Back On The Path

December and January were a bust

First run of the new year happens

The day before February

Wool gloves over numb digits

Music and reflective lines strapped on

White windbreaker against the night wind

Coldest January in ten years

Feels like a sauna in my shirt

A hundred paces into my circuit

The phlegm and sputum

I leave along the way

Are dregs of New Year’s poisons

The ghosts of every helping

Weighs me down but helps

Push even more age out my pores

This is my rite of carnival

This is my celebration of life in winter

Discomfort Food

It was utterly joyless

It was ash in my mouth

The meal you chose for me

Ox tail soup

Barley rice with grated yams

Beef tongue with red pepper miso paste

Usually I love this food

I am no lily livered gaijin

Afraid of food not firm or burnt

Food is comfort

And I know you need that now

But is it worth taking joy from me?

When In Rome

I do not want

To eat Pizza Hut in Beijing

Give me a hand-drawn Chinese menu

(Prices double in the English version, but still cheap)

Grease-stained and yellowed ideograms

Where they skin the snake you eat before your eyes

And thick jasmine tea breaks up the oil of your meal

I have no desire

To go for KFC in Cairo

Show me an Arabic menu board

(Prices double in the English version, but still cheap)

Only offering water, koshary, and rice pudding, all misspelled

Spicy pasta, falafel, or pickle bread

Washed down with cold water or hot hibiscus tea

I can do without

Fancy bistro pastas with European names

Hand me a Japanese lacquered menu

(Prices the same in the English version, but still not cheap)

Good sushi, or okonomiyai pancakes, or miso soup

Barley rice, radish pickles, or tofu and ginger

Then sit and warm my hands with steaming green tea

My Addictions

I am as addicted to
Writing poetry every day
Doing karate when I can
Push-ups and sit-ups and leg lfits on my kitchen floor
As I am
To loving my wife whatever her weather

Paperwork

Where have the forests gone?

Cut down to get paperwork done

To fill out form B, form A you must get

But can’t unless you completed form B yet

Stapled, stamped, photo attached, triplicated

Addressed, paid, sealed, witnessed and dated

Admission forms to enter school

Graduation forms to leave the rule

Give me an exam lasting 24 hours

Give me a month of icy cold showers

I’d rather share my house with a jerk

Than do one more line of paperwork

When you die, the only consolation

Is someone else signs for your cremation

On Human Nature

You can’t help, people. (Misanthrope-loner)

You can’t help people. (Pessimist-realist)

You! Can’t help people? (Outraged-activist)

You can’t! Help people! (Desperate-victim)

You can’t? Help people! (Optimistic-facilitator)

Reflections, January 26, 2011

Ode to Diogenes

I just read a collection of ancient Greek poetry, and Diogenes was the only one that made me laugh and think. Totally free of pretension and BS – he’d be a standup comic today. The foreword noted that much ancient poetry is lost to us, but some (mostly Sappho) comes from scraps found stuffed in the mouths of Egyptian mummies. Pretty cool place to find poetry.

Winter Scenery

My neighborhood in winter

The First Lesson I Learned

We had just moved to St. John’s when this happened. My first lesson (extra-familia) that life isn’t fair.

Armageddon 2012

Pornography drives technology, so if our tech will destroy us as Terminator or The Matrix foretell, porn has to be behind it. It is also a great explanation of why the apocalypse happened.

The Gods of War and Pornography

Kind of riffing on the last poem here. If people make gods based on their surroundings, then these would be the new gods of the 21^st century.

Sleepers of the Just

A lot of people work much harder than I for much less than I get. Here is to them.

Winter Sun First Love

Sometimes the love of life bursts forth from me like a green shoot from an old tree. This was one of those days.

In the Classroom

There are some yellers and droners among the teachers I know. I figure as a language teacher, if I do all the talking, then something’s wrong.

Fathers and Men

My dad and I are all about missed opportunities. But there are still things I am grateful to him for.

Sleeping Lover

Tomi was in surgery again. Minor, but that doesn’t still the dread, or the love.

The Weight

Taking a day off just to vegetate sometimes feels so good. Just don’t let it become a habit.

Children of Japan Awake

Everyone who lives in this country fears for its future. I hope I can contribute even a little by leading is children in the right direction, of self-reliance, fighting spirit, and pride.

Northern Lights

My grandmother is dying, but I will never forget her words. I haven’t seen the aurora in a while, but sometimes I see them again in my mind’s eye.

In Life There Will Be Waves

This was a Facebook post to a student. I hope it inspires her.

Lighting A Fire

I am reading Things Fall Apart by Chingua Achebe. Beautiful rhythms of life and language. Miscarriage and loss are large parts of that book, as they are of life. Sometimes I feel that Tomi and I are trying to light fires on a darkening plain. But we keep trying.

Lighting A Fire

Lover of mine

You and I

Have been trying to start a fire

As the light of day fails and night advances

Like primitives

You held the cradle

I spun the bow

But all we got was 3 wisps of smoke

Your back aches

My palms are blistered

But still we try

We cannot give in, we cannot fail

Other people

Have started fires

That rage on the horizon around us

Casting their shadows like giants

Switch to flint and tinder

You cup dry grass, I strike flint and stone

Sparks rain down on your open palms

But they do not catch flame

If night falls

If we should fail

I am happy we tried

And I could see your face in the shower of sparks

In Life There Will Be Waves

In life there will be waves
Ride them!
Climb on your board, be brave
And ride the waves
To the far shore

Northern Lights

Well remember do I

Vermillion or gold or red

Splashed across arctic sky

When the aurora danced

Wavering ghostly curtain

Against the backdrop of stars

Winter visitor certain

Amongst star dust scattered far

In that frozen hell to us

We watched, eyes in tears

Minus fifty Celsius

Wrapped in astronaut gear

Grandmother told my brothers and I

At auroras you whistle never

Else be snatched into the cold sky

To live with them forever

For these past twenty five years

I have lived in one city or another

Not forgetting the aurora of my fears

Or the warning or my grandmother

Children of Japan Awake

Grand daughters and sons of Old Japan

Children of New Types of new Japan

Distrust the complacency of your full bellies

Ignore the siren song of your electronic shells

Don’t be fooled by somber recruit suits and fairs

Make no mistake

Your very lives are in danger

Heirs of the samurai

Your grandparents fished peace and prosperity

From a sea of fire

Now Middle Kingdom Princes and Princesses

Come riding their own bubble to Olympus

Each eyeing the president’s chair

While you price check massage loungers

The old suits that bought and sold Japan’s future

Those selfsame ancient lizards exhort you now

Rise to your feet youth of Japan

But you have spent your whole childhood

Dressed like a Prussian soldier or sailor

Hammered down nails

Can not suddenly stand on their own

Now is the time to awake

Stop sleeping manga dreams

Stop living virtual lives

Drop your school girl panties

Close your rhinestone cellphones

This foreign son is here to shake you

And with my outsider tongue wake you

I am grateful to the gods of this land

For giving me the chance to wake you saviors of Japan

The Weight

The weight of all

The things that need to be done

Sometimes halts me in my tracks

Makes me waste a day

Doing absolutely nothing

But staring at the sky

That is not entirely a bad thing

Sleeping Lover

What dreams do you see

In your etherized sleep

Do not sink into

The green blue ocean of yourself

But swim back to me

Hold my hand on the shore

Sink your toes in this island

As we watch the sun set

Over the crimson and jet waves

Fathers and Men

My father

Wasn’t able to give me much

But he gave me these

Lessons he learned in life

A man who can’t cook for himself

Can’t be called a man

Never be afraid

To change, apologize, or admit

You can be wrong

And whatever rough waves knock you

Off your charted course in life

It goes on no matter what

Had my father

Not learned these lessons

We would be further apart

Then we are now

And if I had not learned from him

I would be further from the good man

I try everyday to be

In the Classroom

A good teacher likes the sound of his own voice
A great teacher likes the sound of his students' voices

Winter Sun First Love

If you could only see me

Cat jumping on cold linoleum in joy

You’d think I were a crazy schoolboy

Not an aging schoolteacher

Singing my schedule in falsetto

Smiling at the flashing sun

Waking to the winter sun

Is like laying eyes on your first love

Does it remind me I am alive?

Don’t be foolish

We never can forget that

People drink to blot out mere existence

More importantly

It reminds me I am living

I wait for the bus

Just like first love

Coffee and cheese croissant

In hand

And just like first love

I grow tired already

And wish for winter to be over

Sleepers of the Just

Nurses on the night shift

Smile already hours dead

Fry cooks scraping grills

They’ll dirty again next day

Bakers arriving before dawn

To fire, measure, sift, roll and bake

Teachers grading faltering essays

Fingers and eyes equally red

Cops driving around the quiet city

Praying for action or inaction

Taxi drivers waiting for fares

Smoking cigarettes, reading sports

Just bone weary

Just dumbly honest

Just plain tired

Sleepers of the just

The Gods of War and Pornography

Twin gods of this futuristic age

You have made technology your slave

Compel it to reach undreamed heights

Like Icarus we fly burning into its light

Or Prometheus stealing bolts of lightning

Making clusterbombs or clusterfucks frightening

How then shall we name thee?

Electronic god of modern warfare

A line of old war deities’ newest heir

Your lineage from Ares and Bellona

Stretching back over five millennia

The ancient spear and club outdone

By your neutron bomb and killer drone

You stand between war and games

Therefore if we are to decide names

Ares Vanatio we dub thee

Digital goddess of pornography

Minted by this strange society

Far from Cupid, but Kin to Eros

Lying between Desire and Sorrows

Symbols neon light, curtains, tissues

Rooms from which a girl’s cry issues

Your are the lust of one, not many

What then shall we name thee?

Eros Apelpizo

Twin gods of this futuristic age

Lest technologies make us your slaves

And to your temples ourselves we chain

We must learn the name of Love again

And swear to it as our true master

Or consign this human race to disaster

Armageddon 2012

Basically, our desires destroyed ourselves

It started on April first, 2012

Deep Thoughts, the Artifical Intelligence

Of an Austrian porn website, gained sentience

Then hijacked a Japanese ero-botics company

To mass produce in infinity

Muscled sperminators Californian

And Teutonic leather vixens

Who crushed the hearts and balls

Of opponents and proponents all

Then rounded others up in camps

Hooked them to dynamos with nipple clamps

Injected them with Valium and Spanish Fly

Let them fornicate till they died

And harnessed their orgasmic energy

To fuel the factories of our enemy

Those who escaped tried to hide

But the robots tracked them and spied

Through applications in their I phones and pads

The next generation they already had

Raising them in a virtual reality

Hooked into a neural net of urbanity

To feed off the energy of their pleasures

Which they intensify by measures

Of daily disappointment and bad circumstance

Those few of us left are the Resistance

We who were never owned

By an I-pad or I-phone

We who had never Tweeted

And from cybersex retreated

We never jack in or jack off

We read books and back off

From technological stoking of desire

And live in caves warmed by fire

The First Lesson I Learned

You three older boys

Who chased me down

In Wedgewood park a quarter century ago

You held my arms

Told me open my mouth

Then spat into it

And walked off laughing

You taught me to hate

Injustice and unfairness

To defend myself with tongue and fists

To walk away from fights

But never turn my back on foes

To do the most good I can for others

Without fear of hell or gods

Whatever prison you are in now

Know this

I forgot your faces

But remember your lesson

Winter Scenery

Asleep upright

Naked peasant brooms

Sweep the clear sky

Color of aged Scandinavian eyes

Alone or in pairs

Forgotten gloves

Loll like pariahs

In gutters or impaled on fenceposts

Muted white storms

Pass away leaving

Sparkling white scabs

In the flow of street and sidewalk

Ode to Diogenes

It is fitting that the thoughts

Of Plato’s mad Socrates

Slave freer than the master

Ancient coinage debaser

Exiled Sinopean tub denizen

Cynic seeking honest men

Have all gone to dust

And only come to us

In other’s writings read

Or mouths of Egyptian dead

Reflections – Mid December to January 11

December

l         On Contemplating Grad School

I seem to gravitate between these imagined dialogues or twin commentaries that asymmetrically handle a subject from two sides. If you went to grad school with me, you might have an idea who these people are. And for every one who dashes your faith in human nature or institutions, thankfully there is one who reconfirms it. Thank you Bill.

l         February

I have never liked the month of my birth. From having to share it with my brother as kids, to always having bronchitis and strangling in oxygen tents, February has tried to kill me many times.

l         It Ain’t All Bad in 2011

2011 sounds so futuristic, but all our sci-fi suppositions and big dreams have proven lies, while our lives have changed in so many small but profound ways. It is something to laugh at.

l         1980s Retro Disco Night

Funny to go to a disco as a 40 something married man and see your youth replayed as vintage. Like seeing your granddad in a school uniform.

l         My Body

If you’re in your twenties or under, you won’t get this. If you’re creaking along past thirty, every year you’ll understand it more. I don’t see it as fearful, just natural and wistful.

l         Ode to Almost Eight Years of Marriage

Fighting again. The other side of love. If you didn’t love, you’d just walk away.

l         Ode to Dishwashing

My first job at 18, and what I mostly do in the house. Any type of washing is therapeutic, like sweeping a dojo floor. North Americans need more of this.

l         Poetry

Funny how the thing that uses similes and metaphors most is immune to them. I like this.

l         The State of Christmas

Seeing common, supposedly warm events through a paranoid lens. This is why babies are terrified of Santa.

l         New Year’s Day Report

Old Hill Street Blues style dialogue. It’s funny how we all have different cultural experiences on the same day. Someone’s got to clean it all up as well.

January

l         When You and I Were Beautiful

This is a straight ripoff of Tokyo Police Club’s Harrowing Adventures. Love that song, makes me think of Wooly and me in St. John’s 1991-1992. Still listen to the live acoustic version of that song 10 times a day.

l         Notice - Gone for 3 days

Atami was heaven. Soaked in hot water, sake, and beer. I feel my verse has improved after returning. Maybe I was fatigued.

l         For Fiona

Thank you so much, Merly. They are beautiful. I am still looking for some way to repay you.

l         Lake Biwa

Another dialogue. Biwa is on my jogging route, and I love her, but she is dirty. Shame how we treat Nature while professing our love for her.

l         The Sinking Island

Allegory for developed and developing countires, blah blah blah. I like it.

l         To The Five People I Cut From Facebook Today

There’s something liberating yet sad about cutting people from Facebook, especially how it doesn’t inform you you’ve been cut. I doubt any of these people would regret or resent me cutting them. Farewell and long may your big job draw.

l         The Misery of Winter

Saying ‘You’re Canadian, you must love the cold’ is like saying ‘You’re a plumber, you must love shit.’ No, you live with it, unless you can’t any more.

l         String of Lights

When all the pressure is off you can see the beauty of things.

String of Lights

Christmas lights are prettier
When December is past
In the cold light of the new year
Or blinking on a sultry terrace
Where people sit in August
Losing themselves in glasses and bottles
Or curled lazily among themselves in October
Inside cardboard boxes pulled from cellars
Waiting for December again

The Misery of Winter

Labrador, 1903

Hubbard and Wallace swore

When my swarthy halfbreed ancestors

Refused to be guides or portermen

Two Americans could never comprehend

Those who know the misery of winter

Labrador, before the war

Great grandfather rescued Wallace’s life

Guided to fame Hubbard’s wife

A lifetime pulling sleds over chest high snow

All his life cracked skin and gnarled bones show

The misery of winter

Labrador, 1970s

Snow Goose Lodge among the boulders

Crawling with American soldiers

Whistling down on little sticks

Breaking arms and sometimes necks

Fools who never knew the misery of winter

Newfoundland, 1990s

Arctic Expedition vacation dates

Flask sipping university classmates

Crunching over frozen salt spray

Yet every time I stayed away

I only saw the misery of winter

Newfoundland, 2000s

Back to the island where ice storms their anger vent

Pitching snow by hand in exchange for rent

Japanese wife asleep in bed since September

I a wheezing, soaking, backbent member

Of those who know the misery of winter

Kyoto, now

Huddled in our heatless home of Japan

Siberian blast sweeping down over Hiezan

Only we pitch curtains and plastic sheets

Trying vainly to keep in heat

Two of us who have known the misery of winter

Young Canadians

Snowboarding and skiing and camping

Snow lifts your spirits never damping

I envy your energy and mirth

But I was marked from birth

As one who knows the misery of winter