This is where my National Poetry Month 2016 poems come to repose after their digital day in the sun. I gave myself the challenge of writing a poem a day for the month of April. I know it's crazy and may drive poetry purists, who feel that a poem must take years to emerge fully formed from the brow of angst ridden anointed poets, crazy.
I agree that a poem like any art is work, is a combination of inspiration and perspiration but nowhere in that combination does it state that there is a time factor. Ginsberg talked about the sanctity of the first draft, which probably meant lots of editing along the way out from poet to page.
I have decided to give myself this challenge as a way of being mindful, being in a state of awareness of the world within and without. It's a way of being in this world, in the now with a constant fresh eye, ear and all the other senses, which include, common sense, gut instinct, hunch and others which I am not always totally, aware of. It is re-seeing routine as ritual, giving it back its initial purpose and that is to bring forth something special from a deed or thought.
So not every poem is perfect, but they are given a chance at life and perhaps will later grow into perfection or as close as they and I can get them to be.
So here they repose and you can come and share time with them and when they become perfect, you can say, I knew them when.
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April 29
Vehicule of Poets* Sonnet
Art is what we make when we are human
Cellular our consciousness and imagination
Endlessly from the cave to the stars
Join the dust we were, are and will be as we make
Kennels for kings and queens who would command
Stevedores to spread tarps, shrouds and
Tomorrows over timeless momentary grace.
Love, only a pornography of the heart has a habit of being
that horny afternoon light in patras port hotel.
To get there you take all sorts of roads. Strolling familiar streets
I am sending you a valentine across this confederation.
Your flirtations have brought me to cut up my vegetables,
regard as sacred the disorder of my mind,
to die (my hair) and live again.
*The Vehicule Poets were a group of poets in Montreal who made poems and poetry interesting and real in the 70s & 80s.
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April 28
Spring
I woke.
I ate.
I brushed my teeth.
I started to write a haiku.
I called Lifeline for my mother.
I called 123 Cartridges for ink.
I met my daughter for coffee.
I worked on the haiku.
I went shopping for supper.
I took the metro.
I went to the Atwater library to take out some seeds.
I came home and took out some words.
I read and ate.
I took a nap.
I changed some of the lines in the haiku.
I took in the garbage cans and cleaned them.
I removed some syllables from the haiku.
I made supper.
I didn’t go to Tai Chi in NDG
I moved some words around.
I added some syllables to the haiku.
Spring
The other shoe dropped
the moment you were conceived.
You are in free fall.
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April 27
Age of Experience
I have too much of it, experience,
and very little wisdom to show for it.
I’ve been on roads more and less travelled
and gone right and wrong on both.
I’ve loved well and badly
and failed successfully.
I’ve thought and been thoughtless
and seen the trouble they can get you into.
I’ve spoken slowly and too quickly
and gotten nowhere fast.
I’ve been young and am now old
and aside from aches and pains I feel the same.
I’ve been on buckboards and airplanes
and gotten home on both.
I’ve learned a little and forgot a lot
and often, am at the corner of loss and lost.
I’ve seen the poem wander lonely as a crowd
and share the page with a fluffy cloud.
I’ve learned that duality is a false dichotomy
and told half-truths and full-blown lies.
I’ve asked who, what, when, where and why
and answered yes, no, maybe, don’t know at the same time.
I’ve seen death slow and close up
I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.
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April 26
Less We Remember
The Great War memorial
of the unknown soldier
stands tall and green
in the park
where every year
fewer and fewer
veterans gather for
Remembrance Day.
That, I think, is a good thing.
I am thankful to those
and sorry for those
who gave their lives
in bloody battles
to defeat the forces
who profit from their deaths.
Of course
I am talking of those
who sold and sell
Glory to God, country
and ammo to both sides.
Those we must never forget.
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April 25
For Whom Do I Write Rag
I write for the silence that remains unbroken
I write for the lost words that are unspoken
I write for the suns that will go nova
I write for the earth that blue-green diva
I write for the water gone from the lake
I write for the potholes spring doth make
I write for the thirst that can’t be quenched
I write for Shakespeare too long dead
I write for the breasts that are not dun
I write for the sirens of Verdun
I write for shoes too small, too big
I write for you who don’t give a fig
I write for the garbage I create
I write for the love of what I hate
I write for my hair and lost affairs
I write for you who don’t have cares
I write for what I will not see
I write to remember me
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April 24
Thank you Sergei
I woke after Passover
wondering if I could write another
daily poem. Decided I couldn’t
yet, so went out to prepare
my postage stamp size garden.
Sergei is my neighbour
a greener in this country
speaks only three languages.
We meet at my box garden
that I share with people
which I call our communist garden.
Sergei has a capitalist plot
in the community garden by the river.
He is a good gardener
much better than me.
Last year he brought me a black radish
big enough to feed the Red Army.
Sergei speaks in volumes.
His stories are epic Russian novels,
his images as big as the heavens;
“star trips from his town”
is how he describes his daily trips
that radiate like spokes
to where Pushkin was born and then
the history of where Russia began
and then the fortress town that had chapels
but no churches with gold bright roofs
so as not to attract the enemy and then
back to Pushkin jumping in windows
to the delighted squeals of the young girls
and on to Pushkin’s seduction of a governor’s wife.
And his mother whom he visited this summer
and his love of family and country
and seeds and roots that go deep
as his country is wide.
Sergei loves the Irish
because they have suffered as much
and he can hear Mother Russia in their songs
and love of drink and suffering.
Sergei with rakes tied to his bicycle,
wearing his proletariat overalls
on his way to help his friend
wants to know
where do writers get their inspiration.
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April 23
Ode to an Ordinary Day
I’m a day ahead of myself.
I should have written something
insightful about Passover
But life emergencies got in the way
and today is so beautifully ordinary
that I can’t let it get away,
I woke without anxiety
I had time for quiet toast and coffee
I didn’t shower and shave.
I make soup, bake a pie, lie with
my lover, sit quietly and read
the adventures of Don Quixote.
I walk ten steps to the tap
turn it on and get cold, clean water.
I think about Attawapiskat.*
Shit.
Sometimes you want to punch life in the face
knock its teeth out one tooth at a time.
*for non-Canadians see
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fniah-spnia/promotion/public-publique/water-dwa-eau-aqep-eng.php
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April 22
Hotel Dieu Day Two
God’s Hotel is always overcrowded.
Even the hallways are packed;
bodies bent, curled, stretched
in pride-gone gowns.
A Princess Pony pink-haired
tongue-studded heart specialist
appears to calm and reassure you.
A hijab-modest nurse
takes your temperature,
pulse and blood.
A shiny bald-headed, tattooed, pure-laine orderly
guides your gurney through a labyrinth.
A Haitian technician slips you
into the futuristic machine
for a scan.
A quiet Belgian orderly
takes you back.
In this room
a Chinese, Portuguese and
Hungarian old lady share
the common culture and language
of hope and the body wearing out.
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April 21
Hotel Dieu
God’s Hotel is located
on the corner of St. Urbain and Pine.
It’s the oldest God’s Hotel in Montreal.
1645.
In God’s Hotel
the guests lie on gurneys
in curtained cubicles
from where a chorus of moans
groans, coughs and wails,
in a Babel of tongues,
rise to the ceiling.
In God’s Hotel
the maids of mercy wear scrubs,
smile while they prick veins,
measure pressure and hook you up
to IVs.
In God’s Hotel
the gods in training come
occasionally, usually late,
are more distant
ask you a few questions
poke belly, listen to heart, lungs
stories and pleas
and order tests
and call for the specialist.
But most of the time
in God’s Hotel
most of the guests
spend their time waiting,
praying to check out.
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April 20
Why I like Film Noir
It always happen at night
even when it doesn’t.
There are shadows everywhere
in every alley
in every doorway
under every lamppost.
There is smoking
manly, sexy cigarettes,
breath made visible, curling
in the most hardboiled
in the most seductive
manner.
There is always a man
in an upturned collar trench coat
and fedora.
There is always a femme fatale
wearing a veil or a hairdo
hiding her real intentions.
There is jazz, smoky saxophone
and brushes on drums, sometimes
a lounge piano.
There is always a gun, a murder
a mystery that’s tied to love and
double crossings.
And unlike real life,
it’s always black and white.
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April 19
Inventory
Porcelain flowers
in heavy gaudy crystal vase,
crinkly paper wrapped candy
in heavy crystal dish
on ironed lace doilies.
Gilt framed photographs
of my grandparents, parents,
me, my children through the ages
on every polished surface.
Needlepoints:
a parasoled maiden,
a pastoral scene,
flowers,
decorative plates of where
and where she hasn’t been,
a print of a praying rabbi,
a woman, palms facing face,
Sabbath-candle-lighting,
fill every inch of wall space.
Carpets on carpets,
a cabinet full with silverware
polished regularly, never used,
a modern antique grandfather clock
that no longer tick-tocks,
glass crystal chandelier almost always lit
and a faux Louis XIV mirror
in fake termited, golden frame.
My mother,
who has survived a colourless,
lifeless, barbed-wired, ash-gray Auschwitz
now in her purple satin queen sized bed
watches endless reruns
and regally rules over all this,
her empire of life.
April 18
Still Life
Don’t give me paintings of bowls of fruit
Cezanne’s apples and oranges are not what I want
nor lush grapes and peaches
reposing on porcelain white plates.
I don’t want my canvasses to be
rich table settings with freshly killed,
plucked pheasants and geese or
golden goblets filled to the brim with dark wine.
Give me scenes of apple cores with teeth marks
orange peels spread all around,
bare grape vines and spat seeds on those plates.
Show me bones, carcasses glistening white,
empty goblets overturned, surrounded by purple stains
and people who planted, picked, raised, plucked
and poured this cornucopia;
sated, seated, with ruddy cheeks and breasts,
belts unbuckled, burps and farts at the ready.
Only then will I say
someone has painted a masterpiece.
April 17
Bucket List
The room is quiet
except for the buzz of electricity
and the buzz in my head.
The currents of dying messages
on and on.
I want to be quiet
have a moment of silence
but that only comes with death
and I don’t want that quiet yet.
So I settle for doing for some carpentry
trying to fulfil a life long ambition
of cutting a straight line.
I don’t know why I can’t.
The box I’m building is for the garden
the one I will fill with earth and seeds
and water and watch shoots shyly
peek out, grow, bear blooms and fruits
and when done, die without regret.
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April 16
Underground
A beggar sits like Buddha
at the bottom of the escalator
I descend and give him
a quarter for the image.
His eyes open,
slits of casual curiosity
that give me a soft merci
before they close again.
Around the corner
a man plays the violin.
I drop a toonie in his cap
his sad-smile tune follows me.
I sit next to a woman
who hears voices.
She calice-de-tabarnaks me
all the way to my stop
A man sits atilt
snoring on the tiled floor.
His Tim Horton begging cup
is empty. I’m out of change.
No god here, no faith, no biggie
just the way of this underworld;
no-luck human beings alive and
warm in this man-made hole.
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April 15
Mobile
From the droplets of conversations
floating in the café air
I construct a mobile à la Caldwell.
Sounds & shapes & accents
dangle from coat hangers,
fascinate, because they make no sense
but still achieve a precarious balance
that distracts me from the hurt
I cause.
For a moment my breathing is normal
my cough is quiet and the metaphor
I’m looking for walks by without a word.
I tried the park bench by
the bobbing, sparkling, sunning-in-
the spring-sun, glowing-water
but nothing came of it.
Silent joggers and cyclists
bring relief to neither you
nor me.
Saying sorry is not enough.
As an old friend with whom
I’m no longer friends
said in his broken
but perfectly clear English
“shit or get in the pot.”
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April 14
How to Disperse Clouds
Sunshine blinds the raging heart
behind the wheel of a car in a jam.
The happy tune just makes it worse,
magnifies the pain of it all.
The joy and ease of others is a curse,
infects the struggle to keep on.
I see you swing your axe at what hurts
and see you hurt yourself.
I think there are no hugs, chocolate
or money that can help.
But I hope I’m wrong on all counts.
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April 13
Morning Checklist Mantra
Each morning
returning from a different country
requires adjustments of
body, heart, mind, clocks.
Each morning
landing in a different place
requires rereading of
body, heart, mind, maps.
Each morning
learning a different language
requires a student’s
body, heart, mind, tongue.
Each morning
dressing a different body
requires a change of
body, heart, mind, clothes.
Each morning
stepping into a different day
requires breaking in
body, heart, mind, shoes.
Each morning
diving into a different river
requires learning new
body, heart, mind, strokes.
Each morning
working for a different pay
requires some old
body, heart, mind, currency
Each morning
waking to a different you
requires a steadfast
body, heart, mind, imagination.
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April 12
Arts & Crafts
The notes of the past come
through my computer, digitally
coded for my pleasure.
The fin de siècle pace of the piece:
ennui, cynicism, pessimism
ego mania, mysticism
emotionalism, irrationalism
vitalism filled the cafés, the poems
the chit chat, the philosophy,
the air which fills my ears.
They studied genius:
Mahler, Stravinsky, Wilde, Lautrec
Rimbaud, Mallarmé.
and imbecility.
It ended
with the beautiful Munch Scream.
I looked it up on Wikipedia.
Today, this gray day,
feels thin, watered down,
atonal, going down the drain.
No wonder they studied genius
and imbecility.
We worship only one.
Today
I built an Andre Bréton
antenna with coat hangers
for better reception.
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April 11
Ode on a Photo
She is poem-proud papa-beautiful.
She is life-promise smiling.
She is in her wedding-wonder.
I am in that picture too.Proud-papa pose.
That’s not me,
that’s my father.
I am in another photograph
in which she is small enough to hold in the palm of my hand.
We are under a weeping willow.
I am shrinking in my suit.
She is fullness in hers.
This is her timeI can see it in her eyes;
in the way light falls on
the September leaves.
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April 10
Sunday
It almost feels like work;
waking in the morning
with a churning in the gut
worrying about getting the thing done.
Thinking of calling in sick
going back under covers
forgetting about the day
letting someone else carry the load.
And besides it’s Sunday.
Shouldn’t it be a day of rest?
Even that creator took it off;
had a lazy breakfast and lounged in his PJs.
But there are dues to pay
nagging Muses’ to support
and promises and deadlines
that no one cares about, except me.
And of course, the devil makes work
for the idle head and hands and heart.
Thank you Satan.
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April 9
Sabbath
Every Sabbath, my father used to go to shul
to pray and schmooze with his buddies.
Often the shushers would come around
and while praying in their mumbling way
put finger to lips to tell them to shush-up.
Doesn’t chit chatting with lantsman
count as talking to the lord?
After all, aren’t they made in his image?
I don’t know if he said that
if not, I’ll say it for him.
I know he thought it.
Not that he wasn’t a praying man.
He knew every one by heart.
He wanted to be a Rabbi but the war
and Mauthausen got in the way.
And after, it was hard to believe.
But his buddies, other greeners,
who sweated as hard during the week
lured him back with bribes of friendship
and delicious kiddish.
So he joined and became the chief Rabbi of stories
The Cantor of memories, the Torah of one-liners
And the target of shushers.
So he spent the Sabbath with his survivor friends,
kibitzed the lord about the world he invented.
He had his doubts, but even in his darkest moment
even in the middle of a joke, he never missed an Amen.
Shul Yiddish for synagogue
Lantsman someone from the same old country
Greeners derogatory term for a recent immigrant used by immigrants from an earlier time
Kiddish snacks served in the synagogue after Sabbath prayers
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April 8
After Pound
In the station of the Metro
in Montreal in the morning
in the belly of the worm
on our way toward money
we sit, stand, stare into the whirring silence.
Some of us will push papers, some stroke keys
some will hammer and nail, some drill and dig
some will teach and some will die.
Some will stop for a moment
and experience a lightheaded rush
and a flash of people in the Metro
who come and go
not talking of Michelangelo
but still see them as beautiful
as a wet leaf on a bough.
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April 7
Weather Report in Couplets
April snow falls shyly, steps lightly
sprinkles my footsteps, covers my tracks.
A text from the past, an OMG
a tweet from real space, a #moment.
I knew it was coming,
my oracle Frank foretold.
Like old an ex-lover
it calls, won’t let go.
I had put away my winter thoughts.
My bones creak under this light load.
But off I go to Tai Chi
and wave hands like clouds.
Slow everything down to an almost stillness
be like a snow flake in slow motion.
April snow waits for me outside
beautiful underneath the lamplight
but a pain in the ass of my spring showers,
splays me in my headlong rush toward May flowers.
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April 6, 2016
This is about…
Food
that necessity which keeps us
alive and kicking, is what
we have gathered around
ever since…
My father often talked of hunger
as a close member of his family.
He took ecstatic, bone marrow sucking
pleasure from eating.
Tonight
children no longer children
between forkfuls, share recipes,
philosophy of work, reality
of dreams, paycheque
to paycheque stories
I munch on, tasting pine nuts,
sumac, zataar, the miracles
of our imagination
and the greasy pleasure
of my carnivorial nature.
We dine on
the exquisitely prepared corpse
who has never been hungry.
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April 5, 2016
After W. C. Williams & W. Wordsworth
This is just a brief note
To tell you that
The world is too much with me
The machinery I am wired to
The machinery I need to lead
My 21st century life
flashes lights, vital signs back to me
to let me know that I am alive.
PS.
And
The second hibiscus flower
Has bloomed
This is all the time
I have for this poem today.
I am sorry.
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April 4, 2016
Hibiscus
I was watching,
before I came to write this down,
a hibiscus flower bloom.
I was watching nothing move,
which is not quite true
but almost,
o so boring, so beautiful.
A mug’s game, so intense;
watching it watch me,
waiting for me to blink.
O so Art Deco.
Pink-rose wine glass with
wrought green stem and base.
Flair phallic
and vaginal.
O so Georgia O’Keeffe.
An elegant plant with carriage
a grande dame in rich verdure
a slim but sinewy manly trunk
a history of great roots.
All this, of course,
is my imagination.
From its perspective
it’s about its survival.
From mine
o so soft hibiscus flower
about to bloom
for a moment in the sun
in that moment be full
fertile, hot and
through its brief beauty
contribute to its own survival.
And if in this Darwinian universe
it gives me immense pleasure
for a brief moment
to watch it do its thing,
nothing, so beautifully
who’s to say
that I, too,
do not contribute to its survival.
I bring it water
place it in the sun
and even have a word with it.
Of course
I blink and miss its blooming
its delicate pistil popping from its own birthday cake
with its Oscar Wilde red velvet morning jacket stigma
and saffron pollen sacs shouting surprise.
But not its bloom.
Twice,
in deed and in words,
I make it, and me,
eternal, for a moment.
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April 3, 2016
Haiku Sunday
Morning has risen
Sun day spreads across my toast
Miracle again
Poets write poems
Bullets, bombs freeze in mid flight
I lie people die
Rain pebbles window
Neighbours in violent storm
Bad haiku coming
An afternoon nap
A world dying of fatigue
Old world awakens
In city doorway
Innuit man stares into
Inukshuk woman
Buying fountain pen
Bump into a dancer friend
Spring rites between us
Boxful of poems
Pure as imagination
A forest of tears
Birth day of a friend
Years tie ribbons around us
A gift of presence
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April 2, 2016
Soccer
Soccer is a misnomer
It’s an American alias
An Americanisation of its immigrant name
Football, that’s more like it
Football it’s the real thing
Not the hand to hand handling of balls
In football
Once the foot meets ball
It’s leather on leather
Football is
The dance of the sports
The bend, the curve
The toe. The heel
Tap dancing Puskas
The leaping Kosics
The panther Grosics
My childhood heroes
As I imagine them
Then and now.
Like gods they ruled the perfect sphere
Like gravity the perfect sphere was drawn to them
Football, say it
it has a good sound
a heft and a kick to it
Toes become cleats
Claw the green field
The dangerous jaws
Of a game gone fierce
The body, the stallion
The bullet, the battering ram
The sword,
In a game gone fierce
Connected by the dots
What passes between them
Foot to ball to foot
In a game gone football
The game fenced in by rules
That give it sense, pleasure
And the desire to play on.
Not like life
Which has only two rules
You are born
And then you,
you guessed it,
Retire.
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April 1, 2016
April fools
you into believing that
everything
the churning
burning nightsweats
of what is
the days’
darkness that works
black magic
duende into
the deep songs
rising backwards
rising backwards
the deep songs
duende into
black magic
darkness that works
the days’
of what is
burning nightsweats
the churning
everything
you into believing that
April fools
the daffodils
the rain
my life
into blooming
falling
living
then fading
stopping
dying
dying
stopping
then fading
living
falling
into blooming
my life
the rain
the daffodils
fool Aprils
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