Sunday Evening - May, 1998

a thin shimmer of rain wets asphalt
tires squeeze sound as they press
black wetness
rushing somewhere
rushing going nowhere
but here

voices praising the Lord
with gold
with sacrifice
and pleabargaining
counting the costs
calculating the next
charitable tax deduction

passing discarded souls
judged too soft in a hard place
discards including
children and the childlike
abandoning dreams
that failed
and the frenzied
search for more

drawn to the pulsing glow
of neon that flashes
in the darkness
promising power
promising release from pain
with nothing down
and eternity to pay

- - - - - - - - -

Three months into analysis, living alone, adds up to some serious negative mind spaces. It is much too soon for new life to be found amng the wreckage of the inner world and the outer world has been denied, the status quo has been denied leaving the soul vulnerable.

Go Inside - June, 1998

go inside

to a place of bitter memories

call out to that

bleeding and abandoned child

listen to the tales

that need telling

to the crying

of a wounded soul

weep

listen uncritically

as the arrows are pulled free

exposing raw wounds

and somehow

find love for this

wounded soul

and for the "other"

who wounded

- - - - - - -

The process of analysis uncovers a lot of pain, a necessary process that frees the psyche of unacknowledged suffering. Shadows are brought to the light so that they lose their power, a power of darkness.

New Life - June, 1998

Woman with a man standing beside her
Both holding hands and waiting
Filling moments with words that
Have no meaning within themselves
Having meaning just for their sound
While they wait.

A tightening and the hands react in
Hightened anticiption, in a bit of fear
Practiced ritual breathing takes both
Through the tension of the moment
And then a release of the tightness
Again, the waiting.

Pain rises and falls in rhythmic patterns
The intensity banishes reason and all
That is wanted is release, retreat to a
Time when there was no birthing pain
Anger and shame, yet still clinging
Still waiting.

A cry, a moan escapes despite resolution
Fear of this inner self, this stranger who
Threatens survival, who shakes to the core
Until all that is wanted is to slip into
A place of unconsciousness
Into darkness, waiting.

Then the crowning
The light touches hair
That is like dark silken strands
Hair that has been drenched
By a quick summer storm
Then the head emerges
A slow turning
Allowing the body to flow
Following the change of vision.

- - - - - - - -

A close reading, perhaps a second reading will make you aware that this isn't about the birth of a child. Rather this poem is about the process of breaking out of a depression,out of old destructive habits in order to allow a newer version of "self" to come to life. In this case, the journey was shared with a partner standing close by giving what she could.

Naked Dream - November, 1996

stripped ... exposed ...
clothes lying scattered
shamed ...
private parts, dark zones
uncovered ... humiliated
an object observed
sy soul-less eyes

bared
are the shadows
needs, desires
fears and needs again
... inadequate ...

judged ...
a betrayer
for abandonment of "other"
the sentence ...
banishment from community
isolation
confinement in solitude

- - - - - - - -

This poem is a direct response to Aldo Carotenuto's book, Eros and Pathos. What struck me the most when finishing the book was the sense of isolation and the knowledge that I was faced with choices. What to risk? What would I gain? What would I lose? I knew that loss was to occur regardless of the choices I would make. However, I also knew that to avoid making choices would result in the greatest losses.

Hostage - November, 1996

the silence
echoes loudly
drowning the wails and wimperings
of abandonment

a mask
silver
eyes
black oval orbits
mirrors an outer world

behind the silence
and the mask
a faint thread of light
held hostage

- - - - -

I wrote this poem in late 1996 while in the midst of reading Eros and Pathos, a book by Aldo Carotenuto, about a month after my counselling retreat. This was a time when I was treading a downward spiral into self-abusive depression. This poem marked a brief moment of light during a weekend spent in the city with my son - a weekend when I was the hero for my son, and a demon to my "self".

Matin silent, matin de Noël - December, 1997

Pas de bruit ce matin
Sauf pour un vent leger
Qui fait danser ...
Sauf pour une horloge
Qui fait voler ...

Regarde par la fenêtre
Pas de neige
Seulement la terre endormie
Pas d'enfants
Seulement la balançoire démunie

Regarde dans le salon
Un arbre garni de lumière
Un symbole visuel
Un espoir promis et mystère
Ce matin de Noël

I do write in French as well. It was Christmas morning. And like most other mornings, I was up long before anyone else. It wasn't always like that on Christmas mornings, but little children grow up to become adults. That growing up steals the magic from them so that they learn to sleep in later, even on a magical morning. I decided to leave the poem in its original French rather than translate it here fearing that to much would be lost, especially with the passage of years since the poem was written. As you will notice, I have used a blue type for the poem in order to represent the language, the language of my ancestors.

Are You My Mother? - July, 1998

A woman-child only sixteen
not yet married six months
gave birth to a boy-child
is now a mother.

Holding babe to breast and the milk of life
while in a foreign place exiled from family
into a riotous place tangled and tumultuous
being mothered and smothered in
sweaty and musky closeness
is now, again, a child.

A woman-child, a mother-child
pregnant again.

And he left her for military service
for the glamour of the big gun
left her in his mother’s care
alone in the crowd
to give birth to yet another son.

And he returned to a hero’s welcome
returned to act the man, the husband
and she moved in with him
and is now, wife-child.

And who is mother while this woman-child
this mother-child, this wife-child
has eyes and focus on this hero?

And the first born wanders lost and frightened
through the world of the feminine
asking, “Are you my mother?”

This is a difficult subject to bring up, that of mothers. As you can probably guess, this is my story, the story of my mother. She was a young and vibrant teenager who fell under the spell of "Tristan and Isolde" when she met my father. This makes for a powerful love tale. However, it wasn't a good time, it was an interesting time. She lost her rights to her parents' home and went to live with her husband's parents while he went off to Korea. When he came home, the spell was still upon her and the offspring continued to arrive with little delay. I was the first born and have wrestled with being motherless, with taking on the role of mother to my younger siblings as I got a bit older. Yet for all that, I have no anger. I willingly spend time with this woman and guard the sadness in knowing she never got to know her first child.

Unio Coniunctionis - December, 1976

Sheathed in translucent silk baring your beauty softened
you appear before my eyes a phantom
Shadowed and erotically luminous in the light glowing
from our joint soul

Your eyes, glowing sapphires, filled with a promise of passion and hinting of magic and mischief
Eyes that invite my soul to a dance, to feast in communion.

Bending the texture of silk, your breasts, perfect
nourrishing me with their milk, your tenderness and love

Aureoles encircle fountains that feed both body and soul
aching for the tug of tongue and lips
and the kisses of need.

Framed in the strength of body
erotically alive to my touch,
the birthplace of passion and the human race
A place of mystery, shadow and magic.

Within your depths, this homeland of the soul, I am reborn
Reborn in love, a love child, a loved man.

Your centre, a warm hearth that embraces,
melts denials and banishes shadow
Life ... creation ... love flows as warm nectar
in moist union of spirit.

Thus two become one
and the universe is complete through the communion of souls
A sacrament of love between ghosts
A song between soul mates.

For a period of time after completing my Master's program, I found myself almost zombe-like in relation to people. In the autumn, I sought help with a reaching out to another man who became my counsellor. He didn't waste much time before suggesting that I attend a retreat session for teachers such as myself, who were struggling. I knew that this was important, and attended. While there, I began to listen to different music, really listen. I also began to re-establish a routine of meditation, something that I used to do more than twenty years earlier. My dreams began to make themselves more present. It is around this time that I saw that I had ignored my soul, the anima. I had to begin to develop a relationship with my soul. Curiously, it meant that I had to fall in love with it, to acknowledge it. Yet, at the time, I heard, saw and felt this need but refused to understand. And so, it remained something simply trapped in my head.

Alchemy and dangerous acids - 1997

a small hole
drawing inward
edged in white heat
a solar event
implosion

and the psyche
writhes unseen
victim of a
singularity
shadowed
silent

temenos
tempered
tampered
torn

This poem written in the middle of October, not long after I had written "I am here", traces an increasingly downward spiral into a cauldron that appears to be being heated, ready to burn the contents of the cauldron. The door to the unconscious contents had been opened and my conscious self was not yet aware of how to close the door, a skill which I had been so deft with over the decades. Control. It was slipping significantly. Daily it was more and more of a struggle to go to work and pretend that I was engaged, pretend that I was sane. I knew better. And, I continued to work small spells of concealment, hiding the truth of what was happening to me, even from my "self".

I am here - 1997

I am here ...
caught between night dreams
and the world of day
eyes ringed with sleep
again disturbed

I am here ...
in this netherland of
current and cursor
eyes tracking
the flow of words

I am here ...
stuck

Nineteen ninety-seven. At this point of my life, I was seriously coming unglued plagued by dreams that I called "nightstorms" and living a nightmare both at work and at home. None of these nightmares were due to anyone or any circumstance of my daily life. No, it was all about inner shadows demanding to be acknowledged and released from their solitary confinement. The Internet was the medium in which finally I was able to "know" that it was all about within and not without.

The Philosopher and His Maureen - 1973

Taking for granted
your need and your warmth
Taking for granted
tomorrow

I silently sit
with a book in hand
and silently, so silently
leave you

Gone to the mountains
of philosphy and men
gone in pursuit of
meaning

While you, painfully wait
for my return to you
while you pray
that I won't be long

Nietzsche, Buber
Spinoza and Leibniz
compete for my eyes
and my time

And you, so quiet, so sad
yet so calm
and you, wait
you, whom I call my wife

- - - - -

There is no doubt that all of us regret some of the small things of our life, things which in the larger picture end up not being so small at all. I guess, that in being able to recognize my disappearances into my head so early has allowed me to consciously make more time for those who are around me. It is difficult to be present, impossible to do it all the time. For a philosophical poet, it may be the most difficult of all tasks. More than 35 years later, I am still married to this woman, and I still disappear into inner spaces.

Hiaku - Winter Dawn - 1972

cold biting winds fly

chasing snowflakes aimlessly

across dawn's landscape

- - - - -

Living in the cold, windswept prairies of Canada has its moments of pain as well as pleasure. The cold is intense, at times so cold that being outdoors is actually painful. Yet, the desire to go outside and pit one's self against the elements and prove one's right to exist is all the more exhilarating for the harshness. And in this intemperate climate, there is beauty.

Shadows and Ghosts - 1970

a song bends the stale air
as children stray between empty buildings,
a robin darts through bare branches
of a chokecherry bush,
a shout rings out from
a backyard beef barbeque,
and a car guns its motor
waiting for a light to turn green

a jackhammer threatens eardums
on a busy downtown street,
a neon sign flashes a rainbow
of pulsing plastic light,
a drunk sprawls on the grass
waiting for the pain to leave,
and a crowd lines up
to see the latest restricted movie

a bus rolls up to one of many stops
and waits for people to board and pay,
a factory whistle announces a shift change
a comman to hundreds,
a class of students leave the museum
forgetting about the relics on display,
and a woman gives birth
to an unwanted child

a man sits silently
on a dusty bench waiting,
a child cries in front of a TV
frightened by Captain Hook,
a young woman looks longingly
at a bargain basement gown,
and another city day passes
into memories as shadows and ghosts

- - - - -

There is no doubt that youth gives one a cynical perspective of life, one that is almost intolerant of human weakness. When I wrote this, I was certain that I would make every moment count and that all of my actions would have purpose and meaning, that I wouldn't get caught like those I pitied all around me.

Rebirth - Ecce Homo - 1968

windows with walls
shadows in light
encourage superstition
day bends into night
emotions are feelings
some running, some kneeling

rivers of segregation
soon flow into one
semites become christians
black and white are gone
all become a common man
as mountains turn into sand

rise up with curiousity
disregard an uneventful fate
thirst with a hunger
which only knowledge can sate
when the peasant dies
superman will rise

- - - - - - -

Part of my discoveries during this stage of my life, was the work of Nietzsche. Thus Spoke Zarathustra became the central piece of my wandering around the world of philosophers such as Kant, Schopenhauer, Liebiz, Spinoza and others. For my final high school English paper I wrote a sizable treatise on existentialism trying to use as many big words as I could, not so much for mark, but to show that I was different from the others. I had depth, substance. I wasn't a peasant. However, a lifetime has passed since those days of idealistic fervour and I have discovered that I am a common man.

Animal Man - 1969

awkward embraces
by two strangers
are guided
by need

i need,
your body
raises mine,
instincts feed

the room
stifles enjoyment as
the cigarette smoke
burns my eyes
and my hands
keep searching

EXPLOSION

nature lets loose
a flood
my skin
quivers with excitement
as your breast
brushes my cheek

the taste of you
is warm
and glows

reason dies

- - - - - -

There is no doubt that the discovery of desire is something that upsets all that is known about the world, especially for one who lives in the world of thought. The neat ordering of the world is shattered. Deeply held convictions that man is rational, that purity is wholesome and the most natural state of being for one who professes to be a Christian. All this dies with discovery that one is bound to the instinctual of the human species. The days of sainthood disappear, never to be recaptured. Man is a messy being.

Flower People - 1967

sandals on their feet
guitars on their backs
living to a beat
not wanting to turn back

'Ban the Bomb!'
'Do away with War!'
show all nations
what we stand for

give not to society
for it's all in vain
love all neighbours
be called insane

in search of love
we have the power
in search of love
people of the flower

- - - - - -

During the spring and summer months I often spent time on Sparks Street in Ottawa, an area that was closed to pedestrian traffic only. During this time, a beaded, tie-dyed and long-haired group of young people began to frequent the street bringing their guitars with them in order to serenade the passersby. Often the young women would wear flowers in their hair and have other flowers on hand to give away. The adults, of course, were distrustful of these young people, but at the same time, they were tolerant and curious. It wasn't long before I too was wearing sandals and playing my guitar along with these strange beings.

Christmas Came Early - 1969

Christmas came early
I saw it today
In folded clothes
And things for play

A winter coat
Sans a button of course
Some retired socks
Relics of past city wars

A shiny shirt
What more can I say?
Christmas came early
Then went away

- - - - - - -

Christmas as a youth, even as a child, in the city was an event that was like a double-edged sword. Because I grew up in poverty, Christmas presents were often obtained from welfare agencies who had gathered used toys and games for those less fortunate. A good idea that often fell flat when the gifts didn't work, had missing puzzle pieces or game pieces. One particular Christmas when I was in grade nine saw me get a new wardrobe courtesy of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. The clothes, for a change, were actually decent and included a set of soft suede boots called 'desert boots'. I wore the new clothes with some pride to school as my old clothes were stuck in a different time and era. Unfortunately, one of the students in my large school noticed a shirt I was wearing, a unique one, as being his old shirt that his mom had given to some charity group or other. The echoes of the laughter in the school halls followed me for a long time.

rgl

Self Portrait - 1968

I am, myself, a book
to be read and reasoned
to be loved and hated
to be known, yet misunderstood
I am, myself, a man

- - - - - - -

As a young man of nineteen who had joined the work force in Ottawa, working for the department of Public Works thanks to my uncle who was a senior level government bureaucrat, I had begun to see myself as a man though in reality, I was more than naive about almost everything in life. Now, more than forty years later, I find myself still naive about many things. In the moments between work I lived in a world of literature, philosophy and music. I avoided, as much as possible, being involved with most people. Again, it isn't much different in the present. I am still quiet and reserved. I still crave the same things as I did forty years ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

rgl