Poems of a Spirit Wrestler

By James Kalmakoff

The poems cover a 35-year period from 1959 to 1994 and resemble an album of family photos of events, places and people — each with a story to tell. During this time I moved from being a poet, to a journalist, to a lab technician, then a research scientist and finally an academic at a university in New Zealand in 1969. These poems are messages to myself and represent a search for a meaning to life — the wrestling with my spirit. Along the way I took time out for love, religion, travel and navel gazing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483552422

Book preview

life.

DRINK!

Fill my cup with corruption

For the world is corrupt.

Let me drink of its evil and sorrow

For evil and sorrow are reality.

Let me know its happiness and its grief.

Drag me over the thorns of life

Let me bleed, let me suffer

Let me laugh at the folly of men.

I do not fear pain, for pain is real.

Do not shield my eyes from life’s agony,

Do not cheat me full measure of its bitterness.

Let me see its bitterness

Let me taste its bitterness

Let me know its bitterness –

Till the bitterness turns to sweetness.

Oct/59.

Canora, Sask.

This poem was written on leaving my home-town on the Canadian prairies and heading out for the west coast, Vancouver — to seek my fame and fortune as a poet – drawn by the wailing sound of jazz.

MOUNTAINS

The mountains seem solid and everlasting –

Something to lean on.

They stand holding up the sky timelessly.

They are like the personification of

Hope

With their feet planted firmly on the ground

And rising up to the heavens

Their heads in the clouds.

They were the same centuries before and centuries to come.

They are the past, the present and the future

At the same time.

In this time of change and hectic rush

They seem to soothe the nerves

And shout:

What’s the hurry!

It takes me thousands of years

To become useful soil

So what’s your hurry?

Oct/59.

Vancouver, B.C.

For someone who grew up on the prairies, the Rocky Mountains were awesome to be amongst

NIGHT

I like walking the city at 4:30 in the morning.

The streets are empty of the day-people and

The rain falls slowly and quietly.

Puloot, puloot, on the canvas canopy

Trying to gently wash away this spew

Of man off the earth’s face.

This pollution of buildings and pavement

And rusting, aging agony of apartments.

Gently trying to bland the dammed spot

Off its surface where once were

Meadows, trees, grass, hills and life.

But alas the thorns are driven deep

Into its skin and only with time

Will it fester out and be washed

Away with the gentle rain.

I walk down Granville defying the

Traffic lights which the day-people obey.

There is nothing funnier than

Traffic lights blinking and changing

Colours of their anger to empty streets.

No one to listen to them. Just the

Occasional drunk wandering hopelessly

On the streets, shouting prophecies to blank

Walls and blind windows. No one hears

Him, but he knows the folly of day-people

What’s worse he’s caught in their folly

And cannot escape, but he knows it

But no one hears for the day-people are

Asleep now. Only now? — no, always.

I walk down Hastings where a few

Hours from now it will be full of

People, cars, buses, taxis, bicycles, trucks

And noise of people in a hurry going nowhere.

Now the only thing that walks the

Streets with me is their ghosts and the

Echo of my footsteps. What a wonderful

Thing an echo is, it goes jumping across

Streets and running around buildings

Exploring dark corners and empty alleys.

On the water front I could hear the clank of

Rail cars being shuffled like the uneasy

Resting of skeletons in their graves

Rattling their chains as they

Turn over in their restless sleep.

Off across the bay the city lights

Glow like jewels of ashes of a scattered fire.

Far off somewhere a fog horn

Groans his sad groan

The most mournful sound in the world.

And the mountains are there

Only you can’t see them

Just feel their presence.

I go up Cambie to the bus depot.

Maybe buy a cup of coffee and meet a wise man.

Locked. Only a hack driver sitting in his car

Eying me as I leave, his motor running to

Keep himself awake.

Walk down Pender with its funny writings

And wise old paintings. Funny that

Something so wise should be replaced by

Something so foolish.

Granville again to Robson, still no one

Here. A black shiny patrol car idles

Slowly by me, the cops staring fiercely

And I am reminded of the world of

Day-people.

I go into the Laundromat to get a

Cup of coffee. The smell of soap is strong here.

Thunk, thunk, I feed ten cents to the machine.

It ponders and grumbles a bit then

The coffee comes swooshing out, but no

Paper cup. Oh well, ten cents gone.

So I hang an Out-of-Order sign on it

And resign myself to a chocolate bar.

Light a cigarette and sit and meditate

Along the window away from the ambulance-white washers.

On the bulletin board with the other things

For sale I put my soul for sale

Only I didn’t put any price on it.

Because I didn’t know how much

It was worth. How much is a soul

Worth these days?

Outside the shadows began to creep

And hide as the east grows light.

And I leave the Laundromat to go

Creep and hide too. Creep into bed and

Hide from the starched, grey light

Of day and from the day-people world.

Nov/59.

Vancouver, B.C.

Wandering through the streets of Vancouver on a rainy night.

SOULS FOR SALE

Souls for sale, souls for sale.

Fine souls, fine souls for sale,

Wouldn’t you buy