Poems

Waiting

 

IMG_0155

Waiting

I remember pushing
my father around the ward.

“Cancer,” they said.
“But it’s kinder
not to let him know.”

In those days,
it was better to die
without knowing why.

Did I betray him
by not telling him
what I knew?

Two weeks we had,
together.
He sat in his wheel chair
and I wheeled him
up and down.

I lifted him
onto the toilet,
he strained and strained
but couldn’t go.

“Son,”
he said, sitting there.
“Will you rub my back?’

How could I say no?

That strong man,
the man who had carried me
on his back,
and me standing there,
watching him,
his trousers around his knees,
straining,
hopelessly
…
and me
rubbing his back,
waiting
…
for him to go.

Jacuzzi

IMG_0236

Jacuzzi

Warm and safe,
womb waters whirling,
drifting me through time,
eyes closed, and space.

Amniotic, this liquid,
rocking me to the throb
of my mother’s heart.
I close my eyes.

The walls around me
open out to reveal
the sun by day,
the stars by night.

The full moon:
a golden circle
beaming down.

My mother’s face
hangs in space
above me
…
and me:
re-born.

Raw Poem:

I wrote this lying in the jacuzzi about an hour ago. It’s not just a raw poem, it’s a very raw poem. There’s something comforting about it, though, and I like the in and out of reality moments. It’s good to remember my mother, too, especially in the image of the full moon in all its plenitude and beauty.

“and me: re-born” — the small circle in the centre of the Mexican pottery mask is the symbol of the seed of the new born babe. The mask goes full circle, from birth, to beauty, to old age, and death … a full moon cycle.

Wind

 IMG_0372.jpg

Wind

Wind gusts so strong:
bird feeders rattle
and the house shakes.

Winter withdraws
its savings
from the snow banks
and invests in
dervish drifts.

Laundered money
weaves lace curtains,
snow white,
across the yard.

Wind blows hard,
turns birds into
feathered snowballs
flung towards
frosted windows
and frail walls.

A red poll flock,
hoary and a century strong,
blows in,
blows out,
frightened by the wind’s
great lusty shout.

 

 

Ice Storm

img_0033

Ice Storm

This month and my life
are nearly done.

Sun strengthens in the sky
but birds ice up
in spite of feathers,
fluffed like eider downs.

Man alone,
within warm walls,
can bravely laugh
at winter’s squalls.

But oh, if the power fails,
if wires are tumbled
by winter’s gusting gales,
man’s heart no longer
fills with ease.

He sits at home
in the cold and dark
while all around him,
ice covers the land
and even fire dogs
freeze.

Excruciate

IMG_0363.jpg

Excruciate

Haul down my body from the heights of this cross
my mind made up from this maelstrom of misery.

What angel now will coddle me in his wings
and carry me, the apple of his eye, to sanctuary?

A fingernail drawn from the flesh,
we part, my love and I.
I do not have the heart to tell her what I feel,
that all of this is quite unreal,
the web of a morbid dream, spider-spun.

Where now are our childhood promises,
the bread and wine that made us whole,
the words and deeds that we believed
would lead us to the promised land?

I know where I have been and what I have seen,
but it’s as if it all happened to someone else
and took place in that stranger’s dream:

a surrealist scream of an open eye
slashed by a razor blade.

Terminus

IMG_0359.jpg

Terminus

A terminus,
this waiting room in which we sit,
a left-luggage office
where, wrapped in blue gowns,
human packages
sit restless,
waiting to be claimed.

Tagged with a label on the wrist,
we wait here,
abandoned for a moment to our fate.

Our choices disappeared
the moment we walked in here
and surrendered ourselves to the system.

Now we lack free will
and freedom of choice,
yet still we wish to choose
our destinations,
not knowing that terminal
and terminus both mean
nec plus ultra:

the Pillars of Hercules,
the end of the world as we knew it,
and our own world’s end.

This Death

IMG_0380 2.jpg

This death

This death,
born within me,
nurtured by my own body
since before I was born,
squats beside me
in this small room.

Inevitable this end
to which I descend,
the doctor tells me,
but she doesn’t know
when.

Winged shadows
gather in dark corners
and mob my mind.

I bear this dismantling
of my inner cosmos
with baffled bravery.

Alone,
now,
in this hospital room,
I hug myself,
pretending I have
nothing to fear,

though my guts
tense up
and
salt tears
fall.

Ketch Up …

IMG_0181

Ketch-Up …

I guess it’s going to be one of those Ketch-Up / cat’s up / catch up days. They’ve closed the schools and the little man with the weather map has pointed to everything on the gloomy grey and dark blue thunder side: rain, snow, icy rain, ice pellets, slush, sleet … it’s all headed straight for me. It’s not what I voted for when I went to bed last night. Guess it’s one of those alternate facts of life.

Never mind. “I’ll make it a true, daily double, Ketch-Up Category, Alex.”

Log fire, easy chair, great book … I’m going to finish reading Margaret Sorick’s Tainted Money, the fourth novel in her Buck’s County series … I read the other three: took me less than a day each and this one is going down just as fast. Ketch-Up? The pages are smoking as I turn them over. I’m on my computer break now, giving my eyes a rest. Then it’s “snap the cartoons” time, possibly “post a cartoon”, followed by lunch.

The wind is just starting to move the trees. Oh-oh, or do I mean eau-eau … I live in Canada’s eau-nly officially bilingual province / province bilingue … and now it’s starting to rain. I can hear the pitter patter of pellets of pluie against the fly-screens I forgot to take down last fall … oh-eau … last automne …   I guess if we had a shipping line as well as an air line we’d call it Eau Canada.

I think I’d better get off this new medication.

 

Driving at Night

img_0162

Driving at Night

Once upon a time,
my hair was brown and curly,
but now it’s straight
and as white
as this drifting snow
that clogs the windshield.

I smooth down my hair
with my fingers:
swollen knuckles,
crooked joints.

I burn with feverish thoughts
yet cold blood shivers
through my arteries.

Headlights
blind me in my good eye.
The other one’s useless
when I drive at night.

It’s a long time
since I last saw,
let alone touched,
my toes.

Putting on my socks
or tying my shoelace
is a morning no-no.

Short of breath,
of agility,
with no ability
to climb up stairs:

what happened
to my youth?

Where did
my childhood
go?