Dinner for One

It would be so much easier to just make my own lunch.

A source less sadness prevents it.

So strong a force, it puts me on display for the world.

At my table for one, I conjure many stories for the other diners.

I am waiting for someone.

I am on a layover.

I am on lunch from work.

I am as lonely as I am lazy.

When I get home, I'll clean the kitchen.

Ode on a Moustache

My hubby shaved his beard away
late on one October day,
Preparing to become a member
Of those who call next month Movember.

It’s not so hard for him to grow
his facial hair can be shaved so
it forms a rather daring fashion
to go with biker style moustachin’.

People donate money just to find
Whose lips will look the oddest lined.
The cash goes to the fund the science
That will end a cancer cell alliance.

So thanks to all who grew a ‘stache
You raised awareness and some cash.
Prostate care will save the lives
Of families’ most beloved guys.

No Time

Rushing forward into the day, time compresses.

Approaching the maximum speed of my own life,

I feel the Dopler effect crushing against me.

Against this force, I can only reach backward,

Collecting what I can as this life speeds me away.

My Punishment

Okay Julie,

I finished my punishment poem. The format smacks way too much of the stuff I used to write when I was a kid (ie the unicorn poem), but I am more concerned that you set the poem to be about you. Though it could hint at a small vein of megalmania, because of my natural affinity for you I can't help but reinforce it. ;)

A Shade of Brown

A septic sense I get from thee,

gazing in thine eyes of hickory.

Though years have woven lives entwined,

the wisdom gained does not divine

what spark doth set a love to live,

a life that only seems to give.

What gift could set my spirit free?

Just this wife who married me.

1988

One day

in physics class

I pulled a string off the edge of my pencil case.

I dropped it

from a height of about six inches

and traced the pattern it made on my notepaper

before picking it up

and doing it again.

When the class was finished

what I had drawn

looked distressingly

like pubic hair.

Epic Flinch

Well,

After setting all of this up, I managed to miss the first deadline. Of course I won't offer excuses like "I had to work on report cards and Julie didn't" or "Julie was away for 3 days and I had to take care of the kids".

Nope. I don't roll like that.

Julie has decided I have to write a poem about her that is at least 4 rhyming couplets long.

Like all pressing homework, I'll do it tomorrow.

Haiku on the lasting effects of the flood

It is November.

In my bed, I listen yet

for mosquito buzz.

Spousal Blogetry

It has been a bit dry for me on the poetry writing front lately. Naturally, I turned to my muse, to whom I am conveniently married for some help. From our conversations and from the inspiration of people like John and Hank Green and our friend Kathleen, Julie and I are going to embark on a little journey we are calling...

well, actually. we have no idea what to call it. Heck, we don't have to call it anything, but here is how it will work...

Starting next week, and for an indefinite time, Julie and I are going to write at least one poem a week. It does not sound too hard, but the thing is the commitment.

Each week, on Friday, we will both publish at least one poem in this blog. They may be unrelated, or they may play off of each other. They may come seemingly from nowhere, or they may have obvious roots in the events of our lives. Who knows.

PUNISHMENTS - Stealing from the vlogbrothers, we will enforce a consequence on each other, should either of us fail to complete a poem AND get it up on the blog before Friday becomes Saturday. If one of us fails to do this, the other will be able to pick format and topic for the offending party's follow up poem. (I look forward to doing or assigning a video haiku about spaghetti).

The overall goal is to make the time to write more. Should be fun.

Law of Averages

Write poetry.

If you have to, write bad poetry.

I do.

Write bad poetry and read it to your cats. They look unimpressed anyway.

Put it on the Internet and assume it is has been critically acclaimed by infinitely shy shut-ins.

Read it at the family Christmas party, where people not only have to listen, but have to act as if they like it. It’s okay, you know better.

Write bad poetry and post it on the bus stop. Better yet:

stand up on the bus,

read it,

thank the crowd,

bow,

and sit down.

If you don’t write bad poetry, the law of averages dictates that you are not writing any poetry at all.

And good or bad, this world needs poetry.

Please.

Write poetry.

Bad poetry.

Wide Open

Remnants of broken clouds skimming across the sky like thin waves on a broad beach.
Fading from pink to white, they carry the lofty expectations of a new day.
Under their gaze, there are birth & death, love & hate, crime & compassion.
Its lid now open, the great yellow eye perceives all, preferring none.

But what about tomorrow?

This has been a good day.
The warm sun did not make it good.
The blue sky did not make it good.
The joy of family and friends did not make it good.
Not my strong body.
Not my settled mind.
Not the absence of difficulty.
Not this warm bath.
May I never know the source.
Today was a good day.


Easter Saturday 2011.  Just flowing through my day.  Things did not go as expected.  Maybe because what expectations there were, were fluid.

Memory

Smoke twists and rises like a cat stretching when the sunpatch has passed it by.
It fills my head and wraps around deep memories.
A mountain hall filled with inward light.
August heat draws sweat.
Humid air dampens the smoke.
I am carried there on the rising cloud.
The Zen Mountain is carried away in a box.

Although I just got back from Zen Mountain Monastery, I wrote this poem back in the early spring.  Since I first visited ZMM 14 years ago, I have used their zendo incense in my mediation hall ever since.  The smell of the place was one of the stronger impressions I had of the place.

Stop!

The loom is unattended.
The thread rests upon the shelf.
Just thread.
No dust can settle here.


Sitting by my window on a Sunday afternoon, drinking tea.  If I stopped trying to propel the universe forward, what would that look like?  More and more things seem like zazen.

Spark

Struggling to make it fit,
there is much resistance.


Exhausted it cannot proceed a single step.


Relax the tension.  It rests like a heavy coat; moving with me, but weighing me down.


Stopping, sitting without direction an opening appears.  It surrounds me.

In my art practice I have been working on creating without intention.  Sometimes I find that in the creative process, the intent to make a specific thing fells like tight clothing.  There is movement, but it is restricted.  Zazen keeps coming up.  Everything can explode out of the stillness, even great activity.  Too much intention can limit the freedom of creativity.

Scrunchie

Sunday morning is pretty quiet in the Gas Light District,
but she moves with purpose, she is going somewhere.
More accurately, she is going away from some place.
Where college girls might make the walk of shame, she just walks.
Shame is either non-existent or buried beneath a leathery countenance, 
developed by necessity and the futility of circumstance.

Her speed should be impossible.
Thin legs prop up an equally thin body, churning forward, 
lugging chunky black heels that make up half of her body weight.

Without breaking stride, she reaches blindly into her purse and retrieves a single condom.
Step! the wrapper is stripped away.
Step! a flick of the wrist snaps the pale tube to its full length.
Step! she holds the ring at the base firmly in her teeth.
Step! the length of the sheath is torn and away and discarded to the side walk.

With a precision born of pure muscle memory, 
she gathers her thin brown hair into a pony tail, securing with this improvised scrunchie.  MacGyver never misses a beat.

In these short seconds she has refined herself.
In some small way she is put back together from whatever may have pulled her apart the night before.

Composed and oblivious to onlookers and gawkers, she marches on into the dawn.

A number of years ago I went on an Aikido trip to Vancouver.  One morning, as we drove through the generally empty Gas Light District, we passed a woman of the night.  As my eyes were caught by her awkward appearance she began this dance.  It was over in seconds.  As strange as it was, she executed the steps with an air of  normalcy that made the incident more striking.  It was a reminder of the stark contrast between the details of each of our lives.  Often, we miss these details.  Tending to associate with those like ourselves, we rarely meet and exchange with people with such drastically different circumstances.  In that moment she shared with me something that was simulatneously tragically comic and deeply profound.  She pointed back to our own lives the insular tendencies we all have.

The Walk Down From The Cabin

Leaving home, I step into the darkness.  
Though I cannot see my destination,
gravity pulls me forward, faster and faster.


The ground is uneven and loose.  
From the shadows, roots reach across the path, 
ready to trip me.


In time, the rough ground gives way to flat stones,
laid by those who have walked this path before me.  
Even still, the stones rock and teeter.


To one side, the canopy is pulled back, 
and light illuminates the Way of Reality.
To the right are light and grassy open fields.
To the left, darkness, tangled vines and nature's decay.
The path splits the two, yet there is no division.
Just the Great Way.

In July I spent the month at Zen Mountain Monastery.  Although I did not intend poetry as my art practice, some emerged.  My accommodations were up a but from the main building and each day I began the walk down in just the slightest hint of dawn's light.  In the evening, I made the trip back up in the dark.  abandoned cabins, woods, clouds and clear skies played off of each other creating variable fields of black, soft light and a mysterious shifting shadows.

Seeds

In Amherstburg?   Srsly?   Yup.  AND, it was awesome.

A small art gallery called the Mudpuppy in my town celebrated its 1 year anniversary by organizing its second open mic poetry night today.  The group as a whole, has as its goal, the promotion of art and creativity in the community.

As the Amherstburg I knew as child continues to morph into the Amherstburg I live in today, I am always amazed and inspired by the efforts of the people of the town to express what it means to live in this little stretch of riverfront civilization.

Fancy restaurants, little pubs, "Snack Attack" (may it rest in peace).  I love that they come into being, regardless of how long they exist or their commercial success.  But the mudpuppy and this poetry night filled in a little part of the whole in my being that was left by the disappearance of Boblo, Bruins Bakery, the bowling alley and the movie theater.  Tonight I found something I was ready for, and apparently, so were many others.

Published poets, both local and formerly local (Penny-Ann Beaudoin, Dani Couture and Robert Earl Stewart) shared the mic with unpublished locals like myself and my cousin Lorraine. (to name those who's names I can remember.  There were more, and they were great)

Julie read a poem I wrote for the occasion called "Seeds".  I accompanied her on the shakuhachi.

It was a wonderful night, and it illuminated the soul of this town and its people.  Thank you to all who made this such a wonderful event.

--------------

Seeds


Spring air, freshly warm.  It still has that new car smell.


So young, this season stumbles in awkwardly, table to sofa, like a wobbly infant.


Even now, in the midst of birth and potential.....    Summer is dying.


Leaves of gold, brown and red spy on children in the park, concealed behind a mask of chlorophyll.


THESE are the cool winds of Autumn,  Incognito.  Distorted.  Played backwards like a Pink Floyd album.


And yet...   the odor of cut grass overwhelms.


Distracted by the smells brought forth by propane flames, I head out in bare feet,


Willfully ignorant of the end that awaits.

...

There only ever was just this.
Being just so, expression pours out.
The canvas is blank.
Twitch, and create it all.

Given

Expended.
Heaped upon the sand, grey corpses rest.
The life that was, has burned away,
transformed in a life combusted.
Others take root and burn with purpose.
Consumed by the one purpose.
Giving up form for form,
never losing the essence.

The theme I am working with in art practice these days is "complete giving".  My current subject is incense.

Yuyake

Day softens.
Intentions and activity settle.
The world is at rest
A cat's belly warms my legs.

Today was the first day of the year which no one could argue that it felt like spring.  I spent far too much of it indoors.  The windows were open and we were in and out for groceries and some attempts by our youngest at riding a two wheeler.  Without adding any activity, the day was full.  The day was fullness.  Now it is night.  Good bye day.  Time for sleep.

Spring River

Ice flows dot the river's edge.
The last exodus of Winter.
The bright Spring sun
brings little heat to the day.

I have written poetry before, but lately I have begun reading  more poetry.  Until recently, my only book of poetry was a little coffee table book of haiku by Basho and other poets,  but recently I picked up a collection of poems by Shinkichi Takahashi.  I don't know much about the author right now, but I am really enjoying the work.  The brevity and  Zen vibe is strong, even though there are few Haiku in the book.  I picked it up at a book store in London Ontario that I used to go to a lot when I was in university.  It's called "City Lights" book store.  It's a small store in the heart of the old city, with shelves to the roof, all built out of pine planks with varied weathering that suggests they were bought as needed from the local hardware store.  There are no bare shelves, and no empty walls.  Just being in the place is inspiring.  I had not been there in a long time, but going back to the very shelf where I bought my first Zen book (Three Pillars of Zen) (and yes, I remember it clearly) pulled my distant past into that exact moment.  I seek to carry it forward.  Not that it can be.


This poem is new.  I wrote it this week.  I went back to the source and photographed the river that it is about.

Art Practice

Again and again this moment.
Always expressing, what could be brought forth?
Ink upon paint.
A universe.


I wrote this poem after I finished reading "The Zen of Creativity" by John Daido Loori.  It immediately felt incomplete.  So I wrote the following response.


There only ever was just this.
Being just so, expression pours out.
The canvas is black.
Twitch, and create it all.