BEDROOM GLASS
Counted three white pigeons
on a roof, near a gable
silhouetting a barn;
as an afterthought
killed as many nervy bluebottles
on the bedroom glass as
warnings to myself, perhaps,
or the elements pelting the window
with ice beads, tiny crystalline
versions of those distant elephantine birds.
[19]
AHOY
Image throttled in the subconscious,
romantic throwback--
the mind on a voyage round land's end
to eclipse pyramidal fires
set as beacons along rock strewn shores--
her skeletal inhabitants on ice flows
wrapped in bearskins
with dirks between their teeth
slapping one another to keep warm.
Then, alpine ranges carrying
the plight of the Andes in their mouth;
a dull, white sail propped against ship's bow
with a noise like an anvil
coming loose in the brain.
More frightening, sailors mutiny on a diet
of bread as sallow maggots
march in a quarter horse sized trot
across the floorboards.
Such men in the bellows of one's mind
break out rubber dinghies
in quickening escape thru the
maw of an Arctic sea.
Expiry. Dry rot. Sunken astrolobe
and an armada of feelings drifting alone.
[21]
THE POETRY POND
Everyone is a poet, or so the philosopher said. The world teems
with poetry in much the sense the universe teems with life.
A poet or two is squirrelled away in every major office.
Boiler rooms hum with the tooth and nail, robust imagery of
working class poets. The neurological desire to express oneself
transcends even social barriers. Be creative, like a brain surgeon.
My scalpel runneth over amongst all those cerebral ganglia.
The mind washed clean, scrubbed down. Words burn holes on the
paper. Firemen disguised as poets douse the heroic flames.
Sherpas tightly drawn amidst depths of a Himalayan winter
weather a torrent of words. Groggy, I search for breath, am given
oxygen but see writing materials.
In the future, everyone will be famous for five minutes.
We have been promised this by Andy Warhol.
In the present, a day in the life of the poet is within reach of each of
you, my peers.
Barnum and Bailey's fresh from the publishing scene comes to
town, will train talent or so the sign read. But the Big Top can't
accommodate all the poets. Word jugglers sneak under the tent to
court the ringmaster's favour.
Poetry is a religion, said the neophyte before downing its meagre
fare. A window on life confounding reality, fingering experience.
Feast for the intellect, grace and passion abiding as one. Yet, with
poetry becoming as all things to all men and with every man doing as
right in his own eyes, privateers and other assorted scalawags, eager to
toss in their lot with the real Empress, lay ransom to this queen of arts.
Somewhere, every person alive has written a book of poems.
Bushel and a peck, common as gravestones.
My mind was a tabla rosa and the poets could not pick it clean.
And me within reach of this uncontrolled mitosis, arspoetica. I
dread "have a nice day," is already a populist poem. Think my
grade 13 biology is hazy but not my ability to count the poets.
I am holding hands with the poets lest we foam too perilously
at the crest.
Sentenced in absentia to torturing words, pulling wings off
proverbial flies, attacking motherhood.
Worse, performing illegal abortions on the craft.
[23]