what i've been meaning to say

i have not been totally honest
or rather i've been telling truths that are irrelevant
hiding the meat
hyping the condiments
waving my hands
to distract from my eyes
all 'look over there!' when really
it's all here inside.

i keep writing love songs
and leaving out the names
hoping the 'you' and the 'me' are obvious;
but pronouns are just loose change,
just shorthand,
just quicksand
where we lose first our particular shoes
then slowly our legs, our hips, our thighs
and even that's just me
resorting to my instinct to generalize
when what i'm really trying to do
is describe exactly you
to unscrew a pen cap
and freehand a road map
of the curve of your nose
the first time i really saw it:

that new year's eve, at the obligatory party.

you on the sofa, me on a cushion
in the middle of the room of my own private ocean
playing that game with the sharks
in the carpet
where if i touched a toe down
they would tear me to bits
autumn had waned into winter
but i was already springtime
all curved lines and anxiety
wondering if a girl like you could see
the trees growing wild
inside a guy like me
who played badly at cool
loved madly but foolishly silent and slow
who brushed his teeth twice before
daring to phone you to ask if you'd be there
so i wouldn't have to be there alone.

and yet there i was
knees drawn up to my chest
hoping you would suggest
i come over and join you
hoping you'd yawn and rest
your head on my lap
so i could stroke your hair
at the stroke of midnight,
hoping for once
i could start the year right
right beside you and your body
close enough to whisper your name
so nobody would hear it but you,
hoping i could privatize our public lives
could get inside your head
and your levis, hoping i
could dive into you. imagine
my surprise when you
read my mind and smiled
threw down a cushion that bridged the miles
of open sea around me
it astounded me then
as it still does now
that you could see the future
where i just saw tea leaves
that you said yes before i knew
what question i was asking.

so i take back every song i have written,
redact every poem with your name not yet in it
and swear on my heart
and the forests that grow there
to renounce all my pronouns
and celebrate the sound
of your name:

Cathy.

enamel (time enough)

smiling doctor mark informs me
every six months, give or take,

that the grooves in my molars
come from my hands. it's my fault.

i grip the brush too tight.
i dig the bristles in.
i try too hard to scrape away
the day before i sleep at night.

odd to consider the toothbrush
that most useless of cleaning tools
can--given time enough and hands
too persistent, too rough--erase

the enamel of my teeth.
harder than bone, they are.
i read somewhere that i
(hypothetical i at least)

could chew through my wrist
if i needed to. a persistent
back and forth, a wearing away
of parts. it's all about a willingness

to meet the coarse material
of life with a spirit of resistance.
it's all about a willingness
to work at what needs working.

to kill what needs killing.
it is never too late to start.
with time enough
we can erase any mistake.

Startle Reflex

every morning i awake
with a gasp
fling my arms wide
to grasp hold
of something--you,
the bedpost,
a branch in a tree
that i have been falling from
a thousand generations now
always falling
never reaching the ground

every evening
i tuck myself tight
into bed, pull the blankets up
under my chin
and wait for the dark
for the dream of the canopy
wait for the wind
to come whistling my name
always calling
for me in the night

every child
is born with this gift,
this curse, this reflex
to reach out when frightened
and catch hold
of anything
that might save them.
every child knows
the sharp intake of breath
in the air over water
a bird in a nest
over soft, muddy rivers
a memory of wings
a need to be held
close when the wind
shakes the branch.

morning bus stop

so much senseless beauty
this profusion of forms
some made, some grown
some built of sand and powdered bone
these empty chairs
this ceiling fan
the horns and guitars of this rock and roll band
singing 'after the rain' while clouds ascend
on a rising wind
and the world shakes itself awake
again from under this blanket
of autumn dew that washes each
leaf, each blade of grass
each window on the cars that pass
these lovers at the bus stop of morning
eyes drawn in with crayons, hands
tethered together waiting
for all that's known and certain
to grow unfamiliar again

(dj says) nobody dies in this song

dj says nobody dies in this song
can't exclude the chance that the dj is wrong
but look around--there's no-one here--
just me and you.
just me and you.

dark is just a light turned down too low
and silence is a butterfly waiting by the window
for you to open up
and let him settle like a finger
on your lips.

right here is where i love you
right now is when

Cold Hands, Warm Heart

we've been sifting through the blues so long
my fingertips forget your name.
no cup of coffee
no mug of tea
will ever warm these hands. i need to
press them up against your chest
feel your heart beat hot and slow

every statue in this town
is a memory of someone dead and gone
every street, a way back
to a home that you burned down

watch your breath dissolve
as you walk and exhale
looking for a place to rest a while

your hands are cold
blue around the crescents of your nails
you've lost your touch
and when you warm up
it's going to hurt like hell.

so lets go slow. but
lets start now.
tomorrow's going to happen
anyhow.

The Arms of Birds (Les Bras Des Oiseaux)

to build the frame of this flying machine
you start with bones of flutes and clarinets

let them sing inside you. let the wind
play you long and sweet and free.

lost (without the stars)

This one's a song--here's the link, if you want to hear me sing it! Lost (Without the Stars)

we are lost she said

when we finally stopped

beneath blue blue gas station lights

we had driven all day

and then--to prove a point--

all night

there's no such thing as lost

i disagreed. you just

haven't learned to love where you are. 

well

she didn't know so much about that

so i screwed in the gas cap

and walked 'round the car

on the dusty rear window

i drew us a road map

this whole patchwork nation

in a single straight line

just waved my hand

from east to west

let night sky and road grime

fill in the rest.

you are here.

you are here, i said.

you are here.

there's gas in the tank

and love in our hearts

venus in the west

and a highway that starts

where our tires meet the road

just get in and we'll go

anywhere.

get in; we'll go

anywhere.

you will be home (truck driver song)

i'll paint my cab
the green of your eyes
i'll bend this straight steel day
to the curve of your smile
i'll roll the mile markers
back down to one;
wherever this world takes me
you will be home

every roadside fence
is overgrown with grapevines
clinging tight to winter
leaning towards sunshine
all the farmers' fields
are optimistic dreams
of grey becoming brown
becoming green

every fuelling station
is coffee, diesel, grease
every city just
clutch and release, clutch and release
once you've seen it all
it all looks just the same
all my eyes desire
is you again

sometimes a house reveals itself
not lost behind the trees
just big enough for two
maybe you? maybe me?
and sometimes this mountain road
drops soft down to valleys
like a hand drops down to thighs
like i drop down to you

empty like a pair of shoes

empty
like a pair of shoes
hanging from an overhead wire

dry heaves of language
like i've puked up everything
i ever had to say
but can't admit i'm finished now.

i'm finished.
there. i said it.

i have nothing to write. maybe i'm
old. or stable. or happy more or less.
words no longer come to me
unwelcome guests swarming my sleep
hijacking my car
as i drive home from work.
they lurk instead
in dark corners i have
learned not to tread
they drift aimless snow
they know exactly what they know
nothing more. they do not roar
like oceans, whisper like streams
they have gone out in search of dreams
while i stay home and nap
before the television set.

if this is a poem
then let it be known
as my last one. let these
pinched and grudgeful words
go free
so many long-caged birds
reaching for the sky while i
watch silently.

let this pose
of resigned indifference suffice.
let ice form a clear crystal skin
diamond hard and thin
over the misshapen curve
of my eye.

miles away

the difference between
here and there
is i am one
and you are the other

to start is the thing

to start is the thing:

to acknowledge the absence of wings
yet to leap from the nest
singing, into the arms of the wind

to begin

we are aimless
beautiful blameless
charting no course
we are doodles on maps
we are frost crossing glass
we are birds who sing
for the joy of the voice
for the love of the sound
of the forest alive
and breathing

to go is the point
to explore to enjoy
to build nothing up
and neither tear down
to sing
for the love of the sound.

luck

any excuse for your own failures:

the stars
and their alignment
today or at the hour of your birth

the phase of the moon.
the curve of the belly of a
pregnant number 6, the stab
of a fatal 4.

any excuse for your incompetence:
tea leaves.
the entrails of a crow, a pig.
three butterflies together
on a flower in the yard.
an open umbrella in the hall.

any excuse for your own ineptitudes.
the life is not the life you were born into:
you choose.
reach out with your left hand
devil hand, monkey paw
sinister sinstral sinuous serpent
and seize the remains of the day.

no excuse for your failures.
the stars are indifferent coals.
you are not so important
that nature conspires to keep you
where you are
cowering beneath a comforter
and waiting for the calendar to turn.

Burnt Letters

it's 4000 miles
from toronto to venice
it's cold. i'm alone.
my clothes smell like yesterday
winter's been chasing me
all across europe
but i've found a way to keep
warm:

i write all my sorrows
on air mail paper
thin enough for the light to shine through
then i burn every word
and once i feel better
i send all my love
not my lonesome
to you

boats on the water
are ferrying lovers
from hotel to restaurant
palace to church
i tour the alleys
making cold sandwiches
filling my notebooks
with words

walking to the doctor

i am walking to the doctor
for our annual discussion
of my body
and the way that it grows
older

heat waves on the sidewalk
make everyone shimmer
melt away our imperfections--
see them gleaming in the gutter
     with leaves that fell
     in yesterday's storm

mary in the waiting room
has never been an artist
so she tells me. but
she ballroom danced

back when the big bands
came around oh,
she loved to dance
loved that warm, round sound
it melts away inhibitions--
see them run like the water
     she used to drink
     from the part-time creek
     in the forest behind
     her childhood home
     it was right here--
     right here, you know!--
     but it was so many too many
     years and years ago.

bell tower on the church
rings out the gift of persecution
we smile about our sorrows,
some real, some imagined.
it's a long time yet before you're old,
mary says.

we are young;
we are young.
after all we have endured
we have earned the right
to be young.

Notes towards Motets (for J. Des Prez)

love is the ocean

in which we all swim

where do we go?
how did we begin?

we began in love
and although we struggle
and swim
struggle and swim

we will end
in spite of everything
in love again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNm9tNZePew

All Birds Sing at Once (Writer's Craft)

like everyone, i have my regrets.
chief among them today
is this:

that in my haste to give you wings
and set you flying
i did not pause
to proffer feathers for your caps;
did not perch beside you
did not tell you each by one
that new birds sing in my old heart
when i hear your own birds
singing out from yours.

funny, wild, sad and cynical,
childish and tombstone-eyed birds;
birds of regret, confusion,
anticipation, dread;


birds that transmit love unwillingly
as the tree channels the lightning bolt
that splits it through the center.
birds that accept love unconsciously
as the wing accepts the air that keeps us
flying, breathing, bursting now and then
into flames.

if you leave here thinking
that i do not love you
for your stubborn lightning bolts
and easy air;

if you leave here not believing i
am honored by your company each day,
then i have failed. twice:

once in the teaching of
why and how to write;
once again in the writing of this poem.

this will not be the feather
that gives you the power of flight.
it is too small, too soft around the edges.
but tuck it away:
maybe some cold day you will find it,
deep in the pocket of a coat.

then you will recall this room, this game
we used to play with words.
and if you do not know it yet,
you will know it then:
the you in this poem is really you,
and i am glad to have met you.

thank you for letting your bird sing.

summer somewhere

They all add up, they do:

a leaf, and a leaf, and another.

Soon the trees are bare.

But look around you:

Even in the naked cold of winter,

even when the sun

can only just be bothered

to peer above the corn-stubble

of yesterday’s horizon

it is always summer

somewhere.

While girls cry in stairwells,

boys are playing hockey in the gym.

While someone is falling—

asleep or whatever—

someone is knotting a tie;

someone is boiling an egg;

someone is packing their school bag

and thinking about their day.

speak

all these words pour out of me
like water and like water, wash away.
i long for something permanent,
something that will stay.

i wish i was a sculptor--i
could carve the contours of our love
in stone for all the world to trace.

but i am a musician. all i can do
is from this distance
kiss the air beside your ear
over and over, say
i love you.
i love you.
i love you.

i wish i was a painter,
could mix the reds and blues of you
and paint a sunset half so beautiful.

but i am a musician. all i have
is this guitar
to laugh, to moan, to cry, to say
i love you.
over and over, say
i love you.
i love you.
i love you.

the captain, from his deck chair, on the shore

this lake. it moves with several movements:

the non-directional ruff of waves
the soft aimless surface flow
the deep slow draining of the basin
          from my beach out to the Atlantic
and a ten thousand year upswelling of rock
          pressed down by ancient glaciers
          that imperceptibly empties
          the drinking-bowl of the continent.

it seems futile: my grandchildren
will not recognize this coast as i describe it.
i look down to write.
i look up and things have changed.

that wave. that rock. the shiver of distant rain.
a shrill brown plover, a swan. the details
always shift.
                         i could map for you
each stone, each stick, each cracked black shell,
could blue the world with ink.

futile.

every map is a memory,
a plea for permanence.

every poem is an anchor
dropped desperate from a boat
and dragging the stony sea floor
hoping to find purchase
to hook a crack,
                          to slow us down
before that deep slow draining
(here out to the ocean)
carries us beyond the familiar and loved
into the unknown.

so it seems i write today
from this chair on the beach
because i am afraid to die.

so it seems each smooth grey stone
sits waiting for the tide.

so it seems each purple martin wheels
desperate in flight:
catching at the wind
that keeps it aloft
suspended above the waves.

Groundhog

We went outside
to read poetry.
At least, that was
the official plan.

A seat on the grass,
the shade of a tree,
far enough away
from the front doors
that the cool kids
wouldn't see us,
wouldn't mock us
for caring about such things.

A little Bukowski.
Some Atwood and
Alden Nowlan. But
nothing much was
sticking to our ears.
Sunshine
drowned out our
literary ambitions.

Democracy insists
we each take a turn
so we soldiered on
around the rough
approximation of a circle,
our voices lost
under bus wheels;
our pages bleached
by birdsong. Finally

the groundhog
who lives under the pine
that grows crooked
just outside the frame
of this poem
emerged to save us from
the common drudgery
of learning to love language.

Not yet full of
summer fat
but well beyond
the shadow of winter,
he humped across the lawn.

A girls' phys-ed class
(black shorts, grey tops, shrieking)
agreed he was the
cutest thing. And so
they chased him
low and frantic
amongst the bees and clover
towards the road.

We watched,
not quite horrified,
and hoped
they would recognize in time
that he was just another poem

not worthy of such attention;
that they would grow
bored with chasing visions
and drift away.

them kids...

...are talking nothing in the corner
making plans to steal a pig
lure it into a van
with a leftover donut (exhibit A)

name it Rick
teach it to attack trespassers
teach it to fetch me a beer from the fridge
now that would be cool.

raise it up fat
beneath an umbrella
behind the shed
in one of their yards
until the day:

hot dogs
pork tenderloin
bacon
the teen male dream--unlimited meat
no effort no cost

and then
in the space of a single breath
one of them grows up.

what about all the shit?

reality does not stride
long-legged and overdressed
on to the scene,
waving its arms and directing traffic.

it was sitting always at the table,
waiting to be acknowledged.

questions arise:
the availability of a van.
fencing.
food.
feces.
butchery.

i don't know. there'd be a lot of blood.
you could use a chainsaw.
could not. you'd get a disease.
from a chainsaw? impossible.

but it's too late. adolescence is only
immortal untouchable driven by appetite
until the day it is not.

sure as the sun crosses the sky
and descends into red
behind suburban fences
too weak to restrain pigs

the conversation shifts
from the grand petty crimes of youth
to the safe and sanitized diversions
of middle age.
you playing golf this weekend?

What I've Been Doing

Not much poetry lately. Been writing, though. Dove deep into my own local musical and cultural history in the last month. Here's where my head's been at:

http://hundredmilemicrophone.blogspot.ca/

I'm still working on poems and songs--never you fear. But there are only so many hours in a day. Everything in it's time.

~tom

You Will Grow Old - A Sonnet

I'm encouraging my Writer's Craft class write sonnets today. OK, I'm forcing them to write sonnets. They resist the strictures of structures. They chafe at the yoke of Iambic Pentameter. They know the obligation to rhyme is an opportunity to be lazy and say dumb things, yet they say dumb things anyhow, just to be done. 


Why am I making them do this? It's an effort to sensitize them to the music of language. It's an effort to get them to see art as a complex but rewarding game. It's an effort to get them outside of the comfort of free verse, to acquire some internal sense of discipline that they can bring back to their freedom. Because without a sense of purpose, "freedom" is just another word for "lost."


In fairness, I thought I'd better write a sonnet of my own--it's been a while. So here it is. 

you will grow old

you will grow old, and one by one will fade
the words to songs that stirred you in your youth;
the things you rage against will become truths
too big to contemplate. you will get paid

to do a job which you suspect consumes
the day, the soul, the world that moves through time
and gives you nothing in return. the crime
is that you will accept your empty rooms

as inevitable. your children will
abandon you. the swimming pool will rot.
the unpruned trees will die. your secret plot
to find the bastards one by one and kill

them all will be reduced, in time, to bland 

and acquiescent wringing of your hands.

Moonlight to Guide Us

i showed you constellations
taught you to navigate by star
in case you got lost
in far outer space
and wanted to come home

you showed me streetlights
pointed out road signs
in case i found myself
wandering the city
all alone

i taught you to face my fears
and you taught me to face yours

we were out together
between the milky way
and the warmth of the corner store
we were walking
just a few feet above the snow

if we should get lost
on a night such as this
it is moonlight
will guide us home

Saturday Morning

outside: snow.

in here:
angry woman poolside
smacks her husband's arm:
'i should throw your fucking phone
in the trash.'

through the glass we watch
bus shelter girl
          mummified against the cold
          dancing like it's disco
not snow
dropping down
from slate grey skies.

angry woman's son
drops his game
forms a pudgy fist
and belts dad.

smiles for mom:
'i hit him too!'

dad shrugs it off. doesn't even
look up. this is--
apparently--
the way life is.

'you don't hit,' he says
to nobody, to the boy.
'hitting is for parents,
not for children.'

'then don't act like
such a child,' she says.
end of conversation.

the dancer keeps on dancing.
we watch her instead, smile
and look away from
the small train wrecks
of everyday life.

snow keeps coming down:
music
for the outside world.



I like to open my notebook and people-watch while I'm waiting poolside for the boys to finish swimming lessons. Sadly, I don't always like what I see. ~Feb. 11/12


~tom shea
www.trioarjento.com
www.facebook.com/trioarjento
http://trioarjento.bandcamp.com/album/love-lets-go

13 - A Memory Fragment (for S.M.)

the new schoolyard was no
deeper
just wider. i
trudged. 13.
lost in my shoes.

eyes downcast, i
was the one
who saw that purple ribbon.

because i was the shy one
i was holding it
when she noticed it gone
from her hair.

if i had been a bolder
braver 13
we might not have danced
that fall.



Thanks to Jeff Griffiths for teaching my Writers' Craft class today, for this activity, and for dredging up this memory. Thanks to S.M., wherever she is, for the dance.

Empty Hands -- Car Poem #1

Every semester I do this activity with my Writers' Craft class. We write descriptive paragraphs in prose about our earliest memories of a car, our current car, and our dream mode of transportation. (Sometimes we do beds--works just as well, if not better). Then we print 'em off, chop 'em ruthlessly into fragments, and reassemble the fragments into poems that have to match randomly chosen titles.

It's a great way to surprise yourself: when the poem is done, I often say "I can't believe those are my words--I would never have said that." But there it is.

We sometimes write not to express what we know, but to discover what we do not yet know. I like this one, because it has a sense of openness, a sense of joy and optimism. If this is the me that I do not yet know, I think he's moving in the direction of even greater happiness.

Potato - Leek Soup

Potato-Leek Soup

4 fist-sized potatoes, cut into chunks (I wash but don't peel them)

3 cups cleaned, chopped leeks (just the white parts)

1 stalk celery, chopped

2 large carrots, chopped

4 tbps. butter

3/4 tsp. salt (or to taste)

3 cups vegetable stock or water

2 cups milk

optional herbs: thyme, marjoram, basil

Put potatoes in soup pot with leeks, celery, carrot, butter and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until butter is melted and veggies are coated (about 5 min).

Add stock or water, bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook until potatoes and carrots are soft (20-30 min). Add water if it gets too low.

Add milk, then puree until velvety smooth.

Add optional herbs (or not!) and fresh black pepper.

Reheat until just hot--try not to boil it after the milk has been added.

unfurl

february tastes like parsnips.

your tired gray body says the days

are too long, too dark, too full

of business. 

          the slump and roll

of shoulders, the slow fall 

forward through each evening 

towards the arms of sleep;

the drag of feet; the stale smell

of defeat that clings like grease

to your dinner plate.

all these signs of the lateness of things.

all these hints that the spring

is overdue.

your lips are chapped. your skin

itches and flakes away.

your hair rises electric around your head,

a halo for the patron saint of 

all that can be endured. you are

bigger on the inside

than you are on the outside.

you are ready to emerge.

curled tight at night: fiddleheads

and ferns asleep in forest beds

arms wrapped around yourself

knees drawn tight to keep the chill

away from your heart, your soft

and loving stomach, away from the seeds

you carry inside you:

you wait.

one day soon march will arrive

smelling of iris and spotted lily, tasting

of garlic mustard and leaf rot.

you will unfurl, embrace the world;

arch your back and smile to feel

the sunshine again.

you will remember

that you are 

          real.

All the Smallest Birds

So, when I'm not writing words (or marking English essays) I also write music. Last night after the kids were asleep I had an idea. Luckily for me, I also had a recording studio in the basement.

I think this is called "All the Smallest Birds." When done, it'll have cello, melodica, and voice. But the words aren't done yet, and the cello hasn't materialized, and it was a little late at night to call the melodica player and ask her to lay down a track.

http://soundcloud.com/trio-arjento/all-the-smallest-birds-012912

Enjoy!

Late Night Conversation with Blackie, a Cat

i am typing. he curls on the dining room table
in the warm and purring exhaust of the laptop;
closes his eyes and disappears into his fur. being a cat,
his ears remain open and listening. so i begin

with simple questions. are you fooled by the string?
where do you go when you leave in the night?
do you feel remorse for the birds you have killed?
easy stuff. desultory. but talk as always turns

to the importance or not of history
to the need or not for shouldering those
responsibilities that interfere with joy.
to whether cats even feel emotion, or if emotion

is just the residue that coats our human nerves when we are
untrue to ourselves. he doesn't say so directly, but
his stillness implies that i being human feel sorrow,
pride, happiness, love and hate all alike

only because i act outside my nature. he tucks his nose
beneath his tail, which is of course to say

be who you are. do what you do.
all these feelings fade only if you let them.
this search for joy upsets you just as surely
when you find it as when you fail.

and then, although it is hard to be quite certain with cats,
he falls asleep.