Do You Ever Get Bored of Chicken and Wine?

[A response poem to Persimmons by Li-Young Lee from the North American perspective]


I’ve never met you, [grandfather], only
Your ashes in a marble urn.
Sometimes, if you’re lucky,
We find the time to visit you.
We drive along the windy mountain road,
To your plot just off the bicycle path.
They run over your grave like a bicycle path.
Do you miss the safety of the shrine?

Do you ever get bored of chicken and wine?

We place a slip under a stone
And lay a feast before you on the grass,
White Styrofoam nestled in white plastic bags:
A bald chicken roosting there. Its eyes are closed, its skin
Full of goosebumps, like a chilly ghost.

Next, we pour the wine (“to impress your future in-laws…”)
Into little plastic cups. [Uncle] fans
The smouldering dollar bills; their ashes fly
Between the branches, dancing
Up to Heaven.

They say Heaven is a banquet table,
Ancestors gathered all around.
They laugh, they muse, they wait year round
For their boiled chicken and wine.
Old bones buried in a far-away land
Want for visits and chicken and wine.
For centuries, boiled chicken and wine.

Aren’t they bored of chicken and wine?


Tell me, have you ever tasted pizza
Or crab apple pie?
Is this something you would like
To try, now, in the Afterworld, descendants
Like roving taste buds,
Bringing you glimpses of present life?

If I burn you a letter, will you find it?
Would you read it? (Could you read it?)

Shall I write:
“Hello, [Grandmother],
I met you in a dream last night.
You sat, cross-legged, on the counter,
A young girl in pants,
And said you were thirsty.”

Shall I burn you a photo?

No—
a poem.

I shall burn for you poem.

I Don't Want to Read Sir Gawain

I don't care for what you had to say
six thousand years ago or

when you wanted to be god's son so badly or

when you thought that the world was flat
or when you thought dragons were among us.

I want to know what you think now.

Of all the worlds we could've traveled to
you decided to ship me to the past.

I feel like you're trying to tell me something.

Holding Station

A Villanelle Written in Fishing Terms

Drifting lonely on the quiet seas,

I hope for your return to this loch,

but life is only catch-and-release.

Others, too, paddle to these

sighing waters. They cast their lot,

Drifting lonely on the quiet seas.

Some, mourning the long-deceased,

seek to bend the cosmic clocks,

but life is only catch-and-release.

I remember your white arm; we swam each

to our own green, mossy rock,

drifting lonely on the quiet seas.

And then, with sudden and with wordless ease,

you left me by my cheerless dock.

Life is only catch-and-release.

Still I circle without cease

these desolate, grey-naked rocks,

drifting lonely on the quiet seas,

but life is only catch-and-release.

What are you saying!

The words we use are important, and they mean something more than whatever it is you’re expressing. I care about how people are affected by my actions, which include the words I use every day, the words we all use every day with out thought, without being conscious of what the words we use are saying. See, I care about words; how they are used, what they really mean, where they come from. What are you really saying when you say ‘that’s retarded’ or ‘that’s so gay’? Let’s start with the latter; beyond potentially hurting whoever you have directed the comment at, you are implying there is something wrong with being gay, that it’s not something one should want to be, or seem to be, and you shouldn’t like anything that seems gay. The response to this might be ‘But that’s not what I meant!’ but that is what your words meant, that is the message you are sending when you use the word gay in a negative derogatory fashion. When you put someone else down by calling them a fag or a dyke, saying they are gay, or making a gay joke.The words you use, they reflect who you are, and how you think, they are what you are putting out in the world. The next time you want to voice your disapproval for something a friend does, consider the words you choose to express your disapproval, and consider not insulting and demeaning anyone who happens to have a preference for the same sex.

(I'd appreciate comments on this, I'd eventually like to submit it to some publication as an opinion piece, or someting like that...eventually. Thanks!)

Travels of a Curmudgeonly Old Fuck

[I just pulled an all-nighter for a take-home exam, and then I had to write a sonnet for poetry class. I said "Fuck it it's 6:30 am and I'm too tired for this shit." This is the result.]


Of course I get the only fucking screen
that’s broken. God dammit! Fine. I did not
want to see your cheap Hollywood brain rot
anyway. Except now I’m stuck between

A walrus and a public nose-picker.
Yep, just keep digging. It’s not like I’m not—
Oh GOD he ate it! Gross. Just when I thought
it couldn’t get worse. Hey you, seat kicker!

Yeah you. Yeah, your son. Watch your child for Christ’s
sake! You shouldn’t have been allowed to breed.
There should be a law for that. God, I need
a stiff drink. Where’s the lady? I’ve buzzed twice!

I can’t wait to get to get off this thing and grab
a REAL lunch. Then it’s work. Augh! I hate cabs!

The Poetic Process

I wrote a poem last week.

It was too long

so I cut it

by half.

But it still seemed blurry around the edges —

metaphors missed the mark

adjectives and adverbs cluttered the images —

like stage light illuminating its subject

not quite sharply enough.

I whittled it down some more

deleted the excess

and the useless

until there were only

a handful of words left.

They weren't quite right

so I crossed them out

one by one

until there remained only

pencil scratches

and traces of erasure

on a blank page.

Run, Run from the Smoking Gun

[I wrote this for a poetry workshop assignment. The challenge was to take a previously written poem and rewrite it from your experience today. The rewrite had to be to the tune of a popular song, using the same rhyme scheme, rhythm, chorus pattern and everything. I chose to rewrite BLAM. (from HeartRape!) to the tune of "The Needle and the Damage Done" by Neil Young. Thanks Bruno for the song suggestion!]




The chair still rocking
By the fireplace
A stunned expression
On your cold white face
Ooh, ooh, what have I done?

You were my blood and
Now you’re on my hands,
I took the money
From the coffee can
Run, run from what I’ve done

Red thumbprints on
These dirty dollar bills
I wander dark
And lonely desert hills
Sell love
To get out of this town

Can’t leave behind the
Dirty deeds I’ve done
From up behind me, bloody footprints come
My downturned eyes are
Like a smoking gun.

Wishes Don't Come True

I wish the poles

stopped melting

and the polar bears

stopped dying.

I wish Hogwarts existed

and that nobody was hungry

or sick

or sad.

I wish that everyone's wishes

came true.

I wish men would stop killing

one another.

I wish I loved you better.

Juneau, Alaska (Complete)

[I have added the last two parts to this poem. The song lyrics are not mine. Please tell me what you think.]

I.

We drove here in your mother's station wagon,
listening to the old mix tapes
I had sent you, once, in the mail.
You sang along absentmindedly
as you counted raindrops on the window.
Forgotten words came floating up
with two strums
or a snare.
You traced the fleeing rain, and sang:

Someone told me long ago
There's a calm before the storm
I know
It's been coming for some time

The road was but a crumbled path,
Pine trees whispered through the windows.
I glanced at your neck;
it was smooth as fresh fallen snow,
but your cheek was trampled, worn.
Water had eroded your landscape.

The roads were frozen as we drove to Juneau, Alaska.


II.

“It’s nice,” you said, overlooking
The tumultuous black sea.
The dark iron hulls of ships
Appeared through the fog, like
a bad memory; a secret. I held your loose
cold hand.

The inn was warm, close. When the
keeper smiled at us you briskly signed your name,
then took the luggage. I asked for some wine,
and followed you to our room.

You had unpacked your bag. You turned your bare
back to me, saying, “Help me,”
and I zipped your blue dress,
smelling your hair.

My hands rested on your shoulders,
And you gripped with all your fingers.


III.

We lie naked side by side on the bed because
the bear skin revolted you when I proposed
we make love on it;
Yet even on proper sheets,
you remain revolted.

The town is sleeping. It is blinding midnight.
You stand up and pull the curtains aside,
exposing your breast to the empty town.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” you say,
watching dogs sniff snowmobiles,
but say nothing. Snowflakes dance past
your face, mottle your white skin.
Your naked figure is frozen in place.

“Don’t,” I say.

“Please don’t.”

one line. I meant to post this Friday.

A scrap of his secret dream flashed across his face, in a quickly erased smile.

A Couple of Lines that Don't Rhyme

It looks to me like your castle is built on a pile of wet sand.

I'd rather play in the sand than visit the crumbling rooms upstairs.

Terrified

I trust you.

I don't throw that around.
I mean it.
Genuinely.
If you would, for good measure, prefer I retract that statement, please tell me.
But if you did, I'd trust you even more.

Don't say anything.
We will never know.

Calgary [first part]

by Jordano Aguzzi

Laura is a post-Lisa. Lisa was a post-Olivia. Olivia was a post-Emily. Emily was a post-Julie. Julie was the one that fucked me up.

Comfort is a difficult thing to let go of. That’s what Laura told me. Baggage, briefcases and overcoats. Hidden in concessions rather than the crowd. Like fast food; ageless and becoming. Manufactured and shipped. Attached and long lost when dropped by the airport luggage handlers. Worried about, constant and distant. Aware.

Laura is smart, though. Smarter and older. Twenty-six and I’m only twenty. She calls me a child. When I slept with her for the first time and my loving was perceived as teenage tempo. This probably had something to do with the ripping of two rubbers before giving up on them completely. Guidance by the blind guide-book of free online pornography. Pornhub, redtube, youporn. They all failed me. I learned for the first time that I didn’t know how to fuck. And then I thought of Julie and how I accused her of her poor laying. Her subpar riding. Her self-respect out the window. I destroyed it while riding a white horse of delusion, faceless and emotionless.

It’s been six months since the break-off. My departure. I haven’t been sleeping very well.

Laura is shy. If her roommate didn’t tell me that she was hot for me, not even Bond could’ve guessed the apparently obvious. Completely oblivious. It happened when we went out for a smoke on her balcony. Roommate Ali was out at a gay bar with a woman who loved her but she did not love back. Laura looked over the edge of the apartment balcony. It was raining and cold and not summer in Montreal, even though it was supposed to be.

I tell Laura to look at the puddle. I smoked a joint earlier and now I was talking nonsense. But the nonsense was an image that I found beautiful and ran endorphins through my veins. And I don’t even know if that’s biologically plausible since I study the arts, but it was a passive thought, like most of the other ones.

The lamppost reflected in the black puddle had raindrops surrounding the yellow luminescent circle. A sun with dancing rays. Stop motion action in realization. Urban nature fleeing its primordial coil and expressing itself among concrete.

“You’re so deep, Adam.”

“Was that sarcastic?”

“Yes.”

“OK,” I mutter. Silence. She bites her inner lips while sucking them underneath her front teeth. “It’s hard to tell sometimes.”

She scoffs.

“Well. All the time actually,” I reiterate.

She takes a drag of nicotine. Lets it out through her nose and looks me in the eyes and gets shy and looks down at her all-white keds.

“And you got me all wrong. No philosophical revelations here. Honestly. I was just pointing out something aesthetically pleasing, Laura. But thanks for discouraging enlightened thought.”

“Don’t let it get to your head, dude.”

“What get to my head?”

“That stuff I said about you being smarter than most guys your age. Trust me, that doesn’t mean much.”

“Thanks for that.”

And then I reach underneath the back of her blouse and hold her breasts tight against mine, my arm against her flesh, hands on her bumpy spine, and I kiss her with the taste of cardiac arrest on her tongue. She looks away. I lift her up and carry her to the bed. I graze her cunt over her skirt. Under her skirt. I kiss her under her bellybutton piercing. I lift my hands up her skirt and she jumps.

She walks to her doorframe quickly and pats her clothes down and becomes wound up.

“Hey so do you want anything? Like tea? Or coffee?”

“Um.”

“I can do that.”

Laura’s now on her way back home to Calgary. The blue province. Cowboys. Tar sands. The inevitable champion of Canadian Suburbia. Not that that’s a bad thing. Just a repetitive one.

Morning is blue before the sun comes up. Then you hear the first bird chirp around 5:05am after illegally streaming British sitcoms. Apparently they want to make that felony now. Streaming copyrighted work. Once again, I’m a crook. As if spending every second minute smoking pot wasn’t. No matter how many I’ve smoked in the past or will smoke in the future, I will be crooked. The bad guy in-between places. Crashing at the parents place until I find a new place or my fatass ex-landlord decides to stop being a fuck. Open window waken bake. Writing in my mind but none of it taking place on paper. Further lost in the novel battle, laziness and ADD mindset swaying concentration and swooning self-conscious women because I have nice bone structure. Iced coffee is no help. Neither is a second spliff. A little self-medicated pain relief to dance away in the morning haze.

The bird’s whistle is clear again, almost like a human. Or almost like a bird. Just a single whoooo. Train smoke on a receding plain. Then two fleeting cries, then some vibrato towards the end and a break the third whistle. Wake up call symphony serta-fied. It’s very nice actually. A sort of peace coming through the cracks my window-blinds along with the pre-dawn blue. Blue.

The world is blue before the sun comes up.

That would not be empirical evidence. Locke would cringe. But my world is blue before the sun comes up. Subjective relativity and all that 20^th century bullshit. My parents tenant microwaves a breakfast snack. The beep beep and vroom of the circling glass tray. Then she showers away the sleep-sweat. And as she gets ready for work I’m trying to fall asleep. Asleep or maybe just fall. I wouldn’t know. The bird whistling stops.

Laura skyped with me tonight (this morning) and made me feel good about myself. She mentioned that whenever she says something positive about me I never reply. I tell her that maybe it’s because I don’t believe her. She asks why I wouldn’t believe her. Then I rephrase it and say I either don’t believe her or don’t know how to react when I know the good thing she’s saying about me is true. She says that she’s a sociopath but I highly doubt that.

The whistle twirls in again through the blue. I wonder what color the bird is and if it’s the mother. And when the other birds will begin singing with the early riser. The blue bird jazz. The wood pecker probably hung over after a long night of partying. The crow probably despairingly waking toward another day of life. A tenant. The pigeon shits all day. The blue bird cries. Undoubtedly, I know nothing about birds.

Work comes next a few hours later.

The Bookstore hired me a week after the interview because I was cute with the female interviewers. The name of the bookstore was The Bookstore. An attempt at irony, or something. How am I supposed to know; a job’s a job. It was a corporate place, with quantity of over-aged artists. Burnouts. They had me shacked up in the back warehouse with stacks of mass-market paperbacks surrounding me like a plastic in a dollhouse. My co-workers in the warehouse were all nut jobs themselves. Mutes, thieves and manic-depressives. The job was to count the quantity of each title, scan them, rip the covers off, put an elastic around the ripped covers, put them in the box, and throw the book in the large garbage bin with wheels that they brought down the compactor every night to crush together into small cubes to be easily sent to a landfill near you. As it turns out, throwing out books in the garbage is a more convenient alternative to big publishers than actually, dare I say, giving the books away for free. Egad. Shipping the books themselves was undoubtedly a waste of money because the majority of mass-markets were fluff and rarely appealed the Montreal-born reader. So all the extra Cussler’s, Patterson’s, Roberts’ and Brown’s would end up in the compactor. Into square cube beauty.

At some point, when it began to get repetitive, I started to think up theories (of which I convinced myself were philosophical, though nowhere even close, I soon found out). I questioned, what’s the purpose of ripping the cover off of the book? And what is so goddamn satisfying about it? Maybe the TSSSSHHH sound. Or was it the rebellion against knowledge or some shit like that? Then again, I don’t know how much knowledge Nora Roberts can provide on a daily basis.

Then the preachers enter the back-warehouse. The “documentary-folk”, as I call them. I’m about to dump a whole slew of Dan Brown’s Deception Point into the trash when I’m interrupted.

“What are you doing?”

I turn.

“Listen love, I don’t want to throw these books out in the trash. I want to give them to some poor house, or even recycle them. But this is a corporate business. You do realize that we work for a corporation? You do what they say because it is cost-efficient. Humility is long gone.”

She didn’t understand what I meant.

“I’m going to report you! And make a formal complaint to the bureau.”

“The fucking bureau—”

“Head office—”

“You call head office the bureau? That’s fucking retarded.”

“Do you know how many sea animals die in a regular a year because of chemical and garbage disposal dropped into the ocean?!”

Give me a fucking break.

“Listen. I’m out.”

Snuck out the back because the alarm wasn’t on. Normally I’d have to ask a manager if I can leave by there and they’d walk over with their magical key and let me go with the wind. Child and parent. I hung out back for a smoke around the shippers and receivers. The muscle-men. The uneducated and wisest. True knowledge of time. You can see it in the crow prints next to their eyes.

“Adam man. Gino says that he’d wouldn’t wanna ever fuck his woman in the ass. What a fucking pussy, right?.”

“Suck my dick, Rick! Not my fault you enjoy rubbing your tiny cock with shit every night, bro.”

I pass the blunt to Gino after he throws a box labeled “EXTREMELY FRAGILE HANDLE WITH CARE” onto a pallet.

“Shatap you little bitch. I’m not saying I would go out of my own way and ask my bitch if I can fuck her in the ass. I’m saying that, that you know, if she just came to bed at night and asked you to fuck me, I mean, to fuck her in the ass, you sayin’ you wouldn’ do it? You’re a fucken liar.”

“Listen fag, I didn’t know you loved fagget sex so much.”

They yelled these profanities while carrying tons of full crates in and out of trucks at the import dock. It was beautiful. Gino passes the blunt to Rick and he inhales nearly half of it.

“Hey stop hogging the bud, Rick,” I mumble.

“You didn’t hear, Adam? Rick enjoys hogging it. But mostly up the ass.”

I force a laugh, eyes glazed.

“You’s all pricks. Fucking pricks.”

He passes it to me and leaves me with the roach.

“It’s alright Rick,” I say. “If you’re the receiver, then Gino’s probably the shipper.”

They stop walking and both stare at me blankly.

“You tryana’ be funny, kid?” Rick asks quite seriously.

The Bookstore became a funny place where employees masturbated in the changing rooms and stripped cover books ended up in my schoolbag where I auctioned them off at The Cock & Bull Pub for dirt cheap prices and extra brews. I tried writing some stuff myself, but nothing really came of it. Anyway, being labeled a poet or philosopher has always been more interesting than writing poetry or studying philosophy. A romanticized notion of permanence.

Then Meltzer told me to write a short story for his writing group and the prompt was “and that other dentist was a Nazi.” I went for the easy joke and tried to write something about Lars von Trier.

The Little Shore Maid

An adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid.

[Hey guys! I know commenting has been sparse and this is kind of long, but my prose classmates told me I should submit this to publication so I really wanted some opinions. I edited it so it's longer than the one they read; let me know if it's too long-winded, or too meandering. Any critiques would be really appreciated. Thanks!]

She appeared the morning after the storm, draped in seaweed and without a tongue.

The night had been a bad one; the prince had almost drowned as his ship was crushed and sunk by the waves. Despite the exhaustion of disaster, however, he had been unable to sleep, and went for a walk on the beach to calm his mind.

It was as the sun drenched the horizon that the prince noticed her, crawling like a crawfish through the shallow tide. At first he thought it was a dog, but as the waves subsided, he noticed the bald skin beneath the shaggy kelp. He moved closer to investigate and she looked up. Her eyes latched onto his.

They were small and black, lashless, like eels coiled inside her skull looking out through the two gashes of her eyelids.

While he stood, unable to move, she cocked her head and transferred her weight to two tiny feet. The seaweed fell away as she wobbled there, exposing her naked body to the prince. He could not help looking at her small breasts and puckered nipples.

She took a step forward and her mouth gaped open. The ocean heaved and swilled around their ankles, the smell of blood and vomit strong in the air. Beyond her uneven yellow-black teeth was an empty, bloody cavern. She tried to screech something, but it only sounded like the keel of a ship grazing a shallow rock bottom.

The sound set his nerves on fire. He ran back to the castle as fast as he could.

At dinnertime, the court was spreading the latest gossip, which seemed to involve a recent pirate attack.

“What’s all this?” the prince asked his father when they were alone.

The king, swelled with importance and wine, said some servants had found a young girl washed ashore with her tongue cut out, clearly a victim of piracy.

The prince’s eye twitched. “But where is she now?”

His father turned from him suddenly and boomed, “Here she is!” to the court at large, which announced the otherwise silent entrance of the seashore girl. She looked clean now, garbed in a plain beige dress with her black hair braided around her head. She could have been pretty, in a pale, bony way, but a seaweed stench still hung about her, and the prince feared what he’d see if she opened her mouth again.

The women all gathered around her, and the men, after a good look, grouped in clusters of rational discussion. The prince clung to a corner for the remainder of the evening, where the girl’s gaze would graze over his body every few minutes. When his father passed him a goblet of ale, his hands were shaking.

“Don’t be so anxious, dear boy,” the king said. “It’s all meant to be a bit of fun before the wedding!” He turned round to the roomful of people. “Shall we not invite this lovely new guest to the marriage celebration next week? I’ve no doubt she will wish to partake in the festivities of my son’s nuptial bliss!”

The court cheered, except for the girl, who smoothed the dress on her thighs and looked down at her feet.

Over the week’s preparations for the wedding, which was to take place on the largest, most lavish ship of the fleet, the prince felt an uncanny presence around him.

“You’re just anxious for the honeymoon,” his father winked at him, clapping his shoulder. “Be grateful for your time left as a free man.”

As if to emphasize this fact, the king ordered the seashore girl to dance for the prince every night while they dined. She did so with utmost grace, undulating like a sea snake caught in an eddy. The court clapped and shouted their delight, but the prince’s mouth stayed as straight and tight as the girl’s.

She never took her eyes off him until the music ended and the dance was over.

During the days leading up to the ceremony, he tried to stay occupied and keep all thoughts of women out of his mind but he couldn’t rid himself of that tingling awareness of being watched. At times he’d smell a salty stink and look around to see the seashore girl with her pallid cheek pressed against a pillar, body limp and leaning. Her eyes were never in his direction, but he sensed that as soon as he’d look away, she would drink him in with her bottomless black eyes again.

Sometimes the prince would follow her, certain she was part of a suspicious plot. He’d find her tucked away, sitting behind a potted fern or within the closed curtains of a window seat, tears spilling down her gray face as if a summer rainstorm was hanging over her and her alone. The brown boots given to her by the royal shoemakers would lay unlaced on the ground while she clutched at her tiny, bloody feet. He’d watch her, hunched like a crone with shoulder blades sticking out like fledgling wings or twin dorsal fins as she’d wrap material around her blisters and open scabs, and he’d slowly back away.

Although he never made a sound, somehow he felt she knew he was there the whole time anyway.

The night before the wedding, while the prince stood on his seafront balcony grooming himself for bed, he saw the girl walking back from the shoreline. She was bright white in her moonlit nightgown, and her hair was undone from its usual braid so that it twisted long in the ocean breeze.

He squinted into the darkness at a shiny object that she kept turning over and over in her hands. It looked like a dagger, but the prince forced himself to believe it was his imagination. His servants had been commenting lately on how high strung he looked.

He went to bed, huddling beneath his goose down duvet.

The next day went surprisingly well despite the girl’s presence in the royal audience. By the time he slipped the gold band of matrimony over his new wife’s slender finger and kissed her delicate pink mouth, the prince was beginning to feel calm again. It had been a bad last three days, but things had evidently seemed more sinister due to lack of sleep and too much salt air.

He went to bed with his bride, feeling he was the center of the cosmos.

He awoke a few hours later to the creak of a floorboard and a shadow moving towards him and his wife, who slept softly on his chest in a pillow of her own flaxen curls. A seaweed stench inundated the room. He cracked an eyelid open, and was blinded by moonlight for a moment before he recognized the seashore girl. Gripped bone-white in her short fingers was the dagger he thought he had only imagined. Paralyzing fear tore all courage from him like a riptide.

As the prince watched, the girl shifted, leaned forward; rank fish and saltwater stink filled his nostrils, and he had to force down the ball of panic punching at his throat. The blade moved towards his chest. At any moment he expected to feel a sharp pain and the warm spill of his own blood. His eyelids flickered as he squinted, straining to keep the dagger in his sight. Up it went, tip pointed at the skin left bare and vulnerable by his wife’s head.

It came down. He squeezed his eyes and ceased breathing. But there was no blow, just metal clattering to the wood floor. He was still expecting pain when instead he felt the seashore girl’s lips press down on his cheek, just beside the corner of his mouth. They were moist, cold, and tender.

As she pulled back, he opened his eyes. They looked at each other. Her black pupils were empty and soft. She dropped his gaze and shifted with slow, deliberate movements to the direction of his wife. For a heart-stopping moment he thought she was going to harm her, but she only brushed his bride’s bright cheek in another light kiss. Their faces shone in the moon glow for a moment, one thin and sharp as fish bones, attached in a pucker like a remora to the other’s soft, round face.

And then she was gone, running from the room, fluid as eroding sand. A moment later the prince heard a solid splash, and knew she had thrown herself over the edge of the boat. She would certainly drown if he didn’t get up now and sound the man-overboard-alarm at once.

He let out his breath and reached toward the curtains, gently so as not to wake his wife, to drag them shut against the moonlight.

Walk of Blame

In the words of the skeptic:
"I don't believe in any of this,
but I believe in truth
and even that
is subject to questionning."
But I get sidetracked.
I just wanted to know her name,
but instead I got
a quiet walk home.

Staring Contest

(Song available for free download at amfp.bandcamp.com)

We had a fight. It's hard to tell is someone's won.
Such a strange night. The voices echo and they hant me.
They haunt me.

Near midnight, we crossed the bridge in perfect silence.
Oh, quiet night. The deepest cuts and shallow heartbeats.
Heartbeats.

If we part ways, just know that I will keep my promise
If we part ways, we can try again tomorrow.
(Can we try again) tomorrow?

We walked along, ignoring our hands at our sides.
We walked along, ignoring how low our heads hung.
Can we start over? (Can we start over?)
Can we start over?

We had a fight, but we can try again tomorrow.
(Can we try again) tomorrow?

We walked along, ignoring our hands at our sides.
We walked along, ignoring how low our heads hung.
Can we start over? (Can we start over?)
Can we start over?

(By the way, Thanks Emlyn for posting. I haven't had a chance to read yet, but when I do, you'll know ;))

Silenced

A shipwreck on the sands
I'm falling apart a bit more with every crash
of the waves upon the shore
already broken but intact enough to keep breaking

This week long breakdown
isn't constructive
isn't helpful
these tears aren't healing
aren't soothing
they are just angry and frustrated
hot salty waste of time and energy

These words
I don't know what else to do
what other escape I can take
what other release is allowed myself
because I have no one
and the people I'm with are just making me feel
so much
more alone

I feel better outside in the cold
warmer and more whole
than inside with their eyes and their constructive criticisms
comments about my passion and aggressiveness in issues I care about
well I'm sorry but I was never
lead to believe there was anything wrong with that

I must be mistaken

but these issues matter so why shouldn't I voice my opinion
these things need to be said and need to be heard
so why isn't the public the perfect venue

right now I feel trapped
and silenced
trapped in this house and silenced in my head

I really really really don't
want to cause anyone pain or harm of any kind
but I don't think these thoughts should be silenced


(alternate title; what does it mean when all the valentines you get make reference to your passion and enthusiasm in conversations about issues you care about)

space

Though this isn't home
I feel as if I might not have
a home to come back to

Surrounded by sky I've never felt
so complete, completely alone and
completely myself,
here with no skyline telling
me where to go or how far I can reach

It's been too long and
I don't know if I can go
back to what used to be
a me-sized space.


(I realize this still needs work, but I wanted to share, I miss our meetings!)

Four Dimensional

Take a box,

Now put yourself in that box

Close the lid

Hold your breath

and pray

Remove oneself from the box

by simply opening the lid

Breathe

Step outside

And pray

You removed yourself from the obstacle

Yet the solution was never found

Perhaps the box

Is the question

And the answer

Is simply to remove it

And breathe

And pray

two

there's reason my lover
why we're undercover
when they're misconceiving
the beauty of not

redeeming the ticket
of undeserved time (it's
a bit disappointing
how little we've got)

but Night has forgotten
the keys to the rotten
old door of the day on
her dresser back home

and while she's still mumbling
and searching and stumbling
we'll pull close the moment
until we're alone

See The World

(New We Wear Masks song)

is it a good sign
if my heart
skips a beat or two
when I'm with you?

is there a place
you'd like to see
one you can cross
off your list of
eventually.

would you like to
see the world or
would you prefer
watching the stars
from the hood of my car?
would you like to sit
on a bench or the grass?
let's watch the cars
pass us by.

(not done, but I wanted to share.)

The Season of Fear

The Sun used to shine

upon the people of spring

The streets were once void

of filth

The ground had been spat on,

leaving traces of poison

The people grew restless

in the cold of day

Grey infiltrated

turning color into shade

Flowers died prematurely

blackening the streets

The Birds never returned

forcing the people to hunt

their own kind

Spring never came

and the people suffered.

Spin Cycle Class

You owe me more
than some meaningless
apology, muttered
under your breath,
accompanying your
rolling eyes.
I'm better than that.
You owe me more.

"It was just a phase,"
you said.
"A silly phase,"
you said.
I never believed you,
but you had convinced
yourself.

"It's not my place,"
I thought,
"not my place,
at all."
So I stepped aside.

You owe me more
than a forced
apology you
don't believe in.
You owe me
your evaporation
from my life.
I want no remains.

I want to cut your face out of all the pictures of us,
just like you used to do in bed when you thought I was asleep.

Thanks

Spring we are grateful

for this
   the shattering of the cloud and
   the continued warmth of the sun
   who has found his incandescence
   in the winter's compact fluoresence
for this your
   first flowers and the first
   open hearts in joy
   and the beholding of brightness
   more red than red
   of the premature rose
for this the
   eyes of my countrymen
   and of my friends
   who see you and are so
   glad of sight that their
   throat cannot sing their joy

o thank you spring
a million years you've come but
thank you every time

Lessons

I heard my teachers say: "the worst will come to he
Who cannot tell the ancient forest for its trees."
But will the worst not rather come to pass
For those who cannot tell the tiger from the grass?

Golden Lion

Hope hope hope hope hope hope hope hope hope hope.
Run run run run run run run run run run.
Stay stay stay stay stay stay stay stay stay stay.
Lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie.
Love love love love love love love love love love.
Death death death death death death death death death death.

Hope outlasts our desire to run.
Hope outlasts our desire to stay.
Hope outlasts the lies we tell.
Hope outlasts the love we want.
But when we feel death breathing down our necks,
Hope understands and leaves us alone.

Acceptance makes peace.

Late. Don't Care. Do I Have Much to Say? Eh...Nope.

Alright,
you know that feeling you get
when you're writing a list
of things you need,
but you know,
you KNOW,
you're forgetting
a really
really
important one?
That happens to bees, too.
Except, not a list.
I mean, they must have a way
to keep track of their tasks
and stuff.
But think about it.
Bees. Bears.
Cats.
Dogs.
Elephants.
Ferrets.
Gorillas.
Hares. Hedgehogs. Hogs.
I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, ,R S, TT, U, V, WXYZ,.

We congratulate ourselves way too much.
Let's do something worthy of praise.

Now, what was I going to say?

don't worry too much about the ufos

beauty's roommate-beside-manner
syncopates our evening stars
as we stand and revel darling
at the near and at the far

(though your song won't reach the heavens,
be comforted in this--
i'm easier to take in
and i'm easier to kiss)

A Quote

{Not many people (including myself) have been commenting recently so I decided to post something short and to the point and rather self-explanatory. It's a quote by David Foster Wallace, whose birthday it would've been last week, if he hadn't hanged himself in 2008, aged 46. Wallace was a phenomenal writer and a fiercely intelligent thinker — I find his suicide sad and troubling beyond words.}

"There's something magical for me about literature and fiction. I think it can do many things that not only pop culture can't do, but that are urgent. One is that by creating a character in a piece of fiction you allow the reader to leap over the wall of self and to imagine himself being not just somewhere else, but someone else, in a way that no other form can do. Because people, I think, are essentially lonely, and alone, and frightened of being alone."

And that, my friends, is a form of heart rape we all have to deal with...

Burroughs

[A fragment I found when cleaning my room. Drawing by Marta Barnes <3]

Whenever I see naked men, I always wonder what it would be like to live in the wild. Imagine being Jane Porter alone in the jungle when Tarzan jumps out of the trees, nearly naked, muscles rippling beneath his bronze skin as he tears a lion off you. As you lay breathless and bloodied on the ground, you watch him tear off the lion's jaw with his bare hands, his back glistening in the moonlight. He is tall and thick and strong, with those wide shoulders that flex as he hurls the growling beast into the underbrush. His loincloth hangs dangerously low, revealing a glimpse of his manhood dangling there. He throws his head back in a deep growl. He is engorged now with the adrenaline.

It takes a moment for him to remember you there - you, lying weakly, now pushing yourself up feebly agaisnt the base of a tree, trying to crawl away, your heart racing in your chest. He rushes up to you with rough curiosity, brings his face to your neck as he sniffs you deeply and licks your wounds the way he was taught to in the wild. You whimper, "no," but the word dissolves into a hot breath. The feel of his tongue against your skin sends shivers down your spine, up over your breasts and tingles your nipples. He licks those too, his warm mouth engulfing them, his hardness against your thigh. A grunt. He is an animal and he wants you now. He will take you. He grabs your wrists with his thick hands and pushes you down.

Suddenly there is the loud rush of paper. Right. I forgot I was in Human Figure class. The model turns himself over on his bench, lifting his hips to expose to me the glorious intersection of his ass crack and his penis. His long and girthy organ leans seductively over his thigh. He looks me in the eye. Am I not beautiful? he seems to ask. I bite my lip and ponder the thickness and length of him. I've never seen an uncircumsized one before. It's strange, the vague shadow of a head wrapped in a delicate skin. But then it blossoms, the pink emerges, and I imagine the thin wrinkle of it against my tongue, the smooth round top pressing firmly against the roof of my mouth.

I flip the page on my easal. Too much time wasted thinking. Need to scribble something fast. Gottheim steps up quietly behind me.

"Oh my!" she says, leaning over my shoulder. "What an interesting position."

We both stare for a moment. She smiles and walks away.

Doing the Right Thing

Fiona let herself in.

Oliver had given her a copy of the key a while ago so she could drop in if she needed a place to stay in the city — or just a place to stay. He had often come home and found his sister there, unannounced, cooking up a vegetable stir-fry and doing his laundry. “Is it okay if I stay for a night or two?” she would ask, smiling. Just until she got back on her feet, until the “friend” she was subletting an apartment from went back to Vietnam, until things calmed down with her boyfriend of the moment.

But it was none of this, now. Fiona had settled down, it seemed to Oliver. She was in grad school with a decent job. She lived in a quiet university accommodation. She wasn’t seeing anyone at the moment.

The apartment was dark; Fiona wondered if her brother was in. She could only perceive the solider shadows of the pieces of furniture in the gloom: the low table against which she lay her bag, the humps of the sofas and armchair, the large square expanse of the TV against the wall. She walked past the living room and into the kitchen. All was quiet and dark, there too, except for the hum of the refrigerator and the glow of the oven’s LED clock: 10:17. She hadn’t realized it was so late.

In the hall she saw a sharp glare of light on the floor and the wall. It peered out of the crack in the bedroom door.

“Oliver?”

She heard the sound of shifting fabric and something crash against the floor.

“Fiona?” he cried back.

She realized there might be a girl with him in there. She suddenly felt terrible, wishing she had called before coming.

Oliver appeared in the doorway in an old UBC T-shirt and sweat pants.

“Fiona? What the hell are you doing here?”

“Hey! Sorry to bother you...” She tried to peer behind him at the mess in the bedroom.

“No, it’s fine,” he said. “I was just working in bed. I, um... I had a big day. I didn’t hear you come in.” He reached for the light switch. He regretted it immediately. Fiona’s eyes were red and dry, she looked exhausted.

She brought her fingers to her face.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I must look awful.”

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I went to see Mom today. I just got back...”

“Oh...”

“We have to talk.”

“Come sit down, I’ll make some coffee.”

Fiona sat at the kitchen counter while Oliver fussed about with his espresso machine, frothing milk and grinding coffee beans. He had been a barista as an undergrad and still made a mean cappuccino. Finally he placed two elegant cups topped with perfect islands of foam on the counter. He stood looking down at her, leaning on the other side of the counter while she took a sip of the strong, scalding drink. He seemed relaxed.

“Thanks,” Fiona said. “It’s good.”

He took a sip from his own cup. A sliver of foam stuck to his upper lip and he wiped it away quickly with the back of his hand.

“So, how is she?” he asked.

She wiped her own mouth self-consciously.

“I think she’s getting worse.”

“How much worse?”

“Well, she’s not getting better.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know, Oliver. But that’s how it is. What do you want me to say? You don’t get better from these things...”

“It wasn’t so bad when I saw her last week. She was okay. I thought she was stable, at least.”

“Did you know she went almost blind last month? It lasted for an entire week.”

“No. She didn’t tell me.”

“Of course not. She didn’t tell me either. Mrs Simpson did.” She paused. “That kind of thing — it’s going to happen more often.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s already worse. She could barely walk today. She said she didn’t sleep well last night, either. It’s the spasms.”

“But that’s just —”

“Look. Having Mrs Simpson over isn’t enough anymore.”

“No,” he shook his head, business-like. “No, Fiona. That’s out of the question.”

“She needs professional help. Somewhere where they can monitor her all the time.”

“Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m having this conversation right now.”

“Well, it was pretty clear we were going to have it soon enough, Oli!”

“But it’s not that bad! Maybe it just seems bad now but she’ll get over this phase, or whatever —”

“She won’t. You know she won’t. It doesn’t make any sense. We have to be prepared.”

“Prepared for what?” He almost shouted it.

“It’s unfair to her if we don’t give her the help she needs. She can’t live alone anymore.”

Then go live with her! He thought it — but held back from saying the words. It made sense, but he knew it was unfair. Why ask her to do something he wouldn’t do himself? Fiona’s face changed as if he had said it aloud, though. Her eyebrows arched, questioning him, and then her features softened, as if she pitied her brother. She wanted to comfort him.

“Look,” she said. “There’s this place. It’s just outside the city.”

“Oh, because you’ve done some research?”

“It’s not too expensive and it would be closer for both of us. It’s set up like an apartment so she’d still keep her autonomy, but there’s medical staff on call —”

“Stop, please.”

“I’m just saying we can look into it and put her name on the waiting list, for when she’s ready —”

“Stop. I don’t need to hear this.”

“You don’t need to hear this?”

“No. And I can’t believe you’ve been thinking about it behind Mom’s back. It’s disrespectful to her.”

“Oh, don’t be a dick! I’m just trying to find a solution —”

“By trying to place her into some home.”

“By helping her. By helping us! That’s what people do, you know.”

“You want to get rid of her!”

“Well, I’m sorry, Oliver, but I go up to visit her as often as I can and I help out as much as I can and it’s just not enough.” Her eyes were glossed over in tears, now. Oliver felt like looking away, as if he was seeing something he shouldn’t. Something private.

“It’s just not enough,” she said again, sighing deeply.

“What are you insinuating.” The words caught in his throat, he almost choked. He felt angry — at Fiona, at himself.

“I’m not insinuating anything,” she said. “I’m trying to be realistic.”

Oliver started sobbing, quite suddenly. He tried to hold back the tears, which made them look so painful Fiona started crying as well, out of sympathy. Oliver’s shoulders jerked up and down and he gripped the counter with both his hands. All his body shook with heavy, hurting hiccups. He let out a deep, anguished moan, as if all the air had been pushed out of him. It was like a cry of anguish that wanted to be let out from somewhere broken within him, muffled and awful.

“I’m sorry,” Fiona said. “I’m so sorry. I wish... I wish there was another way. Something better...”

Oliver turned his back to her and grabbed a kitchen towel to wipe his eyes. He turned around again. His face glistened, boiled raw under the skin.

“She can’t come here,” he said. His voice was unequal. He was out of breath. “I can’t take care of her. I just... I couldn’t do it.”

Fiona placed her hand on her brother’s hand on the counter.

“I know, Oli. I know.”

They stared at each other with eyes wet and burning.

“It’s the right thing to do,” said Fiona. “I really think so.”

“I know,” Oliver said. He breathed deeply, filling his entire body with air, trying to get rid of the overwhelming dread, which still made him shake with spasmodic sobs. “I just wish she could get better.”

“Is it okay if I sleep here tonight?” Fiona asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Of course it’s okay.”

Alberta winds (my physical synonym)

I am still alive,
lights still shine from my eyes,
glimmers of hope glint in my smile,
though lately I've been tired, bone-dead and tongue-tied
something about the winter but
that's just an an excuse
that doesn't hold water 'cause
last time it was something about the autumn,
but the cold freezes my jaw
and seeps into every fibre
and the cold is my all too concrete metaphor
for being

this
lonely.

(This is an incredibly late testament to my state of being alive. Katimavik is crazy busy. Comments are always appreciated. All my love fellow heart-raped writers! I miss you.)

A Rare Occasion

Could it simply be that I was looking for love rather than it looking for me?

Platitude.

That I told myself that I could commit at this specific time of my life and that was it?

Platitude.

Then it was a game, for whoever would bite the bait first?

Platitude.

There had to be something more than this reasoning. This primal rationality. But from what I can remember, it was all me.

Platitude.

Tethered lines, feathered bows, trumping failures, givers' rows of shows' shmoozing losing faker of a being. Living on the interface of a so-called (time) code. Losers of ill conceited fates and self-fulfilling prophecies of loathing. And patience. Boredom. Bored, patient loathing. Bored of sex. Bored of loving. A quick stick in, a pitstop's drought. Giving up on the notion of my future wife with every move. Every movie. Every excuse to ignore and refuse. My grave future and the future and my grave: a wife. A grave stoned, high to the roof crumbling concrete on the slim hope that was a word characterized by mass mediated capitals which I have succumbed to and she has not. Or she pretends to not. The canon empty; an interface. A self-fulfilled prophecy, prof, you see, Ivy dropped out shopped out checked out, credit cash or debit or giftcard. Would you like a bag with that? That's 5 cents. You lose. Yes, it is returnable. Bong on the light air, makes the high even higher. Degenerate mothballs in the apartment the size of your mother's closet. Saving paper by saving face. In cigarette machines lost in the disco ages of funkshop fros and imagery which most likely does not encapsulate that generation. Images are everything, she said, but what happens when there are too many of them? There's a problem in every generation, they say, but I can't stand mine because I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS. It just exists. She feels it. Even when inside. Capitals of capitals derived by capital scum-- gum on my shoe, flavour never running out but always getting thinner.

edward i'm kicking you out of my house

i sing because i am alone. your voice
the interrupting rain upon the glass
has made me look into the out of noise
has made me stand. o let the morning pass
and let it get away i'd rather live
with clouds above our mouth and garish light
be helf accountable in older griefs
with stars as shining as the dark of night
please do not bring me water for my thoughts
and do not honeydew my lonely tongue
the moon is all my light within this cell
the heart is neer something that i sought
yourfaceyourknittedsweatersyour own wrongs
should always keep me up
                                           (and then he fell)

Hello, all! I feel I should probably say how much I still love HeartRape, and how much of a joy it is for me to have some regular poetry and fiction and half-naked word-covered ladies in my life. It's a reminder that the world is not set as we had once thought it, that we are the typesetters and the illuminators and the incunabulum all in one. I love you all.

Body Painting: The Writer

Hey guys! Sorry for not being on lately - I promise I'll get better once I've settled in Wollongong and read everyone's stuff. I never thought I'd be so busy these last few days, but it seems no matter how hard you try and get everything done early, there's still a shitload that catches up to you.

Anyway, I thought I'd share some visual pieces for your viewing pleasure because they're the only creative thing I've done of late. It's in honour of all us writers. Enjoy!

A Ghost

{This was another short exercise for the creative writing course I'm taking. We had to write a story inspired by some old pictures provided by the teacher. Unfortunately, I can't find the picture I chose online, so I hope the story works on its own as well.}

Masha was certain that the hand had not been there when the picture was taken.

No one else dared give an opinion. It was hard to be sure; taking that picture had been a hectic process.

Young Alexei, the photograph’s subject, hadn’t helped. He was quite afraid and spent most of the afternoon crying and trying to rip off his miniature uniform.

The camera was a foreign, scary object to him with its ogling brass lens, its creaking bellows, and the spectacular explosions of magnesium. Without mentioning the mustachioed photographer who disappeared behind the black curtain like a bad imitation of Masha’s peek-a-boo game.

They were lucky to get one decent photograph of him — haunted or not.

How Masha shrieked when she saw the picture. They must have heard her all the way to Saint Petersburg.

“My poor boy! My poor boy!”

The count tried to calm her, but she refused to listen.

“Some ghost came for his soul! My poor boy!” she cried. “We almost lost him to the DEVIL!” And so on. She was completely hysterical. It went on for days.

Masha even had her idea about whose ghost it was:

The picture had been taken in an unused room in the South wing, where one of the count’s great aunts had hanged herself over half-a-century ago. Masha imagined the camera had managed to capture an image of the great aunt’s hand, back from the dead, trying to snatch her little boy away.

To be honest, in the photograph, it looks like that hand is trying to make sure little Alexei doesn’t fall off the table he’s standing on. Besides, it’s so pale, it could be just a trick of the light — more like the ghost of a hand than the hand of a ghost. Someone could’ve simply painted it in.

The count and his family moved out of the dacha before winter. It had become impossible for Masha to live there anymore, and she made sure everyone knew it.

Meanwhile, rumors that the house was haunted began to spread through the country.

So that’s how I managed to buy the dacha for such a low price.

But come, now, let’s continue our visit. Would you like to see the South wing?