Category Archives: Poetry

when 2 poets collide

Posted on by laurie macfayden
for M & K, whose collision is still sparking up the cosmos
sept. 8, 2007

when two poets collide
turbulent skies rejoice
stars sweeten up the cracked hallelujahs
cackling black crows kick up their heels.

when two poets collide
there is chiming up the violets
there is singing down the rain
there is trilling, drumming, chirping, thrumming
there is clanging of pot, slapping of feet,
prattling of ham
there is a clutch, a plethora,
an insignia of iambic pentameter
there are rips and fits and stits and pits and ritz!

there is word / there is beat
there is sonnet / there is heat
when two poets collide
leaping greenly ghazals pull red wagons
through fitful sleep

deep breathy verbs punctuate the blood
a cauldron of metaphor burbles next to the bed.

there is upper-case wool
there is lower-case lingerie
there is subtext in the soup pot
irony in the ink pot, wild ripping beauty in the coffee pot
pathetic fallacy in the chamber pot

there is grammatically incorrect kissing

a hint of patchouli tenderly tenderly
graces the ripe hot doggery of the haiku
when two poets collide

(w)rite by the river

Posted on by laurie macfayden
wimmin’s words from the SAGA sessions at wynne’s
august 2006, with gratitude

from this week i take

rivers, mountains, loaded guns, lampshades
and one dim bulb
frou-frou little foreigners and
wide-eyed jewish sisters
seeking shelter
hope and little green apples
joy harjo and joan baez
three matches
a wedding dress from a junk store
a cat named tessa
green & yellow john deeres
& the knowledge that you won’t hurt yourself
if you fall while wearing turquoise

from this week i take

jane kenyan, jane hirschfield, bell hooks
bare feet / green eyes
talcum powder cigarettes
skin / teeth / bone / eyes / skin / toes / lips / skin / hair
the crown of sagittarius
a trail of tears
madness and wholeness and
wet naps

italy / the aegean sea / connecticut
liverpool / california / carcajou
a coven of mothers
a squeak and full crunch
the scent of lemons
black cow nostrils
sweet cherries, yacht club beans
too much caffeine, not enough sleep
dreams and lies and riverdale air

from this week i take

lace and handmade buttons
unclaimed luggage
unacceptable women
sad nipples and purple bras
fringed leather belts
a portrait of a bird
the drone of unnamed bombs
glass shards
horses, i take some horses

from the words drifting out onto the veranda i take

short quick steps
happy little girls running shirtless
grandmothers, granddaughters, uncles, priests
gloria podesta. lyla doris macadam lee.
shasta avenue. lefthanded canyon. lickskillet road.
i take six elephants
and a red hat
cool wine, white, gently placed pearls
golden strands, cross-stitched

i take the dear ordinary
the memory extraordinary
and a magnificent
kissable
fish

Meditations on clearing one’s mind of clutter

Posted on by laurie macfayden

It’s a Zen thing.
Is there anything harder than trying to think about
absolutely nothing?
My dog sits better than me.
Some of the things I think about while waiting
for a bolt of enlightenment to strike my monkey mind:
Polar bears. Did I leave the stove on? My nose itches.

Om. Om. OOOOmmmmmmm
The pitcher’s mound is sixty feet and six inches
from home plate.
OOOmm. Ahem. … did I eat anything yet today? Om…
Silence. Silence. There is a triumphant moment of blessed silence in my brain.
Yes! Eureka! I’m not thinking about anything.
But … isn’t thinking about the fact that I’m
finally not thinking about anything …
thinking about something?
Sigh. Om.
Less is more. Less is more. Let go. Let it all go. Desire is the root of all suffering.
Let go of attachments and you let go of suffering
Yeah baby!
Let go of these nagging thoughts in the brain.
Sit. Sit. Just sit. Sit. Stay.

Like I said, my dog is better at this than I am.

My legs ache. My left foot is cramping up.
Now all I’m thinking about is the pain in my foot
and the numbness in my butt.
I want a cigarette … and I don’t even smoke.
If I can just clear my mind and meditate on nothing but nothingness …
Om. Om. Om McDonald had a farm…
Om. Om. Polar bears again. Damn.
I am excruciatingly aware of a plane buzzing around overhead.
And somewhere within a 10-block radius someone’s wrist watch is beeping.
On the hour. On the hour … that means I’ve been sitting zazen for all of, oh,
10 bloody minutes … so why does it feel like 10 bloody hours?

My butt hurts. It’s gone from Om to Numb in less than a quarter of a detached hour.
But time is irrelevant. Does anybody really know what time it is?

And would that be the time that’s spiralling forward,
or the time that’s speeding off in the rearview mirror?
And how come we can remember the past but not the future?
Because … if time is ticking off in more than one direction,
as Einstein may have suggested
in a faster-than-a-speeding-bullet moment of temporal detachment …
shouldn’t we be able to remember the future?

Sigh.

Time out. Time flies. Time to kill. Time to get a haircut.
Time to think … No! No thinking! Time to clear my head. Time to stop
and smell the roses. A rose is a rose is a rose …
and what is the smell of no roses among no noses?
Is it anything like the sound of one hand clapping?
And how does that compare to the sound of my big butt napping?
And somewhere I can distinctly hear a dog yapping …

But that is not my dog; my dharma dog is off in a corner, sitting.
Sitting pretty. Sitting, and no doubt with absolutely nothing
on her mind but a big batch of doggie detachment.
She appears to have detached from all but her own breathing.
While I, on the other hand, I have managed to detach from nothing
except all feeling in my feet and butt.
Detach? I hopelessly try. I spy, I spy with my little Zen eye … something that is … detached. God, I so want to be detached.

They say if you see the Buddha in the street, kill him.
I have come nowhere close to seeing the Buddha,
but I am now seeing polar bears again and om, um,
… perhaps I should settle for semi-detached?
I can’t go three seconds without thinking dumb, unZenlike thoughts.
Clarity may be the goal, but sifting through neurotrash is the reality.

Breathe. Breathe. Stay in the moment. Stay in the moment.
Stay. Detach. Breathe. Stay. Detach. Breathe.
But … if I stay in the moment … doesn’t that mean I end up thinking about …
The Moment … instead of about … The Nothing?

And detachment … do I really want to detach?
From the love? From the links to the heart?
Can my impossibly human, earthbound heart possibly handle that?

Detach from longing? Detach from the world? From pleasure? From beauty?
From you and your impossibly sexy shoulders?
From my desire to jump and hump your bones
and all their unenlightened corporeal attachments?

Don’t think. Just don’t think. And if you must think, for Christ’s,
er, Buddha’s sake, don’t think about sex!
Let go of Thought. Let go of desire… Let go of desire and you let go of suffering.
What could be simpler? Less is more. Turn off the monkey mind. Sit. Stay. Blank.

Wonderful. I’ve been cross-legged for so long my entire body has gone to sleep
except for the part that was supposed to go to sleep: My conscious mind.
And I realize that all I really want to do now is detach
from this blankety-blank detachment.

Om Sweet om
Om is where the heart is
Om … um … is anyone else thinking about polar bears?

memory bank

Posted on by laurie macfayden

overdrawn

i cannot remember any of my mother’s native tongue
my father’s favourite tie
or my sister’s reasons for hoarding

i cannot remember what i had for breakfast
or anything you may have said
the morning after we got married

i cannot remember when i stopped playing the piano
or when i started letting myself go

i cannot remember all the lies i’ve told
or why men make war

i cannot remember what might cause women
to judge, invalidate, shun, erase, shame, oppress,
brutalize, condemn, injure or kill the spirit of
other women

i cannot remember if there’s a difference
between guilt and regret
but i can remember the words to every top 40 song
i heard on the radio
when i was thirteen

i cannot remember when i started writing
why i sent the artist away for 25 years
why helicopters scare me
but i remember peeing my pants
on the first day of kindergarten

i cannot remember the names of the apostles
where i left my sunglasses
or when to change the brita filter

i can’t remember to take my calcium supplements
to phone about the eavestroughs
to clean out the ring in the bathtub
or what i was looking for five minutes ago

sometimes it’s enough just to remember my own blessed eyes
my broken feet
and the hand that holds the pen
to remember that i am alive
to remember that i am loved
to remember to laugh

sometimes it’s enough just to remember
to breathe

crimes of fashion

Posted on by laurie macfayden
According to an Associated Press story out of Baton Rouge, a bill that would have made it a crime for people to wear their pants too low in public has been rejected by a panel of the Louisiana state senate. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Derrick Shepherd, would have made it illegal to wear clothing that “intentionally exposes undergarments or … any portion of the pubic hair, cleft of the buttocks or genitals.” Shepherd figures the state should take a stand against droopy trousers, which he calls an example of widespread indecency in today’s fashion. “The shorts are getting shorter, the tops are getting smaller, the cleavage is getting larger,” says Shepherd. “When are we going to say, ‘Enough is enough’?”

Beautiful! You can’t make this stuff up.

And you can’t just let it go by. Because if you start letting people wear droopy pants in public, next thing you know they’ll want clean water and the right to vote. It’s a very saggy, er, slippery, slope.

So, with apologies to whoever wrote the Do your ears hang low? song that we all sang in camp, Spatherdab presents the Do your pants hang low? song.

Ahem.

Do your pants hang low
Do they drag through mud and snow
Do your boxers do the mambo
Does your johnson shout hello
It may be cool to shake your banana
But some prudes in Louisiana
Think saggy pants must go

Do your Y-fronts show
When you sit in the front row
Does the teacher get an eyeful
When you bend to touch your toe
Do your bulging tighty whities
Prompt the boss to send you home
Do your Y-fronts show

Do your briefs ride high
When your fly’s at your mid-thigh
Do they slide down off your belly
And salute your Auntie Nelly
Can you moon your next-door neighbour
With a minimum of labour
Do your briefs ride high

Is your thong on track
Does it rise up from your crack
Can you yank it up your backside
Can you train it to attack
Does it stretch up from beneath
So you can super-floss your teeth
Is your thong on track

Does your ass hang out
When you waggle it about
Do you show your underpants
When you do the latest dance
Do the chicks think you’re a hunk
When you expose your super junk
Do your pants hang low

… Saggy pants must go!

how to tell when you’re being left by a heartless girl

Posted on by laurie macfayden

broken heartit starts with her saying it’s all her; it’s not you.
it starts with her saying she just needs some “space.”
she will say she still loves you and always will.
she will hold your hand and beg your forgiveness.
she will let go of your hand and cry.
she will let you sleep with her one last time.
she will say she wishes it didn’t have to be this way.
she will have whispered conversation on the phone,
then pretend it was a wrong number.

she will forget to come home on the same frozen winter night as the furnace breaks down and you will check the time every 20 anguished minutes — shivering and praying
that she’s dead in a ditch because it beats the alternative — until 4 a.m. when she will spill through the front door insisting she owes you no explanation for where she’s been (nowhere) or who she’s been with (no one). later she will say she got so tired
she just fell asleep on the couch of a generous friend. this friend will have no name,
and will hang up whenever you answer the phone.

she will stop using your shared kitchen appliances and start eating out all the time.
she will stop borrowing your sweaters and demand that you return her tennis racquet.
her suddenly immaculate bathroom will be declared off-limits to you once and for all.
she will stop changing clothes in front of you.
she will no longer watch TV in her underwear.

she will let you sleep with her one more last time.

she will be careless with your books, neglect your cats,
spill coffee on your best dress shirt.
all because she is trying to make you hate her.
she believes it is easier that way.

she will suggest you start seeing other people
and suddenly it will be ridiculously obvious that for her, that ship has already sailed.
she will encourage you to make new friends, get out more, party!
but god help you if you want to go out dancing in the same place as her.

she will stop leaving you post-it notes all over the apartment.
she will stop asking “how was your day, honey?”
… she will stop calling you honey.

she will stop bringing you bagels & lattes on sunday mornings.
she will start listening to music she used to despise.
she will bring home new age CDs labeled relaxation for lovers and water harmony
 and karmic lust and tell you to keep your zen-challenged mitts off them.

she will break your favourite mug.
she will break the zipper on your supposedly indestructible MEC parka.
she will break all the rules of civilized leaving…

she will break your heart.

somehow the world

Posted on by laurie macfayden

superman’s dead
and so, now, is moses
and cool hand luke
and our brokeback fantasy
along with, some might suggest,
every soothing shade of blue that ever used to exist
and somehow the world still turns

they’re building another ice rink in this frozen shinny-obsessed city
but new orleans is still under water
and well-intentioned kids are still comin’ back in bodybags
and my sister
my sister just found a stone in her left breast
and somehow the world still turns

we meditate & self-medicate
over-eat & super-annuate
we’ve lost our ability to articulate
but not our inclination to hate
yet somehow this world still turns

we forget how to play
forget we ever knew how to pray
find ourselves craving human touch
then we wonder why we drink so goddamn much
and somehow the world still turns

we start to wonder if we’re losing our minds
— or is it just our credit that’s slipping away? —
as we install plasma screens in every child’s bedroom
and cell phones for every plugged-in waking moment
of every toxic shrink-wrapped day

we ask what’s the catch?
what’s the deal?
what’s the point?
and
why don’t we go out dancing any more?

and yet …and yet … and yet …
the believers still find reasons to celebrate
and the romantics are still howling at the moon
and you and i
you and i are still on our feet

and the liars, they never stop pretending
and the bombs, they never stop exploding
and the poets
the poets are having trouble sleeping
and somehow
this world
still
turns

you think

Posted on by laurie macfayden

you-bl.jpgyou think you blind
you ain’t seen blackness

you think you pure
you ain’t seen lightness

you think you holy
ain’t nothin’ about you that’s sacred

you think you unclean
you ain’t tasted filth

you think you limitless
you ain’t carried freedom’s chain

you think you outraged
you barely breathin’, girl

you think you crimson
lady, you don’t know red

you think you less than honest
you starin’ at the queen of lies

you think you disadvantaged
you ain’t seen real trouble

you think you scarred
you don’t know disfigurement

you think you damaged
you ain’t torched your own skin

you think you fooling everybody
tremblin’ behind that weak-ass mask

you think you untouchable
you may be right about that one

washing day

Posted on by laurie macfayden

my name is clementine
and i need time
breakdowns take time, you know

they sent me away, child
they sent me away
i want to go home
i need to go home
they won’t let me go home
where is my home?
do they even remember me there?

i need time
time to do the baking
as if this great depression were not bleak enough
there’s a war on, you know
there’s a war on and it’s washing day and all three
of my boys’ socks need darning
and there’s no formula for the baby
and the laundry keeps piling up
and my husband just sits on the porch
smoking his pipe

i need time, child
breakdowns take time, you know

sometimes i think it might not be so bad to take the drink
just one very small sip
but the pastor says that is not the answer
i need time
time to sleep
sleep, perchance to … god, i am so tired
sometimes i think it might be nice to just
lie down on the kitchen floor and sleep
forever
sleep
forever
… but who has time for that?
breakdowns take time

that’s what they said i had
when they sent me away the first time, child:
“she’s having a breakdown.”

i wanted to howl then. oh, how i wanted to howl
but ladies don’t. ladies just don’t.
always remember this, child: proper ladies do not howl.
ladies in 1941 with husbands and children
and a war on and no food in the pantry
most certainly do not howl.
they simply break down
and get sent away

listen to me, child, i need more time
i need time to get to that laundry
i need time to get those damn socks darned
i need time to bake
something sweet for the boys
my sweetie boys
and i can’t possibly do it all

so i think i choose
to sleep
i will finish the washing
then i will sleep
sleep the glorious sleep of the dead
sleep, and stop feeling like i’m the one
being fed through the wringer

child, i am going to need more time
need to sleep
need to break down
to wash this stain off me

granddaughter
take me out with you tonight
out for some tea, and maybe a dance
let it be just you and me
& let’s howl, shall we?
lord, how we shall howl

and after …
perhaps then there’ll be time to sleep

carpal tunnel mountain

Posted on by laurie macfayden

what the river says

go slow
feed me
(you’ve
forgotten how,
forgotten you used to know this;
but it will come
back to you)

talk to me
bathe in me
stand near me
lie down beside me
breathe

be still
hear me
listen
take a drink
water yourself
use me as breath
as guide
your personal elixir
your own grand
design

dip your toes in me
it cleanses us both

what the mountain says

banff bloggo slow
approach with respect
bring sturdy shoes

relax
feed me
hear me
listen

do not take that photograph
do not take that phone call
take a deep breath
take a leap of faith
exhale

disconnect the laptop
reconnect the dots:
land to sky
foot to rock
hand to heart to head to hand

walk on me
walk through me
take comfort in my ancient underground hum
as your foot provides comfort to me

i breathe spark
i breathe mint
i breathe wild rose and sage
and purple green grey mist
just like you do

remember?

what the caribou says

go slow
i am not that different from you
lost child
we walk the same trail
our heads heavy and
restless

connect to the earth
hear what is beneath
accept the obstacles you encounter
know every path began
with unclear intent

eat
feed yourself
take what you need
leave some for others

listen. wait.
listen. wait.
listen. wait.

be aware

what the writer sees

treadmills
carved into the side of the mountain
jackhammers, chainsaws
drown out the song of the jays

deer can’t feed on daytimers and dollar signs

what happened
to the art
that used to live
in the earth?