April 9, 2008
Spring
There was never snow
here and I know naught
about all these scarves and hats.
Mittens stuffed into my pockets
must have been planted,
the coat too warm to be mine
anyway; where did it even come from?
April 8, 2008
Inspired by Kimmy Gibbler
I know of one poem
inspired by Kimmy Gibbler
and now here is another.
If there are two
there may be others.
Anthological opportunities
in multiple volumes,
or a doctoral thesis.
A wikipedia article
at the very least, because
here is a cultural phenomenon.
The girl next door,
whose side ponytail threw her
off-balance. She was familiar
but not with knocking.
April 6, 2008
Bad Habits
Picking my nails, staying up late,
compiling lists of things that I hate.
Bumping my head, stomping the floor,
opening the cupboard and not closing the door.
Rolling my eyes, playing with my hair,
hollering orders up or down stairs.
Shrugging, “Whatever”. Quoting with “like”.
Being too cheap to tune up my bike.
Teabags tossed in the sink, not fixing things when they break.
Coming up with any excuse to go out for some cake.
April 5, 2008
It is easy
It is easy to feel inadequate
at Home Depot, where ceilings stretch
so high, we might as well be crawling.
I want to carry two-by-fours out
hoisted on my shoulders too,
but I can’t– I have a backache.
April 4, 2008
New House
Three days is not enough
to make a home. Still tentative.
We have not yet fixed ourselves–
driven nails into our drywall
whose shadows still tell the stories
of other people’s things.
March 11, 2007
Other Springs
Late Morning March
The air through the open window is the same
as when you breathed for what you don’t believe in now
and such anachronistic miracles are dizzying
separating you from local time.
I remember every spring that came before this
linked in the smells the city makes.
The armature of scattered selves
fastening you to year-to-year.
I posted this poem last year, and wrote it many years before that. And while I don’t think it’s a particularly good poem, and I don’t even write poems anymore, it says everything I want to say about this time of year, so I feel no need to say it another way. Because there is something so evocative about spring time. I think one’s senses become primed after months of hibernation, and so walking around there is so much to see, notice and revel in. And it takes you back to other times you felt that way, other springs.
Yesterday we walked around as if in a time warp. The weather wasn’t even particularly good, but I wore a vest instead of a winter coat, and we could hold bare hands instead of gloves. And we stomped around places I used to know before I knew Stuart, and at the same time the weather and how we spent our time reminded us of passing Saturdays in Nottingham, and quite a few things happened that were exactly like in Japan. And so yesterday, which was a magical lucky day, we relived all our springs at once.
We got up early and I got three hours of work in, just so I would be happy for the rest of the day. We went up to Bloor and went out for lunch sets at Thai Basil, and then searched for treasures in the bargain basement at BMV Books. After that we went to Whole Foods, with a basket in tow so we wouldn’t look conspicuous, and went up and down the aisles eating free samples amongst the beautiful people. Our basket stayed empty. We went back to Bloor Street and looked at clothes after that, and got depressed because beige seems to the new black. (And we saw Pickle Me This reader Erica G. at the Gap. Hi Erica!). We went to The Cookbook Store next, and bought the three recipes books we don’t yet own by our beloved Jeanne Lemlin omnibussed in hardover and on sale for $13.00. What luck! I showed Stuart The Toronto Reference Library which he’d never seen before and he was quite impressed. And then he got new shoes, which he loves and they’re wonderful, and we got a box of cookies and a chocolate bar as a gift with the purchase. (?) We had tea/coffee at7 West after and looked at the paper. Walked home, and then had just about an hour to relax before going out again to the Jonker/Lev’s for dinner– but there was magic on the way, of course. The Bloor-Danforth Line had been diverted and we got to see Lower Bay Station! And then the rest of the night proceeded absolutely splendid, with good food and fine company.
Today is a little bit shorter, but yesterday stretched on so long, I am not bothered.
February 20, 2007
Decca
Now reading Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford. Though, indeed, it is ever-so-popular to dislike the Mifords (because, really, grumpy people must find it within themselves to hate anything the least bit fabulous lest the universe be disturbed), I’ve been a fan since I read The Mitford Girls in 2003. Though by no means are their stories comfortable, they’re undeniably storied stories and I love them for that reason. Anyway, Decca’s letters run long and of course with my appetite for fiction, I’ll only be able to read them in dribs and drabs by my bedside. Like treats to savour. In celebration I will reshare with you my favourite poem I ever wrote, Mitford-inspired or otherwise.
Extremism was so fashionable that first season
“Why must all my daughters fall for dictators?”
~ Lady Redesdale (Sydney Mitford)
Extremism was so fashionable
that first season.
At the races my daughter won herself a diplomat
and my husband and I my husband and I
concerned with crashing stocks had our veritable sigh
and we folded our hands and nodded then,
as he stood on a box and took up his pen
because she looked on so loving
I couldn’t help but be pleased,
in spite of his wife, in spite of their life
and his radical politics leaning far right.
There was the matter of war in Spain
which (she said) was just a prelude.
This was the littlest daughter, always contrary,
“I will run away, you’ll all be sorry.”
When she finally fled, it was to throes of war
and she didn’t bring a stitch to wear,
to fight for the reds or marry for love
just to be where the action was happening.
She had to deny her former life
to prove her worth as working-class wife,
they came back to fight for the cause from their home
on the slummier side of South London.
The man of the year was a small man
seeking room to grow.
My middle daughter found him on her travels
my sullen, silly girl, by his words became so serious
when she sang them in her own voice
we consented, it was her choice
but he was such a charming gentleman
when he had us all to tea.
(But this is when the trouble starts, as you will see)
Solidarity was demanded on the homefront
but for us, this was impossible.
My golden older daughter and her lover- now her husband-
the coincidence of their ideological proximity
translated to sympathy for the enemy
and this daughter of mine, fond of long days and wine,
spent war years charming the Holloway Prison for Women.
The littlest one fled to America, still wedded to her cause,
kept her affiliations testifiable, and sincerity undeniable-
she had rallies and babies and books to write and
for seventeen years she refused to cross the line,
she fought the fascist front known as The Family
My husband and I- my husband and,
as his opinion of the Germans was established years before
when he’d lost a lung fighting in the First World War
and he could not abide by the company
of the leader with whom I’d had the pleasure of tea.
Especially not while the world was coming apart
at its bursting Versaillesian seams.
And my silly daughter could not abide by bursting seams
to choose between England and the man of her dreams
on September first, nineteen thirty-nine
she put a gun to her temple in an attempt to stop time.
My outspoken daughters had been drawn to men
who could outspeak them.
They dared to defy us with dictators- an original act of rebellion-
typical; no middle men, they loved instead
their moustaches and regalia their marching men with unbending knees
Prussian fortitude, Yugoslavian ingenuity
and all those ideals that had the trains run on time.
I could not raise a shallow woman; my daughters
my twentieth-century casualties, there was a time
behind every powerful man was a good woman
and I had birthed nearly all of them.
January 26, 2006
Poem Exercise
*This was my exercise for class this week- a poem without an ‘e’.
What I know is a mountain
What I know is a mountain, high as a coin.
My liquid wisdom would not fill a cup.
This vastity, that unshrinking cupity-
sit back and watch it grow.
Sunk far-off lands’ topography.
Magic words forgot by history.
Ursa Major, Asia Minor-
a thousand stations I’ll not go.
Fossils, bugs and dragon wings.
Burnt, lost or abandon’d things.
Mud or flood or lava lost-
mislaid worlds I cannot know.
A show that’s shown, curtain down.
Unsung songs and pin drop sounds.
Hot air balloons and sailing ships-
an old wind’s worn out blow.
Untold truths and uncaught looks.
Oral myths and dirty books.
Wombs and tombs and pyramids-
and a mountain’s all I know.
August 29, 2005
The Wisdom of Jen Aniston
This is a blatant rip off of and not nearly as brilliant as “A Villanelle Composed Upon Jennifer Aniston’s Answers To Her May 2001 Vanity Fair Interview, With Catalina Island Glimmering In the Distance”, but something must be done about Aniston’s September 2005 Vanity Fair Interview. She has a tremendous ability to spew and suck drivel simultaneously, and she speaks like poems I wrote when I was twelve. So now, poetic excerpts of the 2005 interview for those of you who puked too soon and didn’t finish reading it. Believe me, it means nothing more in context.
****
i)
Seven very intense years together;
we taught each other a lot-
about healing, and about fun.
It was a beautiful, complicated relationship.
What we said was true-
as far as I knew.
We exited this relationship
as beautifully as we entered it.
ii)
The world was shocked
and I was shocked.
The sad thing, for me, is the way
it’s been reduced to a Hollywood cliche.
iii)
It was that thing about being a nurturer;
somewhere along the way
you sort of lose yourself.
You just don’t know when it happens.
It’s such an insidious thing,
you don’t really see where it started-
and where you ended.
There’s no one to blame
but yourself.
iv)
It’s sad
something coming to an end.
It cracks you open, in a way
it cracks you open to feeling.
When you try to avoid the pain
it creates greater pain.
I’m a human being
having a human experience.
I have to think there’s some reason
I have called this into my life.
I have to believe that-
otherwise it’s just cruel.
v)
I’m not a fortune teller;
I have no idea how it will play out. People say
“What are you going to do?”
I just don’t know.
I kind of love that
not knowing.
****
Read Lynn Crosbie’s take on the Interview, who believes Aniston “reveals what lies at the heart of women’s public demonstrations of personal grief. While public men tend to exhibit a panoply of vivid emotions when cuckolded, ranging from bleak despair to homicidal fury, with the exception of the prostrate Elizabeth Smart, women, hobbled by vanity and pride, are more given to follow the song-counsel of Melissa Manchester: “Don’t cry out loud/Just keep it inside, learn how to hide your feelings. . . .'”
