Podiatrist Father, "God is in the Cracks," Black Moss Press

In answer to a recent query from 'Podiatrist Melbourne' ( see below)

"Podiatrist Melbourne has left a new comment on your post "Podiatrist Father":

Interesting blog. It would be great if you can provide more details about it. Thanks you..."

I'd say 1) my poem "The Podiatrist's Son," which opens God is in the Cracks (Black Moss Press, Canada) is the best introduction to that blog and the directions in which it flows. The Globe & Mail (Canada) noted in a review, "The heart and core of this book is a series of dramatic monologues and dialogues between father and son..."

2) In addition to being a podiatrist, Dad evolved his own blend of kabbalistic, Christian hermetic, and prescient New Age mysticism which lent its colors to his medical practice... (quoting here from the Globe and Mail review). Podiatry is the take-off point...

From Beyond the Grave, the Podiatrist Counsels his Son on Prayer

So why can't the dead counsel the living? In Blake, A Biography by Peter Ackroyd, the author writes, "Blake had told her [Catherine, the poet's wife] that he would never leave her, and indeed she saw him continually when 'he used to come and sit with her for two or three hours every day. He took his chair and talked to her, just as he would have done had he been alive; he advised her as to the best mode of selling his engravings.'"

Excerpted from God is in the Cracks (Black Moss Press, 2006), here's a sample of how the podiatrist father communicates with his son who is in mourning and, indeed, seriously depressed, following his father's death.

FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE, THE PODIATRIST COUNSELS HIS SON ON PRAYER

“How to pray?
You’re gonna need a password.
But not now. And you’re gonna see
it’s numbers, not words. Didn’t I tell you: if it’s got words,
it’s not prayer, and it’s not a password either.
So what if I’m dead? What does that matter?
You think you bury your father and that’s the end?
Schmegegge! What are you thinking, that the living
have a monopoly on life?
Give the dead some credit.
I didn’t just die, you know. Think of the preparation. A man
has to get himself ready. And what did I ask?
That you pay your respects. So light the yizkor,
light the candle. Oi!
Tear the clothes, rend the garment, I said, and that you did.
Point my feet toward the door, I said, and that you did.
God takes what He takes, son, and the body follows.
But prayer? Prayer? Where was the prayer?
Listen: God created us first the feet,
then the rest.
So? So we bow the head when we pray
to show respect. Cover the head,
where’s your yarmulke? Daven, daven,
rock back and forth… Now ask:
‘Who am I? Who am I?
What am I here for?’

These are the things you ask,
but this is not prayer.
It’s what you need to know before you start.
Why are we here? We’re here to mend the world.
That's it.
Just remember, God doesn’t answer prayers.
So don’t ask.
Don't ask for anything.
Shopping is shopping. Prayer is prayer.
Don’t confuse the two.”

Soul Retrieval

As I understand my Russian-born, life-long Republican father, we have an inner self and that “self” can be shattered, as when we are in some way violated, with the result that one can literally lose one’s mind. Think Post-Traumatic Stress. The working metaphor for this work in progress is soul retrieval, locating and recovering what was lost, “breathing it back” into an individual, and making that person whole again.

The "soul retrieval" poems pick up from the final section of The Collected (and from God is in the Cracks).