Blaise Cendrars – Complete Postcards From the Americas Poems of Road and Sea

DOCUMENTARIES

VIII.  VANCOUVER

Ten P.M. has just struck barely heard through the thick fog
  that muffles the docks and the ships in the harbor
The wharfs are deserted and the town is wrapped in sleep
You stroll along a low sandy shore swept by an icy wind
  and the long billows of the Pacific
That lurid spot in the dank darkness is the station of the
   Canadian Grand Trunk
And those bluish patches in the wind are the liners
  bound for the Klondike Japan and the West Indies
It is so dark that I can hardly make out the signs
  in the streets where hugging a heavy suitcase
  I am looking for a cheap hotel

Everyone is on board
The oarsmen are bent on their oars and the heavy craft
  loaded to the brim plows through the high waves
A small hunchback at the helm checks the tiller
  now and then
Adjusting his steering through the fog to the calls
  of a foghorn
We bump against the dark bulk of the ship and on the
  starboard quarter Samoyed dogs are climbing up
Flaxen in the gray-white-yellow
As if fog was being taken in freight

5 thoughts on “Blaise Cendrars – Complete Postcards From the Americas Poems of Road and Sea”

1. Nice looking blog senor…looking forward to reading more – not about the dogs.

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   1. Thank you sir! God bless you and all who sail in you.

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2. Steve,
   Way cool! So glad you launched into blogging.
   Samoyed dogs, hey?
   Okay, this is about the dogs.
   When I was 16 I worked at my dad’s service station (Rupert Royalite, at 1st and Rupert). As part of my duties, I cleaned all the windows on cars that came in for an oil change.
   One of the customers had a Samoyed dog, which he left in the car while it was being serviced. It watched me with interest from the driver’s side front seat while I washed the front windshield. When I switched to the back, it turned around and sat on the horn. It was clearly surprised by the noise, but didn’t mentally make the connection, just sat there, looking back over its shoulders, one side to another, baffled.
   Not nearly as evocative as Cendrars’ Samoyeds, but it’s what I’ve got.

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   1. Muchas gracias EveJ. Great story. Like to hear more of those growing up in East Van ones.

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3. I ate dog once. In south east asia. In the seventies. At least I think it was dog. ( it was the seventies ) Keep it coming.

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