The Black Cat Walks Down

The Black Cat Walks Down

See the Chateau Frontenac in the photo
looming over the steep street
and the cat
walking towards my call

the woman behind me impatient
with my camera and me
and now the cat

we are visitors here
to celebrate my birthday
and we are fumbling the love
that jumped between us
like a small black cat
chasing a white moth
that has flown
by mistake
into
dangerous territory

the cat rubs
my ankles and turns
to a familiar alley

and she and I
start walking up the street
to find a drink
or a visual distraction
I can trap with my camera

that's right I think
we used to be in love

I can feel the small black paws
pushing harder and harder
each time

...wanted to feel...

The tank fired, the camera shuddering
The snow sprinkled town
Pulled a flaming rose
Out of the rooftop
Like a magician taking a handkerchief
From his coat

Gulliver is lying down I thought
He cannot move
And these ant men
Fire their ant guns to kill the ants
We cannot glimpse

An old woman and a young boy.
She does not want to send him for water
His stomach wants bread
He dreams of rich soup
Potatoes and milk

The commercial for a new Ford
Stepped between them and my feet
Filling the TV window.
The room was warm
I had removed my socks
My toes on the hassock
wanted to feel beach sand

A Spring Surprise

The deep blue colour
of the water is a spring surprise.
The grey ice and the white snow
have broken
like one large egg
the sun and the wind
are friends to me
winter is fleeing

Even the beginning
of a poem
can occur now
that the sun has gone down
and the room
is surrounded
by black ink
filling
all the space
between me
and the bay.

"On the phone
when her
voice slipped to the floor
shattering like a glass bottle that
broke and rolled
with that sound..."

Two Men Talking

we talked on the phone
we both had vehicles and the time to drive
but we had sat over coffees
in doughnut shops
a public, virtual kitchen
a neutral ground
although there was no question of battle
just two aging men
talking
talking about the day's events
cuts and quibbles
no women to take our time away from this
some days the phone is enough
talking

Dutchie goes down the road

(from 1973)

The little Dutch boys played
around the bunker,
threw hand grenades and fired
the Schmeisser Machine Pistols,
Live ammunition for toys
after the death of the war
in the spring and summer of '45.
They were half starved kids
but they had the strength to play.
They could run where they wanted
except for the minefields,
of course.

Dutchie told me about it
after beating my ass for the second time
at chess, in the rec hall, at Syncrude
north of Fort McMurray, Alberta
"We had everything we wanted.
It was just lying around," he laughed.
He stayed in camp that weekend
so he wouldn't drink, he was tired of it.

The morning they let him go
he was drunk.
The General Foreman was an old pal of his.
But it didn't matter.
His back hoe stuck in the mud.
He'd walked it off his log pads.
His thermos bottle had been full of vodka.
"I don't give a shit," he said.

They used the widepad D5 cat
to come in and hook up the tow cable.
That cat could practically float on water
with those extra wide tracks.
The mud was so glue-like,
held the hoe tight, so stubborn
that the cable snapped
and the General Foreman
got missed by the flying cable
by about six feet or so
He would have been cut in half.
A little like a Schmeisser
might have chopped him.

My operator swore.
Then he laughed,
"Boy, that'll sure ruin your day."
Everyone who was there witnessing the event
took a step or two back.
I took more than that.

Dutchie laughed and laughed.
"Screw it," he said.
His great potatohead face
with the skull-close crew cut
and his big flapping ears,
he had no chest but a decent beer gut,
white reedy arms.
He looked past all of us.
He was already down the road
driving south to Red Deer
where he owned two houses.

Someone took the crewcab
to get another tow cable.
A thicker one.

Dutchie threw his thermos bottle
as far as he could,
the orange and tan vessel
arcing out
over the torn up mud, clay and muskeg.
He stepped into the cab of the hoe,
slammed the door shut.
We could hear his portable radio start up.
A country tune.

"Leave him alone,"
said the General Foreman.
"We need to get another hoe in here.
He's not going anywhere."

All of it Together

all of it together
falls into the lake,
the pain,
the memory
and the warmth of a kiss,

it all falls together
into the present
and the past
and the joy is lost
and the future
hangs out over the lake
like an old branch
children have swung on
the tire and the rope
and it is deserted now.

Carefully carefully

The camera frame edge
cuts the water
and the shore line trees
carefully

carefully as the clouds slow walk
across the blue sky

The ducks' wings slap at my ears

Sun on the water
Sun on the leaves on the water

give me
another good day
Jesus
please

touching two backs

recollections memory
sense memory
an old game

sound of the bathroom fan
clean cotton sheets
stroking the young woman's back
the silk of her skin
before we made love


another night
rubbing the stroke-twisted ankle
of my mother
the 79 year-old widow

rubbing her back through her
baggy pyjamas

rubbing her back one night
when she was upset and could not sleep

he used to do this for her
every night

A Beer at Lunch

[October 1994 Time Capsule Poem]

The talk at lunch
was nothing new
just the politics of the office,
the unknown factors
the stupidity
of the decision makers
their technical ignorance
their improvements
from the all time low
of worst management
how well defined were the dotted lines
on our necks
that said, "Cut Here"

we were all at the mercy of the economy
and the withdrawal of the recession

The food was Tex Mex
or at least the Canadian version
of that chow.
The cases of Corona were stacked up behind us
like a consumable wall.

Catherine, our waitress,
was about 21
and exuded bubbles
not of sex but of youth

one of our party
flirted with her
in a polite and socially acceptable way

I remembered
my new resolution
to stop falling in love with waitresses,
just in time

Poem fragment 950615

And so the dog
came in and ate my soul

grunting
and chewing

in the blackness
of the living room

And the fire flickered
soothing my eyes

caressing the front of my mind
I listened hard

but the devil said nothing
he had all he needed

and I was trying to remember
how that dirty old game

of desire worked
how it rolled out of my eyes

like the worms
will tumble out of the eyeholes

of my skull
the fire told me to
lighten up

so I did

There is no room in my heart anymore

I have had the fire sale
the yard sale
and the moving to the moon sale
and there is nothing left
and as each item passed to new hands
the floor space continued to shrink

and the lights dimmed
and the wolf howled my name
and I failed to respond although

I hid
under the edge of the bank
in the cold water of the river

later wading out through the reeds
and testing the mud bottom with my distant white feet

the owl was watching
the sound of my lungs rushing up
the bubbles of my breath
reaching for the moon
I howl
and the water rushes in.

Montego Bay Resort

(for L.)

I waken in the bed
Sunlight begins to fill the room
Opens my eyes wider
But it is not you

The fan spins above my head.
I can hear the surf
The sheets of cotton hold me
In the smallest caress
But it is not you

I stand on the balcony
See the sand and water meet
Feel the wind on my bare chest and legs
Pushing gently at me
But it is not you

Later floating in the sea
Counting clouds then closing my eyes
I feel your hands
Support my head and back
But it is not you

That night when I turn the key
coming back to the room
The empty room
The aching empty room
Is full of you.