Poet Laureate: Poems By Eric Folsom
Kingston's Poet Laureate, Eric Folsom, reads his "Charles Baron Sydenham on the Morning of June 15, 1841" (below) on the 170th anniversary of Kingston becoming Canada's First Capital.
INDEX POEMS ON THIS PAGE
Charles Baron Sydenham on the Morning of June 15, 1841
Influence
Across from the Reading Depot, way at the back
Of Winslow's where we sipped our grasshopper floats,
Stood half an aisle of books on a spindly rack.
For some reason T. S. Eliot jumped out
His banker's threads, profile flattened upon a table
Of deep lemon yellow, the Harbrace cover art.
Who knows were the book vanished, but lines from the sibyl
Poet's smoke rings cling, "Shantih. Shantih."
Trousers and peaches, eyes in shades of pearl.
No childhood tutor proffered iamb and trochee,
But I knew about "every Middlesex village and farm",
And "the reef of Norman's Woe", since it was my country.
My illustrated, literal, oft disregarded home,
Verses like Johnny Jump Ups planted Indian file,
Our necessary, jumping-off rock of regular form.
The voice of e e cummings, six non-lectures etched in vinyl,
Balloon man nearly singing the vowels and consonants,
In springtime, pretty ring time, feeling vaulting over style.
Anne Sexton at the library, I took her home in a sense,
Still keep an old copy of the Penguin Yevtushenko,
The Levi, Milner-Gulland translation, 65 cents.
Tone both foreign and modern, not a local from long ago,
"I live quietly, crack nuts, gently steam with engines",
Thus the poet's hometown grants the youth leave to go.
The frontier town personified, Zima Junction,
Blesses and advises Yevgeny. I scored
Brackets around, "Hold out, meditate, listen."
"Explore. Explore. Travel the world over."
Words swallowed almost whole, hardly reckoning on
The double Robert Frost-type nature of that door.
The medium doesn't change the text
Of printed work on-line unbound, re-shuffled
Deck of the book the medium changes
How we feel
Montreal wintertime 1971
Andrei Voznesensky stood waiting
Off to one side of the dais as a distinguished
Forgotten McGill professor read from tinder
Dry translations of the bright lines
Where the School of Architecture burns
consuming dark evening
Slushy student boots dripped
Plaid shirts slouched in chairs
best advice George Bowering gave
write very day write
no matter what or how un-
inspired keep writing
Then the Russian took two steps forward
Voznesensky repealing academia
Dark hair swept back and leather
Jacket unfastened he launched
all the way across the poem
Slavic Elvis slippery panther
Neck and shoulders rolling and rocking
form never more than
extensions of content
or discontent fires
walk outs demos
write this down
speak for someone
lift the words out of me
write the world down
your physicality
Until your writing becomes a question
A physically existing question lemon on a cutting board
The interrogation of speech in storage
Proprioception slopes of Mount Royal
a working past
Of the unsettled not working past
acts and measures
And poetics notwithstanding
Nor politics finally the canon came to McGill
In the profoundly wrinkled person of W H Auden
Bowering said go
No matter what
You may never get the chance again
In June, disregarding Toronto's traffic,
The statue of Al Purdy at Queen's Park
Lounges a discreet distance away
From the legislature, politely avoiding
The awkwardness of politics mixing
With the unacknowledged legislators.
Upon the cast metal rock Al graces
There's a smooth flat spot, well-warmed
By the afternoon sun, and you can sit
At the great man's feet, beside those shoes,
Big goddam shoes, even bigger than real life,
And write reclining against his metal trousers.
Just when you feel truly valued, a child beloved,
You sense a vibration in your tailbone,
Down the pelvic cradle your abdomen trembles.
You can tell it's the subway but nonetheless
You look up at the stoical face and cry,
Jesus, Al, is this normal?
Please don't tell me when you wrote
The world began buzzing like a hive in your bones,
Or when you composed, hell screeched on iron hinges
A fraction wider, or the rookery of civic darkness
Fluttered underground as if your verses
Were some kind of plutonic divining rod.
Purdy, never more inanimate than now,
Stares out at the middle distance, the lyric mood
Diminishes and you place your hand
On the statue's knee, clamber off and head
For the lobby of a fancy Yonge Street hotel
Where you stop at the bar and write this poem.
Building
Not always recalled but never out of reckoning,
The clatter of wheels in old carriageways,
Sleigh runners shushing freshly fallen snow,
Comings of their goings, the smallest of gestures
Added up, compounded, and gently made hard
As the limestone they built with, sift of civic life
Bearing down in layers till heritage has weight.
And dignity rose from the Shambles and Market,
Over fire tumbled ruin the Doric columns lifted
Up the boisterous ceilings of plaster leaves and fronds,
A dream dome, a handcrafted grove of meditation,
And glaziers framed in stained glass memories
Of sappers and nurses, of sailors and home,
The lights of lives lived that illuminate living.
The sunburst chandelier hooked from the sky,
Brightening the chamber's deliberative circle,
Evokes not a fusion explosion but a flower,
A buttonbush flower, humble marsh dweller,
Native shrub going nova, easily overlooked,
White stamens on filaments out from the centre,
A floral globe bursting, only waiting to be seen.
From curlicued boot-scraper to weathervane's tip,
To Josh Milner, the builder's chiselled name,
From cells in the basement to clock tower bells,
Every nick and lick of paint in between,
All fashioned by people, devoted by hand
Above the old Shambles where water meets land,
A code carried forward that shows how to bloom.
Charles Baron Sydenham
on the Morning of June 15, 1841
By Joshua, by Jove, and by Manitou,
The great plan is coming together;
Our parliamentarians near and aloof,
Candle stub lawyers, prophetic contrarians,
Gathered together under one roof—
I would favour the open carriage today,
It looks like tolerable weather.
The dashing calèche with the bit of red trim,
Seamus, my finest of grooms;
If rested, the mare with the star on her brow,
Or any two horses that pull as a pair,
Since we must, as they say, put a shine on the plough;
A quick brush to my hat, a cravat freshly tied,
Then we'll jaunt past the lilac blooms.
Seamus, do men ever voice their opinions
In the livery stables in town?
Can they see it makes sense to have one large country,
One network of trade with fair recompense,
One government, one law, for all and sundry?
Do they only swap rumours about new carriage routes,
And the prices for farms? Well, I won't let them down.
Sure I play the dandy and relish fine clothes,
Even so "timber merchant" is my enemies' taunt;
As if a damp castle and musty old name
Was better than business, made men more useful,
Or made striking a bargain an act of shame.
Yet when London needs progress, not airs and reports,
Charles Poulett Thomson is the broker they want.
I could fix your Canada problem I told them,
But my price is you make me a Lord;
I was tired of their sneering, fed up to the gills,
And I knew when afforded a courteous hearing
I could best politicians in any battle of wills.
Which brings us to our carriage and this beautiful day
On a bumpy dirt road to our own bon accord.
Now, about this fine plume on the seat cushion, Seamus—
Nonsense, of course you perceive it.
The lovely wing feather, white and brown barred,
Resting in contrast to dark seat leather,
An avian envoy's quaint calling card.
Perhaps left by the owl of the goddess of wisdom,
Or did a horse-wise Irish jester leave it?
Oh, feather in my cap, very droll, how amusing,
You rogue, a most dreadful pun.
Notwithstanding your jest, I am proud I admit,
To have pressured, persuaded, and worked without rest,
So that justice may prosper in a government fit
For a land widely varied, gigantic, and wild,
Where sovereign battles are not fully won.
Let cease gloomy thoughts, attend to our journey,
Hurry the carriage, bear a hand,
To the first day, the first session, ceremonies await,
The fruit of Canada's political election,
A fresh chance for a nation to govern her fate;
And though vanity bids me not boast overmuch,
You may call me henceforth LORD Sydenham.
ReSet
Breakfast of shouting and spilled cereal;
Coffee waits until the children change clothes.
The snow drifts in smooth aerodynamic shapes;
My car is a spaceship, I am released from routine.
No school either, everyone shovels.
When the driveway is clean, the plow comes.
Never push the reset button more than once;
It's a mistake to believe your life is under control.
The smell of spices in the kitchen where she irons,
Friends and relatives like a fabric over the city.
I walk down the middle of life's snowy road,
A child in each hand, and the snowplow is coming.
(Published in a chapbook by Ottawa's above /ground press in 2005.)
Arpeggio
The solar parking dispenser hums, spits a ticket out,
North wind numbs your hands when the gloves are off.
Nature shuts down chlorophyll factories, a sensible response
To problems of overproduction, excess stock becomes topsoil.
Clouds without passports, cold wind ripens at the corners,
Cathedrals glowing with sunset light, my feelings like a Rubik's cube.
The fox they saw on Russell probably hunts the old tannery land;
Empty osprey's nest at the golf course, leachates locked in frozen ground.
Nature poetry might be considered a retreat into ethnicity,
Or maybe a spiritual quest, a song with arpeggiated triads.
From the shifting ice, the tugboat's negative space, quacking mallards
Take exception to barges hauling wind generation towers.
Four crows resting in a bare sliver maple, one more in flight;
I tilt Basho's travels to the window and lean against the frame.
These poems are the property of Eric Folsom and are subject to copyright law. Please contact us if you are interested in reproducing one of these poems.
