The Pact

Soon, all too soon
Winter will storm in
Fall heavily on us.

So this very morning
my gnarled, so bent over
crab-apple tree
and I have made
a very solemn pact.

Until its last
red fruit has fallen
we are not defeated,
and will concede nothing.

The Man Who Finds His Son Has Become A Thief

Coming into the store at first angry
at the accusation, believing
the word of his boy who has told him,
I didn't steal anything, honest...

Then becoming calmer, seeing that anger
won't help in the business, listening patiently
as the other's evidence unfolds, so painfully slow.

Then seeing gradually that evidence
almost as if slowly tightening around the neck
of his son, at first circumstantial, then gathering damage,
until there's present guilt's sure odour seeping
into the mind, laying it's poison.
                      Suddenly feeling
sick and alone and afraid, as if
an unseen hand had slapped him in the face
for no reason whatsoever; wanting to get out
into the street, the night, the darkness, anywhere to hide
the pain that must show to these strangers, the fear.

It must be like this.
It could not be otherwise.

Hunger

After you've laid the quarter down and had a meal,
wiped your mouth with a paper napkin, then walked out of the quick lunch,
head higher, heart lighter, body somehow stronger, simply because you've eaten,
because you've done again what people do when they feel hungry,

how long will you walk on air, how long will you smile at the world,
before you remember what a man with empty pockets always remembers,
always fears, sometimes goes almost crazy remembering,

as night comes on, as the streets become dark and cold,
and you are alone with the sound of your feet on the pavements,
that pain there again in your belly, a thousand tiny needles jabbing, jabbing,

how long will you go on panhandling like the blind man on the corner,
how much more of this can you take before you steal, before you maim, before you kill?

Reality

The glow of the restaurant is faked,
the dream of the movie is blown like an insubstantial cloud
in the street again, and what is real is the traffic's not loud
but more a muffled, insinuating scream,
the raw wind that whips and clutches at papers and bites
at the old grey flanks of buildings, and a man who stands
mind blank to perfumed amours, cabarets, weekends,
all our carefully planned civilized delights,
holding a box of shoe-laces in unendingly shaking hands.

Postscript

"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet or fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason." -- Ernest Hemingway

Trouble is you won't even die like a dog.
Most of the dogs I've noticed died fast and clean,
their guts on the road or pavement in a neat little pile . . . .

Instead you'll die very slowly, having oceans of time
to think about it, O plenty of time
before you finally can't spit out enough blood
building up in your mouth, and you choke on it,
(but always remember it was your own red blood
and a colourful way to kick the bucket) . . .

But the biggest problem still with this running of a war
is the plain simple fact that the worms haven't learned their place,
didn't have their radios on when the pot-belly government boys
were shooting off their certified crap to the whole wide world --
their sweet, touching low-down on life, liberty and the pursuit of virgins --

So the poor little crawlers don't know anything more
than that they feel mighty hungry, so anything they see
they eat because they can't bear starving to death, or so it seems:

and all those dead bodies lying out there going nowhere fast
look mighty good to the little devils, so out they come crawling
on their bellies in open order
and get busy quick-like . . . .

Too bad they're not humans,
they'd know better for sure.

The Bourgeois Child

I might have been a slum child,
I might have learned to swear and steal,
I might have learned to drink and whore.

But I was raised a good bourgeois child
so it has taken me a little longer.

The First Day of the World Series

This morning on Bay Street
a little excitement: a girl
jumped from the fourteenth floor
of a trust company, hit a roof
ten stories below.

She didn't die right away,
she had to suffer a little longer,
even after having made
this supreme, terrible effort.

It seems the human body
is always letting us down
one way or the other.

The Faces Of The Crowd

The faces of the crowd
turn upward to the window
where she jumped from.

They're waiting for the second act,
for someone else
to make the big leap,

and almost every face
will show disappointment
when it doesn't happen.

What I Expected

What I expected was
Thunder, fighting,
Long struggles with men
And climbing.
After continual straining
I should grow strong;
Then the rocks would shake
And I should rest long.

What I had not forseen
Was the gradual day
Weakening of the will
Leaking the brightness away,
The lack of good to touch
The fading of body and soul
Like smoke before wind
Corrupt, unsubstantial.

The wearing of Time,
And the watching of cripples pass
With limbs shaped like questions
In their odd twist,
The pulverous grief
Melting the bones with pity,
The sick fall from earth —
These, I could not foresee.

For I had expected always
Some brightness to hold in trust,
Some final innocence,
To save from dust;
That, hanging solid,
Would dangle through all
Like the created poem
Or the dazzling crytal.