Popsicle

I am 10 years old, lying in a bed

In the Sherbrooke hospital. It’s summer

And I’m supposed to be at camp

miles away on Stoke Lake where the

wild boys whoop and swim and play.

But all I know now is this pain I hold

In my gut whenever I try to roll over.

The stitches pulling the wound tighter.

while sun pours through my window.

The anesthetic wore off just as the

surgeon found better things to do. 

In this sea of fitful dreams there comes

A face to the edge of the bed. It’s my

father holding a popsicle. It sweats 

in oppressive July heat. “How are you, son?”

He’s left work at lunch to look in on me.

This must be a dream. Me and my dad

having this moment away from my brothers.

“Here,” he says. And the popsicle in in

My small hand. It is the most remarkable 

popsicle I have ever seen, but nothing

beats the surprise of seeing my father 

looking down at me in concern. I am

someone worth worrying about. I imagine.

Him paying this forward., recalling the 

moment where my grandad paused with him

hidden away from the world to say “Son” to his

eldest child. He stays ten minutes, but it

feels like a lifetime. Who remembers words?

A moment like stones skipping off Stoke Lake 

when I will throw them next summer. Content

that I had had this popsicle with my father.

And have something to give my own sons.

The Slave Market

Beneath the lights of St. Augustine

Where conquistadors came ashore 

searching for a fountain of youth; 

She stands in her famous red raincoat

A legend of the frozen fountain

Where cranes swoop and cry above

the slave market she reigns supreme 

my feelings are all ten feet tall 

her face on every street. Turn my 

face to a biting February wind 

And all is safely gathered in.

Stars Over Jupiter

The tradewinds are in from the Gold Coast

They rattle the palms with their Xmas lights

Like candy canes in the Florida nighttime. 

It reminds me when we walked the harbour 

the songs of the holidays, the bells of the church

Playing for us by the lighthouse door.

Tonight the trades sing a different tune.

I’m always slow to see the fronts coming in

Last to know, first to regret not putting up shutters

A drowning pilgrim left up on the lee shore.

Too busy singing carols round the Xmas trees

Under the starry dome tonight above Jupiter.

She tried hard to help me, it isn’t her fault

I’m selfish and I’m silly and hard to reach.

But she loved me so strong it made me 

weak in the knees. So tonight, for her, I 

consecrate the pelicans diving for supper

And the breakers crashing by high tide.

Oh, I wish I had a boat I could sail away on.

A Case Of Algiers 1974

Cast alone on a Mediterranean shore in 

rainy Algiers, dust from Morocco still

fresh on my boots. The sirocco wind

Blew me here to the English School.

Their wine is bitter, but the avocado is

fresh and the butter melts slowly. Then,

like a pebble falling gently in a pond, 

the vinyl drops upon the turntable. And

Joni Mitchell sings, “I’ve been to sea before,

Crown and anchor me.” I look from the

balcony, the sea like chords on Joni’s

guitar. “Down there,” said my host Felicia,

pointing to the alley below,” See that?

In the civil war the French shot hostages

and threw their bodies into the sea.”

But my mind had surrendered to wine.:

“I could drink a case of you, and I would 

still be on the feet.” Still on my feet.

I wrote that January night in 1974

so that you might understand a little

better all these years later. Where it

came from. And where it all went.

The Pilot Light (1973)

Talking through a bluegrass band

to a face of fair experience

made moist by the summer heat

played hard by bitterness

stretched tight as a drum head

Friends tell me that you’re still around

in a clapboard house of white, pure white,

encircled by the evergreens

gauging love by golden weights

and friends by measured garden gates .

The pilot light is out

Tell the feeders down along the ,line

That the spark has disappeared

tell the feeders we are going home.

My invitation extends to you

to visit us again sometimes.

I don’t need your change of mind.

Or the passive imperfect tense.

Just say hello and mind the stairs.

The pilot light is out

Tell the feeders down along the ,line

That the spark has disappeared

tell the feeders we are going home.

Moon Box (1974)

The moon box

shuttered and perched so high

Inaccessible to most

vertigo for the timid.

The barker snaps

a spine to the rubber man

Or the fire eater

But not the virgin

In the moon box above

Bones on the sill

a few who beat the vertigo

but wilted with the snow

From the curtain rod

I see myself.

The timber wolf,

baring his teeth from

the rungs, I leap and pull

my feet from the barker.

Climbing now.

Combustion

Combustion

The smoke eaters know

that a new fire burns hot,

jumping from tree top to

tree top, needles exploding 

like roman candles as it 

hurries past the break. Until

it dies for want of breath.

But the fire that lies below, 

an old blaze burning 

beneath a carpet of leaves,

lasts the longest.

Sometimes it can last for

years without smoke or

ash. Until the day it says

I can’t live this way anymore, 

and bursts into the clearing,

looking for combustion.

Now That You Mention The Mergansers

He stared through the mist.

Beneath the window, two mergansers 

took off  down the lake, 

swimming a few feet ahead 

of a pursuing golden lab. 

Always a  few feet ahead. 

“Now that you mention it...

I could be better. And while

we’re at it, you’re not helping

things much. Not calling. But 

I only say this because you ask.” 

He picked up the glass. Wiped

a wet ring of scotch on the 

counter with a towel. “I know.

I know it’s my own fault. No 

one to blame but me. Still. 

Knowing that he’s beside you 

as we talk on the phone is...  

well, you know the rest of 

it. But I say all this only because 

you asked.” And just as she

hung up in his ear, two mergansers 

scurried away, keeping a few feet 

ahead of a pursuing golden lab.

No Room At The Inn

We see them as we take our bags to 

the car. Tonight’s pink-cheeked guests,

massed by the registration. With weekend

plans. Their secret assignations. Silk 

pajamas. One couple will have our laundered 

room. They will sigh at the four-poster; 

purr at the wrapped milled soap; pass a 

hand over the crested velum paper and 

envelopes. As we did just hours ago. 

I pause as they discover the koi 

splashing in the mid-morning sunlight. 

I go to speak some sort of warning-- 

we who have seen the other side

of the fluffy duvet, left our soiled 

towels balled in misery at the foot 

of the bath. Found a denim shirt 

with a mint in the breast pocket 

hanging behind the door. Soon 

they will know. I slide your suitcase

in the back seat of the car, remember

this feeling forever. Then turn eyes onto 

the gravel road for home again.

Lake Louisa Xmas 1992

It was three days before Christmas Eve 1992

The woods lay still on Chemin Blueberry,  

A tongue of hoar frost smudging the windows 

Of the vacant summer houses, passing ghosts.

Headlights dance like Baryshnikov upon

the reluctant shore of frozen Lac Louisa.

Beside me, my boys laughed because

They were headed to Grandpa’s for Christmas.

The satisfaction this gave me was enormous.

So much so I carried too much speed down

the hill into the switchback headed north.

Gently, like a birchbark canoe easing to shore,

the van stayed straight as the road moved left.

With only the rustle of soft snow braking

our slide, the van came to rest, nose-down,

In six feet of snow beside the deserted road.

When he saw the back end of the van 

Standing so high above the ditch, my eldest

let out a laugh of delight. His brother cried.

There was no moving the van tonight, no

rocking it back and forth with boys in tow.

No chance traffic to rescue us holiday makers.

So we set off, two miles of bucking road ahead,

a cold wind that punched you in the chest.

In the summer’s warmth I’d made this walk a

hundred  times, to the lullaby of bull frog songs.

Now, no songs. Just the preposterous thought,

Of expiring this way, mere days before Xmas,

My sons clinging to me for warmth as we

perished in the long, dark Quebec nighttime. 

What kind of father had I turned out to be?

I grabbed my eldest by his mittened hand,

Lifted the younger into my arms, pulled the key

From the ignition and started the slow walk 

Through the ink-black night. Thinking the 

whole time, how wonderful a porch light

In the distance beneath a shelf of snow,

And forgiveness in my own father’s wave. 

Whip Smart

Family Photos

Never thought I’d come to dislike the kid

I see in the pictures. Whip-smart, so eager 

for experience, so quick to complete other 

people’s sentences. Candy for the girls. Now?

I hate him in the photographs. With that self

assured look, a dancer on the precipice

of the stage. What exactly was the point

of knowing Montrachet from Montigny?

Why it pays to take the outside pitch to the 

opposite field? Buy on bad news. The

hard lessons to come aren’t printed yet.

If they were he’d look like Queequeeg, 

tattoos of trouble from head to foot. 

I want to tell him, “Look out”, but he doesn’t

listen except to his own voice. I recognize 

that voice. But it only wants dead air. 

My Father Visits Cologne

My father bombed Cologne in WW II

Freezing in his Lancaster bomber

as he lit up the city in savage beauty.

Years later he sat in Köln cathedral .

Alone, he experienced an epiphany

looking up into its repaired roof where

14 bombs had found the mark.

For the first time in 50 years

he wondered if the young flyer

had done the right thing,

dropping his bombs on this place.

Light shot through the windows of

the sacristy where his cookie landed. .

Seeing a swallow flying in the nave

he decided there was no proper

answer to his question. He had

been young and afraid of nothing.

Not like the way he felt today.

So he put five marks on the pew

And decided to keep on living..

The Dutchman

One summer night in my hard-running days 

I found myself drunk in Gord Lightfoot’s house.

He showed me a faded blueprint of his yacht

And said, “God, it’s good to be with old friends”.

He’d never met me before in my life. Or his.

Not that it made any difference that night.

We were there because Steve Goodman

Had come to town, and I was the collateral

damage. My girlfriend sat upon on his lap 

as he performed  The Dutchman song..

I was so jealous that I ended up puking 

On Gord’s front lawn in Rosedale. Imagine.

Steve Goodman was gone soon after.

But I still remember his smile. Her smile. 

And sailing away with Gord on the lee shore

Of Georgian Bay singing like the Dutchman.

“Let us go to the banks of the ocean

Where the walls rise above the Zuider Zee.

Long ago, I used to be a young man

And dear Margaret remembers that for me.”

Mount Nemo

In her mind she still walks the backroads

below Mount Nemo, Tessy at her heels,

shaking her fist at the damn speeders—

Remember when she gave the bikers 

a piece of her mind for racing their hogs

Too near her as they roared up the hill?

Today she’s following down a new trail 

meeting old friends around the bend,

her Irish clan warming up at the piano.

Far away, I hear the words of of Emily Dickinson 

“Because I could not stop for Death—

He Kindly stopped for me—

The Carriage held but just Ourselves —

And Immortality.”

But I won’t be grieving as this voyage starts.

She’s walked those pathways long enough,

content for her to embark on a new ramble.

And I would gladly pack up her memories 

so she can lead her loyal dogs, without fail,

along the cool, green slope of Bruce Trail.

Deep Cleaning

I bought a new tube of toothpaste on

Tuesday, long before the old one ran out.

Its label claimed in red type Deep Cleaning.

So, in truth, had the earlier one, but this tube

Seemed genuinely alarmed about my gums

I was still applying paste from the old tube, 

But my eyes stayed fixed upon its plump 

successor waiting beside it in a glass.

I should simply switch now, I thought.

The transfer will happen soon enough. 

And, when I was younger, I might have

Made the switch sooner, without qualms.

But that old tube said, “I have more to give

If you’ll just squeeze from the bottom”.

I paused my sonic brushing, looked at

The worn tube living out its final days

with cracking paint and the words

Deep Cleaning now crushed into 

something reading like Dee ing. So I

grabbed the new tube and slid it

Into the drawer by the sink. There

Will be time enough for you to shine.

For now, hail a gallant old warrior in 

the battle against tartar and plaque,

Dying in his noble halter just for me.

Thank you, sir, for your brave service.

Chopin

Variations On A Theme By Ray Carver

Just when he had given up thinking

he'd ever write another line of poetry,

she began brushing her hair.

And singing that Chopin Polonaise

he liked so much.

The one about George Sand, whose

real name was Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin,

the Baroness Dudevant.  "She repels me"

he'd said at first. But then he

changed his mind on Mallorca.

Carpenter

Carpenter

A year last summer Flea repaired my life--

drilled mortises, installed a new screen on

the porch door and stopped the damn 

leaking of the bathtub faucet. The basics

atwhich I had proved singularly hopeless. 

He worked silently, the strong chin steady

as he turned the Phillips head screws.

Measure twice, cut once, and the joints 

fit snug. The simple miracle of carpentry.

When he finished, he wiped his big hands 

on a towel with a cluster of grapes on

the corner. I watched awhile, admiring 

the handyman’s grace, how he patiently

put my house in order. Now he sits at

home, watching the frozen fields. The

mitre lieson a bench in failing light. He

says he doesn’t want us to see him

this way. ”Look to the hinges. Remember

me this way”. I understand. And so I do.

Their Ancient, Glittering Eyes, Are Gay.”

“Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes, 

Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.”

W.B. Yeats

Her head turns in greeting, but there are no words—

Just the broadest of smiles upon a spring day.

I’ve come to see what dreams are left for us

As expiring stars shoot from the sky above.

Her hand does the tap-tap-tap on chair’s arm

while the Chieftains play Bonaparte’s Retreat.

Her days of wearing the green are almost done.

The plaint of the Ave Maria and Danny Boy

flicker about us in the air like dying smoke.

I place my hand upon her wrinkled neck

And, pulling near to her ear, whisper a prayer.

I’m not religious, but the words are benediction

for the days when she gathered the world 

for us in our raggedy pants, our snotty noses,

giving us good love but also the steel spine 

she’d acquired through much melancholy.

Precious gifts found under no Christmas tree.

The veil drops slowly as sleep sets her free.

With a kiss on her cheek, leaving time away.

But as I turn to leave I cannot help but see

Her eyes, her ancient glittering eyes, are gay.

High Maintenance

Medium Maintenance

While switching hands

on her cell phone

she asks me, “Am

I high maintenance? What

does that really mean?”

I tell her that I think

she’s medium-high, like

the heat for melting butter.

“But what does that mean?”

she asks again. 

I sigh, look out the window.

A Chinese woman walks by

with her Pekinese dog

on a rhinestone leash, 

shoulders hunched before

the wind. She has on the

most elaborate feathered hat.

So I say, “With a woman

who’s high maintenance,

you must remember to 

tell her that everything 

she wears is perfect.

With a low-maintenance woman,

the clothes she wears are immaterial.

“And medium high?”  she asks.

With a medium-high, I say,

you need only tell her

when she looks fabulous. 

The rest she already knows

better than you.

Go Figure

The women next to me on the plane is

holding a blue-light nebulizer to her face.

The scent is overpowering, unhappy.

And it reminds me that 80 percent of the 

Guys who got hooked on heroin in Nam

Cured themselves when they got home.

Okay, it doesn’t remind me of that.

It reminds me that about 25 years ago 

80 percent of psychiatric patients said  

they were unhappy, 20 percent said

that they were depressed. Today, the

ratio is 80 percent  saying they’re depressed

while 20 percent say they’re unhappy.

Actually it doesn’t remind me of that either.

It reminds me that people who think 

that cigarettes are unhealthy will be 

the fifth person on a roach clip. Go figure.

But it doesn’t remind me of that, either.

What I want to say was that when I was 15

I decided to read Seven Pillars of Wisdom

By T.E. Lawrence. Understanding very little

I still cut my way through the damn thing.

And that has made all the difference. 

That’s what I’d like to tell nebulizer girl.