly adequate – if unmemorable – poem!) The solution turned out to be pretty easy: there was a wild winter storm today, and the World Baseball Classic has already begun. I think -- if anything in this poem works, that is -- it's the ambivalence at the end that nails it.

Another impulse was this inexplicable image I had of trekking across the white borderless expanse of Antarctica. For some reason, I was particularly attracted to the idea of the utterly sterile odourless quality of the air there. Unfortunately, there was no way to fit this in!

Drip
Mar 8 2009


The tap drips
methodically ticking-off time;
a persistent finger
poking my skull from behind.

It starts as a glistening
of pure reflective light,
rounding-up
with exquisite deliberate slowness.
It hovers there
elongating imperceptibly —
a tug-of-war
between gravity
and surface tension.
Until it pinches-off
in a perfect polished pearl;
so smooth, it slips through the air
resistanceless,
bombs-away
all-the-way down.

Where it lands
on the stained enamel sink
with a loud emphatic plunk.

And I sit, hyper-vigilant
waiting
for the next one.
The suspense
keeping me on edge
as my life ebbs slowly away,
one small drip
at a time.

Direct Pressure
Mar 6 2009


Direct pressure
works
for knife wounds
gun-shots
shaving accidents.

Blood is surprisingly hot.
It thickens fast,
and sticks to fabrics, to walls;
washing them off
over and over.

There is nothing more intimate than this —
your unfocused eyes;
your cool skin
pale, waxen;
and both my hands
immersed in your blood,
sinking into you
encrusted in thickening clot.
I can feel your pulse
fast, then failing,
your life
fading away from my grasp.
Your relentlessly pumping heart.
Your lungs, sucking tireless.
And your thin translucent skin,
keeping you in
keeping the world at bay.

We are leaky vessels,
we bleed out quick.
We only persist
by the thickness of skin,
by our cleverness and wit,
by the kindness
of total strangers.
But there is only so much
we can learn to cauterize —
the tiny wounds, the repeated cuts
that puncture
our skin
our hearts;
the words
that pass right through us.

I feel the awkwardness
of nowhere to put my hands,
brown and stiff with blood.
I slowly get up,
hoping hard scrubbing
will wash it all off
eventually.

The clocks are about to "spring forward" into daylight savings time. Apparently, though, the clocks never change in Atikokan; which is even further away, about as far west as you can go in northwestern Ontario. It's not at the end of the road; but I'm sure some days it feels like it! A small town, frozen in time. A nice "found" poem. Here it is (so far).



An Hour of Grace
Mar 3 2009


It’s 10 hours by road
to a town with an all-night diner
a store-front bank.
Head north
and it’s forest, muskeg, tundra.

Here, every windshield’s been hit
cobwebbed, nicked
by gravel.
The only way out.

Since the satellite came
we’ve stayed in the house
more and more —
news from Detroit
the weather channel.

Dogs bark, unleashed,
and no one would even think
of picking-up after them.
The clocks don’t change, either —
standard time all year long.
So we joke
that when the world ends
we won’t know ‘til it’s over.

An hour of grace
when we are the only point of light,
when the world outside's
gone silent.
An extra hour
to turn down the static.
To make love with our wives.
To go outside
in exquisite darkness
and look up;
hoping the night is clear,
the stars dense
and endless.

Articles of Peace
Mar 2 2009


For better, or for worse
we vowed.
But when it ended
we agreed it was all for the best.

The children will no longer lie in their beds
ears pricked-up,
hearing muffled shouts,
the icy silences.
And we will get on with our lives,
perhaps better at friendship than love.

Trouble is, wars go on long after they’re done.
The articles of peace may be signed
the armistice proclaimed,
but the damaged lives remain.
Like veterans, in wheelchairs
taking-in the sun,
or the violated and displaced,
who take the war to the grave.

‘Til death do us part, we say,
and divorce does not change this.
At least in battle
there is victor’s justice
spoils to be won.
Unlike matters of the heart
where we are both undone,
yet never fully parted.

Old Man Winter
Mar 2 2009


“Old Man Winter”, they say,
in his snow-white beard
stooped and stiff.

And then spring comes in
like a beautiful girl,
in the flower of youth
about to blossom.

When she will turn into summer;
a woman who is sure of herself,
as ripe and fecund
as a sultry August.

While fall is a boy on the cusp,
who looks back at the stuff of youth,
and looks ahead
unsure of the challenge to come.

He isn’t old to begin with,
but the dark, the cold
wear him down.
Winter ages you
and it’s hard on the old,
who count down to spring
remembering what it was to be young.
So old man winter waits for the thaw —
the sound of rushing water,
the warm dry earth.

Thrill-Seeker
Feb 26 2009


The road runs due north.
Some engineer placed a ruler on a map.
Bulldozers, pushing over trees,
rocks, blasted.

Streetlights
have given way to black.
Snow-banks are higher here.
The broken white line
blinks by in the high-beams,
hypnotically keeping pace.

I feel your hand
distracting me —
my knee,
the inside of my thigh
creeping higher.
You, looking straight ahead —
a mischievous smile,
eyes
bright with danger.
I focus on the wheel,
mindful of black ice
sudden curves.
I feel your warm dry fingers
underneath,
and you can feel my heat, my pulse
racing.

I am grateful for predictable roads,
centre-bare
perfectly straight.
While you can’t wait
for blind curves, heart-stopping hills,
that send butterflies
fluttering-up to our throats.

Vivisection
Feb 24 2009


I take the train.
The hidden city, flickering by.
Backyards, clotheslines,
red-brick factories
seen from behind.
This is the back room
rarely entered.
The city undressed,
not trying to impress
anyone.

This right-of-way was once a mighty artery
into the city’s heart.
Now the track is rusting
the road-bed, clogged with brush.
And the train groans and sways
clattering by,
offering me a glimpse
into the city’s soft under-belly —
like the heated words
that are heard
through cheap rooming-house walls,
the pasty bodies
that turn away
from morning light.

Passing through farmland, the prairies
the train at night,
I will write long passages
whole paragraphs
leisurely words.
But here, I write sentence fragments
as story-after-story flashes by.

A dog, barking, on its chain.
A man, in his under-shirt, fist raised.
And pink lingerie, out to dry,
flapping lustily
as the breeze freshens.

Political Theatre
Feb 18 2009


In the House of Parliament
the Ministers of the Crown
and Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition
face off across an aisle
2 sword-lengths wide.

The Speaker
in his long black robe
occupies a throne.
There is a Sergeant-at-Arms
who wears a funny hat
and carries a Mace —
the preposterous rod
he will use to subdue
recalcitrant law-makers.
Members stand
on points of order,
declaim
for the benefit of hometown votes,
and feign outrage at waste
and government pork.
There are catcalls,
the pounding of fists,
indignant snorts.

Students watch wide-eyed
from public galleries,
confined to whispers.
They would rather see a free-for-all
a brawl
a swordfight,
but settle
for the honourable gentlemen
shouting insults —
sharpening their wits
from a harmless distance,
the length of 2 swords.

The ceremonial Mace, carried by the Sergeant-at-Arms in the House of Commons. His counterpart in the Senate is known as the Usher of the Black Rod.

There was a news item this week about 2 satellites colliding in space. Apparently, NASA is keeping track of about 13,000 different objects up there; but there are many tens of thousands more dangerous bits that are too small to follow. Of course, this collision has created a whole new cloud of space junk, consisting of who knows how many tens of thousands of little bits. The frightening thing is that lots of decommissioned satellites, with residual fuel, will eventually corrode and self-destruct. The prospects of this are daunting, to say the least. We are very good at lobbing stuff up into orbit; but apparently, nobody thought much about -- or took responsibility for -- getting it all back down. Typical human behaviour, is all I can say! /Brian


Low Earth Orbit
Feb 15 2009


Thousands of pieces of junk
are circling planet earth.

Dark satellites
like ghost ships,
drifting in endless orbits.
Discarded boosters
tumbling through space.
And high-tech wrenches
fumbled away
by astronauts.
We have littered the planet
so there’s no place left to walk;
and now, like a dirty haze
our garbage surrounds the earth.

Even flecks of paint
moving faster than bullets,
colliding with the power of hand-grenades.
So tiny specs, at lethal speed
have formed an impenetrable shield,
pinning us down
here, on the surface,
where escape
will soon become impossible.

Billions, giving birth,
in the hot polluted soup
of planet earth,
now conveniently quarantined
from the universe.
Where we squint through telescopes,
peering out
longingly;
astonished to see
such untouched beauty.

Last Words
Feb 13 2009


When my uncle died
he had a chance to express his thanks.
He regretted nothing, he said,
it was a full life.
He was content to give up the fight,
was no longer afraid.

I measure myself against
my own hypothetical deathbed.
Will I, too, be content,
or full of resentment
of private laments?
I suspect
it’s the things undone I’ll most regret,
not anything I did —
all the forks in the road
not taken
paved with gold,
the dead-ends and roundabouts
conveniently missed.
Although if, as they say, character is destiny,
then even with the wisdom of age
I could go back
do it all again
and nothing much would change.
And I don’t need to grow any older
to know
that youth is wasted on the young,
when time is so cheap
we squander it —
drifting aimlessly;
or too impatient
to be all grown-up.

Except it will be a patch of ice
as the bus barrels past;
or an artery, seizing-up
walking to the corner store.
No loved ones gathered ‘round,
no hands held,
no final words.
Just strangers, hovering,
someone clumsily
feeling for a pulse,
wondering
who the old guy is.

At Sea
Feb 10 2009


When the service is over
the invitations and notes
console you, of course;
but you’d rather decline.
And the black suit and tie
are swiftly put to one side
on a plain wire hanger
— sure you’ll need them again
in the fullness of time.

You run out of vases,
improvising numbly
with mismatched jugs and decanters.
Until the stagnant water
has almost gone dry,
and transparent glass
turned green with slime.
But wilted flowers are easy,
you simply toss them aside
dripping all the way out the door.

It’s her closet that’s hard —
the clothes she touched
she wore and loved,
which you can’t yet bear to open.
Out of sight, out of mind.

But the hardest part
is standing at the door
staring at the bed you shared,
nicely made
neatly tucked,
which it hardly ever was.
Because you know
you’ll never sleep in it again.

It holds her scent,
the mattress remembers her shape.
And anyway
how could you sleep
in all that space?
Lying in the middle
like a man at sea
— an open lifeboat
with no way home.

You’ll sell it, eventually
you promise
tossing and turning on the couch,
the ghostly glow of the clock
turning you green.
Must be the flowers
you sniff,
when your eyes won’t stop.

An Act of Faith
Feb 9 2009


There was more snow, that winter.
But the house in the pictures hasn’t changed;
the road ploughed, the shadows crisp,
the flag stiff
in a brisk west wind.
It’s the tiny trees I find surprising,
barely straggling
above the drifts.

I remember this sapling
planting it,
thinking
how this tree would still be standing
long after I’m gone.
And how small it was,
how long ‘til its shade
would even be noticed.
Because I am an impatient man,
like you
seduced
by instant gratification.

So it was an act of faith
on that warm spring day
on my knees beside the house,
digging into moist brown soil
that smelled of rich decay;
down to hard-packed earth,
where the cool tendrils of winter
persisted.

Every spring, its tight green buds unfurl.
And every fall, I rake them up
into crisp brown piles.
I lean against its trunk
feel the bark's roughness
and imagine strangers, coming.
Who will wonder about the man who lived here, once;
who planted trees
who pruned and fussed
and grew them up
into giants.