RodMer Poem Package D Windmare and Other Surreal Poems [25 poems, 754 lines]
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Well, I don't want to make a big promise about surreality (for this and the next few poems) -- just to clarify that if you were looking for naturalistic landscape poems or stories about dogs, this is the wrong place. As to whether these deliver on surrealism, what do I know? I love the surreal movement. I don't just mean Dali watches dripping over the edges of tables -- which to me seem sometimes more bizarre than surreal. But rather the startling effects of Magritte, which always lead to some expansion of the spirit, not mere surprise at novelty. And the joyousness which lies at the centre of the movement started by André Breton and his colleagues. Anyway, here (this and the next few poems) are some of my attempts.

The first poem "Turn at the Tables" (and a later one, "Windmare",) deal with wind. The basswood was on the side lawn of a house I once had in Niagara-on-the-Lake -- on a bluff looking north over Lake Ontario. Sure enough the basswood always lost its leaves earlier in the fall than other trees. But ultimately the others followed suit -- or should I say, lost their chips too. In the end so do we all.

		the basswood has been cleaned out again
		always the first to lose
		scratches her bony arms
		stands sullenly watching the others --
		the croupier rakes in a few more (shrivelled) bills
		then (with a flip of hand
		and practised stare) sets
		the horizon spinning

		the oak maple white ash hang in there
		but they've dropped a few
		everyone can see that
		hear it in the dry rustle of fear
		behind their painted lips -- you turn
		pull your collar up against the cold --
		the house always wins

..............................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1985

Published in Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow, Toronto: Wolsak & Wynn, 1989

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"Plane Trip" is perhaps more about disorientation than surreality. I've always been fascinated by disorientation and how the human spirit has an indefatigable drive to put a brave face on the inexplicable, to paper over the cracks, to pretend knowledge where in fact we are completely mystified. Probably something to do with our split brains, the left hemisphere always trying to stay in charge, forever the explainer and rationalizer. But I do see the image of the donkeys and the men in white uniforms and later the black limousines clustering like locusts on the beach as a sort of Magritte painting. By the end, however, this spectre of the divine has disappeared and we are left with our usual "what, me worried?" cover-up.

		heading north, we leave Morocco behind,
		have been over the Mediterranean five minutes,
		the morning sun grilling my right cheek    half-dozing,

		tree tops mushroom up    surprisingly close,
		red barn roofs, lush vineyards, orchards
		of pomegranates,
		the plane must be landing    where are we?
		it's a fuel stop?    someone says yes,
		we'd thought Lagos-London was non-stop!

		the sign on the tiny terminal says Oe,
		(there's a painted map on the terminal wall)
		oh yes, Oe, capital of the island of Mn
		just south of Alboran,
		flags with the Mn logo are everywhere - red on yellow,
		the woman beside me asks if I've ever heard of this place,
		of course, I've seen it on Mediterranean atlases, I say,
		there's really no point saying no to a question like that,
		she nods but looks sceptical.

		why aren't we allowed out of the plane?
		it will only be a short time, I say,
		or there's some sort of trouble? she asks,
		we sit for twenty minutes, she looks worried,
		I tell her about drip-irrigation in Africa,
		she smiles, asks a few questions.

		we are taxiing onto the main street,
		tired donkeys shuffle their carts out of the way,
		look back at us with stoic faces,
		we pick up speed, I hold her hand,
		only fifty feet until a large stone wall looms up,
		baroque church bells start to ring    please don't cry!
		or is it muezzins calling    you're beautiful, I say,
		three men in white uniforms run out in front of us, waving,
		we just clear the wall    rise vertically into the sky,
		looking down I see along the beach in front of Oe
		rows of black limousines clustering like locusts,
		she watches wide-eyed, they shrink quickly,
		soon the island is a speck.

		hours later we begin our descent to Heathrow,
		I laugh and complain about the delay at Oe,
		my neighbour looks at me blankly, the delay where?
		I pick up a flight-map folder to show her,
		she turns away,
		and I see that the island of Mn isn't marked,
		but, I suppose, why would they bother?
		anyway, I'm not going back there.

..................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1985

Published in Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow, Toronto: Wolsak & Wynn, 1989
First published in The Antigonish Review , issue 71/72, 1988

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"Suitor" is of course a take-off of the Fokine/Nijinsky ballet Le Spectre de la Rose. It always seemed to me bizarre how the romantic tradition assumes that dreamy young women can do nothing better than hallucinate about imaginary males who will somehow appear miraculously and give meaning to their pale lives. Too much is wrong with this picture -- a point which hardly needs arguing today. But despite common sense and reason, the romantic ideal keeps sneaking up in ambush -- as if its stupidity were somehow programmed into our brains. What, I wondered, if the woman is in fact fed up with this whole pursuit? And of course, the male ego, when rejected, pouts. Maybe we can learn some day?

	The doorbell rang. Not again she thought.

	I'll only stay a minute he said leaping through the window.
		She'd forgotten to close it. His face was burning.

	Cool down she said mocking. I like it hot he said flapping his feathers.

	She shrugged fine I don't mind.

	He laughed thinking she was lying.

	She lay. Reached for the singed roses in his hand. Ate one.
		Said that was enough.

	He did a few pirouettes. She didn't watch. Sixteen fouettés.
		She didn't bother to count.

	Afterwards out of breath he said he couldn't understnad. She said look I need 	
		my sleep.

	Perhaps I'm tiresome he shouted? Getting up. Now limp.
	
	Suit yourself she said eyes closed.

	He did and left. Angrily. Down the incinerator chute to the basement. Flapped 	
		twice as the flames looked on hungrily.

	Next morning she swept up the ashes. Locked the window.
		Ate another rose still warm from the night before. Why can't they 
		just relax she asked as the doorbell rang.

..........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1985

Published in Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow, Toronto: Wolsak & Wynn, 1989
First published in Germination , issue #10/2, Spring, 1987

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"Danse Macabre" is, I suppose, a sort of atmospheric shaggy dog. You'll either like it or not. What can I say?

	
		a naked man leaning against a tree
		on his left shin something black
		creeps up
		aggh! get it off! get the damn thing off!
		but the man doesn't budge
		it's only a hat
		no need to panic

		not one of those green ones either
		(with long feathers)
		nor a purple turban with moonstone
		just a simple black hat
		they're coming back
		it reaches the knee and tries to hang on
		too small, ha ha
		climbs up his thigh
		is this a trick? we watch closely

		the man stares into space
		certainly no purchase on his limp cock
		what does the hat want then? what does it want?
		no answer
		it slithers brim over belly
		let's get out of here!
		spins its crown twice at the navel
		lurches up his chest
		come one let's go! just a minute

		it snags a bony shoulder
		hands there cock-eyed
		is it over? shhh! I think so
		no -- it inches up again
		tugged by invisible forces
		don't look! cover your eyes!
		but we see it tip toward us, leering
		then grab a white cheekbone
		vault onto the skull
		te Da!

	

..........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1987

Published in Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow, Toronto: Wolsak & Wynn, 1989
First published in Poetry Toronto , issue #149, May 1988

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"Single Parent" is probably not really about single parenthood. I know -- we usually associate that, and rightly so, with women. But here I imagine a single father. But what's it about? Well perhaps about a sort of misguided, but endearing, earnestness. Please take it lightly, though. I once read a critique of Thurber's cartoons which argued that he could get away with his wild stuff (as in his famous "Touché" cartoon where one swordsman beheads an opponent while shouting 'touché') because the cartoon characters are bloodless and you know they'll somehow go home together after the show. And so here, you mustn't imagine the father carrying his daughter's head back up the cellar stairs as in some gruesome Salome scene. No. I hope you can see it as a playful image -- and the head will bounce back (like a beach ball) into its proper place on the daughter's neck when she eventually sits down for dinner beside her somewhat distracted father.

		

		in she saunters at eight
		kicks her feet under the table
		throws off her hands like wet mittens
		you're late! he calls from the kitchen
		but she tosses her head lightly on a chair
		and careless too! he adds
		as it rolls off
		goes bouncing down the cellar steps

		hey leave it, she cries, I'll get it later
		but he stumbles down after it doggedly
		comes back with it in his arms
		places it very softly back on the chair
		her legs watch from the sofa
		dearest Dad! they laugh
		and now he's forgotten
		what he had for their dinner

..........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1987

Published in Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow, Toronto: Wolsak & Wynn, 1989

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"Windmare" is less playful. I suppose it is commonplace for humans to anthropormophize storms -- as if the display were somehow for our benefit and intended to tell us something. We're both drawn by and repelled by the sense of expectancy. What is it, after all, that we want? Not too much excitement. Not too much boredom. Fussy fussy! "Raked" refers of course not just to garden rakes but also a tilt as in a raked stage.

		the wind's demented tonight
		slams a tide of dry leaves
		at our legs
		sucks back the street in undertow
		we're thrown over our depth
		clutch at a sidewalk
		it tilts away in alarm
		shadows riot through the air
		overhead the sky panics
		grabs all our days
		and bolts for the horizon

		next morning.
		that crazy wind
		gone
		they say its wrists were all bloody
		who knows? but for a moment
		something was about to happen.
		the sun stares at us blandly
		the leaves have been swept
		horizons tied back down
		and up our familiar street
			their breaths held tight
		raked lawns on the level.
		but we don't want that either

..........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1987

Published in Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow, Toronto: Wolsak & Wynn, 1989
First published in Poetry Toronto , issue #149, May 1988

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"Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow", the poem giving my one published poetry book its name, is a newspaper headline. Somehow in our quest for news as entertainment we have come to accept the oddest juxtapositions as normal. War, murders, political speeches, and sports victories get all jammed together in one kaleidoscope of diversions. I am also reminded of one of Isaac Azimov's short stories in which the stock market gyrates up and down reacting to stories of their planet's end (as if, in such a situation, stock prices were still relevant -- a thought I echo in the price of gold and the billion-dollar lawsuit). And George's petulant correction of the journalists' reports owes something (years later) to Ogden Nash's 'The Purist" (who smilingly corrected his guide: his wife had been eaten not by an alligator, but by a crocodile). Well we all live in our own silos and have our own conceptions of what is relevant and what is not.

	sky falling sunny tomorrow
	devour the front page (George still shaving)
	scientists say will crash in month
	Van Allen belt collapse no earth survivors expected
	gold jumps fifty dollars Coke announces third new taste

	sky falling sunny tomorrow
	southwards a President blames aerosol spray companies
	billion-dollar suit launched
	once over easy for George late for tulips so much rain
	it smells (hurry up dear you call) delicious a telegram arrives
	am staying at the farm love to all please don't worry Jane
	Aunt Jane always so thoughtful
	too nervous to phone must call her tonight

	sky falling sunny tomorrow
	George comes in sits down has seen news
	been expecting it knows all this science stuff
	you wonder if there's enough milk for next week
	and will there be a shortage?
	will the farmers or the dairies or the grocery stores just give up?
	will everyone panic will we all have to drink Coke?
	will the children drink their milk anyway without you here to ...
	but of course they won't be either will they
	anyway there'll be just time to finish the rose garden

	sky falling sunny tomorrow
	George looks scared (please don't you say) the children
	have been so looking forward to their holiday summer
	Gail wide-eyed what's a Van Allen belt?
	Peter makes a face at her is trying to figure out Doonesbury
	so stupid to talk about falling says George these journalists
	it's their career you say
	what's actually going to happen says George is thirty-five days from now:
	catastrophic oscillation of the ozone layer two minutes of
	intense radiation probably only ten seconds' pain

	sky falling sunny tomorrow
	yes yes so Chicken Little was right after all
	you're just so happy we didn't blow ourselves up with bombs
	hug Gail Peter George all your loves (almost all)
	and it will be sunny won't it
	for a whole month it will just go on and on and on

..............................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1985

Published in Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow, Toronto: Wolsak & Wynn, 1989

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"Collector" is about a mania that probably most of us have -- with only our targets differing -- different people preferring to collect variously stamps, corporations, race horses, lovers, or experiences. In my case it is books. And every few years I make another resolution to buy less and read more. But the acquisition binge continues to outstrip my reading capacity -- a serious departure from the usual Parkinson Law.

		books are collecting on my shelves like dust
		faster than I can seep them into memory;
		who do they think they're fooling ho ho!
		you there, keep moving along, move along
		you're not going to get read here

		maybe I think I have lots of time
		it'll take fifty years to sweep these stragglers up
		longer if this soup line keeps growing

		OK so I'll be selective
		right they all say
		forget the others dearie at least read me
		I call that loitering with intent
		(but only because we can't make soliciting stick)

		anyway who can handle so many seductions at once?
		better to be monogamous, just read
		the same one over and over
		better still celibate -- mute before the gods
		whom surely these arrogant seekers-in-books offend

		unless of course the books are prayers
		an unused hoard psalted away for the future
		wait I can't leave yet I had
		all these invocations to call on first
		perhaps instead they're indulgences? certainly I paid for them
		hardly began to enjoy the offset sins

		the fact is books have simply forgotten why
		and just keep gathering here out of dusty habit
		but I knew why once
		some days I almost remember

		
		

..................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1985

Published in Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow, Toronto: Wolsak & Wynn, 1989

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"Listen, She Says" is a relationship poem, or a poem about petulance, or maybe just a memory of the Sleeping Beauty palace as the forest grows up about it -- mostly though, I guess, about petulance. I wish, in my own make-up, I could figure out how to eradicate this trait.

	
		Listen, she says
		but there's nothing
		listen to what? I ask
		she laughs: it hasn't started yet, silly
		I just wanted you to be ready
		OK goddammit I'm ready
		no, she says, you keep talking, just listen
		I clench my teeth, say nothing
		breathe in breathe out
		vines grow up around our bed
		a hundred years pass
		there did you hear it? she nudges me, eyes round with wonder
		strange taste of vine leaves in my mouth
		hey silly!
		I clench my teeth 
		say nothing

.........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1985

Published in Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow, Toronto: Wolsak & Wynn, 1989

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Anyone living in North America has probably at one or more times had to listen to some European earnestly explaining how charmless we all are over here. Like a joke made about your name, after you've heard it a few dozen times you start to get a nervous twitch in place of a generous laugh. "Guilty As Charged" is my twitch poem.

		antique furniture everywhere
		paintings of obscure aristocrats on your walls
		not your actual ancestors, I know
		but I suppose we're to assume
		some sort of spiritual kinship

		you say our politics is naive
		our clothes are not in fashion weather intolerable
		the people are dull and eat green asparagus
		don't use make-up properly

		our central heating ruins everything bars close too early
		people don't seem to know how to enjoy themselves
		no good cafes
		everyone obsessed with jogging
		too many children underfoot
		the hotel clerks can't speak French

		it's such an old conversation
		our costs are too high no one is enterprising
		takes too long to get anything done
		we don't have enough people with money around
		we think about money too much

		guilty guilty
		no need to go on with the list
		though it's nice to hear 'charmless'
		pronounced by such beautiful lips

		

..........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1985

Published in Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow, Toronto: Wolsak & Wynn, 1989
First published in The Antigonish Review , issue #71/72, 1988

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"Why Do They All Keep Doing this To Me" is a disorientation poem. As I mentioned in my earlier comments, I've always been fascinated by disorientation and how the human spirit has an indefatigable drive to put a brave face on the inexplicable, to paper over the cracks, to pretend knowledge where in fact we are completely mystified. Probably something to do with our split brains, the left hemisphere always trying to stay in charge, forever the explainer and rationalizer. And at the same time we are all so ready to believe that the universe has ganged up on us (as if the universe cared). 'Look what they've have they done to me now,' we say. And yet we keep carrying on -- which is sort of sweet. Now just a minute.

		in the airport
		waiting for B (she's always late)
		I see Malcolm waving at me
		now just a minute
		Malcolm died a year ago
		hundreds came to his funeral
		B gave the eulogy

		Malcolm comes closer
		I know I must be mistaken
		Rod, he calls, waiting for someone?
		so do I say:
		Hey, Malcolm, you're dead
		you're supposed to be dead
		I was at your funeral so I know
		what is this anyway?

		do I say any of that? no,
		coward, I simply mumble,
		hi Malcolm

		but hope this dream will end
		look at my shoes, wet from the rain
		can feel them wet against my toes
		or maybe I just dreamt about his funeral
		maybe he's been alive all this past year
		Malcolm turns to go
		asks me to see him in his office tomorrow
		hurries out to a taxi

		the crowd thins
		finally B arrives
		(why is she always late?)
		I don't tell her about Malcolm
		I'm not that stupid
		we drive in silence all the way home
		B staring at the wet streets
		I don't know why she won't talk

		next morning in Malcolm's office
		I tell him about B's moodiness
		Malcolm looks at me strangely
		B died in that car crash last month, he says
			of course
		I laugh, then wish I hadn't
		not the right gesture, is it
		didn't mean B, I meant C
		honestly, a slip of the tongue
		Malcolm looks worried

		that night look in my files
		sure enough: one year ago
		my filing system's good
		I start to read the first paragraph
		Malcolm's obituary
		B looks at me disgusted
		yawns goes to bed
		next morning at breakfast says she's leaving me
		now just a minute

..........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1986

Published in Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow, Toronto: Wolsak & Wynn, 1989

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The image of Cassie in "'No One's Going To Die'" came to me years ago when my grandmother was dying and actually said the phrase 'I don't want to die'. Such a phrase is customarily met with denial -- because other people don't want to hear it. The essence of kitsch (shit doesn't happen). Years later when my mother was dying I can remember her saying that she would like to talk about death but that most of her visitors were uncomfortable with the subject. Cassie has decided to opt out of communicating with these denying strangers. Or perhaps like an earlier Cassandra she can foresee it all anyway. The birthday message pulled through immobile lips may be obscure -- though that may not matter. Well, in fact, there used to exist birthday cards with a little strip of corrugated tape inside, which if you ran a finger nail along it would scratch out the barely audible (indeed somewhat ghostly) words "Happy birthday!".

		eyes
		suspicious
		peer up at us
		then jerk sideways
		the white painted wall is still there
		or is that the ceiling?
		something is dripping
		drops fall like freezing rain
		her arms feel cold as water-pipes
		why is she strapped down like this?

		yesterday Alex was in here laughing
		he's not here now
		
		Alex is going to take her home tomorrow
		they are flying to Athens for paskha
		Alex is flirting with the girl at the next table
		but the swarthy bouzouki player keeps smiling at her
		later she will dance with him
		then with Alex
		thank you all,. good night, kale nychta
		and back in the hotel room (Jesus!) ...

		a voice she doesn't know cuts in
		'Alex died twenty years ago, Cassie'
		she can't hear what the voice is saying
		an awkward edge of a voice
		she had a sister once -- was it Mira?
		some sister had a voice like that
		why does everyone stare?

		a nurse comes in, blue cap pinned on curls
		she doesn't like the nurse
		silly hair, young face
		at least she's familiar
		we are not, neighbours on the Danforth

		Cassie's eyes turn to her now, pleading
		eyes all watery with age
		no, we're wrong, it's that she's crying
		a thin papery whine pulled through immobile lips
		like a birthday message
		or branches scratching at the window for attention
		slowly the sounds scrape out: 'I don't want to die'
		and her nose starts sniveling, we
		look down at our feet

		'there there' soothes the young nurse
		patting the ancient wrinkled forehead
		and reaching between the wishbone legs
		'no one's going to die,
		no one's going to die, Cassie'
		the eyes close sullenly
		everyone lies to her now

		it's all right to be scared, Alex is telling her
		exits aren't the crucial part,
		south at Sounion the sun stretches out on the beach
		she's not going to open her eyes again, not now
		not to these lying strangers

		we frown at the nurse
		she doesn't mind, smiles
		exits cheerily with the bedpan
		Cassie's asleep now, we reason
		edge awkwardly towards the door
		our feet peer up at us
		suspicious




..........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1987

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Let me refer you back to my earlier comments about 'surreal poems'. I don't want to make a big promise about surreality -- just to clarify that if you were looking for naturalistic landscape poems or stories about dogs, this is the wrong place. Anyway, here are some more of my attempts at surrealism.

"Migrations" dates back to the time I was living in a tall apartment building in Toronto. Yes, ducks really do go north for the short nights, not the cool weather -- at least so some bird book informed me. Clever birds. Somehow free of the urban ratrace that this poem seems to be about.

		Below our apartment
		street lights winking out
		car headlights poking cautiously
		into cold October streets.

		Overhead some arctic ducks migrating southwards
		I always thought they'd overdressed
		had gone north for a cooler summer --
		wasn't that at all
		they were after the short nights
		short enough not to interfere with the kids' snacks
		every four hours.
		Now the kids are big
		wing it on their own
		are over the fast food fad
		can last through longer nights warm nights
		are heading for them now.

		Twenty feet above them (almost in cloud) a streetcar
		floats by heading south as well
		pushing through the chill Toronto air
		but only as far as downtown --
		its early morning load of city executives
		breakfast-meeting-bound and queasy
		grey faces pressed to the glass
		like tourists in a cable car
		wondering what's really holding them up
		wincing every time they lurch over a pulley.
		They've used up all their short nights too
		still have Toronto winter to face.

		Passing over our apartment block
		the faces pack together like sardines.
		Hours later I still see them clearly --
		fishheads row upon row
		staring down glumly at our window
		tugging their fall coats close about their necks
		peering down stonily at flapping ducks
		their thin white lips pulled tight
		with disapproval.

..............................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1985

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I really do remember those "Yellow Flowers" in my pre-walking days. I wrote this poem years before I was seventy. Now that I am indeed seventy, this little poem is still around and nagging. So far my feet haven't started to take root. But who knows about tomorrow?

			down on my knees
			age two
			YELLOW FLOWERS
			filling the grass
			not doing anything       looking like anything else
			(not that I knew much for them to look like)
			just were there       all over the place
			poking between the blades       tickling my hands
			whenever I look back
			there they are       naive       waiting


			now that I can stand up
			age seventy
			I don't see as well
			eyes have grown smaller
			buttercups also -- eyes can hardly see them
			(every organ has its day) but MY FEET
			my feet grow bigger      spread over half our yard
			must crush footfulls of cups       what can I do?
			two tuberous toes reach to the oak tree      don't stop
			are annoyed at having to detour around
			whenever I look down
			they frown       impatient       keep on pressing out

		

..................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1985

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"Le Chien Englouti" is, of course, a reference to Debussy's tone poem, Le Cathédral Englouti . Playing with non-sequiturs. But also the strange life of deep merman empires, hidden from our view, but perhaps accessible by canine consciousness.

		my dog fell into the swimming pool
		sank like a stone
		tried to climb up one underwater wall
		half-way to the surface slipped back
		lay helpless on the bottom
		long black hairs waving in the current

		we dove down, frightened, brought him up
		swam for the edge
		over my shoulder his mouth
		like a cavern
		gulping air

		today he falls in again
		no one sees him
		sinks like a stone
		spends hours trying to climb out
		now sits on the bottom dejected
		rereading yesterday's paper
		today's hasn't arrived

.........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1985

Published in Grain , issue XVII/4, Winter 1989

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"Mirror Watch" is I guess about how we react to seeing things we know can't be. Normally, we adjust our belief system to correspond with the latest perceptions and carry on.

		I'm looking into a wall of mirrors
		reflecting a wall of windows behind me
		it makes our room seem twice as long
		a long square telescope
		scanning the far horizon
		I watch carefully
		a large face appears at the window
		grinning from the outside
		a birthmark on one cheek
		this is impossible I know
		if I turned around      faced the window directly
		it wouldn't be there
		it's something to do with these reflections
		or maybe it would be there
		I'm beginning to change my mind
		the birthmark certainly looks real
		the mirror image grins again      sticks out its tongue
		must be three feet across
		I smile back       a little embarrassed
		but I guess this must be it
		I've been waiting for a sign
		

..........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1985

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Were the "Tree Trunks" inspired by the ents of the Lord of the Rings ? I don't know. Perhaps subconsciously. I just like the idea of them marching over the hill to the waiting grasses in the next valley.

		tree trunks wend through the long grass
		a cluster of women's thighs
		splashing into the sea to swim

		the grass blows lightly, makes waves
		sucks in its breath, tugs
		at the passing trunks

		I kneel down close to the grass
		how do you do it? I ask & do you remember each one?
		do they blur together? will you see them again?

		do they always come in groups?
		I get no answer
		only a fine salt-spray on my face

		the trees start to move away
		I lie watching them retreat & the grass eddies
		its pulse falling gradually

		they mount the far hill -- branches signalling
		disappear over the top
		grass in the far valley waits
		

..........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1986

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For all our posturing about caring for the unfortunate, there is a survivor streak that runs through us -- making us exult when we survive and someone else doesn't. A very ugly trait. And I don't say it's uppermost in our minds all the time. But down there somewhere, it's lurking in our deeper recesses. I guess "Elms" is about that. And for non-North Americans, the reference is to the so-called "Dutch elm disease" that's slowly killing off most of the elms on this continent.

		elms have a rough time
		everyone thinks they're carriers
		not that common to see one around any more
		last night in the bar       one in the corner
		its branches grazing a woman's open skirt
		most people stay away       stick to the open
		Dutch treat?       no thanks
		the elm gene pool (they say) will soon
		die out

		yet elms keep making passes
		knowing they won't work
		pathetic really
		who wants to think of such morbid stuff?
		so long, elms

..........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1986

Published in Museletter (The League of Canadian Poets), issue #65, Sep-Oct 1988

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"Control" is about our misguided desire (at times) to be in control of our own destinies -- when really, in some deep sense, we should permit our lives to be unplanned -- more like a dance than a forced march.

		your doorstep is splashed with dirt
		gets this way after every rain
		you have to keep washing it

		small grains of earth cling to its slick paint skin
		collect in wavy lines like flattened worms
		trying to make it to the door

		they didn't but who knows next time?
		they keep trying
		someday they'll get inside

		black earth will take over the house
		plantain and dandelions sprout from the carpet
		vines lace about the bedroom light

		tulips bed down one spring in your king-size sheets
		rubbing their moistened cups gently and smiling
		a large tree roots in the dining room

		starts singing lieder with a deep bass voice
		the whole house lifts to the sky
		on its swelling branches

		when the wind blows hard
		small chairs and tables sprinkle down
		take seed in the moist earth

		hundreds of houses start to sprout
		laugh at each other
		rise up on tall black trunks

		don't take a chance
		keep your doorstep
		clean

Published in Germination , issue #11/1, Fall 1987

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All of us recognize our own smallness -- more consciously at some times than at others. "Size" is my mouse-like attempt to express this kind of recognition.

		we were meant to be ten times larger
		somehow the design got changed at the last minute
		or we ate some forbidden fruit and shrank
		anyway, now we have to tiptoe around
		in these little minds and bodies
		only a fraction of their intended size

		sometimes this helps --
		we fit through laboratory doorways precisely
		cut and sew nerves with delicate fingers
		solder thin gold wires onto microchips
		search for hidden curled-up dimensions
		compose a miniature madrigal or two
		we think it's sort of cute

		if the real ones came
		we'd scuttle to our holes in the floorboards
		breathe quickly, watch with squinting eyes
		their large hands grasp each other,
		hear laughter like waterfalls thunder across
		their mountainous faces,
		seven tumescent suns rise in a giant sky

		squeak squeak we sing, astonished 

..............................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1986

Published in The Antigonish Review , issue #77/78, Summer 1989

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A rodomontade is, as some might know, a vain boasting or bragging (named after a braggart in a work by the Italian poet Lodovico Ariosto). It's hardly a word one uses every day. But having a name that begins with the same first three letters, I thought: well why not? So here's my boast. This may, at first glance, come across as self-pitying and that would be out of place -- because I've been so incredibly lucky in my life. No, think of it as just a jazzing around with the sort of petty put-downs that each one of us copes with at one time or another in our lives. Yes, I do get people saying "Yes, Ron" or Rob, or whatever. It's no big deal. Making a big deal of it, as in this poem, "Rodomontade", is, of course, the hyperbole that is the very essence of a self-centred rodomontade, right?

		"Is your name really Rodney?" she asks.
		I blush as if some guilty secret wriggled there exposed
		like unclean underwear or sweaty armpits.
		"Yes," I mumble, shuffle my fifteen-year-old feet.
		She walks a few steps away, whispers to a friend.
		They look at me and giggle in their white-dotted Swiss.
		Her friend comes up. "Is that true?" she asks.
		"Is your name really Rodney?"
		"Well . . .yes," I stutter hesitantly.
		She bursts out laughing. They both do.
		I'm sure they have spaces on their little silver dance cards
		but I don't dare ask.

		"Don't tell me they still call people Rodney," this one quips brightly,
		sipping her scotch and peering over my newly twenty shoulder;
		she doesn't want to miss the Brads and Bills.
		People keep coming in, glance at her red dress, tanned legs.
		I look confused, "I guess they do," I say
		as if I should have known something she does.
		"What were your parents thinking of?" she burbles on;
		"I see you still part your hair in the middle.
		Did you wear a velvet suit with an Eton collar?"
		"No, got left out on that one," I smile icily. "Deprived, I suppose.
		Guess I just got born in the wrong country and century."
		"I'll say," she says.
		Turns back to the crowd smiling.

		"I can't read your capitals," the girl whispers across the counter,
		squinting her small blue eyes at my licence renewal;
		"Is it ROONEY?"
		"No, it's RODNEY," I say.
		She starts to laugh, then puts a white hand politely to her mouth,
		tries to look serious. Smiles.
		"Why don't you change it?" she asks. She's really quite sweet.

		The divorcée can hardly hold her Smirkov, she's shaking so hard.
		"Surely it's not Rodney! Tell me it isn't!" Her shoulders
		bounce back and forth like a class in aerobics.
		I suppose I should've let you know earlier, I think to myself,
		"I'm afraid it is," I say.
		She gasps for breach and catches it:
		"On second thought you are  a little anemic," she laughs.
		I look up wanly, wondering what to do now.
		Should I laugh and say those are the smallest
		breasts I've ever seen, aren't they cute!
		But I don't have the nerve. Besides, I like them.
		A friend walks up and her face brightens.

		 "First name, please,"
		asks one of the guards in her tall white boots, pink wings.
		"Rod," I offer, wondering how the procedure works.
		She bursts out laughing, calls another guard:
		"Rachel, c'mere, listen to this one!"
		They turn to me, halos a-twitch:
		"You've come to the wrong place.
		Go down where it's Hot, Rod!
		Get it? Get it?"
		I hear a convulsion of angelic titters
		as I trudge back down the marble steps.

		A waitress in a black dress slit to the waist
		sticks out a hand (or is it a hoof?"):
		"Come in, Ron," she says, swinging open the big wrought-iron gate.
		"It's Rod -- with a D," I mumble.
		"Come in, Don," she says.
		"No. R -- O -- D. D as in devil," I say, a slight edge to my voice.
		"Short for Robert?" she asks.
		"Oh hell!" I say. "No! It's short for Rodney."
		"No kidding!" she says. "Really?" and starts to laugh.

		

..................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1986

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We all want foolishly to be masters of our own destiny. Lucky for us, we're not. But the desire is, of course, to eat from the tree of knowledge that is not for mortal mouths. It's all Eve's fault, that little flirt! Too bad we had to be specific about her gender (somehow getting men off the hook for the Fall) because in fact this Eve is simply an alter ego living inside me. Well not an alter ego as in one out of two. Rather one member of what Marvin Minsky would call the whole 'society of mind'. Yes, I did have some thoughts as to my future at one time. But they all turned out to be quite wrong. And that's what "Eve Prophesying" is about. In retrospect, I wouldn't change anything. Oh, maybe a few of my own stupidities, but you don't really want to know about that.

		what would you like to do
			for the rest of your life? she asked
		for the rest of my life?
			yes, she said, one should plan ahead
		he squrimed -- but that's three score years
			I can't possibly plan all that!
		she kicked her tiny heels inside his head and laughed
			try, she said (the little flirt!)

		well, go to university first, I guess
			all my firends are there
		afterwards, become a famous scientist
			make millions on the stock market
		read all the important bookds
			what's that ten or fifteen years?

		ha! she cried, nibbling playfully at his mind
			it's none of the above
		what? he gasped, are you sure?
			not one bit, look, and she gestured from inside
		well, I'll be, he gaped, who'd have thought?
			crunch crunch crunch

.........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1987

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"The Day the Dinosaurs Came Back" is a poem for Connie Conacher, who ran a jewellery store on Yorkville Avenue in Toronto just beside the restaurant Le Trou Normand, who was always positive in her outlook on the world -- and to whom I was married for three years. She really did help the chef when the crowds got large. You don't believe me about the dinosaurs? Unfortunately we drank the evidence.

		The day the dinosaurs came back
		all the gurus were agog
		they're back! the bloody dinosaurs are back!
		paleontologists caught with their pants down
		journalists from the Sun  jostling for interviews
		but you said "You know what?"
		(watching them tramp up the steps of Le Trou Normand)
		"I'm going to help the chef"

		From six on, out poured canoes of canard à l'orange
		bunched brontosauri tore into platters of tournedos
		talky pterydactyls burped through their cervelles sautées
		for vegetarians, God they could eat!
		at midnight they up and left
		their big pods pounded down Yorkville, never came back
		you danced home laughing, two bottles of wine from the chef
		we keep them as evidence

..........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1987

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"Spring Fever" is a poem about violence. In these parts the robins and grackles both return from their winter holidays down south about mid March. The bluejays, on the other hand, are here year round and very aggressive. Not as aggressive as humankind, however. Now that we live in the country we have to be careful to keep our dogs in the house during hunting season. Otherwise they might be shot by trigger-happy urban hunters who escape for a weekend spree in the country killing creatures.

		Mid-March the robins invade on foot
		All winter, birds have kept to the trees
		Out of my reach (except for two stuffed owls)
		But now on my lawn, an infantry of cocked heads

		This morning they cycled down my road two abreast
		I watched as they parked their small bikes in my drive
		So stupid! didn't even send scouts ahead
		Now they're out there, listening, exposed

		Bam bam bam! Three robins dead
		The others flap about confused
		Bam fucking bam! It's over in a minute
		I sit there smiling, rifle on my knee in the sunroom

		Smashed bits of wing and beak jerk on my lawn
		The snap-snap of bird-traps firing in my brain
		Which is when I see grackles poking through my hedge
		Jesus, thousands! lugging bazookas on their purple backs

		I pick off one or two but they're too goddam many
		Someone has planned all this
		They surround my house, cut the phone lines
		Their first shot takes out my bedroom

		They don't know my watering system's got cyanide
		Quick to the basement! turn on the controls
		Sprinkler heads rise up like periscopes from the grass
		Platoons of grackles die in agony

		I charge up the cellar steps, out the front door, all juiced up
		A hand-grenade drops out of the fir-tree
		I laugh as it lands at my feet, a fucking dud
		But the second isn't. Blows me to pieces

		Jays with blue gas-masks swoop from the fir
		Into my house, grab a few beers from my fridge
		Huddle on sweaty feathers round my TV for the replay
		Bam fucking bam! Hot blood pounds in their eyes

..........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1987

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In Greek mythology, of course, Narcissus falls in love with his own reflection. Interestingly, the name comes from the Greek root for numbness (the same as in narcotics). Self-absorption is obviously a dangerous drug. In this "Narcissus" the love is going in the other direction -- or so it seems at first.

			I look at him closely
			just now he was saying something
			I couldn't make it out
			there's never sound when he talks
			I look again
			this time I see his mouth moving
			try to lip-read
			too many ripples
			then the water stills and I get it
			'I love you'

			oh this is embarrassing!
			I hope no one else saw
			anyway, it's not reciprocated!
			not that I don't like him, in a way
			his earnestness, curiosity
			(not modest to admit, but there it is)
			one of the family, sort of a twin brother
			that predictable face which (having no face)
			I've grown used to over the years
			also we have this mutual interest in survival
			but love?

			there's none of the mystery
			those wild leaps of joy, sadness
			half-remembered glimpses
			ha! with him?
			that silly opaque face?
			bland smile that blocks the water
			so I can't see through?

			don't get me wrong
			I don't say everyone hasn't the right
			to her or his own sexual preference
			but that familiar, somewhat dull relative?
			frankly, he doesn't turn me on

			I bend over the water
			to explain this carefully
			not wanting to hurt his feelings
			see his foolish lips go round as a moon
			'I love you' he says
			but now I notice he's looking over my shoulder
			on my neck I feel someone's moist breath
			blowing him a kiss?

			I spin around
			catch you in the pose and you
			burst out laughing
			oh fine fine! so it's come to this!
			you mooning about some underwater jerk
			I get angry

			now you're staring over my shoulder too
			hey it's me here look me me!
			but your words echo past
			bound for that other
			the con artist, the trickster image
			why that cheat, that little cheat!
			I hate the bastard!
			what's he got that I haven't?

..........................................Copyright © Rod Anderson 1987

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