The west windows of the house cannot open
far enough to hear the backyard river
but the one east window, by which I sleep,
lets every murmur in, brimming on the early
morning tide with night’s collected songs
and a wind for dreams to sail on, in red and
yellow and green boats, past the branches
of the only trees they know, to land on the
shores of an earth that needs them, my earth.
To go forth into the day
in the wide pull of that current,
belonging deeply to the world.
The chill of autumn is in the air today. Made me think of this poem, first published in North Shore Magazine way back in 2005!
O! Moon’s so full –
I could say it is an orgasm
of light
or the white climax of a line
that in its beginning
meets its end
or it is a tearless eye
that cannot close
its dark and heavy lid.
I could say it is a dead planet
thrust deep in our throats
but you might choke on that.
How about a window
through which we are beheld,
in which we see a shadow of ourselves:
look how, night after night,
the moon slowly pieces itself together
until, weeks later – and then briefly –
it is whole again,
as if it finally finds the answer
to an old, disturbing question
only to lose it
down the well of darkness
from which it came.
I think this is the only poem from my first chapbook “Stealing Eternity” that I haven’t yet posted on the blog.
I am back from a nourishing month on our coastal waterways, my favourite season upon us now – a time of great release and vibrant ripening. Autumnal blessings to all!
One of my edgier poems is now live at “Kissing Dynamite”. You can read ZOO here
Awesome art featuring awesome poems, see the main page here. Many thanks to editors Christine Taylor and Jason Bates for believing in my poem!
To anyone commenting on my poem, please know I will respond as soon as I am able – but I will soon be out of cellphone and internet range, enjoying the Pacific Northwest waterways at their best – wild, remote, whatever news delivered daily to the shore we find ourselves at.
I walk past a house in Tahsis as a woman
leaves in a taxi. Her little boy stands
on the doorstep, crying loudly and long.
Another woman comes and quickly
guides her hand like a missile
to its defenceless target.
The hard slap sounds through the street,
startling my every cell.
He is pulled inside, crying more.
The cry no one wants keeps banging
on the walls of my heart.
It is my cry too. Weedlike,
its roots travel hauntingly deep,
able to crack apart a body
or rot into tumours. By snap,
by bloodsqueeze of tears, by a
howling good grip, it will
unearth the light and live!
I say live like a river,
loving the drag of its boulders:
shoulder the cries that come and
carry them gently over. The physical
heart is so little, even for us, now big,
that it hangs, unnoticed, from the upper
branches of the body – not a windchime
until pelted by raindrops
or shaken, glinting, in a glad wind.
Another poem from my earlier chapbook “Stealing Eternity”. Tahsis was a town we visited on a boating trip many years ago, located at the head of Tahsis Inlet in Nootka Sound.
I will be going away on our boat shortly, for about a month, so you might not hear much from me. I do have a poem coming out in Kissing Dynamite early in September (“Zoo”) – if internet service is available wherever I find myself then, I’ll update this blog with a link. Happy end of summer to everyone!
Enough rain today to banish all thirst—
but what of the thirst I was born with:
to taste the sweet and formless
wonder of my own soul,
to have it held up as perfect
and infinitely translatable?
Lift that crystal goblet
repeatedly to my lips
and I will be drunk
with love for you, and I
will lift it again and again
to yours.
I’ll say then, we are forgetful
gods and goddesses
wandering the streets
of our lives. I’ll say,
let’s celebrate being found
and slake those ancient longings,
for this is not a thirst
I want to die with—
the coveted bottle cellared,
we, the ones not poured.
Another poem from my chapbook “Stealing Eternity”.
Look how the moon hangs
its luminous sign outside
the bedroom window: the man
with a grin is open for business!
But in your private dark, nothing
so grand – only the chest-warming
glow of a night-light never turned off:
being able to take one good deep
breath after another, and feel
your own durable heart pumping
steadily in unsteady times,
its rivers, rich with blessing,
coursing through a world
that knows the fierce
need of it.
Another older poem which first appeared in North Shore Magazine and then my chapbook “Stealing Eternity”.
Thrilled to have two poems (“Paradox” and “Elsewhere”) included in Volume Seven of The American Journal Of Poetry alongside the work of poets I’ve long admired! Many thanks to editor Robert Nazarene for ushering them into the larger world!
Months now, of leaving and returning,
one birth soothing the long passage
of many griefs at an unexpected death,
your little red suitcase packed and unpacked
so often, it stands ready for the next trip
in a corner of the bedroom.
Months of fashioning a sturdy door
behind which is the home you remember,
opened and closed from a great distance,
a shell you can put your ear to
and be lifted back into a familiar sea.
But the home you remember is not
the home you return to: that mother left,
and was put like a book finally finished
to gather dust on a crowded shelf,
her absence easing a son into his own story.
You stand in the house of your making,
bereft. Once upon a time, you think.
And a dream that has slept for years
in the wide spaces beyond your words,
wakes up like a lion, the darkness roaring
with stars.
This poem concluded my first chapbook, “Stealing Eternity”, still available for purchase (directly from me). You can probably tell from the picture that my little red suitcase is looking a little the worse for wear 15 years later. A lot of stories (poems?) packed in there!
A woman walked by in a white silk dress
that had gathered, stem by fallen stem
a dozen deep-throated roses and
spread them, lollipop red
knee to bodice
a woman in June, high heels clicking
chamomile hair poured straight
over shoulders, her purse: the sheer
nodding happiness of a flowerbed
buzzing with tongues.
As it is now June and summer is upon us, here’s a poem from way back, first published in North Shore Magazine.
Here’s a pic of my poem as it appears in the entirely wonderful print journal: Crosswinds Poetry, Volume IV, 2019. Many thanks to the editors for including it in their spring issue!
