Thanks to Ariel for organizing this, and thanks to all of you for the poems you've shared. Participating in the project has been stimulating and energizing, and I've enjoyed following everyone's work over the course of the month. See you next year...

Hey all,

Thanks again for participating in year five of the May Day Poetry Project.

It's always good to see what people are working on - and working through - over the course of the month.

I didn't meet my goal of posting a poem a day this year but I'm pleased with the baker's dozen of poems I did write and was ESPECIALLY pleased at being able to get such good feedback so quickly.

I hope to see some/all of you next year!

Yours,

Ariel

p.s. Please feel free to post if/when poems that had their genesis here are accepted for publication...

Well I'm all tapped out. A few in "draft" that I managed to finish off, buried down there sad and alone. I wrote my crow narrative out, it's not really poetry but oh well. I suddenly have a vision for a manuscript based on a few of these that I think would be epic if I could get it done quickly enough.

This was great. I loved the crows, the French sur la lune, the boxing, the Edisons, the letters, the Yukon, Ellie and Jay, the little green man although he only showed up once, and nature in all nature's glory.

I'm sure I missed listing things I loved.

This pushed me to write lots and regularly - very helpful to read other works, and give/receive feedback.

Thanks Ariel for organizing this. And thanks to all the rest of you for showing up, in-putting, and putting out :) I will miss you all.

win


you’re too shy to howl
at fluorescents in the locker room,
and besides, don’t have the breath

just inch jeans up sticky legs, towel hair,
watch the rest of the fight card with one eye –
the other focused inside the skin
of your adrenalin, surveying change

.
The 31 days of May have come and gone all too quickly once again. Thank you all so much for sharing your voices as well as your ears! I am a better reader and writer for this safe haven called May Day. Et toujours, vous m'aidez . . .
Have a wonderful summer!
.

Planting day is either soggy gray
or wavy hot with all the water
dried up in the plant saucers.
Too wet before lunch, we took
a ride, like when Goldilocks’ bears
took a walk thinking it would
fix the porridge,
but that was a cold mess.
Either way I’m getting nothing potted
and the baby larkspur sprouts
nodding floppy pink and blue heads
are wasting in their black plastic
four-pack cradles, crinkly,
in serious need of a change before
the blazing day is out
and my fumbled delays
leave everything wet
sliding downhill
into the growing
compost heap.

--------

Thanks for all the good writing this month. I've been off celebrating G's birthday but wanted to get back for the last day. All the comments and help have been most appreciated. It's been good to see this project growing and the ways it pushes my writing.

I apologize for falling off the map here, I have been so incredibly busy this month I just haven't had any time at all to write more Crow poems. I've been far to busy rewriting the rest of the novel when I have any spare time at all. It's been much, much busier than I ever expected and quite stressful. I'm going to write those poems but I'm just so far behind, it's a lost cause for May obviously. If this site is still running over June, I'll post them in spurts over the next two weeks, as I also catch up on reading other people's poems. So my May was a failure but I'm glad to see you've all been kicking my ass, poetry-wise!

after


you thought you’d sleep, wake relieved,
never think again of fighting

but the days after fit poorly, plain and aimless
without the thrill, threat, of the ring

you hug the pain that flashes between ribs –
body’s memory of fists – carry it close for weeks
until it disintegrates, muscles regress
and you’re left with photos, trophy,
a story you’ll write sometime

Wie viel sind deine Werk'

Apple is her name
but they called
her Mother Mercy,
a girl who nourished
the world's wounded
with love and
spare words
...........one day
she ran out and
no one was there
to nourish poor Apple
with words or
with care

At the corner café
she sits by the window
sipping on her yerba maté.
.

For a wonderful May adventure everyone. My apologies for not getting to the poems in the last few weeks; life has a poetic way of intruding on the poetry. Thanks as well to all of you that made comments on the poems. The saga of Jay and Ellie will continue when I have more time to plot and write their story. And to muddle Mr. Churchill a bit:

We shall write on the seas and oceans, we shall write with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall write on the landing grounds, we shall write in the fields and in the streets, we shall write in the hills; we shall never surrender!

you did it
went wild

deep into green trees Nenana River moose elk bears
lingon berries crowberries salmonberries
hedysarum alpinum rhizoctonia leguminicola

listen
all you hear are the creaking of trees
as they move with wind
a snap of branches from an animal unseen
the bang of your gun
your thoughts through your voice
if you choose to speak alone

here you are
at-one-ment
away from every human soul

you looked happy on the Stampede trail
leaned casually against a bus
relic of Fairbank City Transit
relic of Yutan Construction 1963

complete liberty
you found it
with hardships you couldn’t have guessed

the lone wolf cries
you die in isolation

are you lonely
or just alone
tragic either way
for you to march
into woods subsist
off land then starve in 1992

your bus attracts pilgrims now
you’re commemorated
in song film book hearts imagination

you could have lived instead

Yukon not on Fodor’s 2003 map
thanks for Aca Nada

past’s men and women
read newspapers seated on grass
wait for decisions on eternal fates
trouble is geography and history
cannot be distinguished
with a visible birthmark
like identical twins

outsiders come
for adventure to get away
from debts old boyfriends
from the people they were
but did not want to be
dreams lost in archaeological
layers of time

sleepdrugged and dreamheavy the phone shrills
becomes part of illogical night-time narrative until
the cell goes off by my ear. Garbled

conversation drifts, insinuates, clears, urges, stares
resignedly into nightmare's window: mind struggles to separate
the curtains between awake and asleep

and i am driving, can't remember how
i got dressed, what i am wearing
only where i need to go, and that it's already

too late. and somehow the quarter moon
lies improbably heavy in the southwest, an unwanted
section of an orange left on an empty table.

boxing club


the hardest part of boxing
is pushing yourself
through the door that first time,
down stairs to the dingy-dim,
reek of effort and old gloves,
throb of heavy metal

all biceps and sweat
muscle shirts and mashed noses
until you look closer: unicorn tattoo
on a thick shoulder, butterfly stickers
glittering on the bulb of a glove

return once, twice, and the door gets lighter,
three times, four, and leaving –
stepping into air and sunshine –
becomes a punch to the face

Our boy, having dismounted from the train
after a long day of others’ doings, others’ pulp
& newsprint shadows, walked to the paddock,

his empty belly a drum, his extra papers
a suit of armour, a sensational buffer between
his small bed & the long shelves & heavy

afternoons in the Detroit Public Library.
Michael Oates, footsore, dirty, would sway behind him
on the horse as it ambled through the ink-pot night

its hooves setting clip-clop type,
its hide against their legs softer than rag-paper,
its gait smooth & predictable

all the way home. On the way, they’d pass the lit
& bustling fort & nearly every night a relay
from man to man would sound through

the cooling night:
Corporal of the Guard,
No. 1!

And Edison would stop the horse & startle
Michael & watch until the man himself appeared, wrapped
in his war like a cloak. A big battle meant papers flew out

of our boy’s hands, bad news a homing pigeon
that always returned to him. But the war wasn’t chemistry,
it wasn’t intermediate or even basic telegraphy:

His family had no slaves. His family had no
slaves & nothing would change if the north won.
Our boy wasn’t officer material,

but, one night, when the call didn’t go out,
Edison piped up: Corporal
of the Guard, No.1!

And the words were picked up & passed
to the next man & the next. And the Corporal appeared,
his brows creased & his horse pawing

the dirt, nickering at the soft nag he could smell out there.
Three nights running, our boy shouted into the blissful
dark. But the third night, the dark exploded

with men, teeth and eyes gleaming as ordinance
gleams when it lands at your feet and you stand there,
curiously unharmed. Michael Oates smiled

awkwardly as a soldier caught up
the reins but our boy slid down in the hubbub
and lit out for home.

The soliders followed. The soldiers
followed, determined to shake the boy like a fist
full of dice.

Edison galloped down the cellar stairs, ran
past his locked laboratory, and made for the room
where they kept the foodstuffs.

He knew there was an almost-empty barrel
of potatoes there, having carried up a eye-full
arm-full of soft tubers and reproduced

his mother's soft sigh at things undone
the night before. Edison hefted the barrel
and emptied the last of the potatoes

into the full barrels next to it. He crouched,
pulling the empty cask over his head
and sat in the stinking resinous dark, rotten

rot up his nose while feet tromped
through the cellar, voices
calling out to his father, who’d been eager

for his news of the war, only to have half an armed
regiment in his sitting room, bristling mad.
You’d think he was the enslaving enemy, those soldiers

glowered

so.

(Do I need to say that Samuel aped an overlord
with a switch the next morning, having found our boy
laid out in his bed, stinking, happy?)

Erzählen: to tell.

Denn er hat Himmel und Erde bekleidet in herrlicher Pracht.

watching


he watches through the camera viewfinder,
reduces the fight to cute, harmless –
you miniature, an actor on the screen
throwing a small fist at your opponent
or, perhaps, placing a cookie in her mouth,
letting her pat your face

lens filters blows,
shrunken punches don’t hurt
as much – you, her, him

but he tries again and again to hold you
safe, still, with the pinch of shutter

Along the road he found
three pots, large as the one
cracked at home, in need
of serious replacing.
Right there at driveway’s end
left for neighborly scavengers
along with two mismatched
wooden chairs, one green,
one blue and a purple striped
umbrella for a table he hasn’t
made yet. Each piece of trash
turned treasure as he lifted
it into the trunk of his old car,
relocating garden bounty
before the day-late trash truck
made its rounds. This is the way
it works around here, silent offers
sit like school children waiting
for a yellow bus, taking them
away to learn how to be more.

everything in a state
of metamorphosis
..........until it isn't

..........life tasting stale
as day-old bread
an open bottle of wine
i love yous spilled carelessly
last year sometime
.

Gabe was a hustler,
ran the ferry
and the best game in town.

The only pool hall on the prairies.

With a cue, or a rifle,
broke the closely clustered game, shot
them down where he wanted them.

Led a hunt at half the age of most
men who led. Had his first rifle at 10.

The fifth bend in the river is still
his.

Big Gabe and Little Lou.

Gabe named for an angel,
Louis for a king.

When the time
of reckoning came the angel
flew.

The king lost his
crown.

God knows which was
harder to live with,
die with.

And of either man, no direct
descendants survived.

Left corner pocket.
Sink them all.

i.
the babies are not safe, she says. the crows are attacking bald people. she herself, because of the cancer treatments and hair loss from chemo, is wearing a hat so they will not be tempted. she peers through her backfence, over to ours. clutching a sunbonnet, sweet Joanne, who will die later that summer. she prays for each person in the neighbourhood as she showers each day. her husband jokes he knows what she thinks of him based on what body part she is washing when she names him. the crows flap nervously from our pine tree. i laugh at her supersitions on behalf of the bald. she asks if i heard the shrieking that morning at 5 am. drunken revellers returning home late, children up early on the weekend? no: a balding businessman jogging down the alley on a saturday morning. the crows - swooping. diving. threatening. Joanne, watching from behind gauzed curtains, decided his bald head drew them. irresistable shine, like mr. clean. we abandon our backyard picnic, bald baby on each hip. children scattering alongside, holding their heads. one crow follows us all the way to the house, perch by perch: as the backdoor swings safely shut, arrows back to sentient pine.
ii.
from our front step, watch strangers clutching at heads, waving arms as they run down our street. looking above them, swatting, sometimes crying out. and the crows. their guttural cries. how they triangulate so the victim is always between them. once our corner is passed, they yo-yo back to original posts. shake-kneed victims stumble off kerbs, stop rush hour traffic with crucifix arms and gethsemane faces. inside, the children begin to hope for pedestrians, want to invite friends over, predict traffic accidents, cheer for the birds. i read up on crows.
iii.
a large group of crows: a murder. we look out our window, and see a murder. for neither the first or last time.
iv.
i contact a researcher via the internet, describing the corvid behaviour. he excitedly asks me to videotape it. crows group in families - adults without mates or children will come back to their parents to help raise younger siblings. the four or five regular adults chasing people may be an avian couple with teens, protecting nest or distressed youngster. excitedly i tell my partner.
v.
partner decides to take nest down. children and i protest. would we not do the same were we threatened? we should help them. cotton balls or bearing balls in his ears, he ignores all others, dons welding helmet from days gone by, leather gloves, overalls. steel-toed boots. climbs the pine tree, with a tennis racket in one hand.
vi.
i wish i had a video camera.
vii.
they dive at him half-heartedly as he ascends. he throws the nest to the ground - we are dismayed at how loosely a crow's nest is made. secretly i hope it will not take long to remake. there is nothing inside. the children cheer.
viii.
more screams at dawn. who knew there were so many bald joggers? but even people with hats are attacked. and one boy in particular. the boy across the alley. the boy with the slingshot.
ix.
i see the boy again, aiming into my yard, the crows wheeling around him. his eyes blank and hard as chipped marbles. instinct makes me run out, and there is the victim. slingshot found the mark days ago, this crow can't fly, only jog one broken wing trailing. black shining eyes meet mine. i've solved a murder.
x.
i speak to the boy; his parents; Joanne; my partner. the children run out to see the wounded crow, give him food and water. their father follows and in front of us all, decapitates the crow with a golf club. the last day i ever thought of him as my partner, though more and less would follow, and none of it related. unless crows have malicious ghosts. once a tree fell on him, broke his leg. i had an alibi.
xi.
the crows still live in our pine tree. they cry out if he comes by. memory serves, re-serves.
xii.
i find a crow on my front lawn - his wing is broken. i get a cage from a neighbour, win him in with bread and water, speak peaceably, call the university vet college. he is cared for.

and the crows still live in our pine tree.

A little boy who just turned three
is not so much a sleeper
as a sleuth.

Enamored by a TV show where clues
are gathered
in an all important
handy dandy notebook

with a spiral at the top
just big enough to hold a blue crayon,
the boy is emphatic the notebook be
always at hand

or rather tucked in his britches
to use at any moment a clue surfaces.

In a pile of expensive presents
he wades with the small orange
cardboard cover poking from his jeans,
the prize he will not let out of his sight

no matter how the expensive toys
weigh around him and givers implore
his bright eyes for attention.

He pats the stiff surface of the notebook
in satisfied wonder and says again,
“It’s just what I wanted.”

stretch


grab feet, roll chest over knees
until you’re a fist
throbbing with breath,
waiting for heart to slow
its one-two against ribs

pull shoulders apart
across your back,
let every punch you’ve thrown
stream to the floor
pool with sweat from your hair,
and the need to prove
the power of your body