MISSION
Graves looming,
Nasty sequestered,
I hear your hulk
Shading the cliff.
Logic lemming-leapt,
We weave a net of arms,
Invent a shepherd,
Exhaust satiety.
We couple courage,
Shoo dimwits,
Estimate fallout,
You pleading neutrality,
I, soldier brain.
We are not happy
Till the cabin is razed,
Harvest ploughed asunder.
HOOD POINT
Dec. 31, 2012
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.
Eagle’s nest hums,
Voices fuse.
Nearly content,
Neural bridges manifest.
Last night, last supper.
Blue heron spotting,
Tossing binoculars,
Whooping,
Over.
Lashings, lamb bones,
Bent finger
Pointing,
Steam building, hot
Boxing, fur ball
Hangovers, bellicose
Stroking, novel
Teasing, done.
News wrapped as fish,
Jesus hair obscures horns,
Sunny fog-ferries, flight
From one another
Post twelve days
Balancing hurt percentages.
Out with old, year
Of dreary brinkmanship, no end
To the apocalypse jokes,
Lucky 13 new affirmation.
“O, That this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.”-Hamlet, Shakespeare
FLESH POT
Born muscle bound
Backboned, map, matrix-
Mother intact,
Into private security firms-
Families, in slums, manors,
Stables, institutions,
To pirates or the pious,
We flourish. Raw teeth, germs,
Clubfeet do not impede us,
Rank and garbled speech fleeting
As tin jeeps, Barbie Doll drama.
Our struggle is tidy, tumult banal,
Pain prosaic, strife fueling ripeness,
Gauntlets passed through swiftly
Until the day we drop. Nominated,
Cornered, required to wither
Under the gun,
Succumb, for we remain
That tender, precious human
Flesh terminators must aim for.
WARNINGS SHUNNED
I was there
But can’t recall
A blur.
Here you are,
Transparent, coy, unsullied.
Wet towers swaying,
I admire the dirty gulls.
You land
On the top floor,
Move the mirror, ceiling,
Unhinge the doors.
Make no mistake.
Moon resting on a spire,
Limbo persists,
Olive of catharsis
Suspended in a martini,
Leaving me soaked,
Juiceless, waiting
In the terminal,
You above it all.
ABBREVIATED GUTS
Sun dogs melt,
Tuna tins expire,
Honey bees purge,
Headless sea lions wash up,
Bloat. Drowning hydrangea.
Retreating squirrels.
Vacant towering fir
Hush the songbirds
With gusts. Ravens squawk.
Telecom tricksters call
And call. And call.
Carbon copied dread
Routed to the periphery,
Mt Galiano a distant lump,
Inviolate taint in the mainstream.
Traveling vast distances
My blood will recede.
Limbs tread water,
Garnering muscle,
Mustering will.
Cranking tunes, I summon
reason, a dollop of pomp,
A glut of valor.
Geronimo!
“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.
The Un-American
Though he never left.
Fully himself. Always.
Flinty
As the black starlings fighting
For food in the snow,
Abiding
Alongside the milk cows,
Returning to his cache of sky,
Sun skin and kinetic clouds
Each night. Night a starlit carriage,
Buffer ‘tween long sighing,
Cold, lumpy porridge.
He spurns downhill arrangements,
Damning sentences,
Fading graffito,
Blank gruff voices for the strumpet,
For any, for all women,
Building a ladder to the window,
To a view of summer,
To life as he knows it.
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.
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.
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.
LOVE HORMONE
Oxytocin starved astronomer
Mimics Orion, hunting lions,
Chasing skirt
Up the wrong leg.
The inability to secrete,
Let down, feel empathy;
Hence the psycho prevails,
Clashes resound.
Squelched desires jangle,
Jilted car commanding astronaut
Double parking
To pepper spray a rival,
While back on earth
Nothing blows up well
For the demolitionist,
Neither concrete monstrosity
Nor the ugliest obstacle.
Assaulted with meat,
Sun wooden, anger builds
Resolutely as prison tatts claiming flesh.
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
Pearl’s tiny apartment housed a rumpled hodge-podge: dusty houseplants, Tiki head vase, paper daisies, red gingham curtains, a muddle of books and a ceramic Portuguese rooster crowing from its perch atop the fridge. Pearl claimed kinship to Flannery O’ Connor and displayed a large collection of family photos.
The Lost Angels tribe, still decked out in costumes after a round of hullabaloos—Halloween far more significant a holiday in Hollywood than Christmas—had convened at her place for a nightcap, strains of Edith Piaf emanating from Pearl’s ghetto blaster. Aptly turned out as a princess, Pearl sat in a cloud of white satin and organza furbelows. Feline Fiona had painted her face with orange and black stripes, employing Evinrude as a model. Evelyn was decked out as the consummate witch, replete with long, wonky nose and hair protruding from a bulbous chin mole. She passed a spliff around, revelers talking, or yelling simultaneously. The landlady above banged on her floor, Pearl’s ceiling.
Evelyn cackled. “Sounds like she rides a mean broom.”
Pearl turned down the music. “You guys! You’re gonna get me evicted.”
“Yeah, shut-up!” commanded Evelyn. She picked up an LA Weekly, Prince on the cover, and placing it over her face like a mask, pretended to pick his nose with her index finger, which caused Pearl’s guests to roar with laughter. “Or you will be banished to the barrens of Minnesota to listen to Purple Rain for the rest of your natural lives!”
Bradley the human condom laughed. “Is that a hex?”
Vampire Kaye vainly tried to squelch giggles. Soon they were snapping Polaroids, Evelyn etching designs onto the film as it developed. Kaye slurped her gin and tonic.
“Pearl! You look like one of those toilet paper covers. You know, those dolls people stick on their toilet tanks. Old ladies knit them up.”
“Gee, thanks,” replied Pearl above peals of laughter.
“Hey, yeah!” said Bradley. “I know what you’re talking about. Is there a name for those things?”
Kaye laughed. “Yeah, piss elegance.”
Bradley fell to one knee at Pearl’s feet. “She looks like a beautiful bride.”
“She’s the wedding cake.” Evelyn dipped a finger into Pearl’s organza icing and popped into it her mouth.
Pearl fluffed her stacks of tulle and played I Put A Spell On You.
“I love Screamin’ Jay Hawkins!” Kaye flung her cape over her shoulder invoking the showman they’d seen in concert earlier in the evening.
“The flaming coffin!” cried Bradley. “I loved the flaming coffin!”
“Well, you are a flamer,” said Evelyn.
He ignored the remark. “And the bone in his nose!” Bradley sweated profusely despite discarding most of his plastic costume. “What a brilliant performer! I had no idea.”
“Alice Cooper stole his shtick if you ask me.” Kaye rose, stretched, and repositioned her fake fangs. “Hey, I’m getting out of here before sunrise.”
Fiona drained her drink. Pearl asked her to stay a little longer. One by one their coworkers filed out. Fiona Continue reading