The long lacuna...

Some 18 or 19 years ago, I took every poem I had written that I could get my hands on and destroyed them. I'd like to say that the act was inspired by the Tibetan monks who create elaborate sand mandalas and then efface them as a comment on impermanence, but I didn't know of that practice at the time. I just wanted to be free from the 'want' of creativity - the need to create and that spirit-breaking sensation that comes over you when you are barren.

It was a rash act, true, but one that made sense in the moment. I've always had an uneasy relationship with my creativity. Too often, particularly as a young child, the ability to read and write (not to mention being left-handed) meant I was singled out as the misfit, the freak, and so on. To quote Suzanne Vega, I was left of center, in the outskirts and the fringes. I was an 'other', on the outside looking in. Was being an observer the reason I began to write? I don't know. Regardless, writing was a comfort, but it also set me apart, and not just because it's a lonely pursuit.

Though I always wrote for myself, I didn't much share it. So material accumulated. I felt burdened by it. So many words and ideas, many borrowed from songwriters, others thick in rhymes, etc. It didn't feel like mine or genuine. Being into music, I had noticed how many talents burned out or faded away, unable to keep up with the demands of fans, critics, the business, themselves. They dashing themselves against the rocks of trying to top previous accomplishments and expectations. Better not to create than to create, it seemed. Given that I wasn't doing anything with the work, not developing it, sharing it, etc., and misgivings over the process of creation, I threw it away.

Until 2007, with few exceptions, all of my writing had been for other people - helping them find their voices, mainly through marketing, corporate and interpretative writing. It's everywhere if you know where to look (*cough* Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia), or the companies I've worked with. What I came to realize that year is that, in helping people give voice to their thoughts, I lost my voice.
I didn't feel any sense of that loss until I joined Facebook. A friend reminded me of a poem I wrote in high school, and asked if I was still writing poems. No, those days are over, I think I said. And yet, I did craft something for her as a lark. And then I continued crafting poems, as if I had only stopped during a long hike for a rest and a snack. Only this time, it felt good. It felt real and genuine. It felt like the poems were mine.

Nearly 20 years between works isn't so much time. Hey, there's a singer/songwriter named Vashti Bunyan who reemerged with a new album after 35 of self-imposed exile from a music industry that she felt had no use for her. In the interim, she lived life, and that life was reflected in the songs of that second album, Lookaftering, which were as striking for how they mirror the old work as for how they diverge based on her experiences. I'm glad I started again. I don't think I could have restarted without a lifetime of experience piling up, or, for that matter, joining Facebook. I had to feel connected, not just to people, but to that side of myself I've spent years denying. Once I felt that connection, it became easy and enjoyable. Even more so because I decided for once to share it - to put the work out there on people's Facebook pages instead of keeping myself to myself. And when people deleted them, and I lost them, I didn't feel attached to them. It was like the mandalas. They are impermanent; it's the feelings they inspire that linger. Besides I can make more or recreate them to the best of my ability.

Nearly two years later, I wonder how long I will continue writing poems. The muses are a fickle lot. They keep their own hours and schedules. But for those of you who have bothered to read this far, I promise I will post any and all inspirations until my well is depleted. It's just part of my ever-renewing efforts to be present and genuine in all I say and do in so far as I can. You can read, share, be the guardians of the words. Once they go up here, they are really no longer mine. They are for you in as much as they can be yours. Critique them if you must, but I'm glad if they inspire or linger with you, and thank you for your kind words. If the muses are kind, more words will follow. Until then, keep your eyes on the horizon...

Verse: Joy

(First posted on Facebook in December 2007)
Joy
is marvelous
magical
yet momentary
like a snowflake
in my hand
when I grasp it
it melts away
and I can never find
its equal

Song of the Day - June 8, 2009

This week on Twitter, I'll be selecting a song that makes me think of summer each day through Sunday. Yesterday, I posted a sneak preview and today, I began in earnest with Soul Sauce as recorded by Cal Tjader. The link is to some TV performance of the tune, which was written by Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo. Hard to believe a lad of Swedish ancestry could get a funky, slinky Latin groove on like that. My advice is to seek out Cal's piquant version Cal cut for the album of the same name on the Verve label and apply liberally to any festive occasion. Goes down smooth like your favourite ale, it do. Everybody: Guachi guaro!

Verse: My voice

So long dormant
This voice emerges
vulnerable and uncomprehending
like a newborn

Gathering strength
And purpose
Now it rages
Now it weeps
At indignities
Real and perceived

Now it yearns
Now it soothes
Strains at some
Vague truth it cannot reach

It will not be silent
It will not be sentenced
It flirts with obscene beauty
Demands to be heard
Above the din
Of city and forest

This voice
Is mine
It’s all I have
To convince you
Listen
And I will rejoice
Or better yet
Ask me
And I will sing
Your song
With you
For you

A moment of zen from palm

"My life," the narrator of the new Palm Pre ad says, "is made up of so many other lives." And if you have the Palm Pre, apparently, you can manipulate those lives to constantly rearrange themselves in some kind of Asian interpretative dance for you as spiritual rock music plays. Lots of zen circles. Lots of lovely visuals, apparently by the innovative director Tarsem. But all for naught.

Here's the problem with the ad: it doesn't say or do anything any other ad hasn't done before. It may be visually superior, but it's still familiar. This device allows you to manipulate things. Okay, but so does a remote control. And if the creative isn't new, then what's so new about Pre? What makes it dramatically different? How does it change my life?

Truth is, it doesn't. It's another phone with a lot of features I may or may not use. The creative is handsome and impressive, but the content offers nothing relevant, engaging or essential, apart from pretty pictures. Like the narrator, it's talking to itself. A perfect, elite little circle that doesn't need you, never lets you in. Sure is pretty, though. Thanks for the moment of zen, Palm.

Song of the Day - June 7, 2009

Guilty Pleasure Song of the Day, and I'm not ashamed. It's my manifesto. A hustling writer, I've lived the life he sings. Listen to the lyrics and you'll hear a guy who is bankrupt but for his dream, which is corrupt, but he's going to achieve it, come what may. It's a song I sing a lot and turn to a lot when I think I'm not going to keep my head above water in my profession. In other words, it only sounds cheesy, and proof that sometimes things that glitter are worth their weight in gold. Enjoy.

Verse: Sketches of Sawdust Road

It was
many things
in all seasons
but summer was
the best
a candy store
its aisles brimming with sweet
plump wild strawberries, blueberries
and blackberries
aching to be plucked, devoured

once I sold lemonade
and raised the price
with each glass dispensed
a natural entrepreneur
we rode our bikes
as fast as we could
down that hill
defying gravity
until the spill

My grandfather
was as constant
as a national monument
in his yard
or his shed
adorned with pictures
from the days
when he ran
a fruit stand
drove the trolleys
and the streets
were paved in cobblestone
not gold

a small cul-de-sac
and yet the longest walk
of my life
that one day in January
after school
my mom and dad outside
my grandfather's home
and the news that my grandmother
passed away in her sleep
the snow was crisp
brittle like cornflakes

So many times
late at night
I'd race down the road
convinced the passing cars
on the Bay Road
would take my soul
if they caught me

Each time
I return
I am my father's son
waiting for a glimpse
of his car
at the end of the day
then sitting in his lap
I take him home
driving down that hill
or, I recall the times
mom recited nursery rhymes
on returning from town
home again, home again
jiggity-jig

So many things I think about
the eerie calm of the lake
in the early morning hours
the snow-white afro-crowned
dandelions eagerly awaiting
any breeze to take their seeds
how the loons mourned
the dimming of the day
with their plangent cry
But what I remember most
is the trains
that broke my slumber
like a fever
refreshed my dreams
and carried off
the ones I used and discarded
a million unfathomable miles
deep into the relentless chasm
of night

Verse: Courtship

Written and posted in April on Facebook:

Trembling
with anticipation
in the April mist
the plump, nut-brown elm bud
asks the quixotic wind
'is it me
you're looking for?'

but the wind
does not hear
suddenly distracted by
a flash of lavender
the wide mouths
the sensuous lips
of a parcel of crocuses
it bends low
to caress their
slender stems
and, with a sigh
as soft and ebullient
as a hallelujah
extract just one
exquisite kiss

Song of the Day - June 6, 2009

Finally, after months of good-to-passable releases, something to be excited about - Grizzly Bear's transcendent new album, Veckatimest. From that album, I give you today's song of the day - Two Weeks.

Mad Ave Blues

Came across this on YouTube. The year the media died. You know the tune. It's the words that are different. Enjoy.