Writing

Daffodils

Daffodils

Winter’s chill lingers well into spring.
I buy daffodils to encourage the sun
to return and shine in the kitchen.
Tight-clenched fists their buds,
they sit on the table and I wait
for them to open.

For ten long days the daffodils
endured, bringing to vase and breakfast-
table stored up sunshine and the silky
softness of their golden gift.

Their scent grew stronger as they
gathered strength from the sugar
we placed in their water, but now
they have withered and their day is done.

Dry and shriveled they stand paper-
thin and brown, crisp to the touch.
They hang their heads as their time
runs out and death weighs them down.

Commentary:

A sad poem, really, for a wet, damp, dark, chilly day that begs for some light and warmth. And what warmth and light daffodils bring. Not to mention their delicate scent that lingers long in the nostril, faint, but intoxicating. For ten long days the daffodils endured. This was a joy in itself. Sometimes cut flowers wither so quickly. But ten days … wow! And they do indeed bring to vase and breakfast-table stored up sunshine and the silky softness of their golden gift.

Their scent grew stronger as they gathered strength from the sugar we placed in their water. Indeed it did. And the sugar itself enhanced their ability to linger on. A little Somerset trick that, all the way from Zummer Zet where the cider apples grow. And no, you can’t have real cider without real cider apples from real cider apple trees. But never forget Sally the Sozzled Sow – she got into the storage shed and drank about five gallons of the stuff. It was all over the newspapers. She got loose and knocked the milk churns over and rolled them in the clover. The corn was half cut at the time, and so was she.

Dry and shriveled they stand paper-thin and brown, crisp to the touch. So sad when this starts to happen. Then one day, they just fade away. And then they hang their heads as their time runs out and death weighs them down. Sad, really, as I said at the start – but we must never forget the joy and light and happiness they bring us when they are in their prime.

Dorset Knobs and Old Vinny

Dorset Knobs and Old Vinny

Five Lysol wipes remain in the can.
As rare as hen’s teeth or Dorset Knobs
and old Vinny, they have become precious
items sold in marked up prices online
by people who stocked up at the beginning
of the crisis on commodities they were able
to seize before rationing stepped in
and limited quantities were permitted
to each purchaser who waited patiently,
in line, to enter the super-market.

I place my leather glove on my hand
and move to the gas pump. How many people
have used it, pumping gas with bare hands,
and the metal surface retaining how many germs
who knows for how long? I cannot wear my mask
while pumping gas. Cover my face and they will
not serve me for fear I may flee without paying.
I finish pumping, open the car door, remove
my glove, put on my mask, pick up my cane,
and walk into the gas-station shop to pay.

As I limp towards the door, a man, mask-less,
holds the door open for me, his face less
than a foot from mine. “There you are, sir,”
he says, showing his teeth. “Service with a smile.”

I return to the car, remove a precious sanitizing wipe,
clean my glove, the car door handles, every spot
my gloved hand touched. Then I wipe the handle
of the gas pump and dispose of the precious wipe
in the garbage can nestled between the pumps.

Commentary:

Well, I am willing to place a bet with my favorite bookmaker, at Covey’s Print Shop, that not many of you out there know what Dorset Knobs and Old Vinny is or are. Moo has joined me in my wager and he is willing to bet that very few of you know where the line “où est le papier?” comes from. Even fewer will be able to sing the whole song! Oh dear, our world is only artificially intelligent, not really intelligent. In my teaching days I would ask the class if we were in a smart classroom. “Yes, sir,” they would reply. I’d then walk to the wall, tap it and ask it “What’s 2 + 2?” The wall never answered. I’d try again. “What’s 2 + 2?” – Silence. “Not such a smart classroom then,” I’d say to the students.

But I bet you all remember Covid, the days of taking all sorts of precautions, of wearing masks and gloves, of washing everything that came into the house, of washing hands, and not touching surfaces in public places where the unwashed may have left a winning lottery ticket with your Covid Number upon it. Oh dear, those were indeed the days. And this little poem, a golden oldie, recalls them. Let us hope they do not return. And let us doubly hope they do not return with a mutating or mutated helix of sinister proportions.

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.

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.

Growing Old Together

Growing Old Together

You and I are growing old together.
We have been together for 59 years
and married for 54 of those.

We watch each other slowly breaking down,
the memories going,
the body parts not functioning
the way they used to.

In some ways,
it is incredibly beautiful.
In other ways,
it is so tragic, this slow waltz
around life’s dance-floor
towards who knows what
that last dance will bring?

It gets harder and harder
to find the right things to say,
sometimes to find anything to say.

There are days
when we just sit in silence,
filling in time,
doing a crossword or a sudoku,
or just gazing into space,
trying to avoid
the mindlessness
of endless adverts
on the television.

Commentary:

Not much to say, really. The poem and the photo speak for themselves, as good art always should. Sometimes the artist plans everything, and out it pops, all ready-made. On other occasions, a small miracle takes place and words and images tumble out, fluff their feathers, settle down and wow! – it’s a work of art. As long as one other person, other than me, thinks so, then I will be happy. “If I can reach out and touch just one person.”

I often wonder how many people are touched by traditional art nowadays. There is so much shock and awe out there, that the humble homely corner with its two doves or the image of an elderly couple dancing slowly around their kitchen, hanging onto each other – for what? And both of them waiting – for what, exactly? I expect it varies with each couple. But what I pity most are the lone doves, abandoned, autonomous, living on their own-some with nobody to talk to and only the TV to listen to. How many of them are out there, I wonder? When I walk around town, I see the street people, the homeless, the really lonely ones, just sitting, or slowly pushing a grocery cart with all their belongings tied up in plastic bags. Heads down, they plod on, never stopping, never looking.

“A sad life this, if full of care, we have no time to stop and stare.” W. H. Davies.

Clepsydra 51 & 52

51

… and thus I sit in silence
     while unspoken words
          echo through
               my empty skull

I cannot produce
     the grit that oysters use
          to smoothly shape
               the pearl of great price
                    that radiates with light

the word
     once spoken
          can never be recalled

word magic
     water magic
          liquid trickling
               from cup to earthen cup

time slowly dripping away
     filtering through my fingers

flickering and dying,
      and the snuffed candle flame
          absent now
               and everywhere
                    the pain of its absence …

52

… and me like so many others
     caught up in time’s dance
          a shadow among other shadows
               moving on the cave wall
                    while the fire flickers

I try to hold them
     as they flit by
          but they vanish
               drifting like dreams
                    half-glimpsed
                         in early morning light

dancers and dance
     must fail and fade away
          when the music ends

I recall snippets of song
     that fan the unborn fires within

what am I
     but a tadpole
          swimming bravely
                into my next metamorphosis

the dancers hold hands
     and sing, oranges and lemons
          as they circle under the arch

“Here comes a candle
     to light you to bed

and here comes a chopper
     to chop off your head

 and when will that be
     ring the bells out at Battersea

I do not know
booms the great Bell of Bow” …

Commentary:

And here ends Clepsydra. One sentence, one poem, 52 sequences. Time, frozen in the writer’s mind, the passing of time, measuring time, internal time, external time, sidereal time, historical time … all linked through memories … personal, cultural, literary, family, events … all tied up with what Miguel de Unamuno called intra-historia, those deep, very personal little histories, that lead us away from great historical events into the minds of the observers, the witnesses, the readers, all with their interior monologue and their own mindfulness.

For those of you who have chosen to walk this road with me, I offer you my gratitude. I do hope you have enjoyed – if not the whole journey, then selected parts of it that may have touched you, or amused you, or aroused your interest. Pax amorque.

Clepsydra 45 & 46

45

… I enter ancient rooms
     on the walls
          pale ghosts walk
               flickering shadows

why am I tongue-tied
     why do I struggle
          a fly in a spiderweb
               to make myself heard

I long for
     the freedom of flight
          for culture restored
                    for a return
                         to my own lost world

I grasp at shadows
     reaching out
          for the ones I know
                         are no longer there …

46

… how deeply time’s wounds

     have cut and carved
          through my flesh and bone

               into the embers
                    of that slow-burn fire
                         they call the heart

some days those wounds
     neither ache nor itch
          but in moments of madness
               a knife-edged finger nail
                    careless in the dark
                         opens them up

they throb again
     and begin to bleed afresh …

Commentary:

” … on the walls, pale ghosts walk flickering shadows – I grasp at shadows, reaching out for the ones I know are no longer there …” Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

” … the embers of that slow-burn fire they call the heart … ” Pulvus eres et pulvus eris. Just another shadow on life’s wall.

Clepsydra 39 & 40

39

… all too soon I too shall move on
     leaving behind me
          fading memories and cloud shadows


yet I recall
     standing beneath the cathedral’s
          great rose window
               on a sunny day
                    my body dressed
                         in a harlequin suit
                              of glistening lights 

in such splendour
     mortal things like words
          cease to flow

I held my breath
     shocked by an enormous presence
          that filled me then
               as it does now
                    with the knowledge
                         that nothing happens in vain …

40


… illumination
     I must find it for myself
  were another to tell me
      where it dwells
            its light would be untrue

only I can strike the match
     ignite the flame
          and trap its warmth
              in my body’s bone cage

when it flowers within me
     I’ll need no candle
          not even in the darkest mine

in Alma, I have seen
     the tide lower
          Fundy fishing boats
               down into the mud

like those boats
     I lack the power
          to resist both time and tide …

Commentary:

I asked Moo for a painting of boats from Fundy, preferably from Alma, lying on their sides at low tide. “Let me see what I am meant to be illustrating,” he said. He read the above excerpt from Clepsydra and told me “You’re navel gazing again. I thought I told you not to do that. Now, have I got a painting for you.” I didn’t dare refuse to post it – he’s had a bad couple of days and it has sharpened his sense of humor – so it’s here it is. Moo calls is – now don’t laugh – Naval Gazing.

“Nothing happens in vain.” So maybe I was predestined to ask Moo for a painting he didn’t have and to end up with one that tickled his fancy. Now that set off a light bulb in my skull. Mr. Dimwitty came to his sense – I have been navel gazing. Naughty, naughty. How many of you remember Mr. Dimwitty, the not too bright schoolmaster on BBC radio? Hold up your hands, and I’ll count them.

Meanwhile, things happen to Moo and me, and like the boats on the Fundy, we lack the power to resist both time and tide. And that’s why we help each other, carry each other along. “We few, we few, we band of brothers.” That was Shakespeare. Nowadays we have to say “we band of siblings.” It pays to be inclusive. Speaking of bands, I saw a man walking down Main Street yesterday, blowing a rubber trumpet. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that he was looking for a rubber band. Joy to the world and help spread the joy. If you don’t like joy, spread Marmite. And if you don’t like Marmite I am sure you’ll love Vegemite. Ma might, but Pa won’t. That’s why it’s not called Pa-mite.

Book of Life

Book of Life

When I lost my place, I tied my hanky in a knot,
to help me remember the number of my page.
Last night I looked in pockets and sleeve, but
I couldn’t remember where I put my hanky.

At midnight the stars dropped liquid fires and they
pooled like letters on the fresh snow of my dreams.

One night I caught some falling stars and I joined them
together, one by one, till they stretched their daisy chain
across the garden. Words grow like flowers in the Spring.

Once I could accelerate the universe. But now I slow
down when I spell my name. There is a circlet of gold
on the sky’s bright brow. What gave these stars the right
to write my future in expanding letters? A satellite moves
in a straight line, north to south and starlight crumbles
in the wake of artificial knowledge spanning the eye ball
of the planet.  Who will repair these broken tunes? Who
will glue these scattered notes back into the piano’s frame?

My tongue stumbles against my teeth and trips on my lip.
A leaf of fire scorches the deep bell sound of my throat.

Commentary:

I looked over my shoulder, backward into time and space, and discovered this poem, penned more than a quarter of a century ago and abandoned in an old folder. Moo tells me he hasn’t painted for some time – I wondered if he was on a rotating striking, like our posties (Canadian for mail men and women), but he assured me that he had been sleeping, not sleep-walking in circles. Anyway, he felt inspired, put paintbrush to postcard and gave new life to my Book of Life. Thank you, Moo.

Do you remember when we used to tie knots in our hankies to remember what we had to do? Paper tissues put an end to that. No point in tying a knot in a soggy tissue, even if you could. And as Francisco de Quevedo told us – no point in looking in your hanky after you’ve used it. No point in searching for diamonds and emeralds, let alone pearls of wisdom, they just won’t be there. Good one, Franky. Of course, he was writing in Spanish, not English and my translation can’t do him justice.

It used to be fun watching the night sky out here in Island View. So clear – the satellites passed overhead and followed different paths from the stars. No Platonic dancing to ethereal music for them. Tone deaf, the lot of them, cutting their own little paths across the night sky. We used to get Northern Lights too, Aurora Borealis. They were always spectacular. Great crackling curtains of light hanging down from the heavens almost to the rooftops. Moo wishes he could paint everything h sees. I wish I could write down in verse every thought I think. If each of us had our wishes fulfilled, we’d have two books of life – one in color and one in black and white!

Clepsydra 31 & 32

31

… I become more aware
     of the world
          outside my mother’s womb

I listen to the house’s heartbeat
     the occasional creak
          intruding rarely
               the house inhaling
                    exhaling

 I pay attention
     to my own bodily sounds
          my heart rate slowing
               increasing

now I can hear
     the faint tick-tock
          of a distant clock

a sunray illuminates
     a dust mote
          that dances before my eyes

light without sound
     silent butterfly wings
          seeking celestial light …

32

… did I write
          these words for me
               or did I write them
                    for someone else

does it matter
     when the only thing that counts
          is the beauty released,
               when the butterfly breaks free
                    and takes flight …

Commentary:

“The only thing that counts is the beauty released when the butterfly takes flight.” Sounds beautiful, doesn’t it? Just like the old poetic adage “beauty is truth and truth beauty.” But is it true? There are some very ugly truths and it is very hard to beautify them, even though we do our best to do so. I have always hated simplicities like “lipstick on a pig” or “silk purse out of sow’s ear”. And then there’s ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ Probably true. Yet an ugly truth is still an ugly truth however much the spin doctors try to spin it.

And for whom does a poet (he in this case, the poet being me) write his poetry? Did I write those words for me, or for someone else? Good question. I certainly wrote them in the hopes that someone, somewhere, perhaps you, whoever you are, might read them. But I don’t know you, can’t know you, how could I know you? But if I don’t know you, how could I write for you? Did Cervantes write the Quixote for himself, or for his readers? And who were his readers, did he know them? He certainly didn’t know me, because he passed away on April 23, 1616, same date as William Shakespeare and the Inca Garcilasso de la Vega. The same date, you notice, but not the same day! Puzzle that one out, if you will. Meanwhile, he died 328 years, give or take a month or two, before I was born, so I don’t think he had me in mind as he penned his words, much as I didn’t have you (specifically) in mind, as I penned mine.

Carpe diem – seize the day. Don’t wase it on such idle philosophical speculations. Speculation / peculation – go buy yourself a lottery ticket – you may even win the jackpot. Of course, if you wish, you can be like me. I never buy lottery tickets and that would put money in my pocket every week (think of it as winnings!) except I never take it out. And remember – “Keep your water weak and your cider strong, keep your hands in your pockets and you won’t go wrong.”