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Apocrypha Poems Selected & New
Volume 3
Poetry books by the author Gullible Skeptic (2001)
Captain Fascist and the Plastic Storm Troopers (2002)
The Cosmopolitan Day of Reckoning (2003)
Mr. Rubiks House of Cards (2004)
Like Darwin Among the Gods (2005)
The Language of Sparrows (2006)
T.O. Loveless & other poems (2007)
Angel Clare (2007)
Beads on Blossoms (2008)
The Lesser Light (2009)
Anathema: Poems Selected & New (2009)
The Fall (2010)
Perennial: Poems Selected & New Volume 2 (2011)
The Apostasy of Daylight (2012)
Selected Poems 2000-2012 (2013)
The Breakfast of Birds (2013)
The Penitent, or Cannon Fosters Dissonance Revolution (2013)
The Better Kiss (2014)
Holy Rollers (2015)
Apocrypha: Poems Selected & New Volume 3 (2015)
Poetry chapbooks by the author Deceived (1999)
Fish Out of Water (2000)
Captain Fascist (chapbook version) (2001)
The After Solstice (2004)
Anno Domino (Haiku/Senryu) (2005)
Past Life Aggression & other poems (2006)
In a Sea of Green Tea (Shan-zi) (2007)
Dr. Lerners Study Notes (2009)
In the Breath of Woven Seasons (Haiku) (2010)
Metronome (2010)
Under the Evergreens (2011)
Ex gratia (2011)
Garden Sunrise (2012)
The Rest of Yesterday (2014)
All Here Sail in a River of Light (w/Katherine L. Gordon) (2014)
Apocrypha Poems Selected & New
Volume 3
Andreas Gripp
Harmonia Press
Apocrypha: Poems Selected & New Volume 3
2015 by Andreas Gripp
Digital Version
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced in any form, with the exception of excerpts for
the purpose of literary review, without the expressed
permission of the publisher.
Published by Harmonia Press, London, Ontario
Website: harmoniapress.blogspot.com
Email: [email protected]
Author email: [email protected]
Author website: www.andreasgripp.com
Front cover painting: Love and Strength
by Angelo Graf von Courten
Text font is Calibri 11pt.
Printed in Canada by Double Q Printing and Graphics,
London, Ontario
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Gripp, Andreas, author
Apocrypha : poems selected & new, volume 3 /
Andreas Gripp.
ISBN 978-1-927734-06-3 (pbk.)
I. Title.
PS8563.R5563A66 2015 C811.54 C2015-900335-0
Contents
From The Apostasy of Daylight (2012)
Apocrypha 1
The Gleaning 4
On the Loneliness of Drowning 5
The Carnation 8
Bread, Blessing of Birds 9
Adagio 10
Early Morning Rain 12
Initials 14
On My Literary Failure 15
Brother Dominics Evening Vesper 18
Winter Solstice 19
The After Christmas 20
11/3/11 22
Lesbian of the Thames 24
Cassiopeia 26
From Selected Poems 2000-2012 (2013)
The Language of Sparrows (Rev.) 28
Nine (Rev.) 30
Garden Sunrise 34
The Ruse of Mild Air (Rev.) 36
From The Breakfast of Birds (2013)
After the Melt 37
Fidelity 38
Family Photo 40
Camomile Tea 42
Omnipotence 44
From the Guide to the New Apostasy 47
Missing the Cat 48
Japanese Robot 50
The Breakfast of Birds 52
The Typo 53
State Flower of Arkansas 56
Upon scribbling another poem on dying 58
From The Better Kiss (2014)
On Our Getting Soaked 59
In Late Afternoon Shadows 60
Gale from the North 61
Third Trimester 62
Something Other Than Jesus 63
Visiting St. Raphaels 64
Anthem 65
Miracle 66
White Wigs 67
Coda 68
Second Coda 70
From Holy Rollers (2015)
The Monk of St. Marseilles 72
Incense 73
Mixed Precipitation 74
Interlopers 76
Andante in H 77
Preservation 78
A Place Beneath the Water 79
Slavic 80
Thirty Years 82
Blank Notebooks 84
Compulsion 86
Too Happy 87
With Aaron on Earth Day 88
No. 6, in C Major, with Voice 90
Holy Roller 91
The Season Arrived in Birdsong 92
New Poems
Hopeful 93
Goodwill Hunting 94
The 8th Day 96
That guy in those commercials 98
Asiago 100
Mill Pond in June 101
No Photos 102
Merlot 104
The Widower 105
Love Seat in the Snow 106
Coda III 108
Be Kind 110
Even More 111
Groundhog Day 112
Come Winter 113
Believe 114
Foreword
A few quick things of note: this book is made up of
favourites from 2012s The Apostasy of Daylight
through 2015s Holy Rollers as well as some brand
new poems. Since Holy Rollers had a very limited
print run, the poems chosen from that collection will
be new to most readers. I didnt include anything
from The Penitent as those poems were much more
spontaneous and outside of my usual, stylistic norm
and so wouldnt have flowed as well within the
context of this volume.
The poems marked Rev. on the contents page have
minor revisions. In the case of The Language of
Sparrows, Ive returned the poem to its original
closing lines that were published in my book of the
same name while modifying some of the line breaks.
Together with Anathema and Perennial, Apocrypha
completes a trilogy of poetry that Id most like to
preserve for the literary world. A poet cant
realistically include everything he or she has written
or published in a Selected book (unless of course
that amount is relatively small) but I trust what Ive
chosen best represents what I wanted to say thus far
by means of verse. Its my hope that posterity will be
kind to my work and that the writing Ive offered up
will make a connection to readers both now and in
the future.
Andreas Gripp
Spring 2015
Apocrypha
Write a love psalm to the Goddess,
and watch how fast they damn you.
Say Gods not bound
to gender,
and anathema will be
your name.
Say our blood
shares the warmth
of the shrews,
that foxes, elephants, weep,
that a chimp
isnt guessing
when its right,
and to outer darkness
youre cast.
Tell them that a Book
is only a book,
that saying so
doesnt belittle
its worth,
that truth is fluid,
ever-moving,
never carved
on slabs of stone.
Theyll bar you
from gates of pearls,
assign them a flaming
seraph.
1
Now, in a whisper,
tell the woman you adore
shes more beautiful
than the angels;
that the path of dirt
you walked on, together,
far better than roads of gold.
That if shell spend
a starry night
in your waiting-to-embrace-her
arms,
she may even love you back.
She may even let you kiss her.
She may even lie on the bed,
in eternal, restful pose,
allowing you to paint her,
or better still, to write a poem of her,
and of you and your misplaced gods;
and she might also watch and laugh
as you fold it in an envelope,
for mailing to a
publisher,
one who surely knows
to never print such dross
and drivel;
2
and shell hope you come to your
senses, take it out
before its stamped,
and turn it into a plane
you can sail
on a summers day,
a wind from the west
to whisk it on a journey
more pleasant, meaningful,
less stressful for your mind,
never having to worry
where it lands.
3
The Gleaning
Not the flowers
at their peak,
petals ripe
with colour,
standing taut
and proud and tall,
but the withered,
the stooped-over,
the faded and the frayed,
the ones about-to-die,
from these
I take and give you,
plucked
and propped by hand,
so that love be said
by the no-longer-lovely,
by the beautiful
never again.
4
On the loneliness of drowning
The moment you are drowning
is a time youre not alone.
Somewhere in this world,
at this very same instant,
someone else has slipped
beneath the surface of the water:
perhaps a doting father
or a wide-eyed little girl,
a homeless youth swept off a pier
or a banker from a plunging plane,
their lungs
filling with the wet
that quickly kills,
their arms and legs all flailing
in an effort to reach for air.
Unlike all the other
ways to die
by bullet or by flame,
by the weight of crumbling walls
whenever the ground begins to quiver,
by the stealthy crawl of cancer
or the inevitable toll of age
5
drowning has a way,
for a moment,
of allowing the dead
to float,
as though in orbit
around the globe,
of letting currents
carry corpses
to their eventual resting place
somewhere in the deep
from which we came,
all of us that creep
upon the earth,
beyond the reach of
memory.
But back to you
who may be drowning
and the ones who share your plight,
think of how theyre feeling,
the gulf now black
around them,
a cold far greater than ice,
a startled school of fish
watching closely,
6
suddenly thankful
for their gills,
think of how they struggle,
offer prayer
to whatever God
of their up-
bringing;
ponder in that second
if youll meet them in the sky,
in that blue that mimics oceans,
lakes and churning seas,
wonder if what follows
will ever loosen
this new-found bond,
with your fellow sub-
mariners:
the warming breath of angels,
a calming flood of stars,
their ever-eternal effort
to keep you dry.
7
The Carnation
The carnation I left you
was given with much pondering
not as romantic, theyll say,
as its more beloved, historic rival,
the rose;
not as many songs and poems
describing its allure;
without plethora
of oil paintings
to capture its pale pink petals
on canvas
but please remember, darling,
it will last a little bit longer,
even if but a day,
those extra, precious hours to say
I love you, Im sorry, come back to me.
8
Bread, Blessing of Birds
In the park,
one of the pigeons
stands by the wayside,
watching the others
devour the bread
youve shred and tossed
about our feet.
Shes in grief, you say to me
with conviction,
recalling my scolding
from an hour ago
(for your leaving your lunch uneaten).
You add that her mate was likely killed
by a lunging cat,
or maybe its wing was fractured
and it took days to die,
unable to fathom
why the sky
suddenly seemed so far away,
indifferent
to its laboured hops,
its failure to seize
what was cast:
seeds of melon, sunflower,
bits of broken crust.
9
Adagio
The violins colour
has faded, like a novel
in a bookshop window
thats faced the sun
for several weeks.
It was a brownish-
red Id say,
maroon youd call it,
a double entendre no doubt,
its body begotten
of trees,
its nylon voice a language
transcending all
that tongues have spoken.
You havent even touched it
in the three years
since he died, the one
you were to marry.
But I sense youll clasp it
one last time,
perhaps after gentle prodding,
to play the melody
you once envisioned,
not saying whom it is for,
10
though I really neednt ask,
feign surprise
at its denouement:
a long and wailing coda,
a flinging-into-wall,
the splintered wood
and silence
entreating no applause.
11
Early Morning Rain
In the yard,
you felt sorry for the slug
that crept so slowly up the stem
of one of your greens.
Poor thing,
it doesnt even have a shell
to call a home.
Afterward,
I compared it with its cousin,
the snail, several of which will
gather in the garden
after an early morning rain
sturdy,
in the swirly cave it carries
on its back,
a place to retract its head in
when it pours,
feigning it isnt there, perhaps,
should a desperate, homeless mollusk
come to call,
knowing there isnt
any room
for two,
12
and yet burdened
by that extra weight,
its inability to travel
wherever it may wish,
at its turtle-like, sloth-like pace,
like a car thats always pulling
a camper/trailer,
never having the mettle
to face the world
when things get tough,
even ducking in its hovel
when there isnt a cloud
in the sky.
13
Initials
After you left,
I carved our initials
into the stump of a fallen tree.
I tallied its age before death,
thought of its stunted remnant
as a trunk, soaring
to swirling heights, with arms
that housed the bliss of many birds,
our love now wrapped in the rings
that spoke of years, to a time
when heart and bark and wing
were very much alive.
14
On My Literary Failure
The poem Ive written isnt good enough.
It surely wont win an award,
be published in a magazine
or make the list of Selected Verse.
I dont even know why I wrote it.
There was nothing inspiring me,
no thoughts of a long-past love,
no longing for a present-day face.
To tell the truth, I was too tired
to write anything at all,
had considered going to bed early
and not worrying myself about writing
a poem good or otherwise.
The problem is that not only is this poem
not good, it isnt even mediocre.
Its one of my lousier offerings, to be frank,
and the fact that Im even writing it at all
breaks the unwritten rule
about penning too many poems
about writing poems,
since poems about poems
shows that the poet was too lazy
and uninspired
to actually write about something
meaningful
and instead took the easy way out.
15
For its clear theres no metaphor here
or clever devices that poets use.
Im just whipping out words
with very little effort and it shows.
It fully deserves the rejection slips
it will undoubtedly encounter
throughout its many travels.
It will be the filler poem,
the last one shoved into the envelope
to make the submission an even five.
It will be the spare one,
the one thats always unpublished
and ready to go
if an editor friend needs one,
on short notice,
for their third-rate Journal/Anthology,
the one the better-known poets
will never bother to send to.
The kind you dont want to waste
your good poems on.
Ill pretend I wrote it just for that,
and that I made a special effort
to do so,
getting up at 3am,
stepping lightly on my toes
so as not to awaken the cat,
16
and making a cup
of warm milk in the process
because its an ungodly hour
to drink something stronger.
That after a sip or two,
I chose to pour it
over a bowl of cereal
since breakfast
was only a few hours away
and I needed the strength to finish.
That I struggled until dawn
over every word, comma,
line-break,
and if a rival poet that I know
happens to see this wretched piece,
Ill blame an overcast sky
for its vapid state,
its piss-poor stanzas,
spoiling the sunrise I was waiting for
and a subject other than this,
saying my poem about the night
yielding to day,
about the ever-elusive muse
I nearly caught,
would have been glorious
if not for that.
17
Brother Dominics Evening Vesper
Your candle weeps
in rivulets,
a flow of translucent
wax,
tears that freeze
while warm,
grow opaque,
harden,
like a heart that loved
and lost,
shrunk,
in the heat
of its own making.
18
Winter Solstice
Christmas
with an ex-lover
is spent whenever
theres time to spare,
so today I invited you over,
with the promise of friendship
and fire,
hoping for kindling wood,
but the flames are merely embers,
like the Sun in its tepid glow,
forsaking us much too soon
on this shortest day of the year.
So Ill make you Darjeeling,
my darling,
suddenly clasp your hand
into mine
for gauging a glove size, Ill say,
feigning Ive shopping to do,
the warmth of tea and touch
creating such a beautiful lie.
19
The After Christmas
The tree is dismantled,
limb by artificial
limb,
boxed in its cardboard coffin
while its coloured lights
and trinkets
are consigned to the jam
and pickle shelves;
the wreaths
pitched like horseshoes
into the closet of hiatus,
with cards & ribbons & bows
and things I hoard
with no discernment.
And yet
theyre the lucky ones
theyll return in ten months time
(being Novembers never-too-early),
unlike the banished to garbage bins:
re-gifted no-name chocolates
(from my neighbour, ever-cheap),
well past their best before;
20
the sweaters from Le Chateau,
with their gaudy dots and patterns
that scream hey look,
Im avant-garde;
and the mistletoe
that failed me Christmas Eve,
while you checked out several stockings
crookedly hung,
then slapped my face
when I attempted
an old tradition.
21
11/3/11
Blossoms
were the first to fall,
in the rumble
that ruptured the calm,
and the land was shaken
as a globe of snow
in the hands of a beaming
child,
and window and wall
were cast to the earth
like an expulsion
from heaven of old,
boats and cars
both raced in the rush
of a fleeting, fatal
sea,
and the homes of Sendai
buckled,
as an origamis
fold,
22
were carried
with all the dead,
in the swell that defied
the tide,
and the sirens screamed
of fire,
reactors wailed
of melt,
while the callous sun
descended,
teased millions
with its kiss of light.
23
Lesbian of the Thames
Why do they abhor you,
for finding the tender feeling
of sameness?
Why would you want the other:
the drunkard, the dullard,
the angry clenched-fisted,
the ugly-to-look-at-nude?
There are places of touch
in a woman,
a velvet of skin and of voice,
that are unattainable in a man
(and that suits you just fine).
Consider how you are
in making love:
its yourself that you caress,
its a mirror thats above you,
her name a thing of beauty,
not like Bob, Fred, Hector,
and the other slovenly louts
who would only seek
to own you.
I see you there,
by the Thames,
24
between the willows
and Pentecostals
passing tracts that burn
with fire,
holding her hand
along the curves
of your breasts
and hips,
winding in a way
that only a river
and a woman possibly can,
a fruit
no tree of knowledge
can ever take from you
again.
25
Cassiopeia
On our anniversary,
we spend the evening
looking at the stars
yet not as lovers do,
making wishes
on ones that fall,
but imagining instead
that theres an alien couple
out there on a distant
speck-of-a-world,
not quite as human as us,
with a few of their organs
flipped around,
but still the kind of people
wed relate to,
not as deeply in love
as before,
yet enough
to never leave
the other,
and we wonder
if they ever think
theyd each be happier
in the arms of another,
26
if they too
have awkward silence
in the aftermath
of a quarrel,
if they believe that they can last,
at least, until the offspring
are all grown up,
if they envision
what it would feel like
to have their spouse,
unexpectedly,
pass away,
and if theyd ever survive
a frigid night
looking up at the stars
without them.
27
The Language of Sparrows
Your sister is dead.
We plant seedlings
by her grave in April,
when Spring seduces
with all its promise,
moisten the ground
with a jug of water
and say how, years from now,
a bush will burst and flower,
be home to a family of sparrows,
each knowing the other by name.
I ask you if birds have names,
like Alice, Brent, Jessica and James,
if mother and father bird
call them in when it rains,
say settle here in branches
amid the leaves that keep you dry
not in English, mind you,
or any other human tongue
but in the language of sparrows;
each trill, each warbling,
a repartee,
a crafted conversation of the minds.
28
I then notice
that we never see the birds
when it rains,
how they disappear in downpours,
seeking shelter
in something we simply cannot see.
When were old,
when we come to remember
the loved one that youve lost,
theyll be shielded in our shrub,
not a short and stunted one,
but a grand, blessed growth,
like the one that spoke to Moses,
aflame, uttering
I AM WHO I AM,
one that towers,
dense with green,
a monument
to the sister you treasured
and to the birds
that she adored,
naming the formerly fallowed, hallowed,
sacred, remove your shoes,
Spirits and Sparrows dwell
and sibilate secrets
were unworthy to hear.
29
Nine
Theres a beauty to our numbers
that I note with admiration:
the shape of cipher 6
and its curving, crescent close;
8, with its weaving, double loop
that skaters strive and scratch to mimic;
3, and its ability to complete,
to divide as trilogy, to manifest
as Trinity;
1 which finds the wholeness
in itself, never wishing to flee
its core or essence,
for the sake of multiplying:
One times one times one
will always equal one.
2 is the sum of love
and the most romantic of all
our digits,
and in terms of teaching math,
it gives a break to all our children:
30
Two times two is four,
and the answers the same
when adding.
7 is Biblical,
the time for Gods creation,
the length of telling tales
of Harry Potter,
of Narnia,
the complement of 12.
5, the Books of Moses,
the fingers and thumb
on our hands,
giving us ability,
the gift of grasp
and moulding, making shapes
from slabs of clay.
4, a pair of couplets,
the voice of poems
and song, the rhythm
and march of the saints.
Yet when I come to number 9,
my spirit starts to sink:
31
it has such lofty expectations,
aspiring to reach new levels,
only to fall so painfully short
missing the mark of 10
by just a meagre, single stroke,
always being known for
almost there,
remembered for the glory
it could have gained
but never got,
its cousins
19, 49, 69
bearing the brunt
of all its failings.
99 is but a stepping stone,
a grating lapse towards 100,
a number we only watch while it rolls,
a humble countdown to celebration,
unable to give us merit on its own.
I spent all of 99
yearning for 2000,
anticipating a new millennium,
32
the fears, excitement
we thought awaited us
in a dawning, changing world,
never enjoying the year for what it was,
practicing the writing
of an exotic date
January 1, 2000
and eager to see
the masthead of that early morning paper,
ridding myself of the nines
that only accentuate defeat,
thinking Ill pass some kind of threshold,
a singing, flowered archway
bidding come, enter,
leave what troubles you
behind.
33
Garden Sunrise
We say the birds
are singing when we wake,
our assumption
that theyre happy.
When I open the window
on this cloudless Summer
morning,
I hear chatter, not scales
and notes ascending,
like where the worms
might be burrowing
or that the widow
has placed fresh seed,
or beware,
that cats been eyeing us
again,
from the camouflage
of shrubs,
or did anyone catch
what the cardinal was up to
last night?
Perhaps it is they
who need to hear,
34
a gently played concerto,
a yoking of keys
and of strings,
and so Ill raise my records
volume,
tell Bernstein to conduct
with calm,
have Bach conveyed in arias
with elongated pause,
where the robins, if they want to,
can take a break
from breakfast gossip,
blend with the second
pastoral movement,
or the scherzo,
take a moment to brighten their day
we may have judged, in err,
as joyful.
35
The Ruse of Mild Air
In this warmer than normal winter,
the trees are budding early,
in Februarys
rain instead of snow.
I feel I ought to go outside
and bring some soothing tea,
play a tranquil song
for harp and strings,
be the sandman for a spell,
send the rousing leaves-to-be
back into their shells,
lest the winds return from the north,
puddles freeze over,
and greening branches waken
to a bird-less lie of ice.
36
After the Melt
Every leafless tree in the valley
is lifting its hands in praise
true, theyre always raised
in exaltation
but today they are especially grateful
to a sun thats freed their arms,
taken their knotty, spindly fingers
and relieved them of the ice
the glossy, glassy coating
that had frightened off the finch,
shooed away the owl,
brought their boughs to bend
from limpid weight;
yet if thered been a giant mirror
in which theyd seen their own reflection,
they may have viewed a splendour
thats unmatched, even by the Autumns
red-and-golds,
and, albeit for an hour,
when theyd never been so alluring,
every bird on its makeshift perch
chanting homage from a distance.
37
Fidelity
This is the fluid in which we meet each other,
This haloey radiance that seems to breathe
And lets our shadows wither
Only to blow
Them huge again, violent giants on the wall.
One match scratch makes you real.
Sylvia Plath, By Candlelight
Our shadows, faithful followers,
super glued to our
forms
ever-loyal,
whether were good
or whether were not,
and there
if the right
kind of light
will allow
in our lovemaking,
our murders,
our scaling of mountains
and stairs,
38
and here, leaping
off a trestle,
when alls become too much
see one dive
towards the river,
disappearing
in waters crest,
engulfed below the
ripples,
in the darkness
where light is lost.
39
Family Photo
It hadnt been seen
in ages
(if a decade
can be termed
as such),
there, in the frame,
a mother and father
ecstatic,
grateful youve entered
their world;
and youll feel
the photo
in front of you,
strain a tear
for the parents
that were,
for theres but twice
in your life
where youre loved
so very deeply
(and which youll have
no recollection):
at the moment of passing
and burial,
40
and that magnificent morning
of sun,
where youre cradled
in wraps of white,
in your mothers crib of arms,
your enveloping father
proud, beaming,
the wound of words
an egg, untouched
by swim of seed.
41
Camomile Tea
Camomile
supplanted
your caffeine,
this gentle, calming herb
no longer just a toast
in winters night,
the warmth of a second
quilt;
it went on double-
duty,
helping nerves to settle
down, be unfrayed,
keeping phantoms
past and present
from taking form,
each sip a sheep
thats tallied
under sun,
making mellow
each moments breath,
bidding dreams
to offer trailers
of the features
soon to come,
42
where flowers
by the billions bloom,
and no face is void of beauty.
43
Omnipotence
I, more stolidly, tend to suspect that God is a novelist
a garrulous and deeply unwholesome one too.
Martin Amis
As a novelist, you say,
you have the powers
of a god,
the death and life
of characters
in your potent, scribing hand
deciding who is loved
and who survives,
who is buried
or burnt to ash,
strewn into the Ganges,
perhaps,
or left to rest
in a marble urn
over a familys
fireplace.
Piddling details
aside,
44
lets promote the poet
to the omnipotent Lord of yore,
a God unmatched by others,
mould the world
to what it really should have been
(from the start of Genesis),
when the Spirit hovered
over the waters face;
make a Pangaea
that never splits,
do away with all division,
trim the claws of carnivores,
let the lions chew the grapes
of flowered fields,
and if thats asking way too much,
at least allow your hero
the saving kiss of his beloved
do not let him
drink himself
to a shrivelled, pitied state,
nor allow his neck
to fit into
your frayed and knotted noose;
45
show the mercy you believe
you never got,
show the dead
and deities
how it could have been much better
(if only you
had been in charge),
and do not await a Messiahs
return
to get the work thats needed
done
do it now
and do it quickly,
in the loving,
triune lines
of your haiku.
46
From The Guide to the New Apostasy
When I was a child,
I said that meat was grown
in fields, though I knew
that wasnt true.
Back then,
all had enough to eat,
and twelve baskets
were brought to Him
who blessed, bread only,
not a martyred fish in sight.
If you look between the clouds
you can see them,
as if that too were sea
and you could travel anywhere
and breathe.
47
Missing the Cat
Please keep an eye on your son,
he continues to sit at the window,
drawing a face
with pointed ears,
several wisps
of frowning whiskers
when condensation will allow,
staring into the street
where his beloved had been killed,
run over during the night,
perhaps struggling
to get back up
only to be struck and struck again;
and at least he was spared
that sight, seeing
but the aftermath
at early mornings dawn
(traumatic as it was),
shrieking,
wishing hed called the feline in
at his bidden time for bed
(still too early
as any eight-year-old
will tell you);
48
but now he doesnt argue
over when to fall asleep,
clutching his pillow tightly,
hoping hell hear it purr.
49
Japanese Robot
Dr. Zimmers acquisition
caused his colleagues
to stop and wonder:
a single man, never wed,
never telling tales of
love and sex,
and now, living with this
curvy, comely being
made of wires in lieu of veins,
simulated layer of skin,
synthetic stream of hair.
Sue-Lin, her name, she has a name
hed say, always emphasizing
she, never it,
and when we came to visit,
she was seated at the table,
greeting us with a blink,
a nod and a gracious smile;
and yes, he still did all the cleaning,
and yes, he spoke so very gently,
complimenting her,
even singing happy birthday
when we all sat down for cake
(which we never saw her eat);
50
and yes, hers was a separate bed,
in a separate room, and he always knocked
first, he told us, never touched her
without consent,
wrote some verse for her
in English,
awaiting her translation,
marvel shed uncover
all his metaphors for love:
She was never really programmed
for either poetry or passion.
51
The Breakfast of Birds
Each tree seems to have a bird in it singing
Its fool head off
Raymond Souster, Night After Rain
What sorrow is there
that can compare to joy
being found from the feasting
on worms,
the ecstasy of song
sprung from relentless rain
and the sighting of wriggling mud,
a budding willow to remind us
that happiness is indeed relative,
subject to taste and weather.
52
The Typo
I move you
should have been
I love you,
and my letter
is now consigned
to your basements
blue recycle bin,
in crumpled form,
in the ball of a broken
relationship,
labelled as vain
and conceit;
and because of the slip
of a finger,
my failure
to be attentive,
so much is now deemed
as lost.
And hence how I hate thee,
dear typo,
for making a mess
of things,
53
and I wonder how many other
wounds
youve inflicted in the past:
the shift without its f,
a condo with an added m,
Scotty suddenly Snotty
with the stroke of an errant right
not left;
even God not spared your fury:
the Lord a portly Lard
which every spell-check
seems to miss,
His churches
open to a public
clearly missing
their modest L.
Maybe someday
well get it right,
have a siren sound
before send,
and no one will ever need
to misconstrue,
hear dyslexias
run amok,
54
know that a goof
was really a good word
having a horribly
bad day.
55
State Flower of Arkansas
Its in the vase
you placed
in the hall,
after the night
we heard the twang,
the song
that played
unexpectedly
to our impromptu
bare embraces,
our kisses too fervent
for friends
a single Apple
Blossom: pink and white,
the Pyrus
Coronaria,
from the state
side Tennessee;
it harks back
to munching cattle
in the fields,
56
to trucks
that dust the sides
of gravel roads,
to a cowbell
calling all
to Sunday lunch.
And now it speaks
in a tongue
we cannot hear,
an ethereal
howdy and drawl,
the unexpected
spell
of strangest days.
57
Upon scribbling another poem on dying
the writer bid adieu
to the spray-paint tags
and needles,
the cracking plaster walls
and the busy bars
of intoxicants;
purchased
a humble cottage
in the country,
at the time the sap
was dripping,
and the words as well
grew sweeter,
the maples in the stanzas
to nevermore be cut,
cleared away for sprawl
or serve as paper for a poem
that spewed of cities,
their muffled hunger pangs,
their riffs of jazz and blood.
58
On Our Getting Soaked
Its monsooning, at least as far
as were concerned, in this city
where we complain when it rains
and again when things whither
from its lack. Nevertheless,
the reason for our grumbles
is valid: the umbrella we share
has a tear,
one of its ribs jutting forth,
ready to randomly poke
a passing stranger in the eye,
and a gale has turned
the already-battered thing
inside-out, not unlike my heart
the night you murmured my name
in your sleep,
that still skips a step when we meet,
like that gleeful little girl
on the sidewalk, splashing her boots
in water-birthed puddles
that have nowhere on earth to run.
59
In Late Afternoon Shadows
I picked you out from the crowd
although your slender back was turned,
with a gathering throng
challenging your spotting
like a Wheres Waldo? book
and when you asked
how I managed to do this
with my glasses scratched
and autumns umbrae
shrouding hippies & hipsters alike,
I said I recognized you by your
ass, particularly taut and rounded
by the shifts of shade and radiance
within which youd been standing,
during this strangest time of day
that dares me to say things
I really shouldnt,
when change is just a jig
beneath a tired, slumping sun
thats given me more
than Ive ever asked of it.
60
Gale from the North
This wind wielding its vigour
brings a reminiscence:
your face buried in my shoulder
as I stroke the back of your hair,
saying all will be alright
and that storms are needed
to recycle the air,
to cleanse our skies and valleys
and are a prelude to something
better, like a kiss that says
how much youre adored,
that all will be calm
by the time I let you go.
61
Third Trimester
The Beatles are on Sullivan
and Im about to be born.
There is no correlation
other than my mother
is watching them on television,
and though my eyes are developed
by now, theyre closed inside her womb
but I swear Im hearing something
with these new ears of mine
that Ive never heard before
(not only this thing called music
but the frenzied screams of manic
American girls);
and yes, once Ive entered the world,
the melodies meant for me
will be simple and patronizing,
designed to soothe,
make me slumber,
and Ill wail, scrunch my face
instead, demanding, in my own
wordless way, that the mobile
above my head somehow chime
She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah.
62
Something Other Than Jesus
Im not saying that were better or greater,
or comparing us with Jesus Christ ...
John Lennon
Not all will sing the anthem
when its scribed,
that All You Need is Love
and there is no love
when records smash and burn
and vinyl has a sickly smell
and ghostly smoke
and hate is heard in stereo,
that Old Time Religion
where fire sets the heretics
alight,
we with effeminate hair
unshorn,
our women donning pants,
their naked breasts bouncing
to our fleshly beat of sin,
we who know nothing of a love
that lies in its own blood
outside us.
63
Visiting St. Raphaels
I went to the church you said you liked,
the one you entered when no one was there
(while thinking what a grand place to be married),
and here I am on another day
when those who pray
and those who bless arent here,
just an open door
and a sign that reads open house
as it always seems to be
on a Tuesday afternoon;
and Im standing in front of the altar,
icons of saints peering down at me
while I say I do, I do, over and over,
pretending I hear sobs of joy
from an imaginary maid of honour
whos dreaming of a newly-wedded bliss of her own
and if she might engage in a similar reverie
when the priest is away
and the choir practitioners
are at the all-you-can-eat buffet
in the restaurant just down the road.
64
Anthem
The path to peace its said
is found in sacred books of old,
on parchment, scrolls and ink;
in a choirs hallelujah,
ringing bells and fervent prayer.
Lets scribe our wishful reveries,
our old prophetic songs,
say the bomb will never fall;
that police will join the protest
and the judge will grant a pardon
to the Native kid in chains.
For its not that hard to add a verse
and paint a pretty picture:
Governments disband,
theres no more need to demonstrate,
and prison gates swing open,
those who leave bear violets,
while violence drops as dust.
Faith begets trust,
trust begets love,
and the one who was your enemy
brings you candy in the night,
saying all is calm in Jerusalem,
and flags are neither waved
nor burned.
65
Miracle
Tonight I will ask you to marry me.
You will surely say I am mad,
in the British sense of the word,
and then laugh off my promise to love
and commit as I-must-have-stopped-over-
at-the-pub-and-had-a-few-too-many
before our coffee date on this insignificant
middle-of-the-week kind of evening.
But this day is anything but ordinary:
Look at my hands, they are stained
from painting my kitchen the colour
that is your favourite
even though my eyesight is failing,
and Im convinced that both our God
and the birds have given us their blessing
as shoots sprouted in my garden overnight
from seeds dropped from above
and the weather person on TV
said thered be no rain
for the next seven Saturdays to come.
66
White Wigs
In the 18th-century,
men who could afford them
wore white wigs.
Presidents and noblemen,
shopkeepers and servants,
Baroque musicians playing sonatas
for an audience, the males applauding
all crowned in white wigs.
I pity the ones with glorious red curls,
blonde flowing manes
and those who were thirty and yet to grey,
all forced by social norms to don the look
of the worn and the aged,
no one knowing if they might be bald,
had dandruff, or were hiding some other
follicle disaster,
maybe one of them having a chance encounter
with a beautiful woman,
her slender, supple fingers
fondling his fake and lengthy hair
and hed never know how it felt.
67
Coda
I dedicate the poems Ill never write
to you and to us,
tiring, perhaps, of coming up
with original ways to say love,
of finding a miracle in the humdrum,
of finding a thesaurus that does the trick.
So as for that dishevelled old man
I pass by on the sidewalk,
hell remain anonymous and his shuffling
stay un-scribed
I will not imagine him as a sturdy young lad
whose heart was cruelly splintered
at a high-school dance;
and the verses on the abandoned house
with its peeling paint and missing-a-few-planks
veranda
I wont picture the children who may have raced
throughout its corridors
or the daughter whose father caught her
with her teenaged beau on the backyard swing,
or the tree branch on which it was fastened,
how the birds helped the mother to get up
in the morning instead of wishing
she hadnt married or even that she were dead;
68
and the one about the loons
who sleep standing up,
their faces buried in their wings,
how uncomfortable that looks to me
and if Id ever trade the warmth of a bed
for a single chance to fly.
69
Second Coda
If this is the last poem on Earth
then it had better be a good one
since there will be no more chances
to write of my love for you
or that the world can somehow be better
than it is,
or, if it's more light-hearted,
it'll be about the cat next door that smells of fish
and the neighbour wondering
why he only has chips on his plate
and the tartar sauce is left untouched.
But there will undoubtedly be more poems
penned by versifiers millions of them
eager to hit the jackpot,
that brilliant set of stanzas
that luckily land in a Norton Anthology
or manage to win a prize of some sort
or are recited by rote by a school kid
in front of her smirking, giggling peers.
Alas, none of these will be written by me,
though I may still try to find some way
to describe how one heart reaches for another
but it will likely end up crumpled into a clichd ball,
tossed into a basket while I imagine I'm LeBron
at the buzzer,
70
that my own final poem will be no better
than this one and that both of them put together
are simply not enough to garner favour
from the Lord, the literati, or the lover
I pray you'll one day be.
71
The Monk of St. Marseille
Your prayers
are duly recited
in the Latin you learned
while young
yet still
you fail to forget her,
your unrequited
love,
her voice a melodic
scale, sacred
as Gregorian
chant,
without brass
or string
to accompany,
divine in its naked key.
72
Incense
The priest leads the people in chant,
in a dialect as unfamiliar
as the saints whose icons stare blindly
into space
expressionless, conveying no sense
of either misery or mirth or anything
in-between.
I am here because my Christian friend
pleaded, saying Id at least enjoy the wafts
of incense swinging in a timely manner
by this clerics holy hands,
reminding me of the cypress, sandalwood,
patchouli Ive lit and placed in a burner
no bigger than an acorn,
offering supplication to a God I dont know
who might take pity and grant
the silent pleas of my own
that I dare not speak aloud.
73
Mixed Precipitation
They say no two snowflakes are alike
and out of the billions and trillions that fall
each is as unique as the face of a human being
and in this post-March push of northern air
I wonder about the final flurry of the season,
that last flake of snow
before those that would follow
change into rain
how the equivalent is never said
with regard to April showers,
that drops of plunging water all look the same,
have no distinctive features
and are seldom sketched in a book;
but regarding that final snowflake
in these early days of Spring,
I imagine what it must be thinking,
that its one-of-a-kind visage
will become forever lost
once it hits the warming ground,
that its a degree or two above zero,
that it will melt before ever sticking,
that it will never be packed into a ball,
tossed at a car by a child
or at a teen enjoying the last gasp of adolescence
before tomorrows Ill be too old,
74
brushing away the thousands of flakes
her lover shoved into her face, playfully,
each one in this squall
bemoaning the forfeiture
of their individuality,
their glorious patterns of white.
75
Interlopers
I cannot be sure that the birds
and the squirrels let alone the big racoon
that climbs down from the belatedly budding tree
are the same characters who I used to see
then didnt through months of frozen landscape
when, I imagine, the mammals
were in some sort of hibernating state
or at least taking it rather easily
in their primitive burrows while the birds
were in Florida sunning themselves
and drinking premium water from a fountain.
I feel theyd be offended if I said welcome back
that theyd believe I think they all look alike,
that they might be here for the very first time
and Ive mistaken them for last years gang,
that the food Im leaving as a token of friendship
wouldnt be their first choice on the menu,
that a would-be friend wouldnt assume
theyre all the same
and that they could easily pick me out of a crowd
of 100,000 people
within a second of doubtless wonder.
76
Andante in H
for Carrie
Each note I play on the piano is for you
I say, in my adoration, the real ones
and the ones that Ive made up
and I really cant play the piano
as well as I pretend I can,
but the songs I string together,
impromptu, spontaneous as they may be,
are nonetheless love songs,
ones that Brahms and Debussy
could have conjured
had they not been so obsessed
with trite details like composition
and wondering if the cellist and pianist
could really play their instruments
or were merely faking it
amid the frantic waves of a baton
and the gasps from a startled audience
whod heard nothing like this before.
77
Preservation
Youve stopped
coming over of late,
sensing Ive crossed
some sort of line,
saying you want to preserve
our friendship,
this affection of another kind
we cant describe,
our sibling-like rapport,
this anything-but-fall-in-love
thats protected just one of us,
the other silently smitten,
burning when our touch
is accidental.
78
A Place Beneath the Water
We drive to the beach
the day youre released
from the hospital,
the pills once afloat in your glass
currently a memory
taken by tides;
and I suggest a brief, brisk swim
in cleansing waves,
to wash the stress
from your battered mind,
and you strip-down rather hastily,
splash about as a child might,
as you did when you were a girl,
and I lose sight of you
in a panic of thirty seconds,
as you submerge your head
and hold your breath
for a protracted half-a-minute,
attempting to touch that part of yourself
where the air cannot reach
nor light tell the world
what youve hid.
79
Slavic
The couple behind me at this outdoor caf
speak in a language I strain to distinguish
perhaps its Polish or maybe Russian,
their inflections rising and falling
like the scales from an innovative pianist,
or its possibly the Ukrainian
I think I recognize
after surmising Ive heard varenyky;
and I imagine the man is telling the woman
that despite the many trials of his day,
he is lucky and blessed to have her,
that when his boss yelled at him earlier
he thought only of stopping at the florist
on the way here to meet her,
hence the arrangement on their table is his doing,
not the proprietors,
that even though all the other tables in this place
are crowned with pink and red carnations
and the varied shades of phlox,
this was merely a case of the waiter
having mimicked what hed seen
when this Slavic-speaking pair
were the only ones here,
80
before myself
and the other patrons arrived,
talking to each other in a tongue
that kept no one guessing what was said
as the late-day sun began its daily descent
behind the jagged skyline in the distance.
81
30 Years
If I were thirty years younger,
Id ask the woman at the bar
why I hadnt seen her here before.
If I were thirty years younger,
Id write down my phone number
and leave it next to her purse.
If I were thirty years younger
I wouldnt leave this place alone,
the girl beside my table
would turn around and smile at me,
instead of past me
to some well-built, wavy-haired fellow
whod rushed for 90 yards in last weeks
homecoming game.
If I were thirty years younger,
I wouldnt be jotting down lines
about being thirty years younger,
Id be living as someone that age
currently does on some precipice,
with no fear of falling off,
having another round of drinks
with my lively, spirited buddies,
82
exchanging flirtatious glances
with lovely young women
who are not too young for me
to respectfully eye
without feeling like a dirty old man,
and certainly not
carrying a notebook to a pub,
scribbling thoughts
that someone less than half my age
wouldnt think to entertain,
shamelessly calling it a poem.
83
Blank Notebooks
When youre a writer,
people tend to give you blank notebooks as gifts.
Sometimes, you see one with an enticing cover,
one with a picture of a painting by Matisse,
for instance, or a Viennese caf
with old world artists discussing philosophy
and love over cups of cappuccino
with strips of cherry strudel by their side,
and you buy these hardcover books of empty,
lined pages and then realize, after the euphoric
moment of purchase has passed,
that youve sentenced yourself to filling it
with poetry or prose whether you want to or not.
Theres nothing more demoralizing
than having an entire row of virgin journals
on the shelf, accentuating your failure
to do what youd promised yourself and/or others
in your usual boastful manner.
Sometimes, to lessen the sting of their spotting,
you scatter them about your abode
one in the dresser, for example, and another
under the bathroom sink,
where it may garner dampness and mould,
making it unworthy to write in.
84
And thats when your conniving hits its stride,
the excuse youve been looking for
to avoid telling your immediate circle
of individuals that youve had writers block
or have spent too much time on the sofa
watching reality television or were just too lazy
to get the job started never mind done;
that all the caffeine in the universe
couldnt stain the pages with ink;
that you were secretly hoping that termites
would infest your place and that they were hungry
for paper and bookbinders glue
and you could show everyone
the tattered red ribbon they left behind,
that it was placed near the end
of your magnum opus,
the great dystopian novel where the world
runs out of trees because madness gripped the poet
and he was unable to stop his scribbling
even when pens were smashed to bits by the masses
and he grew sickly and pale,
frantically jotting things down
with what remained of his blood.
85
Compulsion
Ive a compulsion to lie to love,
spout it cannot last forever,
being dishonest
when I think of us
in terms of merely friendship.
Theres been no truth with passion
its a garden snake
that weaves its way
within an orchards fruit,
a politicians
campaign smiles,
and the kudos
to your mothers hair
when grey goes tangerine.
Even the mirror spews its lies
or maybe its just the gaze
from this beholder
the wrinkles
that havent furrowed
and the dance of crows
around these tired eyes,
the ones you say are teary
when I say youre beautiful,
that make the world a blur,
that distort our place
within this grand deception.
86
Too Happy
We say were too happy to write
any poems,
our usual musings
inspired by misery,
our current state of bliss
not conducive for an elegy
in rhyme.
But I say that this is good,
that Id prefer an empty notebook
to one thats filled with ink,
finding metaphors
for what has died, been lost,
finding rhythm in a land
bereft of trees,
or in a lover waking up
to a vacant bed,
in a child mourning
at her mothers funeral,
her father hit by shells
in a far-off war,
burned off the face of an earth
filled with poetry.
87
With Aaron on Earth Day
We dig the relenting soil
in a spot we think is special,
widen the furrowed space
as if a Sea of Reeds were parting,
and, much like Moses,
my speech to you is clumsy,
without confidence of execution,
but Passover is now in the past,
this is the day the Earth
can find some healing,
of hearing our vows to clean
her skies and streams,
and the seedling we are planting
will in time reach out to heaven,
be much taller
than the lofty trees around it
you faithfully saw to that
when youd enquired
what was greatest
in the market to which wed driven
might have walked to in spite of the distance,
my cane just like a staff
with every laboured, hobbled step,
cars brought to a stop
when we crossed at red between them,
88
as if Id raised
its wooden handle
into the air,
as if my countenance
were radiant,
my beard as white as the light,
transfigured by visitation,
communing with the One
who made the Earth,
sharing where well find
its most muted, sacred places.
89
No. 6, in C Major, with Voice
Ive opened a window
to blend the outside
with what is in,
the strings of a concerto
playing from my radio,
accompanying a cardinal
in its morning lilt.
When an adagio arrives,
an oriole will add a vocal
that the composer did not intend,
unless it was of love
the violinist lamented
in the unspoken sweep
of his bow.
90
Holy Roller
Felicia, our Pentecostal friend,
speaks in hallowed tongues
claims those about to die
decipher that which sounds to us
like Klingonese,
that this blessing of the Spirit
had simply fallen
to errant hands,
that it wasnt the language of the godly
but of those who failed the Faith
with heavy hearts:
the Guatemalan peasant, for example,
only hearing a horses neigh
when he lost his crop to blight,
till the night he felt the fever,
Felicia having come to him
with afterglow of moon,
proclaiming God would bring him home
before the dawn,
in a garble that for eons
had uttered nothing that was sacred, tender,
to him or to us
or to any of our kind.
91
The Season Arrived in Birdsong
The season arrived in birdsong,
in snowbanks receding like glaciers,
their slow and dripping melt
under a radiant sage of sun
eager to redeem itself
for its many days of absence,
its inability to warm us when we needed it most
and winters cruel colding
instilling an innate experience
of Pleistocene hunters and mammoths,
of being bound inside our caves,
of venturing into the ice and wind
while we dreamt of distant greening.
92
Hopeful
Our sight to the ground,
we scan for the first
flower of Spring.
A bird in the bush
tells us
we are getting close.
At least this is our belief,
on this morning of warming
sun,
the sky, deep and hopeful,
much bluer than ever
before.
93
Goodwill Hunting
I scoop her book out of the bargain bin
and at a dollar, its precisely that.
I hadnt heard of the author before,
and this title, twenty years past
its original release,
shows little wear or evidence
that it was barely ever read.
What has become of you now,
oh minstrel of autumnal decay
and darkening shades of mind?
And whod leave this forlorn volume
to languish amongst the chaff,
beside a pile of business books
so terribly out-of-date
advising us how to invest
in a 90s economy,
that a crash is on the horizon,
that the Internet will never take off?
Youll live on my shelves beside Shelly,
with the Brownings a few spots away,
relieved of your discounted sticker
which only embarrassed you
even more,
94
like the school boy picked last in gym,
or that girl with a lisp in your poem,
the one you abandoned
at the dance,
in a heavily shadowed corner,
watching the others clench and kiss,
the victim of another
unhappy end.
95
The 8th Day
8 days a week, I love you
Lennon and McCartney
The Julians and the Gregorians
were both mistaken,
their division of three-sixty-five
done in error,
for theyd neglected the day
that should have been,
each and every week
the sum of eight,
if only because
its an even number,
would have made the months
a little shorter,
and because it makes good fodder
for a poem.
The name of this day
will have to stay unknown,
except that it would have ended
in day
something like Nepday or Jupiday
or after some other Roman god
or celestial sphere
96
and it would have been part
of a weekend
because 5 weekdays
is enough already
for working
and that extra 24 hours,
perhaps between Saturday
and Sunday,
would have made Christs stay
in the tomb
as long as wed figured it would be
and that Beatles song
far less romantic
than wed previously imagined.
97
That guy in those commercials
Hes always there in the background, laughing.
With a dozen attractive friends
all of them feigning laughter.
See him holding a beer, laughing.
And later at a steakhouse,
encircled by happy people,
laughing his cares away.
The only time weve seen him
is when he laughs.
Hes never appeared
in a sitcom,
or as a blur in a feature film.
A paltry line of dialogue
seems forever out of reach.
But still he looks ecstatic,
with a grin thats even broader
than the Pepsodent Twins of old.
We imagine when he is home,
in a shabby, bachelor walk-up
several miles from Rodeo Drive,
that he barely cracks a smile,
98
watches those who have succeeded
being featured on Tonight, trading chuckles
with Jimmy Fallon,
hurls his curses at the screen
whenever his ads run back-to-back.
99
Asiago
In my childhood,
the moon, of course, was made of cheese
but not just any pressed milk curd
or the expected block of Swiss
but rather Asiago, the kind the other kids
had never heard of,
whose mothers never sliced
and sloppily shoved beneath their ham,
the type that would have gotten me
beat up,
by the bully whod think me
a snob,
whose idea of fancy dining
was potato chips on the side,
whose fists Id never forget
whenever midnight glow
slipped through
the crack of blinds,
from a drifting ball above me,
that may have stopped to pity
when I cried myself to sleep.
100
Mill Pond in June
The pond is teeming
with tadpoles,
tiny fish soon amphibious,
and we question which is better,
to breathe in both the air
and in the water,
or to remain below the sheen
of a translucent
surface,
unable to take in the breeze
that carries the clamour of words
and of wars.
101
No Photos
for Carrie
There are no photos
of your ex-husband in our house.
Its not because I would oppose it
for Id understand
if that marriage had been a happy one
for you,
or if hed died
and you grieved his untimely passing,
that you needed a memento
of his love for you
on the wall we walk by daily.
But he wasnt kind, youve told me.
He brought you no flowers
or sung songs of how beautiful you are.
And here I am,
vowing to love you in ways
you never were,
hoping my portrait
in its living room frame
will never know the hour its unhinged,
discarded as a flyer
and recycled into a page of speckled paper,
102
which another in a year or so
will wrap around a rose,
or jot the lyrics of a song upon,
hoping its a hit.
103
Merlot
for Carrie
Forgive the wine, my love,
though its not the one at fault
that lies with me
and lies to myself
brought it to my lips
before you even had a chance
to kiss me.
104
The Widower
Its the morning after snowfall.
Fresh footprints lead to her grave,
supplanting those
that were never seen
amid the crunch
of November leaves.
He leaves a bouquet
of yellow flowers
as he has for twenty years,
like the ones
that mimicked the sun
when she was no longer able
to feel it,
the ones that smelled of summer
when shed lost all sense of season.
105
Love Seat in the Snow
On a snow bank hugging a street
I saw it leaning,
threatening to fall
in oncoming
traffic.
It seemed in mint condition,
albeit damp
from the elements:
the vermillion hadnt faded
and the fabric wasnt worn;
I couldnt see
a patch or tear
it wasnt stained
by Cabernet.
I surmised the couple
this belonged to
had a major falling-out,
that doors were slammed repeatedly
and a suitcase had been packed
until it burst,
106
that in the dead
of winters night
it awaited the rumble
of garbage trucks.
But then, perhaps it wasnt discarded,
that this pair have so much warmth
that brims between them,
they sit in comfort
amid the scream of gales
and flurries,
waving gaily to passers-by
between their kisses.
107
Coda III
That page at the end of my notebook,
the one that is blank,
is the best poem of mine youve ever read,
you say to me as I choose which to keep,
which to toss and pretend I never wrote.
I went through it
when you were away, you reveal
in a tone bereft of innocence,
like a boy boasting to his friends
that he managed to swig some vodka
when his parents were in the basement,
perhaps sorting through laundry
or checking on the furnace
or doing something that required him
to be cunning and to seize the moment
like a vulture that dives to the ground
while the corpse is still warm enough
to pass for something living.
Your metaphors are silly, you say bluntly,
your analogies make me laugh
those of scavenger, Russian drink,
mischievous child.
Take the last sheet in your book,
the one without writing:
it made more sense than anything else
youve rambled on about.
108
I reply that you are right,
that pallid vacancy and lines of blue
have more to say than verbosity,
that I should just write white
instead of pallid,
that I misread my spiny thesaurus,
that what is simplest
is most complex
and lives in a realm
no words can elucidate
or yield direction to;
that its a sign of literary innovation
to have an entire volume
of nothing but lined paper,
that the next time I buy a notebook
Im best off to merely scrawl my name
upon its cover
and wait for the accolades to pour in
from those who know the work of a genius
when they see it.
109
Be Kind
Be kind
to that old man on the bench
feeding the pigeons.
He too once dreamt of lovers,
of having another
seated beside him,
naming birds
after the children
he should have had
when he was young.
He too had dreams
of his name being sought
on the spines of published books,
found in a syllabus
of recommended authors,
not merely on a tombstone
a half a block away,
awaiting the etching
from a callous touch.
110
Even More
for Carrie
I will love you even more
when Im finished writing.
There will be nothing veiled
in lines that hint of springtime.
A gardeners list
is all it will be.
There will be no more days of June
to compare your beauty to.
Just me and how Ill hold you
every day,
at the Solstice,
watching the suns descent
to summer;
counting first and second stars
and naming each one after you
and the places we will see,
without a pen and page
to vie for my attention.
Without a thought
that someone else
will judge my cadence,
this bathos,
how it could and should be
better.
111
Groundhog Day
I didnt see my shadow
but no one wondered
if I had.
On this day of psychic rodents,
how must it be
to sense when Spring is coming?
That theres six more weeks to sleep
before you rise,
missing nothing more than snow
and biting wind?
That in your dreams
you speak to Sun and Earth?
That theyll be
the only ones
to gently wake you?
112
Come Winter
for Carrie
In the summer sun,
the moth is beautiful
as the butterfly.
In the summer sun,
the plainness of white
is gleaming, vivid,
and what is small
casts a canopys shadow.
You are beautiful
under the summer sun.
Come winter,
you will be the radiance
outshining the snow,
whose shadow is a swirl
of orange, lilac,
with circles of red and of gold.
113
Believe
for Carrie
They no longer believe
that I will lay it down,
that Ill cease to write these poems
and they are right.
I never said
I wouldnt draft a verse,
a stanza on my love for you
and for Summers
flowering shrubs
along the pond.
But Ill keep it hid,
and far between and few
it will emerge,
and just between
the three of us:
You, my honey love,
myself, ever seeking to find,
and that which is someday found,
on earth as it is in heaven.
114
Andreas Gripp is a London, Ontario poet and
bookseller and the author of 20 books of poetry and
15 chapbooks of verse. He tends an urban garden
during the season and walks in nature have
influenced a number of his gentler poems. He lives in
a small house with two cats and his wife, Carrie Lee.
