Winter

Snow falls – what if we fall…

Snow falls – what if we fall…

There I was – with my trusty snow-blower blowing the snow – and I shifted gear to go backwards – and my glove caught – and the snow-blower kept on coming – straight at me – and there wasn’t room to manoeuvre -manoeuver – maneuver – aka I couldn’t get out of the way – and the snow bank behind me caught me just at the back of the knees – and I sat down in the snow – oh dear – luckily I let go of the gear lever and the throttle lever – but the machine was almost on top of me – and I couldn’t get up – so I called for help – but no help came – and I tried to pull on the machine with one hand – and I put the other on an ice patch in the snow and that hand went through – so I am sitting there – can’t stop laughing – and then my beloved appears – and she brings me my walking stick – and she moves the snow blower forward – and then she gives me the stick – in my left hand – lifts me and pushes – while I lift with the left and pull with the right – and I have pulled a cork from a champagne bottle more easily than I pulled myself out of that snow – but together we did it – and oh was I wet – I had to finish the blowing – go inside – and change my jeans – and I am still laughing at the thought of myself – sitting there in that snow – and I needed to pee so badly – as the cold and damp crept in and – what if there had been nobody there to help – or what if it had been windy and my cries had not been heard – and what if we fall – as so many others have done before – fall to rise no more – and what if – “if – if – if – if – onions climbed a cliff – potatoes would rise – with watery eyes – if it wasn’t for if -” and that’s what my grandfather always sang to me when I asked him “what if…?” – so- what if … but don’t answer – because we’ll never know –

A Winter Awakening

A Winter Awakening            

You hate the Christmas holidays. You always have and I expect you always will. Broken promises litter the ground like so many new year’s resolutions, made and then set aside in a jumble of wrapping paper, party hats, and empty, smelly beer bottles. So vicious, these early morning calls, your father pinching your ear or tugging your hair, then stripping back the clothes and leaving you lying there, the cold air invading your bed, shocking your toes, tweaking the small hairs on arms and legs.

You reach out to the bedside chair, grab your shirt, socks, and pants and stuff them between your legs where it’s still nice and warm.  Then you pull the bedclothes up to your chin and your day clothes lie between your thighs, a teddy bear bundle gradually warming you up again. You wriggle down into the bed, and try to go back to sleep, but it doesn’t work.  A great shout from downstairs: “Breakfast is ready!”

Now comes the tricky bit: staying under the covers, wriggling out of your pyjamas, putting on your shirt, your pants and your socks while still staying warm beneath the blankets. Then, a porpoise breaking the surface, you burst out of bed, pull on your trousers and a sweater, and you run downstairs to the kitchen the warmest room in the house, where breakfast is waiting.

North Wind

North Wind

North Wind descended from the pole
sending its wolf pack through snow-
bound trees. Listless, they stood there,
then wind and wolves came, cutting
and shuffling, playing snap-the-branch,
chase-the snow-flake, and strip-jack-
naked. Wolves danced on their hind-
legs, round and round, shaking trees,
biting at branches, testing winter games
until trees stood naked, stripped of snow,
tresses and garlands gobbled and gone.

Oh the wickedness of winter, its cold-
cut cruelty, the lash of the wind, ice-
pellets hurled, picketing fences, pecking
a wild winter-song, forlorn in its fury,
its pace, its power, its reckless race
to hurl everything away, out of its way,
snow twisted, tormented, twitching
its snake-way down barren highways
devoid of secret places in which to hide
tender faces from the North Wind.

Click on this link for Roger’s reading.
North Wind.

Late Fall

Late Fall

Late fall with falling leaves,
trees stripped wind-blown bare,
and winter drawing close.

The huntsman, the archer,
the Cerne Abbas Giant,
Hercules and his club
walking high in the sky, a dog
forever at their heels, ever faithful,
ever true. Star-jewels line his belt,
where the star-sword swings,
the bow, and all his magnificence
displayed before us.
Bow down before him and rejoice.

The year is turning,
or has turned and we are turning
with it. Back to our pasts,
on to our futures, or else we stand
here, gazing skywards,
our feet mired in the present,
minds locked, nowhere to go.

Click on the link for Roger’s reading.
Late Fall

Selfie with First Frost

Selfie with First Frost

The back ground is dark green, or should be. We have red and yellow leaves, of course, this is New Brunswick, Canada. And the white flecks are the frost on the grass. Lovely.

Look closely and you can see bits of me reflected in the glass of the painting. That’s why it’s a selfie. Not a total one, but a teeny little bit of one. How much of ourselves do we ever capture, in a photo, a painting, a poem, a piece of prose? Not much, I guess. And is it the real ‘us’ anyway? I very much doubt it.

Does it matter? No. If you want to see the real me, come and visit. But, be prepared: I am not who I seem and I am desperate to hide the real me from the real world. You may catch glimpses. And that’s about it.

And I have a cat, just like that. Runs to the basement, hides beneath a chair, sits and purrs in her basket, sleeps on the bed at night, winds herself round my knees at feeding time, is and isn’t, just like all pussy cats. And aren’t we all like that? Here today and gone tomorrow. All that joy and all that sorrow.

Enjoy us while you can. And can-can while you can-can!

Birch

Birch

A birch tree lies on my power lines,
and I am powerless.

No phone, no radio, no tv,
and all because of a snow-laden tree.
Why did this happen to me?

“It’s a day, man, a day.
It’s nothing but a day.”
“Imagine,” says my wife,
“being without power all your life.”

I clench my fist and pump the air.
Nobody sees me. There’s no one to care.

A ghost’s voice echoes in my head:
“Stop moaning, bro, at least you ain’t dead.”

Sun, wind, melting snow.
The lame tree rising, slow.

At last the wires are free.
Power is back again.
I breathe more easily.

Let it snow ….

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Let it snow …

A New Year, a new snowblower, and the same beautiful handy-person. Luckily I can cook, so when the hard work is done, that handy-person can sit down to hot tea and buttered crumpets. Oh the joys of retirement. Some never retire, though, and a handy-person’s work is never done. Mind you, cooking, for me, is a joy, not a chore, so I don’t ever think of it as ‘work’, that nasty, old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon four-letter word. In fact, come to think of it, teaching and research were joys, never chores. As a result, I have never done a day’s work in my life. Nor did I ever want to.

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And that’s what I wish you all for the New Year: brave blossoms that stand out against a snowy background, joys that make each day a pleasure and never a grind, happiness that drowns out the daily sorrows of this Vale of Tears through which we are passing, and a clock without hands, so that you never have to count the hours as the days tick slowly by.

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May each morning fill you with joy, happiness, and a sense of adventure. And may the evening sky fill you with peace and contentment for a day well lived.

Decade-End

 

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Decade-End

My neighbor with the bird-killer cats has left the neighborhood and we have started to see the birds returning. Now we can refill the feeders, knowing that the birds will all be relatively safe. And the squirrels, red and grey, and the chipmunks. We had a beautiful snowshoe hare visit the garden, but he saw those cats and moved on to other pastures. I saw one last week, though, moving across the road ahead of me, caught in the car’s headlights amidst the whirl of snow. A ghost drifting lightly over the roadside drifts. Beautiful.

The deer have returned with the snow. There are six of them now, where last year there were seven. They gathered under the mountain ash and walked round and round, hoovering up the fallen berries. Usually the robins clean the berries out, but their visits this year were so brief. Snow came early and the robins moved on, even though a multitude of berries garlanded the tree.  Here’s a robin looking wistfully at the falling snow and wondering what to do next.

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So winter is back again. The snow is falling as I type. I have had second thoughts about blogging. In fact, I haven’t blogged since 19 October 2019. Work on my journal and my latest books and chap-books has kept me busy elsewhere. To blog or not to blog, that is the question. And I face that same question with Facebook too: shall I or shan’t I? As of now, I have no answer to that question. If you have an answer, please let me know.

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On the outside

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On the Outside Looking In …

I walked home on my own. As usual. I’d hated the church Christmas party with all its trumped-up noise, childish games, and artificial gaiety.
The priest, formidable yet effeminate in his long black skirted robe, had made us sit in a circle on the floor, legs crossed. He stood inside that circle and placed a bar of chocolate on the wooden boards. Then he walked around the group and whispered a word in each boy’s ear.
“You must wait until you hear your secret word,” he explained. “Then one of you, when I speak that word, whoever it happens to be, may have the chocolate bar,” he stared at us, large, yellowed, horsey teeth, no hair, eyes golden, fierce, like an eagle’s, beneath bushy eye-brows. “When you hear your secret name, you must run and grab the chocolate bar. Understood?”
I had come to the party on my own as both my parents worked. The mums and dads who had brought their offspring to the party leaned forward in keen anticipation. The boys all nodded.
“Are you ready?” The priest watched us as we nodded and then he shouted “Alligator!”
Nobody moved.
“Elephant!” The boys shuffled forward, like inch worms, hands twitching, fingers flexing and grasping.
“Tiger!” A sigh emerged from multiple mouths. Some of the boys licked their lips.
“Lion!” One boy moved, but the priest shooed him away. “Sit down. That wasn’t your word.”
“M-m-mouse!” The boys heaved, a sea-wave about to crest and break.
“I do love this game,” said the priest to the parents. “And so do the boys, don’t you boys?”
“Yes, father …” came the chorus.
“Monkey!” All the boys, except one, leapt into springy action. They dived, crawled, leaped to their feet, ran … a surging heap of boys writhed on the floor as the chocolate bar was torn apart and the long-awaited fights ensued.
All the boys moved, except me. I just sat there.
“I said ‘Monkey,’” the priest frowned at me. “That’s your word. When I say ‘Monkey’, you join in with the other boys and fight for the chocolate bar.”
I shook my head.
“Have some Christmas fun. Join in the game.”
I again shook my head.
“Why not?”
“It’s not right. You’re just mocking us.  I want to go home,” I stood up and walked out of the church hall. I turned at the door and saw the priest glaring at me while a mound of boys continued to scrummage on the floor.
As I walked home, it started to snow. Not the pure white fluffy snow of a Merry Christmas Card, but the dodgy, slippery mixture of rain, snow, and ice pellets that turned the streets of my little seaside town into an ice rink. I turned up the collar of my coat, bowed my head, and stuffed my hands into my pockets. Two houses before my own, I stopped.
A neighbor’s house. With a window lit up in the gathering dark. I drew closer, pressed my nose against the window and looked in. A Christmas tree, decorated with lights, candles, more decorations, a fire burning on the hearth, two cats curled up warm before the fire, presents beneath the tree, stockings hanging from the mantelpiece. For a moment, my heart unfroze and I felt the spirit of Christmas. Then I thought of my own house. Cold and drafty. No lights, no decorations. No fire. The snowball snuggled back into my chest and refused to melt.
When I got home, our house stood chill and empty. My parents were out at work and the fire had died. Nothing was ready for Christmas. I sat at the kitchen table, took out my colouring book and began to draw.
When my mother came home, I showed her my drawing.
“Very nice,” she said, barely glancing at it.
“But mum, you haven’t really looked.”
She stared at the picture again. This time, she saw the Christmas tree and the lights, the cats and the candles, the decorations and the presents.
But she never noticed the little boy standing outside the house in the falling sleet, peering in through the window.

Cogito ergo sum

 

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Cogito ergo sum
(1812 & 1942-43 & 2019)

I think therefore I am
what I am but what am I

a man who borrows and buys
who runs up false credit

sneaks away from unpaid bills
and reads fake falsifications

or listens to such things on tv
talk shows where noddies nod

finger-talk shaking their heads
and grinning so much people can

even see them smile while chatting
with them on land-line phones

I am at the center of my universe
egocentric terracentric heliocentric

a boiled egg this world a cracked
shell this starry firmament

and me with my silver spoon
poised to dig into worldly riches

stuffing them into my mouth
as I lie in the ripped steaming

horse’s belly behind me dead cities
the whole world flaring into flame

ahead of me this winter snow my fate
an albatross noosed around my neck

 

Comment:

Poetry is made up of little touches, a metaphor here, a line change there, a word less, an idea more.  As a result, poets dabble with their verses, shifting them around, sliding them about. I call it “shuffle and cut”. Some arrangements are more effective than others; the big question: which is which? Every word-change alters tone, emphasis, meaning, exposition. What, for example,  is the correct place for “the center of my universe”? Should it start the poem? Should it appear in the middle? Which is more effective? While one answer may please one person, that same answer may displease somebody else. As poets, we must make choices, we cannot always “have patience and shuffle the cards”. Somewhere, the cards, like the male deer who visit my garden, must stop. But where do they stop? Where do the words make their final stand?

Cogito ergo sum
(1812 & 1942-43 & 2019)

centered on my universe
terra- helio- ego

I think therefore I am
what I am but what am I

a man who borrows and buys
who sets up false credit

runs away from unpaid bills
reads fake falsifications

listens to talk shows on CBC
tv shows where noddies nod

shake their heads or smirk
grin so much people can

even see them smile while
talking to them on the phone

a boiled egg this world cracked
shell this starry firmament

me with my silver spoon
poised to dig into worldly

riches stuffing them into my mouth
I lie in the warm steaming belly

dead this horse behind me cities
whole worlds flaring into flame

ahead of me this winter snow my fate
an albatross noosed around my neck

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