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.