Tag Archives: Heather Susan Haley

A Larcenous Groom’s Cooling Off Period-new poem

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Or, a work-in-progress, more accurately.

A Larcenous Groom’s Cooling Off Period

He filches
tunes. Fuck copyright, its owners,
downloading steamy nude pics,
porno,
providing a market
not Paypal.
Fuck that shit.

He pilfers
pop for his hottie Charlotte,
slotted into the fridge door,
stacked in the pantry
enough Coke to fuel a militia.

He boosts
street signs. That’ll stop their godamn
touch-the-sky routine,
bestowing his buddy Guy
with a shiny, green Jackson Street,
a little glory for the double-wide.

He lifts
century-old chairs,
stuffed wildlife
from a leaning farmhouse,
fence thanking him for the laugh.
Now get the fuck outta here!

He pinches
his sister-in-law
in the pocketbook.
Emily, who mourned the loss
of her younger sibling
before being Hearsed away,
thank Christ.

He gives!
To the church
indirectly every time he mows
Our Lady of Sorrows’ lawn,
’cause they ain’t paying me enough
to do this shit
and it’s fucken hotter ‘n hell out here.

He ponders
his situation, odium state.
Heh heh.
How to beat the heat,
weather big bust backlash
all effen summer.

ROUGH CUT-new poem

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Despite all the poems I’ve spawned, each time I sit down to write, I have absolutely no confidence that I can do it. The anxiety and trepidation nearly overwhelm me, but I persist, work through it I suppose, hence the writing process; my process anyway which feels like torture. I know I am not alone.

It took four years to assimilate a nightmarish episode to the point where I was able to depict it. Remember, poetic license; the she is not necessarily me, at least not in every line, stanza. Here it be, a rough draft.

ROUGH CUT

After a gestation period of eighteen months
and several bouts of incommunicado-ness
she dutifully reported to the pica-
eater’s rat’s nest to defend her lump of art
before he nibbled away all the footage.

She sang his praises
pretending the indiscriminate cravings
and grinding teeth didn’t exist,
didn’t wear her down.

Meth-heads don’t generate, they spin
scratched vinyl, shoot blankly,
regurgitate turbulence,
brew dandelion wine
because it’s as free
as the blackberries and psilocybin.

Pirate of his own ship-
bachelor pad bouncy house,
he slept in a pocket on the floor,
close to the cache
when he wasn’t busy
snipping,
sniping.

Under the red toque
a mind’s eye so muddied
it could see nothing
move.
Images, frames, shots
blurred unremittingly.
Recreate, rework, repeat.
Repeat, repeat, repeat.

With no redress,
no kind release,
she considered murder.

Adapt or die

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Brutal, Darwinian. Natural. Around the dinner table last night my family and I discussed life in the 21st century, digital native Junior marveling at how much technology has changed in his 15 years on the planet. An island boy, he doesn’t text yet but understands the appeal of the iPad. Me too. I’m getting tired of lugging my laptop around but it wasn’t so long ago that my iBook provided mobility as compared to my desktop-personal computer. We want it all!

A self-taught code warrior since the age of 14, Josef mentioned there are now laptops available for a few hundred dollars, but right away, Junior dismissed the idea along with their limited capability and RAM. Josef admitted that a USB port and word processing doesn’t cut it these days. People want to text, Tweet, iTune, email, Facebook, GPS, snap photos, shoot video, read the Globe and Mail and Google on the go. They want power, convenience. What’s so great about having a pound of newsprint delivered to your house so you can read one, or two, maybe even three articles, before running out the door? So wasteful, inefficient, messy and involves an errand- hauling it all down to the recycling depot. The other adaptation we’ve all made in this family is watching television on the Internet. We no longer have the patience to sit through network TV and its oppressive and boring commercials.

I’m slowly learning to text, with both thumbs, motivated in part by Continue reading →

“Motoarson” or “Motoarsonist”?

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I’m not sure exactly where I’m at with this poem, what it needs, if it’s complete or not. Oh you know the process. I’m leaning toward “Motoarson” as the title but maybe “Motorarsonist” is better. What do you think? Let me know if you have any other suggestions, it’s a work-in-progress.

Motoarson

Distorted in stature
duke of a wilderness family
winced at the price of fuel,
the carcasses in his wake.
Malicious by accident
depending on which room
the grilling took place
by which cop,
the good or the bad.
Benevolently slamming
he braised ugly hams in the sun
daily ate a shit sandwich at the wheel
of the taxi he drove all over the city
and its sidewalks.
Nothing can stop a provocateur,
nothing can stop ignition,
the fires
set at night
to divert shame,
flee scandal.
Detonated plushly
the flames trebled, jumped rank
puddles, lakes, roads, cliffs,
roaring into the ocean
to singe mighty creatures,
giant squid and the blue whale.

Health care or semantics? Or should I say “wellness?”

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Whichever phrase I use, I will try to say it politely. Have you noticed there isn’t much flaming on Facebook? Enemies, or the merely tedious, are eliminated much the way the feeble are culled from a herd of wildebeest. The annoying and the toxic as well, get Blocked. Booted off, or out. It seems honest opinions are what you scroll through, consort with. How civilized.

The hot topic today is the historic passage of the US health care reform bill. Many fellow Canadians can’t understand why Americans—the majority of Americans according to the Republican party—wouldn’t want universal health care. I was an expatriate residing in the U.S. for many years, understand it and Americans better but still don’t get it either. Is it Canadian or Utopian to expect a civilized, affluent society to be ready, willing and able to care for its sick and, or elderly? Are we not human? Or are we wildebeest?

Born of revolution, many Americans possess a streak of individualism that borders on libertarianism, self-determination to the point of Darwinism, where only the middle class survive and the rich thrive. The United States has instituted Social Security and Medicare and pride themselves on providing their military with only the best health care. Why is it so difficult to ratchet it up another notch and provide insurance to the estimated 32 million other Americans without coverage? Because that constitutes socialism! Unlike Canadians, who—rightly or wrongly, strongly or weakly—depend on their governments to provide not only health care but infrastructure, education and a guaranteed income, many Americans equate universal health care with socialism, which equates with communism so many years after the Cold War. Perhaps it all comes down to semantics.

Oh and apparently the University of Ottawa, and most Canadians, according to its Vice-President  Francois Houle don’t want to hear American and professional talking head Ann Coulter’s opinion unless she’s not only honest, but also polite. He sent her a message basically warning her to watch her mouth. Bad move, which only backfired. Why recognize such a hate-mongering pundit for now she’s threatening to sue-milk it for all it’s worth-but of  course that’s a whole other can o’ worms, or rather, words.

Birthday Girl

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Birthday today, March 8. I’m not going to discuss ambivalent feelings—nobody’s getting younger—but rather focus on the lovely greetings I received from so many people around the world, a veritable deluge and then the boys took me out for dinner at Miksa. I got to eat a cheeseburger and more than one French fry.

I’ve been working on my novel, The Town Slut’s Daughter, actually writing the damn thing so long now it’s celebrating birthdays too. I’m going to make one more serious stab at it, revise it and in the process decide if I’m cut out to be a novelist. I’ve worked in many genres but perhaps I should stick to verse. I cannot recall whether some scenes are based on actual incidents or if I’ve fictionalized them. Like being at the Smilin’ Buddha with her mother. I can’t remember if my mom came to see me play or not. I think she did. I’d ask my surviving sister but we’re estranged. I think that comes out in the story or maybe that should go in another book. Or poem. I have to decide. After all this time I’m still trying to figure this stuff out. Pretty sad.

Preparing to attend the aforementioned Live Video Retrospective and screening Lenore Herb/Doreen Gray’s footage of a Rock Against Prisons benefit from 1979 which includes AKA, Rabid, Female Hands, Devices, Subhumans and my first band, the all-girl Zellots. Bill Scherk is making swag which is what the Double H image is about. It’s a fundraiser so I’m going to donate some Heather Haley merch. See you there perhaps? It should be interesting. I’m bringing a bodyguard.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010
7:00pm – 11:55pm
Little Mountain Gallery
195 east 26th Ave
Vancouver, BC

Here’s Bill’s description: On March 9th, the social forces will be mounting an assault on the staid and the bland. From a Punk Rock Swap Meet to a Celebrity Auction, from an ‘umplugged’ stage to a Grand Slam Poetry Karaoke by some of the big stars of 1979, we are getting the Old Gang Together. We review the fabulous footage by doreen grey from the seminal 1979 gig and plan out the 2010 resurgence of the Vancouver Explosion.

Come on out and celebrate Vancouver’s living heritage with those who made it happen: Rabid, Female Hands, Devices, Zellots, Tunnel Canary, AKA, Subhumans. Special appearances. Door Prizes. Live Webcast and Kissing Booth. Fishnet stockings. Oodles of prime shwag and fixins. Your every 1979 Punk nightmare come beautifully true.

My Three Blocks West of Wonderland interview with S.R. Duncan

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What are the three themes you explore most in the book?

Well, I depict the domestic front, though as Karen Solie-with whom I had the privilege of working with at Banff Arts Centre said-“the work is not domesticated. It reflects the nature of language as both a domestic product and as wild—impossible to fully manage or control.” I take a lot of risks in my poems, have an instinct for the weirdness of language, the sound and rhythm. I’ve written a suite of island poems, others about relationships and family; my life partner, my mother, my father, nieces, nephews and several inspired by my son. I also describe the battle front you could say, a suite of poems inspired by my travels with many alluding to our post 9-11 guilt and angst here in the *safe zone.* I think we’re collectively waiting for the other shoe to drop, a dread summed up with a flying motif and section titles named Sky Watchers, Wax Wings and Hard Landings. In addition, I’ve addressed the classic man against nature theme in Hot Dogger, My Mountain and Habitat. I’m intrigued by extreme sports enthusiasts, adrenalin junkies. My father was an intrepid hunter and fisherman, I grew up in the great outdoors but we never felt compelled to climb for the sake of climbing, just lived in the woods.

In a brief paragraph describe what you think the book is about (assuming there is a theme)?

I think The Theme is simply prevailing. One of the poems called How To Remain moves beyond mere survival, endurance, but portrays thriving, prevailing. Boldly. With panache. Style, grace and good humour. I hope.

Why did you write this book?

Because Continue reading →

It’s Mary I See

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Season’s Greetings friends from Heather, Josef and Lucas.

FIRST COMES MARY

Enchanted morning swim, matrix of turquoise
lagoon. Silver palometas, yellow damselfish
caress my legs. Casa Ocio walls whitewashed
in cactus milk. Coconuts on the lawn.
Palm fronds bowing, rippling like sea anemones.
Heavy mahogany Hemingway digs.
Gecko chirps from behind a gilt frame.
Cool terrazzo marble pulls sand from toes.
Double rain showerhead. Full throttle bottle bar
under a palapa. I ponder the power
of local masonry to withstand hurricanes,
why it seems odd to name them after men.

Who are you going to meet at a resort?
Mail carriers from St. Catharines. Chiropractors
from Winnipeg. Programmed amusements for fraught
tourists wary of beggars. Cockatiels. Street vendors.
They recoil at pulque, mescal, even tequila,
unless it’s frozen, goes down like a Slurpee.
They tap into barrels of Corona or deposit derrières
under cabanas to read the latest Grisham.

Beneath an arbor of pink bougainvillea
sit my dubious nephew, delicate girlfriend,
doubts sinking slowly into the deep
purple cushions. We are going to town. To Playa.
Soft brown doves adorn neon.
Turtles bask on green tile mosaic. Red house
hosts a party tableau of orange Fanta, blue corn
flowers, flags of paper lace, chocolate pan de huevos.
We smell agave, chili, vanilla, coriander and anise,
hear mariachis blaze a mighty La Bamba. Gobble
pumpkin tamales, snow-white beach cooling our heels.
Mongrels expire at the feet of professional urchins
soliciting pesos. I will not cry, pick a white handkerchief
festooned with poinsettias embroidered by his mother.
No, I can’t buy them all. Though downcast he will not cry.
Our Lady of Guadalupe provides. Protects.

Christmastime but it’s Mary I see. Everywhere. To the faithful
the forever virgin manifests in Continue reading →

A life roiling with verse, visible and otherwise

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Let there be confusion and terror, bleached bones in the closet, crows soaring into the chimney. Here I sit, sweating in the dead of winter, mind and guts roiling. My new collection, Three Blocks West of Wonderland, is out, I’m feeling fabulous and working hard at workin’ it. That’s actually the cover of Gabrielle Everall’s remarkable verse novel Dona Juanita and the love of boys but there is so much life within this one life! My life. Such as it is. Still, precious.

This frenzied phase began about a month ago, in Gibsons of all places. Brian Palmu kindly invited me to read my poetry along with my dear friend Peter Trower. I had reassured Pete that I would go up there to help clear out the 40-year long residence he was vacating. Small house, big job. So, I thought I would kill the proverbial two birds with one stone, keep my promise and do the reading.

Pete grovelled, grateful for my well-honed organizational skills. I walked in, opened cupboards and drawers, asking, “What’s this? You keeping it? Giving it away?” Then I made piles, one for the Salvation Army, one for Stuff To Keep and one for The Dump. This town still has a town dump! Bear Watching we called it in Salmo, cheap entertainment, featuring the best in local talent. Voila! The packing took a while, we had to retrieve boxes and tape, but the work was accomplished with a minimum of fuss.

The next day, Brian and his girlfriend Verna graciously hosted Pete and I Continue reading →

WINNIPEG DOWNS from Three Blocks West of Wonderland

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Ekstasis Editions, 2009

I’m finally coming up for air after 10 manic days of mania, albeit with a skewered neck and pain radiating up the entire left side of my skull. Occasionally it will roost in my temple or behind my ear. Well it’s true that the only out is through so here I sit, too messed up to focus or write so will blog another day and in the meantime share a poem from the new book, Three Blocks West of Wonderland.

WINNIPEG DOWNS

Games of chance. Sleight of hand. Games invented
to wash us out of her lush, chestnut hair,
setting little sister and me off to stoop and scoop
discarded tickets. Plucky as yard hens. Two bags
full. Staggered, not by one-too-many beers
but a winning wager, she whooped I can buy
you girls supper! Dragged around like carrion
in a diesel-rank yellow Beetle, we fought

to hide in the nausea-inducing verboten slot
where balled-up fists could not reach.
Dutifully she ordered a Mama burger
though professing to prefer the Teen. Two bites. I bet
she had no appetite after six months of whiplash prescription.
Her lumpy thumbs hefted fivers, entering the weekly lottery,
blowing crumbs of crud off a scratch & win ticket between pulls
on a machine-rolled fag, corduroy car coat pockmarked
with cigarette burns. Bingo-lottery-horse-and card-playing loser.

My hand. A mother rather like that species
of turtle that leaves the clutch in a lurch to hatch,
scuttling down to the tavern, I mean, ocean. To be fair,
she always returned to pour salt on our sugar
sandwiches or fry up some baloney. Midnight shuffle
back to our shack behind the white fence of birch
to catch me in the hook of her hand, give me something
to cry about. On special occasions
her bad nerves, moods, might recede.
Christmas especially mollified her.

A waitress—blinded by Chinese restaurant-light
brutal as the belly of an illuminated submarine—
she did not see us, our saucer eyes, our brightness,
so busy she was rubbing lucky charms
and rusty magic lamps. Telling stories. Lying
in bed reading True Confessions, liking her coffee crisp.

She can rest in her La-Z Boy, now that the little buggers
are grown. Against all odds.
Now that she’s toothless, painless and respectable
except for the plethora of aces up her sleeve.
In no position to coerce, she cajoles
us into playing gin rummy. Crib. I have to laugh,
the way she groans when dealt the joker,
as if she knows him intimately.