 This time last year I joined a two week expedition across the frozen lakes and forests of Northern Ontario. For days a small group of us pulled toboggans containing tents, stoves, food through miles of the Canadian wilderness. It was a disorienting experience, I am unbelievably glad I did it but still have no idea why! Made solitary, We came out of the wilderness Through eight days of snow and the grinding wind Along the ways of the Cree and over the creaking lake A land where the dragging earth and the heavens were separated By no more than the distant smudge of White Cedar, Spruce and Fir. And the translucent hide of a weary sun Faltered at the edge of the world All life seemed suspended Only the circling hawk The marks of lynx, otter and snowshoe hare And ourselves bore witness that things breathed upon this land. We were bent like old people against the strain, As frost biting fingers reached up through the slush and grasped And clawed at the underside of our toboggans Making us curse and sweat even as the ice froze around our legs and feet. And each night we had built our camp, Cutting the bushy branches from the spruce to lay over the snow and frozen waters Swinging axes against standing dead wood to fire a battered stove, Scraping a hollow to catch the depth of the cold Pulling stiff, reluctant, ill-fitting canvas over frame Sawing a hole though dark ice to draw up brown water Then dropping into a half-sleep watching in the rigid darkness. That we might feed the flickering flame Until we woke before dawn And began again. To downtown Where people greet you with razor wire smiles, Eyes narrowed against the neon wind And the scent of cinnamon, clove and hot oil lingers outside from the whirling eye Of the Lebanese restaurant, The sweet sour smoke from the snout of a Chinese dragon Frets upon on the sidewalk Above which the towers of the possessed rise like giant fists with outstretched fingers And the sports bar zombies dance to silent flashing screens Like renegades We might hold onto the wilderness keeping The songs of our days like lightening in a jar As we walk towards the first embrace of loneliness. In this wasteland of dreams Steve Bonham 2017 
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 New year 2017. Today I walked a while around my old town. I don't get here much. From the shuttered shops and empty spaces it seems, like many places, they are closing it down. So far they have taken everything up to the knees. As I sat drinking a coffee waiting for a phone to be mended I thought back to my childhood and the dirty, busy, mysterious town this once was. OK it wasn’t so great, When the winter damp rolled The chimney smoke over and over Till the days were a long twilight of sulphur mist, In which strangers, shuffling and apologetic Materialised at your side, hunched a little lower, Then disappeared. And in the same moment of trickery An entire trolley bus, sparking and clattering, became visible Carrying sombre mannequins in hats and scarves, In a long retreat Before vanishing to a muffled tolling bell. When my mother taking our hands, And telling us not to breathe Would pull us home Under the iron bridge smouldering in a fiery glow from A steam train as it slowed and sighed above Onto an empty platform Adding its underbreath to the stinking mustard air. Past the strange shop windows Lonely and lost in a melancholy air; Along the looming giants of furious Plane trees Into the serious dark of the sidestreet To the haunted nervous places Past the ‘rec’, the bowling club and the brook, Invisble now Lingering only it seems in the young memory of summer. Back to home to the worried dog and the cold, cleaner air Watching the fire kindle in the grate Pressing my cheek against the tears on the window I would watch till my still dark father would return. (c) Steve Bonham 2017 |
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