echoes of black dress shoes
rushing over grey pavement
lends slanted rain a granite edge
Friday, April 22, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
HAIKU II
an old man's grunts
lumber yanked from a faded green truck
white cherry blossoms, lazily downward drifting
lumber yanked from a faded green truck
white cherry blossoms, lazily downward drifting
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
AS WE AGE
The other day on the bus to Kikuna I saw a girl mouth along to a voice that was fake. A recorded message, feminine and polite, always lets you know to a tee what next stop lies ahead. You can remember its tone and its words after a few round-trip rides. The girl's friend was sitting beside me. Standing, rocking slightly from side to side in that nonchalant way that young people do simply because they are young, this girl matched her lips' motion to each word that she heard. It wasn't exactly unconscious, this action, because she started to smile just a bit as she performed her small act. She and her friend then started to talk all about what all teenage girls talk about. I'm not exactly sure what those topics might be even back home, in Canada, let alone here, in Yokohama. Yet I might have a clue. So I tell myself.
When I was their age, I took the bus just like them. The Niagara Street bus. I caught another bus first, at the Geneva Street stop, and then I transferred again at a point I forget. Or did I? Did I take just the one? Forgetting my hometown's bus schedule does feel just a bit like betrayal. ("I'm sorry, St.Catharines! You still own most of my heart! But the bus lines do blur after sixteen long years away!") The important memories do tint, though the details might fade.
One morning my friend and I sat on the bus as it did its stop-and-start shuffle. We looked across the aisle at an old man who had seen better days. One assumes. He did not look like he was seeing many good days just now. My buddy looked at me and said: "That'll be me and you some day, Scott." (Or did I say it to him?) We both laughed. I even remember the point on our route where this conversation took place. Just past the mall down the street from our school 'Laura Secord'. We both laughed. Knowing it was true, that we, too, would one day be that old. Knowing, as well, that that day would not come for a good many years. Still. It was nervous laughter. Sometimes at fourteen you can surprise even yourself with a hint of a truth that you secretly suspect most adults might already know.
I think about that offhand, off-the-cuff comment two, three times a year. As I age. I thought it about the other day, three thousand and more miles away from those streets that did give me my start. Watching a Japanese girl talking to her friend on a bus as they came home from school. She wore a dark blue jacket and skirt. A brown bag with a musical note stiched right into its corner sat there at her feet like a dumb patient pet. She listened to an adult's voice on a speaker, and mockingly mouthed what it said. Then she returned to her conversation, to her adolescent concerns, in a language that bops to its own special beat. I couldn't understand everything she said. Perhaps she muttered to her friend about the old foreign man that sat right there before her. Just another day on the bus. I wondered if she and her pal might for some reason remember that ride, twenty long years from now. As they age.
When I was their age, I took the bus just like them. The Niagara Street bus. I caught another bus first, at the Geneva Street stop, and then I transferred again at a point I forget. Or did I? Did I take just the one? Forgetting my hometown's bus schedule does feel just a bit like betrayal. ("I'm sorry, St.Catharines! You still own most of my heart! But the bus lines do blur after sixteen long years away!") The important memories do tint, though the details might fade.
One morning my friend and I sat on the bus as it did its stop-and-start shuffle. We looked across the aisle at an old man who had seen better days. One assumes. He did not look like he was seeing many good days just now. My buddy looked at me and said: "That'll be me and you some day, Scott." (Or did I say it to him?) We both laughed. I even remember the point on our route where this conversation took place. Just past the mall down the street from our school 'Laura Secord'. We both laughed. Knowing it was true, that we, too, would one day be that old. Knowing, as well, that that day would not come for a good many years. Still. It was nervous laughter. Sometimes at fourteen you can surprise even yourself with a hint of a truth that you secretly suspect most adults might already know.
I think about that offhand, off-the-cuff comment two, three times a year. As I age. I thought it about the other day, three thousand and more miles away from those streets that did give me my start. Watching a Japanese girl talking to her friend on a bus as they came home from school. She wore a dark blue jacket and skirt. A brown bag with a musical note stiched right into its corner sat there at her feet like a dumb patient pet. She listened to an adult's voice on a speaker, and mockingly mouthed what it said. Then she returned to her conversation, to her adolescent concerns, in a language that bops to its own special beat. I couldn't understand everything she said. Perhaps she muttered to her friend about the old foreign man that sat right there before her. Just another day on the bus. I wondered if she and her pal might for some reason remember that ride, twenty long years from now. As they age.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
A FORM OF CRUDE BALANCE?
What’s unsettling about the earth shifting and shaking, bopping and quaking beneath the bed that upholds the awkward arch of your back and your head's constant swivel is not at all what you think might finally just make you break down. I've learned, over time, the most terrifying truth of life, or at least my life: You can get used to anything. Even the ground, groaning. Even yourself, bored by the monotonous length of this more than minor upheaval. No, what worries me most is a certain form of cohesion. The world can contain and uplift so much pure contradiction.
A few days ago, a quake while I slept. It lasted, lingered. I awoke, wondering if I should step right outside and watch the building sway in its bend. Instead, I lay on my back; closed my eyes somewhat tight; tried not to count in my head the long length of each shift. Soon it was done, and I could sleep a bit more. Way up in the north I’m sure a score of people did shudder. Survivors. Me, I didn’t survive anything. I almost welcomed my dreams. They would probably be but benign. I felt guilty for going right back to sleep while all those poor folks in Sendai I'm sure stayed up with their fears. But I slept. You can get used to anything.
Something else: Today, on the street, coming towards me, a young woman in black, strolling, striding, smiling. Just like that. A hell of a grin. She was in a world of her own. As we all are, but when somebody smiles just like that, I wonder in what special realm do they wander. Perhaps she was thinking of whom she might meet in a moment for hot tea and a scone. Or last night’s lover’s soft touch, a small playful taunt at her tit. Or a comedian’s punchline, its sharp wit still a pinch. She seemed to be in cahoots with life.
That earthquake’s steady rumble, and that pretty stranger’s sweet smile, somehow co-exist in this life, and that separate union confounds me. One should not share space with the other. Or do they only appear in the first place as a form of crude balance? Can we even casually grin with small joy to begin with if life holds no peril?
Perhaps she, too, was awoken, like me, by that tectonic grim burp. I doubt she was smiling then. Her thoughts, a rising wave of dread. Yet a few days in the future, a kind of happiness. Persistent, even brave. So tenacious that even I, a stranger, felt the force of its joy straight across the length of the sidewalk, a kind of life all its own, fluid and real, as tactile and invasive as the boldest of tremors.
A few days ago, a quake while I slept. It lasted, lingered. I awoke, wondering if I should step right outside and watch the building sway in its bend. Instead, I lay on my back; closed my eyes somewhat tight; tried not to count in my head the long length of each shift. Soon it was done, and I could sleep a bit more. Way up in the north I’m sure a score of people did shudder. Survivors. Me, I didn’t survive anything. I almost welcomed my dreams. They would probably be but benign. I felt guilty for going right back to sleep while all those poor folks in Sendai I'm sure stayed up with their fears. But I slept. You can get used to anything.
Something else: Today, on the street, coming towards me, a young woman in black, strolling, striding, smiling. Just like that. A hell of a grin. She was in a world of her own. As we all are, but when somebody smiles just like that, I wonder in what special realm do they wander. Perhaps she was thinking of whom she might meet in a moment for hot tea and a scone. Or last night’s lover’s soft touch, a small playful taunt at her tit. Or a comedian’s punchline, its sharp wit still a pinch. She seemed to be in cahoots with life.
That earthquake’s steady rumble, and that pretty stranger’s sweet smile, somehow co-exist in this life, and that separate union confounds me. One should not share space with the other. Or do they only appear in the first place as a form of crude balance? Can we even casually grin with small joy to begin with if life holds no peril?
Perhaps she, too, was awoken, like me, by that tectonic grim burp. I doubt she was smiling then. Her thoughts, a rising wave of dread. Yet a few days in the future, a kind of happiness. Persistent, even brave. So tenacious that even I, a stranger, felt the force of its joy straight across the length of the sidewalk, a kind of life all its own, fluid and real, as tactile and invasive as the boldest of tremors.
Friday, March 25, 2011
THAT SWEET PLUME OF WINTER, THAT GREEN ROOM SO LUSH
Last night before sleep I remembered a room. Somewhere in Tokyo. Something to do with a ticket. An Air Canada office, overlooking a lake. Or a body of water at least, of that I am sure. Everything else, vague. Over a decade ago, I suppose. A minor change needed to be made so that I might be able to fly. I’m picturing green. The lobby’s colours. A deep, comforting green. Not the shade that a doctor would wear while excising some cancer. More the tone of some seaweed on an ocean’s wide floor. Exotic, almost. I remember sitting there. I remember that. Ticket in hand. Everything else, a blur. This memory saddened me a great deal, the same way in which one suddenly becomes full of odd grief while reading in passing of a stranger’s quick death. If I can remember its vibe, but not the details in full, then what good does that do me, and to what end is its aim?
At one point in my past that small room had some weight. Decisions would have to be made in between those four sheltered walls; the keys of a computer would go clickety-clack, with such rapid red force, that receptionist’s nails striking letters as a mason hits stone. My life had to be guided in that room. If that air ticket could not have been altered at all by her touch, the set paths of my course would have had to be broken. I don’t remember feeling nervous, but I do recall a sense of proportion being weighted, almost on scales. Is there anything worse than the slow pace of bureaucracy? Have a seat. We’ll be right with you. Won’t take a moment. Read a magazine, if you like. All of these dull remarks in an English that slants. The silence, full. Is there any more noise to be found than in a room lacking sound? The hum of the lights; the steps in the hall just outside the closed door; the soft snap of some gum in an overhead office. All of this, blaring. Everything had consequence.
Last night before sleep I remembered that room. Its function, perfunctory. All of that green, though. Soothing. Even if my purpose was bland, that room had some juice. I could have lived in that room, was what I thought. Not for a year, or even a month, but for a week, why not. Something to do with that dark green. Life so often evolves into gray’s oldest chum. A green such as that could lift me right up.
Drifting off, I realized that it didn’t bother me – that I couldn’t remember precisely my purpose for waiting. So what if the memory’s details had died? How many days as a whole have decided to exit my brain? This one over a decade ago has stayed in some nook of my head that is rarely swept clean. It could be one of those random days of my life that recurs like a fever one gets every year as each spring starts its swoon. Dear reader, do you, too, have memories like this one that linger half-empty? Do you wish you could crawl into their space and remember that self? Perhaps reading this post will prepare you for more – your old locker’s three digit combo, or the smell of the breath of the first person you kissed, or the sweet plume of winter on a crsip Christmas Eve from a stroll in your youth when a sung carol was king. (Do you sometimes wonder about those lips of that soul who you kissed long ago, that first brush with another? Hoping that she or he thinks of you too, during random moments at work, when the meeting drones on?) Memories emerge, don’t they. Ten years from now, or twenty, or if I’m lucky, fifty, I might still recollect that same random green room. It could act as my good-luck charm for sleep, my go-to embrace.
At one point in my past that small room had some weight. Decisions would have to be made in between those four sheltered walls; the keys of a computer would go clickety-clack, with such rapid red force, that receptionist’s nails striking letters as a mason hits stone. My life had to be guided in that room. If that air ticket could not have been altered at all by her touch, the set paths of my course would have had to be broken. I don’t remember feeling nervous, but I do recall a sense of proportion being weighted, almost on scales. Is there anything worse than the slow pace of bureaucracy? Have a seat. We’ll be right with you. Won’t take a moment. Read a magazine, if you like. All of these dull remarks in an English that slants. The silence, full. Is there any more noise to be found than in a room lacking sound? The hum of the lights; the steps in the hall just outside the closed door; the soft snap of some gum in an overhead office. All of this, blaring. Everything had consequence.
Last night before sleep I remembered that room. Its function, perfunctory. All of that green, though. Soothing. Even if my purpose was bland, that room had some juice. I could have lived in that room, was what I thought. Not for a year, or even a month, but for a week, why not. Something to do with that dark green. Life so often evolves into gray’s oldest chum. A green such as that could lift me right up.
Drifting off, I realized that it didn’t bother me – that I couldn’t remember precisely my purpose for waiting. So what if the memory’s details had died? How many days as a whole have decided to exit my brain? This one over a decade ago has stayed in some nook of my head that is rarely swept clean. It could be one of those random days of my life that recurs like a fever one gets every year as each spring starts its swoon. Dear reader, do you, too, have memories like this one that linger half-empty? Do you wish you could crawl into their space and remember that self? Perhaps reading this post will prepare you for more – your old locker’s three digit combo, or the smell of the breath of the first person you kissed, or the sweet plume of winter on a crsip Christmas Eve from a stroll in your youth when a sung carol was king. (Do you sometimes wonder about those lips of that soul who you kissed long ago, that first brush with another? Hoping that she or he thinks of you too, during random moments at work, when the meeting drones on?) Memories emerge, don’t they. Ten years from now, or twenty, or if I’m lucky, fifty, I might still recollect that same random green room. It could act as my good-luck charm for sleep, my go-to embrace.
Monday, March 21, 2011
WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, BILLY JOEL
Where have you gone, Billy Joel? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Doesn't it? I do, anyways. Who else can make sense of this world in a way that will linger? That will allow us to sing of our horrors with a melodic fresh vibe? Only the Piano Man, who proclaimed with such verve that the fire in our lives was not lit from his flame.
Is WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE the oddest tune that's been written since all songs have been sung? A collection of names and events, linked only by eras. From the fifties to eighties, a miniature history of much that has come to define how we look at our lives.
Doesn't it? No? Am I the only one out there who wishes that all life and its options could be stripped down to a size that might fit into some song? Joel did it once; he can do it again. Think of it: decades of existence, encapsulated. Right there, in your mouth. You can lip-synch to those words and navigate down through decades. All within three minutes. A few generations' touchstones and highlights, aggressors and heroes. Beneath your tongue. Manageable. Some might argue that I love this small song because it brings back my youth. When life had a limit, three minutes and change. When history could all cram into a chorus, plus verses. When the world was as small as my own fragile hopes.
So, Billy. Please. I need someone like you to arise one more time and make life once again a song we can hum. How is one supposed to make sense of a phrase like 'Operation Odyssey Dawn'? Is that the name of a new album by BOSTON, or a military action designed to inspire a rising new day of sheer hopeful delusion? Who thinks of these slogans that align with our wars? I need Mr.Joel to make all this a ditty.
He left off with 'rock and roll the Cola Wars, I can't take it any more!' Yet he's still around, and has been, for the past two decades; he's taken it, endured, evolved. He needs to rhyme the Internet and September 11th and FACEBOOK and TWITTER; he must us give some sense that life is still just a jingle. Otherwise, I might be left with the notion that some things in our world are too large and opaque to squeeze into a single. And I'm not sure that I want to believe that.
Is WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE the oddest tune that's been written since all songs have been sung? A collection of names and events, linked only by eras. From the fifties to eighties, a miniature history of much that has come to define how we look at our lives.
Doesn't it? No? Am I the only one out there who wishes that all life and its options could be stripped down to a size that might fit into some song? Joel did it once; he can do it again. Think of it: decades of existence, encapsulated. Right there, in your mouth. You can lip-synch to those words and navigate down through decades. All within three minutes. A few generations' touchstones and highlights, aggressors and heroes. Beneath your tongue. Manageable. Some might argue that I love this small song because it brings back my youth. When life had a limit, three minutes and change. When history could all cram into a chorus, plus verses. When the world was as small as my own fragile hopes.
So, Billy. Please. I need someone like you to arise one more time and make life once again a song we can hum. How is one supposed to make sense of a phrase like 'Operation Odyssey Dawn'? Is that the name of a new album by BOSTON, or a military action designed to inspire a rising new day of sheer hopeful delusion? Who thinks of these slogans that align with our wars? I need Mr.Joel to make all this a ditty.
He left off with 'rock and roll the Cola Wars, I can't take it any more!' Yet he's still around, and has been, for the past two decades; he's taken it, endured, evolved. He needs to rhyme the Internet and September 11th and FACEBOOK and TWITTER; he must us give some sense that life is still just a jingle. Otherwise, I might be left with the notion that some things in our world are too large and opaque to squeeze into a single. And I'm not sure that I want to believe that.
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