{"id":767,"date":"2011-09-07T10:28:10","date_gmt":"2011-09-07T18:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/onelife\/?p=767"},"modified":"2011-09-07T10:28:10","modified_gmt":"2011-09-07T18:28:10","slug":"10-years-of-end-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/?p=767","title":{"rendered":"10 Years of End Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
HH-World Trade Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And we’re still here, though it is time to kiss summer goodbye, slowly, for it lingers. Perhaps we are being granted the sunshine we were deprived of in July.<\/p>\n

Last Thursday I featured with Al Mader at the Twisted Poets Literary Salon at the Prophouse Cafe <\/a> in\u00a0 Vancouver, a lively Pandora’s Collective<\/a> series hosted by Bonnie Nish and Warren Dean Fulton, proprietor Ross Judge a most congenial host. I felt right at home amongst a museum-like collection of artifacts, lighting, posters, memorabilia and knick-knacks, hence the name. I thought it brave to open a caf\u00e9 across the street from the long-established Uprising Bakery on Venables, but nonplussed Ross is successfully cultivating his own clientele. I wasn’t surprised to see people come in to chat, eat, drink and hang out. So though I had time to kill, it flew by in such good company. Ross is a hockey mad historian and very knowledgeable about the history of the Vancouver as well.<\/p>\n

Witty, kooky Al Mader took requests and played his driftwood saxophone though I think his vocal impression sounds more like a clarinet. Catherine Owen debuted her fabulous Hot Sonnet <\/a>calendar featuring photographs by Patrik Jandak<\/a>, poems by Fred Wah, Kate Braid, Miranda Pearson, C.R. Avery, George Bowering, Maxine Gadd and eight others. I was told my performance was stellar and new friend Wanda Kehewin gave me one of the loveliest compliments I’ve ever received. She said I delivered every word as if it were precious. Of course, every word is precious. To me. To us. Then later over a late supper, my friend Rhonda said nearly the same thing. Perhaps I am finally hitting my mark.<\/p>\n

So back to the grind which includes Visible Verse Festival<\/a> programming, homeschooling and teaching Junior to drive. I indulged myself with a lot of movies this summer so back to my reading list as well.<\/p>\n

Good night Irene! Let’s hope hurricane season is over along with the end of end times?\u00a0 We always have hope. Of course the 10th anniversary of 9\/11 looms on the horizon. I suppose it’s appropriate to remember where I was that fateful day, perhaps even de rigueur<\/em>? I was on the street when a passerby asked,\u00a0 did you hear? The Pentagon was bombed! Frantic and with a deep sense of foreboding, I was soon frustrated in my attempts to find out what was happening; we had no cable, or AM radio, CBC playing greatest classical hits as usual. CBC News kicked in at last and we heard about jetliners crashing into the World Trade Center. We must have gone to a friend or relative’s place to watch the news coverage but I’ll never forget my shock at seeing the towers come down. Brutal. It hadn’t occurred to me they could topple.\u00a0 New York was a very different place in the 80s when I resided there but I have fond memories and love to visit. As we were listening to the radio, the announcer said, “Many Canadians live and work in New York City,” and then I heard my best friend Cathy’s boyfriend Dave Gregg’s voice as he was interviewed in the back of a cab going up 5th Avenue, which made the day all the more surreal. My son was only 7 at the time, too tender to assimilate any of it so we shielded him. Ten years later, it’s a familiar topic of discussion along with many other disturbing issues. He is very well informed and suffers no dearth of opinions.<\/p>\n

Also de rigueur<\/em>? My 9\/11 poem, written in 2002, from “Three Blocks West of Wonderland.”<\/p>\n

SOAR<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before you-know-what, you-know-when,
\nI flew in an airplane. I won\u2019t say what.
\nOr when. People are sick from it.
\nNASDAQ crashed. Family plan with it.<\/p>\n

I remained on the upswing. Going somewhere.
\nChicago specifically, e-poets\u2019 geo-conference.
\nI am digerati. A doyenne of new media culture.
\nStill, airport security confiscates my apple.<\/p>\n

My orange. Half my dinner. They take nothing
\nfrom the hinky, hacky-sacking Travis Bickle
\ndoppelg\u00e4nger who must pose more of a threat,
\nthough that’s like comparing potheads to divas.<\/p>\n

Pick up my e-ticket. Wait with the other sulky,
\nwannabe passengers, SeaTac muggy as a laundromat,
\nair fouled with KFC. Machines vend to the grounded.
\nConcrete pillars tremble in the wake of each landing.<\/p>\n

Since this is before you-know-what, I don\u2019t assume
\na 747 will take out the Space Needle or land
\nright through us. I don\u2019t equate jet with bomb.
\nI need only worry about the quake. The Big One<\/p>\n

Vancouver and Seattle\u2014sitting queenly
\nupon the Juan de Fuca fault line\u2014are overdue for.
\nI am anticipating flight, savouring my thrills,
\nbumpy joyrides, like motherhood.<\/p>\n

Junior calls. Yes dear, Mommy will be home soon.
\nBefore the split, his father cautioned us:
\nMercury in our mouths. Vaccines.
\nPopulation control. Microwaves.
\nA conspiracy of urologists.
\nFluoride. Fallout. Wheat.<\/p>\n

He has found a healer. Can he be cured?
\nWe all know I\u2019m doomed to be infected.
\nI\u2019m the one who will eat tainted salmon
\nat the barbeque, the one with stretch marks<\/p>\n

and eyes closed in the photographs. The one
\nwho defected, the one who didn’t want
\nwhat he wanted, sixteen hours on a film set,
\nbaby languishing with a sitter.<\/p>\n

He gets on the phone. Another forecast.
\nI dreamed you died in a plane crash. I saw you
\nflailing about in the ocean with your books.
\nOh stop polluting my trip with your Eeyore pooh.<\/p>\n

I am part of a feminist plot against fathers,
\nand it was a controlled explosion
\nset off by the U.S. government.
\nSuddenly he is solvent, taking me to court,
\nre-staking his claim to our precious cargo,
\ncrusading to save his son from the new world order.<\/p>\n

I board. Window seat. Always, despite dire warnings.
\nJunior likes to compare the people to ants.
\nHouses are Lego, mountains, papier m\u00e2ch\u00e9.
\nWe land. Kurt appears in the flesh, our virtual rapport
\ndownloaded to O\u2019Hara minus the time-outs and errors.<\/p>\n

I feel at home in Chicago, loose in its Loop, towers,
\nArt Institute. Go to live in Chagall\u2019s epic blue
\nglass dream for a day, emerge bestowed with wings,
\nlike all his lovers and madonnas.<\/p>\n

I have not flown since you-know-what,
\nyou-know-when. We are saddled with dread
\nafter witnessing steel crumple like tin.
\nIt is safe to grieve. Cockpits secured.
\nAir marshals on board. We will fly again,
\nprepared to take down any motherfucker
\nwho thinks he\u2019s going to hijack anyone.<\/p>\n

We will soar, for we are armed,
\nknowing where the lies land us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And we’re still here, though it is time to kiss summer goodbye, slowly, for it lingers. Perhaps we are being granted the sunshine we were deprived of in July. Last Thursday I featured with Al Mader at the Twisted Poets Literary Salon at the Prophouse Cafe in\u00a0 Vancouver, a lively Pandora’s Collective series hosted by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[16,315],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}