Telling Tales....

Other Windows

For the Turnstiles - Neil Young



All the sailors
with their seasick mamas
Hear the sirens on the shore,
Singin' songs
for pimps with tailors
Who charge ten dollars
at the door.
You can really
learn a lot that way
It will change you
in the middle of the day.
Though your confidence
may be shattered,
It doesn't matter.
All the great explorers
Are now in granite laid,
Under white sheets
for the great unveiling
At the big parade.
You can really
learn a lot that way
It will change you
in the middle of the day.
Though your confidence
may be shattered,
It doesn't matter.
All the bushleague batters
Are left to die
on the diamond.
In the stands
the home crowd scatters
For the turnstiles,
For the turnstiles,
For the turnstiles.

Calm Before the Storm

It’s been over a month….

We survived Christmas in the usual “Martha Wanna Be” way. And I have to say, it was much quieter than I had expected. But what madness to prepare!

Since I am so negligent, let me with you a Merry Christmas. I hope it found you in warm company, well fed and with a glass full of something lovely.

And onward we shall go………..

G

Beauty in the Breakdown

Muted Passion (Stale Bread)

(Something Old) Something Blue

Wailing



I perceive nothing tangible now...
only
detail in perfection:
clear, crystal

far off minutiae of tree limbed emptiness.

A flannel shirt, soft in the sun;
smooth bone buttons, cream against
textured plaid.

I hear the birds,
the constant chatter of squirrels

there is the scent of dirt, wet in the cold
reassuring under the blanket
of gold and red leaves
precise against
the green.

Light filters down
amongst branches reaching, naked prayers
to the impossible still of sky

somewhere a conversation
a laugh
a ring of cigarette smoke;

if I turn, to the right
your car, my books
with sketches of
katydids captured in plastic cups,

my orange peels
laying on the dash
releasing hunger into the air;

a single
stray red hair abandoned on the seat;
found later, a shot of color in
gray starvation.

I know that if I turn to my left
I will see the russet of pine needles
scattered on stone
and the sound of footsteps
rattling echoes
against the log cabin.

If
I could sleep now;

I would,
in the pale yellow
rumple of bed sheets, butter
soft from skin

my fingers trapping moths
stupid against the night
coming back to candlelight;
the moon is too far

(can you feel me now?)

waiting,

for the sun to drift
to afternoon.

Seasons Change ...

This is the time of year to remember. Not just the dead, but the living. A time to listen to those old songs, to let the wine drift you into the gold and iridescent memories we keep for days like today.

Do you? Do you remember me? Or is it only me that thinks of you. I can feel that night. The thin trees out the kitchen window, the way the pear’s skin comes away in my hand.. the juice on my wrist. The katydids are silent. There is no wind. The moon rains down, cool in the dinner hour sky. We are five miles from the main road. On the way, there are two grave yards and a deep dip that marks the homestead of a famous confederate soldier. We are two hours from Tennessee. We are 4,152 miles away from my home. My sleeping babies with soft cheeks nestled into their beds. My soon to be ex husband pacing downstairs.

It’s not like I remember hard. I have a gift for these memories. The retelling of them. I can conjure you in a breath. The twisting fall of a leaf from a high branch. Slowly. Elegantly. The story twists around to fall, told and abandoned again. There is no bruising.

We both survived. Barely. You beat the shit out of your car, the bones you broke clean enough to heal without a scar. You are one of the few who survived circumstances as this. You are one of the lucky ones. We are. Both.

It took me a long time to feel lucky. To feel blessed. Did you struggle with the hang-over of perfume and moonlight? Did you remember things that cut you to the bone, the learning to love, the learning to live in the reality that we built? How many nights passed, breathing in and out… knowing it was what had to be done? That the pain would dissipate. That I would walk out on the other side, whole. Dammit. Yes I would. That love would not break me down.

But was it love? Was it? Come now, don’t bullshit me. We are old friends. Was it really love or was it some other phenomena? Stubbornness? An excuse to run?

I don’t even know how long it has been.

Peaches still do not taste as sweet as those held in my palm, the Missouri air holding it together, the Mississippi River a dirty road to be followed and explored.

I don’t love you, but I remember what it tastes like. And although my love now is something less green, more savory and robust… I know that it is not the same. Nothing can sustain itself with that kind of passion for long.

I don’t love you anymore. Instead, I am thankful. I survived. I walked out on the other side, wiser. Whole. Me.

This is the time of year we visit the graves we hide, the buried things we secreted away. This is the time of year we remember how good it feels to be alive. Awake. Real.

If not unscathed, we are healed in this new light.



G.

The Littlest Birds Sing the Sweetest Songs

The rain has begun with a temper tantrum passion. All out. No holds barred.

I would not normally mind the cold rain or the whipping wind, I enjoy the way it knocks the leaves off their branches. But as of Halloween, I have no hair. Yes… you heard that correct. NO HAIR.

I managed to raise a little over $2000 to assist families with children fighting cancer. I auctioned off my red locks in a show of support. It was not easy… the first swipe of the razor (in public none the less) was quite shocking. Tears welled up in my eyes but there was a cheer of support and the subsequent shaving was a breeze.

What is interesting though is the reaction of people who do not know about this charity or the exercise… the reaction to a bald woman moving through our world. I knew that there is value placed in beauty, hair being part of it. (I would not have done this while still in the dating realm.) Admittedly, there are places where I can’t bring myself to remove my hat… where I hide my secret…

I walked into an Indian sweet shop the other day and the men stared at me… white girl that I am, this is not unusual. Bald girl that I am, makes me more so. I smiled and rubbed the top of my head commenting how we had the same hair cut. (The handsome man at the counter has a receding hair line and short hair.) We all laughed and I learned something valuable, people just want to be put at ease.

How do people who have no choice go through this everyday, putting everyone at ease? And this is why women who survive radiation therapy wear wigs. Sadly, I don’t know if I was someone to stare or look away. Surely, I would have smiled… surely…..

I have resisted writing day to day flotsam in here for you… but with this one I am going to keep you updated. Call it the adventures of taking it all off…

(Next update: How certain clothing MAKES you look like a butch. And here I always thought it was the woman…. )


G.

Beauty in the Breakdown

Passing

There are red leaves on the lawn. Autumn is so slow this year… I wore (knowing better) flip flops to the junk shop around the corner yesterday. The sky has that blue of coming chill, a washed out version of summer. I still have not pulled my winter coat out of the attic or found all of my sweaters.

Driving home from work I pass the fields in harvest, see the bent heads of the cheap Southeast Asian labor dipping and rising amongst the green. Their turbans muted shades of frivolity. There is the massive oak at work every lunch, russet on the tips fading to gold towards the trunk.

I am in love.

With a tree.



G.

Blackberry Tangles

Something Blue

Pale September

Oddities and Entertainment

Today I saw a beautiful woman in La Vie En Rose with hands full of delicious lingerie.

Her second toe
resembled
a man's
penis.


See what you miss out on when you rush through your life?

G.

Something Old, Something Blue

1971

Eileen and Gary
before
they became THEM:
a couple
whose names
were inseparable.

She in a hat, the brim
framing her face,
young
and beautiful;
she beams at him.
Him with his cowlick
and darkish looks
handsome and unrecognizable.

But I know them,
know I am like Him,
not like Her at all.
Some strangeness of being
their first born
not recognizing myself
in their smiles;
me the future
the road turn not yet seen
not yet imagined.

What strikes me though
is how young they are.
How happy.
Something I would not see
for another seventeen years
until well after
their divorce.

Confession

My birthday.

It was a hard one to swallow this year. Hard for various reasons… and then I feel shallow for pouting. I have been given so much this year and then I behave like a spoiled brat.

What is another year, really?

I have been going through a job promotion/interview thingy the last few weeks and something I have to acknowledge is that I am more ambitious than I gave myself credit for. And secondly, I so want to be on the other side of the desk. The person out in the field, getting mucky and loving it. The heartache and the challenge.

By this time next year I will either be on that side… or I will be happy with that choice not to be. I need to quit thinking about it…..

So.

34

I need to see it up there as to not deny it’s existence.



G.

Familiar Places

Something We Know is Lost

Beauty in the Breakdown

I am tired. Tired deep. Tired.

But my heart is light.

This weekend was madness. From the moment I locked the office door Friday afternoon to the moment I unlocked it this morning.

At the airport on Sunday, we walked out from the underground parking and there was a Fir tree swarmed with small black birds. Each one singing some story to the dusk sky. I have never seen anything like that. Tree limbs heavy with song. It was in such stark contrast to the steel and glass of the Domestic Arrivals façade. A camera would never do it justice, only the sound of them singing, loud and exuberant.

I love airports.

The people watching. The good clothes and shoes. The bad hair. The flowers. Coffee in paper cups. Small luxuries, new books, glossy magazine covers. The lovers. The kissing, the hugs. The small happiness, the loud hello’s. The tired eyes and the hidden stories. The individual histories unfolding. We are witness to life here. Take the woman dressed in black leaning against the pole. Waiting for luggage, alone. Or the young lover who carried the most beautiful bunch of pink flowers. Not the cheap ones they sell downstairs, but something that took thought and preparation. And how he could not keep his hands or lips off of her, how she smiled at him with such openness.

I wonder if I wear that face when I see Jeff. (My heart surely does when I walk in the door.)

And the black man who caught my eyes and said hello. Or the way, even tired, we are gentle with one another. We share something, this mass of humanity. We share in some common joy, the arrival gate.

The birds just reminded me of why I love the airport. The surprises. The pleasures of strange people and how we are all attached in one way or another. Sitting on the limbs of our existence.



G.

Teach me This...

Covered Bridge

Hidden Places

There is something to be said about the beauty of where we live. Could anything be more gorgeous, a study in contrasts? The lush green of the corn fields in the Fraser Valley to the grey green of sage in Salmon Arm? The dark jade green of the Columbia River and the pastel turquoise of White Swan Lake?

I love this beautiful place. With it’s red sun and it’s roundabout roads.

We drove twelve hours to a little lake up near Cranbrook for the long weekend. Johnny Cash on the stereo, winding through little towns and past fruit stands jammed full of tourists. I love almost every minute of it. (Almost?) Yes, almost all of it.

We stopped in Salmon Arm for a swim, sandy banks and pale green water. I was surprised by the oil money from Alberta that was being flaunted. Escalades and huge speed boats, eight out of ten plates from Alberta. It’s all good for the locals but I have to wonder what we are eroding. Everything bigger and better, the Texas of the north.

Walking along a side road in Golden was interesting. The gardens were so beautiful. Eden. Overflowing the neat perimeters in an ecstatic love of the sun and heat. South, deeper into belly of the province, the road smooth and silent, cleaving away from the busy main highway. Through Invermere and the deep valley, clinging to pink stone and blue blue sky.

Natural hot springs, sulfur and heat. (I ruined a bathing suit.) How delightful to find these natural springs on the edge of the river, large stones have been collected to cause it to pool, cascading down to finally mingle with the cold melt water. It’s only too bad that there was nothing private about it, FULL of tourists and children and loud voiced tipsy people. There was remnants of wax on the large boulders, evidence that this place is never quiet, that even at night there is a crowd.

The lake we camped at was so clear. No matter how far you swam, you could sit still and see the bottom, the soft wave of weeds. I went running the one morning along it’s banks on a little trail that wove it’s way along little bays and over a creek. Unfortunately though, I broke the trail… meaning the million and one little cobwebs that had been formed since the last person took it. And we all know how I feel about spiders.

Coming home we took the southern route. Yhak, Midway, Grand Forks, Greenville (a personal favorite). By the time we hit the Appalachian Mountains, the truck was full of tomatoes and peaches… tired boys and wet swim suits full of sand from Bromley Rock. And through the pass the clouds pulled in, the sky that angry dark right before a storm… until we hit Hope where it let down. Welcome home. But how could we sustain all this beauty if there was not the liquid sunshine?

Am I glad to be home? Yes and no. J. and I need to take a week and go explore some more, get off the beaten track.

Somewhere he knows from his railroad days is a town half forgotten called Donald. Pulling off the main road we ducked under the highway than wove our way beside the tracks until we came to a sign that stated Donald Cemetery. The only thing left of this town that used to boast a main road and a church. There were only a couple of traditional stones, the majority being carved out of wood. Worn away by weather and time, the stones were no longer legible. What a lovely find. It’s things like this that I love the most about traveling with J. His little hidden delights.

And now you know who I am having the love affair with. The green of home, the gold of soft hills and sage brush.



G.

Something BLue

Something Blue

Beauty in the Breakdown

Due to my recent escapades and adventures there has been a need for new photographs. Strangely, I do not completely trust them to J, although I did as much cropping today as I would have with pictures he had taken. Still, the need was there… and so I set up the all seeing eye to try and capture some of my skin.

The camera is such a fickle lover.

Inspired by Eliza, I crave the play of light. I need one of those little remotes you see in her fingers though… and find it difficult to set up the frames as I see them in my mind.

Perhaps I will find someone with a beautiful eye to try their luck.

I love these though, taken in the old mirror. The streaking of the silver is lovely.

How strange it is, by the time the last frame was taken... I craved J. Craved should be capitalized. The eroticized mind. Always hungry for something new and delicious. Either that or the workings of an over-imagitive mind. But who gives a hell about definitions. An hour to go until he is home.... isn't that all that matters?

G.

Confession

The lawn is dying. And do I really care? There is a line across the street. Gold for those who do not give a shit, green for those who do. The green is so lush this time of year, a marked contrast to the unforgiving brown of neglect. How is it though, that the weeds live on?

We are so resilient. The weeds.

Considering my love has spent a fortune on implements for whacking away the weeds and lawn, it seems like a waste to let it all die. But really, it’s still pretty. Wrap your mind around that… beauty in the gold harvest color. Yah, I know. Green is easier to love.

J. and I are planning a trip to Galiano in the next few weeks. I know that this time of year will find the wild flower fields gone, only the husks remaining… but I am sure that there will be many other things to see. The purple of the starfish… the green of the glass.

I crave this time of year all through winter… and here it is. The sky is that periwinkle blue at night that poets have been trying to translate for generations. The air has that muggy energetic feeling of trouble and delight. Yes, you… of adventure. It’s heady with pheromones. Every teenage boy is in rut right now and really, can you blame him? The short skirts and tank tops… bikinis and tanned legs that go allll the way up.

Some women read their romance books like a guilty pleasure this time of year, some women live it. Which are you?

I met K. for the first time last week… pretty woman, wonderful eyes. And her freckles were stunning… a labyrinth of connecting the dots, finding the pathways to secret gardens. My mind would wander… drift off in it’s summer way, the ice cubes in my coffee melting. Tick tock, until her voice brought me back from my freckle holidays. But what sights I saw…

I know you do it to, drift off into daydream when you should be paying attention. I do believe I have an advantage though and can pick up where I left off. The only risk is if I drift off while talking… rambling over dirt roads of cognitive thought and conjecture. My listening may get lost on those back roads… and it takes time to get back on the highway. Which I did with K.

Her smirk at the car still has me wondering. She is not a romance reader, this woman. She is a fellow adventurer.

Summer. Infinite sky. The way water beads on skin, fracturing the light. A field of gladioli, burnt orange and magenta pink. The urgent call of the morning birds and the gentle hum of the traffic on main street. The gold of our lawn in striking contrast to the neighbor’s. There are many definitions of summer…


G.

Telling Secrets by Candlelight

I took a French lover once. An arrogant, self serving, uncouth, beautiful, sexy man. When we went our separate ways it was with a passionate uproar that rippled out and touched everyone we knew. Yes, it was messy. But such things happen after you live with such passion…

Or was it conceived passion?

This was a man who had multiple affairs, with me… with other women. A man who lied about everything… but lived in the moment.

So when we met a French couple last week, I could not quite shake the “I have been here before” feeling. David reminds me of Daniel. Playing that guy… but really very insecure under it all. Don’t take this the wrong way; he was a nice enough guy… charming in all the right places. But there was an under taste that I could not quite put my finger on until recently.

I think he was intimidated by J. For some obvious and not so clear, hidden under our clothes sort of way. It’s in the little comments he made, in the lack of follow through with getting together.

But I have to say, I am not disappointed in their silence. In a way, I am relieved. Daniel was trouble. So would this Frenchman. It’s beyond their control. Arrogant cocks that they are.

It makes me love my J. all that more. For his beautiful nature and sublime laid back attitude. What a wonderful state of life we live.


G.



Le Coq Francais
~For Daniel (Written a million years ago...)


Five o’clock (am),
pastoral delight.
I am roused from
sweet slumber
by the cock crows.
Le coq francais,
with his perfectly
proportioned,
proud sleek head,
feathers glistening
with west coast damp,
lords over the barn yard.
He scratches at the
heaving mounds
of fertile valley soil,
while his chick
pecks at the spilt cream
from the milk-maids pail.
And the brood of hens
squabble
over night-crawlers
in the frost-free
morning air.
His crow rings
out over the landscape,
with curves echoing
the arch of his
regal tail and I slip
from my sheets
my inner clock
ticking to his call.

Beauty in the Breakdown

Purple Star

Confession

This time of year it is difficult to resist the sweetness of temptation.

The succulent red globed cherries shockingly shaped like a circumcised penis head. (Think of that next time you bite down hard to the pit, or as you lick it clean to bite again…)

The golden plum with it’s burnished shadow of orange. It smells like when I was twenty-one and all those pleasures plucked from that tree.

The dripping watermelon, wiped away with the back of a greedy hand.

Sweetness everywhere… an overabundance of it. The bees must be heady with the scent of nectar.

To taste something so surprisingly wonderful, to dip first your fingers then your tongue… to glut on the heady experience of taking in too much “Pinch me now” sensation…. this is summer.

I could eat honey and still it would be competition to the saccharine I taste on a lip or nipple, or even better yet; the greedy slurping of passions. The sing song of a mouth full…

Oh such bliss in our greedy intake of the season.

Ah, but sugar, bees are not the only ones drunk.


G.

Strange Fruit....

Lady's Mantle

Yarrow

Pavilion

Where Is My Something Blue?

“Summertime...
and the livin is
easy...
the fish are jumpin'
and the cotton is high..."

When the soft feathers of rain touch my shoulders, I will come find you.


G.

Secret Places

Spread Open

Hear that?

There are secret worlds living out around us. How we forget in our own microcosms that each stranger is living the same sort of dance. Modern. Ballet. Jazz. Punk. Still a dance. Still something primal that we beat out in a simple rhythm that slowly becomes forgotten sound… the thump of our hearts.

Do you look at people? Wonder what stories they would tell?

Why does the old man next door live in a dingy basement suite when he is at the sunset of his years? This is a time for walking towards the sunset; admire the crickets’ song… not fuss with a broken mower in the sun…

What about that Indian woman who smiles shyly at you at the supermarket? Do you wonder why she does not speak English to you, instead of translating through her young son?

Tomorrow, instead of turning away to read the paper, watch people. Really see them. Open your self to that silent music they emit and see what beats you can detect.

Let that tremble the soft grasses of your imagination…. swelling until it makes a golden sea of movement.

There are infinite songs to be heard.



G.

Beauty Mundane...

More Detail

Detail

Feather Tips

I'm Baaaack!

Brambles and Barbed Wire

June Grass & Barn

Beauty in the Breakdown

Just Because 3

Just Because 2

Just Because

Come out, Come out...

I feel the need to explain….

I have been packing and hugely negligent. I will be back once the dust clears and the last box is labeled.

G.

From One Pussy to Another...

Who Could Resist, George

Confession...

What is in a kiss?

Soft as it may be. Sweet and wine scented. There is no rush to deliberate on the greater reasoning. No. There is only the soft ripe apricot of lip, the tender flesh on the inner bite…

A kiss is something dangerous. Overlooked. Such rising tides smash at the shore of my reason under it’s subtlety. I am a fool for the warm ease at which it quickly, quietly, drowns me.

Remember your first? Your last? The one with the slow smile and the agenda hidden under her breastbone? I do. Yes… I do.

She had red hair and wore my perfume. Stole my dresses and filled my bed with her cold feet.

Dangerous kiss. Dangerous slippery slope she pushed me down.

And then this last kiss, tentative. Restrained. A fleeting but tantalizing prelude to the pink flesh that lay behind the girlish capriciousness. I am always a sucker for a secret.

What is in a kiss.

Nothing. Spit and teeth. A flick of tongue. There is no mystery there.

What is the secret it keeps?



Desire.




G.

Something Blue

Pink Petals



She walks out under
the cherry trees
in blossom.

They wave gently
to her passing, petals
falling to supplicate
at her pointed heel.

Gentle green trampled
in the flicker of blond
she fidgets away her prettiness
forgetting
(this blooming lasts
only for a short time)

Do we envy the fearless
in her smile?
Or is it the turn of her hip
and upturned breast?

The petals drift, snagging
onto the beautiful stasis of youth;
a trembling anticipation
of falling
to middle ground.

See this? Bruise? Scar? This
marking on my body
saying “ I lived my life,
where you are now just walking”
(under that same pink
blossom wedding bower)

Does she hear our eyes
loudly calling out to the wind?


G.

Beauty in the Breakdown

This is a Love Poem without Restraint – Lorna CROZIER



This poem
is full of pain
full of pieces
It cries out
oh! oh! oh!
It has no pride
no discretion
It whimpers
It will not drop its eyes
when it meets a stranger
It will not hide
its tears

▪

It will talk
of beauty
Lilacs Apples
The smell of rain
in caraganas
Your mouth
Your eyes

What are you going to do about it?
You cannot stop me
now

▪

The moon shines on this page
as the poems writes
itself. It is trying to find
whiteness
frost on snow
two feathers
on a pillow
your hands
upon
my skin

▪

These words are tired
of being
words
They refuse to sit here
pretending
they can’t move
off the page

These are the fist
ones to leave
their white space
They fall
on your tongue
letter
by
letter
like raindrops

One of them
is my name

What ill you do with it?
It has decided to live
inside you

▪

This poem has no restraint
It will not say
plum blossom
sunset
rubbing stone
cat’s cradle

It refused to be evasive

I miss you
I miss you
Come home

▪

I won’t talk of passion
but the sleep that follows
when our bodies
touch

that moment
just before waking
when we realize
we have been holding one another
in our sleep

▪

How do you use the word love
in a poem?

Love.

If you look at it
long enough
it will burn your eyes

Other Windows

Starfish

Other Windows

Things I Have Forgotten

Night Sky...

Streaker

What Dreams Are These...

I had this dream…

Music filling the air, liquid and hot… she turns her head to hear it fully, capturing the notes into strings that she can identify. A slight smile on her lips.

And when she turns, the light captures her shadow; pulling it away from her skin to reveal the upturn of her breast, the ripe pillow of her nipple. In her navel is a star, in the dark curl of her hair, dew captures the moon in tiny shards.

The music captures her, turning her back to me… she arcs up, graceful as a sparrow, pausing in mid air. She falls, cleaving the air and vanishes into the darkness.

My heart is pounding. There is sweat beading in between my breasts. I feel afraid and curious.

I will myself back asleep.

What was the music she heard? I hear it too, but not enough to know what it is, a ghost of a song. Why is she naked? Her skin lit blue by the night.

It is a strange dream and I wonder what she means. Or is it just the spring night, teasing me with the sound of rain.


G.

Unfurling Tendrils...

Tonight I went running down the backside of my little mountain… the same trail they closed in a February storm due to the dangerous wind-fall. For so long this trail had been the same, cold earth… limp ferns.

When I came around the old gnarled maple the waxy scent of salmonberries gave way to the sharp acid of skunk cabbage.

The creek is running again.

And high above the trilliums blooming rise the cedars, still beautiful.

This spring unfurling always catches me slightly off guard. How sudden and quick. Spring is a woman come undone, shaking her hair out she is exuberant in her chartreuse dress dotted with daffodils.

The kind of woman all the boys want to take under the fresh pink blossoms, the kind of woman others envy for her natural beauty.

There will not be many more runs like this one… soon I will have to find new paths. New and wonderful details. But still, there is this mountain trail. There is the cedar and the salmonberry. There is the dog at the fourth house on the right and the old man who waters his garden every evening. Not gone, just altered.

Pressed here. For remembrance.


G.

Other Windows

Carrots ~ Lorna CROZIER



Carrots are fucking
the earth. A permanent
erection , they push deeper
into the damp and dark.
All summer long
they try so hard to please.
Was it food for you,
Was it good?

Perhaps because the earth won’t answer
they keep on trying.
While you stroll through the garden
thinking carrot cake,
carrots and onions in beef stew,
carrot pudding with caramel sauce,
they are fucking their brains out
in the hottest part of the afternoon.

Whispers....

Have you ever watched the autumn rush of spawning salmon, their fight against the current; through falls and shallow creek beds, through mountain canyons and under highway bridges? Steady they move, part memory, instinct… another part so primal it is in their very tissue. Red. Gashes of red and in this primal passion they push forward.

The current fights me. Minutes. Days. Weeks. I swim up my river, through the forest of second growth words seeking the dense cedar silence of the old growth. I am hunting for the deepest pool, the clearest and most protected. I want to bury my future in those protective roots growing on it’s banks.

I want to come home.

And Jeff and I are doing that. Building something in the evergreens. Building a future so new it is merely a pinecone waiting for a June fire to set the seeds free.

Forgive my neglect. We have been busy. Today we did something completely monumental for both of us; something that I hope is just the beginning of a wonderful, fruitful life together….

We removed the subjects on the purchase of our house. Half way. We are half way to making it ours.

And we both agree that one of the bedroom walls will be red.


G.

Something Blue

Frog Moon

Whispers...

Have you noticed a change in the night?

It’s no longer only the singing of the cedar trees I hear but now a chorus of frogs has started their mating songs. I had heard the morning robins but somehow I had missed them. We all do that; hear something without really hearing it. But there they were under the full moon, crooning away.

Then there is the scent of the rain. Distinctive west coast spring. Smelling of green and dirt. Of pine trees and wet pavement.

I may have to go hunting spring down. Pin her to the pages of this cyber world to share with those who have not yet smelled the trail of her perfume.

G.

Other Windows...

How to Speak Poetry~by Leonard Cohen

Take the word butterfly. To use this word it is not necessary to make the voice weigh less than an ounce or equip it with small dusty wings. It is not necessary to invent a sunny day or a field of daffodils. It is not necessary to be in love, or to be in love with butterflies. The word butterfly is not a real butterfly. There is the word and there is the butterfly. If you confuse these two items people have the right to laugh at you. Do not make so much of the word. Are you trying to suggest that you love butterflies more perfectly than anyone else, or really understand their nature? The word butterfly is merely data. It is not an opportunity for you tohover, soar, befriend flowers, symbolize beauty and frailty, or in any way impersonate a butterfly.

Do not act out words. Never act out words. Never try to leave the floor when you talk about flying. Never close your eyes and jerk your head to one side when you talk about death. Do not fix your burning eyes on me when you speak about love.

If you want to impress me when you speak about love put your hand in your pocket or under your dress and play with yourself. If ambition and the hunger for applause have driven you to speak about love you should learn how to do it without disgracing yourself or the material.

What is the expression which the age demands? The age demands no expression whatever. We have seen photographs of bereaved Asian mothers. We are not interested in the agony of your fumbled organs. There is nothing you can show on your face that can match the horror of this time. Do not even try. You will only hold yourself up to the scorn of those who have felt things deeply.

We have seen newsreels of humans in the extremities of pain and dislocation. Everyone knows you are eating well and are even being paid to stand up there. You are playing to people who have experienced a catastrophe. This should make you very quiet.

Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Everyone knows you are in pain. You cannot tell the audience everything you know about love in every line of love you speak. Step aside and they will know what you know because you know it already. You have nothing to teach them. You are not more beautiful than they are. You are not wiser. Do not shout at them. Do not force a dry entry. That is bad sex. If you show the lines of your genitals, then deliverwhat you promise. And remember that people do not really want an acrobat in bed.

What is our need? To be close to the natural man, to be close to the natural woman. Do not pretend that you are a beloved singer with a vast loyal audience which has followed the ups and downs of your life to this very moment. The bombs, flame-throwers, and all the shit habe destroyed more than just the trees and villages. They have also destroyed the stage. Did you think that your profession would escape the general destruction? There is no more stage. There are no more footlights.

You are among the people. Then be modest. Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Be by yourself. Be in your own room. Do not put yourself on.

This is an interior landscape. It is inside. It is private. Respect the privacy of the material. These pieces were written in silence. The courage of the play is to speak them. The discipline of the play is not to violate them. Let the audience feel your love of privacy even though there is no privacy. Be good whores.

The poem is not a slogan. It cannot advertise you. It cannot promote your reputation for sensitivity. You are not a stud. You are not a killer lady. All this junk about the gangsters of love. You are students of discipline. Do not act out the words. The words die when you act them out, they wither, and we are left with nothing but your ambition.

Speak the words with the exact precision with which you would check out a laundry list. Do not become emotional about the lace blouse. Do not get a hard-on when you say panties. Do not get all shivery just because of the towel. The sheets should not provoke a dreamy expression about the eyes. There is no need to weep into the handkerchief. The socks are not there to remind you of strange and distant voyages. It is just your laundry. It is just your clothes. Don't peep through them. Just wear them.

The poem is nothing but information. It is the Consitution of the inner country. If you declaim it and blow it up with noble intentions then you are no better than the politicians whom you despise. You are just someone waving a flag and making the cheapest kind of appeal to a kind of emotional patriotism. Think of the words as science, not as art. They are a report. You are speaking before a meeting of the Explorers' Club of the National Geographic Society. These people know all the risks of mountain climbing. They honour you by taking this for granted. If you rub their faces in it that is an insult to their hospitality. Tell them about the height of the mountain, the equipment you used, be specific about the surfaces and the time it took to scale it. Do not work the audience for gasps and sighs. If you are worthy of gasps and sighs it will not be from your appreciation of the event but from theirs. It will be in the statistics and not the trembling of the voice or the cutting of the air with your hands. It will be in the data and the quiet organization of your presence.

Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you're tired. You look like you could go on forever.

Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty

Something Blue...

Valley Sky

Other Windows

I Love It When - Sharon Olds



I love it when you roll over
and lie on me in the night, your weight
steady on me as tons of water, my
lungs like a little, shut box,
the firm, haired surface of your legs
opening my legs, my heart swells
to a taut purple boxing glove and then
sometimes I love to lie there doing
nothing, my powerful arms thrown down,
bolts of muslin rippling from the selvage,
your pubic bone a pyramid set
point down on the point of another
-- glistening fulcrum. Then, in the stillness,
I love to feel your grow and grow be-
tween my legs like a plant in fast motion
the way, in the auditorium, in the
dark, near the beginning of our lives,
above us, the enormous stems and flowers
unfold in silence.

Beauty in the Breakdown

Snow

Drifting

Spring And Stones

Hear the City Burn?

Gabrielle on the Dark Water ~ By Nero (2003)


It was in that ship that Gabrielle would sometimes
talk to me on the lonely star watch, asking above the
music of the bugling night, the waves roaring with
thousands of lonely voices, perhaps voices of all
who had ever drowned, all who had ever died.

“Is it a Star?” Gabrielle asked. “Is it a spark?
Where do the waves’ motions take up? Is that a
dolphin’s shining back or an island? Will the tide draw
us shoreward, but who draws the shore, and do the
hills and valleys move like waves, swelling and
breaking into the trees of foam, human faces?”

“Tell me, “ Gabrielle said, “where is the shore, and
is there no shore, no shore of light or darkness? What
are those foundations of light breaking upon the waves
and the clouds, stars like fires upon the
waters of the darkness – Arcturus, Andromeda, rainy
Haydes? Is there no shore but the argosy of the moving
stars, or are the stars like watchmen’s lamps put
out, or are they the eyes of a peacock? Is it
winter-rimed Orion or the eye of a bird?”

“What birds do you see,” Gabrielle asked me, “and are
they drifting leeward like the stars?”

Finding Secrets in the Mirror Project

Red Sky http://www.mirrorproject.com/index.html

Another Crazy Canuck...

http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/

The Littlest Birds Sing the Sweetest Songs...

Morning Sky

Where the Wild Bees Swarm

I was talking in my sleep last night.

Nonsense. Mad ramblings of a free mind wandering around in the soft dark safety of sleep. If only my bed had been empty. My poor lover lost some sleep staring into the dark reality of the bedroom corners wondering what I would say next. Or puzzling over what I had said.

He called me “hostile”.

I wondered why he was staying to his edge of the bed when I woke sometime closer to morning, there was only the sheets touching me.

Something that strikes me as interesting is how I used the word “ka-ching” . (If that is a word at all and not just syllables.) This is not a word I use in my every day vocabulary. It’s actually a word I cannot even remember using, ever. And in the context of my night rambling, it has an odd reverberation. Odd. Really odd. You would think that night talkers would use the same series of sounds they use all day, something familiar and easy to pull out of a hat.

I think the only thing that could top this is the night I woke my ex husband, head under the covers… frantic. Looking for the spiders. I would not turn off the lights until I had made sure there was nothing creeping around. But in my sleepy state, I was having a psychotic episode. Completely convinced that the bed was swarming. He did manage to wake me, but I still checked under the bed.

Hostile.

As a child my parents were told not to wake me when I sleepwalked. I can’t remember the rational behind this, how it would harm me. I guess the reality of the situation was that I never went outside, instead taking the same route night after night. I vaguely remember how the light from the moon would make the furniture look. But now I don’t know if that was a dream. Perhaps the doctor was worried I would lash out. Act hostile.

I need to add this one to the disclaimer. If you love me, expect the following MAY occur. (Kind of like, this product MAY contain peanuts.) This woman MAY be slightly hostile if approached when sleeping. This woman MAY steal covers. This woman MAY cause you sleepless nights.

Isn’t life fantastic? You never know.

Thanks Forrest… life IS like a box of chocolates, unless you poke your pinkie finger into them first….


G.

Quit Your Bitching....

Drink up baby down
Are you in or are you out?
Leave your things behind'
Cause it's all going off without you
Excuse me too busy you're writing your tragedy
These mishaps
You bubble-wrap
When you've no idea what you're like

Beauty is in The Eye...

Something He Sees

Confession

Is there only reality if we feel pain?

Do I only know love if it bites me back? Do I only know a good wine with a hangover? Do I only know light with shadow, sky with clouds, lips with teeth?

I love the lack of drama, but I keep looking over my shoulder. Waiting. You know, that kind of waiting. Suspension. Remember when you were a child and you stayed up too late telling ghost stories in the dark. There was that kid who would scare you with the flashlight, or by scratching on the tent… falling asleep you kept waiting for that scare. The inevitable rude awakening.

Sometimes it comes. Without drama or reason. Just like Tom’s sadness followed by the cold of numb. Or by him telling me that she was pregnant, or that he was in love with someone else… or that, damn you were lovely… but… not for me.

Why is it that the present pulls even the murkiest photograph into sharp focus?

Are we junkies for what makes us feel alive, even if it hurts. Over salting our food until we need more and more until we can no longer taste what it was meant to be.

I am afraid that love is like that.

And here I am. Loving. In this quiet way. Everyday. A green shirt hanging in the closet. Resisting the salt. But… parts of me are waiting for the sudden scrape of the branch against the fragile shell of the tent. Frightened by the boogie man in my head more than the reality of truth.

The truth is, he is a good man. I am grateful. I am loved. I love.

There is no sadness here that is not of my making. How about you? What kind of sadness do you keep?



G.

Witness

She Waits


There is a kink in her hair
where
she released the tension
of a tortoise shell barrette
felling
a silent waterfall
of amber light.


G.