I found the space between god trapped like raging lepers caught in the sleek black keys of my laptop, spirits on a blank screen somewhere before words, pre-verbal, pre-historical – a guttural cry from deep caverns like loss.
The space was heavy.
I thought about the choking nave of Notre Dame Cathedral, filled up with the dust of dead kings and queens their faces sunken like the riggings of so many Spanish galleons ribs broken and masthead crumpled over no longer recognizably human. Wordless. Powerless.
Words groaned like the collapsing framework of love, when the dried blood of two wounded dogs spilt to the hardwood stained the grain a deep red, to be hidden away beneath indifference, lost mariners succumbing to cold in the thick pilings of a cherished blue rug.
What’s in a word? Crack it open with a stick. Or unlock the matryoshka doll shells one by one until there is nothing left but you.
And in that empty space in that vesperal silence – don’t drown.
***
I haven't posted anything for awhile. Been busy. Have fun.
Currently
listening
:
Ophelia
By
Natalie Merchant
Release date: 1998-05-19
Plugging the Local Talent
Current mood: sleepy
Category: Blogging
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Well, as you know I'm always plugging the local talent. I don't really need to say much about Leslie Feist, Nickelback or Jann Arden, who've become familiar names. Today, I'll plug for Tegan Quin (one half of the identical twins, Tegan & Sara), who is featured on last year's Against Me! CD. Great song, great CD. The second video is Tegan & Sara, Walking with the Ghost, which was covered by The White Stripes.
Well, I've put up a video of Against Me!, without our Calgary girl, Tegan, even though they are a band from Florida; I did it just because I like the song and the message.
I've also thrown up a video for the Plaid Tongued Devils. These guys have an interesting sound, a sort of gypsy-alternative sound, and have been around the local music scene for years. A lot of fun to see live.
Of course, the boys from Nickelback come from Hanna, a small farming community about 1 1/2 hours northeast of here. Leslie Feist, the daugther of an art professor at the Alberta College of Art and Design (ACAD), was one of the kids performing at the 88 Winter Olympics. The choreography for 1234 is inspired from that choreography. ACAD, of course, the art school Joni Mitchell attended in the 1960s, before she moved to New York. And, well, Jann has been around for awhile now. Tegan & Sara are still relatively small and unknown, but seem to be making their way into the music scene.
If you're curious, you can find some of my poetry at Noneuclidean Cafe and Parlor. I am now in the process of trying to put a chapbook together for September. See how it goes.
I will be going to Barcelona in June/July to go on a cycling trip. It should be interesting. I hope it'll spark some creative thought and give me a break away from reality for awhile. Feeling excited about getting out of town. Working on my Spanish, with tons of materials lying around, and started trying to converse with people in Spanish. That's an interesting experience, even if you get what someone's saying, trying to reply is a whole other matter. Ack! Hablo espanol muy mal, pero tengo aprender espanol. (Or something to that effect). ;-)
El Orfanato
Current mood: satisfied
Category: Blogging
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Just watched Del Toro's El Orfanato. Wow! What a beautiful story. He is a master of storytelling. I love the way he weaves fairytale into a ghost story, a story about a mother's love, friendship, and childhood, and still manages to keep up the suspense. Every single element of the story matters from start to finish.
I have not been moved by a movie since his classic Pan's Labyrinth. Beautiful. Riveting. A wonderful story.
When I grow up as a writer, I want to be like Guillermo Del Toro!
Wow! Talk about right out of the blue. I’ve been invited to read one of my poems from the Writing the Land Anthology for CBC Radio, for National Poetry Month, April, 2008. Yeah, I’ll do it - the taping. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a radio studio before. Should be interesting.
Well submissions sent off for the Short Grain Contest. See how that goes. Will be working on another flash fiction piece for Geist's contest. Seems to keep my mind occupied.
Please check out the next issue of The Raving Dove for my poem "Googled" coming out Feb. 21. 1 of 14 pieces selected from over 600 submissions. Lucked out there. I happened to get my submission in after poetry submissions were closed, but the editor happened to be working on the edition at the time. One day turn around time. Never doubt the power of timing!
What If you had Flown? (final)
Current mood: productive
Category: Writing and Poetry
Flash fiction. 2nd person POV. 492 words (must be under 500 words). All commentary appreciated while I work this one out, especially comments on whether the 5th (2nd last) paragraph is too jarring.
***
You listen to Hannah go on and on, comparing freedom to seagulls riding the updrafts over the blue Mexican surf. She'd just returned from three weeks in Puerto Vallarta, where she'd let the ocean tickle her toes and calm her fears. She'd even managed to forget about the lawyers for awhile.
Mexico had scrubbed the worry-lines from her forehead. Her green eyes are kind, friendly. She asks you how you're doing, and you tell a lie, say you're doing fine. When she glances up at you and smiles, the noisy restaurant grows quiet and all the light seems to shine across her tanned, oval face. She hasn't looked this healthy and fresh in years. You shove strands of her hair back from her eyes, noting the way, tied up in a pony-tail, it shines; bleached to a dusty brown from the hot sun and salt air.
Sadness fills you, tugs at your empty chest, and you hear every word – something you never did when you were together. Her laughter bubbles up from her chest, making you smile, though your lower lip quivers slightly. You swallow down the bittersweet beer, the colour of gold across your finger, from the pint glass gripped firmly in your hand. The tawny hops and sharp carbonate roll across your tongue. There is a beer ring on the divorce papers; the corner tucked next to your half-eaten quesadilla. You shove the papers under your plate, hoping to delay that discussion.
When you were together, you never went to Mexico, or any of those five-star resorts she raved about; although you took the time every night to read the glossy brochures she'd eagerly brought home. You shunned the artificiality of it all: the white beach umbrellas stabbed in shifting sand, the crowded surf full of pale gringos in tacky t-shirts and Speedos. Now, regret squeezes you, makes you feel smaller. What would it have hurt to have made the trip, just the once?
What-ifs consume you. What-if you had been a better man? What-if you had given up control for one person who truly loved you, instead of shutting out the whole world? The demons never had to cross the borderland to get inside of you; they were inside you all along. Your past, a sealed tomb, holds only bones, each memory an insubstantial ghost, shades of things that never were and never can be. Each day you shovel more bones into the crypt, filling yourself up, until your life becomes a reliquary. What-ifs are your special kind of hell, one not foreseen by Dante, where you flit about in the dark like a bat, your heavy heart weighed down by failure. You never soared above the sunny beaches.
"We can't change the past," she says, reaching out to grip your hand in hers. "We have to move on." She hands you a pen. You find the irony laughable. The divorce was your idea, and now you can't find the strength to sign the papers.
Currently
listening
:
Blood Red Cherry
By
Jann Arden
Release date: 08 January, 2007
A Letter from Guernica
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Writing and Poetry
Well, a 1st draft of a 500 word project. Exactly 500 words. Needs work. Painting: Picasso, Guernica (1937)
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Guernica Herman writes a letter to David, her fiancé, from an open-air café in the Basque town that bears her name. Her parents, both art students at the time, met at a Picasso exhibition in 1981, and christened her Guernica in a small Lutheran chapel on Dundas Street the following year. At the christening, Guernica wailed out her staccato protests despite her mother's gentle rocking and soft coos, managing to hit every high note of "Oh Holy Spirit, enter in".
Smoke from her cigarette rises up in columns, dissipating over the red clay rooftops. She sucks on the end of her pen, trying to find the right words to explain her actions: why she left suddenly, without a word, to fly to Spain. Instead, she describes the farms and meadows of the Urdaibai estuary, where they become high cliff and salt marsh, before vanishing into the deep blue of the Bay of Biscay.
Truth is – she could think of no good reason.
Her life with David was pleasant enough; his kisses were sweet, like the gentle breeze nudging the surf ashore; and the sex, well, that too was 'pleasant,' nothing more, having cooled over the past six months. They no longer melted steel with locked eyes, eagerly clutching at each other in the dark, or combusted the bedroom in a firestorm of passion. She expected it, even accepted it. However, the emotional vacuum that followed unsettled her, edging her toward a heavy indifference.
Earlier that morning, while strolling along the paved avenues, she came, quite by chance, upon a tiled wall covered by Picasso's famous painting, the one that had inspired her parents to conceive her years ago. The painting was all grey tones, devoid of colour. In the middle, a terrified horse, run through by a spear and a charging bull, horrified her, and she cupped her hands around her mouth to stifle a gasp. She couldn't draw her gaze from the scene. Below, a flower sprouted from the broken sword of a dead soldier, and above, a floating woman held a lamp. Even while exposing human cruelty and suffering, Picasso never gave up hope. The scene moved her to tears and she sobbed uncontrollably. She had wanted to write David about that, too.
Now, sitting in the café alone, her failed letters stacked on the table in front of her, she suffers no illusions. She crumples up the half-written letter, tossing it next to the others, and starts again. In the courtyard, an old man feeds pigeons, spraying breadcrumbs on the ground, and high up above, where green hills meet open sky, a jet contrail forms a cloud.
The waiter brings her coffee, steaming hot, and sets it down on the table. When he tries to pick up her papers, she stops him, saying, she wants to remember what it's like to rebuild from the rubble. He nods.
Finally, she writes a simple note that explains nothing; with God's grace, sometimes love's wane is inexplicable. Goodbye, David. Guernica.
Currently
listening
:
Vampire Weekend
By
Vampire Weekend
Release date: 29 January, 2008
frisky
cheerful
sleepy
satisfied
creative
surprised
inspired
productive
contemplative
