POEM: POEMILIES FOR ALL TO SEE

Pater Noster

Once, past hallowed and holy doors,

with signs that beckoned enter,

gave worshipers on marble floors

airs, sweetened by censers.

And candle wax and painted glass

and beads upon a book,

and charming bells called all to mass,

like fish upon a hook.

And words spoke in the Latin tongue,

a sound to end travail,

were chanted early, practiced long

to give us further sail.

But like the bells that sometimes crack,

cooling before their time,

or a tinker’s old and tattered sack,

or a cup that once held wine,

monk’s bald pate and cathedral’s dome

lay bare now ‘neath a sun

that sits atop our once-won home

and starts a newer run.  

Will I Not

Be There?

Will I not

be there

with you

at the river’s

sandy turning

to hear once more

the cry

of the wild,

furtive thing

that makes

you laugh

so gently?

Across the Euphrates

At Eridu,
beside the sacred pool,
I lay my offerings of chickpea 
and lentils
and the dried flesh 
of the yellow-scaled fish
that swim, daily, into my weir.

In the grove’s speckled shade,

I lay my offerings
by the upwelling waters.

I sing to Enki. I sing for this day

and what it will bring.

I drink the pool’s cool, sweet water.

And it is only then

I will raise my eyes

to the rising suns

of the east.

Bird-Tracks

Writing this now

is so unlike

the last five thousand years.

Or the next.

Blinkers

With poetry tools packed

carefully in his knapsack,

wearing a baseball cap
and sunglasses,

and comfortably fitting jeans

(and sandals, of course),

he moves through the crowd

like a panther, 
eating it all up--

all the sound bites 
and tidbits of love.
It’s a rich buffet.

But there’s no time to digest
or think about dessert,

not for the word-carnivore,

alone and on the prowl 
through the bright afternoon
of the world.

Monster

It’s not the sharp claws

and fangs that draw blood.

Nor is it visions of oceans

filled with Great Swallowing Things.

It's not the grinning face

of a personalized death.

It’s not childhood terrors,

screams at night,

the devil, 
or even Freddy

that frighten you.

It’s monstrous 
this side of glass.

The Everything Factory

I worked in a place that made everything.

I needed to live, to make a living.

Some thought it a place that grew much too large.

(Such questions are answered by those in charge.)

My shift never varied, my days were long.

And nights were longer, but don’t get me wrong—

I’m thankful for what was done for me there.

The coffee was hot; my locker was near.

The factory was neat, well-lit and maintained.

It made for itself what humans once claimed:

A Modern Marvel! A guide for the Age!

There were bright ribbons, many accolades.

It made no noise; its machines seemed to hum.

What went on inside was more than its sum.

I’d heard the old tales of distant, dark rooms

where machines were bred, well cared for and groomed.

Because it’s so vast, you’ll grant me this much,

I’d not seen it all, just what I could touch.

“And what do you make here?” someone once asked,

someone I knew, but from a long time past.

“Truly,” I said, “we make everything here.”

Hers seemed a question decidedly queer.

Back then we knew where everything was made.

I’m sure we did, though my memory fades.

Yes, it was lonely with no one to see,

there was just one worker, and that was me.

My job was quite simple. I had one tool.

A key made of gold that came with one rule.

I’ll say it for you. I know you can’t tell:

"Please turn it all off, for we’ve gone to hell."

Vacant Lot

Cement on top the vacant lot,

directed by our traffic cop.

His whistle bids us all to stop,

like once did royal Hottentot.

Our pride within withstands without.

But win the match by blood or fault!

It's not without a pinch of salt

we'll gain that place, by chance or rout.

Our barking dogs and craven songs

are loud in dreams, like night's marsh-frogs.

While scores are kept in bloody logs,

with skins of leaves to bind their wrongs.

We’ll move by pride and so contrive.

Now set to sea, where lands abide.

Of gods, we stole and on them spied;

it is our lot we must survive.

Clotheslines

Sheila hanging laundry,

her clothes upon the wind.

She was the neighbour-girl

I had dreamed of in sin.

But why is it, now, that

I've come upon this place?

Where all I can see is--

a name and not a face?

Didn't I just see this on TV?

DEAR READER, HERE IS A HODGEPODGE COLLECTION FOR YOU, a people-tsunami of sorts—with the flood funneled down into a few, manageable gulps. There's some hoary oldies and a couple of new ones for fun and profit (whose?) But at least you don’t have to kneel down to read them. Or pray. Or drown. So, enjoy them. Take away what you will. Drop a few coins in the collection plate as it’s passed around. Or just nod as you walk by. Thanks.

PATER NOSTER (“Our Father”)—Hmmm. The speaker seems a mite peeved at the church. Apostates “R” US, I guess. I like the fourth stanza with the images of a “tinker’s sack” and “a cup that once held wine”. Under the hot eye of modernity's sun what will come next is a good question. Something renewed? Or just different?

Incidentally, “paternoster”* is a type of elevator you won’t catch me on any time soon. It looks downright dangerous! But, it’s like the perfect elevator to get to Heaven because you have to be really careful how you get on. If you slip up or miss you timing—you’ll get caught in a pretty nasty bind. The down-vator is easier to tumble on to, especially in a drunken stupor. (That’s always the case, with down being the easier ride.) Anyway, I’ve pretty much given up trying to get on the up-vator, what with the lineups and all. I’ll take the stairs; I need some exercise….

Poor little pee-pee pants!

WILL I NOT BE THERE?—A little prayer or plea for something that is just on the edge of our perception, a moment that seems ephemeral but is really much more common than we realize. Whatever it is, it’s made more vibrant and visible when it is shared. And perhaps what's out there isn't what's important (unless it's a T-Rex or something).

ACROSS THE EUPHRATES—I’ve always liked this one. It’s an oldie. Eridu is a city in southern Iraq which is arguably the oldest, continuously-inhabited city in the world. It began as a site of ancient worship near the shores of the Persian Gulf. A shrine was built there, and millennia of habitation and religious sanctuaries grew around and atop it. Enki is the ancient Summerian city-god of Eridu. Ur, Urak, Lagash and Babylon were some great city-states to rise and later dominate the region.

BIRD TRACKS—The writing on clay tablets from the Sumerian civilization during the third millennium BC was likened by early 19th Century interpreters to the tracks shorebirds left as they walked across mudflats. I wonder how those who come after us will interpret our writings?

Naked poet sighting

BLINKERS—I like the image of, “bright afternoon/ of the world.” But I think our cocky “word-carnivore” might want to raise his head up, now and then, and check out what’s around him or what’s coming at him.

MONSTER—I think we all get why vampires don’t see their reflections in mirrors. We keep externalizing monsters instead of looking at them when we see them each day. So, having a close shave now and then is probably a good thing.

THE EVERYTHING FACTORY—Such places are on every street corner. They  crowd out everything else. It’s amazing to me that we don’t shutter more of them, but then, where would we get everything? Would we have anything afterwards? Are we able to settle for just something?

Vacant Lot?

VACANT LOTS—Folks! We’re running out of vacant lots when we need them the most! They’re places where things just happen. What’s wrong with that?

CLOTHESLINES—Memories, nostalgia. Yeah. And it’s good to have them, but it’s probably more important what you make of them while they're happening the first time around.





 

 Cheers

Exerciser show-off

* Paternoster Elevator 
Heads Up! (Or down.)

BOOK REPORT: DISAPPEARING EARTH BY JULIA PHILLIPS

LATE LAST NIGHT I WAS READING A COLLECTION OF SHORT detective fiction about a Edinburgh police inspector. With the exception of one or two of the tales, especially one in which the detective reveals he recently killed a man in the line of duty and how the act filled him with remorse, I found most of the stories too pat. I did enjoy how the author was able to construct ‘mini’ crime tales, with all the sleuthing and discovery done in such a neat packet. But I just didn’t want to read anymore; I felt I would be disappointed by the time I reached the end. So I put it on my “Return to Library” pile, somewhat reluctantly I’ll admit, for I would miss the author’s cleverness, wit, and crime solving plots.

So, in the wee hours I forged on. I picked up Julia Phillips Disappearing Earth, and was hooked from the first chapter!
The plot involves the abduction of two young sisters as they played in a secluded cove near the city center of Petropavlosk-Kamchatsky on the south-east coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. The setting is exotic and interesting, but it is Phillips’s depiction of her characters, their thoughts and emotions that makes her novel a compelling read. She writes with a crisp, spare style that allows the reader to clearly understand her characters.

The story is told in a third person narration, using multiple points of view, beginning in Chapter One with Alyona, the elder of the two kidnapped sisters. Through her, we see the life of an eleven year old—her family, community life, her relationship with her sister (who she had to look after because she was born second and therefore had the “privilege of staying a baby all her life.”) Phillips captures this scene of childhood innocence perfectly. And with an economy of writing, she then creates the nightmare wave of a predator that washes over the two girls, like the tsunami Aloyna tells her eight-year old sister about in a story. The title suggests the sweeping away of the past, of the once-safe landscape in which the girls played, and thematically, how the Kamchatka Peninsula has been changed by the tidal forces following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Chapters are titled by the month, indicating a month has passed, and the whole story takes place over the course of a year. In the early chapters, we are introduced to the main characters, again with Phillips’s economic style, who give their perspectives on the—as yet unsolved—crime. The crime is set within the context of everyday life—a newscast watched, in gossip, in the report of a single witness. And it is seen in the lives of the women, in their thoughts and perceptions and deeply felt emotions. It is in Phillips's unpacking of each character's mind that makes the story so compelling. Like the apple that is peeled and proffered to one of the women by her  lover, so too, are the women's thoughts and feelings exposed. As a reader, we want to understand more about them.

In the second chapter we meet Olya, a schoolgirl, who has no connection to the missing girls but whose friend’s mother has regular talks with the police detective as he searches for clues at the school the sisters attended. In the next chapter we meet Katya, a customs officer, who is newly in love and on a camping trip. Her boyfriend works with someone who witnessed the abduction. Thus, connections are made between individuals and the crime that has disturbed their community. And so it goes.

Julia Phillips

Each chapter has a female through whose perspective Phillips weaves her tale. Men are husbands, lovers, friends, colleagues  and adversaries. Most seem at the periphery of the women’s lives. Where they intersect, there are depictions of pain and pleasure, care and disappointment, longing and regret. (Perhaps Phillips suggests here the insular nature of what it is to be human, how like a peninsula it is, having only tenuous connections, at times, between the self and others.) 
It is the women, for the most part, who suffer and observe, preserve and maintain in this complex society, with its mix of urban and rural, ethnic and Russian peoples. The themes of overturning past beliefs, self-realization and stoicism are developed. For example, Valentina Nikolaevna confronts the truth she has cancer and has to be operated on immediately. The control she established in her life, where she felt she did not need anyone’s help or compassion, is challenged as she walks, naked and vulnerable, into the surgery. There are a number of such scenes of self-discovery and acceptance and bravery, with each chapter reading almost like a set piece. The novel is more like a 'tapestry' of lives than a plot-driven ‘who-done-it’.

Phillips describes Kamchatka with her simple, direct prose and attention to detail, giving the reader a sense of the importance the land has for the people living there; how traditional lifestyles and values conflict with modern ones, and how life has changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Her descriptions of the ethnic tensions between Russians and native peoples in the region are reminiscent of the conflicts we witness in Canada between people of European descent and First Nations people.

She provides a rich tapestry of the lives and landscape of Kamchatka that is interwoven with this terrible crime. Her concluding chapter is a panoply of emotion that leaves the reader exhausted, and incredibly satisfied.

Cheers

Nabbs is pooped!

 

QUOTES: JOHN STEINBECK

“In every bit of honest writing in the world there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never lead to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme. Try to understand each other.”

— John Steinbeck in his 1938 journal entry [Wikipedia]