Raise the Hammer
A Christmas poem by Jeffrey Stewart.
By Jeffrey Stewart
Dec. 20, 2007
Not all angels are pretty
like fireflies
some are ugly
like the broken down old Corolla
that saved me on the freeway
when it slowed down to eight kilometres
and seemed to lift me
straight off the asphalt with its rust-coloured wings
leaving me suspended above the roof
of an ice cream truck.
Shape-shifting white car
poorly painted
less predictable than a scarecrow, equally unattractive
adopted wings instead of car doors
wind-ruffled and weary
white as snow
that lifted everything
beyond my rib cage
a full twenty feet in the air
informing and enfolding
beyond my every effort to breath
into the dissipation of night.
Knowing my own heart
and lack of faith
it took everything
within those wings
to keep my eyes from closing
from pretending that those russet wings
grown tarnished with age and misuse
where upholding me in more than this.
Neither the shape of the wind's edge
nor the soul's could escape me
in that thin space
suspended between earth and heaven.
To this day I have been
the keeper of the flame
of a limited vision.
Only through that warm December moment
frozen in a time-hole
did I watch with unlaced eyes
as this car, this guide, scratched, dirt-stained
preserver of life immortal
transformed me above the frontier
of the city's bridal veil
to see the world as it really was
in all of its glorious
"come onto me, for I am
as full of contradictions as you".
Like a child
not knowing which
road of cloud to choose,
I become fully aware
of a hurt that only driving
in acres of air can cure.
And you cured me.
With the peace of the city lights
and the night to light my way
I saw the eyes
the hearts of survivors
red as the sand
dripping down into an hourglass
beckoning me onwards
in a rhythm that is never broken.
The rhythm of a heart
I had thought had stopped
the rhythm of a hollowed-out bag
I could hold in the palm of my hand
the time keeper of life
miraculously restarted
and set down
permitted to persist in that space
as the car turned from white to uncertain
and I could no longer make it out
and became denser and denser
as it drifted farther and farther
above the stop signs
and the snow-black beams
of my driveway's safety.
The search for truth is a cooperative, unending endeavour. We can, and should, engage in it to the extent we can and encourage others to do so as well, seeking to free ourselves from constraints imposed by coercive institutions, dogma, irrationality, excessive conformity and lack of initiative and imagination, and numerous other obstacles." -- Noam Chomsky
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We will use all legal means to resist this undemocratic seizure of power.
-- Prime Minister Stephen Harper
With the Liberals and NDP agreeing to a coalition with the support of the B
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Apparently, the City Traffic department still doesn't get it.
After turning James and John into two-way streets that slowed traffic down, the city is now looking for ways to speed thing
Toronto Council to Vote on Corporate, Union Donations (Dec. 1, 2008) -
Toronto City Council has another opportunity today to decide whether to allow corporate and union donations to be proffered during municipal campaigns.
City Council has voted against such don
Poor and Dirty (Dec. 1, 2008) -
Your humble editor presents a modest tribute to the Hamilton Spectator report, "Poor and dirty", published November 27, 2008.
Poor and Dirty
They see us rollin'
On the highway
The
By anonymous
Posted 9/17/2008 11:56:55 AM
You are so amazing.
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