Alastair Grant

  Ronald Alastair Grant. Born in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1927. Former newspaper columnist, reporter, editor and radio writer. Former president of the Montreal Press Club (1983 through 1986) and now a lifetime member.  Retired from CP Rail as manager of media/information services. Published seven books (one novel and six books of poetry). Also recently recorded a CD entitled Stations of the Past (poetry and music) with pianist Neil Chotem. Innumerable works published in magazines, newspapers, anthologies, etc. Boring details available on request.

E-mail Alastair at RAGrant@sympatico.ca

NIGHT AND DAY

Dusk:

Minding my own, of course,
I was asked by a voice which emanated
from a print dress and darkness
and the darkness opened to a girl
in the leaf of her copulative form
and I said I would because,
after all, I had the money.

Dawn:

In the nativity of light
the dark disbands particularly
and loquacious birds swarm
to descend upon horses
in the jingling fields.
There are many birds
and there are many gods,
each with his own heaven.

Ballad Of The Butter And Egg Men

The destination of the world is winter
and melons would explode in the arctic air
if the last revolution played the Palace Pier
but pedestrians rotate the desecrated sphere
with superstitious pacing between sin and synagogue,
churlishness and church, misery and mosque,
adultery and idol myth, sacrifice and megalith.

They walk to god or gold or Armageddon
carrying briefcases of contraceptive cheese
to holy shrines where they fall upon their knees
and give great thanks to anyone they please
then light a candle, rattle off a prayer,
kiss the book and make tomorrow better
and thus redeemed they shuffle through the square
their minds still sterile from the cheddar.

They trust the golden rules of Sunday schools
and accept as truth the doctrines of directors
as well as the directions of their doctors
and so they move from prayers and preyings
to songs and dances and funny sayings.

2

The habitual martini makes the ritual complete
and when spirits are at rest they file into the street
where they see a drunken artist and retreat
for, strangely, in the pristine chapel of the snow
he draws a mystic icon deftly with his toe
and not of saint or prophet or of some religious fraud
but a personal depiction of anthropomorphic God
and though they’re not afraid of what his artwork shows,
they’re nervous about what it is he knows
so they anaesthetize their apprehensive brains
and hurry off to their respective trains.

When the slow turn of December shortens the day
and ribbons of railway light make their umbilical way
carrying the dandiprats, kitchen and kettle bound,
from Pantheon to Dorion and stations over ground,
the eyes of windows blink in the overlapping night
and bleed through shutters underneath the eaves
of homes wherein each ghost believes
in partridges and parsnips and bringing in the sheaves,
not to mention sandwiches of cheese.

3

Mules are warming by the fire, the turkey is divine,
there are pastries and pistachios and carafons of wine
yet the portraits on the wall are crying,
it is Friday and the world is dying.
Into this bleak plenitude the butter and egg men go
to disappear like pictures in the snow