IN A VALLEY

So i have loved, i have loved,
i have loved and lean on cold rock
beside this lake that howls
on the edge of crepuscular forest.

I have loved and loving
has not returned, no echo
but a mutation of distance, no song
but a voice that lifts
and is lost like an escaped kite
inhaled by cloud convolute, churning.

I have loved and by my love
pronounced a soliloquy
against the edges of this dark valley
valley half asleep, slowly rolling.

-Timothy Shay

YELLOWSTONE

SEGMENT

out of sight

An undecided day, the sun is
with us for a moment, passing through
the trees, causing everything touched
to appear like
an inspirational get-well card

Then a wind, heaving itself
against the trees, uprooting some,
obscures the sun with dust, with dust
and thick acrid smoke. blown up
from burning yellowstone

The canadian is late
gathering a winter supply of wood,
even though the uprooting
of a few trees mght serve his purpose,
the wind has otherwise ruined
his day, or the plans he had made
for the day,
his chainsaw idle, stilled
by the erratic wavering of
emily carr's forest, the subsequent
lack of predictability
making the art of falling dead trees
high risk, dangerous, deadly

The road remembers its traffic, the path
all the feet which possessed it.
The sky recalls each of our smoky tortures.
The living ocean girdled with our excess:
drivel, sputum, grapefruit rind
smorgasbord morass of greedy lip drool
we casually or causally assist
down
our favoured magic pipes and out of sight.


-Timothy Shay

HYPOTHETICAL SITUATIONS The following poem was composed in the late 70's and is still applicable to those who believe they can ignore the man-induced decrepitude of the earth and escape to the country and the land and somehow by turning their backs on cataclysm might escape its implications:

HYPOTHETICAL

SITUATIONS

#1 & #2


[#1] :


all the safeways and supervalues are closed
you only have three packages of kraft dinner
eight spuds , some ketchup, a pound of margarine
and three loaves of day old bread

there is also half a gallon of milk

there is no electricity in the city
you live in a medium to low rent district
obviously people are disturbed
by the disorder around them
there are no more anti-depressants
there are no more cigarettes
there is no heat

even the familiar old lady with her briefcase
and 'awake' pamphlets' is not there anymore
all music has ceased to play

what would you do? be objective.


[#2]:



all the safeways and supervalues are closed
you only have two pounds of organic brown rice
a few spices, some unpasteurized milk, honey and
five gallons of gas in the pickup truck

there are no more welfare cheques, no jobs

it is december
you are in your rustic log cabin
with your books on meditation and fasting

fasting

twenty miles from the city
three feet of snow on the ground
your non-vegetarian dogs grow hungry

what would you do? meditate on it.

-Timothy Shay

SMOKEY DAY-
KENO YUKON-
1956

Fire Fireman Fire Sequence 1975
ADDENDUM circa 1983

Life and other lives

a transposition of favoured lies

a child’s cardboard circus kaliedescope

half truths, myths, and scrap of small dream

metamorphise to geometric form, sudden ambiguity

one twist and a gnarled outcome

the ideal tree of eden seasoned

dry and fallen to a nightmare tree a

warped tree of life, of weathering storms,

snake infestations and camping wildfires.

It was just a tiny fire

i only vaguely remember it

the leaves were a rust or gold colour

so i set the moment in the

always early autumn

of 1956

so i set my little fire in the autumn

of 1956

had a tin can and some eddy

strike-anywhere matches

had the afternoon

and the shallow hidden definition in

endless northern taiga

filled with sharp twigged scrub brush

yellow leaves, orange leaves

and the little green plastic men

set up camp in the tin can

it was war so

the tin can called an oven

strike a match

flare and firebomb descend

burn

a newspaper tarpaulin

yellow newspaper leaves

yellow and orange leaves

crackles of machine gun fire

leaves black as black as war

My mother reminds me of

this incident

but I claim to remember nothing

or perhaps just the beginning

when the burning started and

Old john

sharpened his knife

as he sat on the wooden steps

of the silver queen saloon

said

‘come ere little boy’

‘i’ll cut yer tongue out little boy’

No no old john

no no no as i ran away

imagining old john’s dream of that

sudden precise incision

permanent extraction

of my lying member

a small tongue growing ever larger.

-Timothy Shay

Nightwatchman’s Soliloquy

for

My Muse, Vagrant Lady ‘A’

‘Angelica Poems’:

addendum. Circa 1983.

Another dark building finally empty

and locked

the air cleared

of the thinking of others

Winter is coming again Angelica

and where are you now

in the sun near what far beach?

weaving on a sundeck

east of san diego

I had planted a lawn

but rains and the dog attacked it

before it rooted

and the slender sharp spears

of grass which survived

cling together like refugees

on small islands

of brown peat moss and

they grow as quickly as they are able

with winter coming

and you lost, Angelica, long gone.

And i am giving you this speech

because i am lonely and there is no one

as i drown in the impersonality

of dangerous curves on highway 3A

the road i drive each day

habitual on each habitual day

I am giving you this speech

because i love and have not

fully identified what i love

or if my loving is even loving

generally considered love

I am giving you this speech lady

and smiling like the dog on the cover

of johnny cambodia’s book*

and he really needs a visit

so if you’re out that way

drop into the air of his room

make his cigarettes mild

line his stomach with eternity

before his next harsh coffee

or properly spelled 'whisky'

Another building finally empty

and winter is coming Angelica

i had planted a lawn

i am giving you this speech

i am giving you this speech…

*THE NIGHT THE DOG SMILED/JOHN NEWLOVE (RIP).

Timothy Shay

WINTER POEM
circa 1983

The village's perennial ex convict
steals red felt christmas socks
from the display in front of
the baker street bank of commerce
a dog wanders
i borrow marley's chains
for traction as it snows

I observe a window
in the next building
an old dormitory
it is filled with the vibrance
of my long departed
teenage ghost

I would compare
the pages of winter
to some pale flower
flat and brittle in a book
and spikes of somnolent larch
crisp tamarack
become instead
icons of this annual iceage

The unemployed slowly chew
their pizzas at the medi
extend their dream
of distant holidays
naked in an olive grove.

-Timothy Shay

NARROW WAY
circa 1978

i
the least compassionate
of men
crusher
of simple insect
swatter
of brainless fly
eater
of red barn
yard gut

cast in this act of civil garment
gypsy silk or slaughterhouse uniform

i love
in my narrow way.

-Timothy Shay

ANGELICA OF

CIRCLING WILD HORSES

poem for muse circa 1980

sweet angelica
of fronds and circling wild horses
carry me again to
paradise of crow
of faith
lily simple and fine
bread with flesh
provided minus backbending
this post-eden breadwinning

sweet angelica
i grow sick of the streets
bored in the restaurants
jaded in the presence of waitresses
their breasts the percolators
of male contemplation

sweet angelica
why do you speak to me
at such strange times
in such strange places:
the pizza parlour or
in front of my television filled
with horror and the national news
in such stranges ways
your voice in the lightbulb
deep in the woven pattern
of pre-fab walls

sweet angelica
what do you feel like
is your body a coffee cup
or yogic as skin mag porn ads
are your nipples dangerous as reptiles

sweet angelica are you part
of all past love passed life
or subtly disguised
as my sleeping wife

sweet angelica of the pure
mountain spring
of the spinning
copper gypsy dance
and the mountaineer's
sudden trance
angelica of the
circling horses sounding
of whinny like iron train
through the night
angelica
give me the honour
of constant sight
split the bright of brightest day
peel aside the sheet of night

deliver sight in a box at noon
angelica grant this boon

deliver the voice of ocean wild
that tongue known to ev'ry child

sweet angelica
of the moss where each falling deer
has fallen
feel welcome to wake me
with the loud trampling of
your dream dancing.


-Timothy Shay

HEART
circa 1978

Great thumping organ
music in the sky
that great cavity
the sky
pulses like electric wire
fills with lung wind
great sky overfilled
with chest message
morning smog receptacle
soaks in jazz coffee

Great thumping
red organ music
my lung sky
capillaries chant
canaries in a cage

-Timothy Shay

CORNED BEAST NOTES

This Month Featuring

THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE

REGIONAL-HISTORIC

ROOTS OF

THE KING OF TOMATOES

AND

HIS FAMOUS PLASTIC

CROWN:

PART TWO

From the Nelson Daily News, Saturday April 22 1944:

“Tzar of Heaven” Louis Popoff bounced back into the limelight at Nelson Friday sans clothes, but still retaining his crown of oranges. Doffing his duds at the Vernon Street public restroom, “the Tzar” wearing his oranges and nothing more padded off down Ward Street to the Provincial Jail in an attempt to secure the release of the two Christs. Unable to enter there he continued over to the City Police lockup where he was hospitably bade to enter and for the second time in a week was in custody.

SEE ARCHIVE March 07

for first enigmatic installment

LIES

When i told her i was married
to ten women
she didn't believe me
because i was smiling

When i told her we all shared
one bed
she did not believe me
as i said we all slept

She was a great detective
and worthy of my lies
i could tell by her attitude
the distance in her eyes.

-Timothy Shay

He Drives Home Alone

for Hart the Cat


The cat, her ribs crushed
one leg shattered
great difficulty breathing
drinks only evaporated milk
and shits without control
in the basement
had to be euthanized

The car filled with darkness
the highway a game
of twists and yellow lines
he wonders what they did
with the body

He remembers the cat
in her finer moments
long before he became
this traitor
disloyal
got a dog
a big black loud dog
alienated the cat with
this division of attention
this difference
of dinner size
so the cat in spite
got herself hit
and was euthanized

O she knew cars
her first tom cat lover
had been struck and
flattened
and she became fastidious
in her
avoidance of vehicles
was wise
until her hiri kiri
and the last car trip (cowering)
to be euthanized

At the veterinarian's office
it is crowded
the cat yowls softly
like an abandoned child
they have put her
in a small red cage
the other pet owners
are saying
'o see the pretty cat
the pretty tortoise shell cat
she's here to get better'

He drives home alone.

-Timothy Shay

SMOKEY SUMMER

.I.

The fire creeps up

the backface of near mountains

eyes sting as

hot fly ash falls

an advance paratroop

on the town

Water still runs from taps

the old electric typewriter still hums

cbc radio continues

to discuss

troubles back east

But the usual birds

have fallen to silence

and the village paupers

the homeless are smug

and celebrate

the apparent vengeance

of nature.

.II.

Everyone asleep

laxidasical as smoked bees

last night the setting sun

an obscured blood clot

as it sank through

the tuttle creek smoke

And small ashes fall

retain the form of pine needle

and tiny holographic branches

but like life

crumble to dust when touched

beyond the gentle

retention of hands

like the earliest of snowflakes.

-Timothy Shay

THE SICKNESS [a lyric]

I have given myself a sickness
that has kept me too long i said
too familiar with the dimension
of our wedding bed

I sing myself a husband dirge
have sipped at holy dread
reading too many famous books
to recall what has been said

I'm laid up in the country
dog collared and plaster cast
I'm broken in the farmyard
so thin i start a fast

So thin and so ridiculous
i chant in my manger here
so thin and so coldhearted
so overwhelmed with fear

I have given myself a sickness
that has kept me too long i said
too familiar with the dimensions
of our wedding bed

-Timothy Shay

THE CEDAR STICK DANCERS

We spend hours
fighting the disease
which slowly consumes us

We build small fires
on some beach
we remember
with crisp cedar sticks
a fire and a dance
our dead grandfathers
danced and carefully
we watch old films
for the hidden lessons
they contain

But in application
we are clumsy
our thoughts mount up
like the easy wealth
of old families
and though each rung
of the endless ladder
creeps apart quietly
incremental until
we can no longer stretch
to the next rung so
finally fall
through and down
to that place we started:

Crumpled heap broken
in the name of renewal
unconscious at the gate
of birth

Yet we continue
the climb
and the view is great
up here
birds speak
and surprisingly
with the slow patience
of aging
we assimilate
their winged language.

-Timothy Shay

WHISTLE

whistle..small instrument
no extra luggage..whistle

song and small instrument
golden anklet..voice ambitious
as november's jangled moon
goosebumps
on phosphorescent water

the world's of g-d
mirrored and
songs of the watchers
always say:

this place..each..the centre
of the world

the deciduous decide
the conifer stare
in quorum with wind
become the large voice
of many small bird's
song..listen..whistle.

Timothy Shay

HAPPY EASTER FROM
RESISTERVILLE BC!

STORM REPORT

The first major storm of autumn
i watch as the radio tower
on elephant mountain is struck
by lightening
and the office lights waver
in and out, causing me
to refocus my vision
the lightening is blue
the rain is sleet threatening snow
the road will be wet at one a.m.

The eyes of deer
will stand out like stars might
on a clear night.

-Timothy Shay

MUSTARD

On a tour of the angst farm
where we crawl like ants
and the dusty tunnels of
claustrophobia weave
in and out like pink rubber bands

Where are any of us
at the moment that matters
do we rise to the call
if slightly out of earshot
do we refuse red meat
because we stand toothless
among the gnashing of picket fence
their cobblestone eyeballs
lean heavily
on a hill of pillows

I crawl with angst
and take a shower
water against floor leaps
like mexican jumping beans
and pelted by warm strings
i begin to crave
that plate of rope and sauce
meatball muscle wiener tongue.

Timothy Shay

SHARD of obsession

These obsessions
bid him spin

He finds all the nazis
hiding in his neighbourhood

His placement on the skin
of world geography
causes a literal chill
the new and perfect man
glides
black bikes down hills

Timothy Shay

YELLOW BRICK

As we falsify the records
disregard the smiles
avoid the word
'agenda'
study what is past
oblivious to the workings of
the wooden wheels of task

And torn down
the history of town
scattered by the waterway
yellow brick
and the fingerprint
of the dead
the shoes they walked in
on the bottom
in pairs
going nowhere but
ready always ready

As we falsify the records
satisfy the bride
the legend will live on
a long long time
will be muttered
to wide eyed children
nestled at nightfall
at bedtime
on the edge of
that abyss called winter
chimney smoke
walking along the ground
down
to the foggy water
steam laden with
the last breath
of missing summer.


-Timothy Shay

SHARD

I am the hollow shell
i feared becoming then

I am a voice without
language, the long road
suddenly ended after
arduous journey

All this mere pretense
a fakir's trick
the hologram of an
ancient snake
(a brief amusing suspension
of the endless
braided rope named time)

I am the hollow shell
filled with a procession
of oceans.

-Timothy Shay

SKIN

I promised to sing no new songs
in your noise filled world
world of knee cramp stomach knot
high pitched
minstrel and jet and combustion and
always audible tick tock
up your hall around your block
in all the places you've chosen to hide

Even the continental railroad arrives
at your door your isolated
evening window by deep woods filled
with humming insect
and the smooth sound of snakes shedding

-Timothy Shay