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Poetry 2007
Table of contents
Dot Thought ..................................................... 1
Sacred Vision ................................................... 2
The Final Solution............................................ 3
Living Will ....................................................... 4
In Defence of Small P Poets ............................ 4
Not Even with a Whimper ............................... 4
The Right Perspective ...................................... 5
Shepherd-of-good-hope Poets .......................... 5
History as We Know it ..................................... 6
Two Different Ways of Turning out the Lights 6
Mata Hari Tried to Seduce Me ......................... 7
A Set of Measure Zero ..................................... 7
We’ve Grown Older ......................................... 8
An Old Man’s Erotica ...................................... 9
To Master Po .................................................. 10
Once in Solstice Bookstore ............................ 10
Unrequited Puppy Love ................................. 12
Smelling like a Home..................................... 14
Indirect Poetry ................................................ 14
A Room Full of Poetry ................................... 15
Once in Mankind’s Chicken-coop ................. 16
Some Thoughts of Thomas Copeland ............ 16
The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree..... 18
The Pause Before Awakening ........................ 19
Capital P Poetry Sucks ................................... 20
Spring Outing ................................................. 20
A Wiener Channel Universe .......................... 21
How to Tell the Trail from the Forest ............ 21
How Easily We Forget ................................... 22
An Old Man’s Spring ..................................... 23
Only When the Spirit Is Young...................... 23
Borrowed Time .............................................. 24
It’s the Way Things Are ................................. 26
Just Another Lottery Ticket ........................... 27
Full Moon in the Sky ..................................... 28
It Won’t Work ................................................ 30
The Difference Between a Star and an Asterisk31
How to Observe Life’s Weiner Process ......... 32
A Note from William Shakespeare ................ 32
The Curve of Now ......................................... 33
Thomas must Have Been Here Too ............... 33
Wake up Stupid .............................................. 34
Rebel Without a Cause(way) ......................... 35
Gazing out to Sea ........................................... 36
Village Mind .................................................. 36
“Where Are You,” Said I ............................... 37
Have Imagination, Will Travel ...................... 38
Quintessential Autumn Day ........................... 40
A Note about the Garden of Eden .................. 41
A Message to Little Sparrow ......................... 41
3:53 Am ......................................................... 42
Life Is but a Simple Flower We Protect ......... 44
Why Learn the Language of Our Ancestors? . 45
A Village Poet’s Message to the New Generation
I Will Never Know You Thomas Copeland... 48
DOT THOUGHT
(with thanks to D’Arcy Hutton)
As a black belt in Village Poetry
I have unfortunately come to realize
That most forms of human communication
Are bandwidth limited
And as a result,
Even Village Poetry looses something in the translation.
Clearly,
Writing down thoughts on a page
Or sending them electronically as dot txt
Dot rtf
Dot wpd
Dot doc
Or even as a book,
Are at best demeaning.
Using these methods
One can at best
Become a capital p Poet
Moreover,
Other forms of poetic communication
Such as dot tif or dot gif
And even dot wav or dot mp3
Are also severely bandwidth limited,
And
In the end
Have also failed.
Certainly
If at least one of them had not failed
The World would have been in a less sorry state than it is today.
Fortunately for the World
And for mankind,
I am also a trained black belt statistician
And
As such
Have come up with a new
1
Infinite bandwidth form of poetic communication
Called dot thought.
At first I conceived of trivial communication methods
Such as creating linkable USB implants in our brain.
But
Further thought made me realise
That this approach is not technically workable.
However
Because I have also earned a post-doc in N.O.W.
I came up with the idea of communicating without any wires inbetween at allYou know:
Touching,
Talking,
Holding hands,
And of course
Making love.
And
All of this can be done
Using an analogue form of communication
With the simple ending
Dot thought.
Of course
In order to make it work
You’ll have to add a bit of home made chicken soup
With a large dollop of love.
22 Dec 2006
SACRED VISION
There are no evil others,
This time,
For
This time, our times,
The evil others are ourselves.
This time
There is no evil Adolph
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No evil Poles and their pogroms
No evil Turks
No evil barbarians at the gate,
For this time
The evil others are ourselves.
It is we who are destroying this World of ours.
It is we who have created the self righteous barbarians that are pounding at our gate
And
Clearly
There is nothing we can do about it.
This time
It is we
Who have created our own final solution
So that the Earth
(It is no longer our Earth)
May once again be reborn.
1 Jan 2007
THE FINAL SOLUTION
If you think about it
The final solution,
Our own final solution,
Is rather obvious
And
It will not be the barbarians at the gate,
It will not be the Muslim world,
Or all the others that we have oppressed
That will
In the end
Overpower us
We are far too clever for that.
Something far more powerful will come along
To do us in.
2 Jan 2007
3
LIVING WILL
I do hereby solemnly declare
That no heroic measures be taken
To save mankind’s life,
And that we
Be permitted
To accept with grace
Our own self created demise.
2 Jan 2007
IN DEFENCE OF SMALL-P POETS
As artists,
Small-p poets
Are like small dollar-sign artists;
They just don’t count.
And, perhaps,
That is as it should be.
Perhaps
Not trying to dollar sign $ave the unwashed “others”
Is the first step in the right direction.
5 Jan 2007
NOT EVEN WITH A WHIMPER
Everything was normal today
Except that is
For the weather;
Climate change had arrived.
Saturday morning
4
Early January 2007
The Normal lunch hour crowd was at Chamberlin’sSome with kids,
All gossiping.
Everything was normal
Except, that is,
For the Weather.
And
We all knew that something was wrong,
But nonetheless
We didn’t change our patterns.
We just carried on as if everything was normal.
6 January 2007
THE RIGHT PERSPECTIVE
Only if one is a human being
Can one truly appreciate other human beings.
Only if one is a saint
Can one truly appreciate other saints.
Either there is a divine spark within each of us
Or there is just one divine spark that we all share
No matter which of the above are true,
All answers are awesome
6 Jan 2007
SHEPHERD-OF-GOOD-HOPE POETS
And there are those shepherds-of-good-hope poets
Who choose to minister to the needs
Of society’s collaterally damaged,
Those we perceive as normal,
5
Those who have been shaped by our capital D Demokracy.
And there are other shepherds-of-good-hope poets
Who choose to enhance the lives of high speed jaded lovers
Whose vision has been diminished by
Low-resolution electronic representations of themselves.
And then there are other poets
Those who live in the NOW,
Who neither write nor expound,
Who no longer worry about our decaying society
Or self-centred lovers
Who have survived by cutting the umbilical cord
And
Like me,
Have lived to tell about it.
6 Jan 2007
HISTORY AS WE KNOW IT
Saturday morning,
Canadian Winter,
Wood fire burning in the airtight stove.
In the background
Saturday Afternoon at the Opera is playing on the radio.
It is rather sad to think
That our rich history as we know it,
That this rich present as we know i
Along with the rest of the worlds vast historic tapestry
Is soon to be eliminated by Climate Change.
6 Jan 2007
TWO DIFFERENT WAYS OF TURNING OUT THE LIGHTS
6
If I knew that my world would end in 10 days
I would try to write an extra poem or two.
If Glennis knew that her world were about to end
She tells me that she would read even more than she does now.
6 Jan 2007
MATA HARI TRIED TO SEDUCE ME
Mata Hari tried to seduce me the other day
But I would have none of her wiles.
Even when she bared her breasts
And wrapped her tongue around me
She could only quenched her heat in a cold January stream
My country was more important than that.
6 Jan 2007
A SET OF MEASURE ZERO
When I was younger,
A scientist,
A Mathematical Statistician
And
A black belt modeler of life
I thought that a set of measure zero
Was an event that had a zero probability of occurring.
Now
Wiser,
Now
A small-p poet,
A liver of life,
Now
I have come to realize
That things that predictably occur-
7
War
Budgets
Heads
Tails
And
Even our own deathThings that are not in a set of measure zero,
Are interesting
But
Not important.
Now
That which is more important to me
Are all the unexpected and undeserved gifts
That life brings to us
Like most of our small everyday events that bring us joyThe unexpected breath of fresh air
A hug from a friend
Passing insights into the world that we are a part of.
“I would not stay here on this earth except—“ for the set of measure zero.
7 Jan 2007
WE’VE GROWN OLDER
“You’ve grown older since last Winter,”
Said I to my wife of 43 years,
Said I to my partner
As we snowshoed into the park,
Snowshoed on freshly dusted trails.
“I’ve noticed”,
I continued,
“That it’s harder for you to climb hills,
And your hip is starting to hurt you more and more”.
“And you, too”
Said my wife
“Your eyes are getting dim,
You forget what you’re doing,
Your prostate is going
Your hands are becoming more wrinkled and have started to shake.
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Your hearing is also going
And
Even your strength is going
Although I must admit
You can still go long distances.
In the end,”
She concluded
“It is you, too,
Who has grown old since last Winter.
We’ve grown older,
We’re growing older,
But
At least for the moment,
We still have each other”.
19 Jan 2007
AN OLD MAN’S EROTICA
For an old man like me
Erotic warmth
Is bright blue sunlight
Radiating from a winter’s field.
An erotic caress
Is when the beauty of the world
Brushes over your heart.
And
Erotic love
Is the pleasure you get
When your wife finally returns from a morning shopping trip
So that now
You can you can both rush out to the local family restaurant
And
Enjoy each others company for lunch
Feb 12 2007
9
TO MASTER PO
(Who is struggling with Cancer)
As with all our difficult journeys,
Even though others are there,
We must still take these journeys alone,
Making use of the strengths we have acquired,
Especially our stance.
But since this isn't possible all the time,
There will still be moments of sadness,
Moments
When,
Once again,
We have the privileged of embracing
Those we love.
2 March 2007
ONCE IN SOLSTICE BOOKSTORE
Monday afternoon in Wakefield,
March snow squalls blowing off the still-frozen bay
White ghosts with cloaks flapping
Riding from left to right across my panavision plate glass screen
From time to time the snow obliterates the flickering dots of ice fishermen moving slowly about
Monday afternoon in Wakefield
It’s slow in the bookstore,
Only one customer is in the back moving around.
Jordie’s wife Ellen is on the phone
Calling customers,
Telling them that “The Secret”,
The book they ordered,
Is in
And
Telling them what she’s heard about the book.
10
And I’m here, too.
I’ve come to borrow their paper cutter.
I’m preparing score cards to be used at the Thursday night card game,
Our biweekly card game at the Senior’s residence down the street.
Now
Ellen is talking to a book seller in Portland, Oregon,
Spending their non existent profit margin on a phone call,
Spending it to place a special order
And
Asking whether they could reduce their shipping charges on her one book order,
Perhaps saving a penny here and there
And no matter what the person on the other end of the line says,
Ellen is always friendly,
Cheerful.
The less expensive e-mails cannot communicate that.
It is a pleasure for me to be here
Me,
Comfortably seated behind their huge store front window,
Looking out from the inside warmth at the outside bluster.
My assembly line set up.
I’m cutting cards for “Table 2 Couple 1"
I,
Feeling like a symphonic cello player ,
Carefully sawing away,
Listening to the music of the others around me,
Carefully cutting,
Carefully preparing the score cards,
Preparing them so I won’t run out next Thursday.
We’ve had our card party for some time nowSo long, in fact, that some of the s
Seniors have passed away
And new ones have come in.
The card games are a high point in my week,
Everybody laughing,
Everybody making outrageous bids,
Me
Sometimes forgetting the bid.
In the game last week
Our couple was playing against a couple of dower card-counters.
“Damned card counters”
I said to myself
Trying to fend off their well meaning intimidating remarks.
“Why didn’t you play the king of hearts?”
11
Monday afternoon in Wakefield,
Solstice book store.
A couple of neighbourhood kids wander in.
Its March break
And
They’re bored out of their skulls
“Can we use the phone?”
One says to Ellen
“I want to call my mom
And tell her that I’m here”
“Sure”
Says Ellen.
Passing the portable phone,
Pausing in her computer inventory entry.
Me
Still cutting cards;
I’m up to table 4 couple 2.
The kids are now in the back room
Gaming on the internet.
March snow storms don’t seem to interest them;
Maybe the bookstore and the internet is more inviting than the storm.
Now,
My job done,
Ellen and I are sharing tea,
Sharing tea and talking village.
She
Ruefully remembering when she worked as a wholesale buyer
For a book chain in the city.,
Reminiscing as we watch the March snow squalls on our Wakefield Bay.
5 March 2007
UNREQUITED PUPPY LOVE
The Celia of my youth is gone now,
No longer here.
Oh
She’s still alive somewhere
And
12
Has a life of her own
Just as I do now.
But,
The bespectacled ingenue of my youthful dreams
No longer exists.
She’s morphed now and lives somewhere else.,
Changed into an older person
Probably something like me,
Worried about bodily dwindles
And
A whole host of still unfinished business.
From time to time
When I walk my Village streets
I see younger
Celia-types,
Friends of mine,
Skin and mind still unblemished,
Still filled with dreams
Just as I imagine that our minds,
Celia’s and mine,
Once were.
Dreams made of gossamer stuff
That never came to pass;
Life got in the way,
Got in the way,
Changed us,
Changed me.
Changed my course,
Channelled me into my Now
Which is of course richer
Than the one that I naively imagined.
Funny,
Isn’t it,
How the downstream pull of destiny
Sometimes brings us to lush valleys
That we cynically thought
Only existed in made up TV commercials,
Only existed on the other side of the silver screen.
.
And,
Even before the immensity of unrequited love had been fully understood,
When dreams of the future were still only low lying fog banks,
Low banks of fog rising out of a childhood river that had just begun to thaw,
13
Rising out on a Spring warm day
Rising up,
Out
And surrounds me with the promise of the yet-to-come
Promises that I never fully understood then
And
Still do not understood now.
Surrounds me still with unrequited longing
And
The longing to awaken from this unrequited dream called life.
Save us from our unrequited puppy love.
7 March 2007
SMELLING LIKE A HOME
Because people no longer “ live” at home,
The “franchise stores”
Have come out with some state-of-the-art designer aerosols
To cover up the smell of stale TV electrons
That now permeates the carpets of even the poorest homes.
You know;,
Pesticide-free beef stew scent,
Boiled heritage potato and organic hamburger scent
With an aftertaste of fried genetically unmodified onions.
Walt Disney Inc is now distributing these Family Happiness Scents internationally
In a focus group tested tri-lingual extruded plastic ensemble
Complete with a money back guaranteed
10 April 2007
INDIRECT POETRY
Artistry is useless.
The thrown pot
Displayed in a retail store
Is nowhere near as beautiful
14
As the potter sitting at his wheel and making it.
And
A book about Walden Pond
Is nowhere near the same,
As Thoreau’s living it.
Living in biblical times is better than reading about it
And
A movie about love
Is no where nearly as beautiful
As making love to a real person
And
I am sure
That the janitor sweeping the floor of the Sistine Chapel
Is much richer
Than the sun-glassed tourist
Who gazes uncomprehendingly at the ceiling.
And compare the pleasure the learned Bardophile gets
Compared to the wealth of the unwashed beggar
Sitting in the Orchestra pit of the Globe Theatre.
And
Of course
What good are my humble words
Compared to the “other experiences” you are having
As you sit in your own world
Reading,
Surrounded by the fabric of the life that “you” have made,
That you are part of.
12 April 2007
A ROOM FULL OF POETRY
I’ve been digging for many years now
Have passed through one machine filled room after another,
Layers of clay
And
15
Fart-filled bars.
I’ve been digging for many years now
Searching this Earth
Searching for what it is that will make me a poet.
You knowPOOF, you’re a poet.
So just tonight
Just a few minutes ago
I broke through into this room in which I sit
A room filled with poetry
A room filled with me and the richness of my own life
Strewn papers
Books
Photographs
And
Indications of the presence of others.
Perhaps you too have broken through
Perhaps you too are a small-p poet
And
Are sitting in a room filled with your own poetry.
12 April 2007
ONCE IN MANKIND’S CHICKEN COOP
We only think that our shit doesn’t smell,
That its only others that live in chicken coops,
Walk barefooted on their own feces
And
Peck each other to death.
We only think that.
20 April 2007
SOME THOUGHTS OF THOMAS COPELAND
16
Thomas came with his family to this land on which I live
In 1834
And
Initially cleared it at the rate of five acres per year with one horse.
He died in 1858 and is buried here on the hillside.
Thomas came to this land on which I now sit,
Sit in warm spring sunshine,
No bugs yet,
The north slope snow just recently gone,
The fields
Still too wet to plough.
Thomas probably sat here too
At just this time of year
Looking out at just this kind of day
And I can imagine
He too
Pausing for a moment
Putting aside his British Wesleyan Methodist work ethic on his day of rest
Yes, Thomas must have sat here, too,
Sat beside a South-wind-river
Long reach swells
Meandering and breaking
Bright spring sun
Beaming on his not-yet farmer’s tanned arms,
His fields around, too,
Not yet in bloom.
Only the survivors of Winter’s war are visible,
Visible in this corner of Nature’s battlefield called Winter ,
Visible in this battlefield beside his house,
Now my house,
Still-numbed cat tail stalks
Vibrating in the breeze
Awakening pommiers
Getting ready for their spiritual burgeoning.
The banked barn on the hillside has survived, too;
Only a few vertical boards near the peak need to be replaced
And glory of wonders,
The gravity feed water supply from our hillside spring
Worked right through the winter,
17
Even though this year’s snow pack was a little bit thin.
Perhaps he thought of replacing the rotting wooden hillside pipes as a precautionary measure
But as for him,
As it is now for me,
It must have been nice to see the animals out again:
The chickens pecking away to uncover Winter’s presence
The ducks preening themselves in the sun
And the cows munching in the newly-green fields.
And
Of course watching the zephyrs rippling across the pond.
It’s nice not to have to feed the wood stove anymore.
It’s nice to gaze upon what he and his family have wrought.
It’s nice being here
Living on this land,
Once thought Thomas Copeland
Once thought me.
23 April 2007
THE APPLE DOESN’T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE
So the library volunteers are meeting
Meeting in the converted fire hall library
Meeting in the village that was once staunchly an anglo-protestant-prohibitionist enclave.
The newly constituted library board is considering their fund raising effort,
But remember this is now,
Not 125 years ago
Or even ten years ago
Bake sales are passé
Now they are discussing fundraising by selling a nude calendar.,
Nude calendar of village notables acting out nursery rhyme
Of course with no “vital” parts showing.
After all,
We want the families with children
To continue using the library.
And what is nude, says one.
What is a “vital” part?
Well, says another,
18
“Bums are OK and side shots of breasts are all right
As long as the nipple is covered”.
“And I don’t like the brown bag cover,”
Says another.
“It makes our calendar look too hard core.”
Sez I, too,
Said my mother,
Said my mother’s mother.
27 April 2007
THE PAUSE BEFORE AWAKENING
Just like a dreamer
Awakening from a deep sleep
I
Malingering in the fast-disappearing haze of imagination
Not yet ready to shoulder the burdens of the coming day
And I, too,
Just awakening from Winter.
Yesterday was my first bike ride in shorts.
The ducks too,
Just awakening,
Just freshly put out on their pond of refuge,
Preening,
No longer having to put up with those homicidal-hair-trigger chickens
All of us
Newly awake,
Malingering,
Not quite believing that winter is over,
Malingering before the Spring frenzy begins in earnest,
Before the heat of the season’s days.
27 April 2007
19
CAPITAL P POETRY SUCKS
If you think that this is not Capital-P Poetry
Then you’ve got a problem
If you think that only heavily packaged cellophaned thoughts are worthwhile
And that
Our beloved spontaneous human intercourse
Is only secondary to what can be written down,
Then YOU’VE got a problem
27 April 2007
SPRING OUTING
No bugs yet,
g
Green shoots just beginning to emerge.
We
Standing in the Park parking lot
Seniors
Gathered for our first hike of the Spring
I
Looking about
Looking for who has survived
And
Who is missing
Looking for who has made it through to Spring
Spring outing
Great big grins are being passed around
First outings are always tricky
Some are overdressed
Some
Underdressed
Some of my friends are now using canes
We
We
20
Walking more slowly now
And yet
Despite our aging
The conversation is just as rich
Just as rewarding
Or perhaps now
Even more so
Oh
There are still the speedsters out front in their fast group
And the intermediates and the slows
And then of course there is me
Lagging behind as usual
Stopping in the woods on an early spring morn
“Whose woods are these I think I know—“
25 April 2007
A WIENER CHANNEL UNIVERSE
Norbert Wiener was a child protegé scientist
Just as we all are, also.
But I will always remember Norbert for his mathematical characterization
That I apply to our daily life,
The Wiener Process,
A universe of possible events
Each of which is equally rich
No matter how closely you examine them.
We’re part of a Wiener channel universe
25 April 2007
HOW TO TELL THE TRAIL FROM THE FOREST
Strange creatures that we are,
We humans,
So obsessed with
And
So proud of
21
Our insignificant winding trails that we have carved in the forest,
Our little paths through the woods,
Our little paths that we are always trying to go further and faster on
Faster on as we pass over the springtime creek
Faster still as we tread upon the dancing sunlit shadows
Sunlight that is shining down on our trail.
But never forget
That this sunlight also illuminates the other part of our forest home
Not only our little trails
But also the rest of the forest that we are part of
So
While it is important to be not loose sight of our own trail
It is important to be aware of the rest of the forest on which the sun also shines
1 May 2007
HOW EASILY WE FORGET
How strange it is,
This time of year,
Tulip buds about to open,
Green grass sprouting from residual roots,
Bird song everywhere,
And
Spring peepers orchestrating our lazy evening nights.
How strange it is
How easily we forget Winter’s abuse,
The long nights of suffering on Winter’s operating table
Only kept alive by “Hope springs eternal–“
How strange it is.
How strange it is
How easily we forget the recently passed soul numbing pain
The dreary short days
When we labouriously shuffle forward
Wrapped in mittens, toque and cloak,
All signs of plant life covered by a deadly frozen blanket.
Each of our steps had to be measured in order to survive
How strange it is
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How easily we forget
How easily we forget.
10 May 2007
AN OLD MAN’S SPRING
In times past
When Spring came around again
When scents of blossoms filled the air
When wanderlust began to return to my still frozen soul
When dreams of the still unachieved beyond
Reawakened once again
In times past.
In times past,
When Spring returned,
I and my long-gone dog
Would wander through the fields
Wander through Winter’s pock-marked battle ground
Looking for survivors
Looking to see how much of us was left
Who had survived.
Now,
I,
An old man
Sitting on my porch
Listening to Spring’s sirenic call once again
But now
No longer able to respond
Except, that is, in my imagination
No longer able to move
My mind no longer in control
No longer able to follow my dreams
Even to the end of the field beyond
Now
Only capable of watching
Only capable of watching and listening
10 May 2007
23
ONLY WHEN THE SPIRIT IS YOUNG
Only when the spirit is young
Does it fly and soar
Soar on the wings of childhood dreams
Only when there are new buds in Spring
Is nature’s first green gold
Only with puppy love
Are we born or reborn
Only on a bicycle
When one is an equipment minimalist
Is one truly a Zen bicyclist
Soaring on the hills in the countryside breezes
Only when one is a student
Far enough removed from the various levels of Academia
Is there love of learning to be found
Only with the blush of a new idea
An upstartup seeking financing
Does the spirit soar into overdrive
And of course
Only when one can wordlessly love all that which we all are
Without the need of bureaucratic intermediaries
Is god truly there.
21 May 2007
BORROWED TIME
June 13
The year doesn’t matter
4:32 AM
The first glow of dawn already in the sky
Me
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In bed
Covered with a light summer blanket
Comfortable
No thunder storms last night
Me
Breathing in and out
My breath
In sync with the to and fro of the nearby spring peeper chorus
Breathing in
Breathing out
The rich smells of Spring
And yet
And yet
Even with all these riches
Even with the warmth
Even with the waning smells of lilac fragrance
Even with the spring peeper music
Even with the background of the early morning light
Even with all these riches
I still feel that time is running out
My days of wine and roses are numbered
The lengthening of days is grinding inexorably to a halt
The return to Winter
About to begin
The return to days of growing darkness
Cold
Snow
And more cold
Are all about to begin again.
The return to frigid still mornings when there is no light
Even though the radio tells me that it’s time to get up
The return once again to survival
Putting one foot ahead of the other
Trudging on with only the dream of Spring’s return
Only the dream of symphonic early mornings like this one
To keep me going on
Mornings like this
Early dawn
My world still asleep
Yet
Breathing
25
Breathing as I am
Breathing with the to and fro of the spring peeper’s call and awakening birdsong
All
Like me
Grateful for the respite
Grateful for the warmth and the early morning light
Grateful for these fleeting moments of borrowed time.
It’s sad isn’t it
That all our loves
No matter how grand
Must come to an end.
June 13, 2007
IT’S THE WAY THINGS ARE
There are different speeds we travel at,
Different languages that we speak
Or cannot speak.
There are different languages that others speak
And that’s just the way things are.
Like now
In this sunlit summer forest
The fast group
The middle group
And the slower group of my Senior friends
Are already ahead of me,
Each group travelling at its own speed
Speaking its own language
Communicating with each other
As they obliviously pass through the forest woods that surrounds them.
And then there is me,
The laggard,
The sole member of the Village Poet group.
I thought,
Perhaps,
If I walked really slowly
I could talk to the forest that surrounds me
26
Understand the trees in their solemn majesty
Hear what the birds are saying
And perhaps
Even understand the meaning of the leafy shadows
That fall upon this printed page as I write.
No such luck.
All are speaking languages that I still don’t understand
Travelling at a speed even slower than mine
Even though I am stopped.
But then perhaps
Perhaps we don’t even understand the languages we think we understand
Perhaps our illusion of being part of a sub-group is not real after all
Perhaps the fast, medium and slow groups
Only think they are speaking to each other
Communicating
Perhaps the only real communicating they are doing
Is climbing hills together
And
Walking leafy paths
Paths that are filled with birdsong
Sunlight
Paths that are surrounded by a living family of trees and understory
Understory that we too are part of
Even though we can’t directly speak to each other
Or communicate who we are
Or
What we are part of..
13 June 2007
JUST ANOTHER LOTTERY TICKET
Once again
Summer Equinox has come and gone
The long days of lightness
Already starting to shorten
Sliding through my aging cupped fingers
Escaping my grasp once again
Leaving me,
Staring once again at my futility
27
My empty aging hands
The damned brass ring has eluded me once again.
This time,
I thought,
Lucy will not pull the football away
Maybe this time
I thought
I can catch a ride on the Space Ship To Avoid Winter
Maybe this time I can win the ultimate lottery
If only I could have jumped high enough at the apogee
I could have free myself from Earth’s pull
Escape this inevitable downward slide
That all of us are trying to escape
Me
Thinking
Still believing
That I am the chosen one
Our imagined god passing overhead
Passes over as the TV cameras zoom in on me
Zooms over as I sit in the bleachers
My face in paint
My breast bared
Waving my pathetic banner
Pick me
I shout along with everybody else
Pick me, pick me,
Please
28 June, 2007
FULL MOON IN THE SKY
1:30 AM
Canada Day 2007 just starting
Full moon in the sky
Things are not as obvious as they seem.
All the preparations have been made for today
28
Tents set up
Beer trailer pulled in place
Tables and chairs arranged under the big tent
Kids games set up
A Kissing booth nailed together
and if course
An elevated band stand
The human crew had been hard at work.
And yet
Tonight
Things are not as obvious as they seem
There’s more than the full moon
More than yesterday’s preparations
Even if it is just another small Canadian Village’s Canada Day
Things are not as obvious as they seem.
And it is not a dirty village secret
Of something terrible
Or of some great sorrow that is unseen.
Oh
They too exist
But there is something more than that
Far more than that
Things are not as obvious as they seem.
And it is not the unjustified murders that are taking place elsewhere in the holy name of wars
Or even our man made climate change
No
Things are not as obvious as they seem
For the truth is
That these things
All of the above things
These small things that we can focus on
Are only a small-part of what we are embedded in
Something far greater
Than either you or I can imagine,
Things are not as obvious as they seem
But fear not
Things are also not as overwhelming as they seem,
As I make them out to be,
For
Even in the case of world worry and doubt
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Answers are also there too
Answers in the form of those you love
Your family
Your friends
Your village
In other words
US
All answers lie with us
You see
Things are not as obvious as they appear to be
There is a full moon in the sky
AND
Today is Canada Day.
1 July 2007
IT WON’T WORK
So I said to my friend George, the barber
“There are two inter-related reasons
That you cannot write a sequel to your play, “Seven Important Questions”
called Zen and the art of Hair Cutting
To begin with
A significant part of the intended audiences don’t have pre-nascent receptors in their head
That tell them that
Life is equally rich at each and every one of the myriad of its levels of detail
(The pixel density of life is infinite for those of you who are cyber-junkies).
Secondly
Because of these lack of receptors
These people are not prepared to become a part of the all encompassing NOW
And are only living a monocular life at one level.
As a result
Because you cannot convince them
That there is a way to leave Big Brother’s reality
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And come to NOW
The proposed play will be boring to them
Because it will not have a beginning, middle, and end
You see
Those people who lack these “Equally rich” receptors
Would only see the story about a “Zen Barber”
As only a story that existed on the other side of the silver screen of reality
And
As such
Would only become another forkful of a Kraft dinner in front of the TV set
A story with no beginning, middle or end isn’t play worthy”
Sez I to George
2 July, 2007
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A STAR AND AN ASTERISK
The difference between a star
And
An asterisk
Is the same as the difference between astrology
And
Asterology
In astrology
One studies the meaning of that which is beyond us.
In Asterology
One studies the meaning of that which is within
The meaning given to our man made star
The asterisk.
Now, in the old days
Asterisks referred to a foot note
Or
Thoughts that could not be expressed within the main body of thought.
Today, in cyber-world
When one is searching
Asterologists refer to the asterisk as a wild card
Which replaces a set of word concepts.
In Astrology
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In the case of a star
The star is not a substitute for a well defined number of possibilities
But rather
Represents an example of everything, everything that we are not,
Only represents one of many unknowns
That is the difference between a star
And
A man made asterisk
2 July 2007
HOW TO OBSERVE LIFE’S WEINER PROCESS
Whereas an optometrist
Would tell you
That you either need strong glasses
Or a microscope
To observe the minutia of the present
An asteronomist would say
That one can only observe the Weineresque minutia of the present by participating in it
And that
One can only be part of the present
If one is wearing glasses of zero ego thickness
3 July 2007
A NOTE FROM WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
It’s 2007!
It’s been over 300 years since my demise.
The England of my youth,
Gone.
The stinking England of the plague and Cholera
The England of the destitute poor
They are gone too.
Its 2007!
I am seated on an alpenglow summer hillside
Summer lawn of a restored barn in a restored countryside
32
Surrounded by properly attired theatre goers
Before me a summer theatre tent
And
Youthful Shakespearian actors
Practising their pratfalls and sword fights before the show
They do not know that I am here
Having earned the privilege of returning once in a while
To look upon my legacy.
I mosey over
And tell them the truth
That I am a reincarnation of William ShakespeareCome to witness the prattling of my offspring.
They laugh
And continue their play sword fight.
12 July 2007
THE CURVE OF NOW
Most of us
When we try to understand Now
The moment
Look beyond or behind it
Futilely trying to orient ourselves
Little realizing
That we can only see more if we look within
And
Perhaps
From the corner of our mind
Observe our self
As we curve around
A serendipitous impediment in this marvellous stream that we are part of.
20 July 2007
THOMAS MUST HAVE BEEN HERE TOO
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Rainy day
And not just a passing thunderstorm
A downpour
And raging winds to boot.
Perhaps
Thomas
Who homesteaded here,
Thomas Copeland,
Is also here in spirit;
“This is not a day to bring in sheaves
Or repair fences
Only the basic minimal can be done
Visits with neighbours put off
Only the livestock must be tended to
And after that
Indoor chores
Repairing tack
Sharpening scythes
With a grateful pause now and then
To reflect on this shelter that god hath helped us provide”
The calico cat curls up on the cushion
21 July 2007
WAKE UP STUPID
Once in a dream
Once at a palace party
Looking for a place to pee
Just like real life
When we’re waiting for opportunity to knock
Looking desperately everywhere
All the washrooms are filled
And
There are no potted palms to relieve myself behind
Even the outdoor grounds are filled with smokers laughing in the night.
What to do?
Suddenly I spot the major domo
And
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He asks me what is wrong?
“I have to pee”
I blurt out.
“Is there a bathroom where I can go to pee?”
“You poor mortal”
Said the major domo
“Just follow me”
And
He imperiously waived with his white glove for me to follow.
It was then that I woke up
Got out of bed
And
Went to the bathroom to pee.
The moral of this story is
WAKE UP STUPID.
16 August 2007
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE(WAY)
Tide’s out
Seagulls on sandbar,
All pointing into a south-westerly wind.
Behind them
A spit of land
That has strove through eternity
Trying to connect with the unobtainable opposite shore
Trying to block a flowing river.
The foolish humans who live here
Think that because they have spanned the disconnect with a bridge,
A causeway,
An electronic Brady Bridge
That permits them to visit
Or at least see
What its like
On the other side of the silver screen
They do not understand the power of the eternal dredging of the river,
The power that keeps us from truly connecting the gap,
35
They do not understand that the only way we can connect up
Is either by flying
By imitating seagulls
Or by going the other way
Inland
Back to our roots.
13 Sept 2007
GAZING OUT TO SEA
I am gazing out to sea once again
Gazing beyond the once-active light house that was used to warn incoming ships
The wind and Sun are as strong as ever
Still blowing low tide waves over fishermen’s lobster buoys.
Me
Trying to see beyond
Just as in youth
See beyond the horizon
Interpreting distant clouds
Looking for ships that had been to places that I longed to find.
Now
Having somehow realized that islands are illusory
(Except that is for this Earth that we are on)
And that there is no sea,
All is one
I have no need for lighthouses now.
13 Sept 2007
VILLAGE MIND
Village mind
Picturesque village perched on edge of bay
Racing sunlit clouds blowing in from salt sea
Sea from which we all gain our daily bread
Seagulls hanging out on windswept low tide sandbar
36
Pointing into the wind
Village mind
End of day
Loved ones home from the many seas that surround us
Some are merchants closing stores
Workers putting tools away
Children playing before dinner
The ubiquitous television flickering in the background.
Much like village minds everywhere
Each of us
Part of our own village minds
Part of picturesque villages
In spite of the fact
That from time to time
Wind swept cloud-shadows pass over our homes
Darken our door
That’s just the way things are.
That’s what shapes our village mind.
13 Sept 2007
“WHERE ARE YOU”, SAID I
Sunrise on the sand spit
The tide still going out
Me
Striding along
Searching for the easiest footing
Following the packed-sand ridge
Searching
Only my footprints on the wavy ripples;
She is not with me
Even though I need her.
Alone I think
“Where are you?”
Said I to mother Earth
Where are you when I need you,
When we need you.
You promised,”
I said.
37
When I reached the tip I stopped
Paused
And then
Looked towards the East
Towards the rising sun
Rising over a sleeping village.
And then towards the South
Towards the open sea
Calm yet pensive
Nothing menacing on the horizon
And then I looked towards the West
Towards the inlet beside me which was emptying into the bay
Its breath ebbing out
Long legged blue herons stood silently
Watching
Cormorants diving from the surface.
“Where are you when I need you?”
And finally I turned towards the North
Back towards the land
Turned back towards this Earthen boat that carries us
Turned and followed my solitary footprints back home
“Where are you?”
I repeated
As I wended my way across the isthmus
In between the tidal ponds,
I gazed upon a lifeless starfish.
“Where are you?” I said,
“Where are you” said I,
“When we need you?”
14 Sept 2007
HAVE IMAGINATION, WILL TRAVEL
Some serve their ruler
By bringing giftsBy bringing incense and Myrrh.
Others serve their king by reciting mantras,
By being president of a university,
38
By conquering members of the opposite sex,
By sailing from A to B with the greatest precision,
Or by soaring to dizzying heights on air currents
And
Leaving us other pigeons gazing up in awe.
Some with a more practical bent
Go to sea in lobster boats and put food on their table for their family
Or
Fix leaky faucets.
And there are others
Who
Imagine they live pain-free
On the other side of the silver screen
Who have crutches of drugs,
Personal aircraft,
Or
Great wealth,
Who think they are making things happen on unimaginable corporate scales.
And
In truth,
When you think about it,
All of us
Even you and me in our small corners,
We too have gifts,
Gifts that we too bring to our masters
For
Only in service
Can we find freedom.
And what you may ask,
Does a Village Poet do to fulfill his roll?
Who is the king that Village Poets bring their gifts to?
What do Village Poets do with their gift of imagination?
For
All of us,
No matter how great or small
Must serve,
For
Only in service to others is there freedom,
Service to only ourselves always leads to iconic clutter.
And
39
The answer to who we must serve is simple,
As are all important answers,
The answer for all of us
And the answer for me
Is that each of us must serve our village,
Serve those we love,
For they truly
Are the ultimate King
Life is but a simple flower we protect.
25 Sept 2007
QUINTESSENTIAL AUTUMN DAY
Funny, isn’t it,
How
As we move into the future
The past seems more and more present,
That the world of our parents
Becomes more and more a part of our world
As ours unfolds into the future
Much like a quintessential Autumn day.
Like now
Me
Waiting for the start of our 32-guest Thanksgiving dinner
My tasks done
Me
Sitting in my corner of the sofa
Looking out on my Autumn pond
Glennis and her twin sister
Finishing the final preparations.
From time to time the whiteness of my 3 Pekin ducks float by on the pond,
Sort of like a futuristic screen saver that found its way into the present.
Me
Imagining myself to be my father sitting here
Looking out at the end of his life
And I
Wondering whether he perceived his past as a well dusted shelf full of laurels
Or like me
40
He thought of the past as part of the present
The present as it unfolds into the future.
8 Oct 2007
A NOTE ABOUT THE GARDEN OF EDEN
The other day
I noticed this apple tree
Growing in our Garden of Eden
And
Hanging from its gnarled branches
Were three tempting ripe apples.
But I remembered the warnings of our secular modern-day gods who said
“Do whatever you want here
But don’t eat the fruit of a living tree
Do not try to find nourishment from The Earth
Nourishment comes from books and other organized electrons.”
But
Heedlessly
I picked one of the apples
And
Ate it
And
Learned not about good and evil
But rather that it is possible for people to live in harmony with each other and the Earth.
For this I was banished from the Garden
And had to move back to the big city.
8 Oct 2007
A MESSAGE TO LITTLE SPARROW
And now that you have climbed to where I am
Little Sparrow
Now that you have labouriously mastered the mountain of my wisdom
Now that you are here
I must sadly tell you
That
41
While I am flattered that you are here
You must realize
That
For you
The answer does not lie with me
But rather within yourself
Just as it was for me
Your truth has always been there
Inside of you.
8 Oct 2007
3:53 AM
Me
Lying in bed with my wife of 44 years
Long lost Ozzie from my childhood has just called
Found me on the Internet
Said he Googled my name and found my father’s New York Times Obituary
Which lead him to me.
Now,
Me,
Reflecting,
Looking back from my Wakefield Heart of Darkness
Looking back from our salvation
Looking back at my escape from the sorrow of my crazy mother
Looking back at my inability to follow in the footsteps of my Harvard father’s professional successes
An inability due to (non-visible) limitations,
My inability to linearly communicate,
My inability to think and communicate at the same time.
Looking back at how these limitations
Lead to my inability to succeed as an electrical engineer,
As an economist,
and as a statistician
But
Did not prevent me from getting advanced degrees.
Looking back at how I found Glennis,
Who had her own limitations
But
Somehow
42
We’d discovered the trick of keeping each other from the gaping holes in our heads
Sufficiently so that in our own small way we could grow.
Looking back at me as Jack Kirouac’s Dean Moriority
Dean
The dreamy hipster
A wannabe writer
Who
None the less
Like me
Was a successful madman.
But unlike me
Was also successful with women
Just the way that Ozzie was and I wasn’t,
Looking back from this peaceful heart of darkness
That Glennis and I now live in,
Mr and Mrs Kurz among the natives
“Life is what you get to do after you don’t get to do what you want to do”
She,
Having found a safe harbour in her world of books and friends
I
Finding my safe harbour too
In the safety in Glennis’s shelter
And,
This accepting world of Wakefield
That has
For some unknown reason
Found me interesting
And
Even appreciated me for who I am.
Looking back.
Looking back at my insecure neurotic childhood
My world with Ozzie as my best friend
Ozzie the blond tanned chief life guard at Reese Park who the women adored
Me
The masturbating nobody
That happened to be his friend
Bullies kicked sand in my face
Me
Having a crazy mother that I was ashamed of
And having no sense of who I was
Because I couldn’t do anything well
Like
43
Even playing baseball or basketball
Fighting
Doing well in school
Impressing women
Holding down a job
Etc
Etc
Looking back at the madness of my Childhood from this peaceful Heart of Darkness
To which Glennis and I have escaped.
Looking back
She too a refugee from the world of Stanford CA
A world in which she was not quite successful either
“Mutual Insecurity and resignation” I call it
(Glennis doesn’t like it but it is true)
Looking back at 4 AM from our peaceful world.
22 Oct 2007
LIFE IS BUT A SIMPLE FLOWER WE PROTECT
My rich-warm thoughts of you will never fade,
Even though my eyes grow dim and memory shortens,
Even as my body dwindles,
Even as my glacier melts,
Even then
My love for you remains and grows
Even as the flames of time consumes my matchstick houses
Houses labouriously built one stick at a time
Houses
Icons
That were made to last.
Even as they all goes up in flames,
My love for you remains
And
Even as my daylight dims and stars begin to twinkle
Even as you too fade and slip away
Fade as a dream on a summer night
Even as the muffled roar of life recedes
Remains no more
Even then
44
My love for you remains.
And
Even as the setting sun turns daytime warmth to cold
And Winter’s snow commence
Even as my clever phraseology turns into clichéd speech
Even then
Even then
My love for you remains,
Even then,
Yes
Even then
Even then I still love you.
Even my accumulated skills turn to sand and drift away
Even as desire flies
And,
I suspect,
Even when I am no longer here
Even when my bodies bones turn to dust
Blowing in the wind
Even then
My love for you will still remain
And grow.
Oct 24 2007
WHY LEARN THE LANGUAGE OF OUR ANCESTORS?
So my friend the Village Elder said to me,
Perhaps as a test,
“Oh Little Sparrow,
Why is it so important for you
To identify as many houses as possible
In these ancient photographs of our village?
Why are you always so interested in connecting these dots of a time long gone by?
The past is gone,
Only the present exists.
What good is it to locate the spots
Where a building burnt to the ground
Or see the few buildings that remain?
45
In our modern world of rushing hither and yon
our fellow citizens no longer care
About these long gone buildings,
About these long gone homes.
The original inhabitants are no longer there
And
Those that are here now
Haven’t learned enough to care.
Why is it so important that you identify these places,
To see these places,
Why can’t you be content with our reporting to you what we have found?”
The day was young
As we walked down the river side train tracks
That runs through our Village
Stepping from tie to tie.
Autumn was in the air
The trees were bare
And the frost had already started to penetrate the ground.
My friend the elder repeated again,
“Why is it so important for you to identify these places?”
We paused for a moment in front of the 1909 church
And I measured my words.
“My good friend”
Said I
“The spirit of our village,
Of our tribe
Is a fragile thing.
Most take our historic riches for granted,
Take it for a collection of facts and bricks.
But our Village
Any real village worth its salt
Is far more than that.
It is more than what we write down on paper
Or preserve in a photograph.
It is even more than you, me, and the others who live here.
Our Village,
Our tribe,
Is
46
And always will be
A living reflection of our small spot on this Earth we call home.
Our job in this Village
Our job as the caretakers of our history
Is to preserve and verbally pass on the living history to those who follow
For without it we are all lost
And subject to the whims of the electronic bulldozers from the outside world.
Only if we preserve our mother tongue,
our oral history
Will the spirit of our Village continue to live
Continue to thrive.
It is our job to tend the fire to keep our Village home warm.
That is why I too want to learn the language of our ancestors,
That is why I find so much pleasure
In walking these autumn tracks with you.”
“My dear Little Sparrow,”
Said my friend
As we started walking again,
“You chatter too much,
And,
Even though, in my heart,
I know you are right
I still think you ask too many questions
But
Nonetheless
I am glad too that we are here
And walking together”.
Nov 15 2007
A VILLAGE POET’S MESSAGE TO THE NEW GENERATION
I know that it is hard for you to imagine
But
I too was once a cluster of tumble weed
“Like A complete unknown
Like A rolling stone”,
“Crumpled paper
White
47
Massless
Blowing upon this asphalt covered Earth
Pausing now and then a fissure cracks to try to fit
And then
Having no success, moving on”
Just as you too are now
You who have blown into our Wakefield Village
Where I and my wife now live
Where we have put down roots.
We too blew into town
Many years ago.
And
Somehow are still here.
Perhaps for you too
Magic will happen
And someday
You too
Will be sending a message like this to the next generation
Good luck.
18 Nov 2007
I WILL NEVER KNOW YOU THOMAS COPELAND
I will never know you Thomas Copeland
I will never know you
Even though I have studied the census records of you and your family
Even though I have lived in the pioneer house you built
Lived on this land that you settled
Even though I have stood before your portrait
Portrait that you too stood before when it was painted
Even though I have stood before your nearby grave
I will never know you.
I will never know you Thomas Copeland
Even though I look across the fields that you once cleared and ploughed
Even though I have walked down the same roads that you walked
I will never know you
And
48
Even though I have long stared down your now empty trails
I will never be able to see the grief that you and Martha must have felt
Felt when so many of your children prematurely died
Or the joy you must have felt
When new generations were born.
But I too have become this land
This land on which I now live
And
In some ways
I can share the joy that you too must have found in giving to others
To your family
Neighbours
Imagine the tired joy you must have felt
At the end of a hard days work as you were washing off your hands.
And too
I would like to think
That you
Like me now
Must have lain here in this bedroom
In the stillness of an early winter night
A full moon above
A full moon illuminating the stillness of who we are
The terrifying stillness of who we are
And
Of course
The terrifying beauty.
These things that you were,
That I am becoming,
Are perhaps only in this way that I will truly get to know you Thomas
And perhaps someday
Get to truly know myself.
24 Nov 2007
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