Altar-ed State

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Reeling after returning yesterday from the Sage Hill Writing Experience. I am now officially an experient! And honoured to be so. Man, I swear I’m a changed woman, all charged up and ready to complete the final draft of my novel. I think I must still be running on the adrenalin I felt every day while at St. Michael’s monastery-retreat. It did get quiet now and then but each time I left my room, I encountered a fabulous writer, or two, or three, all of us on the same wavelength. They get it. We get each other. We’re a bunch of maniacs. Student. Teacher. It didn’t matter. We quickly formed an alliance, a fraternity, not unlike the Franciscan monks hosting us. And there is nothing like being parted from one’s crutches! Sage Hill removed me from reality. Thank Christ. How long will it last? I am so overwhelmed, I can’t possibly depict it all. So much happened within each day. I will start by recalling some of the most robust memories, and go from there.

My Sage Hill cohorts started calling me New York after a drunken local yokel at the Lumsden bar turned around, pulled down his bright yellow aviator sunglasses from beneath the brim of a formidable black felt Stetson to holler, “Hey New York! I looovvve yer hat.” It is a stunning chapeau, reminiscent of the one Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, and a bit out of place in small-town-Saskatchewan but it keeps the sun off my face so very well. “I like your hat,” I replied, which was true enough. It was one of those tense moments when you’re not sure how things will go. The dude could be benign or he could be psycho. How is one to know? And I kept thinking, I’m just as small town as you are Buster. So I was a little irritated with my pal Leesa (Dean) when she said to him, “Why don’t you trade hats?” I know she was just having fun, but I told her under my breath not to escalate the situation. If she’d been thusly hatted, she could react any way she liked but not when I’m the one in the guy’s sights. The rest of us played it cool, me and Gerry and Susan (Stenson) and Anna and the yahoo soon roared off in his pick-up. Then we all went inside to play pool, Team Doritos and Team Mosquito. I took the last two winning shots! In a dress and heels no less. I was shocked though I may have hustled them a little. “It’s been so long since I played.” It might be a bit like riding a bicycle. Then the goofy guy’s cousin came over and apologized for his antics earlier and bought us a round, a pleasant way to cap a pleasant evening.

Live from Lumsden!

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On a plane, heading to Sage Hill for 10 days of writing, editing and working on my fiction, book launch behind me.  Everything came together to form a fabulous, momentous occasion. Good crowd. I sold a swack of books!  At W2 Storyeum we were provided with a lovely, spacious room replete with giant, fantastic mural on one wall. “Word wizard” Kedrick James is decidedly the host with the most, providing much mirth and mischief throughout. Shannon Rayne in her adorable pixie cut kicked things off. Shannon makes a distinction between poems for performance and poems for the page. I think she said her closing piece about cunnilingus was written for the page. I must write them for voice. Hey, whatever it takes. Then we darkened the room for the world premiere of Bushwhack. I was a little concerned because Continue reading →

Pushing past mania. . .

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I hope! Here I sit, looking past my screen out my window at the Strait of Georgia to the islands beyond, Mayne, Pender, Galiano, wishing I could appoint the trees and sky as muses but there is simply to much to attend to, book launch party-wise to get much writing done. I will persist though, have at least a few more hours to compose. Check out Daniel Zomparelli’s article about it at Geist. Thanks Daniel! I’m getting excited, found a lovely dress to wear at blushingboutique on Richards downtown and will start rehearsing tonight. See you Saturday!

“Dirty Work,” a sonnet Heather Haley style

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Post Canada Day, feeling pretty happy, relieved that I was born here, considering how brutal life is in so many other countries. We’ve got the basics down, just need to fine tune. Post Olympics, many people go on about how difficult it is for Canadians to be patriotic. I think we’d rather be quietly nationalistic, which is quintessentially Canadian in temperament. We don’t need to wear it on our sleeves or shoot bullets into the air.

I can’t rhyme to save my life! Actually, I can of course, but it’s just not in me. I don’t rhyme when I write songs either. Below be a sonnet, Heather Haley style, that I wrote for Geist‘s Jack Pine Sonnet contest:

Dirty Work

I am your golden jackal, shining, grinning.
I wield the flashlight, forge trails through night
blooming jasmine, metropolis serfdom.
I machete weed, 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 mango juice. Pay day.
Poker. New jeans. A rumpus in the hay.

Ack! Your alarm! Restores smallness, inner priest
rising, freeing the calves we toiled to corral.

Mourning, messages

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Sun instead of rain. Bonus. Writing quite a lot, most of which can’t be posted, about events personal and searingly painful. Too much grit, not enough lyric. A death in the family works to put matters of the heart into perspective though. I can say I’m fortunate to have compassionate, intelligent friends in my corner.

I’m so sad, weary, jaded. I wonder if anything appalls me anymore. I was more bemused by the antics—or tactics—because the Black Bloc is not an organization, Black Bloc is a tactic—at the G-20 summit in fair Toronto over the weekend. It seems their message becomes more obscured with each year of their annual bash-in, one reason I’m sure most people chose to watch the World Cup on Saturday instead. It’s all so predictable, tedious. This, a few days after a discussion of anarchy with Sean Cranbury of Books on the Radio as it pertained to punk rock and the Internet. I suppose that is their message. Anarchy. I understand that anarchy does not equate with violent disorder, that the anarchists have gotten a bad rap, but I don’t believe their utopian vision is feasible. Not in this world.

I have always been suspect of mixing art and politics and none of my comrades in punk rock were card-carrying anarchists. I suppose Gerry Useless of the Subhumans was the most radicalized among us and perhaps the only, at least to that degree. Zealotry is zealotry, something my Zellots band mate Conny Nowe and I were aware of as we chose a resonant name. Zealotry is dangerous, futile, often resulting in death. To me, being an artist is a political statement.

The information highway may be swamped with billboards these days but its essence is the same. Everybody and his dog has a blog. What could be more populist? Which is more democracy than chaos. I detest capitalism, abhor the yawning chasm between the rich and the poor—don’t get me started! —but until something better comes along, will not ascribe to anarchy, nor tolerate the chaos anarchists create. Take your Molotovs and your machetes and shove ‘em.

MINE

I find a message
via vanity plate,
a gearshift in the gutter,
an egg,
turquoise and high in a nest.
I make it my own.
Always.
Depreciation?
Not in my house!
It holds its value.
The toaster,
the red couch,
leftover lasagne,
my first stainless steel appliance,
the inherent drama
within
four walls.

And now I mourn.

I’ve been workin’ on the railroad…on a new poem…

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Roots. Here it be, the latest work-in-progress. The “I, engineer” here full of bravado. It’s not *me* that’s for certain. This redhead is acutely aware that she controls nothing. Do you think the switch in POV works?

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 the collisions,
the most recent death toll.

She groans, engulfed in tokens
of admirers, embattled by, Continue reading →

Bushwhacked!

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Check it out! Here it be, our videopoem adaptation of Bushwhack, the book I’ve collaborated on with visual artist Tina Schliessler. Some images are colour, some are black and white. As I said, my old school punk rock cohort Chris Coon and I composed the music and he scored Bushwhack in the 11th hour. I don’t have it up here yet but you can watch it at YouTube in the meantime if you like, and I hope you do.

BUSHWHACK

Lofty
midrib splayed
dual cedar blades
soar.

Bare, pushing bare,
singing Be,
columns stand,
bear heat, stings, ruptures
to make sound,
bring form to mound
and limbs.

Lowering maven trembles.
Hourly swells
rustle spores,
life,
galloping life.

Heaven supporting pillar
in this below
regenerates,
unfurls
her hide.

Slattern in the grove
whisker in Eve,
flymphs and treasure within.

Twisted sideways for the sake of light
shedding, blushing lost in cinnamon.

Barmy birds eye pistachios,
fooled by flying V’s Icarus molting.

Sunlight mackled nub,
pert tummy truncated mute,
spread legs spring ovules.

Giraffe freckled legs,
whistling monkey mouth
sashay past vivisection.

Closely furrowed strut
hecklers scattered to the wind.
Power to divine.
Her brawn perpetual,
stance, a pledge.

Persisting many seasons
in lace bark
peepers penetrate,
ogle, wink.
Spy or witness?

Coarsely fissured bole
muscles in on a finite niche,
damp, narrow, coastal fog belt.
Hardy, assurgent,
frontal as weather
prehensile Pan grasps
blundering larvae.
Spared by the hand fallers
for his perceived charm,
multifarious bush ape
trounces rot.
Flourishes!

Unfallen, unadorned
unashamed hydra,
free of thorns, caprice.
Plenary femme sole
indulging in whorling,
forsaking heaven for nirvana.
Brandishing titties,
budding insurgent
claws Adamite armour,
grips the root,
embraces the earth.

HOW TO REMAIN, the videopoem, or music video, as required

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Frazzled! I may not look it here but I am fried! Wiped out! Crashing post-wrap, but surfacing too, to all the tasks that have piled up back at the ranch. O isn’t it fun being an artist? Okay, I’m going to refrain from bitching, whining and moaning. For now.

O my poor blog! One Life is not enough! I’ve neglected it for the past few weeks, along with several other fronts, as I scrambled to finish up production on two videopoems in order to make Monday’s Zebra Poetry Film Festival deadline. How To Remain by AURAL Heather and Bushwhack, adapted from the book with visual artist Tina Schliessler. Both projects have left the building! In the post on their way to Berlin.

My old school punk rock cohort Chris Coon and I composed music and he scored Bushwhack in the 11th hour. We made several major changes in editing and worked through a mountain of snafus, naturally. Woo hoo! Josef and I were just discussing the incredible amount of work that’s gone into the 2:32 minutes of How To Remain and 5:07 minutes of Bushwhack. Lots of hoops to jump through for the application as well including the following synopses: Continue reading →

“Roaming On” from THREE BLOCKS WEST OF WONDERLAND

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Remember when you had to turn “Roaming” on your cell phone when you left your natural environment, vicinity, country? They’re pretty intuitive, universal now, right? I imagined a young rock luminary ducking rehab by fleeing to an island.

Roaming On

Stolen holiday. Far from rain flowers, unemployment,
asbestos, new town Basildon. Rangy teen virtuoso
activates Roaming on his mobile phone, eager
for a slice of country living, to court ravenous farmers’
daughters on Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark
and wonders, why do their cattle roam the earth?
Alfresco lobster lunches, no word for stress they say.
A tax haven. He scorns the salver of mini booze,

Sky Store catalogue, not in the market for pricey
cheap perfume, Gucci sunglasses. Not feeling
festive toward packets of party mix, he surveys
the movie, startled to hear a saw in its musical score.
Next to him, the butane-soaked Stratocaster he loves
to hump onstage. Bloomin’ airline won’t permit
his Marshal stack in the cabin though
despite his showmanship, dexterity.
Gobbling Valium, nicked from Mum, he drops off
to dream of hurtling through blue flame, ala Buddy Holly.

He survives to spy a Continue reading →