Practicing up to be human

by Lionel Kearns

Paperback

Published January 1, 1978

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[mwpm mwpm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evidence


Poems like fingerprints:
words swirled
into lines of force
sentences and shapes
expressing this
singular entity
this particular existence
one among all others
distinct and inimitable:
my marks left
upon the surface
of the world

* * *

Ambition


Its origins
seem trivial:
anger and
the resolve
to show them:
the brother
who always won
the parents
who were never
always there
the girl who
forgot him

But it becomes
his habit his
style his life
though now
the parents
are both dead
the brother
a drunk
the girl old
ugly, forgotten

And it continues
its control
wakes him
regularly
at six o'clock
drives him
to work
determines
his practice
enriches
his estate
in short it
makes him
famous, hated
kills him

* * *

Abstractions


You have no time
no time anymore
to listen to me.

In fact you don't
have time enough
to write your poems.

But stop there stop
and think about
what you are saying.

Time is not some
thing to possess.
Better to say

you do not have
enough of yourself.
And when you

understand time,
you will
understand love.

* * *

Semantics


The term meaningless
is not meaningless
unless you lack
the meaning of
the term meaningful

* * *

Relationship


The father of a boy
in Charles class
shot himself in the head
says my 8 year old son.
He was cleaning his gun
and it went off
by accident. Here
is an event to give us both
pause, though neither one
of us asks the other
if he really believes
the second part
of that disquieting story

* * *

Calculations


Although cautious as a boy
and still very careful
as a young man

At 35 Felix stopped
objecting to airline travel

At 52 he took up
sky-diving and hang-gliding

At 63 he died accidentally
while crossing Niagara Falls
on a tight-rope

* * *

Muse


She says these days she isn't creative
since they straightened her out
at the clinic. No need now
to write poems, she says, because
she's sane and happy and can
laugh and get angry and cry. And I
am left wondering about that connection
whether God created the world simply
because he too was emotionally disturbed

* * *

Culture Counter


Remember the hip 60's
when only the poor
could afford the dream
of affluence because
rich men's children
aspiring to
poverty and revolution

Now it's 1977 and in
punk-rocked London the most
elegant and expensive
fashion boutique
on Kensington High Street
is called Che Guevara

* * *

International Incident


I was drinking the American's beer
and talking loud and saying things
that seemed unpleasantly true
I was drinking the American's beer
and shouting we should legislate against
foreign take-over and US control
of colleges, media, land, us
I was drinking the American's beer
and telling him it was all hi fault
yes I was drinking the American's beer
and reminding him that it sure takes guts
to be so hostile to your host, but he
thought I was talking about my hostility

* * *

Public Poem for a Manitoulin Island Canada Day


I

'Hey what are you doing?'
she said, and he said
'I'm just standing here
being a Canadian'
And she said, 'Wow
is that really feasible?'
and he said 'Yes
but it required plenty
of imagination'

He seems so serious and determined
that she forgets to hand him
his McDonald's hamburger


II

They are trying to steal our national symbol
the beaver, that curious animal who
in times of danger or crisis will chew
off his own testicles leaving them there
by the side of the trail or under a chair
to confuse or enthuse his pursuers. Oh
they are trying to steal out beaver so
what do you think he'll do?


III the historical perspective

The poet is seen at his desk
composing a poem about Canada Day
through history. He begins
'It is the function of the past
to supply me with images
which I impel into the future
to create the present.' Well
that's very good. The poet
congratulates himself on that one
and constitutes to write, thinking about
those Canadians who came before him, and
those Canadians who will come after him
But the poet stops writing. he is becoming
confused. If those who come after him
are in the future, then the future
will come after him too, but he
always thought the future was before him.
Which ways is he facing? Is he
walking into the future backwards? What
would happen if he turned around? He
hears the gentle mooing of cows. The poet
at this point cannot distinguish
the future from the pasture.


IV The Canada Day Shrine

A little structure built of broken hockey sticks
This is not the home of Puck
No it is the noble abode
Of a small golden replica of a McDonald hamburger
The millionth McDonald Burger
Eaten by a common Canadian mouth

The event is televised as a feature
on the National: Justin Trudeau
eating the celebrated hamburger
on the morning of the 24th of May


VA Vision of the Future

Citizens enter space-ships shaped
like giant McDonald hamburgers
that carry everyone everywhere
which is identical to everywhere else
and called Blanada. Once a year
on the 24th of May, patriotic people
celebrate their Bland universe by
eating tiny space-liner replicas
an occasion known as Blanada Day


VI Back to the Present

The poets have now agreed that Canada
though not very probably, is definitely
a possibility. Their first priority therefore
is how to deal with the McDonald menace
They have been alerted to the fact
that the number of McDonald Burgers in Canada
is rising faster than the indigenous population
and that many of these new Burgers
which originate one way or another in the USA
neither recognize nor acknowledge
that home on this range has to be different
from home on that range, but just try telling
that to Ronald McDonald. The poets, however
are working on the problem. One faction
advocates wiping out the industry
through a program of patriotic over-consumption
If every Canadian would attempt to eat
24 hamburgers on the 24th of May
the McDonald facilities would crumble
under pressure of the increased demand
Another faction, taking the opposition position
is lobbying parliament to legislate
compulsory vegetarian diets for all Canadians
A third, and by far the largest, group of poets
demand that the McDonald's Canadian Branch
begin making a distinctively Canadian product
called the McCanada Burger, which would be
exactly the same as a regular McDonald Burger
except that five percent of the meat
would be ground beaver testicles