Needle'sEnd

Response to a Prompt

2012-02-18T16:34:00.000-08:00

Oh, thou Rose red hue of the velvet grape,
the blush of ice or dusting of must upon the skin
The drop that quivers upon the lip of life's edge
about to pour out.

Into a glass?
Into a bowl?

Onto dusty ground and wasted?

I look up not down and I do not know.

Gone in the Wind

2011-12-03T20:40:00.001-08:00

This evening, a friend stood up in front of two hundred people and erased me. It wasn't a malicious act. It was probably forgetfulness. But my contribution completely vanished from history. Something I did and was very proud of. Poof. I apparently did not do it. But that is not how I remember it.

I'm suffering. This hurts.

How do I deal with this? How do I quit hurting? We are going to be working more in the future. I've given my word. So I am afraid of and expecting this to happen again. But I cannot gracefully back out without completely destroying previous work done. So I have to suck this up. I have to let this go.

I have to throw up my hands and say 'armour myself against what I am taught will happen again' and carry on.

To maintain my own integrity I have to let this go. I just don't know how quite yet.

My Response to the May 21st Prediction

2011-05-13T22:57:00.000-07:00

AFTER THE RAPTURE PET INSURANCE
Don’t accidentally leave your pet trapped in the house!
Matthew 24:29-31, 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3, Revelation 1:7
ARP Insurance promises, that in the event of the Rapture, described in the Christian Bible, the company will ensure that the beloved pets of the insured will be rescued and given safe haven and a good home until such time that the Kingdom of Heaven is established and the owners can be re-united with their non-human companions. Let Fluffy and Boots be saved, just as you are!
For this service, the company will charge $100 to cover the initial named pet for a indemnity period of ten years after signing. The client may insure further animals in the household for a further $20 dollars per animal.

OUR COMPANY: We are caring and compassionate individuals who are not Christian, the Virtuous Pagans and will therefore not be subject to the aforementioned Rapture and the clients will be able, in peace and good conscience leave the care of their pets to our people without fear that we will be caught up as well. We currently, in good conscience, may offer our services in Southern Ontario, New York and Philadelphia.
Initial Insured Pet Name: Any additional Pets:

Ages, health and life requirements of aforementioned pets:

Total Payment:

I, ________________________ do give ARP Insurance agents permission to enter my home if, and only if, the Christian Rapture occurs, and then only for the rescue of the named, stranded pets.
ARP limits itself to the above action only in the pursuit of contract fulfillment and only in the occurrence of said Rapture.
Signature: __________________ Date:_________________
Witness:_____________________ Date:__________________

These Rooms

2011-05-11T11:48:00.000-07:00

These rooms
are all like broken teeth
in a face I once knew.

June '89

Reception

2011-05-11T11:46:00.001-07:00

Some people:
the answering machine of flesh and bone
flesh, blood and feelings
payed to use a voice
and hands
continuous
but nothing else;
repeating words meaningful
as a parrot's chatter

'89

A few new poems

2011-03-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

The bulk of human existance...
is moving dirt
and rocks.

Moving furniture?
A form of earth transformed
and thus
dirt.

Anything metal? Smelted.
and thus
rocks.

Water? full of mineral salts

Human existance - moving dirt
and rocks.

_____________________________

The art of reading grocery labels

Does this actually contain food?
edible food
product? what?

xantham gum, phenol poly propel malto
dextrin, calcium hydroxide,

mono-di-glycoid-xenephylolphenal...
what the hell?

this cannot be safely edible.
Excuse me
while I go to the veggie aisle...
______________________

Iritis
Latin
for 'swollen iris'
another word for
not fun
_____________________

Flirting... happens

Flirting happens when
everyone is secure
and safe
in their skins

It's not flirting
if people scream
or blame
or run shrieking
howling into the night

For heaven's sake, people
Take a breath
Instead of taking it serious!

__________________

Baysville

Village. Place where
the new dam went
and flooded Lake of Bays deeper

Where the dance hall was
and the church groups argue
and lie buried
cheek by jowl
in adjoining graveyards.

Way-stop, dinner stop
when loggers drew
by horse
to Dwight.

___________________

All written, March 17, 2011

Scratch Crater

2011-03-07T20:05:00.000-08:00

I imagine that every grown woman, who regularly wears a bra, has an itchy spot, right in the middle of her back. Or a scar. Or both. Maybe not. But lots.

I have never seen the scar on my own back but right under the bra closures I have grown a pimple more than once and, unseeing, scratched it open because it was bugging me.

A western woman's repeated scarification. The mark of the Brassiere. A mark she cannot see, only feel. Her lovers can see it. Her lovers can help her scratch it.

But we are a visual species and unless we go to considerable trouble to see a reversed image of this tiny scar on our backs, it is as unreal to us as the back of the moon.

Imagine. Our own personal scratch crater.

Temperature

2011-02-09T22:05:00.000-08:00

I'm currently sitting up... feeding the fire.

The temperature outside is plummetting, and my insulation is shot [damned mice].

So I sit and feed more wood into the flames.

My nose gets cold.

I will crawl into bed under mounds of feathers and STILL the house will get cold.

I am living a medieval existance. Feed the fire.

Or die.

The same way the boys at Ypres and Passchendale. Do the work.

Or die.

Bloody colonials.

Coolies.

Doing Coolie work.

Work. Or the winter will kill you. No bargaining. No dealing. Dead.

It does not care who your father is.

It does not care who your family is.

It hammers the cold down on top of your house and if you don't feed the fire...

You die.

Period.

End of Sentence.

Gates shut.

All go home.

You cannot argue with cold. it does not care.

My nose is cold.

I need to crawl under feathers.

and dream of spring.

Food is Love?

2011-01-24T19:26:00.000-08:00

At a so called restaurant
The other day
I watched a Pride of Lions feeding
Fat male stealing
From the cubs
Female swatting cubs apart
A lot of roaring and growling
Snarling and fighting
Savannah, sitting on plastic
Under fluorescent lights
To musak

New Eyes

2010-12-09T22:19:00.000-08:00

I've missed you so
Even if I never knew
that you were missing.

Burning Times

2010-12-01T15:54:00.000-08:00

Even the most robust
of fires
Must be coaxed
at three a.m.

What roared and hissed
an hour ago.
Now sulks
sullen
sluggish

When the storm has settled in
and the heat
is most wanted

of course

So you taunt it
with kindling
To make it stick its tongues
out at you

A witches fire - Witches Hour
kindled, kindly, cunningly
at three a.m.

Weather... Or Not

2010-11-22T21:56:00.000-08:00

Sometimes poetry rains down
pelting words
driving thoughts.
Holes in the mud of my brain.

Sometimes poetry gathers
in drifts
clumping against glass.
Or on the roof.

Trying to get in.

Nov. 20/10

Growing

2010-11-17T23:57:00.000-08:00

I am not the person
who wrote those old words.

New incarnation
drawing breath
with the new sun

After long ice nights
of lonely fear.

Oct. '96

Ice nights
dying lights

Universal Charitas

2010-11-12T21:40:00.000-08:00

The Moon shines
in my windows.

Big and silver
Goddess Eye.

She would have more mercy
on me
Thank I do.

Compassion

Love

Charitas

The Universe is not
indifferent

The Cosmos is full of
mind and heart

because I may fill it so.

Even if all other life be hostile.

The Universe loves bigger
than I can know.
but not bigger than I can feel.

April 29, 2010

Eating

2010-11-10T09:20:00.001-08:00

We are all sin eaters

We eat at funerals

At weddings

At births and christenings

When disaster strikes

We eat

In the hope, perhaps

of touching life in the face

of fear

Whenever death touches life too closely

edges blurring

We eat

To let Death know

Which side we’re on, still.

November 10, 2010

The Words

2010-11-09T07:46:00.000-08:00

If we believe
John

The the Word is God.

But lately

Words have not been
Divine
for me

More like
I've been bedeviled

Especially when they flee.

Like sparks in the night
brimstone sparkles

Flaming away,
Soundless, thoughtless
dare I say... wordless

Excuse me
while I go get
my butterfly net

The asbestos one
And try

to catch those Lucifers!

August 2009

2010-11-05T23:35:00.000-07:00

The Muskoka colours -- early green after gray winter

strike deep.

raising joy

I live in heaven.
Clear sky
Clear water
Despite tourists.

Brunell Rd. -- broken shocks

Bare feet on cool dirt
and cooler rock.

Trees whisper love

I hear the sudden
noise of too-loud too-much
bass
music from a passing car -- tourists.

I have an abundance
I live in plenty.

Muskoka.
2009

My Reading Tree

2010-11-04T16:12:00.000-07:00

My reading tree
was on a neighbour's property.

And at first
     the dog slept below.

     then climbed up with me
     to lie across my lap
     as I read

     cradled in the arms     of the tree

We swayed in the wind.
and in the words.

I swam in prose
while we shared a heartbeat.

The dog.
The tree.
The book.
And I.

April 29, 2010

I Have A Tiger

2010-11-01T21:59:00.000-07:00

I have a Tiger
haunting, stalking, pouncing

In the forest of
my kitchen chair-legs.

In fact
I have four tigers
only one by name.

The buzz-fly chasing anus licking
foot stuck high in the air
rumble purring
chin biting, mouse devouring

Reminders
of the dark wild dangerous night

When quick death haunted savannah
on velvet/razor blades, dreaming
of how good I taste

Cat! Oh CAT!

Quit biting
my face.

June 17/2010

Serpent Skin Dreams

2010-10-28T22:11:00.001-07:00

My serpent skin dreams are
silent, sibilant
sensual

My serpent skin dreams are
sout, spirit
spit in your eye

Serpent
snake skin shed

Skin
body reborn shining

Dreams
dance, drum, do

My serpent skin dreams...

Jan. '97

Patchwork Woman

2010-10-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

Weaving relationships
Bits and shreds of lace
and wool

Jersey, linen, gabardine, cotton
silk

In a life; diaper cotton, velvet princess dress
tights
itchy wool socks
Graduation chiffon

Torn wedding dress or dresses
support hose, satin pillows winding shroud.
Faded, overwashed dreams
Burlap hard times
Ephemeral art
patched and repatched
into new lives
female art
Until it too wears out
and is added
to the new quilt.

Oct. '96

Even God

2010-10-27T19:22:00.001-07:00

Even God

Would use a dime

As a screwdriver.

April '05

The Solution

2010-08-23T20:25:00.000-07:00

I was reminded tonight, of a time in my life when I was vexed and sweet reason did absolutely nothing. The problem was my neighbour's dog... or the fact that the yappy, poodly thing never shut up because it was chained up outside along for hours and hours at at time.

First line of defense. "Could you do something about your dog, please?"

"What's wrong with my dog!" Not a happy response...

"Well, he barks a lot. All day long."

"Yeah, well, he's a dog." He's also lonely, I thought, but didn't say.

"Can't you do anything?"

"No, sorry." He wasn't sorry. He didn't sound sorry.

End first line of defense. Result: me zero, neighbour one point

I wanted to shoot the dog but that would have been unfair to the dog. It wasn't his fault. Similar dog focussed solutions were also out.

I tried ear plugs and that worked for a while but they were uncomfortable and it wasn't really a solution anyway.

Second line of defense. A slingshot and packages of outdated hot dogs, cut into one inch pieces.

From my bathroom window, if I stood on the rim of the bathtub, I had a clear shot into the neighbour's backyard and porch. The first day I went through three packs of hot dogs. And I know the hot dogs when through the dog. Wait a day. Funny, the dog is quieter anyway, sniffing around incessantly in the yard to see if any more hot-dog pieces have miraculously appeared.

Next assault. Only two packages... I cut them into smaller pieces. I was a student and couldn't afford much of anything but this was worth the piece of mind... Wait two days.

Dog's behaviour is changing... he's starting to spend most of his day hunting for manna from heaven. I've given him something to do. Of course I've given my neighbour something to do because of the heavy diarrhoea caused by the hot dogs...

Third time, the neighbour is lying in wait. The dog finds something in the bushes and he pounces! The dog thinks this is a marvelous game and runs around with the shred of paper that blew into the yard. I'm just watching from two stories up, elbows on the window sill.

The dog's not barking. He has company and something to do. I note that the neighbour's swearing vocabulary is improving... or degenerating as the case may be.

Next day the dog tries barking again.

Another packet of hot dogs and the neighbour tries something different. He comes home for lunch. The dog's been snooping all over the yard, diligently hoping... quiet all morning. Huzzah, the master's home! Walkies! In the afternoon, he's walked out enough and mostly snoozes. Success.

Result: I have spent a couple of weeks and six packets of inedible hot dogs. The neighbour has found out a way to make his dog happier... he comes home at lunch and takes the dog for a walk. The dog now snoozes in the morning, waiting for lunch... and is content enough to only yip a time or two. Game OVER and the crowd goes wild!

Everybody wins in the great rain of hot dogs.

_________

Oh, and John... this is a confession, if you remember this, if you ever read this. Yes, it was me.

T-Rex Eyes

2010-08-17T13:21:00.000-07:00

I'm not a chick magnet.
I have a chick magnet, however.

A tin plate full of slugs
picked from my plants
and porch and walk... it's been a wet year.

And I take my glistening,
cobweb trails of slow escapes
back to the hen yard.

The first chick finds my gooey bounty
and cannot keep it to herself.
Beak full, she mufflechirps
and hops
and jumps
for joy.

And suddenly
I have a plate full of gobbling fluff,
chasing and swallowing simultaneous
and then they turn T-Rex eyes
on my toes.

July 18/2010

We Would be Happier People

2010-08-16T16:16:00.000-07:00

Remember when your mom said "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything?"

If you like the person, and trust that they are intelligent, they are probably pounding on themselves harder than you ever could... and you need to realize that your words might be adding insult to injury. Somethimg may be true. But it does not need to be said, unless you want to add pain to someone's burden.

Most people do not want to do this... however... we are taught that 'truth is everything' and that the person who says the harsh truth out loud is supposedly superior. This sets people up to say the exact right thing to hurt someone else...

There is truth. And then there is sympathy. It is usually better to sympathize rather than hammer someone with truth. Unless they are morons, they will be hammering themselves hard enough, thank you very much.

The trick here is to remember that there is being 'right' and being 'nice'. Are you actually being 'true' to the spirit if you spike someone's mistake through them while they are suffering... does this make one a better person? Or hold one's tongue and be supportive?

I guess it's obvious which I think is the superior tactic... but I do not suceed at it myself. I got taught that the 'truth' was always to be said. Especially if someone were vulnerable first. That would put me in a superior position. Cruelty taught as 'truth'.

It made me safe.

This is 'Lord of the Flies' thinking and I always sympathized or empathized with Piggy...

Our society would be a better place if someone suffering were not attacked right at that moment... with the truth... or any other 'I could have told you so'. We would be happier people.

So... the next time someone is unhappy... perhaps it is not the time to unload unwelcome truths on them? People suffer enough without assistance from others. Everyone is carrying a greater burden than can be seen.

It might be nice to lighten the load for someone else, rather than add to it.

Namaste.

It's official. Azerus is dead...

2010-07-26T17:51:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, my car officially went to the big graveyard in the sky, leaving me without wheels in the country.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that the right front wheel fell off on a slow curve, of a slow highway, not at a hundred and ten klicks/hr. on highway 400.

Any day that you get home safe is a good day.

Now.

I need to clean out my car's corpse and find the funds for another one.

468,281.4 kilometres under his fan belt. R.I.P.

Um...didn't I say?

2010-07-03T20:55:00.000-07:00

This is getting very, very old.

The dog killed three quarters of my ducklings. Not maliciously, just chasing... sigh. He's too small for a dog-skin rug.

The chicks did their usual thing, picking out one chick to peck to death.

And some tourist going way too fast hit and killed one of my cats on the road. The mother cat.

Now I'm trying to get two seventeen day old kittens to take formula.

I think I am going to go cry now.

I'm a tad overwhelmed.

Kid's home

2010-06-29T21:31:00.000-07:00

He's been knocked out, cut open, screwed around with...[two screws in his tibia], stitched up, splint casted. He's been woken up, temperature taken, blood pressure checked and bugged about how much does it hurt.

He' practicing sword/crutch moves.

That's my boy.

But his summer is screwed up. No swimming. Hmm. I wonder if he could swim in a fiberglass cast? We'll find out in two weeks.

We get home and a: the car falls apart again and b: the house is again spewing sewage. I gave up and called a plumber. First guy calls back and tells me he's too busy. Argh.

Sooooo.... universe... is it time to flip over and give up the phenomenal good luck lurking? I mean, it would only be fair.

When it starts raining gold coins I'll be the one running around with the hard-hat, wheelbarrow and a shovel!

Okay, Gods, Joke's Over, Not funny

2010-06-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

Not even funny once.

Tris went off to Camp Winston. He was having a great time, apparently.

On Wednesday, I had finally locked the toilet back down where it was supposed to be. There was a 5.0 inter-crustal earthquake. This was interesting enough since I thought it was blasting from the highway construction over the ridge at first... until it went on too long and got stronger as opposed to fading off. A good thirty seconds.

That was roughly around the time that Camp Winston called be to say "Tris is fine, he had a fall and hurt his ankle, we're taking him to get an x-ray just to be sure... but it's probably not broken, since he says it doesn't hurt so bad."

Okay.

So I'm sitting trying to work, watching the torrential rains. Then I find out that a tornado has touched down at Midland. This is about twenty minutes away from where they've taken Tris.

Sheesh.

Now they call me and tell me its broken. We do the hospital shuffle and get referred to the osteosurgeon in Barrie.

Friday morning we drive down. I'm now at Karen's place since it is an hour closer to the hospital (my animals... I brought the dogs, the cats have food and water both)
Thank the Gods I don't have the chickens and ducks and turkeys yet. And they say yeah it's a bad break, he needs surgery and asap.

Tomorrow (i.e. today) He can't eat today, just clear fluids. And he goes under the knife to try and fix the ends of the bone.

The one bone was injured right at the growth plate so it is possibly damaged from further growth. I really, truly hope not. But once everything is back where it belongs and he's in a true cast for months to let it heal up, we'll hit him with the homeopathics and shiatsu.

You know, this wasn't funny even the first time.

Snakes... no spiders

2010-06-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

Ok. The car is home and sitting in the garage, diagnosed. A cracked distributor cap. And I have a nice new one sitting in the parts car. Now all I need to do is get one bolt loose.

Unfortunately it is underneath and rusted to crap and I cannot yet get it out, even though I ripped the air-filter housing out of the way to allow me access. I can't do that on the semi-running vehicle. It's going to be interesting.

Karen is taking Tristan to Camp Winston today because of the vehicular problems... and came up to get him so she and Raphi were here this weekend. Nice, except for on-going plumbing problems.

I think I have the house's constipation problems fixed. A careful probe... one of about eighteen... with a plumber's snake seems to have pushed things on through.

Cross fingers pour hot water down the drains.

And all will one day again be good in the Land of Elimination!

The Return of the Sewage Fairy

2010-06-17T20:47:00.000-07:00

At the risk of whining, is mercury retrograde this week? WTHH is going on?

I ran over something with my car and took out the two tires on the driver's side. Got towed home in the rain and the car sat. I managed to pinch my scissor jack under the parts car. Its still there.

Today I get help and the tires got swapped out. Great.

Now the car won't start at all. WTF?

Oh and my toilet is suddenly flushing not down the nice pipe to the septic system but over the floor. Sigh. I need a new wax ring.

My son pushed the car down the hill almost a half a klick and I tried popping it into second but that did not work.

So the car is now parked down by the Hydro transfer station and I'll have to bike into town tomorrow to get the plumbing bits.

Look, all joking aside you trickster Gods... these are NOT FUNNY. I don't care that you're rolling on your ass laughing at me! Not funny.

Well, maybe a little.

I mean the toilet thing and me needing to be the Sewage Fairy again after all these years, schlepping nasty wet towels across to the washing machine... Yeah, maybe I can get a giggle out of that. At least it was just towels this time. It could have been much worse!

I guess I should have expected the toilet thing. Some Gods have a low sense of humour.

News update from the Gulf of Words

2010-06-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

This little post appeared on my Eclipse Court site and part of it on my Kyrus Talain book site, but I liked it as a separate piece of work, so here it is again!

There will be a post tonight! Yes, indeed! On this site! The words are still flowing and I am still catching some of them.

Because of a minor accident ~~fire/explosion/sinking/mistake~~ in the plot of this ongoing ~~drilling project~~ novel, our ~~emergency crews~~ fearless author has been called to attend to the ~~plot-gushing environmental disaster of the century~~ fiddly little cleanup details.Exterminate! Exterminate! Warning, warning Will Robininson! The Seaview is going down! Hull-breech imminent Captain. The Time Tunnel is collapsing! The two astronauts will never make it home to our time! Uncle Martin put that antenna down! We apologize for the leakage of any other plots onto your screen and will ~~Resistance is futile~~ have this little leak fixed ~~whenever she ponies up the fikken words to plug it!~~ in no time at all. ~~Mother stop honking at traffic policeman do you want to get me arrested?~~

There has been a ~~crippling disaster~~ minor problem discovered, deep in the buried posts of EC which will lead to some ~~major revisions to plug a seven month hole~~ teensy little revisions in the plot. Everything is fine up to post 243 and then we experience a ~~massive fucking entropy-spewing hole~~ ~~where the platform burned down, fell over and sank into the ocean~~ little blip ~~spewing oily words in all directions like dying birds~~ until our ceaselessly working ~~engineers put a cap on it spin~~ writer can come up with a lovely story about how hard we are working to ~~fucking fix it!~~ Correct our little problem. Please note the engaging colours on the surface of the water. Pretty, just like soap bubbles. ~~Not a deadly, life and book sucking horror~~. Everything from Post 250 onward should be fine.

We should be caught up over this weekend. ~~With the flippin’ car crippled and on two wheels, my scissor jack squashed under the parts car and only a bicycle to get my son to freakin’ camp this weekend…~~ We have a whole week in which to ~~flop around like deranged jellyfish~~ access our brilliant think-tank and come up with a ~~smoothly sliding~~ seamless solution.

Stay tuned for our very own Update from the Gulf of Words!

A batty idea

2010-05-22T22:24:00.000-07:00

I have been inspired! I saw the 'Duct-tape' sailboat on Mythbusters and I am inspired to try my very own project.

Drum-Roll, please!

The Duct-Tape Kayak! Dum Dum Dah!

Some people might say dumb dumb dumb, but if a sailboat can be built out of the tape then there is no reason a kayak could not be made out of the modern equivalent of hides.

I will, of course, blog and do pictures of the whole process.

At the moment I am considering wooden frame options rather than the welded steel that the Mythbusters used in their sailboat, but it seems to me that there will be less pressure on a kayak hull than a sailing hull.

We'll just have to see, won't we?

I think it will be fun.

Updates to follow, wish me luck.

I'm still on the Moon

2010-04-06T21:42:00.001-07:00

Still thinking about the Apollo program.

I'm reminded of a class that Karen and I taught. A grade 6, 7 and 8 girl's self defense class. Chaos in action.

Given that we were the teachers there's always the students who really think you're cool and want to hang out in the breaks and so there is one of the girls telling me about this truly cool movie she and her best friends have seen over the weekend. Not current run, a couple of years old. She's telling me about it and I realize she's talking about Tom Hanks and the movie is Apollo Thirteen.

I'm nodding and taking it in and as she pauses I, figuring I'm going to insert some interest in the conversation say, "Yeah. That is a good movie. When it happened though, we didn't have video feeds or any kind of TV contact, all we had was radio and we could hear them. I had the radio on the whole time. We really were afraid they'd miss the earth coming back." Her eyes are getting more and more round at this point and I continue. "It was one heck of a tense time."

She gulps and whispers "You mean it really happened?"

"Yes, it happened." Karen throws in her two cents... "It was big news, even if people didn't approve of that part of the space program."

"The Apollo Moon program. They never landed on the moon and almost didn't make it home. We were afraid we'd lost them..." I'm now talking to her back as she runs over to her friends.

Wildly gesturing arms, girls getting that same wide eye'd look, peeking out of the crowd as if I'd suddenly sprouted antenna. The whole rest of the class... the story spread... a wave of change. This cool movie had suddenly become history. Reality.

And I'm standing there, flat-foot. People have forgotten this? Already? This is MY memory. I saw this. I heard this. I'm still alive and people have forgotten? Something so important? The first time we truly went to another planet, our co-planet. Duct-tape and illness and sweat and deaths, though no one died on this launch. New computing power and discovering a hundred new ways of looking at the world and the universe and it's forgotten? It's just this cool movie someone made; a fantasy like Star Trek or Star Wars?

We had to repeat the story a few more times as various girls came to ask for confirmation. But we didn't say anything else. I wonder sometimes if we should have, but we were only supposed to teach self defense. We taught a bit more that day.

I sometimes wonder if it had any effect.

Moon Shot Thoughts

2010-04-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

I was just reading Robert Fulghum's "What On Earth Have I Done?" and stumbled across a line in his piece about the moon. He says not much has been accomplished by the moonshot.

I must disagree. All the stuff we have on the planet, including medical telemetry and a piss-load of stuff we wouldn't normally have if we'd never gone to the moon...

But it got me to thinking.

First of all it was worth it to go to the Moon because, in part, the itch to go past boundaries is part of what makes us human. Not always a good thing, but human. So here are two guys... two evolved primates who have pushed human boundaries all the way to the moon. And in the LM, while futzing around with their stuff in tight quarters, someone moves that wrong way and a little plastic switch gets snapped off.

I imagine they froze at the sound. Maybe watched it do a slow tumble and eventually hit something. Kind of loud when the nearest fix for something broken is a very, very long way away. It's even worse than watching a rope on a mainsail snap when you're a hundred days away from Portsmouth, or Lisbon. For one thing you can't go outside and find something to fix said rope with.

This little switch is what fires up the engines. In a sense, the ignition. It's a bit like snapping your car-key off in it. There is a divot too small for a human finger and a little toggle at the bottom.

So here we have an astronaut pulling apart his famously, ridiculously expensive space pen (Hi there Fisher!) so he has a perfect stick to jam into this tiny little hole, with as intense a concentration as a starving chimp trimming a termite stick. Simian all the way. Get the stick. Modify the stick. Poke the stick in the hole. Survive.

Very human. Very simian. Here on earth, or on the moon, we are the same only different. Armstrong and Aldrin doing what humans do best. When confronted with another boundary, that teeny hole, between them and getting home, they improvised.

And even if the story is funny, it was deadly serious at the time. Going to the moon changed us profoundly as a species, even if people want to dismiss it, forget it, play it down. Even as we used our most ancient skills on that most modern of flying machines, the Lunar Lander, we did it not only to beat the Russians. Not only to push our boundaries.

With what we brought back from the moon we've figured out a good, solid theory as to WHY we have a moon at all. Dug into the early life of our planet long before we evolved. Thought about how our home even got to a point where we could exist as a species.

And it is a partial answer to "Who are we?" "How did we get here?" and gives us an inkling, a faint shred of thought to "Where are we going?"

All very, very worthwile reasons for having gone to the moon. And just as good reasons for going back.

Don't ever run down an accomplishment just because you can't see the impact. You may not know the ripples that were flung out, Mr. Fulghum. To dismiss the moon shots as trivial, or unnecessary is to diminish our curiousity, our spirit, our big 'Why's'. Whether the moon is green cheese or Diana's smile or a place where a man proved he was still a monkey at heart, to get home, its still important. If I may quote you. "Oooohh, the Moon. The Moon."

Sweetwater

2010-03-22T20:51:00.001-07:00

...soft drops of blessing rain~wash my eyes clean~and heart clear~fold open my soul.

10/03/22

Current Obsolete Idioms

2010-03-10T21:14:00.001-08:00

I opened my mouth the other day and said to Tallest Son 'you're sounding like a broken record'. And stopped. He had no idea what a broken record sounded like. In fact I realize that some of my younger friends also have no idea. They might know what a skipping CD sounds like but a 'broken record'?

They never had to deal with the vinyl archane mysteries of changing the needle... or wonder of wonders 'the cartridge' or if worst came to worse, gluing a penny on the tone-arm head, any more than they had to learn how to deal with a wind-up grammophone or wax cylinder player.

Yet we continue to say such things as if they had any kind of meaning in the current world. People react as if they understand and thus the phrases continue to be used.

English is littered with phrases, current phrases, whose meaning has actually become virtual. A shared metaphor where people never actually had the physical connection with the thing or the sound, or the reality that spawned the phrase in the first place.

In radio... people asked 'are we rolling'? As far as I know, they still do, even though the recording medium is no longer tape going from one reel to another.

So I have now commented on two phrases that are obsolete in reality but still 'live' on our lips and tongues. Shall we talk about more of them, or haul out the recycling bin full of these old phrases? Are they still useful even though detached from reality?

And if we choose to let these obsolete old terms die a natural death well, English will just have to put that in its pipe and smoke it!

Edge of Cliff

2010-02-01T18:11:00.000-08:00

Over and over
I see

The edge.

I come up to the edge,
again.
and again.

I launch myself
over
and over.

My words... my wings
and then

I see

Did I help someone else fly?

A Matching Poem to The Iron Ring

2010-01-23T18:59:00.000-08:00

The Gold Ring

I first felt the warmth of a craftsman's hand
a plain gold circlet, a plain gold band.
Then clasping the warmth on the hand of a King.
The jeweller's gift, a coronation ring.

For twenty years his hand I graced,
and then his son's, who took his place,
then the neck of his grandson's bride.
Wed for power, wed for pride.

She wore me on a chain of hair.
I was greater than her hand could bear,
then passed to the finger of her son,
seen the wars and empires won.

Now I lie warm 'gainst a feathered breast
clasping a bone, in a corby's nest.

87/11/21

A poem from The Love Machine

2010-01-16T19:53:00.000-08:00

The Iron Ring

Horseshoe nail, curled in a band
made for the miller's daughter's hand.
She wed the blacksmith's eldest boy,
short years to live in wedded joy.

The King's war came and cut them down
In fields I lay, specked rusty brown.
Until a child playing there
spied me, took me, found me fair.

She cleansed me, kept me with her toys
till she chose a lover from the boys.
Shining, from her son's hand I slide
onto the finger of his bride.

Dark metal band of work and earth
remember fire, that gave me birth.

87/11/21

________________________________

One of the few rhymed poems I've written. Part of a set.

The SDS

2010-01-14T17:07:00.000-08:00

I'm watching the Siamese Demoliton Squad at work {the three siames kittens I just aquired} and I believe it is for the privilege of having miniature tigers in the house that we put up with the random destruction.

Cats do not care. Things go smash in the night. These three are still looking for the twelve foot tall Christmas cat toy that got dismantled and schlepped out last week. Dogs feel guilty because they have the idea of ownership [my bone, my bed] while a cat owns it all and doesn't care to keep it.

When they're older they aren't so destructive. It's almost a more benign kind of breakage rather than whirling chaos in action.

What's the most fun is watching the look on the face of the Doberman cross when an eight pound kitten claims him as a prize. The dog's very confused by it.

Edge My Skin With Silver

2010-01-04T16:46:00.000-08:00

Edge my skin with silver
touch satin lips
to my trembling
feathersoft touch
on face and ears and breast.

I bare my throat to your fire
warm pulse felt between
my legs.

Come
edge my skin with shivers
and silver.

86/08/21

A Poem from Flowers and Vice

2010-01-01T22:49:00.000-08:00

What is all this Believing Crap?

The other day
the Mer came up
and sunned themselves
on Baja sand.

People came
and said 'Neat trick!
Where are the wires?"
and went away.

A Unicorn
stepped from the wood.
Raindrop trembling
on his mane.

Farmer shot him.
"Stupid horse,
broke down ma fences!"

And then...

The Dragon came.

Funny.

People learned
to believe.

Real quick.

85/09/06

Sacrifice to the Knight

2009-12-30T18:54:00.000-08:00

"I will not be controlled! I am
the master of my fate.
Destiny dances to MY piper's tune!"

A hand comes down and moves me
one square forward.

85/03/06

Another poem from Flowers and Vice

2009-12-29T00:15:00.000-08:00

Talent

Sifting dust with my soul
proffered forth in cupped hands
Threads of blood and thick gray dust
chips of bone and sweat
and rust

Sodden mud; the tears of anger
sterile
fall through clutching hands

Bitter salt in soul`s revealing
dryness freed and yet undone
Turn away in foul loathing.

Thin and cold and dead and done.

1985

____________

Well that was a cheery year.

Alleluia

2009-12-10T23:20:00.000-08:00

If I recall

Your title was, and still is
"The Bright and Morning Star"

And if

the carol is correct
"...the Morning Stars together
proclaimed the holy birth."

Then

With what irony, did you sing?
(Bass, at the back, on the left
I'm sure)

Announcing HIS birth.
In whose Name -- enough atrocities
will be and are perpetuated,

To sate even you?

And

HIS birth - according to some,
will end all the struggle,
So you can stop.

Even Lucifer

I should think (perhaps even especially)
would get weary of darkness.

What thoughts,
Passed through the glowing mind
of Dark -- Light bearer -- as you sang?

Morning Star

Together.

Dec. 2003

New Blog

2009-12-09T22:08:00.000-08:00

One of my books, that I initially debuted in Eclipse Court, now has a blog all its own.

It is Kyrus at KyrusTalain.blogspot.com. I will be updating the site with artwork and various gadgets along the way.

I've moved

yrustalain.blogspot.com is where it is.

Totally bummed by a good review

2009-11-17T08:19:00.000-08:00

This is so weird. I get a fantastic review and I'm totally devastated by one line in it.

It basically puts Eclipse Court in the same orchestra as Philosopher in Arms and implies that it is secondary... it is the 'harmony' to PA's 'melody'. Secondary theme!

Jesus. It is my own work and it's own 'melody'. It is NOT a lesser reflection or echo to anything else. I'm sure it was meant as descriptive rather than comparative, but it still hurts.

Off to lick my wounds and post the next bit of my work.

Learning

2009-11-16T20:16:00.000-08:00

Today a friend came over and taught Tristan and I to fire rifles. We tried the .22, the 12 gauge, and the 30.06. The 30.06 has about the same kickback as the shotgun but it feels like it has so much more authority. It feels very different.

Wow. Interesting and a first step toward our FAC's.

Considering Quitting

2009-10-30T12:10:00.000-07:00

I woke up today and seriously considered quitting writing for a while. What has it ever gotten be but heartache?

It's either the creative heartache or monetary and to be honest I'm much better at flaying and filleting myself creatively.

I have too much of my self-esteem tied up with the words I produce and it seems I've chosen a life both destined and doomed to be obscure. I've been saying that to be a writer one has to be persistent and consistent.

Right now, all I am is tired.

Wondering what the hell I'm doing

2009-10-26T16:25:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here feeling lower than a snakes navel. I have people telling me they like what I'm doing but I cannot convince everyone to throw me so much as a dollar on paypal. One fan in Denmark did, a while ago.

Now I'm wondering if it's right to ask at all for monetary support.

I cannot keep doing this. 300 dollars since March does not a living make.

I'm going to have to stop it seems, or slow down and this is the thing I really want to do.

One of my doofus dogs

2009-10-21T21:57:00.001-07:00

This is Hoover. He just turned three and is a total klutz about stepping on people's feet. He's still enough of a pup that he doesn't know where his own feet are.

Of course Rio still doesn't and he's nine.

I'll profile the sons of bitches here and the bitch herself.

Then I'll show you the cat I work for and eventually the new kitten.

I have too many animals but if I didn't I'd probably just aquire more. I acrue animals and we like each other. I feel incomplete without a dog or a cat. I've had birds and fish... oh... the fish... yeah I have to show you them too.

I will be getting chickens. I'd like peacocks too. See? I'm nuts this way. Sigh. You'll eventually see all of them.

When I was the freaky kid the dog was my best buddy. He was my job, my playmate. He climbed trees with me and went on every piece of the playground equipment. He spent summer afternoons in a tree, on my lap, while I read. Poor dog, he bore the brunt of my need to control something in my life and forgave me for it all.

Animals never used me, not like people. Animals had no agenda and they valued me and loved me both.

No longer driving a Molotov Cocktail

2009-10-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

The gas leak in my car has been fixed. I still have the exhaust to fix but at least noise isn't quite so dangerous.

Have a look at the red-neck hoist...

Random Poetry

2009-10-20T00:06:00.000-07:00

A Modern Fate

Damn,
says Clotho.
Another run in my nylons!
Antropos, lend me
your scissors.

The Freakin' Dog Made it HOME!!!

2009-10-09T12:02:00.001-07:00

On Tuesday, Rio and Hoover got out of my car when I gave a friend in need a ride into town to get groceries and back to the hunt camp where they were staying. They disappeared.

Hoover made it back to my house, thirty klicks away, that night. Rio wasn't with him.

I was just about to write him off when who should come home?

Rio. Gods if only dogs could talk. His tag is missing. He's soaking wet and he vacuumed up a bowl of dog food in nothing flat!

Jeez I was already starting to mourn him because it was so out of character for him.

My dogs are all fixed so who knows what happened? Maybe someone took him in... just let him out and he took off on them?

I'll never know.

But as little as I need three big dogs, my family is complete again and my boys will be happy.

A good homecoming and a small incredible journey!

Ildyls

2009-08-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

Summer has finally arrived. I just chased the dogs back from a romp into the bush, pretending to chase something, and flung myself in the pool.

Who cares if it is an above ground pool and not the design of my dreams? I have a computer that can practically dance a jig and more music at my command than the Sun King.

I can eat from plates all over the world and be entertained by hundreds if I flip on the freakin' TV.

The funny thing is that I still feel like I've failed in life! Wow. And no one has ever heard that before.

After I die, no one is going to care if this year I had trouble.

Even next year. No one is going to care.

So why am I letting this bother me? Because I feel I must. I shouldn't just enjoy what I have. Because... because... um... no reason [insert sheepish grin here] Just as some religions would teach... "If you aren't sweatin' or bleedin', what good are you?"

I need neither sweat nor bleed to deserve life and a good one.

Wow.

Where did this one come from?

It won't matter. Ultimately it won't matter one whit. And in that thought is freedom.

Excuse me while I go back into the pool to think about this one for a while! Cheers!

2009-07-31T22:27:00.000-07:00

This is the high flight. This is the long way up. If you thought I was emotional about the low and slow... this blows that one out of the water. I'm dreaming of flying. It's the closest thing to dreams of flight as I've ever had.

Oh gods. I'm sooooo hooked!

When first you have tasted flight...

2009-07-12T20:57:00.000-07:00

Tris's third flight
Karen in the air
Tris before his launch.

On Thursday I and I presume the rest of the family who particpated --Tristan, my biological son, and Karen, my ex, experienced a transformative experience.

We went hang-gliding. And now I understand da Vinci's quote about longing to return. Once I got off the ground, that magical instant when a flailing, running toe swipes at the earth and misses... when the heavy thing you have on your shoulders all of a sudden becomes part of you and effortlessly lifts you into the air... It is addictive and I want my next fix.

There is... in fact... another lesser transformation. When the tow rope goes slack and it's all you. Or rather you and the glider but it feels like all you.
My third flight. Video by Karen Wehrstein

I have felt lighter on my feet ever since.

Homesick for the Sky

The wings my soul has dreamed of, enmeshed in clay, now manifest in lofting silence.
words drift away, thistledown in the wind.
There is only the wind.
a bubble of laughter in my chest.
The name of joy is flight and oh, thank the gods I have met her
been introduced.

Fleeting moments in the presence of the sky
cradled in the wind's hand, let me kiss it again
pull me up out away from where my feet press too hard
upon the earth.

too happy for tears then
tears now... homesick for the sky.

My 500 lb Cast Iron Tchochke

2009-06-14T23:34:00.000-07:00

I have a heart's desire sitting on my screen porch right now. When I was a little girl I always thought that one of the coolest things in the world to have would be a wood fired cookstove.

And now I have one... a beautiful "Happy Thought" six burner. It has a warming oven above and is a classic cream and green.

The problem is... it isn't an air-tight. If I tried to heat my cabin with it I could pour wood into it by the truckload and either be roasting or freezing as it roared through the hardwood. It's also too big for the tiny twenty by twenty one foot log portion of my house. It's dangerous. I'd have to contrive to put it in the middle of the room to fire that sucker up without my insurance company, and local fire departments having conniption fits.

It weighs five hundred pounds [roughly] and needs to have a couple of pieces of cast iron bolted back on. You can't weld cast iron... at least not these chunks.

At the moment it deserves better than to be a sideboard and potting bench. I should sell it. I should sell it... But. Its my Happy Thought. Sometimes I think I keep it for the name alone.

But.

I tell myself that if I put a summer kitchen on the back of this place I could use it there. But.

But it makes no sense for me to keep it. I like it. I've had it. I should let it go. But it makes me smile when I look at it. But.

So my thoughts go round and round. Until I figure it out I have a five hundred pound tchochke sitting on my front porch.

The Words I Write are the Walls

2009-04-13T20:55:00.000-07:00

The words I write are the Walls. They are also inscribed on the walls of my inner life, my inner self. When I dream, the words with which I have decorated my inner edges, held back the fearful void, peel off and float around my sleeping eye re-awakening the thoughts that birthed them to begin with. We dream our edges. As a species we are namers, and sorters, creatures who must create edges. We divide this from that and do so in finer and finer words, each one more and more delicate like the filigree lace on the edge of the Mandelbrod lake. We define infinity with words that are infinitely divisible, a rubber ruler with which we measure Reality.

There was a time I remember before words. It is hard to describe because description is infinitely recursive. The existence of meaning drew the world into an edged focus and finished my dreamtime. I had the understanding that the sounds I heard from my father’s mouth meant something.

This was a wonderful, dreadful, awful shock, and when I say awful I do mean full of awe. The soft, Vaseline world snapped into hard edges. I could name the edges. This, not this. Pronouns, verbs, adverbs. I had not a word for them but I had the beasts themselves. The words were bright and bitter and acid and sweet. They were agile as spiders or silverfish which disappeared into the cracks and whorls of my brain only to reappear in the most unexpected of places.

Every language has its thirty-wonderful flavors, the fullness and roundness of the world re-expressed every time a mouth is opened. A country cannot truly be understood or tasted unless one has savored the language on all edges of the tongue. Even then, the secondary speaker can only sample the diffuseness of the way the world is seen by this culture, like a curry powder left in the sun; a pale shadow of itself.

And still there is the underlying pattern of language that coils in every spiral in every cell in our bodies, a recognition of spoken communication that is limited to millions of words. Words rise out of our flesh and create what we see and how we see it. In this sense we are the magician, wielding words as our wands. This and this and this is the shape of the world. In a world where we are told there is no magic it is the big lie. It is our magic, our power, our fiery dragon on whose back we ride and in turn are ridden. As we shape the world we are shaped.

John recognized the Face of God. It is the Word.

Trying to keep up with the words

2009-03-24T23:25:00.000-07:00

I have too many things to write and not enough time, but I'm getting there.

I hope I start getting some readers for Eclipse Court. I think its a good book myself but then I'm biased.

Karen made an astonishing cover for me and I now have a copy on my desk to inspire me.

It will also be easier once I stop being cold all the time because my fire's gone out. Cheers to spring.

Blessed Be!

The snow is finally GOING

2009-03-16T16:59:00.000-07:00

I've done four posts in Eclipse Court and my lovely new banner ad is from Karen.

I haven't had the fire lit for two days and I haven't been cold! Woo Hoo! Now I have to go and work on 'Numbers' for a while...

No shit I have to market myself!

2009-03-06T20:46:00.000-08:00

I'm struggling to finish the next bricks and mortar book in a timely fashion and I'm going to have to do a full week of nothing but to get ahead.

My co-author is justifiably ticked at me.

My oldest son just played in the steel band at his school and he's doing really well on his volcano project... I have just been co-opted into the obligatory volcano project though I think we will do coke and mentos instead of baking soda and vinegar.

I may not freeze to death this winter. The chinking in my log-home has been pulled loose by the frost heave and I had this howling gap over my bed three feet long... the house temperature went to 6 degrees c.

I need to work harder somehow. I'm not sure how I can squeeze more out of myself but I will.

Monday I start posting the online book regularly.

Onward and upward.

New Year Exhaustion

2008-01-02T15:35:00.000-08:00

We're into the new year by one whole day and I've already managed to get behind on my sleep. Back to work today and looking forward to the Twelfth night festivities. That's when my son and I visit Oma and I have a wake to attend that day. What can I say? Life and death don't care about arbitrary human means of marking time.

Hoover (one of the young dogs) is just bugging me to feed him. Of course the older dog Rio is playing it cool, just lying under my feet and farting, trusting that I'll notice eventually.

It looks like next week will be the January thaw, with temperatures climing up to 10C.

Yesterday I and and friend went to a New Year's Day party and found their road hadn't been plowed. In was barely okay and to get out it took two hours, a four by and a nylon tow strap. Other than that an excellent party and convivial company.

I went out to dinner after and was so wound up after I didn't sleep till quite late. 3 a.m. actually.

Book recommendations: 'feather boy' by Nicky Singer, a young adult book

All of the "Bloody Jack" books by L.A. Meyer, also young adult. Being the chronicles of Jacky (Mary) Faber, who goes to sea disguised as a boy and among other things comments on the gang just north of them in Cheapside, Fagin and his Dodger, almost gets burned as a witch in Boston, takes a short jaunt with Captain Ahab, and fights with the British fleet at Trafalgar. I most certainly use the term 'fights with' deliberately.

Have a good night everyone.

Going Public

2007-12-29T14:26:00.000-08:00

Since I'm no longer living in a thimble and may actually have a heartbeat or two to myself in the near future I'm going to take the plunge and take my journalling into this oh-so-ephemeral space.

It's going to change the way I write because I used to say that writing is the most private of the performing arts and my words could all vanish once the power goes away. Living in the country, that is often an important consideration. Thus, the ephemeral nature of the medium. On the other hand, once I hit send these thoughts could theoretically circulate forever. Horrors. But that's life.

Especially since, on some level, I've chosen to live a public life already so what am I bitching about, hey?

Its weird since I'm having my usual conversation with myself that I actually have the ego to think someone else may be interested in, yet the act is very different, typing instead of writing, and I have much more time to think about what I'm actually pontificating about when I slow down.

Anyway, I'm sure Marshall McLuhan is reving about as fast as my hard drive right about now, given the way the medium is working.

(A side thought... if I have a text file of 'Om Mane Padme Hum' on my hard drive, do I have a 7200 rpm prayer wheel?)

I'm starting this just before '07 ends because this and starting the new book are not going to be New Years Resolutions. (Bleah)

You know, since I am theoretically addressing every human being alive, I suppose I could begin by saying 'Dear God:' -- if you believe that the Divine rests in everything. But the salutation might be seen as offensive so I won't. I'm not writing 'The Color Purple'.

It looks like Winter may be dumping another ten cm of snow on us tonight and I may not make it up the hill tomorrow to get to work. This morning I chose the wrong hill (I live in a valley and there are three choices out, two of which are the most practical). That road hadn't been plowed and my snow tires are on the wrong car (don't ask). I made it three quarters of the way up and lost traction, skating gracelessly backwards down the hill, rearwards. I did manage to not get stuck catter-corner across the road or in a ditch and backed the remaining 500 m to turn around and take the other road. Which has a worse hill but had actually been plowed.

At work today I made 43 steak and Guinness pies of various sizes.

My son Tristan (the eldest) is just asking for computer time, so I'll cut this short and come back later.

Frohe Weinachten Everyone!