2.
How do they do it, the mothers?
Behind Oak trees in the park
exchanging remedies, the phone numbers
of loose doctors.
The whirr of hands that pilfer, soar
and dive through medicine cabinets, purses.
Oh the buzz of joy, hunched
over two spots. A twisted smile
beneath heaps
of laundry, dishes. I was going to quite but.
You grab at children who press themselves
like pancakes against the floors of minivans,
soccer fields, the joints of stairs. This
is your career. The washing machine
taunts you with its industriousness.
It can manage four children,
why can't you? Even your husband
says things like don't let the day defeat you!
So you swish, gulp
the body's dream of grace.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Spring-Heeled Jack
knew how to make an escape,
his booted leap from fence to cobblestone
flying through time—the less he is seen
the more legend he becomes. Bogeyman by dark,
super-hero by day—celebrated as an urban
fable, like today’s weather, clear
blue sky against red bricks of the building
across the street. It looks dependable, streaked
with thin clouds that shoulder
above us like a sheer cotton shirt draped
on the back of the man reaching out
for a lover that keeps walking away.
Underneath that pace, the earth remains
steady, dirt settled in concrete and heat.
Leaves are awakening, bodies from a long sleep,
stems stretching from fresh buds. Mid-day arches
like the back of an old woman
bending in her garden pulling quack grass
and dandelions from chives that have spread
along the fence under the crab apple tree.
She will stop every now and then,
put a hand on her crooked hip, smooth
grey hair from her brow, shade her eyes
with the palm of her right hand, peering
at the office across the street where
a younger woman plants her mind with work’s seeds—
emails, phone calls, sheets of white paper
bleached and trimmed into perfect squares,
like the room her imagination jumps from
when she gazes out the window.
his booted leap from fence to cobblestone
flying through time—the less he is seen
the more legend he becomes. Bogeyman by dark,
super-hero by day—celebrated as an urban
fable, like today’s weather, clear
blue sky against red bricks of the building
across the street. It looks dependable, streaked
with thin clouds that shoulder
above us like a sheer cotton shirt draped
on the back of the man reaching out
for a lover that keeps walking away.
Underneath that pace, the earth remains
steady, dirt settled in concrete and heat.
Leaves are awakening, bodies from a long sleep,
stems stretching from fresh buds. Mid-day arches
like the back of an old woman
bending in her garden pulling quack grass
and dandelions from chives that have spread
along the fence under the crab apple tree.
She will stop every now and then,
put a hand on her crooked hip, smooth
grey hair from her brow, shade her eyes
with the palm of her right hand, peering
at the office across the street where
a younger woman plants her mind with work’s seeds—
emails, phone calls, sheets of white paper
bleached and trimmed into perfect squares,
like the room her imagination jumps from
when she gazes out the window.
Valentines Day On Wisteria Lane
Handcuffs hanging
in the stainless steel Bosch 800
a machine just quiet enough
to receive your dirty secrets
Blood blooming
through hidden bandages
petals so striking on a white dress shirt
you find it hard to believe the seed was a bullet
Children stealing
from the old woman down the street
her condemnation thick as poison
hey sometimes it kills to love your neighbour
A model lying
on a discount four post bed
because sex sells so well
you wonder why it can't save your marriage
And whatever love is it is not
easy nor is it comfortable in the suburbs
where curtains politely veil the borders of desire
and love is a dark and brooding stranger.
in the stainless steel Bosch 800
a machine just quiet enough
to receive your dirty secrets
Blood blooming
through hidden bandages
petals so striking on a white dress shirt
you find it hard to believe the seed was a bullet
Children stealing
from the old woman down the street
her condemnation thick as poison
hey sometimes it kills to love your neighbour
A model lying
on a discount four post bed
because sex sells so well
you wonder why it can't save your marriage
And whatever love is it is not
easy nor is it comfortable in the suburbs
where curtains politely veil the borders of desire
and love is a dark and brooding stranger.
Missing dinner
We’ve sat thousands of times
opposite one another at the dinner table –
sock-feet softly squabbling over hardwood turf,
arm-wrestling over washing up,
relishing every bite
But tonight, I’ll pick at bland chicken
in a beige banquet room
and you’ll microwave pasta
between periods of the hockey game,
eat it from a bowl on your lap
And I know this is just one small meal,
that we’ll have years more to savour
But a day doesn’t count unless
I’ve chewed and swallowed it with you
We’ve sat thousands of times
opposite one another at the dinner table –
sock-feet softly squabbling over hardwood turf,
arm-wrestling over washing up,
relishing every bite
But tonight, I’ll pick at bland chicken
in a beige banquet room
and you’ll microwave pasta
between periods of the hockey game,
eat it from a bowl on your lap
And I know this is just one small meal,
that we’ll have years more to savour
But a day doesn’t count unless
I’ve chewed and swallowed it with you
Poem for Lunch
Lunch at 11:00, on a weekend, is brunch, is large,
is fat and sweet, is me in a tight dress.
At 11:00 on a weekday, lunch is a hungry lunch,
is an unsatisfactory-breakfast or I-was-awakened-on-rooster-time
lunch, is a by-2:00-I’ll-probably-need-a-chocolate-bar lunch.
At noon, lunch is a prescriptive lunch, because
that’s when they wrote it on the schedule.
At 1:00 it’s a ladies who lunch.
By 2:00 it’s a fainting lunch, but by 3:00
I probably did it on purpose, a delayed lunch
to make the work accomplished sweeter,
the afterlunch shorter.
Soup is a lunch for winter.
Salad is not much of a lunch.
Tim Hortons makes terrible lunches but
they are cheap and I think I have three dollars in my desk.
Light cream cheese is for wusses.
11:20. Goodlunch.
is fat and sweet, is me in a tight dress.
At 11:00 on a weekday, lunch is a hungry lunch,
is an unsatisfactory-breakfast or I-was-awakened-on-rooster-time
lunch, is a by-2:00-I’ll-probably-need-a-chocolate-bar lunch.
At noon, lunch is a prescriptive lunch, because
that’s when they wrote it on the schedule.
At 1:00 it’s a ladies who lunch.
By 2:00 it’s a fainting lunch, but by 3:00
I probably did it on purpose, a delayed lunch
to make the work accomplished sweeter,
the afterlunch shorter.
Soup is a lunch for winter.
Salad is not much of a lunch.
Tim Hortons makes terrible lunches but
they are cheap and I think I have three dollars in my desk.
Light cream cheese is for wusses.
11:20. Goodlunch.
(seven)
behind a pretty face she hides
behind her smile there lies
a grief too big to say.
her camouflage in place
she leaves
for:
................................work
................................coffee shop
................................Safeway
................................Dr. Silvers
................................date
.
returning to her blue walls, exhausted
she strips her smile along with her makeup
then lets out a sigh as she plunges into
the cozy blue armchair
that will cradle her gently
while she wishes the world away.
behind her smile there lies
a grief too big to say.
her camouflage in place
she leaves
for:
................................work
................................coffee shop
................................Safeway
................................Dr. Silvers
................................date
.
returning to her blue walls, exhausted
she strips her smile along with her makeup
then lets out a sigh as she plunges into
the cozy blue armchair
that will cradle her gently
while she wishes the world away.
Aftermath
Wednesday May 13th Marched the remainder of the way to Batoche today to join Middleton's command, arriving early afternoon. Field still bears all the marks of battle with some dead half-breeds and Indians. Middleton's men had been fighting practically night and day four days, and when it was over most of them went to sleep and nothing had been done towards clearing the field or burying the dead, which duty devolved on us in large measure on our arrival. We find that the charge which won the day was made, or rather led by...our two Midland companies already here.
Companies A, B, C, and D:
assigned arbitrarily. Two
stayed behind, two went ahead. Seven
wounded, none left dead.
How narrowly I missed the glory,
and am left with cleanup. Grisly, gory:
bodies left broken on a wintered field
the fallen are the Reaper's yield. We leave
the half-breeds to their land and kin
let the earth they fought for take them back in.
***
Moise Ouellette
Mon pére, Jose, he had 93 years, him.
One of the last to leave the rifle pits:
those government militia, no mercy to un vieil homme.
He is dead, we living have scattered, fled.
So many sparrows from a burning bush. Last night
I run into Riel
il dit que sept familles,
already, they are captured. He and Dumont
escaped the battlefield. "already seven
families taken" this is what he said.
Fear, disbelief. For our children, dread.
We gathered at Lafontaine's; most
grim-faced kitchen party, our best
fiddler dead in the field, memories
of better times were on the floor before us. Silence
hummed in our gun-deafened
ears. As we left I said
"The women will freeze, get them back
to their homes" not yet knowing
all our farms were burnt
to the ground.
This morning I got my 12 gauge
(still a few bullets left, and everyone
hungry.) Looking for a deer I saw instead
Francois Fiddler, red-rivered eyes,
a crow-husky voice - calling
for his scattered family.
Shaken beyond a hunt, I returned
empty-handed
to my own wife. Needing
to know she was still
safe; if families were being lost, seized,
separated
was it not best I turn myself in
as hostage?
She cries for me to flee, my
father-in-law Isidore Dumont
says the same. With less shoulder-shaking
and drier eyes. But we have done this
too many times. Red River, Batoche,
where do we go next?
I'm bone-soul-weary. I want an end.
Isidore's wagon rides me the faster
to Middleton, dozing abed
in his tent.
They ask me to take a letter
to Riel.
I ask to see my father, where he lay
on his back. I do not weep
until I see they've taken
his shoes. His body askew, his spirit asleep.
Now I've laid him to rest.
The dreams of our nation enclosed
in the empty hands folded
in prayer on his breast.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
the moment it happened
----okay, this is REALLY rough and I know that verb tense and point of view are screwed up, among other things----
the moment it happened, I was allowed to purchase
mutual funds on-line at midnight, the moment it happened
is not clear, it’s a cloudy night
no moon, nothing
barely discernible via internal streetlamps
a moment blurring across foggy
synapses, a symptom of its happening
jello underarms and bra strap fat
tiny kicks in the head all night, a bed
crowded and full of dried milk crumbs
an old tired dog at the foot
just wants to sleep, please
the moment the soapy buildup under your ring caused an allergic reaction
the moment unguents became important to stave off brittle faces and then
ridiculous again because you don’t even have time
to poop, let alone primp
the moment you are too old to enter a nightclub
quickly turns into foot surgery
but you wouldn’t want to dance with them anyway—
it’s better on one foot,
hopping with the baby
hopping on hot sand
all the way to the shade
the moment it happened, I was allowed to purchase
mutual funds on-line at midnight, the moment it happened
is not clear, it’s a cloudy night
no moon, nothing
barely discernible via internal streetlamps
a moment blurring across foggy
synapses, a symptom of its happening
jello underarms and bra strap fat
tiny kicks in the head all night, a bed
crowded and full of dried milk crumbs
an old tired dog at the foot
just wants to sleep, please
the moment the soapy buildup under your ring caused an allergic reaction
the moment unguents became important to stave off brittle faces and then
ridiculous again because you don’t even have time
to poop, let alone primp
the moment you are too old to enter a nightclub
quickly turns into foot surgery
but you wouldn’t want to dance with them anyway—
it’s better on one foot,
hopping with the baby
hopping on hot sand
all the way to the shade
Everyone's Daughter Is A Virgin
Everyone's daughter is a virgin
for at least five seasons or
as long as we can love her fully
clothed. But no one, no
one can persist without a gasp
of nudity, least of all your neighbour that
faceless intruder who will open
a door you had once thought
to have closed:
her chicken legs protruding
from thin, tulip-coloured
blankets, her two lips making space,
newly-beveled, sweet
and lubricated latches
emitting vowels of love. Together
all the frenzied atoms
in the whole damn building chanting
in, in. With your able fingers you
quickly pressed those gaping knees, one
against the other till they
bruised, fastened all those
little latches shut.
But your neighbour thought
to enter, left her
breath-less
as-phyx-ia-ted on the lawn
beside the tulips, palms
upturned and open, neck
salient, swollen. she couldn't
wait? Now blank and comatose - a
profound state. If not
the suburbs then where
where can a girl keep herself
closed?
As a result
of assault, one may obtain
a heightened fear of neighbours, don't
let them in, in, in.
At night
your second husband finds you
desperate and unanswered, thumbing
pages of her journal,
searching for an entry, potential
points of access, a faulty
handle, broken window, some
poetic explanation, a description
of the body - how or why
it opens, floods with colour
when it's wounded.
for at least five seasons or
as long as we can love her fully
clothed. But no one, no
one can persist without a gasp
of nudity, least of all your neighbour that
faceless intruder who will open
a door you had once thought
to have closed:
her chicken legs protruding
from thin, tulip-coloured
blankets, her two lips making space,
newly-beveled, sweet
and lubricated latches
emitting vowels of love. Together
all the frenzied atoms
in the whole damn building chanting
in, in. With your able fingers you
quickly pressed those gaping knees, one
against the other till they
bruised, fastened all those
little latches shut.
But your neighbour thought
to enter, left her
breath-less
as-phyx-ia-ted on the lawn
beside the tulips, palms
upturned and open, neck
salient, swollen. she couldn't
wait? Now blank and comatose - a
profound state. If not
the suburbs then where
where can a girl keep herself
closed?
As a result
of assault, one may obtain
a heightened fear of neighbours, don't
let them in, in, in.
At night
your second husband finds you
desperate and unanswered, thumbing
pages of her journal,
searching for an entry, potential
points of access, a faulty
handle, broken window, some
poetic explanation, a description
of the body - how or why
it opens, floods with colour
when it's wounded.
Sweet tooth
It was never a fear of the dark
that kept me awake all those nights
tucked in with a plush honour guard,
nightgown sparking like fireflies
caught in flannel sheets
It was appetite, my sweet baby teeth,
the prospect of being sprung from bed
for a slice of toast and jam
I prodded my mind with stories
pinched from books or lame TV sitcoms
and wrote myself into the script
Repeated each scene until it ran smooth,
my brain humming, eyes unblinking
I waited for my mom’s long, slim silhouette
against the glowing cream of the hall light,
for her pronouncement that it was very late,
that the only possible cure for my sleeplessness
was hot crisp bread smeared thick with strawberry
A ten o’clock permit for the kitchen rare
as a dollar on the sidewalk,
mythical as a third cookie for dessert
But the trying was routine
as brushing teeth, looking under the bed
And even now when I lie in listless limbo,
regretting all those hours of sleep I snubbed,
I still crave that wholewheat grail
It was never a fear of the dark
that kept me awake all those nights
tucked in with a plush honour guard,
nightgown sparking like fireflies
caught in flannel sheets
It was appetite, my sweet baby teeth,
the prospect of being sprung from bed
for a slice of toast and jam
I prodded my mind with stories
pinched from books or lame TV sitcoms
and wrote myself into the script
Repeated each scene until it ran smooth,
my brain humming, eyes unblinking
I waited for my mom’s long, slim silhouette
against the glowing cream of the hall light,
for her pronouncement that it was very late,
that the only possible cure for my sleeplessness
was hot crisp bread smeared thick with strawberry
A ten o’clock permit for the kitchen rare
as a dollar on the sidewalk,
mythical as a third cookie for dessert
But the trying was routine
as brushing teeth, looking under the bed
And even now when I lie in listless limbo,
regretting all those hours of sleep I snubbed,
I still crave that wholewheat grail
Dining Room: Echo
My lone breath, inhale
rustled cloth in turning to the window
spoon in the bowl drips into soup
scuff of soles in movement
a box of sounds in emptiness
repeating same into themselves
I tell myself there is still time to change
rustled cloth in turning to the window
spoon in the bowl drips into soup
scuff of soles in movement
a box of sounds in emptiness
repeating same into themselves
I tell myself there is still time to change
One
Standing
at the hotel window,
I stare out over an empty parking lot. Trampled
snow embraced by shadows. Watch trees sit
in unattainable silence. Somewhere
in the distance a street grader groans
and beeps in the dark. Cars
hum its chorus.
Tires on the ice crunch
a crescendo.
You lie in bed behind
me
The distance between us huge,
gaping. My mind in this moment
sharp—a strand
of glass ready to cut but lacking
a victim. Dreaming,
you later tell me, of the colour and drudgery
of urban life—muted
bricks laced by fire
escapes.
Wanted
to tell you for months
I love you. Sometimes
those words break through
my lips but are uttered under
my breath so you can’t hear.
Do you feel the same?
I crawl back into bed. You, mind
in dreams, know I’m there,
pull me close, though I drift away
to that time we spent last year
stretched out by the pool,
hand in hand, staring up
at the sky, framed
by palm trees. I knew then,
we were one. This distant memory
sings me back to sleep.
at the hotel window,
I stare out over an empty parking lot. Trampled
snow embraced by shadows. Watch trees sit
in unattainable silence. Somewhere
in the distance a street grader groans
and beeps in the dark. Cars
hum its chorus.
Tires on the ice crunch
a crescendo.
You lie in bed behind
me
The distance between us huge,
gaping. My mind in this moment
sharp—a strand
of glass ready to cut but lacking
a victim. Dreaming,
you later tell me, of the colour and drudgery
of urban life—muted
bricks laced by fire
escapes.
Wanted
to tell you for months
I love you. Sometimes
those words break through
my lips but are uttered under
my breath so you can’t hear.
Do you feel the same?
I crawl back into bed. You, mind
in dreams, know I’m there,
pull me close, though I drift away
to that time we spent last year
stretched out by the pool,
hand in hand, staring up
at the sky, framed
by palm trees. I knew then,
we were one. This distant memory
sings me back to sleep.
Thirty-day pass: 3. Repetition
passing through stands of poplar,
shadow stripes lightdarklightdark
surprise of the train's lurch as I walk
down the aisle to the john
conductor strides through the coach
calling François! François!
boys across the aisle tease
little sister cries
father scolds
paperback pages flip
flip
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
What We Missed
Tuesday, 12th May Started early this morning and after marching to Mackintosh's, a distance of about 20 miles, we bivouacked for the night; and just at dark a scout rode in with news that our men that afternoon had charged Batoche and taken it, scattering the rebs. in all directions. The news was good indeed, but we felt we ought to have been there.
Almost two months
since I left home.
Paperwork botches and
lack of arms, equipment.
Train to Port Hope, then
to Kingston for our first
ragged parade. Snowstorm
in Fort Henry, training indoors:
then railing westward on steel tracks, broken
by marches. I'll never forget
sleeping in three feet of snow
when the tracks ended at Dalton,
or the 23 mile march across the ice
of Lake Superior: seven hours in a blinding
blizzard, over soft snow. Frigid sleigh rides,
moonlight marches in 30 below, the luxury
of a Pullman Sleeper. The hell
of prairie exposure; sleepy
steamer ride north on the river.
All this to guard supplies and hay,
and miss the final battle by half a day.
***
What We Saw
when we came out of the caves
blinded by sun and sudden silence:
our village over-run by soldiers.
Near the rifle pits, Damase Carrier, his leg
at right angle to his body, rope around his neck, still tied
to the tail of a horse grazing on a bush. He'd been dragged
around the field - they thought he was
Riel.
Calixte and Elzear:
Mme. Tourond kneeling
beside their broken bodies. Smoothing
their hair, bending soundless
to the ground.
Our grey-haired Elders who should have died
in their sleep, stretched before us bloodied
on the field.
Michel Trottier and Isidore Boyer.
Jose Vandal - 75 years old - both arms
broken when he came forth from the rifle
pit. His shirt bloomed roses from a bayonet.
One of the soldiers gave a salthard biscuit to my toddler.
One of the soldiers raped my dark-haired doe-eyed daughter.
Those who could
grabbed their children, turned to the banks and fled.
Those of us with nothing left
began to tend the dead.
Progressive Dinner
Rose sweet scent of bowl-sized peonies
in all shades of pink, magenta and wine
overflow the kitchen,
pitchers full of blooms
fill the table abundantly.
There is no room
for food.
Flowers will feed my senses
alert for a meal, eating instead
what has been cooked in the May rain,
finished by thunder, seasoned liberally
with alternating lighting and sunshine.
It is the feast of peonies,
another course
in the progression of perennials
bursting the lid off spring,
nourishment after a hard winter –
so hard I forgot the flowers,
so hard I forgot plantings over many years,
so hard the first crocus brought tears
as I faced a progression of memories,
the loss of one who reminded me
not to forget the nasturtiums.
They arrive jeweled with peppered petals,
I will eat their brilliance, find the fragile
taste of going forward once again.
The peonies will be gone
and the garden will still hold
memories and promise.
in all shades of pink, magenta and wine
overflow the kitchen,
pitchers full of blooms
fill the table abundantly.
There is no room
for food.
Flowers will feed my senses
alert for a meal, eating instead
what has been cooked in the May rain,
finished by thunder, seasoned liberally
with alternating lighting and sunshine.
It is the feast of peonies,
another course
in the progression of perennials
bursting the lid off spring,
nourishment after a hard winter –
so hard I forgot the flowers,
so hard I forgot plantings over many years,
so hard the first crocus brought tears
as I faced a progression of memories,
the loss of one who reminded me
not to forget the nasturtiums.
They arrive jeweled with peppered petals,
I will eat their brilliance, find the fragile
taste of going forward once again.
The peonies will be gone
and the garden will still hold
memories and promise.
ritalin, a love story
1.
how do they do it, the mothers?
needles soar and dive, the whir of hands,
fingers buzz with joy. while you can only dream
of movement, drift, hunch and squint
bones plodding in the dark. somewhere
there's a mother who enjoys this, lies
beneath heaps of laundry, dirty dishes
mending with some twisted smile. recall
your career once more industrious
than your washing machine. recall
how your husbands hand's could cup
and grab. now you wear
his old shirts, invisible breasts
pressed like pancakes by the weight
of squirming children. your body,
this defeated thing the day drags
behind. you think: just one gulp,
the swish of liquid, two
spots
of grace.
how do they do it, the mothers?
needles soar and dive, the whir of hands,
fingers buzz with joy. while you can only dream
of movement, drift, hunch and squint
bones plodding in the dark. somewhere
there's a mother who enjoys this, lies
beneath heaps of laundry, dirty dishes
mending with some twisted smile. recall
your career once more industrious
than your washing machine. recall
how your husbands hand's could cup
and grab. now you wear
his old shirts, invisible breasts
pressed like pancakes by the weight
of squirming children. your body,
this defeated thing the day drags
behind. you think: just one gulp,
the swish of liquid, two
spots
of grace.
Improper
Your name is teddy-bear huggable, goofball loveable,
bobbing buoyant on a page, jaunty in the mouth
I love to see it in your precise printing,
or arial bold in my inbox
But when I watch you lean through viscous din,
your lips brushing a bewildered ear,
I curse your mother, her cruel creativity
Two simple syllables, common everyday English,
bring panic to an unfamiliar tongue
So many nervous attempts swallowed
by small apologetic coughs
And spelling it doesn’t help
I’ve adapted your shrugged explanation: hippie parents
and try to remember how it has made you
singular, patient, unwilling to apologize
for anything beyond your control
Your name is teddy-bear huggable, goofball loveable,
bobbing buoyant on a page, jaunty in the mouth
I love to see it in your precise printing,
or arial bold in my inbox
But when I watch you lean through viscous din,
your lips brushing a bewildered ear,
I curse your mother, her cruel creativity
Two simple syllables, common everyday English,
bring panic to an unfamiliar tongue
So many nervous attempts swallowed
by small apologetic coughs
And spelling it doesn’t help
I’ve adapted your shrugged explanation: hippie parents
and try to remember how it has made you
singular, patient, unwilling to apologize
for anything beyond your control
Ceiling: Rain Storm
It rains on the roof: shingles, tar paper,
particle board, rafter. Bulbs of water,
brief at the slat: swell, gloss,
drop the second time since
cloud-like, unbecoming, they climbed
on hot elevating air to be made visible
in marriage to dust: to drift in threads, wisps,
bulbous happy pilings
from one point in time, to the next.
The front is always coming: press, temper,
rove the undulations of landscape:
form of droplet out of nimbus form.
It rains from the roof: gravity,
points of separation to ease through.
Drinkers: wood floor, damp air, surface dust.
particle board, rafter. Bulbs of water,
brief at the slat: swell, gloss,
drop the second time since
cloud-like, unbecoming, they climbed
on hot elevating air to be made visible
in marriage to dust: to drift in threads, wisps,
bulbous happy pilings
from one point in time, to the next.
The front is always coming: press, temper,
rove the undulations of landscape:
form of droplet out of nimbus form.
It rains from the roof: gravity,
points of separation to ease through.
Drinkers: wood floor, damp air, surface dust.
Too much?
The succubus sucked
the sugar cane, what else
do succubi do
but suck? Sucked succulent
sugar juice. Stole
into the room unseen and sucked
the cane and faced the ceiling,
shrieking bloody sugary glee.
Sugar cube between the teeth for tea,
Russian-style slurping.
Delightful.
She swept up
and away, sweet and full,
sweet and wrinkled, laughing
at the flaccid sugar cane behind her.
the sugar cane, what else
do succubi do
but suck? Sucked succulent
sugar juice. Stole
into the room unseen and sucked
the cane and faced the ceiling,
shrieking bloody sugary glee.
Sugar cube between the teeth for tea,
Russian-style slurping.
Delightful.
She swept up
and away, sweet and full,
sweet and wrinkled, laughing
at the flaccid sugar cane behind her.
Marching Orders
(The journal doesn't have entries every day, so I've been splitting this one up.)
Family - I write one last letter
after my gear is packed.
At first light
we march towards the battle
we've listened to
three days, steady.
This is why I came.
I'm more than ready.
***
Shooting Stones and Nails
At Tourond's Coulee, we left
when it seemed time.
Too cold, wet, hungry
Started missing shots,
if bullets ran low: we'd go.
But we are dug in at Batoche
Twice they've tried to circle us around
Our families are nearby, hiding underground.
Now if we run out, we run away.
Riel's
miracle of Batoche:
if we live to see another day.
* * *
A mother
The hungry darkness,
close smell of earth.
Wounded join us: we
rarely use our candles
but for their care.
And the children after three days
all eyes become accustomed:
day and night the same color,
symphony of dirt-muffled guns
their lullaby.
Of the fearsome Gatling Gun,
the victim is but one.
Besides the priest's leg,
Jose's little son.
He was inside the house when it began.
Today Middleton's men
came as far as the cemetary: so close.
Then they turned back. I hope the ghosts
of our small village whispered in their ear.
Gave them more than our dying men and emptying guns to fear.
Monday 11th May ...and tonight, Captain Bonnycastle in command of our two Companies received orders from the General to move forward at once and join the main body.
Family - I write one last letter
after my gear is packed.
At first light
we march towards the battle
we've listened to
three days, steady.
This is why I came.
I'm more than ready.
***
Shooting Stones and Nails
At Tourond's Coulee, we left
when it seemed time.
Too cold, wet, hungry
Started missing shots,
if bullets ran low: we'd go.
But we are dug in at Batoche
Twice they've tried to circle us around
Our families are nearby, hiding underground.
Now if we run out, we run away.
Riel's
miracle of Batoche:
if we live to see another day.
* * *
A mother
The hungry darkness,
close smell of earth.
Wounded join us: we
rarely use our candles
but for their care.
And the children after three days
all eyes become accustomed:
day and night the same color,
symphony of dirt-muffled guns
their lullaby.
Of the fearsome Gatling Gun,
the victim is but one.
Besides the priest's leg,
Jose's little son.
He was inside the house when it began.
Today Middleton's men
came as far as the cemetary: so close.
Then they turned back. I hope the ghosts
of our small village whispered in their ear.
Gave them more than our dying men and emptying guns to fear.
(five)
their love is cautious, is conditional
that belongs to saints
hiding behind religion
............they shield their tainted hearts
............and say They know God, because.
the girl is condemned for sins not hers
marked in the name of a merciless god
who loves them...................but not her
that belongs to saints
hiding behind religion
............they shield their tainted hearts
............and say They know God, because.
the girl is condemned for sins not hers
marked in the name of a merciless god
who loves them...................but not her
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
apple wine//Bree
Dearest, the night you proposed we sipped
apple wine on the narrow bridge
outside the college dorm. We thought our bodies
unstoppable, whooshing into the future,
our legs bare and dangling above the perfect chill
of April's bathwater. Do you remember?
Your arm around my bare shoulders like the curve
of a perfectly formed letter,
our impossible brilliance culminating
in that moment, that choosing
to be and to stay
happy. I think even the fish
were envious. My love, this morning
I folded, helped you upend
the suitcase in the hallway closet -
two weeks of shirts, a suit and tie. Tonight
I am alone and the house purrs
with cleanliness, but there remains one thing
in need of tidying. Tonight, love,
even the silverware went to bed
with a satisfying clink, but sleep is a stranger
I fail to encounter. I am the one
imperfect object in our spotless museum
and for once I want
to be touched. I miss the fibers
and the friction of your body, the look
you give before turning out the light.
Darling, when you come home we'll pick
apples from the tree in our backyard.
Oh let this be a pin prick, nothing more.
apple wine on the narrow bridge
outside the college dorm. We thought our bodies
unstoppable, whooshing into the future,
our legs bare and dangling above the perfect chill
of April's bathwater. Do you remember?
Your arm around my bare shoulders like the curve
of a perfectly formed letter,
our impossible brilliance culminating
in that moment, that choosing
to be and to stay
happy. I think even the fish
were envious. My love, this morning
I folded, helped you upend
the suitcase in the hallway closet -
two weeks of shirts, a suit and tie. Tonight
I am alone and the house purrs
with cleanliness, but there remains one thing
in need of tidying. Tonight, love,
even the silverware went to bed
with a satisfying clink, but sleep is a stranger
I fail to encounter. I am the one
imperfect object in our spotless museum
and for once I want
to be touched. I miss the fibers
and the friction of your body, the look
you give before turning out the light.
Darling, when you come home we'll pick
apples from the tree in our backyard.
Oh let this be a pin prick, nothing more.
Quiet
So often there’s just the click and whoosh
of electric heat, small taps at a keyboard
and I catch myself frowning at the interruption
of your hardwood footstep-creak overhead
You say our house is too quiet,
in a way that makes it sound like my fault,
and I remind you I grew up in a home
still as a museum: clocks ticked, pages turned,
all sound absorbed by thick wall-to-wall
and antique furniture
No one sang along to the radio
or called room to room
We saved laughter for company
Your homes were filled with boys
and their rough-housing, Beatles records and bickering
And raised voices didn’t signal a fight –
hot tears and a car charging down the driveway –
just competition for a single mom’s attention
But now you’ve grown used to my kind of silence
I see you startle when the phone rings,
when a fork clatters on the counter
The heavy metal pound from the band next door
tenses your shoulders high as mine
And when Gary across the street
revs and revs and revs that rusted truck –
gas pedal to pavement and still he stalls it –
you also clench your teeth
There are times when quiet spooks me too,
just the two of us to fill all these rooms,
and I rearrange the pots and pans,
think of something to talk about
So often there’s just the click and whoosh
of electric heat, small taps at a keyboard
and I catch myself frowning at the interruption
of your hardwood footstep-creak overhead
You say our house is too quiet,
in a way that makes it sound like my fault,
and I remind you I grew up in a home
still as a museum: clocks ticked, pages turned,
all sound absorbed by thick wall-to-wall
and antique furniture
No one sang along to the radio
or called room to room
We saved laughter for company
Your homes were filled with boys
and their rough-housing, Beatles records and bickering
And raised voices didn’t signal a fight –
hot tears and a car charging down the driveway –
just competition for a single mom’s attention
But now you’ve grown used to my kind of silence
I see you startle when the phone rings,
when a fork clatters on the counter
The heavy metal pound from the band next door
tenses your shoulders high as mine
And when Gary across the street
revs and revs and revs that rusted truck –
gas pedal to pavement and still he stalls it –
you also clench your teeth
There are times when quiet spooks me too,
just the two of us to fill all these rooms,
and I rearrange the pots and pans,
think of something to talk about
Poem for The Canada Council
I wish to apply for a grant to write some poems.
My theme is “poetry.” My approach is to have line breaks,
most of the time. Sometimes not. I don’t know. We’ll see.
I will be sure to write poems that are diverse and inclusive.
They will be on diverse topics.
They will include a wide variety of words.
Some examples of words I would like to use:
arrogant, crustacean, Peruvian, refrain;
offside, ivory, rubato, Rastafarian.
Sugar cane, succubus. Widow’s peak, sousaphone.
Monastery, rivalry, vivisection, coop.
You get the idea, Mr. Council.
I am particularly fond of the letter “v,”
a letter certainly deserving of more exposure in the publishing field.
I am including in my budget travel research funds to visit the best libraries in the world,
and call upon Seamus Heaney for tea,
and generally live life to the fullest.
“Life” is my secondary theme.
My tertiary theme is “thought.”
Please hurry Mr. Council.
I am having a fleeting moment of inspiration
right
now
-----
SO BUSY lately I haven't had time to read all the posts, and I missed posting on Sunday! Weekends might be a lost cause for me. Will try to catch up on reading tonight.
My theme is “poetry.” My approach is to have line breaks,
most of the time. Sometimes not. I don’t know. We’ll see.
I will be sure to write poems that are diverse and inclusive.
They will be on diverse topics.
They will include a wide variety of words.
Some examples of words I would like to use:
arrogant, crustacean, Peruvian, refrain;
offside, ivory, rubato, Rastafarian.
Sugar cane, succubus. Widow’s peak, sousaphone.
Monastery, rivalry, vivisection, coop.
You get the idea, Mr. Council.
I am particularly fond of the letter “v,”
a letter certainly deserving of more exposure in the publishing field.
I am including in my budget travel research funds to visit the best libraries in the world,
and call upon Seamus Heaney for tea,
and generally live life to the fullest.
“Life” is my secondary theme.
My tertiary theme is “thought.”
Please hurry Mr. Council.
I am having a fleeting moment of inspiration
right
now
-----
SO BUSY lately I haven't had time to read all the posts, and I missed posting on Sunday! Weekends might be a lost cause for me. Will try to catch up on reading tonight.
Ode to an overhead projector as Canada Goose
Goose-necked,
you hum & sigh, proselytize
but you know your limits
You will only go
so far
share so much.
You are tethered to your altar,
hungry, but you primly
only take what
you need. You are heavy
with brittle light. The word.
But you are also quite fond
of the letter. The law.
Broody, you have your minders
who name and number you,
who heft and carry you.
Your eye blinks slowly
but you are all alert glare
even as you let more
and more of your acolytes
in on the secret.
you hum & sigh, proselytize
but you know your limits
You will only go
so far
share so much.
You are tethered to your altar,
hungry, but you primly
only take what
you need. You are heavy
with brittle light. The word.
But you are also quite fond
of the letter. The law.
Broody, you have your minders
who name and number you,
who heft and carry you.
Your eye blinks slowly
but you are all alert glare
even as you let more
and more of your acolytes
in on the secret.
From an Epicurean Daughter
Because I harbour no desire for restraint, I went
downstairs to the fridge with a soup spoon this morning,
craving a soft sweet scoop of the almond cream
left over from last night’s chocolate torte before my sensible
helping of cereal, but the shelf was vacant,
the bowl turned upside down in the kitchen sink. I'm sure
that you, who savours sweets but favours
moderation, who refrains from licking crumbs
from your fingers, even at Mother's Day dinner
with the boys (who didn't), rinsed
the lingering fragrant peaks from the ceramic,
and will remind us all tonight that the cake tastes just fine
plain, will ask if I've made my dentist appointment.
But because we all grow tired of restraint, even you
(even yesterday, in the neighbour's yard—
your single guilty cigarette) I hope
that when you were the first one stirring
this morning, you crept down the stairs, stood
in the refrigerator’s yellow halo and polished
off the whole damn bowl
(to our upstairs alarm clocks ringing)
with your fingers.
downstairs to the fridge with a soup spoon this morning,
craving a soft sweet scoop of the almond cream
left over from last night’s chocolate torte before my sensible
helping of cereal, but the shelf was vacant,
the bowl turned upside down in the kitchen sink. I'm sure
that you, who savours sweets but favours
moderation, who refrains from licking crumbs
from your fingers, even at Mother's Day dinner
with the boys (who didn't), rinsed
the lingering fragrant peaks from the ceramic,
and will remind us all tonight that the cake tastes just fine
plain, will ask if I've made my dentist appointment.
But because we all grow tired of restraint, even you
(even yesterday, in the neighbour's yard—
your single guilty cigarette) I hope
that when you were the first one stirring
this morning, you crept down the stairs, stood
in the refrigerator’s yellow halo and polished
off the whole damn bowl
(to our upstairs alarm clocks ringing)
with your fingers.
Monday, May 10, 2010
letter to a young lover//Gabrielle
Imagine yourself limp, head thick
as a can of paint, bones
silent, still. When desire leaves
your body, hangs above you
like a ghost - will this want temper
your soul? Darling, I keep
your photograph, the petals
of one flawless rose curling
like a nerve under your touch.
But I refuse to undo
another button of your youth,
I will not undress
again these layers
of innocence. There will be time
to bury the traces of my skin,
the memory of my smell in the morning.
We all have to live
with our own loneliness
so please,
don't bother calling.
as a can of paint, bones
silent, still. When desire leaves
your body, hangs above you
like a ghost - will this want temper
your soul? Darling, I keep
your photograph, the petals
of one flawless rose curling
like a nerve under your touch.
But I refuse to undo
another button of your youth,
I will not undress
again these layers
of innocence. There will be time
to bury the traces of my skin,
the memory of my smell in the morning.
We all have to live
with our own loneliness
so please,
don't bother calling.
On inheriting my grandmother’s amber necklace
You are a fistful of half-sucked
jawbreakers, every one tried
by teeth
& expelled, the tongue lolling
sour at bad news.
You are a card of homely buttons
that never made it out of the sewing kit, balled up
& swallowed whole. You are the torn
shirt, the gaping threads after
the passion has cooled & someone
has to do the goddamn mending.
(You are the row of buttons on the floor.
You are rendered fat. Bits
of bone.)
You are a row of cloudy specimen jars
each with its bloody lump of cells
excized & floating. The body aches without question.
The body limps & bleeds. And we could have strung
a necklace with those gory
blasted beads
instead.
* * *
I'm sorry I've been absent so far from May Day. But I'm doing the School of Writing at CMU and I had several sun-lit stretches today in which to write. And so I began writing...
jawbreakers, every one tried
by teeth
& expelled, the tongue lolling
sour at bad news.
You are a card of homely buttons
that never made it out of the sewing kit, balled up
& swallowed whole. You are the torn
shirt, the gaping threads after
the passion has cooled & someone
has to do the goddamn mending.
(You are the row of buttons on the floor.
You are rendered fat. Bits
of bone.)
You are a row of cloudy specimen jars
each with its bloody lump of cells
excized & floating. The body aches without question.
The body limps & bleeds. And we could have strung
a necklace with those gory
blasted beads
instead.
* * *
I'm sorry I've been absent so far from May Day. But I'm doing the School of Writing at CMU and I had several sun-lit stretches today in which to write. And so I began writing...
Checking into Chateau Laurier, 1:30 a.m.
Skulking criminals with a crime to find, we step
tentative across the threshold of a century.
The words do not thrill—“railway hotel,”
the spectre of a wooden platform and dusty sheets—
and thrill is not the word for this ceiling
where our guilty expressions search
for a deity to forgive us, for something.
Something classical drifts around.
Light and cheerful in a way that portends
rivers of blood gushing down the halls.
Empty, marble, echo.
Stop the suitcase squeak. Hush, wait,
for the murderous pin to drop.
Dear Trapper,
Why were you only a sidekick?
You had leading man chops – top notch chest-cutter,
robust frame under your yellow housecoat
and that goofy, toothy grin, that ragged tangle of curls
Toss a football around the dusty compound
and your bicep-pulse would draw nurses from the showers
Your bittersweet brown eyes deeper, darker against the bleach of scrubs,
must have caused a thousand dropped instruments
Always in Hawkeye’s shadow even though you were as tall,
as quick and exact with tongue or scalpel
Relegated to vice-president, runner-up, right hand man
or was it just that you weren’t so thirsty for attention,
didn’t need a spotlight to see your own worth?
I always appreciated your quiet, reliable grit,
the backbone it takes to be second banana
Yours truly.
Why were you only a sidekick?
You had leading man chops – top notch chest-cutter,
robust frame under your yellow housecoat
and that goofy, toothy grin, that ragged tangle of curls
Toss a football around the dusty compound
and your bicep-pulse would draw nurses from the showers
Your bittersweet brown eyes deeper, darker against the bleach of scrubs,
must have caused a thousand dropped instruments
Always in Hawkeye’s shadow even though you were as tall,
as quick and exact with tongue or scalpel
Relegated to vice-president, runner-up, right hand man
or was it just that you weren’t so thirsty for attention,
didn’t need a spotlight to see your own worth?
I always appreciated your quiet, reliable grit,
the backbone it takes to be second banana
Yours truly.
So I forgive you
for the wheel-barrel full of gin
you drank, that balmy August night
behind the shed when you thought
no one was looking, you fingered
my blouse buttons and slopped
a wet kiss on my mouth.
Do you always drink that much
to muster courage?
I'm sure being a boozy lech
doesn't help. My point is,
I have no hard feelings
about your drunken shenanigans.
Sure you moved on, finding
a more pliable girl.
Only natural. I expect men
not to try too hard.
Why should they?
There are plenty of easy
laz-about Susans. Why work for it
if you don't have to?
See, the thing is - I liked you.
I was willing to go there, but not
like that. You, slurring words,
about to up-chuck your corn-dog
and Dorritos. But that is neither here
nor there, so many years ago,
I barely remember the details.
I just want you to know
I understand your reasons
for passing me by
to ruminate in richer pastures.
Why milk the cow,
when milk is so white and workaday?
Better to have it slaughtered.
De-skinned, eviscerated, then split
into primal cuts. Grill up
some choice prime rib steaks
with garlic to taste, and of course,
heavily oiled with extra virgin olive.
See, I get you.
for the wheel-barrel full of gin
you drank, that balmy August night
behind the shed when you thought
no one was looking, you fingered
my blouse buttons and slopped
a wet kiss on my mouth.
Do you always drink that much
to muster courage?
I'm sure being a boozy lech
doesn't help. My point is,
I have no hard feelings
about your drunken shenanigans.
Sure you moved on, finding
a more pliable girl.
Only natural. I expect men
not to try too hard.
Why should they?
There are plenty of easy
laz-about Susans. Why work for it
if you don't have to?
See, the thing is - I liked you.
I was willing to go there, but not
like that. You, slurring words,
about to up-chuck your corn-dog
and Dorritos. But that is neither here
nor there, so many years ago,
I barely remember the details.
I just want you to know
I understand your reasons
for passing me by
to ruminate in richer pastures.
Why milk the cow,
when milk is so white and workaday?
Better to have it slaughtered.
De-skinned, eviscerated, then split
into primal cuts. Grill up
some choice prime rib steaks
with garlic to taste, and of course,
heavily oiled with extra virgin olive.
See, I get you.
Flickers
Of that single bed we shared in Taos,
a miracle we didn’t fall out. Waking at dawn
to flickers drilling poles, announcing their intentions
to all. We left the blinds up at night
to watch dawn streak across the field. The scarlet-
mustachioed male jerking his tail and giving chase.
The first kisses and what else before breakfast,
before you’d head home to compose. The half-notes
the keys made as I two-finger typed, stared out
at the flicker’s rollercoaster flight—
all the early doubts forgotten now.
As I nestle into your arm’s crook each night,
it's those woodpeckers I hear
inside your chest, drumming.
a miracle we didn’t fall out. Waking at dawn
to flickers drilling poles, announcing their intentions
to all. We left the blinds up at night
to watch dawn streak across the field. The scarlet-
mustachioed male jerking his tail and giving chase.
The first kisses and what else before breakfast,
before you’d head home to compose. The half-notes
the keys made as I two-finger typed, stared out
at the flicker’s rollercoaster flight—
all the early doubts forgotten now.
As I nestle into your arm’s crook each night,
it's those woodpeckers I hear
inside your chest, drumming.
Second Day
Monday 11th May ....From couriers who pass occasionally we learn that our forces are attacking the rebel position at Batoche, but until now with little success.
I chafe to go to war.
Still at the edge - we've come so far.
Those marches through ice and snow
Sledge rides in 35 below
The soldier who jumped off the train
(50 miles from Matawa - evidently insane)
was the only who fled this fight.
The rest prepared: victory or a burial site.
Waiting, imagining, is the worst.
Few soldiers die unrehearsed.
* * *
In Our Defense
Yesterday we rained bullets on the Northcote.
A diversion, while Ferryman Alex Fisher
and Pascal Montour awaited the signal.
(The army had reinforced the sides of the steamer
with choice articles like Gabriel's pool table.)
We knocked the mast and smokestacks loose
By flexing the Batoche ferry cable.
It drifted away like a wing-shot duck.
That was yesterday's good luck.
We shot at their camp through the night.
Every ten minutes, a warning to sleep light.
Today Middleton shells the town.
Still we are dug in, they gain no ground.
Thirty-day pass: 2. Two days and a night
A lake!
Are those tamaracks?
Click.Lake, trees, bog, trees, lake.
Trees. Water giving back sky's blue.
Trees give way to bog, trees again,
a clear lake.
Many lakes later we sleep, bodies rocking
in rhythm with the train.
Morning: red pine, jack pine, white pine.
Church spire, mist, tree-covered hills.
Grey, wind-stippled lake.
Sleep and wake. The camera
lies in your lap.
Trees. Different ones:
aspen, oak. And a lake,
a really big one.
We doze, wake. Sway
down the aisle. Not much left
in the snack bar. Not much
to do.
Forest dwindles.
We hardly notice,
you curled into yourself,
me with legs draped over armrests.
We can hardly lift our heads.
The Last Summer
Since infancy this house has held me
to the earth, a squat square
bell jar full of books and solid
furniture. My small feet have worn
grooves in the pavement
to the park, the school,
the bus stop, but have always returned
here, my tethered veins pulled
by my mother's cooking and concern.
Always these same elms on the boulevard
watch my failures on the same
themes: nerve and nurture, loving
what doesn't stay, summer,
autumn, but scatters
like dry leaves in their windy tumble
toward November, staying
too long myself, the house growing
unruly with the detritus of remaining
sedentary: the fur of dust on high shelves,
a whole drawer devoted to the mates
of missing socks and mittens,
a desk bloated with paper. But
I am coming loose
from this map of the familiar,
the regular, and I will
yank my feet from this prairie
yard's muddy soil, sell my books
for a plane ticket, and erase
myself like the memory of green
under the first snow,
all my words lifted
from this house,
these streets
and taking
flight.
to the earth, a squat square
bell jar full of books and solid
furniture. My small feet have worn
grooves in the pavement
to the park, the school,
the bus stop, but have always returned
here, my tethered veins pulled
by my mother's cooking and concern.
Always these same elms on the boulevard
watch my failures on the same
themes: nerve and nurture, loving
what doesn't stay, summer,
autumn, but scatters
like dry leaves in their windy tumble
toward November, staying
too long myself, the house growing
unruly with the detritus of remaining
sedentary: the fur of dust on high shelves,
a whole drawer devoted to the mates
of missing socks and mittens,
a desk bloated with paper. But
I am coming loose
from this map of the familiar,
the regular, and I will
yank my feet from this prairie
yard's muddy soil, sell my books
for a plane ticket, and erase
myself like the memory of green
under the first snow,
all my words lifted
from this house,
these streets
and taking
flight.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
your face, a flag
Your face in my sleep like a flag
marking the place I stopped,
turned, and smiled at you for the last time.
Hey, I meant it, one hand
on my ripening belly the other waving
the kind of wave you expect to see
again and again and again
until it crashes into you, a symphony of sighs,
your body laid down, breathless
beneath the weight of my goodbye. I meant it
I'm not
coming back. But I wake
every night to the sound of another man
talking in his sleep and it terrifies me. You know
he says my name sometimes,
he calls for me, calls me out
of the forest we used to call home. O,
your arms, those branches
from which I could see
the world - green, green, green.
It's different here
in the suburbs - no trees, only
hydro posts that stand like memorials
marking the death of human sight, their lines
stretch out like God's fingers; I swear
I can feel His fist tighten, His pulse
around my neck. Tonight I carry stones
to bed. I like to feel their rough surface mar
my manicured hands. They slide from my fingers
like water, like a name or a face I could never remember,
each one a reminder, a road back to you.
At night I am barefoot, I know
the meaning of explosions, how to sink
into the earth like death. I wake early
to the sound of home appliances.
As always, by morning
I'm lost.
marking the place I stopped,
turned, and smiled at you for the last time.
Hey, I meant it, one hand
on my ripening belly the other waving
the kind of wave you expect to see
again and again and again
until it crashes into you, a symphony of sighs,
your body laid down, breathless
beneath the weight of my goodbye. I meant it
I'm not
coming back. But I wake
every night to the sound of another man
talking in his sleep and it terrifies me. You know
he says my name sometimes,
he calls for me, calls me out
of the forest we used to call home. O,
your arms, those branches
from which I could see
the world - green, green, green.
It's different here
in the suburbs - no trees, only
hydro posts that stand like memorials
marking the death of human sight, their lines
stretch out like God's fingers; I swear
I can feel His fist tighten, His pulse
around my neck. Tonight I carry stones
to bed. I like to feel their rough surface mar
my manicured hands. They slide from my fingers
like water, like a name or a face I could never remember,
each one a reminder, a road back to you.
At night I am barefoot, I know
the meaning of explosions, how to sink
into the earth like death. I wake early
to the sound of home appliances.
As always, by morning
I'm lost.
Frank,
It wasn’t the North Koreans, the stingy supply clerks at HQ,
some leather-assed general miles from the front
You were the enemy – our enemy
In the war within the war, combat in the Swamp and Mess,
you fell for all the goofy ambushes, lost every battle of wits
but were saved by all those army boots you licked
You were a doctor for the money, the golf club prestige
but wouldn’t recognize your own lily liver on an X-ray
It’s taken years of loathing you to finally understand
the purpose you served: we need to hate
You made it easy, guilt-free, with your yes-man salutes,
your snivelling quibbles and your starchy manner
We laughed at your weekly comeuppance but imagined
a schoolyard bully, a fawning colleague, a prissy sister
I’ve tried not to see the human in you, not to admit what irritates most
are the traits I share: twitchy anxiety, cry baby tendencies,
tongue tied too tight to respond to any smart remark
And the way I must come off: fussy and humourless
But the difference is, Ferret-face, you deserved it
From.
It wasn’t the North Koreans, the stingy supply clerks at HQ,
some leather-assed general miles from the front
You were the enemy – our enemy
In the war within the war, combat in the Swamp and Mess,
you fell for all the goofy ambushes, lost every battle of wits
but were saved by all those army boots you licked
You were a doctor for the money, the golf club prestige
but wouldn’t recognize your own lily liver on an X-ray
It’s taken years of loathing you to finally understand
the purpose you served: we need to hate
You made it easy, guilt-free, with your yes-man salutes,
your snivelling quibbles and your starchy manner
We laughed at your weekly comeuppance but imagined
a schoolyard bully, a fawning colleague, a prissy sister
I’ve tried not to see the human in you, not to admit what irritates most
are the traits I share: twitchy anxiety, cry baby tendencies,
tongue tied too tight to respond to any smart remark
And the way I must come off: fussy and humourless
But the difference is, Ferret-face, you deserved it
From.
Tracks
Reading the fresh stamps of pig tracks
in mud, the loops, diagonals, here
a mother and her calf, I wonder
can I trace my own path, straight
at times, then turning back, footfalls that led
to swamp, or suddenly stop
at the base of a tree trunk—
lifted by wings or jaws.
Can I spot the places I bedded down,
trees girdled in lean winter months
all the indigestibles: bones and fur coughed up,
tally the tactics of stealth, flight
that brought me safely here, heels
sinking their signatures into soft mud.
in mud, the loops, diagonals, here
a mother and her calf, I wonder
can I trace my own path, straight
at times, then turning back, footfalls that led
to swamp, or suddenly stop
at the base of a tree trunk—
lifted by wings or jaws.
Can I spot the places I bedded down,
trees girdled in lean winter months
all the indigestibles: bones and fur coughed up,
tally the tactics of stealth, flight
that brought me safely here, heels
sinking their signatures into soft mud.
In the riverbanks
For three days we have been able to hear the guns at Batoche, about forty miles below us. The sound seems to follow the river banks. ...Our forces are attacking...at Batoche.
The river carries ghostly
reports from rifles. Nerves
are frayed: ears strain
to see if it draws closer.
At night, we sleep but light.
The shooting thins but
does not cease. Sentries
watch, with no release
in sight.
We are useful as one-winged butterflies.
I doze at night, unloaded gun across my thighs.
***
Dans les grottes
The gunfire is muffled
by the dirt.
We only see the men
when they've been hurt.
Batoche is where we make
our last stand.
Rifle pits, caves and graves:
we're held
by our land.
(four)
tulips dot McMillan
where yesterday raindrops
found only dirt and dry shoots
.............how did you keep your secret
.............till the very moment you burst open
.............yellow, orange, and red?
so doubtful was i of you
that i skulked into strangers’ gardens
for a feel of your velvet coats.
where yesterday raindrops
found only dirt and dry shoots
.............how did you keep your secret
.............till the very moment you burst open
.............yellow, orange, and red?
so doubtful was i of you
that i skulked into strangers’ gardens
for a feel of your velvet coats.
Saturday, May 08, 2010
lying in the dark// Susan
I lost my love on the highway,
black pounding our bodies, squeezing
divergent landscapes - car,
road, dirt, skin - together so
tightly. We drove
an off-road vehicle but we were on-road
kind of people. I knew happiness then
the way a bird knows her young
in an instant. I loved him in the quiet
of the SUV. The smell of hard work
rinsed and settled on his skin, his cheeks
as soft and white as sleep. I drove,
one hand on the wheel, the other caressing
his inseams. Isn't it funny
how we are all afraid of the dark? Sure,
you can say you're not
but who believes you? I was wearing
a blue satin dress, strapless
to show off my pilates-arms, which he nibbled
as I gripped the wheel
and him. This is how love hits you:
like a late-night collision,
a chance encounter, a turn
you take to fast. Blood scattered
like the contents of a purse
across the pavement. My love
flew off into the night.
I shone:
my arms so tanned and lean,
my dress lit up by headlights.
I thought I was on fire. I cried
deep into that boomy sea of pitch and tar -
I'm not afraid of you.
I lied.
Flower
Only eat flowers when daddy says so.
Don’t trust me on edible plants,
bird identification, or Chicago style. I’m hopeless.
Don’t trust him on grocery shopping,
buttoning women’s clothing, or exchange of pleasantries.
Actually don’t trust me on those either.
I guess what I’m saying is: Trust No One,
a phrase you heard often and early,
Agents Mulder and Scully batting their eyelashes
on the complete DVD set trying to keep me
awake in the chair at 4 a.m.
Dandelions, he said—your dad, not Agent Mulder—
are completely useful plants. You can eat them all up,
once you dig and scrub up that ass-bastard root.
And he tried to feed you the petals, tiny strips
of that same delicate fibre better flowers make their
better petals of. You didn’t like it. Good on you.
Now, if you ever meet a poisoned apple,
or an evil stepmother,
you will know what to do.
Dear Radar,
You were the Korean War Cassandra, except that everyone believed
when you said Choppers. Incoming.
weary voice older than your Iowa innocence
You bore all that bad news on your skimpy frame
Today you’d be diagnosed with exhaustion, army fatigue
Bed beside the only phone, your sleep must have been piecemeal,
eyelids fluttering at all those midnight flash-lit sneaks
into medical records, liquor cabinets
And still you were up every morning to bungle the bugling
They stunted your growth: everyone’s younger brother, cuddly confidante
Your suspended childhood their link to the pristine,
before gore and grief numbed run-on days
Were you playing along – the teddy bear, grape Nehis
just part of a greenhorn schtick?
Because I know you were wise, even wily –
that Jeep you mailed home piece by careful piece –
though skittish around women
But when I imagine you stateside, after, you’re not anyone’s pet
You’re worldly, capable, standing taller in your small shoes
Sincerely.
You were the Korean War Cassandra, except that everyone believed
when you said Choppers. Incoming.
weary voice older than your Iowa innocence
You bore all that bad news on your skimpy frame
Today you’d be diagnosed with exhaustion, army fatigue
Bed beside the only phone, your sleep must have been piecemeal,
eyelids fluttering at all those midnight flash-lit sneaks
into medical records, liquor cabinets
And still you were up every morning to bungle the bugling
They stunted your growth: everyone’s younger brother, cuddly confidante
Your suspended childhood their link to the pristine,
before gore and grief numbed run-on days
Were you playing along – the teddy bear, grape Nehis
just part of a greenhorn schtick?
Because I know you were wise, even wily –
that Jeep you mailed home piece by careful piece –
though skittish around women
But when I imagine you stateside, after, you’re not anyone’s pet
You’re worldly, capable, standing taller in your small shoes
Sincerely.
Secrets of Motherhood
dedicated to all the mothers of 1885
1.
When the cervix stops dilating
The heart begins.
You will be stretched thin.
You will always be enough:
you will never be enough.
You will carry this hole inside you
always.
2.
Umbilical cord: the mother's end
never goes away. When cut, it
recoils invisibly back inside.
Constricts the breathing,
other times the heart.
Warp and weft of intuition.
The baby's end dries up.
Falls off.
3.
Uterus: the size of a grapefruit.
What you know in your gut.
Source of life, the Great
Mystery:
to bleed, and bleed, days on end,
and yet
not die.
This is how you are a mother.
Look what you can bear, and
still stand upright.
4.
Learn when to bear down with pain.
Learn when to just breathe.
Know it will ebb, but
never cease. What you have
started has no end.
You cannot be
undelivered.
1.
When the cervix stops dilating
The heart begins.
You will be stretched thin.
You will always be enough:
you will never be enough.
You will carry this hole inside you
always.
2.
Umbilical cord: the mother's end
never goes away. When cut, it
recoils invisibly back inside.
Constricts the breathing,
other times the heart.
Warp and weft of intuition.
The baby's end dries up.
Falls off.
3.
Uterus: the size of a grapefruit.
What you know in your gut.
Source of life, the Great
Mystery:
to bleed, and bleed, days on end,
and yet
not die.
This is how you are a mother.
Look what you can bear, and
still stand upright.
4.
Learn when to bear down with pain.
Learn when to just breathe.
Know it will ebb, but
never cease. What you have
started has no end.
You cannot be
undelivered.
Swimmers
At night our bodies separate
and come together again, the blue
blankets rolling, lapping
at our shifting limbs like waves.
I depart and return to the shore
of your body, my left leg
meeting your right, our rivery veins
tracing parallel tattoos up our calves.
Divided by sleep we find different
lovers and streets to walk down
before returning to the familiarity
of pancakes and coffee. Just before
you wake, I catch your eyes, darting
like fish in the ocean of REM sleep,
go still as you come to the surface.
and come together again, the blue
blankets rolling, lapping
at our shifting limbs like waves.
I depart and return to the shore
of your body, my left leg
meeting your right, our rivery veins
tracing parallel tattoos up our calves.
Divided by sleep we find different
lovers and streets to walk down
before returning to the familiarity
of pancakes and coffee. Just before
you wake, I catch your eyes, darting
like fish in the ocean of REM sleep,
go still as you come to the surface.
Bathroom: Claw-foot
steam lifts up slick porcelain walls
off the dust-specked surface of water
bending every colour through such tiny prisms
into the general air of the one room yet to be cleaned
sleepy in the bath I fade out of solid state
dreaming a hundred rainbows all possible
you and you all rise as high
as the happy cool of the room allows
up through the hoop that hold the curtain
up wrap the bulb that makes day of night
up to the poorly painted ceiling
and there
like a balloon meets a pin
a drop again
to wake in the liquid gone tepid
off the dust-specked surface of water
bending every colour through such tiny prisms
into the general air of the one room yet to be cleaned
sleepy in the bath I fade out of solid state
dreaming a hundred rainbows all possible
you and you all rise as high
as the happy cool of the room allows
up through the hoop that hold the curtain
up wrap the bulb that makes day of night
up to the poorly painted ceiling
and there
like a balloon meets a pin
a drop again
to wake in the liquid gone tepid
Friday, May 07, 2010
First Entry
Toronto, Saturday, 28th March, 1885 Received late this evening...wire from Lt.-Col. A.T.H. Williams, that he had been authorized to raise a Battalion for service in the North West and directing me to join Captain Winslow at Millbrook and raise a Company from Cavan and Manvers.
Showed Mother the wire myself,
it seemed the thing.
She put it on the shelf;
pressed my hand, but didn't cling.
And mayhap she finds, one hopes,
comfort in the stripes I earned
drilling hard with scopes
and barrels in sun-soaked fields: I learned
the ropes.
School has been fulfilling,
- halfway done my law degree.
Summer next, God willing
----I'll be home and turning twenty-three.
But first, quelling a rebellion will be my lot:
Not the worst. And Mother took it sportingly, I thought.
*** yeh - slow news day :) ***
Louis Riel's First Girlfriend
Reads the papers in Montreal when her husband is gone to work.
Calls it self-defense, for Mother leaves articles out
when his name appears.
Her parents quick to end that courtship - young half-breed Turk
His priestly studies, French heritage and sincerity clouded
by his lineage. Her tears
have long since ceased on his behalf but sometimes
she wonders: would he have led
rebellions in two provinces, if they'd wed?
Poem for my poor hands
from blank to cat scratch blanket
greasy teenager’s to bone-dry post-birth
cracked creased crazy
bitch’s
----
I could go on but won't at present.
Dear Henry,
I still blanch at any mention of the Sea of Japan
Your primetime death the tragedy that dimmed my childhood,
taught me the word injustice, and its blood-bitter taste
I’ve chosen to remember you as you were,
an uneasy leader, itchy in uniform, in charge, in decision,
hiding that big heart under your fishing vest
You had your own wobbly way of making them fall in
Your replacement, Potter, a bureaucratic wonk,
didn’t have your laugh lines, your cornball command
I’ve long-since forgiven your infidelities,
all those whippet-thin nurses with their deft hands,
And I’m sure Lorraine has too.
Sayonara.
I still blanch at any mention of the Sea of Japan
Your primetime death the tragedy that dimmed my childhood,
taught me the word injustice, and its blood-bitter taste
I’ve chosen to remember you as you were,
an uneasy leader, itchy in uniform, in charge, in decision,
hiding that big heart under your fishing vest
You had your own wobbly way of making them fall in
Your replacement, Potter, a bureaucratic wonk,
didn’t have your laugh lines, your cornball command
I’ve long-since forgiven your infidelities,
all those whippet-thin nurses with their deft hands,
And I’m sure Lorraine has too.
Sayonara.
Thirty-day pass: 1. Departure
This is your final call.
Rush through the echoing rotunda,
trampling brass leaves into stone floor.
Backpacks bouncing on our shoulders.
All passengers should now be on board.
Shock of sunlight as the train leaves the station,
escapes the city, picks up speed.
You try buttons on a new camera,
I stare across sunflower fields.
We are farther east than we've ever been.
We hear there are lakes upon lakes, there are towns
like Sioux Lookout, Parry Sound.
Leaving the known landscape, Red River behind us,
we watch. Something new will jump out at us soon,
and we'll snap it with a quick Look!
and shutter click. Over and over,
all the way to the coast.
another good woman undressing//Bree
another good woman undressing
in a dimly-lit motel, fresh sheets by the hour;
sinning in pearls is still sinning.
she combs her auburn hair, watching
the window from the corner of the mirror for his jaguar,
another good woman undressing.
she unbuttons her chiffon blouse, fingering
the edge of skin where nipples rise like tiny flowers
(sinning in pearls is still sinning).
as expected, he arrives, heavy-breathed, apologizing,
he's eager to devour
another good woman undressing.
but interrupted by a motel maid changing
a light bulb, her post-seduction moment sours -
sinning in pearls is still sinning.
she's comforted by the signs of other women cheating,
they are always in need of a shower,
another good woman undressing.
she leaves the motel well-fucked, cursing
the maids self-righteous scour:
another good woman undressing,
sinning in pearls is still sinning.
in a dimly-lit motel, fresh sheets by the hour;
sinning in pearls is still sinning.
she combs her auburn hair, watching
the window from the corner of the mirror for his jaguar,
another good woman undressing.
she unbuttons her chiffon blouse, fingering
the edge of skin where nipples rise like tiny flowers
(sinning in pearls is still sinning).
as expected, he arrives, heavy-breathed, apologizing,
he's eager to devour
another good woman undressing.
but interrupted by a motel maid changing
a light bulb, her post-seduction moment sours -
sinning in pearls is still sinning.
she's comforted by the signs of other women cheating,
they are always in need of a shower,
another good woman undressing.
she leaves the motel well-fucked, cursing
the maids self-righteous scour:
another good woman undressing,
sinning in pearls is still sinning.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Dear Hot Lips,
I suppose I should call you Major Houlihan,
or at least Margaret, but the truth is
you never quite commanded my respect
Even though I admire flinty ambition,
any woman with those army brass balls
It couldn’t have been easy to stand that high
and mighty ground when every joke was on you,
and no sisters to lean on in the officer’s mess
But Frank Burns? That quivering, chinless priss?
Was it your shared hard-on for rigid discipline
or his limp submission?
I’ve always hoped it was simple human need:
the comfort of any body when the shelling is close,
heavy choppers on the way
Still, there was a time I’d picture that olive drab turtleneck
clinging to my own some-day curves
And I still find a certain strident femininty
in snug green trousers and combat boots
But I wonder, was it enough for you – or did you wish
to hold that scalpel rather than slap it into a man’s gloved hand?
And I’m curious to know if you ever stroll instead of march,
unzip your face into genuine smile
Because that time Henry kissed you – full and sudden on the mouth –
I saw you let go of the wheel, just for a moment,
stunned by the thrill of freedom
Sincerely.
I suppose I should call you Major Houlihan,
or at least Margaret, but the truth is
you never quite commanded my respect
Even though I admire flinty ambition,
any woman with those army brass balls
It couldn’t have been easy to stand that high
and mighty ground when every joke was on you,
and no sisters to lean on in the officer’s mess
But Frank Burns? That quivering, chinless priss?
Was it your shared hard-on for rigid discipline
or his limp submission?
I’ve always hoped it was simple human need:
the comfort of any body when the shelling is close,
heavy choppers on the way
Still, there was a time I’d picture that olive drab turtleneck
clinging to my own some-day curves
And I still find a certain strident femininty
in snug green trousers and combat boots
But I wonder, was it enough for you – or did you wish
to hold that scalpel rather than slap it into a man’s gloved hand?
And I’m curious to know if you ever stroll instead of march,
unzip your face into genuine smile
Because that time Henry kissed you – full and sudden on the mouth –
I saw you let go of the wheel, just for a moment,
stunned by the thrill of freedom
Sincerely.
But the Rats Love It In Swift Current...
Tuesday, 21st April We have been drilling steadily since we came and are now in a fair condition to fight, if it should be necessary. The men, I think, are not sorry to leave this place (Swift Current), as there are only half a dozen houses here, besides the railway buildings, and it is a tiresome place to live.
West of Winnipeg, the ground was level
as the sea. After a day, Brandon
gave way to land slightly rolling.
Moose Jaw was the nicest site
for a town I'd seen since home.
When we got to Swift Current
a light rain and high winds
made camping disagreeable,
despite the shelter of a basin
surrounded by higher land.
The winds here are severe.
And I had to march the men
out of the Indian encampment
close by, where they all
fraternized as if on a pleasure trip.
If MacDonald had not had the luxury,
the speed of so many rails
none of us would be here on these barren prairie trails.
***
A Two Week Lull
Three days after we sent Middleton
packing, we lost the last two men
who had been slowly dying, their families
gathered round with rosaries and drawn faces.
Riel
still hopes for peace; he spent the entire
battle, arms spread like Moses,
praying for victory. He promises
a miracle - perhaps this two week
peace is just that. Word has come
back: many of the Cree deny to fight,
though individual warriors wander in
each night. They know that just the same
They will all be held in blame, if
our battle is lost out west.
Half-breeds doubly cursed,
Doubly blessed.
The winds rise. I've made my peace
-------with family, God, and gun.
Prayed good use of the 32 rounds
-------left of ammunition.
Katherine
A woman needs to feel the heavy pulse
of steel, the throb of bullets in a gun.
Protection always fails in fucking, bolts
come loosened under years of jerks. I've done
my time in psych wards slowly coming clean;
I've washed away the blood I drew in search
of happiness - some fake suburban dream.
I need a touch as soft as rain, I thirst
for pools of curves, a landscape fresh that flows
from my hip bone to hers. I lap such lakes!
While men don't knock, they enter even though
the door is closed, my woman knows to wait,
her fingers circling the lock. My skin,
these walls of longing, part to let her in.
of steel, the throb of bullets in a gun.
Protection always fails in fucking, bolts
come loosened under years of jerks. I've done
my time in psych wards slowly coming clean;
I've washed away the blood I drew in search
of happiness - some fake suburban dream.
I need a touch as soft as rain, I thirst
for pools of curves, a landscape fresh that flows
from my hip bone to hers. I lap such lakes!
While men don't knock, they enter even though
the door is closed, my woman knows to wait,
her fingers circling the lock. My skin,
these walls of longing, part to let her in.
Girl brushes doll’s impassable lips
First learn this:
imagining what is not there
pretending what you are not.
If it’s made of atoms, you will figure it out.
If you can stick your hand in it, whack your head on it,
put it in your mouth, or get your nose stuck to it in the cold.
If it’s not there, though, it’s worth working at.
You have a toothbrush, and a baby, and the baby
has no teeth, but you can brush them anyway.
Next step: loose the toothbrush.
Then the lips, then the baby. Ible as well as able.
I like to see this kind of initiative.
You’re such a hard worker!
That’s what I’m supposed to say these days. I read it on the Internet.
Never: you’re so smart,
because some day you won’t be smart enough
and you’ll assume mommy was wrong all along and actually you’re dumb.
I should know. This happened to me
in grad school, forced to employ
different-coloured paper clips
to prove my creativity.
Back to you though.
I’d recommend something tangible in-between tooth-brushings—
maybe carpentry or electrical work.
Electrons pulse so very tangibly they’ll burn your baby down.
imagining what is not there
pretending what you are not.
If it’s made of atoms, you will figure it out.
If you can stick your hand in it, whack your head on it,
put it in your mouth, or get your nose stuck to it in the cold.
If it’s not there, though, it’s worth working at.
You have a toothbrush, and a baby, and the baby
has no teeth, but you can brush them anyway.
Next step: loose the toothbrush.
Then the lips, then the baby. Ible as well as able.
I like to see this kind of initiative.
You’re such a hard worker!
That’s what I’m supposed to say these days. I read it on the Internet.
Never: you’re so smart,
because some day you won’t be smart enough
and you’ll assume mommy was wrong all along and actually you’re dumb.
I should know. This happened to me
in grad school, forced to employ
different-coloured paper clips
to prove my creativity.
Back to you though.
I’d recommend something tangible in-between tooth-brushings—
maybe carpentry or electrical work.
Electrons pulse so very tangibly they’ll burn your baby down.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Susan
Oh I'm so bad at this whole 'housewife thing,'
the cooking, cleaning, matching towels and sheets.
Sure, watch me drown in domesticity.
Just notify the hunky life guard - she'll
be here all week. I always count on men
to up and leave. My daughter sees my falls
in love, my spills in lust. Alone again,
it's just us two, she's perfect, almost all
I'll ever need. But who'll appreciate
my heaps of lingerie? The virgin, tart,
and even Lois Lane? It's sad: my waist's
ten times to small to match this bloated heart.
I'm sick of new beginnings, absent ends;
the road to love is slick with hairpin bends.
the cooking, cleaning, matching towels and sheets.
Sure, watch me drown in domesticity.
Just notify the hunky life guard - she'll
be here all week. I always count on men
to up and leave. My daughter sees my falls
in love, my spills in lust. Alone again,
it's just us two, she's perfect, almost all
I'll ever need. But who'll appreciate
my heaps of lingerie? The virgin, tart,
and even Lois Lane? It's sad: my waist's
ten times to small to match this bloated heart.
I'm sick of new beginnings, absent ends;
the road to love is slick with hairpin bends.
(trois)
Four, he turned
...............Four -
...............we pitched a tent in the back yard
...............and stared at the stars thru the tepee-like opening
...............Il me demande le nom de chaque étoile
...............et, comment loin sont-ils?
...............y sont ici, bonhomme
...............dans la tente avec nous
...............ce beau soir d’avril
.
At least, it's what i wished
when i wished upon a star tonight,
another moment or two
with the little boy who
turned four
.....sans moi
aujourd'hui.
...............Four -
...............we pitched a tent in the back yard
...............and stared at the stars thru the tepee-like opening
...............Il me demande le nom de chaque étoile
...............et, comment loin sont-ils?
...............y sont ici, bonhomme
...............dans la tente avec nous
...............ce beau soir d’avril
.
At least, it's what i wished
when i wished upon a star tonight,
another moment or two
with the little boy who
turned four
.....sans moi
aujourd'hui.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Monday, May 03, 2010
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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!
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!
Sunday, May 02, 2010
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!)
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.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)