Another supposition projects...
snowy wastes are but vapour trails of jets and tatter
sails.
Sleet comes only from cannonized rain, galvanized by
inclement ironmongers.
Yet a third hypothesizes frozen energy is stored in the
form of ice caps and that the lost amongst departed
souls are reborn with every powdery breath.
Ptolemy knew of a southern polar continent. Cook
and Shackelton attempted separate conquests. Ships
voyaged as early twentieth century probes amid
frozen stellar space nudging Earth's feet.
Footprints the size of muskets where left as evidence.
So were a few red flags. No oxygen bottles trailed the
ascent like those that packed Everest. Amundsen as
to Hillary across the South Sea face, yet this
Matterhorn has a logic and bedevilment all her own.
Page 60
Norway and Russia claim exploration of her frigid
body. The British in the first virginal thrust
christened Queen Maud Land after a brilliant
courtship. Shades of Spencer and his Faery Queen;
the Kron Prins Olaf Coast, anyone?
Ice. South of the Antipodes. The floor of the world.
Magnificant pack to the drunken global jaw, growlers
or submerged ice packs. A cold porterhouse steak to
ward off the combattive edge, the chronic boxer's
inflamed orifice and eye -- the nosebleed's staunchest
friend.
Terra Australis Incognita, the supposed southern
continent; hoof of the Cenotaur stringing men like a
bow across nipples like raw wounds. clotted hair and
blood on a precipice for a chest.
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Page 61
BLUE*EYED GRASSES
Rocky shale, pale voile,
sun lighting the
clearness of the bay;
come Moccasin Flower or Grass Pink
unto Painted Cup --
big with primula eye, these septs off wild
and inland seas.
The delights of success and heartbreaks
of failure among the people
in the land below Tobermory;
the rocks on the cold hill,
the lilacs by the doors...
And it was at their expense that this land
came to be supplied
with vitriol, camomile and liquorice,
yea some camphor and jallop,
oft'times basil, lemon or rhubarb
--- all sent from Glasgow
in wooden boxes
stout as pioneer hearts.
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Page 62
MOCCASIN
Backwoods cabin, opera house
from the pines awash with stars,
skullduggery in place over spruce hills
dredged to open revolt
against invading plough --
where greenest leaves
in a miser's hand part
rotting gold bags
all nugget strewn, step to step,
with water speaking magic
over the sound of countless woodland ducks.
Hocus-pacus, the
flies are sleeves over the world,
black granite pull-overs
slung thru the air
a twinkling of the eye invokes
funeral trees, deerskin in colour,
the rabbit in the hat behind
rich birchbark racing thru the dark.
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Page 63
THE BULLFROG
He sat with no more compunction
than an eel fish
big-faced, bloated,
the complexion of a beehive
-- a dragnet of emotions
crammed into a tumbler
upended in water.
His eyelids wore the effort
of horseblinders, a
spongy leather
masquerading as torpedoes
and I saw him
lonely at the crossroads
matted grass,
a strip of wire, cold current
chasing flecks about
his person, then lunging green
exploded into rapacity --
caressed the awaiting fly strewn stick
with emerald mouth &
coffers of appetite.
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Page 64
ANCESTRAL MEMORY
Patrician to my plebian,
aristocratic leaning versus
unbridled backwoods feeling --
distinct Old World breeding
countering rudest colonial lean-to;
his carcass lay, roadworthy,
blinking back cold starlight
with all the forest as silent voyeur
stretching for a look,
black fur & quills
in disarray like Crazy Horse's warpaint
after the Big Horn,
this roughneck Canadian porcupine
shot clean with bumper & chrome.
Then little hedge-pig
quaint as porcelain china cup
half a world away
greeting pints of milk
in an English doorway
half his scalp torn thru
dirty, British lorry choking fumes
the petrol in its tank loose.
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Page 65
ENTRY POINT
Ants colonized it
-- huge abodes littered with the dead
(leaves, sticks, the occasional granulated insect
piled high, totemic-fashion)
reaping a fortune in scenery,
though probably not food Ojibways were next --
their tell-tale encampment by
pocket-sized waterfall,
inlets off a winding cataract
& moss, loam-thick with black soil
a future arboreal dream
inching over rock, darling crevice
for northern orchid, then kiss
of red death the hybrid trillium
& more sinister cousin,
jack-in-the-pulpit
for Indian foragers.
Animistic limestone shone hands,
poked thru the forest with stealth,
petroglyphic lava beds
-- a cougar pouncing --
runic carvings the cold in the
Giant's stone nostrils billowing
off the lake like a presence.
***************************************
Page 66
BLOODCOUNT
My mind had almost died.
It had refused a game of tag on a common
with surly children and they steadfastly took revenge.
My fate like Blondin's walk across Niagara
saw cataracts looming large,
hiss & foam,
then visions of serpents,
farawy monsters &
inner tension of rocks opening.
The churned, brown water opened like a basket before me.
Maurading bubbles took on elephantine shapes,
my barrel creeked.
Faraway, the edge & drop yawned in indifferent harmony.
The brown walls of my fortress barrel became like palates
& sutures of my skull imprisoning the brain;
the trickle of invading water ever a reminder.
The close of the story?
Nothing. What is there to record after a river passes?
What remains of things unseen, of antelopes in flight?
The shroud of Monte Cristo tossed carelessly into
sea
did not fall open to the touch but was knifed with rifle
force.
***************************************
Page 67
BLOODSTREAM
Camping out, a miraculous thing happened.
The kaleidoscope of vision was focused on a precipice,
caught endangered water about to fall
under microscopic attention.
Moisture was shortlived; so, too, congealed lava
sheets
& bedrock over which the water flowed.
The cabin in the distance seemed prisoner to mist
while a rainbow gathered its wits for the next
performance.
Nowhere did leaves intrude though a fly made
headway up a glass pane
embedded in wood like antidiluvian plants have been
known to seek amber.
In their chorus, other flies droned then ran up & down
the ledge.
In the iate sunshine of the day, a bastardized vision of
dirt farmers,
pioneers imprisoned in similar toil.
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Page 68
ROGUE AND PRIVATEER
The Squirrel, a corsair,
rides the wind black arm
of a pressing sea,
Tribal hostilities finished,
she slinks into port.
Traveling lightly across open ground,
a squirrel upends a brigand sapling.
Grappling the ragged ends of a thicket
with riggings shredded by heavy wind and storm,
the arboreal sloop ascends to the highest mast;
a bush re-taken, the Crow's, Nest reconnointered.
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Page 69
THE CAMERA CAGE
As a child, all common sense decreed
pirates wore dear teeth --
enamel white, with tusks to rout an elephant
(the result from eating carrot sticks, I was told)
-- not a solitary doubt clutched my mind
ivory mingled naturally with black cord and sash
in the brain's Bluebearded eye.
Then, it was so matter of fact
like taking sausage to bed,
saying a proper good night
for the wisdom of the mother-provider
was similar to a pirate chief.
The let-down came in advanced picture book form,
childhood crisis accelerated on seeing
Kidd brain a member of his lusty crew
but the upstart taking the beating
was toothless and sore
no arcanely romantic rake at all,
more like a strange woman in the park
with whom no one dared to speak.
***************************************
Page 70
FENCE LINE
That Captain Kidd scribbling of rock in the fields
yellowed bristle of pages
back of a farm where
piratical breaking of land knocks
clean holes in the soil,
gypsy dancers vernal growth before
a spy-glass hour moon.
And black print smudged
on a thumb, a child's glossary of tales
thick with terror
before the faceless wretch
crawls for grog,
his peg-leg
in step with
one part of my brain
Old Phew hardly
any Smee from Peter Pan
but the holocaust --
the raven in the tree
eyeing the baby Treasure Island,
that fledgling reason
butchering both nostrils
at the skunk cabbage whose nectar
is the prize of cemeteries
& wild reunion of the bees.
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Page 71
ADVERSARIES
He held his hands like plastic --
his vestments the finer
calling of his trade,
vocation as modern strummer
of Nature's laws
Engineer in brief --
wine glass in hand
bestowing the more salient points
of mawkish disbelief with
cigarette to numb the spine.
The Reverend
looked down on fire,
caught papryus smoke in the bellows
of his chest,
made laundry of
the Plumber's intellect --
tore savage parchment
from the soft cheesecutter's
contemporary breath.
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Page 72
BARGAINING UNIT
The man about to become a sparrow
is shouting his head off
wearing green trousers
with red eyes framing mustier tweed,
he lambasts the lad
for not conducting
his person properly
in showing up for work
in a white shirt.
The fact the future labour
requires only lifting boxes
to a shed
is a fine point
about as important
as the man himself
who has transformed
himself into that sparrow
where several would not
span the breadth of a
bigger man's hand
or four could be had
in the Biblical sense
for less than a penny.
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Page 73
PALAIS ROYALE
The night cold as nuggets, dark as acorn,
against your chest; snow falling
like abandoned echoes releasing energy
into the spyglass, umbrella moon.
A solitary figure trapping hapless sparrows
not in a net but with his footprints
doubling as dungeons against the sun --
here & there rusting eavestroughs ballooning
into avenging shadows their harpsichord voices
spun on dreams Dick Whittington once used to buy a
cat.
And once Tom Thumb Upstaged Peter Pan by
appearing
under a petunia but this is not likely to happen soon.
The dawn, forlorn & grey, is a court muffin's
handkerchief
waved at a sailor far out at sea.
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Page 74
ALCATRAZ
White ibis/blue crane,
the arch of wings
in full sail over leafy barques
a wise stork scanning water
like the Disney character,
conductor on his train
with eye-glasses
& stop watch.
Sift of wind,
unseen hand exploring the pond
the stork ungainly on a single leg
the bird-man Jolly Roger
a pirate burrowing in the muck
add skull and cross bones
upending frightened fingerlings
the snout of the bandit
a rifle shot away
creasing the shallows.
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Page 75
WHEN LABOURING TO BREAK
Perhaps one is in prison --
fidgeting as time
draws to a close --
a scrap of house tunic
between the fingers
or when labouring to break
cuticles on swollen fingers
pressing both hands against ears
that refuse to hear the stop sound
of rushing blood.
Then again, in the last hour before
end time, before dawn's arrival and
floodlit sky finds you --
knuckles clasping bars, pitiless bayonet-like
with eyes swishing truncheons at all the
getaway air your lungs will never take;
wheezing in growing fear to the sound of footsteps,
clank of keys and gallow's humour as they prepare
to Skuttle your short life, wall up clouds of their
own pestilence nakedly mask each firing squad
gathering for its fighting chance.
page 76
THIS WAY TO THE SIXTIES:
JOHN LENNON'S DEATH FIVE YEARS AFTER
It was a red letter day and all within a decade, the
sixties.
Psychadelic and all because the Electric Circus
opened up
Walking Yonge Street in the December cold, aging
"hippies", the word itself a joke, reminisced:
National Guardsmen, for one, doing post-mortems on
their rifle butts, record covers carrying the first life-
sized zippers and mashed up rubber dolls; Cher Bono
getting up nerve and a career to name her child
Chastity but walking off with a card.
By the end of the decade they were asking questions.
We had landed on the moon per schedule but who
would have believed in the efficacy of Rock or the
efficency of napham before Vietnam? Frosted hair.
Body paint. The sixties produced a lot of it. With one
bullet, the Beatles, the secular saviours, were
breaking up. Before they had finished reuniting the
world. Before the history of music could be written.
Before John Lennon, did we dare trust ourselves,
World leaders, gurus?
That was the meaning of the assassination.
Page 77
History won't budge an inch for neophytes, The
Clockwork Orange was instructive but didn't go far
enough. Frodo wouldn't live in Yorkville today if
given a chance.
Now for the most poignant mental lapse of the Candle
carriers, mourners and mock biers with frozen
flowers. Simply the reminder half the population
didn't share his vision. Veterans grumbled. The press
paid more attention to this solitary event than
Armistice Day. Schoolchildren tittered. What was
that? The so-called generation gap seemed poised on
that comment. Then John's comment the Beatles were
more popular than Jesus Christ
Donovan didn't survive tunes like Epistle to Dippy.
Lennon won't survive the Elvis Beatle syndrome.
The lights are going out on the sixties,
The eighties are austere.
Cherry cokes are the memory of a laugh.
The Purple Onion only causes perplexion like Charlie
Brown's Great Pumpkin.
Forget about words like "catalyst".
Lennon was the conflageration.
Graffiti after him has renewed licence.
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Page 78
POGROM
There is an unhurried resemblance to pain, here,
this Fiddler on the Roof commodity, potables, fine
oaken chest
for one and furs; but wait,
the Czarist police are busting up the place --
a program is having its desired effect
on our emotions, the wine cellar smashed
as tears are falling like bloody heaps
in the red snow, cuttersleds
carting off the sundry feelings
we've invested in, a relationship
already staledated two years old.
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Page 79
BRAGGADOCIO
Chess playing Death
-- no, the reverse
Death sitting decked out and self-satisfied
in black no mandatory top hat but a shroud
shouldering a cowl.
There stereotypes end --
appearances have to be kept up
tho' hardly any cinematic gnarled fingers
of Baron Samedi fame
rather pudgy digitals reflecting
gentile prosperity
(after all, Winners do take all
his fellow satanists bank on it).
Of course, such things are fictitious.
Death plays no favourites (and waits
for no man when rivalling Time).
Still, parlour games are one indulgence.
Hardly comforting to know human beings
function at one purpose
when this Hallow of Hallows puts on the smirk.
Dalliance with the victim is the upshot --
the chess motif again.
Sift thru the chicken bones a mite --
let the chump stir the rubble of his dreams.
Something of gallow's humour or gangster largesse.
Page 80
Offer a stiff drink (brandy will do), one last cigarette.
Then, too, for beaten gladiators toiling bravely the
apparent rewards accelerate. Truckloads of flowers
at the funeral, for instance. Preferential treatment for
the guise or mercy must be kept up.
All lies in appearances. Prepare the feast. Sit the
guest of honour on a splendid cushion, then serve up
dish after sumptious dish.
Dining splendidly on one's own children
unbeknownst is a favourite -- maddens the victim no
end.
Brief success turning to bitter sawdust is the supreme
moment of ecstasy. Serves precisely as metaphoric
extension of all earthly reward as illusionary. (A
delicious ruse borrowed shamelessly from fellow
representatives on Earth --the Sicilian Mafia.)
Further spin-offs centre about the Absurd But spare
us juvenile intrigue with petty omens like a bird loose
in the house. Rather, a swift check-mate served up in
the best Grandmaster tradition is more a propos.
Therein lies the jest.
Workaholics and their polar opposites, the dead lazy.
effortlessly come around. When realization hits home
all distinctions blur. No difference. Sharp laughter
unceremoniously greets even the self-composed.
Page 81
Especially intriguing are the ambitious. Endless
quirks really.
Concerted mockery recreates further patterns of
futility.
Basic strategy remains unchanged, though. Disguise
is paramount.
Dress her in robes of tarter gray,
implant a slight smile, then beckon
from around each corner.
Create a maze, but attractive-like with flower pots.
Faint knockings behind every door. A cooling breeze
overhead.
Genuine affability like an open air Swiss cottage in a
summer meadow.
The greater the false hope, the greater the final
squirming.
Funny stuff, for even Death at one remote corner of his
being partakes in occasional mirth (why not, with his
monopoly intact on everything else).
***************************************
Page 82
DRESS REHEARSAL
"The universe is expanding".
There's cause for reflection and bound to do wonders
for "who am I" queries.
At this late moment on the Celestial Clock, man isn't
sure if he's stumbled into a Black Hole or just the
debris from the Big Bang Theory.
Many of the earth's residents desperately want to be
E.T.'s -- travellers with carte blanche passports
welcomed in any galaxy. Therein lies the ultimate
twist to "getting away".
Alas, what if we're alone?
What if the universe expands so much it forgets
there's an inhabited world and obscures the planet
from our collective vision? Sobering stuff.
Meanwhile, on a spaceship earth preparations are
underway. Preparation to abandon the planet.
Preparations to forget life is a serious matter.
Preparations to drown protracted speculations about
existence's intensity.
E.T. mania is carrying the day. People adorn stuffed,
life-sized dolls of imagined creatures on the
dashboards of their cars. Children queque up for
hours to get gingerbread designed from scary,
monster dough. Everywhere, the question on
everyone's lips is "how many of'em are there"?
When will contact be made? Will they want to throw
in their lot with mankind or "take over"? After all, it's
our Arc. No one seriously wants reminders of Von
Daniken's chariots riding again or the genetic mumble
about intergalactic breeding.
Going to bed with E.T. is too much. It's the Outer
Limits. Propriety still has some hold even if Marian
Engel did slip up and get it on with a bear. At least
Page 83
that was recognizable earth life. Darth is too much of
a transition even if it's only a One Night Stand.
E.T. is just like Bambi.
He wants to go home.
And alone.
He's not interested in sex.
Too many other myriad problems are floating in his
adorable, gelatin head. Surely earth women can relate
to that. Surely, if the universe is expanding, then it's
because of intrigue in high places. Because cosmic
particles are hammering out new definitions. Anyone
of a thousand theories.
Star Wars can stuff it. We want "peaceful" contact
and on our terms. Ask Orson Welles.
Or H.G.Wells.
Time machines are old hat and another invasion in
Newark is too much to absorb.
With NYC across the river, they've already got all the
action they can handle.
We like our extraterrestial life tailormade and
preferably in our own image. We're prepared to accept
them if they conform to stiff criteria. They have to be
like us and prepared to cooperate. Seeing eye dogs
help the blind, horses were good draft animals for
centuries. We might even want to decorate it like the
Hindoos do elephants; make it into a "religious"
procession such as a Roman Triumph. It would be the
same for outer space visitors. No mutants or Roving
Intelligences allowed. Earth is "off limits" to
marauding predators -- we'll fight at the suggestion
they're here on "reconnoitering missions" as a prelude
to Conquest or the Bermuda Triangle is one of their
many "staging areas" or dress rehearsal sites.
Earth for humankind carries more immediacy than
"Canada for the Canadians". If they are "out there",
they'd better behave.
Page 84
Hollywood's got it all figured out.
There's no shortage or scenarios.
Life support systems will be rushed wherever there is
a sighting with artillery back-up.
The Pentagon is in control.
The Moonies have asked to be informed.
Crackpots the world over await deliverance.
The Earth has big plans for the visitation.
Contact would displace Ihe Copernician revolution as
"a first" in blockbuster events: edge out Columbus'
hat trick, even erase Caesar's Gaelic campaigns.
Such things are no longer "relatable".
Every school kid can fathom "aliens" even if he can't
decline a Latin noun or understand the causes of the
Renaissance.
Unveiling the first spaceship would cap the
evolutionary quest for Enlightenment or realization of
a greater Oneness.
The universal thirst for knowledge would be satisfied.
Still, our trek to the stars would turn in on itself if they
got here first. Something like the Seminoles arriving
in Paris in the 13th century overland from Nice or
finding an orangutan piloted the Viking ship, Sutton
Hoo, into Vineland. It's barely credible and has to be
remade into "tangible" dialogue. No sapient, red
puddles or Dryads need apply. Fuel up the
Crematoria. Break out the electric cattle prods. They
may be common as blades of grass in a meadow but it's
our show. Orange Pekoe intellects will naturally be
suspect. Benign intelligence better be the order of the
day.
Earth is a "closed shop".
Everything Koltur. Everything above board.
No renegade "interpretations".
When will the Juggernaut be?
Human nature is nothing to toy with.