Category Archives: Uncategorized

On Queen Street West

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On Queen Street West

The sirens of the city

are traveling along

the fabric bazaars

and appliance stores

of Queen Street West.

The wood tin spire

of St Marks

lurches into the air

at an angle

listening.

The daylight heat

is blazing.

So is the fire.

The fire trucks

are bullets.

They careen

breakneck down

the street.

Shining

red and yellow cabs

follow right

behind them.

Do they care

about the fire?

The fire is burning

somewhere along

Queen Street

and

black smoke is rising

up into the air.

From “The Black and Other Base Elements “by PWChaltas

Dinner Conversation With Self

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Dinner Conversation  With Self

Sat down at my table
for a dinner for one .
Salmon on salad
water with lemon
done quickly
to catch an evening  flick.
Soon an elderly lady
with a white chin beard
and a head of grey hair
sat at a  table beside me .
Rotund body wrapped in red ,
complete with her imaginary friend ,
she never stopped talking
the whole time she was there .
“Charles proposed this
and mother she just disagreed ‘”
she said
and on she went all through her meal
of burger and frites ,
with a wavering thumb .
She only spoke  briefly
and ever so curtly
with the waitress ,
but in her head
the conversation
fluidly continued .
I thought to myself :
What’s less uncomfortable ?
This lady who leaves
nothing unsaid ,
or a diner next to me
eating  in deafening silence .
I’ll pick this lady I confided
secretly to myself,
and under my breath .
After finishing I waited
awhile  to make her feel
welcome and more at ease
then got up smiling  to leave .
There was a disappointment
marked on her face .
She was losing a
dining companion ,
but she never stopped talking
regardless .

Outside in a lobby cafe
I noticed another
elderly lady
was sleeping on
folded newspaper pillow,
her head flat on the table .
She was thin  pale, frail
but well dressed .
She was dreaming or dead .
A young coupled checked
to make sure
that she wasn’t ill or dead,
before I could get there .
Old age really sucks
I thought to myself
but being there alone
Is  without question
much  worse.

Yonge Street

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Yonge Street

Empty stores
for lease
My steps passing
bookstores ,
crowded lit cages of diners , and vacant  doors .
The second floors sing
with promise of neon massage .
Hanging socks and laundry ,
clothes lines,
are up on second  floors
as well.
Someone  is  home
above the
storefronts drying out
on a weeknight
all in a yellow glow .
The condos will be
coming
and soon
no one will know
what this city block
looked like
In the  1900’s

Let’s Walk Together

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 Let’s Walk Together

 

 

Let’s walk together

 

you and I

 

so we can find

 

a road

 

that gives peace

 

to both our souls.

 

Just yesterday

 

I spoke of you,

 

Love

 

and my heart requested

 

that we walk together

 

on that white

 

and ancient  road ,

 

that will surely

 

calm and ease us.

 

Come now if you can

 

Love,

 

So we can walk together

 

always

 

on a road that has no forks

 

or  parting of the ways,

 

where we can talk

 

and walk together always.

 

Let’s walk together

 

Love

 

so that we inherit wings

 

both you and I ,

 

to fly

 

with all our steps

 

and prayers

 

up

 

into heaven.

 From “Free Verse in Useless Times” by PWChaltas

Monstrous

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Monstrous

Monstrous

moment of simultaneity.

Goods whispering

to teased appetites.

Breakwater division

of works.

Barefoot on the hot wart

of parched earth,

the dust of steaming

fish eyes and bloated belly .

Disconnection

impartial disdain of regret.

Cremation of care.

Impure ash of a

callous burning,

smelling fetid in the air.

Leprous literati

with falling fingers

screaming online

they sat.

Political attacks of immaturity

Sunlight cold in the shade .

Black eyed , close cropped kid

wandering

making a whale sound

that sounds like a cat .

From “Persephone’s Call” by PWChaltas

One of Irving Layton’s Most Moving Poems-“Senile, My Sister Sings”

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Senile, My Sister Sings

By Irving Layton

Senile my sister sings. She sings

the same snatch of song over and over

in a quivering voice, her lips trembling

when she tries for the high notes. Her white

hair close cropped like a prisoner’s

and her unobstructed tongue lolling,

over her furrowed lip while her dentures

grin at us through a glass of water,

my sister is some kind of vocal chicken ,

especially when her small raisin eyes dart

from visitor to visitor  as though about

to pluck worms out of their garments .

My heart breaks , remembering her beauty

and wit , the full mouth with a tale in it

she finally exploded our ears .

Is this my sister so frail and emaciated,

whose valour and go were family legends ,

her smiles so dazzling they made the roaches

leisurely roaming the walls of our kitchen

scurry behind the torn wallpaper

to hide there till the incandescence had passed?

Sing, my dear sister, sing

though your trembling lips break my heart

and I turn away from you to sob

and let the tears course down my cheeks ,

my grief held back by pride and even a kind

of exultance. You do not mourn or whimper,

you do not grovel before the Holy Butcher

and beg Him to spare your days ; or rock

silently like the other white haired biddies

waiting to be plucked from their stoops. No

though His emissary ominously flaps his wings

to enfold you in their darkness, you sing.

Your high-pitched notes must rile him

more than rage or defiance. You sing him

no welcome and if your voice trembles

it’s not fear or resignation he hears

but the crack voice of the elan vitale

whose loudest chorister you are , abashing Death

and making him skulk in his own shadow .

layton

Storm

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Storm

 

The wind rose

gradually steadily

to a storm.

Swirling

it came in

off the coast

and it shook the

chandeliers in buildings,

cars

and signs off of their posts.

And in it’s force of gust

It took a young

woman from among us

while she was

walking

not far from home .

And in it’s force of gust

It took a wizened willow

from amongst a grove of

wizened willows

by the lake.

It cracked the thick limbs

of its trunk,

clean in two,

scattered

leaves and branches by

the lake besides,

the severed dark limbs

that sat split on grass

opened to their

pale and white insides .

The heartbreak for the woman :

that she

she was so young

and so alive

The heartbreak for the willow:

that it was

so old,

snapped , pale

and white inside.

Both died ,

and so did a part

of everyone who heard 

or saw the outcome

of the furious gust

of wind 

that left

all other things around them,

as they were,

untouched,

and unscathed .

 

                            After Sandy  Oct 29/12

 

 

 

 

 

 

Persephone’s Call

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Persephone’s  Call

Persephone
you call out ,
howl,
for scythes
to save you ,
to razor slit hell
with crystalline precision .
Your not yet ripened beauty picked
In cockle shell despair
traverses  convoluted
acres  of ash
in satin stride .
Dark loins
are thrown into you ,
in a moment’s drop
of translucent
fear
and prosaic dementia.

 

The events of the recent months, all the brutal travesties and tragedies of sexual violence and rape , in the news have disturbingly etched themselves into my mind. This poem came into existence  from those events . WE should never allow modern humanity to slip and fall so far and so low again. There must no place in the modern world for abduction , rape, or sexual violence . it should be relegated only to the past and to the myths of the past , not to the present or to the future .- PWC

 

4 Seasons

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4 Seasons

In the lounge
at the four seasons
are close cropped pharaohs
and longer haired pariahs .
Celebrity chefs
with handle bar mustache
hold court .
The music is Buddha-bar-ish

And all French Colette .

Elegant gazelles  in black,
slim brokers in tight tailored
suits
or  V-necks over crew neck tees,
mix, mix it up.
The mood is beige and tan.
Ladies at the bar
are smoothing out
their long  dark
flowing hair
or pulling light strands
of sheep dog frizz.
In between their sips
the gentlemen
can’t help but
discretely stare.
And I’m finally
feeling
whore of Babylon free
at last.

Just wrote this tonight …Its a poem to celebrate a change … I’ve always thought the number 4 is significant. It  prompted me to write a collection called “A Matter of Four ” in honour of 4 and its permutations.
This poem is now part of the collection that I’m currently working on called “Persephone’s Call”- PWC