December 2002
Co-editor for this Issue: Heather Ferguson
Editor: Klaus J. Gerken
Production Editor: Pedro Sena
European Editor: Moshe Benarroch
Contributing Editors: Martin Zurla; Rita Stilli; Michael Collings; Jack R. Wesdorp
ISSN 1480-6401
INTRODUCTION
HEATHER FERGUSON
CONTENTS
SARA JANE JORDAN
Tightrope
Blueprints
Comparisons
Exile
Visualization
Another Horizon
Full Circle
Postscript
Muskoka, Ontario
Ring of Days
Things I Never Thought I Could Say
Dream-Laced Apples
Notation
SYLVIA ADAMS
Settee
Small deaths, sad interludes
Warning Signals
Edible Poem
The Rebel at 28
Fiesta
last Sunday
Getting ready for Christmas
The Fire Marshal comes to the Nursing Home
Listening for the Dead
Blue and White:
Louise Jopling, 1896, Oil on canvas
late news
MARIANNE BLUGER
(excerpt from "Poem in the Fire")
(excerpt from "Exchange")
Nightfruit
A Poor Lecher's Poem for the Chaste
Psalm on a Summer Night
The Ring
The Widow and the Tulips
Sonata
The End of the World
POST SCRIPTUM
Bio/Bibliographies
INTRODUCTION
~~~~~~~~~~~~
This month, Ygdrasil features Sara Jane Jordan, Sylvia Adams and
Marianne Bluger, three poets from Ottawa, Canada.
Canada has many strong poetry communities and Ottawa is one of them.
Ottawa has universities, publishers and a culturally diverse writing
scene. I've always felt, however, that we owe our vitality to our
grassroots organizations.
Thanks to the open mics at Sasquatch, TREE and El Dorado, you can read
several times a month without invitation. In Ottawa, we appreciate
poetry as a performance art: a text has to read well on the page, of
course, but it has to move a live audience too. The reading series also
give poets, writers, publishers and translators a chance to meet
regularly, something that has led to many collaborations.
For this, we have one person to thank - Sara Jane Jordan, a pioneer
organizer who started the first grassroots reading series in Ottawa in
1973. Here's how she tells the story:
"I moved to Ottawa from Toronto in 1971. There wasn't too much happening
and I was very disappointed. In Toronto, there had been a lot going on;
I had pioneered a number of programs and had reached out into the suburbs.
The reading series were held at the House on Gerrard Street
(co-established with Ted Plantos), Grossman's Tavern, the Toronto Public
Library on College Street, the Pennyfarthing Café, the Vanier and
Newtonbrook drop-in centers, and North York libraries.
Right from the beginning it was important to me that Canadian poets be
represented because very often they were eliminated or lost in the
shuffle, and American poets got invited instead - and got well paid too.
Canadian poets got the crumbs. I felt that that was very wrong. I
co-produced Poet Pourri with Bruce Lawson, who was head of the Saint
Lawrence Centre for the Arts, and put my ideas of promoting Canadian
poets into practice, continuing what I already been doing. George Swede,
Hugh Newton and Eli Mandel were also involved. Arthur Gelber funded the
poetry programs at the Saint Lawrence Centre for the Arts.
When I moved to Ottawa, I missed everyone in Toronto, the contacts. I
fell apart. In 1973, I started a program called Folk & Poetry/The
Underground Up at the Nepean Library. I wanted put poetry in as many
places as I could, preferably in places that displayed artworks and
encouraged the cultural scene.
In 1974, I moved the program to Le Hibou and held readings there until
1975, when the café closed. I felt that Le Hibou was a much better place
to be than at the universities. At the universities, in Toronto & Ottawa,
they only had poetry readings for a select few, that is, two or three
readers a year. They never went beyond that to discover new people and I
felt that they were bypassing the whole literary scene. I wanted to bring
people from various parts of the country, and not just the big names, but
the intermediate and lesser-known poets as well, because I felt that their
work was just as important and I knew that the general public had limited
access to the universities.
I also held readings at Wallack Gallery, Pestalozzi College (a
student-run cooperative residence based on Rochedale in Toronto), Le
Castor Café, the Mazzerine Gallery, the Interlude Café, the Jack Purcell
and McNabb community centres, plus a few other centres I've forgotten. I
continued these programs until 1980, when I handed them over to my friend
Juan O'Neill, who ran the series for a year. I then resumed for a year
or so (until around 1982), at which time I retired. It was around then
that Juan was looking for a name for a magazine, and I told him that I
had a favourite name that I had never been able to use: Sasquatch. He
liked the name and, in the spring of 1982, he began calling his own
reading series Sasquatch. The series still continues today.
My own series in Toronto & Ottawa included Milton Acorn, Ted Plantos,
Dorothy Livesay, Doug Fetherling, Jim Christie, Myron Turner, Phyllis
Gotlieb, Seymour Mayne, Cyril Dabydeen, Chris Levenson, Antonino Mazza,
Bill Hawkings, Al Purdy, Joe Rosenblatt, Patrick White, Blaine Marchand,
Tony Cosier, Stephanie Nynich, Bill Bisset, Alden Nowlan, Ralph
Gustaffson, Charles Roach, George Johnston, Robin Mathews, George Swede
and Gary Geddes, among many others.
In Ottawa, in addition to the featured readers, we had open sets called
the Mercedes Benz Express, where a writer could read for a short period.
They provided me with the opportunity to hear other people's work and to
invite them back as featured readers. Robin Mathews regularly brought
his literary students to Folk & Poetry.
Along with the poets, I invited various musicians, including Ian Tamblyn,
Bob Stark, Melwood Cutlery, Doug Goodeve, Natalie Gold and Ken Stephenson.
I felt that the musicians added a great deal to the programs. Charles
de Lint and The No Name Jazz were regular guests on the Le Hibou
programs. They were particularly popular.
As well, in 1978, Joe Lacroix and I co-produced programs located at the
Blue Gardenia, an Ottawa restaurant. The series lasted for several
months and was called The Mercedes Express. Joe Lacroix went on, with
others, to found TREE, another reading series.
Folk & Poetry also included visual artists on programs, including Sara
Hale, John Campsal and Honz Petersen, an artist and poet.
One of the most interesting programs included Ted Plantos, John Campsal
and Melwood Cutlery - great vitality and interaction."
. . .
Heather Ferguson
Ottawa, Canada
November 30, 2002
SARA JANE JORDAN
Tightrope
~~~~~~~~~
this has been a day
like no other
ripe w/rage
maimed of reason
charged w/searching
for car keys
w/faulty timing
chain mechanisms
night floods in
like a cranky door
framed & dark
w/knit browed frustration
the brittle hours bend & quiver
SNAP like twigs
(appeared in Open Set: A TREE Anthology, 1990)
Blueprints
~~~~~~~~~~
you are the last figure
on the totem
upright but serious
with a calculating smile
you are my last excursion
into darkness
I am no longer afraid of your mockery
but drink a toast
with you for the sake
of past present future
this year of independence
be still while I brush midnight
out of my hair
(appeared in Open Set: A TREE Anthology, 1990)
Comparisons
~~~~~~~~~~~
some of us represent logic
& more logic
methodical as parliamentary procedures
pure & simple as categories
in turn:
some of us represent logic
& innovation
both practised
when supplies
& banal solutions
are no longer desired
or identified with
the manner in which we perceive
has become a religion
(appeared in Open Set: A TREE Anthology, 1990)
Exile
~~~~~
returning from the plateau
I delve into roots
churn the atoms
up the steps
to the pyramid
from my uncharted sea
roots on waves
the geography of islands
my free space
mind on wings
I swallow stitch
double eight
blue
(appeared in Open Set: A TREE Anthology, 1990)
Visualization
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
thoughts contain me
silent as the white snow
molecules that heap in the gut
tie knots & cat's cradles
take three months to unravel
my sense of freedom lies
like a beacon
wrapped in the mind
discarding ambiguous
synthesized lines
I no longer toy or play with
I see the apple tree
arched & gilded with splendour
breathlessly stomping
waiting for spring
muse is a garden
voluptuous with blossoms
painting their ambitions
close to the old chest-high
wooden fence
Dudley slumbers or prowls
Down by the lilacs & yarrow
never gets lost
Another Horizon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
this skull contains a halo of trees
all forms of evolution
the world presents chaos
the blood proceeds with caution
softly as a whisper
inhabiting an island of the night
chemistry decides a fate
gives time a season
all roads lead to centrality
forming multiple purpose
all atoms react by instinct
or reason
reason presents a choice
stubborn & tenacious as tree roots
growing through rock
I am learning how to temporarily
abandon an ego
to synthesize my hours
crisscrossing the arts
compulsive about poetry
I am attempting to understand
the dominance of stars
continually pushing myself
towards another horizon
Full Circle
~~~~~~~~~~~
the tree mushrooms
in the interior
shuts inconsequential elements out
roots into bedrock imposes
beginnings of shape & dimension
there are such tiny fragments
to orchestrate
they demand the patience
to be exact
to recall far distances & wait
until they arch themselves
full circle
Postscript
~~~~~~~~~~
this day represents
the burgeoning continent
of language that touches
changes tenderizes the heart
peels away the superficial facade
of everyday lives
in the expansive deep pools
of perception it prompts us
to empathize search analyse & be
infinitely more human
Muskoka, Ontario
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
moving
into the cosmos
the mystic ritual
of stars
returns
to the deepening lake
Ring of Days
~~~~~~~~~~~~
we live & breathe
articulate our boundaries & spaces
all the mystical lines appear
like Genies stepping out of the bottle
our silences are self-contained
as we watch the sky shine like pearl buttons
just above the rim of the land
time moves on its silver hooves of lightning
accelerates the need to produce
a body of substance no matter how small
that is tenacious enough to survive
that does not shake loose from its housing
Things I Never Thought I Could Say
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
you bring me joy
a new era
which is mine also
this communion becomes
self-evident in the bright spring air
I want to celebrate
every small leaf
that allows this unfolding
that eliminates the need
for self-consciousness
exults every moment of discovery
winging its evolution
this is the occasion
that reveals an honesty
without pretence or hesitation
you gave me a hope for tomorrow a future
I thought I would never own
Dream-Laced Apples
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
one shapes
& reshapes
paints & outlines
until incoherence
is harnessed & leashed
in the crown-filled
garden of night
memory shakes
every dream-laced apple
high up in the tree
Notation
~~~~~~~~
all the reflective journeys
have brought us
to this moment
night unwinds
in a gypsy garden
etched & painted
with Sweet Williams
Roses & Daisies
SYLVIA ADAMS
Settee
~~~~~~
Before styrofoam, cellophane,
before, even, Levi cut his first jeans,
when Victoria was young and
Grandfather's Aunt Prudence got married,
lovers hugged opposite ends
of the horsehair stuffed settee,
uncles knocked pipes against its walnut arms,
maiden aunts, chastely upholstered,
dropped crumbs of gossip
into its fine-seamed crevices;
children, seen and not heard,
sedate in britches and flounces,
folded their hands in their laps and waited
for neatly stitched commands.
Before there were Great Wars; before, even,
the Crimea or the Black Hole of Calcutta,
when doctors bled evil from consumptives,
all children were born in sin
and God would have given man wings
if He had meant him to fly,
the settee flexed black leather muscles
beneath buttocks of bombazine
and creaked in rhythm to
well-steeped, quilted chatter.
Now, shrouded in dust in the storeroom
behind old tires and snowblowers,
it stanches its wounds with cobwebs,
keeps its elbows close to its sides.
Spiders and woodbugs haul away its history,
while the slow, hoarse croak of its springs
tries to recapture velvet stroking,
voices we cannot recognize
Small deaths, sad interludes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My grandmother's only photograph of her son
was snapped as he lay in his coffin
sixteen months old
sleeping in post-Victorian innocence
fair curls sculpted about his ears.
Stanley, meant to carry the family name.
The picture hung in her bedroom.
As a child I never questioned
the strange-shaped sepia cradle
beribboned satin pillow
the sprig of forget-me-nots
between his hands.
She never tired of telling how she rocked him one afternoon
brushed his petal cheek with her lips
- the nursery curtains stirred and she knew;
how she lowered the still, small body
in a tub of lukewarm water
sponged his shoulders, clapped his hands
together, patted and pleaded and called
'til the neighbours came;
how my mother, age three, ran from her
bath each night for weeks
screaming, You drowned my brother!
My hair turned white, my grandmother said;
I was only 28.
She grieved for almost 70 years
until only her own small deaths, conceived
in daily fears worn thin of love, absorbed her.
From the bones of those brief, sad interludes
mothers you meet in factories, shops and boardrooms
creep into darkened nurseries, press
cheeks against lips and nostrils
coax children from sleep, lock
their laughter in bulging albums;
carry the family name on
calling cards.
Warning Signals
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
People used to say, how do you stand it?
noise at all hours, waken the dead.
Mother, alert to my brother's bronchial cough,
never woke to the engine's hoarse, relentless keening.
To us, it was part of childhood, like crickets in
summer, the clop of the milkman's horse.
At night, the house shuddered,
the roar sliced through our bedrooms
but never touched our dreams.
Mondays my mother ran clothes through the wringer,
blueing the whites, starching collars, hanging
those shapeless bodies on the clothesline
to dance to the train's whistle;
black specks all over the sheets and shirts,
my sundress, the yellow beach towel.
The tracks marked the town's north boundary;
beyond, campgrounds, a sprinkling of farms
where pastures straddled a creek and
yawned into the sky. We lived south,
on the town side. In school days,
the neighbourhood girls played ball
on a makeshift diamond beside
the freightyard.
"Don't get too close to the trains,"
the big girls said. "You'll get sucked under."
I pictured us all - Patsy, Barbara, Joan - gulped
in that spasm of dragon's breath, ground under the wheels.
Even Shirley, the meanest hitter, swooshed up like a
leaf in a windstorm.
At 12 I made promises impossible to keep:
stay off the tracks, take the long way round
to my best friend's house, be home by 9.
I forgot the time, took the shortcut
along the tracks; safe, I was sure, until
I reached the crossing: my father, pacing
the darkness beside the signal, silent
in his reproach.
Years ago. Now I drive back to town,
to the old house with its new aluminum siding
where the washing tumbles bright in the dryer.
At the crossing, students are huddled around
an old Remembrance Day wreath, poppies
and purple ribbons jostling cut daffodils,
a blue balloon. Everyone
hugging and sobbing.
Two teenagers,
best friends, had been walking along the tracks
on school lunch break. They saw the train,
heard the whistle. Jumped aside into
the path of a freight coming the other way.
One warning blast drowned out the other.
Dawn was tossed 50 feet, died in Emergency;
Candi lay under the train.
They covered her body with two
bright yellow blankets.
I stay overnight in the house, hear
the dirge of every train, a phantom wail that
haunts every mile of cheated sleep
and I wonder how anyone sleeps as long
as trains are moving and our children lie
under blankets
flowers quickly dying
beside the railroad tracks.
Edible Poem
~~~~~~~~~~~
for Meredith
Clutching a moon of smiles
I sat down and wrote you a
peanut butter and jelly poem
It's so seldom the world is clear enough
that I can see into the next millennium
or even across the street
The hardest thing to create is reality
The old poets knew this when
they wrote of alabaster skin and lips like
pomegranates and didn't turn a fair maiden's head
And Edgar Cayce, when he slept on his books
and recited their contents on rising
wasn't diagnosing the future so much as
taking the pulse of all the lovers in the world
hoping that some were still alive
And my lover knows it, for he's not
the kind of man you serve ketchup to, ever
Word merchants today prefer to be
safe, traditional and thin But
to keep you from losing your sense of permanence
or getting caught in the crossfire of expectations
there's nothing like peanut butter and jelly
spread between crusty slices of whole grain
home truths and just plain, old fashioned love
which, incidentally, was never meant to be perfect
The Rebel at 28
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Summer piles up inside you and sits there
like a heavy lunch.
Nothing moves. You blame the heat.
Your intentions are still unpressed
loose-fitting, often borrowed
never returned on time.
Your mother tells you one day you'll wake up
to find you're forty. Your father carves you
a drumstick of opportunity.
You read old classics abandoned in college
your tin cup philosophy haunts studios, galleries
speaks homespun, wholegrain
You don't fall away through the centuries
to the time you achieved innocence
Peace, maybe. Or intuition.
But sometimes in sleep you turn ferocious
Your nostrils flare, your lip curls; your cat
sucks your breath reedily, head on your pillow.
Waking, you can't recall the moment
impeccable, pungent, relentless
like a needle driven in pink, young veins.
Now your eyes burn dark and birdlike
You fear you will die untranslated
sleep in the arms of old men
slide down the rabbit hole into
a happy ending
Fiesta
~~~~~~
Bag lady on wheels, long past the age
of consumptive coughs (ailing Victorian heroine)
she belches rudely after each feast of groceries
dry cleaning, boxes of books for the Salvation Army
shakes out her mud-caked petticoats
hiccups maps from the doorless glove compartment
chortling, disgorges schoolgirls, goalies
into puddles and snowbanks
At night with her one good eye
she ogles old men, arid, scrofulous
bleats as they lurch across her path
to oozing trash cans, alleys narrow as knives
benches chill as mortuary slabs
last Sunday
~~~~~~~~~~~
It's not easy to get rid of you.
Last Sunday my mother found
your name in her birthday book.
"Do you ever hear from him?" she asked.
"Never," I said.
She pencilled a thin
straight line and turned the page.
I went home and washed my hair.
Getting ready for Christmas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
for J.K.H., 1919-1987
You are giving away your life
sending me your jewellery,
clothes, old photographs,
tying your past in small, neat packages,
attaching little notes:
This was your grandmother's watch,
this gold chain your uncle gave me.
I knitted the scarf one cold, dark winter.
We gathered the stones
to make this bracelet
in the Badlands near Medicine Hat . . .
You write nervous, bird-like letters
scratching about in your memory
for each little seed of meaning,
each little blade of relief,
some straw of immortality
I save everything,
boxes within boxes,
all the words, said and unsaid,
knowing a thank-you note
is not something
you can take with you.
The Fire Marshal comes to the Nursing Home
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Too many books," he says, "this room
could go up like a tinder box."
The shelves are full, and the dresser top,
the wire basket on Mother's walker.
He scowls at the three weeks of newspapers,
the magazines from last winter,
real estate flyers and TV Guides,
book marks lolling like limp tongues
from the current crop of bestsellers.
My mother says nothing; she lies on her bed,
propped up by pillows. She's reading
Maeve Binchy, just got to the part where
the heroine loses her lover - it can't end here!
She looks up when the Fire Marshal leaves,
takes off her reading glasses.
"Look in the closet," she whispers.
"In back of the boxes of Christmas cards.
D'you think he saw that bag of books
from the nice lady down at the church?"
I spill the bag's contents onto her bed -
Cookson, Clavell, the English Raj.
Biographies, poems, the Basics of Plumbing.
"We'll get organized next time I come," I say,
already imagining the rest of my life:
when I'm 87, I'm going to live in an igloo of books
with just enough space for the dinner tray.
She smiles and picks up her glasses.
"Here's a Mary Stewart you haven't read.
Would you like to take some of these home?"
She reads everything, even my mind.
Listening for the Dead
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My father's death surprised him
as much as anyone.
A stroke they said, like his mother before him.
No warning except for an aching neck
the day before. Didn't know what a headache was,
said my mother, who'd suffered from migraines
all her life.
Preparing for bed one night, thinking perhaps
of Hallowe'en candy, in case the grandchildren came.
Or thinking, At last, a Florida winter.
My mother heard him fall.
By the time I arrived, there was my father,
who'd vowed to leave this world
a tidy place, debt-free, being carried
out in a blanket, a doctor as old as himself
struggling to keep those cold, pale feet
from bumping the stairs.
Don't look, someone said. Or perhaps
I imagined they said it.
Toward morning, we tried to sleep - my mother,
her mother, who lived with them, and I -
I on the couch in the living room.
I kept listening for him
but the shadows were shocked into silence.
The winter after he died, his slippers whispered
across the carpet, the way they did
when, at four, I lay on my stomach, shading
Rapunzel's hair with my favourite jumbo pink crayon.
He stood at the kitchen phone,
receiver to his ear in voiceless dialogue.
Perhaps in repeating daily rituals
he would discover that nothing had changed.
One night early in May, he sat at a banquet table,
eating cake with strangers.
I called to him, but he rose,
walked away into dazzling air.
Wait! Take me with you! He turned
and held out his hand: Not yet.
The light an ovation of white beyond him
searing my throat as I woke,
his hand still nudging mine:
Wait.
My mother takes flowers to the cemetery
in containers she knows won't get stolen.
Is she thinking
how the lilacs she brings brush her cheek
like fingertips of the dead,
how my grandmother's mouth opens like a bird's,
waiting for ice cream?
Blue and White:
Louise Jopling, 1896, Oil on canvas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Friends, sisters, you've swept the room clean
with sunlight, clipped the first yellow roses.
A gratuitous rinse of the best china;
those angel wing sleeves herald no ordinary tea -
only gentlemen suitors or perhaps Victoria herself
would answer the gilt-edged missive.
Your secrets are spoken so softly they leave no mark.
You could be bathing feet in a temple;
she could be holding warm fruit in a marketplace.
You are as sure of tomorrow as the artist is
of her palette. Nothing here yearns
for migration; the canvas carries no colour for
what moulders in other rooms; yet
you will grow old among strangers,
loving men who are shadowy, inaccessible,
hers staining the air with port and cigars,
yours with the stench of coal and ashes
still on his hands in the canopied darkness.
Your paths diverge: city, country,
finally an ocean between,
your friendship reduced to dutiful script.
Careful as porcelain. Never a word
about what's lost or broken.
You will come back in dreams, seeking
that honeyed warmth - but dampness will seep in
everywhere, quarrel with the boarded-up smells
of wood, shrivelled rose, lye.
I want to wear sunlight in a blue and white kitchen,
pouring that soundless waterfall where secrets bind me,
my hands never so clean
late news
~~~~~~~~~
"...it took us years/to part..."
Anna Akhmatova: "Breakup"
Whether rain or full moon,
nights I can't sleep
I pace to soothe the wakeful music,
switch channels for late news.
From my window -
trees pegged to the skyline;
the glow of paper-lantern buildings
afloat in darkness.
To the north, lights squabble
among the river's waves.
Only a flute of cloud threads across
that other landscape we've not yet grown
old enough to forget.
This is the life I want: books, pen,
a cosmos of soft blankets.
Now when I hear the universe is expanding,
will hold together for only
a few more million years,
I know I can't afford
a moment's breath to treasure
the nothingness of your presence
in last night's dream
"The Fire Marshall comes to the Nursing Home" won the Seeds Magazine
International Poetry contest in 1998, was printed in vol. 5
issue 1 1998 and was reprinted in the Gloucester Spoken Art Instant
Poetry Anthology, 2002; "Getting Ready for Christmas," "last Sunday"
and "Settee" were published in Canadian Author Magazine, Fall, 1994;
"The Rebel at 28" was published as "28" in Open Set, 1990; "Fiesta" was
published in Bywords, August 1991; "Small deaths, sad interludes" was
published in Arc, Autumn 1991 and was reprinted in No Choice but to
Trust Anthology, 2001; "Warning Signals" was published in The New
Quarterly, 1996, and is reprinted in Oval Victory Anthology,
2002; "late news" was published in 2001 A Space Anthology, Cranberry
Tree Press; "Listening for the Dead" was printed in The Grist Mill, 2001.
MARIANNE BLUGER
(excerpt from "Poem in the Fire")
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The peonies burn
because of the sun
you cannot see the flame
but in true night
the noche oscura
beauty consumes itself openly
Even now
in invisible fire
petals curl
without smoke
without ash
Do you suffer and see
* * *
(excerpt from "Exchange")
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* * *
A live coal buried
in the dead grey ash
but fuel enough set by
as would kindle
the raging devastation
of this frail wooden doorway
and each papered passage
I have been scorched in dreams
by the smouldering lump
sat up to smell my own flesh burn
and watched the glow
This carbon stone was made
from press on living stuff
green sap-wood vised into keeping
by the energy it took
to close a dream
Nightfruit
~~~~~~~~~~
Inside the melon
translucent green
inside the moon
dew sweet I think
melon in my lap
you pale you cool chartreuse
the sun has swollen you
passive in the vinefield
you opalescent solid
edible you heavy tender
A thief might stumble down
the deep black ruts
but like a naked man
and painted fluorescent
Great fruit sprung
from silver coinseed
in the dark season of wind and water
of howling and blood
hidden and come
of melonflower burst
that starred passion
of early summer
Now in fall
moon smiles 'come'
says 'eat
this aphrodisiac
of all my vestals'
A Poor Lecher's Poem for the Chaste
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All the poets I know
chant chaste is waste
letting their eyes wander
and quote Herrick
who to be unfair to two
is oversimple as a whimple
leave us not squander
our youth our prime
on Herrick
I mean to celebrate
if only with a breath
the celibate asleep in narrow beds
shy nuns tidy spinsters
pale book-keepers in rented quarters
the long widowed
and fat mild monks
rough backwood bachelors
who flush to the hair-root
to talk to a woman
whoever maintains purity
by grace - there are no other tricks
in the chosen fix of circumstance
This flowering delicacy
of spirit of body
makes me remember
my languishing virtue
my kin and my hearth
and quicker than Herrick
slinking death
Psalm on a Summer Night
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The summer darkness is soft
here on the front steps
bleeding invisibly into the night
How long will it be
this intolerable love
this affliction of ecstacy
The warm black river
moves into the warm black sea
By day whose face can you not search
and immediately know too much
how the good suffer
how the cruel are undone
by refusing to suffer
Plath bled
tortured by vivid tulips
only a pot of red tulips
but violent with life
like a knife killing and killing
the only - the most brutal way to die
Chaotic beauty stabs the eye
pity for fools is shredding the heart
Exhausted by the world
to yet concede
how perfect is the world
and move like a chained tide
to the oblivion of heaven
Take the pulsing summer night
never to hold it just for songs
And take these songs
Take the bruise
of even most tender love
Attend me now my battered Lord
I can trust as the weary
are trusting for rest to this night
your silent your enfolding death
The Ring
~~~~~~~~
I wear no ring on any finger
but these cold years
since I fell whole
into your eyes
any man may see
the mark of my enslavement
It is an absent gaze
turned inward twined
around a memory
As indifferent to him
as the backs of embracing lovers
their whole selves
closed in a private circle
The Widow and the Tulips
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I know an old woman in a black dress
She says to me repent pray and confess
I tell her my longing - that it's like wind
shuddering tulips to look in your dark eyes
I plead that I love you fiercely truly well
with the pound of my driven blood the rise
of my breath its fall. She says yes yes
Consider widowhood relieved of bliss
Then though I crave to mate and age with you
I reckon for the day the hour of death
I toss and pray and toss for long nights through
I curse the widow woman I curse you
who are both passionate and chaste. I do confess
It is your very virtue lays me waste.
Sonata
~~~~~~
Piano notes fall
like petals in the room
I shall never know your kiss
Yet gently your love
like the music
comes without touch
The End of the World
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stars drop
like coins through fingers
silver
through the black branches
Blue plums dark leaves
hung thick in this orchard
when he came
The plums the leaves
fell
Now
even the stars . . .
Sara Jane JORDAN was born in Toronto in August 6, 1926. Jane Belfry
Appleton, sixth generation Canadian, mixed heritage: English; French;
American; Canadian; Scottish; Irish; wrote first poem at age 7. Started
writing poetry seriously at age 40, using her married name Jane White up
until 1972. Established a series of programs named Folk & Poetry in a
number of locations in Toronto & North York, promoting other poets &
artists from right across Canada. Co-established The House on Gerrard
Street with Ted Plantos. Moved to Ottawa 1971. Changed name to Jane
Jordan in 1973. Established a number of programs under the umbrella
Folk & Poetry / The Underground Up until 1982. In 1988, TREE
established the Jane Jordan Award to honour a living Canadian poet.
There are only two living Canadian poets who have had awards named after
them - Irving Layton & Jane Jordan. Two chapbooks were published in
1974 & 1976. Poems have been published in a number of periodicals &
anthologies, & broadcast on CKCU-FM, CHEZ-FM, Q101-FM & the CBC. Jordan
has been a strong supporter of Canadian literature over the years.
Ottawa writer Sylvia ADAMS is the author of the novel, This Weather of
Hangmen, and of the chapbook Mondrian's Elephant, which won the 1998
Cranberry Tree Press poetry chapbook contest. She has been published in
several journals and anthologies, including Arc, The New Quarterly,
and three League of Canadian Poets Vintages. She is teacher/facilitator for
two poetry groups, and editor for two chapbooks by the Field Stone Poets
of Ottawa.
Marianne BLUGER was born in Ottawa, Canada in 1945. She is the author of
seven books of poetry: The Thumbless Man is at the Piano (1981);
On Nights Like This (1984); Gathering Wild (1988);
Summer Grass (1992); Tamarack & Clearcut (1997);
Gusts (1998); and Scissor, Paper, Woman (2000)
(published by Penumbra Press, http://www.penumbrapress.com). Marianne
won the Archibald Lampman Award for Poetry in 1993 and a Canada
Council Arts B Award in 1989. She enjoys birdwatching, gardening,
natural history and hiking. You may visit her website at
http://members.rogers.com/mbluger/.
All poems copyrighted by their respective authors. Any reproduction of
these poems, without the express written permission of the authors, is
prohibited.
YGDRASIL: A Journal of the Poetic Arts - Copyright (c) 1993 - 2002 by
Klaus J. Gerken.
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