for my dad

The months of change do me no good at all.
In March and November, my anxiety spikes,
Under heavy, shifting pressure.
Not fear, but something primal–
Angst in my gut, like a bad meal.
At my age, a body knows the poetry–
A language older than the mind.
March wears winter like a mask;
It breathes winter’s remnants
And chokes out plastics and debris.
Only when I’m embedded in summer
Can I bear fruit from the soil of my mind,
Enjoy the long days of light,
And wear my old hat into heaven.

Almost a violet pearl between branches—
Radiant in an indigo sky–
Like a Taaffeite gemstone, rare in its brief glow,
A gift to the earth, while it lasts,
As Bizet’s aria Je crois entendre encore
Kisses the cool night air,
Before dissolving into dawn.

Sparrows pierce me like arrows.
Who knew robins had no bottoms?
A murder of crows, frightening prose.
A hawk, a magnificent shock.
Do vultures feed on culture’s corpse?
Are kestrels kin to petrels?
Have the pigeons been agreed upon?
Could plovers ever run us over?
Flocks of blue jays are on the way.
Cardinals and carnivals? Think about it.
A wood thrush in a frosty hush.
Swallows, those Apollos, don’t care.
Phoebes have the heebie-jeebies.
Owls and their lovely vowels.
Cormorants and conglomerates.
Egrets sending their regrets.
Today, only the border crossings
Of Canada geese—give me any peace.

Car chimes was what Len called
All the bottles Joe would gather,
Drinking in the back seat on road trips,
Passenger to his own joyful reeling.

Joe couldn’t go without drinking,
It was the poetry in his blood.
Len and I would do the driving
With Joe happily reciting W.H. Davies:

“No man to pluck my sleeve and say—
I want thy labour for this day;
No man to keep me out of sight,
When that dear Sun is shining bright.”

And when he’d recite those poems
The bottles would begin to chime
In rhythm to his tapping feet,
Music to our ears, laughter to our tears.

At death the brain must flood with DMT
For one to see fluorescent waterfalls
And feel warmth and love
After rising out of a world of hate
Now breathless you breathe with ease
Now flat-lined you surge with love
Now brain-dead you see all
Why didn’t you understand before
Why did it take your death to come alive
To see the light through the door
To see fluorescent waterfalls appear
To see Jesus and your grandfather
And to feel drawn to so much love
That to return the soul recoils
You ask to stay but are told to return
To serve some penance in our hell
Where the righteous fade and the vile rise

for Sharon

Joe keeps paying the pizza delivery kid
The same amount over and over,
Taking it back and counting it again,
Like numbers were swimming in a bottle.
Joe’s hands playing their own sleight-of-hand
With the bills he was shuffling.
The kid’s face was entirely bemused–
His eyes opened wide with amusement.
Len is laughing and pointing for me
To watch Joe’s strange performance.
Then our host Sharon notices,
And her beautiful laugh begins
To dissipate the swirling miasma with ease,
Even pausing Joe with its heartfelt tones.
I’m mesmerized by Joe’s slapstick stupor,
Like some Emmett Kelly bit in real life.
By this time, the delivery kid
Is getting more stoned on the loud
Confusion of intoxication in the air,
The after-funk of artists in revelry,
Coltrane adding his voice to the mix.
The dazed delivery kid’s smile lingers
When I put an end to Joe’s show,
Rescuing both from the farce,
Tipping the kid a twenty and a wink.

I flowed in the river
Went deep, thought I’d drown
But a branch caught my hand
I drifted through the unbearable purity
Of this water
I don’t know how long
The water stung my flesh
Until it washed me clean
I moved toward the bank
Where tree and leaf reflections
Shimmered on the surface
A palimpsest of light and shade
I saw souls in the shape of fish
Basking in eternity
I don’t know how
I stepped out of that water
It wasn’t my time
Still, I am the river
And I flow as I walk

for Len and Joe

This was way before computers and cell phones.
Some of you might remember.
You needed collections and anthologies of verse,
An atlas, an encyclopaedia, several dictionaries,
A Bible and The Golden Bough,
Brief Lives: A Biographical Companion to the Arts–
And, of course, a good study of poetic form and meter.
It was also nice to keep the spirit flowing
With several open bottles of wine,
And the sweet smell of Acapulco Gold
To keep the spirit whirling,
Like some ancient chant or music,
And two good friends who loved poetry.
That’s how poems were made.

I went to the other side
And saw one I loved
She lowered her head when I called
I saw my mother and father
Standing in the mist
Their faces pale and soft
Tell me it is you mother
Tell me it is you father
And amid the multitudes
I saw my brother
In all his sadness
Searching for his son
And I heard my father
Ask a question in my mind
What have you become
What have you become
And then I woke
To face what remains of me now

Now that you’ve lost everything
Are you ready
To fall back on the stars
Now that you carry the weight
Of the past
Are you ready
For the lightness of being
Now that you’ve been broken
Are you ready to be whole
Leave what you own
It belongs to the earth
You belong to what’s beyond
Are you ready
Yes I am ready