Going north

in truth I went because you conned

me into loving then left

I needed a job (a damned good reason)

far away from you in the Caribbean

or at least that’s what I’d like to say

in truth Whitehorse was the only place

that’d take this cub

besides I always wanted to go up

and so this is me

memoir

this is my memory of flight

my fall and flight fall and flight

I’m like a refugee persecuted

by you for my allegiance to

a sun God I tried to get close

more than once and each time

you melted my wings

then destroyed all the feathers

in the world so I couldn’t

try again you would have

demolished me too

but I ran

in truth what’s important

is I cannot can’t cant kant

stop loving you

I’m going to try

to forget you

and pretend I’m not sorry

though life’s not pointing

in the direction I thought

Night Letters #13 L

lazy words

lust, light, 

love (the laziest of all)

won't appear

in these letters.

"liar",

he says.

Shadow Puppets

Deep inside the structure
of it all
sits a little green man
figuratively,
as a green man has to be
no one have has ever seen one
we all know little men
there he sits. Green.

He is chained
by the gentle gesture
of a held hand.

The hand of the amber man
the amber man has no special powers
his name (the name I have given him)
(we don’t know his real name)
(does he have a name?)
(he must have a name)
but I digress. He
has a nice sounding name.
We like to have the amber man around
reassuring and cautious
this mellow yellow fellow.

His head is yoked forward
gently, like an egg.
He does not see the red man
whose hand is in his.
The red man is symbolic.

Evening, (vi)

.
boughs bend in the wind
casting nest to dark dank earth;
did the songbird sing?
.

A Kind of Shelter

When twirling wind tongues
in hail-kissed lips of the storm
changed direction,

a flower drunk wasp flew
all electric wings and wire legs

inside an open window and got lost
in a green rapunzeling
spider plant, baffled by the potted
dirt lure lying about
what’s in and out,

misleading like a sea siren
leading ships to rocks,

the wasp banged
against bright lights
long after sunset, trapped
while clouds funneled.

instinct


you thought survival instinct
was a given, an organ
ticking quiet deep under skin,
but in the ring you realize
you’ve only been lucky –
never had to react, decide:
run or duck, hide or fight

fists land on your face
and you don’t even try
to move, to stop them
with your gloves,
just stand and wait
to see what happens

Green

Walking the trails, I used to see green.

Now it’s cottonwood, birch, the bottle brush
of Douglas fir, hemlock’s hangdog mullet.
All the identifying features pop out with jazz hands:
look at me, I’m a--

Look up, you tell me.
Not for nests or wildlife trees
with their cavities and loose bark
but up. Blue sky overlaid
with leafblot. Edges rippled
like a potato chip.
Alder.
Dammit.

How can I turn it off?
Get back to shape, colour?
See moss on rotten logs
without thinking step, haircup.

Look beyond name, container,
to the energy that rests there briefly
before cycling on.

Shield country, pine & scrub. Stone.
Rutted, tread-singed roads. Beer caches. Bear.

Ditches burn bare.
Shadows cross the road just past the limit
of certainty. Frogs spawn in truck ruts. In mixed forests
of green & black & brown, birches are inverted
strikes of lightning, scratches across
the negative. Bits of paper
wing towards the clearcut, the countryside
a Christmas tree farm where
nobody’s buying.

So what if the ditches burn?
A generation reduced to matchsticks,
machines, newspapers folded
into manageable
plots.

night letters #12 K

 

Kalium

 

القَلْيَه‎   (al-qalyah)

 

 

scatter new furrows

let last winter’s ashes grieve

a minute, an hour, a few days—

this is proper—

then fill your hands

seed the generous land with

your wheat, her/your/ body bare feet,

the snow has receded, the rose hips bright,

spring turns the fertile earth, 

listen to it, listen to it,

when she comes.

how to tie a knot

Loveknots plaited in gothic hair gone
by. Celtic knots - impossible to
untie. Slipknots to keep horse and
boat secure but none of these
rope twists were twists for

her. She unpinned hair and
put her things away, tidied her
desk changed passwords on
that day. Went downstairs and tied one on

the rafters. And that knot bound us all
unhappily everafter

Evening, (v)

Fingers scroll your body
explore its furrows
in search
of you
...memorizing
the crinkles that
frame your hazel eyes,
and find the boa concealed
in the fedora that
form the lines of
your lips,
paw the pleats in
your neck, such an
intimate
resting place,
making
their way to
the center of you
...filling your
swimming pool
with fine red wine,
my lips
go for a dip,
get lost for a while
in your navel as I
contemplate
other
secret
hiding places
.

hook


once a national champ,
but he can’t tell you
how to throw a left hook,
to crowd the bag
close enough to clinch,
forehead nearly resting on leather
then sudden twist
wrings out waist, shoulder,
drives glove
to the bag’s ear

he explains
with perfect tight arc,
devastating fist,
move he can only describe
as bam

Star Lake

Sunset calm. Lake is scarlet,

steel-blue, silver.

Surface of water sharp against ankles,

backs of knees, crotch, small of back—

then plunge, kick, and it's warm,

it's molten metal the color of flame.

Arms reach forward, sweep back.

Legs pull up, spring outward.

Water's different at sundown

warmer against the cooling air,

less foreign against my skin.

Near the floating dock I stop,

stand tiptoe on the bottom,

my gaze level with the surface.

Whirligig beetles dart and scurry,

helter-skelter, their bodies

polished droplets, perfect ovals

catching the light.

(this one feels a bit rough to me. There may be another version to come.)

Black Hawk, Down

Danger Day

On a day when blueberry smoothie
flies across the room and lands
purple on all the wrong colors

on a day when even jazz riffs
and cartoons make me cry
as if my cat died

on a day when vivid stir-fry
burns the roof of my mouth
and half the strawberries are mush

there is little left to do
but head for an unmade bed

leave the windows open
in spite of storm warnings

and just try to nap it out
before I sprain my ankle.

Inclusion

We walk the strip between the marsh’s gangbang
frogsong and the chandelier smash of lake
ice and, despite consensus, dunes
have overrun the boardwalk.

You squat at the waterline with its causeway
gulls, ignoring squawk, birds positioning
and re-positioning, and fill your palm
with ever clearer chunks
of nothing. One tooth of quartz
is so clear we think it has a rare blue
inclusion and then we realize it’s sky. Behind us
a truckload of ice shrugs into the water. Vapour lifts
off the warming sand and the warming water and
even deep breaths.

Take a deep breath. Maybe the impressions retreating ice
made on sand, the broad footprints of pelicans
that end in greenish scat, even the pattern my rivets
and seams made where I sprawled: maybe they’re all just fossils
waiting for their catastrophe.

Maybe we’re the catastrophe, tacking up warning signs
all along the road where saplings should be,
parting grasses that anchor dunes
with short cuts and flip flops. But as I heft
gooey frogspawn from its puddle and freeze
so you can photograph all their profiles
all at once, I don’t believe it. There will be a few more choruses.

There will be a few more choruses. And in the meantime,
inclusions are important. Vapour from mouths
is real.

* * *

I'm not entirely pleased with this one but am posting it anyways. Hopefully there'll be more and better over the next few days...

Night Letters #11 J

          . _ _ _

 

 

he built a tower

lasoo’ed air above the house with wire,

late at night, netted all the dying words he could—

rare butterflies, moths, bats of dots and dashes

over and out, over and out, his eardrums hammered

with static and little pleas from old, lonely, men

spread across the blue planet.

“I’m going to bed, wake me when you come,”

 “Juliet Out," she said.

 

he looked up, half-smile, eyes windowed,

his index finger kept on tapping.

Essay: to try

brindille dans les braises

ashes for easter

les souris dans les citrouilles

no seeds for next year

Arboricide

The gingko should have been spared
when the yard man came and wiped out
all the peonies, iris and columbines.

When the wisteria was pulled
down
from the lower limbs
of the sugar maple
and the mystery lilies pencil thin leaves

were mowed down and
lost the places
where blooms would have
erupted
in August,
the gingko living behind
the slanted house held up by honeysuckle
the untended home with empty window-eyes
should have been left alone

to grow its fan leaves
shaped back in
dinosaur days,
hardy as ever
with no need to evolve,

should not have met the chainsaw
should not have been slashed

left like a fence pole
at the edge of the bloodroot

still surprised to have it’s silent growth
interrupted
by so much ignorant noise.

trophy


your dad turns
the boxing trophy
in his hands,
tells you about his – long-lost
summer camp memento
sixty years ago,
never mentioned
as you’ve talked and talked
about your jaunt
around the ring

your first question –
his to you – safety:
headgear, mouthguard,
as if you could, would scold
photos of him grinning
in black and white, age nine

he doesn’t remember anything
except his introduction –
intact to the word:
the winnipeg walloper,
manitoba mauler,
canadian clubber
he must have repeated
every night in his bunk,
and even later,
someone’s faith in his strength
seeping into his body,
living there quietly
all these years

Crow 6

I would lift the tablets of your laws
but they are so heavy
and so dull


that even the crows, who feast on corpses
even the crows
refuse them

Crow 5

the bird
the body


the victim flesh
killed by the court


and banned from the graveyard
these crows black once red now

Night Letters #10 I

Illuminate

 

from latin

illūminātus m (feminine illūmināta, neuter illūminātum); first/second declension

illuminated, brightened, having been illuminated.

adorned, having been adorned.

having been made conspicuous.

wear this, wear it,

you have been adorned

by it, you have been made

by it, you are illuminated; 

night work, lamp work,

fields turned by our four seasons,

hands filled with black-earth-work,

hands filled with clear-white-bright-work,

hands filled with black-fountain-pen-white-paper-work;

first wisp of pussy willow you pick,

offer me, I, then to your lips;

and night, moth caught in silver, in flame,

in mirrors’ frames; conspicuous;

wear this, wear it,

you have been adorned

by it, you have been made,

illuminated.

 

 

afternoon, (iv)

31 mots au mois de mai:


j’ai laissé ma lune
...............aujourd’hui
me promener dans
ton jardin

…………......…… j’ai frôlé
………......……… tes marguerites jaunes

une coccinelle m’a chatouillé
et j’ai dû m’envoler
……,….....… parmi les pinsons

................on chantait
................à plein poumon

.

After Mother's Day Dinner

Before we could unfreeze
and fly to the closing door,

stop the simple swinging shut
miles across the room,

every one of the big people
could only watch
and lift slow-motion butts
from their chairs at the same time

too late to stop the littlest finger
from being bug squished
in the disappearing space
where door frames wait

to teach those hard lessons
learned when left hand pushes shut
and right hand lets a digit stray
into betraying pain –

not broken, not bone or even skin,
but angry red in need of ice
that won’t be tolerated

no help accepted but the swooping arms
carrying him off to Mama
for a healing snuggle –

where tears play out
a smile sneaks back
and all is sugar lips.

May Ninth I Was Out Late

Beethoven’s Ninth kicked ass.
The full moon played its own ode
to our smiles' music.

------

This is why I missed last night. Now I will catch up.

getting it


you try to describe
for your husband
the pleasure of ache
after shadow boxing
with two pounds
in each fist,
catching medicine ball
in your belly,
digging it out
again and again

he doesn’t know
the thrilling pain
as muscle is born
across your back,
wraps shoulders, ribcage
but when he curls his hand
around your bicep,
you feel surprise
in his fingers,
hear them say oh

Seasonal post - temporarily removed ;)

The Last Frontier

"What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset." Crowfoot


must have known they would name the longest overpass in the world

after him

headlights flash signals - glow and stream in twilight
fireflies on steroids wink over black pavement

cars exhale exhaust
run the terrain
steamed breath pollutes the air
tangles and squats and drops

rubber chips, glass fragments, hubcaps
for scavengers

the shiny new herd
forgets bison are extinct

flows, collides,
separates, slows, surges at unseen
signals

in the cars we drive and the freeways we
circle

the little shadow runs across the pavement
loses itself in oncoming
traffic

what is life, what is.

Life.

Night Letters #9 H

Hurricanes

 

·      clear old, diseased, dead or weak trees, renew forest ecosystems

·      redistribute excess energy from hot tropical latitudes to cold

·      recharge aquifers, end years’ long droughts

·      clear sediment, clogged river deltas, rejuvenate coastlines

·      break up toxic algal blooms, ‘detox’ the ocean

·      stir up the ‘dead’ water at the ocean’s bottom

·      bring torrents of fresh water, replenish crops

 

(hurricanes =  new life)

 

source: NASA, NOAA, 2009

 

 

Hurricane, he calls her— a force, a nature—

 with lips, body, fingertips, she opens, touches his fields,

bends, stirs his earth, makes his land unrecognizable;

 

and sometimes he shutters himself, latches and keys himself,

battens down, heads for the storm cellar when she comes;

 

and sometimes he throws his windows open wide, 

his ice-blue eyes thaw just for her,

mirror for her alone the dark and light of him,

because somewhere he trusts, knows:

 

she is wind,

she is tide,

she is north, south, east, west, 

his earth,

 

breath born long before both he and she were conceived

in the shelter, the cradle, the hopper of their mothers' flesh

 

and she brings mercy, new life, for him the warm current,

the warm fire, food, the other half, for him, and him alone,

and sometimes it frightens,

but his land, his body, his life, they know, call out for her 

sure and steady, return,

again and again and again.

Morning, (iii)

31 words (on the subject of hope) in the month of May:


+++
every
day
after day after

she waits

and she
waits and she

wonders
why
......no one told her

how painful hope is
...........................after

the seed
in the garden
remains a seed
.

poem about boxing


a poem about boxing
must be lean
as a welterweight,
but punch above

watch for the opening,
know every throw
drains strength

hit swift and hard –
startle

* * *

hey andie, what do you mean "could have been a kick-boxer?" Never too late! Where are you? (And where the mystical basement filled with gloves and heavy bags?)

Night letters #8

G



is for





gold





white, light I saw

long before your

wintered field,

the worried earth,

my wearing war,

long before, yes,

long before field

and earth and war,

our birth, our golden

birth, I saw it

gold and white,

the light, I saw,

the light, the gold

of light, of you.

Evening, (iv)

31 words (on the subject of hope) in the month of May:

++
Wild bluebells appeared
in the barren garden
that spring morning
and she sighed and said,
well, there’s hope yet!

......She remembers this
because a tornado tore through
her garden that evening.
.

Run for It

Downpour driving through
the construction zones in hospital alley
nearly made me a concussed customer
for one of those emergency rooms

but I avoided hydroplaning trucks
belligerent minivans
oblivious hybrids
even a rap-thumping Buick
nearly cut me off
between orange cones

screaming smooth under the stoplight
grateful for no cop car in sight –

the whack smack
dance of my wipers
cleared my soaked vision
just enough
to let me sail on
down to my damp exit
where I swung my soggy Ford
onto a side street praying

someone get the need to leave
open up a parking space for me –

who says I can’t make miracles
happen when I’m running
late as the mad hater to tea –

the crying sky is wailing wet
over everything
but there just happens
to be time left

on the proud parking meter
at the cafe door.

Saskatoons

Wait for the blossoms— late May, June.

Five petals, white, with gaps between.

They look half-finished, fragile.

Cross fingers against a late frost, 

high wind, heavy rain.

Wait for the berries to fatten in July,

for the red to darken into purple-blue.

Then the slow picking: from each cluster

take the two ripe ones, leave the underripe,

the shrivelled. An hour or more to fill a pail.

Wait for the mouthful of sweet blue

juice on tongue, the almond bite

of seeds between teeth. 

Wait,

there's a better tree farther in.

More berries, bigger ones. 

There. 

The best ones 

are up high. Reach for them.

only


forget to tuck chin
from uppercut’s eye

forget to keep arms buttoned
to ribs, knuckle flush
with cheekbone

let elbows wing out
exposing torso every throw,
slow the recoil of fist

lock breath in chest,
feet to canvas

only if you know
the precise length of your arm,
that hers is one inch shy

Informed by the weather

There's a creepy old man hanging around
evidenced by white fringed footprints
not cement and dirt and crocuses and
muted greens

When confronted, he
leaves, he threatens to leave

And the trees do the same

But we're at a standoff

We wait for the flirt of Spring's skirt, kirtle
and mantle. She flares her petticoats, dusts the snow off her hem and
tangos through the bare trees to somewhere safer

Nature, it's her nature
She can bounce either way, that's
why we call her Spring and flip our
calendars backwards at her whim

Today, today we harness the power of our collective minds
take a stand against the power of the old man
Winter only wants to be loved, pressed against our hearts
a while longer

Imagine being so cold

But instead we scorn him, claim it wasn't snow on the lawn and rooftops
it was overdressed raindrops who didn't get
the memo.

The children run out to the lawn in shorts, sandals
make snow angels,
pretend it's sand.

And Old Man Winter fades back into the bushes like
the unwanted vagrant he
is.

But you know we'll see him
again.

Night letters #7

F



is for



fear





I’m afraid,

did you hear?



this war

coming

nearer & near,



I, three steps

away,



and you, your ear

cocked only

for what’s coming

up your drive,

crunch of gravel,

door flung open,

mad footsteps across your hardwood floor.



you lock your door.



but I’m afraid

not of her,



but of this,

my steps,

to war.

Evening, (iii)

31 words (on the subject of hope) in the month of May:

+
He left her that spring,
the day a warm brackish breeze had
delivered seeds to her garden
and hope seemed to float eternal
on the tangerine-crimson sun
that set past eight.
.

And on the Seventh Day...

She reached for an apple sat under a tree and watched the birds and snakes frolic in the branches above.Below was grass and earth.Beside was a waterfall, slightly overdone she wondered? but did not adjust so much as a boulder.Teeming wildlife, unnamed unloved and uninhibited wandered ambled frolicked.Tracking the dirt splashing in the water singing to the heavens.Not bad, she thought, not bad.And closing her eyes, savouring the knowledge of good and evil on her tongue as she bit into the apple again, she dreamed of what she'd do next.



**yeh I'm tired too! See you on the flipside! A.**

turn


you didn’t wish the heavy bag
was a thick, swaying chest,
or imagine revenge
as you dented it deep

haven’t been tempted
to slip a fist between hand pads
into a soft, dazed face

never wanted to hit,
never been hit

but the thought of a bout,
just one ramble around the ring
gets you hard in the belly –
an ache that last days,
won’t let you sleep

____

having some issues here -- fighting (har har) with tense, the third stanza, etc. -- but too tired to take it any further tonight. Insight welcome!

Finale For a Wash & Set

Unrolling slender strands of hair
from brightly colored curlers –

Thank you, dear.
You’re so kind.

Brushing gently all the locks
into a wispy halo of strawberry blonde –

Thank you. It feels so good.
Did you get it yet and the tip?

Coffee placed nearby
for sips of sweetened decaf –

Good. My niece said she sent it.
She’s so good to me.

Smoothing clean silky tresses tenderly
over delicate translucent ears –

I hope you stay. Please do.
I’d miss you so.

A spritz of spray to hold
things in their proper place –

It’s lovely, thank you, dear.
I feel so pretty now.

Sunday, the park

The kid with the cap-gun sits

on top of the climbing rock

shoulders slumped legs outstretched

fires off caps at the boys

with invisible swords

busy fighting off the cyclops

the mutant the alien

moving from ladder to bars to slide

they've got lasers now too

swish cyclops is down

the kid with the cap-gun slips

in beside them says nothing

points the gun crack crack

follows the boys points

and fires points and fires

the boys with invisible swords

get all the bad guys

the kid with the cap-gun points

fires his last cap

drops the gun

joins the game

Night letters #6

E



is for



ἔλλειψις



elipse



you are a.

I am b.



and where we meet,



after yes, no, yes

weeks, months, years,

our orbit,





redwing blackbirds,

bleached wheat,

bullrushes on the slough,

the first pussy-willows against my lips,

your kiss, tall and wintered,



is c

Azalea Outside Carnegie Branch

Old stone. And clusters of surly, delicate little trumpets
the exact pink of cooling flesh
are suddenly in bloom between the greasy wall
of the library and the spear-tips of an iron fence:
a space like a grave. And the figures inhabiting the sidewalk
in soiled windbreakers and illicit fannypacks, backs to it
as they transact with full and empty fists--it becomes
just one more thing they never notice, don't have time
to notice; one new thing in this place
that dirties itself faster than anyone can sweep it clean.
And those passing in a bus or car
who see the living pink against the darkened wall and note it
cannot help but mistake it for a sign of something more.


***
Jealous of everyone -- so prolific! I cannot hope to keep up with comments, but I aim to make at least a few this weekend.

Evening, (ii)

l'homme orange - 2ième partie

.
on s’arrête un instant
faire des anges dans le sable:

c’est joli le désert au coucher du soleil!

je partage ma couleur avec toi
et tu me demande pourquoi.

c’est la couleur de courage, ma réponse.

debout, coude à coude, on admire nos esprits
l’ange orange à la gauche

à la droite, le violet, tout petit.
.

Night letters #5

D

Edisonia: the ballad of Michael Oates

1.
Consider Michael.

His older brother having married and brought the girl under their half-finished timbers,

His younger sister crying nightly over schoolyard deals made and broken, the dresses she should be wearing, the bedroom she might have had if her parents had only thought to come over earlier,

And in the boys' bed, the threshing and tracked-in grit of his younger brother, who needs discipline but also glasses…

The week the girl started dry-heaving at the sight of anything but dry brown bread, Samuel Edison idled by their rough-hewn gate, asking if they could spare someone for odd jobs…

Mr. and Mrs. Oates smiled.

They had labour enough for ten houses. Money was as scarce as privacy.

2.
Michael, who got afraid every time his mother looked well-fed, was loaned to the Edisons like a stud, pointed at a cord of wood or a fence line gone askew and expected to get up on it.

3.
After a morning hoeing corn Michael, having been alone among the ears, having carefully compared the texture of the silk to the stuff just starting to grow under his arms, was naked.

Having not seen all of himself in months, he stripped down, his head and the points of his shoulders blazing in the sun.

His penis bobbed a little but he had no interest in touching himself; he’d seen over and over how flesh came of pleasures of the flesh and he was enough just to himself.

Hungry, happy, he dressed and made for the house, where there’d be a plate of food in the ice-box. She always made sure there was a little milk and didn’t mind when he sang Dutch lullabyes, his arms to the elbows in the sink.

Listen, Thomas, she’d call to the boy at the table working his letters. That’s Dutch. Your Father’s family was Dutch.

The boy’s eyes would widen, his lips purse, but he never said anything.

4.
Michael’s skin still sang with sun as he neared the back door but after lunch there would only be a few hours of chores, then he’d have to go back to his half-a-home and his half-a-dinner.

He wanted to be endlessly naked in the field, free, even a bit fey, not knowing the price of every nail clamped between his lips, not counting the cries in the dark as his brother and his father finished up behind their tacked-up blankets.

The back door creaked open. He expected it would be her, handing him out a glass of water. Instead he looked into the boy’s intent eyes and a voice that rose with the excitement of:

Do you want to fly?

Michael, startled, guilty, didn’t think: he nodded.

And so, when the boy carefully ferried four foaming glasses of stomach powders into the yard and set them on the stump where Michael split wood, the hired boy drank instead of asking... where’s my supper? where’s she?

5.
Under the boy’s gleeful eyes, his stomach grumbled, then roiled, then heaved. When Michael fled to the outhouse, the boy followed. And asked through Michael’s groans if he was floating yet.

Are you sure? The voice kept saying through the greying slats of of the door. How do you know you’re not floating just a little bit?

Michael only groaned until the boy went away.

And only his mother’s fingers on his scalp as she trimmed his hair, her stricken eyes on his, got Michael back to the Edisons' on Monday, even though the thought of the boy gave him the shits.

6.
He wouldn’t work in the house after that, just balked every time she beckoned. Michael was polite but insisted on eating his supper and drinking down his tin cup of sweet milk in the yard.

When the boy came to the door to take his dishes, one day, he hissed:

It’s your fault you didn’t fly!

Michael’s stomach seized at this, but he planted his feet on the inhabited earth and felt the tips of his ears blazing in the sun as he whispered... are you sure?

Missing gift

I lost a bookmark
such a little thing,

a silver stem so flat
it fits between thin leaves -

a fragile charm sways
from it’s arching crook.

A floral heart and
words inscribed
are seldom seen

so barely noticed
yet
I searched all day

first on my desk, then
through a mess
of paper layers
moved
so recently
making room.

I cleaned and then
I lost
this treasure
just like that,

a talisman so everyday
it fades from view
while still in sight.

I search in haste,
my breath comes fast

like in a losing race
until I spy it

in the standing pens.
I find my quiet place again.

first time


shy first time in the ring
coach has you throw
at her shoulder –
clutch of bared muscle
less intimate than face, belly

hesitant, your jab sticks on air,
taps like you’re asking a question

fists don’t want to hit –
every second punch falls short
even when she hardly moves

she tags your arms, ribs,
shows how to be hit –
the concept, shock of it
even in gloves and headgear

tears tense, ready,
you shrug like huddling
through a storm,
playing dead
until she sniffs air, moves on

she snaps jab
on your forehead –
light, but enough to wake
your fists from fear,
launch them hard and true

Genesis, Leviticus

Temporarily unavailable

afternoon, (iii)

Malaya 1955: Ode to a Boy in the Barracks


the precious blond boy
in their care was adored and
cooed over with heavenly smiles

the natives called him pu-pu
(they spoke bahasa-melayu)

the women traced his name
in the sand and they played
with pu-pu for hours on end

he ate with them too: soto,
longan and pulut, and they
bathed him every night before bed

the kambing betina would giggle
at the soiled folds she uncovered
and tickled on the pale pudgy boy

then she sang him to sleep
as he lay in her arms and pu-pu
would dream ever so long and so deep
.

grains of sand - found poetry

could have slept for the night but you woke me at sunset

was with you in the rain

(it never rained)

No Waiting

The nests are full
of hunger now,
beaks just popping up

over the twigged edges
of porch light perches,
out of entry holes

guarding nests hidden
in houses hanging

on wood fences beneath
drooping dogwood branches

parents commute
constantly
back and forth

from birds’ markets
with wiggling groceries
for the new blue-shell hatched brood
and the secret sparrow nursery.

Earlier immobile orbs
in the clutches
are now open
mouths piping up,

More, more, don’t stop,
hungry, more, more,

feeding automatically
bobbing motions counter
to the cuckoo clocks

bobbing inside the holes
inside the nests, rapid,
fastball feeding

until the sun switches off
and calls an exhausted end
to all the clamoring.

Only then can the worms
and bugs
and bread crusts
call it a night.

playground


you began training
on the playground –
miss mary mack, mack, mack
clapped fast, fast, faster
to the recess bell,
automatic hip-flick, hand-sting
like flat leather slap
glove on hand pad
partner chants one-two
until your fists blur,
whip-sharp, hard

bounced ball off brick –
now your partner’s gut,
catch leather boulder
in your belly,
cave, shove back

tripped over pink, plastic
double-dutch ropes,
little girls’ nonsense songs
drowned by heavy metal
bass gangsta beat
you slice arcs
in air, cut deep,
feet flicker,
rope licks floor fast
as ticks of stopwatch

How to Pack Without Overpacking

“Many people fall victim to lugging large, heavy bags throughout the airport or train station when they go on a vacation.” – wikiHow, How to Pack Without Overpacking.

1. Fill three bags full of wool or at least your carry-on. Knit what you need en-route.

2. Only visit long-haired friends. Take your relationship “to the next level” while in town & wrap the long-haired friend around you like an unwashed mohair blanket.

3. Pack a lot of the same coloured clothes. Try not to think about the fact that your wrinkled all-beige ensembles make you look like you're on a heavy dose.

4. Bring nothing. Be the liquid girl at the bar sobbing because her luggage was lost. Steal an item of clothing from every boy you pick up. (Urban cowboy hats don’t count.)

5. Sacrifice t-shirts like they’re second sons: loved, wanted, but ultimately superfluous to the grand scheme. Hesitate but wield the knife expertly.

5. Only buy clothes with secret pockets, zippered compartments, and space-age fabrics. All trip long, spend your evenings hunched over the sink, your mornings relishing the still-damp pong.

6. Bring it all. When you set your bags down on the scale at the airport, speak to the steward in the same wheedling tone you’d use on a techy horse. (Their noses are velvet, you know...)

7. Be prepared to pay for your extra luggage as well as your impertinence.

8. Subscribe to a “packing philosophy.” Practice until you can fold a mound of person-shaped items into small perfect boxes. When you find yourself vacuuming the air out of your luggage, know you’ve arrived.

Varieties of ice in spring

1.   Packed snow melted, white to translucent,

      frozen again. Lumpy, thick. Resists

ice pick and shovel.

 

2.   Edges of snowbanks under sun become granular,

loose. Clear beads, slick

with their own meltwater.

 

3.   On a deep puddle, transparent sheet floats,

rigid. Fingertip presses down,

pushes it under.

 

4.   This one gives a little, springs back. Sloshes the water beneath,

spurts it out from the edges. Bounces, bounces,

cracks, gives way.

 

5.   Half ice, half slush. Broken chunks

swim in a brown puddle.

 

6.   Thin skin of an air pocket, lace-edged, glass-brittle,

easily smashed underfoot. An early-morning type,

gone by midday.

 

7.   A mere sheen on the sidewalk.

Treacherous. But this, too,

will disappear by noon.

 

Morning, (ii)

.
he didn’t dream of Hiroshima
of dead babies or leukemia or
of carbon bodies that marked the spot
where the quiet rumble tore
through stone and skin.

he didn’t dream of black rain
or outstretched tongues
........grateful, guileless, parched
he didn’t inhale the bouquet
of mushrooms in the morning.

from above the Little Boy,
in the clear blue sky at dawn,
the silver-plated beauty
shimmering incandescent in the sun:
this is what he dreamt of

for
forty-three
seconds
.

Checkbook Blues

The bills keep filling the basket
like bad eggs, not anything you
want to crack open for fear
of the stench. Each day they drop

through the brass mail slot,
finding your door in spite of
all your best efforts at living
a quiet life. And just when

the math begins to look like
maybe there is cash for
the basics, the car needs
rotors, brakes, and some

sensor that tells you the coolant
is low. All for the price of a random
car payment you hadn’t
planned to pay, even if the mechanic

is honest, polite and needs
the business in these hard
times. His bills stink too but
he cuts you a deal again

because we’re all just doing
our best to stay afloat, pay taxes
and put food on the table,
something cheap and filling.

Pigeons

Who doesn’t hate pigeons and their sleek
iridescent throats that flash pink then green
like a neon brothel. All strut and coo
in red ankle boots for bread crusts.
A pilgrim’s pet let loose, they streak
the eaves with their milky affection.
Their advances we shoo, spike, and still
they cluster. Claustrophobe our feet.
From rocky cliff to concrete
an easy evolutionary leap. Abundance,
their only crime. Seen for the first time
a child might even love a pigeon. A little seed
and it will eat from your outstretched hand.

Night letters #4

C



is for



cultivate



split the black earth,

the field in spring,

the opening

of the package

called future

called dream

called hope



you have split love,

tilled it, sowed it,

prepared the bed

for seed, for sun,

for rain, again,

and I, like acres

bleached by winter

by another harvest,

by your capable hands,

am undone

punch


gloves pop
off leather:
heavy bag, hand pads,
snap back to cheek
not even missed

but fists sink into face, belly,
flesh grabs and holds,
sucks strength,
harder to reel in hands
with every slowing throw

The trail

White laces tugged tight, bow-tied,

White boots stumble across rough ice

to the centre. River's clay banks equidistant.

Hear waxwing's whistle from leafless maple,

a dog-walker's footsteps creak on packed snow.

Push off now: blades' rough hiss, prickle of cold air

on cheeks. A small wind, white noise in the ears.

Push, glide. Rhythm's easier now. 

In morning's brilliance, the body

becomes a solar cell. Push, glide.

Under bridge, past library, around the point.

Consider the wind's direction, think of the time. 

Consider going around the next curve, 

under the next bridge. 

See how long it takes

until feet in white boots

begin to stumble again. 

Body language

Heaving a sigh that
pushed the tides out

Wrung the dishcloth - as his
neck

(or mine)

Underfilled the sink and let the dishwater take her tears

smashing dishes because they were chipped: this made her smile

all the while humming wordless tunes from another land

a place that maybe never existed at all

A hospital bed where she lifts and drops her thin chest, eyes closed like the baby bird i once brought in. Like then as now I silently ask this pulsing not to stop.I
present my petitions I
will not be able to deal with all the things I
haven't said all the things she
has: and she is too big to put in a paper bag afterwards

watch her chest and think

Faith can move mountains, but so can a deep breath

Crow 4

It is a little known fact that crows perform funerary rites.

Rituals differ from group to group. The crows in my area croak lower tones, walk short distances instead of taking flight. And at night,

when they should be soft,
blending,

they sing.
And rot in the air.

-------------------

Great comments from everybody on the poems so far, I appreciate them, thanks!

i'm late to the party!

my study is perfect, except that it lacks a door. half the windows in the condo separate me from the parking lot, the neighbours.

occasionally some of the keys on my laptop stop working.

this morning "u" is recalcitrant.

****

i'm glad to join the party again this year -- however late i am. i'm between longer projects, so i'm mostly hoping to produce some material. if all goes well, you'll hear from me three or more times a week.

afternoon, (ii)

31 mots au mois de mai :


savais-tu qu’on peut voir
ton jardin
d’où j’habite
...................sur la lune?

là
où tu t’assois
parmi les marguerites
que j’ai semer pour toi,
ne voulant jamais
que tu te sentes
isolé
.
.
.
Though I never plan these things in advance, it would seem that my mother tongue is needing to be heard, doesn't it? I'm really pleased that some of you can read & understand these pieces, and I'm so glad for any comments received...un gros merci!
.

Night letters #3

B

is for

burkha



I, me,

woman

invisible,

me, I,

my words,

silk, blue

self.

I, me, my

silk, lapus

lazuli blue,

boxed, locked

keyed, me,

folded, folded

wild silk, blue

the prairie,

blue the sky,

he hides

my words,

he hides

my letters,

he hides

all

Revised Road Trip (from Post to Post)

flashing white & yellow lines morse code hyphens saying not so fast
telephone poles carrying words, messages, sparrows, party lines
draped & following the highway closer than most cars do
silverstrung empty crucifixes, places for crows to rest
("as the crow flies" isn't incessantly, nor quietly)
once lodgepole pine highrises now they hold
no nests provide no shelter for the birds
who perch to witness furred life turn to
roadkill twitching in red cement cracks
hungry potholes growing deeper
and one foolhardy junco
flits, hovers, and full
STOP

***okay this is a revision of yesterday's, that may be cheating but we could always vote one off the island.****

Edisonia: the pains of a boy genius

1.
A boy worth his salt, having stayed
for a last weary swim, finds
himself at the bottom
of the canal.

Having not omitted this rite
of passage, his wish for a meaty fist
to grip his collar and heave him
out is translucent
in its purity.

Our boy retches and gasps
obligingly on shore when fished
out, blue-cheeked, sodden.

(A part of him wishing now
that he could measure how much
water he is puking up.)

2.
A boy feeling his oats investigates the levers
and shafts of the grain elevator and tips
into the stuff.

Having memorized the dusty slip
of wheat filling every fold,
he squeaks for help.

Chastised, our boy coughs
chaff for a week.

3.
A boy feeling flush offers to hold
a skate strap in need of a trim
while a narrow-footed friend hefts
his father’s axe, the rusty head nodding
even as it begins its downward arc.

All the way home, he cradles
the hand like it was a runt, like it was a pet
he’d begged for and trod on in the middle
of the night.

Our boy’s whorls and ridges soak
into the door’s hungry grain where he hesitates
before going in.

The kerchief full of blood
and clots? A butcher’s rough parcel,
soon burned.

4.
A boy feeling fiesty strikes
flint in a neighbour’s loft just to hear
the tongues of fire speak.

A barrel of oats being a powderkeg,
his handiwork soon lights
fuses all through the barn.

He screams almost as loud as the fire did climbing
the walls when, as a warning, he is whipped
in the town square
a week later.

His mother, watching, flinches
as though it was her being lashed.

That
hurts
most.

Playing the Flavors

Waiting for hot stock to cool
I hear acoustic guitar rifts
escaping the speakers
tucked earlike behind
the widescreen monitor

my sunshine window in
the misty night of bud-opening
the plumskinned hours

when blue-as-you’ve-always-heard
the robins’ eggs touch
the tomato breast of life
warm feather comforter
tapping heartbeats
through the fragile shell

instructions on how to be a bird
how to build a beak
grow feathers

all night the red breast
keyboards the beating lingo
of forming a body
from a yolk
while I prep the pot lift
and strain spent bones
from one stainless pan
to another

through the tall
cone colander
with three feet

all the notes of thyme
parsley and sage play
above the cascade

celery carrot rutabaga
float abstract as acoustic
jazz on the surface

the rooms fill up
with rising stock
molecules
simmering in the heat
drifting back where I write

I can taste the air

reminding me
a bird died so I can
have this stock

this liquid passage
creature to creature
be fully aware

when birds choose
to live as neighbors.

Spellbound

A place gets in.
It’s there, though you’ve
never been. You don’t think
of it often, but if you got the chance
you’d jump.

Grade 4 report on the Yukon.
Hours in the library . . .
population, industry, blah blah blah.
Drew flag by hand--dog on a shield,
more stirring than green and yellow stripes
of the Saskatchewan flag.

In the library, I discovered
artwork of Ted Harrison—people staring up
at pink and purple and yellow sky.
Read Robert Service’s "Spell of the Yukon":
I wanted the gold and I sought it

Fifteen years later, I find
myself on a plane to Yukon.
Look down at greyish-purple
peaks—the Rockies’ freak dwarf cousins.
See ugly industry shacks, a Boston Pizza, Canadian Tire,
skinny pine trees in this place

I dreamed about for years.
a land where the mountains are nameless
And the rivers all run God knows where

replay

you were serene
as you commanded fists
to explode in her face –
fast and bright as firecrackers
that she stood and watched

tall and steady, you led
her around the ring,
watching from above
as she tiptoed up to reach

you intercepted every punch
to the gut, slipped nimbly,
heard her glove break the air
beside one ear,
then the other

but you cringe now,
watching your stiff lope
on the screen,
anxious, lanky arms
throwing at faces in the crowd,
and all the punches you inhaled
through nose and chest
that left you gasping

This is not a poem

As requested I will write a bit about myself. I live in a land where two great rivers meet, in a small house outside the gray city, surrounded by neighbors’ trees and my scattered beds of herbs and flowers. I have 13 windows, one for each moon so I watch the world and listen to sounds coming to tell me simple things. In my kitchen I cook for anyone who is hungry or desires good taste. Food is convenient art, disappearing and requiring no studio to hold its canvases. I gather supplies at farmer’s markets or in my yard.

I write poetry in small servings. I get feedback from friends and some readings. I still consider poetry to be an oral art form so the sounds are primary to me. In my heart I am telling stories around a hearth or campfire, hoping my voice and rhythm helps the image stay where it’s heard.

A poem from an earlier May Day project “Iris Revolution” will be included in an upcoming anthology of St. Louis poets. I am being encouraged, pressured by others to start submitting work for publishing. I resist. Once written the poems seem finished to me. I continue to listen as others nudge me to be more public.

I get out and smell the love of language when I can, basking in the poetic vitamins of others’ verses. It makes my writing bones stronger. It reminds me that others value these clotheslines of words where I pin my thoughts to dry.

In the meantime, I ponder how much basil to plant for this year’s pesto predictions. I also need to sand the rough bits off wooden clothes pins and wash plastic mayo jars to make presents for children, the dropping game they love to play when they visit. I have no grandchildren; yet a circle of many ages surrounds me. Someday I may have to lock my front door but never my heart. This week we are watching Eurasian Tree sparrows feed their young outside our kitchen table window.

Echinacea are multiplying, enough to harvest for making tincture and still have plenty to bloom. And carpet of apple mint comes up to the house. Lilies and peonies are rising. Sounds of a wood lathe purr from my basement, sounds of the bearded kind man who shares his strength and love with me for the last quarter century.

I look forward to the full moon later in the week, the icon of all cyclical life, a sky gift freely shared.

afternoon, (i)

.
was your daisy plucked
free of all its white petals
when he asked you if?
.