Hard Time Friends

Brought up in a ghost town you comprehend

There are no friends like hard time friends

Our reflections ran across empty store windows

Then retreated to the suburbs before the sun rose

Where people put shit in a box and call it food

We had to escape, dying to live and make good

Leaving your prefab house to find ruins ancient

Chased by your shadow wherever you went

I burrowed into sewer grates or great big sewers

Finding in old lamps and records something newer

Sometimes I think I’d give my hobo bundle away

To run across those store windows with you for a day

History of Poetry

The old poets

Knew the name and views

Of every Hero of Antiquity

Of every God and Muse

Of every flower and tree

The old poems

Spoke of beauty and truth

Followed rules of rhyme and meter

Praised passion and youth

Were devoured by every reader

The new poets

Bust their rhymes to primal beats

Or else in ivory towers slog

Recount their epics in the streets

Or record them on a lowly blog

The new poems

Speak of pain and loss

Of life on the outside

Paint this machine world in gloss

Its showy digital smile hide

I am a poet

Who knows not names of leaf and bud

Lives in a time when gods are dead

But feel the words run in my blood

So must bleed them from my head

Dearest reader

Do not think I write for you

In truth I do it all for me

Projecting my reality is what I do

That is what makes me free

When The Aliens Come Knocking

When the aliens come knocking

Will they find anyone home

Or humans just a myth to scare larvae

In the empire of giant cockroaches

Maybe we’ll live as huge vats of flesh

Plugged into smartphones and feeding tubes

Overdeveloped fingers and eyes

Legs and attention span atrophied away

Or maybe we’ll be here as ever we are

Dancing and drugging and fighting and loving

Some of us doing it on other balls of mud

I hope this last comes to pass

And people will be here to light a fire

To sing songs and dance and warm ourselves

Amid the cold machinery of the universe

Old Is The New Young

Picture my father at the age I am now

We could be brothers, but he’s older somehow

I’m still a student deciding what my life is

I listen to the latest music and podcasts

He already had house, wife, and kids

His clothes and his records were made to last

Today on the bus to school I saw the flair

Of grandpa in leather pants and coat

His student card showed white with hair

Of his aged virility he seemed to gloat

Dior bag over his shoulder slung

Hemp leaf on his hat right bold

Proving that old is the new young

And young is the new old

Ode to Schoolgirls

A quarter century has passed

Since I dreamed of your eyes and arms

Schoolboy from a priest and boy institution

With love in my heart and shit in my pants

You could not but shine in my eyes and heart and below

My young limbs yearned to entwine with yours

Without knowing what to say or do

As a young man

You became invisible to me

I drank beer and talked philosophy

With pot-bellied university women radicals

Then went to teach you in middle school

Where your shy smile and childish strategies

Substituted for a sister who grew up without me

Now an older man

I look at you again with affection

Your laughing short skirted beauty

Your verve and unwavering eye on what you want

And think that if you were my child

How nervously happy a father you would make me

How joyous would be the promise of your mind and womb

Reflections March 26, 2011

Sendai

We were in Labrador when the tsunami destroyed Sendai. The images of waves rushing across the countryside were indelible. I wanted to create an image of how life there unfolded moments before it was swept away, much like the depiction of life in Hiroshima from Hadashi no Gen. Of course, people were already shaken by the quake and many had heard tsunami warnings, so this poem is pbest thought of as the way it was the day before the calamity.

Poetry is a Rap

I didn’t want to write only about the disaster, so this was a Kanye-inspired treatise on why I write.

Fear of Rain

The first day back in Japan and the unending news reports from Fukushima gave the whole scene a sinister air. Even snow crystals became objects of fear.

Dear Mother Earth

Just a note on the fridge for the Earth.

untitled

Just a recollection of the trip to Labrador to see nan and how that tranquility and hope morphed into alarm and despair back in Japan.

Ode to the Outlet Store

Bit of a boring place. No clocks so it seems outside of time, no newspapers in the convenience so a man can’t escape from shopping and immerse himself in the affairs of the world. Seems like a sinister plot, in a way.

Ode to Chernobyl Scubadivers

I read several first-hand accounts that were very lyric. I didn’t so much write this as rearrange what I had read.

The Young Cousins

Vic, Cath, Phil, myself, and Clint as we all were and are. I am at the age where I finally realize the importance of keeping in touch and regret how we have drifted apart. Something I hope to remedy hereon in.

The Next Life

I once heard a prof complain her plumber made more and went on more vacations to wilder places than she did. Fixing toilets seems a small price to pay for honest, well-paying work.

Tiger Lady

For Tomiko.

How I Teach

My philosophy is a mix of what I’ve learned in martial arts, from my dad, during my B Ed, and from life in general. It’s not perfect, but it works for me right now. Just as I urge my students to come to me with an empty cup, I never think mine is full. There is always more to learn.

Shore It Up

A weak poem, much like a Canadian prog-rock song. Still, sometimes it needs to be said.

Nature In Humans

Children especially can have that innocent evil in them. As adults, we have to face that and strive towards a humane humanity and humility.

The Spider

As above.

The Truth About Superheroes

This poem bothered me hours after I wrote it – did it come off as homophobic? Then I realized that those intimations were already there in the source material. Must write something similar about Marvell one day. Comics characters are the new mythic figures, so writing about superheroes is the same as dedicating an ode to Aphrodite, in my opinion.

The Truth About Superheroes

“Look at that Superman

Never stops for autographs anymore

Always some alien invasion or deposed god to fight

He doesn’t bother with petty crimes like murder or robbery

What do you expect? I hear he isn’t even human

Why would some alien care about us?”

“What about the Flash?

He only does fashion TV shows

Since he came out of the closet

Transforms guys into in the wink of an eye

Has his own line of spangled jumpsuits

Saves money by walking to events in Tokyo and Paris”

“That Batman knows how to make money

There’s a Batcave ™ franchise in every major city

Teaching citizens self defense and detective skills

The latest model Batmobile ™ is a hit with dictators

I’ve heard rumors of him and the boys at his ranch

I guess if you’re rich enough you can do anything”

“Wonder Woman’s singing and acting careers were crap

I am her biggest fan of her porn though

That lasso and bracelets are pure S&M fantasy

The video with Power Girl is my favorite

Figures an Amazon princess would be into girls”

“All those guys with their powers

They could cure cancer or stop war and crime

Instead they draw trouble like flies on shit

New York gets destroyed once a week

Gotham and Metropolis were nuked long ago

That’s the price we pay for living with gods”

The Spider

My hand gripped the spray can

Marching through Ontarian trees

Brothers and father in a band

Clearing a path with machetes

I was too little to be trusted

So sprayed red on the slashed bark

Until I felt my fingers brushed

And turned the can around to remark

The spider mirroring my hand

Green brown eyes peering at one another

I screamed and dropped the can

And ran to my oldest brother

I sat on the tatami mats

At night playing Nintendo

Listening to the wail of cats

Reaching their crescendo

When I opened my closet

To get a different game

Eight green eyes shone an instant

So with a broom I bludgeoned him

Later the crippled handlike form

Scrabbled towards me across the tatami

My fear was gone like snow in June

I felt only remorse and pity

This is why I will always fear the spider

But this is why I will never kill another

Nature In Humans

As a child I crippled a bullfrog

Near broke his neck with a heaved stone

For years he swam lopsided in the creek

Beside grandfather’s home

Great old riverside man, forgive me

As a young man I bludgeoned spiders

Whacking them scuttling across my tatami

Putting them on display in bottles

Cursing them as my enemy

Great pest eating night spinners, forgive me

Something there is in human nature

That hates and kills the unknown

It is no wonder we abuse another

If they come from another home

Great heaving mass of humanity, may you learn humaneness

Then forgive and be forgiven

Shore It Up

When the choices you made

Leave you underpaid

You got to shore it up

Build it back up

When the love you planned

Leaves with another man

You got to shore it up

Build it back up

When life’s terrible waves

Takes it all away

You got to shore it up

Build it back up

Life is precarious at best

Do what you can

When you’re dead you’ll rest

You can only shore it up

Build it back up

How I Teach

What I teach

You will forget

So I will teach it again

Until you get it

I promise that

I will not get angry

When you don’t understand

Tell me you don’t understand

And I am happy

To teach it again

If you come to me with an empty cup

I will fill it up

If you come to me with a cup that is full

There is nothing I can teach you

And nothing you can learn
I will try
To take the scales from your eyes
To start a fire
With the branches and brambles you bring
And make a light
In the darkness
To warm you
Before you strike out on the road ahead

Tiger Lady

My Japanese Tiger Lady

The man you made me

Thanks you for your love

Velvet hand in an iron glove

People say I should smile

To have a wife so docile

They don’t know you’re exterior

Hides a fearless warrior

Japanese women defend the hearth

Against all odds and to the death

You have made me stand taller

Made obstacles seem smaller

Wherever we may roam

Beside you is my home

Whatever heights I climb to

My thanks and love I give to you

The Next Life

Great Gautama

In my next life

Please raise me to the rank of plumber

It is a humble station but honest

One knows up front the shit

One will meet everyday

One washes clean with soap and water

One earns enough for a good house and life

It is natural to make shit

As it is to eat food

Most importantly

I will never have to shake hands

Again

The Young Cousins

The Labrador light of the 1970s

Shone on us cousins, made us shine

The oldest boy tormented two younger brothers

The girl shining eyed with beauty and bravado

Middle brother always ornery

Little brother lost chasing butterflies

The last boy playful and left behind

We scattered after the hot Labrador summer

Frozen in the long winter of memory

Living miles and years apart

Broken homes, broken bones, and broken hearts

But when we regroup again

After this quarter of a century

That Labrador light of summer

Still shines from the corner of our eyes

On the maps of worry and weariness

We can trace the young cousin

We knew and were so long ago

Ode to Chernobyl Scubadivers

Forget the cars and the apartment promised

That’s not why they dived

Beautiful boys in clumsy gear

Pedaling through the gloomy waters

The safety valve was heavy with rust

Young limbs tore it into compliance

Its cries reverberating in the water

Back and forth they swam

Happy they were not on the roof

In fake leather boots and real lead vests

Green robots shuttling poison to and fro

Clumsy wheelbarrows and insane speed

7000 roubles for the whole unit was an insult

That’s not why they dived

In Kiev the apocalypse met the stone age

They dived so it would not be worse

Ode to the Outlet Store

O!

Light that outshines the stars

Glitter that outneons the bars

Show me in your crowded place

Consumerism’s ugly haggard face

Women possessed by candy stores

Crash blindly into me on floors

I try in café to find safety and hide

From spectacular spectacles I deride

Newspapers absent from convenience

Therefore do I my purgatorial penance

Not relaxing in a pricey coffee shop

But from tired leg to leg I hop

An hour before the truth I face

An outlet store is no man’s place

untitled

Under the northern lights

I left grandmother

An icicle in the sun

Beating red through palms and eyelids

Growing the grass tickling my feet

Firm on this land of the sun

Whose broken shell a place for birds

Their yolk seeping into the land

Peacefully dreaming

Keeping my head while those about me

Lose theirs

Dear Mother Earth

We've gone and shat the nuclear bed again.
Could you clean it up for us?
It's all your fault, you know.
That quake and tsunami gave us quite a fright.
We know we shouldn't have been messing with matches in bed
But we needed light to read comics by.

Thanx,
Humanity

Fear of Rain

White flakes once tongued with joyous shout

Black snow crystals now cursed and spat out

Caressing close eyed mist ruffling hair

Begets rainbow cloud of slow poison in air

Trust of clear sweet water divine

Turns to fear of deathly yellowed wine

Life spark burning green bud’s windy sway

Births sickly green livery of inner decay

Who can say these mental terrors

May not be realized by man’s errors?

Poetry is a Rap

Any old or young fools who say poems are for wussies

Got no clue what the Bard’s words do for the pussies

Seems like people gotta dis what on my blog I’m trying

Using my poems to keep the inner me from dying

Y’see I’m proud all my homies are dead poets

They told me all about life don’t you know it

So rhymers step up and fend for yourself

Step back poem haters or we’ll put you on the shelf

Gimme any more of your illiterate crap

You’ll wash your head after I pop my ass in your cap

My main French man was Francois Villon

He stirred la merde and kept it going on

Stabbed a priest in the nuts over some hos

Wrote his best words waiting on the gallows

Unknown in his time though people now rave

Booted from Paris into an unmarked grave

In English Keats keen words are truly sublime

Like Biggy or Tupac cut down in his prime

Rapping out odes in the brief candle of his youth

He taught truth is beauty, and beauty, that’s the truth

All us English majors, there’s one thing we knew

Life is too short, so do what’s true to you

Sendai

Grey suits slam steel doors at dawn

Schooners bob like gulls in the bay

Children troop in yellow hats

All that beauty cannot stay

Pensioners swap stories on the dock

Towel headed workmen talk of tonight’s play

Children line up for school lunch

All that beauty cannot stay

The afternoon classes wear on

Boats chug home to port  for the day

Housewives nap before kids and men come home

All that beauty cannot stay

Reflections from the Homeland

The Self and the Soul

More crazy conversations with Glen. As soon as we scientifically figure out where the soul is we are doomed anyway.

Three Bloody Valentines

Inspired by a challenge on my former student’s Facebook page. Thanks Alyssa!

Cheating Hearts

Really, cheaters need to grow a pair. Break up, find another, rinse, repeat.

Revolution of Girls

A bunch of guys rioting in the streets may look like a revolution, but until women are free, nothing really changes.

Bliss Versus Canada

The history of civil rights in Canada is bleak, but nobody knows it. The name of this court case adds a poignant beauty to the whole affair.

On Writing Daily

My philosophy, in case you’re wondering.

Ode to Naked Celebrities

Getting shocked by a naked celebrity is liked being scandalized by a stripper. It is a weird, schizophrenic schism between puritan and peeping tom in our culture.

The Age of Dominoes

They’re still falling.

In Fertility Clinics

Only women responded to this one. Even though I sit next to my lover, I don’t even know half of what she goes through.

When The Earth Opens Up

Ironic that I wrote this about Japanese people being pulled out from the rubble in Christchurch when the rescue teams are now heading back to Japan.

Academic Inflation

A degree is what you make of it. It is not a guarantee or a key, more of a prybar  which you have to know how and when to use.

Streets of Old Quebec

Beautiful old streets they were. Must go and see them again someday. And Ann and Jerome.

After the Moment

I had just had one of those major moments that have the potential to change your life, after which you need a moment of peace. A walk down the river is the perfect answer.

Ode to the Mall on a Sunday

Usually, I loathe malls on Sunday, but to see how Japanese turn it into a wonderland for kids is great.

Ode to Beer

Beer has such a weird history.

Sisters

Marriage can create such bonds between people.

Inukshuk

Inukshuks are just as much characters in the story of Labrador as the people.

Ten Things At A Time

Modern life is way too busy.

St. John's Night Streets

Got the change to walk as I did all those years ago. Much quieter these days. Everybody drives.

Where I'm At

Ted here.

Posting has been a bit spotty as of late. I'm traveling around Newfoundland and Labrador, so connections and reflections are imperfect. On the other hand, it's building up lots of things to get out from inside of me, so that is a good thing. I return to Japan Tuesday, so expect a return to semi-normal, unless I go out and do some volunteer interpretation for the rebuilders.

St. John's Night Streets

After so many lifetimes
To walk your streets again at night
From downtown out to Logy Bay
Feels like coming home

St. John's, I would recognize
Your sussurus of balding tires
Over dirty slush and salt grit
From the murmurs of a thousand cities

The cold night embraces
Making me sweat in my coat
An hour of walking
Gets you anywhere you need to go

In younger times
I walked you twice a day
To and from youth's carnival
A different path just to see you each time

In younger times
Other walkers flashed out from the fog
Nodded or mouthed a warm hello
Then disappeared back into the night

Now your night streets lie empty
Cars quarantine people from you
Sidewalks closed by mayoral misers
Walkers reduced to my transient self

When a grand old city loses walkers of the night
When there is no one to see night's thousand winking eyes
Or be those padded footsteps that disturb sleeper's dreams
Night becomes an empty room in a museum
Or sits like a shining jewel
In a cave long forgotten

Ten Things At A Time

The other day
As I was driving and drinking
Sexting with my left foot
And texting with my right
Taking a portable colonoscopy
While eating TV and watching a sandwich
Calling my mother and learning esperanto
All while reading my stock reports
The wife asked me
"Do you think modern life is too busy sometimes?"

Inukshuk

Standing on the blinding blankness

I see your shape long before you are close

Black silhouette against the blinding white

Your icy rock fingers pointing without fail

A way out of this isolation

To home heart and warmth

Since the time of my grandfather

And the time of his grandfather

If ever you should fail

Tumble down exhausted in the snow

We will build you back up

Just as my grandfather built you up

And his grandfather built you

My hands moving where theirs once did

So you may keep pointing us in the right direction

To home heart and warmth

Out of this isolation

Sisters

Side by side
Washing dishes
Talking and not talking
Japanese and Canadian
Laughing and working silently
My beautiful wife and sister
I am glad and proud to see that our marriage
Has also tied these sisters together