4 poems by Gordon Phinn

For Charles Simic

Yes, you were here, for what
Now seems an unquantifyable idyll

In that picnic of horrors
Holding forth in the headlines.

Only now do I see that trail of
Breadcrumbs, artfully arranged

To tempt the idle into exploring
The maze of your curiosity.

Arriving at a semblance of center
One sees the all too predictable

Mirror, making an elegant mockery
Of the verse lovers' vanity, as the

Smile of the Buddha creeps up from
Behind, waiting to dislodge the

Sorrow and the pity.





For Karl Jirgens

The drizzle has deigned to halt its descending
Leaving damp shoes nesting under umbrella.

The coffee, with due cause, now cooling, while
The rocker yet allows me to recline

As I plunge then drift through seaweedy tendrils
That obscure as they illuminate

The oblique strategies of narrative
And its desires, or should I say ambitions,

To break open the mind and make room for
Such treasures as the intrepid have dragged

To drop at your toes, that you might ponder
The impenetrable and maybe be admitted

To those marvellous denouements that make up
The meaning of meaning, while the rest of the crowd

Seems satisfied with stories that assume
All is conflict and resolution.





For Sharon Butala

Eternity, my dear, does not
"Come closer every day"

It surrounds you, as it does
Us all, patiently waiting

For the penny to drop &
The aura to engulf.

There is no door to open,
Chasm to cross, ritual to absolve,

There is only the laying down
Of those weary tunes and woes,

Wounds that perplex and somehow persist
As the light of knowing acknowledges

Your surrender to the infinite
extending in all directions.





For Ferdinand Passoa

Lunch invokes digestion, the
Book is laid on the table

Where it will lie till I
Rise from my rest

To refresh my interest
In its minor revelations

Of another poet's life
In a distant time and place

Where I am but a figment
Of the future's imagination, -

Indolent, efficient, a foe to be
Befriended before the light

Goes out and all become apparent

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Gordon Phinn has been writing and publishing in a number of genres and formats since 1975, and through a great deal of change and growth in CanLit.  Canada’s literary field has gone from the nationalist birth pangs of ’65 – ’75 to its full blooming of the 80s and 90s, and it is currently coping as well as it can with the immediacy and proliferation of digital exposure and all the financial trials that come with it. Phinn’s own reactions was to open himself to the practices of blogging and videoblogging, and he now considers himself something of an old hand. His Youtube podcast, GordsPoetryShow, has just reached its 78th edition, and his my blog “anotherwordofgord” at WordPress continues to attract subscribers.

Phinn’s book output is split between literary titles, most recently, The Poet Stuart, Bowering and McFadden, and It’s All About Me. His metaphysical expression includes You Are History, The Word of Gord On The Meaning Of Life.

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