Glass, Wall and Road

Recent trip pics. 

Downtown Toronto, from the upper-deck window of the Megabus.

 It took us 45 minutes just to get out of the city, due to traffic.

It takes approximately 1 hr 42 min by car from Toronto to Buffalo,
but due to traffic and long wait at the border,
(processing over 100 people, one by one,

in line behind two buses waiting ahead of us),

we got in four hours later than expected.

Mural on Main Street (theatre district),

Buffalo, New York

Into the Pennsylvania mountains
no more glass city
no more brick walls
only road

geese going

Source

                                    That time of year again.

                                          They honk goodbye.

                                                 Another leaf dislodges itself

                                                            from the yellow birch tree,

                                                                    sails past on its way to 

                                                                             the ground.

                                               Ah, Autumn.

                                                        Awe . . .  again.

 "To Life"

 late turners, these

green leaves are stronger,

leave later,

 last longer  -

not unlike

late bloomers, who

 need more time to ponder,

get there slower,

hang on, to hang onto
Wonder.

 Time cycles replaying - Look,
another year, and 
         you're still here,
    to see,

to Be.

blogartlaunch

J'ai lancé un autre site -
moments de plaisir dans l'expérimentations de l'art

Workshop in Progress

The Peat Fire

Photographer: Carl Purcell

The Peat Fire  (Considering Seamus Heaney)

I don't know what I expected--

a smell of old and strange earth

so unexpected, so strong

that my very eyes would tear up

uncontrollably,

my heart tumescent with

thunderstruck recognition

that here, now, I was reunited

with that from where I

through my ancestors sprang

those centuries ago,

here, now, in the land itself

hinted at in my mother's maiden name.

But none of that happened--

the fire whispered,

warming the room

indifferent to my disappointment,

its slight scent joining the others

in the warming air,

as I joined my cousins,

commonly descended from this,

here, now, our

words in flattened, modern accents

our thoughts recognizing only

that the only recognition

possible, desirable,

here, now,

was that of our humanity 

  

~ ~ Peter Fergus-Moore

Thunder Bay, Ontario

____________________________

I first discovered the poetry of retired literacy instructor/freelance writer Peter Fergus-Moore by following a link on Tom Montag's blog.  One of Peter's poems, as well as one of Tom's, will be featured in the upcoming September issue of Salamander Cove, around mid-month.

Wall Flower

Saw today, on a wall at the side of a private residence

on a street downtown where we were lucky enough to find a parking spot

on the way to the Festival of Fall Delights at the Parc Portuaire.

50 Years of Dreaming

                                                                    I have a dream the
                                                                    wars will end.

                                                                    pre-emptive wars
                                                                    retaliatory wars
                                                                   wars of occupation
                                                                   wars to topple regimes
                                                                   wars to mine others' natural resources
                                                                   civil wars
                                                                   racial wars
                                                                   religious wars
                                                                   the war on isms
                                                                   wars to depopulate and remap a place
                                                                   the coming water wars
                                                                   the latest war of Terror
                                                                   World War

                                                                   . . .   all of them.

                                                                 Asleep or awake,
                                                                 I have this dream.

colordabbing

testing the new waterbrush pen

Today I came across mention of a waterbrush called The Piston, which  resembles a fountain pen with the brush part made of synthetic fiber and rabbit hair, the barrel designed to air pump the water.  You can also fill it with ink for Chinese calligraphy.  Its advantage over the squeezable plastic-barrel of the waterbrush I already bought is that the amount of water dispensed by The Piston is precisely controllable.  

I want one of these!!  (Actually, two--one for water and one for ink).  I wish I had known about this before I went and bought the other one.  I also learned that the watercolor set I was given is considered "student grade".  When the paints get used up I can check out the better-quality "artist grade" sets, some of which are enormously expensive. But not all.  One step at a time.  I need to learn how to draw better first. 

Park walk

At the little park beside the river - Nine things you can't do here:

Drink alcohol, play golf, set a fire;

ride a quad, ski mobile, motorcycle or car on the path;

litter; or let your dog poop on the grass.
Okay to fish, or take your mutt for a romp down the hill, though.

[Click on photos to enlarge]
 

 

Reflections in the water of bushes and sky

Same photo, different perspective -

two sides to every story

 Water spirits

mirrors

______________

Photos taken yesterday with my Olympus SZ-14 digital pocket camera.  I played around with the color options on the last photo via Picasa.    Photo #14 is a cropped, lightened, upside-down version of Photo #4.  All other photos are as originally taken, except for rotating or re-sizing.

Not One

Saturday afternoon,

I’m sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of coffee,
looking out the window at my garden out back
when I’m suddenly made aware
of the Absence of something -

Bees.

Where you be, bees?!

I have not seen a single bee here all summer.

Not one.
From May to August.   All the time I spent in the garden,
I should have seen at least one.

Why we should worry --  see  here. If all the honey bees  worldwide disappeared,  no longer there to pollinate our fruit, nut and veggie crops, less food would be able to be produced.   To my fellow planet dwellers -- What's our Plan B for when the food begins to run out?

One Tough Cookie

 

  Helen Thomas (1920-2013)

The Washington Post called her the "feisty scourge of presidents".  She was considered "tough", "outspoken", "abrasive", asking questions others couldn't--or wouldn't.  Questions a bit too probing for some, perhaps.  During the Bush administration she was summarily moved from her usual place in the front row, all the way to the back. A demotion (de-motioned).  You can't really see hands raised way, way in the back, or maybe even hear the question.  An effective strategy to pretend not see or hear someone.  Mission accomplished.

Today, criticism of your government's leader, policy, or behavior could get you blacklisted, or at the very least, "watched".  It depends on how you phrase it, in which venue, and the level of your probing or persistence.  Thinking a thing is one thing.  But blatently, passionately stating it or pursuing the truth of it (or worse, mediatizing your pursuit of an inquiry), can cost you your career as a journalist.

Press conferences don't seem the same without her.  Where are the gutsy, probing, really tough questions today?  The ones we all want answers to that just aren't being asked (or if asked, repeatedly go unanswered).  I watched a press conference recently where reporters stood or sat, pen and notepad ready, and to almost every question came the shrugfull response:  "We'll have to get back to you on that"; "I don't know the answer to that"; "I can't comment on that, it's classified"; "We don't know at this time", "I'm not authorized to divulge that information. ..... Next question?"

And not only at government press conferences.  Major traumatic events, such as mass shootings, or terrorist captures or attacks, or drone kills--why are the official reports so rife with inconsistencies, explanations that constantly change (inaccuracies never corrected), that strain common sense, the results of investigations kept secret, documents gone missing, inadvertently or deliberately shredded--or legislature quickly enacted to make them unavailable?

If you blow the whistle on corruption, you are not thanked; instead you yourself sometimes become a target.  If you question the lack of evidence, you are considered impertinent (or a conspiracy theorist). If you ask too many questions, you are first marginalized; then made an example of.  The result from the public is not, as one might expect, revolution, but apathy.

I imagine a future where at press conferences or daily briefings to reporters, official spokespersons will probably be dispensed with altogether.  Some underling will be designated to show up and hand out prepared printed statements, which reporters can then use to paraphrase and regurgitate into their respective 'reports'.  By that time maybe  no one will be reading newspapers or watching the news anymore, televised fictional happenings long having replaced the real news; besides, nobody could tell the difference, they've gone mad trying.  And so it goes, as Vonnegut would've said.



Journalists come
journalists go.

They go where others sometimes fear to tread
           and wind up dead
(or shunned or ridiculed,
sent politely      to the back row
so as not to be so       in your face.

'Now, now, behave yourself', is what is meant.
Know your place.)

But if questions don't get asked no more --
           does that mean we already   know the score?
       or that it no longer
 matters.


R.I.P. Helen Thomas


 

bird, watching

'Morn, on the 4th of July

My country, 'twas of thee,
land once of liberty,
for thee I weep.
Imprison, torture, kill;
Wage wars on every hill,
Then spy, and lie, and shill.
            (We are not sheep)

My country, ‘tis of thee
Please help me, help me see
Where we went wrong.
The Constitution’s dead
Our flag they want to shred
Instead of pride there's dread.
             We’ve lost our song.

My country, split by thee
No more Tranquility …
So far off track!
I want some pride to flaunt,
Not hear those hates that haunt
But most of all I want
               true freedom back.

 _________________________

*experimental improvised lyrics to the  patriotic song.  Today's supposed to be a day of celebration.  It is difficult to celebrate repeating slogans, wearing symbols, waving pieces of cloth that no longer symbolize the original intent of the forefathers.  Hot dogs and beer, ball games, parades, family picnics, fireworks--the tradition continues; our culture demands it.  But sentiments are divided.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless,
Tempest-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

 [Inscription on the Statue of Liberty].

America can't even take care of its own tired poor, much less its homeless, and its borders no longer welcome huddled masses yearning to be free, never mind the wretched refuse of other teeming shores.  The giant statue of a stone lady lifting a lamp remains a treasured national icon.  But things have changed. The world has changed.  We still celebrate our traditions.  Because without them, what would hold us together?  

I'd rather celebrate today  those things that continue to hold us together--our shared humanness. That despite the madness and chaos and hardships, the stupidities, banality, latest political outrage, or national physical or constitutional catastrophe ... we still cherish freedom, justice, privacy, and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  In absentia then, a toast -- to the America I wish it were, and perhaps some day might finally, eventually       become.

Out Back Today

in the parsley patch

Lemon balm, cappucine (not yet flowered)

one-armed Buddha, in the tomato patch

Pepe

To, From and About Dads

A reposting of poems collected in 2011 re: fathers, on Salamander Cove :

Sons and Fathers – Brighton Beach

In the palm of his hand
I tried to be perfect and I was. My two sandled feet
the width of his one great hand – my soles rooted
to his life line, mound of Venus, mound of Mars.
Held high, an acrobat stunt, or an offering to the Gods,
I was not afraid of him but perfect in his hand, face, smile -
our same curly hair -
my baby coat buttoned high with one round collar scalloping
my fat cheek. I grew and he had to use two hands
to keep me – one foot in each hand – his balance was my balance.
I grew and he used his feet on my hip bones
to suspend me above him.
I grew and his hand supported my back to push me forward.
I grew and he placed his hands on my shoulders to slow me down.

We have the same ears but it was his brown eyes that held me
brought joy, sorrow, sharpness and obsidian anger. Taller, I grew,
still trying to be approved, to be perfect, always wanting
to be held high again held that sacred again
but I know
if I stood on his hands now
I would crush him.

~ ~ Suzanne S. Rancourt

From Muddy River Review Issue #3 (Fall, 2010).  

"Father and Son"

Photo by Rosemarie Hayes of LifeUnfoldsPhotography

Today's Lesson

I do not have much
of my father left:
a hat, a coat, and some gloves.

They are not him though.
They belonged to him;
they have learned his shape by rote

(tried and true is best)
so when I wear them
I can feel him again and

again. Again, that
is the key word here.
And it should not be a verb.

~ ~ Jim Murdoch

Published in  This Is Not About What You Think   (Fandango Virtual, 2010).  

Candid

When I saw
the photo of myself
I squirmed
for only a moment
then looked straight at it.

I saw a gray man
with a crooked smile,
my father’s face looking back at me,
sporting a half-mouth grin
I’d only ever seen in one photograph
from Korea, green before first combat
in his uniform,
his whole platoon around him,
his hair short, his eyes bright,
nine years before my birth.

In the picture he’s smirking
as if he knew even then
that his son would someday come
to a similar moment of recognition
and amused resignation,
a moment of humor
before a terrifying future,
that my face
would inevitably become his
in spite of all my years of being certain
that if I just kept my head down
and did everything he never did,
I could keep such a thing
from ever happening.

I wonder if he knew
that it would take this long.

~ ~ Tony Brown

 

 

Whose Mouth Do I Speak With

I can remember my father bringing home spruce gum.
He worked in the woods and filled his pockets
with golden chunks of pitch.
For his children
he provided this special sacrament
and we'd gather at this feet, around his legs,
bumping his lunchbox, and his empty thermos rattled inside.
Our skin would stick to Daddy's gluey clothing
and we'd smell like Mumma's Pine Sol.
We had no money for store bought gum
but that's all right.
The spruce gum
was so close to chewing amber
as though in our mouths we held the eyes of Coyote
and how many other children had fathers
that placed on their innocent, anxious tongue
the blood of tree?

~ ~ Suzanne S. Rancourt

From Billboard in the Clouds  (Northwestern University Press, 2010);
first published by Curbstone Press, 2004. 

         home from the steel warehouse
         dad's lunch box filled
         with wildflowers

                              prayers over
                              dad’s casket descends
                              through a maze of severed roots

           

“Red Hots!”

 for an instant i’m ten
 and father’s still alive

                                  

~ ~ Ed Markowski

"Steel Warehouse"  was published in tinywords, October 26, 2005.
"Prayers Over" was first published on David Giacalone's blog f/k/a June 19, 2005.
"Red Hots" was published in Haiku Sun Magazine, Issue #10, 2004.

The Portrait

My mother never forgave my father
for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time
and in a public park,
that spring
when I was waiting to be born.
She locked his name
in her deepest cabinet
and would not let him out,
though I could hear him thumping.
When I came down from the attic
with the pastel portrait in my hand
of a long-lipped stranger
with a brave moustache
and deep brown level eyes,
she ripped it into shreds
without a single word
and slapped me hard.
In my sixty-fourth year
I can feel my cheek
still burning.

~ ~ Stanley Kunitz

From Next to Last Things: New Poems and Essays, 
Atlantic Monthly Press, 1985.

                                          dad’s grave

                                          all
                                          the

                                          flowers
                                          he

                                          wouldn't
                                          let

                                         momma
                                         plant

                                        ~ ~ Ed Markowski

                                                                                  Published in tinywords, July 24, 2006.

For My Father

After you've been gone,
I've been flying alone back and forth
above the waters and the continents.
Both of us: me here and you there
know too well that this is a waste of time
and space.
I may be flying, looking for you
for the rest of my life
or death, and still never see you.

Nothing can be undone,
and I can't take it.
Nor I can take the fact
that every time I see my close ones, I know,
it may be the last time I see them.

Don't worry about me. While I fly,
an angel in uniform attends me,
gives me some water and bread,
and smiles to me.
She takes care of me
until it's time to get out,
get in line for the luggage
and then to disappear into crowd
which lives on the exhaust,
cyclic persistence
and canned expectations.

The latter is something
I live on myself, expectation
melting slowly into waiting
as I keep on flying
in the space given

~ ~ Andrey Gritsman

From: Live Landscape, Cervená Barva Press, 2010.

A Thought On Father's Day

        I read this poem at my father's funeral on April 23, 2003. 
        Lawrence J. Holder was 86, and one helluva guy.

And yes
it has come to the time
when I see my father's face
in the mirror,
my squint is his
the nascent crow's feet
stretching into laugh lines
my angry brow
solicits the always surprising question
"What's wrong?"
"Why--nothing."
Didn't I always ask him the same question?
Do I find myself
praying over the New York Times
like a scholar over a sacred text?
A drink to my side
my legs crossed right to left
just like him?
Was that him the other day
that reflection in the store window
slightly hunched
arms stiff
swinging robotically
clothed in Seersucker?
I looked back
but he was gone.
Was I chasing a hallucination?
Like him
I am drawn to the sea
to the sound of breaking waves,
on the shore-
to the eternal ebb and flow
to the primal smell of death and life
to the gulls sitting shiva
on the rocks
to the purple death
of the sun each evening
its bright rebirth
from the portals of the sea's horizon.
Who is this man I see?
It is my father
and it is me.

~ ~ Doug Holder

The Somerville Journal, April 27, 2003.

                                                                  Pinching the bridge
                                                                  of my glasses
                                                                  for cleaning –

                                                                  my father’s
                                                                  fingers.

                          ~ ~ Don Wentworth

                                                                                                                               The New Yinzer, Invisible Cities (Spring, 2009).

Riddles for My Father

Whatever we see when awake is death;
when asleep, dreams.

               — Heraclitus


He began in Colorado.
Anyplace he loved was home.
His breath scarred by cigarettes
was a rough-barked branch;
an orphaned owl hunched there,
amber eyes cradling a banked fire.

The moon was new all of his life.
The stars trafficked in secrets.

Only the earth woke in his hands
that were strong as barn-door hinges,
and he savored the give and take
of seed and harvest. His nightmare:
an upright pitchfork forgotten
deep in a mound of hay.

But always there was a horse
snorting in its damp stall,
and a saddle on the stall rail,
and not far off some mountains,
and canyons a man might live
another life in, and rivers he might
step into and out of at will....

(He’d never have heard Heraclitus
in those lines, for who in our family
would have loved such riddles
but me? I knew he’d declare them
dark and not to be trusted—so
I always held my tongue.)

Now he sleeps in the earth,
in that long dreamless house
clods drummed down on
like hooves. His face
is a new moon, and all
that was starry in him flies
like a dry beam of light
away from me. His hands
lay like broken sheaves
at his sides.

I’m awake.
And Heraclitus
is ashes in my mouth.

~ ~ Joseph Hutchison

 The Rattling Wall, Issue 1 (Spring 2011).  

Father-Son Conversation

To J.V.P.
Born 24 January 2006 - Died 27 January 2006

Dear imagination of a boy, my round idea,
you will not know the calluses on my hand,
I will not teach you to wave hello.

You came in waving goodbye, in your way,
and the sound of your own music filled
the hallway between this place and another.

Beauty is not for everyone, but you gathered
the light from the hospital into your face.
To be brutally honest, I loved you.

I tried to hold you carefully by the stem,
But you were determined to fall, and falling,
blaze up like an evening populated with cloud.

You wore your mother's womanly lips, pursed
in a pleasant smile, but your eyes you protected
from the too-bright world we learn to call home.

The music within me is quiet, but persistent.
One day, like you, I will return to being the song.
Beneath my eyelids, too, runs the sound of water.

Beneath this world, another, and another.
Who would give me a map to find you, the paper
superimposed with a constantly moving "X"?

To me, you were first a synapse, then a son.
Now grief sparks again in my dome-covered brain.
I row the underground waters, lantern in hand.

I tried to hold you carefully, but goodbye
was already on your lips, a silent prayer.
I will go on speaking to you as long as I live.

~ ~ Robert Peake

From: Human Shade (Lost Horse Press, 2011).