clover

one afternoon
soon after they met - that summer
on the beach - he eased the top of her
bathing suit aside to rub tanning oil
on her shoulders and found a small, leaf shaped
birthmark he considered very lucky.

shortened to ‘clo’ it became her love name;
kissing it, part of his acknowledgment,
the shoulder he always reached for.

the afternoon she died
he sat beside her in a great pool of loss
until the nurses gently guided his elbows
away for a cup of tea.
by the time he had finished she was already
in the calm, professional hands of others.

and although he willed it so, he never managed
to convince her to roll over
so he could kiss it one more time.


Oct. 9/02

Two Cats

are buried in my yard.
Both by me, alone -
although I’m sure
the neighbours watched -
wondered
that in this urban yard
we bury our own dead.
The first, ‘Pud’,
died either of, or by, misadventure.
Half deaf but determined to defend
the yard she ventured into the street
and was gone.

We stood in the driveway
and took comfort in each other.
The next day I was shaken
awake by a bright white blaze
on her heel
which I’d never noticed before
and which has stayed
with me over fifteen years.

The second, ‘Percy’ (the pest),
died shortly after we both agreed -
and said so over the phone -
that there was no more hope.
His last weeks were quiet.
I first noticed
that he was no longer jumping
to the top of the fridge to consider my glasses.
In the end he sat quietly on the floor,
rising from his haunches to accept a caress
then settling back down, not
showing the pain.
The next day I collected him
in a box - smaller and heavier
than I expected.
I selected a spot that got a little sun and shade
and which I thought
would not be soon needed
for a flower bed -
or be walked on too much;
and dug until I thought his paw
would not appear
in the spring.
I lay him sleeping and with small
slow shovel loads covered him -
wondering
which memory would remain.
In the end it was his left ear, listening
to my slow heartbeat
and the sound of the shovel.
Some ancestral memory
sent me to find a small piece of cloth
to cover him -
so the earth would not too quickly
fill that space between his bones.


Oct. 4/02

transplant (with hope)

no visible stains
mark a mother’s loss in - these sheets
she could no longer keep -
just as she had given him up.
tonight I hope she would be pleased to know
they are lining a double sleeping bag,
in a hostel in Boston.


Sept. 16/02

in the hierarchy of questions

finding a precise location
for my curiosity
about your preference in sheets
and how you arrange your legs
is not yet a simple matter.


Sept. 16/02

three ounces

yesterday i got out the kitchen scale
to determine the difference between
a casual touch and a question.

anything less than three ounces
delivered by thumb or fingertips
is innocent.



Aug. 26/02

take this page

hold it horizontal at eye level.

written on good paper,
a poem rises above the surrounding topography.

you can easily see where it detaches itself
from the surrounding stream of idea and image,
striking out on its own.


Mar. 11/02

Wednesday, dinner.

Just before Dinner
he found a black silk scarf and four silk cords
laid out on the bed.

During dinner
his curiosity found him
searching through the salad and among the vegetables
for a clue.

Were they intended for her? Or him?


June 10/02

graffiti

it’s over, definitely.
so i walk on the beach, and with an oddly deformed
stick write your name in the sand just
below the mark of the newly turned high tide.
...which gives me almost twelve hours to change my mind.

an hour later, up the beach,
there’s someone that might be you.
so i hurry to gather small skipping stones
and beside the first, spell your name, larger
and with the possibility that, if the sea is kind, some trace
will remain in the morning.

as an afterthought
i turn to face the wind and whisper your name godspeed,
with my hand cupped to my ear so i can hear
the wind whisper it back - a double blessing.
...and then go for coffee.

when i return all of the consonants are gone
and someone that might be you
is pretending not to watch from up the beach.


Oct. 4/02

Two Pines

Every circus, concert, play is best
viewed from a specific location unique to that venue.

Sometimes I need to be close:
...enough to hear the dancers grunt and gasp
...enough to see a drop of sweaty snot hang from Dylan’s nose and quiver as he stretches for a familiar phrase.
...enough to see the rosin fly
from Gerry Holland’s bow as he calls down time’s own tune.

Other times I prefer to look down:
...upon the bosom of an actress consumed with passion.
...into the pit where musical fingers await the next cue
...over the tape which marks the spot for a love seat among the crafted shadows.

In time I would like to find myself beneath two pines
...which stand in a long embrace
on a small hill overlooking the sail-marked bay.


July 16/01

I’m not really a cat person

although all the women in my life seem so.
Perhaps if I had a dog, the women
around me would be doggie types.... you know what I mean.
Perhaps a Lab, that would squeeze
pimples with due vigour and wrestle specks from my eyes.

I get along with cats. Generally we come to good
agreement about how much food, water and affection
is appropriate in the morning. Although
they generally prefer more food and less affection,
go figure....


Oct. 4/02

a poem has gone missing

it plopped off my hip
like a cell phone that recently fell in the ocean

i watched helpless little bubbles rising for several
dozen seconds

hoping it was not
someone i loved calling for help.


Aug 21/02

A pox on sunny days!

...that find my shadow
walking thru whistling graveyards
when I wish to be alone.


early 70's

dying and a'burying

estate planning Sept. 5/02

in his forties he determined
to arrange the service for a Friday so not to interfere
with the weekend plans of others.
this resulted in vexing questions about whether some nameless
clerk would, or would not, require an autopsy and thus
completely undo his plan.

in his fifties with most of his family and friends retired,
his preference became a Saturday wake,
with the appealing notion
of Sunday afternoon at the graveside
in a raging gale of hangover.
this, unfortunately
was in real conflict with his desire to bathe
the funeral assembly in the River Jordan of bluegrass gospel,
...or maybe not.




the funeral Sept. 5/02

each funeral marks and measures some great loss
as loss always is.
(in that respect)
his was no different.

the circumstances surrounding the passing colour
the conversation.
how good he looks despite the last days,
(or)
how terrible the accident, what a shock it must have been.

underneath it all it was,
(a shock)
for two women he loved.
that he’d had such an affair, and that it wasn’t with her.





the auction Sept. 5/02

with no known children to haul memories away in
station wagons and vans, he was increasingly confident
that years later, people would still remark
how great an auction it was.

That Thought - (Sept. 20, 2001)

Some years ago a good friend told me his dream.

On a beach
we suddenly saw an approaching
tidal wave.

“Let’s run”, I said.

“It’s no use”, he replied “we’ll never make it”.

“Let’s run anyhow”, I said.

For myself,
that thought is permanently joined
with those who jumped
from the World Trade Center last week.


Sept. 20/01

the futility poem...

even now I can feel the changes,
awake and alone,
my glasses steaming.
my nose
has run far back
into my ears while I slept.

poem after poem has escaped me.

the problem is that I have no one to bring them to.
no reason
to remember exactly what I’ve seen,
why I smiled.
it’s been months since someone asked
if I’d felt the changes.


Early 70's (winter of 72-3?)

generally speaking

generally speaking,
men are unsatisfactory lovers,
extending from inattentiveness that leads to
missed opportunities,
through prudish double standards and rough play,
to inappropriate enthusiasm
and altogether too much glee, with activities that women
would usually not discuss with their mothers.

generally speaking,
this is a real problem
contributing to haphazard selection of life partners


Sept. 24/01

kissability

although you are so very kissable
i keep getting distracted by your eyes.
so now with lip and tip of tongue i sit and practice
gently kissing your eyelids.


Oct. 4/02

polishing between the best parts

sitting
with my back to the room,
watching you undress
in the reflection in a silver soup spoon.


Sept. 24/02

lovers

lying
north and south
heads together on the crest of a hill,
not quite close enough to kiss
for hours


Sept. 27/02

between the sea and sky

sitting here in a narrow room with shelves piled to the ceiling
with a window on my left i close my eyes - picture
that roundstone beach, the path
down along the cliffs that lead us there
knowing the tide would drive us back towards the sky.


Sept. 17/02

on _discovering_ Raymond Carver

it begins so innocently, “Here’s a poem I like.”
so it turns out do you
and then a 6,800 word biography later you
discover there’s even more to it than that
and you find yourself reading that poetry aloud
while trying to ignore a lover who keeps
wickedly dipping a tongue in champagne
and kissing you.


Aug. 19/02

consider me a poet

for a moment
consider me a poet.

would you hand over your soul to me?
or hand me over...
to your friends,
your mother,
neighbours.

here he is, the poet.

consider my affection

that it is not attached
and will not be taken without a struggle.

finding me gone...
and my touch not entrapment

did I lie


Early 70's (winter of 72-3?)

in between

waiting for the satisfaction to recede
and the next
poem to crystalize.
i find myself gently
rubbing thumb over fingertips as if
that’s where they grow from.



Sept. 16/02

introduction to literature

her look
when I said I wanted to learn about love.
my despair
when she handed me a collection of poems.




Sept. 5/02