flooded, vi

Tough and weathered, he appears

on the six o'clock news

though his words scratch through

tears                impeding their flow

If I can't move them to safety tonight

The  cattle will have to be euthanized

Evacuation notices taped

to a door, a truck, a shed 

stamped friday the 13th 

and

rain and snow keep falling while

weary men work fingers to bone-

            In the morning

                       they breach the dike.

Common Era

My friend's kid tells me all about

the eras of existence on the planet:

Crusty ol' Crustacious,

Early Jurassic,

then, because we'd already run out of names,

the Late Jurrassic

and then, the Great Extinction.

To him it's all abstract -

the era when his mom and I were roommates

might well be about as far back as T Rex.

And I've survived through many more eras since

with my tough hide and sharp claws.

The Flirtacious, the Kick-my-assic,

then I killed off every single thing I knew

one by one

sent them to the ground to become

after a millennium or so

oil or diamonds

all the more valuable

for having been buried.

While I wait

for new forms of life

to emerge on my planet

I guess I'll just keep on

what the kid says we're doing,

living in the Aftermath.

Hold On

When the pine crashed onto the cherry tree
we wept ferocious as if the loss
was a grandparent or a dog.
No fruit so prized, so ripe
for greedy fingers, gaping mouths.
The man was hired to fell the pine and
avoid the fruit, the house.
We would not have cried for the tart
apples or the even the plums
which confused us each year
into thinking they were apricots.

Thirty years later, midnight,
a wind threatens to lift houses,
toss venerable maples, elms.
Branches splinter. The house creaks.
Chimes a block away frantic in protest,
sirens squall. Between gusts,
I hear my children breathe
from across the hall, even and calm.
Basic biology, this is sanctuary.

Wednesday

April's being good today,

all warmth and possibility.

Boys linger after school.

One a troll, one a Viking.

A mother sits, face tilted to the sun.

A father walks and walks around the soccer pitch.

Batman arrives in a red wagon. In his hand—

and epée? a rapier? Surely a Bat-sword.

Boys walk the ledge dividing sand from gravel.

Survival's at stake. They watch their feet.

Now a girl's in the wagon. Regal in pink sunglasses,

turquoise shirt. Batman pulls, she holds the reins.

Australia

I wept for two months

after coming back from Australia.

How could I live without

the water (the water, the water), the sand,

the sky so much brighter there,

without sunrises on the beach

without toes in the sand?

I researched visas and special job skills list,

wondered if I could pass as a structural engineer,

wondered if I could pass as a Youth on Holiday.

My shrink didn't think moving there

would actually solve anything.

But he'd never been there -

how could he know

about the alien trees, the parrots in the wild,

the surfer boys out on endless waves?

So I get out.

But I only make it

a few hundred miles

in the direction of Down Under.

A pitiful compromise, paradise postponed.

Then I wake up this morning,

walk out to the water

past a purple tree raining blossoms

as the sun paints the clouds orange.

Sink my heels in the night-cooled sand,

watch seagulls surfing the waves.

I lean down to touch a shell

and find Australia.

Coming Clean

from the front cover of today's Star-Phoenix

Because he loved her
Because she was his baby girl
Because her boyfriend was bad news
(a drugseller who injected heroin in her arms
even when she was only half-conscious)
Because of that, because she had just
gotten clean again. Because. Just
because. Her father loaded
his gun. Tucked it into
the same belt he'd
never hit her
with.

Remembered her coming home, telling him
how her boyfriend beat a man with a crowbar
until he lost consciousness.

There was a standoff. He stood. He stayed.
Emptied 20 bullets in her boyfriend's
body. Traced a sign of the cross
in the blood on his forehead
when he was sure
he was dead.

It was a life for a life for a life:
he'd do it again. Trade his
freedom, bloody his hands
for his daughter.
Any man.

Catullus 2a and A Sparrow Poem

Is it just me or did some posts get erased?

Here is something I think I posted before:



Catullus 2a

Passer -- Sparrow

Passer, deliciae meae puellae,
quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere,
cui primum digitum dare appetenti
et acris solet incitare morsus,
cum desiderio meo nitenti
carum nescio quid lubet iocari,
et solaciolum sui doloris,
credo, ut tum gravis acquiescat ardor:
tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem
et tristis animi leuare curas!
... Tam gratum est mihi quam ferunt puellae
pernici aureolum fuisse malum,
quod zonam solvit diu ligatam.


Sparrow, my darling’s delicate one,
always her little plaything, held fast in to her chest,
to you she stretches out her stroking fingertip
provoking your sharp pecks--
She’s incandescent with desire for me,
but I do not know the joke I could joke to please her,
to make for her a small solace from her pains
so that, perhaps, her heavy burning could quiet.

She can play with you like this,
lightening her mind’s sorrowful concerns.
... This is as dear to me as the golden apple
was for that swift girl who threw them,
releasing her from her long-fastened girdle.


Sparrow

I am anything but a sparrow.
With the swift push up from the poolside
after swimming my shoulders
fit five birds width
two birds depth.
Are they seductive, those twin lines
that sketch themselves
onto the steam-streaked mirror,
my hands raised to braid my hair
dividing the under muscles
that curve down to my breasts?

Early I filled out
the feminine slight swaying
hollow reed body,
never lacked a third
dimension, sometimes
there appears a forth.

But shouldn’t women’s bodies
be puzzle pieces?
Small birds
with soft corners, trimmed
to be fit into things.

Our Home Needs to be Painted

It is a house of collections
housed in old gem jars—
eyelashes in the bathroom,
teeth in the bedroom,
discontinued currencies in the kitchen.

Hair elastics looped around doorknobs,
a forgotten code left undeciphered.
Point shoes stacked in the corner,
dice in every drawer.

The bucket on the deck is there
to collect stardust and wishes
wished on satellites masquerading
as shooting stars. To date, it has only
captured raindrops and glimpses of the moon.

Everything is weighted in luck,
yet we are unsure how to measure.
We place items in our palms,
on our tongues but we can only guess.
Yes, we are lucky, we say, until we are not.

Veracity

The days are fatter, rounder
ripening lush-lipped plums.
The trees are loaded brushes
poised under cerulean skies.
Stand on the stone embankment
a rising river in your eyes.
Birds are feathering downwards
stealing Hansel & Gretl crumbs.
Daylight stretched elastic
weak tea dawn to brass brazen noon;
We'll question the sun's uprising
but in secret, suspect the moon.

burrionis viridis

defying the slate-gray sky

outside her window a Dutch elm

burgeons glossy green leaflets

Two poems

I seem to behind on everything today. This is not unusual. I also apologize for my commenting slipping-- will try to catch up this weekend.

I got a service interruption message when I tried to post late last night. So this is later than even it should have been!

In the meantime, and I'll explain this bit of fluff later:

Two poems

1

Dublin's

Bashful

Mary, Queen of Scots

A steam launch

The Virgin

Red

2

Swedish

Alfred

Steel

By bouncing

They ate it

Be prepared

flooded, v

i

it is less about his death

than his life

these memories that flood me

        fifteen years since his

last breath, my final words,

since

        in the still air, floating,

remembrance of a tragic life

.and words. only words. mine,

holding the hand of his

holocaust body I

whisper

- go

ii

a Holocaust ago

they played at the edge of the Danube

watched bodies float the blue

             children chanting

boy or girl? girl or boy?

but she would be the first to know

that girls always faced the sky

though to this day

she doesn't

know

w

h

y

.

Above Average Temperatures

Blinded by winter’s
inner thighs, young girls
in 80s jumpers stroll the Drive
in squeaky Keds—so much ironic flesh,
I feel old. The first hot day
brings picnic blankets and pot
smoke, novels consumed
on front stoops, all the leisure
a paycheque can afford,
grab another beer
from the vegetable drawer.

Time to start shaving
more than once a week.
Late evening rays
reflect on red brick:
all the pores and cracks
softened. After a long bout
of sleeping alone, it’s not
just the street trees
that need watering.

o my

6'2 of confusion

I love that pic of you that Pat took in the desert-

your weedy mustache, eyes behind ballistics, hard-boiled,

the dust of a shitshow war/marriage carried on your shoulders,

duty, honour, big ideas tattooed in blue on forearms, inky thunder

it's May. the light on the coast is weak.

I wait. patiently. for you.

Small Corpse

Feathers imploding outwards
like flotsam from a shipwreck:
"wreccum maris, sturnella neglecta"
The body lays in state
on the corner of the neighbour's lawn
Decapitation indicates
feline involvement
The wind tenderly ruffles
delicate breast feathers
The grass is inured to grieving
but a bough is sighing mournfully
The ants will pay their respects

Death brings a certain
softness before
the hardening.

Ella Ewing, Absolutely the Tallest Lady on Earth

Papers report the wedding – dress sewn from sailcloth, band any other woman’s bangle – but I’ve never proposed, even though she’s the only one I could kiss goodnight without sinking to my knees. My manager tats her a pretty letter, counts imaginary dollars aloud, but I can’t sign.

Yes, I think of the house we’d share – windows punched high enough to see the view; no ceilings, only sky, above our heads. Simple beauty of proportion in our empty clothes, hanging side-by-side, in the cupboard.

If we were paired for the ark, she’d be my match. But how can I marry a woman I’ve seen only on a Barnum and Bailey poster? (And a drawing, at that.) After chit chat of height runs dry – fear of chandeliers, how to best stretch a shoe – what to talk about?

And children. I’d never pass this millstone to another.

Catullus 70

Catullus 70 -
or
To No One--Nulli, a translation

Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle
quam mihi, non si se Iuppiter ipse petat.
dicit: sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti
in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua.

"To no one," my woman says,
"There is no one I would prefer to marry myself to,
more than you, not even if Juppiter himself should seek me."
So she says. But what a woman tells her lust-filled lover
ought to be written on the winds and rapid rushing rivers.



To No One Else
-after Catullus 70

He reminds me of Heraclitus'
forgetful river and although I cannot
cannot have him, I should be able to

remember this, each time I catch
his liquid green eyes
in my palms I write love
on a rock and throw it.
Plunk and splash
in the water, where it will remain.


(The first is a translation, the second is a rough little poem inspired by it.)

IN THE DEPARTMENT OF LANDS AND FORESTS

Arguments are reasoned with fists
firm as the fritters I’m shaping on the table.
My clothes smell of smoke
and wood. Jack pine and river. Bisco.

I build a fire in the stove and place
my cast iron pan on the top. Here,
everything tastes charred. The mill and store
only a month ago burnt like toast,

now nothing but blackened boots
poking from the earth. I slice
a fat chunk of lard, drop it in the pan.
Archie calls them donuts, dough

formed with a tin cup, then
marked by a hole from another
smaller lid. Where did this
indulgence begin? Who broke

a fleshy mid-section once so heavy
six seamen fell overboard after eating
those fried cakes? Who noticed the cow
kicking the pot of oil, tipping it onto pastry

rolled and ready? Who was that pioneer
that made the first opening?
Sizzle splatters my arm and I carefully
lay the circles into the pan, watch

from my station as the brown
edges up the sides. I’m the ranger
on duty, keeping one eye out for signs
of smoke, the other on the sky.

Metamorphosis

They hang, blue-frosted, in September trees.

A finger's touch removes

the powdery veneer and now

they're satin-skinned, blue-violet,

dark droplets hefted in the palm.

Knife-point finds the crease, opens

a slit. Quick rotation, circumference

complete. A twist, knife-flick

tosses out the stone.

Golden flesh bright

under the blade, firm halves chopped,

mashed, measured.

Slow circles with the wooden spoon

stave off burning. Sugar's added

when the soft mass bubbles.

Stir and stir, the purple seeps

from skins into flesh, lightens,

loses its midnight darkness.

Red-violet, color of velvet,

favorite crayons, the prayer book.

Plum.

Melospiza melodia

song sparrows waken her at dawn

fearful she will otherwise forget 

winter's gone