compton crop circle

There is no spoon...

2005-04-27T00:02:00.000-03:00

These are two rewrites of that original "Crop Cirlces in Space" poem I wrote a while ago. I'm rather shakey right now on the whole concept, but perhaps it can be salvaged...

Commotion kissed sphere unseen by eyes
Never ending compiler, hear its voice draw
Stars galaxies universes in unending embraces;

Nothingness, but with quantity comprise,
Encompassed with gravity’s relentless claw
Discombobulated sequences rise.

Then meted out in perfect sequenced circle-skies
Lit with infinity’s dazzle bedecked awe
Raging, brining about time’s demise.

__________________________________________________________

Trou Noir

is a gaping maw, an open space,
free to be plummeted by all who heed its call.

drowned by inescapable plunging,
“Time will come to an end for an astronaut who falls into a black hole…”

the tongues that lick the event horizon’s circular shape cause chaos.

sucked deep into the darkness, what goes in creates
discombobulated sequences,
swelling the belly with rays of light
that fall out in vacuum fluctuations
meted out in perfect circles,
rending time’s boundaries,

for “no natural notion of infinity is compatible with the laws of arithmetic.”

Cows go Moo (for lack of a better title, if one exists)

2005-04-15T22:36:00.000-03:00

Well, I suppose it's about time I place something more onto our blog. This is poem number 2 of what I hope to be 50 poems by the end of summer. I'll do my best anyway. It's still in its first draft, so tell me what language you like and what not and then I'll see what I can do with it!

wind tosses fleck snow,
a marriage of random cyrstals and paths.
up, down; the flakes are bipolar.
float: to glide on cold currents,
find warm bubbles,
hover precariously on the round, slippery surfaces
keep balance.
a cacophony of cascading
charged weather entices flakes off warmth
to fall into oblivion's thaw.

assigned words, I think I got em all

2005-04-11T22:11:00.000-03:00

Along Whyte Avenue

liminal cricket song and sugar levitate
from Bafflegab biker coffee shop, Whyte Avenue in Edmonton

maple trees and their spelunking inhabitants
allude to train rides in foreign countries, and
the practice of sharing letters
car horn: one note of music between moments of fiery silence

on a bench across the street from me,
you light a cigarette; I read about Jack the Ripper in a glossy magazine
together, we float into elm tree-lined sunset
the sun is an orange, no a nectarine, a purple plum reddening

A Friend for my Fish Tank!

2005-04-07T15:22:00.000-03:00

An alien poet for Sea Monkey et al= Robert Kroetsch! Maybe it's just his style that's alien. I'm reading "Excerpts from the Real World" right now, which is a series of dated "telegrams." One section is called "Telegram, or, Tell Your Grandma." I think he's hilarious.

Here are a couple:

8/3/85

I want to explain why I like the country & western
songs you compose in your sleep. She's a cheatin
lyin woman/with a cheatin lyin song./ She's a cheat-
in lyin woman,/ so I know we'll get along.

10/3/85

That role of barbed wire you put in my bed. Don't
you realize I could have hurt myself, mistaking it
for you?

13/3/85

Horsehair, when mixed with plaster, contributes to
the durability of the wall. And, O yes, did I mention
that the quality I dislike most about you is your
absence? Apples are improved by the first frost.
The memory is a careless optician.

And, here is the second in my *NEW* Fish Tank series. I welcome comments/suggestions.

II.

they think I fed them because I flip the light
search surface and bump each other, scratch scales against scales
tickle eyeballs with ruffled tail fins

you can get lights that exaggerate their colors and food that amplifies the orange
instead I put a blue background of Starry Night from an old calendar

so they can explore the village, fly to that orange moon
swirl in the orbits of the stars when they’re tired of being stuck

inside dark tank
waiting for light
and food to fall from that monstrous hand somewhere in heaven

Do I Have Time To Post? Well, No . . . But

2005-04-04T22:30:00.000-03:00

So I finished the poem on the words we assigned ourselves last week. It's a bit dark for some reason . . . hmmm . . . perhaps the pressure of the last week of classes is getting to me? And I think it shows my recent influences a little too much. Dr. Moore just gave me excellent advice today regarding the honing of one's poetry-writing. "Read," he said. But not just anything. Don't read what is familiar, what coincides with your way of seeing, read something that makes you feel like you're in an alien land because then you'll pay attention! Just thought I'd share . . . and I think I'd better take that advice. Anyone got any alien poems?? ;)

And here is my poem on the words we assigned ourselves last week (third revision, but not necessarily the best):

Jack the Ripper As A Cowboy

he's a brisk walker
two steps ahead of the weather

stormy
a straining east Edmonton wind

bafflegabbed in the engine-room
one hand
spinning his left spur
a silver clink
as if his boots knew an inverted alchemist

hat tipped with leftover blood
jauntily holding her last look out

constellations in his head revolving
roullette
he's no Russian though his holster holds a liminal conversion

an orange fiery smell
gothic and mothballs
blackened against her
rending

-------------------------------

P.S. There should be quite a space between "Russian" and "though" but I haven't figured out how to make it happen with html (actually, I haven't had the time to check yet).

one ordinary wednesday evening...

2005-03-30T20:38:00.000-04:00

Here is something that I have been working on. I think that I am going to end up writing - as Erin suggests - some friends for this poem. I work all winter long by myself, and I love it. Solitude.

Questionmark

Most myself wearing wine-
coloured cardigan
navy trou
grey golf shirt
nametag –
information centre attire.
SEAN magnetic on my chest
Tourism/Tourisme SAINT JOHN
employing entire
visible-light spectrum – R-O-Y-G-B-V –
colours shone on
floor refracted
from the mall how fast food smells
float in on noon-hour holiday hymnals;
EASTER Sunday early late in March.
_______________________________________________

Sea Monkey, I think it is fantastic that you also love Bowie. I think he is great! Right now, I'm giving The Stills a spin. I just got them, and I think they may become a new favorite.

Arion Dolphin, I think the painting you sent around is beautiful. I'm open to discussion about cover art. What is the name if the painting?

Beside my bed? I've been reading bits of this book every night before I go to bed for a few months now: Po Bronson's What Should I Do With My Life? Its very interesting. A collection of tales about people who, in one way or another, came to overcome preconceptions and ended up doing something in life that gives them great satisfaction. One man left the world of finance to become a catfish farmer in Mississippi. I can feel my eyes opening, let's hope I can see the light!

Until next time, keep fit & have fun! (Hal and Joanne)

Et voici un échantillon de ce que j'avais lu.

2005-03-28T23:01:00.000-04:00

Okay, I cheated and used Babelfish translation for the above well-crafted French sentence. I hope it means what I think it means: "And here is the recipe for beef bouillion" right? :P

All right, here is the illustrious Moore poem I've been poring over recently (written in unrhymed couplets . . . most of the time) :

Watches by Robert Moore

Oh a new watch has the cleanest hands of all.
See, every spoke of the morning sun is wearing one.

If you just watch a watch, you become a sort of performance artist
offering suggestive insights into the failure of the English language.

Bulova is too beautiful a word to languish
on a list of copyrighted brand names. Bulova. Bulova.

People replace watches either before they stop working
or after. There can be no exception to this rule.

If you buy someone a watch, write this on the card:
Please find enclosed the most precious gift of all.

With every new watch, you are given a little time
to start all over again.

If you die soon after the purchase of a watch,
you're apt to be buried with it as a kind of joke.

There is nothing in the stomach of a new watch.
It is looking forward to your arm and all of its appetites.

Persons who keep their watches on during sexual intercourse
are bound to arouse suspicion.

Wearing someone else's watch always constitutes
an invasion of someone's privacy.

The statistical research indicating that persons who refuse to wear watches
live longer and more productive lives than you or me is hereby deemed fantastical.

If you ever lose a watch, try not to picture the following:
one of the Fates holding it up to her nose and savouring your scent.

Even a stopped watch is accurate twice a day.
If you think that the person who came up with that one is named Reg or even Alice
you could easily be wrong until the end of time.

There should be a rest home for old watches:
they have been through so much and are owed some sort of an explanation.

Why don't they make a digital watch that ticks anyway
for old time's sake?

A surprising percentage of suicides remove their watches before taking the plunge.
Most of the time, this makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

Bulova.

Bulova.

_____________________________________

As for what I've been listening to? J'ecoute le musique de rock (Queen, David Bowie, Guns n' Roses). Bass turned up high. Electric guitar squealing. Drums bouncing out of the speakers. Mmm, vraiment.

I'm reading, I'm listening

2005-03-28T21:27:00.000-04:00

Today, I found this poem by contemporary Canadian poet Sharon Thesen:

Afternoon with Liver

By Sharon Thesen

Sunrise a thin scrap of cellophane
from out in the valley where the blue-
berries grow, I’m wide awake early & kind of
disappointed in homeopathy

Later the ceasing
of the rain and a mildness
extends itself & holds me as I walk
through fragile groups of mourners
at the Gospel Chapel on the way
to the meat market where the butcher’s
apprentice hauls a plastic bag of
liver from the cooler

& spills it out onto a wide wooden block
where it unfolds like the universe,
finding its own shape & equilibrium—
a little narrower at one end,
a gloss of winter starlight hugging the rise
at the other end

and with newly practiced grace he sliced off
a portion for the display case dark red
& full of vitamins and angled the rest
back into the bag. Boy oh boy, I thought.

My hat was off to that particular cow.

And, so needless to mention that I have decided to read more of Sharon Thesen's poetry.

Last 3 CDs in my cd player: Muddy Waters; Jack Jonson; DJ Logic. Listening also to cds that instruct french. Ecoutez et repondez. Il y a la poesie.

Books beside my bed: Mists of Avalon (still on pg 120, have been for 1 month now..), The Four Agreements; La Guerre et La Paix (trans= War and Peace. But not Tolstoy! Ha! In french..? not yet This is a french book for 8/9 year olds about how war is a "natural force" that humans have been using forever....yikes)

So, tell me, what/who are you reading?

[insert title here]

2005-03-26T01:01:00.000-04:00

Mm. Music, now. I love music myself, but I'm not particularly listening to many of the more recent bands. Of those, I listen to "Rammstein" or something like that (oddly enough, a heavy metal band called "Cradle of Filth" has good poetry... You can't hear what the devil they're saying, but their writing is rather good.). Usually, though, I like to listen to the "classic" music stuff, as well as oriental music (which I have a tiny collection of, and most of it consists of the "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" soundtrack... yay Yoyo Ma).
Ja, and the book I'm reading. I'm still working according to the school and finishing Ovid's "Fasti", but I've read a few words of "George and Rue" (I'm worried about getting addicted to it during exam time). Of course my small library is filled with books I haven't read, so I'm wishing for some sort of super-power that would make me absorb the information in a book within seconds, then I stay to the books I like to curl up with, and still have read the other ones.
And I ate Chinese today (I was far too lazy to make my own food). Deep fried sweet bread: try it if you haven't! It's better than a doughnut. While munching on this, I looked over the words that we came up with and I started to write a lil' poem. At the first stanza, I thought it would go nooooooowhere. So I was about to stop, then I remembered what Erin Moure told Salty who told me... That it doesn't quite have to make sense: a story line will be developed by the reader. And then the story came. I'm going to post it here so you can take a look at it.

Restaurant bafflegab sweeps,
rumbles in walls, bounces.
At the other end, a fiery
discussion ignites. Maldrite.

Skip stones on slab-water,
the steady jump of anticipation:
libidous, liminal "spelunk."
"I didn't like her anyway."

jolt la joie de vivre,
hex the indeterminate.
Go to Endmonton, then never stop:
heart in mouth of sacred ties.

(Correct my french if it's wrong... and while "Moose in mouth" sounds HILARIOUS!, "heart in mouth" is a phrase that means fear... I'm sure you knew that, I was just pointing it out in case someone tries to moose me... you could still try, though...)

echolocation

2005-03-25T17:28:00.000-04:00

To be honest, I was relieved when echolocation sent back my five poems with the following kind note:

"Dear Salty:
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider your work. We have read your submission carefully but it does not meet our needs at this time. Thanks for thinking of our magazine; we wich you all the best with your writing. Sincerely, Editor with questionable taste"

And then a nice little personal note written in brown ink:

"The metaphors here are observant and the themes admirable. You need to work on finding a vocabulary that is equally attentive, and capable of raising the musicality of each poem."

Hmm. Ok. I'll work on that then... Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for "ahh, Salty, you're great don't worry" etc. The poems I sent are now in my "meh" pile, I have since worked on same poems and they are now either completley different/new or in progress again. Will it ever end, I wonder.....

wine-coloured cardigan

2005-03-25T15:36:00.000-04:00

I find myself working in the information centre this long Easter weekend. I have plenty of things to do, but I figured "hey, why don't I post something?" Working on some new things here and there, so hopefully they'll have developped enough to be included on the blog soon.

Everyone, what is your favorite band of the moment? I love music, and I'm always interested to learn what others are listening to. If you're looking for anything new, right now I'm enjoying The Futureheads, The Organ, The Stars, The New Pornographers, and Modest Mouse. Check them out, if you dare! There are many more, but I'll save those for another time.

[end transmission]

An Orange's Tale

2005-03-24T12:00:00.000-04:00

I shall now put on this blog a poem. I was diving among the seasky stars when it popped into my head! ... Sort of! Well I stole it from a strange little boy, but nevermind that.

An Orange’s Tale

Warm sun gleaming on round belly,
Mother photosynthesis-feeding:
Parts of her given.
Stars ignited in chorus,
Joyously, gleefully, naively
Watching the orange appear in private places.

I remember the bitter taste,
Wriggling in fear,
Ripping me from peaceful thought.
Taking the wind from my wings,
no longer to stir little bells.

Dropped uncouthly into boxes. Stacked. Shipped.
Goose-stepped to grocery stores.
Add, subtract, statisticate.
Giant flux of numbers,
veins of the world
command my price.

I hear some of us are squashed,
Squeezed; come-to in pieces.
I am peeled, squatting uneasily.
I am about to be eaten.

Along Foster Thurston

2005-03-23T22:54:00.000-04:00

trees bow down
backs ice heavy
anticipating crevices, bumps
nothing like that dream last night: on top of the train, remember
jump off into a field: you shiny and glittery and short
the grain long, laughing and swishy
your life, a tiny soap bubble floating above a pointed spear
you drop to the middle of a crop circle and the earth