Month: April 2006

is it true? I don’t know of any other really great talents he has like that.

Michael and I are huddled like literate junkie street kids around the stolen wireless outside Andrew‘s apartment. Andrew, however, is apparently on Denman street. Eating sushi. The death food.

Michael is being a rebel without a cause, as I say he shouldn’t. It’s too silly with his black leather jacket. Especially with that hair of his. What is he thinking? When he was writing his entry, I was reading Murakami. Sputnik Sweetheart. A woman walked past us, looking confused, but not minding us. She stepped over my second rate pastries and smiled. She had thick ankles.

Now Michael’s singing endearments to the wall. I don’t know if he’s making up the song, but I doubt it. He says it’s from the internet.

‘she offered her honour, he honoured her offer, and all night long he was on her and off her.’


Pike Place Market
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

http://twas.brillig.and.the.slithy.toves.did.gyre.and.gimble.in.the.wabe.all.mimsy.were.the.borogoves.and.the.mome.raths.outgrabe.jabberwocky.com/

Another letter arrived after the long weekend. This one with a different stamp.

Cherished Jhayne,

Once upon a yesterday, when hearts still
hardened and stones still bled, a boy
grew up listening to the wind. “It sounds
almost like singing,” he would say, and
friends and family would laugh at his
fancy. As a youg man he bought a pair
of boots and took to travelling, and did
not say that he was following the voice of
the wind. To himself he would say, “She is
almost singing, but cannot find the melody.”
A traveler one day came across the man as
he stood among the rocks, arms upraised.
“I am teaching the wind to sing,” said the
boy-who-was-now-a-man. The traveler moved
on but many years later passed by the
same spot, and paused upon hearing a
beautiful song. No singer
stood there, merely
the wind, who spun
around a rock
shaped like a
man, with his
arms upraised.

X

Love.

I can hear a rat scraping around in the back of the store. I want it to be my friend.

Passion-Hill, a very delightfully wrong Benny Hill/Passion of the Christ mash-up that confirms every little inner voice belief I had telling me never to watch the film.

The miracle of the clean water straw, the lingering joy of the discoving that people in little villages in africa have the habit of climbing trees to get better reception for their cell phones, these ideas were connecting in my mind this morning. I walked to work with the flavour of the future in my head. I’m curious to know who would be interested in starting a coffee-house discussion group on things like social networks inter-reacting with technology, the internet, and what we’re doing with our journals. There’s been a lot of talk lately about using the net as a tool, but I look around and never find enough people doing it. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of time to set aside for this sort of thing, but I’m willing to give it a try. I don’t want moderated discussions or weekly topics or anything regulated, I would rather let people spill what they’ve discovered that week and give them feed-back. I want motivations, clouded or otherwise, for keeping a journal. I want explanations, links to the news that changed your perpective on what the internet offers you. I talk about this sort of thing all the time in my every day but it hardly comes up here. I’d like that to change. Game?

When the zombies come, swords don’t run out of bullets. They’re going to be having a cane-fighting workshop come next Sunday.

getting in trouble is one of those kissing terms

Seattle is a more solid place to me than Vancouver, no matter that I’m sitting in it. Here, I’m not real yet. I’m in a miniskirt, army green under black lace, way too short, and a black shirt, lace at the cuffs, ruffles down the front, both borrowed. I look like myself, but not at all. I’m feeling happy, content, surrounded by seventies decor. It makes me think of old photographs of Berkley. I feel like I could be anywhere in the western world.

Getting on the bus was easier than I thought it would be. There was no sense of loss, no sticking to my choice to watch the city go by as if it were the last time. Instead my book was comforting, a story I like well. My morning had been on schedule, my border crossing I had no worry for. When it came to the crunch, the guard was more interested in what I was reading than my identification.

After the border, there was a strike of lightning, a clap of thunder louder than the voice of mother to a child. I jolted awake, suddenly hallucinating that I was traveling with someone instead of just my black carry bag. Long in jeans I closed my eyes and refused to look until I felt them close a kiss upon my mouth. I have a terror of insanity, but when I opened my eyes to the expected absence of a lover, I felt fine. Something has changed, something’s been accepted. A moment of mystery, borne on everything I want to be. I made a decision.

Dropped off a block away from the EMP, I decided not to go in, but to take the pictures I felt I missed last time. Grinning, it was like I could see myself walking without needing light. I touched the building and felt set afire. Seattle a world apart from the one I knew, a piece of reality that anchored me. From last time, I knew my way around. Here is where I can get a walking map, here is where I’m tempted by a small brass statue of the tower for Andrew. No step taken was wrong, no word superfluous. The bus took me to where I wanted to be, the services I required were exactly as stingy as I’d thought they’d be.

Pike Place Market, I got there in time to walk through while it was closing, the endless rows of dollar tulips nodding as the proprietors of the stalls swept them up in white plastic buckets. Bouquets labelled five, ten, fifteen. I was tempted. Red, green, all of them fresh and light as perfect rain. Brocolli flower, vegetable hair the colour of school-book honey. My loves were right, it was the place I needed to go. At one closing stall I bought a plum for a dollar and kept walking, fingering cut silk scarfs and small creatures made of glass. I took a picture at one end and laughed when I saw someone do the same. There was nothing there at all special except for my being there. I guess they felt the same.

On transit to the airport, a man got on and sold CD players to the latino men sitting next to me. “Ten dollars for one, fifteen for two, twenty with batteries, do you want the batteries? Course you want the batteries. Where’s the other ten?” He had disposable razors too, a buck each, he said. Usually he had more or different things, same time next week. I was looked at kindly, as part of the conspiracy, and I appreciated it. “Good doing business with you.”

The airport was everything airports are meant to be, somewhere to stand and wait until your transportation arrives. There was a shuttle bus and easy directions to it, third floor, outside, bay one. Pick up the phone there, dial the number that you need. A pleasant voice answered, she said it would take four minutes. I watched carefully, reading the signs on every bus, worried that I would miss it, be unable to flag it down in time. My worries were unfounded, eventually it worked out fine. A pretty girl who got off the transit bus with me got on a moment later. We’re both in long black coats and individual jewelry, so we spoke briefly in the manner of new found acquaintances about how unsurprised we were that the other person would have the same destination. Her name is Anna and she’s experienced with conventions. Me, I’ve barely been. I don’t know what I’m walking into.

Already I know that I’m seeking culture shock to jar me from the rut my life is making in Vancouver. I’m grasping for something I know I can take, a life where I’m happier, a distraction against my constant feeling of suffocating. Entering the hotel does it for me. There are a hundred costumes, a hundred conversations bubbling around me like revelry. I feel underdressed almost immediately and that makes me grin. Anna finds her people or they find her, she’s known, her friends are all about here, so I walk on alone after promising to come to her party. I set out to seek Devon, an easy mark even in this sort of crowd, I figure. Look for the pirates, look for the swords. Height, the key is height. I sweep through a wide hall, take a cursory look at a hotel bar full of gremlins, fairies, and anime characters, and find a room of photographers, a woman holding her arms up to show off her demon wings.

Wrong direction, I decide, and turn back, looking for hallways to follow, looking for heads without bright raver wigs. The first table I come across has a sword on it and Devon behind it. People are still walking by in fantastic paints, jackets, bits of coloured leather and plastic, but I found what I was looking for. I win. My joy has caught up with my lifting courage. No matter later where I settle, I have found where I needed to go.

something new to do because I can


silver sweep
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

Fredo Viola in Concert: turn, download, the glass bed, download, death of a son, download, the sad song, download, the red states, download.

Tomorrow I’m going to make an attempt at Seattle. I have no passport, which may be a problem, but as I wasn’t turned back last winter when I went to live in L.A. so perhaps luck will remain with me and I’ll slip through.

I’m looking for things to do alone, for places nice to visit, interesting to poke at, fun to take pictures of. My only plans are to find a nice place for dinner by the water, to drop in at the Roq La Rue, and maybe lick the EMP. I don’t know if any of you are from Seattle or visit regularly enough to have a recommendation, but any are appreciated. People have only told me to go to Pike Place.

Sinister Bedfellows: Anthology now has an ISBN (978-1-4116-9929-8) and will soon be listed in Books In Print. There will soon be advertising on Something Positive. (Randy Milholland’s designing the ad.)

the fear of being majestically on fire

Water above, below. The boat shifting as we do. Music in my head, songs from the other night. The studio, lit by candles and street lights. Our bare feet against the red wood of the floor as we back up slowly, step by step, away from each other. Running, the sensation of wind indoors. Running without mercy. No reason to flinch, he’ll fall away before I do. He will or get hit. I’ve never done this before, but it feels right. Spontaneous and elemental, my hands on his, we’re dancing again. He fell away, I twisted, we caught wrists. I’d forgotten what it was like to trust someone like this, drowning in the realization of equality. Strangled singing, my voice rising in harmony, wrapped in too many memories. I fade out only to pour back in. Reading by a lantern, insisting he write. His staring whispers to me.

Oh, that evening. That hotel. That city, this one. That damaged morning, this damaged heart.

Get your teenage kicks where you can find them. This is no dress rehearsal.

“We live in our souls as in an unmapped region, a few acres of which we have cleared for our habitation; while of the nature of those nearest us we know but the boundaries that march with ours.”

Edith Wharton, ‘The Touchstone’, 1900

I’m always healing with what isn’t mine, always rubbing cat-like against the ankles of unlikely electricity, always wondering when it will be my turn. I’m a second-hand store princess, worn velvet and pretty hair, glassy eyes gathered into loving arms then left on the bus. The image of country sliding past is an easy one. I have years of it, my head smudging the cold window. My breath a slight fog. Towns made of match-boxes piled into general stores, lonely gas-stations bricked up with unhappy marriages and wrong turns, freckle-faced counters, cheap coffee-ring bracelets, where did we think we were going? Trestle bridges of broken teeth, snapped off ill-guided passion tied with hanks of the promises we thought were important before we got bitter.

Standing on the window sill, a tensegrity structure made of arms and legs, I turn to him and say, “We are that movie we don’t like to watch.” It’s true, we’re a musical. Rent, a friends getting together kind of film. Something we may have never seen but we know by heart. Terrifying, if I let myself think about it. Resurfacing.

Water above, water below. Feel free to go into all the rooms of this house, but for this one. That is all I ask of you. “Thank you for letting me love you.” There was no rain when we sat in the window a story above the street. When we waved, it was through clear air. Though no one returned the gesture, we were happy, a cinematic moment trapped in amber hair. Warm with the lights out, violin playing, rock music, movements curving into themselves, leaving us on the couch, shedding monochrome lives for one perfect night, describing one thousand miniscule pains and comforts in blurry detail.

there are little teenagers in here trying on ballet boots

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.
Louis L’Amour

Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex

There is a wretched current pulling me down. I can’t get down to Santa Monica this weekend. Easter prices, mostly, becoming crippling as they piled up. I’m trying to keep my head above water, but I’m feeling like I’m being buried alive. Bloody timing, bloody schedules. Everything matching up perfectly until the last minute, when it turns out the shining itinerary towers are all built on a moment that can’t happen.

I should have paid more attention to throwing caution to the wind. If I’d been reckless, it all would have worked. How frustrating, that. How entirely typical.

There should be some way to hide in eyes that look like diamond. There should be some way to remember how to step into the sky.

Today there shall be another gathering at Andrew’s house to watch the Ghost In The Shell TV series, called “Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex”. We have watched the first 14 episodes and will be continuing from there.

Feel free to bring snacks.

Where Call me or Andrew if you don’t know.
When Show up for 8 pm, we’ll wait a little bit for latecomers before starting. We’ll go til we get tired.
Who If you know either me or Andrew, you’re invited. Simple as that.

I’m going to be a liquid tired later


a delicate step forward
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

There is a soft rain falling.

Saturday morning we were as tangled as a gordian knot, no way to extricate a hand or a leg without changing reality. Who knows where this piece of skin begins and that one ends? We are too comfortably warm to care.

A train is howling sorrow into the weather, as if the water is bringing it pain.

The flower has been put into a dairy bottle half filled with water. It’s on the kitchen counter, where we can’t see it, because we’re trapped in the bedroom with the door closed. This feels like the memory of an anniversary. We make two spoons, melted out of shape, conversation crawling famously between us, draining ourselves of impurities, setting ourselves up for a fall. He makes me laugh.

It’s earlier than I’m used to, but part of this is allowing ourselves to get to work on time.

Two in the afternoon and we finally go for breakfast. Aiden is there with his friend Graham. The woman behind the counter knows me. I make another mental note to bring her flowers as we slide into the window seat. I forget, but Sara is downtown, waiting for us in the basement of Dressew. We have to go. On the bus, a girl smiles at us in approval, half a couple perceiving another pair. I feel under siege by only pretty things.

The bits of food I have squirreled in my room are running out. I may have to find myself breakfast.

Sara is pretty, fresh and welcome. We poke heads into goth stores, a second hand shop, the studio. We’re on a quest for things to wear at SinCity. He and I are failing, but she’s doing okay. We take gorget from the studio and take the bus to my house. I collect my black things, a fishnet shirt that ties at the sleeve, a bra thick enough to dance in, and we wave goodbye to Sarah at Broadway. There is a tree full of birdhouses, stuffed branches with a little town. Kinsgway we decide, to get back to the boat, after Rowan’s. Our fingers lace together as we walk and I’m not sure when I notice.

I’m considering going to Uprising Bakery, but I’m too nested to feel any urgency.

The boat is beautiful, inspiring. I have never felt a pull to sail across an ocean before, but the impulse was dizzying once I’d stepped inside the hull. Panama, it tugged at me, photographs of industrial locks filling with water, the idea of being entirely surrounded by nothing but water. The sway of seasons pushing us across to a place with a different language, a different set of gestures and streets. A city sky lit by different stars at night, a ship to rest against a dock made of stone. Italy, the masks of Venice. The curve of the hull drew me in and drew me through, led me scouring the constellation of books around the bed tucked away in the prow. The sort of place part of me calls home, more so than where I live.

I wonder if there’s a letter downstairs. When does the mail come? My alarm will ring too soon again.

there’s a membrane drawn over my week


axismundi
Originally uploaded by camil tulcan.

A sound like god, what happens when a man covered in microphones walks into a room full of speakers.

I have been measuring things more in my eyes than my hands this week, which leads to interesting bits of missing time that I worry for, as if they’re my children and I’ve abandoned them for that crucial minute too long in the shopping mall where now the only way to get them back is in newspaper articles I clip out and tape to my fridge.

Last weekend, Burrow was in town. I know that for certain. The order of her arrival is written down, there were pictures taken. She stayed over Friday night with Sam, the evening of Meat Eatery. Sam and I had walked to BJ’s after dinner, watched atrocious movies with Bob and his girl-darling from Parksville, then returned to curl up with Burrow asleep in my bed. We were quiet, but woke her unintentionally.

Saturday we crawled out of bed in time for the Fool’s Parade. Sam went home to shackle himself to his desk and Burrow and I rolled like tired thunder downtown and met with Duncan, Jenn, Georg, and her pink-dyed ferret, Silky. The parade was rainy and under-attended, so after coming close to winning the Fool of the Year award with ferret breasts, we abandoned the street for Taf’s. When work didn’t have my paycheque ready, we turned around and walked to the Bay to visit with Eva at her clinical cosmetics booth. It was fascinating, in a quiet colourful way, but not enough to keep Burrow and I from going home to rest before Duncan pulled us out to the graceful Fool’s Cabaret on Main st. Reine‘s mother was there, and Siobhan, a friend of friend’s we went to dinner with after.

Monday is missing, a played out afterburn. I took some self-portraits, but I don’t know if I slept there at home or not. There was one, two ideas. A number, undifferentiated. Something.

Tuesday is more concrete, not only written down, but recorded. Video, audio, photographs. Imogyne and I at Hawksley Workman with darling Sophie. The Cultch in all it’s warmly worn desiccating glory, intimate, red curtained. I remembered all the shows I’d played there. Running through the back when I was a child, that one time making love inside the roof. Downstairs hot-boxing the worn office, how there was once a pane of glass violently shattered in the middle of an orchestral piece, how the beads of my necklace clattered as I bounced and clapped. The music was good too, his acoustic version of striptease sincerely captivating.

After, Devon came over and we stayed up until the last bus, listening to our bootlegs and drinking weary tea. Imogyne eventually went home, and Devon and I talked until far too late, making me late for work Wednesday. The day I went to Andrew‘s after work and Georg and I re-dyed my hair into the colour of sticky quill ink while watching Ghost in the Shell. She came back to my place after, and we let the ferret run free through my apartment as we talked about partners and lives lost, the soulmates of just then and not today and maybe yesterday we knew something and maybe tomorrow we’ll have some hope. She wrote poetry and I woke up in the morning holding her hand.

Thursday I had a date with Sam, a real live date, not one of those on-line long-distance approximations my life seems to enjoy lauding me with. Cleaned up versions of us met at Tinseltown for the Brick preview and had dinner at Wild Ginger before walking out to False Creek to hang out on a water fountain and eat caramel ice-cream. We sat under the moon passing the tub back and forth like a cheap cigarette and talked about some of the same things that Georg did. We’re all divorced, the lot of us. It’s like a curse or a disease catching in all the social circles. It seems like every split has had very little to do with love and everything to do with a basic need to keep evolving, to keep trying to touch forever.

Friday Michael stole me out from under dinner with Andrew, Navi, Ryan, and Eva, and accompanied Robin and I to Thank You For Smoking instead. It was gleeful, with some damned nice moments, (there was a montage of Bad People that slaughtered us like baby seals), and led well into creeping alone up the stairs into Duello for the end of Fight Practice, a small red flower as my sword. I sat on the couch with Lee, letting him show me knife tricks, as people cleaned up and we sat for coffee until it was too late to think of going anywhere else but home. Friday nights, however, traditionally lead into mornings without work, so we survived.

We survived well, in fact, not doing a damned thing until somewhere after two in the afternoon, until the body-call to breakfast was too deafening to ignore.

it was a terrible wasteland

Hey all,

Lets get the push on. I know that Sue McIntyre is our local hero, but after you’ve voted for her, let’s see if we can get Michael Green to win the Poetry Face-off. Please cut and paste the section below into an email and send it to your lists, your friends, vote vote vote.

Voting ends tomorrow at midnight for this year’s NPFO, and the grapevine has suggested that the country’s most populace area is benefiting from its higher population base again this year…so WE NEED TO VOTE. Vote now, vote often.

Log on to: http://www.cbc.ca/poetryfaceoff/

and vote for your favourite CALGARY poet, Michael Green, to balance population with sheer enthusiasm.

The winner will be announced on April 17 at 11 am on CBC Radio One, Sounds Like Canada, by Bill Richardson.

Thanks to all for the help.