The night before
the exhibit closes
I remember
and decide to dash
after quick coffee,
on the last day,
see the collection –
Ming dynasty treasures
travelled from
the earth’s flip side,
fluttering here like
migrating butterflies.
I must catch a glimpse
of such fleeting color
before it escapes,
this one chance
to witness a time and place
no wings of mine
will ever touch.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
night Letters #15 N
night words
for you to keep
secret, hidden little a's
to z's, just like the box
grandpa buried beneath the seat
of his '39 Ford, filled
with french letters.
warm
you can’t let the damp of your t-shirt cool,
sweat dry at the base of your spine,
waiting for your turn in the ring
must move – constantly prod muscle
like keeping a concussion awake
bully the mirror with half-punches,
fingers flying out, fist in full bloom
taunt, quick shift of weight – forward, back,
rev, ready, but hovering over the gas
you can’t let the damp of your t-shirt cool,
sweat dry at the base of your spine,
waiting for your turn in the ring
must move – constantly prod muscle
like keeping a concussion awake
bully the mirror with half-punches,
fingers flying out, fist in full bloom
taunt, quick shift of weight – forward, back,
rev, ready, but hovering over the gas
afternoon, (v)
marjo's meal:
.
I pick the one ripe avocado
nearly black in a sea of grassy greens
I squeeze, salivate this timely promise,
the taste of fruit and nut as
smooth as butter on my tongue
I will serve it on a bed of green leaves
dappled with kumquat, sliced blackberries,
black peppercorns, crushed
I will baptize it in balsamic vinaigrette
and feast on the small true pleasure
that life affords me today.
.
.
I pick the one ripe avocado
nearly black in a sea of grassy greens
I squeeze, salivate this timely promise,
the taste of fruit and nut as
smooth as butter on my tongue
I will serve it on a bed of green leaves
dappled with kumquat, sliced blackberries,
black peppercorns, crushed
I will baptize it in balsamic vinaigrette
and feast on the small true pleasure
that life affords me today.
.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Quitting Time
Every mouthful of food in our house
came by way of welding sparks
thrown off on the line as cars
came rolling from hell pits.
Daddies stood along the line
wearing heavy hot hoods
catching pretty sparks, burning
through overalls leaving lace patterns
on t-shirts, singed eyebrows
and thirst, every family’s meal earned.
Today I heard, after the silent
factory hush, at least a quarter
of the dealerships will fall away
like clipped toenails
and I worry about the milk
gone from some other little girl’s table.
came by way of welding sparks
thrown off on the line as cars
came rolling from hell pits.
Daddies stood along the line
wearing heavy hot hoods
catching pretty sparks, burning
through overalls leaving lace patterns
on t-shirts, singed eyebrows
and thirst, every family’s meal earned.
Today I heard, after the silent
factory hush, at least a quarter
of the dealerships will fall away
like clipped toenails
and I worry about the milk
gone from some other little girl’s table.
reason
you have no reason
to be in the ring –
no score to settle with your body,
nothing to prove through fists
no child to inspire, no snub to avenge
boxing is not symbolic
of a larger fear, no dread
to conquer other than brain
bouncing inside skull
like balloon off palm
no dream of blood on your gloves,
eyes stuffed with bruise
you watched documentaries
on ali for the poetry,
raging bull on a de niro kick
satisfaction in a clean, deliberate hit
to her face, neat weave
from her rebuttal, but never joy
adrenalin snuffed, aching
every time you turn in bed,
you try to find a rationale
strong enough to quell doubts,
to see you through tomorrow’s rounds,
anything more significant
than for the hell of it
you have no reason
to be in the ring –
no score to settle with your body,
nothing to prove through fists
no child to inspire, no snub to avenge
boxing is not symbolic
of a larger fear, no dread
to conquer other than brain
bouncing inside skull
like balloon off palm
no dream of blood on your gloves,
eyes stuffed with bruise
you watched documentaries
on ali for the poetry,
raging bull on a de niro kick
satisfaction in a clean, deliberate hit
to her face, neat weave
from her rebuttal, but never joy
adrenalin snuffed, aching
every time you turn in bed,
you try to find a rationale
strong enough to quell doubts,
to see you through tomorrow’s rounds,
anything more significant
than for the hell of it
Dramatically Incorrect
the sandals the serpents the sabres
loving the living
leaving the dying
the bruised the bleeding the broken
these things tear the gauze from
Gaza's Strip
introduce the waiting
to Kuwait
put the I in Iraq, Iran,
iPhone
next year, in Jerusalem
loving the living
leaving the dying
the bruised the bleeding the broken
these things tear the gauze from
Gaza's Strip
introduce the waiting
to Kuwait
put the I in Iraq, Iran,
iPhone
next year, in Jerusalem
night Letters #14 M
maybe
you will read my night letters
between the lines, that the willow
will still be there next time
I walk your fields, only then
it will have leafed, softened
into a not so secret place,
only then it will have opened,
finally it will be mine.
Cormorant
An oil slick apparition, silent V
that skims the highway till one
gets sucker punched onto asphalt by a semi.
Its long neck extended, wings flap for purchase
on the dotted yellow. I swerve and still
the right tire connects, hits feather, trips bone.
I open my mouth and squall.
The car rocked by traffic speeding past.
Already, the mind at work, distancing.
So this is how it happens. All the roadkill
we pass on the way to work
and try to resurrect back to skunk, cat.
Try to shirk our claim in we, in accident.
But it doesn’t work. Every black shape a trigger.
Windshield wipers, bent umbrellas
sprout primaries on top of garbage cans.
Black feathers rise up to join the flock, fall
on the cars that come after.
that skims the highway till one
gets sucker punched onto asphalt by a semi.
Its long neck extended, wings flap for purchase
on the dotted yellow. I swerve and still
the right tire connects, hits feather, trips bone.
I open my mouth and squall.
The car rocked by traffic speeding past.
Already, the mind at work, distancing.
So this is how it happens. All the roadkill
we pass on the way to work
and try to resurrect back to skunk, cat.
Try to shirk our claim in we, in accident.
But it doesn’t work. Every black shape a trigger.
Windshield wipers, bent umbrellas
sprout primaries on top of garbage cans.
Black feathers rise up to join the flock, fall
on the cars that come after.
Evening, (vii)
A Walk on the Prairies
.
over ancient land
that whispers
a thousand stories
I walk
..........and with
every step I hear
the song of
mémère's first
footfalls on the
rich prairie soil.
I keep my pace
in time with hers
and through time
and time again
we walk this land
together tied
in yesterday and
..........tomorrow.
to the drum of a
distant history
hand in hand
..........we walk
you and I.
.
.
over ancient land
that whispers
a thousand stories
I walk
..........and with
every step I hear
the song of
mémère's first
footfalls on the
rich prairie soil.
I keep my pace
in time with hers
and through time
and time again
we walk this land
together tied
in yesterday and
..........tomorrow.
to the drum of a
distant history
hand in hand
..........we walk
you and I.
.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Smoky
"white rabbit white rabbit" makes it drift the other
way. like saying "i love you" to someone who's not
ready.
shift the coal, stir the ashes.
back off or move sideways
when it gets too hot.
pulsing long-distant stars,
heat-rippled embers:
how little difference there is -only
proximity.
way. like saying "i love you" to someone who's not
ready.
shift the coal, stir the ashes.
back off or move sideways
when it gets too hot.
pulsing long-distant stars,
heat-rippled embers:
how little difference there is -only
proximity.
Hermit Crabs
Stuffed into shells they’ve outgrown,
their soft bellies hang out like beer guts,
as they wait for better real estate.
But the next-size up,
the cream-coloured dog whelks,
have all been pocketed, serve time
on bathroom shelves.
While the hermit crabs hide
under barnacle-crusted rocks,
brandishing their one big claw
like a man with a cane
trying to defend himself.
their soft bellies hang out like beer guts,
as they wait for better real estate.
But the next-size up,
the cream-coloured dog whelks,
have all been pocketed, serve time
on bathroom shelves.
While the hermit crabs hide
under barnacle-crusted rocks,
brandishing their one big claw
like a man with a cane
trying to defend himself.
Putting Plants to Bed
In the rushed hours of evening
when the dogs walk their people
and a snake of cars writhes
up the street heading home
I dig into last year’s weedy pots.
Old roots ripped from friable soil
suitable for baby plants,
storm watered, homeless
wailing for a hole of their own.
I made a dirty mess of it all.
White root threads wrapped
around each black block of dirt
just a tickle away from reaching
into fresh crumbly loam
and stretching out for the summer
sending blooms or fragrance
to attract tiny fast birds
repel stinging insects
or flavor sauces.
It’s all a Pollock jumble of color
drizzled in budding marigolds
and alert verbena, scarlet salvia
and velvety catnip.
when the dogs walk their people
and a snake of cars writhes
up the street heading home
I dig into last year’s weedy pots.
Old roots ripped from friable soil
suitable for baby plants,
storm watered, homeless
wailing for a hole of their own.
I made a dirty mess of it all.
White root threads wrapped
around each black block of dirt
just a tickle away from reaching
into fresh crumbly loam
and stretching out for the summer
sending blooms or fragrance
to attract tiny fast birds
repel stinging insects
or flavor sauces.
It’s all a Pollock jumble of color
drizzled in budding marigolds
and alert verbena, scarlet salvia
and velvety catnip.
Edisonia: a stick of phosphorus, ca. 1862
1.
Our boy sits content amidst the glass
of his on-board lab, the soft lead of his printing
press, his perishable inventory, watching the pine flare
of the stretch between Detroit
& Port Huron at speed.
He forgets that to ride a train with its rattles
& jerks is to walk a tightrope – possible, with practice,
but not without its pains. He has learned to sway
but not what it is to lean out over
the precipice, until a poorly-laid piece
of track takes the risk for him, bucking the train long
enough that a stick of phosphorus – expensive,
incandescent stuff – jolts from its shelf
& lights it all up.
Edison stares. He stares
& then begins to stamp & beat at his beautiful fire,
and is singed but singing a little inside
How very curious!
when the rail-thin conductor appears.
2.
Outside his compartment, Edison’s digs
are an open secret, an affair the conductor
condones as long as his cheek
is larded with stick candy & his wife
gets her wholesale blackberries & butter.
But a fire? Smoke stealing under the door
& shouting down the rocking hallway:
Panic! Mayhem! Hysteria!
Then the conductor is dutifully, rightly
righteous, bursting through the door with a bucket
full to the brim & putting the fire out
before beginning to shout:
Wretched!
Boy!
BURNING!
My!
Train! !!
But the conductor is not a hasty man: he waits
until the train has groaned
to a halt
at the next hamlet
before he pitches it all out:
Test tubes, vials, jars, boxes, small
ingenious shelves, various apparatus,
treatises on chemistry whose underlined passages
gleam from white pages as they careen
out the back door,
Clumps of whiskery onions & bunches
of carrots that fly like quoits,
Bushel baskets of dusty local plums, smaller
containers of strawberries that drop
like periods at the end
of suitably dramatic sentences.
(BURNING!
My!
Train!)
Charred bundles of the Detroit Free Press,
tied with string in a way that is most
satisfying, what inflammatory periodicals
didn’t burn,
What butter hasn’t already melted,
And the arms & legs, right angles & musky
softnesses of a deeply chagrined
young man.
3.
Our boy on the tracks, amidst shards
of glass and co-mingled chemicals, half the alphabet
scattered between his legs, watches a flare of exertion
settle into the pale anger of the conductor
who must next write a report of the incident
for his superiors at the end
of the line.
As the train pulls away, leaving Edison
halfway home and the earnings
of the past year unhinged
& twisted around him, he conceives
of an experiment where a downcast
boy whimpers
when subjected to fire:
Eureka!
4.
The train picking up steam, the car empty
of Edisonia, the conductor stomps
away, wishing for a cup of tea & the clean sheets
of his policy manual:
Smoking compartment indeed!
Our boy sits content amidst the glass
of his on-board lab, the soft lead of his printing
press, his perishable inventory, watching the pine flare
of the stretch between Detroit
& Port Huron at speed.
He forgets that to ride a train with its rattles
& jerks is to walk a tightrope – possible, with practice,
but not without its pains. He has learned to sway
but not what it is to lean out over
the precipice, until a poorly-laid piece
of track takes the risk for him, bucking the train long
enough that a stick of phosphorus – expensive,
incandescent stuff – jolts from its shelf
& lights it all up.
Edison stares. He stares
& then begins to stamp & beat at his beautiful fire,
and is singed but singing a little inside
How very curious!
when the rail-thin conductor appears.
2.
Outside his compartment, Edison’s digs
are an open secret, an affair the conductor
condones as long as his cheek
is larded with stick candy & his wife
gets her wholesale blackberries & butter.
But a fire? Smoke stealing under the door
& shouting down the rocking hallway:
Panic! Mayhem! Hysteria!
Then the conductor is dutifully, rightly
righteous, bursting through the door with a bucket
full to the brim & putting the fire out
before beginning to shout:
Wretched!
Boy!
BURNING!
My!
Train! !!
But the conductor is not a hasty man: he waits
until the train has groaned
to a halt
at the next hamlet
before he pitches it all out:
Test tubes, vials, jars, boxes, small
ingenious shelves, various apparatus,
treatises on chemistry whose underlined passages
gleam from white pages as they careen
out the back door,
Clumps of whiskery onions & bunches
of carrots that fly like quoits,
Bushel baskets of dusty local plums, smaller
containers of strawberries that drop
like periods at the end
of suitably dramatic sentences.
(BURNING!
My!
Train!)
Charred bundles of the Detroit Free Press,
tied with string in a way that is most
satisfying, what inflammatory periodicals
didn’t burn,
What butter hasn’t already melted,
And the arms & legs, right angles & musky
softnesses of a deeply chagrined
young man.
3.
Our boy on the tracks, amidst shards
of glass and co-mingled chemicals, half the alphabet
scattered between his legs, watches a flare of exertion
settle into the pale anger of the conductor
who must next write a report of the incident
for his superiors at the end
of the line.
As the train pulls away, leaving Edison
halfway home and the earnings
of the past year unhinged
& twisted around him, he conceives
of an experiment where a downcast
boy whimpers
when subjected to fire:
Eureka!
4.
The train picking up steam, the car empty
of Edisonia, the conductor stomps
away, wishing for a cup of tea & the clean sheets
of his policy manual:
Smoking compartment indeed!
oh, by the way
(I would perfectly understand if you are wondering just who this Curiousity and Joy fellow is. My name is Kevin Hehir and I live in St. John's. I haven't always lived in St. John's, there were stints in such lovely prairie places as Winnipeg, Belmont, Yorkton, S'toon, and Candle Lake. This provenance got me friendly with Branda Schmidt on whose facebook page I met Andie who suggested that I get into this May Day Project. I hadn't written a poem in 2 years (some may say I still haven't) and I'm going to use this project to unstog the jam seems to have coagulated at the same time as my first child arrived. I'll try and get five out before the end of the month. Thanks for having me!)
Going north
me into loving then left
I needed a job (a damned good reason)
far away from you in the
or at least that’s what I’d like to say
in truth
that’d take this cub
besides I always wanted to go up
and so this is me
memoir
this is my memory of flight
my fall and flight fall and flight
I’m like a refugee persecuted
by you for my allegiance to
a sun God I tried to get close
more than once and each time
you melted my wings
then destroyed all the feathers
in the world so I couldn’t
try again you would have
demolished me too
but I ran
in truth what’s important
is I cannot can’t cant kant
stop loving you
I’m going to try
to forget you
and pretend I’m not sorry
though life’s not pointing
in the direction I thought
Night Letters #13 L
lazy words
lust, light,
love (the laziest of all)
won't appear
in these letters.
"liar",
he says.
Shadow Puppets
Deep inside the structure
of it all
sits a little green man
figuratively,
as a green man has to be
no one have has ever seen one
we all know little men
there he sits. Green.
He is chained
by the gentle gesture
of a held hand.
The hand of the amber man
the amber man has no special powers
his name (the name I have given him)
(we don’t know his real name)
(does he have a name?)
(he must have a name)
but I digress. He
has a nice sounding name.
We like to have the amber man around
reassuring and cautious
this mellow yellow fellow.
His head is yoked forward
gently, like an egg.
He does not see the red man
whose hand is in his.
The red man is symbolic.
of it all
sits a little green man
figuratively,
as a green man has to be
no one have has ever seen one
we all know little men
there he sits. Green.
He is chained
by the gentle gesture
of a held hand.
The hand of the amber man
the amber man has no special powers
his name (the name I have given him)
(we don’t know his real name)
(does he have a name?)
(he must have a name)
but I digress. He
has a nice sounding name.
We like to have the amber man around
reassuring and cautious
this mellow yellow fellow.
His head is yoked forward
gently, like an egg.
He does not see the red man
whose hand is in his.
The red man is symbolic.
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