A car tire hovers above a pothole filled with snarling monster sculptures.
Big Sister replaced Big Brother and generously generated this image
“Watch out for that pot hole!” “Which one?” Snap, crackle, pop! “That one.”
Pot Holes
Jack Pine Sonnet
Welcome to Pot Hole time. It’s all yours and it’s all mine. Mine, possession, not land mine, though hitting one at speed will rattle your teeth, shake your spine, and leave you feeling far from divine.
Pot Holes, Pot Holes, everywhere, filled with water you can’t drink. They hide the depth of every hole with waters, dark as ink.
Spring’s freeze and thaw breed ever more Pot Holes than we had before. I think at night they stay out late, to fornicate, and celebrate.
A low spring sun in the driver’s eyes makes shadows shift and slide.
A mazy life full of chance drawing a labyrinthine thread through a maze of Pot Holes that we dread, the morning sun blinding our eyes so we cannot see the Pot Holes’ size nor how they move and dance.
Big Sister replaced Big Brother and generously generated this image
Comment:
This is wonderful fun. Moo has ceased to be jealous of Big Brother and Big Sister with their attempts to read my mind. And what a great job they do of it. All in the cause of the Pot Hole Dance Season. Have you seen the Pot Holes dance? You know, one minute there isn’t one and about and then a split second later – CLANK! The dreaded tire pressure light comes on. You turn it off. It comes back on. You turn it off. It comes back on.
You stop the car at the roadside, turn off the engine, get out, and check the tires. They look all right. You kick them or tap them with a stick. They all sound all right and they all sound the same. You get back into the car. You start the engine. All the lights come on. All the lights go off. Except one – the dreaded tire pressure light. Well, I can swear pretty well in about five languages. I turn the tire light off. Wonder of wonders, it goes away.
I am so happy. I turn on the radio. I clap my hands. And CLANK! I drive into another Pot Hole that appeared from nowhere and walked or danced or shimmied or slithered into the road right in front of your car. You guessed it – and the tire pressure light comes on!
A lone, wind-shaped tree stands on rugged coastal rocks under a cloudy sky
Image generated not by Big Brother but by Little Brother who left the Frying Squad to become a painter and mind-reader
Waist Land
Jack Pine Sonnet
living in a waste land surrounded by books he writes in his journal things false and true in memory of the old days when the world seemed so new
a life built on sand slips through his fingers wouldn’t it be grand if the sand stays and lingers refusing to pass through the hour glass’ waist so time stops to flow
then he could say no leave me alone there’s more sand to fall I don’t want to go
Comment:
It’s a bit like a cliff-hanger, isn’t it? Hanging on by our fingertips and not daring to look at the depths down below. We know they are there, but look, there’s a tiny fossil in the fissure in the rock, so much older than us, we’ve got a long time to go to catch that up. And remember – 80 is not old, if you are a stone!
Treading air – great fun. Not as good as treading warm water in the local YMCA. Just a lovely sense of balance, floating there in the warmth, no weight on arthritic joints, and the world around us amniotic, as it was in the beginning. Ah, those original waters, we have all swum in them, the rich and the poor, the black and the white, and all shades in between. Even King Charles and the late Queen. And remember, they may speak of blue bloods, but all blood is red -and, if you cut us, do we not bleed.
Speaking of bleeding – blood-thinners – my favorite doctor’s latest joke. I cut my arm the other night, getting into bed. Didn’t even notice. Pillows and sheets soaked in blood when I woke up and my scalloped arm, stuck to the sheet, opened itself up and started to bleed again. Feels like seventeenth century Spain, the wounds of the dead man re-open and start to bleed when the assassin appears before him. Certain truth. Obviously 100% guilty.
And they tell me that in South Wales people are adding cooking oil to gasoline to make the petrol go further. Scotland Yard sent the Flying Squad to South Wales to sniff people’s exhaust pipes to see if they were cheating the tax man. I asked my friend – “Is this true?” “Ah, yes,” he said in his lovely Welsh lilt, “and we call them the Frying Squad!”
I waited until the boys in the dormitory slept. snores, whimpers, children snuffling, crying in their sleep.
I dressed in the dark, crept downstairs, opened the school’s back door, moved silently to the gates, and climbed over them.
I stood at the roadside, stuck out my thumb at the cars that passed, not many at one AM.
A cloudless night, bright stars, dark sky. A sense of imminent freedom washed over me.
The fourth car stopped. A man and a woman. They opened the door, let me in, turned around, and drove me back to school.
I stood in the hall watching the swing of the pendulum as the head master, in pajamas, thanked the couple for bringing me back to school.
That night, he led me quietly back to bed. Every night, for a week, he removed my clothes from the chair beside my bed.
I ran away again and again. No matter where I went my own face stared back at me from the mirror.
One day, I realized I was running from myself. When that happened, the running finally stopped, and I confronted my demons.
Comment:
I guess we are all motivated by flight or fight and I have always believed in the powers of flight – per ardua ad astra – through hardship to the stars, the motto of the Royal Air Force, I believe. Yet running really does no good, especially when we are running from our own interior demons. I hated that particular boarding school, my second, even more than I did my first one. I hated it with a deeply rooted inner loathing that still seethes inside me when I think about it. And that particular ‘first escape’ remains printed indelibly on my mid, every footstep, every floor board that creaked, every shadow that threatened.
Much later in life, while attending my fourth boarding school, one of the slightly better ones, with a strong emphasis on the slightly, my cousin, an unarmed combat instructor, took me in hand. For three weeks we went to Swansea Sands and he put me through basic training. How to break fall, to leg throw, to arm throw. Then he taught me the sacrifice throws, where you go to ground and your opponent follows, you prepared, your opponent not. He taught me about power points and the pointed or sharp edged bones that could do so much damage to the unprepared. He taught me all the multiple choke holds, how to apply them and then the secret of squirming out of them. Monday – Friday, four hours a day, total immersion, three weeks. I learned so much.
After that, I had the choice of flight or fight. However, I no longer saw myself as a victim because I saw those bullies and predators as potential victims. All the vibes had changed. Older, bigger boys no longer bullied me. Everything, in the end, turned out all right!
Yesterday fled quickly by today limps slowly on and on tomorrow draws near yet never arrives if and when it does it becomes today
As for me I feast on shifting shadows my story a tapestry reversed – hanging back to front unreadable
It is hard to slough your skin the skin once shed can never never be donned again
My body white bone grey gristle no longer wrapped in skin is bonded together by super glue made from my love for you
Comment:
Moo assures me that this painting, unsigned and untitled, is actually his. After yesterday’s doubts, I must believe him. He says it is called U-R-My-Sunshine. He also thinks it would be a great painting to go with this strange little poem that crept somehow out of my head and landed on my page. It reminds me somewhat of the church cat – it crept into the crypt, crapped, and crept out again. “Oh what a naughty pussy cat.” Who U-R is up to the reader / viewer apparently. I doubt that I am his sunshine after what I said about him yesterday. Oh sorry. You didn’t read that blog? Well, shame on you! You’ve got to do your homework if you’re going to keep up with me and Moo.
What is A Jack Pine sonnet, you ask? Well, I don’t have a clue. But now that my other buddy, Ryan, has introduced me to AI, I will ask my AI what such a thing might be. Asking now. Hang on to your seats. It tells me it’s thinking. Aha! Here’s what I think it thinks it thinks.
AI says – A jackpine sonnet is an irregular, spikey poetic form created by Canadian poet Milton Acorn (from neighboring PEI), in the 1970’s. It typically acts as a 14-line sonnet with 7-13 syllables per line, but allows for flexible line counts (e.g., 12, 18, or 20), using internal and consecutive rhymes rather than strict, traditional rhyme schemes.
Key Aspects of the Jackpine Sonnet:
Origin: Developed by Milton Acorn, often known as the “People’s Poet,” as a uniquely Canadian, gritty form of expression.
Structure: While it aims for roughly 14 lines, it can vary in length based on the needs of the poem.
Rhyme and Rhythm: Uses internal rhymes (rhymes within a line) or consecutive end-rhymes (e.g., AABB) rather than standard sonnet structures.
Style: It is designed to be “irregular and spikey like a jack pine tree,” focusing on structure and integrity rather than rigid adherence to traditional verse rules.
So, now you know what a Jack Pine sonnet is. But I bet you’ve never heard of Milton Acorn! I have. Here’s the poem I wrote about one of my meetings with him. You can find it in The Nature of Art.
Milton Acorn
“Oy,” he waved strong carpenter’s hands, “Make this work.” I typed in my code and the machine came to life. “Go away,” he pushed me out and slammed the copier room door behind my back.
Later, my secretary came in and caught him, his face pressed to the glass. He pushed the button, lights flashed, the machine whirred and copies emerged.
In his hand he held images of his feet, arms, legs, head, all of his body parts. “Tape, not masking, clear tape, 3M.” Flustered she fled, brought Scotch tape, watched as he stuck himself together.
Over lunch he showed me his work: a self-portrait, shadowy and cloudy, whiskered and worn, smelling still of printer’s ink. That’s how I remember him: unique, stately, unmistakeable, uncouth, unseemly: a jack pine growing in its own self-image.
Farewell, my dear friend, Milton. And that is how I remember you.
the day my house burned down nothing to say – nothing to do the smoke reek stays with me still my house on the hill overlooking the sea
it meant the world to me – I stood there just stood – no words – no prayer – ashes still hot burned through the soles of my shoes shoe sole – body soul – all of me burned
invisible the scars – not fire burned like the faces of Spitfire pilots on fire from burning engine oil deformed faces – nightmares one and all
the burn ward – grafting – rehabilitation new skin replaced the old – inch by inch so slow – not swift like fire – pilots ashamed to be seen – hiding – afraid
the house – brick and concrete chimney still standing – roof – windows – doors – gone furniture flame devoured – I’m no coward but I couldn’t face the heat – too hot –
now – in my mind’s eye – I look out and see and what do I see – I see the blue-eyed sea I see the house foundations – standing strong I see my new house growing like a tree
old roots dig deep – a silver photo – framed spared somehow from fire and flame a diamond sparkling amid ash and dust gold gone – the diamond sparkling on
will I have the will to rebuild – to till the garden anew – the sundial standing still counting only the happy hours – asleep life’s storms and showers – closing it down
and this I know – rebuilding may be slow but as sure as the sun will shine – the sundial will awake – the phoenix will be reborn from the flame – the house will rise again
Sun’s yellow duster arrived late this year gray cobwebs still clutter my mind
I try to brush them away with clumsy fingers but stubbornly they stick and cling and will not go
Spring came in with snow gales and icy rain
Warm winds will soon spring showers bring to revive cold clay and help things grow
Comment:
We have lived in this house for 37 years, but only once have I seen ducks land on the snow-covered lawn. Whatever were they thinking? Good question – do ducks think? They are living beings, so of course they do. But I am totally unaware of what they think nor am I able to understand the nature of their mental computations.
We share this world with so many creatures that we do not understand. I wonder sometimes if they understand us. Who knows? If we cannot speak their multiple languages, if we cannot enter their culture and their minds, if we see them as nothing but food and devour them as fast as we can, never thinking of them at all, save as more or less savoury items on our dinner plate — les meurtiers et les victimes, as Albert Camus wrote. Murderers and victims – and we are both. Murderers of our victims and victims ourselves to our unbounded greed.
… at the beginning of the end, when more things have gone than are with us and the summer’s sun withers the grass and wrinkles our faces baking us bright red – como un cangrejo te has puesto, hijo mío, en el sol de Somo, como un cangrejo – and — pulpo en un garaje — you grasp at the new words, the new colors, the new delights, your tongue trapped clumsily in your mouth like a red rag doll and the midnight bull charging the spectators who gather and olé, au lait … as the drunken bullfighter climbs the bull and kills the post. The red cape flutters in our memories and to the slaughterhouse we go where the open body hangs loose like a flag and the red meat of him held out for all to see and some to share … and this is his body and this is his blood, sacrificed in a circle of golden sand for our drunken amusement … for whatever I did, I never visited those bull fights when I was sober … at five thirty, they began, and at 3 o’clock we would gather in the city center and slowly wend our way from bar to bar, up the Calle de Burgos, past the street where you lived and upwards, ever upwards, towards the bull ring at the top of the hill, from bar to bar, I say, and the bota, the wine-skin filled and re-filled with that dark red fluid that will set us all baying for the bull’s blood, or the matador’s blood, it doesn’t matter whose blood, as long as someone bleeds and the bull is butchered, torn from this life by a man on horseback, armed with a lance, and he thrusts the heavy blade between the shoulders of the bull, the blood first dripping red, then gushing, a small stream over the rock of the bull’s shoulder, and down the bull’s front legs, to slither on the sand, and the bull still ready to charge the horse, and the bull’s head steadily dropping as the muscles in the back and neck are gashed and torn and there’s no hell like this gaping wound between the bull’s shoulders and the blood flowing freely and vanishing into the sand, the golden sand, once pristine, stained now with blood, and soon to be further blemished with feces and urine, and the picador, his job done, walks his blind-folded, armored horse out of the ring, and the bull, un-armored, un-enamored of the process which turns his torment into a spectacle staged for our drunken delight, as we pass the bota round, and the blood red wine travels from hand to hand, and we squirt the bull’s blood squarely between our lips and it dashes against tongue and teeth and we swallow the body’s sacrifice hook, line, and sinker, as the banderillero runs in, harpoons in hand, waving his banderillas and plunging their arrowed barbs into the gaping wound that flowers on the bull’s back, and the bull stands there, twitching, wriggling, saliva and drool slipping down, sliding stickily into the sand, as the matador doffs his hat, takes his vorpal sword in hand and treads the light fantastique in his laced-up dancing pumps, his waltzing matilda feet so swift, so sure, eluding the lumbering rush of the charging bull, the load of bull, that tumbles down the railway track towards him as he stands there, the matador, poised like a ballerina, as stiff and as steady as a lamp-post around which the bull circles like a drunken man, staggering a bit, but still bemused by the red flag tied to a stick which waves before his eyes and goads him onwards, ever onwards, in his plunge towards a brilliant death, as he pauses, feet together, and the matador makes his move, one, step, then two, and the bull lurching forward to impale himself on three or four feet of curved, immaculate steel, and the matador immaculate in his reception of the bull – and what is happening? What will happen next? Sometimes, the sword pierces the spinal cord and death is instantaneous. Sometimes, the sword pierces the heart, and death is more or less swift, but certainly certain. And sometimes the sword pinches against the bone and flies from the matador’s hand, and the matador must bend, and pick it up, and try, try again, the red rag below the bull’s nose, the bull drawn forward, yet again, to impale himself, yet again, on the sharp end of the sword, and this time, the sword goes in, but the wound is in the lungs and the peones, the pawns, the workers, the drones, the little men who help, turn the bull round and round in ever tighter circles so the sword will open and even larger wound, sever the main arteries perhaps, and the bull, blood spurting through nose and mouth, lurches now, then falls to his knees, and lies there, bleeding, and the matador chooses the descabello, that little sharp sword with the razor blade at the end and he tries to sever the spinal cord, there at the back of the neck, and sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn’t, and if he can’t then it’s the little men again in their colorful parrot suits all gleaming with sequins and stars and they carry a sharp little instrument, with a pointed end, la puntilla, that short, double-edged, stabbing knife which is plunged into the occipito-atlantal space to sever the medulla oblongata in the evernazione method of mercy killing, and the puntilla is plunged again and again into the bull’s neck at this atlanto-occipital joint, until it severs the medulla oblongata, and when it is severed, in this glorious neck stab, then finally the bull drops dead, and the show must go on and on, and on, and the horses come in, black funeral horses with bright feathers on their heads and they loop a rope around the bull’s horns and away he goes, trailing blood, and urine, and shit, all across the sand and other little men appear to sweep the sands clean, and my neighbor who wears a large walrus moustache stained red now and purple with the wine that he has splashed about, shakes the wine skin and finds it as not as full as it was, so he sheds a bitter tear, and since the death was slow, the crowd all whistle and boo the matador and his merry men, but when the death is swift and quick then the crowd is aroused and they wave white hankies at the presidential box and the president awards the matador an ear, a salty, smelly, sticky ear which the peones cut off the bull before he is towed away, and then the matador throws the ear in the direction of his current sweet heart, the fairest lady in the crowd although she be as brown as the beauties baking daily on the summer sand where the sea horses dance and there are no bulls, and no bull shit, and no maids with mops, just the scouring sea, and sometimes the president gives away two ears, or two ears and the tail, dos orejas y el rabo, though this I have seldom seen, and what does the bull care that he dies bravely and well, for now he is dead he hasn’t a care in the world, and the butchers in the butcher’s shop are carving him away, carving him to the skeletal nothingness of skin and bone that awaits us all, the nothingness of this more or less glorious death, with our tails cut off and our ears hacked away to be pickled or smoked or otherwise kept in the fridge as the butcher’s trophy … and who now will walk stone cold sober into that magic circle of sun and shade and stand there, unbowed, before the might of the untamed beast, the untamed bestiality that drives us wild as it wanders through our nightmare cities and our wildest dreams … and now the crowd call ¡música, música! and the band strikes up and martial music plays as the bullfighter and his troupe march gaily round the ring, their trophies held high for all to see before they are thrown to the ravening crowd who bay like the dogs they are as they taste fresh, bloodied meat …
You cannot hide when the black angel comes and knocks on your door.
“Wait a minute,” you say, “While I change my clothes and comb my hair.”
But he is there before you, in the clothes closet, pulling your arm. You move to the bathroom to brush your teeth.
Now,” says the angel.
Your eyes mist over. You know you are there, but you can no longer see your reflection in the mirror.
Comment:
The last poem in the series and Rage, Rageagainst the dying of the light is over and done. Many of you will recognize the title from Dylan Thomas’s poem Do not go gentle into that dark night. I guess the theme itself has become part of the Welsh culture. And now we have exported it to New Brunswick, Canada, and perhaps beyond.
I bought The Black Angel, pictured above, in Avila, Spain. It is a plaster cast of one of the Angels in Roger Van der Leyden’s paintings, if I remember correctly. Here is the angel’s face in close up.
She or he brings a promise of rest and peace, a freedom from earthbound woes and sorrows. She stands on the shelf above the fireplace insert in our sitting room and brings blessings to the house. I look at her every time I light the fire. And she smiles down and blesses me. I think of her as a lady, but her peace and beauty outweigh any formal signs of sex.
As for that reflection in the mirror, well, I don’t have one of me. But her is a photo to reflect upon:
Raining in Avila and puddles in the street. Now you see me, now you don’t. But I am there, holding the camera, and looking down at the water where —- rain has stopped play. The bails have been removed. Old Father Time has gone back to the Pavilion at Lord’s, and the cricket game is over for the day.
A silvery thatch bears witness to the winter of my withering.
My broken body hangs from the coat hanger of my shoulders, its worn-out sack knitted from skin, bonded with blood.
I walk with two canes, not just a sick man, but a stick man.
When I fall asleep, my enigmatic body haunts me with its death-rattle of drying bones.
Comment
Sometimes no comments are needed. However, when it comes down to it, I guess it’s worth saying that I am raging, raging against the dying of the light.
The dying of the light – in the evening, when the sun goes down, the house grows silent and cools around me. Some nights, when the news is bad or depressing, I feel we are entering another dark age. Luckily, spring is on its way, with summer not far behind. But what will spring and summer bring?
I fear the heat, the gathering of muttering trees, the ambush nature is setting up for humanity. We live among trees. Trees, all around the house. Trees, climbing the hills into the distance. I loved them when I came here first. The maples, the paper birches, the mountain ashes with their spring finery and the light green fuzz of forming leaves. Winter – the firs and pines dressed in their winter coats.
Last summer, fires broke out all over the province. The closest was a mere 30 kms down the road from us. We could smell the fire, see the smoke, and sense the discomfort of the proximity of possible outbreaks closer to home.
As I grow older, I become more fearful. Walking downstairs in the morning – cada pie mal puesto es una caída, cada caída es un precipico / each badly placed foot is a fall, each fall is down a precipice. Luis de Gongora. ( d. 1627). Alas, it’s that time of life, and it comes to anybody who, like me, has walked this far.
It’s the animals that I pity. The birds who move on and away and no longer stay with us. The deer who also have nowhere to go when their habitat is destroyed. The moose, the bears, the coyotes, the foxes, the jack rabbits and yes, they have all been visitors to our backyard.
Last summer, the local council circulated some ideas on how to prepare for immediate evacuation of our property- what to pack with a day’s notice, three hours’ warning, two hours’ warning, one hour’s warning. I hope it never comes to that. But now, I no longer know, and so I rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
I search for the key that will re-wind me, but I fail to find it.
Who will winch up the pendulums on my grandfather clock, resetting it in spring and fall?
Who will watch time’s sharp black arrows as they point the path of moon change and the fleeting hours?
Each hour wounds, or so they say. Who will tend me when that last one kills?
Comment:
Omnia vulnerant, ultima necat. / Each one wounds, the last one kills. That’s how the Romans thought about the collection of hours that make up a day. An interesting way of putting it. In lapidarian fashion. Four words that are worth a whole book of philosophical thought.
What is this thing called time? Good question, and one which is being asked more and more. Clearly time does not flow evenly within the human mind, though it is remarkably regular on the clocks we have invented to mark time for us. And remember, there are many types of time – seasonal time – spring time, summer time, autumn time, winter time. Strange that autumn – or fall as I have now learned to call it – is the only one that doesn’t have the word time attached to it.
And what about time changes – spring forward, fall back – when we change our clocks in order to make the most of daylight hours. A tedious process for many of us. I see some provinces are rejecting those changes and sticking to the same time, all the year round, from season to season. Personally, I would prefer life without those time changes, as would many of my friends.
Celestial time also known as sidereal time – the time as showed by the planets as they seem to march around the earth in the terra-centric universe. Rephrased, the positions of the planets as the earth turns slowly round the sun in the helio-centric universe.
Then there is the personal time of individual experience. An hour watching football or rugby on the tv set passes much more quickly than an hour passed in the doctor’s waiting room or the dentist’s chair. Of course, an hour watching a five day cricket test can also be a slow process, unless England are playing Australia in the Ashes. As one friend of mine commented, a long time ago, “I thought those English cricketers were unfit. But I’ve never seen anyone go out to bat and come back to the pavilion so quickly. They must be super-fit.” Alas, their cricketing problem, as usual, was centered on the three cants – can’t bowl, can’t bat, can’t catch.
En fuga irrevocable huye la hora. La que el mejor cálculo cuenta en lectura y lección nos mejora.
Irrevocable is the hour’s flight. The one that counts the most in learning or reading improves us.
Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645)
And remember – the hours fly by and your time is limited – spend it wisely and enjoy each and every day to the full limits of your abilities.
rogermoorepoet 