The Cradle Which Once Sang is now Silent


I see your face in front of a setting sun,
soft E dissolving into minor sound

like railroad tracks at four in the afternoon when freight trains pass

on their way downtown, to congregate in
the industrial basin by the dry oxbows of a slowing river.
The activity in your eyes

is a flurry of snow, that mellows into Chardonnay,
then a debate about profit by association

and doors swinging open and shut – blinking eyes and a smile curled

into a perfect violin G.

You move your conductor fingers through your hair,
orchestrate a coven of words on the precipice of your lips
and sing an excuse

as you sail untouched through reality air. A world flares and dies.

I pick up consonants and vowels, arrange
and rearrange them into different tonal landscapes

until you might have said almost anything. That’s the way it is with Archeaology –
suppose and suppose again.

I sometimes hear nothing and it’s a beautiful song because I created it.
I sometimes hear the truth

and it becomes twisted into the voices of
ten thousand people in a crowded space. I sometimes shut out everything and watch

the tic in your left eyebrow, the way it falls and rises like tides.
There are times when you can carry me and times when
there is no support.

I sometimes hear a train on overused tracks complain. It transports
our heavy freight to tomorrow’s negotiated events.

Multiculturalism


you didn’t grow up on my street
what the fuck do you know about how
to hide near nightfall or chase
the milk wagon for slivers of discarded
ice when July melts patchwork tar
in subdivision gutters and storms
slide along a slick horizon tearing
rain from cloud udders
or how November leaves rattle
in the graveyards of summer gardens
how winds leak through windows
and how we sat spouting Descartes
and beer after a day in the halls of
academia mixed with rebellion

oh it was future we created over
and over again with such fervour
and such music to a rhythm we’d never
heard before in the triangle of streets
we called the world of growing up
in Canada in Ontario in the region
of farmland and Mennonites in
the world which was never enough
when we could reach through our
radios and televisions into another
aspect of the whole world view

the universe explodes although there
is talk of the coming implosion
that fractal of the image I have
of myself sitting in front of a window
with a diminishing view of sidewalk
and lawn and rain falling gently onto
unraked maple leaves and a smell
of earthworms before the first
cigarette to celebrate another breath
in the world fast leaking out
of the door of life

2009


This morning, over coffee with Winston Smith, I wondered how much wine
it would take to drown the radio, the tv; to liquify words entering my ears.

And how many preachers in the uncertain world of wrong are right. Dear
Winston, dear Julia, dear god who is the keeper of time; I guess the rules.

I assume in linear routes a way between the concrete and what a camera
can capture. An aspect. The deceit of one light while piercing the dark.

Yet without...I have six hundred books of memories hiking the valleys
of my brain. No trail leads to you. No war descends on you, just reports.

The journal of deceit, the travail poets in politics. My mother keeps falling
into the East European war of insane repatriation and recrimination. She

remembers the body-part shrapnel, the justifications, wonders why Saddam
Hussein’s family was crucified. What is the sense of repeating that

history repeats itself. Time is a fractal. Time is a word. Time is
the separation between experience and the newspaper reports of speculation.

Science tells us that the fire touch
we felt in a ‘67 Chevy deep in the woods
was nothing more than near grazing
of the atoms of our fingertips and tongues.

Yet there persists this confusion between
the sun streaming through the kitchen window,
lighting up the obligatory bowl of cereal,
dripping onto the bleak newspaper headlines –

and the inner mind’s perceptions of self,
the way we embrace impossible positions
and postures – how we position ourselves
against the inertial of history’s storyline.

And accept that nothing can ever be approached.

And pack up and move into societal creations.

Mendicants.

Because it is better to have dreamed dreams
than it is to dream the possible positions

we might assume in sunlight and in rain –
in every time we reached out for the impossible touch.

some things end badly and some end well.

some things are discovered ages later as coal or oil.

to be used for the profit of someone and something.

yet at the time it wasn't anything like that.

you see the sun rose on a cool autumn day and the rain which had for days clutched the north horizon froze.

it began to snow.

as we fell asleep we wondered if the snow would ever stop.

or if we would ever again wake up.

age cripples words as though
they track the body slowly easing –
or are a tree bent to almost resting
against the frost-touched ground –
the day the roses in the back
flower bed blacken and die –
as though they’re steaks
on the barbecue too long neglected
because the bottle of Bordeaux
has more finish than a desire to eat –
or the rhythm of our complaints
no longer draws us together like
opposite-poled magnets in
the magnetic field of understanding –
that position we reach when
we each have professed out love
and our need – that poses of
stubborn resistance to gravity between
two bodies moving inexorably
together while dancing to the beat
of separateness – lacking commonalities –
or a reason to share the same
breath of words at one time
and in one place which cannot be
as long as we are two duelling planets

Writing becomes origami zebras,
will not stop rain or falling leaves,
the red crush of descending sky.

Chicken Little lives, Chicken Little lives.

Wide-screen, HD oracles pontificate
zig-zag Wall Street Zeitgeist
in lieu of October baseball.

Immigrants stand outside Tim Horton’s,
smoke and discuss the thread
and needlework of impoverished pasts.

They nod their heads, they smoke and drink double-doubles.

Skateboarders rule the curbs,
an old man stumbles before catching himself
in the middle of twenty backwards steps.

We have money for the theatre; we have
money for the arts.

On stage, we give the man in his wheelchair
a standing ovation. His words and music
have moved us beyond ourselves.

Ten beggars congregate at city hall. A gong sounds.

Our prayers are urgent pleas to the origami gods –
an aging queen, six dead prime ministers.
Anything for a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread.

God is Good at Dying

young, I learned the faith of cycles, how
hop-scotch adhered to rules and a toe
falling onto the sidewalk meant the end
of my turn,

or an unanswered question
in geography class confirmed that I knew
nothing beyond the neighbourhood of
my house, my blanket, my bed

positioned to a rising moon, the tug
of gravity, the riddle of a dark
through which street cleaning machines
wandered on summer nights

evaporated by morning dew and games
in the schoolyard, trips to the corner store,
conversations with ants and squirrels
scaling the corporate jungle trees,

societies withing spiralling aspects
of Kitchener, from Farmer’s Market
to the library, city hall and King Street,
snake eating its commercial self


and I watched it all die to be born again

stock market, house prices, the cost
of almonds compared to dates from
foreign countries, softener salt, razor blades,
retirement or continue working

faith in the market, throwing out floppy disks
of arcane programs, a wealth of
useless Windows © manuals, ten
years of National Geographic, vinyl music

the perfect karmic way to wealth,
good sex, good skin, low blood pressure,
a diet of pornography, ten children,
servant’s quarters about the credit card,

greed on demand and bodies igniting
in twenty thousand renditions of Jonestown,
the unimportance of a mere child, the way
the animal lurks behind a man’s eyes,

fear, fear, fear, greed, greed, greed,
twenty bottles of Bordeaux, one Burgundy,
a yacht, brushed brass appliances,
calamari on a salad bed drizzled with olive oil
to feed the void of bones where god continues to die

When my heart stops – it will be
with the midnight sound
of a freight train crawling west.

Goderich. Then north. Sudbury.

Then west – beyond redtail hawk’s
eyesight into the event horizon
of birch oceans swaying

like wheat sways in Saskatchewan

when storms bump and grind
their way to Ontario. When my
heart stops – time will drop –
icicles in indeterminate March.

The world will be perceived as
a negotiation of revival
for some.

When my heart stops – midnight

will consume the minutes
and hope will fill the empty
spaces between all the words

which once set sail for Byzantium

heavy with the raw oar freight trains
dropped at rail’s terminus –
my life in Canada.

The Stock Market

in the village of paper
fear winds topple the most solid structures

and nothing will ever be enough

I imagine a street person walking Key West street
in rainfall between sunshine and more rain

his backbone supports yacht devoured in sunset
and Chardonnay his song off-key and alien

in the city of Corvette and seaside real estate and fenced
privacy he is the alternative

stockbroker Bukowski yelling at the neighbours who cavort
as though the Morlocks will never collect

a penny a dime a quarter a dollar a get out of reality free card
somewhere on the boardwalk where a hurricane

becomes the landed immigrant changing everything
in a moment when exclusion from the club

doesn’t really matter at all

The Man Who Lost His House to a Hurricane Has Emigrated to the Moon

from water to dust
and in movement away
there is a taste of rust

a feral release
and hunt for home
so far below the sky

a knapsack against footprint and sentence for the memory of

waves and wind lashing
life in ten thousand
pieces of flotsam

until water recedes
the battlefield of known
against unknown

and untenable circumstances of time and place

I look to a future which has failed to exist / somewhere beyond the Magellan cloud / a murmur
of small sighs and birthing cries / a swallow on top of the light above the door / the splintered
tree which once kept leaves / hop-scotch chalk on the cracking sidewalk / ice cream cones / cold
backyard beer / slivers of love wrapped tightly in hands and white sheets / a final warm sigh

and eyes which are
now insensate dust
and leaked potential

I walk the kingdom
of moon and marvel
at how oceans dream

how they become a crusade marching across the infidel face of land

History Lessened

these are the days of
eddies in the wetlands / slow
river meeting ocean / leaves
dancing in the thalwag

like confused mice
maze-bound / a surge
of days pushing events-detritus
into the songs whales sing

far out / where memory
can no longer see / where
the event horizon is
no longer breached / where

the world is a point and
the magician makes
everything vanish
and words are cracked

cobbles on a road
which is really a tin can /
string tied between beginning
and ending / or the point where

the bungee chord has accumulated
as much potential energy
as is possible and reacts /
flinging events back

helter-skelter / word storm / word
speed / you relate your
strobed history / I marvel
at the gaps / you fill them

with the hundred stories
you’ve considered and discarded
until now when the sun is low /
the wind picks up loose

stragglers / a stand of events sways
slowly south and life is
as fragile as the next day / you are
my mother / you are changed /

you are loved

Hurricane

Inside his clock, a man sees
time negotiate curves in an opposite
direction. He emerges into life
from death. Mid-aged sons and
daughters dwindle to his first
delivery room view. His wife
begins as a completed book and ends
with her first word on their first
date. And the man -- he falls
from crutches into a swimming
hole on a tepid summer afternoon --
surfaces as potential -- two
lovers on a rainy morning.

I lie on wet grass -- stare
into the hurricane's blue eye --
the clock-wise curls of energy.
Yesterday on the weather channel
the widdershins movement
froze me with approaching history.

if books read each other isn't that like making love?

well no / or yes / or an arranged marriage between reader and word /
the places we perch / the places we crouch / the places we orchestrate
in a flood of angel words / look for the rhythm / look for the love

look for the sun floating on a sea of sky westward / ever westward
like fame on a train to Hollywood posterity / notoriety / forever
searching along the beaches for tracks you might recognize as

a string extending from pyroclastic beginnings into the shallows
along a lazy river / fishing line disappearing into the face of God /
smiling Jesus Christ / twelve pages are asking for a divorce

The Effortless Cost of Flying

you’d think time would behave / prow
to stern / and ripples be the children of moments’
hand shadows / hand puppets enacting
the play of events / you’d think you standing
in the line for coffee would throw a line
to the cashier / expect to be tied to a
shoreline of Tim-cups and hic-cups after beer

you’d think that events would settle like feathers
from a tagged swan swimming in the park
pond / you’d think the statues would stand up
and swim to their place in molasses history
entangled in sunsets and white chairs escaping
from patio café’s / arms akimbo / unaccustomed
to any freedom outside the pages in which they survive

you’d think the story would take chapter breaks
for coffee or tea / and perhaps an instructor willing
to lead through stretching exercises designed to
leave space for desert / a saccharin denouement
after the plot has thickened and stalled on the same
rocks forever moving us through history / one unit
like another / unlike anything else / a prejudice

Dreams

from crib to grave a reason
that sunlight strikes the innermost places –
alights like wind on the backs of October leaves
and whips them down the street
and they become – the waking dream
which twists bone into steel – milks
magic from the backbones of evening meals –
infuses the streets to the movie house
with the ethics of heros – injects speech
into the voices of the mute and irons
the wrinkles from a game of street hockey
played Saturday night under full moon
and a full house of houses – each with a vision
that flickers between them being there
and not – some bodies have set sail
for tropical sands – some bodies have
lost their oars – and a bottle floats – an empty
bottle floats out of dead eyes whose last
vision was the miracle of a full sink
of dirty dishes – oh hallelujah! hallelujah! --
from crib to grave the dishes march –
toy soldiers – tin gods – no time to prepare for war
when the dishes wait to be washed –
oh hallelujah! – five sinners and a patriot
were born from the game and a smiling face
went to Russia – another starved while insane –
oh hallelujah! the world is upheld
with miracles – the world is guided by faith –
six boys are being called home tonight –
John / Gord /Bob / Tim / Maurice / and Sid –
all from the edge of an ocean and the sound
of creaking timber – some ships negotiate
the whitecaps of humanity – travel without wind –
travel by worlds grouped into magic spells –
and each sentence is a pull of the oar –
each fantasy breaks down the concrete of reality –
each movement of the dance decides
the patterns in the swarming seconds –
from crib to grave life is the dream against the pain

Rio de Janeiro

These faces lost are found again –
everywhere a reminder of
the disappeared / the unaccomplished /
the thread stretched / out of the door
and into a sultry night / a southern route
that snapped.

Your face – which becomes
the neighbourhood’s face / the city’s
infrastructure / the moment when / you turned
and someone
remembered your smile –
this face is silent.

This face is rain and drought.
It fades into memory knots
that unravel between
August and December. We are
reminded one moment / again before
colour turns to / sepia

and new loves are / consummated / on a dwindling pile of ashes.

Leaving With Snowfall


here's your coat - snow is falling
on the same countryside
again this year - everything as different
as deja-vu - except the drapes
have been replaced
the puppy has wet
in the corner by the sink
and where the sun strikes
the kitchen table
the flowers are gone
as temporary as summer
clouds hugging sunset - placed
there to collect colour for
a moment - just that -
a moment of sustained note
in an aria speaking to lost
love and life and hope against
that mood which crushes
my heart - that mood which
makes us roll apart as though
we are lepers or the whores
of need - that mood which
propels us in circles -
a hawk on autumn wind
discerning mouse from brown
leaf and natural shivers -
history laughing at
its limited repertoire of tricks -
one cat skinned in one
thousand and one ways

I am

street wo/man schlepping a cart of words
down avenues I’ve known since sentences
first gave birth to stories

rumours and smoke signals on a summer breeze

I sit

against bricks and the fantasy needs create
to validate to oil progress
against all advice

a civilized world has decided is law

I cry

for the unrealized loss
as though life and potential
have again been aborted

for the sake of stories with recycled words

Take One Giant Step

Nothing we said was true. In the same way
sun seems confused in some windows
and rain rallies in the ninth inning
of separating clouds. Or waves lie
when going through customs on foreign
beaches. We were part dream and part
realization that reality has never existed.

Our senses were abstraction and August
wind rattling through the blinds of ‘67
leaving rat-print tracks on the curve
of the second-hand dresser and green walls
and your passionate shoulders in moonlight.

In the morning there was a residue of truth
and the odour of the past burned away.

We began new constructions from ruins.
Destroyed and created like mad urban planners
unwilling to commit to one path and one
style. We made little progress
stuck in the muck of memory and fantasy.

This afternoon you sit and accept
the sun alighting on your shoulder
and the sun is an old friend
and confidant in a life where shadows
contain truths we have never
found a way of expressing.

Everything we say has become the way to
another truth. There is no room for lies
no room for a progression in which
we might live and be.