the dance of fire

The weather people are talking about a storm… lots of snow… or maybe not as much as they are predicting… you never can tell.

A candle burns with a motion to the flame… a dance on the breath… a touch of bronze on a cold winter’s night.

I love these quiet nights by the warm fire… a glass of wine through the moments of simply being… outside the furies of the weather… inside the comfort of companionship… and the warm glow of friends.

Let Sunday pass to Monday in peaceful rest.

PS My reading went better than ever before. I left feeling really good about it.

Poetry Readings

Got my reading together for tonight... small gathering at UC of UofT… a few selections from "Asylums"…. Crucifixion; In Sanity; and Holding the Sun… Naturally this will require that I wear the black. After last week’s fiasco I have made better arrangements for the social aspects afterwards to avoid unpleasant brain cramps and panic attacks… According tot he listing I shall be the third reader which is nice I was getting a little tired of being first. Third of seven. Not too bad a spot.

Pierre without Kevin

Pierre’s laughter is a bowl of tropical fruits in shallow waters. This is piracy for he does not belong in the Caribbean, but he smiles like a slice of mango… reaches across the table… it is the gravy boat again. He shouldn’t, he knows it and we know it… weak heart they say… pills and chills… he smiles anyway. Between us there is death - both as the barrier and as the common bound.

Death sits in the empty chair… invited?… uninvited? There is the empty chair to my left… the empty plate… but I pour the wine anyway. Jen sits to my right and smiles like butterscotch… warmth in slow motion… listening… watching - her steady hand at the ready. Pierre speaks.

He stands, unfurling like a flag from his chair… “As the last American I salute you upon this feast, upon the warmth and generosity of the moment, and upon the love that fills this house and welcomes all who cross this step.” He turns to Jen, raises his glass, “A toast to the provider of the feast!”

Amid the murmuring of ascent Pierre taps his glass. “To her companion, the conduit of affection.” Again more murmurs and smiles… then, the moment… he turns to the empty space… “To absent friends, loved ones, cherished souls released. Gone but not forgotten.”

doors

I am reminded of a previous time in my life when I rode the bus lines simply to see where they would go.

It is not the whole truth; it is the version that is publicly acceptable now. This is a partial lie of course. I also rode the bus lines to escape, even briefly, the monotony that lay across me.

And that too is a lie of sorts, for when I peel back the onion some more, I see myself hiding on those bus trips, filling my days with going and dreaming of the time when I would leave.

These dreams of departure, hiding, escape twirl in a waltz beneath the skin, behind an eye, and in the fleeting moment of a reflection caught in steel or glass of shop windows. The small moments of a small life… I am reminded of a previous time in my life looking through doors in a long hall of doors. I see myself sitting on a chair waiting, looking back, out of the room, into the hall…

Autumn Frosts

This is the result of a Three Line Challenge... where you are limited to three lines to create an impression of a common sight or experience. My choice was the frost on a window pane, but swiftly it transformed itself into something a little different.

Autumn Frosts

The laughing beam of light roars away squelching in reddened power and tenuously soft in happiness.

Cold frost dances happily in shades of green, when night sleeps with wild abandonment.

Autumn sketches taunting tints, spreading opulently and glory reigns throughout.

a leaf upon still waters

the idea slips from my mouth,
drifts through my fingers,
somewhere vanishes and is gone.
i wake,
struggling to recall this fragile moment of the darkness.
beside me she dreams sweet smiles and tender caresses.
silence is a horror,
and night but a leaf upon still waters.

upon my back i drown in tears and so i roll over gently.
the mattress gives in silence
and takes with a furtive sigh.
the moon peaks through glass curtains
then dashes blushing behind the clouds.
the night’s fury comes on the breath of a gale.

she wakes amid the flood,
rises angelic in the dark,
then hovers momentarily.
beneath her gaze the ice melts
shatters into glass splinters dropping to the floor.
from feathers the scent of cinnamon and apples
breathy restores the garden of tranquility.
night passes as a ship to destinations unknown.

is this love? i cry,
oh my god! is this love?
god is silent, still;
the unseen presence is dark and blind.
she,
in calmness gathers the shattered remains unto her breast.
there,
the child yawns,
and amid gentleness falls asleep.

Quote Me

You look with your eyes,

You see with your heart.

dail tone hang ups

The conversation begins with smiles and knowing understanding then breaks, or shatters… the surface splinters letting what flows beneath freely rise in currents and settle in undulations… the stream of words slip across the now shattered ice surface of personal projection... I look at my watch not for the time but for the reflection… Yes, I am still there.

Midnight MSN messages pour… momentary lapses in conversation flow in eddies like the river’s edge… there are halos in the waters and depths… hot beverages and the slowly rising steam streams up from the depth of cups… I type in whispers… the threads of conversation disappear into a failing light as the last remnants of spider webs…

If we, through motivation unknown drift…
as we, at the touch of the unseen, bend…
should we, on the breath of the wind, rise…

With what manner of light shall we illuminate those around us? Are these the bright feathers of angelic wings or the drab greys and browns of the common moth?

She is small and distant huddled alone in the dormitory room… I am small and distant huddled in my rooms… we are joined through the thin strand of uncommon thought… we are abstractions singing the body electric… all the while for each a river flows… cold ice waters of passage…

With a light and gentle hand I touch the screen and wonder….

Weekends... gotta love 'em

Yeah… nice weekend… moved the wood into the shed… got another chance to do a poetry read… though I erred there, should have read from the “Palm Trees of Holland” but instead opted for a few from “Winter Poetry” (see Insupportable Misery for a sample)… still it went pretty well.

I find that at times I like to be the center of attention, but I really don’t have a lot to say when reading other than the poems themselves. Jen says I need to work on some generic stories though as people want to talk with the poets after these things and it would be better if I talked. She might be right there.

brain cramp

No! It is not writer’s block. It is a Poet’s Brain Cramp… and it comes from remembering. Poets, when writing, need to be like angels and possessed of no memory… I have nothing against a good bout of melancholic nostalgia by an open fire with a good stiff drink, an assortment of cheeses and a long night to tell the stories… but I have no wish to get mired into the past when writing. It is quite simple, I have been there and done that. The result is an empty page for we are powerless to alter that which is final. So why do people insist on trying to drag me back there? Please, wait for the nights by the fire when the heart desires to wallow…

let it snow

So it snowed… let it snow… let it snow… let it snow. We’ve got firewood… sort of. It happens to be iced together because that is the cruel nature of November… snow melts… ice forms… wood is like really stuck together. The solution is of course an axe… a sled… and frigging mittens. Or we could wait until later.

I am not a Lumberjill… though I do happen to have awesome axe skills… thee are those who will drop a brick just thinking about what that could lead to… heh heh heh… I like that. Beauty has its charms of course but there is nothing like an axe to get the point across. Accent should have been spelled axcent.

So there is snow… which means that there is sledding to be done… there is walking along the path to be done and there is extreme caution as our footbridge is narrow and icy at the moment. Treacherous when towing a sled full of wood… but that is a side issue that does not matter as we shall get the wood up to the wood shed where it will thaw and be ready for splitting and the fire place.

Sitting by the fire makes it all worth while. It may not be an efficient use of the old BTUs but what it lacks in utility it makes up for in artistry. Ain’t nothing like a day out in the sun and sun to be followed by a jigger of scotch sitting on the carpet by a nice inferno. It is a quality of light thing… and a quantity of heart thing.

Oh the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we've no place to go,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

the great bail out

I understand about jobs and the dire state of the economy, but I wonder at the bail out of corporations as being the solution. Frankly I think that it is those corporations that have created this mess, with the help of some imprudent political activities. It strikes me that the first people to bail out are the victims of corporate malfeasance… the farmers, the mortgagee, the entrepreneur. Perhaps it is time to revisit the wide spread devastation to the economy committed by Wal-Mart?

I have no issue with the government investing in the people… I do have an issue with the government bailing out those who created this mess.

beauty

There comes a moment when time and space unite, when hearts are one, and the band plays your song… though you may not know that it is your song… it could be an Argentine Tango, a light breezy French Minuet, even a Viennese Waltz or a clunky Music Hall Box Step… it does not matter… the music lodges in your spines and the moment is upon you. You are one in motion… and one in emotion.

It is a waltz; the hand lowers on my spine and draws me close, held tightly to the words "you look beautiful because you are so beautiful." It is a hot Arabian breath, a sirocco, the blast of the furnace of desire… it is the voice of love, the embrace of security… the lingering moment of wordless unity… it is a religious experience, a human experience, a momentary experience… the fleeting purity.

The band plays on, the beating of the heart and the pulsing of the veins… our songs… our moments… and the dances change but always this is us together.

*****

The morning sun has yet to rise and she sleeps. Beneath those closed lips of her eyes the sparkle that diamonds can never hope to achieve burns in her sweet dreams… in her soul… the fires of her heart. It is a whisper, a breath, an acknowledgement of a truth… "you are so beautiful."

a new dress

She looked up from the silks and satins with a puzzled look. "Yours?" Well of course it was mine, I would not be paying for it if it were not. One had only to notice the size… 0… to know that it was mine. I did not get the same question when I went to get the shoes. I wonder if it was the torn jeans and fisherman’s sweater that threw her off? Or was it the price tag on the dress?

After leaving (with my dress) it sort of gnawed at me the assumptions that people make. All I can say is that appearances are deceiving, and often deliberately so. The clerk at the dressmaker’s should have said nothing. As you can see, I am talking about it.

pa rum pum pum pum

Reading before writing is risky business… gumbo with word salad… you get words, ideas, and then that moment of thought that drives through the skull much the same as a migraine without the pain. Memory.

Memory rises and I do not speak then. I know there are those who will find that upsetting. They will not understand. How can they understand? I sit still… fingers cease to be poised upon the keys… the clatter of the typing stops. Time shifts… freed from the hands of the clock… time drifts on the warm flat seas of Memory… and drowns like puppies in a distant sink of another place.

Is it a tear that calls attention, or the change of breath? Do I shudder as I sit or am I still? She is there swiftly and without a word, emerging into view. It is an intensely personal moment… a surrendered portion of my life to her…a permission granted though need and love… a permission taken in solemn trust through desire and love. What is this marriage if not the union of two into one through need, trust and love?

How hot the flesh and yet so cool the touch. Memories… a moment… drawn into an embrace and sheltered… a world pressed upon me… the world pressed upon me… fished from the drifting seas with the torn mesh of a net of love…

I meant to talk about the small towns and their peculiar ways… to talk of gumbo in the form of tuna fish sandwiches… to talk of the jam that goes with toast… the small little memories. I meant to offer to scarecrow something in exchange for the gumbo with word salad…

Shall I play for you, pa rum pum pum pum,
On my drum?

delicious about the incongruous

I like situations. There is something delicious about the incongruous. When the awkward arises the reactions and potential are simply amazing.

The slight woman walks into the room looking incredible in her diaphanous gown; she giggles a little bit, nods her head to the guests then as she reaches the front of the room she turns those powder blue eyes into a harsh death stare and asks firmly, "hands up all those who have broken all Ten Commandments?"

What do you need to be a writer? retry

So writing… how about that? What’s the point?

I wonder about that, judging what I write against the sheer volume of all that has been written already and wonder "do I have anything to add to that?" The answer is "yes I do" which is a little egotistic, but when you get down to it if you do not believe in yourself who is going to? I have been down that road looking for some one else to believe in me, and using that as my reason… which was dumb. I conclude that if you can not believe in yourself, then others will not be able to really believe in you either. There is nothing to hang on to.

So there is that in my works.

The trouble is that I still want to tell a different story, the story that comes before that belief in the self… I remember staring out through wild feral eyes at this world (which is not a lot different now) with a burning hatred… a soul of destruction… and the FEAR. Fear is like fire and burns with an intensity that leaves little behind but ashes… fear is a living cremation.

Poetry is a good form for writing that because it is very hard to describe fire and fear in a way that makes sense to those who may not have shared the experience in the same way. Most people learn the art of not being fearful, or more correctly full of fear… some how they managed to open a value and let it out. I wonder what might be different had I learned that. Would I be me? If not, who would I be?

So there is that in my works too.

What do you need to be a writer?

So there it is, the question. What does one need to be a writer?

I suspect that a story is it… maybe access to a rock… a lamp? How about one single reader?

That is the easy and cute answer. Oddly, cute comes close to the truth, but I shall pass that over for the time being. Mostly you are a writer, and the rest is just how your are a writer. The stories are there and they flow like blood, so it helps to be wounded or have stigmata, but it is not essential.

This “flowing” explains why at the conclusion of writing a story one tends to feel drained a little bit.

Another useful device is a community like Pan Historia where you get to see what your work looks like, and how people receive it.

Quote Me

The difference between heaven and hell is who is the master…
the one certainty is that it will not be you…
but either way it is for eternity.

when bad words are good

I am typically opposed to language stasis. Language must evolve. To that end the meanings of words alter and become changed over the course of time. The process can be from an easy natural progression to a deliberate intervention. As a writer, like it or not, I am on the front line of language.


There are words which are used to make juvenile items that have no need for being made juvenile. I find it unbelievable when I hear an adult speak to a child and refer to common body parts in terms utterly ridiculous. Why would an adult tell a child that breasts were "titties"? Why would that call a penis a "pee pee"?


It is at these times that I realize the full value of the phrase
"Fuck Off and Die".

Quote Me

Getting her was like getting malaria…
it was exotic, but in the end not quite worth the effort.

Okie dokie… so yes, I am sad again today.

The funeral service and then Remembrance service have taken their toll. I have been wallowing in death and loss. This is an infection that has settled upon my heart, and now flows through the veins. I accept this, though I am grossly tired of those who would have me cheer up to suit their level of comfort.

Before, when I lived as an isolate, shunning companionship and friends save the few whom I held close, I lived with a different pain. There are so many pains of the heart. The difference was that as an isolate I was in total control. By a simple act of will I was able to tune out those who insist upon altering my mood.

Today I have sadness, and I shall be fine with my sadness. I do not wish to cheer up for your comfort. I wish to allow that which is within me to be as it is, and run its proper course.

Today’s Preferences

Beverage – single malt whiskey
Music – something incomprehensible
Reading – Neruda

funeral day

A man dies and I morn for the empty space in my heart… I have lost a friend, a lover, a pillar…

closing my eyes
the world slips away with the crude rendering of living
the cold shadows against the platonic rocks
the flicker of a flame from long ago
an image of dancing
an echo
shades and shapes…
closing my eyes
your voice smells of ginger
floating on the light of a blazing night sky of exploding stars
closing my eyes
the night becomes alive with gentleness
the scent of an aria slips along the carpet
flickering shades of music
the walls in translucence fold back across the rainbow edge of the rising tide
the dancers flood forth
pouring across the heavy blow
and the burdens rise like boats on the azure sea as the heart descends
a perfect pearl beneath the wavering ocean
obscured by love

I shall be as dead myself until after the funeral… and than as he would wish it I shall go back to the world…

When people lie to me and themselves

Words… Tags… Labels… and then the obligatory explanations… because the tags and labels were merely arbitrary applications meant to sound good covering up for something that is not really so good… If I appear to stare blankly it is because I have long ago stopped listening and am thinking about other things… some times I really do not care about the explanations just for other people’s comfort. The list of topics to which this applies is growing… not at an alarming rate… but as a steady progression. It is a choice as well. One has the Freedom of Speech (which is all nice and stuff) but one has the RIGHT to remain silent. The former is a theory; the latter is a practice.

Yeah… of course there are times when I am more than willing to tell others what they should do…

Grow some balls and just say what you really believe and let it go at that.

****

This year I shall be observing Remembrance Day in my typical fashion, and I hope that others will choose to observe their day of remembrance in their own fashion, and if they would rather just take the day off, stay home and drink beer in front of the television sports programs… go for it.

I am NOT your yardstick for what you may or may not choose to do… and you are not the yardstick for what I may choose to do…

But if you are going to do things that require you follow proper protocols then please follow them.

Protocols…

I do not like the National Anthem at sporting events…
I do not like it at school functions…
I find it out of keeping in those surrounds.

Outside of a religious event I see no use for the Lord’s Prayer,
I shall never agree that it is interdenominational…

Remembrance Day is a time for the National Anthem and for religious observances of all stripes.
I feel very badly for all the military service men and women who have to tolerate the general ignorance of the masses in regards to flag and anthem protocol…

If I were a veteran I would not be pleased to be marched out in front of a bunch of yahoos amid this breach of protocol… I would rather be at the hospitals, at the bases and remember the dead amongst the survivors.

Quote Me

Some speak of love as a two-way street.

That makes me think of the demarcation of lanes, dividers, crosswalks and all the rules and regulations…

I want love to be a country lane and a head on collision…

All or Nothing.

On Line Books

Okie dokie… so I am a poet of sorts and I write on-line books… quite naturally that leads to the question - What is an on-line Book?

It is free to start with… which is pretty good. Sure, I want to publish on paper, and I will… that much is already assured… and then people can pay to buy the book. In the meantime I write online books.

Unlike a novel poetry does not appear in order… often the poems come flying out in a jumbled mess and they have to put in order. One can do that on their word processor, or one can find a place like Pan Historia and create in the warm confines of a great community and have at one’s disposal amazing graphic abilities.



That is what I do. I write at Pan and then over time collect the works and see what I have. On-line books... pretty damned cool!

Unexpected Election Results

Conservative leader "Big Green" Steven Harper (nee "Call me King") has gone green… suddenly on the night of November 4rth Big Steve woke up from a dream… suddenly it occurred to him out of heavy air... suddenly, all by himself he realized that it did not matter what you called it… the ENVIROMENT was important.

In other strange occurrences at 24 Sussex, Big Steve slipped on his “Mr. Nice” Sweater vest and Calgary Business Blue slippers and called up Barack Obama and sang softly into the phone…

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

It's a neighborly day in this beautywood,
A neighborly day for a beauty,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you,
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

So let's make the most of this beautiful day,
Since we're together, we might as well say,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?

Won't you please,
Won't you please,
Please won't you be my neighbor?

No word yet on Barack Obama’s impression of this strangeness other than to hang up the phone.

This just in... Peter McKay WILL have an idea SOON his spokespeople say...

Quote Me

A lover does not make school lunches, mow the lawn or take out the trash.

My Creations

The truth of our lives has always been fiction.

Which explains all the insanity that goes around… because when you start to believe your own lies… that is insane. This makes life as a creative writer hell, because the characters we create come alive in our heads and are constantly telling you their stories so that you will write them.



Thank the Gods that there is a place where you can not only get those characters out of your head, but you can put them in homes so that you can go visit them.

One of mine at Pan Historia...

Every writer needs a workshop…
a drafting table…
a good pen…
some paper…
and a mirror.

None of these come predefined as to what they are.

A rock at the edge of pool in a stream shaded by birch meets all the required elements.

Quote Me

I have on my computer a file of quotes… yeah, my quotes… it is a little game I play for my own amusement… little lines and moments of explanation just tucked away in a corner without context which I thought would create a full image when compiled.

“I was born at the height of ‘Free Love’ and am therefore a product of it. When love is free what then is it worth? Then, by extension, one may well ask what the product is worth.”

Well OK… It has been twenty four hours since the US election and I have managed to get through without pissing any one off yet, though I did notice the anger seething beneath my surface there briefly…


So I am practicing a little Remote Control… watching the distance and being very careful to control what I say because I rather like my American friends and some do not quite understand my points of view. I am a gifted propagandist at times… and at others just a shrill voice screaming’ from the wilderness…


I was thinking this morning as I was doing my ritual of waiting for the sun to rise of how to explain this act to people… that a little self sacrifice goes a long way towards making the day yours. Sure it can get cold standing there naked but beneath the goose bumps on the flesh the blood flows warm… there is an awareness of being alive… damn shame that the pollution from the city smears a yellow haze across the sky now 24-7.

the beauty of the maggots

Poetry slides between the real and the ideal and lives in the mind like an infection. Much of it is not in the hands of the author but rather in the mind of the reader. Success is measured by the ability to communicate the idea. Sadly, most often a poem is merely whispered out into the dreadful silence...

When I sleep I ascend from the damaged incarnate into the distraught realms of the disturbing angelic to drift sub-ether through what remains of time. In the morning I am reinvested into the muscle and the blood of the mortified dirt crawlers. Looking for flowers one can not escape the beauty of the maggots.

I always start these blogs off with an older post just to get them up and going. Oddly enough, the first post is like getting out of bed... the rest of the day depends on it.

I have a blog at panistoria.com... The Golden Mirror... so why not a reading from that to start us off in the right direction... is it poetry? is it rambling? Or is it simply ideas worth thinking about?

from The Golden Mirror 10-02-08

thoughts from the green chair

Some nights, like tonight or maybe last night, I sit back and consider just how quiet it can get… the silence when the world for the most part goes to sleep and romps about in dreamland while a few remain conscious. It is a good time to contemplate for me… to consider the aspects and views which I bring to my real life, my computer life, and the life that lies in the between… time to sit curled up and wonder… where, in the grand scheme of things am I?

The machine sits idle… waiting for the input that will bring meaning out of the blankness… an act of creation… to bring form… scenery… context… where does this path lead? Who are the people who populate this existence? Where are they headed, and from which direction do they come and intersect with me… what do I impart to them in their passing… and what do they impart to me?

There are people who with a few brief words dramatically alter my perception… they illuminate and make clear what hitherto had been a blur… they bring a focus upon which I must ponder. Is this spirituality? Self-awareness?

So many questions…

Some nights, like tonight, I feel a sense of aloneness… difference… distance. The skin becomes a barrier denying access to the inner workings, the eyes become a periscope to see, but not to take a part in… to drift in the depths of the self separate… enclosed and apart… sealed off. Where does this division come from? Does it well up from within or is it an exterior occurrence like the rain or snow? Was Donne incorrect? Is the truth that we all are islands, each separate and alone?

Through the silence and absence of the light the mind is freed and released to roam unfettered… unbound… into the journey with the preconceived external inputs stripped away… the path laid bare and raw… waiting for the thunder of the footsteps of progression… trespass and transgression… in motion we sacrifice the inert…

Some nights, like tonight or maybe last night, I sit back and consider just how quiet it can get… the silence when the world for the most part goes to sleep and romps about in dreamland… time to sit curled up and wonder… where, in the grand scheme of things am I?