New Butterfly Effect

A man in a suit

In a glass tower

Can sign a piece of paper

And rob a million of their livelihood

Or send a million soldiers marching

Drop tons of fire or split the atom

On a country

He has never been to

Or even seen

Points of View

Willy Wonka river

Chocolate milk spilling over its banks

Oompah Loompahs in colorful clothes

Giant red, white, and blue toy machines in a row

Is how the flood looks on TV

But when it comes through your doors and windows

Or surrounds your car

Or carries away all you own

It looks like

The end of the world

Reflections July End

Reflections July End

I haven’t done a reflection since May, but my day job kept my pretty busy. Wrote a lot of poems in that time, and some of them are pretty good.

The Rani of Jhansi

Don’t know how I cam by her story, some random Google misread. Her tale enchanted me, so here it is.

Life

Came to me at the same shrine. Sat drinking lemonade while huge boulders balanced overhead at the foot of the mountain, held aloft only by roots and lichen. That, my friends, is the precariousness of life.

Messages From Beyond

At a shrine in the hills and this came to me. People are desperate, so desperate to believe. When I’m gone I’m gone, believe me.

Modern Kama Sutra

Just a funny thought I had while making love and fearing that knock on the door on Sunday. Developed it a bit and voila.

The Storm God

If typhoons are the manifestation of gods, it only shows how feebleminded they are/

Ode to Sudan

I hope the partition solves some problems, I really do. Sudanese tell me their country is beautiful, but what people do to each other there is pretty ugly.

Where You Are At

It’s important to have a sense of scale. Life is infinitesimal, but not meaningless. And the narcissism of religion isn’t needed to give it meaning.

This Exile Life

We all make our choices. I am happy with mine.

Rice Husking

Something as simple as taking a bag of rice down to b husked can be filled with beauty, if you look at it right.

African Koan

I am dying to go on a safari. Seeing animals who have carved a niche in Africa’s nature could teach us so much.

A Poet’s Heart

Being a poet is even more important now, when science and capitalism suck the mystery from life.

The Right Time

The priorities of humanity are messed up. Just saying.

The World Forecast

The bullshit that countries put out as their version of common sense is really astounding. Thank Zod I am a citizen of the world.

Ode to Canada Day

Yep, a hot and sunny day to represent an icebox of a country.

The Rich Earth

Rich people think only of squeezing the most out of the planet. They seem to have forgotten that they have to live on it, too.

Ode to the Free Drink Machine at School

This thing is a lifesaver, and almost

The Country of Friday Night

Having a great Friday night at this age is like passing back into a parallel universe where you lived most of your time when you were 19. Nice to pop in again.

Japanese Summer Haikus

In addition to the normal heat and humidity, Fukushima has stolen a lot of relief from people in Japan. Hard summer coming.

Student Poetry

Getting students to write poetry was one of the best things I did this semester. Each class regardless of level surprised me. That fact that poetry is decoupled from the necessity of grammatical perfection and the avoidance of ambiguity that marks good prose makes it a great exercise for students. They stumbled into some good phrasing.

Lament for Tripoli

Europe should never have started dropping bombs in Libya, in my opinion. Regime change and bombs for peace usually do not work. When will we ever learn?

Won’t Stop Till The Motherfucking Top

Listening to lots of Kanye, just had to throw down on all the haters out there. Lamely enough, I have haters.

Jogging Downhill

As far as I can tell, I haven’t changed much in 20 years. Matured, become a better worker and person in general, but my joy for life hasn’t gone anywhere. I thin that’s why I love working with young people so much.

Knowing Plants

Living in cities really disconnects you from nature. I’m a poet who doesn’t know the names of flowers. Pretty sad.

Crash

Our high speed development is causing all sorts of things to crash down around us. Hopefully we can build up better things, that it is hard to see how at the moment of impact.

Two Poems

Poetry can have such strong reverberations with the human heart it really is amazing. As for the poem itself, the quickest way to feel what it is like to be treated as if you were retarded and illiterate is to go to a completely different culture. Puts you in your place.

On Humanity

What would aliens think of us? I am afraid the impression we make would not be that good.

Leaps and Bounds

Technology again. We are almost like wizards in a sense, at least we would be in the eyes of our ancestors.

The Rumble of the Gods

Fukushima reminded us how fragile all this technology is. No wonder people created gods to explain the raw force of nature.

Winnerville

Time to move on methinks. I’ve started looking around. Wish me luck.

Ode to The Bloop

There’s so much further mankind has to develop. Hope we can break out of our shell and learn to fly.

My Stupidest Students

Never look down on students. They may not know what you know, but thy may have many other talents.

Gay Co Worker

Went out drinking and found out. Happy to see people happy, whatever their orientation. Too many aren’t.

Millipede

Amazing little creatures. Pure psychopathic machine. Also slang for a 100 person plus orgie.

Then and Now

As I kid I was so envious of adults, and it always seemed strange how envious they were of me. Now I know.

Matinale

Waking up to my wife’s face is a joy. Her rituals hide her true beauty.

The Peddler

English teacher as peddler of words. Pretty cute. Where do I come up with these things?

Of Love and Pain

We are getting to that point of giving up on ever having children. As long as I have her I can be happy, and giving up also means no more painful miscarriages. I am ready for that. Is she?

Ode to Youth Wasted

Youth should be wasted, up to a point. If the young were as calculating with their time as adults, what a dull life it would be.

The Rani of Jhansi

Motherless girl queen

Adopted light-hearted dear Chhabili

Adopting in turn

When your princely son was lost

Dalhousie claimed his lapsed throne

Gave Anan Rao a pension instead

Revolution over pork and beef bullets

Which sent Muslims and Hindi alike to unclean death

Shook British from the subcontinent

Like fleas from a king's dog

You kept calm leading the haldi-kumkum

But when a Rose laid siege to Jhansi

You jumped the wall on horseback

Adopted son clinging to your back

Rallying rebels at Kalpi

You pushed the invaders back

Till your lifeblood was spilt

Laid low in armor with sword in hand

Even the Rose acknowledged

Your beauty, cleverness, perseverance

And most of all your danger

In truth your body scattered with the birds

Turned to seeds of bronze

Spread your shining flower all over India

To remind all women

Of the beauty and bravery

They are heir to

Life

The vines and roots

Hold the boulders fast

It’s life that keeps

The mountain from falling

Messages From Beyond

A bank of broken telephones

Eating coins as we call home

Giving no signal or dial tone

We are so desperate down here

That we keep trying year after year

That we pay some deceiver

When he waves the receiver

And says we should be believers

Of his link with the father

When he is alone like any other

When my systems fail and I go offline

Don’t waste a second of your time

Trying to reach me

I’ll have left these cares behind

No forwarding address left to find

Just mental photos of me

I will state it lest you read me wrong

There are no messages from beyond

Modern Kama Sutra

Jehovah position

Man outside the door

Sticks his cock in the mail slot

The woman gives it lip service

Fundamentalist position

Woman wears a burka

Man hits her if any flesh shows

Or she thinks of another man

Atheist position

We do it whatever way we want

We just don’t believe in one another

Or anything greater

The Storm God

Raiden comes

Ancient man on his bicycle

Whipping winds

Before him

Sometimes doubling back

In senile dementia until

The clouds ebb away

Rain settles in the rice fields

And he forgets

What it was he came for

Then the storm god is gone

Leaving the sky washed chrome

Ode to Sudan

World’s youngest country

I do not know you

But I hope for you

I have met your beautiful sons and daughters

And I wish them well

I have seen your sons in Egypt

Flown from death in their hometowns

Working, five to a giant shovel

Four grunting on the haft, one guiding the shovel with a rope

The new Jews of Egypt, enslaved

Waiting for their Moses

I have taught your sons and daughters

In classrooms in Canada in my hometown

Learning at dizzying speed

Going to school, getting jobs and citizenship

The new Canadians, free

Tired of waiting for life

World’s youngest country

I do not know you

But I hope for you

I have met your beautiful sons and daughters

Who return to your renewed soil

And I wish them well

Where You Are At

An infinitesimal animal

Spinning on a ball of rock

Looking through a sky painted blue

By the air that courses through you

A hundred hundred million little cells

Working together to make you, you

I do not need gods

To thank for this miracle

I do not need to live forever

I’ll cross the stage

Then go to the wings without rage

Fearing neither heaven nor hell

Content that I acted well

This Exile Life

Canada is the house where I was raised

So large and empty nowadays

Walls filled with my childhood pictures

Japan is the apartment I live in

Crowded with books and things

Shared space for the love of my life and I

Rare colors of a Labradorean flower from the wild

Flourishing in the sun and hothouse warmth of this isle

Alone far from its fellows

Or a delicate frost bitten Japanese lily

Strangled without sun and withering beside a cool window

Blasted by north Atlantic storms

The choice was simple

And I do not regret it

Rice Husking

The husking booth

Is a sauna in summer

My sweat beads on the brown bag

The last eight or nine kilos of rice

Sent from her uncle in Kyushu

His waving green fields

Far from this dirty city parking lot

Where I dump the brown kernels

Into the hopper and insert 100 yen

The booth shakes and chugs

While I batter a reggae drumbeat

On its sides so that no rice escapes

But all comes spilling back out

Into the empty brown sweat-stained bag

A sparrow comes to see the concert

Gets driven away by two hungry pigeons

Black eyes scanning for dropped kernels

Pure white polished rice, rice

Leaving sweet, nutritious nuka

For some neighborhood lady to come drain

From the machine into a container

Throw in cut carrots and daikon and cucumbers

To make cool pickles for her family

As I carry the bag of rice back to mine

African Koan

The cheetah chases the warthog

For 1.5 minutes then quits

Before his brains boil away

The lion waves away a cool skinned zebra

Whose black stripes shimmer in the heat

Then sprawls in the arms of a tree

The hippo sweats cooling blood sweat

And his feces gives life to the life in the river

So that even the crocodile leaves him be

All these animals understand better than any man

What is important in life

And what should be let go

A Poet’s Heart

All these silver clouds

Have their dark linings

It’s hard to see beauty

For the truth of factory walls

Harder to sing of love

When emotions come in capsules

Poems have become jingles

Written by software

But the poet’s heart

Surpasses flesh and electricity

MacDougall found the 3/4 ounce soul

But he never found what it is

The poet has always known

It is the font of poetry and life

The Right Time

In the middle of a storm

Is no time for mutiny

When waves threaten the ship

Save yourselves through unity

Waiting in the slaughter pen

Is no time for keeping quiet

Let the butchers hear your voice

Rise up in raucous riot

When the house is on fire

Is no time for starting a fight

Fight against the flames and smoke

Or be extinguished in the night

The World Forecast

Chinese exports

Of propaganda and great stonewalling

Are up again this quarter

America still corners the market

In fear and related futures

Canadian complacency

Accounts for its stability

While Japan debuts the latest denial technology

It hopes to export to third world dictatorships

Afghanistan’s grassroots growth

In corruption and chaos

Sets the pace for the region

While the rest of the world is carved up

By the bull and the bear

In terms of the economy of common sense

Looks like another banner year

Ode to Canada Day

Blue sky blazing

Snowy white clouds grazing

July first my dear

Is the least Canadian day of the year

The Rich Earth

Eating lobsters and black tuna

As the sea dies off massively

Flying across the world

As the ozone dissipates

Shuttled around in limousines

As trapped gas superheats the winds

Drinking pink champagne

As clean water gets scarcer

Seeing doctors and nutritionists

As diseases return and life quality plummets

When the poor are starved and poisoned

The rich will live long after

To enjoy the hell they created

And when even the last billionaire is gone

The rich earth will live on