Don’t tread on me! In a funk, discombobulated, plagued with a nasty headache and nightmares as I scramble to meet two hard deadlines, recovering from a low blow by our (former) collaborator who “terminated” our video projects. Terminal City? He might very well have succeeded but happily, I’m working with the inimitable Chris Coon, my Bent Tail-punk rock cohort. (Impatient Youth, The Sleepers, The Woundz, Clocks of Paradise, No Alternative.) It’s a relief as well, to drive 15 minutes to a studio rather than 5 hours to record who-knows-where, or how, which saves heaps of money too; no more travel expenses.

Do we engineer the crises in our lives? In search of authentic experience, to provide creative stimulation? Certainly, it’s something artists, writers do. Is Van Gogh not equated with tortured? August Strindberg is another example: “Of humble origin and melancholy disposition, Strindberg was consumed by an insatiable desire for knowledge and a need for authentic existence.”-New Foundations. “Strindberg created experiences and pressured situations in order to write about them; he inflicted pain on himself to gain extra material and he became suicidal when fiction and reality were interpenetrating so deeply that he was scared of finding which was which.”-Ronald Hayman. I know the difference and though I’m no longer no one’s victim, by associating with artists in various stages of evolution, conflict is inevitable.

Lately, a veritable zoo of of animals stampedes my dreams and reality. Fortunately, I am able to distinguish between the two! Bear, deer, serpents. Someone was holding the head of a . . . rodent-a weasel perhaps-in their hand; a bloody mess, the mouth silently, eerily opening and shutting, pointy teeth gnashing. I was horrified, turned away and when I looked back, it was dead, which was equally distressing.

Bear on Bowen Island! The last two that swam over from the Sunshine Coast or the North Shore were killed as they quickly became nuisance bears. No place to roam around here. Too bad the poor thing can’t be socialized, taught to stay out of chicken coops and human garbage. That’s like wishing deer would look both ways before crossing the road.

I saw a garter snake in the woods yesterday, my terriers oblivious, its camouflage so effective, movements indistinguishable from the forest floor’s twigs and debris. No scent apparently and certainly, no legs. A friend with a snake phobia-ophidiophobia-refuses to even utter the word, referring to them as “those-creatures-without legs.” Then last night I read the Plath poem, Totem, wherein “The engine is killing the track, the track is silver, / It stretches into the distance. It will be eaten nevertheless.”

I will move forward irresolutely as a locomotive. There is no time for paralysis as I race to keep my tail out of death’s incisors. I will meet deadlines. I will write, no matter how small and pathetic I may feel.

I am re-posting this poem from Three Blocks West of Wonderland because of its reference to animals, wild and domesticated, real and imagined.

YEAR OF THE MONKEY

Full house. Madhouse. Ill-fated deejay,
jester fixed to his back, grinding out tunes
in celebration of our new digs, life,
in the forest, despite the clear-cutting
a hundred years ago. There is talk

of the I-Ching. This will be
an extremely progressive time predicts
a guest with faith enough to practice.
Monkeys are shrewd. Agile.
You will find great success in 2004.

Happy New Year! A toast. To the pileated
woodpeckers, heard more than seen. Cheers!
To the deer phantoms, droppings molding
in the front meadow. Where do they go
in the winter? Why don’t I know these things?

We make clumsy attempts at lighting a fire,
heating the house, woodstove couched
and cold-shouldered as a guerilla soldier
brooding over such hatchet-challenged wimpiness.
We brave the Jacuzzi though. January. Naked ape it

on the deck, body sculpting with our bare hands,
pale-faced moon playing peek-a-boo
with the ridgeline, a breeze stroking our backsides.
An owl hoots, hunting through lushness.
Red-eyed towhees flit through a labyrinth

of sword fern, mist the only smoke around here.
Desires in the mirror,
smudges of dread
surfacing on its beveled edges
whenever we’re not looking.

Twin cedar sentinels stand guard
against the cougar I saw mounting our pup.
When it began stalking the neighbour’s pony
I knew I would need a rifle.

I’m evolving. From a dinky urbanite on all fours,
to a big, eagle-eyed, straight-shooting, cause-
committed, river-of-life channeling, chainsaw-
hung, 4 by 4 pickup piloting Homo Erectus islander.