Betwixt of any sense beyond experiment, I sat on the bed between shifts and out-whipped the bag of Concerta given to me by Matt, o'timey hard-worker-soft-souled Matt, who felt, perhaps, that I had a legitimate reason to explore this legal avenue of pharmaceutical mind-manipulation for reasons he would rather fathom in retrospect. I popped a single pill, and voilà, the legal-cocainnabinoid began to flow between my red and white blood-cells playing cops and robbers.

It is when I feel nostalgic that I feel the need to write. I remembered, at work, with all those strange everyone-elses faces gliding past (and myself annoyed at the general lack of positive reception "Hello there!" "h .. i ." is one sour-looking businessmans sultry whispered reply.. once, a woman told me 'look, I know that you are told to say hello at the door to everyone who enters, but I don't like it. I just want to shop in peace, and no, I don't need any help' and without case to what my managers could say, I somewhat-hissed-back, "if you don't want to be greeted, then perhaps you shouldn't walk into big private corporate establishments to find the books you're looking for," and she shrugged and muttered some ****-talk under her breath and glided upstairs to find a copy of Ayn Rand's Fountainhead or Machiavelli's The Prince to validate her bitter attitude, I bet, the sour witch), my time spent living in that backwater Esso suburb of Port Coquitlam back in 2011 when Occupy Wall Street was still a hungry potential, not yet bogged down in procrastinates over herbal teas and talk of chakras and enlightenment and how the typical Wall Street businessman probably never had a real ****** and hence had never truly satisfied the energies now burnt-to-crisps inside his Root Chakra or whathaveyou, where I believed I would find a better, more interesting world further from the musty-smallness of forest-drenched rain-drenched Powell River, only to discover I may be right outside my front door, but that's EXACTLY where I was, no further than right outside my front door.. I mean, for Goddaskes, I was born in Vancouver, this isn't a culturally-shocking move to New Delhi or Kathmandu--- and so on and so forth is how I once berated myself thru constant cycling thoughts of no-escape, I, a little walking hell of devils-advice and panic disorder-- the Great Big Port City of George Vancouver only succeeding in further overwhelming my already delicate attempt at false optimism thru self-voided Buddhist smalltalk as I travelled from bookstore to bookstore reading Alan Watts in shady attempts to save-myself but only digging my walking grave even deeper into the soil of feared-insanity.

Port Coquitlam itself was a small-town wearing a business suit and holding hands with an angry father forcing him to college for computer networking as it's the most economically viable market at hand.. at first, I did not see this. I saw my idolized imaginings of Vancouver (never Port Coquitlam), the shining water-reflected skyline of my past and present legacies, where my father once snorted ******* with a bohemian group of someones, and my mother tried LSD just to prove to her friends how bad it was (and lo and behold, what a terrible time she had!), all this Otherness, Strangeness, yet still Connected-- an Otherness with which I was taken, left to whisper into empty Campbell's cans so-as to speak with the city from a distance, two children growing older together 'til my inevitable return and our agreement to share costs on rent.

I returned, as planned. I returned, and found that old-best-friend hating the Homeless and loving the Rich-- spending time with the Peppy Plutocracy whilst enslaving the Middle Classes (first Letter Capitals to Assist YOU in Grasping my Anger with All Five Thumbs) and the horrors I saw in my already delicate state, all the starving addictives slouching-inching down the sides of ***** old walls, the only thing missing a smear of blood to follow their corpseish collapse, all just footnotes to history, footnotes to wealth and progress-reality, all footnotes with no shoes O my God O my Goodness and O Canada, Our Home and Native Land!

It hurt like it did, but I felt powerless and gaited. Felt like it were just as well me (*** it just as well is), I, in Vancouver.. *Great Big Port City of George Vancouver.. saw the end-stretching-cold-legs of Nietzsche's Dead God.. those in cutthroat-black-suits armed with calculators and wives could afford private jets and yearly trips 'round our globular strangeness whilst others had to beg and berate and debate and break-down to get a crummy old bagel and a past-due mostly-empty jug of old milk and perhaps a 'side of fries with that order.'

What crushed me so much about this playing a Witness to God's Death (or, not so much a 'witness' as a relative asked to the morgue to identify the body) was my intuitive grasp that this is the poverty of the First World.. this is not as bad as it gets and on a scale of 1 to 10 this would only be a 3.. all the poor and displaced of Eastern Europe.. Moldovan families indifferent to the whims and what's taken.. someone called me a Socialist and said I would later grow out of it as 'reality' angled its rearing-ugly head to chop me smithereens like it did so mercilessly to the Poor and Irrelevant.. I looked at them and still look at people like them and think 'that is evil unsure of itself.. that is evil unaware... that is evil and evil is  evil to watch..' the Evil Act being the use of Money to purchase the world, demanding us all to pay royalties (mass royalties) for the privilege of life so afforded by them.. (the Sons and Daughters of God first stabbing their father then stabbing themselves then locking away and ignoring their young brother with cerebral palsy '*** he could never be armed with a calculator, nor wife)..

I learned, thru practice, to cope with these evils as laws-for-now. Coping did not mean tolerance, nor did coping mean agreement.. I had charged at life expecting hugs and bottles.. what I got was hugs and bottles.. all while I watched over the shoulder of whoever embraced me and saw young-others doing the same, where are the hugs and bottles..? they sank into the nether as the crowd ebbed past, ignoring the cries of pleading love, pleading love over time so traumatised as to distort this love (so inherent and implied in the Heart) into confusion, confusion into loss, and loss into hatred.. as the crowd ebbed past, the crowd ebbed past..

After 3 and a half months, I moved back home to Powell River.. the soggy ol' calm of what I already knew.. the warm arms of the rest, the warm arms of water-reflected sunsets.. and I got my hugs and bottles.

but was this really a happy ending?

Road Trip: Thinking it's about time (find yourself within II)

This particular poem was born as a one line response to a message.  But in many other forms, half written, it exists still, un, unfinished, waiting for the next burst energy, the next holiday time, to reach a new finish line.

This is a different but similar to a poem posted on June 2nd, "Poetry Round (find your self within)"

Any error of omission is unintentional, but know that this took many hours, until fatigue won. If you never told or revealed to me your location, know that you will be called out, to and unto me, in another poem, called "your banner is my flag."

Fact about me:  You design me.
-------------------------------------------------------

th­inking it's about time for a road trip.

create an excuse
(reasons, I got a plenty)
to stop by,
to show you another side of me,
for a drink, a meal,
and some kind
of exchange, of
form and fluids,
manner to be determined.

to come to Minneapolis,
watch you create a heated sensuality,
verbally, from melted snowdrifts,
a hot time to be had
by all the poets
of the mini-apple,
I want to meet
and celebrate ann victory.

travel to Thiruvananthapuram,
tour the treasures
of gold and diamonds,
from whence come
the bejeweled poems,
that have earned visits from
thousands upon thousands,
pilgrims, devotees, followers,
to partake at that, his,
special temple.

Gomer, Gomer,  & MJJ,
I am in your Florida,
no, sorry, not in Ocala,
near to your homer,
and I feel you springer
ten times in the
November sun rays,
that have me locked
in a full Nelson,
your productivity,
endless,
a sea of orange sunburnt words,

Tennessee,
The Carolinas,
Georgia,
The South,
I rise with it,
now, again,
that I will need a slow
sunny all lazy summer long to
learn y'alls ways,
see the wolves,
in your forests,
helm the riverboats,
navigate the quaint tides
of Charleston,
the special places
where they heal, le ville,
where the ashes of
burnt children,
retuned to be whole.

learn y'alls ways,
walk in your boots,
of seeing poems
using your special
southern saber words.

missed the original
Thrilla-in-Manila,
but rest easy, assured,
that hotbed of creativity,
where I check the
PH of the mc waters
to comprehend its
wisdom and now, it's sadness,
will be an illustrious destination
on my itinerant itinerary,
stopping by Makati City,
after all,
it is writ in the good book,
this island,
the PhilippineS,
is the birthplace
of the letter S,
Samples: samson, sally,
and So many others?

in Nevada City,
which is of course in
krazy California,
wager philosophy, romance,
be available for
succinctly seeing
works in progress,
from which I
will imbibe,
so **** deeply,
may have to
stay awhile for...

while I am there,
will need to do
a search and
Hug Mission,
to find a special man,
his unkempt prose,
his mortal rhymes
disguise not his holy worth,
even to the grassy
cal-stratosphere,
to the mesosphere,
will I high fly,
to find his sweetest spot,
then and thereafter
going looking
further on to
Humboldt County.

in Leeds, in West Yorkshire,
(Hamphshirians, Northamptontonians,
patience please)
built foundries and factories
over the magical forest of Loidis,
near to the river Aire,
yet still hides a
magical sorceress of words,
casting spells over
men and beast.
no one has seen full
her half-turned away face,
but when she summons,
do I have a choix
other than obey?
even if I get lost,
my sorceress,
you know,
I am on way too.

to get there,
will fly I must,
to Heathrow hell,
will do it,
just for you,
faithful friend,
a man da gotta do, what
a man gotta do...for you,
but first a stop off at the
London School of Economics,
Hampstead as well,
for a tutorial about sonnets,
or sams in wells,
even if I come
in my bare feet.

even in New York Upstate,
a man da gotta do,
what he mulls over in his heart,
be not surprised at a knock upon
your door, to make comparative notes,
about each other's tattoos.

in the South African veld,
hid in the highland grasses,
crouches the poetesses and tigresses,
waiting to ambush you
with words that must be seen
to be heard, to be well understood.
perhaps I'll come at ester time,
under blue indigo skies over,
a golden landscape,
seizing all the gems
that can be seen
only at 3:00am

leeward,
north to Canada,
must I, transgress,
country of my momma's birth,
fly from Montreal to Toronto, Calgary
then over to Vancouver.
Canada,
a dangerous place for me,
cause there are beautiful
souls up there,
and maybe even a
warrant to
repossess mine,
they want their
poets back.

double down by ferry,
me to Seattle,
to see a man about river,
in the Pacific Northwest,
where I have happily
drowned so many times,
that The Lord is complaining,
am hogging all the baptismal waters,
but when reminded that
nothing lasts forever,
here tomorrow,
gone today, walk on,
I add my tears
to that river,
before hitting the road.

on that river,
gonna drive me a kayak,
down Daytonway,
on the Yamill River,
see a gyreene marine,
watching me do a beach landing,
in Willamette Wine Park.
he will teach me to salute,
I will teach him how to
shake hands,
and learn from him,
it's ok,
to stand down.

man o' man
there are a lots of poets,
in these here parts,
this grand
Pacific North West,
looking for one in particular,
who will be quite easy to spot,
as he is my very own
soul brother.

will be easy to find,
though we have never met,
he will be on his kayak,
I on mine,
tho when he paddles,
somehow he manages
to hold
never letting go
of, his lovely bride,
his best half's hands.

this will a problem,
for I must teach him how to
shake two handed souls,
while hugging and paddling,
even bailing,
with an old dented pail
simultaneous.
but you can teach old dogs
new tricks, even the ones,
that can't spell
rhymers.

have mercie on me Ohio,
like a mother has to her daughter,
done a three year sentence in Cleveland,
but no jail can hold an NYC boy,
but if requested, yes I will return
to set fire to the *Cuyahoga,
again! he he he...
but do not s mock me!
(now you know why the FBI loves
my poetry, my biggest institutional fan).

souls in torment,
where you be,
where you hide,
matters not where
you physical reside,
for we have found
each other
in each other words.

You, who live in
your very own
personal hell,
I think we met there,
because
yours was
mine too,
tho not found
on any map.

maybe I will meet the
Empress Josephine Maria,
rowing on the canals of
the Netherlands,
no longer will she be
alone.

but then again, some
very special things,
like
the purest of love
are on no map,
they are everywhere.

while in India,
will seek the many musings of many lips
of aged rhyme men
and complicated charmers
so I may kiss them
with spiced humors
to pour and pour,
more and more,
upon this western soul,
mysteries of the east,
to Kashmir, Bangalore,
wherever I must,
even take a praDip in the Ganges,
I will go, find you,
un-hide you,
among the
teeming millions,
millions of
jokes and rhymes,
that make the
world spin brighter.

in Germany,
all the university students
speak English,
in Wiesbaden, they know
poetic beauty is not in the format,
some in Bamberg,
with a peculiar
Missouri accent,
which is nicht gut Englisch,
so study hard the real way,
speak the language
the new yorka way,
which will require
study abroad,
which is quite funny,
now that I think about it.

but in Mo.,
the native drums roll,
long and slow,
making words
I know
better, different,
in a way never saw before,
leaves me asking for,
mo', mo', please?

to get there, to Allemagne,
land of my forefathers,
a ship I will take,
from Southampton
across the Kiel Canal,
before I depart,
will have my hair cut,
my words reworked,
by her Ladyship,
whose keen eyes and
maternal instincts,
see the joy of life in every
Livvi little thing.

Watt am I going to do if
I need to find a Tecumseh,
taker of my naked poems,
and enlarger of them,
so truth by her,
all revealed,
we are all naked
at least,
twice a day?

In Nepal I will purr at the words
gleaned from the markets and
train stations where
voyages from Lalitpur to Katmandu,
start and end,
where there is a miracle almost
sixteen years young,
where they call their schools
future stars and little angels,
so why should poetic miracles not be
as common as its subtropical clime?

though I despise the
Dallas Cowboys,
not my  America's team,
nonetheless there is a young woman,
a true rose of Texas,
who waits and writes
so lovingly of her airman,
in Afghanistan, I have placed
their names first,
in my nighttime prayers,
hoping to be there,
schedule my visit,
to witness his safe return
and their
joyous reunification.

there are no Mayans in Maine,
but poets of similar name,
kould be, mae be,
Julia's in Jersey, new,
in Auckland,
there are poets
who don't know it,
and Down Under, too,
where getting high is easy,
getting high at
and on words
well marshaled ,
but **** sure I will be
peering and prring,
all the way.

Oregon,
don't be gone,
those wide eyes shut,
when I come by,
who knows when I
will pass this way again...
on my way to Phoenix,
where sunrayes bend to the
desires of dessert breezes.

Kentucky to Korea,
one long road to travel,
but middle son,
if you can do it,
so can I, and,
I will follow.

in a beautiful city,
unsurprisingly called
Belleville,
the leader of the band,
still leads us in belle 'noise'
and when he finishes
fall leafing us in song, he still,
rises up in the mid of dark,
prayerful haikus to write.

off to Rogers, Arkansas
to meet an Italian from Mexico
who specializes in skinny poems,
something one day I will be too.

maybe I will go to
places it snows,
there are so many,
but your photo,
and tattoo trail,
clues, will follow,
no matter how hard
you make it a mystery.

you, who live in just
the world,
don't even think,
that crazy dotted lines,
unstraight,
or huge plains,
are sufficient,
to hide your
moody dust trail
from me!

somewhere in the USA,
roses grow in ground
that needs the
watering of tears,
though this place
is hard to find,
ha, turn around,
that is me,
tapping you,
on the shoulder!

will find you,
as I am searching for
a lovely pair
of stockinged ankles,
each with a heart tattoo,
but I sure could use
a clue,
before this hobbit searches
all the shire,
derby hatted,
to find your
heart real, and the real you...

my mode of time travel?
why I am just
a dude on a rocket ship.

Wisconsin,
look for my ruby message
in the snow,
in the dust,
in the sand, the skies, the sea,
but will you answer me?

Pittsburgh,
patient, you've been,
you thought I forgot
all about you,
chimera  at the intersection
of three rivers,
all you need wonder,
upon which one
will my ship arrive
and why you still disbelieve
you are not a poetess!

ME oh my,
you too, a hidey hole got,
but, we are strange, we humans,
we would gladly bleed to please,
If we could but find
a combination of
new words that
would your heart gladden,
your eyes tear,
your lips wear,
a smile of pleasure
at our offerings poetic!
but still I know not,
the where!

Lagos,
where
I shall climb the tallest skyscraper,
calling out in Yoruba,
where is my Temitope?
where is mine,
worthy of thanksgiving
so I may carry my Popoola,
my pole of her of
written wealth?

Mombasa, Singapore,
Maryland, Rhode Island, Kentucky,
Huddersfield, Connecticut Joe, Ireland,
South Dakota,
where the merry elders
well ken somethings
about a moon and tattered clouds,
something about children and dogs,
and something about letting
tomorrow's wait.

Milwaukee, Atlanta,
chuck, in *PA., friend to all,
to all those scattered across these
United States of America.

can we dare not mention
"The Shaq" of Malaysia,
South Sudan, Pakistan,
of course not!

Suburbia,
beautiful, black San Diego, Detroit;

The BBB's -

British Columbia, Brazil, Breendonk, and
B'kara!
the goodness of *Boston,
flipping out in Flipadelphia,

did you think I would forget ya?

those of you hiding among 64 stars,
the groves of L.A',
on the lanes,
the special land of I-sia-Bella,
fellow citizens of Neverland,
those of you 'at home,'
in the land of nightmares,
concrete boxes,
those who post without a doubt,
and in the box,
this who think your birth year
is an identifying mark, not,
you never fooled me,
will visit each and everyone.

even and especially,
the grays of crosstown
NYC,
the red writers of my hood,
the tylers too.

I am exhausted,
forgive me well,
if thy locale,
I did not explicate,
for the hour is very late.

yet thru subtle fissures
in the clouds,
look for a tired old man
on the wings of a
chariot drawn by angels,
bringing you a dictionary
full of new words,
a present for you,
but truly,
a present to himself
for from it,
your future poems
will come.

*but the sun has come up,
so now I sleep.

Bethany Care Centre staff member by day –internationally recognized knitwear fashiondesigner by night, Sylvan Lake resident SallySandusky recently took Vancouver FashionWeek by storm with her stunning Fall/Winter2016 line.

Eight models strut their stuff for Sanduskyduring her recent show where they showcasedher signature chunky knit sweaters, dresses andshorts as well as a number of delicately knit overlay dresses as they meandered the catwalk.

Her clothing label named, Sally Omeme, stemsfrom her middle name and the Cree word fordove Omimiw, a name her adoptive parentsgave her in hopes of helping her to hold on to a part of her heritage.

In addition to the name for her stunningknitwear line, Sandusky also credits her motherwith her love and talent for knitting.

“I had wanted a scarf and my mom, who hadbeen a knitter all her life, said ‘Well let me teachyou how to knit’,” remembers Sandusky whosaid she has now been knitting since the early2000’s. “One year I knit 75 scarves byworking nights and it just kind of grew from there.”

Following graduation from Camille J. Lerouge School in Red Deer, Sandusky began her career withBethany Care Centre before making the decision to attend the John Casablancas Institute inVancouver – an internationally renowned fashion and beauty school where she studied creative artsand fashion business.

Following graduation from the Institute she returned home to Sylvan Lake and continues designingin her spare time with hopes to launch an online store in the coming weeks. She hopes her recentsuccess at Fashion Week could potentially lead to a buyer picking up her line. In addition to therecent Vancouver Fashion Week show, Sandusky has also been featured in two previous VancouverEco-Fashion Weeks.

The fun doesn’t stop here for Sandusky as some of her most recent line may be featured in upcomingeditions of both Vogue UK and Glamour UK over the next year.

While it is apparent Sandusky was born to create, she added she has faced a number of challengesover the past four years as a designer.

“I think because I’m not trained as a fashion designer I’ve had to learn everything from scratch,” shesaid. “The more complicated my knitwear design becomes the more I have to learn as far as sewingin linings and zippers goes. That has been the most challenging for me in addition to learning how totreat it as a business and not just a hobby.”

She encourages young fashionistas everywhere to never give up on their dreams adding it’s hard tobelieve how far she has come.

“My plate is definitely full right now. Before it seemed so out of reach but now it seems like it’s reallystarting to happen and I’m excited to see where it takes me,” stated Sandusky. “IfI had one piece ofadvice it would be to never give up – keep working towards your dream if that’s what you want.”Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/white-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-perth

With the wind under my wings I soar
I see the west Canadian shore
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
Nuu-chan-nulth – A caring and nurturing people are thee
Small families among the mountains, rivers, and sea
Vancouver Island’s west coast is where you reside
Awaiting your canoes on evenings incoming tide

Your men are fishing in the ocean’s secret places
Worry and hope etched in their weathered faces
Each man knowing the days hunting success must provide
For many wives, children, and elders the spoils they must divide

Your rhythm and harmony with the ocean is strong
Whale hunts and oceans spirits intertwined through your song
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
I hear the east call, and open my wings to take flight
The distant drum’s heartbeat calls from the suns rising light
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
Coast Salish – You know how the sea dances and quivers
As you watch the expanse from your inlets, and rivers
Vigilance is needed in case a Storm approaches
To mount a defence if an enemy encroaches.

Your wise headmen lead with such divine humility
Your family life embodies true equality
Your features are defined by a broad face and flat brow
Your girls with plucked brows, braided hair prepare for their vow

You seasonally harvest your rivers resources
Spawning Eulachon and sturgeon complete their courses
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
As I leave your forests of tall cedars and aged fir
The drumming beckons me up the wild Fraser River
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war


Okanagan – You survive in the Valley and slopes
In a legend of a coyote you set your hopes
He educated you how to live off the hard land
Your very own lives you bestowed in his paw like hand

Your offspring, your joy, your future you know must be taught
So at an early age, to the elders they were brought
Your youths are handpicked and taught the roll they shall assume
If a warrior shall fall another shall resume

Your seasonal harvest of forest meadows and marsh
Will insure you survival when the winters are harsh
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
With the updrafts I glide over the dry desert plains
I hear the drum call from a land where it hardly rains
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
Secwépemc – your men come out through the eastern sunrise’s door
Your women’s entrance faces the stream to ease her chore
In seasonal cozy houses built into the ground
In a secret place your spoils and possessions are found

Your request for spawning salmon grows louder each day
The messenger crickets announce salmons on their way
You hunt with arrows and spears you crafted from strong stone
Needles and jewelry you made from animal bone

You patiently, wait in the winter’s silent brisk eve  
For the deer’s stealthy approach from the snow covered trees  
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
The drum it beckons from the land of river crossroads
The land where men come to bring and trade their canoes loads
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war


Dakelh – You are the people who learned how to barter
You are known as the people who travel on water
With gathered roots you weave fish weirs in the evening air
And you set your high hopes in the chanted salmon prayer

Your children learn from the oral traditions you tell
Chinlac massacres, caves where dwarves shooting arrows dwell
Your widows carry ashes of the husband they held dear
Their Mourning and sadness that will last over a year

The respect for the land for everything you have gain
Though much, and bountiful your harvest some shall remain
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoess, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
A plume of smoke and drum beat come from the distant Northwest
Echoing from the place where the Skeena River rests
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war

Gitxsan –Your Home is surrounded by snow tipped glaciers
Forests of spruce, hemlock, cedars, and subalpine firs
Your chieftain name and duties you hold for a short time
Other Wilp members are only ‘children’ in their prime

Like the rivers your families closely intertwine
Each account told is a lesson that is sublime
Each Wilp has your story told by a tall totem pole
Your History affects and moves you deep in your soul

Deer, Moose, and small mammal in the wild woodlands you stalk
You pursue the Mountain goat through rugged peaks of rock
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
The drums incessantly pounds as I take to the sky
Urgently calling from remote islands of Haida Gwaii
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war

Haida - You live in the pacific northern islands
Your fam’lies Belong to the eagle or raven clans
You watch the tide rise and fall over the rocks and sand
Great mighty sculptures you have created with your hand

With strong healthy cedar trees you made your long dwellings
The entrance way totem your history is telling
Your warrior canoes glide through the rolling waves
Through victories and battles you have prisoner slaves


The sound of the drum beat is mixed in saltwater spray
To Vancouver Island’s west shore I must fine my way
The drum it echo, echo, echo’s, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
As I leave your vast, and memorable territory
In the soft twilight air I watch the sunset’s glory
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war

Kwakwakawakw- So proud you are of your mother tongue
Born in this beautiful land your ancestors came from
Noblemen, Aristocrats, commoners and your slaves
Your narrative exists among your forefathers graves

Your canoes bow is carved into animal features
The whale, otter, salmon and other sea creatures
You hunt with such heroic assurance all year round
In the shapes of well carved masks their likeness will abound

Your long homes are protected by the oceans embrace
First nations, my people, you are a amazing race
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
I leave your land of legends in a misty gray veil
And on the horizons comes change’s white sail
The drum it echoes, echoes, echoes, the drum it echoes through my core
Whispering a haunting rhythm of time, change, and war
The Europeans came into your isolated lands
Dividing your people into tribes, reserves, and bands
Before their arrival you lived mighty, strong, and free
Now your children fight to reclaim their identity

The drum will echo, echo, echo through time’s core
It will whisper a rhythm of time, change, and war
The drum will echo, echo, echo through your core
It will whisper a rhythm of time, change, and war

these games 2010 vancouver olympics are about performance under tremendous pressure more than they are about sport our expectations destroy us how do athletes possibly in training their entire lives cope with cameras nationalism corporate media mania? these distinguished people fallible humans with frail emotions doubts superstitions insecurities just like everyone else sustain skill phenomenal precision how do they sleep at night? carry on relationships with spouses family friends? endure eminent separateness loneliness? do gold medal winners become bloated rock stars conceited movie stars overpaid professional athletes? do losers become life’s could have been a contender drunk in obscurity casualties? what price in human terms these games? hey when joannie rochette hit ice prayer to mom i cried love watching sports this gorgeous display of human talent yet wonder about underlying meaning consequence sports or spectacle?

Gleaming towers of ice rise
Sharp heads swathed in haze
Piercing dusty morning skies
Over a sea of diamonds

Cloud-covered Vancouver-
Laissez-faire, fare for bus-
Fair for ice rink groove under
Framed flags waving-
Pavement gaining wear-
Pair of caffeine drinking
Midwest hair cut cats
In cool blue trousers-
Town of Molson, of Santino-
The land up top, Northern valley
Cut into a crop of Sierra rock-
Where's the music? After dinner-
Show me ocean! Token to park,
Molson at dark again sinning to send
Sentiments home to kin-
Urban lagoon, ducks sipping
Silt at the sea wall-
All the drizzle spitting
Vicious malt liquor at our lips-
The trip and its hits,
Its misses and lackluster criticisms-
Indecision at every corner,
Born to  broaden roads with our toes,
Bars with our elbows-
Rows of loft-toting homes,
Thrones of Canada's most cozy-
Stanley and the path through
Old trees - that's Vancouver, mostly.

I.

Sunday mornings in Vancouver
even pigeons sleep in till 10 A.M.
Undaunted, I walk down Granville shortly before 8
seeking lox bagels with capers, red onions and cream cheese,
two breve lattes, and a newspaper. In truth,
panhandlers on the corner of Robson
have far greater chance of scoring.
An unexpectedly sunny February morn
suffices to spur me on. I am attuned to all vibration.
Breath of the awakening city
exhales manna upon the shop awnings.
Bagels rendered superfluous,
I scarf images instead ---
trolley buses, an umbrella shop, falafel stands ---
delicious Canadian visual cuisine.

                                 II.

Vancouver is a nymph. Of that I'm sure.
I hear flirtatious giggles trill
from darkened alleys between hotels.
Spotted her once across the street on Dunsmuir,
seated on a walk bench reading a Margaret Atwood novel.
Bus passed between us and she vanished.
Caught a later glimpse through the window
of a walk-up dim sum restaurant in Chinatown.
Flew the stairs, only to find an empty table and
discarded napkin smudged with candy pink lipstick.
She watches me.

                                                III.

Turns out there are no Sunday morning papers in Vancouver,
but I locate the bagels and espresso backtracking on Helmcken.
The barista smiles as I approach, sets down her Atwood novel.
I leave a Toonie in gratuity.
B.C. wind pushes ******* my turned back,
as I rush our breakfast back to the Executive.
A nymph goes roller-blading by toward False Creek.
The Gastown Steam Clock whistles that it's 10 A.M.
A flock of pigeons lifts in flight.

And it's difficult to remember something as the very name of Eisenhower
Or flowerbaskets
And tired movies made of silicone and
Aftersex
Or sixteen candles echoing out of an imaginary suite with cigarettes at every table
And green lawns
Barbershop conversation
The reflection of the sun in special trees
Or my best friend Jesus Christ
Or the smell of the theater that one day with the cynics who just got back from a tennis match and barbwire still laced delicately around their thoughts and
Nihilism
And automotives
And priestess Jane or Henry's gloomy doppelganger who reads alternative magazines and loves the aesthetics behind broken glass
And fine tuned musical instruments

It's difficult to remember
Lonesome Fridays smoking on a park bench trying to finish the puzzle
Or synagogues you've never been in
Or insurance
Or newspaper articles detailing the misadventures of Mr. City
(Of course of course! Take your shoes off at the door and make yourself at home)
We're tossing all our sewage into the ocean
that's far from clean as it
LOOKS anymore these days
That's anything
And everything except for the glowing mountains seen faded and wintry behind Apartments and the
"Glorious Mexican House of Spices"
Never been in there either

It's difficult to remember
Times of Mr Twin Sister
Or Joan Jett in the hallway
In a highschool who's psychology classrooms have become a time capsule in the ground/
Or the gentle skinny ******
Wearing Broadway makeup and
Kafka tattooed on his shoulder
I like his hat
He looks at me suspiciously
Or the guy who is yelling his order at the counter when it's quiet here anyways
Or the mariner who has a hobby of the saxophone
Or 1970s *******
Or the sheepskin bikeseat fad that's yet to come but I'm predicting it now!
Or two dollars and twentyseven cents at the beginning of Allen Ginsberg's America
"I've given you all and now I'm nothing"

It's difficult to remember
The Oriental
Sacramento flies
Midnight Moon
Quarter to four
"The Immortalization Commission"
Remodelled hotels downtown
Where mandalas on the floor became a
Tiger lily luminous
And the kimono is yesterday's painting/
Dearest Darling
When I was feeling down!
A staircase in reverse (??)
The sound a kiss makes
It's difficult to remember
Colleen's earrings
Or Washington State
Or air conditioners in Bali
The Indian ocean's daybreak hymn
To Seminyak
Or whatever happened to Steve from the Airplane out of Taiwan
On 3 days awake
Hello Kitty nursing stations
****** (Kubrick's version)
Cardboard taking up half my bedroom
It's difficult to remember until I jot it down and then its a sudden forever
Sunshine Superman in a cafe spontaneous
drawings with someone I just met who has some ******* attitude/
Who hops fences and has feral ideas
People! En Masse! Te Amo!
You're all in wolven liberty
And vague postulators
And holy prostitutes for the dollar
Sad eyed intellectuals
With undergarments made of breakfast cereal/
Seaferry poetry is different from
Trestle in August poetry
Or henna handshakes
Or the Napoleonic era
Sweet Cherry Pie
The tulip's tongue
Garabajal
Cloudy first day of July
Was hotter yesterday
But not too hot

It's difficult to remember
Antiquity
The pale horse Studebaker outside the clinic
With a glossy red trim and **** I wish that was my ride
Andy Warhol's exploding plastic inevitable
Nearsightedness
Angels and their ability to shower with a a snap of their fingers
Distant harp music
Better him than me
Bananas almost ripe
Green aquatic
Reclusive junkies
Palomo's appliances
Questions for the next time
How much I like what you like and how I like that you like what I like
Ahh that's not my bus
I'm trying to get to the city!
That one quote Socrates is known for about knowing nothing as true wisdom
Supermarkets being built on top of liquor stores burned down a while back
Monopolies
Tragedies
"No Love Lost"
THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
Your guess is as good as mine
Never tried to eat Asian food in Asia
It was all pasta and good cider that tasted like pineapple
Rain hitting the window and I'm
Drowsy again
God Save The Trees!
Curly hair looks good on boys
Torn up blinds
Queer as a three dollar bill
If Bill costs 3 dollars I'm sure he's caught something better safe than sorry
Sage advice
I'm the very model of a modern major general
Golden yen and international currency
Incense in the bedroom and how good it smells
There's my bus! Applying for a better job than the one I got now
But that's how it always is right?
Chasing satisfaction
1007 apt
Porch ornaments
Unique names
Unique style le style
The extra charge on foreign ATMs
Cordoroy polo shirts
Flooding in New York!
When someone's face screams *******
"Slippery when wet"
Dine N Dash
Grass gone yellow
Confidence in dyed hair and capes as long as wedding gowns
But less expensive
Doors that always seem to be locked and I'm wondering 20 year later what's behind them?
Albino animals
White thoughts as clouds or
Abstractions
Weathers nicer in Florida but who cares
Festivities this early in the day
Automatopeia
Do sad orphanages still exist?
Just like the movies
Midnight in mirrors
That sick puppet at the shoe shop used
To know how to really hammer it down
And now he's weak and forgotten
Never heard the words of a true prophet only Oceania
Or the private temple near Apollo Bay
Like Japanese gardens behind that gate
Will I ever see it
Make a proud example outta ya misbehavior
Form without function
Exhausted spiritualism
*** Kettle Black
negative photographs of dark rooms
And there's laughing coming from SOMEWHERE
Essays on kleptomania
Had a bad dream I became a cliche
Surrounded by other freaks and there was a lovely ***** I fell in love with her
We married in Oregon by the sea her name was rosy
***** rosy
Check your mailbox for nails
And what you don't wanna hear/
If you were a vegetable you'd be organic!
Empire
Satirical bubble gum
Satori
Linda Lovelace and her special party trick
That's someone's fantasy
Diamond in the rough
Mister guy with two black eyes frequents the adult playhouse
Hes fully stocked on fishnet leggings
He's too proud to put them on himself but
Has nobody else around
Boo hoo
Swigs back the whiskey and trips down the stairs getting a third black eye in the process
Marion came by with her dog the other day
Wanted her box of clothes back but he loved to sniff them to remember her
But she wouldn't have it

"Honey I'm going to call the police!"

"Ah they don't give a **** they have bigger things to worry about"

"Yeah you got that right shrimp **** enjoy my unwashed *******"

And she never came back again
He started losing the vertebrae in his spine 1 by 1 and you know where this is going
I won't say he was a poor man because he had it all coming to him the *******
But he coulda had a better start if you ask me.

It's difficult to remember
And even more difficult to forget
After the fact

Seagull opera
Giganticism
Portrait of the artist as a young man
Losing one's pencil when the best idea of your life drops down from heaven and into your sorry head
Signs graffitied to have funnier meanings
Cruelty
Impassive
The Loyal Lioness
And Bangladesh has too many kitchens
And not enough dishes
When I was young I used to say Island as "is-land"  
Which is true it is land
But the Europeans probably stole it from somebody else anyways/
I left my future behind
And objects in the mirror are closer than they appear
Im no illusionist
I'm terrified of the cracken
Father feels the same way about
Hotels
Why bother/
This has been going on and on for a while are you tired yet
Is your patience being tested
Mine isn't because this wasn't an all-at-once kind of rambling
It's extremely important to laugh at least
Once a day
Otherwise you'll find yourself a politician
In no time at all
Rockefeller
(         ) Quaint home to die in
I think
Trains create great music
Float on
Sink into yourself
Roses in a crooked alley
That's people
Busy busy busy busy
Let's describe a situationist
I'm not a fan of bright colors on clothes
Your best shade is blue
Bricklayers transcription of Don Quixote to a skyscraper
Rocket thyme
& Garden
Erratic children's
Insomnia
The doorbell repeatedly
Vancouver riots/ I saw that live on the news!
Pictionary with the surrealists
N Dada TV set MC Escher
Antenna
You're in the Twilight Zone now
Dear Ramona
I'm trying to make it up to you
With a brightness only seen when you're ready to see it so please for the love of God don't blame me when it's not appearing
The tapestry hidden
Keep your blankets clean
And avoid hospitals unless you're fine with fishbowls & the halogen
The water gestapo
Storage lockers full of unacted plays and
Antique microwaves
Emitting the nostalgia of the cold war era
And what a waste of time that was /
Walter Wanderleys presence in Autumn universities
The opening of Vivre sa Vie
Salvador Dali's pluvial taxi
Lightbulb epiphanies
Aquariums and their protestors
Zebras in the shade
Two wrongs dont make a right
Elizabethan theater
Saloon shootouts in a fever dream
I lost and bled out all over the rustic wooden floor
A maiden reached out for me and El Paso did play I woke up and pretended nothing happened/
Funerals for bad People who did bad things
My first memory of a cat beneath the mattress
Hello Dolly!
Auditory learning
Psychotherapy
Lillian the landlady lost her ladle and labeled little Lyle as a lair
The Black panther movement
Reading symposium some years ago and
Making note that Phaedo was still my favorite dialogue/
Zen Buddhism
Xoxo xoxo
The day Gypsies were replaced with
Surface ****** appetite
And not the real thing
Newspaper clippings
Hypnotism when all other options are out
Mystical visions of sidewalks
And the love of your life stepping through a door you've never seen
Maybe Yes No I Don't Know
Creature comforts
Che Guevara's problem is that his beard made him too easy to recognize
(Also that little hat!)
Chinese cough medicine didn't work
For long I still wheeze sometimes
Domestic violence thru the wall
Ceiling fan probably doesn't even work!
Dimpled laughter
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
In skytrains to Commercial
Bermuda in her mind
And courtesy in her voice
I'm no Arthur Rimbaud
But you already knew that
Alcazar of Seville
Filling up the shipbottle
Here's your paradise
Now relinquish it as it is
False!
Hare Krishna
Nowhere Fast
El Diablo and the
Portofino loaf left rotting on the countertop
Latin children speak of the sacred viper
You'll hear of it after this but we'll never see what the ******* meant
Heads alternating round the social current
Of my lively city
There's a dog soaking up the rain
And songs are made in honor of
Recent catastrophes
Trials are dealt
Cards cast to the gutter
New York quiets down for the news of another war
You scratch my back I'll scratch yours
Skeleton key
Ballad of the last wailing zoo
THE ATRIUM
Complexity in simplicity
That's how Brainard got me!
Elderly overcoats
Hiding purest LSD
Is a fan of Hawaiian T shirts
And a communist
What if I was a Freemason
Or owned a tanning salon
Faint crimson
What did Marv look like again?
"You're surrounded by people who love you"
Coffee when one needs it
GOODBYE BLUE MONDAY
Tattoos on the wandering man
Oriental chimes and the people who own them
Bus stop regulars
Vines overtaking power lines
The hypnogogic state
Strawberry light softening
The mind
Sister Ray LOUDLY PROCLAIMING
doitdoitdoitdoit
Passing the graffiti n Pluto neon
Halal wide awake another Saturday
Where's the Karaoke
Flashing by here
Those who find comfort in a bridal scavenger hunt
Or expensive beer
And here comes the hooded clown
Clamoring about his favorite
Loudspeaker
Telling me my time is soon and the noise
Drowns out the drowsy bliss
After hour spirits the perfect time for
Writing and trying to read distant Chinese
Indecision on the tip of the tongue
"NOW WHO IS THAT KNOCKING
ON THE CHAMBER DOOR?
COULD IT BE THE POLICE?"

I'm completely off the topic
And into Apartment lobby photosets
Low battery phone calls
Confessions
Nauseated reverb
Trying to see the attachment people got with bingo halls
And moving companies
Ah no luck again
Eve is at it with her showtunes
Halfway methodology
Triage
Paisley headbands left
Distraught on the quivering
Heater
Dwindling sunsets
We're truly disciples of the moon spirit which grants us more energy
(This is according to a drunk I met one night)
Or ***** old men
When the horizon is engulfed with
A winking cinder
Suitcase at the door
Last time
First time
Magician never reveals his fetishes
(They all have to do with bags under your eyes)
Employment office dramas of my friend the one who blinded a social worker
And the one who blamed Islam
And the one whos philosophy entirely consisted of Spooky Action at a
                                            DISTANCE
Parisian riots
Queer youth
Didn't make the team! Jester
'cross the hall who's beard suggests
Ishmeal n car battery n expired vegetables n rain which crosses the line n
***** cranberry n
Poorly fitted suits n
Harsh pigment n incense shops n
Bocca     secret towns
With churches more beautiful than any you'd find in your own city
n the cultural market
Xylophone ear to ear
Soul cleansing starting at only
$89 (with a 6 month guarantee)
Sophie's birthday and her picnic at Victory Park
The nearby bums trying to sell tea mugs and
Loose wires beside gated convenience stores
I'm an Island away attempting a poem
And never bought a scratch n win
Or heard the same song more than seven times in a row or been in a column
Or escaped the washhouse
Invested in a birdcage for next year
Been to a palm reading
Visited Oasis
Smoked salmon
Told anyone else about Montana
Screamed the things I'd like to scream
** Word of the day
Or kissed a lunatic or swallowed the corpse of yesterday
I keep her on my neck until
I'm too anxious to let go
Counting streetlights
Jeans worn in and faded to be sent off to
A lonely caffeine addict
Christmas Eve I'll be reading a postcard from San Francisco
Asking the same questions
My imagination is made of a different material than last week
Now it's the same color as your hair
HEY that's a good pickup line to use in the heart of the Canadian Embassy
Drinking discarded music resembling a sweater you may have said YES to if it wasn't so unsure of itself
And now Mr. Acker Bilk ascends thru the window of an August home
Like a lazy hornet
I'm still lost without identification
Or a nice belt
As happens when one uses a quality item too casually
How did uphill suddenly seem so downhill?
I'll claim a waterfall
For SALE that inevitable Indonesia
Greyhound O another greyhound O another greyhound
I'm fretting too much about not enough
Delayed the Airport and the yellow question

????

II

What if I knew how to read the curb?
Or translate drunken droll
What if I was never tired again and could
REALLY do anything I set my mind to?
What if I was the first cigarette that cured cancer instead of caused it?
What if I could end superstition
And walk underneath any ladder I wanted?
What if I could make it with a young Audrey Hepburn!?
What if I stopped pretending to be a microphone and got on with "it"
What if the grocery store closed later
And I opened earlier?
What if parking lots werent so sad
All the time?
What if gravity simply had enough of exotic birds and specifics?
What if we stopped trying to recreate what is truly lost?
What if foreign children embraced
Wasting time instead of
Midnight starry bicycles
And the antics of a monk
Disguised as a romantic?

There are those that worship God
And those who worship the Sun
And those who worship nothing at all
But I suppose on the last bus
We're all the same exhausted
Voice who can't wait for next pay day
What is an empty bank?
Or authenticity
What is there to prove anymore?
I hope I don't die tonight and regret
Being impulsive for once
You're a smart shadow
And a dull character
Pushing the last of the daisies
Get the lamp to turn on again
Give the pavement something to look forward to with your walk
Be consistent in being inconsistent
If there's a word there's a ***** and a poem for it!
We all oughta worship
Nothing at all except
Clarity
Compassion with ones neighbor who either forgot the pay the electricity bill or couldn't afford to
We're a swimmin

the earth is curved - sure y’all knew that.  
but to get to the Northwest,
Interstate 84
ain’t le route plus directe

nope curve north to Ontario,
wave to Bex as I cross over
London and Toronto, also can’t recall
which poet from Rochester hails,
or did they shuffle off to Buffalo?

Crossing Erie, Huron, and Michigan Great Lakes all,
brings to mind
my mother’s birthplace,
Last of the Mohicans,
and the three years I did in the Cleveland Penitentiary,
where sun was illegal and baseball was a pretend play
of cowboys and Indians
but by god, it made me
the penitent fella I am today

Look skyward to Montreal,
yes, there he is, the Leo Priest,
the baffled king,
blessing this poetic meet ‘n greet trip
with a smiling unsurprising
hallelujah

Apparently some US citizens still can traverse O Canada,
even if one forgot their passports,
and are not PNG’s (Persons Not so GREAT)

over Minneapolis shed a tear for Diane,
a poet- gone-missing, and wonder if you reader come from
St. Cloud, Fargo or Duluth, Bismarck or Aberdeen,
surely they still speak poetic English there
in a twangy metering methodology  - well, message me asap

wow there really is a Saskatoon!

the pilot asks us to lean left in our seats
to help turn the plane
so we go to Portland and not to Vancouver...
me thinks he might be a touch Rockie Mountain High,
considering we are at 30 thousand something Imperial,
as he walks the main cabin with an oxygen mask and a
huuuuuge grin

see the distant Cascades
through a crack in the shuttered windows,
must be close to “the coast”
(as if, harrumph, there were but one)

ah, words in the clouds, ripe for the plucking
must be getting close to Oregon,
where poets grow on trees, woody words like ****,
and log-float poems down the Columbia to the sea

gonna drink me some poets
under the table cause this
trip I ain’t no driving and I am already
“flying” ‘n scribing and arriving
on a high tide and a good wind

"O!
That the earth
Had to be given to
You
This Way"* - Charles Olson
                
Impermanence is romantic because you
have to make the most of love
while it's still there.

Music doesn't play for birds anymore.

I'm having a conversation with myself
that has never stopped, and honestly, I want him
(the other guy) to shut up!

Recounting recent Vancouver,
humid commercial streets all lit up in midday
cafes cafes cafes
Sweet Cherubim with it's tobacco free cigarettes
and appearance of smallest India!
Traincarts full of familiar faces as time makes these tracks easier to travel.
My shoes are stained with fences, Seagulls do nothing but
complain and **** beautifully!

Here I am now, April 16th, Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal, I can smell the overcast and the expensive perfume behind my seat.
We have the French tourists, Chinese grandmothers,
and millenials wearing thick red lipstick, hair braided back
"What the heck"
to something by the SNB (more coffee)
read Gerry Gilbert's stuff, continuing "MOBY JANE" and it's
refreshing to be engaged with a local poet who makes
direct references to
Nanaimo, Vancouver, Victoria, etc.

Wind is calm today,
I find most poets go into the details of their daily lives and perceptions, while I've made it a habit to try and write about everyone's lives all at once, even when I don't know a **** thing about them (but that's the most interesting part to me)
anybody could by anybody else
who's to say?
I bet I am not as interesting as some may think,
I bet I am not as interesting as I may think,
I can't land a solid date!
aboard the last ferry I saw someone with the face of Andy Warhol and now I see someone with the hair of Andy Warhol.

OK OK
Back to Vancouver,
shorts while it rains outside (not me)
Gastown tangerine reflections off buildings &
my friend points out the non profit office she works in weekly/
10 floors or more of archaic steelwork/heavy foundation/smoothed edges/copper ceiling.
I hardly miss the smell of this place (or rather some areas of it)
the ***** and suited cologne, frequent pizzerias, vintage two-floor aged wood shops, perspiring neon Granville hysteria, Vogue Theater advertising a future appearance by Parov Stelar, I think Robin Pecknold was here recently as well but hell if I can remember the comings & goings of everybody!
Raga band plays beneath the window cleaners one year earlier emitting
audible visions of Calcutta's disorganized theatrics.
Some of these skyscrapers look almost imaginary in their modern sheer.
Glass and more glass with solar panels added in/absorbed heat and people's despondent attention.

Big blow-ups of spectacular strangers, *** is in high demand and marriage has become commodity///

"THE FUTURE IS NOW
COME AND CATCH IT BEFORE IT LEAVES WITHOUT YOU
AS IT WILL APOLOGETICALLY,
INNOVATION/WIRES UPON WIRES/LOSS OF CEMENT/A CEMETERY OF GLASS PANELS AND **** ADVERTISING THAT CUTS OFF TOO QUICKLY TO READ"

"EACH AND EVERY CHILD IS LOOKING UP AT THESE MODELS AND FALLING INTO THE MESH OF SURFACES AND FACELESS BODIES/NICE JAPANESE CARS/THE KIND THAT DON'T NEED GAS OR EVEN DRIVERS"

"WE'RE ALL LIVING LONGER AND DYING EARLIER/WHERE IS IT HAPPENING NOW/WHERE WILL THE RECENTLY WED GO FOR SECLUSION? WHERE WILL THE OLD GO TO RETIRE WITHOUT THE FEAR OF BEING FORGOTTEN AND ABUSED BY THEIR FAMILIES AND CARETAKERS?"

"WHERE IS THE COLOR ON THE CLOCK?
DON'T EVEN GLANCE AT YOUR NEIGHBOR/
WE'RE ALREADY BEHIND BARS \\"

"WHERE IS UNIVERSALLY PREFERABLE BEHAVIOR?
WHERE IS EDUCATION?
WHERE IS MY SELF
AND YOUR SELF?
WHERE'S THE NEXT TRAIN TO MATERIAL RELEVANCY?
CAN I FIND THE ADDRESS IN THE PHONE BOOK?
DO I REALLY HAVE TO WALK THAT FAR?
**** THAT!"

"MY FINGERS ARE WILTING/
FLOWERS ARE DEFENSELESS AGAINST AIRPLANES/
DINERS ARE GOOD FOR REST STOPS AND NOT MUCH ELSE"

"HEY COWBOY
YOU DON'T WANT THOSE FILTERED POISONS
YOU WANT THESE ONES!"

"HEY DARLING DOES THE RING FIT THE EGO?"

"HEY ******* WATCH MY BUMPER!"

"I FORGOT TO FILL IN MY TAX SHEETS ANOTHER MONTH IN A ROW THEY'LL FINE ME AGAIN"

"HOW DO YOU DEFINE "UNIQUE"

"I CAN'T HEAR MY COMMERCIALS OVER THE VACUUM CAN YOU PLEASE KEEP IT DOWN"

"THE BIRDHOUSE FINALLY ROTTED TO THE POINT IT'S FALLEN APART"

"I CAN'T AFFORD MY DAUGHTERS PIANO LESSONS I WISH I WAS A BETTER FATHER"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T TAKE MY CAT HOME WITH ME TILL I PAY UP FRONT?  I DON'T HAVE THE MONEY RIGHT NOW/YOU'RE KEEPING HIM AND CHARGING ME PER NIGHT?
'no sir if the cat is young we usually find a way around euthanasia'
'thank god for that'"

"CAN'T WAIT TO GET TENURE/
ABOUT TIME"

"A SALES MAGAZINE RECOMMENDED TO ME PASTEL LITERATURE IT WAS SENSELESS AND LACKED IN ANY INTELLECTUAL VALUE BUT SHOULD I BE SO SURPRISED?"

"MY HOUSE IS GOING UP IN VALUE! now how can I implement this value to my life?"

"BUY NOW/SAVE MORE/SPEND LESS/
PAY OFF YOUR LOANS EARLIER/
WE ARE NOW /CLOSED/"

An Orca is alongside the ferry,
it's a lovely sunset beyond the series of islands to reach Schwartz Bay
this afternoon. I put the book down, stretch myself out on the seat, arms relaxed to my sides.
I only write the poems I don't need to think about.
Here I am, so distant from shopping carts
or drums or physical isolation, people talk of travelling
to New York and Italy, a group of young girls console their friend who's being bullied (I have a bad habit of eavesdropping)
There's people snapping pictures of the whale, now stopping as it
returns to the blue mirror.
Days never tie up their loose ends, instead it's up to the day after that, and so the next one, yadayada.

Suddenly the weight of this year floods in,
a specter of eager fields, goodbyes,
and leaving myself behind.
Where am I going?

the coast, it is just as you promised.

         elusive--

the white stones shifting beneath my feet,
this wind. this rain,
the way the steely sky
trickles down to kiss the sea,
the indistinct rumors / hints / echoes of mountains
where the mist has slept with the trees.

                       vast, inconsolable:

the cliffs whisper to me
of their endless
journey to the horizon,
and captured in this fragrant
brushstroke of balsam and pine
I feel the damp northwest morning
soak into my skin,
and suddenly there is
an itching of feathers
and salt in my veins.

                                      {evergreen, wild}

                     for a second,
I bite into the marine chaos
of these dancing whitecaps,
and it is just as you promised.

untamable.


      pacific.

“Ever since I started this job and anyone asks how I’m doing, I always say, ‘I’m great!’ ” Maayan Zilberman excitedly explains. And why shouldn’t she? The former Lake & Stars lingerie designer, who has since founded confections lineSweet Saba, happens to have the sweetest career around. Concocting a literal visual feast out of her Park *****, Brooklyn, kitchen and Fort Gansevoort Meatpacking pop-up shop, the Israeli-born polymath uses her background in sculpture and a biting sense of humor to create her vibrant, indulgent delicacies. Think sugarfied tubes of lipstick, rap mixtapes, and Rolex watches—with their raw handiwork and dead-on wit, these in-demand pieces match Zilberman’s equally enticing wardrobe. Hardly barefoot in the kitchen, Zilberman teeters about in her workspace in vintage Betsey Johnson Mary Janes, while throwing on a customized Adam Selman pearl-laced apron to protect her Prada skirts andProenza Schouler knits. Here, the dazzling candymaker reveals how she has always been more En Vogue than grunge, why she never forgoes a perfect press-on manicure, and her plans on taking Sweet Saba herbal.

From Jerusalem to Vancouver

I was born on a kibbutz, where the first clothing I had was a mix of unisex hand-me-downs, so I was given a pretty blank slate. When I lived in Jerusalem we were surrounded by several sects of Orthodox communities, and the fabrics associated with each group were inspiring to me. During those years, designer brands were becoming popular, and the only place I was seeing this was in the shuk [market] where one could find imitation Calvin Klein and United Colors of Benetton next to tzitzit and shawls. I think it was in the early ’90s that I first understood how to mix my ethnicity with fashion and food.

Also, one of the most influential books of my childhood was Color Me Beautiful, which the women in my family took very seriously. I learned at the age of 6 that I was a “Winter” and haven’t veered off course since. I still have the book and love to pull it out at parties. Later in high school in Vancouver, grunge was the big trend and there wasn’t much room for my sensibilities in that environment—even when I wore my Revlon Blackberry lipstick and grunged out with irony. I was always far more En Vogue and Versace than the Pacific Northwest could handle.

Taking Cues From ’90s New York City Street Style

When I first got to New York, when I was 15, one of the first things I discovered was all the music I could get on Canal Street. I used to buy mix CDs from girls in monochrome outfits and big name-plate earrings. They pointed me to Fulton Mall in Brooklyn, and that’s where I finally got pants that fit right and jewelry that reflected my personality—a departure from the stuff I’d received for my bat mitzvah.

A shift in style for me meant a tougher, more confident look, where a short skirt is a reference to an era, not a call for attention. Music and lyrics played a big part in teaching me about how to dress and how to feel feminine. I had a Versace quilted skirt that I wore a lot—it made me feel like the supermodels in the ad campaigns: Cindy, Claudia, Stephanie, et cetera. I also had a Jean Paul Gaultierdouble-breasted pinstripe suit that I’d wear casually. In fact, I’m still wearing most of my clothes from those days: Betsey Johnson floral dresses, Donna Karanbodysuits, a metallic Byblos pouf skirt, and a grommeted Pelle Pelle jacket.

Lingerie Beginnings

I studied sculpture at the School of Visual Arts, and for a year at the San Francisco Art Institute my major was “new genres,” a very ’90s thing. Right after I graduated from SVA, I did an artist residency with Ilya Kabakov at the Fondazione Antonio Ratti in Como, where they also manufactured some of the world’s most beautiful silks. A tour of their factory opened my eyes to a potential dip into fashion, but it wasn’t until I met a pair of women in New York City that same year looking to start a lingerie brand that I took a chance on garment design. I bought a bunch of bras and took them apart and figured out how they were put back together. I cofounded The Lake & Stars in 2007 with the desire to make a brand that was in line with the story I wanted to tell as an artist. Lingerie was a tool, a structure that gave me rules so I could tell a sci-fi tale while inherently delivering romance and *** appeal.

read more:http://www.marieaustralia.com

www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses

Murva fashion collection introduced at Eco Fashion Week has been a life long process for Ivana Knezovic, Creative Director / Designer. This was not only the 29 year old Croatian designer's first collection, but also her first international performance.

She debuted her eco-friendly collection titled Rust & Flow on the runway at Eco Fashion Week in Vancouver, Canada. Her pieces are all made from eco-friendly wool flannel.

Ivana Knezovic made interesting use of symmetrical lines, and I admired the draping from the shoulders framing a dress low-cut in back. One dress had several parallel vertical cut lines on the backside.

Many of her tops had capes, hang from one shoulder or both, paired with slim pants or a skirt. A nice touch of dramatic flare as the models moved down the runaway.

“Fashion design was always in me,” say Ivana Knezovic. Having resided in New York, Toronto, and Switzerland, designing was something she always wanted to do. "Murva is the name of a tree in my village. My company represents a return to my roots, to who I am at my core."

"I like structure. I like hiding the body behind some kind of a structure," said the designer who makes all her own clothes and cosmetics. "Eco is a product of maturity and of wholeness that you can only achieve when you really and truly grow up."

As a designer, she told me that she strives for “pure minimalism,” yet her eco-fashion designs are made for a sophisticated, minimalistic, and determined woman.

Exactly what the eco-fashion movement needs.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-2015

It was a summer afternoon in Wester Ross. Two moments: one near, on tide-swept sands, with glorious and gloriously blue amalgams of sky and water; the other far, on a distant shore, a vista of sweeping rain and a gang of clouds marauding the hills. Near abouts: a meeting of warm land and cool sea over a deserted beach. There were midges of course, but on that day a lithe breeze kept them at bay. As she was discovering the chaotic delights of the disused Fishing Station, I was Charles Darwin standing on a deserted shore looking across to Tierra del Fuego. Not a sign of a dwelling, a boat, or even a person on the coastal footpath. A vast panorama spread beyond the edges of my unturning vision. Out on the grey blue water, I became Captain Vancouver sailing up the Inner Channel exploring and mapping every indent, nook and cranny of the double coast. Suddenly, five indians in their log canoe appeared paddling around the point, navigating by the feel of depth and the thrum of the current inches under their bare feet and bottoms.
 
This place, the larger vicinity, the region driven through, on and onwards, into and out towards landscapes vaster than anything I’d previously known in this small island; it had already staked its claim on my consciousness. I was transfixed. On my own, decent progress during a walk was almost impossible. I would stop every few moments aware that something new and different was going on. To miss anything seemed an affront to the sublime. I would walk early in the morning whilst she lay peacefully in bed, her arms stretched out on the blue-striped cover, her hands and fingers gently curved, at rest. This morning time was alive with a colourscape of silences, different shades of low-level noise. There is no camera able to catch the play of real all-surrounding images with those extensions of fantasy the imagination blends and stirs. No microphone can be sensitive enough to the surround sound in air and landscape, the faint breath of the sea, and the incessant conversation and playback of her tender evening voice in my thoughts. Here the past was invading the present, speculating on the future, our future.
 
I ventured inside the hut at the Fishing Station. Curious to see what she was up to. She was arranging, like children do, her found objects. Along the few shelves fixed to the corrugated iron walls her quiet hands placed and replaced, shifted and turned; then, the click of the camera, again click, adjust the focus, click. Ropes lay at her feet snake-like, hemp and nylon, that urgent orange, that too smooth blue, mounds of old fishing gear mostly unidentifiable, not an idea where the floor might be found, so completely covered. If there had been a door it was no more; just a gap in the wall, seaward.
 
These objects she arranged: screws, bolts, nails, strange keys, boltless nuts and nutless bolts, small bottles, a can or two. Everything hand-size, tarnished, rusted, some oiled, stained oil-black. I felt an intruder witnessing her preparations for a secret game, a ceremony of recording and removal. A kindly ‘do not disturb’ sign hung about her face; a blankness, a dream-like visage of the initiated, as though she held some premonition of this material’s importance, a treasure found in a shack of a shed, a ‘find’ she would collectively decode. Already this visit took on the character of a preliminary investigation. She began wrapping and tying some of the more unusual items in cloth, making mummies that in a few days she would return to and unwrap to find their imprint and press marked on the cloth.
 
We lost time in this place. Only the incoming tide was a clue to how the afternoon had advanced. The beach, at whose far end the station had been built, held a gentle new moon’s curve. The water’s encroachment of the beach became mesmeric; it was difficult to leave the looking until its tide journey had been completed. But we did, and wandering through the dune meadows, between the diffident cattle, past the remote farm at the end of the track, gate after gate, then the proper road, the twice a day post box, two houses set well back from the road, a woman leading a boy on a horse, up a rise, a lay-by with a camper van, walking backwards to keep the view to the red sand beach in our sights as the afternoon light began to turn from gold into auburn, then with fingers threaded into fingers down to the wooden cottage. And there, later, after love’s welcome and its celebration, stillness.

Timothy Yan, that was his name
I miss him, still, 71 years later
I don't know if he's alive now
Nor, really did I know then in 1942
We were kids, he was 11 and now
would be 82 or 83
I don't know if he'd remember me
But, I remember him
and will forever
He was Canadian
He was my best friend
His family was Japanese
We'd come from Ontario, Burlington
Work brought dad west
So, we settled in a suburb of Vancouver
Tim's family had been here for a few years
There weren't a lot of Japanese in Canada
He was the first one I saw
We didn't have any in Burlington
So as I know
We lived on the same street
Went to the same school
He was Canadian
We played baseball, road hockey
football, we were brothers
blood brothers, we were a team
We moved west in 1938
I met him that fall in school
We were instant friends
The day I saw that St. Louis Cardinal hat
stuck in his pocket, all rolled up
He'd be Stan The Man, I'd be Red Russer
He was Syl Apps, I was Sam LoPresti
I was Turk Broda, he was anyone he wanted to be
We were both Joe Di Maggio
We were brothers
I remember the noise first
Great big Army trucks,
Olive green
All up the street
Not just at the Yan place
The Yokishuris, Wans, and Timmy's Aunt too
Soldiers, loading the trucks
We weren't allowed out to see
Notices had been posted though the door
We could only watch and wonder
They were being moved
They scared the powers that be
Little Japanese families
Many born here
Scared the powers of  King in Ottawa
And they had to be moved
Inland, to the Okanagan Valley
To Camps, in Canada, their country, Camps
Canada was at war
With it's own people
With 11 year old Timothy Yan
Ever since Pearl Harbour
Ottawa got scared
Japanese fishermen in the west
Japanese fighter planes from the east
There had to be spies in British Columbia
Tim Yan was apparently one of them
They were told their property was safe
All their goods in storage
They were lied to
A month after they left
The auctioneers came in
Everything was sold
Everything...
I hope he kept that hat
Dad bought what he could
So did other neighbours
I still have the boxes
Never opened
Waiting for the Yans,
I miss Joe DiMaggio
I didn't understand it then
And I don't now
My teachers couldn't explain it
My minister said it was the best
That didn' t help either
What best?
Who decided what was best?
Best for who?
It wasn't best for me, or Tim
Nobody asked us
He was just gone
I spent years looking for him
He never came back after the war
They were moved further east
They were sent to Japan
He was from Canada
Why would they send him to Japan
He was gonna be the first Japanese big leaguer
I hope he made it
I grew up and became a lawyer
A citizenship lawyer
This was not going to happen on my watch
To anyone again
Not while I was around
I miss him
He went to war
And never fired a shot
He went to war
And never knew why...

Security guard sitting alone
bank holiday, the nights soon gone,
he sits & waits to hear the phone
but nobody, thinks, he's on his own

Son & daughter far away
growing up, while he's growing grey,
soon to decide which way to go
their love hidden, unable to show

The last few years haven't been sweet,
Raynham, Vancouver, Sidney St,
roots torn up, hearts torn out
no wonder the only answer
is a shout

One day soon, my little Rose may forgive,
and let her loved ones begin to live,
instead of living the American Dream
as the second Miss Watts,
she'll gleam or scream

A) Sometime
     Somewhere
     Someone
                       ....                                (written by me on the guest log in Spartacus Books' public bathroom)

B) I am perceiving people perceiving people
and all at once, a bird flies overhead!

C) HYPER PIANO BOUNCES FROM THE SPRINGTIME PAVEMENT!! condominium instruments reach out like satellites to the soul for any who'll listen to it's song of a time before

D) Where I witnessed my own dejection, wandering in nightly streets cement-eyed and forlorn, I sought to escape this Western cavalcade with a solitary year in Vietnam which didn't become anything more than an idea, but this was pushed under the rug for India (which is still on my mind!) which was then replaced by the thought of living in Bathurst, NSW, AUS (I'll get to why in a poem or other format of writing in times to come) I have named the place I once saw thru a vivid dream or a crystal ball which to some may mean the same thing

E) "DUCK! AND COVER!" we've all seen that cold war propaganda film with the turtle, seems so ridiculous now, wouldn't have worked anyways

F) Kripaya ek glass paani dijye (this means "please, give me a glass of water" in Hindi, which could be a valuable sentence to know considering India can get very hot, but when you remember how unhealthy their ((at least unfiltered)) water is, I may never use this)

G) I don't know which is crazier, those who feigned insanity to avoid war, or war itself

H) George Foreman named all his kids George Foreman (what a ******* egomaniac) I would grill him on that if I ever met him because seriously what a weird decision, how their mother was okay with that  is beyond my understanding.

I) Here comes July, with it's sweating mobs and many humid funerals

J) Poetic visual aestheticism (in terms of the actual layout line to line)

As one line
drops into
another line and
keeps dropping.

(determined by what Ginsberg called Mind Breaths, given to phrase being written, drop line to add emphasis to words of higher importance or topic phrases, as to almost introduce them in a way not blended with the previous line)

I) O! birds, who are up at the early hours of the morning, I am beyond glad/grateful that I can hear your hymns before everyone else has woken up

J) I think Vonnegut had something unique going on in Breakfast of Champions, especially that bit with the illustrated ******* that looked more like an asterisk

K) The trees outside are green again..
     The Windex bottle above the toilet is green,
     My sheets are green,
     This color I associate with the word "APRIL" is green

     There's a faint glimpse of green in my eyes,
     And a hint of green in the garden nearby,
     A lot of green in this poem (?) which may not be considered a poem but ******* if you happened to think that!
      
      Lastly, for now, I'm no longer feeling blue, and I guess that's a little green, too.

L) is for LOSER

M) ..did Joe Brainard just write a Colgate advertisement in the middle of his work? What is this I didn't pay for commercials..I don't WANT advertising present in my books! I see them everywhere else!
ah...

O) is for open mouth

P) Spontaneous prose acting as an honest/direct look into the meditated (or pure) form state of thought of that who wrote the prose. The book itself being a literal time capsule for a moment of consciousness who's creator may now be deceased.
Also
those who have their thoughts, images, ideas in their head > transferred to U who is now sharing those images but in a subjective way, seeing the settings or characters differently > person then writes their OWN ideas inspired from the previous writers = collaborative consciousness (also a form of time travel)

Q) is for questioning the rigidity of the political structures around you and the flaws it presents for the working class

R) is for RSVPing yes at the wedding between your hypothetical best friend now with the person you've been in love with for years. Slowly it kills you inside, this point of no return, something out of a grand and tragic love story (which isn't a love story because the love was not between you and that person but rather your hypothetical best friend) ****! you slam your fist to the table or the wall and it's all hopeless. But then comes the acceptance of the situation, moving on from it the best you can even if it presents itself as a shadow from this point on. If you've ever been thru something like this I deeply apologize as the cruelty of the world is indecisive, I for one haven't, but I am only turning 20 this year, which would also explain why I made this whole scenario mentioned above hypothetical

S) is for SHHH!

T) is for the constant presence of televisions in today's homes

U) is for UNIVERSE

V) is for...

W) is for upside-down M

X) is for xeroxing you slowly rolling up your ******* and mailing the series of pages to your ex (if you're an *******, which people also xerox maybe)

Y) is for why and also where when what who and how

Z) is for ZZZZZZZzzzz
zzzzz
zzzz
zzz
z

London fashion designer ­Carmina De Young is bringing her first ready-to-wear collection to market with the support of two local fashion mavens, wardrobe and image consultant Susan Jacobs, and business mentor Gloria Dona.

De Young’s Spring/Summer 2016 collection is now available by appointment at the Pop with Purpose studio,

The studio recently held an informal fashion show featuring De Young’s collection.

De Young was born and raised in Puebla, Mexico and discovered her passion as a young child, taking inspiration from her mother’s creative flair for fashion and design.

A graduate of Fanshawe College’s Fashion Design program, De Young’s clothing has been showcased locally and on national platforms, including at Vancouver Fashion Week and at the Caisa Fashion Show at Western University.

De Young started her own label in 2012 and now has a 25-piece ready-to-wear collection ranging from office to casual activities to a night on the town.

Each piece is available in size XS to XL with prices ranging from $79 to $259.

Instead of trying to break into the notoriously-difficult retail market, Dona and Jacobs offered to bring the De Young collection directly to London women through the Pop with Purpose studio.

“We love that we can offer women locally designed and manufactured clothing where they know the designer and know that they are helping make dreams come true,” says Jacobs. “There’s power in that. It’s incredible.”

Topspin scoops award

London-based Topspin Technologies Ltd., has been awarded the Synapse Life Sciences award for innovation in health. Their product, the Topspin360, beat out more than 60 invited applicants for products that demonstrate an innovation in health in Ontario.

This award follows the London-based Techalliance “Techcellence” award the company won earlier this year.

The Topspin360 is the first patented training device that helps improve neck muscles to reduce concussion risk.

Theo Versteegh, who earned his PhD in physiotherapy from Western University in 2016, developed the device after watching the Sidney Crosby hit in 2011 that caused his concussion.

Versteegh found that many sports concussions are the result of the whiplash effect.

The Topspin can be used in all sports, especially those at high risk for concussion, and also in military applications.

Northerner joins Fortune

David Ramsay, a former cabinet minister in the government of the Northwest Territories, has joined the board of directors of London-based Fortune Minerals .

Ramsay has more than 20 years of elected public office experience in the Northwest Territories. His cabinet portfolios included industry, justice, transportation and public utilities.

Fortune is working with three levels of government on infrastructure projects important to the success of the company’s NICO gold-cobalt-bismuth-copper project in the Northwest Territories.

One project is a 94-kilometre all-season highway to the community of Whati, northwest of Yellowknife.

The road is supported by the Tlicho Government, a Dene First nation and would reduce the cost of living and improve the quality of life in the outlying Tlicho communities and promote economic activity. Fortune has already received environmental assessment approval to build a spur road from Whati to the NICO mine.

Delta hosts bridal show

The London Wedding Professionals will hold their second Bridal Showcase at the Delta London Armouries on April 30.

The event offers a smaller, more intimate experience for brides to meet local wedding industry experts, ask questions, and get inspired for their wedding day.

The show features products and services from professionals including gowns, photography, florists, venues, DJs, hair and makeup and wedding planners.

The showcase also puts a focus on inspiring brides with Vignettes throughout the space showcasing different themes or colour palettes.

The show runs from 11 a.m-3 p.m. and admission is free.

Student makes his pitch

Sean Cornelius from St. André Bessette Catholic secondary school in London is one of 20 teenage entrepreneurs heading to Toronto May 8–10 to compete in this year’s edition of the Young Entrepreneurs, Make Your Pitch competition

Selected from the 204 two-minute video pitches entered, Cornelius earned the right to participate in a Dragon’s Den-style pitch contest at Discovery, Ontario Centres of Excellence’s annual innovation-to-commercialization conference, to be held on May 9 at Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Hamilton Road looks ahead

Business people in the Hamilton Road will hold an information meeting Wednesday about the creation of the Community Improvement Plan that could lead to the creation of the Hamilton Road Business Improvement Area. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the BMO Sports Centre on Rectory St. and guest speakers include Mayor Matt Brown and MPP Teresa Armstrong.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/****-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/vintage-formal-dresses

Veasna Ta Kvak recording
playback
over Chinatown cafe again
while recounting recent events
to journal pages
muddled from frequent
exchanges bag to bag
(Been to Taipei airport, Bali, Vancouver, most
recently)
blind fate
blind fate
shower me with Indian daisies
and photographs of Railway
New Delhi!
Hanoi Old Quarter/
Vietnam monsoon/
evening on balcony/
Darjeeling water boiled
and filtered anti-malaria
golden drink for honeylungs and
spring-soul morningtide
under moonlight canopy
of Avalokiteśvara
the fruitful
Bodhisattva!
English lessons
and future
hourless
comely chimera
in sleep phenomenon
Benares phantasmagoria YELLOW
(near Mata Anandamai Ghat)
speaking to Aghori
prophecy
Kala Bhairava
FIERCE ILLUSORY APOCALYPSE FAMILIAR
WHERE IS YOUR NOOSE?
the Ganges is full of lice and flowers
candlewax melted into holy water
sickness
equal to
harmony & jubilant
eyeclose and mouthcurl.

The future mysteries in
Mexico City poorboy
$2 mystic orb jade green
reflective underneath
dirt now in North American
bottom white four floor house
basement suite coffee table.
Visions indivisible
from the Viridian roundly haze
but surefire in their accuracy
I'm absolute
and universally formed
for the next few cacophonous
decades!

We drove because we saw the top of the mountain covered with snow.
Our desire was to feel its beauty.  As we traveled up and up
The forest encapsulated us with its velvety-richness; and the sound,
My heart pounding and the cascading waterfalls, played the music of the Soul
In the forest.  On we drive up the narrow road until there is no coming down.

Trees, houses, Treehouses,
Abandoned.
                  beaches
                ­                 still
                                 appear the same as summer
but the sky's gone
                 Sunshine
to
                Windwine
                                  (Clouds and clouds, some much            
                                    larger than others, sometimes just one big cloud  
                                   mapped out between            
                                   us and rest of universe to the cascade horizon)

All the pets can tread cement
without
worry of burns and the two hundred calamities
of July are over.
                              Replaced with
                              rain and bums escaping to the
                              soup kitchens and
Churches
                                  (East side Vancouver, Pandora Victoria,  
                                                 astreet in a city astray)
Ashtrays freckled in the evening drizzle
common.

My hands are held by gloves and
                                 fingertips from half of
                                 Japan,
my lips are kissed by the                          comet
beauty mark on right side
bottom
                                                (Though this universe is attending
                                                  unive­rsity in a distant city
                                                  while I hold my own
                                                  practicing the Dharma,
                                                 or MAYBE none of this will happen!)
Everything is in its place
as it always was-
though circumstance has tried to
teach us otherwise the                        
                                     ­                            Blackbox
                                      made of star-rubber S T R E T C H I N G
Hasn't the concept
of          calendars or
                             Jesus or
                                medicine cabinets
                                                         Dentists and
                                                             ­               Saints.
Everything is in its place
as it will always be
        as it has never been...
(Ever)
SPONTANEITY of matter
                         Gliding thr-
                                          -ough matter.
What does it all matter anyway?
There's                    loving
and                    ­     experiencing,
                Music.
           Personsong.
         Do-no-wrong.
That        no-no           of making
             mistakes?
A falsity!
**** up

In blissful circles
to the         SOUND
                    OF SNOW
                    MELTING
on streetlamps front of my
House.
                                (A very silent orchestra performing
                                 Before collision and like dog whistles
                                 It's a sound we cannot hear.
                                The peoples got their poetry and
                                cognitive thought so the other
                                Animals get the REAL sensory
                                Inconceivables to write about
                                But the ******* can't)
In that
                        future
_____
basement house

Where the Van Gogh
                   Velvet Underground sit
P
O
S
T
E
R
E
D
on the wood-c
                        u
                          r
    ­                       v
                             e walls.
I'm in unfolding daydream
Thanking
HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS
predating my
EIGHTEEN.
Thanking the
                              Beats and the Dadaists
                           and Buddhists and
                        Existentialists
                     ­ Post-modernists
                  Minimalists
                Expressionists
            FOR BEING.

Really, they aided
Me off
  the ^ ground
during
eight month unemployment induced depression where
I felt disassociated with myself
and the dynamo                                                       outside the front door..
Glowing via
         sunlight in the day window and
            headlights in the night window.
Either way
I filled up with
                                   (((Purposeless cynicism)))
The world bulb clicked ON
With/without me           there,
None of the corner stores
Or      airports
Or      hospitals
          courts and
          institutions
gave a rat's ***
what woes I be asphyxiated by
or that                 Farmquiet two lane
                                 tarnished path
In the country                       (in May)
      seemed fine a place as any
to     step a few feet to the          
                                               right
                            and
      left

of me and
                         .......DIZZY.......
by death traffic
old Buick polish
(Tragedy they'd say!)

While there midway in the firing line
I felt like
the wackos in      l o o s e
stone COLISEUM daisy cages
               Empty lots,
       Place where the beast of
  Emptiness cuffs to your sleeve
             and weeps
                      All over itself
                      that Sarte was right all along!
(No Exit! No exit!)

Autumn quartz moonlight                        O
Illuminated headstone repetition
circling musk fields.
  Skeleton wings
Of preceded seasons' timbers
Caught muttering the
Corpseconvo
as the               tumblecar
trembling             hot in
                           Music sauna HUM
Approaches life,
to the
                       paralyzed November air
of
Coffin bodies insulated
By roots N' six feet of terrestrial barrier.



Faces disappearing now
to Heavenly chandeliers of time
offering distant light future
and above my ponderous skull presently
                 dancing riverside to situations
                                                  and newness
                           (2016)
                  enigmatic spiral
  every                 color             every
                        possibility
every                rainbow          or
                      non-rainbow chromatically
                           webbed in Attic
                                          of secluded
                                Quantum Dimensions-

The big blue doors are opening to cosmic entirety,
cats everywhere are purring in their sleep,
somebody reads                          Murakami,
                                                      Picabia,
                                                      Joyce,
   ­                                                   W.C Williams,
                                                      B­erryman & Brainard too.
Big blue doors, rites of passage,
Aarti Varanasi twenty-seventeen,
             joyride to San Francisco (I wrote a poem on that once!)
Continuing self-exploration,
            reminding that soul to stay awake,
            the search for love-
Warmth when the year is
metamorphosed to cardinal leaves
       Sunset Summer!
      Autumnal transfiguration
      spiritual!
      Rearrangement of the concurrent reality!

I turn 19 in October and
a procession of kind-eyed children
will be born in the moments
I blow the cake candles.
Light goes out!
light comes in!
Hanoi expects me still.

Running from the past
Hiding from the future
Blocking out eternal pressures
By standing still with eyes closed
Dreaming that it would all disappear
Whether I disappear
If am left alone in my death
To realities of this world
Peoples joy can haunt me
Tease me
No more
Finally cold and alone
Left in peace with my bleeding mind

So the lads decided to head down the town one day
(it bein' a great stretch of sun, especially for here,
and playin' Fifa tournaments and
actin' smart were losin' their charm)
Anyway,
Miles had his eye on this young one, and Giro and Hooper
bein' the friends they were riled him up no end about
what he was goin' to do once he got his chance with her, y'know, the usual stupid teenage macho lad crap.
But sure, poor auld Miles, as he was back then, was a sensitive sort
and although he was the handsomest of the chaps at that stage
-with the boyband cheekbones and
the butter-wouldn't melt bring-me-home-to-your-mammy-she'll-think-I'm-Lovely exterior-
he was just a bit too shy to get taking to her in the square that day,
the two of 'em were both awkwardly just sat on opposite benches
with their eyelashes flutterin' in the wind.
And sure didn't the boys make a holy show o'the chap by shoutin' "D'YOU WANT TO SHIFT HIS FRIENDS" at the young one's mates, and them visibly horrified,
with the precious stuck-up Loreto girls' mouths dropped in mortification.

They were somethin' else back then, alright.

But here's the thing,
He's marrying that girl next weekend. (-The same one?) (-Hardly?!)
Swear on me Granny's grave, got sent the invitation on Facebook and all!
Meself and Tracy are goin' to it, obviously, but I barely seen the chap since he moved up to Dublin that time, but the girl is friend's with Tracy's cousin.
Danielle is her name, she works as a graphic designer.

(-She designs games?) (-No, ads, posters and stuff, you ****)
(-Well, I extend my heartfelt apologies
to Mr. CAO himself over here)
(-G'way you, the last time you heard tell of the CAO
was when  you used it as a farewell greeting to
the sub-teacher you fancied when you
handed in your pass maths exam.)
(-What's he doin' again?) (-He works in KPMG)
(-...Sorry I asked)

Apparently they had lost track of each other, but then randomly met out one night and rekindled the old flame. (-what, the old premature pubescent horn?)
My point is, doucher, that you cant keep a good man down...not the greatest choice of words given the context, but, y'know,
fair ******' play to him anyway.

On the other hand, I saw Giro in Mooney's there last weekend,
back from Canada after only six months over there.
Hated it apparently, plasterin' walls in a city that was
only bein' built up for the first time, nothin' to do on the weekend
but drink **** beer and go fishin'.  I told him he should have gone
to Vancouver but he wanted to head where Hooper was goin'
-Those two were always the same, they'd manage to waste each others time if they got to the moon.

There Giro was, all he got to show for himself for goin' to Canada
was a flannel shirt, a snapback hat and a beard like one of those
grizzly lads from gay ****. (-What would you know about gay ****?) (It's an metaphor, genius, I don't need to know anythin' about it in order to make the connection.)
(-Sounds like the only expert piece of information you've given it all night) (-Here, your Da hates ya, go home)

But I suppose, at least a lad like Giro, totally directionless, still has the ability to laugh about himself.
He'd say worse things about himself that I would and laugh away at it, no bother.
But that's it, isn't it? Being able to laugh at the lads and at yourself when you deserve it, to own up to your flaws and forgive them.
That's what it's all about.

This mist wraps around me
Freezing my heart to a stop
While curdling my blood
And chilling my bones
Sealing my eyes with frost
So that I can't see the hands sweetly suffocating me
Putting me to rest
In ***** eternal sleep
So I can't feel your breath on my neck
Or your hands around my hips
Or when you toss me aside when your done
Like an old rag doll
This mist wraps around me
Locking the door to my own prison and shelter
So that if I wake
All you were is a nightmare

tetris patterned-shirt
weird, life-is-a-creamy-dream feeling every ever
I spend here
in
Downtown Vancouver.

is it the thought of the chilli-pepper eyed parrot
grazing on the street soul from the corner of Davie
and Granville?

is it a birth trauma coma slam
considering the fact that my
passport
says I awoke here
for the very first time?

is it the caffeine pulsing through my sweat like blood
the triple-sweater sandwich I call my chest
the passing of my dear old Auntie Debbie
the alien faces of a city-gone city goer
the warm freeze of 15 dollars in my pocket
wallet
crunch

perhaps it's the red pants
the folded skinny's
the overalls
the great validation of Shakespeare's scream:
"All the worlds a stage/ and all the men and women merely players."

Did he mean John Players?

Each and every all of us to be smoked
in the soaking rain
pretending that we
each
have brains?

- - -

I know
I'm not as intriguing
as most of these Greek-God's and Goddesses

But I still wonder
if man and women gaze to me
like I'm bless-ed.

- - -

could that explain the dream feel?
the creamy steamy dream feel?

my lack of validation
in this crowd-work calling card?

- - -

it's just about time
that I mention the women
whom gazed
from the train
that traverses the
clouds.

East Indian I assume
I the troubadour
I gazed right back into her eyes.

We played this game
until 'screech' went the train

and I moved on in space and in time.

She exited there
at the same place I glared
to the tiling below my unfit and soaked
sigh's.

As to why that I raced
so that she couldn't chase
and speak words that would open the
light

I'm unsure

but I wanted to
even as I
slipped from sight
into Vancouver's day bright of a night.