archive: in perpetual schottische

Posted by riverwriter on Feb 16th, 2009 | 0 comments

in perpetual schottishe

Tune your pipes and honk ’em up lad
and sup on the whiskey we gi’ you
for tartan is flying and summer is glad
and the blood’s in the tune alleluia

O hear the soft swirls of the piobaireachd
my lass: and dream of your love in the valley
he is deep in the loam with a lance as his lot
but you shed not a tear at his passing

And he on the rock again dances schottische
and flings his slung sporran so sweet
so strike up the cèilidh and sing out me lads as he
flings his delicate feet–

She tears her teeth from this rotten fruit and turns to the laundry ready
to pound it on the rock worn smooth by her constant corrosive curses
her hands are coarse and as cracked now as the rock when two were young
and he stood on it teasing her crossed ankles frozen in perpetual schottische
he said and he danced on laughing for her to blush and soften her reluctance

Oh God she had let him go without tasting him once
forced his spoon to stay on the counter as her mother used to say
her sister’s son hops into the creek as trout wriggle away in the sun
he seeks gooey clay for his mother’s mocking artful fingers
she watches him search the clear water with his delicate feet

From the cool clay his mother fashioned the effigies of
a youth lying dead straight arms crossed on his breast
and a banshee prostrate pounding her tears into it all

[I wrote this piece as a contest piece for a WILD Poetry Forum monthly contest. The contest requirement was to use two arbitrarily given lines, which in this case were "he flings his delicate feet" and "From the cool clay his mother fashioned the effigies". The podcast of the reading is available directly below.]

The voice of the poet

Fountain (IBPC Honorable Mention)

Posted by riverwriter on Jun 14th, 2008 | 0 comments

I just received word that the most recent draft of “Fountain” (first posted in wordcurrents March 16, 2008) has received an Honorable Mention in the May Interboard Poetry Competition (IBPC). The poem was named Poem of the Week in Wild Poetry Forum, then was selected as one of three poems to represent Wild Poetry Forum in IBPC for the month of May.

Here is the most recent draft of “Fountain”, preceded by the Wild Poetry Forum Administrator’s announcement and followed by the Judge’s comment:

Many congratulations are in order for Douglas Hill who received an Honorable Mention this month in the competition. Way to go, Douglas! We are very happy for you. We would like to sincerely thank our other entrants – Dale McLain and Lois P. Jones (Emusing) – for representing WPF and for their participation. Wild sends out congratulations to all the winning poets and boards. We send special congratulations to Sarah J. Sloat, a much beloved member here at Wild too, for her first place honors for The Waters forum. Good luck to all in next month’s competition!

Honorable Mention
Fountain
by Douglas Hill
Wild Poetry Forum

Judge’s Comments:
I’m the dictionary definition of a daddy’s girl, and this gentle poem–so full of specific detail, yet at its center a tender and intense moment between father and child–hit me right in the heart. –Patricia Smith

From the Archive: “Green Christmas”

Posted by riverwriter on Jan 6th, 2007 | 0 comments

[I wrote this piece when we had a warm, no-snow Christmas in 1965, I think.]

Green Christmas

******* — middle of the carol of devotion
They felt warm air wash — snow ebb — and they shivered
*******— and soon the crisp clear jingle bells
*******were clicky buds ad suddedly the sdow was god.
And brown slush and rain and wet wool coats
And limp brown bows that blacked and mourned
Were what was left.

*******They sat by fireplace, backs of heads to black window:
*******“A green Christmas is an ill omen,” she said.
*******“I think not of omens,” he said, and wicker shivered.

Jiggle buds clicked lonely on the door
And jiggledeverbore.

On/Kind/Ness

Posted by riverwriter on May 13th, 2006 | 0 comments

This article is reprinted from The 21 1982-3 #13 March 11 — this was the Newsletter of District 21, Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation; I was the editor, illustrator writer and publisher. The title above is printed with slashes indicating the line breaks. Blackjack’s editorials appeared in every issue of The 21 which I produced every two weeks during the school years 1982-88.

Maybe it is a seige mentality that has come over the old basement office, but every year for the last few, (more…)

Old Wife’s Tale

Posted by riverwriter on Feb 15th, 2006 | 2 comments

Old Wife’s Tale

A Dramatic Monologue
Published in Monologues Selected from Playwrights Union of Canada 1996-1997 International Monologue Competition (PUC Play Service) First Chapbook Publication 1998

Exerpt from A Song After Living© 1997 Douglas Hill

SCENE: Maternity ward waiting room, 1963. Door opens, agonized yelling off, as Madeleine enters.
Madeleine: (Enter, to sit near a nervous young man, and knit.) Your first? Well, I just come up from seein’ my daughter. She’s havin’ her third — without anaesthesia. Allergic, you know. They took her downstairs, she was makin’ so much noise. You go into that stairwell over there, you’ll hear her screamin’. You’d think with it bein’ her third and all it’d be faster this time. Somethin’ wrong there. My third was just like squattin’ for a shit.
See him? That’s Dr. Hamilton. Fixed my varicross veins. Awful. Like havin’ a dog gnaw your leg all the time. Like worms crawlin’ all down the back of my thighs, here. Not pretty. Ruins a woman’s body havin’ all them kids, you know. My daughter, now. Gets these awful cramps — bleeds like a stuck pig, too. I go to her place, she’s got the curse, well I just turn around and leave, believe you me — and labour cramps — somethin’ wrong with her plumbin’ if you ask me. Hear her just then, when they opened the door? But you’re a new young father-to-be, I’ll bet — with enough on your mind.
Strange how many babies are born on the full moon, though. All mine, all my daughter’s. There: when the door opened? That’s her, screamin’ her vocal cords out. Her last — little Hector — almost died on the table. Two and a half now; had the chicken pox last summer: face like a can of worms ? and the diaper area, well you wouldn’t want to see that. I have a snapshot of it somewheres ? Anyways, he almost died at birth. Umbilical around the neck. Baby blue as that ashtray over there, without a word of a lie. I think it’s kind of stupid as a result, but you can’t tell her that. My last was Cesarian, you know. Stitches from here to here. Scar so big and red and jagged my husband hates to look at me naked any more. Calls me Scar Belly. You’d laugh! But he don’t seem to mind me in the dark! Awful toll on a woman’s body, though.
Dr. Hamilton. My, my. Good doctor. Cured my neighbour of a boil on her forehead, size of your eyeball. Had to lance it. Squirted across the room. Fountain o’ puss. You look kinda pale. Why don’t you get up and walk or somethin’? Help you get your breathin’ goin’. Well. Better see how my daughter’s comin’ along. Could be hours. Nice talkin’ to you. Hope it comes out all right. I can still hear her screamin’. But I guess I should go down. Wish I could stay and keep you cheered up, you look like you need it. But I’d better go. Remember, do as I do: always look on the bright side. See you. (Screaming off, as Madeleine opens the door.) That’s her. (Exit.)