All posts by Heather Haley

THE VIRGIN MARRIES DO MALIBU-“Town Slut’s Daughter” forthcoming novel excerpt

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Heading to the studio, they wound their way along the curves of Pacific Coast Highway past sunning sea lions, surfers bobbing at Point Dume, shithawks—seagulls—bombing the pier. Fiona watched Dennis ogling a busty brunette astride a Palomino stallion bareback, galloping through roiling surf.
“You can see the gray whales during migration.” He told them smugglers used to run liquor, opium and Chinese labor through the area.
The studio sat under the lee of the mountains, a veritable citadel by the sea. The massive foyer, a circle of mahogany pillars, opened teepee-like, rays of sun warming the slate floor.
“Hey Virgins, it’s your first time!” joked Dennis. “In a studio.”
Producer Dan Foley ambled in, gently gruff in a RECOVERING CATHOLIC t-shirt, black jeans, lizard skin cowboy boots. He sat, Virgins arranging their bums on a bank of white couches.
“Okay, so what kind of a production values are you going for?” he asked, voice like sandpaper.
“Don’t you know?” Jackie clung to her guitar case.
“It’s your music. You tell me.”
Fiona knew. “Raw. Gritty.”
“Right,” said Rita. “And we want it tight.”
“Monster bass!” said Jackie. “I play bass like no one, melodically, but with a lot of guts.”
“Describe your sound. As a band I mean.”
Gawd. I wish we had a manager. “We sound like the Virgin Marries. Our drummer is a walking, talking, sonic boom. Our bass player is an original. Dolores plays her Les Paul like a band saw. It rips! We write excellent songs. The singer can actually sing. I have great stage presence too. We all do. Right, girls?” They nodded. “We’re talented. Fucking brilliant in fact.”
Dan feigned ducking, as if to avoid a blow. “Alright then. We have a band in the studio. Who’s responsible for the arrangements?”
Dolores groaned. “Arranging is for wimps. We don’t arrange our stuff.”
Rita brandished her drumsticks. “Yes we do! We don’t want a ton of effects, Linn drums, or a million overdubs.”
“No cowbells!” said Fiona. “I hate fucking cowbells. Let the farmers have ‘em.”
“Or synthesizers,” said Dolores.
“I hate saxophones almost as much as I hate cowbells. And flutes! I hate the flute. It reminds me of beatniks. And hippies.”
Dan stood at the window looking out over the mist-shrouded hills. “Okay, so you know what you don’t want. I will venture to say I think you need a clean sound. Organic. Unrestrained. Untainted.”
“Organic?” bleated Jackie.
“Yeah. Organic, as in authentic. Virginal. Pure. Virgin Marries, doing what comes natural.”
“Er, yeah, okay.” Jackie feigned gagging. “But we are not hippies!”

Pink Sombreros

The cowboy led his horse to water
The horse refused to drink
The cowboy roped a steer one day
The steer was full of sawdust
The cowboy saw a sign in the sky
Revolving neon stars

Dudes in white fringes live here now
Dudes in pink sombreros are here to stay

The cows are lowing, the myth is dying
This land can break my heart
I have no place to go
Beyond my wild whisky dreams

“How about piano?”
“Gimme a break! Do you want us to sound like the Eagles?”
Rita glared at Fiona. “We couldn’t sound like the Eagles if we tried!”
“It is a ballad,” said Dan.
“Yeah, it’s a ballad,” said Fiona, “but it’s a cowboy song. I hear guitars.”
“Guitar yes, of course, but this song, a wonderful song by the way, should be played on acoustic. Just the rhythm parts.”
“Acoustic!” yelped Dolores.
“Yes. Acoustic will make it a classic. Showcase the vocals. A little piano in the bridge.” Dan leveled his eyes at Fiona. “And another thing. Hit songs do not have minor chords.”
Let’s hit you. Fiona sighed.
“I thought you were tired of Continue reading →

“HOOD POINT”-and Happy New Year!

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HOOD POINT

Dec. 31, 2012

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Lost in stars

Brave as ash

Wrestling shadows,

Giddy with night,

I lure water taxis

To shore.

Light the oven,

Salt the path

So I may reach you

Cliffside,

Burnish your gleam.

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Eagle’s nest hums,

Voices fuse.

Nearly content,

Neural bridges manifest.

Last night, last supper.

Blue heron spotting,

Tossing binoculars,

Whooping,

Over.

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Lashings, lamb bones,

Bent finger

Pointing,

Steam building, hot

Boxing, fur ball

Hangovers, bellicose

Stroking, novel

Teasing, done.

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News wrapped as fish,

Jesus hair obscures horns,

Sunny fog-ferries, flight

From one another

Post twelve days

Balancing hurt percentages.

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Out with old, year

Of dreary brinkmanship, no end

To the apocalypse jokes,

Lucky 13 new affirmation.

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FLESH POT

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“O, That this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.”-Hamlet, Shakespeare

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FLESH POT

Born muscle bound

Backboned, map, matrix-

Mother intact,

Into private security firms-

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Families, in slums, manors,

Stables, institutions,

To pirates or the pious,

We flourish. Raw teeth, germs,

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Clubfeet do not impede us,

Rank and garbled speech fleeting

As tin jeeps, Barbie Doll drama.

Our struggle is tidy, tumult banal,

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Pain prosaic, strife fueling ripeness,

Gauntlets passed through swiftly

Until the day we drop. Nominated,

Cornered, required to wither

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Under the gun,

Succumb, for we remain

That tender, precious human

Flesh terminators must aim for.

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WARNINGS SHUNNED-latest poem

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WARNINGS SHUNNED

I was there

But can’t recall

A blur.

Here you are,

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Transparent, coy, unsullied.

Wet towers swaying,

I admire the dirty gulls.

You land

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On the top floor,

Move the mirror, ceiling,

Unhinge the doors.

Make no mistake.

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Moon resting on a spire,

Limbo persists,

Olive of catharsis

Suspended in a martini,

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Leaving me soaked,

Juiceless, waiting

In the terminal,

You above it all.

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ABBREVIATED GUTS-new poem

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ABBREVIATED GUTS

Sun dogs melt,

Tuna tins expire,

Honey bees purge,

Headless sea lions wash up,

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Bloat. Drowning hydrangea.

Retreating squirrels.

Vacant towering fir

Hush the songbirds

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With gusts. Ravens squawk.

Telecom tricksters call

And call. And call.

Carbon copied dread

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Routed to the periphery,

Mt Galiano a distant lump,

Inviolate taint in the mainstream.

Traveling vast distances

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My blood will recede.

Limbs tread water,

Garnering muscle,

Mustering will.

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Cranking tunes, I summon

reason, a dollop of pomp,

A glut of valor.

Geronimo!

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CRYING FOR THE COURT JESTER

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“I never saw a man who looked with such a wistful eye upon that little tent of blue which prisoners call the sky.” -Oscar Wilde

My dear friend R has passed away. It came as a shock. I knew he was ill but it hadn’t occured to me that he might die. He was a force, such a strong, singular individual.  Complex, witty, acerbic—understanding the absurdity of our obsessions—R was our friendly neighborhood court jester. I mean that with the utmost respect. One must be brilliant in order to poke fun and criticize with impunity. A true iconoclast, holding several degrees, in physics and philosophy, he’d been a conscientious objector, imprisoned at McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary in Washington for three years. Brave and compassionate, he was a loving father and a volunteer who worked in malaria camps, for the World Health Organization and to end poverty. He wanted to save people.

Higher consciousness–of utmost importance–sustained him. He put a lot of faith in reason, in the mind, especially his own, berating himself for a dwindling vocabulary while accepting that non-verbal communication was most effective, even required in prison. I think he possessed that “wistful eye” before he was incarcerated. It was a most observant eye, an appreciative eye, a lover of beauty’s eye.

Art too was vital of course and he always encouraged me in mine, even had me convinced I was invincible.  And with nothing sacred, we shared many laughs. Reading R’s letters from prison, I am struck by the intensity of his desire, how, never feeling shame, R never forsakes it. He identifies with the tough, feral cats inhabiting the periphery, the gentle cows and the little birds fighting for survival more than his fellow inmates-draft dodgers, knowing salvation is not imminent for any of them.

R railed against darkness, ignorance, seeking the sun, light, while weathering the banal, the insidious, living his politics as much as anyone can in this brutal world.  Ironic that he wound up residing on an island after being trapped upon one but R knew the human spirit mattered as well, and more than the physical being. “I won’t be institutionalized.”

Driving into the Cove the other day, I kept glancing up at the North Shore mountaintops luminescent in the fading light, far away trees gleaming green as emeralds. So moving! To tears, and though aware that I was thinking of R, knew that I wept for us all. Still, I was happy, just to be here, to be alive, to see such incredible things, know such remarkable beings.

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The Un-American

Though he never left.

Fully himself. Always.

Flinty

As the black starlings fighting

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For food in the snow,

Abiding

Alongside the milk cows,

Returning to his cache of sky,

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Sun skin and kinetic clouds

Each night. Night a starlit carriage,

Buffer ‘tween long sighing,

Cold, lumpy porridge.

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He spurns downhill arrangements,

Damning sentences,

Fading graffito,

Blank gruff voices for the strumpet,

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For any, for all women,

Building a ladder to the window,

To a view of summer,

To life as he knows it.

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VORACIOUS to be included in FORCE FIELD-75 Women Poets of British Columbia anthology

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I am stoked to be one of the 75! Three of my poems, including Voracious, will be featured in the FORCE FIELD-75 Women Poets of British Columbia anthology, edited by Susan Musgrave, published by Mother Tongue and coming in April, 2013. From their press release: “Not since Dorothy Livesay’s ‘Women’s Eye, 12 B.C. Women Poets’- AIR Press, in 1974, and ‘D’Sonoqua, An Anthology of Women Poets of British Columbia’, edited by Ingrid Klassen-Intermedia Press in 1979, has there been an anthology of contemporary B.C. women poets.

Gathering is an art that women do well, and as Jean Mallinson stated in her introduction to D’Sonoqua, “Anthologies are a sign of vitality.” In FORCE FIELD we gather together seventy-five women poets who currently live and write in British Columbia so readers can more easily share, study and take pleasure in the range and vitality of women’s poetry today. It is an extensive and flourishing community that owes a debt to many early women poets, such as P.K. Page, Dorothy Livesay, Anne Marriot, Phyllis Webb, Rona Murray, Skyros Bruce, Gwladys V. Downes, Pat Lowther, Helene Rosenthal, Nellie McClung, and Elizabeth Gourlay. Women who forged the way for poetry in mid-century B.C., between working and mothering, struggling, transforming and creating. FORCE FIELD is a strong celebration of women’s voices, from emerging to established. FORCE FIELD is not a definitive, but a wellspring.

POETS included are; Maleea Acker, Joanne Arnott, Elizabeth Bachinsky, Jacqueline Baldwin, Michelle Barker, Rhonda Batchelor, Yvonne Blomer, Leanne Boschman, Fran Bourassa, Marilyn Bowering, Kate Braid, Connie Braun, Margo Button, Anne Cameron, Marlene Cookshaw, Judith Copithorne, Susan Cormier, Lorna Crozier, Jen Currin, Daniela Elza, Cathy Ford, Carla Funk, Maxine Gadd, Rhonda Ganz, Elee Kraljii Gardiner, Heidi Garnett, Lakshmi Gill, Kim Goldberg, Alisa Gordaneer, Heidi Greco, Karen Hofmann, Leah Horlick, Diana Hartog, Heather Haley, Joelene Heathcote, Diana Hayes, Aislinn Hunter, Elena E. Johnson, Eve Joseph, Donna Kane, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Zoe Landale, Larissa Lai, Evelyn Lau, Julia Leggett, Angela Long, Christine Lowther, Sandra Lynxleg, Rhona McAdam, Susan McCaslin, Hannah Main-van der Kamp, Daphne Marlatt, Jessica Michalofsky, Jane Munro, Catherine Owen, Shauna Paull, Miranda Pearson, Meredith Quartermain, Rebekah Rempel, Linda Rogers, Rachel Rose, Laisha Rosnau, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Sandy Shreve, Melanie Siebert, Susan Stenson, Cathy Stonehouse, Sharon Thesen, Betsy Warland, Gillian Wigmore, Ursula Vaira, Rita Wong, Onjana Yawnghwe, Patricia Young, Jan Zwicky. Due: April 2013, 400 pages, ISBN 978-1-896949-25-3, $32.95 aprox, Mother Tongue Publishing, 290 Fulford-Ganges Rd, Salt Spring Island BC, V8K 2K6

VORACIOUS

A kiss.

Coral. Incandescent.

We wanted a kiss.

We wanted a moment

of, no one knows us.

In a hovel or the firs

we wanted a moment

of, no one watching.

We wanted a ride,

the roiling innards.

We wanted a night.

One night, to escape

the ether, the library,

all that shushing.

We wanted more

than one season

of abundance.

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He has entered text

red as a target,

invited a stoning,

but, we are very bear.

Mewling accomplice

pawing at the door,

I track charred meat

from bower to suite.

From a fly coastal trip

drenched in dark highway,

through a fuming winter

of snarling heat,

to blasted spring robins

and lilacs blaring perfume,

we have muzzled nothing,

growling in the gut wicked

as songs loud as our heads,

deafening aches

silent as screen voices

deep at night.

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Smoked out,

files burned,

anointed with ash,

we are fallout.

Ruthless particulars

roaming summer,

lapping up

bare mounds and berries,

moving and moved

by shattered outcrops,

words of praise,

generous mouths.

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When you can’t get enough-LOVE HORMONE-new poem

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Image by Rinrarity
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LOVE HORMONE

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Oxytocin starved astronomer

Mimics Orion, hunting lions,

Chasing skirt

Up the wrong leg.

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The inability to secrete,

Let down, feel empathy;

Hence the psycho prevails,

Clashes resound.

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Squelched desires jangle,

Jilted car commanding astronaut

Double parking

To pepper spray a rival,

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While back on earth

Nothing blows up well

For the demolitionist,

Neither concrete monstrosity

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Nor the ugliest obstacle.

Assaulted with meat,

Sun wooden, anger builds

Resolutely as prison tatts claiming flesh.

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OUR GRASSROOTS ARE SHOWING!-Visible Verse 2012 Festival post-mortem

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Earthquakes. Hurricanes. End times? Well, I’m high on a ridge, icing a sprained ankle, trying to focus on a post-mortem of this year’s Visible Verse Festival at Pacific Cinémathèque. Fortunately far-flung friends and relatives have all assured me they are safe, so I will proceed.

“The best year yet!” is what I was told repeatedly. Good turnout, a bit of press coverage, and wonderful new staff to work with, the festival is definitely entering a fresh and exciting phase. Era. Changing the date from November to October, immediately following the Vancouver International Film Festival helped raise our profile, and get more bums in the seats. I’ve never understood how filmmakers and cinephiles could not be curious about a fusion of verse and the moving image. Wouldn’t that work to inform one’s own work?

Though I had help from family members, the at-home transferring process was laborious. Brutal. I will have to figure out a way to expedite matters next year and I’m determined to find an intern. Or two. There has been much talk of producing a trailer for promotional purposes but so far, it’s all talk. *sigh*  Maybe next year. I’m glad the festival is growing but it’s becoming too much for one person, director. Our grass roots are showing.

I should refine my instructions after receiving all manner of file formats, many so huge they took far too long to download. Getting them onto disk was exacting and time consuming. I went to the theatre several times for run-throughs with a very capable and charming Aussie projectionist. With 38 selections, things can get a bit hairy, but everything looked and sounded fantastic. All the hard work was worth it.  I received many compliments on the programming as well, which was gratifying, as it’s the toughest task.

My dear friend and comrade-in-music Julie Vik put us up at the Holiday Inn across the street so I was able to go back and forth to attend to duties, despite several formidable distractions. At 3:30 I helped Alberta artist Phillip Jagger, AKA Satoreye Dreamtime, set up for his Reigning In Chaos: Words Into Video hands-on workshop, demonstrating the Kaos pad, iPod and video jamming software. And demonstrate he did! Wild man Phil performed his work, then shared much useful information about his process in an engaging manner, encouraging participants to come up and try out his gear.

I returned to the hotel to change, got back to the theatre lobby, nervous, happy to greet artists and poets as they arrived. It’s always very exciting to see and hear my selections on the big screen at last. We kicked off year 13 of the festival at 7 PM. With a full program, due to the record number of entries, I kept my introduction brief but took time to thank Jim Sinclair and the rest of the staff and volunteers at Pacific Cinémathèque, proclaiming our pride as North America’s sustaining venue for artistically significant videopoetry and poetry film.

We opened with the big, bombastic and sublimely funny stream of consciousness Continue reading →