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New City Bylaw
permit required to cut down a tree on private property
We press and dress ourselves in style,
wear our lovely satin smile and rake
the fallen leaves of our desire. We run
the sunlit concrete mile, press the iron
bars before we pool in cars that drive
the city planners mad. We rise to heights,
live in caves and elevate the endless
ends of our stoplight days. The corners
are convenient and the giant box
is where we shop, all at once, all
with our perma-press smiles in place
so that we can face the lowest price.
That is the law, the old saw that we
must have this campfire that licks
the night, that soothes the fright
because we cut down all the trees.
Mark Clement is retired and lives with his wife Margaret in the quiet town of Cobourg Ontario.
Mark went to high school in Cornwall Ontario and in 1958 had his first poem published in the St. Lawrence
high school yearbook. Following high school, Mark attended what is now called a ‘community college’
and became a technocrat in the field of electronics. Work and family life overtook poetry and
Mark didn’t begin writing again until the mid ‘70s. Since that time, he has become increasingly
active in the world of poetry and since retirement, poetry has changed from an avocation to an
almost full-time job. Today, Mark has non-paying jobs as webmaster and doing the layout of
chapbooks and anthologies for The Ontario Poetry Society. In between, he manages to write
a poem or two and participate in the local Cobourg Poetry Workshop. Mark’s first full
collection of poetry, Islands in the Shadow, was released in November 2008.
Email: Mark Clement
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