sometimes I wonder (revisited)
Sometimes I wonderif she ever existed.
—found poem
Sometimes I wonder
if she ever existed.
Only a smile now
a gesture
copper hair flashing
she fades even in dreams
artist in the supermarket
She stands in the aisle like reverse Stendhal:frozen, her hand extended over the mound of apples.
Apples push into her like the fists of a lover
knocking at a locked door, urgent, juicy, plump.
It's always like this: fruit overwhelms, vegetables
scream longing; fresh trout imagines a sizzling grill,
beef lounges in a marinade, ready to sear.
She wants to paint, to cook, to knead warm
transit
Night. City street after rain.Early autumn leaves cling to the pavement
like wet hair on a waiting face.
Amber and blue incandescence
lies in pools for walking entrances,
performances and exits,
as the occasional soloist mimes
man walking alone on the street
concert
engine idle just beyond theancient boathouse
river calm and waiting silent
to the weed beds
and the spaces vast, beyond
ease the throttle slowly forward
hear the engine twist
inside the music
The part I sing in our quartethovers above or below the melody;
often it sounds like the French horn.
The Lead's note sounds familiar;
the Bass is the solid foundation;
the Tenor lilts above all, thrillingly;
my part, the Bari, fills it all in.
cocoon
Inside the silk threadsis what will come:
beautiful wings,
gleaming reds, yellows, blues,
curves and strength,
the freedom of flight
instead of plodding,
gnawing eating.
lotus eaters
This is the first in a series I started a while back. I should write a few more on this . . .everyone on the street was
somewhere else
listening to music
words from another time
another place
after
She used to purr when she leaped onto the bed;I prefer to think of her arrivals.
I could read her expressions through the fur:
glad to see me (and usually was):
relaxed eyelids, fur sleek off the face;
impatient with my stupidity:
Mauve and Gold
If a god were eating strawberriesWhen that sunset happened,
I know he'd stop in mid-bite
With red sweet juice dribbling
Down his chin onto his toga
And just stare and do a god-thing:
driving home
The sun set just before we turned west onto the roadthat curved into the pure black landscape silhouetted
against the absolutely clear tangerine and indigo sky.
As our headlights revealed and dismissed the familiar
meanderings of this riverside route and its clusters of cottages
On being mistaken for myself
Photos never lieexcept when they must,
with a minimum of mendacity,
tell welting whoppers
about how egregiously old
the old codger has become.
I have studied photos
taken years ago
that make me look
what was left
First they took away the all moneypoured it into the government trough
and they fed the war in Afganistan
but still that wasn't enough
so they crucified the artists
and they stood around and laughed
chrome
rain is puddling on the grass
polishing pregnant leaves
empty garden table tops
silent deck planks
to mirror
sky and tree tops
like the side of
a kartoon kar
a drip
from leaf to puddle
and metal’s molten
lawn shifts dimension
grass greens become
silver slivers
all is slippy
flippy fluid
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windows open season
Windows open season
has come to the north
bringing to the denizens
of the muffled world
the freedom
to step outside in sandals
let skin breathe
and allow the unfettered
display of tattoos
and body piercings.
With the media
tuned down
newly emerging survivors
of winter can
hear the words of the birds
until the beat on the street
plays its tattoo
or the drone on the phone
and pierces the ears
That attack
cloaks the world in
a dreary sameness
brings winter back
unwelcome
into the heart of
windows open season.
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tree games
In the morning
as I’m shaving
on a bright and
windy day
I glimpse something
quickly passing
by the window
—second floor?
Nothing could be
near that window
Are my eyes
deceiving me?
Could it be
a bird in passing?
It repeats:
that cannot be.
Like an arm
I see it flying
cast a shadow
on the wall
and my heart
is fairly pounding
hold the sink
or else I fall.
Then of course
the comprehension:
it is just a
simple branch
that I saw
peripherally;
getting old:
can’t take a chance.
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luncheon at Musee D’Orsay
Ah, yes: the food again of course is fabulous
too much for lunch, just like the chandeliers;
the marble fireplace’ smooth and gleaming tabula
a marvel—I can feel the ancients near.
And yet, beyond the walls in the salon,
a darkened cloister honours those pastels;
and down the hall, Degas and then Van Gogh
and wealths of giant minds that spoke in oil.
So now I fear to leave this room and browse:
I cannot bring to them what they to me;
what if my brain so fails the very laws
to see what they have given the world to see.
Let’s say it just seems absolutely odd
so easily to touch the face of God.
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from Black Jack’s basement
[Note: Blackjack was a persona I used over twenty years ago, when I was editing "The 21", a union newsletter for highschool teachers in our end of Ontario.]
So now it’s okay to be late by a day
or a month or a week with assignments;
and please don’t admit that you copied a bit
it’s all right: copyright’s a confinement.
I suppose the next thing the pundits will sing
will be students are teaching the classes;
and knowledge itself will be stored on a shelf
while they shove their heads up their own assets.
Surely these assets can see what will pass
if they practice this brand of stupidity:
the path it will take will lead to the wake
of our country and eyes’ high humidity.
Someone tell me everything’s a dream
for if I wake to this, I’ll have to scream.
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