The rites of passing (a new/old poem)

A new poem I wrote recently, from a cast-off bit I found kicking around. Funny how something from several years ago can be recycled.

* * *

The rites of passing

 He was a textbook rummy:  like an old newspaper,

something blown into a doorway.  His skin and clothes desiccated,

battered to the same hue of dust.  Among the office tower legions, he was a

tumbleweed scouring the terrace.  The sound of grasshoppers or cicadas

in faraway trees.

The day exhaled hot breath against

your cheek and the wind came up full of sunshine and grit. No one took notice

of death in a corner, its subtlety

adrift on the day’s undercurrent.

For an instant, all was still.  A handful of coins lay at the feet of the congregated

pigeons.  Priestly crow conducted a silent mass, head cocked.

Looking to the parishioners, catching the eye of anyone

willing to observe passage and make an offering.  A gust riffled his

cloak, and he was off.

Taking the moment with him.  A single black feather

marking the occasion.

The Summer of '98

In the summer of 1998, my creative output had waned significantly.  One bad relationship had given way to another which was by then on its last, wobbling legs.  I was staring down the barrel of my 30th birthday, with little to show for my life but 2 degrees and a job that was taking me nowhere.  By the end of the early autumn of that year, I would make some significant decisions:  I dumped the girl; I moved out of the townhouse we were sharing; and I decided that I'd become a lawyer.  By the new year, I was getting ready to move into my own place, had scored reasonably well on my LSATs, and was waiting for the outcome of my application to the law school at the University of Western Ontario (where I'd done my undergrad degree).  In the words of a story I once read (liberally paraphrased here - I believe it's Amy Hempel, but I've perused her Collected Stories, and can't locate it), I'd pulled out the junk drawer of my life and turned it upside down on the floor.

While none of these details are directly relevant to this publication, I think there is a sense of being on the cusp of something that also comes through in this poem.  It was published in connection with the Forest City Poetry Contest, in Afterthoughts:  Today's Best Poetry (which ceased publication in 2000), published by Harmonia Press right here in London, Ontario.  Until I re-read it , I wasn't so sure about this poem - now, I think I kind of like it.

The Slowing Fall

So many ants without love as trees shed

and terminal house flies by windows reflect

their dying

in 1000 eyes

The word slipped out –

this time of browning greenery,

trees going fiery, thinning

as the days;

of all the times

for one slow-burning

phrase to find

withered lips.

I said it quietly, imitating Autumn, uncertain

of words dying mid-air, and you

returned it

with geese

stabbing south.

Post #2

For my first few posts, I thought I'd put up the pieces of writing that I've had published over the years (primarily in the early and mid-90's).  Then, I looked at some of them and felt that rising tide of panic and embarassment you get when you're exposed.  Kind of like one's first sexual experience, letting someone else see what you keep hidden under your clothes ...

For better or worse, exhibitionism won out over prudery.  Below is the first poem I ever got published in Public Works Literary Magazine while I was in my 3rd year of an English degree at UWO.  I'd like to say that it stands up still.  I'd like to say that.

* * *

One Dream

Turning up, but momentarily,

Her warm, apple-core face,

           i read every crevice,

           to a subtext:

           every malnourished, restless day
           and night
           on board the tiny vessel
           their dreams so big, hers too    
           jamming them in tighter
           choking all life
           soaking in faeces, and
           stale food scents
           with screams of children kept too long
                                                     below decks.

The hatches unbattened, on
This shore with clouded sun:
           sun's radiance reflected, sent back
           in gleeful praise and promise of life.

A skip across time, brought people,
Other human cargoes,
Not so very the same nor different,
Clinging to that kernel,
Seeking this Neue Gegend
Nouvelle Terre,
New Land:
            crammed galley slave-style,
            travelling cargo-class, they came
            eating potatoes, not rice,
            dying in the dark
            amidst screams of children,
            screams across a barrier, unbreakable,
            unchanging.

And so, the well-worn face,
Its dignity,
Not that which is traded for the dingy voyage,
But that it was formerly denied,
          regained,
Smiles.
Though not necessarily wanted nor unwanted,
Radiates to me anew,
The dream well-thumbed
         ink, faded and blurred
         beyond recognition,
         reinvigorated, written over
         from the blood inkwells
         of the East.

* * *

Ok, you can stop snickering now.