It’s words you don’t say
Which speak the loudest
Silences that fill in blanks
Between a greeting and goodbye
It’s the journey never taken
Of hollow hopes and formless dreams
As I scrapbook empty pages
That holds memories never made
And the choir is all gathered
But there is no song to sing
Just a chorus of heavy sighs
David Trudel © 2013
Filed under Poetry
It’s a short view today into rolling gray
Distant peaks lost as a lonely minute
Cloudswathed
As I turn I spot the first invertebrates of the year
Harmless gnats hovering in my wake
A portent of an early spring
Perhaps
Or one of nature’s sacrificial forays
Playing the odds at a myriad of tables
Dogs have carved furrows into the moss
Tearing at my heartstrings in the process
I think how rare is this remnant meadow
A singular vestige of defining landscape
Marooned on this oaken hilltop
Surrounded by the ignorant
Who have only known cultivated playgrounds
And manicured lawns
Later, the fog will lift
Clarity will return
If only outside
David Trudel © 2013
Filed under Poetry
I had an aquarium full of tropical fish
Window on a slice of water
Filled with darting swimmers
After a long day’s work I’d watch them feed
My thoughts settled along with the flakes
Those that made it to the bottom
Some of my thoughts didn’t settle either
They got swallowed by circumstance or accident
But as the fish swam and fed
I let the memories of the day reverberate
Echoes drifting like clown loaches
Or dramatic as angel fish gliding
Aquatic plants swayed in the bubble current
As my bubble thoughts slowly popped
The day dissolved into familiarity
A slice of life observed
David Trudel © 2013
Filed under Poetry
As my life unraveled I reached a point where all I could say was
Fuck it, I’ll have another cookie
I self-medicated with comfort food
In the lonely evenings I fed my longing with empty calories
But even though they were empty they weren’t benign
My gut started just below my chin and curved south
Like I’d swallowed a roll-top desk
I would get winded lacing up my shoes
The ring I no longer wore wouldn’t have fit anyway
I travelled the trail from stout to fat
Saw a signpost pointing to morbidly obese straight ahead
So I decided to pull a u-turn
At first it was like those supertankers
Taking half an ocean to turn around
As I cut out sugars and fats and switched licorice and sweets
For celery sticks and carrots
Each inch cinched tighter was a struggle not a cinch
I stopped channel surfing past Doctor Oz and paused to watch
Started subtracting familiar foods
Until my burgers were only lettuce and tomato
I slipped into rawness with the stealth of a paleo hunter
Now I buy new jeans every month or so
Smaller and smaller
The roll-top desk is gone
I barely break a sweat on the home gym
Which is comforting in the extreme of this extreme
I have become immune to commercials
I drive past fast food joints barely registering their existence
Hunger pangs are familiar friends I hang with
No longer feared but embraced
I smile into mirrors at the thinner inner me
Who was always there before but badly camouflaged
Now I knit new cloth
From the unraveled tapestry pooled on the floor
And barely remember the taste of cookies
David Trudel © 2013
Filed under Poetry
I would rather write lyric verses in praise of beauty
Describing the wonders of forest glades or sunsets
But I can’t
I’d prefer to get lost in love and play with cosmic metaphors
But I’m not
I’d like to write erotica about inclined curves and heated passions
Or find the meaning of life in a raindrop
But I can’t
I’m blocked by blockhead politics and hate
Intrusions of evil that turn gardens into killing fields
That never go fallow with rest and disuse
And the only renewable that gets attention is fear
So I won’t praise beauty today
Or dally in love’s embrace
Instead I mourn the clearcut memories of paradise
Celebrate the blackened lungs of wageslave toilers
Bemoan the fate of children locked in foul factories
Feeding a frenzy for the cheapest disposables
Wail my ululations for the funerals of slaughtered innocents
So while I’d rather write lyric verses
Today I can’t
Today I weep
And curse the evil that has blackened the once clear sky
Perverted by profit and plunder and imagined power
I mourn the battered face and broken bones of Mother Nature
Beaten down by man’s dominion
So today the only song I sing is a dirge
At this ubiquitous funeral
That never seems to end
David Trudel © 2013
Filed under Poetry
My indignation grows with each revelation
Unparked parks whose parts are partway out the door
Riches of the land given away
Not for posterity but for an economic bump
Or quiet transfers to numbered accounts
Hidden deep within layered deposits of plundered gold
In this in dig nation
Where shovel ready corporations
Dig new troughs
Through watersheds and wilderness
Tracking mud and tarsands through the vestibule of nature’s cathedral
All for bottom line smiles for the few who reap corrupt rewards
While most of us don’t know what’s going on or going down
Used as we are to mediocre reportage that’s little more than spin
So we revolve to the beat of the boardroom
We get spun to whims of cold-eyed ledger predators
And watch as economists and financiers repossess what wasn’t mortgaged
But they’ll take it anyway with the blessing of rightwing ideologues
Who steal public resources for short-term greed
Carving up the country like a holiday turkey
And call for tax cuts or as they say, gravy
While my indignation changes into heartburn
From indigestible giveaways to the bloated
While too many go hungry and thirsty
Or rot in the jails of circumstance
David Trudel © 2013
Filed under Poetry
I wear my medicine bundle on this trek
A universe contained around my neck
A flake of the rock that rolled Sisyphus
Midnight warmth of a lover’s kiss
Seven dreams undreamt
A perfect snowflake
It gives me strength
I join the ragtag muster of this armless army
Whose weapons are but peace and righteous dignity
My passion is not as bitter as the cold drizzle
Yet there is enough bitter passion to go around
My settler feet fumble through the rounddance
Her hands fly up like birds to throbbing drumbeats
Songs that pull power up and out of the earth
Through the chests of the chanting elders in button blankets
And spongeyoung apprentices taking up ancient beats
From places whose names flow like poetry
Esquimalt, Gitksan, Ahousaht, Haisla, Songhees, Nisga’a, Qualicum
Songs that reverberate off the closed doors of government
Into the hearts of us all
Feeling the power of these words that connect to the memory of this place
Since displaced but never erased
Original needs no title to be authentic
Now is the time to support authenticity
Of people
Of place
So we come together in this parade of weaponless warriors
Fed by desperation
Sparked by indignation
To simply say that we’ll be idle no more
Because idleness is complicit in oppression
So raise a feather and be
Idle No More
David Trudel © 2013
Filed under Poetry
Click on the link for a video of me doing some Spoken Word. At my daughter’s wedding reception, no less!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/81dhc1zt3gowi5s/chess%20.mov
Filed under Passing Thoughts
I readily admit to being pretty self indulgent with my poetry the past few months. I do write other words sometimes that aren’t quite so self-centered and some of those can make me feel socially relevant. Today I submitted a grant application to the town hall asking for funds to restore the front steps at the community hall. If all goes well, my words will be made concrete. (groan!!!!)
Leave a comment
Filed under Passing Thoughts
Tagged as community, grants, social activism, social commentary, social engagement