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Household Hints for the End of Time
from "Max's Bath" ...
What happens next? Well I hold you while Peg gets a diaper, you yell when she heads down the hall. And then you pee on me, my shirt, a consecration no one else has received. I hold you close, like the cold spring rain peering in at us, tapping the blue windowpane with its tiny dark and pudgy hands.
A wide-ranging reckless intelligence, verbal audacity and irrepressible humour-- all these combine with a large-hearted embrace of existence in Ken Howe's poems. Whether they are observing, with fine ironic wit, the vagaries of domestic life, elegizing lost ones, or raised in celebration of musical compositions, they remind us of the need to address the world with all our faculties alert, including a language alive with its native energy and luminosity.
What happens next? Well I hold you while Peg gets a diaper, you yell when she heads down the hall. And then you pee on me, my shirt, a consecration no one else has received. I hold you close, like the cold spring rain peering in at us, tapping the blue windowpane with its tiny dark and pudgy hands.
A wide-ranging reckless intelligence, verbal audacity and irrepressible humour-- all these combine with a large-hearted embrace of existence in Ken Howe's poems. Whether they are observing, with fine ironic wit, the vagaries of domestic life, elegizing lost ones, or raised in celebration of musical compositions, they remind us of the need to address the world with all our faculties alert, including a language alive with its native energy and luminosity.
90 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2001
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March 11, 2024The first book of poetry I read by K. Howe. I have the hugest soft spot for it. Funny and wise and outlandish and householdish. My copy is all beat up from going back to it. Now he's working on a new book, the rumour goes.
January 24, 2022
1. Into the windblown thaw and an element
of cat (felis domesticus) on the wet
wind. Brown footprints and the red
and white blank steer face butcher sign
luminous as the light
declines. How
we must love this "snow" to be
cleaning up after it
over and over.
2. Brown kidney pool prints in the squashed drugstore
floormat. A man buying hairspray with nickels,
slow Parkinson's movements and the night
clumping down on both of us. Counting.
Stars, the disappointed stars
in their spiney jackets, shivering down
on the snowcapped parking range.
3. And Canadian must have several psychologies of snow including:
the rooftop snow and snow sneaking up around the shutters, the
terraced spruce tree snow, the warm late-day-waking-up snow
pressed in a wall against the window, sun-setting-on-early-spring's-
ephemeral snow, the valley-hushed-and-white-with-snow snow, the
rubbed-into-your-burning-skin-and-dribbling-between-your-flushed-
shoulderblades-onto-the-hot-sheets snow.
4. Two identical snowflakes, unusual in my experience,
or rather, one snowflake, flutters by, but identical
to one I remember seeing in Edmonton in 1966,
in Emily Murphy Park on a March afternoon
(when I was more likely to notice that sort of thing)
as I stepped into the same river twice, once.
5. The moon pressing its crumbly face
against the amniotic membrane of the day
and from the aluminum of my shovel the sky
blue grey. What is the faint sunlight
saying to me, the wet wind high overhead,
weeds and sand on the exposed hillside, un-named
angel of annunciation among grimy roots?
* * *
1. Standing upwind of me in his
black heavymetal T-shirt, the magpie
lit a cigarette on the subway
platform, sunglasses reflecting
rainbows, smelling of ozone in unlaced
hightops. Then the train came and he was
gone, leaving only muddy tracks
in the furrowed stone.
2. Magpies are the incarnate shadow of our mutual inattention to each
other, marginalized explanations taking wind as quickly as they are
glossed over, glossolalia, their glossy wings and feathers,
hence their insatiable appetite for flesh, a congealed repository of
human identity.
"Stop-wait!" they peck into the hindquarters of the restless feral
deer - "Listen!" But it's too late to stop now of course, there's only a
glittering shadow remaining, spreading infection.
3. Condensing analogously to rain drops, out of vaporized glass from violent volcanic eruptions.
A vapour projected beyond Earth's atmosphere precipitates over the magnetic poles where energy from the Van Allen belts organizes it into what appear to be individuated life forms.
In nearest terrestrial relatives the auroras borealis and australis, the resemblance discernible in the gleam on their feathers.
4. At sunrise, perched as closely as possible to a bedroom window, the magpie loudly and comprehensively confesses for us the sins we plan (unconsciously) to commit during the day. Over the years a dense and highly elliptical code of cross-referencing has developed, incomprehensible to human listeners.
Though at time disembodied feelings of, for example, anger, lust, or envy may well up inside us as we lie listening.
5. A miniature tornado made of darkness
has touched down
in the vicinity of the garbage bags we
left overnight on the back step.
The sudden plunge in air pressure cut
an uneven swath through the packaged
mise en abyme of our day's routine
paying particular attention to
bloodsoaked kleenexes, raw meat,
and anything sticky. The fury of Mother Nature
operating on all levels.
* * *
1. Against the barn the mushrooms grow
wet. Brown lipstick caked on
their pouty mouths, as bi-valvular
they suck the soaked and
shredded straw.
2. Not having underarms, mushrooms cannot be persuaded to use deoderant. They consider themselves to be the incarnation of the smell of wet earth as it dreams of the sea. Deodorized, they would cease to exist.
3. Because it possesses consciousness, the mushroom must be classified as animal rather than vegetable. Its smooth cortextual surface should not be taken as indicating a lack of sophistication. Conventional measures of animal intelligence, which calculate cerebral mass in proportion to total body weight, show the mushroom to be fully six times as developed as human beings.
4. Certain varieties of Aminita secrete casings of crystal endorphins around irritating sediment particles which become embedded in the surface, so as to maintain a uniform consistency of inner peace. It is to these extremely rare "pearly of great price" that Jesus refers in Matthew 13:45.
5. The "boot" mushrooms that Alex picked turned into live slugs when cooked, writhing in our barley soup, furred against our tongues. Then they stained our mouths blue, like squid.
6. The moorhen shunned the moon
a darkened tomb upon the heath. Rheumatic, upon
the bleak moor where romance loomed. A
billowing futon of humus loomed upon the
mushy moss heath, looming before the pedantic
fluids, full and round and darksmelling ground:
"I am not a mushroom," the voice protested,
"nor do I commune with these. My advocacy is
disinterested. Cold as their caress."
Milky cataracted eyes staring blankly at the sky.
7. Mushroom martyrdom. All mushrooms
are hermaphroditic, containing both testosterone
and estrogen in equal measure. Yet many varieties lactate
and one manifests a pattern of nerve endings identical
to that of the human testicle. (Specimens
should be thoroughly dried before slicing or chopping.)
8. The shyness of mushrooms is legendary - they peek in huddled
groups from under mats of wet leaves and earth, their hands clasped
tightly together. It is very rare to see them smile.
of cat (felis domesticus) on the wet
wind. Brown footprints and the red
and white blank steer face butcher sign
luminous as the light
declines. How
we must love this "snow" to be
cleaning up after it
over and over.
2. Brown kidney pool prints in the squashed drugstore
floormat. A man buying hairspray with nickels,
slow Parkinson's movements and the night
clumping down on both of us. Counting.
Stars, the disappointed stars
in their spiney jackets, shivering down
on the snowcapped parking range.
3. And Canadian must have several psychologies of snow including:
the rooftop snow and snow sneaking up around the shutters, the
terraced spruce tree snow, the warm late-day-waking-up snow
pressed in a wall against the window, sun-setting-on-early-spring's-
ephemeral snow, the valley-hushed-and-white-with-snow snow, the
rubbed-into-your-burning-skin-and-dribbling-between-your-flushed-
shoulderblades-onto-the-hot-sheets snow.
4. Two identical snowflakes, unusual in my experience,
or rather, one snowflake, flutters by, but identical
to one I remember seeing in Edmonton in 1966,
in Emily Murphy Park on a March afternoon
(when I was more likely to notice that sort of thing)
as I stepped into the same river twice, once.
5. The moon pressing its crumbly face
against the amniotic membrane of the day
and from the aluminum of my shovel the sky
blue grey. What is the faint sunlight
saying to me, the wet wind high overhead,
weeds and sand on the exposed hillside, un-named
angel of annunciation among grimy roots?
- Snow Epiphanies, pg. 11
* * *
1. Standing upwind of me in his
black heavymetal T-shirt, the magpie
lit a cigarette on the subway
platform, sunglasses reflecting
rainbows, smelling of ozone in unlaced
hightops. Then the train came and he was
gone, leaving only muddy tracks
in the furrowed stone.
2. Magpies are the incarnate shadow of our mutual inattention to each
other, marginalized explanations taking wind as quickly as they are
glossed over, glossolalia, their glossy wings and feathers,
hence their insatiable appetite for flesh, a congealed repository of
human identity.
"Stop-wait!" they peck into the hindquarters of the restless feral
deer - "Listen!" But it's too late to stop now of course, there's only a
glittering shadow remaining, spreading infection.
3. Condensing analogously to rain drops, out of vaporized glass from violent volcanic eruptions.
A vapour projected beyond Earth's atmosphere precipitates over the magnetic poles where energy from the Van Allen belts organizes it into what appear to be individuated life forms.
In nearest terrestrial relatives the auroras borealis and australis, the resemblance discernible in the gleam on their feathers.
4. At sunrise, perched as closely as possible to a bedroom window, the magpie loudly and comprehensively confesses for us the sins we plan (unconsciously) to commit during the day. Over the years a dense and highly elliptical code of cross-referencing has developed, incomprehensible to human listeners.
Though at time disembodied feelings of, for example, anger, lust, or envy may well up inside us as we lie listening.
5. A miniature tornado made of darkness
has touched down
in the vicinity of the garbage bags we
left overnight on the back step.
The sudden plunge in air pressure cut
an uneven swath through the packaged
mise en abyme of our day's routine
paying particular attention to
bloodsoaked kleenexes, raw meat,
and anything sticky. The fury of Mother Nature
operating on all levels.
- The Annotated Urban Magpie, pg. 16-17
* * *
1. Against the barn the mushrooms grow
wet. Brown lipstick caked on
their pouty mouths, as bi-valvular
they suck the soaked and
shredded straw.
2. Not having underarms, mushrooms cannot be persuaded to use deoderant. They consider themselves to be the incarnation of the smell of wet earth as it dreams of the sea. Deodorized, they would cease to exist.
3. Because it possesses consciousness, the mushroom must be classified as animal rather than vegetable. Its smooth cortextual surface should not be taken as indicating a lack of sophistication. Conventional measures of animal intelligence, which calculate cerebral mass in proportion to total body weight, show the mushroom to be fully six times as developed as human beings.
4. Certain varieties of Aminita secrete casings of crystal endorphins around irritating sediment particles which become embedded in the surface, so as to maintain a uniform consistency of inner peace. It is to these extremely rare "pearly of great price" that Jesus refers in Matthew 13:45.
5. The "boot" mushrooms that Alex picked turned into live slugs when cooked, writhing in our barley soup, furred against our tongues. Then they stained our mouths blue, like squid.
6. The moorhen shunned the moon
a darkened tomb upon the heath. Rheumatic, upon
the bleak moor where romance loomed. A
billowing futon of humus loomed upon the
mushy moss heath, looming before the pedantic
fluids, full and round and darksmelling ground:
"I am not a mushroom," the voice protested,
"nor do I commune with these. My advocacy is
disinterested. Cold as their caress."
Milky cataracted eyes staring blankly at the sky.
7. Mushroom martyrdom. All mushrooms
are hermaphroditic, containing both testosterone
and estrogen in equal measure. Yet many varieties lactate
and one manifests a pattern of nerve endings identical
to that of the human testicle. (Specimens
should be thoroughly dried before slicing or chopping.)
8. The shyness of mushrooms is legendary - they peek in huddled
groups from under mats of wet leaves and earth, their hands clasped
tightly together. It is very rare to see them smile.
- Notes on Mushrooms, pg. 28-29
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