poetic accidentally

why write poems that make no sense, or, public language fails private feeling, or, take that, Wittgenstein, or, not just an enlish failure

2012-02-07T20:13:00.002-08:00

that study of so much

heaving and grasping

the price of perception dear

knuckles tap temple

rub twitches

inexplicable self consolation

of pixel world stationary

momentary

subsidiary

solitary

2012-02-07T20:02:00.000-08:00

drinking deep of

this cup f(what was I going to say?)

i shake and curve and heat

who knew

the feeling bit my tongue and bled

before i noticed

it rushed and like a globe

it spun

not a world but a shadow

of wishes

spent upon eternal moments gone

except this one with

shaking legs tingled muscle sparks of stillness

confessions of a poet

2012-02-07T19:57:00.001-08:00

at night

i haven't told a soul

i write

this secret tome

belongs me

to this fight

fraught with the ins and outs

of the fulsome fearsome tongue

my mother

and father too

impotent and giving

all life

as pain turned suffering reflects

the glory of

brain type

2012-02-07T19:52:00.000-08:00

left hand slower

than the right

despite

focus

on it

fingers

cascading

exit

come

again

over notes

letters

lines

computer

locks up

can't keep up

with the

drift

over across

throughout

..scapes?

let it come

again

that slow

connected

me with all

at table

clothes dissolved

before the

complete empty

whole

spin slide fade

(computer still locked)

2012-02-06T16:47:00.000-08:00

he can ask

what they'd never met

what if he'd kissed her sooner

what if he'd kissed her better

what if they'd had another

day

what if they went the same

way

but all the what if's

amount to naught

as the is confounds

the ought

but he has trouble

letting go

that has so little

to hold

2012-02-06T16:45:00.000-08:00

It's not poetry this time I'm just putting down some mind to anchor dear hated world my being is wound so tight above this vast freedom I can't handle they're incompatible and I am left feeling lost at the sea in me who knew (I should have) that one moment would leave another hole that still I would not trade for anything

2012-02-06T16:44:00.000-08:00

!that cloud

which cloud?

a cloud

any cloud...

all clouds

"these clouds"

our clouds

2012-02-06T16:43:00.001-08:00

exactly what I needed

everything I wanted

more than I imagined

nothing I deserved

the universe's joke is on me

but only I can get it

lonely and elated

2012-02-06T16:39:00.000-08:00

i should have kissed her sooner

but she just became the one

i should have kissed when i did

i should have kissed her better

but i did not know what

a good kiss was until her lips

mine learned

2012-02-06T16:24:00.000-08:00

empty slip

across the pier

confounds

but a moment

now an age

ago, away

she

on a ship

i cannot

place in

space or time but

here that spark

burns bright

despite

having sailed

horizons away

the void of a thing

gone yet

that was never

held

to laugh or cry

who can decide

at the least

and greatest

moments alike

a kiss too late

as dawn

pushes

too soon the next

for which a day

ago

we could not wait

to see the minute through

and missed

that now

while old boys

check their numbers

investments

and piss

we weep

faith in convictions

falls too easily

and hard

in love

and despair the philosopher

the fool

for none

know her mind

that other

but mine

is that

no other lass

can meet with air

so warm

as here

is now

dogs go to heaven

2012-02-06T16:01:00.001-08:00

as faithfuls

bestow memory

sufficient

to glories enduring

heaven is

found near in

the stories

the souls

of every beast

that breathes so well

2012-01-20T08:25:00.000-08:00

storms blow and wreck
the plans of men
yet little tides bring
little gifts now and then

Orien's belt sets
over seas in her eyes
while the breeze in their hair
but imperceptibly sighs

docked for a day
son of Northern lakes
from Scotland's daughter
parts the opposite way
on unfathomed waters

stuck nowhere alone next to everyone else right here on the way to fame

2011-12-09T16:36:00.000-08:00

the whole webscape opens wide

as an abyss

feet drag along worn paths

to the places one goes, precipes

from which to stumble again

down the desolate slope

clanging noisily still ringing hollow

finds every mountain and valley smooth

sparse trees brightest green no breeze to sway them

but in this garden

all things glitter

as dead as gold

never peace in the middle east

only news of growth that kills

passion rises to sinking hate

the network is that of one limp hand

clasping a million atrophied others

across a million miles

where the thickest book of faces, faces, faces

exhausts all but one

that breathes and sobs next door

"Only", the film

2011-11-23T19:28:00.001-08:00

Childhood triumphs with quiet joys even while relegated to the interstices between adult problems. Down-to-earth and close-to-home, yet universally (and very) Canadian. Simple, but poignant. Slow, but engaging. Lonely, but joyful.

2011-11-23T19:16:00.000-08:00

To be faithful, not believing. Acting out who you want to be without knowing how God or the rest of the world is going to be, how it's going to pan out, how they're going to respond, whether God or justice will show up, triumph. Whereas I'm not seeing God work, so doubting the tenets, so not walking the way, I should just walk the way, watch for God, and not worry about believing or doubting "this" or "that".

2011-11-14T18:11:00.000-08:00

judgement

that which keeps me from loving

keeps me from being loved

yet

my flaws are

my perfection

what else

stands between

here

and the

eternal

there?

ceased judgment

judgemental ceases

Divorce for Doggies

2011-11-03T18:48:00.000-07:00

Introduction

All kinds of instructional material has been written to aid dummies trying to navigate everything from computers to cuisine. Dummies everywhere have the privilege of picking up a a black and yellow book to help them build a deck, or fart without making too much noise. Dogs, on the other hand, find themselves without such valuable guidance. Literature tailored to the canine bent on self-improvement is all but non-existent. The authors of this guide seek to rectify that oversight, starting with this text, Divorce for Doggies. Divorce touches a panoply of lives--the family pet's not least. Where better to begin a _____ for Doggies series than with a complete treatment of the world-shattering phenomenon that is the end of a marriage? When divorce rips the fabric of family, and thus society, in two, children, dogs, and goldfish alike experience a barrage of confusing emotions. With this guide, dogs will finally have the insight they need to deal with the trauma they have experienced, are experiencing, and the trials that still await. Step by step, our road map traces the phases of grief. Chapter one deals with Confusion, that "Where-the-fuck-are-those-door-openers-because-I-want-to-rip-through-the-screen-door-and-chase-that-fucking-squirrel," feeling that is all-too-common in the dog of a divided household. Chapter two tackles the troubles that arise in the second phase of grief, Hunger, where dogs find themselves asking, " 'da fuck is my kibbles at?" Finally, chapter 3 will help the dog through that final and socially shameful tribulation, Incontinence. "Fuck, I really have to... fuck, never mind." The authors' sincere hope is that the canine reader will regain a sense of normalcy through empowerment as Confusion is battled by indifference, Huger is overcome by laziness, and Incontinence is put off by constipation. May dogs everywhere no longer be made victims of divorce, but gain mastery over their lives once more!

2011-11-03T18:43:00.000-07:00

first and last

family photo

why didn't we take more photos

we look happy

to those

who don't know

that it's over

but we knew

and behind those smiles

lies bewilderment

in the shapeless face

of a future without

this silly

little family

normativity paradox? equilibrium

2011-10-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

To be attached to a value is to suffer from failures to live up to it--either one's own failures, or those of close social relations. NOT to suffer, is to be detached from that value. There is little in between. (Unless the value is a purely pragmatic one, arguable, reasonable... no... it will still be attached to emotions... because what is pragmatic derives from living needs, which are inherently emotive in the creature. )

Imagine the satiation of some desire that is considered by one to be wrong (perhaps through tradition), and yet difficult for another to abstain from, perhaps precisely because not obiviously hurting others. Those values in relationship, produce strife both when the value is lived up to, doubly when the value is not lived up to, but not at all when the value is abandoned... if "no one gets hurt." Of course, if someone is sometimes hurt, or always hurt, or many people always hurt, the suffering might impress itself, in proportion of its visibility to the value-holder, upon the value and its maintenance.

So there is a pull and push, a dialectic, that amounts to a pressure toward some morality, for any given form of life, that is in equilibrium between the minimization of the physical suffering and the minimization of socio-psycho suffering.

self pity

2011-09-30T17:29:00.000-07:00

fascinating, that

having so many things to love

one might remain without touching any

but those sleeping dogs that lie

(like so many)

at a half-way

between the loved and loving

2011-09-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

he lost

track of time

most

when he got

lost

in the least

track of time

and that is how he lived so much

in so little time

ends of MAN (unfinished)

2011-09-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

Why believe in MAN's evolution toward a work-free ratiocratic warless civilization? Because you bought groceries and put gas in your car today? Because that is your hope for the future? If things really are progressing, getting better, why not believe that evolution would continue along the line that MAN has already followed to the "top" of the food chain, a movement wherein all of life is evolving out of entropy, conquering it by co-opting those same forces toward maximum organization, utilization of resources to the utmost, painlessly unto the maintenance of the metabolocratic form of life theoretically at the maximum of the universes' carrying capacity... and might not include "MAN" at all?

Athol

2011-09-15T17:03:00.000-07:00

Late on a starry summer night, as campfires die low, and distant laughter echoes through the dunes and across the waters on either side of the outlet beach, the inevitable sigh of campers, full of the day’s sun, seems to coincide with a sighing of the whole surrounding countryside. The sigh, far from relent, is a deep exhale that anticipates an equal inhale of crisp air that has dropped its dew—the day’s satisfaction anticipates a bright morning. The fact that the sun rises over points of eastern land, rather than the water, is a small price to pay for the ever changing and always faultless light of each day’s westering sun. For some, the early shade leaves cooler tents for sleeping in. For those appreciating the dawn, the morning air lingers just long enough to smooth the waking of tranquility unto the activity of the day.

Nearby Cherry Valley and East Lake give the impression of being equally addicted to such summer nights. Little homes, like year-round cottages, must sojourn in peaceful sleep under snow whose melt awakens the lakes that once again revel in reflecting the various lights of the sky.

For those who venture from the beach, climbing out of Cherry Valley, southbound on County Road 10, and beginning the slow descent to Point Petre on County Road 24, the weather usually changes. If it’s raining in Picton, Point Petre is probably sun bathing. And while residents along 24 might be snowed under, the roads of Hallowell are probably dry. Along Soup Harbour, down to the point and the southernmost shore of the County, Athol is a silent place. If the coyotes don’t outnumber the people, deer certainly do. Even the cow population is sparse.

The haunting dominance of shallow-rooting trees like juniper and sumac, betrays the nearness of limestone bedrock. Pockets of elm, giving way to oak and maple, starkly indicate the underlying bowls and fissures, where soil and water collect. Along an uneven shore that alternates between shale cliffs, slab shoals and pebble beaches, some of these withered oaks look as though they have witnessed long years, while waves, migrating birds, human hunters, and ships have passed by—some dead or wrecked, and some, perhaps, whose bones or hulls are yet to be found. The point and southern shoreline stand as the unmoving first landfall of travellers from the south, seeking the lush lands of sheltered river valleys further north. South of Army Reserve Road, government-managed land lies desolate and unkempt, as if the land itself rejected the permanence of anything but the interface of waves and stone. As if knowing this land was a place for passing through, ancient Iroquiois peoples buried their dead in mounds along this shore.

Visitors are aware of their visiting. Breathtaking as the stroll along these remote shorelines may be, home eventually beckons souls to shelter elsewhere. Back at the Outlet’s campfires or the hearths of Athol’s homes, the glow of firelight inaudibly whispers stories long forgotten, but nonetheless, “rest well.”

2011-09-13T18:37:00.001-07:00

i'm sorry I could not go

where I tried to go

i hold my breath

to hold back th.. . . . . . . . .

.. . . ... . . .. . . . . . .. ... ... . .... . ..

.. . . ..... . . . . . . .. .... . .... .. ..... . .

mind the gap

do not enter

no exit

{he hates his life}

2011-09-08T19:14:00.000-07:00

mountains of space

in megapixels

he can only

stare at

never fill

function he_hates_his_life(thereandthen:object):void

{

if (anywhere_but_there > thereandthen.here && someday > thereandthen.now)

{

light_bathes_a_greening_world_around_his_shrinking_grey = true;

}

he googled someone to love him

and heard a radio hum

felt the poverty of

a digital touch

if to belong is to be

then where he is

he is not

2011-09-04T11:59:00.000-07:00

now

out again

but not standing out

conversing with chatter

itching for somewhere

not knowing where

later

alone again

avoiding existence

conversing with sadness

wishing everything

capable of none

still

she has

the neck he'll never kiss

the eyes that smile

but not for him

she has let go

until

he drifts out

where every dawn is dusk

eyes shut by the sun

through shining

inky yawning ages

the one

2011-08-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

this one is close

in all her dark and light

so much darkness bounds

the only light near enough to see by

another is distant

a face all but imaginary

a pretty face is all I know I know

at the end of knowledge that never was

hope survives its wreck again

she might be perfect

and then there is perfection

faceless

still pretty

neither distant nor close in time or space

but dimensionless

unyielding for direction

neither dark nor light

but sightless, yielding

not even ignorance to toss blindly in

not even darkness to stumble through

nor so much as a word beyond

the words--the fairytales--

that give her all her form

2011-07-25T20:10:00.001-07:00

there's a secret somewhere here

that even i don't know

it's something of the touch

some of the deep that goes

way back

but not a "mind" thing

not a secret made of words

it sits just where

"knowing that..." is as useless as

a single word when words innumerable

do not suffice

do not grasp

(ie,

when an expected apex of culture lies down in pointlessness

not having taken care of living)

... so that the secret

is told best by nothing like telling

2011-07-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

The thing about home is, like so much in life, you can't choose it. Home already is what it is before you've even learned to practice this notion of freedom that we chase--just around the bend. Home isn't just around the bend; it is steps retraced--over and over. The paths of the niche wear into the being of the creature that treads them down, creates them, creates itself in them without the design that later appears to seekers. Home is a voice that never needs words. It does not temp sweet dreams, but listens to the would and could, repeating the is as is, remembers the was becoming again, and recommends nothing more than these. It breathes, holds on, persists, but gently. It is Nova Scotia. It is the shore left behind when Jesus builds and wrecks and fixes and sails off again. Home is where we are left by promises that never quite break under the weight of waiting. It is the saddest of true happinesses. Home is rarely exciting, by definition never exotic, and as such, it is always easier to leave than to find again. It is just where it was left, but the leaving dismantled the amen resting there until, in longer time than convenient, the resting sighs amen again.

2011-04-20T19:23:00.000-07:00

we built a fire too big to control

I was consumed and badly burned

I feared for us both

but with just a spit and a kick she put the whole thing out

now it's the appearance that she has no wounds that keeps mine from healing

love death by living

2011-04-17T17:30:00.000-07:00

It is no paradox that we kill what we love--it is but one side of the phenomenon it extends, which is antecedingly paradoxical "in itself," verily: living. Love is first of all living, loving itself. Life loves to live but lives on life, must kill, affirms killing by living, and so hates itself, negates itself, contradicts itself in the very moment that it loves itself, affirms itself, builds itself.

not now just yet

2011-04-17T17:14:00.001-07:00

not finished yet.

not unbound from her.
not done feeling.
not stopped loving waiting hoping crying.
not wanting that we're the same.
not expecting that she's perfect.
not caring if it all just fits.

just want.

just carole.

just now.

March to summer

2011-03-06T15:25:00.000-08:00

out my window
and through the woods
over the lake
the clouds are on fire
in a still, slow burn
bathing the frozen earth
in a cool pink kiss
that already promises
light on the other side of sleep
in the house
the stove coals burn low
waiting to be rekindled
to stave away the wind of night
in my stomach
dinner settles
heat seeps into each limb
as sleep creeps over the eyes
in my mind
a woman's laughter
the touch of her lips
the press of her breasts
the squeeze of her thighs
and the smell of her hair
linger
even longer than the sun
or dinner's spices
all the world seems warm
though winter clings to the fields
spring is unstoppable
as the sun arrives
a little sooner each passing day

2011-02-20T00:07:00.000-08:00

her skin
endless for unending touch

she asks
nothing more than all this warmth

our sigh
depthless for unfathomed dawn

Ghosts of Soup Harbour (unfinished)

2010-12-04T10:14:00.000-08:00

Ghosts seem to linger near the sea. The sea is, after all, the nearest worldly abyss, taking of life as often as it gives.

The sea at Soup Harbour was as ghostly as any, I felt, even if it was fresh water. With sixty kilometers of waves between my porch and Rochester, the water might as well have been the Fundy between Digby and Saint John. Well, no. Because those tides, at least, yield better fish, and the villages that break the Fundy's cliffs seem to have changed little, as if the sea had accepted, at least, not rejected, a small but stable population that has remained since its arrival. The shores of Soup Harbour, on the other hand, have the marks of past lives that remain but as marks. What life there is seems transient: birds find no shelter from the wind, and those pickup trucks that brave the rutts of unpaved roads stay only long enough for a few beers and as many broken bottles, or to dump a load of garbage. The odd dog-walker, drawn by the vista, returns but unsustainably, for no matter the vista, if surveyed oft, fades dull.

Our house, for instance, is an old farmhouse, now a cottage, the barn having been torn down, perhaps old and full of years, but more likely neglected, a failed life. The farmhouse, by the light of an evening fire in the little stove, seems cozy enough. But in the endless gray of cloudswept days, or even by the faded sun at its pitiful November zenith, the drab old floors reveal cracks that can never be cleaned and a long. long.. winter. We never did see the summer at Soup Harbour. We never could eradicate the fleas.

But Soup Harbour was beautiful. And that was half its haunting. Our stretch of beach, that is, the one nearest to the old farm house, was by far the most beautiful, perhaps, that I'd ever seen. A gentle curve of great Aspens, looming directly from the steep slope of rounded limestone pebbles, faced the Westerlies and persisted daily, meditating upon the waves, until each setting sun they greeted, with not so much as a nod, now for the eighteen thousandth time. They, I felt, had seen many ghosts, and yet they commanded respect, which the dead gave, and the living generally not, so that, though living, the aspens seemed to lean toward the past rather than the future, though they endured its wind. For past winds are presently still, but future winds are blows hanging in mid air.

Glimpsing what I thought could only be the shape of the chipped white paint of the old hand pump above the well, Ellis would bark frantically. Reassuring him, I would, that it was nothing but the same bit of cast iron that daylight made utterly disinteresting to him, I could not help but shudder at the possibility, that his senses were better than mine. After all, I could see but little and be deafened by the unyielding wind.

this how is it

2010-12-04T10:09:00.001-08:00

I doubt not that art would be less common if everyone "stopped and smelled the roses." As a distillation of perception, art comes as "no surprise" to those who practice perceiving. Of course, many do not, and are amazed by art; it reminds them to look, listen, feel, pause, and breathe again. But even we who do notice, have not "the same" perception as each other that does: theirs is a "different" notice. Noteworthy, then, is the ink that takes familiar material and forms a poem. After all, the sounds of a song are familiar sounds--"mere" frequencies--and there is never a "new" colour of paint under the sun. But the artist says, "this is how I see it," or, "this is how I see it," or, "this is how I see it," and this "how" is "it": art.

Photographic Truth

2010-09-18T20:17:00.000-07:00

A photographer uses the slogan, "The Complete Picture."

Doesn't he realize that his claim--that a photograph could not just play a role in, but somehow perfect (complete) communication (or does he mean perception?)--is like calling some yellow, the "yellowest" of yellows? Every yellow is self-absorbed, but especially the yellowest yellow: they all define themselves by themselves, and the circular reference is meaningless. Such is (pre-?)modern perception, still tacitly, quietly obsessed with Beauty and Truth. So wrapped up in itself as to be unaware of it's shaping of itself: the photograph. An invention of truth-telling, to be certain. As certain as may be.

The photograph fucked modern vision, and their children still fuck each other. They make babies that are beautiful in their own eyes. I'm not sure what difference it would make to visit the Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu, Mount Fuji, Stonehenge, or Yosemite. I've already seen them all. I could have myself transported theres--hurtled through the air in a tube of metal, faster than you can read a decent book--but to describe it would prove nothing. I'd have to take a picture, just to prove to myself that I'd been there. And then I'd have nothing more than I already do: the world reduced to a click.

The foremost lie told by the photograph is that it might be true. But the photograph sees nothing more than it has created: a frame-severed patch of colours that contains so little of the life it is cut from as to be without life. Relics, of course, are fascinating for the stories they leave to mystery, but they are so far from being history that when the photograph stands in as memory, the dead, no, a bone fragment, captivates the living. Black-and-white is more honest about its shortcomings, at least, because nothing is black and white. The photograph's something can only amount as the photograph is admitted nothing. It is a way of seeing nothing more than its own way of seeing. But seeing, I suppose, is as legitimate a life process as digestion, and farting.

Long Time

2010-09-18T20:05:00.000-07:00

He is a good dog that waits for me
As I stare off at a point of light
Trying to smoke a pipe
It's bigger than a star, from a bush
So it is smaller, obviously
But the pipe won't stay lit
He has no idea what I'm thinking about
Thinking about the future
He waits, not for what I think
But for what I will do
Go to bed, he hopes
It is night after all
And his unapologetic exuberance in daylight play
Deserves his guiltless nightly sleep
But I...

Keep thinking

2009-09-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

November speaks
in grays and hushed blue
now drowned out by demon-
possessed December,
with flashing red
and dyed green,
whose true whites are painted over
with whiter lies

2009-08-31T11:04:00.000-07:00

Belief in God is a kind of hope for a happy ending, that justice will prevail. A good hope. But that there is "a" Justice that could prevail is the hope reified into to a single and simple ideal, its platonic form, found nowhere but in being a shorcut from everywhere. The sad, self-contradictory part of that simplified, singularized perfection, is its propensity to be raised above its present, complex, unsigularizable life, and made eternal, to the detriment of whatever imperfect happiness and justice may be possible now.

2009-08-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

neologism #72:

hairrific

The universal language of beer

2009-08-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

mutha chucka

gats ma beeya

wukked haad

aoo dai

reddy fo sum shiia

2009-08-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

nothing seems

to happen when

I think

a lot seems

to happen when

I blink

Life is in the blinking

"Man" is in the thinking

2009-07-23T21:35:00.001-07:00

Awesome neologism #23:

"Vajungle."

2009-07-23T21:33:00.000-07:00

Bumpersticker idea #9:

"In case of rapture, I'll still be DUI."

(Yes, I realize how offensive that is, but isn't "this vehicle will be unmanned" even more abhorrent?)

2009-07-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

T-shirt idea #14:

"Masturbate much?"

2009-07-23T21:00:00.001-07:00

is there something about memory

that distills the past, rarefies emotion

purifies delight. lonilneliness. hope. wonder... textured all, and

somehow evaporated are discontentent

ennui

and the present banality of the very same(? aforementioned) sensations

such that the present is so short-changed as to force the question

is it something about neurons?

what a question, given that once,

beside a love

I saw a shooting star tear

the whole sky from top to bottom

is there something about memory

that if I eschewed my present love,

eternity would crown her queen of every tomorrow's past?

what synapses, holy

holy

but my paradigm tells me it was actually a meteorite and that

for all I know

all the stars might already be dead

2009-07-23T20:59:00.001-07:00

so,

if I say,

whatever interacts is part of a greater whole

is that bar one of a grand metaphysical narrative

or am I practicing English grammar?

or can't it be both

2009-07-23T20:54:00.001-07:00

each sunrise all rise seeming new
yet same blue sky persists in blue
come clouds again again comes gray
til older sun stains old war’s day

2009-07-23T20:52:00.000-07:00

you have chosen to resist me in your very spirit

and yet we are the same

I see deeply

as do you

I hide nothing and yet

you treat me as a liar

it is just a game in which

I have chosen white,

and you black

2009-07-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

let it be that

me and you makes we

a trinity