Winter Blahs

Winter Blahs

Last week

a drip metronomed my window sill ,

the driveway ice ridge thawed,

squirrels gnawed into the bluebird box and

cardinals sang territorial songs as the Pope departed.

Today

I walk the dog without my gloves,

an olfactory progression from stain to stain,  

puddles hide a pox of potholes,

I dodge the waves of grime brine.

A smart-phoned knot smokes pot

just beyond the high school gates

fucking this and fucking that habitually,

crowding out the sidewalk,

seeming bored, texting to belong,

shuffling through the rituals

of teenage conformity,

their daily litter of soda cans,

half-eaten pizza slices and

butt confetti;

yet they call me Sir and say

Tess is sooo cute a puppy,

despite her fifteen years.

I’m tired of winter:

allergic to the mold,

damp cold,

fearful that latest flu

has made the jump from beast to man,

resentful of income tax returns,

annoyed by the mail- box avalanche of spring sales;

“Target” has crossed the border: but

do I really need to buy?

Tomorrow

 I will book my escape to

Prince Edward Island’s shore,

to beach comb through the laze of summer;

I can smell the sea and

taste the chowder.

Bryan D. Cook   Ottawa, March 2013

Context For Winter Blahs

I attended a TREE Reading Series Seed Workshop where we were introduced by Gwynn Scheltema  to "playing with constraints".....the application of structure in the style of Oulipo practitioners. Such structures can follow quite complex mathematical series, but I chose a simple approach of expressing my feelings and experiences for last week, today and tomorrow.

Pope Benedict's Farewell

                                                          Northern Cardinal (Kevin Boulton)

Reluctant Orchid Duet

Mother’s Day Orchid

Bryan. D. Cook

Ottawa, March 5, 2013

Tanya’s orchid still won’t flower.

It had a splendid spray

when bought by the kids for Mother’s day,

four years ago,

pale green petals and white tongues

which lingered on for months.

In its new slot pot with special soil

it hung straw roots and grew large shoots

and we waited, waited, waited

for the flowers to reappear ;

but no such luck

watered, fertilised and sun-lit

it smiled a contented, leafy smile

and declared that’s it!

The Doctor Is In

By Bill Arthurs

Ottawa, March 6, 2013

Assure your Tanya that we shall fight

To cure her ailing epiphyte.

Mayhaps homesick for its native shore

In Myramar or Singapore;

But without a voice to cry its plight,

It keeps its silence through the night.

We cannot know its history well,

Or take down its genes to tell.

It cannot call its friends back home

Due to lack of voice or cellular phone.

Could this orchid's dire plight

Be simply due to improper light?

With its photoplasts unemployed

Does it lack the energy once enjoyed?

Or is improper nourishment the cause

Of why it retreated from where it was?

We shall have to wait and see,

And probe the plant’s biology

Context for Reluctant Orchid Duet

I sent the first poem along with my partner's delinquent orchid to a friend and expert in genealogy and orchids, Bill Arthurs, with whom it is now undergoing rehabilitation! He wrote me back the second poem. I thought them fun......it is pleasant to dialogue in poetry!

Dendrobium orchid

Guilty and Cobalt Blue

Guilty

Caged in wire

Chained forever

On display

Disdained or coveted

A trinket

Hung with your brethren

Around an aging neck.

Is this why, reject shard,

you journeyed far

by current dragged

by wave pummelled

by rock tumbled

by sand smoothed

by salt hydrated,

transformed into a mermaid’s tear?

Hide from my obsessive eyes

and my marauding hands,

cocoon in weed and

camouflage with shell;

and when the ocean storms,

listen to the siren winds,

go back and journey on.

Bryan D. Cook  Ottawa,  January, 2013

Context

I occasionally reflect on the other side, though it is not always good for me! I took this triptych and converted it into a positive point of view in Cobalt Blue. 

Cobalt Blue

Milk of Magnesia

sharded by a winter storm

from the shore-side dump

to journey far,

tumbling and etching

into mermaids’ tears

of misty cobalt blue.

I dance the

light fantastic

when you emerge

from weed cocoon

or shelly camouflage.

Argentium shall

enrobe you,

pearl and crystal be

your bridesmaids; and

you shall be

forever reunited

on a Viking’s knit

of harmony and love

and mystery.

Bryan D. Cook  Ottawa, January 2013

More Context

I put these counterpoint poems on the Sea Glass Poets Society Website and had the joy of having Linda Steger write an ode around one of my images:

I bare my soles and wade in the waters of life;

Along the shore of time, I stitch the line.

Listen to the siren winds, go back and journey on.

Oh, soul you know, you know who calls and journeys on!

This gem of cerulean, and one of fire, another of light, one of desire:

I cage them up to free myself. A selfish gesture but a necessary

Exchange while in this cage of mine to wander.

Linda Steger, January 2013,  “Ode to Bryan Cook’s poetic contribution “Listen to the siren winds, go back and journey on.”

I found the ode delicate…..exquisite….. like a finely wrapped pendant on life’s chain. Every line has a graceful image interwoven with emotion expressed in metaphor…..and yet its form is succinct and simple. Thanks Linda!

Old Phillips Milk of Magnesia Bottle

Sea glass pendant in argentium silver (by Bryan Cook)

For Thine Is Africa

For Thine is Africa

You were mine, my little one
Who rocked so gently in my arms
 And laughed at my stupidities.
You grew, my lovely one
To challenge all my world and
No longer listen to my endlessness.
And so you left, my worldly one,
Fearless of machete, rape and AIDS
Sowing knowledge, giving life and hope and praise

I needed you, my angel
To keep you safe, secure and loved in
My conventional worldly ways.
I dreamt your life, my golden girl
But they were my presumptions
A father’s selfishness transposed

But you now African, my love
Seduced by her wilderness
And her obsidian mysteries.
You will not return.
So forgive me, my gentle grace,
For thine is Africa and free
Take care and sometimes think of me
I always will be there

For although the seas divide us
And time so quickly flies
We still can meet each other
In the dreamland of our minds;
And you’ll still mine, my little one
To rock so gently in my arms and
Laugh at my stupidities

Bryan D. Cook for Bruce Clements,  Ottawa , January 2013

Context for “For Thine is Africa”

I wrote this poem for a musician, Bruce Clements, whose daughter is in Africa. We share the same sentiments about the upbringing of our children. I hope that he will compose a tune for these lyrics one day.

The Ashes of March

The Ashes of March

The warning signs were there

Weak limbs roped

to no avail

Leaves fell before they died

Final flush of seed

a legacy

Grubs fatten in pin-holed bark

Woodpeckers drum out

emerald borers

Above the chainsaw X

The street has lost

its shade

To firewood ashes

Where will the cardinal sing?

Bryan D. Cook    Ottawa, December 2012

Context  for "The Ashes of March"

This poem is about the devastation to the ash trees of Ottawa caused by the accidental introduction of the Emerald Ash Borer...a beetle native to Asia which lays its grubs through pin holes it bores, to feed below the bark of ash trees. The only remedy is to stem the tide by cutting down the infected trees. The result has been the devastation of whole neighbourhoods where they were originally planted for their shade. The lesson learned too late is that monoculture bites back, although it gives the woodpeckers quite a feast albeit temporary!

The poem is another of my attempts at minimalist imagery. I did not realise until after it was written that it is in the form of a bookended series of haiku!

To be felled

Emerald Ash Borer and "D" pin entry hole

Bark chipped by woodpeckers with grub groves

Downy woodpecker feeding beside the limb rope

Island Cemeteries

Island Cemeteries

Clover frosts the sod

above the pioneers.

Their graveyard edged by pickets

with iron gates beside the

clap- board church, or

hidden in the fields behind the pines;

Peoples’ Burying Grounds

beyond the village limits,

Protestants  and Catholics

forever separate.

Nameless plots

their wooden crosses lost,

a stone lamb guards a child between her parents

a family claimed by pox and pleurisy,

marble etched by salted winds

faded names beneath the lichen.

Scottish, English, Irish refugees of

famine, war and poverty,

evicted from their crofts and common lands;

farmers, tanners , fishermen,

millers, blacksmiths , merchants ,

lawyers, mayors , Loyalists .

Founders of Island dynasties

buried head-to-toe.

Bryan D. Cook Ottawa December 2010 

Context for "Island Cemeteries"

In the Summer of 2012, I spent some time searching P.E.I. cemeteries for the "Newsome" ancestors of  a friend, Kathy Wallace. It is an amazing way to get to know the people and history of the Island! The stone lamb headstone was particularly poignant. Again , thanks to Pearl and David for excellent comments.

Lower Bedeque Cemetery P.E.I.

Cape Traverse United Cemetery P.E.I.

Thomas S Newsome Family  in Searletown Cemetery P.E.I.

(Thomas S, 1854-1910, Sarah J. Collett, wife, 1854-1922
and Charlotte A, daughter)

Stone Lamb in Searletown Cemetery P.E.I. 
marks the grave of Charlotte A. Newsome, 1896,  aged 4 months

Competition

Competition

There are exotic creatures on the Isle these days

sharing pastures with the sheep and cattle,

lamas and alpacas far from Andean slopes

and donkeys which have never carried burden.

Craning necks and trumpet ears on sentry duty,

sharp hooves and brays to drive away the coyotes

hunting new-born lambs and calves , as

blue herons spear the voles in fields of soya bean.

Thirty years ago the coyotes trekked across the frozen strait

to raise their pups in scrub-land and black spruce,

driving red fox to ditch and suburb,

in a dwindling space to co-exist with man.

The trapper snared six dozen this winter past,

he ships the pelts to China, we buy them back as parka trim.

Bryan D. Cook  Ottawa December 2, 2012

Context for "Competition"

The summer of 2012 was the first time I realised that donkeys and the lama family are used on the Island as guard animals against the coyote ; that herons hunt land mammals; and that the coyote does not tolerate the fox in his territory. It is now very common to see the fox beside the road  and  on urban streets. I also did not know that pelts are exported from the Island to China. Thanks to Pearl Pirie and David Blaikie for their critiques.

   Lama on guard in P.E.I.  (photo courtesy of "GuyC", P.E.I.)

  

Coyote on path (photo by the author)

Fox on trail near Hunter River, P.E.I. (photo courtesy of  "PEICycler")




Donkeys on alert near Winsloe, P.E.I.(photo courtesy of  "PEICycler")

Blue Heron hunting voles (photo courtesy of Rick Cameron, racphoto.com)