Creativity

Carved in Stone 42

Carved in Stone
42

After school, in a cul-de-sac
that backs on to the railway yards,
the street boys show me
how to hold a knife,
how to approach a man,
how to ask for a light,
for a forbidden cigarette,
while other boys,
knives in hand, lie in wait
to ambush the victim.

How old am I?
Five or six.

I would go to Woolworth’s
with my friends and distract
the shop girl while the others
stole whatever they could.

Then we would go
to the public washroom,
boys and girls together,
and share the spoils.

Something for everyone,
and everyone sworn to secrecy,
a blood cult, knives
or razor blades inserted,
and wrist pressed to wrist.

Commentary:

Free will or determinism? How does one escape from the back-street poverty of a run-down neighborhood and emerge from the shadows to bask in the light of the sun? Or is it all a dream, a made-up picture of a childhood that never was in a neighborhood that never existed? Vanishing point – the railway tracks fading away into the distance. Point of vanishing – to lose oneself in the mysteries of a past that never was in order to establish a future that never will be. Dream, dream, dream – all I have to do is dream!

And then there are the nightmares, when the dreams are true and the memories are so exact that you can see the blood on the razor blade and feel the almost silent slash of this particular slice of life. Secrecy – and who can tell whether I am telling the truth, or not, here in a foreign land, not the land of my fathers – and I only had one father, that I am aware of, and one mother too – where nobody knows me and the children from that imagined back street would never think of visiting.

For Jorge Luis Borges, whom I met twice, once in Bristol and once in Toronto, – Canada was a land so distant and so cold that it lacked reality. And thus I can dream my dreams, rewrite my past, reimagine myself, in whatever way I want to and I can vanish at any vanishing point I choose and emerge wherever I want to, and do it over and over and again, and who knows the truth? Over the points, over the points, and Liza none the wiser, whoever Liza happens to be!!!

Joy of Words

Joy of Words

If the words won’t come, don’t worry.
Sooner or later, they will arrive, driving
down in flurries. Think wind-driven leaves
or the soft white whisper of snaking snow.

There is a moment when all sounds cease
and you can be at one with your inner self,
there, where summer sunshine twinkles
and soft rains bring forth clarity and joy.

What are words anyway, but soap bubbles
emerging from an iron ring to rise in
child-hood’s skies, soaring, dying, around
the cloudy thrones of sun-kissed clouds.

We, their so-called creators, are left below,
building cotton-wool castles spun from air.

Commentary:
Moo suggested I use this painting of his to illustrate this poem. He called it originally The Olde Order Passeth, but the original phrase, from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, should really be The Olde Order Changeth, lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

And yes, things do change. Here we have a fourteen line sonnet. Structure giving order to chaos. And words change, the world changes, our thoughts change, the weather changes. Hymns Ancient and Modern – Age and decay in all around I see, oh thou who changeth not, abide with me.

And what do we do when we meet with change? Weather – I change my clothes. There is no such thing as bad weather, only inadequate clothing. It used to be a useful saying, that one, but not any longer. When change changes into disaster, it is a very different kettle of fish. Thoughts change – mine just did. A useful phrase suddenly becomes an inadequate reaction to a changing situation. The world changes – sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, but how do we, each one of us, confront that change? How do we adapt to it?

I know far too many people who, like the ostrich, bury their heads in the sand and pretend that change is not all around us, that the world is the same as it always was. We humans are experts at adapting. We must adapt. But how do we adapt? Each one of us must answer that question in his or her own way. The alternative is to close our eyes, bury our heads, and pretend that nothing is happening.

Another alternative is to seek within for that moment when all sounds cease and you can be at one with your inner self, there, where summer sunshine twinkles and soft rains bring forth clarity and joy. Perhaps that is the world the ostrich discovers when he removes himself from this world and enters that other one beneath the sand. Who knows? Not even the ostrich, I would guess.

Sign Language

Sign Language

A skater leaving marks on fresh ice
or a stone cast into a pond,
with multiple meanings, multiple ripples
moving slowly outwards,
to end up where?

Who knows? Not me.
I only know that the thrown stone,
like the spoken word,
can never be recalled.

Each word a stone,
and each stone leaving its mark
on many people of many cultures
and multiple languages,
though English is the language
in which I now write.

Frost and snow here this morning.
Not much, just a dusting.
I look out of the window
at the crows’ claw prints
on my yard’s white surface.

My eyes draw silence
out of the white space
with its runic language
written by the crows.

The meaning of meaning –
tell me, if you can,
what do they say?
What do they mean?
What do they want from me?

Commentary:

Intertextuality – this poem came directly from this morning’s commentary, with some minor alterations. The commentary itself, emerged from Carved in Stone, 35. Three separate steps in the great chain of intertextuality, where text speaks to text and the crows cock their heads, turn them to one side, listen, and write their answers in the snow.

Sometimes words just flow. Sometimes, I force them to flow. However, I have learned over the years that the secret is to relax and to allow the words to come to you of their own free will. Sometimes they whisper, occasionally they shout. But if you are willing to listen, you will hear them everywhere. And they have so much to say, if you will only learn to listen carefully and try to understand their language.

Carved in Stone 33

33

A child’s swing in the orchard
hangs below the apple tree.

Early bluebells
tinkle in the hedgerow.
Why do foxes wear gloves,
I ask, in my innocence?

My grandmother,
a young woman once more,
stands in her kitchen
humming her morning music
while she bakes the day’s bread.

My grandfather,
skeletal in the evening sunshine,
shifts his long, black shadow
from side to side
as he scythes the grass.

34

Time’s fragility
dwells in all our bones,
but rarely in our minds.

I look at them,
those twin tomb stones,
with names and dates

time-worn now,
carved into their stone.

I blink, as they sway
in the twilight
of my own
fast failing eyes.

Commentary:

A Mexican Mask outlining a person’s three three ages. The small, pearl in the centre – seed of the child. The central face, bearing the pearl beneath the nose – youth and beauty. The second face – old age. The white skull – the individual’s death. How quickly life passes. I turn and look, and so many ages have passed me by. And so it is with all of us.

One of my friends dropped in to see me today. I coached him rugby (Jeux du Canada Games, 1985), when he was 18 years old, heading for 19. Now he is 59 years old and heading for 60, if he hasn’t already left it behind. Oh the memories – tread softly, for you tread on my dreams (Yeats). And it is so easy to substitute memories for dreams.

Time’s fragility dwells in all our bones, but rarely in our minds. Alas, in our minds as well. I notice how forgetful I have become. I see life my past as a railway track, the two rails joining, undivided, as they fly into the distance. “Railway train, running down the track, always going on, never turning back – choo-choo – I’ve got a one way ticket to the blues.” I remember the words and the tune, but I don’t remember who sang. Clearly time’s fragility is beginning to enter my mind as well.

Carved in Stone 32

Carved in Stone
32

I dream of winter snow
snaking its whispering way
down the highway.

Waves draw lacy curtains
across the beach.

Sandpipers wade, pecking,
probing at tide’s foaming edge,
strange writings their footprints,
punctuation,
the holes they leave
drilled in the sand.

Evening now, and a low light
casts its magic on the forest,
gilding the trees.
Dry leaves rustle.

A shadow flickers
at the edge of my eye,
my childhood –
a sea bird soaring.

Commentary:

So inadequate, the word world I create. Sound – winter snow snaking its whispering way down the highway / dry eaves rustling. Absence of sound – waves draw lacy curtains across the beach / sandpipers, with their shrill voices and constant whistling’ / the gentle hiss and buddle where the sandpipers sew their holes.

What about the other senses? I miss the sense of smell, the odors borne on the wind, the different aromas that arises from dry and wet sand, the pong that wet sea weed exudes, the perfumes of sea side grass and wild flowers … And what about touch – the sandpaper scraper of dry sand between the toes, the feel of those lacy curtains as, jeans rolled up, you paddle along the shoreline, the feel of the wind on your face when sea birds soar … and who can ever forget the salt taste of the sea upon their lips?

The Catch 22 of all writers – how much can we include? How much can we suggest? How much must we let slip by? Culture – how can we describe the sea to someone who has never seen the sea? I can ask the questions – but I must leave you to work out the answers for yourself. So inadequate, the word world I create.

Two New Poems

Two New Poems

1

My Words

My words are black print
on white paper.
My memories flare
 – an aurora borealis of senses
sent crackling down the spine,
in and out of the mind,
tumbling the brain into a world
 … what sort of world?

An unimaginable world.
One never forgotten.
One never re-recreated.
One that never existed.
One that never could exist.
One for which the young child,
six or seven years old,
yearns for the rest of his life.
His unsatisfied life.
His unsatisfying life.
His meaningless life.
His absurd life.

2

Puppy

Oh, pity the poor puppy,
not knowing
 what he has done wrong,
not knowing
how to put things right,
always inadequate,
always in fear
of the angry word,
the quick, sly kick,
the vicious blow,
whining and cringing
at his master’s feet.

“Into your box!”

And always,
that cold puppy bed,
often soiled,
 where the long, chill snakes
of frail, wriggling dreams,
remind him of
the next day’s
punishment.

Commentary:

Both these poems evolved from the comments I made yesterday to my blog post. I have started noticing that those words, beneath the poems, sometimes have a rhythm and a magic all to themselves. I guess it is a little bit of the unconscious slipping upwards and spilling out.

Discovered poems – I never set out to write these two poems. When I re-read my commentary, I thought ‘wow, there’s a poem in there”, and I found not one, but two new poems. Interesting. As I age, I discover something new every day. What a wonderful world it is, unless, like earlier this week, I discover my tap leaking and am forced to call my friend, the plumber, into my water world. Alas, if only that tap were tapped into a maple tree and it weas spring once more. Ah well, I am a dreamer, I can always dream.

A Touch of Frost

A Touch of Frost

Cooler nights have brought
a touch of frost to higher ground.

At night, temperatures fall.
By day, they build.

I watch as Autumn, finger on lips,
tiptoes through the garden.

With a wave of its wand,
winter threatens.

A gust of wind swirls the leaves,
sends snow flaking round the tree.

My love has a gentle touch of frost,
a blanched fringe at her curl tips.

When I look in the mirror,
I see the full effects, snow drifts
gathered on my own head.

I look at my beloved.
Her hair –
a crab apple tree
in full spring bloom.

Commentary:

Moo to the rescue with a little touch of frost and snow in his painting. So many images here. So many pictures floating through my mind. Still Autumn, and we had some snow. Not much, but enough to remind us that winter lies just around the corner. Enough for today. More tomorrow. And snowflakes and blessings to all.

Carved in Stone 27

The philosopher in search of his stone.

Carved in Stone

27

Miguel de Cervantes –
I read and re-read his words,
envious of his ability to reach out
with language that thrills me still.

I see him as a total entity,
while I see myself in pieces,
broken, unable to express
the simplest thoughts.

As I age, I sense the water
slipping from the water-clock,
the candles burning lower.

I still cannot make the mark
I want to make, for they are beyond me,
those marvelous word-worlds.

My words are mortal, his are immortal.
Mine just ink stains on a humble page,
his cast in print, but crafted to last forever.

As I bear witness to those powers,
so much greater than mine,
my eyes fill with tears.

Commentary:

They are beyond me, those marvelous word-worlds. Indeed they are. But I do not seek to create ‘a marvelous word-world’. I am happy with ‘ink stains on a humble page’. I seek to reach out and find those one or two people who accept me for what I am and find their own selves in a small corner of the tiny gardens I discover or create. Not a world, then, but a tiny corner of my own world, described, and offered to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts and minds to feel and understand.

And what is this infatuation with the poem itself? I no longer write individual poems, I write sequences of linked poems, a set of poetic narratives, if you need to find a label for what I am trying to do. Cervantes once wrote “La épica también puede escribirse en prosa.” / Epic poetry can also be written in prose. What happens if we reverse that statement and say – “A narrative sequence can also be written in poetry.” Interesting, eh?

And what is this desire to leave something, some trace of us, behind? I cannot answer that question. The answer will vary for each one of us, and for each fall wall flower perishing against the garden wall. I look at the homeless, pushing their grocery carts, head down. Their existence is as important as mine. Their desire to survive, for another day, another week, another season – and winter is coming one – is more powerful than any poet’s desire to leave a work – a magnum opus – to celebrate their lives.

And yes, my words are mortal, as I am mortal, as Miguel de Cervantes and all the great writers were mortal. Patrick Lane once told me that if poets leave one poem behind them that is remembered, they have done well. Even the greatest poets, and you can check this in the anthologies over the ages, rarely leave more than ten or a dozen memorable poems. As for me, I am happy to say that I have never had a poem included in an anthology. Not to my knowledge anyway.

And what does Magnum Opus actually mean? I leave you with the quote from Wikipedia set out above. Click on it, and find yet another way to distract, deflect, and change the direction of our lives! Given that road, who would ever want to walk it to its end?

Carved in Stone 25 & 26

Carved in Stone

25

I speak to a generation I will never see,
as others, in the past, have spoken to me.

They spoke through their prison bars
in manuscripts and books,
or told me, in hieroglyphics,
of ages disappeared,
their secrets lost, and gone.

Who now will listen, with their eyes,
as I listened with mine, for my world
is not their world,
nor can their world be mine.

And yet the same moon,
finger-nail thin, or gibbous,
waxes to full, then wanes,
in search of its rebirth.

26

What are words?
Is it the language that speaks,
not the author, as Barthes tells us?

Or do I write these words,
and who am I,
who sits mouse in hand,
fingers on keyboard,
tapping these words?

Do I not speak to the readers?
Yet how could I speak to them,
for the printed word
cannot ring out from the page.

And what are my words,
but soap bubbles,
blown by an old man
in his second childhood,
through an iron ring?

Or are they soft letters
of snaking snow,
lisping their whispered words
along the inner highways
of the listening mind?

Meaning – the readers
must recreate it,
illusions, delusions, and all,
in their own creative minds.

Commentary:

Meaning – each reader must recreate it. We come from so many cultures, so many languages, so many backgrounds. And yet I write in one language, one of the several I speak. I know only too well how words shift, shuffle, change their meanings. I know how innuendo, culture, religion even, changes the meaning of words. So who am I to say – this, and this only, is the correct meaning of the words carved in stone. Even the words and the symbols carved in stone are open to interpretation.

“Patience,” said Miguel de Cervantes, “and shuffle the cards.” Of course, wrth gwrs, he wrote those words in Spanish, and he placed them in the mouth of one of his characters. And now I am repeating them and placing them in your minds. For you, each one of you, must shuffle the words, shuffle their meanings, adapt them to your own minds and cultures, and come up with the meanings, the multiple meanings, that you can attach to my words.

“And what are my words, but soap bubbles, blown by an old man in his second childhood,
through an iron ring?” Answer that question and perhaps you can solve the riddle of the universe. But to whose satisfaction? Words carved in stone – but what is the stone, who quarries the stone, who carves the words in the stone, and who descends from the mountain with what words carved in stone?

Meaning – each reader must recreate it, illusions, delusions, and all, in his or her creative minds.

Carved in Stone 23 & 24

Carved in Stone

23

It isn’t true that art
lives longer than life,
for all too often art and artist
are destroyed together.

Words, all words,
and words emerge
from the silence of blood,
bone, and stone, breaking
that silence the day they are born,
and the word once spoken
cannot be recalled.

24

Here, among the ruins of my life,
I have learned how to be alone,
how to sink into silence,
how to smother at birth
that world of words,
and that world, still-born,
becomes a lost world
whirled on the silent wind that fans
the unborn fires within.

I sit here
brushed by a tadpole’s solitude
as it swims through the sultry silence
of blood, bone, and stone,
into its own metamorphosis.

The wind that blows unspoken words
tugs at the spider web of my mind
twisting and untwisting
its frayed, fragmented ends.

Commentary:

The fragility of life. The single puff that turns the dandelion into a dandelion clock. The multiple puffs that dowse the candles on the birthday cake. And then, one day, there are no more candles, no more cakes, just the heart ache of multiple absences, family and friends all gone and each of us alone with our individual loneliness.

That’s when we finally turn in and seek the inner roads that lead us to ourselves. The selves that were, the selves that are, the selves that always will be. Crack the walnut – inside is the map of a brain – your brain? If it is you will have found yourself in this labyrinth. But if it is the brain of another, you must not give up, you must seek yourself, walnut after walnut.

And when you go to the library, you must check book after book, because one day, if you are lucky, you will find the book of your life and it will tell you who you were, what you are, and what you will always be.