Maple Leaf Brag…

A lovely photo by Sherron, taken on our back deck.

The sunny weather means that I’ve been outside, raking and doing yardwork…and found the imprint of a maple leaf, pressed into the cement.

The picture I took wasn’t nearly as nice…

Photo by Sherron Burns

Read Full Post »

Happy 100th Birthday, North Battleford

Our little city officially celebrates its 100th birthday today.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a poem paying tribute to the river valleys that have been home and sanctuary to our species for many millennia. We’re blessed with a particularly lovely one here and I’ve often driven or walked through these hills and imagined this place when it was younger, wilder, populated by an entirely different kind of people.

Happy birthday, North Battleford.

Tigris

Irresistibly drawn to these green
descending hills, natural cradle
for a squalling, nascent civilization
offering the allure of water, game
shelter from on-rushing tempests &
killing winter winds that seek
but fail to penetrate the draws
& shallow, dipping coulees
grudgingly retreating only when
the first crocus, purple with apoplexy
sends them packing back to their
Rocky Mountain redoubt

Summer settlements along the
sandy riverbanks, for trade &
contact after another hard winter:
fishing & hunting & sport
rough games to occupy the young men—
old feuds recalled, raids re-enacted
blood alliances forged between families
& lodges, only the occasional grass fire,
torrential hailstorm or inevitable drowning
dispelling the illusion of idyll

& so it was & remained until one day
(overcast, with a promise of rain)
on the horizon, no attempt to hide
(there! there! see?)
strangers & from the look of them
they’d come a long way…

Rounding the big curve, topping the hill
the familiar sight of the river valley
spread out below us & then crossing the
newly repaired bridge, gazing down at the
olive-colored water, suddenly realizing
Heraclitus was wrong, this is that same river, we
are merely the latest arrivals, on our way to
supper with friends in Old Town, who will
excitedly tell us about the moose spotted on
the island, offer to show us the nest of the
Great Horned owl so that we, too, can
endure her cool, dispassionate regard, whispering
so we don’t spoil the moment

© Copyright, 2013 Cliff Burns (All Rights Reserved)

 

Read Full Post »

New story added to Scribd

Just posted a new tale, bit of a brain-teaser, over at Scribd.

The story is called “The 1001st Night” and clocks in at around 1450 words. Very odd, but I like it. The way it weaves back and forth, exhibiting multiple points of view and perspectives and yet somehow coalescing into…well, see for yourself.

I’ll be adding it to my “Stories” page here (eventually) but Scribd has racked up some impressive numbers for me since I signed up and I thought I’d give them first dibs.

If you’re a real completist, you should probably subscribe to my Twitter link too because I’ve been known to post little snippets and Twitter-verse there and nowhere else. Just to keep everyone on their toes.

Glad to be offering new work for your perusal.

Hope you enjoy “The 1001st Night”.

Read Full Post »

“Subsidence” (Prose)

It has something to do with the persistent damp. Seepage; the ground fluid, churning. Things constantly coming to the surface that are better left buried.

In the spring, when the snows subside, dissolve away. Sometimes a careless farmer will plough up the wrong field. Or children will make a grisly discovery in the woods.

We have been condemned, collectively, for those dark times. You would think we all owned Kalashnikovs and a cluster of hand grenades.

They will not forgive the desecration of the churches. Those pictures. Awful, awful. Though some of us insist they were faked…

Listen, we can’t keep apologizing for the past. What’s done is done. It could happen in any modern, civilized state.

They want to call it genocide but we reject that.

It was war and terrible things occurred.

We won’t be treated as pariahs.

We have sinned but are answerable only to God.

 

 

Copyright, 2013  Cliff Burns (All Rights Reserved)

Read Full Post »

I have, apparently, “that kind of face”

The woman, let’s call her Margaret, pauses at the conclusion of her account, looking up at me with an expression of bewilderment. “I don’t know why I told you all that. You have that kind of face…” She trails off and our conversation concludes not long afterward.

Why did Margaret, a woman I barely know, just spend nearly ten minutes bending my ear about her husband’s fraught relationship with his brother? In the process disclosing many intimate details that should never be passed along to a virtual stranger.

And she’s not the only one.

People tell me things. All sorts of things. Funny and crazy and tragic and personal. People on buses, people who do work on my house, people I’m waiting in line with at the bank…casual acquaintances and complete strangers. Men and women turning to me, a confession already forming in their mind.

“You’re a good listener,” my wife tells me. “That’s part of it. You seem interested in what they’re saying. That’s your first mistake…”

Maybe Yoko Ono is right and there are “a lot of lonely people out there”.  I guess that was part of the attraction of the Post Secret project a few years ago. People dying to get their crimes and misdeeds off their chest…anonymously, of course, their courage only extended so far. Similarly, it’s easier to confess some things to strangers or barely familiar faces than to family members and loved ones. A weird kink of psychology.

I spend most of my time alone, isolated. When I do interact with folks, I’m anxious to talk about anything but my work and dull routine…and that might be at least partially responsible for the true confessions and guilty secrets I’ve been subjected to over the years. Some of them not for the squeamish. And if I make the mistake of admitting I’m an author, there are individuals who immediately perk up:  well, if you’re a writer, you’ll love hearing what’s been going on in my life lately…

Er, not really, no.

But once people start revealing their problems and complaints there’s just no holding them back. I’ve heard about failed marriages, infidelity, felonies and misdemeanors, nodded sympathetically as men and women tearfully surrendered indiscretions they should have been saving for their priest or shrink. I have no right to this knowledge and yet, afterward, feel protective of what I’ve learned, a certain responsibility to be discreet. The sanctity of the confessional. I think folks sense that as well; a quiet, lonely, reclusive man: who can I possibly tell?

It’s very difficult for me to be rude. I detest breaking into someone’s train of thought, interrupting them in mid-sentence because something they’re telling me is inappropriate, better kept to themselves. Politeness has its drawbacks and I’ve endured many an awkward, one-sided conversation simply because I lack the chutzpah to clear my throat, give an impatient frown or simply walk away.

And, anyway, how can you walk away from a young clerk, enormously pregnant, helping me find a stencil set and, meanwhile, telling me about the heart defect that threatens the life of her unborn baby. Thirty seconds after walking into the store. What can I say? How do I respond?

But she’s looking at me, describing the diagnosis and proposed treatment, affirming the importance of faith in her life, talking freely, without a trace of self-consciousness.

Something in my manner or expression assuring her, a sympathy that cannot be feigned.

While I, for my part, refuse to deny her the kindness of a stranger, shared concern for a child in distress.

My time is not so important, surely, that I can’t spare a minute or two to commiserate or console. These meetings, though frequently taxing, part of the burden I bear for having “that kind of face”.

Read Full Post »

Neil Armstrong has died

One of my heroes has died.

Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon, an aviation pioneer, a far traveler and fearless explorer of unknown places.  Watching Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon is one of my earliest memories. They inspired me to look up, and instead of endless, daunting depths, view space as a domain not entirely empty or hostile to our kind.

After July 20, 1969 we were earthbound no longer.

**************************************************

Iconic
(for Neil Armstrong)

The First Man must be humble
yet self-possessed in times of crisis
confident, as one who’s been sorely tried.

Drop him, spin him, shake him
race his heart,
see if he dies.

Undaunted by fame,
puzzled by all the fuss,
natural in the glare.

Stick him in a close compartment,
sling it into the girding dark;
crown him with hero’s laurels
should he return.

********************************************

TV

I saw the man walking on the moon. I watched it on TV. I couldn’t believe someone was really up there. I went to get my mother and ask her. She said she was too busy. She was cleaning up the kitchen or something. I told her about the man on the moon. But she didn’t seem to care. She had other things to think about. She told me to go outside. She told me that was enough TV for today.

Read Full Post »

Next up…STROMATA: PROSE WORKS (Publication date September 20th, 2012)

I’ve already leaked some of this over at my RedRoom page but (rubbing his hands together eagerly) here’s the cover of the companion volume to the New & Selected Poems.

Stromata: Prose Works (1992-2011) includes the creme de la creme of my short prose pieces (some folks call them prose poems).  These are brief (usually under 500 words) narrative works, often quite surreal, twisted, satirical and, frankly, vicious. These bits are perfect for performing at readings and frequently provoke gasps and, seconds later, gales of laughter.  Some of my favorites are in Stromata: “Cranes”, “A.I.”…material that hasn’t been in print and available to readers for many, many moons.  And some new pieces that, I think, show a progression in terms of themes and my approach to the subject matter.

I’ve said it before but here it is again: I love these two thin volumes.  While books like The Last Hunt and Of the Night reflect my skills as a storyteller, the collected poems and prose poems prove that I can “dangle” artistically with the best of them.

Dangle? Sorry, that’s a term that might only be familiar to hockey fans. If a player can really fly on the ice, skate fast and stickhandle you right out of your jock, we say, “man, look at that guy dangle”.  It’s like a whistle of appreciation.

I hemmed and hawed about it but there will be an e-book and Kindle version of Stromata (unlike the poems). Frankly, the books are so beautiful, who would want to settle for electronic copies? Why not get the real thing and have two lovely tomes that you can treasure forever?

Chris Kent did both covers and, I’m telling you, his book designs just keep getting better and better. He seems to understand intuitively what I’m looking for, the “less is more” mentality I apply to every aspect of my life.  Chris is a delight to work with—no huge ego, just a desire to execute  covers that are artful and eye-grabbing and irresistible.

Both the Selected Poems and Stromata retail at $12.00 (U.S.A. & Canada) and they each clock in at around 116 pages. Slim…but there’s a lot of power packed into those little gems.

New & Selected Poems is available now, today, this very instant…the release date for Stromata is September 20th.

More info to come…

(Click on covers to see larger versions)

Read Full Post »

’76 Corral (the short film)

You read the poem…then you heard the audio version…

Now ’76 Corral, the short film. Created with some help from my son, Sam.

Shot and recorded on location in Grasslands National Park (Canada).

Read Full Post »

“’76 Corral” (the audio version)

Some time ago I posted a poem I wrote while Sherron and I were in Grasslands National Park.  Received some lovely feedback from folks and I rather liked the poem, so…

I’m now posting an audio version of “’76 Corral”.

The vocal part was recorded on location (as it were), just outside a giant metal storage shed in Val Marie that could’ve comfortably housed the Hindenberg (fully inflated).  There’s also a looped track I grabbed as we stood in some tall grass inside the park, keeping one eye out for rattlers.

So there’s an authentic feel to this one, an attempt to reproduce the atmosphere of the place…but also the thoughts and emotions that beautiful southwestern Saskatchewan landscape inspired.

Have a listen:

’76 Corral (MP3)

Read Full Post »

A new poem–written in Grasslands National Park

’76 Corral

All that’s left are your bones:
broken, splintered stelae
jutting from unpeopled places
where hope used to reside
but has long since departed.

These mortal remains
attest to your brief presence
like weathered tombstones
of the forgotten dead.

Were there an epitaph,
it would be unsparing:
“Here lies one who lived
but did not thrive;
who came
but did not stay.”

July, 2012

Read Full Post »