“Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern
resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

Posted this quote for I have been writing of the stars. They are close here on Bowen, on any clear night create an enchanting tableau. At breakfast this morning I spoke of my father lost in a blizzard. He had been posted in the Yukon during a stint in the RCAF. He was wandering for four days and finally able to navigate back to the base by the North star which figures largely in my poem, “Whore In The Eddy” wherein I fantasize about lying in a puddle with a prostitue. A dead prostitute.

Whore In The Eddy

Gazes up at ballooning clouds as if imagining
frogs. Giraffes. Corvettes and barns.
As if Neptune’s head has heard
her pleas. Sent me. She looks like a mannequin.
As if by law of nature, a stripped woman’s body
looks like a mannequin after it floats
to the surface in a rainforest denuded
by steam donkeys and timber sales. All matter
from the depths is netted by log jams.

She stares at me. Cannot see
the pebbles embedded in my knees.
Or my face, not so sweet.
No bubbles, just the stillness
of standing water. No trace DNA.
No hard earned cash. Only cool airstreams
of aspen leaves. My grasping hand
takes hers, skin gliding onto my fingers
like a glove. A device. We share features
any porno-masticating, regular working stiff
joe wants in his garage
between the red pickup and the Crestliner.

We watch the rim of night, a coiled
arm of stars, their slow light two million
years too late. Naked eyes decipher
Orion the hunter. Cassiopeia. Bright knots
of the Double Cluster. Mars appears.
I look the other way, to the North Star.

“Nobody wins by looking back.” -from a Nancy Greene Raine article

After nursing Junior and his virus all week, I escaped a serious bout of shack wacky wiredness by visiting my massage therapist Karolina and her healing hands. I’m a mess when I don’t see her on a regular basis. She drains the tension and mucus and God-knows-what else right out of me. Took Brinda for a pleasant walk with the sun poking through the clouds. People are starting to allude to spring. Ah, the anticipation. Went into the Cove, rented a movie, bought some popsicles for the kid. Popsicles are de rigueur when suffering with a cold. He’s been amusing himself with his new game, Rock Band. Strange for me to watch these caricatures in a video game. It provides good music appreciation I suppose but I wish he’d learn to play the guitar, or any instrument. Will he get the bug some day, in the real world? We shall see.

Been working hard revising and editing my poetry manuscript all day. Finally decided on “Sky Busting” for a title. I polled friends and though “Window Seat” received a few more votes, I’m going with “Sky Busting” because that’s my preference. I think it’s a little more intriguing than “Window Seat” which sounds so passive. Today I’ve found quite a few things to change. Not glaring boo boos, just more refined word choices and line breaks. I have to do this work in stages. I get burned out if I try to do it all at once, can’t really be SEE the poems after a while. I have to shelve them for a while before revisiting them. So I’m going to re-print and re-read a couple more times and not worry about how long it’s taking despite my anxiety about getting the manuscript off.

Got a notice about the new Spoken Word program at Banff, facilitated by friends Sheri-D Wilson and Ian Ferrier. Would be lovely to attend. I think it’s a residency, but I’m too busy doing spoken word to be studying and I’m glad for that. Christ. I’ve been *doing* spoken word since the 80s! AURAL HEATHER cd launch is coming up May 29 at the Media Club and I’m up to my eyeballs in logistics and rehearsals and the final stages of production.

Was not impressed with “The Brave One.” Terence Howard is still hot however and I will always admire Jodie Foster as an actor but the script was weak, the whole premise pretty far-fetched. There was some innovative editing near the beginning of the film with cutting between their bodies making love and being manipulated on the operating table. I noticed a scene too that was very reminiscent of Taxi Driver wherein Travis is in a convenience store and blows away the robber. Was in intentional? Foster was only 13 in that classic, playing a young prostitute.

Wish I’d learned how to ski. I lived in the Kootenays like Nancy Greene but nobody took me skiing. I was a demon on a pair or skates though.

I’m a newb. I was amused yesterday to see a squirrel sitting on the bird feeder tray and astonished this morning to see a doe with tongue outstretched to get at it. What’s next? Fortunately, cougars-mythical and otherwise-are carnivores.

First rays of sunshine in too long and I was stuck inside. I needed to rearrange my manuscript and prepare it for the submissions process. I needed to practice too which means lots of memorization. Got to get off-book. This is performance poetry after all. Weekend Aural Heather rehearsals with Roderick went well. We don’t agree on which poems to perform live but we’ll work it out. A lot of them are wordy, which works fine on the cd but a live show has to be engaging and people get taxed pretty easily it seems. Of course it depends on which venue and audience. Coffee houses and festivals might provide more receptive audiences but I think it’s critical to present a dynamic set of works. In any case, I’ve been working on procuring the contract and the tour so it’s a good feeling to get back to the music.

I bought a Shure 58 microphone the other day. I think it might be the first time I’ve ever done that though I’ve certainly sang into enough of them over the years. I’ve come a long way from beg, borrow, steal to go and out and get what I need. I have the wherewithal and some strong support now. I desperately wanted to be independent as a young adult and I lived on my own for nearly ten years. It was very much a hand-to-mouth existence but I was resourceful and young. I bought many of my clothes at thrift stores and didn’t have many possessions. I could move in a matter of hours and often did though I found a one-bedroom apartment for $250. a month in Echo Park and consequently resided there for four or five years. It had rooftop access and my friends and I had many tar beach parties up there. On the fourth of July we would watch the fireworks from Dodger Stadium. I worked part-time so I could devote most of my time to performing in LA’s blazing post-punk scene, writing songs and poetry. I was happy—a little misguided, a little confused but living my life, my way. I was very conscious of the fact it was precious and a gift I was giving myself. I was going to have a happy childhood, dammit.

More on this later. I’m bagged. It’s been a long day but I managed to catch up on email, meet some deadlines, practice and get some work done on my manuscript.

Thought prints. All these are, the incessant dialogue in my head. In a funk. Designer fruit. Sick of snow. Winter. A gun shop called the Gunatorium. Mammogram tomorrow. Ugh. Will the U.S have a black or woman president? Downing virtual shots with virtual friends on Facebook. I’m getting a sore throat and my lash conditioner fell down the toilet. Boo hoo, could not retrieve it. I’m feeding wild birds. What does that say? I derive satisfaction out of watching them feed and flit about, especially in winter.

I found myself lecturing my kid on punctuality this morning as he slept in again. Continue Reading »

Woke up to snow. Again. Ugh. God, I long for California. Exactly what did the groundhog indicate on Saturday? Sun emerged around 1 pm so walked the dog and got a little Vitamin D. Had to go to the Cove to run errands and it was hairy getting out of the yard still socked in with snow but my trusty old Volvo hauled us out.

Found myself trying to explain Facebook to a friend in Barcelona which made me wonder about the state of social networking in Europe. Guess I’ll see for myself in the fall when the Aural Heather tour hits the continent. Came across the first Facebook app I’ve enjoyed in a while, the Shakespearean Insult Generator. I called Scott Beadle a “fobbing, shrill-gorged waterfly” and I’m a “craven, dizzy-eyed harpy” as far as he’s concerned. Much fun.

Spend a fair bit of time gazing out my window. Funny, I used to do the same thing while living in a funky old $400. a month house in East Vancouver. It was where Conny Nowe and I rehearsed with our band, the Zellots. My room had a view of the Lions. Now here I sit a hundred years later on the other side of the North Shore mountains, still an artist in pursuit of the muse.

Recovering from a wild weekend, well, wild for me these days. Booked accomodations for the beasts at the Dog Ranch and a cheap hotel room for us in town so we could attend our dear friend Kyle Hawke’s Groundhog Day party. Not sure it was in honour of groundhogs though he did request food with holes in it. I suspect it was just a convenient date for a party which I am as ready for as spring. Been feeling a little shack wacky lately. It was good to get out and off this rock.
My AURAL HEATHER collaborator, Roderick Shoolbraid and I were meeting in the afternoon for a photo shoot with Lincoln Clarkes. We need pictures for the cd. It was a hectic day, Saturday, and it seems no matter how much time I give myself to prepare I’m always in a panic Continue Reading »

“It is unknown as to when the first spoem was started as several writers and bloggers have claimed to have created the form. However, it’s estimated that the idea began in 1999 as Satire Wire [1] held their first spam poetry writing contest in 2000 [2]. Animator Don Hertzfeldt began writing spam poems in his production journal in 2004 [[3]]. Translator Jorge Candeias wrote a “spoem” a day during a whole year, between the 5th of May 2003 and the 5th of May 2004, using spam subject lines as title and inspiration; these are in Portuguese, based on spam bylines mostly in English. The creation of spoetry is similar to William Burroughs’ cut-up technique in that individual subject lines of messages are pieced together in poetic form; making the creation of spoetry an exercise not in creativity as much as in having an eye for the unexpected. The end result can be crafted into any literary form the author desires: haiku, concrete, limerick, dada, and so on. Thus, spoetry is not a literary form but rather a means of creating poetry.”

I too have been recycling the spam cramming my In Box as a kind of found poetry:

spoem haiku

o u whiz just try
i donofrio speak pi
e thus dominates

knife laces grew two
power steps, hard disk results
prizes seal vectors

minimum fastest
blue curves behave, light figures
binary surprise

dignity healing
edgar’s stripped lounge magnetism
wash infringed body

cappuccino chairs
discuss classical transport
dad’s quickest love match

meet miss frown metals
dashed depictions, wrecked panes
sorry soup spoons stuck

generating flash
magazine window cited
must include spring whirs

double tetractys spoem

clam
neck dates
giant ear
fast way plane big
own green kind deep real better by before

produce object wind shouts wear mother out
learn soil yard show
cover all
patch oil
tames

spoem cinquains

Imbibe
trusty vichy
demurring messiahs
employ hoochie blue lanterns
brainstorms

Acquaint
tiger skunk haze
gosling teeth refreshing
chuck paleontology brine
downtown

Glibly
fleece franchises
jettison floor models
sacrilege by deafening runes
business

Barn heart
kimono bee
raises bride in one day
Virgin forensic coffee klatch
renders

double tetractys spoem 2

think
rank jump
vows hit large
found side decides
last red area children thing low

cross jewelry silk copies rock game gone
raise energy
speed doses
forest
drills