Melancholy at canvas at two in the morning, will I hope desperately in vain for the creak of floorboards from the far end of the house?
i)
There is no greater distance than between the far poles of our house,
I spinning at one,
while at the other you turn in your sleep, unaware,
every drip of pale tinted water a prayer
(if you can believe I'd believe in prayer).
By the time each makes its way undeniably down the canvas
I've lost you all over again.
Calling is to lose you.
How not to want you?
ii)
Is this how we'll be in the spring,
me sitting spinning at my canvas while the earth slowly turns you
irrevocably away
toward morning,
the time of unravelling?
With each day passing, dawn comes sooner.
One morning it will break before me,
before I can make my journey
across the floor,
through the night into sleep.
One day dawn will find me still weaving
spells among my circles.
Will I be turned into stone?
iii)
Knowing you near me is no consolation
when the distance to be crossed
between your door
and I on the floor
is as great as between the earth's far poles.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
4:30 AM
Twelve hours until another man,
and I'm thinking of you.
My distraction,
my proposed distraction,
is sick fallen ill
feverish
null
void
neuter,
and I look to you for explanation.
I do not look to you for explanation.
I cradle the means, reject it.
My proposed distraction
has left me void.
and I'm thinking of you.
My distraction,
my proposed distraction,
is sick fallen ill
feverish
null
void
neuter,
and I look to you for explanation.
I do not look to you for explanation.
I cradle the means, reject it.
My proposed distraction
has left me void.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Your Front Room
Given enough time, and space in which to write,
a poem will emerge.
A poem will emerge in space,
given time. While
giving you your space, I
face a window north, seeming always full with white
sky, buildings grey, street and grubby
snow
underfoot under feet,
window white as.
Window white as
the page on which to write
'I love you,' that message
stamped in a bank
into the night
outside our window, brave feet declaring.
a poem will emerge.
A poem will emerge in space,
given time. While
giving you your space, I
face a window north, seeming always full with white
sky, buildings grey, street and grubby
snow
underfoot under feet,
window white as.
Window white as
the page on which to write
'I love you,' that message
stamped in a bank
into the night
outside our window, brave feet declaring.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The Things we Fear
January 19, 2010
30'' x 24''
Paper, coffee, gold leaf on canvas board
'What if the things we fear are
Leonard Cohen covers, or
coats made of chagrin,
well worn and unintentionally
the right size;'
- Katia Grubisic, 'Baffled King Collage,' in What if Red Ran Out (Fredericton: Goose Lane, 2008),16.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Tender Butcher
'He is the tender butcher wo showed me how the price of flesh is love; skin the rabbit, he says! Off come all my clothes.'
- Angela Carter, 'The Erl-King,' in The Bloody Chamber (Toronto: Penguin Books, 1979), 87.
September 12, 2009
16'' x 20''
Oil stick and charcoal on paper
Mendicant
The presents
he gives are his payment
for sins real and imagined,
and his mark of generosity.
'Look,' he says,
'here, where I lack.' This lack
is his martyr's palm.
That, and the stories he carries
with him, just under his skin,
one corner always flapping loose,
to taunt,
to tease,
to tempt you in.
Beware. The tragic hero,
mendicant, purveyor of his own past,
dealing most dangerous drug of all:
romance of someone else's pain,
his pain.
Whispers of heartbreak pass through his lips,
his tender childish lips,
while his fingers pluck,
and his eyes sing
'Hallelujah'
to one more king.
Enamoured of his tragedy, he pulls
and pulls
and pulls you in.
he gives are his payment
for sins real and imagined,
and his mark of generosity.
'Look,' he says,
'here, where I lack.' This lack
is his martyr's palm.
That, and the stories he carries
with him, just under his skin,
one corner always flapping loose,
to taunt,
to tease,
to tempt you in.
Beware. The tragic hero,
mendicant, purveyor of his own past,
dealing most dangerous drug of all:
romance of someone else's pain,
his pain.
Whispers of heartbreak pass through his lips,
his tender childish lips,
while his fingers pluck,
and his eyes sing
'Hallelujah'
to one more king.
Enamoured of his tragedy, he pulls
and pulls
and pulls you in.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Snow
Shh, don’t think in words.
Sense of wonder, Marion.
Snow.
Snow flying down long
stairs in the metro, and now
fleeting in cast light
across black counters
so near the window
that outside
enters.
Glass
no more exists than the idea of glass,
as in between in and out,
out,
out where cold is.
Out, where ice so soft
You smile to feel it land on your lips
(red, swollen, cherub rose-hips)
falls in wind, in wind, in wind,
in sound and street
until
idea of panes, invisible,
impenetrable,
unreal,
intervenes.
Snow still falls,
but silent,
immersed in black counter reflected
to the final strains of
California Soul,
so near the window
that outside
enters.
4th Act
i)
Motion
out of thinking and into simply
knowing
(by a change in barometric pressure,
though human barometers are known to go awry)
(by an alteration of the light,
what light there is)
(by sickness, by
blood, by
blood)
that we've entered the fourth act.
ii)
'Nothing's changed,'
owl eyed at your guitar you gaze,
sleep-soaked,
ruffled
and furred,
and worried by my calm.
And worried by my calm.
While I know
that in that time apart
a part parted a -
your apartment
lost its valour,
its properties of longing.
In that time apart I ceased to ache
for anything you had to offer.
'Nothing's changed,'
as if by alteration
(Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds)*
I meant a loss, or hurt, or break, baby, break.
You spoke as if accused.
I meant no accusation.
Standing in your doorway,
one foot on the frame,
testing,
resisting,
resting,
I offered only information:
'Something's changed.'
iii)
The windows
in this room are white
outside as well as in,
grimy light
filtered through thin
transparent veils.
iv)
All this morning,
whether by snow, or hunger,
or strange pale light,
passed in a state of wonder
under the sign of:
'May you perish before midnight,
you little whore.'
Orange peels scattered
on blue,
and for once,
standing poised in an outer door,
as my hand entered into
its black leather glove,
it was not about you.
*William Shakespeare, 'Sonnet 116,' in The Works of William Shakespeare (New York: Oxford University Press, 1938), 1239.
4th Act
January 2, 2010
8 1/2'' x 11''
pencil on paper
Motion
out of thinking and into simply
knowing
(by a change in barometric pressure,
though human barometers are known to go awry)
(by an alteration of the light,
what light there is)
(by sickness, by
blood, by
blood)
that we've entered the fourth act.
ii)
'Nothing's changed,'
owl eyed at your guitar you gaze,
sleep-soaked,
ruffled
and furred,
and worried by my calm.
And worried by my calm.
While I know
that in that time apart
a part parted a -
your apartment
lost its valour,
its properties of longing.
In that time apart I ceased to ache
for anything you had to offer.
'Nothing's changed,'
as if by alteration
(Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds)*
I meant a loss, or hurt, or break, baby, break.
You spoke as if accused.
I meant no accusation.
Standing in your doorway,
one foot on the frame,
testing,
resisting,
resting,
I offered only information:
'Something's changed.'
iii)
The windows
in this room are white
outside as well as in,
grimy light
filtered through thin
transparent veils.
iv)
All this morning,
whether by snow, or hunger,
or strange pale light,
passed in a state of wonder
under the sign of:
'May you perish before midnight,
you little whore.'
Orange peels scattered
on blue,
and for once,
standing poised in an outer door,
as my hand entered into
its black leather glove,
it was not about you.
*William Shakespeare, 'Sonnet 116,' in The Works of William Shakespeare (New York: Oxford University Press, 1938), 1239.
4th Act
January 2, 2010
8 1/2'' x 11''
pencil on paper
Reflection
On the outside, looking in,
his belief is in heat. His belief
warms through
what you
won't or can't see, in your solitary cave
where shadows of things
may enter.
He peers
from the fraction of a space between panes,
complete in all dimensions though touching
neither, hovering
on the boundary between
starvation
and desire.
His eyes are cavernous.
His mouth is too broken to speak
any words but the words of his loneliness,
too broken to sing
any song but a psalm to his solitude
in the surface
of the glass.
Let him in?
But where would we put him, this friend of yours,
with his all-encompassing sadness,
his melancholy so deep it reaches
above and below his flattened frame?
Anywhere, anywhere, any
where small things can slip away
and be forgotten
until found by some new pair of
arms, some
reaching eyes
first entering.
his belief is in heat. His belief
warms through
what you
won't or can't see, in your solitary cave
where shadows of things
may enter.
He peers
from the fraction of a space between panes,
complete in all dimensions though touching
neither, hovering
on the boundary between
starvation
and desire.
His eyes are cavernous.
His mouth is too broken to speak
any words but the words of his loneliness,
too broken to sing
any song but a psalm to his solitude
in the surface
of the glass.
Let him in?
But where would we put him, this friend of yours,
with his all-encompassing sadness,
his melancholy so deep it reaches
above and below his flattened frame?
Anywhere, anywhere, any
where small things can slip away
and be forgotten
until found by some new pair of
arms, some
reaching eyes
first entering.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Witch of the Hawthorn Wood
Her eyes are through you,
eyes of the hawthorn wood.
Brown-crimson
from too much inner sight
and old, old blood on white
skin, white as snow.
Beware the witch,
witchy eyes as eat
when you thought she gave so freely.
Hawthorn russet eyes will soon prove all-consuming.
Eyes and damaged lips,
and ivory skin,
bruised beneath the jawbone,
vulnerable,
enticing.
Trust not.
For every knight who enters
of his own free will
discovers later,
a critical instant later,
that Lamia, Lamia
lies coiled about him;
scales
secure his fate.
Softly crooning hymns to the dying, she writes
poetry and spells on her
inner wrist
to ward off evil.
Beware.
Hawthorn-russet eyes will soon prove
all-consuming.
Witch of the Hawthorn Wood
January 9, 2010
9'' x 12''
pencil and coloured pencil on paper
eyes of the hawthorn wood.
Brown-crimson
from too much inner sight
and old, old blood on white
skin, white as snow.
Beware the witch,
witchy eyes as eat
when you thought she gave so freely.
Hawthorn russet eyes will soon prove all-consuming.
Eyes and damaged lips,
and ivory skin,
bruised beneath the jawbone,
vulnerable,
enticing.
Trust not.
For every knight who enters
of his own free will
discovers later,
a critical instant later,
that Lamia, Lamia
lies coiled about him;
scales
secure his fate.
Softly crooning hymns to the dying, she writes
poetry and spells on her
inner wrist
to ward off evil.
Beware.
Hawthorn-russet eyes will soon prove
all-consuming.
Witch of the Hawthorn Wood
January 9, 2010
9'' x 12''
pencil and coloured pencil on paper
4590 St. Denis
Magical store full of cupboards.
Go back there when next you're
feeling lost,
to lose yourself
in the labyrinthine folds,
wood upon wood
until, reaching the heart,
you stop.
Until reaching the centre,
all doors open into
nothingness
but grain and a greater or lesser coating of dust,
and packets of silicone gel
in forgotten corners.
All doors open into
everything
a broken heart desires:
nooks, irredundent spaces,
and accessory
crannies in which to place your sadness,
a string of red stone beads,
in the back.
Where few will seek is safest.
Until reaching the heart
of this maze,
so much larger within
(Your home, my love, was larger
within until it shrank)
than without,
all paths call onward
in any and no direction,
with ever more interiors to
expose to your wandering eyes.
Your blind fingers guide
you over skins soft as inner bark
laid bare to the voices
of the wood, of the skinned and striated wood.
Until, reaching the centre
(There is no centre;
the centres
travel with us unseen),*
you stop.
At the heart
of the maze is a monster,
not toothsome nor horned,
but simply
dormant,
vacant,
void,
and a perfect fit for your heart.
*Margaret Atwood, 'A Place: Fragments,' in The Circle Game (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 1966), 75.
Go back there when next you're
feeling lost,
to lose yourself
in the labyrinthine folds,
wood upon wood
until, reaching the heart,
you stop.
Until reaching the centre,
all doors open into
nothingness
but grain and a greater or lesser coating of dust,
and packets of silicone gel
in forgotten corners.
All doors open into
everything
a broken heart desires:
nooks, irredundent spaces,
and accessory
crannies in which to place your sadness,
a string of red stone beads,
in the back.
Where few will seek is safest.
Until reaching the heart
of this maze,
so much larger within
(Your home, my love, was larger
within until it shrank)
than without,
all paths call onward
in any and no direction,
with ever more interiors to
expose to your wandering eyes.
Your blind fingers guide
you over skins soft as inner bark
laid bare to the voices
of the wood, of the skinned and striated wood.
Until, reaching the centre
(There is no centre;
the centres
travel with us unseen),*
you stop.
At the heart
of the maze is a monster,
not toothsome nor horned,
but simply
dormant,
vacant,
void,
and a perfect fit for your heart.
*Margaret Atwood, 'A Place: Fragments,' in The Circle Game (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 1966), 75.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Leaving
2AM January
What if
the invisibility on the far side of the glass
contains neither stars,
nor light,
nor the immense density of its absence,
nor any indication that there was once such a thing as an outer
space?
What if there is no far side
of the glass?
the invisibility on the far side of the glass
contains neither stars,
nor light,
nor the immense density of its absence,
nor any indication that there was once such a thing as an outer
space?
What if there is no far side
of the glass?
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Statement of Intent and Bibliography
I'm creating this blog as a cache of images and writings, poetry and songs and prose reflections. This is not a diary, nor is it a record of my life as I live it day to day. Consider it rather as an insight into my inner reality, changing in response to, but separate from, the outer real.
Bibliography
Atwood, Margaret. The Circle Game. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 1966.
Carter, Angela. The Bloody Chamber. Toronto: Penguin Books, 1979.
Grubisic, Katia. What if red ran out. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 2008.
Shakespeare, William. The Works of William Shakespeare. New York: Oxford University Press, 1938.
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord. Tennyson. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
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