Long Distance

It was a talky day,
all full of your kids’
move to Texas—
funny, them
all becoming nurses
now our own nurse
is gone.
Since Kay died …

Reaching out over –

I was gonna say wires,
but phones have none
these days –

touching the sister
we can, one at a time.

So good of you to be here
so long, staying months
through the decline and falls
of the fun one, the one
with four grown kids
and decades of hospital
hall miles on her
feet, a healing touch
right there except
when her body
mutinied and we
could only take turns
testing for our own
catastrophe.

You’re clean for now,
under intense observation
like all of us, so far
only two lost our beans –
kidney beans, a joke –
get it? What’s eating me?
No more of the same

I hope. Running out
of spare parts,
hoping the recipe for this
mess got lost in the months
since we took
our turn on the table –

not you, but me
and the other one. Two hit,
two missed. So we talk

and do the waiting over
and over again,

thanks to modern technology –
anything’s possible.

Bedroom: White-wash

Around the room various white cloth and wood,
paper, ceramic, suitcase - eyes pause long minutes

while marks appear. A new alphabet of knick and smudge
recorded in a dictionary of accidental bodies

in collision with furniture. All white surfaces
scuff with association.

Inside, tightened to a fist, my heart
pounds slow regulars against my inside bones

leaving marks of its own: finger print,
bruised plaster, the hole where the clock once hung.

From what I can decipher
everything is accounted for.

10pm


All those restless years of lying in bed
with newly-minted teeth, laughter
and the MASH theme rerunning up the stairs
A bedtime timeline that hived off the youngest child –
whispering spelling homework, petty playground anxieties,
into the hall-light half-dark

How I’d wish for the hot stab of an earache,
some small latenight affliction, to admit me
to that wonderland of big sisters and grown ups,
the bag of jujubes passed along the chesterfield
and Hawkeye and Hot Lips with their khaki slapstick

Even now I still hear the phantom:
da-daaaah de de de daah-daah
But there’s no 4077 on channel 12
only cheap Hollywood gossip, reality plastic surgery
There’s no magic left in 10pm, just weeknight ache,
the sticky littered sidewalk after a parade’s gone by

Cups

Like rabbits

what goes on in the dark of the cupboard above
where the pinhead mealymouthed hooks grasp not so tenderly
the handles—

Like cats too—

I may throw them like abused children at charitable authorities
but here they roll back again from every single goddamn
flea market, thankyou bag, flannelpajama promotional effortium,
sad symposium and unfortunate fundrive.

Covered with—
cartoon birds, disused regional flags,
best dads and overthehill mamas,
disappearing Captain Kirks,
lead leaves,
handpainted periwinkles.
Engorged with coffee crud and battered
tea leaves, with the same prognostication every time:
I will be in my cups
and cannot be rid of them
without loosing my place.

Twenty-eight lines to leave you by

The rainstorms, one for each atrophied leg
of my leaving, clear you out entirely, my girl:
I’ve no muggy fingers on the bones
of my wrist, no sluggish midsummer pulse.

Here, the rusty quartzes in the gravel road
are yellowed teeth & a mouth full
of light, are knots of russet hair
at the day’s blueing nape. The robin hopping

from the road, all ruddy herself, all early
evening, flickers once, twice,
then drops into shin-high grasses
& is gone.

Here, I pull on socks against ice-box evenings
& peer between lace, learn early
to startle at lonely evening cars rattling
down the lane. The streets are as wide

as a page. The river kinks just beyond the yard
& the horned skulls in flowerbeds are sweetened
by stands of white lilacs
their back-of-knee pulp all over.

You are pale, my girl, & insistent:
the last few days, you wanted me
within earshot, wanted me no further than think
thought...until I muttered that I was going

& I went. The sky here is too sure of itself,
the sky here is too sure & I revise
this dappled manuscript every time
you refuse to come to the phone.

* * *

Hey all, given that I've got nothing (I mean, nothing...) in terms of new poetry so far, I thought I'd share a slightly older poem. It hasn't been workshopped or critiqued anywhere, so I'd really appreciate your good eyes on it...

Sorry for the 'cheat.' But oh well.

A.

the fact of the matter is, we put the beading

where the leather's most worn. fringes
wick water from seams. sure call it
fashion if you want. these young
ones have forgotten the real
f-words - form, function.
fancy-stitching to hold
the patches down.
once, nothing at
all was wasted:
nowadays it's
that nothing
is saved.it's
all thrown
away box
and all.
& we
each
only
get
1
.



dedicated to Sherry & Greg who had me beading up a storm in the summer sun, and Elder Mary Lee, who makes things I can only dream of

How to Begin to Forget

After nine days I noticed
the ghost. Your coke

wedged to the back of the fridge.
I cracked the metal tab,

snapped the fingernail
that so recently poked you

in your left eye. It was the first time
I touched the tip

of the hand that emptied
eleven other cans. I sipped

dark liquid, streaking condensation
down the side, the sweet taste

on my lips. After seven days
I gathered my clothes, left

one blanket, one lamp,
and a hundred sheets

of blank paper. After
three days I watched

a movie, the plot of
new skills that reminded

me of the first ten hours
when I drank the last

of your cold beer,
my Moosehead belch

into the empty air of solitude,
the room where a statue stood

in a bare corner. He was missing
a hand, a wrist, so much

of an arm. After five hours
I studied the right side

of the blue couch for symptoms-
depression. After two

hours I stripped your name off
the door of the place you'd slept in—

ripped the tag in half,
tossed the small slip of paper in

to the garbage where it worked its way
underneath coffee grounds, a banana peel,

an orange rind that scented
those traces of you.

Hi everyone,

I'm delighted to be May Daying again. My goals are modest this year, as I'm working full-time and moving. I hope to post 4-6 poems. After almost a year of working on revisions for my first book, Night Gears, which is coming out this fall with Wolsak and Wynn, I'm looking forward to working on some new poems. And looking forward to reading yours as well.

Bren

Diamonds Raining

It’s past time
when I can call tonight,
past the rules that let
me hear you carp about the same
old grilled cheese and other
lunch lady fare –

the bane of your teen
wisdom, the boredom
slabs you have to eat
every day waiting –

adults buzzing
in your distant hive, trying
to make honey out of
nightmares and betrayal.

You gone so long,
long as your legs
grew like trees but never

able to outrun the pain,
trapped in silent lies,
wrapped in dead fish smells
passing for family.

Now the sound of your voice
sounds like diamonds raining

and we get to keep them
all and run to the sea

laughing, washing away
all the stink, where
everything tastes great and

you get to say no, where
what you know is
to be a child.

Strange Men

**i wanted to spit out all five character sonnets in a row but i could not, for the life of me, write a sonnet today. this poem still belongs to the DH series. also, i could not indent!! (thus the underscores)**

you know the kind:
unannounced, dark-
haired, thoughtful
____in bed, too
____good to be true

in the supermarket
the pulse of their eyes
beating in time
to the rise, fall,
____rise of your ass
____in yoga pants

on the street, steps
out of sync
with lingering
thoughts, their
one-hand-in-pocket
stroll, small
smile at peopled
windows, the
firm grip, cool
____like a blunt object,
____ knock-out

the friend-of-a-
friend, back-
lit with run-on
sentences that trail
like the middle
of phrases, leave
you looking
for your close,
leave you nowhere,
____stranded, yes,

they leave you
downstairs, desperate
at 3 am checking, re-
checking the door,
your heaving
breasts, laced
& raised, against a curtain:
just another
suburban woman,
____a border that wants
____to be crossed

Dear Hawkeye,

By now you’ll have noticed I didn’t marry you,
despite all those years spent planning –
Monday to Friday at 10pm –
in the basement of a suburban bungalow far from the front,
from the wounded and the blood and the tattle-tale Majors

I know you won’t be jealous to hear
that my husband is no crackerjack doctor
trapped in the khaki hell of meatball surgery
but he has a steady hand, tender bedside manner

Sure, he can’t mix a gut-rot martini straight from the still,
let alone toss it back in one easy swallow,
but he makes me laugh like you always have,
until I’m ready for triage:
face in need of sutures, belly of bandaging
(And he does it without a laughtrack)

Furthermore, I’m confident he won’t junk me
for some bombshell nurse
And I could never be as certain with you –
lanky you, with that rakish cowboy hat,
that rightous talent and appetite for women
How could I trust your squint-eyed grin?

And if this news dissapoints you,
please know I’ll never forget
your stories of Crabapple Cove,
those hijinks in the Swamp,
And that time – do you remember? –
you were so brave and handsome,
cavalier and cracking wise in your unbuckled helmet,
it’s the standard by which I’ve measured all other men

Love, always.

Loft: Wood Stove

Siren traffic crow
sound through the chimney to the open stove
where the coal tinkles like chips of glass

Soot leaves black marks
my arms reach into the dark mouth again
rearrange, empty a little breath from my lungs

Flames whoosh, the street creeps
down the black stove pipe
sounds small as a figurine screaming

Tinkle wail the flame dies out
soot rubs off ash turns white
a little water takes the marks off

Falling in Love/The Walls

I fell in love with a brick wall
yellow, Victorian,
his beard drooping and dragging
in Humpty Dumpty’s failed yolk
at his feet. He loved me because
I was not disgusted. I fell in love
with a concrete block
the kind they build walls out of
tougher than brick but prematurely grey.
She loved me because of my hard head.
I fell in love with a bulldozer whose
gargantuan nose eclipsed her gargantuan eyes.
She did not love me
she was jealous.
I am chained.

Under Canvas

"May 4th As we neared Clarke's Crossing this afternoon, "B" and "D" Companies were much disappointed to receive orders to remain there and guard the supplies assembled at that point, while "A" and "C" were to proceed down the river and join Middleton at the front...we landed at Clarke's and went under canvas as cheerfully as possible

12 days of drilling every year
on a city field - does this a soldier make?
One of the wounded from Fish Creek
told me how that night, sleet turned to slush

huddled against the weather, groans
of wounded and those who had barged
across the river near the end without
coats or gear - how he wished for a house. This morning

in my tent as I wait for dawn to come
I am chilled to my soul. Birds
call as if they are the only
way to summon the sun.
My hands are as cold as the barrel of my gun.

* * *
Mistahimaskwa Frog Lake, massacre of nine

Nine men were killed at Frog Lake to feed hundreds and it was called a Massacre.
Eight men were hung at Fort Battleford to appease the white man, and it was called Justice.

On the second of April, we begged Thomas Quinn
food for our starving. We were all winter-thin.
The treaties we'd signed promised in times
of pestilence and famine we'd be given relief.

If the Queen was a liar, Quinn was a thief.

He turned us like lamed rabbits to a wolf, sent us home empty-handed
Banished back to the bush, some turned to the landed
Who'd profited from all that we'd given away
Our children were dying - what could I say?

Quinn even refused us our regular rations
Hungry mothers, pregnant women, small children - our passions
for our loved ones was stronger than hunger or fear.
Wandering Spirit saw only one path draw clear.

He gave Quinn four warnings to leave Frog Lake.
Of those four it was only the fifth he would take
Written clear on a bullet. More men filled with lead
- I ran to them shouting "stop" - but nine men lay dead.

My men ceased that day, and without blood burnt the Fort.
Saved briefly from famine, I feared our reward
would not be long-lived. For I had no delusion:
While treaties were idle promises, not so retribution.

As I think on this time I am two years in prison
With one year of life left, if unmistaken my vision.

Both Big Bear and Poundmaker believed in passive resistance and holding out in hope for the treaty promises to be kept. Big Bear had, in fact, held off signing the treaties for six years because of their unfavorable terms, but had finally signed on three years before 1885, to promises that his people would be fed. That winter their bands were starving, and when they heard of the Métis defeating the RCMP at Duck Lake, some of Big Bear's men decided it was worth risking their own lives in order to obtain food for their hungry, when Big Bear's pleadings fell once again on deaf ears.

Remembering My Color

Maroon sits darker in my head
than red, that mere beginning of blood

but not the darker shade it wears
when spilled or smeared

off sharp blades
or dried

onto smooth clean surfaces
reflecting operating lights.

Maroon seems just the right
mix of lead and air to paint

curves inside a hollowed cavern
left with only half its load.

Maroon is browned crimson
changed by exposure –

outside air never intended
to touch the soft recesses

of factory flesh where
so much work and chaos

tremble beneath maroon wounds.

(two)

she forms semi-scissions
with a three inch nail
across her thighs
..........lets out a sigh
of salvation
before the tears arrive
.
..........jesus watches on, a
chamfered hand dangling at his side

Lockdown

Lockdown

I bad-girl escaped
my building before the lockdown
expecting to return to a world of quieter, humbler people
people too cowed by authority to boldly take
a two-hour lunch just to not crawl under a desk.
I and my friend in the next cubicle, slyly
winking as we shuffled toward the bus-stop,
A cold day in May. Buddhist restaurant. Lingering downtown
over baby soaps and camera batteries, just to make sure.

Of course we are punished for our escapade:
lockdown postponed. Technical difficulties.
Let’s all work out the kinks in our plans
before the gunman arrives: mine is to make peace
with my inner teenager, the one refusing
public safety and a proper coat too.

Bree

Good manners make good neighbors. What they say
is true: you can't resist my berry jam,
my lemon pie, my slow-cooked ham, displays
of books that feature Mrs. Van de Kamp.
I fold in two, in four, I bake, I tuck,
I dollop, crimp, and glaze, I darn, I baste,
I roast, ah-ha, you see, I glow with duck,
with glee I goose, I host, cerise flambe!
Now neatly cover up the past and scrub
those dirty memories clean. My Orson, best
in polo's, vests, and well-pressed pants, he loves
to keep things tidy. Me, I never rest,
perfection never blinks. All guilt's a sieve
it draws refined those sins we can't forgive.

Named


I still don’t know why I laughed all those years ago
when you told me what your last name had been
until age eight when your parents split

Maybe because it lacked the snug precision
of the one I’ve always seen you in –
your name now a perfect black t-shirt and jeans
While the other seemed tweed-scratch
and bulky, musty with old country
Before I knew the man who brought it to Canada, at 18,
buzzed with the thrill of typing it under a newspaper headline
Who gave it to you, your brother and sister,
never guessing it wouldn’t take root in the new world

After you’d moved and everything settled
you got to make the choice: keep or change
Too young for loyalties, you just liked the tough snap sound
And your mom baked a cake, updated her records with a red pen

When the time came, you knew you couldn’t ask me
to abandon the name I’ve always known
But I never told you I was tempted or that, even now,
like a junior high girl practicing some future signature,
I test its delicious weight on my tongue

A Soldier's Duty

Monday, 4th May This morning we passed Saskatoon, where we saw several of the men who had been wounded at Fish Creek. The sight of these brave fellows appeared to fire our fellows with redoubled ardour to reach the front...we had all been expecting to be in the thick of things in a day or two, and here we are cast ashore on a barren prairie...A soldier's duty, however, is to obey

And like Gospel Thomas I can put my finger in their wounds
This war is real. So close to the front, seems I'll be left to guard:
not fight. More of the drills
I've done since I was 13. My glory: to keep safe the horse feed.

At least I tread ground again. No more
puddle-hopping in that sand-clogged
tributary. Wind blew colder
off that water. The very air is hostile.

Middleton called Fish Creek victory
- 43 wounded, 10 dead -
no bodies left behind of the Métis.
Still, point is: they fled.

* * *

La bataille de la coulée des Tourond

What we lacked in numbers
Surely we made up in force:
We shot the fur cap off Middleton's head
and a bullet grazed his horse

Just so, the very thing we were trying to save:
Our long lots to the river. What they called Fish Creek
We called Little Beaver River: the army's only way across, ma coulée.

Still in my heart I see my boys, scratching in the dirt with Gabriel
Where best to take cover. I hid my tears in what little I could pack.
Slapped the cows out of the barn like I was banishing every hidden fear.

We joined the others at Batoche, digging at our
riverbank caves, nails black with the clay. Every
sandy root was my own heart, the veins

gripping desperately to the soil we'd claimed, what claimed us,
held us all here. Tangling past the wildgrass, prairie roots sink deep: needful
in these winds, these winters. The summer sun we might not see.

So. The English Scouts saw fresh tracks. Surprise lost,
only marksmanship left. That night my youngest son
Wincing at a tear said he'd pretended they were jacketed deer.

We turned them back with their fallen. One of Dumont's nephews wounded, one dead.
The guilty relief and sorrow of my arms around
Marguerite, wife of dead Jose Vermette.

These are the numbers the women
count: nine husbands gone since March
Forty-three children left fatherless.

And we left off our caves to dig different holes.
Caves to save, hollows to hold, always leftover earth: inside
a yawing pit never filled.

Hello.

I'm back to participate in my second year of the May Day Poetry Project. I look forward to writing new work for this blog in the coming weeks.

My first book, To End a Conversation, came out with Thistledown in 2008. And I am finishing up a long poem manuscript called Tigers.

Happy writing!

Waking From a Late Nap

The evening scent unfurls
blue banks of iris,
sharp green cut grass
and almost black
charring burgers.

Spring dreams slide away
with the neighbors’ cat

jumping on my bed
then out the back door.

Clouds still rain-full
shift into darkness
dotted with streetlights,

distant traffic lullabies
sing their way through
new-leafed sweet gums,

while peonies prepare
their pink explosions
for morning.

Introduction / 35: Intimacies

This is my first May Day Project. I missed actual May Day yesterday due to technical difficulties, but here I am, sitting next to the baby in a dark bed with my laptop glowing and just having written the following before turning to sleep before finishing the weekend and going back to the office tomorrow.

I cut and pasted from Word which is apparently why all the extra line breaks, which are not supposed to be there. -- Karen (K.I. Press)

35: Intimacies

As sweet as it comes—

chocolate when the baby sleeps.

Smells of memory.

Hits you at the back of the throat when you think you’ve forgotten.

Some hopeful old creep on the phone wants

to trade your wallet for your panties.

Those were the days—weren’t they?

Wireless, across rooms, across houses, across fathoms,

eons--eons necessitating overrated face creams and

complicated mucus measuring techniques assisting

in the impregnation of she-whales, whose mates' twelve-foot mobile

whale wangs, once the stuff of sea monsters,

are narrated calmly by Sir David Attenborough.

A pungent nip before bed, or a cup of warm milk?

Speaking of, the restless daughter

needs a nip or two herself,

as even whale babies do in their mammalian glory.

Mutually, hormonally, narcotically,

on the street to sleepland,

the scene, a bed of mystery infant dreams and sleep so very well deserved while daddy

relaxes shooting something with his keyboard.

The Poem

made me do it, though in it’s defense it was
only developing, a potato sprouting
after months of resting in cold storage.

And, let’s be honest, this isn’t
confession in the way an admission
can be used in a court of law, the hammer

of a gavel pronouncing me guilty as charged.
Nor is it the kind of disclosure
where names will be written in the breakdown—

a general list of fault as the accumulation,
letter after letter, until we’re left worrying only
about the worst in ourselves. No, this

confession happens when your hands appear
cut off, hidden from my view
under my breasts and I begin to feel

the slight tremor of your right palm
shuddering along my chest’s scar,
my thin-membraned irregularity,

metal-barbed bites from so long ago.
You establish this movement by saying nothing,
your palm reading rows of lines—heart

line, head line while our tongues figure
it out, translate that moment into
seconds that tick against the inside

of what our mouths continue to sever,
our fear stuffed within us
as we continue to come clean.

Lurking!

Just to let you know, I'm here. Yes, lurking.

Might not write much. Hope to make some comments when I get time. Hope to have fun reading everyone on MayDay!

I'm in Regina. I'm doing my 5th tour of duty. I think.

Istanbul

For A.P.V.


She sautés potatoes in coats
the colour of, she imagines,
wet Turkish sand, spreads cheese
on apples in anticipation
of weeks of only feta
from the Istanbul market. As she waits
for the brunch guests, the word Tuesday
sings through her head, in tune
with the kettle, the dove
perched on the fence. A packing list
of the familiar: the orange kitchen,
the varnished bulk of serving dishes,
the fretful bark of her father's dog
at the crunching gravel in the driveway
as they arrive to see her off, to eat,
to take her aside in the kitchen for a hug
and an everything will be different now,
which becomes the new chorus in her head on Tuesday
as her plane rushes forward into sky.

Four months. Four
months of emails
instead of dinners
out, but here she is,
feet in a sea
blue as her mother's
pottery, tasting
of saltwater and sticky
dates, his mouth
at her ear, his arms
at her waist, stronger
than the compass-pull
of her northern home.
Istanbul has released
him and now
they drift across the continent,
the only familiar thing
his body, the only familiar
sound the rattle of their next train.

hidden (one)

she hides the broken jesus
beneath the crisply cleaned sheets
before
she answers his knock
.there is no redemption when
he is there to caress her sins
away
........tuck and patti play
to the symphony of
rules expunged, ephemeral
pleasures paid for
after he is gone

The Visit

[this is one section of a longer poem]

From the penthouse restaurant we watch

the city disappear. Falling snow

smudges streetlights, rubs away

outlines of shops, gas stations, cars

crossing the bridge— blurry lumps

of movement. This isn't the view we came for.

Next morning, silence. Snow's hip-deep on sidewalks.

City's quieter than a small town on a Sunday.

Later, after breakfast, a sound: some guy buzzing his snowmobile

down the streets, just because he can. Radio talks of nothing

but the storm. We turn it off, finally, and go out, our boots labouring

through drifts. Each footfall, each breath, leaves a sharp outline

in the still air. We leave the neighbourhood and walk

down the middle of Pembina Highway, alone.

Hello in May

I am rather late in posting - so much to catch up with already! This is my second year, and I am very glad to be back. No particular plans for this month aside from writing as much as possible.

Sapphire 2

Sapphire's blue body suspends-

like one of those vaudeville tricks

men used to watch from velvet seats

when the city was newly stolen;

there are no wires in this act,

only breath

less-ness

as Sapphire waits for digital

word, or a call filled with echo,

or the hard knocked door

at midnight by the boys in green

who roll quietly up her street;

Sapphire's body suspends blue

air-less,

because her man

(one of the old-fashioned kind)

father to her two girls

sleeps but does not sleep,

eats but does not eat,

cries but does not cry,

far away in a thankless land.

Rehash


The movie scene: two old men
smoking on a park bench
pokes shadows of memory
And I try again to explain déjà vu to you
without saying this conversation is an example
because I know you won’t laugh

Too bewildered by the illogical,
its unnerving presence in your home,
you – who can answer any question
instantly yes or no –
tell me I must have seen the clip
before

There’s no point describing the eerie echo
and the wash of vague recognition
becomes just another of the things I know
and you won’t believe
on scientific principle
An addition to the dowry
of mysterious truths I’ve brought to you:
how to get blood out of a white t-shirt,
how long meat keeps in the fridge,
how to sew a button,
how magic can flicker, unbidden,
through the brain


(Marika, I liked your button-sewing poem so much I had to have one of my own. Thanks for the inspiration!)

Gabrielle

It's true, y'know, 'bout Prada, stretches thin
like "yeah-yeah" sunsets, fades in creases, sags -
it's overrated. Shopping discount bins
is painless (all my bling on payment), snag
those wheelchair spaces. What? My husband's blind
okay? Don't ask me how it happened! Some
freak accident! So what, we're poor, it's fine!
I used to screw the gardener (yeah, so dumb),
but Carlos never showed me that he cared.
The second time he married me I knew:
his secret offshore bank accounts...we'd share.
Two daughters, one blind husband, bye-bye shoes!
The money split; I stayed when things got tough.
My heart so full: the weight I gained in love.

from Interregnum

10

Emotions ooze like oil spills,

tarring the bird in the cage of our chests.

The river at night is a different oil spill.

Lit from within, houses that line the valley are torches.

I didn’t see the deer.

Dusky light. My heart swerved.

Moving water is always in the present tense.

And we’re stranded on shore.

Saudade.

Saudade.

Sunday Rest

May Day has come and gone on this benighted country with sunshine and solitude...The Colonel read prayers on the scow this morning and again reminded us of home and civilization.

We spend our time dislodging from
sandbars - I am riding a slow-moving tick
- framed by a riverbank thickening
with brush and colour

as if our eyes are what draw the
woods as if even nature seeks refuge
from the bleak plains beyond -

and we are reminded God is on our
side. That might and right
shall prevail.

By the hour Mother's on her usual bench,
gardenias and starched lace.
On the Lord's Day I find myself
in a Godforsaken place.

* * *
May 2nd: Cut Knife Hill Pitikwahanapiwiyin
Jacob-with-the-Long-Hair, an Elder who always rose early
Heard the splash of soldiers in the creek
Four hundred armed men, the clink and clatter
- no animal or wandering spirit
lost in the dawn

Fear, safety: we had gathered
like the buffalo themselves, one tribe.
Waking not to morningsong and the stir of fires:
but two cannons and a Gatling gun firing
on our families

the weight and tangle of collapsing tipi
- surprise of skin and pole on my childsmooth
face

wondering how i'd awoken in a cloudless thunderstorm
at dawn, being pulled free by my mooshum, a
silenced wail from a sister

Skimming flight to the ravines: my father
was one of the group of warriors who charged
the gunfire

our mothers counted children
smothered cries with breasts, splayed hands,
whispers and wide eyes.

Pîhtokahânapiwiyin, him they call Poundmaker
gave us quiet assurance while Fine Day
took position atop the hill
signalling attacks. I,

I brought him water after three hours.
He did not take his eyes from the field.

Our men were swift, fearless
as foxes. From the ravines they would rush
and return like rainwater. Deadly game: we were
wherever they turned their backs.

Their big gun had broken: we gave them
no targets. When they became
a wedge, we crept along the ravines
always drawing closer, a tightening
snare.

My people have always known
the gift, the curse

of invisible

At the end, when they fled, Fine Day
signalled pursuit. Not one of their soldiers
would have held life after that day
but for Pîhtokahânapiwiyin.

"They came for a fight, and found it.
Now let them go."

The greatest of warriors
makes peace, our Elders
say it is so.

Now old myself, I look back on that time
and know we all received less mercy than he gave.

Three years in Stony Mountain Pen: he shouted to the judge
he'd rather be sent that very day
to his grave.

Getting a Hand On Harm

A fist of pain presses firm
into my slit side,
knuckles lodged deep
like a frozen extension
of a lazy punch

waiting for indefinite signals
to unfurl fingers --

Blazing sharp nails bloom to attention,
as if for inspection and
trace florescent nerves alive.

Indiscernible arcs of rainbow sparks,
pulse invisible in the night recesses
of my mutilated cave, sealed

dark as a refrigerator with the door
closed --

wire nerve shelves sagging --

missing flesh chunks removed,
still crying for the connections

dangling
and sparking

unaware of the slick dark incursion.

Just clenching the pain.

Conversations with the Cyclops: Needlework

Even this, simplest of womanly tasks,
eludes me: the union of button and shirt,
needle and thread. I can manage
an embroidery needle, wide-eyed, and thread stiff
with spit to ease it through the signatures
of a book-block, but not the finer work
of cotton. This is the kind of skill you need
in this climate; to survive
you need buttons that stick,
useful skills, a collection of sharp instruments
on a handy shelf
in case you are surprised at home
by a giant roaring through your keyhole
or a man, far from home,
cuffs trailing threads, and a pointed look
when he catches your eye.

Hello!

Hello May Day-ers! I am very pleased to be participating with you.

This is my first year doing the May Day blog. I'm Marika Prokosh, and I've just finished my English BA at the University of Winnipeg. I'm moving to Montreal to do my Masters in Library and Information Studies in August, so you may well be seeing some bookish/moving-related poems from me.

For the past year my main writing project has been a cycle of poems about writing and blindness loosely based on the Cyclops episode from Homer's Odyssey. I'm legally blind, and the cycle is a way for me to articulate the unsaid things about that experience through the Cyclops metaphor. I hadn't planned on blogging them for May Day because they tend to be slow coming and hard to manage, but wouldn't you know, one came today. I don't have any other thematic plans for the rest of the month, but I'm hoping to manage three poems a week. We'll see how it goes!

Hi everyone,

Glad to be back at MayDay this year! For those of you who took part last year, the boxing poems I was working on then are now part of a book that will be released from Anvil this fall. Since I'll be working on editing for that project, I don't expect my output here will be as steady as in years past, but I'll do my best. No particular goals this year, but looking forward to all the reading and writing. Happy times!

Nick’s Inn Good Food


Chocolate milkshake frostfroth
licks the lip of a skyscraper-tall glass
the waitress sets in front of you
(And beside it: a sweating metal cup
that holds the melty rest)

Just like when you’d come here as a kid,
meet your country grandparents –
a Sunday dinner compromise
between farm and city
And I’ve never seen a photo of her
but I imagine your grandmother’s
pale cotton dresses, sturdy purse

We came here too (short drive
from suburbs to outskirts)
bundled into the station wagon
with my sullen sisters
for burgers buried in chili
and my Grandad cracking jokes
with Nick in the kitchen
And grade 6 June,
my broken arm itching in its cast,
just me and my Mom and she said OK
to fries and a milkshake for lunch
But the salt wasn’t as sharp, the shake
not as sweet, withouth the thrill
of guarding plate, straw,
from pilfered bites and sips

Now I sneak fries off your plate
and you swat at me with the greasy fingers,
fierce irritation, of a ten-year-old,
the youngest sibling – defending, defining –
that we both become here

sapphire

J, the camas are in bloom;

mid-Spring bulbs fat, white,

burrow the black earth,

your home of tall Douglas fir

Arbutus groves, red strawberry bark

peeling renewal, a fleshing;

there are stars in long grass

the camas flocked

blue, blue as sapphires of KAF

blue blue as Afghan sky in May

blue blue as her body waiting

for you to come home to her

alive.

Neighbours

It's easy to think
we all want quiet,
we all want peace,
we all want to sink
into that soft bed
for hours, days
even before light has left
the sky for the night.

But it turns out
some of us want noise,
the clash of steel on wood.
Some of us want music,
shaking bodies windows streets.
Some of us want beer,
in cans bottles kegs.
Some of us want laughter,
echoing down the block.
Some of us want magic,
a certainly flow that only comes
deep in the night as we
stay awake until dawn.

Lynette

So cancer found me kneeling by the bed
of roses in my garden - I work hard
to raise 'em just like children. Damn, you bet
I know the meaning of invasion. Yards
and families need a fence around them. So
I guard the borders, watch the exits, keep
a detailed list of things I can't control.
My Tom, he's such a softy, starts to weep
in chemo, just like when the twins were born.
As if this body were unused to wear
and tear! True beauty's baggy, loose, well-worn
with years of wash: I know. I've done my share
of laundry, felt the heat of love's machine,
the steady thump of all that's good and clean.

In the house, green walls

Hello fellow poets.

I'm pleased to meet you all, mediated though we are by the internet. Hopefully in time I will have the pleasure of meeting each of you in person.

I have just moved into a new house here in Winnipeg, and am going to be taking the month of May off from all other writing projects in order to sink poetically into my new home. I will post as often as possible, and look forward to reading any comments you might have.

A bit about me... Just ten days ago I launched my first book of poems, titled To Speak. It was a good experience overall, though far more difficult than I expected. Ever since completing in The Writer's Studio at Simon Fraser University in 2005, I have been working toward having a book published. Now that that is done, I am trying to adjust to a new relationship with writing. I hope this month will serve to re-root me in a poetic frame of mind.

thanks for having me,
Michelle.

Hello

Hello from Vancouver. I'm Regan, I finished an MFA at UBC over two years ago, and I have been having trouble finding the time and/or the will to write anything new since I finished that up. I have luck publishing in the little mags from time to time, and I'm now working toward a manuscript civilised enough to take out on the town. (Getting there... )

I've been here for a few of the previous outings, and while I don't post often or comment extensively, I've always managed to get something good out of the process. At the very least, reading everyone else's new work is wonderfully motivating. I'm aiming for one poem a week, and I have no qualms posting fragments. Looking forward to seeing what everyone's got.

Northcote

Wednesday, 22nd April. Left Swift Current at 8 this morning and reached the river at 8 this evening, having halted about two and a half hours for dinner and tea. The trail was in splended condition for marching, but we are all pretty tired and a few of us used up...We boarded the steamer Northcote immediately...We are very crowded and have none too much comfort...Cartwright and I sleep on the snow among the oat sacks with which it is loaded

Dearest: read between the lines,
I am used up and have not seen battle.

We still take time for tea.

The flatness of this place surprised
gave rise to swells like the curves of a woman
now we rest in her valley, swimming upward
to our reward

There is no sight of the enemy.

I sleep on frozen oat sacks and dream of home.
Awaken stiff to find the landscape scarcely
changed. All is flat, even this boat; the paddle
wheel spins and empties hours
and minutes from narrow shelves.

So my life
may be poured out yet, but my greatest complaint
is this: Cartwright snores.

* * *
Duck Lake, a survivor

Since Assiyiwin was shot down, then Isidore
je n'ai pas le coeur
for this war

To shoot a blind Elder with
a white flag, extending his arm
in peace: there is death, and there's dishonour.

These two await us all. Riel rode, praying;
Laframboise went down beside him.
Gabriel's scalp grazed, him still shouting orders.

It was my idea. I told Gabriel
we should empty
the hostile merchant larders.

Bloggorous Joy of Poemeticals

Thanks to Ariel for this; I am andie and was here last year, and it was a Very Good Thing. I wrote and commented most days.

I'm well west of Winnipeg but well east of Calgary, and look forward to May.

I have my suspicions on what my poems will be focussing on, and I hope to hear some good news about this project in May; but in case I veer off course (or the news is bad or, worse yet, missing until June) I won't bother saying more.

I probably won't write a lot about: interplanetary communication, tennis rackets, radish stems, or foot fetishes.

But that's only a guess.

I look forward to Mayday, m'aider; and new & old poetic friends.

My body covets
desire — tempts eyes
that travel down plunging
necklines, sweeps across
a skirt’s hem.
Cock-tease, I think,
yet change nothing.
I could look dowdy,
wear matronly elasticized pants
with box-shaped tops.
I am a mother, after all,
yet refuse to cut my hair
in the mandatory mom-bob.
I wear blouses pulled tight
across breasts, shine my lips
with strawberry gloss
meant for girls half my age.

May Day Salute!

Hello fellow poets,

I will be posting poems in a random way from a new collection I am working on. I have yet to get my first collection published, but onward as they say. Looking forward to reading your comments.

Dawn

Hooray hooray for the first of May!

Hello all! One of the inaugural May Day-ers, I've participated in four of the five previous rounds and am ever so happy to be making space for poetry this year after far too long away. Thanks Ariel for pulling this together again.

My creative efforts these days are given mainly to helping others tell their stories (in the media of film and television) so it will be invigorating/challenging to give myself a chance to tell my own short unevenly spaced stories again.

I look forward to reading your creations!

Hello

Hello everyone! Some of you I know; some of you I don't. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Ian LeTourneau. I currently live in Athabasca, AB, with my wife Sherry Coffey and my son Wyatt, but I'll be moving mid-month to Fredericton, NB. I teach English Composition at Athabasca University. My first book, Terminal Moraine, came out with Thistledown in 2008. Before that Gaspereau Press published a chapbook Defining Range. I'm working on a new manuscript right now, called Interregnum, which is almost done except for the title poem, a long poem that will be the centrepiece of the book. So I hope to post a few times a week with drafts. And I look forward to reading all your work and commenting. Happy writing!

Right now I'm reading Jim Harrison's memoir Off to the Side: it's a fascinating, well-written book.

hurray for may!

hey poets,

just a little note to say how pleased i am to be here! my plan is to use this space as a daily exercise in mandatory productivity. most of my poems will likely come from a new series i'm working on that focuses on the lives of the main characters in ABC's Desperate Housewives. yes, you read that right, Desperate Housewives! so unless i get sick of traipsing through the online archive of DH (unlikely), ya'll will see a lot of the women of Wysteria Lane.

a little bit about me...i am one spanish class away from finishing my BA in english lit. this fall i will be moving to the Tdot to become a master of english literature at the UofT. my poetry has recently appeared in CV2 and is forthcoming in Room Magazine. when i'm not watching, or writing poems about Desperate Housewives, i'll be studying spanish and/or working on my novel-in-progress, which, unfortunately does not take place in spain or any other spanish-speaking country.

Salut ]

The year between has found my creativity in need of different borders. I have had to sacrifice art for life if that makes sense (I’m not at all sure that it does, really.). And so my spirit is dry of, and starving for, ImagInatIon juice.

Here I am then, back at the page for my third May Day, hoping for a flood!

Vous pouvez m’aider, chers ami(e)s?

O May O May Day O May

I thought I was done. but here I write. again.

letters. letters. letters. to you.

o flight over red desert. o shiny white sun.

o black Kuchi tents.

o dust devils beneath my whirly bird.

o recce sitting so gorgeous

on the end of my bed

helping strap my helmet, my frag,

my ballistics on.

urging me to fly deep into country,

he'd just strolled in from.

deep into you, beloved,

o blue fault, o folded earth,

Afghanistan.

May Day-ing Again

Hey all,

I'm sorry that I've been so slow in getting going this year. But I'm here now and apparently we're all meant to write/post starting tomorrow...heh.

It should go without saying that I look forward to our fleeing little community, now that we're six years in.

But to those of you returning this year, welcome back! And to those poets joining May Day for the first time, double and triple welcome!

My writing/posting goal for this month is 3/4 poems a week. Said goal might be jettisoned when I launch my book next week. Or when I'm at the Canadian Mennonite University the week after that, doing the poetry section of their School of Writing with Barbara Nickel.

But I'm oh so glad to be back here. I've got a manuscript I need to jumpstart after months and months away...

For those of you not already firmly acquainted, here's my official bio:

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg-based writer whose poetry has recently appeared in print, on-line, and even circulated on buses in Manitoba and Alberta. She recently won the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer at the 2010 Manitoba Book Awards. Hump (Palimpsest Press, 2010), her first full collection of poetry, will be launched May 5 at McNally Robinson Booksellers.

I'm looking forward to finding a voice for the events of this past year. Writing has stalled completly and cancer has swept my family like an invasion. One sister dead and two of us left without a kidney. Two sisters spared. All on high alert. Life is trying to declare it's fragility and uncertainty. Poetry remains.

Update...

Just wanted you all to know that the Mother's Day poem received 2nd place in the SWG short manuscript awards :)

Thanks!

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...

another year, another may day

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...

June. It's the new May.

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

À la prochaine...

.
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!
.

Once Upon My Porch

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.

Apologies

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

Many

Wie viel sind deine Werk'

Red-shafted flicker, red-winged blackbird, redstart.

Ruby-throated hummingbird, rose-breasted grosbeak, redpoll.

Purple finch (which is red).

Yellowthroat, yellow warbler, goldfinch.

Yellowlegs, goldeneye, yellow-headed blackbird.

Yellow-bellied sapsucker, too.

Bluebird, bluejay, great blue heron,

and blue-winged teal.

[Wie viel... How many are your works]

afternoon, (ix)

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.
.

Thanks!

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!

McCandless

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

lost in

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

1 am

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

Edisonia: Corporal of the Guard, No. 1

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?)

Die Himmel erzählen...

Erzählen: to tell.

Predict

Bright azure and white,

patches of gunmetal gray.

The wind— you never know.

Instruct

Take an umbrella.

A jacket, at least.

Recount

Clouds moved in so fast!

The classroom was dark.

Got soaked on the way home.

Declare

Look, it's finally

stopped.

["Die Himmel erzählen": the heavens are telling.]

The third day

Denn er hat Himmel und Erde bekleidet in herrlicher Pracht.

Heaven

Tulips

fill their cups with sunlight.

Earth

Holes dug for daisies,

damp-earth scent released.

Clothed

Impatiens. How many ways are there

to be pink?

Glorious

Evening and morning fragrant

with lily-of-the-valley.

[more quoting from The Creation: "For he hath clothed heaven and earth in glorious splendor."]

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

Learning Curbside

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.

Morning, (vii)

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
.

Night letters #25, 26 Y, Z

why night letters, you ask

I wrote them for you

the one who laughs

for you

the one who mourns

for you

the one who loves

for you

the jealous

and I wrote them

for you, woman cocooned

in folds of blue silk, double-edged

burkha

and for you

the one who hates

and for you

and you 

and you

who just likes 

to read a lifetime

in three simple lines

I write my night letters

tired into late May,

but now I have to leave

you, my words

all, to catch a plane

head out into the wilds

of army and my brain

on overdrive trying to collect

the road to war

in tiny laser raindrops 

goodnight friends, readers

goodnight....

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

that's me for 2009... sorry I couldn't contribute more thoughtful comments, more thoughtful work this year, but most of you know where I am/where I'm going, and juggling home, war and writing is a very tricky thing

best,

sms

billiards, a riel man's game

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.

The Black, the Shining - for Jonathan

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.

The Favorite Present

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

night letters #25 X

exile

never to belong

again, to home, 

to him

Evening, (x)

31 mots au mois de mai:
.
.
je me suis endormie
dans ton jardin
…………………….ce soir
sous la tout petite lune
qui flottait
…………………..là-haut

les étoiles s’amusaient
à jouer………cache-cache
…………parmi les branches
bourgeonnantes

c'était beau
comme un rêve.
.

Candy

After the war
my father was sent
to Germany
for the Occupation.
He used to stand
on the roof of his hotel
throwing
Hershey bars
to the kids
below.

They were abandoned
by the war-makers,
left to roam the streets
for food and friends.
The country was a mystery
to a skinny soldier who
never
had enough to eat
a day in his life

‘til he enlisted.
He could not fathom coming
all this way
and have
food to throw away—
just rain chocolate on folks
who
weeks before
were called mortal enemies
but now stood grounded
in the street—

hands uplifted in hopes
of catching GI rations,

the sweet germ of new truth
falling
in brown wrappers

from a uniformed city boy
who understood hunger.

lesson


your fists buck and rear
the nearer to her face

you have to learn to hit

to watch your glove smash
against forehead like
fender into flesh

have to train to land
a solid shot to the belly –
hard leather echo –
without saying sorry

night letters #24 w

wild cards

no one knows which way this'll go

how he'll be next time 

he sees her, or she him;

ace of diamonds, king of hearts?

a mitt full of jokers, 

now that would be a laugh;

will she club him with her beauty?

will he no-trump her

with ambivalence?

 

and what about that queen of spades, 

what cards does she have left to play

that whining, fucking bitch?

Edisonia: the aches of a candy butcher, ca. 1860

Our boy, having learned to inventory
the everyday, meets two dandies & their slave
as the train pulls from the station in Detroit.

Lazy, tired, the Southerners buy Edison’s round
armful of newspapers & toss them out the window,
instructing the slave to pay the bill.

Our boy brings all the print he’s got,
all of the polite columns with their rumblings
on abolitionists, slavers, lynchings - out the window.

Edison knows enough to play to the crowd
when someone else is paying. Wise sarcastic boy,
next he presents a stack of novels

taller than he is. Out the window. Cracked
hickory nuts, popcorn balls, molasses candy? Out.
His coat, hat, shoes? Out.

And finally his trunk, tied with a rope & dragged
from car to car. It all goes out the window, except the trunk.
The slave pushed that out the back door.

He & Edison watched it settle heavily next
to the tracks. And then the slave paid up,
knowing exactly

how much it cost to free him, what argument
might pick his lock. (The newsprint caught & soared
like smoke or sooty birds

aimed at the heart of the sun.)

Goose woman speaks

I was always long-necked,
thick through the waist, and broody
but being with child
cinched it. Some women knit booties, spend
months learning how to turn
the heel. Others rearrange their spare
rooms, become morbidly interested
in pastels. Me, I yanked out my hair, hank by hank,
lining the crib with the long black stuff.
(By the time baby lifted her hand
to me all she’d find was licks
of down.)

The crib was soft, the crib
was soft, but skin-to-skin is best, they say,
and I was all ruddy, starving skin, feeding
her at all hours, reduced
to dining by the fridge’s dim light those times
she settled. (She seemed to know
when I’d had enough and would rouse,
squawking arms out-thrust.) My hair grew in.
My weight dropped like a wet bird
so her father started bringing home
crumpled take-out bags, the food half-eaten,
or shrunken fruit out of season, the strawberries
wooden, the apples sharp; shoddy groceries
to be sure, but what can you do
when your baby is never further
away from you than the tips
of your outstretched fingers?

I tried to tell him: what’s good
for the goose is good for the gander.
But he learned early that the nine-to-five
was salvation after the dim all-day-all-night
of our rooms. And, if by some trick of the light
he got lonely, all he had to do was stand on Portage,
listen to the sirens and let the wind
have a go at him.

spring

temporarily unavailable...

Evening, (ix)

.
build it and she will come
believes the bowerbird
..........meanwhile
..........you and i
eternally searching for
home.
the roar
of easy laughter
behind
a latched door
a whiff of her of him
a key that fits the hole

outside my window
sparrows sing goodnights
balanced on
branches
so elaborately linked
my eyes can't
....................pull
apart the.knotted.elms
as entwined
as two bowerbirds
at
home
.

Lulled by Downpour

Days of bath warm rain
quilted with thunder
exceed the corners
of flowering beds.

Each herb tucks neatly
to the task of root-reaching—

quiet fingers receive
the drink.

Lavender buds swell
like pale raindrops
on tips of emerald feathers

mounding under late blush iris,
crowding finger buds of scarlet daylilies
making their premier performance.

The calm sound of rain
stitching softly on the roof,
soothes the house—

sews satin ribbons of water
fluttering wet outside
window panes,

and sends sleep
after the lightening
turns down.

The Moment

Rarely do we catch
a leaf fall from a branch,
the moment when before
becomes after. When what’s left
of the baby's umbilical cord
starts to shrivel and shrink,
a rare mushroom we find
on the change table,
a familiar pink knot
in its place.


---
Dear May Dayers,

I think this might be my last post.
Congrats to you all for finding time to do what you love.
Hope to see these poems elsewhere in print soon!

mirror


you’ve only ever used a mirror
to shrug at wayward curls

never primped
powdered
glossed
brushed
blushed
waxed
or tweezed

but now you can’t pass
without switching into stance,
tucking chin, lifting fists,
throwing quick one-twos
at your reflection
until you’re satisfied
with the ridges of muscle
flashing along your arms

night letters #23 V

veil

indigo folds, view the world 

through filigree, I not an I,

me not a me, we just are,

a shadow we; tickle tockle

clock clock over dry stone,

over dry muck streets;

still, I caught you looking-

we have great shoes,

we have great feet-

don't we?

Segmented

In langen Zügen kriecht am Boden das Gewürm.

Imagine the procession, that fifth day,

after all the impressive creatures

the line of moist grey bodies

pulling their segments in, stretching them out,

making for the nearest bit of dirt.

Disappearing one by one.

"You got good soil here,"

says the handyman, digging.

"Lots of worms."

He turns the clods over and there they are,

curled around dandelion roots:

dirt-eaters, leaf-shredders,

tunnel-makers.

Slimy things without eyes.

Vollendet ist das große Werk.

Job done, he waits for pay.

Der Schöpfer sieht's und freuet sich.

Sets down the spade. Says:

"She's ready for planting now."

[Quotations are from Haydn's oratorio The Creation.

In langen... In long procession the worms creep along the earth.

Vollendet... The great work is completed.

Der Schöpfer... The creator sees it and is pleased.

champ


his clippings brittle
on the brick wall
yellow with lamotta, dempsey, louis,
as he checks memberships
in the club where he trained
decades ago, between bouts
north in logging camps

sweatpants over gut
gone soft, three-days’ beard
around his smile, says the same line
every time you walk in
i feel safe now that you’re here
and you forget
how close he’s lived
to blades, fists,
how different that is
from a one-hour boxing lesson

behind the desk
thick fingers blunt
on the small square keys
of a calculator,
shy as he neatens
a stack of bills
in the cashbox,
his writing a shock:
proper and finely-looped
as a schoolteacher’s

how easy he is in the gym,
holding heavy bags,
squeezing his fingers to show
how the glove should square
with a last snap,
using this hands to retell
facts he’s learned
with his body, pass along
stories carried in muscle

and you know it’s only
that his mind can’t make a fist
around your name,
that too many knuckles
have shaken his skull,
rattled brain like a die
loose in a palm,
but you still smile
every time he calls you champ

View Through My Window

After the sky pressed down like a damp quilt
the hidden rain exploded before my eyes,
snagging every leaf twisted up for its wet burst,
clogging new window screens with giant drops.

The tropical downpour predicted for a timid
spring night drenched every dog-walker passing
by the quivering rose hedge, pink blooms laughing
at the soggy fur and soaked sneakers running home.

my owl, my little cabbage, my split pea soup

elle chuchoté comme le vent
qui envolé parmi les fenêtres
et les trouvé toutes fermées


'ton coeur
c'est mon nuit quand je prie
dans ton lit' elle reprendé
les mots saignant
dans l'aube

Evening, (viii)

.
She lies with tired eyes
When the world is asleep
Her toes twinkle to the speed
Of her thoughts

Uncomfortable with the
Idea of endings and beginnings
She can't say if morning
Will come too soon or too late

It is time
That she prays for
Twenty-six hour days
Years that last an eternity

She will run out of time
She worries
Out of time
.................She will run
.