7 days - 7 poems - Day 7

If you're going to cheat, you might as well cheat right at the end.

That's what I've always been raised to believe.

Cheating at the end, when done properly, only happens when doing it guarantees a win. No sense in cheating and then losing.

I still haven't sorted out sleep and after waking then errands it was already the middle of the afternoon. Instead of coming home to write I instead spent a chunk of what afternoon remained talking with LAWYER and one of his lawyer friends on the bench outside Ella's. I tried briefly to write a poem about the experience but quickly gave up. The first line was 2 lawyers sit on a bench and the rest was going to be puns and insinuations about terms like motion, bench, brief, firm, etc.

In fact now that I've revealed all that I'm sure you can all sort out the poem for yourself.

I even tried to incorporate the game of streetcar tag in, but...too groggy. Stupid sleeping patterns.

Last night I was at Bad Dog Theatre for a show and decided walking home (they're on the Danforth) was a good idea. It was. It took about 2 hours with all my detours, but it was a great walk. I found an exposed subway tunnel just east of Castle Frank station that arcs gracefully across one of the Don's offshoot valleys. I'm sure lots of others have noticed it over the years but it was my first time. Fantastic! I hope no one thought my leaning over the bridge, inspecting it, was a sign of darker plans.

I suppose if I had just gone straight to bed after getting home things might have worked out better today. But they didn't okay!!! So instead of a brand new poem, written today, you get the last poem I wrote before the week that was began. That's the thing about poets, even when the rules are self-imposed we just need our freedom and individuality.

So I am breaking the rules of my own...thing.

Are you excited? The following was written as a result of reading a lot of Leonard Cohen's stuff in a short amount of time.

Story (title subject to change)

Growing up not Catholic

is the biggest tragedy of my life

I'm not Jewish either

another of fate's damnable attacks

Lacking the benefits of a Classical education

all I have is a periodic United Church

bereft of pageantry

and razzle dazzle

There were stories there

and they trace back the same, I'm sure

but I forget, if I ever listened.

So now I write poetry and can't find the archetype

the creation myth

or patchwork of wonder

No raven or turtle to guide me

or build upon

No shorthand of history

King David's just some king

so are Henry and George and Louis and

Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck.

Drab truths of science don't make poems

of universal truth

Their lights shine too self; confident and important

A lab is clean, fluoresced and sharp

and its stories likewise

without

shifting edges to bend and hug

close when cold without meaning.

Hide the world behind incense

chanting drugs or prayer and

find the truth because

it's all you'll remember

The broad strokes

A story on the edge of shadows

behind swirling light, in smoky space.

All I have is pro wrestling

and last I checked

the Pope's not holding the belt.

----

So there. Thanks for reading, and keep reading...I might post my short story Fire Drill on here in the near future. I had submitted it to this but received a nice form letter earlier today explaining that I hadn't made the cut. Probably better that I fail (for the time being), but I still wish I had known about the extension before rushing to submit on New Year's Eve.

Alas, alas it's in the past.

See I'm a poet.

mercy

There's not much going on, so there's not much to write about.

The new roomy has arrived for the month of January whilst D-Hammer and Annie are in Hawaii. She (Katie) seems to be settling in, or at least hasn't complained yet.

Last night I made my first giant batch of curry (red lentil coconut variety from Simply in Season) of the season and had a some peeps over for noshing. I hadn't had the most productive day, trapped reading too many too long articles from Vanity Fair and Harper's...oh shit. I just opened a bunch more articles. Heh. Unemployment!

Err, where was I. Oh yes. Because I had spent too much time reading interesting articles I hadn't gone to the grocery store for the ingredients to what I had intended to be some personal curry, which in turn meant I wasn't going to be able to make The Hurt Locker showing at 4:15. You can see what kinds of dilemmas I find myself in. Anyway, in a bit of a grump I decided to skip the film and on my way to groceries I realized I like people, so I sent out a casual word to a few (sorry if you weren't one of them) inviting them to dinner. After scurrying to the store and back, and cook-cook-cooking up a storm everything was ready for people to arrive. Which they did, a few minutes later than anticipated.

Perfect? They yeahs have it.

Long story short, lots of curry (enjoyed by all and sundry) with lots left over for later dates and times.

So I did have a few things to say.

What else? (I like to pretend this is a blog blog blog, where there are strangers reading it. People who I don't talk to on a regular basis who actually need all the minutiae of my life lest they feel lost.)

I'm working on some stuff. A short story has been submitted to Broken Pencil's Indie Writers' Deathmatch. Unfortunately, after frantically typing and editing New Year's Eve to get it in before the deadline the sons of guns extended said deadline for more than a week. Maybe that means there aren't many entrants and I'll win for sure! It's happened before.

Hopefully more to follow on that front.

And I'm writing some other stuff. The poem I'm working on now partly inspired by all the L. Cohen I'm reading.

Here's another bit of his genius. Believe it or not this post was only going to be this poem but then it grew and grew.

Believe it!

The Flood

The flood it is gathering

Soon it will move

Across every valley

Against every roof

The body will drown

And the soul will break loose

I write all this down

But I don't have the proof

As true now as when it was written, apparently in the Sinai in 1973. I really wish I'd spent more time writing poetry when I was travelling. Oh well, next time!

road trip (an interpretation of Toon)

Ugh, so nice to get out of the city once in a while. Rolling north with JL.

I sometimes forget how lovely it is to go country driving. Pretty!

WINTER SIGH!!!

Christmas in Owen Sound. Everyone likes that stuff and I was just grateful I didn't have to take the bus. Door to door delivery and witty banter the whole way. What a treat!

This guy was following us. Not pleased.

Do you get it?

In this picture I'm looking to the left. And in the other one, the right. I call it acting.

Look how far we've come, and yet there is so far still to go. Still, hills are pretty great. You can see farther than normal when you're at the top. FYI.

Oh man, what a great life. This guy really loves Grey County.

As he should. And why not? What with wind farms!!!!!!!!

So windy up in those parts. Highest elevation in Southern Ontario don't cha know? Oh, you didn't? Well it is. Somewhere around there, I'm not sure of the exact spot. The exact spot, wherever it is, apparently has an elevation of 541 meters. Boy howdee! And that's why there's so much wind.

Here's a car we followed for a while.

Good times.

I don't normally write this kind of blog post. It's really hard. I guess I should have taken more pictures of my face? Maybe not.

Driving home was nice too.

It's always a pleasure when the light is playing tricks. We had some great weather, driving through some nice little flurries, then having the sun peak out from beneath the cloud's edge.

Nothing like big sky country (or Ontario's attempt at said country).

The Skyview Motel sure did pick the right name. And they have wakeup calls!!!

Honeymoon suite? If not, room 14 will do just fine and I'll fart in the bath. Nothing's too good for my lady!

But seriously folks. Aren't wind farms great? I haven't lived beside one, so I can't speak to noise pollution or bird deaths, but look at them.

Walking across the fields like mythical giants. Spinning, green-energy producing, mythical giants.So tasty.

I'm just happy they were all looking the other way.

Yeah. So Happy New Year! Or in the words of Daydream. "Happy New Year. [period]"

I hope you all had a blast. I know I did. I hope everyone felt good today. I know I did. I hope everyone watched Wall-E (finally). I know I did. I should stop. I know I did.

On an unrelated note I was handling a bag of frozen crab from my freezer and now my fingers smell funny.

ART!!!!

But where's the bird Leonard? Where is the bird?

musings from the slightly north

Here I sit in Owen Sound, the land of milk and honey and cold freaking basements where the computer lives.

Sheesh. I'd better type fast.

Away from Toronto for a day and my brain starts to function on a different level, as the quiet of my house and its slower pace of life leaves me with time to contemplate the world in a different way. Thoughts that bubble just below the surface in Toronto, shunted aside by the distractions that accompany big city livin', here are allowed time to surface and percolate. Owen Sound, at least for me, gives time and space.

Time and space for doubt to re-emerge, in this instance.

Said doubt, however, is not a bad thing. Let me explain, won't you? It's the holidays, you have lots of time.

As mentioned previously I tend to get ahead of myself and a wee bit self-congratulatory for producing the tiniest something. On a mission to buy moustaches the other day Annie even noted my tendency to play fast and loose with the word genius...when describing my own work.

Uh-huh.

She's great for "calling it as she sees it" and forcing me to think about what I'm saying or doing.

Is the poem I wrote this week the best thing ever? No.
Do I have the right to be pleased by a clever turn of phrase and take joy from it? Yes.

Even if I think I'm using genius ironically, on some level there's a whole lot of ego rumbling, telling me I don't need to work hard. That no matter how long it takes me to make one thing, when that one thing is done my inborn brilliance will be revealed and lauded by one and all.

That's dumb. And a dangerous trap to fall into.

So! A harder working me, rife with humility is what is needed from here on out (until the end of time). Confidence is fine, but thinking everything I do is a paragon of awesome risks stopping me before I start. Why work more, try harder, and push onto bigger and better if I'm already sainted? Reminding myself, even if it's forcibly, that there is always much to be done can only help me in the long run.
(This isn't a new year's resolution, just a resolution that happens to have come at this time of year. Sometimes having a fixed date in mind for a change can help, but I figure why wait if you already know what needs to happen?)

Hurray for self doubt!

Good doubt can also emerge when you're reading an entire book of poems by someone who's quite good. There's this guy, Leonard Cohen, maybe you've heard of him. Anyway, I've been reading Book of Longing, his latest, and it's reinforcing how important consistent work truly is. I mean, you don't get 200 plus pages of poetry with an hour's writing, every once in a while when you're in the mood.

Beyond that, the poems are pretty neat too.

With so many poems in a book there's bound to be a lot of variety (not all of them are equally fun or golden), but the ones I'm enjoying the most are what I would call spare. Simple, clear writing, without need for overt cleverness, provides more than enough for an enjoyable poem. You could end the interaction there and walk away happy, but the truly great thing is that such simple writing can leave you thinking that there's something more. I feel a hidden depth of meaning that such simple words shouldn't be able to hold, but they do.

Super!

Here's one, the last poem I read before shutting off the lights last night.

The Moon

The moon is outside.
I saw the great uncomplicated thing
when I went to take a leak just now.
I should have looked at it longer.
I am a poor lover of the moon.
I see it all at once and that's it
for me and the moon.

Pretty good, huh? Can you tell where his writing ended and mine began? Probably.

Oh Leonard. He really is interested in the mundane and essential acts of humanity. Eating, sex, poo and pee. He sees a lot of beauty there and those themes emerge again and again throughout his work. Also, he apparently really likes to go down on ladies. Good for him!