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softcomponent Feb 2014
There is the latent hum of some probably-industrial sumthin-or-another in the distance. Sounds like a ferry at dock, or the Townsite mills characteristic hum of eternity as it once acted as the forever-whitenoise of my past life in Powell River.

Sasha has gone to see her friend a floor down. I sit candidly at her desk typing these words on her MacBook Pro.. her dorm is an ambient water of a place, but with every passing night I spend in it, it becomes harder and harder to fall asleep. The bed feels like wood board or padded cement now. Sasha rolls around in her sleep, occasionally choking on her tonsils and gagging a prolonged operatic note of snores. It's not like she can help it.. often, she talks about removing her tonsils as if it's something she can do with a spare moment between classes.

The dorm was easier for me to inhabit when I imagined her living quaintly and quietly without my constant everywhereness.. on her first night alone in bed, she slept like a baby and the overheating, I'm sure, was less to bear in my absence as there wasn't a ******* furnace spurning mammalian blood to every antipode of my body for the sake of staying alive.. just her capillaries attending to the night-shift and leaving no feedback loop between our ***-drenched thermostats. There was a feeling of otherness to it that I could warm my soul with as if I were people-watching at a mall filled with everyone I've ever encountered in the matrix.

She's beautiful. Sasha, I mean. Superstitious despite her attempts to claim otherwise, but of a massive intelligence often unspoken and endowed with a linguistic nature that can speak regardless of words. Highly suspicious of some perceived bond between Anya and I that can't seem to be severed, and playfully dousing suspicions of general infidelity into many of our brink-night conversations.. I can't say I do much to remedy her paranoia as I always kick it back with consistent jokes of having '30 girlfriends' or 'that was what the girl I ****** the other night said as well! Trippy.'

These are obvious jokes. I would never cheat on her and it's a pain to have her imagine I would.

Christ be honest, I can never find the time to write anymore because I keep pretending I'm busy. I keep glassing my eyes apart with coffee and **** and feeling the inner sting to write and write and write until my fingers are bruised and my entire demeanour is nothing more than an existence in pure, floating consciousness of sleet-covered panic attack self-immoliating itself in a Wal-Mart parking lot just to say hiya, Good God, how's the cloud of idolatry today? Fleeting? Empty? Shat? I'm starting to think you have the shorter end of the stick cuz I'm pretty sure I've found the Kingdom of Heaven and it's all a bunch of beautiful panic remedy exacterbated by SSRI psychedelic depersonalization with a life-wish disguised as a death-wish to push the envelope for mails sake, cuz I've got a message for the human race and all it says is 'humanity is not a RACE chill the **** OUT and become the human pace for the sake of nil planet without a plan you aren't a ******* poster-boy you're a poser' all very stone-cold thoughts in a volcano.. all very valid but pointless semantic gestures towards Finnegans Wake and the sequel I'd like to write called Finnegans Nap.

The other day, I stole a book from the university library.

I had a freelance article I had to start and preferably finish that same day, and Sasha had decided to skip psychology for Charles Bukowski so we scouted a quiet space on the windowsill overlooking the perpetual busk of student body.. I plugged my laptop in and sourly gazed at the flakey subjects I had to choose from until I noticed we were right next to a giant section entirely dedicated to the study of the Beat Generation. I picked out the closest book, and dove up on some academic diatribe about the implementation of Timex making watches an affordable commodity during the post-war boom, causing economy to become totalitarian in its accuracy and thus mental hegemony. It worked its way into stating that Jack Kerouac's On the Road was a blatant and concise rebellion against this form of timekeeping in its hedonic, careless flow that was not marked by 6 o'clock or on-the-dot redundancy.. the subject matter being so dense and alluring, I turned to Sasha and said, 'I have to steal this book.'

She chuckled a little, being a chronic kleptomaniac herself, and retorted, 'are you sure you can do that? They have these sensor things that go off when you leave.. they'd catch you probably.' In my mind, I was needing to exorcise myself of Judaeo-Christian morality so as to guarantee a survival and thriving intellectual feed regardless of red-tape or monetary symbolism.. I saw myself adapting to a hedonic habit of robbery for the sake of food and freedom or some such half-witted excuse like that, and took Sasha's warning as a challenge to transcend my typical moral comfort zone.

Glassy-eyed, I asked Google how I'd go about bypassing the security scanners and, lo and behold, within 5 minutes I had my answer and was already digging through the books binding with my house-key to remove the magnetic strip hidden in the spine. After 10 minutes of exhilaration and anxiety at potentially being caught, the strip was out and jammed between two loose wood-boards in the window sill. I told Sasha we should try to leave.

As I neared the scanner, I let go of consequence in remembrance of my mortality, the blank expressions on our faces probably hinting at some form of degenerate nervousness had someone decided to analyze us aaaaaand yet.. we made it through as safe as a bird through an open window then out the other side.
excerpt: "the mystic hat of esquimalt"
Nobody Jul 2013
In the land of Temperature
I met Thermostat - Thermometer

What does thermometer do anyway?
A thermometer tells you the temperature whether it’s cold or hot
But it does nothing about the situation it identifies
It only measures and whether we like it or not
What about thermostat?
Thermostats function in a way that when it senses a room is cold,
it quickly and quietly starts the machinery necessary to bring the cold room to an acceptable temperature
If a room is hot, a thermostat cues the system to cool the room
It restores the balance, it assess the situation and make a difference.
I named her Thermostat – Thermometer
‘Cause she can be a thermostat to others
When she senses there’s something wrong around her
She always does something to make it right like a thermostat does
Sadly, she can only be a thermometer to herself
She knows there’s something wrong with her
Yet she can’t do something
‘Cause she also needs a thermostat
A thermostat to make it right for her

It makes me wonder how many people out there
Acting like thermostat to others
But they can only act as thermometer to theirselves
Hoping that someday
A thermostat changes the situation where they are in
We're at the point of almost melting
Hellish heatwave is most sweltering
All of us getting an absolute baking
Thermostats are all upwardly rising

Abundant solar activity is happening

Skin on our faces akin to pork crackling
Copious amount of water we're drinking
Our sweaty brows are in need of mopping
Relief from the heat we're always seeking
Cool locales like long verandah shading  
Hades is where us folks are now dwelling
Endless hours of excessively high temperatures
Reductions in these would be such a pleasure
Jonny Angel Sep 2014
There's a great owl
outside
my closed window,
hooting
to the rhythm
of air conditioners
kicking on and off.
It's melody seems askewed,
as if it's toxicated
on the technology
of finely tuned thermostats,
seemingly
out of whack.
And when I think
about those places without
controlled climates,
I wonder if the songbirds there
sound better than a drunken
bird of prey here.
ipoet Nov 2012
They removed the thermostats,
And made us pay for every cup of water we used,

I was standing in the rain,
With a white friend and a Servant.

We marveled at the homemade architecture,
Hopped the rivulets of grime,
And heaved big sighs.

I asked him why there were,
Water tanks with signs that read,
Twenty shillings a litre.

He said,
They sell water here too.

Scottish men protect,
Single malt whiskey,
Welsh women,
The language they speak,

My Palestinian friend once told me,
Water,
Israelis keep.
Damian Murphy Dec 2015
Biting cold, rain, sleet and snow,
Temperatures very low,
Crunchy grass, freezing mornings,
Roads like glass; weather warnings!
Traffic jams, travel chaos,
Accidents to delay us.
Buses, trains stuck at stations,
Many flight cancellations.

Time for wearing winter gear
When coats and hats reappear,
When gloves and scarves are the norm
Anything to keep us warm!
When crying eyes, runny nose,
Frozen fingers, tingling toes
Are the order of the day;
Hard to keep the cold at bay.

Schools are shut to kids delight,
Can’t make work though try you might.
Home is where most folk are at
Turning up their thermostats
Heating on all night and day,
Kids indoors, not out to play.
Most folk staying in no doubt
Happy they need not go out.

But all do not have such luck
Perhaps a good time to look
In on neighbours the odd day
To make sure they are ok.
Maybe help the homeless too,
Do anything we can do
To ensure we all weather
These Winter storms together.
its bitter Jun 2018
Goldie,

perfect things come in small packages:

gold rings and goldfinches,

sun-soaked raindrops,

marigolds, goldenrods,

memories golden-hued,

and you, dear Goldie, too.



You shared with us such time-worn treasures:

the swimming hole,

orchids blooming ferociously in Hawaiian humidity,

children lost and children gained – your bittersweet legacy,

misplaced brassieres in laundromats,

atrocious climates and thermostats,

and speaking of weather – Stormy Daniels too.

Your sense of humor shone right through –

remarkable.



For life can be an ordeal, you know it well I’m sure

and golden youthful moments too soon become silver

With each winter’s passing cold,

frost-heaving each and every life,

cracks spread across our pavement for

against the inevitable, we can’t fight

and giggling rivers grow slow and stale

and evening skies sicken and pale



But despite the cold winds, you – dear Goldie –

Remain golden still.
In my creative writing class, we interviewed residents of old-folks home. This poem is dedicated to Goldie W - a lovely 94 year old who absolutely captivated my heart with her stories, sense of humour, and attitude on life.
Vanessa Gatley Dec 2018
Thermostats
Expose
Mandatory
Pressure
Evaporator
Raw
Atmosphere
T­here
Earth
Lawrence Hall Nov 2022
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                   Autumn: Do I Turn the Thermostat Forward?

The thermostat that I set for seventy
In the August heat was entirely too warm
And now in November it’s entirely too cold
Why can’t thermostats get the temperature right?

The clocks, hot or cold, have issues of their own
In August they chimed the sunrise at six
But now they chime it at seven-thirty
We can conclude that clocks are easily confused

The seasons don’t know if they are forward or back
And I’m unsure myself – alas and alack!
Fun with Daylight Saving Time

— The End —