POETRY

Red Warning - Mutability - Abbot and Hastings - Siren on a Rock - A Love Letter to My Dad - A New Beginning - Today

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Mutability

My eyes water as I walk down

The long hot street.

You mustn’t think I’m crying

It’s just the moment’s sign of aging.

I hunger less for carefree youth.

I thirst for full acceptance

Of the ever changing now.

Abbott & Hastings

A young woman, 

gaunt with

curly blonde hair,

stands in the corner 

of the sidewalk

Her things circled around her

A white bag stuffed full 

A small suitcase locked up

Long black quilted jacket

Hood up around

A pinched white face

White sneakers on sockless feet

in the freezing Vancouver Street

As I pass her by

In my well-to-do state

A comfy roof over my head

food whenever I want

too many clothes in my closet

I wonder

Where does she go?

When she needs a bathroom

Years ago, a manager told me

In her tiny Downtown Eastside office

It’s OK when they only come in

Not to avail themselves of our services

A living room area to meet others

A chance to see a social worker 

or an addictions counselor

But just to use the bathroom.



Siren on a Rock

She sat on obsidian black rock

poking out of the churning sea

her long golden locks waving

seductively in the accomplice wind

her voice rising and falling

under those cerulean skies.

The men on the boat looked and listened

enwrapped in those dulcet melodies

“No! No! No!” he cried desperately

bound to the mast with ears stoppered.

But they jumped into the seething sea

and swam furiously, crying out, to her

Helpless, with tears sliding down

red weathered cheeks and a whiskered chin

He bore agonizing witness as

one by one, they gradually sank

down into those dark depths

The boat floated away silently

her sweet voice still rising and falling

Ullysess wept.




A Love Letter to My Dad

I love your gusto for life

A man of the senses

Sitting patiently at a Chinese restaurant

Holding a table for our family of 3 or 6

Unable to wait at this morning dim sum

Savoring a bowl of congee

Or a plate of beef crepes

I love your patience in this and other things.


Casting your reel into a still lake

a fishing net at your rubber feet

Readying your rifle at a Mallard duck

in the water alongside your hand painted decoys

Crouching behind a bush, waiting

for the doe to stop and stand motionless

Tinkering tirelessly with the engine of your

yellow Datsun that I once crunched the gears


Listening patiently as I show you my new hobby,

A small Canon camera with a built-in light meter

Decades ahead of your boxy black one

with its few simple knobs, big negative plates

and its companion hand-held light meter


I hear in your ringing silence

the begrudging acceptance

And maybe more


When so much later I become like you

Trying with this recalcitrant camera

to capture the way you painted the flush

on the young bride’s cheeks

in your black and white photos

the deeper hue of red roses in her bouquet

Or on paper and with a paint brush,

capture the same palm tree

leaning drunkenly on a sandy beach


I adore the way you seized life by its throat,

the genes that swim in my blood

A part of you forever in me,

my beloved father



A New Beginning

I remember

cherry trees blooming fully

Stepping lightly up three flights

to the corner apartment

I remember

Laying the large worn Chinese rug

over the anaemic wooden floor

Unpacking and filling

all those empty welcoming spaces

Making our very first marks

In this hopeful Vancouver life.

Today

I wake up today

Happy that the sun rose again

and that it chose to shine

Gleeful I’ve got all my teeth

Less so that my hair is less

but consoled it’s not a wispy shadow

Thrilled that my legs carry me

Short and longer distances unaided

Delighted that my eyes allow me

to see different worlds in words and

view beauty in things and beings

including uneven pavements and

treacherous roads winding ahead

Blessed to have an equal half

to navigate life expected and unexpected

Not to go gently into the night together

Cheered by motley others in my life

and the possibility of more entering

Glad my brain and heart works okay

Happy I’m above and not below ground

Today.