(for Shannon)
Girls singing disco
fingers snapping
sandals slapping
brown feet in time
on summer’s sizzling sidewalk.
Tag: Poetry
Time was…blue waters ran in and out of cool lakes
and the paddle made no sound
slipping by reeds
where the muskrat and pike lay suspended
dark trunks lurched toward the river
extending indifferent fingers
a ghostly scraping on the red canoe sides
as evening grew
somewhere the beaver sounded
though no one spoke
and the sun ceased dancing
and lay in an orange and yellow puddle on the water
time was no time
here and gone and yet to come.
Time was…blue waters licked the island shore
a curling dog tongue
on the wrinkled skin of ancient stones
the jack pine stood narrow and straight
tops lost in the void
and the earth untroubled
carried our impetuous weight
on her furrowed belly
limbs shrunken by cold
grew warm and heavy
in the amber touch of the wood fire
the ground stank of life and death
spongy under our sleeping bags
time was no time
here and gone and yet to come.
© Peter Scott Cameron, Northern Ontario Anthology, Highway Book Shop Publishers, Cobalt, Ont. 1977
(after Rihaku and Pound)
Five days
beyond my nineteenth birthday,
you brought me to this island.
In tumbling stars
we lay,
skins upon the sand.
I gave what I could –
you flew from me
like a frightened bird.
This fall
the crickets stilled their song;
in the brown yard, the Boules de Neige
were weary and gray.
The grass grew long
around the cottage walls;
I had not the feeling
to cut it,
nor my own hair.
Today
the snow came;
it lies thick upon
my sad heart.
Hear me, my love:
Our child stirs
within my womb.
Each day until the buds burst,
I will wait by the ferry gate.
If by then you do not come,
do not come at all.
My love
They said you were a prisoner
Then they said you were dead
And now
After four years
Of convulsion and grief
You show up on my doorstep
With that damnable grin
Your new scar
And that terrible uniform –
Dear God.
I would rather be dead
Than to stand and say to you
that here,
I live with another.
So sorry
about the Camembert cheese
and all that raspberry jam
so red and seedy on the brown bread
and the last yellow banana
and the left-over spaghetti
with clam sauce
you were planning
for dinner
so tangy and delicious
Anniversary
Do you remember
dear old one
the War
was over
the moon
was a great paper lantern
the stars
were the eyes of sorcerers.
We rode high and fast
through the swollen black mountains
we were giddy with cold
and our newness –
we had to put the rag-top down
just to let the laughter out.
It was powder blue
a Packard,
no, I’m sure they called it powder blue –
say what, a DeSoto?
I don’t think –
a Packard, I’m sure of it.
Dammit, you always –
okay, a DeSoto then.
Still, three dollars and change
took us all the way
to Vancouver
and the Chinese dawn
those days –
well, sure
of course,
you are right, let them go.
But let me say this, at least:
the moon still hangs
over the mountains.
Mildred, The Miss Albany Diner, 1957
The groaning ash drops
from her smoldering cigarette,
she leans on the graying counter
peering past
the pair of demented coffee urns
toward the accused
wooden men who,
perched upright upon stools,
eyes glued on their racing forms,
pray that she will stay
her stare.
“It’s bad,” she says,
“when your man
turns out to be a bum.”
Condemned
they fall
upon their hash-browns;
beyond the nicotine window
a cold wind pounds
down from Canada
and slaps the face
of the insolent street sign.
Blind machines
hustled
in the swirl of sullen fumes;
something scuttled
to a crevice
under the jinxed light.
More than this I cannot say:
a blade glittered,
one man fell,
another ran,
someone yelled.
No one claimed his broken form;
he had a three-day beard
and no wallet.
The cop’s angry light
beat upon the concrete;
across the haunted street
yesterday’s news
blew by in a wind
just passing through;
the all-night diner
was closed.
Copyright ©Peter Scott Cameron 2015