Sometimes I Love Too Hard

Mountain Lake End

Mountain Lake Middle

Mountain Lake Begining

Where the Wild Bees Swarm

Hallelujah ~ Leonard COHEN


Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That david played, and it pleased the lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every wordIt doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the lord of song
With nothing on my tongue but hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah

Dreaming Something Other Than...

Dark Road

Other Windows...

White Beauty

Tree Hunting

Confession

This time of year is hard for me. I suspect that I am not alone in this…

Balancing family, Christmas parties, open houses, the expense and the expectation is a juggling act in the simplest terms. Simple only on the outside.

Why is it we are in the consumer rush? A competition. Who in their right mind buys someone an Ipod for Christmas? Or a new car? Yes, a car. I heard an advertisement for Mercedes that made that suggestion. So not just any car, nope. A luxury car. Perhaps it’s this consumer who will buy their daughter an Ipod. Who knows.

In Canada, the average person spends $1300.00 on gifts. Most people are living on credit. And here is this season, based on the celebration of faith and love, marketed to get as much cash (that we don’t have) out of our pockets in the quickest time. It’s all a big machine.

Being a mother, I want to provide my sons with the latest gadgetry. The best toys, the matching outfits. But to what end? It’s my belief that this holiday is not about the gifts, but about the feeling it evokes. My boys will not remember the Spiderman figure they got in their stocking… but the laughter and the traditions that I will pass on to them as my mother did to me. They will remember Christmas as sugar cookies and making the gingerbread house. They will remember Christmas as a time shared with loved ones. Sure, they may not appreciate it now, but as they grow older and have their own families, I hope that they can evoke the same magic.

I refused to use credit this Christmas. And I have not. Instead of throwing money at the season, I have put thought into my gifts. Dug a little deeper. I made wonderful wind chimes comprised of my travels this year. Silver spoons from Ottawa, shells from Galiano, stones from Cache Creek and glass beads from my Birthday trip. When I have shopped, it’s been with purpose. Little things that show that I have been paying attention all year, not just for the weeks leading up to Christmas. It’s not that difficult. And I am sending out tins of my famous Molasses Ginger cookies that you can’t just have one of. That way, if you have a complaint, your mouth will be full. And we all know it’s rude to talk with a full mouth.



G.

Beauty in the Breakdown

Water

Leaf

Ice

Ice

Never Gone....

Lake in Winter

Hidden Road

Detail in Snow

Beauty in the Breakdown

Windows

Whisper it...

I dream of a house. Windows open to the scent of alder and cedar trees. The wind swishing through them, dancing against a thousand stars.

I dream of a house. There is color. Burnt orange. Deep chocolate brown. Ocher. The lush cream of vanilla. The clashing vibrancy of turquoise.

He says to me, “You dream in color.” Not a question. But a statement.

There is a long curved wall rising up towards the cedar planked ceiling. Light pours into the rooms as fascinating as the way vodka enters a martini glass. Slick. Smooth.

Detail. Exacting. He says to me, “Is it a premonition?” Yes, this IS a question. Is it? I wonder that myself.

I have to be careful of dreams. They tell me lies. The heart is too strong a voice.

The driveway went down a little hill. A large field lay in fallow before the house. The cedar trees were so green in comparison to the muted sky and lawn. I was remembering Frank Lloyd Wright. Influenced by organics and the way the trees frame a life.

He says, “Was there red?”

It is one of those dreams that keep you awake after the fog fades. Pondering.




G.

Telling Truths...

I wish you could see what I do. The infinite promise. The inner beauty.

I wish you could see the one who lives in you. The good you can do. The way you gift a life. Not just mine. But those that you shine on. Those that snare you with their light, matching one another somehow. Children. Old women. Young women. Cranky old men.

It’s easy to define you, too simply. Yes, you are a man. Mmmhmm. Yes, that means you are messy. That you are distracted by short skirts and breasts. No, you don’t do dishes. Yes, you would rather play guitar all day instead of deal with the minutia of daily life.

I can say that about all of us. But you, you live your life by your own whims and fancies. It takes courage to do that.

I once said that your problem was that you are selfish.

I was wrong. You are selfish in a selfless way. In a way that honors your spirit. In a manner that most of us have forgotten and have grown bitter about. Hoarding our time in front of the TV, making excuses for being a no show…. You have simply said, “No.” We can all learn a lesson from this.

You are generous in so many ways. Not with just material things… but of your heart. Giving away so much. So much. And I sometimes wonder what we give you in return.

I wish everyone could see what I do. How profoundly good a man you are.

It’s almost hard to type that. I know you may think it’s too much. And perhaps my critics will say I am still too much in the bloom of love. But I know these matters. I can read the map long before I admit to it. Sure. The dishes thing will piss me off in the long run. But it’s all petty. Petty bullshit.

I love that you made the bed. Even if you think it was not my usual way. Who gives a shit. I love that you made the bed as a surprise for me.

I miss you when you are not here. Not always consciously. But the house is too quiet.

I am not thinking about how you did not hang your towel up when you are not here. I am thinking about how I wanted to lay in bed with you, snuggled in to the coverlet. My legs twined with yours.

There are times when I worry that I, in my high brow way, will run you off. That the Virgo in me will drive you crazy with baskets and labeled files. That eventually my patience will run out and you will think this means that my heart is empty of love for you.

I will lose patience.

I will not love you less.

And the critics can hush. I have been married. I know what realism is. Seven nights, three-hundred and sixty-fives days of underwear on the floor will break a woman down. But I also know how rare this kind of man is. A profoundly good man. One who will bring you flowers even though it was YOU who started the fight. Or will drop a little boy off at school so he does not have to stand out in the rain. Or says things like “I want in to your life, let me in.”

There is a small part of me that is still closed. Yes. Silliness. But I am coming around. It’s only a matter of time. (It’s still early yet.)

The bones are good. The rest is just … something we work with.

There are parts of our light that matches.

And my life is filled with it.


G.

Where the Wild Bees Swarm

The candles flicker, spitting flames into intricate patterns on the walls.

I love this time of night, when we snuggle deeper into our lives. Cozy in for a good story, touch toes under the feather tick.

I enjoy other people’s stories, other people’s windows (as you know). Have you ever gone walking at night, fascinated by the paintings created in the big glass windows of people’s living rooms? Admire a plant, the color of paint, the tone of light… Wondered about the conversation, the scents and textures…

I love to make up stories about these people.

J. and I were at dinner one evening and there was a table of three older women, one man. I leaned over and whispered, the fancily dressed one… she never married and is a town scandal. She had an affair with one of her professors at University at a time when women did not go on to post secondary education let alone have an affair with a man. She never married…

It’s easy to fool him if only a tiny bitty bit. It IS a small town, after all. He knew it was not true, but I love the act of making up the story. Try it the next time you are stuck in traffic, at the bus stop… where ever. Pick someone. Landscape their life.

I always wonder what story you would make up about me. I think too often we are fooled by the outer layer, too easily attracted by the flash and flicker of non-substance. We are a society of crows seeking out the precious glimmer.

Daydreaming. It’s just daydreaming. Remember how to do that? Or do you need the candlelight to tell your stories in, smoothing out the rough edges and the imperfections?

Remember, beauty is in the breakdown. The imperfections are what make us interesting.


G.

Whisper It...

Amber Leaves

Shell

Through the Tarnished Eye

Beauty in the Breakdown...

Winter's Kiss

Letters I Have Written, Never Meaning to Send...

As moon dances in a courtyard on the other side of my neatly trimmed existence, the sun starts a weak climb into the winter blue sky.

Bitter taste? Love must be tempered or we never understand the truth in our hearts. How wonderful it is to trust we can push away the ones we love, only to dance back into their arms again. Arms soft and safe. Arms that wrap us into the heart, anchor us to reality.

Everything has an opposite engagement. Like the color of night to day. The ink on white paper. Everything has a shadow. These shadows richen the pallet of our lives. Intensifies the hues. Sharpens the intake of pain. The exhalation of bliss.

I would love to walk in the street with the women in sunset colors. Smell the life there. Taste the language of being a stranger. But what relief would come in the midnight blues, the tropical banana leaf green shade. It is hard to live your life completely out in the sun. It’s hard to understand luck when it is the only thing that crosses your door.

Blot nothing out. Savor that bitterness. It is the only thing that keeps you and me real. It is the shadow that makes the words come.

It’s the light that burns them away.

G.

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

~Pablo Neruda

The Littlest Birds Sing the Sweetest Songs...

.

Other Windows....

Lessons in Punctuation ~ Blue



There is poetry in life
There is life in poetry.
In your eyes are the hard
syllables of love,
in the bitter sweet smile
of a lost woman,
in the round concentration
of a red stop light.

I don’t know the last time
there was as magenta a sunset
or a more orange mango.

Was wine ever this red?

Poetry speaks a thousand
tricky words of sweetness,
ten times more in the language
of cold rain.

An abattoir of disappointment,
a kiss, a little death.
sweet as spring in a Russian winter.

Poetry is just the articulated
breakdown
of beauty.

Of death.

Of sorrow.

Her eyes, brighter
than a hundred suns,
or your mother’s Sunday best
crystal high on the shelf.

Take me to dinner,
the princess.
recite to me the words of a whore.

There is poetry in life
There is life in poetry.
In your eyes are the hard
syllables of love.

Magic...

Shadows and Light

Something Blue..........

This week I had letters to write. Real letters, on paper with ink.

First I wrote to Petra. A postcard from the national gallery. Smooth fountain pen on slick card. I always enjoy the ease with which the words come. Words like:

Bliss.
Thankfulness.
Love.

I enjoy the act of writing and have a collection of papers, envelopes, post cards and thick covered cards depicting art I enjoy. I have always coveted these things… kept them in various boxes with special pens tucked in amongst them. These days it’s only a tin box but amongst the delicious paper is a wax seal with my initials. (Ironically, I am never sure if the wax actually gets through the mail to my destination. How can something so fragile survive the violence of the post office?)

I am a bit, shall we be kind, particular. I only like the old fashioned fountain pens. The ones with ink that requires careful application of cartridges. Yes, even at work. The clerk who orders the office supplies knows to order mine in blue ink. How wonderful it feels to make notes on my projects. Words that reflect the commitment I make to myself and others within my organization:

Integrity.
Thorough.
Commitment.

And it’s nice having a pen on hand in case a poem comes to mind or a phrase from an eavesdropped conversation. You never know when the inspiration will sweep in and kiss you.

In the journals I once kept I was mesmerized with how the words grew. Sentences formed. Paragraphs. How the empty pages faded away replaced with the history of my heart, of my life. Of the details I saw in the fabric of my world.

Now I have this world. Light and shadow. The HTML of my world broken down into something digital and intangible. You cannot run your fingers over the font and feel the pressure used to write the words. You cannot see the tear marks from my frustration as the words poured out of me or the passion when I struck bone.

I think something is lost in a way. Our love affair with the written word. How easy it is to erase this. There is no organic working of the words to string them together. There is no verbal jewelry making. When you look at the screen it’s not the same as holding the reassuring weight of my letters, the five pages of neat script in blue ink. (Perhaps with my tea stain on the corner.)

I am tempted to write this out and scan it. But something is lost in the translation from tactile to one dimensional.

In reality, I am thankful that I have this. It’s what keeps me real, knowing that the words are still there if only in font on a screen.

Perhaps I will save the ink and stamps for my next letter. For words like

Soon.
Tomorrow.
Always.



G.

Beauty in the Breakdown...

Telling Silence

One

Other Stories, Other Windows............

e.e. cummings - Painting

Confession

Erotic.

Take the word. Break it down. Turn it like a beach stone in your hand.

Can you feel the warmth of the sun on your body? Run your finger along the stripe of pure white, innocent against the dark smoothness of it. Silken. Heavy. Like the pulse of blood as it hits your heart, sudden and remembered. Delicious. That heat that comes with it.

Erotic.

It’s such a different word than the everyday ones we use to describe those sexual feelings. Erotic conjures black and white photography, jazz music and Änais Nin. For me it is so subtle, more in the intent than the act. Details.

For example, take fucking in a car….

Fucking in a car is purely, fucking. Heated. The windows fogged, the ferocious eating of one another’s skin. Panties not removed, but roughly shoved aside. This kind of interaction will leave you with a scratch mark if you are not careful.

What is erotic in that moment is her finger marks in the condensation, which he will trace with his own. And then taking that visible wet that they have made tangible outside of their bodies, he will trace this along her shoulder blade. Carefully. Moving her hair at the back of her neck with his breath. A pause in the hunger. He marks her with love.

That is erotic. Passionate. Fierce. But filled with some tenderness that we know from touch, but can’t quite articulate.

It hardly matters if J and I are in some high geared maneuvering. There are moments when it is more than just sex, it’s erotica enacted. Or perhaps this is just what sex is. But I doubt everyone has erotic sex.

I love to watch my fingers against his skin. Disarticulated, they haunt the places that my mouth cannot reach. Gentle or angry. I enjoy their smallness, daintiness… against the more dark flesh of his body. Or how he responds to them, intake… exhale. I should have someone photograph them.

And this brings me to the real intent of this introspection….

I want to catalogue these experiences of flesh. I want to photograph the erotic minutia of sex. Her fingers in his hair. Her lips on his chest. Not the greater detail. But the intent of it. The details. Remember those? The devil is in them, my sweet.

I want to look through my own window, not seeing me… but seeing what it may be.

An ordinary fantasy I am sure… but wouldn’t the photographs be wondrous?

Erotic.



G.

Other Stories, Other Windows............

I Think of You There ~ Christopher FARRAR


I think of you there, ironing his shirts.
Standing, in that silky slip, deep ocean blue.
Sliding the iron back and forth with care.
Maneuvering the shirt, eyes glazed in concentration.

That tender strap, just a thread on your shoulder.
Legs, muscular coming out to meet the floor.
Arms, soft, griping the iron tightly.

I lay here in dark morning, focused on the ceiling.
Knowing you are there without me.
This bed is cold and lonely.
Soon I will rise to meet the day.

Finding a series of tasks.
To keep me busy , try and forget,
you are 2500 miles away,
ironing his shirts.

The Littlest Birds Sing the Sweetest Songs...

More Blue

Magic...

Sentimental Story ~ Nichita STANESCU


Then we met more often.
I stood at one side of the hour,
you at the other,
like two handles of an amphora.
Only the words flew between us,
back and forth.
You could almost see their swirling,
and suddenly,
I would lower a knee,
and touch my elbow to the ground
to look at the grass, bent
by the falling of some word,
as though by the paw of a lion in flight.
The words spun between us,
back and forth,
and the more I loved you, the more
they continued, this whirl almost seen,
the structure of matter, the beginnings of things.

Sky

Letters I've Written, Never Meaning to Send

I have been reading more blogs… other peoples’ words, other windows. I love to hear the voices, layer upon layer. Rich with life experience that I have not had… It’s like walking down a street at night, peeking in… seeing other people’s wallpaper, paint… negligee.

In a way, it makes me wonder if there is any real value in my own words. Fleetingly. This passes. Perhaps there is only one other who is moved by the music in my words. It is worth it, for that one moment… regardless of distance or geography… we connect. It’s not that my words hold value. It’s if my words tell the truth.

There is only truth here. Sweet. Bitter. Fire and starlight. Whatever it may be.

All those words have made me hunger for an old friend and his words. Moon. His words are now only faded mementos… and all I have left are the poems I wrote to solve his beauty. I never have enough friends like this… truthful ones. Real ones. And when they finally go down their own paths, I miss them like an old lover. It’s such a mixture of love and loss.


Paper Roses for Moon

I seek the seer, a sage
whose wisdom is filled,
to a ripeness of which
hangs high, moon
and stars
reflected off your face.

I have wandered
the long lonely woodland path,
followed the frogs
and wind, feet bare
on the moss, the stairs silent.
Wandered, found you
in your dusty wisdom;
a tuxedo of sadness
rumpled and frayed at the cuffs.

Your lapel is bare, my love.

Am I beautiful to you?
My toes
buried in all what has fallen.
my eyes filled with weeping
Fingering into your memories,
my hair smelling of the cedars,
you cannot speak
so you pull me in,
a father a lover a savior.
We bleed
on the spit and polish lost
the truth hidden in the underbrush
smelling of green.

Tongue finding no words

I pin all of my fading
paper roses
to your heart.

~


Reach out to me. Fill me with your voice. Your ideas. Your fingerprints. Pour into me the affluence of your individual dialogue. Raise it up. Higher. Touch me here… there… inside… out. Leave no stone unturned. No leaf on the limbs of our solitude. Come. Knock on my door. Leave your name, your song. Together we shall write the new masterpiece of the living. Together we shall live the truth that is ordinariness.

That is what we are. Inside the silent frame of our windows.



G.

Beauty in the Breakdown...

Detail

The Littlest Birds Sing the Sweetest Songs...

Beauty in the Breakdown...

Coming home this morning I paused… the sky was coming up the same colors as a brook trout, soft and full of clouds. I had not noticed the silence until I was about to enter the house. And there it was, glaringly obvious. A void in the morning. The sky was silent. The riot of morning song birds is still.

Summer is over.

I have a few regrets.

I did not go night swimming. Oh wait, I did. And it was quite spectacular. Off a boat in the big Shuswap Lake. But I was meaning that night swimming with a lover, the teasing of the slippery skin as it snakes by you…
I did not listen to Led Zeppelin while driving down a country road.
I did not make out in a grass field.
I did not get to wear a little strappy dress to a party.
I did not get to eat in at my favorite little restaurant; where, if I was so inclined, I could have eaten off my lover’s fingers.
I did not go camping.
I did not make eggs on an open fire.
I did not get to listen to someone playing a guitar under the night sky, the fire crackling a percussion.

I did, however, have a few adventures. And, let us not forget, I met J. Summer’s sweetest harvest. A girl can’t go wrong meeting one of those rare, good men. I count myself blessed.

Summer is so sweet and is often makes the renewed beauty of September come in second place. Yet, I enjoy the unfolding of the autumnal dress. The rich, tangible colors, the velvet feel as summer’s vibrancy is mellowed. When I run, I love how I can smell the honey scent of blackberries rotting on the vine and the wine scent of apples on the ground. If summer is rich, autumn is about the end of the feast. The waste of all that decadence. It is far too prosperous to carry on, like Madame Bovary, we know that the audacity must end.

A poem, from September 1996.


Blackberry Kisses

Nothing can alter the simplicity of
blackberry kisses.
Thickly entangled vines
crisscrossing vertical spaced
thorns snagging skin;
lazy seduction in light’s rippling
caught in September’s eclipse
(the silken softening is maddening)
Here the sun penetrates
the darkest of shadows
with the shattering brilliance of bliss.
The coolness of fall soothes
summer heat in forgetfulness;
everything is forgiven,
everything lay to waste
until rebirth.
New sight heightens sensation,
my lover’s skin becomes velvet,
thick and rich as grass
(green and sun-dance)
amongst the sweetness
of blackberry stained lips.


Although I know these lines are dated and even a little saccharine, there is that same sense of relief. The heat is gone. It’s time to curl up with a good glass of wine, soft sheets and a good book. Oh yes and the delicious morning touch of a lover. (Only one, don’t be greedy. Summer is over.)



G.

Something Blue...

If you have been looking for me… I have been lost in a personal labyrinth of worry and illness. It seems I caught the office cold.

I shall write more… soon.

Promise.


G.

Eyes Drink In The Open Road

Osoyoos - Abandoned

Osoyoos - Door

Osoyoos - Window

Osoyoos - Introspect

Osoyoos - Big Sky

In The Eye Of the Beholder...

Three

Eyes Drink In The Open Road

Grand Forks - Truck

Grand Forks - Padmorof Truck

Eyes Drink In The Open Road

Grand Forks - Jam Factory

Confession

“You all a glow
from the love he put in you”


It’s like that.

Glowing.

I want to articulate it. Press it down into words so I better can understand this fire that is lit in me. And perhaps with understanding I can temper it. Stoke it so that the flash is not followed by cold.

Not that I want to rid myself of the heat. No No No.

I don’t think he understand this ferociousness. Instead, he questions how he can behave badly and I just shrug it off. I have asked this of myself too… is it that I have lowered my expectations? Or is it hat I have finally gotten real. Now my affection is tempered with reality.

Love is an action word.

I have said this to friends so repeatedly that I feel like a cliché. It’s my quintessential relationship advice.

J. can try and test me… attempt to calculate my endurance, but what he has not figured out is that it does not matter. There is the man inside his actions that speaks louder and more clearly than his silliness. (And I secretly like the silliness.) When we get down to it, J. is not disrespectful or ignorant of my boundaries. In fact, the quiet sweetness under it all is what I love the most. It is uncontrived. There are no diamonds here. Only amber agates. Muddled and varied in color, but always something beautiful.

Often, as women (and yes, men are guilty of this too) we misrepresent action. We read into each little scrap far too intensely, forgetting to look at the entire picture. A few pieces of garbage will not disfigure the beauty of a beach… it’s only the eyes of the beholder. (Yes yes, eventually we have to take a hard look… but I am not speaking about that.)

I spent four days away for my Birthday. We explored together, laughed… had moments of silence… endured one another’s’ driving… slept in a terrible bed… shared a bathroom. And I am still in glow.

Oh wait… there WAS that parking ticket……


G.

Eyes Drink In The Open Road

Jeff - Grand Forks Hotel

Grand Forks Hotel

Russian School - Grand Forks

Birthday Girl

Something Green

Confession

I turned 33 today.


G.

(YES, that is a confession......)

Something Blue..........

From the mountain peak to the bottom of the river. How easily we are thrown into the dark depths of ourselves. Fragile skin. Fragile egos. We are weak in our hearts where we pretend to be anciently wise.

A lie is a lie.

The Achilles heel. We make these choices rationally… with concise reasoning. We build those words in our mind with the same contrived ness as sculpting a house of cards. And then one day, we are faced with that same fragile architecture. The lie causes the rift… that eventually will fall you.

From mountain to river bottom.

Karma. It will get you every time.


G.

Other Stories, Other Windows............

A Case of You - Joni MITCHELL


Just before our love got lost you said
I am as constant as a northern star
And I said, constant in the darkness
Where’s that at?
If you want me I’ll be in the bar

On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue tv screen light
I drew a map of canada
Oh canada
And your face sketched on it twice

Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh I’d still be on my feet

Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I’m frightened by the devil
And I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid
I remember that time that you told me, you said
Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time

Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
And you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
Still I’d be on my feet
And still be on my feet

I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said
Color go to him, stay with him if you can
Oh but be prepared to bleed
Oh but you are in my blood you’re my holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter, bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I’d be on my feet
I’d still be on my feet

Confession

I wanted to write tonight, but know that I should not try when I am missing him like this. I would only write the same poem over again.

All I really want to say is...
I want to curl up against your back and fall asleep.


G.

Letters I've Written, Never Meaning to Send

Old Barn Doors



(I had this feeling when) He said
“take this and throw it like a stone,
further than the last”,
(trickery)
so I
would stand still long enough
for stars to dissolve the night sky.

Dreams are just forgotten
reality, (fantasy and reality
are too far apart, I lie)

when released, they stretch out
across the thousand light
arcs of heaven, and feel the latch
to the door I keep closed

(just against the cold, I lie)

(just against the loss in the dark,
I truth)

He feels the barn door in me,
the reassuring iron taste
of the old latch tempts me
with a familiar safety;
but this
silent ease with which
we unstring our remembering
is more gentle in the soft
light of the new moon.

The door is opening,
letting in the bloom of summer sky
and the still of quiet.

The Littlest Birds Sing the Sweetest Songs...

Home

In The Eye Of the Beholder...

Close to God

Confession

This is my hundredth post. And to be honest, I can’t believe I have made it this far. Who would have ever thought that I had so much to say? That there were so many windows to peep into…

I am asked why I write here… why I have abandoned the poetry and the novel. We write what we know. Simple as that. But isn’t it interesting how what I know is something of what you know… of what you feel. What you have experienced. Someone once said that there was nothing more to write. That all the great writers have done it all. There is nothing left for our generation. No tale “stone” left to be turned.

It’s not that there are no more stories… they all sound familiar due to commonality. We are the same despite geography and bank accounts, skin color and faith. There is nothing separating us, really. Except our own perception. But interestingly enough, if you feel me in bone, it’s because you have felt it before behind your closed doors.

Perhaps there are no new secrets.

So… I will keep writing and peeking into lit windows at night. Discovery is what we make of it.


G.

Be Still.

National Gallery

The Littlest Birds Sing the Sweetest Songs...

It is strange and wonderful how time progresses. Slowly. Time is a train that I don’t think even the ticket seller knows the destination.

Time for me moves so quickly, due dates and flex days. Yet somewhere under a dark sky time moves slow enough to lose hope.

It’s been three months since I had my personal space invaded. Three months, how many freak outs? There is one thing that stands out in all of this that I have not experienced before and that is the profound sense of “naturalness”. There is no manipulation of time here.

And my sky is filled with light.

G.

Something Blue..........

I think we are all sick of the news lately… watching the same horrors unfold over and over again. But fuck your bitching. I have to comment.

Here is the richest country in the world, the most influential. The bad ass. The first to put its hand out when it needs help, Iraq…. 9 11. And yet, so terribly slow for those living and dying in Louisiana. It amazes me. Watching the news coverage. All those black faces. It looks like Haiti not the southern states. Shame. God, it’s shameful.

The stories that are coming out of this are amazing. Terrible. As bad as the Tsunami. Interestingly enough, Canadians have not been so quick as to donate money. Perahps we think that Bush has spent billions on his war against terrorism, there must be deep pockets to clean up the US back yard.

I wonder how this will affect those people down there. What the long term implications will be. Interestingly enough, it’s the poorest and most uneducated population that voted in Bush. How sweet he was when he was courting them, how non existent when they needed his support the most.

I am so proud to be Canadian.


G.

After All, You're the Only One Who Can Turn Me On...

(Iron Workers Memorial)


Steel cages to bind
the river with architectural obedience;
high up on garters
strung tight
she whimpers
under the cargo

the wind whips her lace
tattering the blinking lights
against the clouds

and from pediments we taunt;
come now
fall, thrash us to the gray water
of our disillusionment

prove yourself unworthy
of this grace

woman

those broken backs
of men
who made you
forged the raw
molten earth
to carve your name
in the sky,
echo your curved back

papers
blue and black streamers
ribbon cutting
the mayor,
we celebrate her wanton ways

and this beautiful iron whore
with her thighs spread
welcomes you
to an emerald city.

Other Stories, Other Windows............

TRAVIS -
Sing

Baby, you've been going so crazy
Lately, nothing seems to be going right
Solo, why do you have to get so low
You're so...
You've been waiting in the sun too long

But if you sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing
For the love you bring won't mean a thing
Unless you sing, sing, sing, sing

Colder, crying on your shoulder
Hold her, and tell her everythings gonna be fine
Surely, you've been going to early
Hurry, cause no one's gonna be stopped
But if you sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing

For the love you bring won't mean a thing
Unless you sing, sing, sing, sing

Baby, there's something going on today
But I say nothing, nothing, nothing,
Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing

Other Stories, Other Windows............

Midnight Words ~ Thomas Carroll


Certain features may be unavailable.
The words come,
Hidden beneath her snores
And the sound of a fan keeping time
With his voice,
Careful, stepping over commas
Like a cat stalking shadows
Every word remembrance
Of fingertips forming moans
Across skin steamed with lacy indecision
He reads to her
Skin on skin
Warmth kissing every word with near silence
She wakes for a moment
And he stops,
Tears hidden
Wordless again
Mouth buried along the curve of her spine
That moments ago was an arch to heaven
He stops and murmurs
Naked in her eyes

Magic...

Detail

Something Blue..........

When I wake at night, I reach for the smooth landscape of your back. You instinctual whisper of easement as I curl into your warmth. Some nights, it’s only the memory of you that I find… the cold crisp of your pillow.

There are times when I lay in the dark and listen to you. (Not the loud version… but the dusky breathing before your tempest.) What I hear is the rising of some phoenix within me, the soft flutter of wings. It’s not just you that sighs as I slip my cold breasts against your back.

G.

Magic...

Bacchus and Ariadne, by Antoine`Jean Gros

Bacchus and Ariadne, by Antoine-Jean Gros

Where the Wild Bees Swarm

Here are a few secrets that I have been keeping.

I want something, bigger… greater… deeper, darker, longer… sweet and salty, hard and brilliant. I want something that fills me with its silent tide, simple and primal as the counting out of days. I want something that is both a risk and a known.

I want a house filled with memories that I made with you.

I want a photo album brimming with smiling faces and varied stories. A labyrinth of adventure, from that weekend stolen in October amongst the leaves to the grand trip overseas.

I want years. Not months.

I want to know when I come home, it is home. Home being built not just in timber, but in sweat and compromise. In love and conflict. A home built on shared principles. And mostly, on laughter.

I want friends. Many friends. And a dinner table to hold them.

I want to know you as well as I know myself. Know how your eyes look under many different skies… or how you handle the reality of our lives.

I want firsts. Lasts. I want to know I can lean on you and you will stand up tall.

I want to be proud of myself. Of you. Of what it stands for, having come down that long road.

I want this feeling to go away. The one that makes me doubt that all of this is possible. That I don’t feel fortunate enough to find this sort of fulfillment, that perhaps there must be more hills to climb over… rivers to traverse.

I don’t know if it’s you. I want this to be. And honestly… I am not sure if I can stand the disappointment if it’s not.

This all takes time, I know. But can you feel it? My pulling into myself. My closure. It will pass. I hope. Don’t react by shutting me out. I am not sure if any of it will come to fruition. It’s so much, too much, to ask for at this time. (Hell, I have NOT lost my mind.) But be patient. I just can’t tell you these things yet. I still want my secrets.

For right now… I just need you.



G.

Something Wicked this way Comes...

Young Woman with a Fan - Rotari (Taken at the National Gallery)