Family Time

Your children scare you into
many behaviours bound up
to obsfucate personal whims
the ones that shape other people
to trends, trips, political positions
and the peculiar constraints of time
in other time zones
on somebody else's dime
your children remind you of things
about yourself
sublimated by adult life
by pretence in how much you've got right
by mortgages and contracts
that fit tight
tighter than teenage deliberations
with existential angst
remember that?
when that was king and you'd run
inside your head through the years
through the traffic, the money
to find yourself,
find anything
to remind you you're not a child
and you have a place in things
besides
a job, a postage stamp lot,
a golden handshake
to demystify the watch
stop the time
instead of counting minutes
until you're married
you're promoted
'till your through
one day your children
mangle the threshold
you bought and sold
saying things you used to utter
on the rainy days

doing things you tried to alter
with your personal wisdom
formed by wrinkles, balls and time
your partner's humour mirrors
your children's reflective shadow
mars the shade
blocks the sun
rags the time
stealing the minutes
you've yet to wind

November 2006

Walking in Winter's Night

the winter lurks in the chilled November air
a harbinger of bone weary temperatures
flooded with the moisture in the cold
that informs our bones
of where it is we are
and how it is we dare\

dare January to disappear
for just a month or a whole year
a mild trepidation of lunacy
against a longing to skate right through
this winter on opaque outdoor ice
blades singing, crackling
with the rancor of an
adolescents weight\

only a minor search for fate
in this vacuous thinning air
of deepest winters chest
open shrouds of white
natures downy thrust of insulation

challenges, urging themselves on us
the slush compiling like useless data
dampness filling the space\

Its making Canada complete
in the throes of February's heaves
furnaces constantly clicking in
chimneys breathing white whiskey clouds
giving homes their air of dignity

a northern peace achieved
in silent aplomb
every few suburban feet
a spirit wafting that
cannot be chased

but your winter gait
in the moons lit path
is your own print stamped in crispness
smooth as the skate that kept you
in balance movement true
as the melt we await.

Nov 06

Western Rodeo Speed

Hail a taxi driver

hey come be in a movie

a private screening of public sensibilities

you’re cutting off all of me

sidewalk cleaner feeling the pull

of urban sprawl

in the interest of the internet provider

we’ll place a local call

hey pal, can’t you do anything at all

it’s about my bright future

lets go get my destiny off hold

melancholy is for fools too slow

to dig the reveal

a jingoistic rap more hip than hop

urban soul\ no jihad

hey turban winder

can I ride the elephant around the

park behind the woman in the shroud

all sights and sounds

currying for favor

if you build we will come

after all yogi was just a bear

topography a new age religion

let’s just party on Reality T.V.

we’ll all get seen winning prizes

priced for privacy

hey bus rider come and be

a stand in

and you can really see

this western rodeo speed.

Nat Delle Palme - Sept 06

The Stick Men

We live surrounded by isolated casual acts

Of cowardice

People who act out their contempt for things

That have happened to them

That may happen to anybody, anytime/

The alleviation of such pains

This rationale of guilt

Victimizing, crossing and blurring lines

Are the colours of cowardice

A deep red

It is not the lack of conviction

We all struggle with

The child hood angst we all outgrow

The fear of the unknown

Traumas of injurious pre-adolescent events

No . it is in the cavalier moments where the scrutiny

Is blind and undecided

We format our various selfs

On digital screens of contempt sight unseen

Anonymity a weapon not heaven sent

Everything else in the back seat

Except the pain, its front and center

Guns some symbol of men in action

Phallic ness circumspect

In the isolation no one can check/

Alone out in the sunshine

Eyes reaching to see

You may enter the vastness

Of the human world

The myriad vulnerabilities of this village

So many spontaneous surprises in life

Arriving analog

It goes either way

In the moving clouds

You can release some angst

Your pain on offer

Each and everyone of us under the same sky

The same abilty to wonder and ask why

july06

The Nature of Fall’s Precipitation

The fall rain reminds in its restlessness,

chatter and dampness

it informs arthritis

like a crying child chides

this pursuit of escalating and unmet needs\

the way a woman checks a man

rebuffing there with intangibles,

on a roof, pelting

rain that lands without summer warmth

the one that docility allows

unsheltered jaunts

it comes without spring’s tacit promise

of colour, rainbows and crocuses

showing up

winter’s political purging pelt

of melting snows moist catharsis

landing banks of grime

the torrents of fall

escape boundaries and sound out

our vulnerability

the desperate need to insulate

against the coming transgressions

rain in fall is Canadian

forcing peoples’ hands

squeezing umbrellas,

squirreling away bikes

admiring the honk and symmetry

of fleeing geese

it does not aim to please this rain

it doesn’t aim at all

it holds us captive

revealing our myriad, puddling needs.

The Modern Sedimentary Rock

The geology of our politics

Grating texture, Teutonic plates shift

So crudely to negotiate the continental ,modern alibis/

In the rear view, the veterans lurking presence dims

Muted in murky details

Remembrance Day mirage

Eroding the memories

Of a fascism that galvanized,

Synchronized the West

Realizing a valour in the fear

People bonding through the outrage

All the way to benign neglect

Of Imperialisms empty tears

No need to marry a colonial past

With the best to be found in the West/

Continental drift shelves natural

Moments of time

Accelerates the manipulations of purpose

Our geography seals the deal

All those fossils in the fuel

Reflect the unknown goals

Of al the Abduls behind the lovely mosques

These outcroppings of polarization

I squint for an upper Canada

Some accommodation by an assembly

Of the many first and thirsty nations

Pacing this heat stroke of acrimony

An event with the shadowy ghosts

Of this new Eastern rite

Allay the glaciation, this backwater

The global villagers are living in

This gated community

Of many scattered Igneous rocks

Aligned with the sediments of greed/

In the billowing open skies of every tomorrow

Trade winds always blow

Fjords open ice in mirrors of blue snow

To become a westerly and flow

There is no nature in our pockets

Dreams no longer flirt in the mystery of open seas

Its inward tributaries of cultural streams

That spawn in high narrow gorges

Returning spring to civilizations sweeping current

Nature imposing easily the politics that seeps

So porously through all the piling rocks

Assembled by physical history

Arranged by Gods geography

Aug 06

Survivors

At every Spring

the daffodil follows the crocus

out of the moisture, in the mist

and hearts bloom hope

felt in every cut bouquet

breezes blow, fragility displayed

fresh and focused

on what a new season brings

to each of us

an opportunity to grow

Summer’s warmth is in tow

Winter’s lonely magic has let us go

counting only blessings

for being here

in Spring

where love meets promise

steps are light

pushing our spirits

to the bouncy billowing

bundles swooning in the sky

seeking joy and knowing why /

Nat Delle Palme - November ‘06

Sports

The brilliance of the magic is behind me

easy, sanguine grace

Identifying with teams, talents to trace

Ambitions and the dominance of space

Heady in the open seas of competition

Schoolyards gone missing with the open fields

Of endless mutual youthful missions\

Now on casual walks, noticing kids

Running in their open, engaging, circles

Pushy, all legs in

Acres of limed green grass

But

It is the cackling chatter rising there

The air exultant

Triggering the minds eye to recollection

Of open yuletide season ice

Ready to unveil the next great deke

Or the spiraling pigskin

Coming in over the shoulder, going deep

Stretching to bring in the catch

The moment transcendent

Never quite respected

Open field cross body block

Looking across the huddle, out of breath

Catching a teammates eyes

Growing inside, the open nod intangible

Revealing how you fit in

Identified

The game a momentary reminder

Of life larger than yourself

A community of mutuality

Someone with more than a rooting interest

Outside your clan

This tacit acknowledgement of bigger plans\

Pushing at the winter winds, squinting

In hard riding shotgun with yourself

Minutes stretch and

Time expands in colours, hues and rhythms

You have broken away, blades pierce the sweeping chatter

Pick up game, shinny a song of memory

A moments grace in the brilliance

Of October’s air

Nat Delle Palme - August 06

Some Summer Terms

Our egalitarian dreams suffer great duress

Political capital previously spent

On the cheap vilification

Some susceptible probation

Of this culturally malignant mess

Conventional wisdom circles its own wagons

Co-opting the métier of multi-speed internet

Compounding the value of multi-plex images

Valuing only what gets accumulated

And how it all trickles down and gets spent\

Those of us who can head out of town

Real estate equities of cottages leap and bound

A premium placed on private physical space

In this a land dominated by the vagaries of its geography

There is so much more at hand

Than just saving face

A community bred of isolation

Diffidence on a Quebec porch

Ours is no disgrace\

Affluent Canada’s gift to itself

Living with that Eighties maxim

The one who dies with the most toys wins

SUV’s a status made fleet

Friends to invite bbq’s to light

Lifting hands from leathered steering wheels

You point out some other Bozo

Empty gesture unwitnessed

Identifies the peasant nature of things

A need to ease the democracy of the open road

And the risks inherent\

Applied to us all each and every one

As we are counted going by.

Nat Delle Palme - December ‘06

School Bus Yellow

this yellow school bus, a constant symbol

of dispatch

the incessant need for society

to configure things

shape such a moment of mobilization

to afford this perception

of efficiency\

It probably compounds the pressures

in the basic human instinct

for the fix

rather than a real resolve\

no one ever asks the kids\

all thumbs and disconnect

the play station children\

no worms to catch in April

no bundling up against December's air

all those conversations on foot

building tree forts, snow forts

it once was so easily understood

how their time in childhood gets spent

watching the traffic

fidgeting, only kids after all,

already paying their own rent.

Nov '06

Northern Prayer

Canada came through this week

as it does everyday

it delivers us our daily bread

prodigious with many vistas

both physical and spiritual

unwarranted by enterprise

it's all for the living

honouring the memory of the dead /

Canada delivers us safely

to tomorrow's open door

unencumbered by pestilence, oppression

and the manias of economic war

I salute this gift from coast to coast

to sunny coast

having felt the Arctic pulse

the thinness that is the magic of its air

flatness in the muskeg's offering

the moisture's fullness in the snow /

brilliance in all these shades of grey

yet we witness the huddle and clutch

of the populous

around all points south

this constant tilt of money, water, power

the siren call of summer's endless wealth

I take my rest in the tundra's silent magic

knowing well in my Nordic bones

Winter comes to save us, maybe from ourselves

pinning us to this place

this shield called Canada

where all the seasons treat us

with the prudence of their obligations and challenges

this weather brings

the beauty of the Maritime's command

the westerlies moderating Chinook

ultimately the vastness of the northern imprint

the endless acres of snow

melts to moisture

myriad lakes and streams

the original highway

of many dreams

November 2006

Modern Religion

Modern religion

I have to ask God

in the inspiring beauty

of first, morning summer light

I’ll have to ask by paraphrase

to cultivate the question and get it right

I’ll have to believe in heaven

validate my pass day to day

make it all right

for all the people who bury others prematurely

those that nurture children

in death’s throes, not much

meaning found in which way the wind blows

Let’s concede defeat to war

cultural acrimony, bring everyone out

to Woodstock, someone’s farm

and start it over

cloud the doubt with summer snow

I want god to lend us a buck

Give his or her head a shake

And change the luck

Don’t want to be an embittered

Middle aged man

Confused by the shortness of things

Ready to celebrate the long view

The upper house in Canada

The role of women even in Kashishstan

Instill a need to acknowledge

Each other, women and children first

The real reason

For consternation and giving

A good god damm

Love Lies

Love reveals the private miseries

Lays bare vulnerabilities

To someone else

Innocence in the transmission of need

Inherent in many gestures

Acknowledged by only one other soul\

This is the true path of romance

Over time the cobbling of such stones

Smooths these signals like wafting smoke

Wispy and vague, undefined to others

Formed into a legacy of labours unintended

A secret unfettered, a sweat uncollected

By wage or commission\

Ideas that are expressed and meant

Received by only one other in this firmament

The receiver

Of the forward pass

The goalposts cemented by passion

Unmarked by time

Existing in miniature moments

Conjured up by two

Running

Nat Delle Palme – Nov ‘06

Election Fever

elections afford a reflection

a speculation on what's going on around

the relationship between

the obvious and the underground

local sentiment

tax evasion strategy

sublime in the details

minutiae where no one goes

indifference meets the roots

of apathy head on

only so many public transit votes

suburban subdivision units

come with garages for many reasons\

in election season

no majority votes

the elites manage to move

the world around with remotes

no one's paying much attention

disinterest resting on self absorption

if your older you hold out

for the holy ghost

so many seasons under the bus

limited by property's tax

a permanent fast of cut backs

and all of that

our future doesn't seem our own

tax avoidance a currency we all can use

our units of trust a speculation

of the uninformed and the truly confused...

Nat Delle Palme - September '06

Canuckski

I want to be Canadian
To illustrate the continental divide
With everyone else\

To own the Rockies
And never sell them out
I want that Canada that grew me up
Without the introspective biases
Of leering south
In the retrospective shadow of Dominion
And all that fat\

I want the Maple Leaf to mean more than that
A trading card for cheap vacations
In Spain, winters in Florida
No imprint to remain\

Winter is our real ace
In the hole
The hole card is green
Our relationship to value added
In that colour
In the million acres of snow Voltaire let go\

Our very open door
Natural gas, h2o and hydro
Tax credits that contribute conservation\

Of vistas oh so physical
Meaning transcendental
This history is magic
A story of rivers that flow
Free trade
The vital strength of indigenous
Peoples search for a common goal
This dance around
The Family Compact
Galvanized by aging veterans
Younger men unclaimed lying under
Europes ground neglected and disrespected
Their glory still unbound

Canada is to be measured by
How many doctors we provide
against the commercial tide
how many souls can save themselves
with all that we provide
with or without a Gods blessing
we are a people moved from
coast to coast to coast
a spirit born to pursue freedoms many ghosts
with economics balanced
between the castle and the lands
without a Hollywood
some grand design
a masters plan\

some great divide
let us go laughing by ourselves
invitations found in granites ground
sprouting spring
this seasons joy grounding us
in the refracting glint of
Decembers timeless lurch to snow.