Three months ago today, I turned 60. What is 60? I know it’s twice 30. 30 years ago it was 1992 and Jeanette and I had moved back to the Belleville area from New Market. We had our two year old daughter Emily with us. Another 30 years on and we have three children and they’ve all graduated from University. Emily is married to Charlie. 60 is also 3 times 20. I turned 20 in my first year of University. Frank Sinatra played Ottawa on September 11th of that year. I would rather have been at that concert than have been at Trent in September. That’s a long story I won’t retell. Jeanette, my wife, and my diploma are the best things that ever happened to me at Trent.
This blahg got sidelined for a few months. I started writing this blahg in mid-October and now it’s December 23rd and I’m finally getting back to it. It’s been an incredibly busy few months so I think I will wrap up the general theme and get back to the point of things. When I started writing this two months ago I had plans to link it all to a poem I had written several years ago. Let me post that poem then comment on everything. This poem is from September 5, 1986:
to old one
I imagine one day
I’ll be old —
and knowin’ me
one day will be about
all I can hack —
so I’m writin’ this to my old self
not what I was
but what I’ll be
for that one day
I’m tellin’ myself
to be happy
bein’ old
’cause maybe by then
I’ll have deserved that
but now I can’t accord any dignity
in addressin’ my old self
and this’ll only make sense
later on
to an old man
but old one,
that’s you or I mean me,
yer ruptured youth
is writin’ to you here
’cause we’re two different persons
you and me
and you know things
I’ve yet to comprehend
and you’ve forgotten things
I’ve yet to live
but that’s ’cause
yer memory and you
are old old one
and there was a time
when I needed you
to talk to me
and tell me
how I got by things or
over ’em or
through ’em
but that’d be cheatin’
and I matured into that truth
but old one
young one
still needs you
’cause I need to know
I’m still gonna be me
but old me
and someone new to talk to
if only in my mind
when we’re one
so know yer youth
old one
and keep in touch
or get in touch
with this
young one
who needs not to know
you’re old old one
but old enough to remember being
young once
and writing to
yer old self
to hear if
you stayed
old
long enough
to receive this poem
written by
yer young one once
I wrote that poem more than 36 years ago. I wasn’t married. I didn’t have kids and I had yet to start any sort of career. I think I was struggling to find out who I would be. I imagined having the opportunity to talk to my old self and get reassurances I’d be okay or hints about what was to come and how to get through them. I never got the hints. I had to age through it all and figure it out for myself. There were some rough spots but I’m still here and happily married with 3 great children and a son in law (and 3 cats) so I must have fared well.
So why did I get sidelined? Well, my novel “Pippa’s Passing” has taken a great deal of my focus. I haven’t found a publisher so I’m trying to do some promotion by releasing chapters online to read at a few sites. My daughter Abbie has actually taken on this task. First, I asked her to design a book cover. I’m quite happy with it but Abbie is not as enthusiastic. She tends to draw other things and in different styles so she thinks this isn’t her best work. Here’s that cover, judge for yourself:
There’s a rationale behind the image on the cover but you have to read the book to understand. Here are links to sites where the first eight chapters have been posted. New chapters are posted Tuesday and Fridays:
I also decided I wanted to create audio podcast versions of each chapter. So far, I have completed 17 of the 20 chapters. It would have been too costly to hire voice talent so I decided I would be the voice of the narrator and main character, Jeff “Pink” Carter. This meant I had to find computer voices for all of the other characters. I’m happy with most of the computer voices but I’m a perfectionist and I’ve had to mix in sound effects and music. Elvis music features heavily in the entire book. Here is the completed chapter six “Revelations At The Avocado House:”
I’ll continue to work on these and hopefully will find some way and somewhere to post all of them online. I’m hoping this type of promotion might spark more interest in the book.
This will be my last blahg before Christmas 2022 and quite possibly my last blahg of this year. I have no Christmas messages this year other than the same one I quote liberally each year from Sinatra: “In this upcoming year, may we find peace in the world and peace among ourselves.” Oh, and read my book! Merry Christmas!
Unlike Mel Brooks’ “History of the World, Part 1,” some things having to do with the world do get a sequel. The day before Christmas in 2012 I wrote a blahg with the title WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD? and thought I would not need to revisit the theme. Little did I know that almost 9 years later I would be thinking about those words again…or rather uttering them out loud. I thought it was time to ask the question again and to see if my solutions have held up or if I have better ones to offer.
My blahg last time had to do with the Sandy Hook massacre and other world issues as well as the fact that someone had hacked my website and inserted malicious code. Here’s what I offered up as solutions at that time:
So what can we do to make this world a better place? Speak out! Everyone has an opinion and a voice and it’s your duty to speak out against injustice and stupidity. Many voices raised in song have done better to heal than those who sit at the back of the room and just mouth the lyrics…The last time I checked, we are all free to be. Free to be whatever we wanted, believe what we wanted, worship how we wanted, love how we wanted. You get the message…Look at your loved ones, your relatives, your friends, and tell me you wouldn’t want more time with them if it meant giving up your stubborn opinions. I think we all know the answer to that. Let’s move on…There are some good things in this world. There is love and family and laughter and we need to embrace it during these troubling times. I don’t want to be preachy but sometimes we forget to think of all we are blessed with.
I could go on listing all of the problems in the world and war and death and Covid 19 but I think everyone is tired of hearing about it. I’d rather focus on the solutions.
News flash. I don’t have any solutions. I thought love, laughter, and happiness were the cure-alls but many people don’t have those in their lives. Sometimes when I’m looking for an answer, I turn to music. You know a lot of my blahgs are full of music and I thought I would look at some songs that give inspiration or hope or maybe offer up some suggestions that might lead to solutions.
I really like the artist, Sara Groves. I discovered her from the soundtrack to the movie “The Ultimate Gift.” If you want to see a really inspirational movie, check it out. I’m not going to use her song “Something Changed”, from that movie, in this scenario because it’s more a religious experience and one person’s religion should be that one person’s religion. I’ve been thinking more lately about her song “Roll To The Middle.” Essentially the song is about a couple who just had a huge fight and the singer is wondering how they will get beyond the hurt. Part of the lyrics go “All the complicated wars, they end pretty simple. Here when the lights go down, we roll to the middle.” Rolling to the middle is where we find compromise and begin to heal. Here’s the video to that song:
I’m going to be a little sappy for a moment. “What A Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong is uplifting as well. It’s not about “What’s Wrong With The World?” but more about What’s Right. I won’t go on about it but will instead offer up a live performance of Louis singing the song. Not only is the song infectious but Louis’ smile could melt a hardened heart down to butter.
I’m going to sneak The Weepies in here. Readers of my blahgs, if there are any, know that I’m a huge fan of Steven Tannen and Deb Talan, husband and wife team, better known as The Weepies. The following video is for the song “The World Spins Madly On,” which is true but it fits the theme.
The song that cheers me the most is their song, “I Was Made For Sunny Days.” I used to hear this song piped into a local thrift store and found myself singing along. I’ve seen The Weepies twice in concert but I can’t remember if they sang this song. At the core is the theme that sunny days are better than grey days.
I could go on filling this blahg with songs that mean well and mean a lot to me but we might disagree on some of these. The last song is one I think we can all agree on. It’s just fun and it was part of our culture and our history. If you don’t like the Monkees then look away but it doesn’t matter because they’re too busy singing to put anybody down.
Okay, okay, just one more. I know you didn’t ask for it but if I’m going to put forward one more World song then it has to be the one that’s so basic in message that we shouldn’t forget. It’s a Coca Cola commercial and I’m not a fan of the drink but the song “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” still packs a punch.
The world is full of hate and fear and confusion and depression and loathing and terrorism and nepotism and nimbyism (look it up) and shouting and crying and living and dying. But those are all words. Chop up the words and they’re just letters and those letters spell better things like loving and hope and resilience and caring and trust and future. Try it for yourself. Take all the bad words and twist them around to make good ones.
I was looking for something to end this blahg with that wasn’t a song. I looked back through my own writing, even further back than the original blahg WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD?, and I found a poem that I wrote on March 25th, 1986. Surprisingly, it’s about taking apart words to find an all purpose cure. I don’t know what that cure is or what you’ll use it for but if you put in the effort to make positive change then the result is its own reward. Try not to read too much into the poem. I was 23 at the time and the following year I would be married and on another March 25th, being 1994, my son would be born. Take apart the poem if you like and reuse the words. Kinder words spread thicker than all the negative comments stacked together.
AN ALL PURPOSE CURE
Don’t think I
don’t care about
all the world’s illnesses
because I do and
I want to do something about them.
It’s not all physical
I know
but then all the answers
aren’t either.
It’s not all broken bodies
and worn out organs
and dead tissues
but then all the cures
aren’t whole.
I think I’ve got a cure
that’ll better any problem
but it involves some work
and I’m not sure it
might not cure things
you want left as are.
If you could chop up this poem
and swallow it
letter by letter
maybe it would spell out
and all-purpose cure
and surprise you with
the good it can do
In this poem
is every letter you’d need
to help you
and if it could survive
minor digestion
then maybe you’ll be alright
I know it’s a chance
but just being alive
is one of those
and who knows
if it might not give you something to believe in;
but that’s relying on
intelligence being a disease – q.z.x.
I know as an English major that the title of this blahg is not grammatically correct. I’m going to ignore that rule because in this scenario I want to come before my grief. I have to have top billing. It’s selfish I know but I’ve had a hell of a couple of months and I need things to be this way. This blahg is about my grief. It’s dirty and sad and all the things I don’t want to put into a blahg but it’s part of my healing process.
I’m going to post a new poem below about my grief. It’s what I want to say and I’ve drafted it to the point where it summarizes, at least for me, everything that I’ve been through. The poem is words expressed the way I want them to be. They’re clipped and short and concise but this blahg will flesh them out for those of you who don’t understand or don’t enjoy my poetry.
Before I start though, I want to point back to a couple of blahgs. Obviously this is about the loss of my Father which you can read about in “The Passing Of George Henderson” but some of this also links back to a blahg from three years ago “The Balancing Act“. It would probably be very helpful to all of you if you read both of those posts because they add a great deal of context and bring things full circle to this blahg.
My Father, George Arthur Henderson, passed away on January 19th, 2019. I had to make the tough decision to let him go because there was no quality of life and dad wouldn’t have wanted that. It was a sad few days and we all got through it but there were things to be done and I powered through them and went back to work. Work was always a place I could go to for the “white noise” of everyone and everything else that I could focus on while I healed. For a time that worked. I got things done at work and at home but all the little things about handling the estate, banking, life insurance, wills, government forms, some of which I’m still working on, began to take a toll on me.
In mid-February we had a tragedy at work where one of the clients I worked closely with killed another of my clients. It was devastating and it sent the world of our work reeling and we could focus on nothing else. A grief counsellor, Yvette, was brought in to meet with our team but I only saw her for five minutes before the call of business as usual pulled me away. I had only started to tell her about losing my Father in January and I was a little weepy. That morning I had to take another client to the hospital for some tests and it was the first time I had been to the hospital since my dad died. It naturally brought up some sad lingering feelings about his passing.
What happened next was something for which I was not prepared. Grief fell over me and for the next few weeks I found myself drowning in sorrow. In my job I do some counselling and sometimes I relate a story to some of my clients who are struggling. I talk about an episode of the early 1990s show “Get A Life” with comic Chris Elliott. The episode is appropriately titled “Pile of Death”. The description for the episode is “To save his childhood park, Chris raises money by trying to break the world record for having things piled on you.” Chris lies on the ground in the park and people come along and pile things on top of him. At some point the representative from the Guinness Book of World Records comes along and tells Chris there’s no record for the most things piled on top of yourself. Chris points out a particular picture in the book but the representative tells him that’s an after photo of when the pile for the most things stacked up fell on top of the person trying to stack them. So I tell my clients there’s no prize for piling things on top of yourself. The prize is for stacking them up to the side and then dealing with them so they don’t fall on top of you.
I thought I was dealing with my pile. I kept working and tackling those things I had to deal with as a result of dad’s death. At some point that pile became unmanageable and it came crashing down on me and trapped me underneath. That’s when the grief kicked into overdrive and I felt sad and angry all of the time and crying because I didn’t know what else to do. With everyone at work trying to make sense of the homicide and how it affected each of us, I found that was something near the top of the pile that I couldn’t process because I still was dealing with dad’s death.
I began to play the same song over and over in my vehicle like a death dirge because I didn’t want to be happy. I wanted to continue to pile everything on top of me even though I knew there was no prize. The song I played was “Why It Matters” by Sara Groves:
I don’t know what Sara Groves meant by the lyrics but in my grief I needed to know why anything mattered. I didn’t have time for anyone else’s pain and sorrow at work and when I came home I didn’t want to talk to my daughter or my wife about any of this. My grief was mine alone and I wasn’t just trapped in it, I gave into it willingly and let it swallow me.
It would be about ten days before I could get a chance to sit down with Yvette again. I had reached out to her myself because I knew I needed something. Her schedule didn’t allow her a chance to meet with me until then so I kept on going. Things kept being added to the pile that was on top of me and I couldn’t tell people to stop because I’d always been a source of strength to others and they needed to give me their stuff. So I accepted all of their stuff but kept telling people I didn’t want to talk about anything because I would just be spewing until I got a chance to talk to Yvette. Little bits came out and people reacted but I kept asking them not to react because I was still processing everything. It was a tough time.
The weekend before I met again with Yvette, I had a bit of a breakdown and told my wife that I needed to spew and for her to just listen to me. She had been sick that week and so physical intimacy wasn’t there. I cried and told her about all the grief and the pain and how I was feeling and she just listened and rubbed my back. It was better for a few days but then I had to go back to work and that chaos came flying at me all over again. Eventually I sat down with Yvette and for two hours I gave her all of the back story of my dad and my sorrow and my grief. There had been no memorial services for dad so part of talking with Yvette was sharing with her everything I felt about my dad and how his death was threatening to swallow me up. I can tell you there’s nothing like someone not connected to your life, listening and hearing what you need to get out.
I felt better after I talked to Yvette. Part of her challenge to me was to find a way to express everything I was feeling. I told her about my blahgs and she said it sounded like writing was a release for me and that maybe I could find a way to release everything else through my writing. I thought about that and I thought a blahg might help but words began to swirl in my brain and I knew they were words trying to come out as a poem. I was at work for two more days and things felt a little better. I was then given a week off to deal with things and I gladly took that time, being Spring Break and my wife being off for that week, to connect with my wife and make that part of my life better. We did. I also allowed the poem to develop and this is how it came out:
when my father died
when my father died
sorrow eluded me
the anger at an unexpected
yet accepted passing
two day decline
to death
shadowed
by the chaos
of this life
and to do
forcing the stack
higher
pushed to the side
hoping for each thing
to be swallowed
as natural compost
when my father died
there were no services
no prolonged goodbye
no chance at words
an anagram perhaps
of a life summed up
rearranged to a sign post
that way onward for him
or this way for the living
when my father died
I carried on
tackled some things
tossed others to the tower
tried facing forwards
sometimes a sideways glance
to the pile
checking that it was still there
all the things that still bound me
to my father
weeks passed
after he passed
and the pile shifted
fell
trapping me beneath
grief appearing
finally
again unexpected
yet accepted
all consuming
a sad song
purposefully on repeat
all things
that were just things
collapsing over me
grief and I became close
buried together
hating and fighting
biting and scratching
hating mostly
everything and everyone
selfishness and pain
my true friends
nothing else
then someone sat with me
learned of
his death
my struggles
heard the spewing
took it all in
listened
to the stories
and all the grief
given out
in gasping breaths
until it had been shared
and the rubble was just
rubble
flotsam
easier to pick through
sort into importance
or not
when my father died
I had no time
no
made no time
to break
to grieve
to fashion truths
into a grave marker
or a trail marker
when my father died
I accepted
what needed to be done
the list
at once unmountable
but somehow
manageable
until that last thing done
releases him from me
and all I have
is memories
and my grief
that guides me
from here to there
this place to that place
where he has gone
and sends his beacon
It took a few days of editing to get it just right. I lived with it for a few more then I went to see Yvette again. She had asked me to see her again before I went back to work after my week off and was to bring my wife. I assured my wife it wasn’t couple counselling. It wasn’t. It was about my grief and how I was getting through it and how my wife was on that journey with me. At the end of the session I pulled out the above poem. But before I read it, I read another poem “the balancing act”, which you can read in my previous blahg “The Balancing Act“. See, everything links back.
In that blahg I talked about attending a workshop in 2016 on Grief and Loss. Yvette had been the main speaker at that event. I found that I wasn’t really connected to the topic because I hadn’t had anyone close die on me in about forty years. Most had been relatives who had aged out or pets that were part of my family but allowed me to open our heart and home for our new pets. The last real death was a friend who died tragically in high-school. I moved past that a long time ago and have had nothing to draw on since. So I didn’t take to the grief and loss section but when I heard about “the tree of life” section I was inspired. I told that to Yvette and then read “the balancing act” and “when my father died”. Both Yvette and Jeanette had tears in their eyes. At last all the spewing and sharing had been summed up and set free. Grief was still with me but more like a companion than part of that great big pile.
I know there will be deaths again in my life and now I’ll have something to draw on when grief looms large again. I’m still pecking away at all of those tasks still to be done but I’ve realized why there was so much anger attached to those tasks. One day, I think next year when I file dad’s last tax return, the final task will be done and all those tasks that bound me to him will be done and it will just be memories of my dad. That’s what the poem says best.
In my first blahg of this year, Welcome 2019…I’m Ready For You!, I said I was ready for 2019. That dip in the frigid lake seems so long ago but it really didn’t prepare me for what was to come. Maybe I’m not ready for the rest of 2019 but having made it through the first three months and an all consuming grief, I’m readier. Is that even a word? When I told my dad that we were going to release him and he would die in a few days, he indicated he was ready. He’s gone on his final journey but I’ve still got more journeys to come. And I’ll draw from the lyrics of one of Paul Quarrington’s last songs, “Are You Ready?” One of the last lines of that song is “Am I ready? I believe I am.”
Am I ready? Hell no, probably not if I think about it. But sometimes it’s not about thinking about it too much. It’s a leap a faith. Some kind of belief that with new experiences I’m readier than I’ll ever be. Am I ready? I believe I am.
Yesterday, June 6th, marked one month since my last blahg. Frankly, I’ve been struggling to think what I should write about. Many things have been happening in my life and in the world but they just weren’t blahg worthy. Sure, I’ve been angry about many things and in the past I’ve written here about the things that make me angry. I don’t want this blahg to be like that. I don’t want people to think I’m unhappy all of the time. I’m not. Well, maybe I am a lot more lately but I’m trying to get past that.
One of my favorite blahgs this year was IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU’RE TOO CLOSE. You can check it out here: http://falseducks.com/theblahg/?p=121. In that blahg I shared some of my poetry and even managed to write something new. I’ve been think a great deal about my poetry lately and how proud I used to be of the poems I wrote. I even spent a five year period between 1987 and 1992 sending out submissions and trying to get published. I was only successful a couple of times. Nonetheless, I thought I would share some of my favorite poems here and go one better by posting videos of me reading those poems.
The following poem was not one of the poems that I had published. It is one of my favorites however because it talks about this limit between youth and manhood and what separates us from the stupid things we did as boys compared to the stupid things we do as men. It’s called “Drivin’ over the limit” and was written July 13, 1986:
Drivin’ over the limit
hangin’ onto girls
we knew years ago,
Steve and I take this dark drive home
from Kingston
and admit to each other
that no boy’s different
from the the man he’s gonna be and
that we all rush toward those guys of us
who’ll have it all
and’ll have who they want
from the whole crop and
yet gettin’ to those guys
means wasting yer youth
on moments that yer maturity
will kick you for passing by.
and those girls of our yesteryears
was ones we wracked our loins over
cause sex was what
the opposite sex was all about
and if you wasn’t tuned in
to the guy the other guys
said you was to be
then you gave up too easily
on the girls that you wanted, and
on the girls the other guys
said any red-blooded devil wanted,
and compromised yer self
by wanting girls
that was beyond yer limit
but now drivin’ home
we toss across names of girls,
who though women now,
will always be girls by names,
and confess those death secrets
that we expected to keep for life
and yet seem so unimportant now
when stacked against the women
whose girlish lives
we never knew as boys
but came to need as men
whose boyhoods become
a painful means to
getting us over out limit
so we might get home
that much quicker to our wives.
This next poem was also written in 1986, on April 27th. I’ve always had a fascination with Superman and what it would be like to be him. I guess this answers those questions:
if you’d be a superman
He works long hours
and he don’t ever get paid
or remuneration or thanks sometimes
but that’s all part of his job
being a protector of the good
If you wanta be Superman
you gots to be more than human
not necessarily superhuman
but better than most folks
who are always trying to do good
and put you out of a job
In the center of that man’s faith
is himself
and he’s pretty sure
they’ll all worship him always
for being a hero and not a villain
because Superman is where it’s at
Yeah Superman’s this guy
who flies you know
but when he walks
he walks among us
and is one of us
like he wants to be
and drinks a little
and he tells dirty stories
but he’s perfect on duty
Superman’s got no hang-ups
maybe hang-outs maybe
like getting in free at the drive-in
but then who’d really ask him to own up?
If you’d be a Superman
you’d be just a guy in tights
because you gotta hate the job
like it was the only thing evil
and you couldn’t defeat it
If you’d live a Superman
you’d be out of work
because there’s only room for one
and we’d all be Supermans if we could
Yeah Superman’s’ this guy
who flies you know
because they draw him that way
and he can’t object
like you would
if you’d be a Superman
Yeah Superman’s this guy
who fights crime and evil
and is always looking to be put out of business
but not everyone wants to be a Superman
and he cries at night
when he’s flying
but you think it’s rain
and he’s still up there
and he wonders what it would be like
if Superman’d be a you
Now for some of my published poetry. The next two poems were published in the April/May 1988 issue of the North York Arts Council Arts News. Other than a University newspaper at Trent, these were the first two poems I had published.
A love poem: and I probably am
it’s silly,
I know, but…
Ya know
I don’t know
how I got this way–
–extended into
yer hemisphere;
blockin’ out the light–
–but…aha!
yer hemisphere
YER hemisphere
yer HEMISPHERE
left and right
frontal lobe,
cerebral cortex,
and the time
I thought the stuff
was in my heart.
well I’ll be Damned!!!
This is the second poem I had published in the April/May 1988 issue of the North York Arts Council Arts News. It was originally titled “The Wooden Train” but they erred and printed the title as “The Wooden Trail”. Frankly, I like their title better.
THE WOODEN TRAIL
Run into an old buddy tonight–
–same name
not the same person–
remember him when he was boy;
when we was all boys.
Lots of rumbling stomachs
mumbling talk
passed between us ago
but no call for this dark
half day.
Learned more thing
since him
but couldn’t find any–
–not anything that you can say–
and so we just moved;
too scared to stand still
and catch up on ourselves.
He’s been working six years
same place
but I’ve been working
on me for my whole life
and I’m still without a job.
Invited me over
but I opted for onward
and lost him somewheres.
All reunions–
–mine–
should be short like that–
–like my memory–
or I’ll start asking
what we’re here for
and be scared by
an answer…
The next time I would be published would be in December of 1988. It was in the old Poetry Toronto magazine. I had submitted to them before but they rejected my work and told me to study Canadian Poetry from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s and not just the modern poetry of the 1980s. I wrote back and told them I was a Poetry scholar and had read, studied, and collected poetry of Canadians Poets of all of those decades. This time they chose to publish 4 of my poems. There was no note from them but the magazine showed up one day with a letter saying that this would be the last published edition of Poetry Toronto. No thank you for my submissions. I guess they blamed me for putting the magazine out of business.
DA MUSTARDMOON
dis moment,
separated from my wife
by job and mile
dis moment
barely
one month after we’ve married
I’d like to find
comfort
in her navel
risin’
slowly in her sleep
and know dat
does tiny fluctuations
is her guilt
fer lyin’ on my side of da bed
Here’s the second poem from that Poetry Toronto magazine. A little embarrassing perhaps to my wife and I but I’ll print it here regardless.
DA HONEYMOON
i’ve discovered
i’m no bluebird
’cause i wedded
and flew away to Manitoulin
where we made love
four times
but no
she corrects me
and says it was only twice
but yes
i contradict
and point out da four orgasms
but no
but yes
but no
but wait…she’s right
and fer the first time
i have to admit that to her
which after da first time
i discover is
a mistake to do so
Here’s poem # 3 from that Poetry Toronto magazine. I was working midnights at a Texaco and it was taking a long time for them to get another employee to work those hours so I worked a long time without a night off and it inspired this poem.
A SHORT COLD POEM
the british tabloids
carry banner lines
THE QUEEN-MOTHER
ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL
and all the
commonwealth nations
draw in breaths
but a week later
surprise
JUST A COLD
DOCTORS SAY
and the air
is let back out
meanwhile
it’s whispered
in canada
“henderson’s sick.
I hope he won’t ask
for time off.
We’re already
short staffed.”
but I work anyhow
eight nights in a row
waitin’ fer
the trainee
to screw up
enough courage
to work alone
or to re-assure
himself
“henderson’s not
contagious.”
Here’s the final poem of the 4 published in that Poetry Toronto magazine. It was a poem that described a conversation I was having with my wife over what to do one night when we were really bored and there was nothing but reruns on Television. Alas, Kmart is now gone. So’s Zellers for that matter. Hmmmm, maybe this is the poem that put Poetry Toronto and Kmart out of business in Canada.
DRY
it’s 8 pm
rerun
mass masses boredom
let’s jump inta da car
and drive somewhere dark and secluded
hop into da back seat
no response
but pressed she says…
nevermind
it’s 8:15
let’s jaunt to da beach
half-hour and skinny-dip
what beach?
nevermind
8:30 waltz around da Kmart
okay
OKAY?
MASS MASSES BOREDOM
LET’S ALL GO WALTZ AROUND DA KMART
at 8:45 I grab da key
boot to da water
and hope dere’s a drownin’
I hope you enjoyed these poems and this blahg. It’s too bad the poet now needs glasses to read his own work. By the way, the Poet is available for recitals, parties, Bar Mitzvahs, funerals, shut-ins, or wherever there’s a captive audience that can’t shut off the computer or close the YouTube video.
Recently, I caught my wife reading some of my blahgs. There isn’t anything wrong with that so don’t read anything into my action of catching her doing something that is perfectly normal. I was just taken aback is all. In some sullen moments when I find my wife and I at distances, I think about the fact that she doesn’t even ready my blahg! I guess I can’t use that argument anymore. I guess I should also watch what I write here.
I haven’t anything to hide. There is nothing in any of my blahgs that I am ashamed for having written. I try to tell the truth here or offer my opinion on what’s happening or what interests me. One fact: I like The Weepies! I’ve said that before and I’m listening to them now as I write this blahg. Here they are live at the Brit Festival in Southern Orgeon on August 23, 2011:
The title of this blahg comes from that old bumper sticker you used to see on many cars. IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU’RE TOO CLOSE. The perception is that if you could read the bumper sticker then you were tailgating or following too close behind the vehicle in front of you and that could be a dangerous thing. But I think there is another interpretation. In the case of my blahg, if you can read this, you’re too close…to me. That doesn’t mean you’re standing too close to me but rather the other definition of being close to me through relation or friendship. You know who I am and what I’m all about. That’s as close as you can really get to anyone.
I don’t have a problem with anyone who is close to me reading anything I write. I guess I really have a problem with myself because I don’t write enough for people to read. These blahgs have too much time passing between the reading of each. I haven’t written any fiction in a long time. I barely write my signature any more, for that matter. My output has dwindled to reminder notes or shopping lists or appointment dates on the calendar. The last thing I wrote of any meaning was a short verse in the Valentine’s Day card I gave to my wife. That’s sad. The verse wasn’t sad but the fact that I’m not writing any more is a low point.
I always believed I was a good writer and thought I had promise. I have even self-published a volume of my Christmas themed material, “Proof For Believing”. Before that, I wrote a novel called “False Ducks” that sadly sits unpublished. Everything stops after that. Only these blahgs continue. These blahgs were meant to be an outlet for my creativity and to be a forum for my previously written material. But I’ve failed even at that. I’ve barely posted here, anything of my own. Certainly nothing new other than the blahg of the week or month.
I want to rectify some of that. I want to share some of my earlier writing. When Jeanette and I first started as friends in 1984, she gave me a “Nothing Book”. It’s basically a blank journal that I wrote poems in for two years. Not all of them were winners but I wrote steadily. I really like the second poem from this volume, “Almost Day 8,124”. The title comes from the fact that this poem was written on the 8,124th day since I was born. I was 22 and the “Almost” refers to the fact that I think it was the 8,124th day since my birth but the math could be wrong. Click on the image to see a larger version of this handwritten ode. Here it is in typed format:
ALMOST DAY 8,124Look where we have paced across the floorand left a life-line that still shows through! Septemberwas here and now it’s a cold and dry Decemberthat blows away old nightmares.The rest of the world could never know the placiditythat exists in darkened rooms; left by friendsvacationing in an austere moment of commercial spirit.The music plays sweeet and low, while the inhabited flats burn down.Who will sing for those who have passed before us orfor those, on returning from their holidays, who will discover, that while they loved strangers, their friends had been cremated?
Yes, I know, the formatting is weird. What’s with the indentation of some lines and not others? Frankly, I don’t remember. I think I was trying to prove to myself I could write modern poetry and thought that odd formatting was the key. It’s not. The words are the key. Here’s another poem from the last page of that first Nothing Book. This is “to write a last poem” that was written on March 3rd, 1987:
to write a last poem it’s all cracked
puffed up read by myself over and over and over through and done to a crisp precise outline of my mind and the poems in there steady ready to bust like milkweed to editor á editor de editor á editor again–but… I think that’s clear and about as sane
or poetic as I want to be ’cause the volume of work I’ve worked on is gone to deathdone to death by the absence of a rhyming dictionary in this limbo of bein’ unpublished
At least the formatting has settled down; except the last two lines. Again, don’t ask for meaning. I won’t bore you with poems from the beginning of the second Nothing Book because they follow shortly after the one above. Here’s one from the middle of that second volume, “LTD.” written August 16th, 1989, two years after Jeanette and I had married:
LTD.da flesh is only perfect twice:birth and death au natural and paste up and all between scarred by razor burn or fisticuffs mosquito bites or forward pass minor surgery bad deeds bad poems da realization dat how ya should’ve lived is all too clear after yer face’s been molded
The second Nothing Book is not full. I ran out of steam or creativity or time or something I have to dredge up to be an excuse. The last poem was written on March 10th, 2005. Before that poem, I had last written a poem to my youngest daughter “a poem for abigail” on August 9th, 1999. It had occurred to me that I had also written a poem about our eldest daughter “em” on October 7th, 1990 (the date of her birth) but I had never written anything about Noah. So on March 10th, 2005, I wrote my last poem in the second Nothing Book. Here it is:
noahyer own voyage will be longer span great walls take in ancient histories write new ones cast a different shadow outside of mine
That’s the last of the output. I don’t believe I have written a poem since. I wrote a few new short stories back in 2007 to include in “Proof For Believing” but no new poems. I don’t know how to begin. It takes all my efforts to write a blahg and the creativity of a poem doesn’t come to me. Maybe I’m to close to the subject and I can’t write it anymore. I did say that IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU’RE TOO CLOSE. Maybe the opposite is true: IF YOU CAN WRITE THIS, YOU’RE FAR ENOUGH AWAY. I need to step back and look at my poetic career. I was published a few times but that was in the late 1980s when I was trying hard. I guess I just need to try harder.
I stepped away from this blahg and tried harder. Here’s what I came up with, February 25th, 2013:
if you can read this, you’re too closestep back step up have we got a show for you the caged animal, wild man of borneo, writer with nothing to write 10 cents! cheap at half the price unless you’re paying by the word then double that and add 30 like metric conversion a drought’s a drought water or words I don’t know what’s better to drown in I’ve looked too close at the man behind the curtain, the one in the mirror, old dog with few tricks still can beg your pardon excuses for not writing dropping a line drawing a conclusion there’s truth in words some say truth in the words between us on our own bumper stickers tattooed on our auras flashing the warning beware the freak calling for your attention to a miserable creature step up one of a kind if you’re too far away you’ll miss the show if you’re too close there’s nothing to see I’ll do a walk on but my walk off is the show-stopper into the horizon dark like ink where the new words are…or the other wild things
Three months ago today, I turned 60. What is 60? I know it’s twice 30. 30 years ago it was 1992 and Jeanette and I had moved back to the Belleville area from New Market. We had our two year old daughter Emily with us. Another 30 years on and we have three children and they’ve all graduated from University. Emily is married to Charlie. 60 is also 3 times 20. I turned 20 in my first year of University. Frank Sinatra played Ottawa on September 11th of that year. I would rather have been at that concert than have been at Trent in September. That’s a long story I won’t retell. Jeanette, my wife, and my diploma are the best things that ever happened to me at Trent.
. The day before Christmas in 2012 I wrote a blahg with the title 
