Wave in the Air

            On Thursday I typed my lecture notes and got caught up with my journal. By the time I’d done that though I didn’t have time to finish the new poem I was working on and so I grabbed an old one from the book that I want to publish. The two poems from Paranoiac Utopia that I printed are “Petal and Thorn Collage On Skin” and “Sugar”. My third poem is more recent and just called “Parkdale”.

            I turned my flashers on before I started riding because last time it got dark halfway to Victoria College but I barely needed them at all this time. After Reading Week when we come back on February 28 I won’t have to use them for the ride in.

            I noticed as I passed the Royal Cinema on College that “In the Realm of the Senses” is playing. I saw that first in Montreal back in the mid-seventies when it was banned in Ontario. What a great film!

            There were more bunny tracks by the bike post ring but there were also bunny-hunting kitty cat tracks.

            I was the first one there and about five minutes later Margaryta arrived. She told me that Vivian had a hand injury and wouldn’t be coming. She added what I already knew from the same email she’d received, that Blythe wouldn’t be coming either and so it would be just she and I in one group.

            Albert began the class with a pile of chapbooks in front of him that some former students of our course and one current student have gotten published. One of them was published by Grey Borders Books in Buffalo. Another was published by a Toronto publisher named Jim Johnstone who features younger poets. Another publisher named Biblioasis has an international reach.

            Albert handed us a sheet calling for submissions for a book by Grey Borders called “Daddy: A Cultural Anthology”. They are asking for poetry, fiction, essays and artwork on whatever the word "Daddy" means to people.

            Looking it up later I see that Grey Borders Books is not actually in Buffalo but rather in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

            Albert brought up the words “Dude” and “Bro” and said he was surprised that people actually use them. I said that another one is “Boss" and mentioned that guys call me “boss” every now and then. One somebody almost doored me and said, “Sorry boss!”

            For our group and another we just worked at opposite ends of the long table. A third group went into Albert's office.

            Margaryta and I began with my poem, “Wave in the Air”, which is for two voices and so I asked her to read the non-italicized first voice, since the italicized second voice has more to do because it has to respond to the first voice but when in brackets it has to be simultaneous with the first:

From way down deep from way down deep

inside your heart inside your heart

I can

feel something tremble (feel something tremble)

and I satellite dish it I dish it up

into my chest down in my chest

just like a

radio signal (radio signal)

It’s like sweet oh so sweet

rarely heard music sweet sweet music

that comes from

so far away (so far away)

that it only only only

breaks the static cuts through the static

on those

clearest of days (clearest of days)

until one day until one day

Is it by chance by happenstance?

my needle

catches it bang on (catches it bang on)

so that it blows oh yes it blows

right through my chest hard through my chest

like a

wind rushing through a canyon (wind rushing through a canyon)

and then every night (night)

I find myself tied to the touch (tied to the touch)

of your wave in the air of your wave in the air

because I love those songs so much

and I’m so afraid (afraid)

to touch that delicate dial

and risk losing that wave that wave that wave

without a safecracker’s style.

And so I grit and so I grit

my winter teeth those cold cold teeth

and bear the

bad news of the war (bad news of the war)

and the tedious words those boring words

of your sponsor your corporate sponsor

and your

ballgame’s boring score (ballgame’s boring score)

until your tide until your tide

comes rolling back come back come back

to wash away my bitter skin (away my bitter skin)

and roll right through roll right on through

my arching bones that arch of bones

that frame the

temple deep within (temple deep within)

so that every night (night)

I can find myself tied to the touch (tied to the touch)

of your wave in the air of your wave in the air

of your wave in the air (of your wave in the air)

            She said it was easier to understand after reading it with me. She thought my instructions had not made it clear that the italics were meant to indicate a second voice.

            It turned out that a lot of what she didn’t understand was generational. Modern radios tend to automatically hone in on a station and so she didn’t get the concept of losing a station and having to delicately turn the dial like a safecracker in order to find it again. She also didn’t get my references to sponsors, ballgames and the war. She wondered “What war?” My point is that almost anytime one tunes into the news there is news and sports and if one is not paying for satellite or cable radio or listening to the CBC one is getting commercials as well. I had to explain to her that this is a metaphor for a relationship. Even when if one finds someone whose presence is like sweet music to your being you still might have to deal with things they like that you might not like, such as sports, business and politics.

            Albert’s written comments for this poem were very complimentary: "Beautiful poem. Highly creative, striking idea for its form; very well crafted …”

            He also got the safecracker’s reference and said it’s an “excellent image!”

            At the end of the class he mentioned the poem again and suggested that we have a reading of it in the class with two voices.

            Of my poem “One-Handed Rolly Haibun":

You roll a perfect cigarette with one hand while steering the tractor with the other from harrow to harvest always Vogue papers and Macdonald’s Export tobacco with the Highland Lassie on the package who I think looks like my mother, I have to admit that the rollies you make from that pouch are less unpleasant than the stinking Rothmans tailor-mades that Mom smokes, leaning your bad back forward tired and thoughtful in the chair at your end of the kitchen table in the corner by the toaster beneath the old brown radio news with your elbows on your knees and your suspenders relaxing by your hips you take slow, contemplative drags from your after dinner cigarette, always holding it between the tips of index and thumb, but never between fingers like a lady, my sister and I don’t want you and Mom to smoke, you take our complaints with grumpy calm until one day you stop, and we don’t dare to say anything out of fear that we are yelled at or that speaking puts a jinx on our good fortune, weeks later you climb on Mom’s back to stop her from puffing and you stay there until she dies.

you roll a smoke with one hand

wind blows into my face

cool mist of DDT

            I was surprised when she said that “leaning your bad back forward tired and thoughtful in the chair at your end of the kitchen table in the corner by the toaster beneath the old brown radio news with your elbows on your knees and your suspenders relaxing by your hips” was the weakest part of the poem. I always thought that it was one of the strongest and my friend Dutch had mentioned liking that part as well.

            She also didn’t understand that a haibun is supposed to have a haiku at the end and said I should put it inside the poem.

            Of the accompanying “Tailor-Made Chain Haibun”:

Those stinking Rothmans sticks you smoke that smell like tobacco blended with sugar and sewage turn my stomach and so does their memory long after you die of breast cancer when I’m a teenager, you smoke even after your mastectomy, you smoke everywhere with everyone and have lots of friends but it must be tough for you when dad kicks the habit, smoking in the smoky teachers lounge with your colleagues, you smoke with my brother, with your next oldest brothers, your cousins and my father’s youngest sisters, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, the fowl smell of cigarette corpses in the house and car ashtrays, and after dinner plates full of butts, do you start smoking with dad or do you start with the other girls in boarding school, nobody complains but my dad, my sister and me.

sighing neath her beehive

she crushes the lipstick filter

into unfinished eggs

She thought that there were way too many repetitions of the word “smoke”. I would agree, as when I read it out loud I only used about eight and so eleven could be chopped off.

She didn’t think that I should put the two poems on the same page. I explained that I put them together because they are portraits of my parents. She said in that case I should give them one overall title to indicate that.

Albert wrote that “nobody complains but my dad, my sister and me” is a good ending in some respects but it also feels somewhat anti-climactic. He also thought I should have avoided the archaism of “neath” in the haiku.

Of my poem “Raja”:

My landlord’s name means, “lord” in his language

so it’s like calling him “Lord the landlord”

or “My landlord Lord”.

Lord!

My landlord calls and asks how I am

He has never asked me such a question

I say “fine” and ask the same of him

I’ve never given him such a greeting

With both of us shovelling so much charm

something not nice must be going to happen

My landlord suggested that I forgot

when I paid the rent by email transfer

that he’d given notice the rent would go up

effective the first day of the new year

I told my landlord I did not receive

a proper notice of rental increase

He then demanded to know what I meant.

I told him to re-read the document

or that he could have his wife or lawyer

read and help him decipher the paper

He said “I gave you sixty days notice!”

I said, “You have to give ninety days notice.”

As I expected he started to yell

and let me know I’m a “fucking asshole”

I said “Relax and just follow the rules”

But saying, “relax” never does seem to help

"You wanna follow the rules?

You wanna follow the rules?”

He said, “You fucking asshole!”

and ended the call

The rent increase was thirteen dollars

and so my millionaire landlord would be

poorer by about fifty dollars

three months from the start of February

I would lose the same every three months

till next year he raises the rent again

but really the biggest difference

is that I don’t start screaming and calling him names

Two years ago his stomach exploded

because he was full of anxiety

I could offer to teach him yoga

but doubt he would take instruction from me.

The next day my landlord came around

to hand me a brand new notice of increase

He warned me, “This time don’t fuck around!”

and suggested or else I might end up deceased

            She thought that the line “something not nice must be going to happen” was unclear.

            Albert said I should put the whole poem in the present tense. He also thought I should move the first three of the last four stanzas ahead of the stanza before them like this:

As I expected he started to yell

and let me know I’m a “fucking asshole”

I said “Relax and just follow the rules”

But saying, “relax” never does seem to help

The rent increase was thirteen dollars

and so my millionaire landlord would be

poorer by about fifty dollars

three months from the start of February

I would lose the same every three months

till next year he raises the rent again

but really the biggest difference

is that I don’t start screaming and calling him names

Two years ago his stomach exploded

because he was full of anxiety

I could offer to teach him yoga

but doubt he would take instruction from me.

"You wanna follow the rules?

You wanna follow the rules?”

He said, “You fucking asshole!”

and ended the call

The next day my landlord came around

to hand me a brand new notice of increase

He warned me, “This time don’t fuck around!”

and suggested or else I might end up deceased

            One of Margaryta’s poems was one she didn’t even remember writing and couldn’t really answer any questions about it.

Since it was just Margaryta and I we finished hearing and critiquing each other’s poems early and we chatted for the last half an hour.

I asked her if she’d understood the monetary slang of “fin” that I used in my poem “Maroon River” two weeks ago for a double meaning with fins for swimming. As I suspected, she hadn’t. When I wrote “testosterone’s tapping the pussies like trees / two fins for a swim in the estrogen sea” she’d thought that I’d been talking about a threesome. She suggested that it might be a generational thing since she’d never heard of a fin as a five. She added though that as a Ukrainian immigrant to Canada there are some phrases that she gets wrong or misses all together.  I just asked my daughter about it and she had no idea what a fin was either.

Margaryta came from the Ukraine when she was four and she said her first language is Russian while Ukrainian is only the second. She said there is a divide between the Ukrainians from the west and the east. She told me that her parents get mad when people ask them why they didn’t choose to live in Bloor West Village. They answer, “If we wanted o live with Ukrainians we would have stayed in the Ukraine!”

Albert gave me back copies of my poems from the previous week with comments. He’d already commented in person on “Makeup Mirror” but of “The Long Warm Thread Between Us” he said it was a good ghazal. He suggested one stanza might be superfluous and another weak, but I’ve made changes to both of those since then.

Of “Princesses Hear a Pea”:

A young couple gave me a funny look

while I unlocked my Parkdale home

They were turning their tumblers two numbers up

beside the Izakaya Sho

They stared and then whispered to each other

I was pretty sure I wasn’t naked

through all of my layers of winter armour

so why were the gentry agitated?

Next morning I was singing and playing

when a guy about my daughter’s age

came underneath my window and waved for me

to lean out on my window ledge

When he said that he’s my next-door neighbour

I recognized him as the salty slice

from the night before when I opened my door

of the snooty couple with the evil eyes

He complained my voice is too thunderous

at 6:00 and that it shakes them awake

I’d been worried I wasn't loud enough

and glad to hear that I penetrate

My morning practice is nearing twenty

and he’s the first one to grumble

No one in my building can even hear me

while he’s past two walls and a stairwell

They leave the nest in a middle class burb

move to an urban neighbourhood

and they take a place on an ambulance route

on a street where poor people shout

in joy and in agony all night long

and then they try to stop their neighbour’s song

Whenever I move to a neighbourhood

I don't try to gentrify my neighbours’ behaviour

The yearspan of my morning serenades

Have made them a part of the community culture

Don’t clear-cut the culture of these confines

though you’re very welcome to add to the mound

You can lay your culture on top of mine

build a mountain of culture in this part of town

            He thought the end of the second stanza “when I opened my door

of the snooty couple with the evil eyes” was unnecessary.

            His final comment was “Bravo! Fine poem. In the line of Acorn and Purdy.”

            I stopped at Freshco on my way home. Their black grapes were not as firm as I would have liked but I found two bags that weren’t too bad. They had navel oranges and blood oranges so I got seven of the former and three of the latter. I also got a half-pint of raspberries and some Greek yogourt.

            Earlier I had roasted a pork tenderloin and boiled a potato and so it didn’t take long to make dinner when I got home. While eating I watched an episode of “Rawhide”.

            In this story Gil gives his men some time to go into a nearby town and have a good time. He warns them that the roulette table in that town is crooked. Rowdy asks Gil to hold on to most of his pay. The men ride into town hooting and shooting. Despite the warning they get mad when they lose at roulette and so there is a fight. A local gets killed and so does one of Gil’s men. Meanwhile Rowdy meets a woman named Clovis. She had picked his pocket but on seeing it was empty gave it back to him, saying she’d found it. She tells him she needs money to get out of town but she doesn’t tell him she is the wife of a very jealous older man that happens also to be the sheriff. The sheriff had previously arrested another man that had shown interest in Clovis and shot him in the back after letting him escape. Rowdy asks Gil for his pay so he can give Clovis $50 to leave town but Gil refuses, thinking that Clovis is not trustworthy. Rowdy quits the trail drive and loses a fistfight with Gil, but Gil gives him his pay. Rowdy goes into town to find Clovis and Gil goes in to settle up the damages that his men caused. Not understanding that the sheriff is unstable, Gil decides to teach Rowdy a lesson and asks the sheriff to arrest Rowdy for horse theft. The sheriff knows that Rowdy has been talking with Clovis and so after arresting him, when Rowdy says he can prove he’s not a horse thief if the sheriff would come out to the drive with him. The sheriff agrees but his intention is to kill Rowdy along the way. Clovis warns Gil that her husband plans to kill Rowdy and so they go after them. They stop him just before he is about to shoot Rowdy. Clovis refuses to take money from either Rowdy or Gil, I guess because with her husband dead there is no more need to escape.

            Clovis was played by Sally Forrest who started out as a dancer in movies but got critical praise in the lead role of Not Wanted. Ironically, after marrying her agent Milo O Frank Jr. she didn’t work that much in films. They were married for 53 years until he died.