Backseat Windows
as a child I would lock eyes with other kids
captive in the back seats of station wagons
hurtling down freeways
or slowrolling through clogged streets
I would lock eyes
trying for some kind of psychic connection
anticipating a future meeting
hoping that decades later
our eyes would remember a moment held between us
briefly as a hummingbird’s visit and just as sweet
when we were young it was easy for me
seeing the world from inside the safety glass of the family car
innocence was as easy as unlocked doors
knowing who lived in each house on the block
and who’s mother made the best cookies
I thought that everyone else was as safe as I was
in those days before I knew about torture
about abuse and cruelty
punches that split skin
and the weight of undeserved guilt
perversions frequent as autumn rain
for too many, too young
too terrible
now, in this future of punched out walls
I wonder what happened to them
I try to recollect those faces
dredged images from ripped memories
some of those eyes must have been shrieking in their silence
calling for sympathy or salvation
locked in rolling hells
moving closer to the next indignity
while I worried about a music lesson I hadn’t practiced for
if I could return to those moments
I wouldn’t challenge fragile eyes with directness
I‘d look at you obliquely and offer you my passing tears
I’d applaud you for carrying on
holding your head up as you looked out at a world
that held more sins than miracles
I would unlock my eyes from the illusion
I would try to see your truth
not mine
David Trudel © 2015
sepia toned
we woke up sepia toned
not drained of colour but transformed into shimmers
light lays flat
yellowed as yesterday’s bloodied sun
slipped sideways on a once upon
we call each other asking
“do you see it too?”
and words like apocalypse
like endtimes, like otherworldly
fill our mouths as the sky fills our thoughts
later, waiting for the ferry
I walk the beach up to and under the dock
crosshatched shadows feed the noontime reek of creosote
triggering memories of campfires
then all I smell is the smoke of a carbon sink
a million trees candled in the wind
a burning world
riding thermals down every seaward valley on the coast
until each wave pushes another dragon under
we try to laugh about how strange it looks
as the sun reddens its shroud
today is marked in black
this is the year when winter thins its cool
no matter how golden the sky seems right now
or how wonderful splintered light appears slipping through ashfall
this is no celebration
this is not the same as other years
when autumn slashpiles streamed pendants
today is amber
a moment to hold long enough to remember
how startled we once were
David Trudel © 2015
In Memoriam
now it’s forty
and there are no words
each one I reach for collapses
each memory dead ends
this anniversary is an excavation of memory
a miserable celebration of our past
that point in time when your future disappeared
into a dark wormhole
now, in this bitter today
we keep fragments of your passing
smiling at the rose-coloured glasses you wore
holding back a tear at the laughter you provoked
holding on to shadows in the middle of the night
I do not try to forgive myself the guilt
remembering the anger I felt
when you stood me up for lunch
not knowing you were morgued beyond appetite
an empty stage is all that’s left
holding echoes that no one hears
except those of us who loved you
which was everyone you touched
David Trudel © 2014
looking for the aurora
toes curl
gripping rock through shoe and moss
pressing brief bones against a plunge of denseness
my tongue tastes endurance
more feeling than looking
then up, inevitably
up into the great whatever
not into riddles or faded histories of starlight
catching yesterday’s plasma
high flies
against the big black fullness
high flies
rippling daggers slice the empty
this point a singularity
under it all
holding on to nothing
holding nothing in
until the next point is less than something
nothing is left
but the rock
the sky
and me
David Trudel © 2014
fragment
that fall from grace a mere trip
a glide into unfixed morality
quantummed checkerboard deserts
where rivers dribble
past thirsty farms
here where rain and wind
are corralled and fenced
traded and brokered
fragmented beyond limits
to where guilt
is weightless enough to be free
no charge for sighs
those breaths expelled
gracelessly
David Trudel © 2014
worries
3:00 in the morning
alone in silence
it’s dark
I wake to worries
worries about myself and what I’m doing
and not doing
worries about those I love
and what’s happening to them
worries about those I know
but not well enough to love
and their troubles
in the dark it’s easy to worry
each small concern
unavoidable as a 3:00 a.m. heartbeat
it’s easy to worry in the small hours
thinking how big the problems are
how powerless I am
at 3:30
the dark deepens
now it’s worries about the wars
the earth
the rivers of blood
ignorant hatred
while I’m bothered by my lack of sleep
so at 3:45 I worry about selfishness
how my first world problems
are inconsequential but persistent as mosquitoes
I’m feeling guilty about worrying needlessly
but I can’t sleep
the silence is too loud
loud enough to drown out my heart
loud enough to echo in the dark
in the dark
where I lie awake
full of worries
about all the disappointed yesterdays
and fears about hopeless tomorrows
4:00 in the morning arrives full monty
in my face
as unavoidable as the seagull shit
splattered on the oversized bronze statue
of a long forgotten fool
who slept through his worries
until they called him hero
staring at nothing
it’s dark and quiet
at 4:15
my heart races itself in circles
until time doesn’t matter
all that’s left is everything that isn’t right
and that’s enough for one night
David Trudel © 2014
Doe
her eyes catch the final glimmers of daylight
drawing my attention to the doe
ruminating trailside
I hold her gaze and say hello dear
with a smile
we look at each other, her shoulders relax
we share this moment
not quite trusting each other
but less than wary
close enough to hear each other breathing
shadows close in
our eyes, different enough
seeing mysteries
both recognize a moment of peace
worth sharing
David Trudel © 2014
transition
on the occasion of my ex-wife’s remarriage
I find myself taking care of my ex-dog
we stare at each other
bemused
not quite sure what to say
until he pees on the carpet
David Trudel © 2014
threads
each word dangles like a loose thread
from a well-worn sweater
I pull
it unravels
until there is just a pile of rawness
David Trudel © 2014
someone else’s rainbow
raining now, hunching into the wind
sea air spilling fresh
winds pulling ruined towers around horizons
white against grey, grey against blue, blue against indigo
shored meadows dressed in purple and yellow
on mottled rocks
an otter surfaces nearby
prize clutched defiantly sliding around a corner
clouds part enough to flash some sky
we are standing at the end of someone else’s rainbow
hunching into the wind
watching cumulus reservoirs slow rolling overhead
underfoot a treasury of the overlooked
while someone wishes
hunching into the wind
David Trudel © 2014
- stellarthere was a moment whenI had to admitI’d fallen into your orbitit was too lateto save megravity pulledI wascaptured
David Trudel © 2014
- I am Grateful I am grateful for the privilege that lets me live on Vancouver IslandI am grateful to be a visitor on the traditional lands of the Lek’wungen PeopleI am grateful for the freedom to walk on the beach at dusk in safetyI am grateful for being a white malein a world of violence towards womenI thank the creator for all the gifts I shareI thank the creator for all of youI’m gratefulfor the privilege of sharing
this moment
this now
with you
David Trudel © 2014
- blightit’s depressingto think about the politics of oppressionto think about the end game of capitalismto think about the disease we call consumerismwe cling to the frail hope that democracy is realthat the rule of law abidesbut this is a world of failed states and states of feara world we poison for our amusementearthrapers are what we arewe are a blight attacking the planet and all we share it with
there is no excuse for our cruelty
only shame
yet beauty persists
nature will overcome our temporary infestation
whether by anti-bodies or annihilation
the day will come when earth will be free of us
reconstituting the atoms that have been our bodies
back into nature
to flourish once more
without the hubris and arrogance that blinds us to the truth
everything is connected
in the full roundness of time
we will come again and see this world differently
as guests, not as rulers
accepting reality as it is
naturally
David Trudel © 2014
it was like drip
drip
drip
pulling tree essence
good intentions
into
down there
it was like respirations
of the Pacific
travelled in and out
drip
concentrated into
purity
water of forever
healed into clear drops
washed absolution
reconnected to a fresh return
of my own fluidity
eroding rock walls
drip
drip
drip
not a virtue
but necessary
as rain washes upper stories
into lower
drop by drop
changed by intentions
like I want to reach the sky
I express gratitude
causing molecular reconfiguration
I send a wave of prayers
into forever
I feel the forest upswell
meet water, wondered into magic
from formless transform
to magnificent
in time for just now
thinking
a wave has me tumbled
or a wave has tumbled
through this forest
to drown me
David Trudel © 2014
rain
rain in the night
louder than heartbeats
pain
hard as raindrops slam slapping
waiting for nerves to sing
in the night
while the rain falls
in the dark
heart thumping
heart beating in time with the rain
in time with pain
in the night
when the heart is a round drum
leading a dance in the dark
truth in each beat
vibrating in rhythm with the rain in the night
louder than heartbeats marking pain
in the night
while rain falls louder than hearts can hear
tonight
David Trudel © 2014
bad faith
bad faith has led to this place
the transept holds a draped table
where lawyers pulpit
rights, titles and historical truths
dressed in split hairs
ritualistic applause marks each voice
concepts like terra nullius lie uncovered
offered up like original sin by unholy courts
whose collective guilt bleeds
as red as maple leaves on white fields
empty spaces left uncoloured
unoccupied by truth
condemned by greed to be torn away
from those who can’t exist
in this place
where faith has been rocked
by fraud and lies
culture quarried and stripped
left for dead
still, there are heartbeats
that call like drums
ascending
David Trudel © 2014
Fuck You Saint Valentine
one day I’ll run through the mall
shouting Fuck You Saint Valentine
patron saint of the beautiful, the privileged
you’re a tease, a fiction
spreading hope, packaged passion
Fuck You Hallmark cards
perpetuating a myth of receptive possibilities
promoting expectations
one phrase at a time
Fuck You Harlequin Romances
happy endings all tidied up
measured passion
not the snarls of our lives
Fuck You Hollywood
avalanche of romantic comedies
soundtracks swollen with strings
when all some of us hear is the croak
of Tom Waits at two in the morning
Fuck You Saint Valentine
glossing over the childrens’ labour
sweetly boxed
Fuck You mall wanderlings
I’m tired of happy passion
animated Barbie and Ken dolls
buying underwear for each other
Saint Rita!
patron saint of loneliness
of forgotten causes
a saint for the chronically alone
a saint without P.R.
So Fuck You Saint Valentine
I’m over your sweet promises
I’ll plead my case to Saint Rita
on her feast day I’ll take myself out to lunch
and I won’t be disappointed
David Trudel © 2014
spill
there will be beauty in the midst of terror
when light reflects a swirl of colours on the tide
perversely echoing the stained glass of cathedrals
finding one more reason to pray for salvation
not for us
but for the innocent
when greed and complacency foul the ocean
when tarballs creep across tidelines
carpeting creation with black death
ending stories rooted in the beginning of days
a sacrifice to human commerce
papered press releases will talk about dispersants
and highlight spill response teams
until their stench masks that of the dead
seabirds and seastars
and everything else
there will be beauty darkened
by a mask of bunker fuel
or bitumen or toxic sludge
beauty will be found in our tears
saltwater spills running down black cheeks
as we grieve one more assault
one more acceptable risk fulfilled
in service of insanity
David Trudel © 2014
ambiguous
some days are like that
what?
ambiguous
not quite a total fucking disaster
but not bad either
gotcha, says he
it’s the middle of winter
but when the sun shines
even a grey day
shows some colour
like a redwinged blackbird
on a fenceline
tenuous as hell
when its raining and cold
it all gets to be
ambiguous
like that
David Trudel © 2014
sunset
this day there was a choir
singing
as we approached the beach
for real
in a circle
entoning celestial voices against
moist slurps percussively
arriving
there was a rock
to shelter against
in the brilliant light
of cadenced winter
there was your face
reflecting the wind
the crows paid no attention
as they chortled their way across tideline buffets
manicured dogs careen along this margin
we disregard the others
absorbed
in a dialogue that dances into
yesterday
until we enter the present
capturing moments
with precision and obliqueness
entering into a realm where colours shift
with each tilt of the head
where land slips beneath the waves
and rocks turn into sand
beneath our feet
as dusk purples distant mountains
gulls cry
I look at you
thinking
that sometimes sunsets have supporting roles
David Trudel © 2014
fogdrifts
fogdrifts
lift and pull
veiling now
then screaming into
forever
lights in the distance
haloed
and then whoosh
goodbye fellow traveler
let me bless your journey
into my past
while I blow through yours
on a subliminal level
each environmental cue
prompts reflexive jumps
into defensive awareness
self-destructive
shedding ego I open
my eyes to alternative possibilities
of destruction
involving me or not
cases
may be
made
David Trudel © 2014
tree song
needles on each dancing branch
pull keening sounds from the wind
singing regrets that they can’t fly
like empty exiles
doomed to restlessness
each sound a friction
between immovable and unstoppable
wistful and beautiful
as silhouettes of trees against the night
rooted into place
but longing to take flight
David Trudel © 2014
shooting star
under starshine you glow
mithril strong
a crescent moon
slices my heart
open
while gentle waves tug
sending aural strokes
slurping
along the dark
wet margin
where we walk
inhaling salt tang
absorbing each moment
with every sense
involved
waiting
behind you a meteor streaks
falling into
the realm of promises and dreams
dusting magic
into my eyes
David Trudel © 2014
eyes
some moments are so beautiful
they melt
like I do
when you see me
like that
David Trudel © 2014
Dionysus for dinner
I had Dionysus over for dinner
it was a disaster
he seemed so nice on the internet
posting all these great memes with classical metaphors
we became Facebook friends
messaging back and forth with ribald wit
which should have tipped me off
I assumed he’d evolved
become a 21st century hipster
heavily invested in the wine industry
holding a controlling interest in all the Ecstacy sold at all the raves
a bankster druglord
a modern god
but no
instead, suburban calm was disrupted
to the point where the neighbours all came out to gawk
holding smartphones over their heads to record the spectacle
as Dionysus arrived by chariot
not just any chariot but one pulled by lions and tigers
roaring in frenzied exaltation
some old dude with a beard was with him
I thought it might be Willie Nelson at first
but he belched, said he was Silenus and pointed over my shoulder
I turned around
up the block came a group of half-naked hippie chicks
well, it seemed that way
right out of fucking Woodstock
flowers braided into their hair and dancing just out of reach
of a bunch of randy old goats
flashing shocked onlookers with penile magnitude
impossibly proportioned
they tore through my house
grabbed all the wine
a bottle of brandy, the gin and vermouth
even the hidden bottle of 18 year old Macallan
it all disappeared
they found my stash in the drawer upstairs
gone within seconds
boring! they chorused
they dragged me along
back out and back onto the street
they started playing a reggae tune
that I knew but had never heard before
I danced with them
shedding all self-control
partying through middleclass suburbs
subverting those who looked interesting
emptying their basement bars
sparking up herbs liberated from mancaves
freeing souls from polite restraint
until the goats had their way
the dogs began barking
as middle-aged wage slaves screamed their release
of a lifetime’s fear and repression
while we drained every bottle
until the only thing left to find
was sleep
I woke up on the front lawn
snuggling between one of the hippie chicks
and mrs smith from down the block
the paperboy was nudging me with his foot
it’s almost dawn, he said
still night for another moment
I replied, with a wink
David Trudel © 2014
39 years later
39 years later you look out at me
framed time holds that moment
you were sitting in my car’s backseat
long hair haloed by the sun
full of tomorrows
caught midwink
your eyes are oddly unbalanced
one much larger than the other
you panached that pince nez
that rides your aquiline nose
it was never silly when you wore it
it didn’t matter that you had 20/20 vision
you liked its appearance
the costume value of a minimalist mask
you knew the kind of looks it would provoke
your unlined face never did get wrinkled
you still have all your hair
in the moments that I keep you alive
a few images and memories
you remain caught in our youth
I carry you forward
into the now of 39 years later
your hair reduced to a fringe
your face a roadmap of the intensity of your passions
still ready with a wink and a smile
bearing memories of never weres
and premonitions of yet to be
but that vision fades
I’m left with a black and white photo
and a hole in my heart
punched through with the same force
that bullets punched through yours
in the middle of the night
gunned down
another guiltless bystander
another crime statistic
one more unfulfilled promise
that diminishes this reality
into less than it should have been
less than it should have been
David Trudel © 2013
Photo by Art McLeod
trying to snow
tonight
runt crystals caught
by a dull beam
between sleet and a promise
hovering between states
fading wasabi fast
cold wind nibbles
like a three a.m. piss
that isn’t worth getting out of bed for
not quite snow
equivocates into memory
an arctic outflow bullies clouds along
until it is simply cold
leaving trees bare
fading into sharp slivers
of black in the night
unadorned for now
except for a premonition
David Trudel © 2013
nightview
sometimes at the top of the hill
there are stories that float up
from each of those lights
signaling their revolutions
pulling me into memories of the over there
or imaginary dramas
like elderly couples planning each other’s assisted suicide
or teenagers learning the ways of rooftop exits
into rebellion in empty spaces between lights
down there life is being made
and death continues to shouldertap
there are sounds
that are all new but not new
each siren a grim familiar chorus
each distant shout echoing
a thousand others heard before
each thousand thousand sounds a looping track
played back randomly
played back frequently enough for familiarity
so that each sound resonates comfortably
like you’ve heard them before
just not quite like this
the light is never the same
tonight low clouds dance the moon
revealing glimpses of white mystery
behind gray scarves fanned like marilyn
luminescent overcast makes cameos of twisted limbs
and mosscaught raindrops glow like mithril in moonlight
as shadows shift into almost
wearing sheer nothings that you can never quite see through
David Trudel © 2013
Photo by the author
waiting
beautiful you are
but I don’t dwell on that
or sing praises
I just drink in
tall glasses
I document places
with you just outside each frame
hinting through margins
and mattes
into images of preternatural beauty
like memories of you then
transposed against today’s moment
when the light hits
like a sucker punch
leaving me breathless
vainly
waiting for your touch
for more than today
and less than tomorrow
patiently
David Trudel © 2013
patience
patience is a lonely virtue
worn thin as hand me downs
in a too large family
in a too old house
but patience is what’s required
for trust to develop
for the comfort of familiarity
waiting for acceptance
like letting birds settle
while you wait for the path to open
while you wait for the way forward
patience is a lonely virtue
requiring surreptitious repetition
gentling alarms with quiet strokes
patience is persistent non-pursuit
patience is acceptance of illusions
allowing mirages to be photo-shopped into tomorrow
waiting for that calm moment
that waits like a forest clearing
that waits like a perfect moment
worthy of an eternity of frustration
patience is the appreciation of a possibility
and the acceptance of its loss
patience is letting now catch up with tomorrow
while the wind whistles
and cries
patience is learning to ignore the immediate
knowing that some prizes are worth the wait
David Trudel © 2013
End of the World
if it was the end of the world
would you hold my hand
and pull me into you
if it was the end of the world
would you kiss me
like the fate of eternity depended on
our lips
if it was the end of the world
would you hold my head in your hands
while we hold our gazes
while we hold the end off
for a moment longer
until the end of the world
becomes inconsequential
until the end of the world
is you
me
holding on
to each other
until the end of the world
is discovery
until the end of the world
no longer matters
David Trudel © 2013
against the current
traveling against the current
against tide travelers
gliding up and out on slick ribbons
pulled into dark forests
where green marries black
here, a stream shakes life into the air
with each slap of battered fighters
broaching destinies while gulls consider
their next course
traveling against clocks
traveling elliptically
even traveling when we arrive
until it’s all fluid
sliding tumbled into tomorrow
yesterdays lie scattered on banks and riverbottoms
trees, not quite full frontal
wear mossy leggings and use ferns as pasties
trailing natty beards weirdly mist woven
ferns dictating understories into vanishing ravines
reading secret landscapes from sacred scores
traveling fast slowly
against currents
against granite
against predation
into natural inclusion
into natural solutions
traveling against the current
David Trudel © 2013
ghosts and demons
my ghosts and demons are not dressed up in cheap costumes
looking B movie extra ready
my zombies aren’t privileged youths indulging adolescent fantasies
in my world demons wake you up at 3 in the morning
haunting you with labyrinthian thoughts of debts and closed doors
or arrive in recycled grey envelopes from the taxman
with impossible demands to pay them twice the amount of your last refund
my ghosts are the second guesses
regrets that hang like spanish moss
or Miss Havisham’s tattered bed curtains
in my world we’ve shuddered at thoughts of an unwanted pregnancy
where masked reapers harvest the stillborn
snatching happiness from cradles
there are no doorbell ringing hobgoblins here
in my world they make pre-emptive strikes
exploding you with tricks like crumbling bodies
and sixteen kinds of crazy shit a day
in my world we see through masks to skeletal truths
held together by abstractions, chewing gum and thought ghosts
so if you are wondering why I don’t appear to be into Halloween
its only because its something that sticks around all year
tricking and treating unceasingly
David Trudel © 2013
siren calls
sirens tear open this day
softpillowed dreams crumpled
pinned by each imagined shriek
flying up from blood soaked gurneys
remembering that we are seconds away from a 180
recalling acute pain and trauma shocked eyerolls
focusing on the ambulance ceiling
not quite able to disassociate
tethered by a thousand nerves to now
I listen to cries that I’ll never hear
feeling empathy for the agony of strangers
torn from their routines into the brightness of disaster
as I lie awakening to reverberations of machine screams
wondering about final moments
about what’s behind the next door
and if I should get out of bed
to dance with sirens
David Trudel © 2013
diaspora
the diaspora of my thoughts
leaves me unpopulated at core
where there was a city
now, only mud huts remain
my words have become refugees
sheltering in desert tents
scattered across borders
this dispersion has left me burnt and derelict
my riches have disappeared
I am nothing but a beggar now
I wait for renewal
but my thoughts are stillborn
even naked truth ceases to arouse my passion
winds raise a curtain of dust around me
each mote a memory of a death
each mote a misdirection
a barrier standing between perceptions
until I am invisible and alone
unhampered by surroundings
unable to hear the cries of the many
I confront the emptiness of solitary freedom
and find peace
in the tranquility of disengagement
David Trudel © 2013
remember
remember that time
when it was all about
he said she said
remember that time
when the members were unattached
and needed remembering
to exist
remember
that time and this
into and out of memory
David Trudel © 2013
fogwalk
skykissed, the earth seems shy
muffled by a ragged net of condensed cloud
everything goes quiet
earlier it burned off
now it rolls in off the straits
leeching colours and shortening views
each drop holding a cemetery scent of early dawn
when spirits slide sideways into the melt
each drop a stitch in the shroud
this fog sleepwalks through empty rooms
while shadows punch slivers of distraction
into softsilvered rivers
each drift a tangible intangible
never quite in reach
never quite vanishing
floating wordlessly
with all the effort of nothing
drafting tailwinds of an idea
David Trudel © 2013
unexpected
this was not what I expected
not that I knew what was
around the corner
that presented itself with sharp angles
because there are no soft curves
here
no easy exits
or ways to leave out the back door
this is it
this is looking
into a cold light
into reality
into your own heart
when the defenses come down
into the unexpected
around corners
where every angle is an exit
or an obstruction
David Trudel © 2013
declarative
declarative
I like your honesty
declarative
your words tumble
like the code to a lock
that has bound my heart
too long
declarative
walking beachmargins in moonlight
resonates
between here and when
when I saw that sideways
glance
declarative
I meant healing from hands on
declarative
if I could give myself up
and you give yourself up
we would have each other
covered
into a declarative moment
David Trudel © 2013
premonition
ragged footsteps of falling leaves
disconcert a premonition that lands
obliquely, out of reach
remaining an undisclosed foreshadow
dislodged but deep downed
where I do not look
except peripherally
my undoing is always curiosity
some answers
are not worth the questions
David Trudel © 2013
dreampeace
peace and serenity
found only in dreams
dreams warmed with immediacy
warmed with feelings
feelings that recede against a tide of anxiety
pulling in sad waves of lost loneliness
becoming thunderstorms and crashing waves
in chorus with the light of a full moon
in chorus with the lightness of hummingbirds
remembering castles and cathedrals
since replaced with forests and open skies
remembering listening to Neil Young for the first time
when the sky was reflected in bluebells
before it rained sadness
before many roads turned into one
beckoning with promises hidden just ahead
the way an adolescent dog surges ahead on walks
following scents and senses
while the wind plays arpeggios overhead
while it becomes peaceful enough
under a blanket of serenity
to find a dream
David Trudel © 2013
deliberation
it all happens
deliberately
even random shots
caroming off bumpers
have some impulse
driven into them
by some driver
someone with a pointed stick
ready to
make a decision
regardless
so when you look at me
sideways
lips pursed
I know what mine is
regardless
and I begin to be deliberate
in the deliberation
of my anarchistic freedom
into some kind of surrender
a giving up of control
just as I realize I never had it
really
because
this has always been a shared delusion
and once shared
I
am
shyDavid Trudel © 2013
Sports redux
at times all that’s left
is a retreat into sports
not relevant
at all
but as primal as ancient Rome
in wired arenas
when teams coloured in
screaming adoration
or dismay
become an Australian Blue Heeler
of collective heat
outstretched
pulling centrifugally
against your impulse to say
Stop!
in which there is no
enough is
no safe place under the bleachers
to watch it play out
until thumbs are
outstretched
David Trudel © 2013
Trees
there were years when
climbing trees
was it
branch to branch
above it all
puzzling my way
to where birds felt at home
every tree I saw
assessed for climbability
testing assumptions
I became acquainted with bark
moss, lichens
and the emptiness of the sky
waiting for a sharp crack
of lightning
David Trudel © 2013
Click
it’s insistent
with that fucking click click
click
bothers me
but what the
oh yeah
other shit to worry about
big stuff
like the fate of the world
click click
like transcendence into
some paranormal ether connected to
forever
click
click
shuttling between now
and then
between possibilities
click
between realities
click
quantum leaps
quantum French kisses into
click
somewhere else
somewhere
natural
click
somewhere
where your mind plays as lightly as your fingers
on me
click
where I play
arpeggios
on your spine
click
licking time
into submission
click
one more time
click
David Trudel © 2013
Soft as
in my realm
dreams are real
there are no walls
they bleed
into each other
dripping
like they do
as soft as
pianissimo
whispered into your ear
while I forget
to wake up
while I forget
to remember
while I forget
what it was
that stopped me
from continuing
on
even though
there are walls
defenses
and a window
into infinity
David Trudel © 2013
Skydiving
pressed against nothing
the gull balances its soaring inclination
with the inevitability of gravity
holding onto a fixed moment
perched on wind
comfortably as on a branch
then tips forward
slipping
into motion
David Trudel © 2013
on the trail
driving hoofbeats canter into my ears
reined in as horse and rider approach
the horse an Appaloosa
flanks rust splattered
warrior strong and graceful
dancing a pas de deux
on the home stretch
an older couple
so comfortable together
their wrinkles match
silent pulls
slice greychop
as rowers dart dragonfly quick
buoy to buoy
runners gliding loose
gravity a step away from disappearing
and joggers slog
each step a time punch
dogs walking their humans
happily
through muddy trails
pairs sunk in earnest conversations pass
revealing fragments of betrayals
littering the path with scuffed passion
David Trudel © 2013
it’s colder
time for another layer
it’s colder
evenings have become nights
walks turn into mysteries
sounds or shadows
ready to pounce
or disappear into recesses
better forgotten
unfocus away
nightviews an intervention
electrified horizons
unroll blueprints of a thousand streets
under muffled obscurity
it’s colder
there are mysteries in margins
fog rolls
growing into something
unknowable
David Trudel © 2013
Because
because I loved you
I waited
for that moment when
click
your heart opened
and you let me in
David Trudel © 2013
Family Plot
it’s peaceful here in the old graveyard
incongruously serene across the perimeter fence
inside which it’s high alert
where gravity bullies dance
offering themselves skyward
Daedalus unbound a thousand times a day
but in the family plot
myths and legends are found in names and dates
foretelling this one’s ascension into heaven
and that one’s faith in the lord above
arrivals and departures fixed for eternity
transitioning realities
with faith enough to believe
David Trudel © 2013
Riff
the song is a long riff
played delicate like
at midnight in July
thundering when storms march
in battalions thumping polyrhythmic
oompahs
the song is improvised
over rumbles of a sliding scale
holding long notes that float
disarmingly
as water striders skating black splashes
where tumbled rocks wear green skirts
the song pulls wind into snarling trees
syncopating elements into a signature
timed
with layered passages of woods over brass
blue notes swimming down low
down there
in gravelgrinding undercurrents
eddying into echoes of echoes
of echoes
David Trudel © 2013
Rewrite
I could rewrite my days
following crumbs back
through mysteries
I’d use different words
or fewer
but it would be the same story
David Trudel © 2013
Chalk
I like the transiency of chalk art
inhabiting the same space
as Tibetan sand mandalas
impermanent as sunshine
or that look
you almost gave me
over your shoulder
parting
with a tug
that says
I’ll be here
until it rains
David Trudel © 2013
some days
some days emerge fossilized and stratified
revealing undercurrents of flow interrupted
time weights
broken as shakers shook
lying busted
some days sit rocky
heavy and ponderous
but hardly impervious
hardly
some days are ground
down
ground
into pieces
minutely
into beaches
where time
ebbs
some days are the moment
the tide is full
directionless
waiting for a pull from a slingshot dance
some days skip
flat rocks slapping
wet kisses at ten minutes to midnight
some days are always rocky
David Trudel © 2013
Retriever
Every morning she walks her dog along the beach
Alone with her thoughts
She knows what size of stick to scavenge
For the dog to retrieve
It’s become a formal ritual for them
She chooses the stick
Pretends she doesn’t like it at all
Throws it as far away as she can
The dog explodes with purpose
To get the stick and to return it
Each time she throws the stick
She releases a little tension
Gives away a worry or a fear
The dog retrieves the stick but not the worry
That’s part of the ritual
The absolution of innocence
Washes her troubles away
David Trudel © 2013
Enough
Sometimes it’s enough
Sufficient
To simply experience a moment
By itself
Without thinking about yesterday and tomorrow
It’s enough
To watch dusk slipping into night
As the heat of the sun radiates from the rocks
Where you stand barefoot
Empty
Just enjoying the impossible shades of bruised violet
Unburdened
Having found tranquility
In being unable to shoulder burdens
Things that are too heavy to lift
I am no Atlas or Sisyphus to take on the impossible
It is enough to stand on this rock
Without worrying about carrying it
And through the freedom of the unburdened
Discover peace in the eternal now of a sunset
David Trudel © 2013
Portent
In the thin heat of late summer
Every picnic is bittersweet
As leaves bleed green and turn to rust
July’s refreshing breeze
Is now a portent of autumn storms
Flights of birds climb airstairs
Chanting their exit visas
Winging it
Still, the day holds heat enough
To shorewalk barefoot
Letting gentle tides kiss your toes
With the languor of a late afternoon lover
Satiated with passion
But not with affection
David Trudel © 2013
Chores
Today is a day for small chores
Bringing water like some forgotten sky god
For my green prisoners
Next, I vacuum
Stirring the dust and detritus
Harvesting peanut shells and dust bunnies
For memories and lost thoughts
My routines are commonplace
Comforting in their normalcy
Giving me the illusion of some fragile permanence
That might stand against the intransigence of power
Forgetting that state control is as prevalent here
As it ever was in war zones and dictatorships
Where terror slams like bullets into unarmed crowds
And poetry is bloodwritten on pockmarked concrete
By the dying
Who no longer water houseplants
But bleed out their innocence on city streets
David Trudel © 2013
Fin
In these echoes
Of fin de siècle somnolence
We wait in apprehension
Of the next great conflagration
When we wake up
Again
After it all
It will seem so quaint
The way we live now
In such fearful security
Balancing the knife edge of
Civilized barbarism
Against possibilities of miracles and magic
With one hand on technology
And the other placed above your heart
All you want
Is one more day
Of normal
One more day
Until it starts
David Trudel © 2013
Disdain
It was only a moment
A slice
Like a knife into the centre
Of my heart, or something
Something, since you didn’t even know
Your eyes betrayed you
And you were unaware
Blissfully
Of the knife in your hand
Which, nonetheless, slid between ribs
To find a mark
Crossing off another
Claim jumper
With a look
David Trudel © 2013
Flare
With all your flaws and demons
Your troubles and pain
You still burn with starlight
Bright enough to require sunglasses
When I see you
Blazing
I think solar explosions
And fusion
A celestial beacon
Signaling unmatched intensity
A crucible
Where thoughts and actions
Explode
Into fractured reflections
Creating brilliant mosaics
To mark your passage
David Trudel © 2013
Dreaming
Some dreams don’t matter
Beyond the skewed beauty of their inspiration
Maybe that’s why we don’t remember them
Like some midnight story
But catch fragments
When the light is just so
Memorable
Or something
That brings us back to some impossibility
That made sense in the context of
Insensate dreaming
When surrender was a condition
Of being
Where veils become wings
Walls turn into doorways that give way
To freefall diving
Wind riding
And you are conscious of
Being there and not there
In that place where matter
Doesn’t
David Trudel © 2013
That Time You Looked At Me
And then
I’d remember
How your eyes shone
When you looked at me
Obliquely
Or just with a question
Poised
Ready for a leap of faith
Like teenagers cliff diving
In the heat
Of summer
When we forgot about
Others
Danced with cedars and firs
Above those thin pools
Of critical cool
Where ravens swim and salmon
Touch the sky
And we would hold hands
Like it was meant to be
Forever
Or at least for now
Since there is a forever in now
Which transcends
The reality of this place
Until everything else drops away
It’s just you
Me
And the next breath
That neither of us
Takes
David Trudel © 2013
Untethered
This fractured heart is unbound
By tangled strings
Not tethered to another set of eyes
Reflecting a shimmer of tears
Unable to look away
Even as love is strangled by its own bonds
Relentlessly
Moments come and go unexpectedly
Uncharted
Echoes of improvisational adaptation
Against the dissonance of solitude
Rising like a three a.m. riff at Birdland
Into a time when dawn seems impossible
To remember
Against the black of lonely
Where a curl of smoke is light enough
To provide a contrast
To emptiness
David Trudel © 2013
Broken
A broken ice jam in my chest
Subcutaneous scab recedes
An alpine glacier
Shrunken to a few frozen crevasses
While muscles have reformed
Beneath a punctuation of red hyphens
Exclaiming sternly sternum drumbeats
Against a rhythm of compressed short breaths
Syncopating inhalations
With relentless staccato bursts
Of feeling healing
Relentlessly marching in place
Above my heart
David Trudel © 2013
Nowness
Until the brightness of now is dulled
With a patina of etched experience
Gather light into explosions of consciousness
Unhinging regrets and worries
As each moment flares beacon-like
Summoning looks and observations
Perhaps immediately
Or later, when the speed of events
Circles the sun and returns as a reflection
That gives pause and appreciation
For each starbright daisy-chained state of intensity
Found in the now of here
In the now of you
Watching stories unfold with predictable uniqueness
Like protostars arriving in cosmic nebulae
Radiating with explosive insistence
To brighten the night
David Trudel © 2013
Checked Time
I have stopped wearing a watch
I am no longer calibrated that way
To those divisions that break life
Into microscopic slices
I don’t check time
Now
I let it be
Amorphously
My markers are dawn and dusk
The pull of the tides
And the rhythm of the day
David Trudel © 2013
Hollow Empty
If I am hollow empty as I feel
Maybe I can touch dark matter
Feel cold flames of a conflagration of dark energy
Inside this void
Where there is more space than I care for
Normally
Whatever that state is
Today I’m stateless
Abnormal
Hollow empty
Absolved of guilt borne of excessive obsession
Or sins of misdirection
In this absence of emotional weight
I approach nothingness
Surreptitiously
More of a leaving than an arrival
Remembering a void, not a place
Where there are no exits or entrances
Because this is not a place to come to or leave from
This is not a direction
This is waking to hollow empty carelessly
Darkly indifferent
To the absence of emotion and externalities
Internalizing the all of nothing
Which has just enough mystery to matter
Darkly
David Trudel © 2013
Mainstream
It’s all distorted
The news
Facts pushed and pulled into rumors
Truth’s elasticity stretching beyond is to isn’t
Until we are left to question everything
Trust is collateral damage
When journalism disappears
Beneath a tide of economic interests
Suppressing any story deeper
Than the shallow but well dressed puppets who read
Soft spun press releases
Promoting depredations of resource extraction
Or the need to cut more social programs
To pay for tax reductions
So the stories we are fed
Are cats being rescued from trees
Stormy weather
The twin circuses of sports and entertainment
And the illusion of being included
In the bogus democracy of global corporatism
David Trudel © 2013
Non Sequitur
Even a harmless snake
Is a perceived threat
When a brittle stick becomes animated
Beside your foot
The closer to downtown
The slower the road repairs
Even if you are all alone at sunset
You share that moment of transcendent beauty
With countless others
Ripping out native plants for lawns and flowerbeds
Is horticultural colonialism
Sidewalk etiquette is a moving target
Hearts beat louder at midnight
I can’t recall ever seeing anyone sitting around
Doing advanced mathematics for fun
Not even quadratic equations
But the education system sure treats that shit seriously
Seriously.
Life is process
David Trudel © 2013
What Is Truth
If I could talk about beauty today
I’d talk about whirligig seedpods spiraling down from maple trees
Whose leaves lie yellowed and rusted
Beneath the green canopy that has begun its fatal turn
Anticipating the fall
Or the smell of the forest moments after a rainshower
Evoking distant memories
Walking along the trail
My feet play an arpeggio of crunches
But I’m not listening to that song
My mood is as gray and ponderous as the clouds
Massing like warships off the coast
There is little room for beauty
When the ugliness of war is imminent
When the ugliness of violence is prevalent
And the mean spirits of the convinced
Crush any non-conformist view
With the finality of the fallen
Yet even though I ache with empathy
For the lost and beaten
For long lost spirits vanished in genocidal flames
That is not my truth today
My truth is my own pain
The dull ache of bone regenerating
A scabrous tug of congealed tissues beneath a zippered line
Of reddened welts
Ascending my chest like angry punctuation marks
My truth is stolen by my self-absorption
I isolate chaotic messages of a disrupted nervous system
Comprehending metallic intrusions
Listening to the mechanical insistence of the new valve
Then, drained and enervated I fade
Into somnolence
Unable to maintain the illusion of reality
I slumber unconcernedly
Aware of nothing beyond my next breath
Finding a solitary truth
David Trudel © 2013
Indescribable
My Cain and Abel are my words
Battling for the give and take of perception
They circle themselves
Poised to lash out or swiftly defend
I have used words as shields
I have hidden behind their illusion
Used the ambiguity of meaning and intent
To prevaricate and dissemble
Not from deviousness
But unconsciously
Or to mask my own fear and insecurity
Yet I find great joy in words
They are my playground and delight
Dancing meaning into dialogue
Reinventing clouds into rain
Or mining seams of elemental truth
I turn words into bouquets
Or scrawl them on signposts and sidewalks
Like some mad tagger
Illuminating the gray sameness
Of blank canvasses at midnight
Eventually the words turn me
Into a question
That I cannot answer
Feeling walled in
By the discreteness of each definition
Stamped out by our shared accommodation of
Conventional language
Which isn’t drunken shouts of expense account delegates
But a common delusion
That we can trade perceptions
Without trading our inner selves
Uncentering from each private strand of individuality
Into some union of sameness
Believing that words can be shared with exactitude
Forgetting the magical glow of transitory sunsets
And how impossible it is to grasp that moment
Let alone use words to describe the indescribable
David Trudel © 2013
Naked Sky
There were other summers
When miles would roll by
Cliffs and undercuts
Screaming here I am
Here I am
Today
In those half forgotten days
I would trust in
The reality of whatever gods presented
Today
I listen to
Murmurs
Of your heartbeat
I listen to you
Under the naked sky
Even if you are cloaked
With the fetters of your generation
I listen
To the beats
You don’t hear
To the messages that are always
Intercepted
By your sense of propriety
Or mild revulsion
Under this sky
That holds its own revelation
Waiting
For
A rhythm to follow
All I can offer
Now
Is the mechanical whir
Of a machine
Saying thump
Thump
And thump
With the insistence of a chapel house
In the night
David Trudel © 2013
This Is Not A Poem
This is not a poem about love
Or yearning for love
This is not a poem about relationships
And all the shit that transpires between us
This is not a walk
Down memory lane
Into some childish backwater of a mind that plays tricks
This is not a poem
About social context
Communities
Interplaying like some dissonant chordal structure
This is not that kind of poem
This is a poem that hands you a towel
When you enter this room
Dims the lights
Speaks softly to you
Listens to your heart
Intently
Echoing every nuance of feeling
Transcribing
That moment when you look into the abyss
With more excitement than fear
Because
This is it
Here
Now
Forever
David Trudel © 2013
Traces
I dream of tracing your voluptuous curves
With my fingertips
Trailblazing the way for my tongue
I hear the quiet rustle of fabric
Pulled up and over
Feel the slide of silk
Downy thighs
My tongue remains tied
Eyes downcast
I fixate on your open-toed sandals
Your toes are ruby jewels I think
Nice toes, I say
With a smile
Which you return
David Trudel © 2013
Inured
We are inured to sirens now
Throbbing processions of emergency vehicles interrupting traffic flow
No longer spark the curiosity they once did
It wasn’t always so
We used to chase fire engines to watch flames lick and curl
There was always an audience
Crowds of onlookers was a living cliché back then
For all the local disasters
Even car crashes had fans
It was all so immediate and familiar
We all knew whose blood was seeping onto the sidewalk
Or who wouldn’t be coming back to school tomorrow
Or forever
Loud noises brought us out of our houses
It was normal to be inquisitive
Not like now
When people are frightened by noises
And are too accustomed to perfect disasters
Brought to our living rooms and laptops within seconds
Crowding out any desire to stand outside on a streetcorner
To watch some store burn down
We can’t be bothered with small tragedies
When big ones become as familiar as movie stars
So unless the ambulance screaming by us on the highway
Is being chased by paparazzi
We barely register any emotion
Our disasters have ceased to become news
Unless they rate a camera crew
Or somebody’s amateur video clip goes viral
There is always a delay
A divide
An intermediary
Between us and events
Our tragedies are screened
Away
David Trudel © 2013
Rolling
There are moments
When I forget these
Inconsequential issues
Like
You know
Pain, and all
Like loneliness
Depression
That can sit on your chest and press pillows
Into your face
There are moments
That recall the sunshine glow of a summer afternoon
Or the wonder of skintight jeans
Walking just ahead of you on a hot sidewalk
Rolling hips
Slippery like
With a magnetism of forever
These moments blend
Together
Absorbable
Into the hot sweat of summer
Feeling each drop
Trickling
Into mystery
David Trudel © 2013
Undefined
I am undefined
I do not borrow an identity along with an occupation
The masks I’ve worn to collect paychecks are never permanent
The whereness of my location is accidental
Even as I care about the land I steward
I am not a neighborhood or a place on a map
My markers are all proxies and approximate
I am not a category to be boxed with precision
Or measured on five or seven point scales into a fixation of order
I am not my genitalia
Neither penile nor labial
My essential being transcends the limitations
Of your labels
Even my eyes are just a temporary covering
My opinions are fluid
I march with an army today that I will overthrow tomorrow
I look and listen for new information
That rearranges my understanding of this existence
I give myself to the mystery of eternal creation
Not to the fearful faith of the unimaginative
I resist attempts to declare sides
To coalesce into one thing
When another seems like a shifting possibility
I am not a definition or a singular role
I roll with anticipation into newness
Or circle back to tread the same path with new shoes
And if I carry my history within each point of consciousness
I also carry the potential and possibility
Of all the undone actions that might have been
Or are yet to be
I will not answer when you ask me who I am
I am not a singularity, just a wave’s crystalline vibration
I do not believe in binary worlds of black and white
But in the magic of becoming
I flirt with post quantum transitions
Into the nothingness of the unlimited
Undelineated into excessive space
Where I remain undefined
David Trudel © 2013
Hunt
It’s as if I’ve been bled once too often
Leaving me hollow and indifferent
I am bemused by the lovestruck and the lovelorn
Who brandish their heartfelt emotions
Like Tibetan prayer flags
I try to listen to my own heart
Then get distracted by the noise
I try to make sense of distant wars and rebellions
But I can’t
I appreciate the natural beauty that surrounds me
Even if I can’t find words to reflect that beauty
Superficial thoughts pop into my mind like cheap firecrackers
Leaving exploded promises smoldering
I string letters into words
Words into phrases
They don’t satisfy me
So I delete them
I listen
I watch
Waiting like a hunter in a blind
For an unsuspecting quarry
Nothing comes
I am patient, knowing that I am on a game trail
I only have to wait a while longer
Before the prey returns
David Trudel © 2013
Battles
My hardest battles aren’t with others
But with myself
Waging relentless optimism against an array of sins
I am cloaked in lethargy
I can barely shrug off the self-pity that has me wrapped up
In my own pain
I find it difficult to perceive the urgency of others’ struggles
Empathy is in short supply
So I retreat
I find myself napping
Taking short breaks
Eventually I psyche myself up for a walk
It has warmed up
So that insects and birds play out their aerial battles
With sunglints punctuating each twist and turn
Under the forest canopy I forage for blackberries
It is early enough that at least half are still tart
Their color belying their character
I leave the park and find my way to the commuter trail
I take pictures of the highway below
Wondering how many people have driven past this spot
Oblivious to its beauty
In their obsession with speed and distance
I think of the distance between heartbeats
And how oblivious we can be
To what our hearts murmur in our ears
David Trudel © 2013
Raindrops
Each drop carries an ocean of rumors
Stories of deep ocean currents and mountain passes
Tales of caverns deep in the earth where time slumbered
Until pressure released a torrent
One drop remembers rivers
Another was a crystal snowflake
One drop sings of tears flowing
They remember the ascent into clouds
And the push of the jet stream
One drop was painted by a rainbow
Shimmering in the sky
While its neighbor tells of dripping intravenously
Into the arm of a dying man
Each drop has made this journey before
Countless times
Transmuting, in an endless cycle of becoming
Sometimes a passenger
Sometimes a carrier
Constantly flowing
Shapeshifting between states of unbecoming grace
Eternally fluid
Raindrops are immortal
Ubiquitous witnesses of our superficial passing
Each drop erodes our perception of reality
Cleansing us with the truth
David Trudel © 2013
Bi-Polar
Ra, the sun god, is electro-magnetically bi-polar
Which accounts for the extreme flares and solar storms
Although I wouldn’t be surprised at an additional diagnosis
Of multiple personality disorder, given the hieroglyphics
Every eleven years or so the polarity reverses
Flipping old Ra upside down
We are in the middle of one such reversal
The sun’s electro-magnetic north pole has already flipped
The south should follow in a few months
I wonder if the current uni-polar state is calming
Or just unsettling
Leaving the solar system nervously unbalanced
Pirouetting on one leg
Unable to take a bow for now
Exploding in fiery creation
David Trudel © 2013
Serrated Time
Time has serrated edges today
For me
Time is ragged
Each moment ripped and torn
No clock can track the imprecision of subjective moments
I no longer wear a watch
I have no need to watch mechanical time
Because each moment is not like each other
Time isn’t to be measured
Locked into precise compartments of predictability
Creating an artificial display of flawed equality
No, time flows
Like a river around obstacles
With increasing velocity when it floods
It’s fluid
Time is subject to currents and eddies
Time is personal
My moments are strung like pearls
On a broken chain
Rolling across the floor
To rest where they may
David Trudel © 2013
Healing
The enervation of healing leaves me flattened
My energy level drains as fast as an iPhone battery
So now I take naps
I rest
Each small chore a triumph
I battle ennui
With slow motion moves
I breathe, feeling my lungs inflate
I listen to the unnerving click of the mechanical valve
Only I can hear
I watch trees grow
I listen to the murmur of eroding rocks
I slowtune my thoughts into ponderous beasts
I release the hummingbirds that used to populate my brain
I send messages to the bruised bone that is wired together in my chest
Fuse, I tell it
I feel muscles and flesh tugging tightly
With each twist or pull
I feel the inanimate object buried in my heart
I wonder if it will change my feelings
Or reduce the impact of love’s vicissitudes
Unlikely, since the heart is just a pump
Unlikely, given love’s absence in my life
So I wait
Listening to my cells transform from torn to together
I wait
Patiently
Because I’m a good patient
My impulses to rush fall aside
I learn to mistrust anything quick
I learn to embrace slow and measured steps
I listen to the universe
As I heal
Slowly
David Trudel © 2013
Overhead
An eagle soared overhead
Juvenile, not yet crowned white
I whistled
It circled
I noticed a couple of missing feathers
Another one soared above
Thermal riding on the hill’s upswell
They slid away on the wind
Riding above it all
Leaving me
Below
David Trudel © 2013
Time’s End
At time’s end
There will be an instant of great compression
An implosion of all matter and antimatter
Into a single point in the multiverse
A perfect parenthesis to bracket the bang
A reunion of stellar superlatives
Everything and nothing
The space between the lines
And the lines
Billions of years of becoming and unbecoming
We will learn to be we
The wisdom of all will be shared
As will failings and shortcomings
We will remember oneness
There will be no more loneliness
We are all part of everything
We will be together
At time’s end
David Trudel © 2013
Coming To
The unmistakable chime of a monitor echoes
Intruding into darkness
Awareness creeps up like a shy kitten
Mewling
I feel chest tubes
Painlessly weird
Opening my eyes I see the nurses’ station
So many devices and displays
It’s like an aircraft control tower
I look at the nurses
They’re looking back at me solicitously
I close my eyes
To dream of other cities and waking up there
A tour of unspoken words
I wake up in every city I’ve ever been in
Slowly drifting in and out of dreamplaces
Places that don’t quite make sense
Finally, I wake up here and I’m present
Alive
There’s less pain than I thought there’d be
But pain is present
I remember I’ve had a heart defense
Accounting for the lines attached to my body
Pings and chimes provide an otherworldy background soundtrack
A nurse comes over
Introduces herself
She shares the name Lisa with my sister
Which bodes well, I think
So did my mother she tells me later
I am extubated, the breathing tube taken out
The first unmooring of several
Breathe in, hold it, exhale
Slip slide upthroating relief slices through incipient nausea
I struggle to catch my breath
I do
Settling into consciousness I am wide awake as possible
Given the circumstances
I survey the lines and tubes attached to my body
I am unsure how many other patients there are on the ward
The man next to me is a loud talker
Voice booming out like a sideshow barker
Somehow I drift back into sleep
Until two patients across the room go into distress
One is a code blue
Gowned shapes appear, passing the foot of my bed
Until they cluster on the far side of the ward
Their ministrations succeed and the chimes stop
For a few moments there is peace
Rare peace
A time that I have come to
In this place
Where I awake
David Trudel © 2013
In The Night
I feel each molecule of splintered bone in the night
Constricted by wire twisted tight
I wonder what dance or battle is occurring at the cellular level
In the refusion
It isn’t always easy to bond once ties have been severed
At this moment it doesn’t appear to be an easy seduction
More of a battle
Subcutaneously the soft tissues are going through the same process
Nothing is flowing smoothly
Muscles feel pinned down and tug with each breath
The mountain ridge of incision line is eroding into gentle hills
I hear the drip, drip, drip
Of blood over metal echoing loudly in my ears
I try to resist the impulse to get up
But fail
I take an extra strength Tylenol
Just one
An air strike against the soft bullets
Of pain
This is not a war
Just a skirmish
This is not pain
Just discomfort
I remember pain
Archived now
This is not pain
Just discomfort
I feel my wounds settling
Subsiding slowly into the process of healing
Learning the normalcy
Of just discomfort
Because it is a kind of justice
To pay for miracles
With small sufferings
Here in the dark
Listening to mechanical rhythms of the heart
Marking each moment
Of slow improvement
With blackbeat backbeats
Counting the price of my reward
David Trudel © 2013
Hollow
It’s no bother that my words are hollow
Nothing is ever as solid as it seems
Meaning is always elusive between us
Each interpretation derives from its perspective
I’ll never know just what you think
Words are only approximations
For things we never truly see
David Trudel © 2013
Turbulence
My myths have been exploded
Into shards of glass
Some have impaled my heart
With their truth
Some are crushed into dust
I gather fragments of imaginary facts
Maybes, never weres and might have beens
Which can be reconstituted
Into possibilities
Foreshadowing myths yet to be
Remembering future frailties
David Trudel © 2013
Casa De Los Sueños
It’s one of those dreams that you know is a dream
Even as you sleepwalk your way through it
There’s a park
Manicured lawns and cultured trees strategically placed
To offer dappled shade without being oppressive
I walk to the house that isn’t
At the edge, where you can see across the water to the mountains
Mountains that backdropped my childhood hundreds of miles away
A real estate sign has appeared
For Sale
It proclaims
Even though the house looks occupied
It isn’t
I’m with somebody
Or maybe I’m following someone or two in a disembodied state
It’s a dream so I’m not particular
Each detail is exquisite and unique
The house is grand but not oppressive
It has flowing lines
High ceilings
Each feature is unique
There is a massive fireplace that curves and curls
The mantle is a magnificent cedar slab that flows in genial lines
Words are carved into it that seem celestial
Yet are now as distant as any star
The luxury is impressive but not overwhelming
Whoever lived here left only moments ago
It looks lived in still
And perfectly vacant
We admire the features
Then take a catwalk
To the entranceway
Transformed, it has become a theatre
Seats arrayed in a semi-circle reminiscent of a Grecian amphitheatre
I realize that this is a public space
Separate from the rest of the house
But connected by the catwalk
I know it will be my house
I will stage dramas and performances
For the many
A select few will be invited to the inner sanctum
The sun is shining in my dream
On the marble walls of a Janus sanctuary
Reaching out of a retreat to embrace the masses
Perfectly alone in a crowd
It has become my home
I anticipate performances
Plan them
Imagine crowds coming and going
From this theatre at park’s edge
At dream’s edge
At an edge
Where anything might happen
David Trudel © 2013
Timesteps
Each moment moves in its own way
Fast as a stubbed toe signaling pain
Slow as a hard chair in a waiting room
Slippery as a half guarded look between me and you
Time is a contradiction
From its measured divides
Yet fluid enough for our mystery rides
For all of our clocks and calculations
It loops, soft pedals then rockets along
Dragging, flying and slipping away
Just when we think it’s unidirectional
A smell or a song brings us back to the past
And we’re right where we were a lifetime ago
Without ever moving an inch or an hour
Time, it seems
Answers to some other power
David Trudel © 2013
In My Castle
Warfarin
You know, rat poison
It’s something I have to take now and forever
To keep clotted rats away from the mechanical valve
Who knew I had rats running around my cardiovascular system
I didn’t
But my medical team
(if celebrities can have medical teams so can I)
Well, they’re all very earnest about warfarin and the dosage
I have to visit the vampires often
Who draw my blood with whetted appetite
Challenging me to make a tight fist
That they know I’ll never raise
But I’m cool with it
I have been gifted with a small measure of the royal disease
A junior baronetcy of hemophilia
So I’ll line my moat with rat poison to keep the buggers at bay
Besides, I never liked coagulating
Anyway
David Trudel © 2013
Bleeding
Bleeding black ink
I spill words as my body leaks blood
On hospital gowns
Inking the floor with my essence
I wonder if the OR staff made wishes
When they cracked open my breastbone
I remember long ago dinners
When wishbones were mysterious
Full of promises
Like wishing wells and shooting stars
Imagining untold fortunes of vague and impossible hopes
Now, I no longer feel the need to wish
Just cope
Taking each step in faltered stride
Wearing the determination of my years
And while I’m grateful for the good wishes of others
I have no expectation of magic
Or celestial intervention
Just faith in a good defense
And the resiliency of my own spirit
David Trudel © 2013
Post-Op Second night
Pain curls itself on my chest
In the night
Like a malevolent cat
Ready to sink its claws deep
Into my sternum
And deeper into my lungs
With each cough I fear
To make
Until I remember to call the nurse
Who brings meds
Just in time
David Trudel © 2013
Broken Hearts
There are no mechanical replacements for broken hearts
No bypasses for a love betrayed or denied
Even when it feels like your chest has been cracked open
And your heart has been ripped out
All we can do is grow scar tissue
Become a little more cynical
In the realization that Hollywood is all about illusion
Camera tricks and crafty angles
Harlequins masquerading as the girl or boy next door
Because we don’t understand what love is
We don’t listen to those vows
About richer or poorer, sickness or health
Or if we do, we don’t believe them
Since we trust in the promise of happy endings
With stirring crescendos of romance uplifted into gossamer clouds
We have been indoctrinated with ideals
Fantasies of impossibilities
Unreal as any misproportioned Barbie doll
Or glossy airbrushed photo spread
So disappointment is a foregone conclusion
When we don’t measure up
To unmeasurable visions of dreams
Based not on love but greed
How can we when we are trained in selfish fantasies
Instead of hard realities
Dragged dirty through a thousand tragedies
Tarnished by time and fate
Until we no longer recognize the truth
Of mutual support and shared attention
Comfortable love whose soundtrack is heard through an open window
Elastic enough to bend, not break
David Trudel © 2013
Incision
This angry red line will fade
As will the slow burn of transient pain
Becoming a faint memory that I’ll laugh about
Dismissing the whole event as inconsequential
I’ll cavalierly gloss over the memory
Because it will be as forgotten as yesterday’s rain
But part of me will always live here
Remembering the truth of the thin white scar
How it was when it was raw red
When I was as vulnerable as any Old Testament offering
Finding cruel mercy in a scalpel’s edge
Learning that miracles come at a cost
Counted in a currency of suffering
David Trudel © 2013
Marginalia
In my dream I am lawless
A teenager loose in the night
Tagging, thieving or both
Clubs spilling the last partiers into the street
I climb onto my longboard lying flat
Skeleton style, like in the Winter Olympics
My course a cobbled rainslicked street
Ahead two women are walking
One short, one tall
The tall one is Florence Welch
Dressed in white fur, arctic fox or ermine like some Nordic goddess
She hears the clatter of my wheels
Half turns, reaching out a hand
Which I grab briefly to propel myself to greater speed
Thanks ladies, I cry as I fly past them
Wheels chattering on the glistening roadway
I gain speed
But not enough velocity to achieve maximum maneuverability
Headlights overtake me from behind
I am too far into the centre of the lane
I can’t move to the edge
I have forgotten to live in the margins
It gets brighter
Before it ends
Abruptly
David Trudel © 2013
Janus Place
This is a place of two directions
Where sounds are paired
Like a call and response
Chimes ring in softened doublets
Calling in twinned tones
This is a place of two intentions
Some entering to never leave again
Others here for healing and rebirth
A place of fear, pain and ultimate loss
A refuge for repair, healing and hope reclaimed
This is a place of mixed emotions
Where despairing sobs collide with laughter’s joy
Where elevators ascend to heaven and descend to hell
Carrying all, without the price of Charon’s coin
Into a timeless realm beyond the veil
David Trudel © 2013
A Moment
Buskers on a busy street
I unflow from the crowd
Static against marchers and sideways walkers
Finding peace inside a throng
These two are musicians
Playing a neverending medley of eclectic tunes
I watch as crowds turn into individuals
A woman in a sundress catches my eye
We exchange a look
In which I pay homage with a smile
She accepts my offering with its twin
Disappearing around the corner
David Trudel © 2013
Arrhythmic
My heart is not arrhythmic
At least not yet
It’s just the rhythms of my life that have been disrupted
By my heart’s treasonous murmur
I have shed the patterns of comfortable serenity
For trepidation set against anticipation
I make preparations for my convalescence
Without a backbeat
Not knowing the tempo of recovery
My heartstrings are slack-keyed
Waiting to be tuned
By a luthier of broken hearts
When I will be reset and rebooted into
Tick tock
Tick tock
Precision beats against the drumwall of my bloodied chest
Torn open but not asunder
My heart will be absolved of its imperfections
Given back its undercurrent of regularity
Rhythming into conformity with normalcy
Alive to light dancing across the sky
Tuned in to tidal ebbs and flows
Ever mindful of the fragility of now
And certainly forever
Never arrhythmic after playing a moment of time
Outside of time
Again, and again
And again
David Trudel © 2013
Gratitude
Today I declare gratitude
Thankfulness for life
For being here in this place of privilege
For what limited freedom I enjoy
I am grateful I can choose my own spirituality
My beliefs are my own and not imposed
By frowning arbiters of mythological excess
I am grateful to the women that have spurned me
Leaving me space for universal enjoyment
Gifting me the time I would have spent
On worrying about your affection and your desires
I am grateful for the beauty of nature
That unfolds around us daily
I revel in the wonders of this web of life
Smiling as I uncover each unread volume of the divine library
I thank everyone who has ever smiled at a stranger
Or given freely from a threadbare pocket
This is such a wondrous time to be alive
When thoughts and dreams are interchanged
Across the world at lightning speed
Where knowledge grows organically
Even in the face of repression
I am grateful for the resilience of the oppressed
Who are strong enough to heal publicly
Becoming leaders for the lost
I am thankful for irrepressible music
Pervasively bathing us in harmonic resonance
I thank the artists who reinterpret truth
With inspiration and dedication
I raise my hands in praise of caregivers
Who reach out with compassion and generosity
I am grateful for all the love that has come my way
And for those I have been honoured to love
I give thanks
To all the forces that conspire to unlonely the affliction of despair
I am grateful
Just to be here
Understanding that now
Is a reflection of forever
And for that I am eternally happy in my gratitude
David Trudel © 2013
Dystopian Rant
I heard that it’s raining at the North Pole
Which seems about right these days
In this world that’s been pulled inside out
It’s getting weird and all fucked up
I don’t usually use words like that, but really
What can you say about the poles melting
About a world gone mad
Where crazy people massacre innocent victims with assault weapons
And redneck conservatives who think they’re religious
Defend their right to do so
It’s all fucked up
A nation founded on liberty and justice for all
Doing a 180
Into tightly controlled security
And arbitrary arrest and detention
While their President, who taught law at Harvard
Authorizes state sponsored assassinations instead of arrests and trials
What happened to the rule of law?
It’s all fucked up
This is a world where even the frozen hearted northern queen
Unthaws and weeps at what we’ve done
While corporations misapply copyright law to steal our genes
And declare fresh water superfluous to the common need
This is a world that spends more time
On vacuous entertainment and spectator sports
Than on education and creation
This is a world that celebrates hate and divisiveness
And calls it democracy
It’s all fucked up
The good guys never were good
Except at publicity and keeping secrets
So now they’re freaking out over the leakers
The truth tellers
And it’s like a highballing truckdriver who’s just been bit by a wasp
Swatting madly in the cab
Hurtling through the night
Towards midnight and an appointment
That I would much rather those assholes didn’t keep
But they’re the ones driving this rig
Elected officials and their corporate masters
Leading us into unmitigated disasters
Bastards
So yes, I declare that it’s all fucked up
In this world of miracles
Where some of us live in paradise
But most just live in hell
And hell is coming to everyone else
In apocalyptic fury
Sweeping away what meager defenses we thought we had
On the wind or the tide
Or the turn of the screw
It’s all fucked up
David Trudel © 2013
Angel Songs
I will make playlists of angel songs
And burbling laughs of toddlers
Who haven’t learnt to imprison their feelings in words
I will make playlists of waves rolling on cobbled shores
And the crash of surf exploding into clouds
I will make playlists of the wind ruffling the firs
Punctuated by butterflies tap-dancing on honeysuckle blossoms
I will sing along with whistles of the northern lights
Slide shimmering a magnetic resonance
From starshine’s wave
My top forty will never be capped
Or over produced
My playlist sings eternity
I fall into the space between the sounds
Not a dark hole
But a double helix slide from being to becoming
Listening for truth
Neither question nor answer
Just the simplicity of forever
Like smiles for no reason
Resounding into harmony
David Trudel © 2013
Huna Walk With Me
It is more fun to walk holding peacock feathers
Than not
Wielding talismans of plaintive cries
Feathered eyes of mystery
We proceed from cairn to cairn
Invoking spirits
Summoning intentions
Provoking curiosity
Then finding a nested perch above the sea
To chant vicissitudes into rhythms
Flowing into violet hues of a lowering dusk
Adding our breath to the incoming tang of a seabreeze
As drums throb
Seagulls wheel and exclaim their heartfelt longing
Below, lovers sit together on the rocks
Watching waves roll in
Relentlessly
Stillness is something to be rediscovered
In crowds and crowded lives
Each apprehension of tranquility a small victory
Over the distractions of temporary attractions
Find a horizon with a hole in it
To fall into or crawl through
Or merely to send an arrow of a thought
Singing integration with alpha omega
Singing to the falling sun and the rising moon
Singing to the unknown
Finding unity in the ragged chortle of waves falling ashore
Looking into the feathered eyes of peacock tails
To see your own soul
David Trudel © 2013
Phone Call
It’s Sunday evening
Soon, I’ll call my mother
We’ll debrief each other’s past week
Preview the next
She will bring up the importance of faith
I’ll make non-committal noises of an ambiguous nature
We’ll skirt around some issues with shorthand and deflection
Talking at great length and detail about others
We’ll pass along family news
Which usually means me doing a lot of listening
Tonight I’ll be able to transmit news of my daughters
We’ll reassure each other that things will work out
Knowing that even if they don’t
We’ll talk again next Sunday
David Trudel © 2013
Stillness
There is beauty to be found inside indolence
Inside this torpor I inhabit
Carving each filigreed framed portrait of my days
Slowed from compulsive intensity
Removed from the strictures of timed steps
I stand outside time
To wonder at worn truths
Weathered as fallen totems in a lonely forest
On the edge of returning crumbled into nature
Still, there is something monumental
About beauty wrought by warm hands
Into slabs of stone or pillars of wood
Not supplanting nature but augmenting it
Through considered reinterpretations of reality
Unhurried by the immediacy of the moment
Not content to simply reflect today’s truth
But yesterday’s journey and all the days that went before
Culminating in the immense simplicity of beauty
Found in the stillness of a soul at rest
David Trudel © 2013
Real
There was a time when I had certainty
Thinking I knew what real was
With the hubris of untested innocence
I’d form opinions and judgments
Sharing them with assured authority
With no thought of testing assumptions
Ready to convict or to reward
But now I know how hard it is
To see behind illusions we think are real
All I can ever hope to know is my own truth
Even that is hard to grasp
So I accept whatever happens
Without trying to control
I’ve given up trying to judge others
For myself honesty is its own reward
David Trudel © 2013
Second Half
This is the second half of the poem I started to write
The first half has been deleted
Try to imagine those empty words yourself
Self-indulgent words that were so shallow
They dried up and blew away
Cliché ridden
Devoid of original thought
Ultimately not worth editing
Except to throw them out
And reset baseline standards
David Trudel © 2013
Cardiac Short Stay
Soft pastels soften coldlit glare
Nurses flock, chattering to each other
While caring for each patient
Their cheeriness is reassuring
Reminding me of family dinners or school reunions
When conversations ebb and flow
Sporadically moving from depth to surface inattentions
Schedules are put in place
Then torn by circumstances
Delays are inevitable in hospitals
Emergencies intrude and rearrange clockfaces
Not surprising
We know that realtime ceases to exist
Somewhere between the admitting desk
And the elevators
To compensate everything is quantified
Numbers proliferate from cubicles to vital signs
Numerology seems to be the dominant language
We passers through aren’t fluent enough to understand
But in our shared vulnerability
Smile half guarded smiles from bed to bed
Listening to the same instructions repeated over and over
To each of us in turn
There are many paths to this place
Where we are sorted into our similarities
Reduced to numerical categories
The sharp prick of needles bursts through abstractions
To pinpoint the humanity we brought with us
From the streets below
David Trudel © 2013
Playlist
As I listen to these songs I can’t stop myself
From trying to uncover the sub-text
Not of the songs
Although that’s part of it
No, I look for meaning in the choices and order
A few new ones
Mostly older
Here and there a song reminds me of the old minivan
And mixed cassette tapes
Others might be lucky guesses
She couldn’t have known the significance of that throwaway hit
Or how it resonated with me when I was twelve years old
I listen to these songs
Decoding references to years past
Declarations of independence and gifts of discovery
Until I’m able to just listen to the songs again
Which I do
Again and again
David Trudel © 2013
Angiogram/plasty
What to bring to hospital
According to the poorly photocopied instructions “what” includes
A translator
“If you do not understand English”
And since these instructions are in English it gives me pause to wonder
I don’t understand a lot of things
English or not
Maybe I should bring a translator of sacred mysteries, women, or hospitalese
I’m instructed not to wear nail polish, make-up, false eyelashes, hairpins or talcum powder
So no sympathetic Pride Parade cross dressing in the cards for this adventure
It is okay to wear face cream, deodorant and acrylic nails
Maybe I should rush out and get some face cream to wear
Just because it’s allowed
I’m advised I’ll have hair removed from my groin and/or wrist with a clipper
Slightly better than a hot wax treatment but about as appealing
Before I’m punctured
Allowing the passage of a fine tube into the blood vessel
There are no nerves inside the blood vessel
They tell me I won’t feel the passage of the tube
Carrying some fluid of an undisclosed nature
That will be mixed into the circulation allowing for a series of x-rays
Which will result in 3D images of the inside of my arteries
And the wall of my heart
I wonder if it will show the golden repairs that mark past heartbreaks
Major complications are rare
But the chance of stroke, embolic event, kidney failure, cardiac arrest or death
Is one in a thousand
Which is way better odds than the lottery I play but never win
A small patch dressing will be applied to the groin area
A sandbag will be placed over the dressing for pressure for approximately two hours
Interesting, in case of flooding I’ll be in a defensive posture
In case of any severe pain, malaise or fever report to the emergency department promptly, the discharge instructions state
Malaise is a pretty broad term
Not uncommon for poets and social commentators to encounter
I look forward to contacting the ER should I feel malaise afterwards
For philosophical discussions of an existential nature
David Trudel © 2013
Knife
The rope was coiled and stowed behind the front seat of the truck
After he pulled up he sat there for a while
He could use the knife, he thought again
He had figured out the noose months back
Had been obsessing about it really
Tying and retying it over and over
But he wasn’t sure
Something about it troubled him
So in the end, he said fuck it
It’ll be the knife
He was going to do it then and there
But he thought about how hard it would be to clean up the blood
Since it was the company truck and all
He figured he knew who’d have to do it
So he decided to go into the woods to the tree he’d picked out
Which kind of made some kind of weird sense
He sat on the ground with his back against the tree
Pulled the trusty Buck knife out of the leather holster at his waist
And for one last time went through the shit list
That’s what he called it
All the crap that had been piling up
Like his charade of a marriage
Held together by shared debt and guilty responsibility
The debts were even worse than his unfuckable wife
He owed so much money
No matter that he was making some pretty decent coin
The debt just kept hovering until the next emergency
When it would grow even more
He thought about his shitty job in the shitty company
Fracking
Here he was, really a tree-hugging hippie at heart
Working in one of the worst industries on the planet
Environmentally
It’s like every day he plays his part in gang banging mother nature
Fucking bastards
He thinks
He thinks about all the assholes he’s encountered
On his way to this end of the road
He knows his shit list by heart
He opens his shirt
Plunges the knife in without any more thinking
Right to the hilt and sits there waiting to die
Not realizing he missed the heart
Still, there’s a lot of blood
It hurts like hell
Then it’s like being walloped over the head with a frying pan
Not like any headache he ever had before
It’s an urgent screaming icepick to the brain
Which staggers him awake and to his feet
Stumble climbing up the slope to the road
Where he collapses before reaching the truck
He comes to in the hospital
Strapped into a bed and barely able to focus
Pain claims his attention
Until it’s muffled by the meds
He doesn’t make it easy on himself or the staff
After he recovers enough
They stick him into solitary on the psych ward
Under observation
The walls aren’t padded but its pretty basic
48 hours of coming down into himself
Then it’s back to the ward
Shrinks and meds and nurses
His fucking family all phoning and mouthing platitudes
Saying things that sound like Reader’s Digest dialogue
Scripted by writers that used to work for Oprah
He thinks about calling bullshit on their bullshit
Then decides to forgive them
And starts to forgive himself
Uncoiling and untying the knots around his heart
Sobbing, in relief
David Trudel © 2013
Plato’s Horses
The horses were gathered around the tree
Like points on a star
Self-choreographed
Facing the tree trunk as if it was some equine oracle
Dispensing beneficent predictions
Or serving up sugar cubes
Of course I knew it was just the only shade in the field
But they looked like long-maned sages
Giving and receiving philosophical insights
In the shade of a tree instead of a cave
David Trudel © 2013
Sun Dance
It won’t be a sun dance for me
I won’t have my chest pierced with sinews
Or dance myself into revelations at the edge of coma
But I will deliver myself
To be cut open
My sacrificial heart will be lifted into the cold light
Of an operating room
The table will just be a table not an altar
There won’t be a biblical patriarch in attendance
Quoting hallucinatory admonitions
I do not embody the guilt of my ancestors
Yet I wonder how blood sacrifice came to be exalted
Priestly slaughter of innocents to satiate unknowable gods
I’m certain that the creatures slit open
In some bizarre ritual transference of guilty projections
Of shame
Of fear
Of hatred
Did not feel ennobled by the experience
Just hard done by
Like royal attendants walled up in the tombs of kings
Or victims of Aztec flower wars
Climbing to the top of some pyramid
To watch the sun glinting off an obsidian blade poised high
Before the downward thrust
It must take a lot of misplaced religious fervor
To overcome the realization that death is present
And soon you won’t be
More to the point, willingly
I wonder at the intensity of self-sacrifice
Allowing a suspension of flight or fight response to imminent threat
Choosing acquiescence to commands
Hoping that unbelievable assurances hide a shimmer of truth
Not a black hole of nothingness
Trusting in mysteries
David Trudel © 2013
Blue Empty
In the great blue empty of a summer sky
Lies the reflection of my heart’s void
More space than materiality
Full only of wonder and the promise of discovery
I search for eyes that sparkle with creative compassion
I’m met with disdain or indifference
So I declare my sovereignty within my skin
Satisfied to be myself
A collection of memories and hopeful fantasies
Who makes friends with mermaids and poets
Looking for beautiful abstractions
Disdaining the artifice behind masks worn by compliant roleplayers
I search for whimsy instead of wisdom
Gaining both in small measure which I give away
Letting them slip through my fingers
Into the forever of an empty blue sky
David Trudel © 2013
Unwords
Maybe the words will return
Born of ideas half formed between dreams
Ideas that perhaps weren’t ideas at all
Or complete thoughts
But random images surfacing from a saturated consciousness
Spilling over edges like a foamy head of beer on a frosted glass
Leaving a damp awareness of untasted pleasure
Words, paled by shadows and non-exposure
Barely able to hold a meaning
Whether a particular sense or intention
Or an unkind lack of generosity
Still, for a while they caught me with their elegance and truth
Until they collapsed into letters unbound by exactitude
Into sounds that resonated with emotion not meaning
Maybe the words will return but they will be different
They will travel in a different direction
Than the compassless flight of a thought at dawn
Words to bandaid dripping cuts of consciousness
As night becomes dawn becomes day
And brilliance is no longer a beacon but a surrounding
Words forming and reforming into truths and tales
Carrying on and carrying through whatever thoughts are waiting
For those words searching for expression
Releasing the grasp of possessive acquisition
Into poetry
David Trudel © 2013
Aliens
I am not looking for aliens who come by spaceships
Like dream fantasies played out in movies or TV shows
Displaying our collective projections of fear and braggadocio
I look for the aliens who aren’t
Aliens who are at home everywhere and nowhere
In whatever shape they care to inhabit
Or shapeless, shift their consciousness into alignment
With others for a moment or an age
I look for aliens who aren’t bound by singular lives
Conforming to singular rules
But slide effortlessly from micro to macro
Moving through timescales without consideration for regularity
I look for aliens who revel in creation and the unexpected
Who have no eye for politics or power
Since they see through those assumptions
With the ambivalence of limitless freedom
I look for aliens who are as insubstantial
As the emptiness within us all
But are as full as the heavens above and below
Aliens who disembody reality into a vortex of possibility
Playing outside the multiverse we think we glimpse the limits of
I look for aliens with my third eye and my higher self
Forgetting that searches for otherness
Are plagued with obscurity
Until I remember that we are all connected
That there are no aliens
And that the road of discovery leads ultimately within
David Trudel © 2013
Wishes
Don’t wish
It’s a guarantee that your heart will be broken
By your own hand
Don’t wish
Life is meant to be random
Each day
Each twist in the tale or turn in the trail
Brings the unexpected
Spontaneously
Wishes are curses that limit infinite potential
What we think we need today
Isn’t what we’ll need tomorrow
Live each moment like it’s your last
Finding joy in the glory of being present
Realize that you can never control externalities
So stop trying
Don’t wish
There are only two things that you can control
Your own behavior and attitude
That’s it
So behave well and stay optimistic
Stop trying to change reality
Accept it gracefully
Grateful for all the gifts life brings
Even those gifts that don’t come beautifully wrapped have value
Lessons that are hard to learn turn out to be the most valuable
So don’t wish
Accept
David Trudel © 2013
Bombs
Walking through a crowd one day
Being told the next
That there could have been major carnage
Is unsettling
Even if the pressure cooker bombs were inert
The intent was there
My aortic valve is another pressure cooker
Ready to explode
But it’s under surveillance too
So I smile as my blood is drawn
Enjoy a short wait in Medical Imaging before a chest X-Ray
I am not terrorized by failed plots
From without or within
I don’t believe in might have beens
Or populate alternative realities with fear and trepidation
I have enough trust left to appreciate policing
That forestalls bombs and heart attacks
Leaving me walking this path only a little shook up
By potential devastation
Defused
David Trudel © 2013
Reconstituted
If I am broken down into parts
Stripped and broken into husks and shells
Dried into simulacrum envelopes
Of what once was animation
What once was flesh
What once was original
Sin or innocence
Will I be reconstituted into what was
Or made into what will be
When envelopes arrive
At witching hour’s wellspring
Memories will be freshened
Or washed away
Reconstituted from the sum
Into the question
David Trudel © 2013
Illusions
Illusions of concrete reality
Only made substantial by the depth of conviction
Invested in the magic
Believing we know what’s in front of our eyes
Instead of seeing truth within
If we can see through the charades
When the light is right
Shadows and smudges transform into base matter
Tangible as the bottom of a lake
Reflecting a forest
David Trudel © 2013
Nations
National days of celebration leave me ambivalent at best
Happy enough to enjoy the music
But troubled by jingoistic patriotism and superlatives
We don’t have to be the best
It seems small-minded
Probably says more about our insecurities than anything else
Nation states are simply concepts that will disappear in time
They aren’t natural
In the future it will seem quaint to remember a time
When imaginary lines divided the planet
And flag waving patriots cheered their supremacy
Forgetting that capitalism knows no borders
Or that the oppressed take no shelter in flags
David Trudel © 2013
Ten Minutes To Eleven
At ten minutes to eleven
It is still not still
A mosquito worries its way across the screen door
Looking for a gap
As my exhalations send it into blood frenzy
A leaf drifts to earth
Odd, since it’s early summer yet
I wonder if a caterpillar has eaten it through
A child tugs at her father impatiently
He’s talking to a neighbour at the end of the driveway
Postponing some outing
Now her singsong Daddy, Daddy
Increases in volume and frustration
Six birds trade places on two trees
At ten minutes to eleven
It is still not still
A rumour of a breeze
Stirs branches randomly
A seaplane flies overhead
Its pilot intent on the descent the plane is poised to make
A passenger looks out the bubble window
Wondering at the mundane lives playing out below
While the rooster next door proclaims his sovereignty
Reassuring his hens
Ruling his dominion
Insects cry
I hear traffic humming in the distance
At ten minutes to eleven
It is still not still
David Trudel © 2013
Pre Op Thoughts
I’d be going crazy if I was still living in some of those places
Like when I was an urban cliff dweller
Looking out at a forest of concrete and glass
Seeing forty thousand pairs of eyes looking back
Makes one a little squirrelly at the best of times
Let alone a few weeks before open heart surgery
Trying to wrap my head around that thought
So I appreciate my forest oasis at city’s edge
A small piece of ancient landscape left untouched
Where my feet can connect directly to bedrock
Resonating on a time scale of profundity
Where I can look out above treetops to the sky
Where I can consider the future from a far-seeing place
I play with alternate versions of the Chac Mool moment I’m on course for
A Stoic exercise of negative visualization
Asking what’s the worst that can happen
Then imagining how that would play out
In order to prepare a strategy of positivity
It’s strange since I don’t have any symptoms
I don’t feel sick
Quite the contrary, I feel better than I have for years
But I’m told a valve needs replacing
It’s a wonderful thing to be alive today, I think
In this world where medicine has become clairvoyant
Where heart valves can be manufactured and installed
Without missing a beat
Now I have a medical team
I am conveyed from one appointment to the next
Relentlessly lining up for ultrasounds and angiograms
Until the moment my chest will be opened and my heart repaired
My sternum will be wired back together
I’ll be stapled shut
There will be no heart attack in six months or a year
The only murmur I’ll hear will be the whisper of the sea
And the wind in the trees
Singing heart songs that I will listen to
With gratitude
David Trudel © 2013
Back Seat Windows
When I was a child I would lock eyes
With other kids in the back seats of station wagons
As we hurtled down freeways
Or slowrolled through clogged streets
I would lock eyes
Trying to make some kind of psychic connection
Or anticipate a future meeting where decades later
Our eyes would remember
A moment held between us
Briefly as a hummingbird’s visit
When we were young
Looking at the world from inside the safety glass of the family car
It was easy to believe in innocence then
To think that everyone else was as safe as I was
In those days before I knew about torture
About abuse and cruelty
Frequent as the autumn rain
For too many
Now I wonder what happened to them
I try to recollect those faces
Dredged images from ripped memories
Some of those eyes must have been silently shrieking
Calling out for sympathy or salvation
Locked in rolling prisons moving closer to the next indignity
While I was worried about a music lesson I hadn’t practiced for
Or inconsequential bullshit
If I could return to those moments
I wouldn’t challenge fragile eyes with directness
I would look at you obliquely and offer you my passing tears
I would applaud you for carrying on
Holding your head up
As you looked out at a world
That held more sins than miracles
David Trudel © 2013
Dragonflies
Their flying prowess is astonishing
I’m not sure if I’m watching damselflies or dragonflies
Whichever, they dart around like World War One aces
Changing direction at will and accelerating rapidly
Picking off smaller insects with enthusiasm
Half a dozen bluebottle flies have taken shelter on my jeans
So I shake them off and send them into battle
As I follow the drama I’m distracted
By an eagle soaring through mottled clouds
Flying into and out of view
Then I realize there’s two
They circle
Drift closer
I call them with the whistle I learnt a half-life ago
Amazingly they circle closer
Until they are within the ambit of the trees
Then one peels off
The other circulates
For a time
Listening to my call
Then I resume my scrutiny of the dragonflies
In close immediacy
With the wind
David Trudel © 2013
Heart
Why is the heart associated with love, I wonder
Why not the brain
I can think of other body parts
If you’re going to pick internal organs to represent that feeling
That divine state of bliss we call love
Or even tarnished affection for your familiar co-accused
Why pick that steadfast pump in the middle of your chest
As a grand metaphor for the mercurial arc of love
Love, weaving infatuation into lust
Followed by mutual seduction
If you’re lucky some romance but that wears off
At some point you learn to compromise
Come to some kind of understanding and acceptance
Then you learn to give and receive forgiveness
Taking comfort in care and affection bestowed and shared
The heart is definitely important
But it’s really not adequate to portray love’s tumultuous adventures
The stomach might work better as a proxy
Considering its capacity, appetite and potential for amorous metaphor
But then what kind of symbol would we use for it
Not that the stylized version for heart bears any relation to reality
Looking nothing at all like a real heart
Actually it takes its shape from the emblematic seed case of a plant called silphium
Used as a contraceptive by the ancient people of Cyrene
It worked so well that it was used to extinction
Yet lives on to embellish boxes of chocolate on Valentine’s day
Fittingly adorning ritualistic displays of romantic attraction
It’s quite charming to consider how those unbridled orgasms
From twenty six hundred years ago are still echoing today
Propelling meaning across centuries and tongues
Into the synchronicity of love
David Trudel © 2013
She Said
Concise expansivity is where it’s at
She said
Arching her back
Looking over her shoulder
At me
Really?
Do you mean pinpointing infinity
Or
Opening your singularity to the collective
She waved
Vanished
I shrugged it off
But I still hear that echo reverberate
David Trudel © 2013
Symptoms
Have you experienced any shortness of breath?
No, while thinking sure
Every time a beautiful woman looks in my general direction
I’ve had my breath taken away enough
Enough to keep life interesting
I’ll take that as a no, he says
After my recitation of the home gym, walks and bike rides
Now I wonder
My fingertips seemed colder in those new gloves last winter
Was that a sign
Perhaps
Maybe there’s a bunch of shit I can blame on the faulty pump
Post op, that is
After that waking up moment
Through queasy fog
Time splinters rustling like wind chimes
Into the coming to in recovery
Where you realize you have more lines running into
And out of your body than there are lines on a gaff-rigged schooner
Pain, an explosion swaddled for now by morphine
Or something
But there
There, coiled like some viper biding their time
In the center of your chest
Through the haze you realize the battle has begun
So you deploy relentless optimism
Against enervated ennui
Every kind of discomfort imaginable
Until it gets better
Which it will and does
In time
David Trudel © 2013
Ambush
Even the cardiac surgeon remarked on the irony
Must be a bit of a kick to the head
He said in the closest thing to empathy during that conversation
Filled with too many words like urgent and critical
Don’t get me wrong, I like my surgeons focused and intense
I can get sympathy from others
Still, when my struggle for fitness was so close to being won
It seems so wrong to be scheduled for heart surgery
So I nodded and smiled ironically back
Curtailing the impulse to blurt out something like fucking right
Because I’ve never felt better in close to forty years
But that was an illusion, like so many others I never saw through
Apparently feelings don’t come close to truth
Truth waits in ambush behind stethoscopes and cold eyes
Ready to knock you off whatever size horse you’re riding
Deftly as any plot twist in a serial adventure
To be continued
David Trudel © 2013
Sins
There are sins
That taste so delicious
They become virtues
There are vices
That are never left to their own
But are still quite
Delicious
Odd, how we colour emotions
With shades of judgment
Isn’t it?
Verdict, please
Guilty pleasures
Are almost requisite
To be pleasures at all
Ah
David Trudel © 2013
Be Free
The tighter a country wraps itself in its flag
The more it becomes constricted
Unable to see the rest of the world clearly
Nationhood is less about freedom and more about control
No matter what any constitution or zealot patriot might say
Countries and all our multi-layered levels of governance
Keep people in virtual feedlots
Penned in by ideas and concepts that overlay reality
In our shared delusion of civility
Look at the absurd lengths we go to
Interrupting each others smooth glide
By creating complex rules and imaginary lines
Which at their core only exist inside our minds
Now, storm troop clerics have returned
Like old testament prophets
Calling for retribution and revenge
Binary thinkers are the death of the rest of us
Auditing beliefs and creative thoughts
Against a template of hate and bitterness
All those angry faces calling for compliance
Fall into line!
Fall into line, they say
Judging everyone
Harshly critical about every action
Every reaction
So we dance these complex dances of bizarre ritual
Looking about as civilized as an ant colony
To our visitors from beyond
You know who I’m talking about
They must be quite amused
At faith-based hatred that legitimizes torture and murder
As we go around killing one another over ideas
Borders
Morality
Sexual inclination
Racism
Prejudice
Which pleasures are allowed and which aren’t
Ideas that have no physical presence in this plane of existence
But manage to keep us nose to grindstone
Brown-nosed and beaten
Through passive acceptance of the status quo
Instead of standing up and looking around
Making our own judgments about what’s in front of our eyes
Not behind them in some surreal zeitgeist
Informed by myths and legends long since twisted into barbarity
Anyone can choose to see clearly
If you want to
Be free
Be free enough to look at a field without mentally imposing
Some line running across it like an impenetrable force field
Be free to see things as they are
Not how you’ve been conditioned to think they are
Be free
Be free to see reality
Look at the stars
Let go of control
Let go of everything
Be free
David Trudel © 2013
Rental
The rental car place is across La Reforma
A grand boulevard that slices across D. F. like a river
Driving away a few minutes later
There’s barely enough time to think
Oh my god, what the fuck have I gotten myself into
But before you can think this time
Up looms the traffic circle at the Angel
It’s like when you were a kid
And it was your turn on the rope swing
Or diving off the cliff or the bridge that proved your courage
So it’s a use the force moment
Surrendering to instinct
Calculating millimeters of space on all fronts at full speed
Hyperdriving into streets a dozen lanes across
In each direction
With road hazards like cobbled patches
To test your dental work
All manner of transportation
Buses, taxis and cars mixed up with carts and critters
Bicycles piled high with baskets
At stoplights the car is swarmed by grimy squeegee kids
People selling all manner of stuff
Including baby owls once
Or fire breathers exploding into wonderment
Then working the windows which roll down
Delivering crimped beneficence
Then a LeMans start with twenty cars racing
For a spot where only six will fit
Holding velocity into the maelstrom
Where magically we all redistribute at the last second
Like a flock of starlings
It isn’t that you ever relax
Driving in this city
But there are moments when it’s about as much fun as it gets
Flowing with a steel tumolt
And while I don’t want to align myself with Cortez
For a moment I conquered something on those streets
Piloting a rental car through mad chaos
Because I was able to understand the madness
Without needing to translate it
At speed
David Trudel © 2013
Grand Design
Tearbleeding, there’s too much news
Of sad tragedies playing out
Looped like unhinged terror
Grinding teeth while fingertips
Pull glide
Slow, like mixed emotions
Down a blackboard
Screaming into the back of your skull
Discordant
Off-putting
Into another constellation
Forgetting stars in the tumble to Tartarus
Sourcing immortal suffering
Which goes on incessantly
Still
Even though
We thought we’d achieved a measure of beauty
Nothing transcends the grand design
Nothing
David Trudel © 2013
Spring Rain
Staccato drops hammer the canopy
Few reach my bush hat’s brim
Caught and splintered on broad leaved maples
Arbutus, oak and fir
A fractured umbrella of a thousand parts
While I inhale damp dust
Moistened tree spunk finally getting hosed down
After the rites of spring
The smell, sharp and soft at the same time
Inhale through nostrils diaphragm deeply
Exhale from mouth sharing breath with a living web
I stride through green tunnels
Where waves of foliage curl trails into lightpipes
Up to hilltop meadows
Horizons to explore
Reading weather signs in leadening clouds
While rumbling thunder punches a black eye
Into the sunset
Shards of lightning sparkle like lost sequins
Catching a tomorrow light
Rain easing, I return
David Trudel © 2013
Constant
It isn’t anything personal
Or even able to be possessed
It isn’t something that’s yours or mine
Anymore than the air we breathe is
We need it constantly
But it can only be shared and released
Never hoarded
We can never take it away or shut it down
Even if we pretend we can
Our hearts might break but it never will
It abides
And flows ceaselessly like a great river
That sometimes we’re lucky enough to swim in
Or drink from
And the best we can hope for
Is that through each other we find a door
To enter into this state called love
David Trudel © 2013
Balanced Days
These are hollow days These are days of magic
That reverberate like warning drums Sparkling brilliantly
Calling out for attention and action In the sunshine
These are days of false promises These are days of miracles
When leaders are led surreptitiously When everyone connects
Peeling away their morality Reaching across oceans
With each clandestine payment received To find friendship
These are days when processed food These are days of science
Is packaged in glamour When we have seen into
While delivering empty calories Life’s building blocks
That settle on our hips Bringing healing to the lost
These are days of denial These are days of knowing
Deliberate blindness to catastrophe Secrets unlocked
When truthsayers are muted Available at our fingertips
By the mighty and the masses Universal knowledge
These are days of erosion These are days of perfection
As justice becomes repression When public scrutiny
Socially engineering a new regime Surrounds scoundrels
Where the aristocracy of the wealthy And truth is crowdsourced
Is protected from crowds Using cameras and phones
By the proliferation of for-profit prisons By the oppressed
And when show trials have been replaced Who have discovered legs
By state sponsored executions On which to stand
These are days of empty entertainment These are days enlightened
Squandered opportunities As divinity descends
Wasted on garish spectacles To anyone who wishes
That serve as grand distractions For transcendence
These are days of oppression These are days of hope
When millions are herded into camps When we see beyond faces
Displaced by rootless fear and barbed greed Into eternal truths
When fear is celebrated as a virtue Discovering perfect beauty
And compassion is mocked In the wonder of it all
David Trudel © 2013
Dies Irae
“Day of wrath and doom impending,
David’s words with Sybil’s blending,
Heaven and earth in ashes pending”
Translation by William Josiah Irons, 1849
Dancing through this paradoxical paradise
As heaven and hell keep cutting in on each other
We listen to the universal song play out
Basso profondo to soprano and all the rest between
This cosmic tune speaks volumes but matters not
Except to guide us to the dies irae of finality
A judgment on universal mortality
And if we feel trepidation as the final chorus sounds
Let’s remember that rapturous transcendence
Is part of the final arrangement
So let the grim foreboding of annihilation pass
Concentrate instead on the glory of the forgotten chord
Strummed into being at the moment of creation
Resounding still inside us all
Inside the quiet of a sublime mind
In the look that passes between lovers
Or the gentle touch of every mother
So when the final trumpet blows
Embrace the sound of truthful joy
Let it lift your spirit and your self
Into the moment of reward
David Trudel © 2013
Careless
Unburdened of my cares
I unpen corralled words
To set free thoughts I once felt needed herding
And unspeak impotent intentions
That have had their hearing deafened
I dis-appoint intentional attentions
Removing all these barbed external hooks
That have settled into my skin
Remorselessly
I strip away costumes
And un-ink skinned pages
To bleed out into emptiness
Freed from perceived obligations
As hope’s tide recedes
The sea of indifference floods in
Where I carelessly drift
In a slow voyage of undiscovery to returned forever
Until I lose everything
Except the charged consciousness of the eternal mind
Floating in blackness
Alone
David Trudel © 2013
Vulnerable
You have strength enough to proclaim your vulnerability
With a smile that says I’m strong enough
But only to a point
I can see scarred clearcuts behind your eyes
And feel the impact that toxic spills have left behind
So I understand the need for an emotional review
Before exposing your susceptibility to tenuous possibility
I am content with your consideration
Happy enough with the ambiguity of a slow process
Stripped down to essentials like truth and beauty
Rendered and distilled into an intoxication of promise
Called hope
David Trudel © 2013
Particles
It’s all about fragments
Small pieces of everything
Becoming and unbecoming
Randomly mixing
Fixing into stasis momentarily
Until transformation happens inevitably
We all know the solitude of raindrops
A journey from birth to death
Falling from the heavens to the depths
But we forget the ocean we came from
And to which we’ll return
We look around entranced by illusions
Thinking that there’s permanence in this collective delusion
Forgetting that matter is mostly space
When you look into it
And in the long thrum of the ages
The most monotonous beat is change
Blending everything that ever was
Into everything that will ever be
The particles that make us real
Come from everywhere
Inside us all are memories of primordial seas
Mysterious creatures that we’ve never dreamed
Rocks and trees and dinosaurs
All live on inside our cores
Not just the past
But every future possibility
Echoes in our veins
We just need to learn to listen
To the eternal resonance of creation
David Trudel © 2013
Ghost
I knew you as a ghost
That’s what you seemed to be
Halfway in and halfway out
Of here, whatever this place is
On the edge of almost
But you?
You showed up in places
Now and then places
Enigmatically
Never quite committing
To reality
Still, you haunt me
I like it
I like the frisson of ripped
I like the weird in the wonder
The wonder of what goes on
In your stewed consciousness
When you think about me
When descent meets ascent
Inside the unframed glimmer
A corner of your eye
Almost but not quite catches
An intention of possibility
Thus, friction fractions
And we are left, bereft
Of might have beens
And almost was
Gone for dreaming
Everyone
David Trudel © 2013
Bridges
There are bridges made of living roots of rubber trees
Spanning rivers in India organically
And their strength increases over time
Unlike those made of cement and iron
So engineers and construction firms
Please take note and maybe learn
To co-opt the landscape on either side
Of whatever chasm we can’t abide
Instead of using steel girders
Just use the trees and please the birders
David Trudel © 2013
Memory
Do you remember
When it was transformational
When music pied pipered us
Into a sociological world view
At odds with conformity
At odds with authority
Just so
It was hot time, summer in the city
It was big birds flying in the sky
It was patchouli oil and Acapulco gold
As we wandered through
Labyrinths
Listening and observing
Ultimately deciding to side with the offside
Holding to the beat
Of the untamed
The wild
The beat
Listening to wild beats
Among the beasts
We were wild and untamed
Watching
Worlds constrict
Even as the beats began resounding
Sounding
The beat
We waited
David Trudel © 2013
Once
Once I was a photon travelling white hot screaming
Through starbody explosions intensifying into excitement
Then slipping past sentries flinging overfenced escaping
Into the night sky’s cold blackness
Sped into a measureless void heralding the heat of creation
Into dark corners radiating warmth with a promise of more
Once I was molten churning magma ooze
Running red hot through mantle crust
To arrive fluidly into a fixation of granite
Where I stood grounded and surrounded
Until I was ground down by elemental others
Chipped and hacked into boulders and rocks
Crumbled into smallness of sand
Populating deserts and beaches and playgrounds
Where I became the world for three year olds with toy trucks
Who extrapolated me into highways and mines
That grew inside the fertile minds of innocence as yet unbound
Once I was a dewdrop that slipped from tiny leaf
Into a mere suggestion of a stream
Rubbing shoulders with my brothers
As we tumbled slid from stream to creek to river to sea
Where I was transcended through evaporation
Into the sky to join water angels skydancing cloudbodied
Shapeshifting through windrivers
Until gravity tapped my shoulder and I fell to earth
Where I rest in moistened communion with everything
That I have been part and apart of
Everything connected somewhere somewhen somehow
Once I was this moment
Here
David Trudel © 2013
Tongue Tied
I wonder if it will ever end
The way I get tongue tied around attractive women
When they turn to me and smile
Which admittedly is a rare event
My inner Cyrano is sent falling through a trap door
And I am left floundering
Flustered and unable to find the glib words of a player
Until they appear ten minutes too late
Mocking me for my reticence
While I curse my politeness and reserve
David Trudel © 2013
Manifestos
Manifestos of love proliferate
With the newness of each discovery
We plant flags on beachheads with the arrogance of colonizers
Who disregard those already there
We proclaim impossibilities to each other
The way children build sandcastles on beaches
Then feel betrayed by the tide
Swayed by the push and pull
Of the moon
Our hearts drift in and out
Of the place where worlds touch gently
Or crash together turbulently
Yin to yang
My ocean reaching your shore
Unable to ascend the rocks at your feet
Your feet run through the surf
But never down into the deeps
You and I will never possess one another
But we can kiss at the margins of exploration
Where we meet
Edgewise
David Trudel © 2013
Flood
Once I stood on a bench looking out the kitchen window
As the river surged in full flood
Bringing benches, picnic tables and even a cow into brief and tumbled view
At that age it wasn’t alarming
Just another strange delight
A river full of non sequiturs
That had grown from kitten to lion in the night
Once I crested a hill at speed
Into a grey dismay of spilled banks
My feet were ankle deep but the car made it to the other side
That time
Unlike a Christmas day when the current was overwhelming
Lifting the car easily and tossing it into a copse of trees
Making a present of the current experientially
Once I filled sandbags to bolster dikes
Putting my back into the urgency of holding back a deluge
Surrounded by the camaraderie of warriors
Battling overwhelming odds with grains of sand
Once I threw rocks into the river
And they disappeared like magic
Or into the magic of burst waters
Preceding some new arrival
Swept out of the flood of creation
I have seen floods
And I’ve been touched by floods
But I do not really know floods
In all their rushed intensity
Except to say I know them well enough
To stay away
David Trudel © 2013
Alone
We are all alone
Unique, in our perceptions
Which live inside our minds
We can never really share the intensity or depth of colours
In rainbows that arc across each others sky
Even if we agree on names for what they are
It’s been said that in ancient Greece
There was no word for green
Yellow was yellow and blue was blue
There was never any need to hold them up to each other
They managed to build a civilization
Without a word and a concept we take for granted
Perhaps we should be envious
Really, colour is just a clever way for our brains
To display the electro-magnetic spectrum
That radiates from everything
Until we slip under the covers with dark energy
Playing footsie with the inverse of brilliance
Getting primal in the dark
Finding spaces inside spaces
Slippery spaces
That curl over and under
Until you just have to grab on somewhere and push
Frictioning a fractioned feeling into being
Which can only be described and never shared
Beyond the boundaries
Of our imaginations
David Trudel © 2013
Photon Thoughts
Synapses fire
Snapping off rapid fire shots of random thoughts
Which ricochet off walled up mindguards
Some of them
Broken up into fragments
Or buried in the dark void of forgetfulness
Some lonely few coalesce into ideas
Which may or may not require actions
Like expressions
Some kind of release
Some kind of ejection
Like photons traversing the interior of the sun
Then bursting from the surface to flare into eternity
A few slamming into earth just eight minutes later
Small wonder they burn
With the rage of interrupted space voyagers
Deprived of further shores
David Trudel © 2013
Sadness
It’s hard, choosing to be positive
On days when feelings of melancholy sadness descend over me
Hammering negative thoughts into my mind
I’m not even talking about the bleak news of the world
Of countries torn by uncivil war
Or refugees living in squalor
And the countless heartbreaks left by natural disasters
Let alone the jackboot tactics of cynical political masters
No, it’s enough to bemoan my outcast state
Wallowing in the self-pity of the chronically alone
Wondering which cruel twist
Fate will burden me with next
I try a workout to exorcise these heavy thoughts
But no trickle of endorphins is enough to break this black spell
Even knowing that emotions are temporary and capricious
Isn’t much comfort when they are visiting
So I choose to leave these uninvited guests
And walk away to find some measure of peace in nature
Maybe I’ll hug a tree today
Since hugs are good for the soul they say
And trees run real slow
David Trudel © 2013
Lawn
This is for the forgotten rocks that used to adorn this place
And for the buried moss that used to soften their sharp edges
This is for the rolling meadows that undulated from shore to peak
Carpeted with purple camas blossoms that weren’t merely decorative
But part of the food chain
This is for all those variations
Blown up and smoothed away
Made level so that we could roll out more ubiquitous lawn
Colonizing originality with green banality
We have made preemptive strikes against authenticity
Tagging the earth with neon green invaders
Which we mow and trim and water and feed
So much trouble for nothing much
For a crop we don’t eat or use except to display dominator status
Reaching for a reflection of noblesse oblige
Borrowing the suggestion of nobility from squandering fecund fields
For rolled sameness, green lameness
In the pool table flatness that surrounds us
We no longer see nature because we’ve suppressed it
We draw comfort in our control
Seeking the eradication of variety and surprise
For mono-cultured submission
Into the green blanket of conformity
David Trudel © 2013
Caring
The moment she looked into his eyes and saw death looking back at her
She knew
She knew that she couldn’t handle bonding with a beautiful soul
Only to lose him too soon
Once again
Over and over it has been that way
Caregiving
At first it was easy to compartmentalize the feelings
But now they spill out
Black humour no longer works to take the edge off
Instead too many edges have worked their way under her skin
To the point where occupational trauma raises emotional welts
She forces the mask back on
The one with the forced smile and bright eyes
Manages to get through one more shift
Only by knowing that tomorrow she’ll see the doctor again
And she’ll go on stress leave
Again
Because she knows that everything is so tightly bound
And if she has to wear that mask one more time
She’ll shatter
Into a million pieces that will never find peace
And if that happens
There’ll be no more caring
For her
David Trudel © 2013
Healing Time
We get wounded just by being, here
On this plane where we never know quite what the other thinks
So we dream words into imagined conversations
Then forget they weren’t real
Until our fantasies are shown up by reality
Our thin skins sliced open with razor-wired passive aggression
We get wounded because we’re human
Subject to gravity
But we forget we can’t fly so we fall
We believe in the magic that surrounds us
Until the spells no longer work
Leaving us open to what we call accidents
Usually the inevitable consequence of careless actions
Since we’re human
We are subject to disease
Carried internally or randomly caught
We get wounded by our bodies and onslaughts of germs
Microbes and infections take their toll
So that good health just means dying as slowly as possible
And when time heals
As it sometimes does
Sometimes the prescription is simply death
Transcendence from here to there instead of some miraculous repair
But time does move for us
And moves us from one state to another
Even if change isn’t exactly healing
We learn to live with our scars and amputations
Our reduced capacity and limitations
But what if time itself is sick and needs healing time
Does time heal its own wounds I wonder
Or is there some other soporific that puts time to sleep
Into a zone where rules no longer hold sway
Where timedreams shimmer like northern lights skydancing
Where metronomes lose their precision
And fluidly count the beat of nothingness in the void of eternity
Sinking into the interminable stretch of hospital time
Where minutes and hours co-exist in some quantum contradiction
Providing healing time for time
At least temporarily
Since time is its own chronic condition
David Trudel © 2013
Light
The intelligence of light is clear
Light does not equivocate or stop to make judgments
Light doesn’t require self-reflection
It achieves its optimal speed and sticks with it
Travelling at a rate so constant we measure time by it
And although it can be bent and refracted
For the most part light is steadfast
Illuminating everything it touches
With the brilliance of starshine
If we can’t yet understand light’s language
Doesn’t mean that there isn’t one
Where photons sing cosmic chords imbued with primal meaning
Harmonizing down waves from yesterday’s source to tomorrow’s maybe
Communicating the essence of discovery
Without pretense or dissembling
Light is nothing but light
David Trudel © 2013
Cottonwoods
Floating pearl drops fill the air
Cottonwood orgasms released on the wind
Flurried fecundity
I try not to inhale
Walking through clouds of dancing potential
These are thirsty trees
That belly up when the doors open
Reaching new highs every day
As interested in drinking and sex as most bar room patrons
And like them a little soft
Their wood isn’t prized for much
They tend to fall over when cold winds roar
To be replaced by next year’s crop
Who look to be about the same
Getting high and drinking as much as they can
Then spilling their seed
Unconcerned about conversations or relationships
David Trudel © 2013
Stream of Consciousness
Some days it’s hard to know which stream of consciousness to listen to
Since there seems to be more than one cascading between my ears
As if a wall of radios, TV’s and computers
Are feeding me a nonstop flow of information
Perhaps a torrent of consciousness is more accurate
Or maybe my stream is a flood
Fueled by the melting snowpack of my glaciers
Allowing chilled voices to shout stories or complaints
Or just sob in relief at being out in the open
Like prisoners being released from the Bastille
On the day the walls were tumbled
But it could be that this flood is a mere reflection of the arctic melt
In this global warming of consciousness
Where everyone gets to have a voice
Not just the man at the front with a megaphone in his hands
But everyone who takes a moment to speak up
And add a word, a phrase or a thought to the conversation
More drops in the stream
Leading to the ocean of consciousness
David Trudel © 2013
Beauty
Beauty doesn’t have to be framed and hung on gallery walls
Or stuck on pedestals and plinths in public spaces
Real beauty isn’t manufactured or reinterpreted
It exists in quiet forests
When the sun hits raindrops beading on spider webs
Like translucent pearls
Or in the glittering waves of surf rolling onto shores
Even city streets provide bold openings
I see masterpieces everywhere
In those around me
In the way that eyes seek other eyes
And hands reach out for other hands
Moments of tenderness quietly observed
We can all choose to see life unfold in splendid mystery
Revealing each layer of truth
Through the beauty of the day to day
Watching ordinaries become extra
In the radiance of love transcendent
Everything is beautiful
With the right perspective
David Trudel © 2013
Hope
I am in hope instead of love
Having signed away my proxy
For that treasured state long ago
I can no longer remember
What I thought it was
Or from which idealized fiction
I learned purported truth
All I know for sure
Is that I keep hoping
For stirring crescendos
And reciprocal obsession
Living in hope of happy endings
New beginnings
Unrealized for now
Maybe tomorrow
I’ll fall out of hope
Into love
David Trudel © 2013
Sweatshops
I have worn team colours in the past
Becoming cloaked in corporate identity
Giving away autonomy for crowd acceptance
Fitting in
Becoming a proxy for a marketing strategy
Where boardroom fictions based on superficial studies into buying habits
Create reality
Reality that echoes the worst excesses of selfish greed
When textiles were made with the blood of children mixed into cotton gins
And even Factory Acts failed to halt the exploitation of the poor
We thought we were better than our forebears
In our industrial self-righteousness
When union shops paid living wages
And workers could afford the products they made
Until the owners closed the factories
Shipped them overseas
Replicated the conditions of early 19th century Manchester
In countries far away
Countries that have no qualms about spilling blood
In support of commerce
So that marginalized westerners who no longer have factory jobs
Can afford cheap clothes at big box stores
Ignorant of the bloody fingerprints that are sewn into each label
Uncaring that everyday low prices reflect everyday absent ethics
And a high tolerance for suffering
So we buy products we don’t really need
Made in places that we’ll never see by fingers that we’ll never touch
Not caring that those fingers lie buried in rubble
Crushed by profit margins and unleavened greed
Victimized by the impersonal message of capitalism
That values money more than morality
And quarterly earnings more than souls
David Trudel © 2013
Puddles
In the forest when it rains
If you resonate inside reflections
Slipping past surfaces to inside out
Find a perfect oblique angle
Jump with intention
You’ll fall into the sky
Of the upside down
If it turns out you don’t
Splashing in puddles is always fun
David Trudel © 2013
Image taken by the author, using an iPhone 5
Trauma
Branch snapped
Ladder went sideways
Then down
Time slowed
Pain exploded
Consciousness separated from body
Accepted experience
Felt each screaming nerve
Neural pathways commuter crowded
Acceptance cushions shock
Screaming sirens
Sweet sounds for the wounded
Gurney bound
Ride was sweet
Hospital staff show empathy through efficiency
In pain, found trust
Shed fear of the unknown
Reality takes away the hyperbole of the imagination
One instant
Ripples into future states
Immediately changing
Everything
David Trudel © 2013
Guitar
Softly, he played his guitar
Not for me or anyone else
But for himself
Riffing on jazz themes
Smiling in amusement
As his practice made perfect
Sense for a grey day
Sliding through gentle waves
A wash of sound cleansed the air
Resonating as deep as ocean
Ephemeral as a seagull’s cry
David Trudel © 2013
Accountability
The bigger the bureaucracy
The more likely it is to proclaim accountability as a virtue
While strategizing secret ways to avoid scrutiny
At least for senior staff
At the same time imposing enough checks on the system
To stall innovation and creativity
Building a culture of the risk averse
Where project plans proliferate
Subject to constant revisions
Which are only approved after the work is no longer needed
And the original planners have left
David Trudel © 2013
Half Smile, Squared
In the complex simplicity of a half smile
When someone assumes someone’s discussion
You plot the course of a narrative
The four winds of the ocean’l find the enigwa
That sings mystery and allure
To know you take me mulch further, first draw midnite out
Promises mutually assured seduction
In and out of the adore that May’ll bumbasheer in obsession
Hints at boredom and ennui
Buttoned onto a how about it, kind of wheel-wzz got out of what mind to observe it!
Foreshadows betrayal
It’s rush at, Like a woman the jewel is dying with
All in the moment our eyes lock
It’s top-dollar-holler high in the hands jewel and factuulum at clutch
In a loaded look between us
And say’n, hollow?
Without a single word
Cold you take me jewelries handing how its abdomen underlane our rovering hell to who out-bungee I again landing your bicupcyucle!
We know
Too adhere at what upper-woods the take further, listen to when, at wait and said comes as me closer to the giving-eye thrust to lot the skins
David Trudel and Dave Taylor © 2013
Half Smile
In the complex simplicity of a half smile
You plot the course of a narrative
That sings mystery and allure
Promises mutually assured seduction
Hints at boredom and ennui
Foreshadows betrayal
All in the moment our eyes lock
In a loaded look between us
Without a single word
We know
David Trudel © 2013
Becoming
Everything that ever was
Still is
Everything that ever will be
Is present now
Matter is irreducible at the smallest level
But it keeps changing
Transforming
Shapeshifting
Moving
Our bodies rebuild themselves
Over and over throughout our lives
Organic life is all a process of becoming
Even the rocks we stand on are absorbed and eroded
Beneath the thin crust of the surface
A crucible of fiery creation mixes new recipes
From ingredients that never grow stale
Each fragment carries memories and dreams
Points on a wheel
That keeps turning
David Trudel © 2013
Iatrogenesis
The unintended consequences of civilization spill out into reality
Setting up the anthropocalypse which looms over our future
Ironically, civilization was seen as the planet’s healer
Carefully shepherding nature into something new and improved
Giving proof, we thought, of our superiority
Validating our entitlement to have dominion over everything else
But it seems like the patient is suffering iatrogenesis
Taken ill with the flesh eating disease of runaway capitalism
Starving on empty calories while becoming morbidly obese
We drain our aquifers to water golf courses in the desert
Cut down rainforests to factory farm cattle for fast food burgers
Building monuments to consumption like oceanic garbage gyres
Blindly buying crap we don’t need made by slaves we don’t see
We live on borrowed credit in houses which are bigger than we need
While others shelter in improvised shacks
Or get swallowed up into prisons to be drafted into gangs
We poison the water, the land and the air
And wonder why things aren’t the same anymore
We let democracy fade away through apathy
As corporate plutocracy takes control
Instead of rising up and declaring our own sovereignty
We sit back and watch performers pretend that life is good
We amuse ourselves vicariously and identify with illusions
Through inaction we turn ourselves into ghosts who scare nobody but ourselves
As civilization sickens into the decadence of the dying
Infected by fear and paralyzed by our lack of vision
David Trudel © 2013
Recalibrating
I find my world disordered and undone
Reference points no longer apply the way they did
Rules have been stretched and broken so often
They have been shadowed into dim memory
So I recalibrate my moral compass
Against those of the political and corporate elite
I recalculate the depths of horror to vicariously endure
Against the streets of Mogadishu and Damascus
I index my feelings and emotions to this world
That serves up extremes of good and evil
Punctuated by interminable waiting
But in order to find to what degree the Nth is today
I need to baseline truth against beauty
Measure the depth of midnight when you’re all alone
Figure out what new shock deserves a scream or a tear
In this world of today
Where so much cruelty is served up on the table of commerce
Where miracles are commonplace even as sins proliferate
In this world that contains both heaven and hell
Whose borders shift and overlap
Leaving those of us who play the margins in a dim frontier
Unsure of limits and definitions and meanings
Constantly recalibrating perceptions
David Trudel © 2013
Song From The Big House
The scent of woodsmoke clings to me
Like a spirit not ready to let go of this world
Not from fear but out of love
Holding on to memories that reverberate
To the beat of the round drum
And the stamp of bare feet on a dirt floor
In a place that echoes the past into the present
Where dances are sacramental offerings
Shared with ghosts who linger in the dust
Raised by each footfall
Even though we applaud we know this isn’t a performance
But a moment to let spirits intermingle
Bathed in smoke that permeates our souls
Dusted with earth that has witnessed degradation and despair
Seen attempts at genocide collide with patient persistence
Until old songs are given new voice
And old voices are heard with new understanding
To the beat of ancestral hearts witnessing truth
In the flicker of flames that never died out
That burn on into the tomorrow of today
David Trudel © 2013
Slowly
I try to see you as you are, not as I imagine you to be
Having idealized too many too often before
Your reality needs no photo shopping from my imagination
Because the beauty in my eye as I behold you is real enough
I resist the urge to fantasize about what might be
To focus on what is, today
And if there are possibilities for the future
I won’t dwell on them
Like with those clouds rolling in from the horizon
There’s nothing I can do to squeeze rain
From those airborne reservoirs
So I wait patiently for floods or drought
Ready for experience to teach me a lesson
When I think of you, I quell the fires of enthusiasm
Dampening dancing flames to smoldering embers
Waiting for you to add some fuel
Instead of overheating at a bonfire that burns too bright too fast
Serving as a warning beacon for careful navigators to avoid
Which is somewhat disingenuous I realize
Since I stand on rocks enough to sink a fleet
But in the bright light of a clear day they’re obvious
So if you can find your way past obstacles
And if I reduce my expectations to warm affection
Perhaps we can find ourselves a place to be a plural pronoun
Together
David Trudel © 2013
Mystery
Living in the mystery, we take so much on faith
Even the faithless
Here in the mystery of life on this world
Even atheist debunkers of wonders and the wonderful
Submit their faith to the laws of physics
To evidence of eyes and ears
But there are many of us who revel in mysteries
Listening to spirit whispers
Watching the interplay of ideas and ideals swirl
Into flawed reality only to fade and fall away
Coming and going momentarily
The way unbidden memories appear on internal newsfeeds
Like my first ever interaction with a computer
In that old department store, in a time when kids were unleashed
And capable of arriving back to square one
In the nick of time
Which, in itself, is a sacred holy mystery
In that old department store
Where a banner notice issued a challenge to try to beat the computer
At Tic Tac Toe
Which I did, over and over until I thought
Take that, asshole
Not realizing what the challenge really meant
Now, all these upgrades later I use my cribbage app
To beat the computer
Which I do
Still not realizing that the challenge is to not engage
In a dialogue of any kind with a machine made by a corporation
With a machine based on absolutes
The challenge is to revel in the mystery
And to listen to the whispers of the spirits on the wind
Finding that place where normal is unhinged
Living in the mystery
David Trudel © 2013
Truth
My truths are open to interpretation
Not found on faces but through hearts
Literal truths are limited to sharp edges
Eternal truths are fluid and invisible
Suffusing the space behind a smile with radiance
Or coloring imaginations with starlight
My truths are layered and nuanced
Revealed slowly
The way stratified rock gives up its truth
To an archaeologist’s chisel
Telling a story that is never quite as complete
As you’d like but good enough to piece together
David Trudel © 2013
Puddled
A moment after the last echo
Of the original shockwave ceased reverberating
As this sun-spawned ember cooled in blackness
Elemental in its purity
Hydrogen ganged up on oxygen to create water
Clear as moonlight
Unmixed with anything
Long before it became the growing medium for all life
It was simply water
Unadulterated by microorganisms
Two and a half billion years later
Puddles of purity have been uncovered in the depths of bedrock
Leading me to sink a mineshaft through my heart
To plumb my soul’s depths
Looking for aquifers of pure emotion
Where happiness is unpolluted with nagging doubts and fears
And love is unbidden and unguarded
As it was before original sin
Before Eden and guilty thoughts
Before the diminution of cosmic sanctity
Into ideals to aspire to but never quite reach
So I search for elemental purity within
Convinced that something remains
Of the perfection of limitless possibility
David Trudel © 2013
Posted
Wrapped in an envelope that thickens and thins
Fractured thoughts slide unlettered
With limitless potential
But lacking the certainty of conviction
Slippery and elusive as dream fragments
That seemed almost tangible at dawn
Before dissolving into the unremembered compost
Within this skin
Stamped with life’s toll and addressed to fate
Dancing through a series of brilliant non sequiturs
Waiting to be received, opened
And read by an adept
Fluent in the tongue of impossible ambiguity
David Trudel © 2013
Dreamless
We are the dreamless ones
Swept up and carried along in a tide of chaotic compulsion
We see the world through haunted and bitter eyes
Angry at the conspiracy of events that led to this impasse
Of a stunted life
Living tedious days of underpaid drudgery
Wasting evenings watching competitive human tricks
While getting mildly sloshed before a too short sleep
Then doing it all over again
Chained to jobs and places we used to despise
But now tolerate with indifference
Damned to be stuck in our self-selected prisons
Crushed by debt and toxic relationships
We have no dreams left to strive for
We are barren ground for motivational speakers
Who talk about planning your life’s arc and goal setting
Our goal is just to wake up tomorrow and survive till night
Anaesthetized against the emptiness
David Trudel © 2013
Apogee (repost)
Clipped
This time of year I carry clippers when I walk the trails
Green explosions create havoc
With sprawling tendrils encroaching on crushed gravel paths
Branches shaking hands overhead
To make arched tunnels
That I trim judiciously to bikini line smoothness
I watch for outliers and beachhead seekers
Clipping as I walk through an eruption of spring growth
Liking the rough margins
Blurred edges
That dog this trail
Kept in check by clipped edits and marginal notations
David Trudel © 2013
Apogee
I wonder if we have reached the apogee of ignorance
There are so many utterly manipulative people
Powering and empowering the collective mind
Unencumbered with knowledge
Devolving to pre-consciousness
Suffering cultural amnesia
While the fringe is ridiculed and attacked
Instead of being celebrated as the avant garde
Confronting truth through undesignated designs
Finding meaning in the recollage of skewed moments
Tracking time by marking walls
Walls of fear and control
Until time takes its toll
And walls come down in splintered pieces
Illuminating the darkness of the artistically challenged
With the light of truth
David Trudel © 2013
Trouble
You can call me trouble
Since I am
I crave attention
Which equates to time
My fantasies outstrip yours
No doubt (arched look of ironic intent)
Each dropped dialogue intrigues me
Given your propensity for ambiguous e-nudges
So I trouble to persist
Oblivious to storm warnings
Pushing my limits into yours
To uncover limitless cohesion
If that’s troubling
So be it
David Trudel © 2013
Adrift
There is always the shoreline here
Here at the edge of somewhere
Where it’s big enough to forget the disconnect
Before long you catch a glimpse of distant ocean
Across meadows or mountainsides
Or find yourself skirting beaches
Tracking cliff-edged margins through mists and moonbeams
What you don’t find is a bridge or peninsula
This separation is complete
No crumbled adjunct of mainland mountains
Our stoneboat drifts northward past the Salish Sea
On a separate journey from its hulking neighbor
Whenever you come or go from this place
Here at the edge of somewhere
There’s an intermission from immediacy
Transition time
Magic time
When you are carried on wind or wave
To the other side of normalcy
For a moment unsure
Unsure of the polarity of normal
Adrift between two shores
David Trudel © 2013
Books
I used to read novels to experience vicarious adventures
Safely armchair bound
Giving myself an illusion of experience
Foreshadowing possibilities that are mostly unrealized
My shelves are lined with thrills and sagas
Of imaginary worlds and echoes of the past
Other people’s stories
Now, I am not bound between the covers
But carry my own pen
Open to the vicissitudes of my own adventures
Or quietly observing slices of the lives of others
I open pages when I open doors
I read wrinkles and laugh lines on those around me
Uncovering meanings from dropped hints
And the spaces between the words
Every day holds its own library for me
Volumes of content
On every subject ever found in rows of Dewey decimal precision
So I borrow my adventures from reality
Direct from the authors of the everyday
David Trudel © 2013
Beached
Her fragrance is exquisite
A foundation of insect repellant
Overlaid with suntan lotion
And a sheen of perspiration
That smells like a summer promise
Of beaches and bronzed thighs
Simmering in slowchained solar intoxication
Waiting to transform into an airbrushed image
Of idealized perfection
But the reality is good enough and then some
In this languid moment
Of golden reflection
David Trudel © 2013
Quiet
There is no quiet
Not absolutely
It’s just that some places are less noisy than others
You can escape the traffic noise of urban life
Unplug your playlists and get off the phone
There’s still nature with birdcalls and wind in the trees
Raindrops drumming
Even ants footfalls are heard at their own level
Rivers tumblerun chortling to the sea
Which ebbs and flows to the crunching rhythm of the surf
Deep beneath the earth in caverns or mine shafts
Sound grows dim
Except for the beating of the heart in your chest
And the sound of your breath, inhaled and exhaled
Becoming a cacophony in the dark
But here on this earth there is no quiet of the purest vacuum
Just moments of stillness
When noise recedes to murmur
And you can hear your thoughts forming like volcanic eruptions
Beneath the surface
David Trudel © 2013
Unsprung
An unseasonal preview of summer has accelerated growth
Into greenfloods of underbrush
Tendrils leaping across trails with exponential growth
Which I clip as I walk along judiciously editing trail margins
Woodpeckers rattletap deadwood
Hoovering up invertebrates
With the enthusiasm of teenagers eating potato chips an hour before dinner
Bracken ferns appear full grown overnight
When I see them I remember how we’d pull them up
Strip the fronds to create spears
Then engage in pseudo wars of childhood play
Or lurk along the edge of the road to ambush passing cars
Until the time that truck stopped
Backed up
After being hit with our meager broadside
I had rarely seen someone so angry before
That anger directed at me and my friend Chris
It hit us like the punch that vein popped, redfaced truck driver would have thrown
If we hadn’t sprinted into the forest surging ahead adrenalin charged
To vanish safely in the greenswarm of spring memories
Yesterday’s spring green luster has faded on the parched hilltop here
Purple and yellow wildflowers have gone from prime to seed too soon
Summer drabs replacing verdant easter bonnets
Khaki shorts instead of jeans
In the distance Mount Baker has started to show his ribs
Melting away winter’s extra layer
I read the smudged horizon to plot mainland cities spilling skycrap
Like wild beasts marking their territory
So I turn into the prevailing offshore breeze
To breathe the scent of tomorrow
David Trudel © 2013
Churches
These churches of the inside out
Convinced of their supremacy
And entrenched beliefs
Profess their love but celebrate their hate
Of others and of differences
Using fear and threats of retribution
Projecting narrow views on limitless creation
Chorusing anger at the unconvinced
For no good reason but to cover up their doubts
With screams and fist pumps of defiant mobs
Who give up reason for the comfort of a cause
These churches of the inside out
Hide behind myths, legends and holy books
Which have more holes than wholesome thoughts
Transforming love to hate
Raising intolerance to a virtue
Suppressing dissension and philosophical exploration
With the riot police of the religious wrong standing firm
Against freedom and choice
Trying to perform their own miracle of transformation
By calling evil good and good a sin
Proselytizing through obfuscation and misdirection
These churches of the inside out
Upside down in their revisionism
Making sacraments of negativity and blind zeal
Disregarding any other points of view
Of infinity’s creation
Most of which is quite content to be unchurched
Connected at the source to divinity within
David Trudel © 2013
Listening to a Rocksong
Groundstanding, soles of my feet making a connection
To this bedrock nub
Slow murmured, the rock sings a grinding song
Remembering the crush of icesheets that tore and tumbled
Deeper still, contrapuntally
Groans a deep murmur of the drift
Rock saga of the grand voyage
Sliding and lurching from the equator to Canada’s west coast
For 380 million years
Even deeper, this rock remembers the hot cauldron of explosion
Heat of becoming that danced lightning in radiant intensity
When this rock reverberates that long lost tune
It remembers the immediacy of fast
High intensity vibrations and collisions that spiraled into infinity
Underneath those rhythms is another
Creation’s splendid release that uncoiled it all
Sacred music written across the sky
And inside every molecule of every thing
Echoing just outside our hearing
So big and so loud
Forever
David Trudel © 2013
Cake
Any more than the white thunder that flattened Hiroshima
Shouldn’t have been a surprise for the civilians sacrificed
At peace’s altar
Blasted piecemeal into a moment crystallized forever
Then repeated and repeated
With the schoolyard glee of boys armed with limitless firecrackers
Enough to blow up atolls and islands
Turning paradise into a chronic wasteland
Remembered in the half life of swimsuit fashions
Celebrated with an improbable mushroom cloud cake
Cut into by atomic admirals
Eating up devil’s food with abandon and blind faith
Not the angel puffs they were told about
Unaware of the repercussions of crazed meals and crazed militarism
Fracturing realities with cosmic hammer blows
Smiling for the camera and posterity
In a poisonous celebration of violence
David Trudel © 2013
Photo taken November 5, 1946 at the Officer’s Club of the Army War College, Washington, D.C. at an event named “Salute to Bikini”
Photo credited to Harris & Ewing Photo Studio, published in the Washington Post November 7, 1946
Flower
Perhaps the most beautiful flowers in the world
Aren’t the brightest or biggest showroom blossoms
But the small and commonplace
That take hold in crevices and cracks
Battered by the tides
And nourished only by perseverance and hope
Survive to wave their own flags
Declaring the sovereignty of inherent beauty
Augmented by the improbable flourish delivered in such a place
Where weeds become wonders
David Trudel © 2013
Image by the author, taken with an Iphone 3G
Happy
I wish I could remember happy
Enough to be it
Running along the beach and turning cartwheels kind of happy
All caps HAPPY shouting unashamedly, yes I am over the edge
Of restraint
Unlike the reality of tranquility and contentment
Where my happy enough happy
Is leavened by nagging worries and doubt
Halfway happy that never spills over the edge
Wearing a smile not a belly laugh
This shaded happiness that purrs contentedly
Familiar and relaxed as Saturday clothes
Is just not the kind of happy I want to remember and relearn
I want the kind of happy that plunges hilt deep into pleasure
The happy that floods every thought and feeling
I want to remember an atomic bomb of happiness
Avalanches and tornados and tsunamis of unmitigated glee
Where happy is a solid state miracle of merriment
And everything falls into place
Just so
The kind of happy that is worth a memory
I wish I could remember happy
Like that
David Trudel © 2013
Question
How are you?
There’s a question we ask each other a lot
Answering glibly that we’re fine or good
When really we’re troubled and stressed out
Tense and preoccupied
With nagging injuries that cause us pain
Enthralled to Chronos until transcendence springs us free
Terminally human and trapped inside our skin
And that’s not even answering the how of us
How do these elemental particles charged with creation’s divinity
Hold together in the constant becoming of self
What are the cosmic answers to philosophical mysteries of being
And how are we are in relation to what baseline of normalcy
So the next time you see me
Don’t ask me the usual
Unless you want to leap into a Proustean torrent of immediacy
Deconstructing three little words into a philosophical search for the meaning of life
Trending back to the moment when time began
And the clock started to run out
That’s just how I am
David Trudel © 2013
Stranded
I try to be transparent
Open and authentic
But even as I windowpoem feelings and my life
I realize there’s more wall than window
Around me
I sequester a wealth of possibilities
Cutting back and trimming thoughts
Suppressing inner dialogues that might embarrass me
Or someone else
Or reveal my shortcomings
So the windows get shuttered
I remain alone
In the confluence of the stranded
Wanting to be more than fearful
Wanting to explore the far shores of joy
But I find myself barely able to open the blinds
To let light in or to let others see within these walls
Through narrow openings of dubious transparency
David Trudel © 2013
Fantasy
Today I won’t let my fantasies run wild
I won’t think about your open-toed sandals
Or unslipping them and raising your foot to my mouth
To kiss your high-arched instep while fondling your toes
I refuse to think about your hand reaching out to the back of my head
And pulling me close
Into the best kiss I’ve ever tasted
I won’t dream about unbuttoning your blouse
Or slipping off your bra so that I can run my tongue
First this way then that around the velvet smoothness of your aureoles
While your nipples rise to attention, which I give them
I won’t imagine my hand rubbing your crotch through your jeans
Or your hand pressing down on mine
Worrying that you want to stop my naughtiness
Until you start applying your own intentional pressure
Teaching me your rhythms and tipping points
I won’t dream about belts unbuckled and the sweet over the hip slide
Pants pooling on the floor
I won’t visualize your panties already darkly wet
Or skin shimmering with the perspiration of hot pleasure
I don’t think labial lapping thoughts today
Or wonder about the sensitivity of your clitoris to my fingers and tongue
This isn’t the day to breathe your smells into being
Or to taste you on my lips
This is a day to pull back from fantasies
To a place where smiles are just smiles and not an invitation
David Trudel © 2013
Beltane
Once it warms enough the scent reemerges
Growth
Original fecundity
Is that what they are allergic to, I wonder
Worried into natural aversion of springtime
That might trigger a primal urge
Let alone a Druidical memory of ritual sex
Celebrating rutting in fields and pastures
That’s enough to constrict certain blood vessels
For now
But the brown hue of loamy soil
Sticks to your back
Tonight
David Trudel © 2013
Indifferent
We became indifferent to the suffering of others
Since otherwise we would have been broken
Shattered in the pain of it all
As it happened we grew filters and justifications
To walk by corpses on sidewalks
We didn’t look
But we saw them anyway
Every way we walked
We walked past need outstretched
We walked through regrets into simulations of grandeur
Refugees from truth camped in illusion
Feeding fear with terror
Becoming indifferent to our own hearts
David Trudel © 2013
Conflict
Missile to missile is where we are now
Mano a mano
Is strictly quaint
A caricature of conflict
Which now trades body blows for rows of body bags
Blood running as deep as black ops unhinging
Each Pandora’s box on this green earth
Where Eden has been fracked and strip-mined
Into an unsettling distortion that screams into the black night
Like a twelve year old sex slave before she’s drilled into submission
This green earth that has been pissed on far too much
Scorched into barrenness
Until its skin dries up and is carried away on the wind
It’s not the accumulation of wealth but the hoarding of it
That cudgels our collective whimper like any vicious overseer
Cancerous growths of unmitigated greed eat the body politic
To death
Evil commodified
Quarterly reports don’t include sins of the profit margin
Factory slaves who die in tumbled grief
A middle class outsourced to pay for higher gates and broader lawns
For the fearful few who totter on their towers of transitory wealth
Waiting for a realization of impossibility
Ignorant of the weight of the sewers filled with their misgivings
Flushed with success
David Trudel © 2013
Sustenance of the Tides
Kelp ribbons roll lithely in the watery verge
Here, at this pebbly place on the rim of the Pacific
By extension all the seven oceans
All the Mobius stripped beaches that girdle these waters
Connected as immediately as any wave
This is one spot on the edge of the largest swimming hole on earth
There is no crashing surf here now
Just insistent lapping of lakelike wavelets
Tumbled and bleached forest bones border the beach
Thrown out of the great maw during winter storms
When the tides surrender what they will
Cold grey water a disguised mystery masquerading as the sky
Or revealing the black depths beneath the skin of this strange animal
That feeds us and eats us
Ocean, the supreme seductress and the original sin
The soup kitchen that feeds the DNA of all life
Ocean, always ready to betray our affections
With primordial fury
Don’t take it personally, we’re told
This mooned lover gets pulled out of shape regularly
Throws outlandish temper tantrums
Then, settles back into rhythm
Metronomic as clockwork
Gentle as the crispwind breeze in my face
Ready to fall for the same old tricks again
David Trudel © 2013
A Toast to Regret
This is for the thought that slipped away
And for the words that crumbled at my touch
This is for the feeling that couldn’t be expressed
Elusive into bitterness
This is for the love that didn’t stay
The love that didn’t bother to unpack
But left without a backwards glance
This is for the pain that never fades
The chronic longing of the unrequited many
This is for the false starts and might have beens
The unrealized potential of the never was
But should have been
This is for the anger that flared up
Burning bridges across deepening divides
This is for the smoldering resentment that hangs around unwanted
Homeless but camped out at my front door
This is for the time I should have called but didn’t
This is for the weakness I nurture and carry with me
This is for the look that ended with a turn away instead of towards
This is for the rapids never run
Mountains never climbed or just because
All the things I didn’t do but should have
And those I did but shouldn’t have
But mostly I regret not loving you
David Trudel © 2013
Fades
Here, I sit and wait
Until the daylight fades
Still you don’t come
Even though I didn’t think you would
Today
So I pull the shades
Turn away from the window
Look away from the phone
I won’t go on Facebook
I don’t want to know
Instead the light diminishes into dark
While I wait today
Here, I sit and wait
Until the daylight fades
Here, I sit and wait
Until the daylight fades
Until the daylight fades
The daylight fades
Fades away
Away
David Trudel © 2013
Interregnum
In my interregnum standing timeless
Watching the evolution of madness spin this world
Unpledged to any vested interest or reward
Judging only what I see and understand
Watching the evolution of madness spin this world
Freedom needs solitude to expand into perception
Judging only what I see and understand
Drifting in uncharted waters
Freedom needs solitude to expand into perception
An adventure counted in smiles
Drifting in uncharted waters
Where anyplace you get to
An adventure counted in smiles
Is a destination in itself
In my interregnum standing timeless
Unpledged to any vested interest or reward
David Trudel © 2013
Hippie Chicks and Gumboot Stomps
There is always a salty tang in the air
On these time warped island enclaves where
Time loops itself around the summer of love
Where you can still hear the cellophane being torn from Sgt Pepper’s
For the first time
And patchouli oil arrives in 45 gallon drums
To anoint tied dyed dervishes
Unconcerned with convention or shifting fashions
Hippie chicks and gumboot stomps still rattle the boards
In moss covered community halls
As loose tunes carom off moonbeams into midnights
Where memories bleed into one another
Passed around like joints on the back porch at the break
Where the tide is a constant presence
Lifting each rocky island up
Then washing it down
Where the rhythm of life is punctuated
By arrivals and departures of coastal ferries
Carrying 30 year old Volvos and even older punch buggies
On and off these islands of no return
Where homespun sweaters are more popular than yoga pants
And woodstoves bake solid loaves of love
Pungent with unadulterated truth
Where home means more than a place to sleep
But is a state of being in the moment
That wraps itself inside out with summery love
Garnished with unconnected freedom
And the sharp pull of the sea
David Trudel © 2013
Tethered
Cold and gray, the day drizzled itself awake
Turned inward
Clouds lowered the ceiling to basement height
Out in the strait a fogbank prowled like a pack of wolves
Raggedly harassing trawlers and travelers
Like me, ascending the short ladder from the lurching float
Into the seaplane’s cold cabin
Soon packed sardine tin tight with sullen suits
What shreds of sleep still lingered torn away by the roar and rattles
Of the slap happy runway race across the waves
Up into the lowering clouds which kept a lid on
Then the pack of wolves returned
To nip and heel the seaplane back to cold reality
We could have dropped a line for lunch
But with a lurch and clang we met a reef
Rising up where it shouldn’t have been but was
Hyper wakeful we watched kelp beds swirl dim greenly in the fog
While the echo of the pontoon kissing rock reverberated
Over the shock of this unexpected interruption
When flight no longer soared but saw the sea close up
Motoring like a dragonfly boat back to port
Defeated by raindrops and the mist
We shook off dreams in drizzled fear
Dodging disaster for a time
This time when the sea pulled back the leash
David Trudel © 2013
Sleepwalk
So many people sleepwalk through life
You are not one
[who?]
When I see your eyes
Sparkling
[don’t look at me that way]
I see the universe
[it’s complicated]
I barely know you
But I know that you feel it
Too
[there’s room outside the lines to play]
[it’s really complicated, give me time]
Creation’s maelstrom isn’t a threat
But a playground for the willing
For those whose eyes remember
That souls are born in daydreams
[I see your eyes sparkling]
[I like it when you look at me that way]
David Trudel © 2013
Leaves
Leaves unfurling like a thousand green spinnakers
Catching the wind
Each leaf its own tale
I read these trees
Through fresh green pages
Like reading the whispers of others
In this consequence of narrative
Where each tale is separate but connected
Like each green flag is anchored on branches
I hear each murmur that comes my way
Each note and comment adds to the story
That I piece together organically
So that even as I revel in today’s fresh green garments
I read foreshadowings of rusty autumn in the wind
When these solitary voices will be stripped away
And nobody will remember spring’s tale
David Trudel © 2013
Tanka 1
Wondrous flowers bloom
Into radiant beauty
So impermanent
Each look a kiss that echoes
Briefly, before fading out
David Trudel © 2013
Intersection
There’s so much I’ll never know about you
I don’t even want to try
There’s so much I want to tell you about me
I don’t even want to try
It’s not so much about where we’ve been
Or what we’re running from
Received truth is never complete
Regardless of good intentions
Truth has to be experienced from the inside out
In the raw immediacy of the moment
Even then you’ll have your perspective
I’ll have mine
An intersection of two truths
Found in a shared look
Two paths to the same place
For now
David Trudel © 2013
Cyberbullies
We are everywhere
Smartphone addicts clutching our cravings
At bus stops and beaches
Our curiosity is insatiable and ubiquitous
From disasters to dinnertime
We record images of the profane and mundane
Amusing ourselves
Fooling ourselves into mistranslations of truth
Stealing souls
Which was a truth that we used to scoff at
Yet now with bullied victims piling up, that truth seems prescient
Lives stolen by recirculated images of grief
Pain, unceasing
Kept alive by likes and shares of shameful moments
The only option is full deletion
Morgued, they have unfriended us
Forever
David Trudel © 2013
Skate
In the tempered glow of moonlight
We make our way to lake’s edge
Where crude benches sport a crop of boots growing like magic weeds
Magic is palpable tonight
As the full moon illuminates icy planes
Where bladed dancers pirouette
And the unrink where shouts and slaps reverberate
As hockey teams form and reform playing boisterously into the night
This deep into winter the ice is thick
Still, snapcracks startle when a fissure leaps across the crystalline surface
For a moment our faith is tested
We wonder if our godlike powers of waterwalking are hollow after all
But that thought is as fleeting
As the meteor that arcs across the sky overhead
Unnoticed by skaters whose eyes sparkle in the cold light
Charmed into the out time of wonder
Eternally frozen into a perfect moment
David Trudel © 2013
Fisgard
The sharp tang of salt and creosote
Punches steadily away
Insistent surf froths
A short distance away an old gun emplacement scowls
In the distance stands Fisgard Lighthouse
Towering oyster shell white, capped and bolstered in red
Rampant as Priapus proclaiming fecundity
Quite rightly, given its proximity to the naval base
Where young men stand straight and tall
In their dress whites
Shining brightly
Sometimes forgetting that they are a warning
Of dangers at their feet
David Trudel © 2013
Spring Day
It wasn’t tentative at all
This spring day
It didn’t brush your lips with a delicate promise
It french kissed you and grabbed your ass
Slipped a naked leg around yours
To send you sprawling onto the mossy carpet
Where you might have noticed butterflies and flowers
If you weren’t already distracted
On this spring day
David Trudel © 2013
Giant
This brittle boned giant totters
Down the road
Weaving more than a little
Since he’s a giant
But being provincial
Unsophisticated
Long country roads are no mystery
The mystery
Is in those who the road was built for
Not him
Not the giant
Who totters and falters and sways
But the others
Mysterians
Who pass by on the fly
Using this space
In some dimensional alchemy to generate money
When really there is so much mystery
If they would stay
In the middle for once
They would see giants
On the road
Tonight
David Trudel © 2013
Unprompted
I don’t write poetry from prompts
Except the ones the universe sends me
Special delivery
Unexpected words that tumble into my mind organically
From my sub-conscious
Or random events that create inspiration through synchronicity
I resist the safety of corralled intention
Rebelling against the imposition of someone else’s truth
Even as a push in a general direction
Poetry workshops bother me with their forced creations
Those poems I treat as bastards
Who I’ll never love completely, if at all
I am sovereign in and of myself
Arbitrary and demanding as any jealous lord
Just as security conscious with my borders as any other
State
Of being or mind
So I wait for divine sparks
Or dogs that bark
To lift me into the right moment
To write my untranslated words
In my own time
David Trudel © 2013
Nothing
This is a poem about nothing
Nothing at all
Nothing et al
Nothing to go on the page, minute after minute
Hour after hour, nothing
That flatlined, catatonic, burnt-out kind of nothing
Where your nerves have been scoured and your emotions
Have been bled out of your arms
But this isn’t the 18th century
So there’s no surgeon with scalpel and pan
There’s nothing
Nothing at all
Nothing
Is the most common response by teenagers when asked what happened
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Sullen nothings, ironic nothings, repressed and resentful nothings
Angry nothings
Nothings that hold a war inside that armored word
And that word is anything but empty
Because if nothing is supposed to be a big vacuum
I think it’s time to change the bag
Because nothing can be pretty full
Like all those nights of forgotten promise
When nothing is the laconic response to what is there to do
Nothing
Nothing at all
So many unrealized possibilities in so many lives
Filling all those nothings
With something
Sometimes something can be a sweet nothing
Think about that
Empty calories is kind of the same thing, usually
But some sweet nothings use charm and wit
To create a thing that certainly isn’t
Nothing
Because sweet nothings lead to something else
Nothing doing
You can’t really do nothing
Because you still at least have to be
If you are you
You’re you, which is something not nothing
Not nothing at all
Nothing could be further from the truth
Since the truth is that nothing is ever nothing
Nothing is all
Nothing is all
Nothing is all
Not nothing at all
Not nothing
David Trudel © 2013
Sundown
A rim of banked clouds fringe the horizon
Where the sun lowers itself into the west
I look out across lichened rocks and a curtain of trees
A river of farms rolls through the valley
Before hills that belly up in the distance
Becoming not quite mountains brooding darkly, distantly
There are no people here
No shouts or interruptions
Just myself and my own turbulence
Which settles into anxious thoughts
That I try to rationalize and quell as best I can
I breathe in deeply and exhale
Over and over
Until tranquility becomes my steady state
Interrupted only by birdcalls
And the rustle of the wind in the leaves
David Trudel © 2013
Inked
I prefer my emotional baggage internalized
Not overinked on my skin
If I had a tattoo for every love and passion
I’ve ever held and lost I’d be invisible
Beneath the burden of faded colors
That would blanket me with memory
Of past infatuations
Issues that are so last year
Dead ends
Sad partings
So my canvas is fresh enough
For your fingertips to trace new works
With the impermanence of yesterday
Brush me with your art
That leaves no reminders
Secure enough in its own truth
To need no signpost for the destination
David Trudel © 2013
Gulls
These gulls are larger than the ones you see downtown
Feeding on binscraps of bloated tourist food
This trio are bypassing the city and heading up the coast
To tidal pools and tidelines where they’ll feast on authenticity
Now they pause to carousel a thermal
Corkscrewing in circle drifts
A fourth transcends out of the clouds and joins in
I look away for an instant
When I look back they have vanished
Into the gray sameness overhead
David Trudel © 2013
Slamming
At first it seems absurd
Holding up score cards for poetry
Having been judged before for this and so much else
I enjoyed flipping numbers and holding them up
More than receiving the verdict of my peers
It’s subjective of course
But so much is in life
We sift and compare everything
Constantly saying this is like that
This is better than that
My favorite
On a scale of one to ten
Picking winners
When really, it’s ridiculous
Like saying that’s my favorite snowflake
Or that drop of water is better than another
Or that kiss was the sweetest
Who cares?
Can’t we just enjoy them all
No ratings or rankings to glorify some and denigrate others
It’s all good
There’s no need to stratify beauty into increments
Or rank each blade of grass in endless fields
Clouds don’t need our approbation to skydance
Each moment of wonder is its own delight
So if I tell you that your eyes are bright with starshine
Be happy enough with that celestial judgment
Without seeking comparison to other constellations I’ve orbited
David Trudel © 2013
Top
I walked myself out of the buzz of a long day
A driving day where the highway crawls into your nerves
Each turn of the tires transmitting itself into some neural pathway
To lay fresh asphalt in the back of your brain
Upcoasting with amusement park thrills past beaches and castles
Into the sprawl of the Bay where highway lanes proliferate like noxious weeds
Filled with accelerating tension I’m soothed by the calm voice of the GPS
Who deftly selects lane changes until rush hour bogs us down
I found myself forced over a bridge that takes half a forever to cross and recross
Finally I reached a disappointment of a hotel and recovered my legs
Between Chinatown and Union Square
Found a bistro in the French Quarter with a jazz trio
Where I fed appetites to satiation
Then pounded some sidewalk to soak up the city
Digging the architecture
Recognizing Frank Lloyd Wright’s signature from a block away
Chilling in the sliding drift of crowded sidewalks
Absorbing looks and feels into placement location
Upscale and updone, I thought
Unbuzzed I headed back to the hotel
As I reached the corner a sliver of a plaintive wail pulled at my ear
A horn crying in the night
I turned and followed the sound
Found this dude and his horn
In a storefront alcove where he poured forth honeyed balm
I dropped a few bucks
After a while he stopped for a smoke break
We talked
“Name’s Top” he said when I asked
“Well Topcat really, but I’ve been around so long everybody just shortens it”
We talked some more like old friends catching up
Said goodnight and walked away
As I climbed into bed
A lick and a curl crept through the transom
Top was crying his blues in the night
And I slept soundly under his ragged blanket
David Trudel © 2013
ECG
A thin woman waits across from me
Her long hair shaded halfway between blond and gray
White turtleneck covered by a raspberry pinked sweater
She sits bolt upright, eyes closed
Appears to be meditating
Or asleep, I can’t tell
Her feet anklecrossed
Hands lapfolded
I imagine a dozen fictions that have brought her here
I imagine my own fictions salted with bare facts
When I’m summoned the technician tells me her name is Claire
Like a server at a restaurant except that I have no menu to make choices from
I strip to the waist and get plugged in
This machine bears no resemblance to the first Philips recording device I recall
That amazing cassette recorder that allowed portable sound
Only the name is familiar
These sounds that emanate sporadically are tidalsurged
Fluidly sloshing through valves that whipsnap shut
Four voices to whisper their murmurs of truth and love
It’s intimate feeling her fingers on my chest, pressing
Moving methodically and gently, pressing
I wonder if she is so controlled and measured
When she lies supine and exposed while fingers press and probe
I am repositioned so that I am looking at the rise and fall of her breasts
A handspan away
I wish I could cup one for balance
I wonder if she can read that heart thought from the display
At the end, she passes me a towel
To wipe off the residue of our encounter
Tenderly intimate
With the familiarity of a touched heart
David Trudel © 2013
Victim
Victim is not a trait or an avocation
Happenstance happens
Random as powerballs dropping
Some bodies bear the sins
Of the wicked
Deluded
Immersed in their narrow outrage
Sympathy excluded
Detonation clears more than this air
Leaving victims
David Trudel © 2013
Forever
Underneath oblivion are reverberations
Echoes of each soft footfall of the fallen
Every sigh still murmurs in the rustle of the wind
There are no absolute deletions from this reality
Just reconstitutions of new forms into others
Particulate transference that blends atoms across time
Continually renewing and consuming inexorably
Yet there are ripples of the past in everything
Deep down inside us live an infinity of forms
A mélange of all that ever was
From primordial sludge to mountain peaks
What we are is myriad moments of creation reassembled
Into more than just something new
We carry the history of each particle, every cell holding us together
All of us are the archives of reality from here to creation
And nothing is ever forgotten or undone
Forever
David Trudel © 2013
Stories
A phalanx of soldiers rode off into the night
Is how it might have begun
I used to love adventure stories like that
Armies and abductions and long chases over rough terrain
Not that I had any inclination to actually do anything like that
No, I’d be ensconced in a comfortable armchair
Alone, after school reading action packed tales
In literary reveries of vicarious heroics
While outside the world waited with undocumented truths
And new heroes wrote their own narratives with their feet
Rallying against injustice
Or just caught up in the turbulence of life’s passage
Years went by
Library stacks and bookstore shelves fed my addiction
I got lost in so many distractions
That I dropped the thread of my own epic
Reducing heroic possibilities to clichés of normalcy
Bounded by custom
Covered by blankness
Self edited into the remaindered bargains
Sitting unsold at the back wearing layered dust
Telling its own tale
David Trudel © 2013
Shoes
I wonder if they chose them deliberately
These shoes that are more than just shoes
Eyegrabbing, they pull your gaze away from trophied walls
To this floored installation of swaggered awkwardness
Still young enough their pose lacks the insouciant poise
Of polished divas, which makes it all the more charming
Slightly pigeon toed and wobbly
They rock their kicks
With a flourish of celebration
Splashing the gallery floor with pedal extremity rainbows
Ready to zombie stomp to the witching hour
Making each footstep a brushstroke that undercolours
This opening night
David Trudel © 2013
Photograph by Nancy Yakimoski. Used With Permission.
Garden of Earthly Delights
When you unfocus your sight
Just so
Like staring at those 3D posters that just look chunky
Until they slip obliquely into view
For me at least, pausing in the middle of an oak grove
When I find the right unfocus
Bent and twisted branches
Transform themselves into a profusion of
Bent and twisted scenes
Where figures cavort in naked chases
Limbs akimbo
Open to the wind
I surmise that Hieronymous Bosch must have visited a grove like this
Before imagining that garden of delighted earth
That has charmed so many ever since
Except the prurient few
Who avoid gardens and earthly delights with equal displeasure
While I take the time to imagine new delights
Unraveling around me
Ancient pleasures of the bent and twisted
David Trudel © 2013
Buses
It’s not as if I don’t know buses
Because there have been times when I’ve been a regular rider
Knowing the schedule by heart
Routes and numbers familiar as TV channels
I developed nodding friendships with other inmates of the rolling asylum
Locked into patterns of time and transport
I learned to hate drivers who kept the heat cranked up
Well into winter so they could wear shorts and short sleeved shirts
While the rest of us sweltered in our layers having to contend
With the reality of cold precipitation outside
I don’t miss the rush hour memories
Like the time we were crammed standing closer than riot police
I noticed my foot was wet
And saw that the woman beside me had a leaking bag of fish
Anointing me with a fragrance that persisted for weeks
Or the time two boys were sniffing glue from ziplock bags
In the seat behind me and while they seemed happy with the buzz
I just caught a contact headache, left at the next stop and walked
I remember the autistic lad who knew all the makes and models
Unfortunately there were some buses he really couldn’t abide
His distress was palpable when the wrong one came along
Those rides made us all moan and groan
Even if he was the only one to verbalize his feelings
I don’t miss those moments when the bus is early on its route
And you are half a block away unable to sprint to the stop in time
Or fumble in vain for the correct change
But for all that pain and all this whining
Buses have been there for me
Taking me safely from point to point
Providing space to make neighbours into friends
And if it’s not as magical as teleportation
Buses are just as moving in reality
David Trudel © 2013
Poet
He’s really more of a choreographer
More Alvin Ailey than Nureyev in the way he wordplays
Creating ballets of verse that dance and fascinate
Sweet gibberish made magical by its intricate arrangement
He layers words upon words
Throws them across the room
To himself
Using every corner to conjure up more tricks
Riffing off sounds into a labyrinth of meaning and not meaning
Which charms this roomful of conspirators
Because he goes over the edge that they so very rarely touch
Lives a spirit life that isn’t anchored in security
Insecurity isn’t what drives him
In circuitry is where he creates
Security isn’t what he represents
The vicarious thrill of brilliant insanity compels attention
For how often do we witness invention
Or listen to the wellspring of creation
We sit at the same table and share observations
Insightful or oblique as they might be
As safe and solid singers of truth harmonize within the lines
Weighed down by gravity
We, the unruly, understand release
And how to be unhinged enough to transcend normalcy
David Trudel © 2013
Inadequacies
I am at ease with my words and all their inadequacies
That barely express my half formed thoughts
Shredded memories and momentary reveries
It doesn’t bother me that only a part of what I want to say gets through
From somewhere between my ears through my fingertips to you
Knowing that I can touch you with an emotion
Push a button or create an impression is a powerful thing
Even if it’s only an echo of what my mind is trying to shout
Still, I am happy enough in the attempt
To try to convey a truth or truthfully create an illusion
So I share what I can
With weathered words on roadsigns to other places
Promising a destination of sorts
Somewhere up ahead where I’ve mapped my own steps
With the comfort of being at ease with my inadequacies
David Trudel © 2013
Friends
There was one evening when my dad came home late
Which was hardly unusual
In those days when doctors still did house calls
This evening he was carrying a box
With some excitement and childlike passion
Look, Big Little Books, he said
We had no idea what the big deal was
Since they no longer existed and we had never heard of them
But they were the comics of his youth
Chunky little books
One page of action packed text
The other an illustration in black and white
The right hand corner of each page had postage stamp insets
Animating a sequence magically into a mini movie
There were dozens in the box
Tales of GMen and cowboys
Movie star personas with more backstories than you could ever imagine
Titles that had survived in the papers or morphed into comics
Like the Green Hornet or the Lone Ranger
Which is the one I have here in my hands
The Lone Ranger and the Great Western Span
A little tattered and faded but still intact
Still a connection, even if he only carried in the box from the car
I’m not sure if he ever had the time to read them all again
But I did
Around the age he must have been when they first came out
So we were able to be friends in imagination
Across time and role
We hung out in Our Gang clubhouses reading Big Little books
Floorsprawled in depression dust
Sharing these homilies and parables
That made sense of the time
Time that I hadn’t seen but now could
Through these simple pages
Where remembering turns into discovery
David Trudel © 2013
Epiphany
I need epiphanies to blindside me
Not arriving ordered and packaged
But drenching me
Like cold water from a bucket that was carefully balanced
On top of a door that hits unexpectedly
I like getting tripped up by revelations
That come shockwrapped
Because the best truths aren’t simple or obvious
Or if they are
Its only clear after the camouflage is removed
What the truth is
I need to step on metaphorical landmines
Experience the pain of having old preconceptions ripped away
Because an epiphany should be like that
Like Saul becoming Paul on the Damascus road
There should always be some towering warrior angel
With a poised sword and the word of god on their lips
To mark moments where one truth is crucified
Then reborn as another
Before ascending into eternity
David Trudel © 2013
Harbour
It’s passing offshore
Silhouetted against the far peaks
Everything seems to be some shade of blue or grey
Except for the lightening silver of tossing waves
It’s some kind of warship from the naval base
Keeping the peace and doing a fine job
Since it’s nothing if not peaceful here today
Freshmowed lawns roll from road to rocks
Under the snapping flag that illuminates the breeze
The park is littered with dedicated benches
Each plaque a shorthand biography in brass
Seagulls cry and play in freshening gusts
Childs play for them after yesterday’s gale
I inhale virgin air off the Pacific
Cleansed by the long journey from that further shore
Dandelions and daisies cross stitch the lawn
One lone sailboat heels into the wind, making time
A young mother with a sports stroller airs out her child
Barely noticing the view as she texts and talks
And stares at the phone clutched talisman tight
The gulls upswell into a formation of imprecision
Looking for balance points where they hover briefly
Then it’s slip, slide and goodbye
In the parking lot cars come and go
Most doors never open
As this seems to be a place to wolf down a quick meal
Or a quick smoke
The warship slows and heads for port
Belching smoke as she powers down
I sit and watch a crow waddle across a grassy corner
At first tentative and hesitant it scares up worms to deftly swallow
Stopping occasionally in a prime location to feast
Like a teenager with a side of fries
A swathe of slate grey clouds push forward
Inner city sidewalk clearing in their youthful bluster
So I leave the bench and spring behind
When I turn to look, the crow has gone
While the gulls continue their resonant entreaties to the wind
David Trudel © 2013
Nightwind
The intersection of where invisible hits audible
What I hear
As I look up into the night sky
Invisible wind
In some friction with resistance
Releasing harmonic vibrations with dark immediacy
While I drink in that long ago light of each star
Imagining how close that past really is
Folded in upon itself
David Trudel © 2013
Chez Victor
I was about ten years old when Chez Victor opened
A fine French chef in a greasy spoon on Davie Street
My dad took Thursday afternoons off
Every now and then I’d go along
When school got out
On his trip to the University record library
Where he’d select the next few albums to serenade Sunday
We’d glide into downtown in ragtop cool
MGBing overbridge into urban madness
Inside this grimed café a door opened into Paris
They would flower into Brel and Becaud
Sliding into a fraternity of francophone
We would feast on boeuf bourguignon
Drink Mouton Cadet
Of which I’d sip
Surreptitiously
But with the borrowed insouciance
Of the 14th Arrondisement
Whose child I wasn’t
But might have been
Traveling across possibilities into fractured reality
Quietly soaking up Gallic truth
Like the French bread in the broth
At the bottom of the bowl
David Trudel © 2013
Windsong
In the absence of dictation from angels
I search for something to say
But there’s nothing
I listen to the wind murmur its lament
Shaking songs from dark sentinels swaying overhead
Playing riffs on tree branches
Like it was the third set at Birdland
I can’t interpret this kind of jazz
So I blow that joint
Walk away
I wander over to the lake
Watch choruses ripplechase across water
Waterwalking splashes marking that dance
Above, clouds spout soliloquies
Dramatically written in raindrops or tears
Each page torn out and tossed away
Like I dismiss my random thoughts and fleeting fears
To listen to this moment and what it says
When I finally get it
I hear angels laughing
David Trudel © 2013
Still
Still
That’s the way it felt just now
Standing on my front porch
Nothing moved
The street was quiet
Pools of amber light were untrammeled
By skittish deer or sway hipped raccoons
No dog walkers either
Low clouds muffle the night
Nothing moves
Except lightwaves and the wind
David Trudel © 2013
Birdsong
Squeaks and whistles, twills and tweets
Surround the damp forest as it towels off
From a spring cliché
I have to smile at the thought
That these wrens, finches, sparrows
The whole avian population in fact
Are all that’s left of the dinosaurs
With their trumpets and bellows of shock and awe
Maybe you can imagine the surprise
A reincarnated dinosaur must feel
Coming back as a bird
After all those hundreds and hundreds of recycled soul experiences
Dinosaurs being around for ages after all
There were probably some pretty strong old souls
Travelling that destiny from fierce predation to some version of wisdom
But even the Dalai Lama of dinosaurs would be a little shaken
Reawakened as a feathered sprite
Darting from branch to leaf
The only thing large left to cling to is birdsong
Filling the space that once contained such majesty
David Trudel © 2013
Quantum Computers
There are these quantum computers available
If you can spare the ten million or so it’ll cost you
They are able to go beyond binary thinking
Using supercooled processors they use the laws of quantum
Ambiguity rules since they can be yes, no, maybe so
Able to exist in the opposite state simultaneously
Turning accountants into poets
Who no longer have to be black and white about things
But can consider gray as a possibility (which will drive auditors crazy)
Unfortunately their clients have been mostly governments and corporations
Those quantum computers are probably being used for military purposes
Or developing strategies to maximize the profitability of resource extraction
And other even less benign schemes
But wouldn’t it be fun to get one for poets and philosophers to use
Asking eternal questions in quantum space
Exploring all the contradictions inherent in our flawed condition
We could distill all the music that really moves us into a single harmonic jewel
Peel away all the layers of fact until we’re left with just our own fiction
Watch pinhead ballets by infinities of angels
Or come to the conclusion that conclusions are illusions
So let’s crowd source an investment in one for fun
Set up an online philosopher’s café and an open microphone for the poets
Quantum computing truth in every dimension
David Trudel © 2013
Time Travel
Most of us are time travelers
Not just moving in a linear way from moment to moment
But anticipating and planning
Imagining alternate futures that are optimistically biased
Forgetting other imagined futures that fell short of reality
Since memory isn’t a very accurate recording device
Its core function not to scrapbook our pasts
But to foretell our futures, flexibly constructing scenarios
Likewise we reconstruct our spotty pasts from grime to gleam
Hope and happiness keep optimistic minds at ease
While the pessimistic fearful suffer side effects of low expectations
We all live with illusions and delusions
Make mine optimistic
I’ll wallow in happiness
Travelling to a brighter future
David Trudel © 2013
Best Before
Al Capone is responsible for best before dates
He hated the sour milk he had to drink as a child
So when he wanted to buy some goodwill
He donated a million dollars on milk for school kids
But insisted on the date being printed
Not wanting to leave a sour taste on young palates
He settled for whiskey sours for their parents
For tartness to march on
And so when you laugh at tired clichés
Like every cloud has a silver lining
Remember the old gangster
Who wanted to freshen up
And did
And does
Today
David Trudel © 2013
Ectopic Poems
Ectopic poems cling to randomly numbered unsaved pages
Words that didn’t coalesce into completion
Although they seemed promising enough
At the moment of creation
Now these non-poems sit stillborn on my desktop
Bleeding out with momentary misery
So I shower more words
Lathered words
Warm words
Removing bloody stains of the unborn
To be swept away
But never quite forgotten
David Trudel © 2013
Kintsukuroi
I have been broken into pieces during my life
Shattered by the usual run of traumas and disasters
Death
Injury
Divorce
Job loss
Rejection
Today I am made whole
Rebonded with lacquered gold dust
Each piece of broken me has met with kintsukuroi
Japanese art of golden repair
Through self-reflection and action
Intentional tranquility
And by taking time and space for nothing
Nothing at all
Nothing at all
Nothing at all
I am whole enough to celebrate fractures
My bitterness is purged
The map of this journey highlighted
Each crack and fissure illuminated with attention
Polished with poetic gloss
Repaired beyond doomed perfection
David Trudel © 2013
Taken
He was always conniving up some mischief
Scheming bastard was his given name
At least that was the name he was given
By the taken and the cleaned
There was a flicker of genius in his madness
Admirable, in a twisted way
How he’d hatch more plots than a graveyard
But never lift a shovel himself
Suckering the marks into digging a full six deep
Before they’d realize he had left with the ladder
And everything else that wasn’t nailed down
David Trudel © 2013
Cosmology
Everything is from nothing
Nothing is where it began and where it will end
Cosmic nothing, which is vacuum
But nothing is an illusion
As much as everything eludes its truth
Since the vacuum is full of energy
Matter and anti-matter constantly attracting and repelling
A never-ending quantum cocktail party
Cycling through loops of creation and annihilation
I’ve been at parties like that
But the party to watch is the galaxy’s 100 billion stars
Aswirl in brilliant radiance but dancing darkly
Or standing back even further
100 billion galaxies sweetly raving on until the bitter end
Yet out of all this cosmic richness normal matter is rare
The fact of the matter is that out of all these stars
All this space and animated dust only 5 percent is normal matter
Which is hardly normal since fully 25 percent is dark matter
While the biggest elephant in the room is dark energy
Mysterious and opposed to gravity
Which is a law of nature so dark energy
Is cosmic anarchy
Expanding and accelerating exponentially
Leaving dark matter haloes clumped in the nevervoid
Never emitting light on any wavelength
Driving the formation of cosmic structure
Quantum space/time foam bubbling with cosmic inflation
Quantum energy fluctuating with tiny mass irregularities
Within the cosmic web
While we listen for echoes
Echoes of the big bang
Cosmic harmonics send microwaves everywhere
So that the memory of creation is all pervasive
As are echoes of small primordial perturbations that grew galaxies
In the long nights of early days
Quantum ripples that will never reach a further shore
Since the fabric of space and time keeps stretching
Further than a politician’s truth
Into nothing, which is the end
David Trudel © 2013
Lake
Still water reflecting infinity
I use its surface for my page
Tracing words that become ripples
Submerging each thought
Into the wellspring beneath
David Trudel © 2013
Shrouded and Cloaked
This is the kind of day
Shrouded and cloaked in clouds and showers
A day with no exclamation marks
This is the kind of day when he would have called
To share a groaner of a pun
Match calendars for lunch
Or just to see if I was still alive
Which of course he isn’t
Some ghosts linger longer than others
I’ve had my share of losses over a lifetime
Sometimes it isn’t the pain of the loss as much
As it’s empathy with the bereaved
Like the time a classmate’s younger brother
Was struck down in a traffic accident
I will always be haunted by the memory of his mother’s eyes
Noticed obliquely a few months later when I was over at their house
Her eyes shiny as polished chrome but full of grief’s infinity
Some ghosts seem bound to places
Where they passed or where we shared a moment
Or maybe a song will shuffle its way into a tendril
Of sweet remembrance
A recollection of spectral intensity
This is the kind of day
When spirits walk beside me
Shrouded and cloaked
In clouds and showers
David Trudel © 2013
Looks
I would drown in your eyes
If you’d leave them unguarded
But you keep armed sentries on alert
To repel invaders such as me
Singing choruses of I’m not looking for a relationship
Which isn’t the first time I’ve heard that covered
You seem surprised
When others find you attractive
More than a little pissed off as you dance away
I would drown in your eyes
If you’d leave them unguarded
Since they leave me breathless anyway
David Trudel © 2013
Present
There is no time but the present
No half remembered yesterdays
Or prescient tomorrows
There is only now
From creation to annihilation
Time has no need to travel
Time stays still
While everything else parades
From then through now to future
Now is hub not wheel
Fresh forever
David Trudel © 2013
Bittersweet
Sweet gifts charm a mother’s heart
Fistfuls of dandelions thrust into a glass
To brighten dark rooms like miniature suns
Yet the foreshadow of wilt
Curls freshness to swoon
With bittersweet knowledge
That one day dandelions will no longer be plucked
As votive offerings
One day glasses will be just glasses
For drinking bittersweet memories of innocence
David Trudel © 2013
Shavings
Dream shavings lie scattered on my pillow
Whittled to slivers of sparkle and shade
Curled up and disappearing into daylight
Brushed together into a handful of nonsense
Picasso’d deconstructions of unreality
Torn into scraps and gathered up
To be collaged into fragment fantasies
Other underworldly passages into dark divinity
Soul windows and secret passageways
That defy logic and reason naturally
With the assuredness of dreams
David Trudel © 2013
Cherry Blossoms
Clouds swirl haloes overhead
Petal flurries drift pinkly underfoot
Delicate snowdrifts form
Offering an illusion of winter’s memory
Snowballs formed from these blossoms
Fly apart upon release
Leaving scented fingers tinged like rosy cheeks
We make lavender snow angels tinged roseate
Beside sidewalks that haven’t known shovels
Since being laid
Here in this smoothcurbed place
Receiving benedictions of warm blizzards
Cherry blossoms granting glimpses
Of alternatives
David Trudel © 2013
Matter
Fact of the matter is that matter’s naught
Hard edges an illusion of suspended animation
It’s not about fingertips to fingertips
Or even tongue to tongue liquidity
When you get down to it
Really down to the minutia
Where solids become constellations
Small points within large spaces
We hold more room than we imagine
Voids of emptiness held together by faith and hope
Universes of possibilities contained within perceived limits
Even more outside
Beyond imagination where divinity normalizes
Everything
So that there are no limits to restrict potentialities
Infinity is alpha and omega wide
Everything and nothing
David Trudel © 2013
Someplace Else
Somewhere you conjure a multiverse dreamscape
You are the epicenter of gravity
I am your captive
No pretense of demure modesty
No frown faced mask but naked lust plays easily
Twinkling your eyes into diamond brilliance
Cutting through distractions to core attractions
Until we spin infinity orbits into blackholed mystery
Becoming zodiacs entwined
Writing celestial destinies on limitless skies
Words written in explosions of creation
Visible across voids and ages
Touching where our light intersects
Stellar vibration of recognition in cosmic flashes
Shared between us
Alone together in eternity
David Trudel © 2013
Birdground
Weathered branches of a deadling tree
Play perfect perch for a trio of crows
Who fling themselves windsliding
Towards a freshet spilling onto lowtide sands
Further up and out seagulls work marginally
Beaking clams and mussels
They ascend just high enough
To jettison their dirty war prisoners
Shattering them on the rocks
Where’ll they’ll pick up the pieces
Out in the harbour two sailboats
Tack back and forth
Looking languid from here but on board its controlled frenzy
Hitchhiking a natural passage through wind and wave
Tight lines and sightlines and pressure being brought to bear
Higher still, thermal spiraling an eagle observes
Soars on and dematerializes into the blue
A moment of active serenity, observed
David Trudel © 2013
Image by the author (iPhone 3G)
Preview
Barely into spring along comes a preview of summer
A day that melts chocolate into fondue moments
Breezes that freshen but barely cool
So warm everyone unlayers to minimal threads
On the road, convertibles are a common envy
Their drivers made glamorous by the rolling role
While the rest of us crank down the windows
Or crank up air conditioners
Feeling toasted inside metal walls
Still, its too early to think of complaining of the heat
This welcome return after a long hibernation
We smile at the coming attractions
Waiting for summer blockbusters to follow
David Trudel © 2013
Kiss
Although we trade suggestive comments
We are so far apart
It’s safe
Even though we both know it’s not
I can imagine your thinlipped kiss
Filling me to distraction
Realizing that if ever there was a chance
I’d be hip to hip
Grinding
I’d be well past the introduction
At hello
Tongues intertwining
Voices weaving words into tapestries
Masterpieces castlebound
When others look at our love and exclaim
That should be framed
We’ll already be unbound
Undone and done
Over and over
Just the way I imagine
Your hip curving
Against me
As dawn fills itself
Illuminating love
Unbordered and unrestrained
David Trudel © 2013
Deer
A deer leapt through the brush
Thunderlanding a few meters away
Relieved more than alarmed
I walked forward on my downwind path
Obliquely away from the deertrail
Which calmed the deer
Who was looking ahead
At the other one that I hadn’t noticed at first
Stock still against rocks and trees
I was relieved
Not having seen deer here for some time
One species among many that call this forest home
Or way station for island hopping windriders
So when they started grazing on rare native fawn lilies
I was only mildly pissed off
And sent them a psychic entreaty to curb their appetites
Until dusk shrouds surrounding suburban streets
Where gardeners obligingly plant deer salad
A raw deal
David Trudel © 2013
In The Garden Of Your Mind
Fred Rogers was a gardener of young minds
Planting seeds with greenthumbed assurance
Calmly waiting for nature to take its course
Never in a rush
Like we are mostly
Not wanting to plant seeds but buy hothoused plants
Already grown
Not wanting to learn lessons of experience
Or experience small attempts of repetitive failure
Since we’ve learned to value self-esteem above wisdom
Which isn’t very wise
Or even as smart as we think
But then again, how many of us take the time to think
Instead we short circuit nature through shortcuts
Too busy to observe reality
So we live in delusional fantasies
Where we think buying a floral bouquet makes us green
Or self-absolve our collective guilt through signing online petitions
All the while contributing to this excessive consumerism
This insanity that’s driving us to the edge
Which we don’t see because of that delusional mindset we bought into
So we don’t hit the brakes
When the lemmings up ahead cliffjump into annihilation
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood
David Trudel © 2013
Prompted by this PBS Digital Studios Remix of Fred Rogers:
Patriotism
What a country!
The best country in the world!
God’s country!
Jingoism
Nationalism
Patriotism
We shout this nonsense to the wind
Reinforcing imaginary lines drawn by vested interests
Just like pro sports inventing hollow hometown fervor
With hired guns from far away
Lured to your town for higher pay
Fanning the frantic madness of beersoaked youths
And middle aged dreamers
Who distractedly fall for sequined circus charms
And acrobatic displays of impossible prowess
When they are dissected on the jumbotron
Everyone becomes a gladiator vicariously
Forgetting that they’ve paid for the excess excessively
Not just money
Time and effort and emotional investment
That’s been shifted from other possibilities
It’s a false reality
Just like nation states are a false reality
Let’s visit one of those overused cliché images of earth from outer space
No lines
There are no borders to be seen from up high
Countries are just ideas
Borders carve up territories for overlords
Becoming fences to keep us in
What significance do borders have for ravens or salmon or grizzlies
Not very much
Yet for us, overmuch
We yield our sovereignty to the imagination of colonizers
We let the oligarchy herd us into feedlots of junkfood and unreality TV
Anaesthetized against the trauma of truth
The truth that we are prisoners paying for the privilege of a fiction
Locking ourselves in
Turning away from any escape
Because we’ve been French kissing fear
Forgetting last night night’s rape
And the one yet to come today
It’s all personal when it comes down to it
There are no real lines
Carving up truth
David Trudel © 2013
Sovereignty
My sovereignty is my own
Beginning and ending at bodymind borders
I rule my own mind and no others
There are none I swear fealty to
In some medieval ritual of submission
What limited control I have over my physical body
Ends at my extremities
And if sometimes I can influence others
Control is not anything to aspire to
Since I’m busy enough keeping myself in check
Unruling the anarchy of my mad thoughts and contradictions
It is enough to be my own master and slave
Never abdicating responsibility for my own behavior or attitude
Or subject to the tyranny of others
My sovereignty is my own
A limited kingdom of singularity
Despotic in self-discipline
Seditious in errant thoughts
Creating my own ceremonies with serious amusement
While my ego breaks down into strutting courtiers
Who pander to baser instincts and shiny eyed pride
So I leave off building castles
To build self awareness
And cloak myself in goldclothed tranquility
David Trudel © 2013
Blackened
First you see them as hints
They come into closer view
And you think roadkill corpses
But it’s really just another exploded tire
Kind of like online posts
Lumbering 18 wheelers who occasionally let one loose
Passing gassilly
Passing gas silly
Leaving a blackened remembrance of your passing
On the littered roadside
Blown, literally
Living on as scattered bits of used to be
Souvenirs of unfortunately
David Trudel © 2013
These Days
If these are the end times, as biblically foretold
Or just the bubble of civilization approaching its burst
From climate change
Or the breakdown of dysfunctional political corporatism
Let’s appreciate them, the end times
Let’s make love as often as possible
Let’s love these days
These rare days when everyone with privilege across the globe
Can buy the same perfect apples in air-conditioned sameness
These commonplace days of global luxuries
Where winter just means having to fly your strawberries in from across the globe
Appreciate the luxuries that may not be around much longer
Since there seems to be sufficient portents to nudge me towards gloom
Thinking doom and doomsday plots
As reports flood in of massive ice melts, methane gas releases, shrinking glaciers
While dystopian planners hunker down in pinched fear gearing up for a fast ride to hell
And failed states release terror into the shipping lanes
Failed rulers cling noose tight to power with blood red iron fingertips
Overhead strange signs appear
Like grid patterns of chemtrails crossing lines from secrecy to sin
Leaving us at the mercy of a tainted wind
Droves of us mill about in sheepled delusions
Brainwashed by selective education and finely crafted propaganda
Called popular culture
Our behaviour manipulated to ensure submission into complicity
But understanding the inherent flaws in this grand monoculture
There’s still some room for righteous hedonism on the way out
Because there is a lot to be savored in this shimmer
And if there is some apocalyptic descent into chaos
Waiting in ambush around the next bend
Don’t we owe it to everyone to use every possible pleasure to its limit
And if this scrap survives beyond whatever ultimate disaster takes us out
To be read by some far futured survivor picking up pieces
To you I say, it was fucking awesome to be alive at the apex
David Trudel © 2013
Sculptural Pieces
Weathered rocks scoured by ice and time
Derelict trees tumbled into dreams
Ripplesanded shorelines studded by rockshreds
Swayedback barns leaning into fallow fields
Rusted ratrods posing in jumbled yards
Skylines that pull you into horizons
Jig jaggedly climbing into impossibilities
Fences marking space and time
Held up or supporting a spray of twigged greenness
Invitations of benches
Offering views into eternity
Alterations made by serendipity or intention abound
Three dimensionally textured magic
Filling my thirst for the spectacular
Wherever I find the unexpected and sublime
I smile with intention
Breathe in and send an exhalation of applause
In the general direction of found art
Or art that’s found me
David Trudel © 2013
Ordinary
Most of our ordinaries aren’t ordinary
When you think about them
When you take away the context of today
Or personal familiarity
Shift your point of view away from privilege
Reconsider commonplace expectations
From alternative perspectives
Like refugee camps or cacao plantations
Where there are scant comforts and no need for glossy ads
Places where it’s ordinary to have nothing
Where the same old means starkness and struggle
Not the ennui of boredom
Where all the ordinaries grow obese
Fattened with empty promises
Spurred on through enhanced consumption of sweet nothings
Until every luxury and remarkable delight loses luster in our clouded sight
Where miracles are hidden in plain view
We don’t see them anymore
We think they’re ordinary
Common, unremarkable, usual
Extraordinary, cloaked by repetition
Extraordinary, masked by tedium
Extraordinary, muffled by a lack of imagination
Most of our ordinaries aren’t ordinary
When you think about them
David Trudel © 2013
Horses At Full Moon
My mind roves
Playing through my consciousness
Like wind through the trees
Sometimes it stops and writes poetry on pine needles
Which fall to earth in turn
Composting into the floor
My mind dances as nervously as paddocked stallions
When the wind gusts warnings of spindizzy
So I am spooked as they are
At dustdevil dervishes that seem to say
Something unhinged approaches
Instead I consider the burgeoning moon
Something full for a change
No emptiness that screams want
Something that hasn’t been starved into submission
A regularity that pulls me into balance
Illuminating darkness with silver radiance
Something to settle my mind on
David Trudel © 2013
Stars
There’s no need to reach for archived stars
Remember that deep beneath your feet
Lies a rumbling starbright furnace
Born from celestial light
Or look into your lover’s eyes
If you really want to experience the spark of divinity
That twinkle is just as worth observing
As historical star data
And is close enough to kiss
David Trudel © 2013
Mortal Forest
The mortality rate for trees in this forest is high
Wind tumbled trees crisscross the living
Or wait patiently at impossible angles for supporters to fold
While others slip into watery rest, undercut by current events
Wind tumbled trees crisscross the living
Everywhere in this forest a feast continues to be served
While others slip into watery rest, undercut by current events
Trees providing the main course or serving up appetizers
Everywhere in this forest a feast continues to be served
Giants brought low by the lowly practicing edible irony
Trees providing the main course or serving up appetizers
Sustainable gluttony on a grand scale
Giants brought low by the lowly practicing edible irony
Growth becomes a seamless death that provides an active rest
Sustainable gluttony on a grand scale
As each particle transcends itself in shared sacrifice
David Trudel © 2013
Simplicity
Not quite empty, in one corner of the room
A low table holds glass teapots and tiny cups
Flanking the door is a small futon chair
A mirror is propped in another corner
Candles provide most of the light
Which gleams off hardwood floors
And unadorned birdshell walls
The simple emptiness creates a calm space
Where it’s easy to breathe freely
In the almost emptiness of simplicity
David Trudel © 2013
Harmonic Balancer
A harmonic balancer is connected to the crankshaft of most engines
To reduce torsional vibrations and to be the pulley for the drive belts
I had never heard of such a thing
Since one had never needed to be replaced on any car of mine
Which is the only way I know about car stuff
By having to pay outlandish bills for parts unknown
I happened to see Bob my neighbor with the hood up
We started talking and he mentioned harmonic balancer
Whoah! WTF
Harmonic balancer made me think of some kind of Tibetan temple
Resonating with the thousand prayers of the robed faithful
I learned it’s true that at certain engine speeds the torque from the cylinders
Becomes synchronized with the vibrations in the crankshaft
Resulting in the phenomenon of resonance
Resonance that the crankshaft can’t withstand
I understand that cranky process
Having had both a marriage and a career suffer harmonic catastrophe
I get the chronic impact of torsion and tension
Of being twisted into an unbalanced state
I know the horror of watching cracks develop
As energy builds up through lack of dissipation
Age, heat, cold, or exposure to oil or chemicals play their part
In the inevitable crankshaft failure
Which can be pretty spectacular
So I am developing my own harmonic balancer
Damping vibrations rhythmically
As I fire on all cylinders, barely resonating at all
Stress free
David Trudel © 2013
Late Twilight
Daylight was sticking around
Like that awkward guy at the party
A little heavy and ponderous
Not very colorful at all
Kind of withdrawn
Encountering the late twilight of early spring is surprising
Like meeting an old girlfriend
Falling for her like before
I’d forgotten how beguiling you are, I’d say
Remembering the quick fade to black of winter
I’ll see you tomorrow then, she’ll smile
It’s a date
David Trudel © 2013
Poetry
One day I woke up
I was in the middle of it
Poetry
A day full of considered beauty
Moments of revelation strung together with wistful threads
Tides of emotion that were just right for body surfing rolled over me
So I rode the breakers into the shore
Transcending the limitations of my heart’s tideline
I looked deep into eyes of others
Saw souls swimming in tears
Watched smiles ripple across rooms
Like the wind ruffling the surface of a calm lake
I was in the middle of it
Everywhere I went was a line worth noting
Each glance brought a fresh word
As easily as plucking apples
In the golden light of the garden of the Hesperides
I stood on mountaintops and leapfrogged over horizons
Breathed honeyed breath of innocents
Felt the embrace of a thousand Juliets
Mourned each passing moment like a tragic death
I was in the middle of it
Poetry
I was awake
David Trudel © 2013
For The Time Being
Just because you’ve been elusive
Hard to get
Doesn’t stop me from imagining you into my head
And after all, according to theoretical physicists
Linear time is an illusion at the end of the beginning
Or the beginning of the end
So if I need a moment’s inspiration
I’ll go skinny dipping in your eyes
Even if I have to wear a blindfold
For the time being
Whoever that is
Not a Tardis riding lord or clockwork automaton
But the embodiment of time
Segment slicer obsessively compulsed with counting
If I could find the time being
I’d ask to jump ahead to the thunderbolt moment
That instant when our eyes lock
And the bolt slides home
In recognition
David Trudel © 2013
Approximations
These are not the right words
Write words
These are just approximations
These are consignment store words
Worn by others and cast away
A little threadbare and faded
The words I’d like to use don’t exist
I need to cut new cloth and stitch them together
But the closest thing to an atelier in my mind
Is memory
So I take the easy way and use these indicators
To proxy my feelings and perceptions
Instead of inventing new words
New language
To transmit the feelings that flow through and over me
Or the look in your eyes when we’re nose to nose
A blink away from eternity
I can’t capture a sunset or a surprise
Not that I’d want the responsibility of taking prisoners
I prefer wild freedoms to careful domesticity
So I use wrong words for write reasons
Approximations of shadows rounded up or down
Calculated words that hold a caricature of truth
Approximations of what I’d like to say
David Trudel © 2013
Vernal EQ
This half measured day calls a timeless tune
Predictable as birthday cake candles
Negative ions dancing in the wind take note
Spinning into and out of control
Tripping over light’s fantastic reascendance
Keeping the quarter note beat
So movingly
In the silence of forever
In our steady state of becoming
Where everything changes inside the sameness
Improvising new riffs within a brilliant arrangement
Even your repulsion is attractive
Within this tethered bondage
David Trudel © 2013
Intimation
I hold this intimation close
So close it’s kept well hidden
Or if not hidden unlikely to be found
A thought that very likely isn’t
But might be
Just a conspiracy of suppositions
Fantasies of transgressions
Unrealized but never unthought
Thoughts to hold
Silently smiling
At unrealized perfection
Fingertips playing contrapuntally
Independent melodies played together
In the midnight light of a held thought
Tracing maybes in the dark
Intertwined fantasies wait patiently
Parked
David Trudel © 2013
Work In Progress
Some nights are more poetic than others
Like tonight
Because I hadn’t checked with my daughter
To see if she was going to see Buddy Wakefield
As I was
But when I parked a block away and found the end of the line of ticket holders
There she was with a few friends
So I fell in
Like the line I wish I’d written
Watching poets and poet lovers
Crowd the sidewalk like it was a Hollywood opening
When, on cue, up comes a disheveled character
Bleary eyed wanderer
Who picked us to stop beside to cease perambulating
Who started orating a tale of psilocybin topsy
Wearing a crown of pussy willows, feathers and broccoli
There used to be a dandelion
He said when questioned
But I ate it
Do you know how many dandelions you should eat each year
A whole fucking lot he said
He told us he was from New York and babbled on
Then said he’d been in prison just recently released
Seemed plausible to me
Then he claimed to be from Trinidad
Which seemed less so but you never know
Until he said he’d just returned from Egypt
And that was the next place we should go
Taking a swig from a bottle of Mighty Milk
Which wasn’t at all milky but everclear
Shining moonbright against the darkening shadows
So when his shadow became too dark to bear
I sent him on another orbit
Which made our wait a little brighter
Until the doors opened on a night of poetry
Spoken word revelry
With the buzz of creation echoing down through starlight
From eternity to now
The now where I have witnessed the slow motion replay
Of the big bang in reverse
Watched creation unwinding through a mind’s eye
Voiced into our consciousness like stone tablets tumbling down a mountain
Creating shards of truth that shatter reality
One small piece at a time
One small peace
Finding small pieces of peace
Amidst cacophonies of language waterfalling
This is just a little of the mist that settled at the bottom
And though I’d like to represent the torrent
I can’t
Except to say
Oh my God
It was Buddy Fucking Wakefield
On fire with words
Living in the moment and dancing the only dance worth putting on shoes for
And it was never just a dance
But a sure footed display of verbosity
Words pulled into fleshly existence
Words that kissed and slapped us on the ass
Words that went in one ear and out to wonder
Words spoken with a lightness that makes gravity a fiction
Some nights are more than just poetic
Some nights stand vertical time on its head
Like tonight where the truth became words
Words inside
Words outside
Colliding and sliding
Into poetry
David Trudel © 2013
Vegas
She had the Vegas of notions
About what she wanted
So she gambled on random
Got a row of lemons
The house always wins
Now she’s part of it
Chipping away at freedom
Calling hit me, hit me
And she cuts and she cuts
But only on the surface
Vegas is so superficial anyway
There’s not a lot of depth to that place
Except in depression
Or small pockets
David Trudel © 2013
Nostalgia
I don’t miss the racism
When I think about the past
Sure I’m nostalgic for the good old days
But they weren’t all good and golden
We taunted everyone back then
Watercooler jokes bit deep
Certain nationalities were pilloried with regularity
Enough to fill a Polish suitcase
And god help the brown skinned
So we would shout paki or camel jockey slurs
Across schoolyards or cafes
Not caring that we cut to the quick with meanspirited ignorance
So blind to our transgressions that we would point fingers
At South Africa or the deep south and decry the bigotry there
Self righteously proclaiming our innocence
Only because an African heritage was rare in our tarnished world
I don’t miss the bad cooking
When the Joy of Cooking was the only book in the kitchen
We boiled and stewed the same plain foods into daily submission
Thinking salt and pepper were the only spices necessary against bland
And if we watched Julia Child with amusement
It would be a rare day that her recipes would end up on the table
I am not nostalgic for the constant smoking
Blue hazed offices where each desk held overflowing ashtrays ad nauseum
And parking lots being used as garbage cans
Drivers upturning car ashtrays into shared space
Cigarette butts a constant presence carpeting our walks
More prevalent than the flowers we couldn’t smell over the stench
I am not nostalgic for misogyny
Which sadly hasn’t gone away entirely
I don’t miss the catcalling taunts or times
When every man or boy felt dutybound to visually strip each female in view
Giving free rein to saddle romping fantasies
Those times when stereotypes were a given and not questioned
I don’t miss the hidden abuse
Open secrets never spoken of
Bruises that flowered unquestioned
Times when silence was permission to continue the violence
I am not nostalgic for pesticides that we sprayed with abandon
Not caring that the green lawns and flower borders
We so blindly protected were an artificial construct of oppression
I don’t miss polyester double knit suits
That never wore out but should have
I don’t miss blue rinsed big hair
Buzzcuts or ducktailed tops
I am not nostalgic for the pain of the repressed
Or laws that forced love into closets
Or into the bloodstained offices of back alley butchers
I don’t miss ignorant hatred
How can I, it still exists
But the next time somebody celebrates forgotten freedoms
Of a golden past
I’ll take up a knife and scratch the gilt off
To expose the brass
David Trudel © 2013
Absinthe
It was small news
Under reported
The EU will no longer require absinthe to contain wormwood
So fans of Rimbaud and Toulouse-Lautrec
You need to come forward and protest
Or at least buy up stockpiles of the real stuff
Like I’ll do
In case I feel a fin de siècle mood coming on
Because if I need a zinc topped table to lean on
As the night travels into timeless
I’ll want the original
Old school cool shit
The ritual
I want the faint echo of the psychedelic that those old poems promise
I don’t want extra ethyl
I want dreams
I want the curls of worms
I want to see the dance of the green fairy
The green fairy naked
I want to write skewed poetry
Illuminate the edge of the crack that splits the glass
Open
I want the mirrorshard of memory
Tinged with the green fuzz of decay
To taste of absinthe
That takes me away
David Trudel © 2013
Bound
I get caught up
Trapped in your lines
Wrapped inside the throwdown
Until I can’t get free
No hope netted
My skin scarred by the rope
Marked as your trophy
But not one you’d ever mount
David Trudel © 2013
Interruption
We interrupt this program to announce
An interruption, please stand by
We interrupt this program to announce
That your 15 minutes of fame has been cancelled
We interrupt this program to announce
Change that isn’t
We interrupt this program to announce
The end of the world, please stand by
Idly
We interrupt this program to announce
That we are really, really sorry about putting this program on the air
We interrupt this program to announce
Something important that we’ve just been told we can’t tell you
So carry on but you might want to pack a bag
We interrupt this program because we can
David Trudel © 2013
Springtime
I really shouldn’t have worn gloves today
By the time I was too far away to go back home
I had to take them off
I stuffed them in my pockets
Dense morning fog left leaves glistening
Emotionally the gloves are off too
As fear and anxiety
And doubt and hate
Tag team me in the uncanvassed ring inside my head
Leaving me with my eyes glistening
As I walked on birdcalls burst through headphones
Reminding me about the real playlist I should be listening to
Instead of these pleasant distractions
Which is what a lot of us end up doing
Creating pleasant distractions of short term pleasures
In our lives of gilded leisure
Which leave us feeling a little guilty
A little hollow
A little unresolved
So I resolve to pay closer attention to strategic arcs
Move purposefully from goal to goal
Within some shapeshifting masterplan
That I’ll get to tomorrow
Now, the air stirs in the warmth of spring
I realize my jacket’s liner is no longer needed
Just the opposite, so I unzip and feel breezekissed
Tasting freshness on the wind
David Trudel © 2013
Feature This
Someday I’ll be the featured poet
Not relegated to cattle calls but given top billing
Even though half the audience will bleed away at the break
Narcissistic preeners who have no interest in anyone who might shatter their self image
So good riddance
The crowd that stays knows quality when they hear it
See it
They’ll table thump and shout out the next line that they’ve learnt from Youtube
Where I’ve gone gangnam viral
I’ll let my words spill over the room like the best orgasm I’ve ever had
There’ll be a roomful of nodding heads
Mouths slackjawed open swallowing every word
While I let the stains soak into sheets of pure white paper
I’ll joke about the last award I never got
Or some festival in an exotic location like Drumheller
Where there was a festschrift to dinosaurs to die for
So I wrote an ode to albertasaurus that reanimated the fossilized remains
Thereby causing the death of a dozen poets and fans
At the point of a sharp toothed grin of a hungry Barney
Who was only penned in by a hundred rhyming couplets
Which refossilized the brute
Then I’d crack open another book and the words will self combust
Singing my lips as they burn ears
Carpet bombing the room with thoughts that might be the child
The child that Rumi would have had with Isadora Duncan
Living model homed on Tralfamadore
In another parallel universe
The next one over from the one where I’m the featured poet
David Trudel © 2013
Ida Nomore
I look into your eyes and see determination
I see courage born of oppression
Of knowing that the worst is only more of the same
And since you’ve taken enough shit for a generation
It’s not exactly child’s play
But it ain’t as bad as giving in
There are no more excuses
No more retreats
When so many backs are walled
A line forms
And damn it
You say, you know what?
Fuck you assholes
If you want to play that way
I’ll take you on
I’ll set the stage
On the granite steps of your monumental edifice
With a lawn chair
A few signs
And time
David Trudel © 2013
First Position
First position
Feet placed just so
Shoulder roll into place
Second position
Third position
The one I like
Slam heel into instep
Into vogued strut
Somewhere in a manila envelope
In one of the dozens of boxes I have yet to sort
Is an eight by ten glossy of me at age four or five
Dance class
Me, black pants (long!)
White shirt with clipped on bow-tie
Surrounded by my leotard harem
Galaxied, I learn some steps
Mostly I’m just watching, transfixed
First position
Feet placed just so
I am apex and omega out-timed
Then second position
At intervals the teacher has us hold
She demonstrates the impossible
Then we do exercises
Easy at first but with each repetition a little harder
But easier than doing nothing
Discovering movement organized into patterns
First position second position
Hold
Hold that thought
Hold that memory
That acceptance of dance as a language
Understanding that fluency is subjective
So when I’m all alone at midnight
I start with the first position
Take it from there
David Trudel © 2013
Grace Notes
My brief visit is a small variation
On your long song
Strictly ornamental but still an embellishment of note
I walk through my days giving and receiving kindness and favors
Feeling my way I seek the presence of the divine within
And the divine within you
I try to understand the purpose of my creation
And which desires are true to my soul
Rejoicing in the morality of kindness
Which becomes the key for self-realization
Unlocking the bonds of mortal karma
To exist in grace
Visiting small graces upon those who need support
A small note added to the symphony of you
David Trudel © 2013
Positively
My friend says I sound upbeat and happy
Assumes that all is well in my world
Which of course it isn’t
But I choose to be positive
Happiness can find its way anywhere
Even into dark corners
Flawed beauty is beauty nonetheless
So I choose rose colored glasses to distort my perception
Positively
David Trudel © 2013
Bohemia
In the real Bohemia
Not the Bohemia of drunken poets
White tailed eagles nest
Above the forests and wetlands
In my Bohemia
We play with words and jests
And yes, there’s some tail to be had
Not so much nesting
In the Bohemia of drunken poets
We make early morning returns to forlorn homes
Those not so wet lands
In the real Bohemia
Reed jungles in artful ponds guard predatory worlds
Recovering from excess civilization
In my Bohemia
We indulge our whims
Give in to desires
Naturally
Call me Bohemian
Naturally
David Trudel © 2013
IED
You are an improvised explosive device
Splattering me to pieces
I am crippled from now on
My mind is blown
Why were you so defensive
I just wanted to love you
You said you’d blow me
I didn’t take you literally
But I should have
Stat
David Trudel © 2013
2Haiku
Tidal pools wait
Waves churning against the rocks
Anticipating
Seagulls slide the wind
Crying hunger into space
Defiant gluttons
David Trudel © 2013
Gerald
He wore shoulder length hair like a proclamation
A rare moment of shorthand
Since he danced the dialectic daily
Using ten words when one would do
Each word multi-syllabic and layered in textured meaning
His leathers were unlettered and non-aligned
Unlike his politics which were both
He rode his bike like it was an Olympic event
Until it became a project
Disassembled on the basement floor
He didn’t believe in ordinary pleasures
So instead of cigarettes he smoked a pipe
Or rather pipes, amassing a collection of Meerschaum wonders
Which he’d fill with coarse cut leaf
Clouding rooms with lofty thoughts burned into the night
Where futures were told and untold
Pasts revealed and concealed
Words flying like flocks of starlings at dusk
Collective swirls of feathered mystery
Avoiding walls with alacrity
Careening through each successive enthusiasm
Full on
And fully there
David Trudel © 2013
Inner Dialogue
I hear scenarios playing in my head
Of conversations with you or without you
Anyone really
Anticipating next encounters
With dialogue that sparkles and dances
But disappears into the dark abyss of that mine called memory
Sometimes I’ll bring something back
A memory of a chance encounter
I rerun the scene editing out the bad bits
Take two, take three
Cues up the inner dialogue again
Then for a second I rewrite history
Imagining futurepasts and might have beens
Instead of the present where reality intrudes to tie my tongue
The present, where my verbal gift is reticence
I try to be in the moment
But not necessarily this one
David Trudel © 2013
Naked
My naked thoughts wear these words loosely
These words aren’t haute couture
They’re jeans and a tee shirt
Covering my imperfections and strengths
My thoughts aren’t tourists
But they travel
Boxed by language
I send them away
Stripping down to nothing
Immodest, shameless and proud
Until I remember Eden and try to cover up
Stitching dissimulations into rags
Weaving barriers against your clarity of sight
I clothe my truth to ease my anxious fears
Obscuring the purity of perfection
With imprecision and misdirection
As language turns clean thoughts to soiled words
David Trudel © 2013
Pendulum
Just when you get all used and comfortable with down
Reverse kicks in
Back up you go
But we’ve all got lots of ups and downs
Going on all at once
Erratically pulling in different directions
When the stars align
Everything is either humming
Or coming apart
David Trudel © 2013
Gifts
Early morning in the gray light of late winter
He wore as many layers of dirt as layers of rags
Carrying his closet on his back
Drinking his breakfast beer
Held back from last night’s attempt at forgetting
Across the desolation of parking lot
Comes the dawn of beauty
Her blond hair radiating sunshine
Eyes blazing solar
She pulls him into orbit
With the gravity of grace
He shuffleruns to her side
She waits, almost alarmed
Not knowing if she should be afraid
Or just surprised
He plucks a fresh daffodil from the median bordering the lot
Hands it to her
” It’s sunny and beautiful, like you. Have a good day hun. Thanks for waiting.”
Returns to his bundled away from home, home
To finish his uptilted breakfast
While she is warmed by his pure gesture
Reminded that cleanliness doesn’t always bespeak of god
We are all just animated mud
And in the shared dirt of this earth
The best gifts are generous thoughts and smiles
David Trudel © 2013
Honestly
My vulnerability is that I’m not strong enough
To expose my weaknesses
I don’t do full frontal poetry
Just let the occasional moon poke through
I don’t write about late night drinking and passing out in the recliner
Or midnight toking when I don’t need another joint
But want an excuse to look at the stars
I don’t write about my precarious finances
Or the precipice I’m skirting
And I certainly don’t write poetry about
The web of relationships that ebb and flow
In my life
My sex life is so boring
That I’d be hard pressed to extract a haiku from that prompt
Five fingers stroking
Seven minutes pleasuring
Five small lonely deaths
I’m not strong enough to remove all my masks
Or tear down all the walls I’ve built to keep you out
My honesty is opaque and measured
I let the world uncover truths or insights that I pass along
Rendered words transforming fact to transfixion
But in all honesty
I’m not
I’m not strong enough to celebrate my flaws
So I question my own authenticity
Wondering about truth
Or if truth is ever fully honest
Wondering about authenticity and phoniness
Would Holden Caulfield, aged and wrinkled
Sneer at me over his walker and call me out
Hey phony, why don’t you write something real for once
He’d say
And I wouldn’t be insulted
Because I’d recognize the truth
In all honesty
David Trudel © 2013
Voices
So many voices singing so many songs
It all gets blurred so I can’t follow along
So many voices singing all at once
Creating a new language of united force
It isn’t always necessary to hear each word
When you feel a beat pulse inside your head
Some sounds will pull you into somewhere else
So many voices singing will open up your ears
To things you’ve never heard before
And let you rearrange your fears
So many voices singing so many songs
Harmonizing as the beat keeps going down
So many voices singing so many songs
Until the songs come down to just one in the end
That song that starts with each first breath
And doesn’t end until the final death
So many voices singing the same song
Listening to each other to follow along
So many voices singing the same song
David Trudel © 2013
Soliloquies
In my mind I plan soliloquies
For potential situations that never quite arise
Inside my head these words resound
Quite brilliantly, as you should know
But it turns out my vision of the future sucks
I build constructs of things that never happen
Populate them with conversations that pop and spark
But in the event, it’s dark
So these words dissolve into the cesspool of my rejections
Providing nothing more than compost
For a future that seems to be impossible
But I keep on thinking
Sometimes dreaming
Of the words I’d like to say to you
Soliloquies and sonnets
Brilliant thoughts and hopeful longings
I dream them through
To the end of true
Waiting for an answer
That isn’t an echo
David Trudel © 2013
Festival
If I was going to describe Victoria’s spoken word festival
I’d start with Missie’s eyes
Happy proud
Pixie bright eyes that see through today
Into a tomorrow of a possibility
Then I’d move on to talk about words made flesh
Words transcendent into moves and movement
I’d mention Mike McGee and his elemental intensity
I’d talk about the merging of ideas
Synchronicity
Recombinant expeditions into the territory called creation
I’d talk about self-sacrifice
Of giving up to get it in
I’d talk about dancing poets
Who flow their limbs into rhythms
Listening to sounds through heart-filtered beats
Abandoning safety and expected
For impulses and muses
Who move tongues and feet
Into the beat
If I was going to describe the festival
I’d speak rapture of the deep
Following signs into the unknown that warn of danger
Because poets like to go there
I’d unmask motivations and hidden delights
I’d describe impermanently perfect performances
Punctuated by fingersnaps and the approbation of crowds
If I was going to describe the festival
I’d end with applause
David Trudel © 2013
Duster
If you find yourself with a bruised and broken heart
Dust it off
With phoenix feathers that rise from ashes
And a far-eyed eagle feather that knows how to soar
Some quail feathers to keep things grounded
And a little timid
Find hummingbird wings that hover and dart delightfully
Seek out a quetzal bird from Mayan jungles and beg
For a tail feather of rare and wondrous beauty
Look for a lyrebird to add its feathered song
Include a feather from the common crow to croak persistently
Add a salt-tinged feather from a glaucus gull
To scream a plaintive cry that warns of more shit to come
Gather your feathers and bind them with sinew
Torn from the corpse of your lost love
Dust off your heart with the promise of magic flights
Dust off your heart with the feathers of the gravity deniers
Let your heart find its way skyward
Where there is no dust to gather
Just the delight of leaving the earth behind
David Trudel © 2013
This Was a Day
This was a day of no poetry
Subterranean randomness
Pondering things that presented out of the whole bloody universe
Into mine
Discovering the hidden hell of an island paradise
Where raped girls are lashed a hundred times
Draining joy from Eden
This was a day when I stared at a blank page
Blankly
This was a day of no poetry
Making nonsense through broken fingertips and deaf ears
This was a day of transitions and intersections
Going to an interview that wasn’t
Which led to poetic disclosure
So poetry hijacked the day
Weaving spoken word wonderment into
Hibiscus tea, steampotting aromatically
As the story of the leaves was written
In a worddance
This was a day of music
Music unleashed
This was a day of primal sound
Troubadour music
Where one singer with one instrument unveils his soul
Inside the shared breath of a small room of friends
New friends all
Because at a house concert the person beside you is a friend
Ipso facto
This was a day when poetry walked
This was a day for muses to laugh
This was a day for poetry to dance
This was a day
This was a day
This was a day like none other
David Trudel © 2013
Blanked
Some days when I stare at the next blank page
All I can think of are tired clichés
Or banal expressions of surface clutter
And then I think of all the misery that plagues us
Or the corruption at the top that keeps us infected
Which leads me to a heavy sigh moment
That sends a chill into my fingers
So I stare out the window and it’s raining
There’s no bright ray of sunshine illuminating the garden
Just like there’s no bright spark of love in my heart
Although it keeps sending out reconnaissance missions
While maintaining a cordon of armed sentries
So that blank page with its high-pitched whine starts to be irritating
I make a false start with ill-chosen words
Check Facebook and like a half dozen memes that friends have posted
Share two of them
I try again and still the page remains blank
I deal a hand of solitaire
I lose
I go to the grocery store
Hoping to find inspiration in the produce aisle
But I don’t
Even an endorphin-stirring workout
Produces sweat but little else
The page stays blank
I pray for inspiration
Nothing comes
So I write about blank pages and frustration
Nothing magical or inspired
But enough to spill a few words
Unblanking the challenge of emptiness
David Trudel © 2013
These Times
These are the days of remembrance
When all the yesterdays run backwards
Unspooling into starlight
These are the times of unclocked hopes
Times of desires and dreams
These moments are singularly fluid as they flow together
Washing over us
Sweeping us up in this unchecked flood
These are the days screaming of terror
Days of torment and torture
Days of lies and betrayals
Nailed with outrage
With the evil of indifference holding the hammer
These are the moments of indecision
When greed pleads to just keep on doing
Nothing
This is the moment of truth
This is the moment of untethered freefall
Plummeting from the edge of nowhere into hard fact
Knowing that an impact of some proportion is imminent
These are the days of chaotic destruction
These are the days of growth and creation
These are the everydays
Timeless times of everything bad and everything good
Running parallel in M.C. Escher mystery loops
These are the moments that get stitched together into patterns
Only to come unraveled and undone
These days are as permanent as a Tibetan sand mandala
Brushed and broomed into a corner
These are the days of remembrance
When all the yesterdays run backwards
Unspooling into starlight
David Trudel © 2013
Paper Boats
Float words like paper boats
Made from yesterday’s newspaper
Stories that carried marvelwords carried away
Gutterbound into a new memory
David Trudel © 2013
Marginalized
Sometimes its good to be in the margins
I like the ambiguity of not being this or that
Black or white
Instead I float in between
In the gray fog of obscurity
Where I can choose to venture into black
Or white
At my own discretion
Of my own volition
Returning to hedged half light
Where positions aren’t fixed
Where compasses swing madly
In uncharted territory
David Trudel © 2013
Between
Between fear and fearlessness
Are universes of untold stories
In the margins between dark and light
Consciousness carves a trail
David Trudel © 2013
Speak
The power of words isn’t fully realized
Until you breathe life into them
Static page bound words are nailed in place
Speak them to set them free
David Trudel © 2013
Word Dancer
Word dancer take flight
Grand jete across the stage
Or tango close to explicit
We will follow your lead
Intrepidly
David Trudel © 2013
Unleavened
Unleavened words never rise
No matter how much they’re kneaded
Or needed
If these words get punched and slapped around
They’ll hang together
Suffering rough justice
Flattened into inedibility
Until they’re broken down
Composted into rich loam
Where fresh thoughts rise anew
David Trudel © 2013
Tomorrow
Tomorrow I will trade mysteries with myths
I will climb mountains that collapse into hills
I will listen to the earth
I will search for new words
I will look for the sayers
Truthspeakers
My ears will be as open as the sky
I’ll be as confused
As my mixed metaphors
But I will make connections
I will pull hearts together
Tomorrow
David Trudel © 2013
Tricky
I pulled into the driveway
Turned off the ignition
Went to get groceries out of the back of the car
A noise startled me
Could the car still be running, I thought
What’s broken now
Reflected in the rear window was the source of my dismay
Low flying raven beating its wings a few feet above my head
I looked up and watched as it settled into a tree across the street
To croak its urgent message
Which went over my head
David Trudel © 2013
Calm
Calm bliss fills my mind
Peaceful tranquility reigns
Until boredom wakes
David Trudel © 2013
Big Bang
We used to have it so together
We were so attracted to each other
We lived, dreamed and co-existed so deliciously close
There was no separation between us
Your moments were my moments
Not that we counted because it wasn’t necessary
You were me and I was you
Until the moment that changed it all
Our timeless love collapsed
There was a new impulse to drive us forward
Repulsion
We flew apart
Getting out of each other’s way at lightspeed
Moving mountains momentously
It was all so strange
Not to be one with you anymore
Familiar stasis replaced with exploration of new dimensions
Still, we flew farther and farther apart
Getting loose
And travelling to the ends of the universe
Travelling to the end of time
Letting you carry your own baggage
Wherever you might be
Because I repulse you
You repulse me
Enough to create a myriad of new worlds
To escape each other in
And our only together is a telescope view
Of that moment
When it blew up
For good
David Trudel © 2013
Stormwalking
I will go stormwalking
Let myself be battered by wind and rain
Dodge wet branches torn loose and slapped to the trail
I will go stormwalking
To feel the power of the elements
Remembering who is in charge
Not some politician wielding a poison pen
But our capacious foster mother
Who is not afraid to rinse mouths
Or apply some discipline
I will go stormwalking
To feel her gentle slap of remonstration
To hear her out
In her own words
David Trudel © 2013
Mean
There’s a part of me that says I should be raging with anger
Hot with indignation at countless depravities
That’s what I get for paying attention to the news
I should be screaming at lawless plunderers
Who litter our world with torn up social contracts
But I don’t
I let myself linger in tranquility
There’s a part of me that says I should find the beauty of the divine
Slip into a timeless moment and uncover a truth
Hold it up for display and cloak it in magnificent words
But I don’t
I search for meaning and discover mean
Mean politics and people
Who sour the well for everyone
Mean spirited time hoarders
Who have closer relationships to fictional TV characters than to family
I discover vindictive revenge that stabs and rips
Jealous meanness that screams if I can’t have it than nobody else can
So I stop searching to return to tranquility
But I can’t find it now
It seems to have been scared off
Which makes me a little angry
David Trudel © 2013
Café
It was his fingernails that caught her attention
Most men have terrible nails
Chewed, nibbled and torn
Stained and dirty
His nails, on a so very other hand,
Were almost perfect as he tapped his iPhone
Although, she thought, not manicured
She noticed that he didn’t wear a ring
Unbidden, a thought entered her mind
His fingers stroking her nipples to attention
Stop it, she ordered herself
With practiced determination and the indifferent ease of an ice queen
She pulled out her own phone and checked her mail
When she looked up she saw that he was looking at her
Or at least at her hands
So she tapped her fingers on the table top and smiled
He held her gaze
Brought his hands together, clasped
Rested his chin on them and smiled back
David Trudel © 2013
Journey – A Triptych
1. North
I fled into the north
Heading to Dawson City to visit Tony’s sister
We had a few hundred dollars and a bag of weed
Journeying in my orange VW Thing
As we drove further north
The car became a curiosity, a rare thing indeed
Pulling conversations from the taciturn
As we watched gasoline prices exceed our imaginations
One night, while there still was night
On the Stewart Cassiar highway
We came around a bend and were stopped by a wall of gravel
That seemed impossibly high and wide
So we began to prepare for a long wait
Got out the Stoned Wheat Thins
Some cheese and a summer sausage
Figuring it was time for sustenance
When the wall was Moses’d
It parted
Bright lights shone cosmically
A D12 dozer was our rod and our staff
Parting the chaos of gravel mounds
With the smooth dexterity of a pastry chef
We followed
Looking more than a little ridiculous to grimy goliaths
Who you just knew only drove trucks
American ones
And probably didn’t eat Stoned anything
We were ejected into the blackness of beyond
Heading straight up the map
Through mountains of gravel
Northward we travelled in unhindered light
To a log cabin on the banks of the Klondike
The driveway was twenty miles long
Shared with wolverines and moose
And if it took time to get there
It was a place to feel at home
Secure in the knowledge that door to door salesmen
Would never bother to knock
We walked the wooden sidewalks of Dawson City
Avoiding the tourist trappings of Diamond Tooth Gerties
We drank sudsy drafts at backstreet bars
With wild eyed seekers
Big city retreaters
One day we impossibly piled a dozen new friends into the car
Drove to the Midnight Dome
Where we shared the last few joints and a pint of rye
Surveying the small outpost in relentless wild
Sensing possibilities beyond the horizon
So we made some possibles happen
Drove the Dempster to Eagle Pass
Where a full moon rose over our rough campsite
Then made way for the northern lights
Dancing starbright with the grace of a Bolshoi ballerina
We whistled them closer until we were covered in magic
Looking out across the arctic circle to the top of the world
We danced across the tundra
Past the dwindling line of pecker poles
Hopping from hippy head to hippy head
Forded icy rivers that ran with the speed of the chased
Rubbed shoulders with grizzlies and the grizzled
Whose independence was declared through the intensity of the gaze
As the summer wore on forest fires raged
Until the plumes crept over the next ridge
And choppers buzzed our lonely cabin
So we walked a few hundred yards up the twenty-mile driveway
Discovered a command centre
Staging ground for firefighters who could always use help
So we signed up and up we went
Commuting to the smoke where we strapped piss pumps to our backs
Grabbed shovels and watched as timbers candled
Hoping for the wind to shift in time for lunch
Since we had never eaten as well as in that rough camp
Or gotten quite so dirty
Blacker than a Welsh coalminer
Soot that found its way through clothes to every inch of untanned skin
To be scrubbed the next week at the metered shower in town
Since the woodstove and hauled Klondike water only barely sluiced
The top layer leaving us a dismal gray
But we made a few bucks and beat the fire back
Flew like warriors in Bell Rangered wonder
Over undulating mysteries
To see the sea of trees saved for another season
A season we wouldn’t experience
But left to the iconoclasts and the lonely
Those who could drift no further
Yet could wield an axe and feed a stove
So when the leaves turned and frost arrived
We turned tail and went south
But a piece of my soul remains buried in the Klondike
Part of the motherlode of the riches of my life
2. Alberta
The first challenge was to fence a quarter section
160 acres
There was a tight budget so that meant recoiling downed wire
Of the fence we were replacing
Pulling staples and hammering flat the salvageable ones
Assessing posts for rot
Turned out that the convertible Thing was a handy platform
Sledgehammer blow by sweaty blow
For driving treasured new tamarack posts securely into the ground
Which we grew intimate with
Since our lodgings turned out to be a teepee
Nestled in the rolling flat lands of northern Alberta
We worked with the last family of a hippy commune
To keep their dream flickering
As we restored the back forty fence
Learnt the rhythms of this sullen prairie
Sacrificed a glade of trees for timbers for a barn
When you peel the bark off trees with drawknives
You can smell their death
Almost an offering in the crisp autumn light
At least we’d like to think so
Then came harvest and stuking the oats
An itinerant thresher arrived like a Rube Goldberg fancy in action
Hay wagons and itches filled dawn to dusk days
Next weekend the old Ukranian farmer from up the road
Oversaw the raising of the barn
He was barely literate
But knew what needed to be done
So did the dozens of others who we’d seen at the gas station
And the diner
Or not at all
But impossibly the walls rose
Chinked into place
And if it wasn’t quite finished by Sunday evening
It was damn near quite enough as we all said
Breaking bread on long trestle tables in the yard
A few days later the vegetarian era ended abruptly
When Ralph, gentle Ralph the pig
A Charlotte’s Web kind of pig
Radiant pig
Met his doom graphically
Tony missed out on some really great meals
So he volunteered to crank the separator during dinner
Until the memory faded
One day a strange car drove up
Full of aboriginal youth
They wanted to check out the teepee
Having never been in one before
We said sure
Brought out whatever offerings we had
Booze and tokes
Which were warmly received
Reciprocated
As we shared the fire and laughter
Drank into a gentle inebriation
We learnt swear words with great delight
When one of our new friends tried to leave
Couldn’t find the door
We laughed
Then we all went outside to piss under the bright stars
Marveling at the moment
A few weeks later I was given a length of two by four
Dropped off at an intersection at some ungodly early hour
Told pay attention, they’ll be here in an hour
Make sure you turn them that way
Use the persuader
Turned out the orange Thing
Or maybe my crazed look
Was enough to turn that herd
I didn’t need to smack some bovine upside the head
Thank Christ, as I remarked
To some farmer who passed me a flask a few minutes later
We learnt the art of waking up cold
Having to build a fire with one arm quickly thrust from down filled warmth
To last night’s drunken pile of kindling which is almost not enough
But desperation is a good teacher
Living in a teepee in northern Alberta
As fall met winter
We met our match
And the prairie winds blew
3. McMurray
We knew we were in trouble
When we couldn’t even get a room at the Heartbreak Hotel
Which wasn’t on lonely street
But we felt lonely enough in the construction dusty hive
By the second day we had jobs
Laying pipe in the tarry clay
A one-armed foreman aimed a ruby-eyed laser down the run
Impressing us with advanced technology
We laboured rough and hard
Drank the nights dry at the Peter Pond hotel
Driving back to camp drunk
I gambled on which of the three bridges swirling in view
Was the real one, and won that bet
When the crew was laid off a couple of weeks later
Nobody panicked
Just got new jobs
In our case working for a masonry outfit
Building a warehouse in the cold
The site was tarp swaddled
Propane heaters roared
Inside it was shirtsleeve warm
Outside the snow came down and ground froze up
We discovered frostbite
Slopped pails of cement up and down scaffolding
Going from furnace to frozen like a menopausal matron
One day as wet snow blanketed everything
I had to hold long lengths of metal trusses for the roof
Perched on a flimsy skyhold
While welders arced the other ends into place
Electrical charges raced across and up my arms
Each jolt a nail driven deep
On weekends we’d drive back to the farm
Remembering the dream of that vestigial commune
In the cold light of a short day
Where tires freeze flat and if you can start the car
The wheels go clunk, clunk, clunk for the first mile or so
In order to start cars on an unwired farm
We learnt the art of placing coffee tins with kerosene soaked rags
Under oilpans and setting them alight
Which left time for a second cup of instant coffee
Which I’d drink while looking out the window
Hoping to not see more orange than I wanted to
As winter deepened the summery convertible became even more of a joke
I’ve known warmer refrigerators in my time
There were snowdrifts on the floor that didn’t melt
Until we hit the Coast
After high-tailing it back home for Christmas
With a few hundred bucks in our jeans
And unaudited revenues of memories made
Whose interest is still compounding
Even today
David Trudel © 2013
Spring
Flag the understory
Adorn long fingered branches like engagement rings
Promising a night to come when they’ll unfurl
Spread out deliciously
Throbbing with the coursing of sap through stem
To recline in the freshness of uncloaked nakedness
David Trudel © 2013
McMurray
We knew we were in trouble
When we couldn’t even get a room at the Heartbreak Hotel
Which wasn’t on lonely street
But we felt lonely enough in the construction dusty hive
By the second day we had jobs
Laying pipe in the sandy clay
A one-armed foreman aimed a ruby-eyed laser down the run
Impressing us with advanced technology
We laboured rough and hard
Drank the nights dry at the Peter Pond hotel
Driving back to camp drunk
I gambled on which of the three bridges swirling in view
Was the real one, and won that bet
When the crew was laid off a couple of weeks later
Nobody panicked
Just got new jobs
In our case working for a masonry outfit
Building a warehouse in the cold
The site was tarp swaddled
Propane heaters roared
Inside it was shirtsleeve warm
Outside the snow came down and ground froze up
We discovered frostbite
Slopped pails of cement up and down scaffolding
Going from furnace to frozen like a menopausal matron
One day as wet snow blanketed everything
I had to hold long lengths of metal trusses for the roof
Perched on a flimsy skyhold
While welders arced the other ends into place
Electrical charges raced across and up my arms
Each jolt a nail driven deep
On weekends we’d drive back to the farm
Remembering the dream of that vestigial commune
In the cold light of a short day
Where tires freeze flat and if you can start the car
The wheels go clunk, clunk, clunk for the first mile or so
In order to start cars on an unwired farm
We learnt the art of placing coffee tins with kerosene soaked rags
Under oilpans and setting them alight
Which left time for a second cup of instant coffee
Which I’d drink while looking out the window
Hoping to not see more orange than I wanted to
As winter deepened the summery convertible became even more of a joke
I’ve known warmer refrigerators in my time
There were snowdrifts on the floor that didn’t melt
Until we hit the Coast
After high-tailing it back home for Christmas
With a few hundred bucks in our jeans
And unaudited revenues of memories made
Whose interest is still compounding
Even today
David Trudel © 2013
Alberta
The first challenge was to fence a quarter section
160 acres
There was a tight budget so that meant recoiling downed wire
Of the fence we were replacing
Pulling staples and hammering flat the salvageable ones
Assessing posts for rot
Turned out that the convertible Thing was a handy platform
Sledgehammer blow by sweaty blow
For driving treasured new tamarack posts securely into the ground
Which we grew intimate with
Since our lodgings turned out to be a teepee
Nestled in the rolling flat lands of northern Alberta
We worked with the last family of a hippy commune
To keep their dream flickering
As we restored the back forty fence
Learnt the rhythms of this sullen prairie
Sacrificed a glade of trees for timbers for a barn
When you peel the bark off with drawknives
You can smell their death
Almost an offering
At least we’d like to think so
Then harvest and stuking the oats
An itinerant thresher like a Rube Goldberg fancy in action
Hay wagons and itches
Next weekend the old Ukranian farmer from up the road
Around a corner
Oversaw the raising of the barn
He was barely literate
But knew what needed to be done
So did the dozens of others who we’d seen at the gas station
And the diner
Or not at all
But impossibly the walls rose
Chinked into place
And if it wasn’t quite finished
It was damn near quite enough as we all said
A few days later the vegetarian era ended abruptly
When Ralph, gentle Ralph the pig
A Charlotte’s Web kind of pig
Radiant pig
Met his doom graphically
Tony missed out on some really great meals
So he volunteered to crank the separator until the memory
Faded
One day a strange car drove up
Full of aboriginal youth
Back in the day it was simply Indians
Whatever
They wanted to check out the teepee
Having never been in one before
We said sure
Brought out whatever offerings we had
Booze and tokes
Which were warmly received
Reciprocated
As we shared the fire and laughter
Drank into a gentle inebriation
We learnt swear words with great delight
When one of our new friends tried to leave
Couldn’t find the door
We laughed
Then we all went outside to piss under the bright stars
Marveling at the moment
A few weeks later I was given a length of two by four
Dropped off at an intersection at some ungodly early hour
Told pay attention, they’ll be here in an hour
Make sure you turn them that way
Use the persuader
Turned out the orange Thing
Or maybe my crazed look
Was enough to turn that herd
I didn’t need to smack some bovine upside the head
Thank Christ, as I remarked
To some farmer who passed me a flask a few minutes later
We learnt the art of waking up cold
Having to build a fire with one arm quickly thrust from down filled warmth
To last night’s drunken pile of kindling which is almost not enough
But desperation is a good teacher
Living in a teepee in northern Alberta
As fall met winter
We met our match
As the prairie winds blew
David Trudel © 2013
Separation Anxiety
I pat my pocket and discover emptiness
Anxious panic takes off like worried pigeons
When I realize I left my phone at home
With a wry smile I laugh at myself for this modern disorder
Separation anxiety for a missing smartphone
The pigeons return
When I revel in the brief freedom of disconnection
David Trudel © 2013
North
I fled into the north
Heading to Dawson City to visit Tony’s sister
We had a few hundred dollars and a bag of weed
Journeying in my orange VW Thing
As we drove further north
The car became a curiosity, a rare thing indeed
Pulling conversations from the taciturn
As we watched gasoline prices exceed our imaginations
One night, while there still was night
On the Stewart Cassiar highway
We came around a bend and were stopped by a wall of gravel
That seemed impossibly high and wide
So we began to prepare for a long wait
Got out the Stoned Wheat Thins
Some cheese and a summer sausage
Figuring it was time for sustenance
When the wall was Moses’d
It parted
Bright lights shone cosmically
A D12 dozer was our rod and our staff
Parting the chaos of gravel mounds
With the smooth dexterity of a pastry chef
We followed
Looking more than a little ridiculous to grimy goliaths
Who you just knew only drove trucks
American ones
And probably didn’t eat Stoned anything
We were ejected into the blackness of beyond
Heading straight up the map
Through mountains of gravel
Northward we travelled in unhindered light
To a log cabin on the banks of the Klondike
The driveway was twenty miles long
Shared with wolverines and moose
And if it took time to get there
It was a place to feel at home
Secure in the knowledge that door to door salesmen
Would never bother to knock
We walked the wooden sidewalks of Dawson City
Avoiding the tourist trappings of Diamond Tooth Gerties
We drank sudsy drafts at backstreet bars
With wild eyed seekers
Big city retreaters
One day we impossibly piled a dozen new friends into the car
Drove to the Midnight Dome
Where we shared the last few joints and a pint of rye
Surveying the small outpost in relentless wild
Sensing possibilities beyond the horizon
So we made some possibles happen
Drove the Dempster to Eagle Pass
Where a full moon rose over our rough campsite
Then made way for the northern lights
Dancing starbright with the grace of a Bolshoi ballerina
We whistled them closer until we were covered in magic
Looking out across the arctic circle to the top of the world
We danced across the tundra
Past the dwindling line of pecker poles
Hopping from hippy head to hippy head
Forded icy rivers that ran with the speed of the chased
Rubbed shoulders with grizzlies and the grizzled
Whose independence was declared through the intensity of the gaze
As the summer wore on forest fires raged
Until the plumes crept over the next ridge
And choppers buzzed our lonely cabin
So we walked a few hundred yards up the twenty mile driveway
Discovered a command centre
Staging ground for firefighters who could always use help
So we signed up and up we went
Commuting to the smoke where we strapped piss pumps to our backs
Grabbed shovels and watched as timbers candled
Hoping for the wind to shift in time for lunch
Since we had never eaten as well as in that rough camp
Or gotten quite so dirty
Blacker than a Welsh coalminer
Soot that found its way through clothes to every inch of untanned skin
To be scrubbed the next week at the metered shower in town
Since the woodstove and hauled Klondike water only barely sluiced
The top layer leaving us a dismal gray
But we made a few bucks and beat the fire back
Flew like warriors in Bell Rangered wonder
Over undulating mysteries
To see the sea of trees saved for another season
A season we wouldn’t experience
But left to the iconoclasts and the lonely
Those who could drift no further
Yet could wield an axe and feed a stove
So when the leaves turned and frost arrived
We turned tail and went south
But a piece of my soul remains buried in the Klondike
Part of the motherlode of the riches of my life
David Trudel © 2013
I’m Human
Anguish of regret
Hot flame of anger
Wistful envy
Depressive melancholy
Bitter resentment
I can’t avoid them
I’m human
So I let them wash over me
Even as I realize they’re unfounded feelings
I find myself right in the middle of them
I know they’re hollow
Insubstantial
Transitory learned responses to patterned inputs
If I wait a while I’ll laugh them off
For now, though
I remain pissed off
On edge
Out of sorts
I’m human
David Trudel © 2013
Working Out
It isn’t work
Rarely is it outside
Leisure in is a more accurate description
For my sessions on my home gym
As my strength grows
I get addicted to the endorphin rush
So maybe leisure in isn’t quite it either
Pleasuring falls closer to the mark
Just as misleading
Since if I started to talk about one hour pleasuring sessions
Well, you’d shake your head in wonder or disgust
So I’m happy if you’ll appreciate my flat abs flatly
That aren’t worked out or pleasured
But I won’t really care
I’ll just exercise
At my leisure
David Trudel © 2013
Tall Time
Linear time runs on different scales
Seemingly different to ants and tortoises
Humans are too busy to listen to creaking firs and cedars
Moaning their long dirges over centuries
The rocks themselves
Compressed fire locked into form
Spellbound for millennia
Eventually even they’ll be broken
On the universal scale
Each single sound ever uttered on this earth
Is inconsequential
Collectively, all our sounds, all our prayers
Each heartfelt plea
Each scream in the dark
The droning bores of the banal and mundane
Squeals of delight
Laughter in starlight
Exhortations of nations
And all the music ever played
Collectively barely muster a microscopic chirp
Hardly audible to the heavens
Transitory
Passing so quickly that the meaning of it all is lost
Except for a proclamation of presence
No matter how ephemeral
We’re here
David Trudel © 2013
Ocean Wind
Breezes fresh off the ocean
Cleanse my breath
Bringing with them a faint whiff of pineapple
Hints of cinnamon and spices
Only an echo of killing field turmoil
A guilty sniff of garbage gyre
If there is radioactive particulate matter still lingering from Fukushima
I don’t want to know
I’d prefer to think that evaporation and condensation
Across thousands of miles of ocean
Has restored innocence to the wind
But this wind doesn’t blush anymore
Having been stripped and torn asunder too many times to tell
I share each breath with all of humanity
All creatures
All living things
Breathing in
Breathing out
Recycling this invisible presence
Neither clean nor original but vital
So I fill my lungs with the belches and farts
Of a busy world
I breathe the last heavy sigh of nameless saints
Swallow the screams of the terrified
Smell fragrances of the forgotten rotting
Take in the essence of timeless past
Formless future
Exhaling into tomorrow
Invisibly connected to forever
David Trudel © 2013
Haiku
Cantering inland
Spirit horses crest the shore
Ocean ghosts sky ride
David Trudel © 2013
Evidence
If I felt you move
It was an illusion
Because you stay rooted in your convictions
Regardless of evidence
You accepted a belief
That you cling to and proclaim
Regardless of evidence
You need to reinforce your belief
So you shout louder
So that the truth is heard
And if the truth is suspect
You figure loud volume will overcome that flaw
Regardless of evidence
Because there are so many others
Who fall inline
Regardless of evidence
Because the truth isn’t free
But it continues to be released
Regardless of evidence
David Trudel © 2013
My Words
My words are fragile as periwinkle stalks
Snapping apart when I grab them
My words are bubbles of gas that ascend from depths
To burst upon the revelation of surface plane
My words are leaves in the canopy I see overhead
Until they desiccate and float back down to earth
My words are proxies for the vote I’ve yet to make
Signed over in a blind trust to otherness
My words shuffle, stumble and fall
Homeless as the crazy-eyed binner that no one stares at directly
My words approach but never quite arrive
Never make it past the lobby to where they aren’t authorized
My words feed vending machines like a handful of change
Dispensing instant gratification if the price is right
My words are signposts to a destination
A mapless place positioned beyond terrestrial coordinates
My words are a journey and a joy
Carrying their burdens in a caravan of mystery
My words are just words like anyone’s
Trying to get the mind’s inside outside for once
My words are everything and nothing
Emblematic and ephemeral as graffiti in a back alley
David Trudel © 2013
Triplet
Candy my ears now
With sweet nothings I can’t hear
To forget the rest
Hold my hand in yours
Letting your touch sustain me
A light pull forward
Forgive my blackness
Absence of light a canvas
For coloured feelings
David Trudel © 2013
Valentine
If you will be my valentine
We can chase circuses in India
In the hopes of finding
A little elephant with very big ears
So that when he finally takes flight
You and I won’t panic or cower
But will give the little guy a standing O
If you will be my valentine
We can search out brassy steampunk apparel or make our own
Embellished with creative flair and panache
To wear cruising Europe’s inland waterways
Where we’ll dance on a stone terrace at moonlit midnight
To the echo of a string quartet across the lake
We could discover the magic we’ve been seeking
There will be no conquering, just mutual surrender
Not to one another but to love
If you will be my valentine
We can travel by passenger train to nowhere places
Where we’ll simply turn around
To have more time
Listening to plaintive whistles
Pullman coached swaying to rhythms
As old as the landscape rolling by
If you will be my valentine
We can discover each other
Like arctic explorers or interstellar missions
Or like finding a novel you’ve always meant to read
But never did before
If you will be my valentine
There will be magic
David Trudel © 2013
Trains
I was three years old
The end of the age of trains
Even though nobody knew
I wore an engineers cap
Striped overalls
Was the darling of the porters
Who knew the mysteries of transformation
Changing open windowed couch vistas
Into halled havens
Later
Along trackside curves
We belly watched as our coppers were flattened
Spat out from heaving rounders
The best were the ones you could still read
Barely, slightly curved
Then came the panorama car
Drifting at speed through mountain passes
Or through interminable prairies
Grain elevators
So many
Who knew?
Throughout it all
Whistle
Plaintive and unavoidable
Annunciation and warning
Get the hell out of dodge cause we ain’t slowing down
Kind of whistle
Imagining the cowcatcher
Which is long since gone
Fulfilling its function
Smells of train
Unique
Shuttered steam diesel
Unwashed flesh
Rich odiferous narrowness
While the images flash by
Of a country ignoring itself
David Trudel © 2013
Reading
I used to read incessantly
I’d feel anxious if I didn’t have a book on the go
And the next one on the shelf
I read James Joyce to work out a few kinks
Pynchon extended my reach
Russian novels frustrated and compelled
Proust flummoxed
Asimov and Heinlein soared
And I lived for an eternity in 100 years of solitude
Reading the usual suspects
Genre by genre
Historical fiction
Post modern lit
Remaindered bargains from Alice Munro’s ex
I was libroholic
Until I started blogging
Writing my own words
Hunting for fruits of inspiration
Thinking from here
Not there
David Trudel © 2013
Letter to the Editor
Your eyes flash starbright
Intent with interest
Open to something new
Or happy with familiar old
Observing the scene with a practiced literacy
Crowdreading
Pairs recombine into clusters
Then break up into singletons
Your eyes read past the headlines
Into the backstories
Carried by this mainstream flesh press
A broadsheet of humanity
Edited by fate
Published by reality
Freely available on any streetcorner
David Trudel © 2013
Ten
Ten things I’m not
Bitter
Confused
In love
Waiting
Apprehensive
Sad
Anxious
Hung up
Obsessed
Yours
David Trudel © 2013
Pablo Neruda
Green pebble rounded by Andean ascent
Rolls the sky open
Convinced by the rightness of the left
Thorned champion of homeland torn asunder
Rolls the sky open
Diplomatic as a pouch
Thorned champion of homeland torn asunder
Fractious as a harsh critic with a crisp deadline
Diplomatic as a pouch
With a reputation as big as a flag
Fractious as a harsh critic with a crisp deadline
When counter-revolution comes CIAing with gunports blazing
With a reputation as big as a flag
No wonder that extreme malnutrition is a dubious demise
When counter-revolution comes CIAing with gunports blazing
At least he was spared an Icarus swift kick out the helicopter door
No wonder that extreme malnutrition is a dubious demise
Convinced by the rightness of the left
At least he was spared an Icarus swift kick out the helicopter door
Green pebble rounded by Andean ascent
David Trudel © 2013
Thoughts
These thoughts conspire to enslave me
Shackles jangling in the heated open square where we are mustered
I plead the fifth
Seek succor from the beneficence of power’s contrition
Which is withheld
So I stand freely
In fear and without fear
Compuctionless
Become neutral as Switzerland
And just as cuckoo
Marching with precision
To a dénouement of epic proportions
Waiting for the action/reaction
The moment when the chemicals collide
To create a new device
Synthesizing a new reality
Freely given
David Trudel © 2013
Politics
Elusive illusions evade us
Uncatchable proxies of muddled truths and fractured facts
Each face a mask
Each word a misdirection
Lies piled upon lies
Questions answered with nonsense bluster
Political correctness redefined as skillful manipulation of the masses
Apparently this is called democracy
A paragon, worth fighting for
At least in mythic paradigm of popular belief
But if these are our representatives
Elected, chosen and selected
Then we must all be inveterate liars with bad manners
If at all
Fueled by anger and bitterness
Ready to cheat and maximize wealth
With no regard for anyone else
Since that’s the mirror held up to us
A sad reflection of tattered truth
In this tyranny of mean
David Trudel © 2013
Reservoir Call
Mystery memories curl in upon themselves
Pulling tethered thoughts loose
Balloons that catch your eye up close
Than catch the wind to be lifted up
Away
There’s enough sky to wonder at clouds and worlds beyond
So it’s a springboard dive into reservoirs of inspiration
Where clarion calls trumpet and entreat
Where horizons dissolve into imagination
In a vertical moment
Where past, present and future make a strategic alliance
Truth prevails as inexorably as an icesheet scouring mountains
Revealing mystery’s dark shadows and unforeseen twists
David Trudel © 2013
Where I Sit
Boxed chaos surrounds me
Each one its own Pandora
So I weigh them down in flurries of poetry
Heady words scribed in leadfoot apprehension
In this high tech cloister
Where brilliant photons blaze universal truths
Electrically humming a nameless song
Warding off chaos for one more moment
David Trudel © 2013
Feral
In my feral youth
I prowled unleashed
Climbed trees the size of skyscrapers
If a branch snapped I’d grab another on the way down
Not caring about the gravity of the situation
Rules only applied until we were out of sight
Property was a vague concept trumped by finder’s keepers
We weren’t afraid to use our fists in my feral youth
Trading body blows and hammerlocks fearlessly
We wore black eyes and fat lips instead of bling
In the summer I’d walk barefoot
Tom Sawyering along the riverbank
Sliding into swimming holes like bright eyed otters
Letting water run off my back in the sun
While the clean breeze of those innocent days
Was all the towel required
In my feral youth play was never supervised
Since that wouldn’t be play
Instead we’d stretch envelopes and deconstruct boxes
Aim our bows at clouds instead of targets
Playing chicken when the arrows plunged back from dot to danger
Prohibitions became challenges
Spot quizzes
So we’d incinerate aerosol cans for explosive delight
Steal cigarettes to smoke in treehouses
Pepper our conversations with salty wit
We bent, folded and mutilated
Rooted for underdogs
Cheered the counterculture
Waited expectantly for the revolution
Playing three chord rock songs on tinny transistor radios
Knowing that our moment was here
Oysterworld ripe
David Trudel © 2013
Toes
She paints each toenail glossy red
Creating ruby jewels in extreme
Even now, midwinter
When there’ll be no open-toed sandals to display these charms
She tells herself it’s for me
But deep inside she knows it’s for him
The one she waits for
The man who will look into her eyes
And see through heavy winter shoes to say I love your toes
Who will cradle each foot in his hands
Raise the high arched instep to his lips to kiss
While fingering each bright carapace with tender care
Playing digital delights on a journey that begins with a single step
And continues follicle by follicle to map her world
Exploring beyond boundaries into eternity
Then returning to treasure troved toes
To nibble and caress
And she anticipates the frisson of his tongue gliding over polished toes
The pull of his mouth
Warm enough to melt lonely lacquered layers
Curling her toes dangerously
Until the polish runs like lava
An eruption, a release
Foundational intimacy
Toe to toe
David Trudel © 2013
Revelations
There are those fleeting thoughts that come to you
Brilliant and timeless
Tapped in to the divine spark of creation
They flare like fireworks exploding
And you can’t turn away
So they fade
You know you had them
For an instant
Eternal and timeless revelations of truth
Ephemeral as the bubbles in a flute of champagne
And just as heady
When you try to recall
Exactitudes of complex mysteries
Collapse ensues
Choose your metaphor at this point
Of a house collapsing
Could be cards or sand
You know there’s going to be a lot of dust
Any attempt to apply pressure causes an explosion
All that’s left is the sum of the parts
But not the equation
So there is no proof
You know you had them for an instant
Revelations and truth
David Trudel © 2013
Finding Hope
Despair captures me
Throws me into detention
A dark place where what little hope remains
Drains from me, drop by drop
I see visions of the apocalypse
Hear wailing cries of tortured lost souls
I choke on the bitter smoke of burnt treasures
I lose hope completely
As angry swarms of ignorant haters stomp innocents with misplaced beliefs
Choosing rigid false assumptions and crazed suppositions as rules
This is our world
Where we give up on hope
To revel in hate
Where injustice and corruption rule with iron fist finality
But a moonbeam finds a fissure to creep into my cell
A silvery signal that reminds me that hope is never lost
Just misplaced
So I try the door
It’s unlocked
I open it and regain my freedom
Freedom to choose hope and lose despair
Freedom to believe that love is always around the corner
I dress myself in optimism and wear a smile as my fashion accessory
Nothing detains me from finding hope
David Trudel © 2013
Desert Blossoms
Your kisses fall
Like rain in the desert
I flower
Each blossom a testament
To love
David Trudel © 2013
Eagle
It came into view through the last wisps of fog
Then disappeared and must have wheeled
Because now it’s drifting obliquely and giving us the eye
Before slipping away
Winged blessing
Over this angular space where we share the air
Called by drums and elders
Circling, I see unity
Songs of power and healing radiate warmth
A small boy gives me a red felt feather that I pin to my jacket
Everyone is smiling
When the dancing begins the eagle returns
In spirit
The breath of the chanters flies up
Out of the cloistered square into the timeless sky
Reclaiming the echoes that reverberate to longhouses lost
Circling, I see pride
Beautiful regalia worn with serious grace
Shared resolve winding through us all
As the drums pull dancers into song hearts
Spirit moves
Smiles fly across the crowd
On eagle feathers
David Trudel © 2013
Indelible
There is no reliable marker to calculate the half-life of your affection
Which dissipates like a soft breath in a hurricane
There is no way to measure the forever of never
Or to calibrate calipers that demonstrate the depth of nothing
There is no form for the formless
There is no more normal in this bedlam
Where words wound deeper than paper cuts
And bleed your love like ancient surgeons opening veins
Until it stops
Until it stops
Leaving you chalkwhite
A blank page calling for a scribble
By a reliable marker
Indelible
David Trudel © 2013
Friday Afternoon
Nothing smells like a Friday afternoon
The cusp between work and recline
When responsibility hands it off to freedom
And leaves rustle from collective exhalation of sighs
Of relief
Followed by a deep intake of anticipation
A tendril of woodsmoke on the wind
Stirs campfire memories and Fridays that meant camping out
Putting up the tent in the dark
Half cut, saying don’t worry we’ll fix it in the morning
Or Fridays that smelled like the cornerstore
Stepping through the door to sugared treasures
Your allowance in your pocket and it smells like a promise
Because Friday afternoons smell promising
And if the rewards are sometimes stingy
There’s still the next Friday afternoon
To win that lottery
Nothing smells like a Friday afternoon
When you’ve been paid and you’re finally ahead
Even the grocery store is more fragrant on a Friday
And Friday afternoon smells like getting ready for a date
Hunters and prey precociously preening
Waiting for the race to begin
On a Friday afternoon that smells like hope
Smiling at the audacity of limitless expectations of promise
So breathe deeply on Friday afternoons
Inhale the scent
Let it fill you with happiness
Nothing smells like a Friday afternoon
David Trudel © 2013
Stereo Types
Unexpected incongruities keep me smiling
I was at an anarchist bookstore fundraiser
Expecting the music to match the stereotypes
Black leathers and body piercings
Plaid flannel workshirts that never quite cover all of the tattoos
Or the hair, spilling out or down or over
Anarchists, my kind of crowd
Enthusiastic counter-culture rebels
Whose fashion sense lies somewhere between goth and steampunk
So when the show opened with bluegrass banjo
It felt discordant
But the crowd enthused and stomped along
And when the next chanteuse launched into Dixieland
And rolled up river to sing the blues like Lady Day
I had to smile as the loud girls behind me roared their applause
For gentle ballads of gracious peace
And I realized my assumptions were just that
Stereotypes are always incomplete
My expectation of the night’s music had been punked
Smiling, I roared my applause
David Trudel © 2013
Unsaid
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
Early Blossoms
You dreamt me awake
I didn’t bother to dream
But I was bothered
Not dreaming
Looking for the first blossom
Worried about frost
A change in the weather
Dreaming
Awash in blossoms
Not bothered at all
No longer dreaming
Watching blossoms
Delicately
Later, I’ll dream
Of you
David Trudel © 2013
Furrows
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
Aquarium
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
Diet
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
Dirge
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
Indig Nation
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
Victoria Idle No More
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
Moon
Through a tunnel of gnarled branches garlanded with moss
She reveals herself
I am startled by the beauty of this tunnel vision
Fulsome goddess of the night
Waxing towards the full wolf moon
When the howls of the hungry grow sharp and ready to bite
Into the deepening dusk
She wears the washed out blue of the wintry sky like a holy mantle
As the dusky blue fades into graying shades
Each shadow on the distant surface grows crisp
Up, up she rises
Ascending her arc to balance the pull of those pinprick stars
And in that balance exert her own pull
On tides and blood and mood
Counting each repetition with predictable precision
Never late
Her face is clear and never needs makeup
So she doesn’t linger but glides with stately grace
Across the panoply of space
Reflecting the benediction of the sun
More than mirror she is balance
And unbalance
Beacon for lovers and the lost
Timemarking
Celestial calendar that needs no illustrations or mortal numbers
Dependable as tomorrow
Full of promises
Night’s goddess
David Trudel © 2013
Revelation
There is no revelation for me today
No cosmic insight
No intercession by celestial angels
Just another breath to take
One more step along the way
And if I pause to ponder
Maybe its just prevarication
Some kind of hesitation
Or simply procrastination
Which is a specialty of mine
I readily admit to
But I’m more of a generalist
Than a high paid specialist
So maybe this lack of inspiration
Just means I need a second opinion
Because my diagnosis is ambiguous
And clouded by imprecision
Since revelations continue to unwind
Just not here, in my lonely little mind
David Trudel © 2013
Unravel
Which thread is the one to worry loose
Then to pull until it all unravels
This fabric called life but meaning the familiar way
What we accept as ordinary
Even as we rationalize insanity
And trade hollow promises for forlorn hope
Surrendering time and trouble for bread and fishes
Giving up our own volition for the cold comfort of diversion
Misdirections and distractions meant to cloud and obfuscate
While we allow the pristine walls around our hearts to be tagged
With epithets of rancid hate scrawled past midnight by the delirious crowd
Whipped into a frenzy by the rhetoric of false prophets
Spewing fire and brimstone fears
Barking with bared teeth to corral us all
Or nip at our exposed flanks and heels to send us into the feedlot chute
Where we’ll be nailed and if you aren’t cross
Then you don’t understand the sacrifice
That we are all making by attrition and submission
To the nightmare dream of unholy fences
That perverts the promise of paradise
Into ordinary insanity that we call reality
So find a loose thread on the straitjacket to pull
Give it a yank and lets watch everything unspool
David Trudel © 2013
Sacred Mysteries
The sacred mysteries of my life are not found in churches
Or in the holy books of churches
Not even ivory ivied towers of reasoned thought suffice
To hold my mysteries
My mysteries are not concrete objects to be pinned down like rare butterflies
Instead they are ineluctable treasures
Skies painted with sunset hues
A lover’s gaze
The synchronicity of coincidence
Soaring chords of scintillating majesty
Warm touches
Smiles in the face of adversity
Joy
Trust
Kindness
Love
These are the mysteries I hold sacred
And if I don’t understand them completely or at all
It doesn’t matter
They are complete without my inadequate analysis
Tarnishing the brassy sheen of their beauty
So I accept them with wonder and delight
David Trudel © 2013
Sirens
Sirens scream their warnings today
Victims on route to hospital
First responders making time
Emerging tragedies and tales yet untold
But there are no ambulances for broken hearts
No police reports for stolen affection
No tow trucks here
To haul your sorry ass out of the ditch you were dumped into
But there’s always self-expression
Another poem to bind the gaping wound
Where your heart was ripped out of your chest
Or to act as a bandage for the minor lacerations of daily life
Poet, heal thyself
David Trudel © 2013
92
92
92
92 in 7
You’re 3rd up in the zone 92
When I drove cab it was radio dispatched
We lived as much in our imaginations as we could
Given the vivid reality of big city streets
Cabs were large and powerful
Built to pack passengers in on sagging bench seats
I’d cruise through traffic in downtown streets
Like a shark knifing through the waters of a coral reef
92 away south
92
Away south Vickie
Click click click
Gotcha 92
When I drove cab it became a confessional
People would open up and spill their guts
Tell me things they’d done that would leave me shocked
Until the crazies piled up so much I became unshockable
So when a dominatrix had her leashed and leathered slave
Cower on the floor
On all fours
All the way to the ‘burbs
I barely batted an eye
But couldn’t help arching an eyebrow
When she made him pee like a dog on a shrub outside their door
As I was recording the fare on the tripsheet
Every day, every night was an adventure
When I drove cab
David Trudel © 2013
Florence
Relentlessly, her voice powers up and down arpeggios and scales
Like a Lambo on the autobahn or a Tesla on full charge
Providing some inner warmth
Against a thin winter’s day insipid chill
Bolstered by plucked accompaniment
Warm as a wainscoted room filled with all of Jane Austin’s heroines
Harps are evocative that way
Contrapuntal to fluid crescendos
A spring tonic of her golden voice powers synapses to fire
Making it easy to climb on for a velvet ride
A smile lights up my face
But my ears are burning
In a conflagration of auditory delight
David Trudel © 2013
Dance
I dance in the dark
Lifting unseen feet from solid ground
To conspire with spirits with souls unbound
I dance alone
Or in a crowd
It hardly matters anyway
My music sings and calls to me
When I stumble and step on toes
I wander off to catch my breath
Regain composure and find the beat
Soon I’m back up on my feet
With a rhythm pulsing in my veins
That sings to me and calls your name
I swim the light fantastic floor
Carrying on like nevermore
So I dance the night into the day
Like Orpheus summoning the break of dawn
I dance the darkness into light
And then dance lightly towards the night
David Trudel © 2013
Curves
Ideals are always hard to live up to
Our mainstream ideal of womanhood is a false construct
Dreamt up by gay fashion designers in Paris, London and Rome
Who like the skinny hips of adolescent boys better than voluptuous curves
So they starve the girls into scraped and angled versions of an unreachable vision
And photoshop the images into Barbie doll perfection
Leaving countless women in despair
Because they have hips that are real
Shapes that are round and soft
Curves that flow
Breasts that function and nurture and don’t just titillate
So let’s celebrate the curves of real women
Who aren’t molded in plastic
And whose reality needs no airbrushing
Because real women are eternal
And ideal
David Trudel © 2013
Silence
No response
I wonder what it means
Which is a dangerous thing to do
Since there is an infinity of wrong answers to choose from
And I usually read too much into a silence
Or too little
Imagining the worst or missing the negative cues
Silence
Sometimes its frosty, cold as a shoulder turned away at midnight
Or just an absence of attention
A quiet acceptance of a moment of contemplation
But usually it’s just another lesson in patience
A question waiting to find an answer in a vacuum
And what I don’t hear
Is lost in translation
David Trudel © 2013
Normal
Somewhere between the depths of despondency
And the soaring heights of elation
You might find tranquility
If you are lucky
But normal is a moving target
Never centered between two convenient brackets
Normal can be marginalized
Into an extreme position
Often is
Sometimes normal needs a shakeup
Or even deletion
Better to experience momentary distress
Moving past familiar habits
Into a new beginning
Where nothing is normal
Except tranquility
David Trudel © 2013
Sports
Team sports
Televised and professionalized
Block voting
Mobs
Patriotism to the extreme
Allegiance, the scariest word ever
Waves
In Rome the factions were divided by color
For chariots
Or gladiators
And tangled in webs of corruption
Palatine Hill politics being as venal and sexualized then
As today
But what it comes down to
Is a great distraction
Emotional attachments to essentially nothing more than displays of uncommon skill
Microsecond reactions
Which help us forget the reign of terror
Absolutely
Lurking outside
At the gates
Which have started to shudder
David Trudel © 2013
Reading
The Tarot card reader looks disappointed
My brief show of interest is only that
Brief, and just a show
Since I have no intention of being read
I turn to go
She looks lonely and I briefly reconsider
But I don’t want to be influenced by the limitations of that deck
I want all my possible futures left unchecked
So I go
Moments later I find the room where the workshops take place
This one is a Group Auric Reading and Healing
As I find a chair the clairvoyant smiles at me
I meet her with a smile in return
She tells me I have a special energy
Thanks, don’t we all?
I say, trying to be polite
And with a conspiratorial glance we admit
We know most people never uncover theirs
And that’s fine, so we smile again and I settle into my seat
But this group has enough power
To light up the multi-dimensional space around us
In layers that are peeled back
With insightful observations that are pointedly personal
And generally general
Specific and vague and mysterious and true
So when its time to go
Its with gratitude and affirmation
Cosmically aware of infinity
And all its limitations
And mine too
David Trudel © 2013
Words
We had words
Big words
Words with sharp consonants
And barbed hooks that tear the soft flesh out of your throat
Words that fly out of your mouth and circle overhead like seagulls
Who feast on binscraps and bombard sidewalkers with unwelcome splats
Words
We had words
Eye popping vein throbbing temperature rising words
Words that ricochet against the walls of your closed mind
Like the deathlead heat of a thousand rounds
We had words
Words that are furyflung and meant to wound
Words that don’t listen for responses
Carpet bombs that blow any semblance of conversation into smithereens
Words that thrust and parry
Pointed words that slip deep into unarmoured flesh aiming for the heart
We had words all right
But it’s not all
And it certainly isn’t right
Those words were poisoned
Toxic words
Words that initiate chronic conditions
Flesh eating words
Whose wounds grow larger instead of smaller
Never scabbing over with the promise of a new thin skin
But become suppurating angry ulcers
And the only treatment is amputation or exile
So just saying that we had words
Is a little like saying a gang banged rape victim had sex
Those words had us when we had them
Because sometimes words do become flesh
Bleeding, infected, painful and mortified
And if I could take them back I would
And maybe it would have been better to cover my ears
Walk away in retreat
But we had words
David Trudel © 2013
Dolly
Heaven and hell co-exist
Here
Wherever that might be
True enough for me over the years
In both regards
But in a swirl of blackening balance
My pristine esthetic ambience
Has been visited by the dark side
Evil stalks even these charmed streets
Where a few blocks away
A miniature farm with miniature horses
That by daylight delights the drivers by
Was sadly vandalized by night
Terrorized
Leaving the broken body of a beautiful Falabella
Caramel and white pinto named China Doll
Dolly, as she was called
Only 75 centimeters tall at the shoulders
Fours years old
Broken into, literally
Left broken to die in the dark
No cause for panic, say the police
Who continue to investigate
But if not panic, how about grief, horror, disgust
Dismay
At this too close reminder
That as much as this earth can be a paradise
It has every layer of hell and then some
Around the next corner
David Trudel © 2013
Circus
She’ll wear sequined tights and a spandex body suit
Flying overhead to perch on next to nothing
And if there is a nugget of fear that sticks in her throat
The crowd will never see past the smile
That defies gravity
Or maybe she’ll canter ringwise
Standing bentkneed on thundering rumps
Whose flashing hooves punctuate the roar of the crowd
And promise danger in the offing
When she runs away to join the circus
All bets are off
But the grand parade might just live up to its promise
David Trudel © 2013
Slow and Easy
Slow is not always easy
Being a measured suppression of an instinctual rush
Slow requires attention
An analysis of action
Breaking down steps that turn to stumbles with hesitation
Worrying a natural sequence of fluidity into uncoordinated jerks
So if you want me slow
Forgive me for being a jerk
Who finds it hard to flow with the slow but goes down easy
And if I stumble down the steps of indecision
Lend me a hand to help me up, slowly
That’ll be attention enough
So hold me slowly and I’ll forget to rush
Until slow becomes vertical
And time ceases to have dominion
Sliced like specimens to be viewed under a microscope
Instead turning into crystal clear waters of creativity
Flowing wherever it needs to go
With unmeasured speed
So let’s take the easy way out
Not worrying about limits or conventions or expectations
But trusting instincts that flow naturally not slowly
Easing into the future
Easily
David Trudel © 2013
Uncommon Currency
My treasures aren’t vaulted
Or counted as numbers on a spreadsheet
My bills of exchange have simple denominations
Smile
Hug
Kiss
Love
My riches come in crystal moments of cosmic clarity
As varied as the combinations of clouds that dance overhead
Countless as the petals in a meadow full of wildflowers
Unique as a sunset
I don’t need advisors or bankers or traders to manage my riches
There are no substitutes or imaginary representations
To clutter the treasury of my heart
No hedge funds to make hostile takeovers of friendships
But I do pay interest for interest’s sake
And I’ve found that the more I share and give away this wealth
The more I get returned
Accumulating credit that buys nothing but happiness
Exempt from taxes and oblivious to thieves
David Trudel © 2013
Oasis
It’s not easy to believe in an oasis over the next dune
Miraged as I’ve been
Exposed to elemental forces
Burned
Relentlessly optimistic
I picture an aquifer beneath these parched sands
Cool water slumbering in the dark
Welling up and over the desert
And if it’s not this dune
It’ll be the next
David Trudel © 2013
Mirrors
Literalists find metaphors uncomfortable
Challenging mismatched images
Unable to see nuanced shimmers of halfway truths
Sadly frustrated by surreal representations of imagination
Hyperrealism is what they crave
Black and white
Honest transparency
Simplicity
Mirrored reflections of reality
But my reality is skewed and oblique
My mirrors were stolen from a midway’s funhouse
Making the fat thin and the thin fat
What you see is not what you get
And it turns out that life is so complex
Complicated
Mysterious
Weird, even
So in order to sneak up on a truth or a perception
A little gentle deception is a benediction
Bending life’s reflections around dark corners
Twisting truth into a Möbius strip
A single edge and a lonely surface
Masquerading as infinity
David Trudel © 2013
Cold Truth
Cold winter stars
Overhead
Each sparkle a stab of frost
Into any crevice of your inadequate clothing
Incipient hypothermia but a slight discomfort
Inconsequential
Faced with such clarity
So many points of light
Gossamer webs and shreds of nebulae
Yet all so very antique
Ancient light, a message from beginnings
You try to absorb as much as you can
Feel the star particles
Anticipate
Imagine what the view must be of the rest of the sky
From the other side of the planet
Cold bites your fingertips
Brings focus
Micromacro zooming through metaphysical choices
Alternative realities
Nested universes
Infinity
Revelation shimmers in the night
The cold truth
David Trudel © 2013
Curves
Curves lead into new directions
Bending the road
Cambered so the rain runs off
But you don’t
Accelerating into the corner
At speed
Each new view
Brings a new intention
And a reminder of limitations
Checked freedoms
Constrained choice
Infinity reduced to the obvious
Black and white as lane markings on asphalt
David Trudel © 2013
Image by the author
Crows
Murderous crows crowd the air
But in my diligent restraint
I watch the street and not the sky
Even though that’s where my interests lie
When I chance to look again
Murder has been reduced to an assault of crows
Winging it away on the wind
Until not even an insult remains
David Trudel © 2013
War
There’s a war going on
All over the country
There’s a war going on
But it ain’t been declared
And if you want to see who’s fighting
You got to follow the money
See who’s paying the freight and who’s running scared
There’s a war going on
Even though you don’t hear it
But check out the food banks and the cold city streets
For collateral damage and the bandaged feet
Look in the doorways of the closed up shops
For the huddled bundled bodies of the forgotten lost
There’s a war going on
Where we fight with words
In courthouse chambers and legislatures
We write in the papers and the magazines
Right against left, no in-between
This war of words rages
Stretched out on all fronts
There’s a war going on
We’ve dug these deep trenches
And laid landmines across no man’s land
And there’s no mediation
No sign of peace talks
Just smokescreens and camouflage
And the bombs that get dropped
There’s a war going on
And its mean and its nasty
It’s all about ownership and resource extraction
Distribution of riches and wealth untold
The few get the most
The most get the shaft
Devil take the hindmost
So better watch your back
David Trudel © 2013
Alchemy
The call punches the air
Announces its presence with authority
Challenging, forcefully saying I’m here
I have power
But its also a calling out
Imploring
She raises the conch to her lips again
Transforms gentle breath
Into clarion cries
Letting the notes linger and fade
Waiting for a distant response
Or simply waving to sister islands
To the north and south
Thrust like a spear across timeless miles
To echo in those places
That have heard its song
David Trudel © 2013
Repaired
We make these perfect objects
Precious works of art
That we treasure so much
We lock them away in the dark
Punishing their very beauty
With our fear
Seeking stasis and permanence
Forgetting to enjoy each moment
Mistrusting the inspiration that led to their creation
We build our perfect lives
Living up to expectations and borrowed dreams
Until the facade crumbles
Under the tension
Shattering illusions and exposing faultlines
So unseen
The broken chards of my life
Are soldered together with golden moments
When hands reach out to pull me up
When smiles come my way
Held together with hugs and kisses
Melted in the passion of love’s endurance
I am repaired
Not restored to a Platonic ideal of perfection
But celebrating my flaws by illuminating the cracks
Letting the light shine through them
To sparkle in your eyes
Through the beauty of reflection
David Trudel © 2013
Page
This page was empty
Blank
Now I spread letters like confetti
Combined into words and phrases
Hard to clean up
But a decorative flourish
To mark a passage or
A radiant thought
A humble idea
An insight
But sometimes confetti isn’t tossed into the air
But placed quietly into a pocket
To be found later, inconveniently
Startling the hand
But raising a smile
Briefly
David Trudel © 2013
Stream
Called trail
Wait long enough
Water arrives
Trail transforms into stream
Bubbling
Bubbling
Thick Pacific raindrops
Hammer winter’s tattered canopy
Waiting
Waiting
For the tipping point
This woodland watercourse
Flows freely
But not deeply
Think of the relationship
Between trees
Earth
Water
Air
Once again
Words well up
With each reflection
David Trudel © 2013
Images by the author
Coffee
I used to love the aroma of it
Waiting in line to buy exotic beans
Pungent shocks as orders were ground
Transformed into a floating miasma of awake
That was Galloway’s on Robsonstrasse
In the seventies
After buying a book at Duthies
A small price for a talk with Binkie and the intelligentsia
I’d head up the block for Joe to go
And while Galloway’s was a cornucopia of epicurean delight
Coffee was the smell that drew you in and
Followed you out
I used to wake up and have my breakfast
Coffee and a cigarette, ahh
Looking out at the frosted peaks of the north shore
Two rituals intertwined
Acquisition
Preparation
Inhalation
Consumption
And I was satiated for a moment
Then it became mundane
Drip
Drip
Drip
Until it was made over
Went upscale
Something to measure and judge
Baristas with followings
Ethical beans
Fairtraded
Coffee consciousness with layers
I thought I was a lifer
I used to love the aroma of it
But
One day
I woke up
Forgot the coffee
Only smelled the roses
And another day
Realized I didn’t miss it
Hadn’t had a cup for weeks
Love ends
Even for coffee
Grounds for divorce
David Trudel © 2013
Huna Chant
Resonating with reverence
Primal sounds fill this blank space
Candlelit
Calm
Evokes an invocation
Of the moment of creation
We build vowel moments
Harmonizing
Together and apart
Present in this timespace
Sensing reverberations of the timeless
Connecting vertically
And in the wave
Each repetition building a pattern
Like ephemeral lines in the sand
Ha
Ha
Ha
Love encompasses
Ha
Breathing is a portal to goodness
Ha
Goodness pervades
Ha
Through the years, unthreatened
Ha
Basking in everpresent love, forever
Ha
David Trudel © 2013
Unlearn
Some lessons need unlearning
Like today’s headlines
“Man arrested for killing grandmother in argument over which TV show to watch”
I’d start there with the unlearning
Then there are the tyrants who blandly prevaricate
Red herring stories planted to mislead and inflame
Resource extraction replacing the language of environmental disaster
But not the consequences
I need to unlearn the lesson of false love
Mendacious half-truths costumed in a rented gown
Love’s hope giving it the big lie
Let’s unlearn fear
And give up our personal arsenals
Put aside the rage built of hatefilled passion
Unlearn the buttons that push blanket responses
Unlearn the herd
And learn to think independently for a change
Based on evidence, not conjecture and assumption
Unlearn the acceptance of the status quo
Unlearn unchecked consumption
Unlearn the lessons of the lost and damned
Unlearn the sad truths of despair
Unlearn oppression
Unlearn exploitation
Some lessons need unlearning
David Trudel © 2013
Idle No More
Ripples of rage spread from bridge to bridge
Flashmobs round dance to drums and chants
Enough, come the cries
From the mothers and aunts and brothers and sons
Enough, say the many
Enough say the dismayed
Taking away treaty rights by bullyboy tactics
Is one place to draw the line
Delisting protected lakes and rivers is another
Ramming it through in an omnibus bill
One more
But there are others
Like broken promises and dirty tricks
Payouts to the few
Kicking the down and out becoming routine
In the rush to sell out to the highest bidder
So there are lines being laid
Feet and fingers no longer idle
Led by leaderless first peoples
Supported by sympathizers
Here
There
Everywhere
Spreading like a toxic oil spill in a pristine valley
Just as hard to clean up
So they’ll try some softsoap platitudes
But eventually
It’s all about adjusting attitudes
So hold your meetings
But don’t hold your breath
Results and outcomes must be seen
Not more hollow wiggle words from wormtongued weasels
Elected or not
This country, this place, these places
Are not yours to subdivide
We, the people say no
Economic interests are transitory
Harmful and dangerous to the land
Priceless land
So back off, Jack
Back down and get real
Try some democracy
Try some justice
Try some honesty
For a change
David Trudel © 2013
Unwinter
Grey gyred swathes of heavy weather slowspin
Pulling pineapple breaths
Up
Into coastal mountains
Pushing back winter
Just barely
But enough
David Trudel © 2013
Uptown
What were they thinking calling the new mall Uptown?
There’s nothing up about it
The Wal-martians who frequent the anchor
Are certainly not upscale
Looking at them stuff carts with under-priced blood stained merch
Is a downer
Not an upper
Guilty glances betray those bargain hunters with a conscious
The politics of retail are real and failed
And we know it
Implicitly
Every discounted dollar
A lash of the whip in some unseen factory
Every price rollback paid for by exploited staff
Supply chains rattle with recriminations
But the cash registers rattle and roll
Chirping and chiming the victory of commerce
And if this big box delivers a body blow to the moms and pops
We turn our heads
With a bland justification of the family budget
No courage and no convictions
In this cold temple of consumerism
David Trudel © 2013
Space
Somewhere between the ideal
And real
Lies an interpretation
Revealed
But no more than a mask
Illusory
Fractional
Controlled
Influenced by externalities
Set up in advance
Spun quite intentionally
Reality found wanting
Facts, whatever that means,
bear a second look
Or third
Since my fact isn’t yours or yours mine
And between the real
And the ideal
There is a lot of empty space
Space, the final frontier
Space, to stretch out
Space, lebensraum
Snap, snap, snap
Spaced, out
Space
David Trudel © 2013
For Susan
She uses so few words
To say so much
Her verbal dexterity
Is as precise as a gymnast
Defying gravity with a flourish
Creatively observing each object
And every action and inaction
Rhyme, reason and contradiction
With the insight of the ages
Sculpting verbal works of art
That should be cast in bronze
Or chiseled from Carraran quarries
By some modern Michaelangelo
But instead
Even better
Her words are winged electric
Appearing wherever they need to
Now
And now
And now
To you
David Trudel © 2013
Baker
There is this volcanic peak that dominates the view
For a hundred miles
A pyramid of stone and ice
Solid as the rock I’m standing on
Which isn’t really
Since this hill is a nub of its former self
Ground down and scoured by sheets of ice
Even Mount Baker, the dormant icon
Is cooking up trouble
For this thin mantle
A fragile crust which will be torn apart
And furies unleashed, hard rock to be melted once again
And the swollen fires of the underworld will flow
Unchecked by any vain defense
When the spoon stirs the pot
Run
David Trudel © 2013
Urq
I was going to write a self-confessional piece
Something along the lines of needing to add a new middle name
Unrequited
Or maybe just adopting that as a sobriquet
Like gentlemen in years past tacking on the appellation
Esquire to their names
And like esq, it could be shortened to urq
But then I decided that would be too fucking depressing
Exactly
So I didn’t
And I won’t
Because there’s always tonight or tomorrow
And hope is an old friend
Who springs up
Over and over
Like a demented jack-in-the-box
But it makes me smile every time
And if I smile I feel better
So I do
And I will
David Trudel © 2013
Bruised
Where did this hematoma come from?
A discolored map of past pain
Painted on my inner thigh
No errant blow from a lover’s kneecap
Since my monastic cell is never visited
Yet I don’t recall a sharp blow
A slam that crushed capillaries
Flooding soft tissues with my unleashed blood
But it happened, evidently
I wonder what other bruises I carry, unknowingly
The ones that aren’t out in the open
Because I’ve been slammed and set upon
Roughed up and worked over
If I could peer into my chest
My heart is no doubt multi-hued
Black and blue and fading into yellowed inattention
My soul, scarred and in need of a fresh dressing
Badges of past battles
Medals pinned into my flesh
Even my bones are cobbled together with plates and pins
Holding me up to fight again
So I strap on my metaphorical sword
And go forward into this ever-present fray
Risking the harm that comes my way
To raise my voice and rejoin the battle of the everyday
David Trudel © 2013
Sky
In my shameless vanity I stand up to challenge the night
Cloudless, for once unmasked
Unhidden during a celestial event
Early night conspires to lessen the glimmer
While I scan for lightstreaks and shimmers
Obliquely
Peripherally
Using the same non sense as when you look for sprites and shades
Wisps
Delicate traceries vanish backwards into infinity
I try to read the constellations
But I’m illiterate
Yet intrigued by this notion
Of looking into the deepest past to foretell the future
Such charmed illogic
Is quantum proof of time’s synchronicity
So I wave at the night
Connect and disconnect to a million myriads of stars and portents
One more vain speck
Alone in the universe
David Trudel © 2013
Fog
Slipping into and out of this dream
Stateless
Where reality bleeds into fantasy
Like fog on the water when the margins disappear
Gray on gray
My consciousness is that ambiguous
In this non-moment
One drop that neither falls nor ascends
Holding the promise of the universe
An ocean within a realization
Waiting for gravity or perhaps evaporation
For a moment of transcendence
From discretion to completion
From point to pointless
To oneness with everything
In this stateless dream
Where the margins disappear
Along with the horizons
And there is no other place to look
Except within
David Trudel © 2013
Workout
Endorphins swim to the beat of a forgotten playlist
I don’t remember putting these tunes together
But they work
Backbeats and all
Contraction followed by release
Working out the kinks in my soft tissues
Repetitively drumming home this impulse
For improvement
Firmly
Resolutely, yet nothing new but the order
David Trudel © 2013
Odometer
Watching the odometer click over to a new start
An arbitrary point in time
But well-placed and rooted in the deepest past
Twelve times twelve ages have marked the sun’s ascension
From here dark begins its slow retreat
It doesn’t matter what number we tag it with
It hardly matters to this flying rock
With an exploding heart
Whose love runs like magma down its cheeks
This revolution in the extreme
This celestial flight we all share
Doesn’t pause for formalities
Never dressed to the nines
It rolls on down the road
Inexorably, to nought
But tonight I sense a newness
Thin and tender as the skin of my heart
Something tantalizing
Indescribable
Just around the corner
Worth waiting to watch the odometer click over
Just to savour the apprehension and anticipation
One more time
As one year passes
Into another
David Trudel © 2012
Ode to Gabi
Goodness gracious
Is an apt description for my rare friend
Who cares for others as if we are all family
So I call her sister, happily
She relates to so many and so much
Not content with keystroke comments
She stands up and stands out
For freedom and justice and nature
A warrior spirit with a gentle touch
Ready to support a righteous cause
Generously
Or party past midnight until the Honeyjack is gone
Straight shooting, from the lip and the hip
Always making connections from her heart to ours
A heart holding many songs
An ear listening for new sounds
Graciously and good
Unbowed, with the courage of her convictions
And a smile that lights up the darkest day
Never just a face in a crowd
My uncommon friend is rare and earthy
More than worthy of these few words of honest praise
David Trudel © 2012
Tonight
Tonight I slip between the shadows
A mere shade moving quietly between the trees
Inhaling the forest rot, the fecund stench of nature
Transforming into yet another iteration
Raw and real
The sharp slap of winter’s hand
Wakes me from my slumber
As I climb towards the heights
Overhead the nearfull moon rips through the tattered clouds
Canyons of translucent possibility
Revolving over an axis
Some vast whirlpool of wind
Cracking its whip
And I listen to the hums and murmurs of the city
Sirens and traffic
Wind in the trees
Against the backdrop of the silence of eternity
Illuminated by opaque cloudbanks
I wonder at the grand design
Grateful for this moment of serenity
David Trudel © 2012
Father of the Bride
Supporting cast roles are good to have
In this over dramatized life
Where I get grabbed and shaken plenty enough as lead
So I gladly relinquish center stage
To be the third spear chucker on the right
For this occasion
This ceremonial passage of public commitment
A name changing game changer for my little girl grown
Barely out of the nest but wanting her own
Time compresses these moments
Then releases them
To float like balloons into clear skies overhead
Where the horizon is limitless and unbound
As two dreams crystallize into a single one
So I wait in the shadows, in the wings
For the cue to step onstage and throw that spear
Adding one small dramatic moment to the ritual dance
Called marriage
David Trudel © 2012
Solo Christmas
This is for the homes of the alones
The lost and lonely and bereft
Still mourning in their Sunday best
Or lounging in their worst attire
Whatever
Details aren’t as important as simply being solo
Hermits and rustics
The quirky and the mean
Fearful or fearsome
Many paths lead to this singularity
Homes where festive décor becomes a minimalist vestige
And the former glory remains in boxes in the dark
In the homes of the alones
Christmas creeps in and out of view
Never quite hitting the high notes
Or shining as brightly as those lost years
When doors banged and music poured down the stairs
Into a swirl of anticipatory frenzy
Lives twirling in choreographed ritual
So that each golden moment glowed with the magic collectively conjured
Not like now
When there is no more Christmas morning creep
When the few gifts under the miniature tree
Hold no mystery
And no matter where you go for Christmas Dinner
The silence of the morning
Flattens the rest of the day
David Trudel © 2012
Cankle Socks
I wandered into Walmart
Was suckered by the cheap socks
They looked like dressy black ankle socks
But since I got them home
Their sagging nature
Has convinced me they were mislabeled
And should have been sold as cankle socks
But you get what you pay for
Really
David Trudel © 2012
Ceremony
No Saturnalia for me, this hinged moment
Fringed with nostalgia
Hollowed by regret
The cold flagstones of vaulted transepts
Cool any thoughts of libidinous excess
While ethereal voices march in measured unison
Through scented air
Chaliced genuflections rumble the room
In the midst of chaos
Of doomed cries
Rivers of tears
We seek the comfort of redemptive ceremony
Even if it’s only half as much as we need
It’s a step
Forward, in the right direction
And in this muffled peace
I find a place to dream my prayer
And release it
To the heavens
David Trudel © 2012
Binary Code
It isn’t always black and white
It isn’t absolutely wrong or right
Binary thinkers get it so wrong
It isn’t just yes and no
Open and shut
In or out
Reality is so much more complex
There’s a lot of space between the lines
Space that gets pretty cloudy now and then
Gray and shadowy
And there are other numerals besides zero and one
Waiting to be factored in
So look for inspiration in the compromise of the unjudged
Where angels dance en pointe
And in the anarchy of a freed mind
Moving between ideas like butterflies on a honeysuckle vine
Without getting hung up on them
David Trudel © 2012
Cuh
cuh
cuh
cuh
cuh
could be anything, you think
Om
Om
Om
Om
Om mani padme hum
Po
Po
PoPo
Po you, po me po you po me
Po you
Po me
Zshur
Zshur
Zshur
Zshur
Composure
Composure
Composure
Composter
Calm poseur
Commie poster
.com boaster
calmed boater
Comp hoser
Composer
Come closer
Come closer
Come closer
Come closer
Help me find it
It
It
IT
Point me in the right direction
Or left
Just help me find it
I’ve lost my composure
David Trudel © 2012
Falling
Now this world comes into view
Below
Fast rising
And I realize I was falling
WTF
Holy fucking shit
Where did this come from
I thought I was dreaming
Now I’m screwedNo hands reach out for mine
I have no parachute
So I’ll tuck and roll at the last moment
Hope for the best
Flying to rest in gravity’s embrace
David Trudel © 2012
Winter Solstice
In this place the rocks can talk
Eroded and fuzzed with lichen and moss
They live in slow motion
Groaning their conversations across the ages
They don’t waste time on pleasantries
When you find the right pool of water
On a day like the solstice
A little reflecting can go a long way
If the light of the sun hits the oblique just so
If your mind relaxes and stops its chattering
A little reflection is good for the soul
Looking deep into the shallow pool
This teardrop lets you find a way into the rock
If you can manage to not quite look
Perhaps a vision might be seen
And if you listen very slow
Slower still
You’ll hear the murmur deep below
And if you can step between the cracks
You might just start to change
Become a different kind of bird
In a shadowland absurd
David Trudel © 2012 Images by the author
Dark Solstice
This darkened day
Limps into the light
Barely illuminating the gloom’s respite
But still, this is no harbinger of doom
No era ending kibosh on us all
Still here, still keeping on
We wait for tomorrow’s promise
Of the evermore and early dawn
As this day pivots on its quarter pole
Releasing the passing of this dark passage
Through space and time
To climb once more into the light
One step forward
One foot dragging
But moving out of shaded gloom
Into the comfort of the sun’s delight
David Trudel © 2012
Back
I hold myself back
Don’t approach my raw and private feelings
Like some poets who bleed their lives through their pens
Some topics scare me away
Too personal
Too embarrassing
Too vulnerable
I don’t want to share my personal hygiene moments with a crowd
But I have no fear of hospital wards
And being one groaning voice in a babel of painful moans
But no, I hold myself in
Not allowing the reins to drop
I chew the bit between my teeth
Still haltered to my expectations
And beliefs
I want to shake this loose
Self-censorship, restraint and fear
Fear that I’ll offend and overstep
Fear that I’ll drive you away
Through over exposure to my personal passion play
But at the end
Honestly
It really is about myself
What I feel
What I see
How to communicate my world to yours
Is the question
Its bound to be conflicted and incomplete
A brilliant imperfection
No matter what words I choose to paint a landscape of my souls intention
The reality is
It will always be a misdirection
And I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to expand
Beyond impressionism
But I have this brush
I have this hand
And even now I lift it up
Set tip to canvas with one bold stroke
Another attempt
Another try
Another reason
Or one more joke
David Trudel © 2012
Chimes
Christmas shopping is no party
At least there doesn’t seem to be any dancing in these grim line-ups
Lots of chimes at the till
A festive ringing marking the triumph of crass
While worried hands search for emergency credit cards in cracked wallets
To add more debtload
More stuff we don’t really want to buy
But do, feeling obligated
Even though these gifts will be forgotten soon enough
It’s a wrap
David Trudel © 2012
Grey
This day dawns grey
Gets greyer instead of lightening up
Wave after wave of evaporated lagoons
Tropical surf
Ocean swells
Reconstituted Pacific rain
Crash against this distant shore
Rattling windows
Eroding my equanimity
A harbinger of imminent collapse
Apocalyptic catharsis waiting in the wings
Expectantly
David Trudel © 2012
Frost
On the hilltop swampy puddles are setting up icily
Overhead a crescent moon hooks my eye
By morning a transformation has occurred and crystalline wonders carpet trails
But as beautiful as hoar frost is
Its somehow satisfying
Laying Doc Martins crunch down
Hardstep by hardstep
For now its nightcalm
Stormwaiting
Cold as a lonely walk down a country road hauling four bags of groceries in the rain
So I don’t linger over the view
Or watch the swirlclouds paint the wind
But the troubles I carried up here to cast away
Trail along
Follow me
Until they overcloak me once again
Another layer of clothing for my soul
Under the cold crescent light of a winters night
At least they’re some insulation
David Trudel © 2012
Space Between
In my cosmology
Brilliant lights of countless stars
Are far surpassed by infinity’s black emptiness
Velvet backdrop for a color popping canvas
Contrasting depth to lights pure brilliance
And like the sky I see above
My life has vast stretches of emptiness
Blackness
Against which shines those starcrossed moments
The supernovas
Big bangs
Celestial events
But really I am much more familiar with the space between the moments
The lonely purview of a lost soul cast adrift
In a silent vacuum coldly floating randomly
A dark thought in a dark place
Unsparked and alone
David Trudel © 2012
Place of the Hole in the Clouds
Place of the Hole in the Clouds
Is what they used to call part of this place
Back before colonization
And what we foolishly call civilization
When camas meadows spread inward from the shore
Uninterrupted by asphalt, all of us and more
When the aural landscape was a symphony
Of wind and wave
Instead of cars and people’s electronic chatter
Place of the Hole in the Clouds
This appellation still holds true
Now called Fairfield, its space above
Is still a pivot point for clouds
And from my not too distant hill
Shafts of blue and golden hue
Split the gray curtain of the storm
Opening a window into heaven’s face
And if I look with second sight
What wonders I will see!
But as I’m focusing my gaze
Clouds close in, my vision fades
Now it’s just an ordinary day
David Trudel © 2012
Flat
I’ll be your towtruck driver baby
Change your flats and keep you well pumped up
With the breath your beauty takes away from me
Gladly giving a mighty blow to reinflate your leaky wheel
If you ever hit a ditch
I’ll hook you up and pull you free
If you need a mechanic
I’ll pop your hood
Lubricate those hidden parts
Keep everything greased and running smoothly
Change your plugs and belts and hoses
When they need it
Each visit includes a 37 point inspection
It’ll only take a moment
To keep you running smoothly
And your engine purring
David Trudel (c) 2012
Monk
In my solitary singularity
I am like a monk but my church
Is deconstructed
Its liturgy is limitless and lost
I follow no one
In my solitary singularity
Hermitlike, I inhabit my cave
Having one sided conversations with truth
Never winning arguments with silence
It’s ideal
But lonely
In my solitary singularity
David Trudel © 2012
Unbroken
This mare is skittish
Mistrustful of fences and ropes
She prefers to gallop with her colts
In the back forty meadow
Outpacing the wind, wildly
Her admirers wait
Fence watching
Lined up
Where she’ll saunter by
Taking an apple or a carrot
At her pleasure
But mindful that they have saddles and bridles
Waiting in those dusty pick-ups
I wait in the shadows
Beyond the rest
I offer sugared words
And carry no lariats
I wear no spurs
I have no saddle
Besides, I prefer her back bare
And if the price to ride with her
Is to bear her weight on top of mine
I’ll do it, with gusto
Hooves and all
Carrying on to the ends of the earth
Where noble Pegasus will lift a wing
To send us skyward
To be remade into a brilliant constellation
Shining brightly in the night sky
David Trudel © 2012
Wind
One hundred feet overhead the trees are dancing
Their branches sing against the rise and fall of windgusts
Down below its almost calm
Spiced with the apprehension of falling branches
Then sliver winds find their way through the forest to the floor
Dancing coldslaps in the dark to me
Ascending, shadowed treewall thins out
Unfettered zephyrs chase across the hilltop
In the ragged light of squall cloud shudders
Reflecting muted misted city lights
Winds roil and blow
Creating a new hymn of change
In this tattered night
David Trudel © 2012
Primal
We used to howl in the forest
Primal screams resounding through muffled groves
Always a little restrained though
Never quite agonized enough
Knowing that we didn’t fit the profile
But liking the release
Echoing misinterpretations of gestalt therapy
To justify the caterwauls
Being there, then
Now, burdened by my own cruel truths
A bottomless bellow might be cathartic
But the tranquility of a forest
Brings its own grace notes to my listening heart
So I simply listen and bow my head
To the murmur of the trees instead
David Trudel © 2012
Lone Eagle
Lone eagle soars
Half hidden from view
Grey clouds as rumpled, damp and tossed
As the bedclothes after a 37 minute moment
Lone eagle soars
Dis and re
Appearing
I wonder if eagles experience loneliness
Do they find contentment in solitude?
What are the passions that rule their eaglehearts?
Predation, the hunting drive must be one
But their method seems so desultory
Passionless
Simply soaring playfully, at best
Yet when the prey is zeroed in
The dive begins
Talons extend
And while I’ve never heard them cry
They must, at times, call out in glee
As they strike and take a life
Fins, feathers, fur
It hardly matters
It’s all fuel for the wing
David Trudel © 2012
Timeless
A million years seems like a long time
For mortals
Yet in the Timeless Valley time twists
Turns in on itself
Becomes unraveled
Irrelevant to the magic of merged souls
Pulled into orbit from across celestial horizons
Not into a collision but a reinvention of the world
Transcendence to the sublime
No more waiting, outside of time
David Trudel © 2012
Moments
You say you have your moments
I agree
Mostly you see your life as mundane
Boring, even
Of course I don’t agree
Since I find value in the small
Beauty in the commonplace
I treasure quiet moments
Genuine living beats phony glamour in my estimation
Yet you say you have your moments
Your one percent times
37 minutes of white hot passion
Full frontal intensity
Making memories for eternity
Unbridled, you gallop as fast as the wind
As carelessly as a twister barreling across the plains
Ravaging everything beneath you, savagely
In the 38th minute you start to apologize
For the violence of your passion
But I press my finger to your lips
Pull you to me
This moment is a jeweled treasure
I say, softly
This moment is one I’ll always remember
This moment is brilliant cut
Sparkling
You are my diamond, adamant
This moment is forever
This moment can’t be traded
This moment is one to hold on to
Like you
David Trudel © 2012
Which Words
I don’t know which words to use
I’m afraid I’ll blunder
Say something wrong
Or come across as blowing thunder
To undermine this sense of wonder
But just knowing that you care for me
Is reward enough, it’s all I need
I just want to gain your love
And live up to your dreams of me
Dreamgirl, you are something else
When I see you my heart melts
I just want to be with you
Hold you close and closer still
I just want to be with you
But I don’t know the words to use
To convince you that my love is real
So I’ll just leave it up to you
To call the shots and take us through
To where we once and future passed
Embracing passion with a love that’s true
David Trudel © 2012
Random Killings
Desperate people inflamed by hate
Ruled by frustrated passion
Resenting all they see
So they grab a gun or maybe three
Take aim at others, randomly
Inflicting pain, inflicting death
Spreading chain reactions
Of deepest misery and vengefulness
And the commentators will wring their hands
And go on to say it’s not the guns
And it sure ain’t us
The hateful bile we offer up is just for fun
So when we say that its time to aim
We don’t really mean it
It’s just a game
But clearly things are going wrong
Hot lead flying in schoolyards
And all to make a specious point
About free speech and hate and fear
Underlined in blood
And drenched in tears
David Trudel © 2012
Expectations
Unintended consequences can delight
Or spiral out of control
Into anxious fights
Cures that work but leave the patient dead
Instead
What’s the measure of success
For the spoils of iatrogenesis?
David Trudel © 2012
Dreamgirl
I dreamt you into my dream
Or you slid into my sleep
Whatever
We spooned silently
Cuddled contentedly
No sense of urgency
Deep calm held me
Or was that you
Doesn’t matter, it was a good sleep
And a better dream
With you
David Trudel © 2012
Geography Lessons
Some days my words tumble out of me
Like a freshet in spring
Cascading through a leafy glen
But not always
It’s a struggle to maintain
Fluidity
It’s hard to climb
Peaks like these
Overwhelming heights
Deep crevices
Steeper slopes
No clearly marked paths
Changes happen
Ground shifts
And I’m discombobulated
My words back up
Stoppered
I climb an arid trail
Stumbling on rocks
Fearful of tumbling back
When I reach the top
I’m stymied
The gap is large
Insurmountable
At first
But others have carved a trail
To follow
So I do
I call on the muses
I call to you
I implore
Cajole
Grovel
Warmth spreads
Words unlock
I am blessed
Unleashed
Released
David Trudel © 2012
Love
My love metastasized out of control
Insatiable, and blind
Surgical intervention was inevitable
But that hatpin jab was no crisp incision
My heart was only frozen in recovery
Cancer isn’t an opposing army
But just love unrestrained
Selfishly
Cell fish spawn
So the cure for love and cancer
Is simple
Unconditional love
Love that gives itself freely
Cling free love
Love that doesn’t need reassurance or reciprocity
But simply says, be free
My love, be free
Quantum love
Wavewashing
Erasing the illusion of distance
Standing outside of linear time
It just is, simply
In the now of a forever more
Where I extend my hand to you
Offering a gentle brush of fingertips
Without closing my fingers around yours
Open to possibilities unplaced
Post-colonial love
Anarchistic love
Unbound by convention
But held up by respect
Is what I mean when I ask you
To let me love you
Freely
David Trudel © 2012
In My Reckless Youth
In my reckless youth
I jousted devils in the dark
Juggled the cold flames of untested passion
Skated on pond ice to sharp sounds cracking
In my reckless youth
I had no fear
Except of missing a good party
I thought love could blossom with each new face
That walked around the corner
I thought I could walk away with impunity
From not-quite commitments of good times
I laughed unreservedly at bad jokes and pratfalls
I tested boundaries
Went beyond them
Tempted fate and laughed at death
Looked into the face of the universe
To see my own reflection
In my reckless youth
There was no time to plan
No longterm strategies
Just hubris and innocence, comingled
David Trudel © 2012
No Comparisons
Apple, crisp and firm
Orange, soft and juicy
Incomparable
So let’s not try
Both are succulent
In their own way
David Trudel © 2012
This Day
This moment of inspiration
Floats, suspended in eternal grace
Briefly seen
It seems to disappear
But that’s just a trick of the light
Dancing flickerflames of love’s combustion
Cavorting to madcap rhythms
Long into the night
We dance, naked and defenseless
Now, barely brushing outstretched fingertips
Now, pressing together every inch of raw mortality
Now, synthesizing our separate selves into integrated newness
Sharing a heartbeat
Which is the only sound we hear
Our only thought
Is love
Our only feeling
Is love
The word made flesh
For this brief but everlasting day
David Trudel © 2012
For Ed
Your blood congealed and dried up 38 years ago
My heart’s been bleeding ever since
There are no stains left to mark where you fell
Just a handful of shadowed souls
Who mourn forlornly, evermore
Remembering your meteoric presence
Brilliance of a caustic wit
Depth of your great soul
Cut short
Cut down
In a moment’s violence
Your suffering was brief
Ours continues
My old and unaged friend
I water your grave with my tears
Like you misted your boston ferns
Moistly spreading such care
Freshening each desiccated frond
With love
David Trudel © 2012
Pre-sedated
I was thinking of you on my walk
Not an uncommon pastime
But fraught with danger
But now I pre-sedate each thought
By chanting a safety mantra
Remote and unattainable
Remote and unattainable
Remote and unattainable
Before I continue thinking of you
Wistfully
Affectionately
And with a strange swirl of happy sad
Remembering fun
Creative passion fueling fires
Spinning thoughts and ideas
Bouncing words back and forth
Obliquely
Ambiguously
Like some kind of Olympic sport
But going from the light of a cosmic supernova
To a compact fluorescent
Is about as appetizing as eating an elephant platter
Hold the fries and pass a fork
I’ll dim the lights and light a candle
What’s that song, can you hum a few chords?
Hhhmmmm………
David Trudel © 2012
Backchannel baby
Below the radar
Off the charts
Beneath the surface
We talk
Converse
Versify
Contemplate
Play footsy under the table
Backchannel baby
You shy away from spotlights
No need for public pronouncements
Or commitments
Just a freeflow of hidden thoughts
Unshared
Except for you and me
Constrained by nothing
And everything
David Trudel © 2012
Onychophagia
Onychophagia
Is being included in the American Psychiatric Association’s
Classification of obsessive compulsive disorder
I used to be so afflicted
Nibbling and nipping
Surreptitiously sculpting digit ends
But never to the point of clinical severity
Bitter polish never worked
Admonitions merely deafened my ears
It took tranquility and a change in lifestyle
Didn’t even think about it
Until one day I noticed I had ten nails
Unchewed and growing on my fingertips
Since then I have encountered the disappointment of snags
Pain of a broken nail
And the need for a good emery board
To keep these tappers tapping
Smoothly
David Trudel © 2012
Refraction
Rainbow skies
Splash some vibrancy in slategrey clouds
Moments of rainscour broken by brilliant arrow shafts
Light twists
Turns hard as diamonds
Then dials the burnish down
To dull
Spectrum fades to memory
As clouds close ranks
Promises of golden payouts
Disappear with a faint shimmer
And rain returns again
David Trudel © 2012
Posed
Posed with poise
Just so
Precious as a porcelain cameo
Singular beauty
Windswept shorewalker
With an eye for the divine
Wistful horizon looks
Imagining the beyond
Beyond reach
But so tantalizing near and fully realized
Obsessing was never so much fun
Unrequited love is still love
And so hard to fall out of
David Trudel © 2012
State of Mind
A cloak of ennui
Tries to settle
On my shoulders
I shrug, repeatedly
The poets’ old friend Melancholia is in the room
I bet there is some laudanum
Hidden in those capacious folds
Gives me a nod and a wink
Conjures up images of dissolute wastrels
Scrawling desperate verses in squalid
Indifference
Easy to succumb to those tempting prompts
But easier still to open the door and say
“Stay if you want, I’m going out for a walk”
David Trudel © 2012
Bang
Whir words launch into being
Just to collapse in fragments
When the pressure of over-inflation
Hyper stimulation and excitement
Explodes the trial balloon into tattered fragments
Turning a party into something to be cleaned up
Lonely letters scattered under foot
Tripping up passersby
Unintentionally
David Trudel © 2012
Fractures
There are so many fractures
In this marble slab
That any sculptor with any sense
Would pass on by
Just say
Good bye
Wouldn’t even want to try
But there is enough stone left here
To chisel one last line
Uncover one last look
Another page in an unread book
Another way to look at life
Another door to open
So chip away my friend
Flake away until I transcend
I’m just waiting
For your chorus
David Trudel © 2012
Virtuosity
I lead a balanced life
I have my flaws to weigh me down
A gravity of sins
I embrace my sybaritic pleasures with the gusto of a beer commercial
Rooted in Bacchanalian rites in open oaken groves
When we howled at the moon in our rootless youth
But for all my gilded guilty pleasures the other sorry lot
Exert enough centrifugal force to spin me silly
Relentless indecision
Procrastination
Self-doubt
Laziness
Fear
Arrogance
But the force of gravity is not compelling enough
To hold me down forever
Sometimes my soul soars
I strive for virtue
Tranquility borne of following my heart
Satisfaction through service
Acceptance of what’s been given
And what hasn’t
Actively improving the world I walk through
Not just complaining about it
Finding beauty in small places
Transforming the ordinary into the special
Learning enough to barely comprehend what I don’t yet know
Listening to the world
Appreciating the silence of calm
Loving life
And the people in my life
So I freeclimb this mountain I’m on
Not roped in or on or to
Just fingertip by fingertip
Finding each balance point
Clinging and then moving on
Finding my own traverse
In balance
David Trudel © 2012
Amusing
Museless, this pen falters
Hesitates
Scratches a line not worth keeping
I explore hollow thoughts and formless dreams
With no success, it’s passionless
And hard to find grand themes in the mundane
My fuel is running low
No last chance service station in sight
When I drift to a halt
I’ll get out and walk
To the museum of passionate love
Looking at static displays of grand moments
Living vicariously
For a moment of white hot intensity
Lost in memories
Lost regrets
But before I leave
I’ll check the lost and found
For a muse
In case
David Trudel © 2012
Ex’s and Ohs
I was looking out the window at service trucks
Orange draped workers looking puzzled
Placing pylons around storm drains
My former house seemed to be affected
And the rest of the old cul de sac
This should liven up the annual strata meeting
I was thinking, from the greener side of the street
When the phone rang
It was my ex
Needing a point of grammatical clarification
Which happens with some regularity
My ghost writing continues to be needed
Meanwhile the invasive surgery on the drains continued
Until the blockage was cleared
Everything flows downhill
No more barriers
It’s all fluid
Moving
David Trudel © 2012
My Hunt
I hunt for inspiration
Searching out flashes of insight
A clever turn of a phrase
New ways of describing old things
I listen for a muse to whisper in my ear
Or lift my fingers at the keyboard
Just so
I listen to random conversations
Or the wind in the trees
For something to transform to the page
I look for images
That I can capture
And decorate with words
At times, I join forces
Hunt in packs
Reaching out across the world
For inspired collaboration
But mostly it’s a solitary search
Patiently waiting in my blind
For easy prey to saunter into view
Where I can skewer them with my pen
Or gun down with automatic weapons
Machine gun rattle of keystrokes bursting open stillness
My trophy wall is pages deep
Shimmering ideas pinned beneath a frame
Evidence of a successful hunt
A promise of more to come
I am on the hunt, constantly
David Trudel © 2012
Hunter Gatherers
Primeval forces drive us
Daily
We stalk through forests of merchandise
Hunting for bargains and our dreary dreams
Gathering piles of stuff we’ll soon tire of
Things that never quite live up to the promise
So we keep hunting, hunting
We hunt for food
Get taken in by seductive ads and misdirections
Ambushed by the platter
Consuming empty calories that never satisfy
Overstuffed but always hungry
We hunt for parking spots
The fastest route on a slow commute
Better jobs that usually aren’t
Houses that cost just a little more
Than affordable
Until all we gather is extra weight and extra debt
No longer hunters
Corralled in this feedlot life
Where the real hunters make out like bandits
But we are too tired to notice
I gather
David Trudel © 2012
This Path
This path I’m on takes twists and turns
I never know what’s going to be around the next corner
Wonders or horrors
Danger or delight
This path broadens into elegant passageways
Then narrows to a goat trail
That leads to a farseeing place
Where the horizon vanishes, and
You can see straight through the earth’s mantle to the other side
Sometimes it’s busy
Thronged with others
But mostly it’s a solitary walk
This path climbs rock faces and skirts precipices
Flirts with danger
Keeps me edgy
Sometimes I deviate from this path
A little deviant behavior can lighten any journey
But I always find my way back
Before the dust settles
This path is circuitous
Always taking me back to where I started
But never quite the same way
David Trudel © 2012
Now
Muffled twilight of a too early dusk cradles me
In my perambulations
Under a sharply pelting tropical express
Condensation of half the Pacific unleashed
This island being a tripwire to the continent
Broad black brim of the stetson
Provides the most immediate drumskin
Percussive patterns tiptap across each sodden view
Backbeating drops splash waxgreened arbutus leaves
Moss modulates the rocky snare
As I stare
And stare
Into the darkening distance
Hardly seeing the lights
Pondering
To the rhythm of rain’s ratatatat
This point of singularity
This now
Nowness
Immediacy in the moment
Now
Alone
Now
Alone
Now
David Trudel © 2012
Melt
The melt is on
Great swathes of glacial freeze coming unstuck
Flowing downhill to destiny
Many drops
For even all the seven oceans to swallow
Making the deep blue sea deeper still
Mixing up global chemistry
Shifting currents in new directions
Crawling up shorelines
Burying beaches
New King Canutes issue vain commands
With as much effect as the original, ultimately
Some places engineer barriers, seawalls
New structures to contain the tide
Some places are abandoned
Crumbling seaward
Or ripped apart in storms
Under the waves
Migrations and extinctions
As aquatic ecosystems fail
But the party continues
Everyone distracted by petty politics
Mindless crap fed to sheeple by the great bamboozlers
And the oil keeps getting pumped
Coal filled mountains get moved
Moving the resources around gets some attention
As much out of concern with local contamination
As the real problem
Global retribution for anthropomorphic sin
Soon, storms will swirl with abandon
Twister alley will be renamed an expressway
Hurricane season will be held over and they’ll run out of names
Earth will cleanse itself
And us
David Trudel © 2012
No Time to Mourn
There is no time to mourn
This brutal passing
This silvered flash
This sacramental transformation
Before this salmon had respite from its journey
Eagles tore it asunder
Feasting on the choicest morsels
Cleanup gulls sweep up the rest
Bringing fishfragments to new life
High above, circling
While rain drums down
River overspills lawn
Everything a lot more fluid
On this gray day
Cloudcleansed and riverscoured
Nature serves holy communion
All around
David Trudel © 2012
Catch and Release
This rare fish needed no bait
To swallow your smooth hook
But you slipped the hook out deftly
Tossed the fish back
Not wanting to deal with the guts and innards
Too messy you thought
Not realizing that this fish
Self-eviscerates, commits ritual seppuku
Over piscatorial honor
When you trailed your fingers in the water
This fish returned to digit nibble
Tried to coax them
To a tummytickle
Which would have resulted in a netward leap
And a net gain
Instead, a splash of cold water from your hand
Sends the fish back upstream
Where you see it breach the surface
With a rainbow’s flashdazzle brilliance
David Trudel © 2012
Owls
A chorus of owls fills the night
So frequent I feel close to cracking the coded information
In their fluted hoots
They’re hunting
As the moon cracks the clouds
They launch
Usually for nothing
This time I hear a faint yelp
The owls quiet down
The owls are not what they seem
The snowys have moved in from the mainland
Crowding the barred and the screech
Tonight they all seem to be on the hunt
For fresh meat
Tonight
The owls are not what they seem
David Trudel © 2012
Optimism
My optimism rises
Like a solar transverse, daily
In the face of disaster
Looming on all fronts
I see hope
Slim chances are better to grab onto than despair
And if we can’t stop the incoming tide of a rising sea
We can prepare the shoreline
For its new shape
We can disregard the fearmongers
The deniers
Those who say it’s all too much
We can choose optimism over pessimism
Daily
David Trudel © 2012
Love’s Language
They say French is the language of love
But it’s inadequate for us
We create our own language
Written in golden flames
Of spontaneous combustion
When our smoldering passion is fueled
We speak in tongues
And with our tongues we write poetry
On each others skin
Spoken word in raw extreme
Our language is fluid, slippery
Soft as a feather brushing a naked thigh
Sharp as teeth tugging on swollen flesh
We spread applebutter erogenously
On the blank pages of untanned skin
Organic appetizers before the mains
We speak a language of sighs and silences
Of breaths inhaled
Our punctuation is done with looks and touches
Ours is a complex grammar
That brooks no shorthand
But longs for the shortstrokes of a conclusion
Our language is incendiary
Evaporating in the heat of our love
Leaving a faint trace of smoke in the air
Burnt passion etched into each look
David Trudel © 2012
Exasperation
Sometimes you exasperate me
With your half responses and ambiguities
Leaving a myriad of inferential
Possibilities
Long silences
Unanswered questions trailing away
And then you reappear
Fully
Joyously
And ultimately contagious
There is no vaccine or antidote
To your exposure
A topical disease
Of some renown
Is the usual outcome
I am not immune
David Trudel © 2012
Thank You
Thank you for your interest
In these words of mine
Thank you for comments
On those posts I made online
Thank you for the likes you clicked
On stupid things I posted
Probably I put them up
When I was pretty toasted
David Trudel © 2012
Creed
What we think of as reality
This plane of existence
Is but one in a continuum
That extends into infinity above
Likewise, each piece of us
Contains a universe of universes within
My life is full of strange coincidences
Synchronicities
Much more than random chance
Good trumps evil
By supporting the forces of good
I’m supported and shielded from harm, to a degree
Other planes of existence are outside of time and space
Where life is not like here
Discretely limited individual consciousness
But is instead a vast collective awareness
A wave not just a drop
Transcending our understanding
Into truth
The alpha and omega of the great wheel
The wheel of physical space and linear time
Is a platonic ideal of the pantheon of the gods
A council of twelve,
Within each of us is a link, a key
A path back to one of those ultimate beings
Presiding over each reflection and shadow of reality
Music can open the door to transcendence
Harmonic vibrations can send sacred messages
Love is all
Everything, everyone is worthy of love
The more you give away your love
The more you discover you have
Love is the ultimate motivator
David Trudel © 2012
Holy Cow
I knew things were special
If only because of the names
Father Angel, pronounced angle
Was the first priest I had
He was succeeded by Father Masse
Who only abused the bottle, not us boys
Our undertaker was Mr. Whitebone
Whose funeral parlor sign turned the heads of unfamiliar visitors driving by
What strange novel am I living in?
I questioned my young self
Who passed out the scripts and why didn’t I get one?
I’d think
This is so weird
Somebody must have made this up
But at least they have a sense of humor
I’d conclude with a chuckle
David Trudel © 2012
Serving
When I was an altar boy
It was less about faith and prayer
And more about theatre
Ritual playacting with exacting precision
Being part of the focused attention
Of each small action
And if I wasn’t any closer to god
I was closer to community
With a role to play
So play I did, in the long ago days
Of starched surplices
Dressed up dogma
Plaster of paris saints who all looked the same
Under their different paintjobs
David Trudel © 2012
Word Power
Poets are word powered
Using green and renewable energy
Hardly any infrastructure required
Just a slip of paper and a favorite writing tool
Or even a capacious memory in a pinch
Taking letters and syllables and slippery sounds
Shaking them up and boiling them down
Creating spells through spelling
To boggle the mindful
But this energy isn’t always clean
It can be dirty when those words are unfiltered and unscrubbed
Fouling the atmosphere
With emissions
That heat the planet with unbridled passion
Melting even glacial hearts
Warming the climate of aloof self interest
Sending storms to batter quiet shores
These wordstorm wielding pens cut quick and deep
And though they don’t use carbon fuels
Poets leave a big footprint
David Trudel © 2012
Love’s Beggar (revised to include Intoxicated)
You intoxicate me, with effervescent verse and beguiling charm
Your honeyed nectar is all I need to upset my equilibrium
Leaving me unsteady on my feet
Panhandling for your love’s small change
Grateful for each thinworn dime
And if I have to use the tin cup of the sightless
It’s only because I was blinded by the radiance
Of your soul’s delightfulness
I tap my way to the town square, sightless
White cane in hand, searching
Finally, a granite curb curls around the wishing well
Where I unbundle my light burden
Collect my tin cup and its measly treasures
One by one I cast each thinworn dime and stinted penny
Over the edge with an unspoken wish
Staying silent in a sacred exchange of spells and coin
Needing all the magic I can find in this sightless blackness
I cast my wishes, hopes and dreams into the void
Sight unseen
And when the cup is emptied out
I stand for hours casting wishes
Without the silvered price of hope’s admission
And as the wishes fall beneath still waters deep
I turn away and begin another lonely walk
To where I’ll camp outside your door
My cup proffered for your rewards
Hoping that this is the day you’ll invite me in
To share your warmth and ease my pain
And with your gentle touch, cure this blindness
To let me see your sweet face again
David Trudel © 2012
Love’s Beggar
I tap my way to the town square, sightless
White cane in hand, searching
Finally, a granite curb curls around the wishing well
Where I unbundle my light burden
Collect my tin cup and its measly treasures
One by one I cast each thinworn dime and stinted penny
Over the edge with an unspoken wish
Staying silent in a sacred exchange of spells and coin
Needing all the magic I can find in this sightless blackness
I cast my wishes, hopes and dreams into the void
Sight unseen
And when the cup is emptied out
I stand for hours casting wishes
Without the silvered price of hope’s admission
And as the wishes fall beneath still waters deep
I turn away and begin another lonely walk
To where I’ll camp outside your door
My cup proffered for your rewards
Hoping that this is the day you’ll invite me in
To share your warmth and ease my pain
And with your gentle touch, cure this blindness
To let me see your sweet face again
David Trudel © 2012
For Susan
Those lips aren’t thin
They are bursting with words
Beestung with sweet nectar
Your lipbalm is royal jelly
Those lips spit verses
As frequently as sailors fling curses
Those lips aren’t thin
They taste the earth
Kiss love’s wounds
Brush countless courtiers with
Benedictions
Those lips conspire and inspire
Fulsomely
Those lips are thick with poetry’s delights
Those lips aren’t thin
They’re just right
David Trudel © 2012
Sweet
She sashays down the street
Her hips rolling
Each step a revelation of sensual certitude
Lighting up this quiet town quicker than a cowboy twists up a smoke
Attracting looks and veiled glances
That strip her naked in seconds flat
She chuckles at the reaction
Flattered and just a little fearful
That her musky pheromones are attracting all the males in town
Thankful for the restraining hands
Wives reaching out
Pulling their men back to their slackened breasts
Catching their arched and jealous looks
Quicker than a shortstop’s golden glove on gameday
Smiling, she lets them think what they will
Knowing that her shadowman is waiting
With the only eyes that matter
Long away
David Trudel © 2012
28
I deduct the years of my failed marriage
From the age on my birth certificate
So now I’m only 28
Just 28 years old
Despite the rust and wear and tear
I’m only 28 today
That worrisome bald spot has disappeared
Beneath this cascade of golden locks I’ve unleashed
So I jump back
Performing spoken word in raucous rooms
Sending letters to imprisoned anarchists
Listening for music, everywhere
In the wind
My friends are many
Across the globe, on Facebook
Or down the street, in person
I work the smartphone to mensa beats
Multiple conversations going all at once
Cryptically commenting
Posting
Everywhere and nowhere
Ubiquitous buzz
There’s a lot to do
Before I hit thirty again
And once more can’t be trusted
Busted
David Trudel © 2012
Aspire
My vision is not of today or tomorrow
It spans the generations
Assuming some semblance of this civilization sticks around
Manages to survive
After all, think back a hundred years ago
To when women had to fight for the vote
When prejudice and bigotry ruled
Social injustice prevailed and corruption was endemic
Not just sporadic
All things considered there’s been some progress
Civil society usually is
And the aspirations of some long ago version of myself
Would be mostly met
Looking at our normal social behaviors
So when I see a world free of violence
It isn’t a world of today or tomorrow
But one of years and generations away
When the adolescent zeitgeist of today
Has a chance to mature
To realize that negative energy, of whatever kind
Defeats the purpose
Drains the reserves
Serves no good purpose
And in that realization, society will transform into
Cohesive freedom of shared responsibility
David Trudel © 2012
A Call To Disarm
It’s time to disarm
Violence rocks this world
Tragically, in so many ways
In so many places
Wars of oppression and wars of suppression
Singular violence
Assassinations
Mass murders
It’s time to disarm
Torture
Gangbang rapes
Shootings in movie theatres
It’s time to disarm
Police brutality
Gang violence
Genocide
It’s time to disarm
Stonings
Beheadings
Acid thrown on faces
It’s time to disarm
Armies running amok
Barbaric as ever
Sanctioned hit squads
It’s time to disarm
Hot lead flying through bedroom walls
Blowing the brains out of sleeping babies
Apartment blocks full of families
Blown up to kill a lone soldier
Assault weapons sold to insane haters
Who riddle the innocent with bullets
Road rage driven angerbombs
Pulling out protection to settle arguments
It’s time to disarm
Violence contains a lot of energy
Negative energy, for sure, but vast
So there’s that law we’ve forgotten
Newton’s third
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction
Which means that the cycle of violence
Is a perpetual motion machine of bullets flying back and forth
Unless we can poke a stick in that wheel
Break free of the tyranny of the gun
It’s time to disarm
Start controlling access to mass murder weapons
End the sale of assault weapons, period.
Impose national and international gun control regulations
Limit access to the psychologically fit
It’s time to disarm
State sponsored terrorism must stop
All nations must reverse their insane military buildups
Dismantle the bombs
It’s time to disarm
Empty the prisons by investing in schools, hospitals and people
It’s time to disarm
David Trudel © 2012
Solar Flare
I thoughtprobe behind my eyelids
Seeking a way to touch your mind
Reaching out mentally, desperately
Attempting to ascend the astral plane
To launch my soul’s essence on a wave to you
But I am stymied
Bound within myself
My core exploding countless thoughts and dreams
Each moment contains a universe unleashed
This heat and boundless energy corralled
By the gravity of the overburden of this life
In the crucible of flame all is pulverized
Reduced to the essentials
Those isolated particles dance and bounce
Conspiring to send love’s photons on their radiant journey
But first they crawl
Held back and blocked
By burdensome thoughts
Fears and barriers unseen
But the radiance of love persists
Inevitably navigating to the surface edge
Where, with explosive flare
Love bursts the tension of existence
To fly across time and space
To shower warmth on your sweet and gentle face
A celestial greeting
A solar kiss
David Trudel © 2012
Intoxicated
You intoxicate me
With effervescent verse
Beguiling charm
Your honeyed nectar is all I need
To upset my equilibrium
Leaving me unsteady on my feet
Panhandling for your love’s small change
Grateful for each thinworn dime
And if I have to use the tin cup of the sightless
It’s only because I was blinded by the radiance
Of your soul’s delightfulness
David Trudel © 2012
Unworship
Gentle rebel angel of trailing tears
Join me
Join me in praising
Truth
Beauty
Joy
Delight
Compassion
Empathy
No need for intercession
To some imagined celestial throne
The universe exists within as much as without
Prayers need no translation
Let’s sing freshened hymns of the down and out
Of caged prisoners who know liberty through its absence
Of the desperate
Let our dancing words lift them up
Glory is all around
But not always apparent
So let’s shout cosmic love into
Crowded voids
Shine the bright light of perception
Into infinity
Bring the formless into view
Tear down walls of doctrine set up to divide
Lose the shackles of moribund rules
Let freedom reign, consorting with love
Join me,
Join me my friend
David Trudel © 2012
Alternating Current
I run scenarios in my imagination
Of all the ways that this might end
A Stoic exercise of negative visualization
Imagining disaster and unpacking pain
Misery
Sadness
Depression
A gut wrenching sense of loss
Work out my potential responses
Seeing into possible future states
Knowing that I’d always find a way to work things out
And come to a place of acceptance
Where I discover the healing power
Of the love you’ve given me
Armed with this security
I go through my day
Powered by a constantly alternating current of
Yes she will/no she won’t
It will happen/no it won’t
Equilibrium achieved
Since it all ends
In your love
David Trudel © 2012
I Will
I will unbitter your heart with honeyed words
I will unsour the taste that lingers in your mouth
Through my pure and gentle kisses
I will restore your trust and unbreak the broken
I will heal your soul
With loving ministrations of tenderness
I will give you strength and tranquility
I will support your struggles
I will guard your back
Against all comers
I will unbitter your heart
I will make you new again
David Trudel © 2012
Composing
I choose words carefully
With fretful consideration
Balancing meanings with sound and form
Trying to capture elusive half thoughts
That dissolve and crumble at the slightest touch
Interpretations of mystery
Pictures of the unseen
Symphonies of silence punctuated by the tap of time’s baton
Taking the measure of the day into
Account
David Trudel © 2012
Patterns
Cultural forces normalize
Create zeitgeist
Spirit time
Paradigms that channel thoughts down passageways carved over millennia
Ordering our ideas into binary sets of good or bad
Creating standard subjectivity and judgmental negativity
What we like
What we don’t like
Standards of beauty
Behavioral expectations
Perceived handles to lift reality
Yet so often these devices, crude constructs of mob mentality
Fail
Fail to take into account random chance
Fail to recognize evidence contrary to expectations
Cultural norms seep into our consciousness
Making us lazy as we take refuge in the safety of numbers
Dumbing us down
From the real geniuses
Who created the first civilizations
Who didn’t rely on normal
Since there wasn’t any
That would come later
At first, at the beginning
There were no shortcuts for the neural pathways
Each moment was a discovery and a delight
Each observation adding to analysis and evaluation
Creating patterns, not following them
Yet we cling to the illusion that we’re getting smarter
Even as we keep getting farther from the truth
David Trudel © 2012
Emotions
Emotions can be dangerous and risky for anyone
But a poet’s emotions are the very wellspring
Of creativity and art
Brightly hued maelstroms of passion
We tend to go off the deep end of the pool
We don’t just fall in love
We do swan dives off that cliff in Acapulco
Where you have to time your leap
Waves crashing over the rocks
Or set high altitude records leaping from the edge of outer space
That’s a long way to fall
But one hell of a ride along the way
Even negative emotions like fear or anger
That philosophically you know aren’t valid
Based as they are on false assumptions
Or an incorrect assessment of the data
Sweep you up and tumble you around
Some kind of hardwired impulse drive inside your mind
Pushing every wrong button there is to push
And in the centre of your consciousness
Its like you’ve been paralyzed with some Amazonian poison
Just like in action movies
You watch it all unfold and you can’t move or even speak
You can’t unpush the buttons
So you ride it out
A thundering ride on a barely broken meanspirited bronco
Heading for the Grand Canyon
Where he’ll try to buck you off
Emotions can be dangerous
But exhilarating, too
Thrilling your senses to full alert
Mere stories made epic
Common currency made precious
So I’ll enjoy that ride
Even though I’m terrified
Some risks are worth the trouble
Some rewards are genuine
David Trudel © 2012
Juiced
Maybe we’re apples and oranges
Maybe that’s okay
I’ll peel your skin
With just one touch you core me
We aren’t afraid of being cut-ups
Sliced and diced
Lets get juiced together
Pulverizing any walls and divisions
Reduced to essential elements
Blended to sweet froth
Recombined
Smoothed
Stirred
Poured out as one
Together
Atoms commingling
In a loving cup
David Trudel © 2012
Sonnet 29 Redux For the 21st Century
When I’m depressed and feeling crappy
And I’ve been unfriended by those who know me
If there was a god I’d pray to him or her
But since there isn’t I wallow in my despair
I dream of winning the lottery
Becoming a one percenter chased by paparazzi
A superstar walking life’s red carpet
Receiving a Nobel Prize for brilliance
But of course I’m not, I’m nowhere near
My self-loathing sets me spinning into misery
When by lucky chance I think of you
And like a tweet gone viral on the internet
I shake away the blues to sing your tune
Since your sweet love is all I need instead of worthless money
David Trudel © 2012
My poem was inspired, in part, by this masterful reinterpretation of Shakepeare’s 29th sonnet:
When times are hard and old friends fall away
And all alone I lose my hope and pluck,
Doubting if God can hear me when I pray,
And brood upon myself and curse my luck,
Envying some stranger for their handsome face,
Their wit, their wealth, their chances or their friends,
Desiring this one’s brains and that one’s place,
And vexed with all I have that makes amends,
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, –
By chance I think of you; and then my mind,
Like music from deep sullen murmurs rising
To peals and raptures, leaves the earth behind:
For if you care for me, what need I care
To own the world or be a millionaire?
George Santayana
The New Republic, 1915
The original, and still champion, version goes like this:
Sonnet XXIX: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyesWhen, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Highwire
I tried to unlove you
But I couldn’t
So whatever sliver of affection
You have for me
It’s enough
I am teetering on the edge of elation and despair
Like walking the highwire over Niagara Falls
One slight misstep could spell disaster
But I stop in the middle of this hard crossing
Drenched in the bitter spray of the mist
To pledge my love once more
Saying, simply
I love you
And I place one foot in front of the other
Take another step
And another
Alone
In this turbulence
Buffeted by strong winds
But unassailable in the truth of my love
One step
One more step
One step at a time
Waiting to see your hand reaching out to me
Ready to pull me up
Into your embrace
David Trudel © 2012
Sparked
That fire had burned long and hard
Incendiary, at times glorious
Flames stretching up into the sky’s eternal night
Approaching to almost the stars above
Yet, as all fires do, it died down
Burnt out in the morning after glare of the rising sun
Drenched with a torrent of cold water
Dashed
It was out
No smoke no fire
Yet a coal must have slumbered somewhere in that fireplace
Some ember deeply embedded in some nook or cranny
Perhaps some new fuel was thrown onto the grate
Or blew through an open window
Like dried leaves on a courtyard floor
Swirled by dust devil windsprites
Conspiring to spark something up
Some warmth to take the edge off
Cozying up to the idea
Setting a flame dancing again
David Trudel © 2012
Times
Sometimes
Now there’s a concept
Some plus times
Segments
Slices
Sections
Arranged by some unifying force
Like space
Space between the moments
Empty
Black
Quiet
Sometimes silence is what we need to hear
Sometimes blackness is what we need to see
Sometimes emptiness is what we need to be
David Trudel © 2012
Sad Parade
A sad parade of the grim and guarded
March in front of me
Looking slightly haunted
Carefully unwanted
Starchpressed into body armor
Favored by suburban matrons
Repressed fear of affection
Glittering in tense faced glimmers of quiet lives
Holding tight to lapdogs and convention
Caught up in bland expectations of pop culture happiness
Not realizing that satisfaction requires passion
Forgetting that passion exists or even could
Risk free grazers at a wilted salad bar
I wonder why they are here
Pushed and pulled
Dragged kicking and screaming
Perhaps
Or has the emptiness of their conformity
Left them hollow
Eggshell thin, cracking
Looking for moments barely remembered like
Untethered gallops in the moonlight
So I gather my passion
And repack my curiosity
For another time
Long away and long gone
From me
David Trudel © 2012
Remembrance
Rainswept
I stand alone in darkness
Letting the soft erosion of a million tears
Wash over me
Remembering the ones who no longer live
Feeling the gentle tug
Of the fallen
Unlived dreams
Love unlived
Dissolution of so many hopes
Laid low
Face to the wind
I am scoured by cold droplets
Machine gunning out of headstrong clouds
Swirls of memory dance, beguiling and bittersweet
My skin is taut
Thin enough to burst if I allow the depths of my emotion
Free rein
So I restrain the mad sadness
Tamp it down like a musketball of old
Let the memories fade
Declare an end to remembrance
Sign an armistice within my feuding thoughts
Rapprochement
As tears mingle with broken heart blood
Washed away into the night
David Trudel © 2012
Kelly Pflug-Back
A drunken young lout
Pushes a streetperson under a bus
Literally, not a metaphor, but an action
Called manslaughter in the courts
Gets twelve months for taking a life
While the anarchist poet who protested
Against the corporate system and the billion dollar circus
G20 power broking gun-toting overlords
In the course of doing so managed to beat up a cop car
Laid the boots to it
But no flesh, just lifeless metal and plastic
Well, she got 15 months for that
Says a lot about our cultural values
That juxtaposition says cognitive dissonance
Our scales of justice need recalibration, surely
So poets and friends gather
In support
Fellowship with the oppressed
Reaching out across miles and through the bars
To say your words matter
Your poems shine
Her voice echoes through the mouths of others
But soars in brilliant splendor no matter who stands in
These words slice scalpel sharp across the bloated flesh
Of an overstuffed corpse
Cadaver of capitalism
Poets versed in spoken artistry bounce her words sharply
Scoring three pointers
Effortlessly
Then nervous friends
From the streets and shelters
Couch surfers
The struggling, independent, non-conformists, radical thinkers
Step up and eloquently speak her words in angel breaths
Redemption found through struggle
Change manifesting itself through art
Comrades all, tonight
David Trudel © 2012
http://kellypflugback.wordpress.com/these-burning-streets/
Stoned
Molten hot
Dragonbreath scorched
This place
This sacred site
It bit back
Turned dragon to stone
Hidden in plain view
Forever
David Trudel © 2012
Yesterday
It was a day that unfolded
Like whole chapters of Marcel Proust
Round moments of particular intensity
Playing out in the sunshine glow of a renewed day
Each moment building to a different
Intensity
Delight
Conclusion
Searching for lost time
Searching for a memory or a foreshadowing
Seasoned with poignancy
Where art and politics converge for a quick liaison
Hardly an affair
Where the smile of just kissed lips
Collapses into a sigh
Beneath time’s weight
David Trudel © 2012
Ferns
Ferns have been around a long time
Eons
Deep reaches of fossiltime
Watching them erupt and uncurl
Provides a pathway to primordial memories
Spores left in DNA
Back to the garden
Back to innocence
When evil wasn’t a valid concept
Joyous green fronds
Laughing at falling leaves
Seasonal offbeats
Reaching up
Catching elementals
Sun and rain
Cycling through life and death
For eternity
Or now
David Trudel © 2012
Bridge
Crossing over
Rusted beams
Holding fast to falling dreams
Walking together
In stride
From here to there
This to that
If it rains
Carry an umbrella
And carry on
David Trudel © 2012
I plumb the shallows of like
I plumb the shallows of like
For banal inspiration
Attempt elegiac verses
Based on
Passionless affection
But it’s no use
Tamed and neutered emotions
Barely ruffle the surface
Of this drained pond
I swallow Bacchanalian dregs
Bittersweet, the taste
Sours my mouth
Words stick
Come undone
Mere letters
Collapsing
Falling
To rest
Alongside
Broken heart pieces
On the floor of my soul
Crushed
Grinding love’s promise to
Despair dust
To be flushed with tears
One teardrop
One teardrop
One teardrop
At a time
David Trudel © 2012
- There Is No Love (repost)There is no love for you and meNo, there is no love at allI want to reach out and embrace youBut I just sigh and turn aroundThere is no love between usJust a look that says goodbyeAnd a memory of a spark that burnedBefore the trying got too hardAnd here we’re sad and lonelyWalking down our separate pathsEmbracing only lonelinessIn a world where love comes lastBut far away up in the heavensOr on a different astral planeYou reach out to touch meAnd we light a lovers flameAnd we kiss each other deeplyWalking forward hand in handAnd thank the spirits that led usTo a love that understandsBut we are all alone togetherTrapped on lonely planet earthWhere we are too smart for lovingAnd where the dreaming always hurtsDavid Trudel ©March, 2002
- BeepBeepBeep BeepBeep beep beepBeep BeepBeepBbbBbbDavid Trudel © 2012
Autumn
Autumn, in northern climes
Is seen as a time of
Downshutting
Death is around the corner in the fall
The end of growth
Yet here in the west
Where the air is hot and moist
As a Saturday night hot date
Autumn rains trigger growth
Fern fronds erupt
Green sprouts shoot forth like an unbridled chia pet
On my rock
Parched soils soak up the beneficence of the rains
Shoot forth abundance
Green furze creeps
Spiders crawl
Birds scream their interest
Dive bombing
Insects
Dive bombing because they can
Screamflying wingmasters of the wind
Cheerleaders to new growth
Fallferns
Greencarpets
Drip
Drip
Drip
Replenishing the cycle
Sacrificing
Accepting
My fall contains rebirth
My fall is not into decay
But growth
David Trudel © 2012
Shem
Ascend the fiery stones
Find your way to heaven’s keep
Daughter of Astarte
Daughter of Ishtar
Daughter of Inanna
Fly to the far off place
Where we will raise a stela
Inscribed with epic deeds
Together, let us unravel celestial mysteries
Explore the cosmos
And each other
David Trudel © 2012
On Dispensing Treats at Halloween
How hard is it
To disregard sugar rich chocolate treats
Near the front door
Hard
Damned hard
For a recovering chocoholic
Nuts and seeds
Fill in
Second stringers off the bench
Playing over their heads
Thump
Thump
Thump
Another knock
Thanks god, another handful depleted
Take more
Leave me no temptations
But then again
A test of resolve
Is a test worth taking
If I can overcome that
I might be able to overcome
Other foibles
Weaknesses
Flaws
And seek redemption
In your love
David Trudel © 2012
Circular Moment
The future will take care of itself
Because it already has
There is only one now
Here
This moment
Philosophers and scientists agree
That times true nature is not linear
But circular
Past, present and future co-existing
Now
So I will say/say/said
I love you
I love you circularly; past, present and future
Multi-dimensionally
Cosmically
Beyond conformance with local norms
Confounding expectations
Disregarding nervous arbiters of false reality
Slipping through perceived constraints
Of mortal paradigms
Reaching celestial heights
And within this love
Discover the divine
David Trudel © 2012
Not Quite Right
Had an appointment
With happiness
A sure thing
Predictable
But was dissed
Instead
David Trudel © 2012
Aftermath
Weatherwet
Tears aren’t even noticed
In the deluge
Survival is no game
Life and death
Isn’t an algorithm
Team colors aren’t an issue
In dark battles
Against terror
There are no divisions
When faced with disaster
Just more hands to help
But in smugwarm backrooms
Plotters plot, divide to conquer
Based on groundless fears and baseless lies
David Trudel © 2012
Epic Tales
Epic tales
Worthy of the name
Come with long odds
Labors
Storms
Battles
Evil sorcerers
There’s always ambiguity to contend with
Hidden pathways
Leading to hidden treasures
Setbacks
Adding dramatic tension
Turbulence
To shake things up
Yet, a thread of hope
Weaves throughout the tale
Persistence
Turns the tide
Deeds are done
Villains overcome
Conclusion follows with a triumph
That tickertapes from the Field of Mars
Through Caesar’s Rome
All the way to
Home
David Trudel © 2012
Extra-terrestrials
Speculative wonderers
Search the skies
Looking for starlight companions
Precursors
Yet, perhaps those UFOs
Chariots of gods and goddesses
Aren’t from some distant planet at all
But from a different time
Simply human after all
Slipping through time
Unburdened by the linearity commanded by Cronos
Who was slain, after all
Eons ago
Or following another line of thought
Notice the similarity between star maps
And our own inner space
Maybe we are part of infinite chain of beings
Nesting Russian dolls
Leading inward
Leading outward
To a platonic ideal
Of twelve companions
Sharing an infinity together
Outside of what we know of time and space
Staving off boredom
Through observing the complexity of life
Human struggles
To them
We are the night’s show
Just part of the multi-channeled universe
David Trudel © 2012
Goldstream 3
Arched guardians
Beckon acceptance
I follow the trail
Over root crowded corners
Leafy aisles
Autumnal shades
Golden experience
Overhead
Supplications
Branches beckoning
To skies
Stars
Moonlight
Coda;
A letter
Scripted organically
David Trudel © 2012
Goldstream 2
Frondswept trails beckon
Pulling me further
Into
Prehistoric splendour
Antedeluvian
Dinosaur plants
The short and curlies of the rain forest
As sensual
As the delta
Of your thighs
David Trudel © 2012
Goldstream 1
River pulls me
Primal call
Water flowing over roundrocks
Freshet of sound and life
Through groves and thickets
Cliffs and ferns
Filtering distractions
Leaping
Rushing
Heralding refreshment
David Trudel © 2012
Between
Sandwiched between earthquakes and hurricanes
My tranquility remains unshaken
Apparently unstirred
Untouched by tectonic shifts
Unmoved by perfect storms
But that’s just the external
Local weather
Internally
It’s all rocks and hard places
With precious little room between
Lavaflows mark the passage of the eruptions of my emotions
Turbulent winds have uprooted old growth forests of thoughts
Today it’s calm, though
When I balance just right
Almost serene
David Trudel © 2012
Two Hearts
When I see you and you see me
Finally
Time will cease
Walls will disappear
There won’t be anybody else
Just you and me
Our eyes will lock
Our arms will reach
I’ll kiss your lips and hold you close
The only sound we’ll hear
Is our two hearts
Harmonizing to a single beat
It won’t be you and me anymore
After that moment of a when
We’ll be us
A plurality of non-conformity
And you don’t have to treat me like a king
Just be my lover
Be my friend
I will love you
Like nobody else can
To the ends of the earth
From the depths of my soul
So answer your own question
The one you sang so sweetly
When will I see you?
When will I see you?
David Trudel © 2012
This was inspired by: http://socramama.blogspot.ca/2012/10/will-we-ever.html
Mild Corruption
Mild corruption is what I propose
Sleeping in past 6:00 a.m.
Having a beer in the afternoon
A toke on the after dinner walk
Mild corruption
Like sex in the afternoon
Just because
Like a hand on your thigh
At the family restaurant
Other eyes focused on the fries
While I
Disturb you
I want to mildly corrupt you
Get you drunk on champagne
Keep you up past midnight
I want to run the red lights of your heart
I want to tag the underside of bridges
Armed with cans of spray paint
With you leading the charge
I want to go to Walmart with you and not buy anything
And tell the greeter that they didn’t have what we wanted
I want to mildly corrupt you
Make you feel almost like you’ve sinned
But not quite
David Trudel © 2012
Invocation
Grant me inspiration
Wash me in the river of creativity
Let my eyes see truth
Let me appreciate beauty in all its many forms
Grant me the grace not to hold tight but to give away
Allow peace to enter my heart
Let me give away my love unreservedly
Let me receive love unconditionally
Illuminate my path in the dark of night
Shade my way in the heat of the day
Grant me wisdom borne of struggle
Bring me tranquility in tragedy
Grant me inspiration
David Trudel © 2012
Scotch Mist
We called it scotch mist
Lightly falling rain
On dimlit days
Pewtered skies leaking wisps of fog
Dampening forest symphonies
Chillwinds crawl puckeringly slow
Up arms
Over shoulders
Settling with icethuds
Beneath my clothes
Screaming me into now
Cathartic
Cleansing
Redeeming
Chill winds and autumn mists
Scour me clean
Remove heldfast past
Start again
Become supplicant to skies
Searching for benediction
Hope
Completion
Seeking purification
Without ceremony
Intervention not required
My ear
Close enough to ground
David Trudel © 2012
Self Portrait
I’m pretty transparent
You can see right through me
I’m organic
An environmentalist
I like hats
And I carry a big stick
David Trudel © 2012
Compass
I have the compass heading
That will guide me to your heart
There are no oceans or lonesome miles
Big enough to keep us apart
And I want to cross the border
Past the frontier of your love
Together we’ll make memories
Better than paradise above
I feel the pull between us
And I know that you do too
So reach out and embrace me
Put your hand upon my back
Pull me closer when I kiss you
And when you kiss me back
I don’t even need a compass
To find my way to you
We’re joined at the heart it seems
In a way that’s long but true
David Trudel © 2012
Message 2.0
Where are you?
Flashed the message on my screen
On my return
Moonbeaming poems and falling stars
I keyed
And?
Came the fast response
No luck no magic tonight
Enter
Just silvered clouds with gaptoothed grins
A hint of winter in the air
Faint whiff of woodsmoke on the wind
Pungent scent of rotting leaves
Enter
Felt spiderwebs drift cross my face
Heard crunch of gravel in misty space
Along the way I heard the rustles
Tell tale signs
Potential trouble
Maybe a cougar
Or a bear
One night last year
Almost got trampled
By a deer
So noises in the night
Beware!
Enter
Distant sirens pierce the silence
Emphasizing the point
Announcing some new violence
Enter
Overhead, luminescent clouds roll by
Obscuring meteoric showers
Backlit by a quartermoon
Cloudfaced trolls fly overhead
Noble Aslan cloudshows next
A pig wings its floyd way home
Enter
Looking down across the city
Final urban push
Before the sea
A panoply of lights descends
Distant towers preen in full wattage
Dimmed streets outlined in orange fuzz
Illegal fireworks arc briefly there
Distant echoes boom
More police chase across the view
Looks more urgent
Than what I’m doing
Finding falling stars and poems
But maybe not
Maybe not
Enter
David Trudel © 2012
Your Kiss, Squared
Your Kiss takes me
Reeling to the ends
Of the Earth—
Challenges the facts
Of my death,
Of my birth—
Speak Renowned Oracle,
Of the absence of sin,
For tasting your waters
Makes me Seventeen Again.
-jenn long
http://socramama.blogspot.ca/2012/10/fountain-of-youth.html
Your Kiss purges all doubts
Removes all fears
Carries us beyond this plane
Into a realm so pure
That mortality is shed
Along with other years
Until we stand outside of time’s constraints
To share a moment
Of unequalled grace
David Trudel © 2012
Middle Class Slaves
Shut down faces in locked up cars
Grim visaged sufferers
Moving from one hell
To another
Tensely gripping wheels
Locked, loaded
Despairing
Staring ahead at lonely roads
Going nowhere
Stop and go traffic
Moving like a tide
Armies of the self-shackled
Working overtime
Willing slaves salved by soporific
Entertainment
Dumbed down slumber inducing excuses for not thinking
So bring on the next
Distraction
The next sleight of hand trick
To fall for
As long as it maintains the stasis of inaction
David Trudel © 2012
Sweater
I am your favorite old sweater
Keeping you warm
In the night
I am scratchmade chicken soup
Ginger ale
Loaf of freshly baked bread
The dog at the foot of your bed
Feeling crappy
Shivering
Then baking
Throated battleground
Trench warfare
Misery
My arm
Gathers you in
Support
Strength
Find enough to soldier on
Take care of the kids
One step
One step
One step at a time
Cup of herbal tea with honey
Hot bath
Fresh pj’s
Why does my body betray me
Feel the force
Drive away the inner demons
Drive away the pain
Stares down cold threats
Finds strength within
Finds a reason to go on and on
That’ll never be a sin
David Trudel © 2012
Skyped
Electric charges flow through our bodies
Part of the life force
Animating our lives
When I see you on the screen
Miles away but as close as a kiss
Turbines roar
My grid heats up
Circuits fry
Fuses blow
Shorting technology
In a burst of charged feelings
Fade to black
For now
David Trudel © 2012
Stroll
Sunday stroll around the lake
Time to air
Tumbled thumped
Feelings
Dripping wet
With worry sweat
Up ahead dog walkers
Tangle the trail
A woman
Struggles with her leashed hurricane
Who obviously wants a full on canine
butt sniffing hello
Not a polite passing
Looks a lot like Congo, I thought
As I approach I realize
That it is
Congo
My ex-dog
My ex-wife
And the new boyfriend
Nice day for a walk we agree
Slip the dog a treat
Walk on
Briskly
Unsettled
Emotional spin cycle
Cleanses
Extraneous worries
Trusting gravity’s
Pull
Watching
New moon rise
On the horizon
Invigorating things, walks
David Trudel © 2012
Protest
This rabble needs no rousing
Cold winds keep us fresh
Awake to possibilities
Alert to threats
Against the land
Against the water
Against the people
So we raise our voices
Shout our opposition
To economic interests
That disregard so much
Short-term profits
Don’t trump sustainability
Stewardship means standing up
Speaking out
Finding warrior spirit
A backbone and
Resolve
David Trudel © 2012
Graveyard of Dreams
I mourn the passing
Of the unchosen future
Regretting deviations from sacred path
Transforming transcendence to mere radiance
I sing eulogies
For the never weres
Bury bright moments
That beckoned warmly
Spurned dreams
Upset by harsh stark
Responsibilities and fears
I mourn the passing
Of unchosen futures
Unraveling quantum joy
In the graveyard of dreams
David Trudel © 2012
Message
Where are you?
Flashed the message on my screen
On my return
Moonbeaming poems and shooting stars
I keyed
And?
No luck no magic tonight
Hit reply
Just silvered clouds with gaptoothed grins
A hint of winter in the air
Faint whiff of woodsmoke on the wind
Pungent scent of rotting leaves
Foundational sensations
Reply
Felt
Spiderwebs drift cross my face
Heard crunch of gravel
All along I heard the rustles
Tell tale signs
Potential trouble
Could be a cougar
Or a bear
One night last year
Was almost trampled
By a deer
So noises in the night
Signal beware
Reply
Distant sirens pierce the silence
Emphasizing the point
Announcing some new violence
Reply
Overhead the clouds roll by
Obscuring meteoric showers
Backlit by quartermoon rising
Cloudfaced trolls fly overhead
Noble Aslan next
To cloudshow
Then a pig wings its floyd way home
Reply
Looking down across the city
Final urban push
Before the sea
A panoply of lights descends
Distant towers lit completely
Dimmed streets outlined in orange fuzz
Illegal fireworks arc briefly there
Distant echos
Boom
More police chase across the view
Looks more urgent
Than what I’m doing
Finding falling stars and poetry
But maybe not
Maybe not
Reply
David Trudel © 2012
- Invasive ElementsInvasive elementsCrowd out natural spacesNatural speciesDisrupting micromacro websLifeforcesGrown over agesInterconnectedEradication of invaders is hardNext to impossibleSeedpods scattered in the rocky earthRemain viableGood to growFor 60 years or moreSo that even if we totally got rid of today’s plantsCountless more would spring up from the groundOver and overLike evil minions in ancient mythsStill, we persistFighting backPullingClippingHauling awayEven if it’s futileIts rightSo we fightStare down defeatEven ifInevitableDavid Trudel © 2012
I Am The Flower Warrior
Fingertapped awake
My heart flutters
At your distant touch
I awake supine on my chac mool bed
Ready to be sacrificed to feed the light of your love
Anticipating your obsidian fingertips
Reaching into my chest
Pulling my still beating heart into the first light of dawn
To fuel the rising of the sun
Giving my self
Giving my blood
So that love’s harvest
Will satiate our unquenchable hunger
For each other
David Trudel © 2012
Don’t Get Me Wrong
Don’t get me wrong
I love written word
Slow
Thoughtful
Deliberate
Composition
Cerebral ramblings of mystic thoughts
Works of beauty
tiny pieces
art
Set forth just so
on a page
Or a screen
Written solo
Read solo
Oneness
But then we come to the Spoken
Word
Spoken Word
Spoken Word
Spoken Word
Where auditory channels are opened up by some kind of poetic stent
Unblocking those clogs
That threaten the heart
And where we don’t need no stinking bypass
This is where we jump off the high cliffs into glacial water
This is where we bungee jump
Naked
This is where we say
Shut the fuck up, assholes
Listen
Listen to truth
Listen to lies
Doesn’t matter which
Here
Bathed in a benediction of sacred ideas
As random as the rain of shit of the pigeons from St. Mark’s Square
On the pilgrims beneath
Raining down like caustic bleach
Stripping away false pretense
Ideas cobbled together with stale gum and broken string
The flood of words
Erupts like fire over ice
Torching neurons
Then, in a flash
I’ll disappear
David Trudel © 2012
Breeze
I am the breeze that blows across the plain
Caressing with an unseen embrace
Raising goosebumps on your skin
Surrounding you with spirit care
Dancing
A dust devil jig across your yard
Flapping the flag on the pole
Running an unseen hand through your hair
Pervasive
Sneaking into your clothes
Touching you to your core
And with each bemused smile on your gentle lips
I send another gentle wisp of wind
In silent communion
A spirit kiss
David Trudel © 2012
Turn Signals
What is it
About left turn signals
Those flashing green arrows
That mean
Turn left!
Turn left!
Turn left!
That so confuses some people?
Have they really been unaware of this rudimentary technology
For so long?
They hesitate
Equivocate
Should I go?
Should I go?
Inch forward
Really?
Really?
Maybe I shouldn’t
Sorry
Slowly
Slowly
Slowly
All the while the two dozen other cars
Rev their engines
In the line behind but
See their chance disappear
Behind this idiot
Who’s losing time
Gumming up the works
Giving us the gears
David Trudel © 2012
Transcendent
We each have an inherent potential
Within us
Beyond us
Among us
To transcend this pinprick yelp of our brief lives
In so doing, dissolve into a rippling field
Become a wave
Not a singular place on the wave
But the wave itself
Big
Losing sense of self
Completely
Jumping past
All earthbound limitations
Just like the shamans and mystics
Of the past foretold
Imagination holds the key
To fire neural passageways
To missing synapses
Forgotten genes
Revealing
Cosmic mysteries
Through this wisdom now revealed
Vibrate on waves
Of distant starlight
Crossing time across the night
Just disembodied thoughts
Transcending timebound physicality
Or is this is just an errant thought?
Are we shackled here and now
To this cruel paradigm
Of accepted thought and shared belief
In cause
Effect
& Evidence
Firmly anchored on the ground
No chance ever
Of soul’s release
Or do intuition and the heart
Hold sway?
David Trudel © 2012
Oscillations
Oscillations
between skitter scratching anxiety
And deep calmness
Incredible frustration
And satiation
Despair
Relief
Stasis shackled
I wait
Wait
Wait
Emotions compressed
By anticipation and fears
Heightened by faith
The cage doors are all open
The lions have all fled
My demons have left the building
Driven off by promises
Of the release that lies ahead
David Trudel © 2012
Celestial Duet
Rainbow Promise
We sleep together.
I nap at twilight
As you turn,
Still dreaming in the early morn.
Only the letters of your name I see,
For I have never beheld your face.
Terrified to pronounce their sounds,
The darkness of their type comes straight
From the hammered bracelet
Of the asteroid belt,
And the purest ink
Of Neptune’s dark rings.
But the pressure on my bodice is real.
The bias of your love, I feel,
As light pierces the dark water,
And forces the rainbow.
-jenn long
http://socramama.blogspot.ca/2012/10/rainbow-promise.html
Skywaltz
The pull is undeniable
Nothing between us but an idea
In a vacuum
A few fragmented particles
Pinned down
By this stately dance
A measured quadrille
Through the panoply
Above
Around
Beneath
Spinning under control
Balanced in a fingertip embrace
Through mystic time’s
Eternity
In deepest dreams of mythic space
David Trudel © 2012
Rainswept
Summer dusted glaze
Slurrystreams down the path
Washing dust
Broken leaves
A few faded hopes
Dreams
Memories of heat
Away
Raindrops crash all around
Few managing the full descent to the trail
Canopied by the exhaltation of the forest
Branches stretched in supplication
Victory
Protection
Hat topped and impervious
Striding stewardly
Through shadows
And the falling leaves
At peace
In this dark landscape
Realizing this gift of safety in the night
Security
Fearlessness
Innocence
Is rare, so very rare
So deserving of my delight
Nightsmiling I ascend hilltop high
Watch the glow of the city
Spread out below in shrouded glory
Appreciating
This uncommon beauty
Of a rainswept night
David Trudel © 2012
Allergy
So many food allergies
That we all worry about
Parents and teachers
Conditioned to no more peanut butter sandwiches at school
Whole neighborhoods learning to use Epi pens
Inhalers as common as calculators in hallway lockers
But my allergy is worse
My allergy is pretty drastic
My allergy covers the menu
Artisanal loafs of seven grain bread
Truckstop breakfasts
Cinnamon buns
Grande lattes with little works of art inscribed in the foam
Pulled pork and baked beans
Poutine
Grilled cheese sandwiches
Nachos
Roast lamb
Thanksgiving turkey
Even the stuffing is off my menu
Heaping mounds of pasta? Gone
Garlic toast
Clubhouse sandwiches stacked high
With fries
Escargot baked in mushroom caps
Jambalaya steaming hot
Sodas in a frosted glass
Fructose, glucose and corn syrup
Chicken pot pies
And of course, pizza
Whether deep dish
Whole wheat crust
Or baked al forno in a brick oven
Gone
Gone
Gone
What are the symptoms you may well ask
They include
Double chins,
(yes that’s an intentional plural)
Stout full bellied profile
Shortness of breath when you bend over to tie your shoes
So you have to buy loafers and slip-ons
Incipient diabetes
Thighs as big as the trunks of trees
Cellulite deposits growing faster than suburban sprawl
It gets worse when you outgrow the gym clothes
And you can’t find anything larger
Even at Walmart
Sigh
You have to trade in the subcompact with great mileage
For an F150 with good springs
Sideways glances mark your slow progress when you venture
Out
Pitying glances
Arrogant sneers
Nods of commiseration from the others so afflicted
Until finally
You pull yourself away from the table
The diners
Bars and grills
Drive-thru burger joints
Fine dining restaurants dimly lit
Delis serving lox and bagels
Not to mention the frozen food section
Say goodbye to all that
Start to lose the body fat
Fruits and veggies
Nuts and seeds
Are pretty much all that’s left
On which to feed
So the symptoms fade away
Your swollen shape retracts
Returns to form
And you realize
That your allergy has been subverted
Cured
David Trudel © 2012
Gravity
Gravity pulled me into your orbit
Spinning me around
Holding me in place
Geosynchronously
To share this ride through
Time and space
Forever gazing
At your sweet face
David Trudel © 2012
Quantum Love
Quantum physics explains a lot about love
Wave theory certainly applies
As starbright breakers roll over us
Souls swept up in a tidal rush
The heat of our affection
Obeys the law of thermal equilibrium
And the principle of equipartition
Cosmic inflation of feelings occur
The big bang
Leads the way
To unification
So when the quantum of my love collides with yours
Meltdown
Is inevitable
David Trudel © 2012
Sometimes
Sometimes my little boy
Unevolved self
Takes over the command center of my brain
Screams jealously
Craves attention
The rational side pleads
Be quiet
She’s busy
For good reason
The little boy
Whines
Stomps his feet
Where is she?
Shouting anger
Resentment
Jealousy
Then, the deeper me emerges
He laughs them off, those petty urges
Smiling as the boy becomes the man
Concerned about
His rash impositions
Flawed attempts to communicate
Lack of empathy
Inability to be at the table of white towel waving fans applauding the banjo lady
And worried that these unalterable deficiencies
Might be noticed
Noted
Subtracted from the sum of the good parts
When all he really wants
Is to give away
His heart
David Trudel © 2012
PinPricked
Pinpricked
The bubble leaks its charmed air
Ssss
Ssss
Ssss
Begins to collapse
Twists
Turns
The magic of the spell is broken
As the elasticity of this gift
Crystallizes
With each outflow
Hardens
Contaminated
By doubt
Indecision
Blunt reality
Fears
So the bubble bursts
Dissolves
Disappears
Becomes a memory
Of a pathway never taken
Another might have been world
Never explored
Dream trumping reality
Wins another round
David Trudel © 2012
Too Much Information
There is this flood
This cascade
This torrent
That overwhelms me
Daily
My levees are breached
The dykes have failed
And no small army of earnest volunteers filling sandbags
Will ever hold back this tide
Some days it’s so bad
Its like those images of the tsunami victims
Being pushed around in their sinking cars into pure hell up ahead
And that’s how I feel
With all this information
These articles and essays
Rants and raves
Links to books
I mean the whole fucking Library of Congress holdings
Are out floating around there somewhere
Not to mention the Youtube videos
Everything that you could ever imagine
Like how to put snow chains on your car
Or throatsinging techniques
Or fifty years worth of TV commercials.
What we all really love about Youtube
Are the music videos
Originals and covers
Studio and live performances
All coming at you like a monster wave
And you’re in that curl
And you know its going to break
But not quite yet cause that’s the moment we’re in
The bubble moment
When time stops
Everything starts floating weightlessly
You look around and see page after page after page
Of information
Stretching out in double helix patterns into infinity
Row after row of filing cabinets a mile high
And a river deep
Countless coils of fiber optic cables
Connecting supersystems
Server farms stretching across the great plains
All of them crammed and overflowing
Constantly growing
Next!
Next!
Next!
Creatively self-replicating assembly lines
Spreading information
Ideas,
Fact and fiction
Hate and love
Wisdom and
Ephemeral pieces of crap that clutter the clutter.
Delete
Delete
Delete
In that bubble moment
You recognize the value of the small handful
The rare
The shining stars
Truthtellers
Shamans
Wise Women
Sages
The ones you are privileged to know
Their very scarceness
Makes it easy to bundle them together quickly
Hold them close
Don’t worry about the rest of the ocean
And when the wave breaks
It’ll be just fine because
It’s just a metaphorical wave
Not a real one
Not a real one like in Hawaii
So imagine that you’re a surfer,
The same as before
The biggest wave in history is crashing down
But wait!
A magic force field represented by a blue bubble
surrounds you
protects you from the violence
The force
The inevitability
Oppression
Tyranny
Of all this relentless information
That’s the bubble moment coming to the rescue
Fending off certain death and dismemberment
It is trust
Trust in those spirits you’ve gathered together
Who choose words wisely
Deliberately
That creates the bubble
That conveys the strength
Required to withstand the full blown force of a cosmic ocean
Falling on your head
So that you can keep your head above water
And
Simply breathe
Survive
And grow
David Trudel © 2012
Onion
Each discovery
Each peeled back layer of tear inducing
Onion skin wrapping
Surprises me
And yet not really
Since it all feels so
Right
Familiar
Similar
Yet different
In a mixed up
Crazy kind of way
Esoteric interests
Growing like the weeds between the paving stones
Of our acculturated minds
Commitments, the mortar holding us in place
Moments of revelation
And release
As we dance across
This coldlit room
No touching here
Strictly clinical approaches
But through my craft and blameless art
(Never sullen)
I have contrived through artifice and rank desire
A place for Eros to conspire
So we do
Conspire and inflame
Discover thoughts we thought were lost
Discover feelings never named
And as the onion sharpens tongue and drives the tear
That tracks my cheek
I feel you so near
Through time and space’s equilibrium
So a wormhole
Must appear
To send you on your way to me
David Trudel © 2012
Cars
You see faces looming up for a brief instant
As you hurtle by one another
Whoosh
Whoosh
Whoosh
Onrush of air stirs a
Sweet kiss moment as tons of
Metal
Glass
Plastic
Careen inches away
But for an instant there’s a flashbulb moment
Both of you look to see who’s sharing the space
There, caught in flagrante are the nosepickers
Booger mining
They don’t seem to care that the windows are transparent
Engaged in some major excavation of the nasal cavity
While on public display
The problem eaters, pushing into their slathering mouths
Junk food packets of varying size and heft
Spew inducing confections only mildly poisonous
Reckless texters playing with the ubiquitous devices
Going down with all thumbs
Wardrobe adjusters moving the girls or adjusting the package
Dolled up dolls
Applying eye shadow
Mascara
Lipstick
Looking at the rearview mirror instead of the road
Some of them have spotless cars
Some cars are full of trash
Or beanie babies glued across the dash
You hurtle by this kaleidoscope of faces
Speculate on who they are
Imagine a date with that cute one
Try to guess occupations
These days a lot of faces are blank
Inured to the weight of troubles
That burdens their souls
A lot of faces are red faced angry
Neck straining
Eye popping
Steam blowing
Red faced angry
I like the singers a lot better
Who are never off key
Belting it out with gusto and abandon
Passengers who prop their dirty feet on the dashboard
Or dangle them out the window
Likely for a good airing
Smokers chugging away
Like those old steam engines they used to have in the westerns
Some people are crying
Tears streaming down their faces
While their white knuckled grips
Are about to snap the steering wheel into pieces
Some faces smile back
Share a moment with a grin
And a come hither flirt that flies from eye to eye
Mutual seduction instantaneously
Two cars passing
In the night
David Trudel © 2012
This Line Live
Follow the link to find my performance of This Line.
Poetry Duet Redux
Charmed
He’s prepared this daydream for me—
Allows me to see him for this moment.
Gloriously adorned,
The universe hangs
Glittering around his neck.
I am stunned,
For he is stunning,
I quiver to think how badly I’ve underestimated him,
(And spoken so casually.)
But he is so above
All of these conditions,
Detached from the results,
Yet, within my nature, so at home.
He takes my hand,
Curls it to his lips,
And gives me the tiniest, little peck.
It’s a good thing that’s all he gave me,
For it’s more than I can handle.
I sense that he has more to give
When I am able to bear.
The promise is Titan planetary.
It dangles on his necklace.
But for now, a smooth worn pebble will do,
And a ribbon for my hair.
-jenn long
http://socramama.blogspot.ca/2012/10/charmed.html
Charmed Dreams
Some dreams are sent with mythic intent
Flung from a distant Olympic height
To sow conspiracy for love’s delight
Propel the faintest glimmer into life extant
From my wild sky open temple
Built on stone cold ropes that once reached the very stars
Amidst oaken groves I wander
Wondering at the pendulum descending
From the thin black string
My fingers clutch
Realizing that this string is no more
Nor no less tangible than the invisible one
That binds our hearts
That pulls our thoughts
Across a universal void
To Elysian fields where we will find
Sweet solace in love’s embrace
And share our dreams through each pore and cell
Annointing one another with the balm of peace
Until the dream shall cease
David Trudel © 2012
I was playing chess with my brother
I was playing chess with my brother
We were using a plastic fold-up travel set
The pieces had little magnets in their bases
So no matter how turbulent the game might get
In the myriad travel adventures one might have
They’d stay put
The board would never be upset
No matter if the plane hit an air pocket and stuff went flying
Even if the oxygen masks popped out in front of you
The chess set clutched in your hand is safe
Its pieces unperturbed
Undisturbed by petty forces like gravity
No matter if the cheap Greek ferry you should never have taken
Is pitching and rolling its way across mythic waters
While you are puking your guts out over the railing
The damned chess game will be safe
Where your green faced brother
Waits in a deck chair for your return
I was playing chess with my brother
In Tahiti
A layover between Bora Bora and Auckland
5 star hotel for a change
Better than that first night on Bora Bora
Being attacked by hundreds of land crabs
In a thatched roof shelter
We were sheltering on park benches in the dark
While the crabs went clickety clack at our feet
And we regretted our lack of reservations but
The chess set was unperturbed and not shaken at all
Back in Tahiti and uber civilization
We wandered the lobby and grounds
Looked for a quiet corner to play chess for a while
Which we did
Relaxing in tropical splendor
The air redolent with an aromatic assault of fragrance
And foliage that spewed forth everywhere
Lush beyond the understanding of a northerner
I was playing chess with my brother
In a hotel in Tahiti
I was playing chess with my brother
In a hotel in Tahiti
When the area around us was invaded
By badly dressed
Middle aged at best
Loud obnoxious tourists
Who sat down at the other tables we had barely noticed
The courtyard seemed to have grown a stage magically
A flourish of light and sound announced the arrival
Of some touristy Polynesian show
I was no longer playing chess with my brother
I was watching a show
You know, the kind of thing they do on cruises
A Disney dizzy rendition of a corporately approved version of the folkloric past
Bumps and grinds dressed up in National Geographic yellow and black
I almost enjoyed it for a while
No longer playing chess with my brother
Until the show got to the part where the dancers
Get off the stage and head into the audience to pick partners
That’s when I found myself onstage
In a 5 star hotel in Tahiti
Taking a Polynesian dance lesson
To the great delight of a happy crowd
Boisterous package tour tourists
Me, wishing I was playing chess with my brother
Who was clutching the unperturbed chess-set
While I made a good natured but failed attempt to comply with the commands
My hips and knees and elbows moving in disarray
Hoots and hollers, guffaws ensued
For a brief moment I was embarrassed
Then I remembered that these were just the same odious tourists
I had rolled my eyes and arched my eyebrows at
Mere moments before
So I relaxed and rolled with it
Was sent back to my seat eventually
Eventually they all packed up and left
We exhaled
I was playing chess with my brother
David Trudel © 2012
Riverpathing
Riverpathing
Alone with my thoughts
Anxieties in deep recession
Bolstered by flattery
Attention
I sense something new
A warm feeling, warm as the sun on my back
Name it contentment
And climb clinging trails carved along the rocky gorge
To marvel at the beauty in this world
And you
David Trudel © 2012
Charmed Dreams
Some dreams are sent with mythic intent
Flung from a distant Olympic height
To sow conspiracy for love’s delight
Propel the faintest glimmer into life extant
From my wild sky open temple
Built on stone cold ropes that once reached the very stars
Amidst oaken groves I wander
Wondering at the pendulum descending
From the thin black string
My fingers clutch
Realizing that this string is no more
Nor no less tangible than the invisible one
That binds our hearts
That pulls our thoughts
Across a universal void
To Elysian fields where we will find
Sweet solace in love’s embrace
And share our dreams through each pore and cell
Annointing one another with the balm of peace
Until the dream shall cease
David Trudel © 2012
This Poem
This poem is a promise
A promise that says fealty
As much as the annual recitations of the landless to the landed
The foreswearing of commitment
This poem sings your praises
Heaping halleluiahs on the sighs of angels
Listening to the echoes of your bright truth
That you call forth so effortlessly
In stringed communion with these comfortable friends
This poem says we stand together
Guarding each others back
Against the slings and arrows of fortunes outraged
Yet holding fast, at last
This poem walks you home
This poem is a promise and a hope
This poem invites you to stay
David Trudel © 2012
Duet by Two Poets
Sweet Arrival
I’ve ever felt a closeness
To something unspeakably good.
A presence that, without moving at all,
Beats me to my arrival.
But not goading as a competitor,
Or gloating as one so much better,
He drops sweet petals,
Airs the place,
And dispels the shadows alone.
Then he waits for the likes of me.
It makes me wonder
How I can turn so easily,
And even consider something so temporary,
And so lacking.
-jenn long
http://socramama.blogspot.ca/2012_10_01_archive.html
Perfect
This is such a perfect poem
It calls out for
deserves
requires
The perfect poetic reply
The first is too awkward
Delete
The second too obvious
More than a little trite
Delete
Next, a little humor
It’s misplaced
Delete
Soon the trash basket overflows
My words inadequate for the task
I surrender the page
Weave a basket
Visit Monet’s garden
Gather timeless blossoms
Select sensuous Georgia O’Keeffe buds
Flowering in exquisite color in the desert of New Mexico
Accept tall and slender calla lilies
Offered by Diego Rivera himself
Explore the meadows of Persephone’s abduction
Craft a garland of the bounty of primordial spring
Find a Delphic laurel branch
And in the golden light of sunset
Pick mythic apples of the Hesperides
And with these tokens
Simple notions
Spread petals at your feet
David Trudel © 2012
Deep Passion
Deep passion runs unchecked
Across borderless fields where words gallop
Like thundering horses
Across the high sierra and
Straight up the continental divide
Deep passion taps primal forces that aren’t modulated
That can’t be dialed down
Toned down
Faded
Muted
Reduced
To something less than the full on force of a cosmic emotion
That has you on a roll
A roll a roller that’s an insane coaster
Looping loops and corkscrewing
Climbing straight up
Plunging over dropoff cliffs that rival the grand canyon
So you can’t stand up in your seat
Wave to an attendant to slow it down
If you did you’d die for sure
And though this feels like being an instant away
From being splattered on the ground
You trust that some nameless engineer
Actually knew what they were doing and
Built this ride to bring it on home
Bring it on home
Bring it on home
To where deep passion runs unchecked
David Trudel © 2012
Closer
If I was to follow my passion
I’d be in my car tonight
Careening down the interstate
On a highway bound for you
But I’m stalled here
Hanging time
As we wait and wait and wait
Just another hold up
Getting in between the two of us
While we wait for the world
To catch up
To where we’ll end up
Just when you think it’ll never work out
I call your name
And you wake up
David Trudel © 2012
Heroes
Heroes go above and beyond
My heroes are single moms
Who wake up early
Get their kids to school
Figure out ways to pay the never-ending bills
Are there for homework
Or just to toss a ball around
My heroes are the single moms
Who wake up early
Go to bed late
Who listen carefully
To fragile hopes and heartfelt prayers
Even as their own hopes fade into a forgotten
Shadow of neverwere
My heroes are the single moms
Who are singular
Worthy of applause
From the rest of us
But who never hear it
My heroes rock
And deserve so much more
My heroes
Are your mothers
David Trudel © 2012
Pushed
Funny, isn’t it
How negative emotions
Strong feelings
Become adrenaline fueled body rushes
Which have the power to turn digits
Into wild animals that crawl over the keyboard
Like skittering scattering cockroaches
My breath gets shallow as a sports fan’s mind at playoff time
I try to regain control like a swami
But I’m no eastern mystic
Some buttons can’t be unpushed
Those cockroaches need to crawl back
To their dark corners
Before tranquility returns
David Trudel © 2012
Eruption
Words cascade like flowing lava
Tumbling in a red hot fireglow
Out of a parade of mouths that strain
Implore
cajole
inform
subvert and shock,
Not that anyone here
Shocks easily, this room resists tectonic movement
These poems come crammed full of ideas
concepts
inner truths
self-loathing and
self-love
These words spill out overflowing
Like a broken levee spilling turgid water onto sodden streets
The more the better
Jam packed
Into impossibly long poems read from a single page
And I think that the font must be pretty fucking small
And their eyesight must be damned sharp
For one page to contain this jambalaya of wordfeast
While what I set down on my pages is sparse and spartan
Graphically arranged
Where phrases and words all need their space
And the space between the spaces informs the composition
While these chatterbox beat fiends fly paper kites in the light of the moon
Powered by the breath of a muse
These poems arrive in rhythmic cadences delivered
Naturally as a vaginal birth
Or pulled protesting from the womb in c-sectioned blood
While dilated irises betray the nervousness and fear
That shake fingers clutching just too tightly to a page
These lines explode over our heads like fireworks on a summer night
Briefly illuminating our dark thoughts and secret places
Synapses firing like bullets over Damascus
Punctuated by gentle heckling and raucous rebel yells
Roaring applause
Snapping fingers
Table thumping
While the red hot stream congeals into rock
A rock that will be mined and crushed and used for
Ornamental landscapes
Driveways
Pathways
Recalling the fluid past when rock was molten
Flowing in tongues of fire from the crater into the night
David Trudel © 2012
35 Hours
35 hours
Down a long road
Is what I’d need to cure this pain
Across the water
Through the rainforest
Rolling hills
Mountain passes
Plains
Careening down divided highways
Bridging this great divide
Stopping only for fuel, food
Sleeping at cheap motels that hum
With the throb of 18 wheelers
35 hours of swallowing miles
To swallow my heart
Which seems to be in my throat
Or on my sleeve
This condition won’t respond to ace inhibitors
But needs a laying on of hands
To cure
Hands that are
35 long hours away
David Trudel © 2012
Long Horizon
There is a long horizon
Under the waxing moon
Pale rising
Over the city beneath me
Where
Amber lit avenues
Gridscape through the trees
Ten thousand points of light
Prick the darkening gloom
While I search that long horizon
For a straight line
To you
David Trudel © 2012
Missile
This thought is launched like a guided missile
Aimed at your heart
Its accuracy is precise
The effect devastating and immediate
Over a thousand miles away
You survive its strike but your complacency is shattered
Even as your own thoughts
Are sent on their retaliatory mission of
Mutually assured
Seduction
David Trudel © 2012
- Conspiracy No double entendresNo beaten down bushes hiding our true thoughtsOur words come uncloakedBareExposedOur words harmonizeVerse to verseVoice to voiceDirect and trueCompelling as the night’s full moonPull of the tideOur words conspirePulling us forwardAlong for the rideDavid Trudel © 2012
Resurrection
Forget the wine
Forget the day
Forget everything that
Crept up to this moment
Flesh on flesh
Eye to eye
A life within a sigh
You urge me on
Like I do to you
We race like warriors
No quarter given
Simply driven
To exceed what’s expected
So we do
Until we lie satiated
Panting
Full and empty
Waiting for resurrection
David Trudel © 2012
-
Dreams
Dreams are doorways
To so many possibilities
Some touches are ephemeral, barely felt
But imbued with weight nonetheless
Longing conspires with desire
To add gravity to attraction
To settle
Stratified
Below
David Trudel © 2012
- Half-moon
- Half-moon rises in twilight skyPulling halfway crazies in tow
As the year turns, spirits shake loose
From sepulchers and hidden halls
Slipping into the frosted light of dusk
Sliding from time to place and place to time
In time and out of it
Placed and displaced
Disturbing wobbles of another dimension
Not quite in focus
But enough to set the dogs barking
Hackles rising
As they sniff that faint whiff of sulfur
Crackle of ozone
As I too feel the ripple of the veil
That shades our world
David Trudel © 2012
Long Dance
Bifurcated trees show up quite a lot
In these parts
Sometimes they look like a tall thin giant ent
Has just dove right into the dirt
Buried its head and arms in the ground
Maybe its stuck
Other times it’s more like a strange twinning
Locked for decades in a never-ending embrace
Dancing through the winter storms
Holding on as one
I imagine all the doomed lovers
Who have missed their chance
Being given this form as a just reward
Swaying skywards together
Joined at the base
Joined basely
Sap dripping
Plunging deep roots into the dirt
Where they hold on
To bedrock
Below
David Trudel © 2012
Fall
Fall arrives looking a lot like summer
With a few differences
The parking lot at the lake isn’t very crowded
Like it is in July
There’s only one crowd of drunken teen cliffjumpers
Not the usual dozen
Less noise
I assume as much since I’ve got the tunes cranked and the earphones on
Today the shuffled top rated playlist actually seems to be random
For once
Whirligig seeds float to earth from the forest canopy
Briefly caught in columns of golden light
Dogs frolic on the beach, now that the season has turned
In the shadows of the forest the air is cool
A frisson of cold foreshadowed
Makes my bare arms shiver
With anticipation of the deepening cold
But today, stepping through the door into autumn
It looks a lot like summer
David Trudel © 2012
Beguiled
She has a smile
That beguiles
A laugh that’s halfway to a sin
She blushes when someone sings her praises
She is a friend of mine
She corrals those crazy horses
Rides the pedal to the metal
The wind barely ruffles
Her blazing mane
Though we’ve never met
A meeting of the minds
Is so much more sincere
Than so many masks we wear
She is a friend of mine
She has a smile that beguiles
A laugh that’s halfway to a sin
Lighting up a room
Lighting up my face
All she has to do
Is look my way
She is a friend of mine
She questions what we find
Pushes boundaries and limits
Just can’t get beyond
The ocean in our way
David Trudel © 2012
Close the Door
I close the door on summer from an exterior room
Spiralled rock ascending like a celtic rune
Scooped stone marks the heart of this hill
Former mountain
Ground down by the rolling glacial might of thousands
Thousands
Thousands
Tons of ice
At the cusp of the equinox
Leaves already swirl their way to litter the ground
I close the door on summer
Feeling how thin the afternoon’s warmth has become
Sitting at the top of what’s left of this hill
Former mountain
Absorbing the depth of this rock that plunges
Deep within the crust
Anchoring itself against the shifting of the plates
Fissures, quakes and lava flows
Tsunami waves thundering down the straits
I close the door on summer
Thinking that we made it through another season
Tomorrow I’ll climb back up
To open up the next door
David Trudel © 2012
Soundly
So many sounds
Are just illusions
We’re good at delusions
Ascribing this to that
Cautious as diplomats
Naming things not what they are but
Something else instead
I thought I heard the wind one day
It wasn’t the wind at all
It was just the trees protesting
Clinging tight before the fall
What’s the sound of a heart being broken
Is it a cry in the night or a sob in the dark
A slam of a door, or a catch in your throat
What’s the sound of passion
Rub of skin on skin
Shh, shh, someone might hear
Intake of breath in your ear
So near
Impatience sounds like fingers drumming on a tabletop
Torture begins with nails on a chalkboard
Ends with a choked wail
Happiness is children splashing in a swimming hole
Shrieking in delight
Mystery shrouds a foghorn’s moan
Or a train’s long whistle in the night
Applause means appreciation
Where did that begin
Who thought that slapping palms together
Should declare approbation
And why, when we’re asleep and dead to the world
Virtually deaf
Why do we say we sleep soundly
Even as our snores resound around the room
David Trudel © 2012
C Change
Selfishly, I like the warm September
But the Arctic melt
So dramatic
Presages
Catastrophes to come
Climate change deniers
Your time is up
From floods to fires and
God knows what else
The cats are long gone from that old bag
Enjoy your house while it still stands
Enjoy the forests that surround your land
Before you know it
They’ll all be gone
Before you know it
They’ll be long gone
So say goodbye
To what we know
And say hello to a horror show
It’s shaping up to fall apart
Just wait and see
And say hello
David Trudel © 2012
Unplain
It’s plain to me
That you aren’t, at all
As I uncover your tastes
Explore the blank page
That you have yet to turn
A page to write together
In kisses and caresses
Which are as organic
As the raw silk sheets beneath you
As close to fabric as we’ll get
You are all the cover I need
Not much at all, in fact
We’ll trace journeys in each other’s flesh
Stoking fires that burn out of control
For days
While we feast together on love
A banquet of raw desire
Cooked up hot
Steaming
Not an empty calorie in sight
Full bellied we’ll laugh in exaltation
As the long night is burned away
By dawn’s promise
Of a brighter day
David Trudel © 2012
Happy Birthday Susan
Let’s begin with the bow
Big and mauve and perfectly tied
Handmade by Martha Stewart herself
She even signed the ribbon
Cinched around the box
The box is a perfect cube
Wrapped in champagne silk
That is only produced in a single village
In a hidden location in the middle kingdom
The silken wrapping has been handstitched into place
By Irish nuns, cloistered in an ancient convent
Each stitch comes with a prayer and a teardrop
Supplication, devotion and acceptance are sewn in
You decide to leave this present unwrapped
You place it on your desk
On a pile of printouts of the keepers
The ones you felt were worthy to be inked on paper
The mystery of the contents of the box
Might cause some to rip open the treasured wrappings
Greedily tear open the box hoping for reciprocal reaction
To the action of the wrapping
Major bling, maybe a piece of Chihuly glass
A signed “Victoria Lucas” first edition of The Bell Jar
Instead
You resist
Savoring the mystery
Knowing the promise is so vast
So perfect
There is no need to disturb it
Since the inspiration is so grand
Outside the box
Just like you
Are outside the box
And your curiosity, the need to uncover deeper truths
Enjoys contemplating the plight
Of whatever it is that’s trapped within
Just like you do everyday
With every line you write
David Trudel © 2012
Elusive
You are elusive
Not quite approachable
Thin as air
Insubstantial as an autumn mist
Or the thoughts that flee from this pen’s capture
Every now and then you pause
Turn the full force of your smile on me
Hold out your arms
Those moments never last
But they’re enough to keep me addicted
To happiness
David Trudel © 2012
The Intensity of My Belief
The intensity of my belief
In my cares
In my concerns
Pales in comparison
To the cries of the imprisoned
The refugees
The forgotten
Homeless
Lost
And my agenda
Dries up
In the face of the calamities
Arriving en masse
Individually
An army of distress
That assails the globe
Yet I still am impulsed
By ego
Fueled by individualism
Driven by emotion
Such as it is
I am an army of one
In disarray
Facing all enemies
Of perfection
While perdition waltzes through
Swanning a glorious parade
To the end times
Or the beginning thereof
And so I wait
For the tipping point
Which might be so very near
Or may be still light years away
But whatever the case
The misery remains
So many tortured souls
So many lives on hold
So many dreams untold
While we keep on keeping on
Doing what is wrong
And fighting what we do not need
To fight
But overall the tension builds
While we keep dreaming up
Window dressing, as of course you know
We like to camouflage
Our targets and what it is we love
And hide our vulnerabilities
Beneath whatever it takes to conceal
What we really feel below
Below the superficialities
We just strike a pose
Cross our fingers and we cross our toes
Hoping for the very best
While this world implodes
David Trudel © 2012
Isolated
Isolated
By our existentialism
We reach and slip
Fellowship
Can’t work
In a vacuum
Davis Trudel © 2012
Roads
Let’s celebrate roads
From point A to Point No Point
Paved and graveled and hacked out of the land
Backroads that undulate through forests
On cracked and broken pavement
Laid down once and then forgotten
Let’s exalt in the multi-laned highways and freeways
Crisscrossing the continent in loops and curls
Of massive sculptural forms of concrete and stone
Dividing farms and connecting so many other dots
Where speed counts and the steel flies and flies die
In front of our eyes
Let’s remember short cuts
Especially the ones that are
Since so many aren’t
But however meandering a short cut can be
You’ll get to where you’re going
Eventually
Back alleys have their place
So what if it’s not where we spend our
Landscaping budget
They work don’t they?
Let’s applaud roads that are interrupted by
Canyons
Rivers
Lakes
And are bridged or ferried to the other side
To take up the trail again
Paved roads
Dirt roads
Logging roads that switchback up and into mountaintops
Twisting highways that hug the coastline
Onramps
Offramps
Let’s give a blue ribbon
To streets that are the closest to downtown with free parking
Let’s give a drum roll to roads that lie beneath elevated trains
Transit shadowed shelters of the clickety clack
Let’s rock out a power chord
To freshly paved roads with rolling hills with shoulders
Wide enough for longboarders to really open up
Let’s boo and hiss at all the toll booths
That choke and squeeze from place to place
Emptying our spare change before we get to the parking lot
Let’s celebrate roads
Roads that bring us back home
Or to the seven wonders of the world
To games and fame and funerals
From my door to yours
It’s all the same
The road
David Trudel © 2012
Dragons
This parade of young fire breathers
With sparking eyes and flaming wit
Full mouthed
Foul mouthed
Fully engaged
In each word and phrase that is offered
Or tossed like grenades
Into a trench
But there’s no shrapnel to frag the weakened flesh
Here the words fly like harmless toy arrows
To the bulls eyes of receptive faces
Coaxed out full of cadence and rhythm
Hesitation and trepidation
Clearly full of confident delight
Words cascade from us all
Table pounding
Finger snapping
Hoot hollering
A gospel revival of irreverent preachers
Itinerant wordsmiths of verse and song
Leading the faithful
In call and response
In this bacchanalia of verbosity
Imbibing lines with alacrity
Soused as Dylan Thomas at 2 a.m.
On the high test testimony
Sworn before the court of poetic justice
Young dragons
Speaking in tongues
Proclaiming truth in the illuminated night
David Trudel © 2012
When I first met Harold
At the house he shared with my new friends
A place called Hippie Haven
He was working on multiple pieces of art
Simultaneously
While talking over the loud music
Our obnoxious distractions didn’t faze
It wasn’t so much that he created
Rather, he channeled creativity
Multimedia
Music, art, performance
Whichever way the muse led, he followed
Not a musician, at least at first
Harold commanded the soundboard for the band
Lights came as a second nature afterthought
And if he dealt in prohibited substances
The profit kept the band afloat
Between gigs
Through the years the art kept flowing
Monumental, tiny, primal
He turned to sculpture
Turned old car parts
Even airline meal carts
Into metaphors and mysteries
Handpainted leather jackets
Joined a Taiko drumming troupe
Created and fathered
Fostered aural soundscapes in his basement studio
Eventually the worm turned
Selfdoubts and darkness crept in
The creative wellspring
That had flowed for so long
Shut down, dried up
Until one day
Moving day
The day when the family house became someone else’s
He made the ultimate move
Didn’t get out alive
But his work
Lives on
David Trudel © 2012
Balcony
This balcony is a good one
Better than some I’ve had
A meter deep and four long
Sheltered by the overhanging roof
Reached only by the sliding glass door
From my bedroom
Now
From this balcony
Present intense
Past intrudes
Beneath the trees
That ambivilate the street
Overhead a panoply
Of chemtrails and satellites
Obviate the obscurity
Of this balcony
Deep, long and sheltered
Staring into the sky in the night
In the shadows
Tonight
David Trudel © 2012
Saints and Sinners
I’m a saint and I’m a sinner
Skeptic and a true believer
I obey most all the rules
But still I’m a rebel
At heart and at my centre
‘Cause I’m a saint and I’m a sinner
Skeptic and a true believer
Lost my way, then I found it
On the way to new beginnings
Just another kind of lesson
Where I’m a saint and I’m a sinner
Full of many contradictions
On the road to where it takes me
Wherever that ends up
In which direction warm wind blows
I guess I’ll go there
Full of all those contradictions
‘Cause I’m a saint and I’m a sinner
Skeptic and a true believer
Learning on the run
Watching as the lessons flow
Going fast and going slow
Where I’m a saint and I’m a sinner
Skeptic and true believer
Full of many contradictions
Saints
Sinners
Misconceptions
So I wait for you
Just like you wait for me
As angels sing their song
To both skeptics
And the true believers
David Trudel © 2012
@5
He would quote Garcia Lorca to shopkeepers
Engage salesmen or waiters with a sharp
Interested
Invested
Wit
We were buying shoes in Mexico City
We noticed a plaque
That this was the very spot
Cortes met Moctezuma
Which launched another political discourse
Gathered a small crowd
Until we remembered the shoes we were
Supposed to be buying
Were theoretical
Not yet existential
At 5
In the afternoon
David Trudel © 2012
Show
Muscles tense as stretched power lines in an icestorm
Draped in crystals
Hanging low
Yet the electricity is charged
Enough
To flow
Carry those electrons
Charged particles
Here and there
Make magic
Start the show
Muscles tense
As the curtain rises
From both sides of the footlights
An exhalation of breath
It begins
David Trudel © 2012
This Line
This line wasn’t drawn yesterday or today
This line goes way back
Straight through my heart
This line is as red as the blood that
Stained Jackie’s tailored suit
In the shadow of the grassy knoll
This line hangs as heavy
As the rope that bore such
Strange and bitter fruit
This line is the scar on Gabby Giffords’ scalp
This line is the tear falling
Down a mother’s cheek
This line is hot with rage and fury
This line was uttered in Ford’s Theatre
As theatrically as ever
This line is the sting of the whip
This line is the manacle that holds you in place
This line is drawn tight
Tight as a bow whose arrow
Will take flight
On a straight line to death
This line underscores the tally
Of the lost
This line spits hot lead
Randomly
In chaos
This line kills
This line is not a drawing
It’s a pathway to oblivion
And everlasting dark
David Trudel © 2012
This poem was inspired by a poem by Susan Daniels:
http://susandanielseden.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/that-line/
That Line
if there is
a line between free speech
& treasonbetween change
& revolutionbetween assembly
& riotingit is fine
it is dark
& it is drawnin blood
the problem is
it takes deathto tell the difference
Susan L. Daniels
Formless
My anarchic mind
Fights order
Rejects the tyranny of the must do’s
I tap the wellspring
Of hidden thoughts
Wait for ideas to rise and fall
Rise again
Come unglued and undone
Formless
No prompting
Impulsive as a giggle
Irregular as a muzzle loader in the rain
Effective at close range
Strangely
David Trudel © 2012
Ward
I awoke to the nurse poking
Prodding
She noticed I was at least somewhat awake
On a scale of 1 to 10
She said
How’s the pain
I felt like saying I don’t do numbers
I’m not a fucking accountant
It just hurts
Settled on 9
Which she wrote down on her chart
Oh, a chart
I recognized that
She loomed into view
You’ve had a shock
No fucking kidding dear
The meds will help
Here’s the call button
As it faded into translucent grey
David Trudel © 2012
My first memory
I am in my crib
Supposed to go to sleep
But I don’t want to
So I scale the walls
Breakout
Grab my little wicker armchair
Creep to the door
To listen surreptitiously
To my father arguing
Discussing
Debating
The merits of medicare
Public healthcare
Morals and ethics
With the social worker
Who’d become the first socialist premier
Of the province some years later
Until I was discovered
Put to bed
Not to sleep
David Trudel © 2012
- Online PoetsWe are the synapses firingIn the obscurity of nightIn the clarity of morning’s lightFiring thoughts we trigger on keyboardsOr mobile devicesBouncing around the world and backWhere time is nothingAnd everythingWe weave a trading blanketThat covers usTo a degreeWhile we play with each otherIn the dark warmthWe like our comfortsSharedLike the thoughts we send outElegantly craftedMetered rhymesForm fitting testaments to creativityShocking thoughts of lust filled musingsReinterpretations of perceptionsRandom synchronicityIllusionsOutright liesWe take facts and deconstruct themReassembled into feelingsOr emotionsWe paint pictures with wordsWe admonish and cajoleWe hunger for feedbackAnd feed on the cornucopiaThat keeps our tables filledWith thoughts and words and memesWe are the synapsesWe versifyOur words sing the truth of creationBut it’s not always prettyDavid Trudel © 2012
- TaggedYou tagged me in your postCorralled me into a herdSaid you are with meOr against meI can’t be that specificI value freedomEquityRule of lawJustice for allThe separation of church and stateSo when I am stampededI jump the fenceAnd boltThe American Taliban can’t rule my lifeI stand supra religiosityFreedom to believe is what I craveExtended to allEqual rights without caveatsFreedom of choicePolitics shouldn’t be about prayerThe state has no business inBedroomsChurchesMosquesTemplesOr oak trees in the woodsThe state should make sure the infrastructureIs adequateThe state should make sure the playing fieldIs equalThen back offAs I back off fromYouDavid Trudel © 2012Knockan Hill, near Victoria, B.C.
If I can slow you down
To the point
Where walls collapse
Where worlds collide
Into a single moment
Where we stand toe to toe
To share a look
Bare our souls
Then I will have achieved something
Transcendent
Worthy of this artistry
Shared
Revealed
Celebrating invention and delight
Shouting freedom
Curiosity
Rebellion
No authority holds us in check
Propriety or politesse
Just the measure of each moment
Each breathe
The realization of what’s right
For you
For me
Tonight
David Trudel © 2012
Deep into summer
Grasses fade into straw
Rocks protrude
Bald spots enlarged by shuffling feet
Dog walkers
Birders
Ripped by the hooves of the deer
As they fly from one tasty garden to another
On surrounding streets
Landscaped salad bars
Here, the rocky meadow isn’t very appetizing
But it lasts
David Trudel © 2012
Listen
Listen
To your heart
The inner voice
The authentic truth
First, settle your mind
Strip away all the noise
Chatter
Cluttered thoughts and memos to yourself
Incessant calls for your attention
Things that compel reaction
All the business of life
Shut it all down
Let it settle to the floor
Forget everything
Be the essence of yourself
No distractions
Just experience the moment
Listen
Listen for the sound of the river of creativity
Seek it out
Jump in
Listen for inspiration
In the wind rustling the trees
Climb up
Listen to your heart
David Trudel © 2012
Raw
I like it when you’re raw
Authentic
When you speak your mind
Without filtering
Processing
Editing
I like it when you’re organic
No artificial preservatives
Unsprayed
True to your unaltered DNA
I like it when you’re real
Not a picture on a wrapping that promises one thing
But delivers another
I like it when you’re fresh
Never go stale
You’re so much easier to digest
David Trudel © 2012
Nocturne
I was dancing on the terrace at midnight
Granted, kind of an odd behavior
Impulsive
No witnesses
Just the moths and the stars
Not that it matters
It’s a Gene Kelly terrace
Calling
So I responded
David Trudel © 2012
Hats
I am a man of many hats
Always have been
Davy Crockett or railway engineer
Headgear caught my fancy
As a child
Not quite a mask but a costume
Nonetheless
I am a man of many hats
Roles, that is
Every familial relation possible
Every rung on the social ladder
Envied and despised
Loved and hated
Full of contradictions
Still, I wear hats
To signal mood
To create a persona only partly me
Or just corral my headstrong hair
Accessorize
Keep the spiders away
The rain off my back
I am a man of many hats
Some get adorned with feathers
Found on the forest floor
Some get relegated to the back bedroom
Worn out
No longer fitting
Or fit for who I am now
So I wear the hat
That suits me today
It’s easy to remove
I’ve got back-ups you know
David Trudel © 2012
Full Blue
Twilight walks
Bring the forest alive
Into different dimensions
With the dimming of the searching light of day
Apprehension of those movements in the underbrush
Grows with each diminuendo of the light
As the owls and the cougars go shopping
For a little something in the night
Exchanging glances
All of us
While I walk farther in and further up
To watch the full blue moon ascend
From a low rolling start on the horizon
Up, up, into
Frayed roseate ribbon
Violet light of the end of day
Pulling the blue along like the raising of a windowshade
Climbing the night
Full blue moon gleams
Follows me home
Down the darkening path
Keeping the light on
David Trudel © 2012
Jenn’s Well
There is a well in Oklahoma
That pumps ink
Photons wrapped around dreams
Pixilates my screen
Through this ubiquitous pipeline
Refined at the source
Refined as a medieval princess
Weaving a tapestry of magical intrigue
Must be quite a rig in Oklahoma
To pump the riches that it does
Black letters that read like liquid gold
Texas tea isn’t always what it seems
Long way
Away
David Trudel © 2012
Eden
The Garden of Eden is so far away
Not that I ever believed in expulsion
Some distances are just too vast to leap
It’s always tempting
To consider Eden
Reclaimed innocence
Pure state of grace
Sharing fruits of the mind
Shamelessly
Letting the juices drip from our lips
Then, using our tongues
To cleanse each drop
From wherever it fell
Unhindered by conventions
Which don’t apply in the garden
Where souls are unmarked
Where love rules
Shamelessly
In Eden
David Trudel © 2012
Rounds
My father would take me on his rounds
I was maybe three or four
The practice included the elderly
Chronic cases lying abed
I would study their wrinkles
As they responded to his gentle queries
Or not
I would sit on a footstool in the O.R.
As he stitched up some drunk
Feet cut up like hamburger
From barefoot dancing in broken bottle territory
Anglers with hooks embedded in their scalps
Woodsmen whose axes had slipped
The nurses would keep their eyes on me
Watching for signs of distress
I guess
But I was cool with it
All
Case by case
Then, housecalls
Yes, he did those
Driving fast down country lanes
In sportscars
The MGB took corners fast
From house to house
At some I’d be invited in to sit in the kitchen
Strange immigrants of dubious origin
Funny old ladies in Ma Kettle dresses
Would force me to eat dusty cookies
Petrified into cement
Or so it seemed
Tagging along
Waiting to move to the next mystery
The next round
David Trudel © 2012
Caregiving
Some poems aren’t about beauty
Some poems don’t ascend into the light
Some poems aren’t about stained glass
Or uplifting
They are about the stains
The detritus
Of a life
Desperation takes a lot of forms
But at the end
The end
Somebody has to deal with it
Not vicariously
In reality, up close and personal
Life
Or the absence of it
Tonight
David Trudel © 2012
Wait
We wait
For all sorts of things
Like love and death
The paper
The next installment of some sitcom
Or the next storm on the horizon
We wait
To get picked up
We wait
In line
We wait
For our food
We wait
For things to start
We wait
When we should be doing
Actions speak louder
Than
Waiting for the nevermore
Waiting for the forgotten
We wait for the phone to ring
We wait for the next email
We wait for you to change your status
Like that will ever happen
Like the cab will come on time
While we wait
David Trudel © 2012
Document 36
Document 36
Apparently this is
What it is
Doc 36
What happened to the other 35
They left
Were abducted
Killed in the night
Took flight
Saved as others
Some of you got that
Not all
But I am not a number
I am a free
Document
And this is document 36
Davis Trudel © 2012
Calling Card
A calling card from Mother Earth
Rumbled through the air
Sonic power from the depths
Where fires rage and fume
Melting the stone
That swaths the globe
Marching rumbles
The booted feet of a mythic giant
Would sound like that, I thought
The giant turned away
Today
It was just a calling card
Not an invitation to a dance
That’s in the mail
Still to come
David Trudel © 2012
Reflection on a Tone of Voice
Your words carry meaning
Weightlessly
With the inertia of truth
Soft as a pillow whisper
In the dark
David Trudel (c) 2012
Here is a link to the poem that inspired this:
http://susandanielseden.wordpress.com/2012/08/29/tone-of-voice/
When I was a Suit
When I was a suit
I acted as an antibody
In the corporate bloodstream
Fighting off attacks of the seven deadly sins
Suspicion
Fear
Meanness
Plots
Deceptions
Lies
Smears
When I was a suit
I smiled at the customers
Answered their questions
Told them answers to questions
They hadn’t thought to ask
When I was a suit
Kept my hair trimmed
Called myself an undercover hippie
Never did fit in
But I wore that suit
With style and panache
Played the part
Even believed it some days
When I was a suit
David Trudel © 2012
Subversive Elements
Subversive elements rip apart
Essential truths
Rules get rolled in the back alleyways
Of a rigid mind
The terror
Reflection of the shattering of social niceties
Wasn’t real, after all
Dreamt up
Based on false assumptions
Fears and dreams
Subversive elements started to creep in
Ninja doubts
Troubled truths
Collide with a peal of bells
That are discordant and out of tune
Reflecting the cognitive dissonance
We endure
Trying to make sense of the chaos
Subverting the lies we agree to tell
Pretending that insanity is normal
Putting up with the fabrications
Untruths
Of an off-kilter world
David Trudel © 2012
Redemption Song
Redemption song
So poignant
Post diagnosis
Yet defiant to the end
Songs of freedom
Laughing
Every season’s turn
New players take their turn
Defiant to the end
Laughing
Then they learn the burn
That came with what they earned
Laughing
Redemption song
Emancipating minds enslaved
Long past
Severing iron chains
It is only in the mind
Where you can find your way
If not, you’ll be a slave
Regardless of what you’ve said
Unless you use it
Unless you prove it
To those songs of freedom
Laughing
David Trudel © 2012
I Was Playing Chess With My Brother
I was playing chess with my brother
We were using a plastic fold-up travel set
The pieces had little magnets in their bases
So no matter how turbulent the game might get
In the myriad travel adventures one might have
They’d stay put
The board would never be upset
No matter if the plane hit an air pocket and stuff went flying
Even if the oxygen masks popped out in front of you
The chess set clutched in your hand is safe
Its pieces unperturbed
Undisturbed by petty forces like gravity
No matter if the cheap Greek ferry you should never have taken
Is pitching and rolling its way across mythic waters
While you are puking your guts out over the railing
The damned chess game will be safe
Where your green faced brother
Waits in a deck chair for your return
I was playing chess with my brother
In Tahiti
A layover between Bora Bora and Auckland
Swank hotel for a change
Better than that first night on Bora Bora
Being attacked by hundreds of land crabs
In a thatched roof shelter
Sheltering on park benches in the dark
While the crabs went clickety clack at our feet
We wandered the lobby and grounds
Looked for a quiet corner to play chess for a while
Which we did
Relaxed in tropic splendor
The air redolent, an aromatic assault of fragrance
And foliage that spewed forth everywhere
Lush beyond the understanding of a northerner
I was playing chess with my brother
In a hotel in Tahiti
When the area around us was invaded
By badly dressed
Middle aged at best
Loud obnoxious tourists
Who sat down at the tables we had barely noticed
A courtyard that seemed to have grown a stage magically
A flourish of light and sound announced the arrival
Of some touristy Polynesian show
I was no longer playing chess with my brother
I was watching a show
You know, the kind of thing they do on cruises
A Disney dizzy rendition of a corporately approved version of the folkloric past
Bumps and grinds dressed up in National Geographic yellow and black
I almost enjoyed it for a while
No longer playing chess with my brother
Until the show got to the part where the dancers
Get off the stage and head into the audience to pick partners
That’s when I found myself onstage
In a swank hotel in Tahiti
Taking a Polynesian dance lesson
To the great delight of a happy crowd of boisterous toffs
Me, wishing I was playing chess with my brother
Who was clutching the unperturbed chess-set
While I made a good natured but failed attempt to comply
Hips and knees and elbows moving in disarray
Hoots and hollers, guffaws
For a brief moment I was embarrassed
Then I remembered that these were just the same odious tourists
I had rolled my eyes and arched my eyebrows at
Moments before
So I relaxed and rolled with it
Was sent back to my seat eventually
Eventually they all packed up and left
We exhaled
I was playing chess with my brother
David Trudel © 2012
Slam
I have some great artwork
Big epic paintings
Sculpture
Some hanging and some standing
Now I have the memory
Of art presented
Ephemerally
One shot one time
Now
And it resonates
So well
Echoes
Of old Bill
Intimations of social consciousness
Angry young women
Angry young men
Grooving on Coltrane
Channeling the Bohemians
Taking the voice of the street
To the street
Challenging beliefs
Spreading the grief
Rhythm
Rhyme
Textured lines
A sense of standing
Outside of time
Solidly retro looking back at Kerouac
In the moment
Now
Remembering the girl behind the counter
As a kid at a birthday party
A moment found long years ago
Come on, don’t get me started
Tonight don’t stretch
It snaps
Like the smattering of accolades
Finger snaps
Hurray
To all
To the best let’s applaud
By snapping
Fingers in the night
David Trudel © 2012
Muses
Muses are fickle
They seduce with wild abandon
Then leave in the middle of the night
Take flight
Leaving nothing but scent and stain
So you pick up your favorite writing tool
Whisper a prayer
Hope for a benediction
When inspiration doesn’t flow
You force yourself to spread the words
Sordidly
But a forced poem is like an arranged marriage
Awkward
Unknown
Artificial
As for love it may grow over time
Didn’t carry you to the altar though
Better to wait for that floozy
Who runs around inspiring the neighbors
Leaving you to wear horns
Knowing that she’ll return
With a poetically transmitted disease
And an encouraging word
Amen
David Trudel © 2012
Phony
Authenticity is the hallmark of cool
Get real, people shout
When fakes and phonies are found out
Most of us aren’t
Uniquely authentic at all
Of course
We shift and hide behind our roles
Defined by life and shaped within our times
Wearing masks and costumes we don’t realize are even there
We dissimulate and redirect
Throw up a camouflage barrage
Tell white lies
Commit sins of omission
Act richer than we are for some people
But a lot poorer than we are for the taxman
Phonies
We become subject matter experts based on intuition
Forget expertise
Phonies
Now the phoniness becomes ubiquitous
Obvious, no greater need for admonishments than now
The phone culture
The phony culture
Has supplanted immediacy
Reduced capacity for awareness of the moment
This moment, here
The one found at the bottom of a mantra
We just can’t let it
Be
Since now we multitask and surf
Connected
All the time
Everywhere
Call and response
The twitter-verse
Music, games, the news and sin
Addictive as crystal meth
So we stay plugged in
Pretending and posturing
Waving the damn things like magic talismans
Having loud conversations with nobody in sight
Call my broker, yeah, right
Hard to be here now
For texting and posting
Playing Angry Birds out of nervous habit
Being phony
In a phony world
David Trudel © 2012
“To you everything that’s happening in the world appears phony, to be something other than what it really is, right?” J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye
Solstice Cafe
There’s poetry
Written in silence
Alone
In a notebook or on a scrap of paper
At your keyboard
Intellectually
Effete
Then there is spoken word
With a crowd of enthusiasts
Egging on the perps
Chirps
And calling for performance
Chops
It’s lots
Lost
Courage ain’t never an issue
When spoken words slam into
Poets
Unfettered for an evening
Finger snapping
Heckling in good fun
Poetically
With rockstar abandon
Digging the vibe
Leaping from word to word
Like a salmon climbing
The waters of its birth
Like a bird finding a home it never knew
Like me
Finding you
Finding a voice
Crying out into the night
With enthusiasm
Nothing new
Here I am
True
David Trudel © 2012
Fifteen Two Fifteen Four
My iPhone cheats at cribbage
At least it seems that way
But I stymie it
Psychic abilities
Hold sway
David Trudel © 2012
Remembering Scott McKenzie
Come to San Francisco
Wearing flowers as organic crowns
Come to dance
Trip out
Pick up the badass torch from City Lights
Howl at the man
Revel as rebels
Wash your ears out with psychedelic sounds
Groove in tune
Turn on
If we didn’t make it in the Summer of Love
We watched
Even through the pages of Life and Time
We listened to scratchy records
We remembered down the long years
By the time the iconic bridge was in my viewfinder
The only flowers left were in gardens
Or on cars
But the echo of the song
Remains
David Trudel © 2012
Making Friends
It used to be physical
So real
Meeting each other, that is
Out-of-towners got special treatment
The grand tours
Such as they were
Parties
Now it’s all a blur
Worlds collide
Disembodied thoughts glide back and forth
Across the ocean or from the next street over
Taking cover
From the intimacy of the immediate
To the hilarity of the hidden
We conspire
With no intentions
We plot
For dreams
We meet in the ether
Ghosts, unfettered and released
To wander in and out of threads
Posting random comments everywhere
Facing off and facing books
Got you pegged
Comment?
Or will you simply
Unfriend me
David Trudel © 2012
The Depth of Insignificance
Someone I know
Finds the big in the small
Others wearily drift through the mundane and banal
Everyday moments
Just life passing by
But my friend is an alchemist of thought and word
She pulls on kaleidoscope glasses
Crystallizes each moment
With surgical precision
In words
Finds insight
Connections
Lessons
Everywhere
I picture her with paper and pen
Out for a walk
Going shopping
Herding children at the fair
Sitting at a red light
Capturing the fleeting thoughts
That all too often shimmer briefly and disappear
For the rest of us
She doesn’t let them go
She knows how transitory insight can be
Stabs them with a ballpoint
Captures phrases on crumpled pages
Transmogrifies the unknowable
With the poet’s art
With ease and grace
And sends each missive
To the world
To share
And delight
David Trudel © 2012
Dedicated to Susan L. Daniels.
Read her work at: http://susandanielseden.wordpress.com/
Harbinger
Forest understory
Serenely green in the early promise of summer
Just a memory now
Now the greens are flat and diminished
Splashed with shades of yellow
Muddy brown and red
Announcing the advance of the year
Curled and desiccated, looking like transforming insects
Rusty leaves turn in upon themselves
Turning so inevitably to fall
Overhead muted tones of grey and blue
Opaque translucency
In Delft-glazed hues
Painted with insouciance and impermanence
Disappear
Gone forever even as they’re born
Infinity after infinity of questions
Found sky watching
Weather roils
Dusk descends to twilight
Summer passes its peak
Spies autumn in the distance
Waves hello
Walks forward
Like always
David Trudel © 2012
Chanticleer
Roosters crow
Throughout the day
Not just at dawn
The neighbors’ new rooster
Sleeps late before trumpeting his supremacy
Punctuates the heat of the day
With a plaintive call
That echoes on the wind
That rustles the shade
I imagine he’s calling to his harem
That he wants to get laid
They will of course
Being laying hens
More than a little
Fowl
David Trudel © 2012
Singularity
Singularity
Now there’s a word
Too many syllables for its intent
To say it all
Mendacious
Is another word of ill repute
Soft-tongued liars
Coat the bitter pill of truth
With honeyed distraction
Spin it how you will
A lie is a lie
The probability of disaster
More than a risk
The likelihood of disaster
Assured
The result of a disaster
Devastation
But jobs and economic interests trump
What’s right
In the interest of the right
The force of markets half a world away
Hold sway
So pipelines sprawl across the land
Evil cankers
Corridors of destruction
Waiting to erupt
Like a sebaceous cyst
On Mother Earth
In the interest of self interest
Of a few
Trading paradise for theoretical wealth
Shadows
Of the treasure of natural blessings
Shadows
Of the measure of the bounty that was given
Shadows
Of the blessings of the universe
Traded for market forces
Offloading natural resources
The promised land reduced
To a promissory note
And a footnote in a risk register
Waiting for the inevitable
David Trudel © 2012
Ross Bay Cemetery
Not everyone will agree
But cemeteries are an interesting place
For a sojourn
Calm and peaceful
Winding paths
Monuments that bear familiar names
No wonder, those same pioneers
Are street names, hills and schools, too
Cracked mausoleums
Paving stones thrown askew
Betray t