To soar…

Journal

High on verse. High on life and staying out of trouble (for the most part), occupied with events and performance, recently honoured to participate in a tribute to bill bissett with Daniel Zomparelli, Elizabeth Bachinsky and host Billeh Nickerson at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. I read the powerful burning up oblivion and at th first breath of life we stir and rise from a bill collection, pass th food release the sprit book published by Talon right around the time I was beginning to get serious about writing poetry. As I said at the festival, bill may not know this but bill saved my ass, my depressed, suicidal teenaged ass. I was very fortunate to have an excellent English teacher in high school, Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter, who happened to be gay, didn’t just hand out text books and assignments but turned me on to bill bissett and Canadian poetry, an exotic thing out in Cloverdale, which describes bill well and explains why I was so immediately affected by his imagery and imagination. bill is a gem, bill is a gift and I swear by now embedded in our national psyche. To me, bill is a poetical Peter Pan and whenever I’ve had the great privilege of seeing and hearing him in performance, have always wished I was Wendy and could fly away with him. For bill is winged. bill soars! Above and beyond. And thank you Mr. Carter, wherever you are. For I too soar, whenever possible. The film, Strange Grey Day This was fascinating, depicting a long ago Vancouver, in the rain naturally and a beguiling, waifish, rather melancholy boy bill.

Hear me roar today at 2 PM on Wax Poetic on Coop Radio and tomorrow night I’m a featured reader at the Twisted Poets Literary Salon, at the Prophouse Cafe. I’ll be screening some videopoems as well, hope to see all your raging high flying selves there.

“That in black ink my love may still shine bright.”

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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
and generous mouths.

Voice driven golf balls, stories; Tyler, Fiona, the rest of us

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Hangnails and chainsaws. Men and power toys. Boys and bombs and London’s burning! White riot, wanna riot of my own. Are we moving forward? Well, regardless, “this is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time.” No time to look over my shoulder. Watched Fight Club with Junior. Two things; he needs to learn to fight, (defend himself) and Tyler Durden’s Project Mayhem mission was moot but prescient. The banks and corporations blew themselves up. Imploded from greed. I loved Norton’s voice-over narration and Junior relished Tyler driving golf balls into a ravaged urban wasteland. My boy’s a great kid but I can’t lure him from his lair. We on the other hand were renegades; drove ourselves out and everywhere, into the big city for rock concerts, often drunk, (no I’m not condoning drinking and driving, narrowly escaping doom via car accident unlike many unlucky teens) partied hearty every day, and night, smoking heaps of ganja, dropping acid, fucking anything that moved. We were bored. To death. Junior is not bored. Needs no riot of his own. He is the bomb, brilliant, at gaming, video, all things techno but I worry. He needs to toughen up. He got interested in boxing so we set up the gear and he uses it. Sort of. Everybody needs to pack on some muscle. Kick ass. Well, he’s definitely his own man, got the good-looking part down and rocks a golf course like no one. He’s learning to drive, got his first job and hitting the road for the Pax gaming festival in Seattle. I’m just marveling at our different lives, adolescences, experiences. I’m some weird hybrid, he’s a digital native.

“Hey, you created me. I didn’t create some loser alter-ego to make myself feel better. Take some responsibility!” Indeed. Working hard on the book. Excited, entrusted with the greatest task of all; telling the story. Without flinching. Big perk; the assholes in my life have been reduced to fodder. Entertaining fodder. Voice. Number one concern, always my main vehicle, workhorse. It’s as true to Fiona as she is to herself and I strongly believe there is more truth in fiction.  Fiona is indomitable, finding her way as is this story. We never give up. Never stop seeking. Know how to fight. Another perk; dread is whittled down along with the manuscript. Oh, and there aren’t enough words in this fucking language.

Incensed at the sun’s insolence . . .

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DAWNING CONSCIOUSNESS

She wakes grimly febrile,
desperately nostalgic
for dawdling in ditches
of tadpoles,
wagering glass
marbles in snow lanes,
sewing mini skirts
for her Barbie,
mashed potatoes,
fried baloney,
the gag reflex.

She shuts her eyes,
snubbing the town’s lens
zooming in on her culpability,
incensed at the sun’s insolence,
rising despite collisions,
the most recent death toll.

She groans, engulfed in tokens
of admirers, embattled by,
dreading the delirium of desire,
one resolutely phlegmatic
as the other effuses, plummets.
No incidental leaf
but a loose lunatic rook
lit mate old school canon
raining down like a medicine ball.

Men ostensibly,
on, off or side tracked
interpersonals interpenetrating
fictions, demands, tousles
delightfully incessant.

No accident this transport back
to forsaken tracks,
giant drainpipe beneath.
I engineered it.
I, of humble origin,
melancholy disposition
provide stimulation,
provoke the atmosphere,
orchestrate the robberies.

I, in the cliché of a crisp white shirt
and black hat
inflict pain, increase pressure,
draw hostility, reel in crisis
commonly referred to
as authentic experience.
I dare to sprawl,
invite expansion
as vital to my vitals
as blood on needlework.

Muses & Troubadours

Journal

Yikes! Really living my art, senses heightened, everything merging. I awaken in the novel, visiting characters. Ideas! Such a lovely escape from the pressures and banality of life, inner poor girl happy to recycle pain, angst, channel it into fiction. Not sure it works to exorcise but surely it informs, lends authenticity. This is what I wanted, to be caught up in the work of writing, free of ruts. Discussions over the dinner table cause me to jump up, make notes. Insert here. Add this. Remove that. My son was talking about a friend complaining about the yahoos next door firing guns to celebrate 4th of July, which made me recall a character’s fixation with firearms. When our hero Fiona lived in Los Angeles, she didn’t dare go out at midnight New Year’s Eve for the same reason, neighbours’ penchant for shooting up into the air, each year someone injured or killed. Only one reason why she returns to Vancouver as dismayed as she is to discover the city’s burgeoning gang activity.

Hectic times ahead; Summer Dreams Literary Festival, Saturday, July 13 in the afternoon, I’m on a panel; Music and the Muse: Exploring the Links Between Musicality and Textuality in Verse. Bridging the Gap Between the Poetic Bard and the Minstrel with Catherine Owen and Leanne Averbach. Moderator: Sean Cranbury. Poets pontificate! A talk on what I call spoken word song, the fusion of verse and music.

Sunday, Aug. 21, I’m honoured to be reading at the Queer Film Festival’s bill bissett retrospective feature, Strange Grey Day This at Emily Carr with Daniel Zomperelli, Elizabeth Bachinsky, and bill! Hosted by Billeh Nickerson. Come on down, we can celebrate at the closing gala later that day. Thursday, Sept. 1, I’m featured at Twisted Poets Salon with the inimitable Al Mader.  And I’m looking forward to a reunion of sorts with my punk rock homies at Zippy Pinhead’s birthday party at the Fairview Pub Sept. 9. See you in the city!

Bad girls flip the the bird at grease balls

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And Jesus loves them. I haven’t been blogging. I haven’t been journaling. I’m pissed off. I have been sick. Sick and tired, of the rain and cold. It’s going to be one of those non-summers we British Columbians suffer now and then. Fuck it. I’m turning this year around. 2011 is the year  I complete my novel. Despite everything. Everyone. I have been caught up in the daunting task of cutting and revising, 150 pages slashed; didn’t think I could do it, so glad I did. When that’s complete I’ll restructure if need be. Here’s a segment of The Town Slut’s Daughter, partially set in Vancouver’s punk rock scene. You’ll have to excuse the wacky formatting, WordPress sucks. I’m afraid there’s no excuse for lapsed Catholic protagonist Fiona Larouchelle. She is not a nice girl.

“Look who’s on TV!” Rita pointed to Joey Shithead on The Vancouver Show with Pia Shandel.
“Ha!” hooted Fiona. “She looks like a Pia Shandel.”
Joey handled bubbly Pia with aplomb. Fiona threw down three tickets to the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre emblazoned with Hit Someone You Love.
“Great!” said Rita. “What’s with all the misogyny? I thought the scene was so equalitarian.” Rita grabbed the kettle, turned on the tap. “Well, I suppose it is if you happen to be young, white and male.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t go.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t. Who is Transformer Productions, anyway?”
“I don’t know. Never heard of them. But it’s a great bill! Rabid, Pointed Sticks, SubHumans, K-Tels.” Angus was a hero for digging up a new venue, O’Hara’s, a derelict nightclub on the pier at the foot of Main. Her father remembered it from when he was a young buck roaming the streets. “I wanna go. We gotta see the K-Tels.”
“Okay. We’re doing our bit to fight sexism, right? We play electric guitars!”

The next night Fiona, Shannon and Rita drove down to the show, a near riot on by the time they arrived.
BAM!     THUD!     WHAM!
“Hey,” said Fiona, “it’s like Batman.”
Entering cautiously, they noticed a riser to their right and looked up into the scowling faces of thirty or so longhaired bikers and fat, bearded yahoos greeting them with upraised chairs and benches. A table whizzed past their heads, crashing against the wall, but when the girls advanced, like a sea parting, the bikers moved aside to let them pass.
“I guess we don’t pose a threat,” said Fiona, “or maybe they’re sparing the girls.”
Shannon laughed. “As if they have policy.”
They found the K-Tels soldiering through Automan, bassist Jim Bescott and green-haired Art so on the beam, they deftly dodged an assortment of projectiles. Fuming, Rita sidled up to a big greaser just as he was about to launch a Labatt’s can and grabbed him by the arm.
“Hey asshole! Those are my friends.”
He nearly choked on his tongue. Rita stood guard until the frustrated hit man left.
Like hyenas tracking a herd of wildebeest, their tormenters plucked the youngest, sickest, stupidest kids from the crowd, methodically pummeling all attitude out of them. The Bowery Boys were on rodeo clown duty, goading the creeps, pulling them off their friends, getting in a few punches of their own.
“This is nuts!” shouted Fiona. She waved at Oona and Spooner across the room. They dashed over. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” sputtered Oona. “What the fuck is going on?”
“I dunno, it’s bizarre,” said Spooner, glancing nervously about the room, “every biker and grease-ball in the Lower Mainland must be here. I heard they’re even coming up from Bellingham.”
Is a mob the sum of its parts? Fiona could see no eye contact, with each other or their prey. No motive, no reason. No head. No heart.
Shannon surveyed the pandemonium. “Well, if this is Valentine’s Day, it must be hell.”
“Where’s security?”
“Maybe this is security,” Rita said grimly. “I’m having visions of Altamont.”
They exited at the first opportunity. Fiona saw Dennis wrestling a Continue reading →

THE LAST PING

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This poem reminds me of the Ben Folds/Joe Jackson/William Shatner piece, Common People. “Dance, drink, screw, ‘cos there’s nothin’ else to do!” Sometimes with fatal consequences.

The Last Ping

After the girl is gone,
long gone, out of character,
statistical, presumed dead,
the verifying department
hops to it, sniffs out
the revelers,
especially the life of the party,
his liquid engine of beer,
anyone with information,
to confirm names and addresses,
substantiate stories.
They watch your gestures.
Read your face.

Description: Hair Blonde,
Eye Color Blue, Height 5′ 1″,
Weight 101 lbs, phoenix tattoo
ascending from the right hip.
Bright, unintentional dropout,
inadvertently delinquent.
Boyfriend person of interest
according to the RCMP.
Always. He passes the flyer.
Her cell phone may be dead too,
last ping traced—pinpointed in fact—
to here. Right here.
Her last known location.
Right where we’re standing.
This town. Your pretty little town.

Fucken eh.
Check your property,
your shallow ditches,
So petite, she takes up little space
in one’s psyche,
turkey vultures leading us
not to her
body but to a deer carcass.
She was last seen
wearing a blue ski jacket,
white blouse, black jeans.
Parents pray
to repair the squabbles. Home.
Local kids clam up,
weighting the secret with smoke.

A teenaged girl can forget
she’s graduated
the fenced-in yards of childhood
to this vast plain
where condoms provide safety,
sympathy muttered. Crocodile.
She forgot
townies find transcendence in fury,
one vaguely recalling
Eminem shouts,
a catfight in the backyard.
She looked kinda posh,
smashed herd fumbling,
fawning, smooshing,
pushing, over, under.
Dancing, sending her sailing.

DIRTY WORK . . .

poems

. . . but somebody’s got to do it, write the poetry. Relationships are good for at least a couple of poems. And “all relationships have meaning.” Right?

DIRTY WORK

I am your golden jackal, shining, grinning.
I wield the flashlight, forge trails through night
Blooming jasmine, metropolis serfdom.
I machete weed, tamp down ale induced panic.

In the morning you put on the jacket,
Admit the thrills, hips, heat up our cunning.
Get to chopping. Onions, peppers, kindling.
Start the fire. Sweep. Brew the java. Rouse.

We share bacon, scrambled eggs and signal
Amidst tender yanks. Shrieks! Gentle scuffles.
You entice me with coca juice. Pay day.
Pony rides. New jeans. A rumpus in the hay.

Ack! Your alarm. Smallness restored, inner priest
Rises to free the calves we toiled so hard to corral.

Birds abide despite bears, brutal times

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In a funk. Big time. Times are tough. Brutal. Interesting. Pondering human desire, nothing logical about it. Feeling guilty for feeling depressed. Funny how that works. I’m such a barometer of the times. Suck it up though 2011 sucks. Yeah, the boogie man’s gone but we all know Bin Laden’s death hardly provides a solution. *sigh* So uninspired. Spring fever? What spring? Interminable winter, so cold, I neglected to bring in the bear-attracting bird seed. They’re up from hibernation early this year, as last season wasn’t a good one for berries. I looked out my kitchen window the other day to see our friendly neighbourhood black bear raiding the feeder. They are incredibly agile, despite their massive paws, claws. He handily pulled the pole down and emptied both containers. I put it all in storage, haven’t seen him since. I posted this picture on Facebook and was surprised by the reaction; much fear mongering talk of bear attacks. Sure, it’s within the realm of possibilities, but if I couldn’t co-exist with bears, I’d live the city. I’m more afraid of people.

Maybe my agitation is due to metamorphosis. I’d like to shed a skin, or two. Spread my wings. I read somewhere that “when a creature first emerges from a cocoon, it can feel useless. It is neither what it once was, nor is it fully what it is about to become. It feels lost, bemused, more as if something has been taken from it than something has been given.” That’s me lately; useless. Bemused, but emerging from dormancy, hibernation.

And the sun’s out today, warmer temperatures predicted, the Canucks winning. I’m singing and playing guitar and the boys took me out for dinner. I think the flu and the worst of my allergies may be abating. And I have my birds. Always. I put out the hummingbird feeder and a pair of Rufous buzzed over immediately. In my Vancouver hotel room last week, I sat by the window, eating lunch, admiring the view when a seagull landed on the railing. He lingered, motionless, until I decided to share, put a leftover oatmeal cookie on the balcony. They have snow white feathers, eyes the colour of beets and purple feet. Radiant really, though we don’t usually think of them with any admiration, probably because they’re scavengers. I was astonished at his nimble beak, how he picked up every tiny speck of crumb. Resourceful. Tough. No, I’m not complaining. I have nothing to complain about.