New Poem: "Ode to Leonard Cohen"

Ode to Leonard Cohen

He romanced the darkness

of the human soul and gave it dignity,

affirming our journey through life’s

never-ending struggle, —

A poet, singer, and songwriter whose

lyrics scorched the heart with sacred fire,

letting in the light through the cracks

of broken dreams, —

The world was his oyster

and the Zen monastery his sanctuary,

but Montreal was his native home

where he was safely buried

in the family plot.

Honoring Stuart "Moses" McLean...

Honoring Stuart “Moses” McLean

Stuart McLean, a longtime CBC producer and host of The Vinyl Cafe, was one of Canada’s great storytellers. His voice is silent now. Stuart died on February 15, 2017. He was 68 years young, and I say young because Stuart never seemed to be old to me from the first time I heard him on what used to be my favorite CBC show, Morningside, hosted by an another inimitable Canadian possessed of his own charm, the gruffly likable Peter Gzowski.

What fascinated me about Stuart McLean was his delivery, how he read his stories, which he wrote with such literary expertise that his books of stories from The Vinyl Cafe garnered him the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humor three times.

Unquestionably, his delivery was humorous; but it always sounded to me like he was coming down from the Holy Mountain with a message from God, and I ended up calling him “Moses” McLean because of the messianic intonations of his voice.

“Here comes Moses,” I’d say to Penny, on our Sunday outings; and as we listened to Michael Enright’s tribute to Stuart McLean on our way to Barrie to catch the movie Manchester by the Sea and dinner yesterday afternoon, I reflected on the irony of calling our great Canadian storyteller “Moses” because Stuart’s humor had more wisdom on the human condition than many sacred texts, not to mention poetry; that was his genius.

          “Humor plays close to the big, hot fire, which is the truth, and the reader feels the heat,” wrote E. B. White, co-author of The Elements of Style; but Stuart was so funny that we didn’t feel the heat until later, sometimes much later, which kept us coming back for more.

          “Stories bear the truth of the human condition, and the human condition is the story of our becoming,” I wrote in The Pearl of Great Price, and from what I heard in all The Vinyl Cafe stories over the years, and I heard many, all of those ordinary little moments that Stuart exaggerated with comic hilarity bore the truth of our becoming, and I’d have no trouble saying that Stuart “Moses” McLean was our own Canadian precious pearl, and I miss his voice already.

                 

TRUMPING HIS HORN...

TRUMPING HIS HORN…

I watched President Trump’s press conference today, and William Wordsworth’s poem “The World Is Too Much with Us” came to mind; but what made Trump`s press conference so riveting was that he was pushing back at a world that has been too much with us for far too long, and I for one love him for pushing back!

The World Is Too Much with Us

The world is too much with us, late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon:

The winds that will be howling at all hours

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;

It moves us not—Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn

Have sight of Proteus coming from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

What interesting times we live in…

New Poem: "Another Woody Allen Movie"

Another Woody Allen Movie

We knew what we were getting into,

Café Society, another Woody Allen movie

with the same old tired theme of marital

infidelity and angst and guilt and more

infidelity and yet another round of vapid

rationalization because “the heart wants

what the heart wants,” the famed director’s

defense against common decency, but the

master of broken boundaries always delivers,

and I regret not going to see Anthropoid

instead, another Nazi war movie that I’m

sure would have frayed my nerves less

than another Woody Allen movie.

New Poem: "New Age Religion"

New Age Religion

Like a carrot on a stick, a New Age Religion

        with its ever-ready Master (both Inner

and Outer) promises safe haven from every

        decision, a potpourri of purloined wisdom

exotically articulated to sound like a fresh

        mountain stream mercifully pouring out

of the mouth of God, Light and Sound divine,

        sacred HU so full of promise only a fool

would refuse to call upon the sacred name;

       but as hard as every chela tries to satisfy

the longing in their soul, forever striving for

       the next initiation (a Fifth Initiate becomes

a member of the secret Order of the Oak), the

       carrot on the stick is always always always

 beyond the reach of the inveigled believer

        and robs them of their freedom to bear

the exquisite fruit of their own tree.

New Poem: "Dick and Mary Try Again"

Dick and Mary Try Again

Dick and Mary came back this morning,

the elderly Jehovah’s Witnesses who came

to my door last month and told me they

were going to celebrate their 60^th wedding

anniversary, and I was sitting in the shade

of the maple tree reading C. G. Jung and

Herman Hesse, A Record of Two Friendships,

by the Chilean writer Miguel Serrano (I do

a lot of reading in the shade of our maple

tree), and I invited them to join me (they

had of course come back to proselytize me),

and I greeted them with the courtesy and

civility that their age and commitment

deserved, and within a minute or two I had

informed them that I had read their two

Watchtower pamphlets but only part of the

book What Does the Bible Really Teach?

because I could not buy into such a literal

interpretation of the Bible that their teaching

espoused, and I give my reasons why, as

honestly as I could without offending their

dogmatic sensibilities, which I did because

reincarnation was the work of the Devil for

Dick and Mary, but they were polite with me

and tried to smooth things over when I backed

them into a corner with logic and personal

experience, and we ended up respecting each

other for our beliefs but they went away sad

that they could not save me, and I went back

to reading my book on Serrano’s friendship

with Jung and Hesse, two iconic writers who

broke the mold of fixed thought and set an

untold number of souls free.

NEW POEM: "Black on Black"

Black on Black

When life is black on black

it’s impossible to connect with the living

principle that makes life work, —

And we suffer frustration!

When life is black on black,

it’s impossible to entrain with the vibration

that makes life run smoothly, —

And we suffer dissonance!

When life is black on black,

it’s impossible to see the portal of entry

into horizons of possibilities, —

And we suffer stasis!

Only black on white, and white on black,

the enantiodromiac dynamic of making

the two into one, can save us, —

And suffering is a blessing!