Fishing

I see

at the great lake’s edge,
a boundary shaped by man
in concrete,
as if true line
were something obscene,

two fishers, a pole,
a boat, old jeans.

I can
name a colour for sky,
measure stillness of water surface,
savour breeze,
feel the weight in
one summer day
as its line plays out,
hook and sinker.

Mad birds chatter on about
something while

I am leaned
against dry wooden slats,
my arms stretched along
the well supported back of
a village-supplied-as-courtesy
seat,
thinking.

Suppose it is that I
write this story,
create you,
as if recalling some dream,
with place and characters
appearing real,
the facts attested
by my
nose, ear or eye …

out of odd
atoms in vibration,
the wiggling bits
needed to produce
scenes that never existed,
and people and time
and God.

Forgive me, Earth.

For the length of what moments
remain,
I have turned the air-conditioning on
and sunk into a pillowed couch,
with a dulling drink
in hand.

I am roughed by my work
and by circumstance,
arthritic, worn, made
numb to finesse.
The ‘news’ barks,
from a back-lighted big-screen,
that everything, everywhere
must be aflame.

As one more among many spent
witnesses to the blazing end,
my head droops down,
bends
away from high definition
colour
and cheap stereo sound.

Is this what happened on Mars
or the Moon,
some ancient while before the cameras
touched down?

Just Enough Birds

How beautiful the birds were
yesterday.

Hard at the work of making
living look
easy,
the fragile creatures flew back and forth,
making a God-awful lot
of
noise.

The most annoying, repetitive sounds
were ones having to do
with territorial rights
and love-making,
those two things which I do not have.

Jeez.

I got up and closed the damn window
but
how beautiful the birds were.

Flashes of heat and colour,
zigging and zagging,
almost dragged my limp soul after,
like it was a wasted bit of plastic
bag
got stuck on a talon.

I noticed the whole,
excited scene
and,
even though I closed the window
with a thump,
I do feel better.

The Trees From Which

Those trees from which
great violins were fashioned
made sounds like sighing.
Bold limbs
creaked and groaned,
urged by wind that spent
midnight
being musical.

This is not quite the same music
a cricket makes when it
rubs its legs together at evening,
arousing,
but you get the idea.

Perhaps Antonio Stradivari
heard a branch moan,
leaped from his bed, thought,
“That is my elusive tone!”
and ran to his copy-shop.

The cricket is an artist by nature,
just so Stradivari,
wind
and tree.
Sing your heart song,
I’ll offer one from me.

You Cannot Say Hoar Frost Anymore

Spring returns
to Thirsty Harbour,
whose thawing windows reveal slow
just how fast a once-trickle stream
flows, constant now,
without promise or flavour.

Mudded brown,
many mixed and broken things
swirl down
as watch then we old news,
the morning, the night,
each lighted bright and piled on
the noon.

Someone pulled a golden handle
marked ‘flush’
and our glorious days
by manufactured magic rush
to disappear.
Who knows when it happens,
perhaps sometime later this or
early next year?

At this poem’s beginning,
I realized our end is true,
you cannot say ‘Hoar
Frost’ anymore
without starting a war
about values

or meaning.

The Mountain Poem

The Mountain Poem
(march 17, 2023)

Today,
when I started,
I meant to walk
through the new mountains,
where sharp edges
thrust upward.
Always embarrassed at their nakedness,
the peaks have now slung hasty,
below the shoulder,
a soft garment of green
which teases another season to life.

It has been winter
and hibernation
for the longest time,
with everything visible disguised
by a transitory purity
that now blackens and shrinks
under sfumato’s cheerful blue sky,
beyond which,
sun is on fire.

All of this, I observe
and it pauses my forward motion
until yesterday’s hard things soften to a dream,
identify themselves as soft puffs above
that could be from Tecumseh’s,
or any other grandfather’s
pipe. Is this a signal?
Maybe the clouds warn the future,
before it arrives.

I am caught, as anyone or thing is,
in the hour of one moment
by a web impossible to comprehend,
an intricate net of fine strings
with no apparent source,
no purpose,
no end.

A Package Of Value

I put away dulled pencils,
and the grey
scribbling
that screamed back from
a near-empty
page.

Heeding the howling not,
I stepped back
for a moment
of what I claim is
air.

Habit drew me,
distracted, to the
kitchen,
to the stove
and to brief wisps
of a sick sweet smoke
that might provoke in others,
urgent need for caution.
Not me.
Thus, I grow fat
from simple constipation.

As I laboured at
the pots and pans,
smoke gathered to
a cloud,
collected until the neighbours
noticed.

Some folks name the billows
‘that big, black dog’
and I understand.
A woman I know
(who has handsome
children and a good-looking husband)
carries both fear of
and familiarity with
the dark beast
in her heart, too.
She speaks freely of
the black dog,
noting how often and when
this shadow creature
sneaks in.
Myself?
I never see anything
until there are real flames.

When folks nearby
began to offer grace,
this time,
I moved to a safer place,
shut down the cooking
and decided to
just
wait.

I know it is true,
sometimes,
for a package I might seek,
like the mail,
to be a
little bit
late.