I, Soapbox

shifting

2009-04-21T16:01:00.001-07:00

in january
she switched to graveyards
and now she moves through
empty streets –
in her waking world,
the city has only
a handful of occupants:
video store workers, some
late night janitors, security
guards, gas station attendants
peering out from behind
bullet-proof glass

some months in, she has
difficulty remembering what
the day was like with all it’s people,
and when she is confronted with it
(on the odd occasion) she finds herself
feeling squeezed in an unfamiliar fashion,
all the surrounding bodies in the sun
like many hands around her arms and legs,
a pressing on her rib cage

nocturnalized, she dreams when we wake
of her eyes becoming small, black and reflective,
of thick fur growing on her shoulders

city

2009-04-02T23:21:00.001-07:00

In darkness a far-off whine of sirens
when the seagulls have quieted
there is the scraping
of rats behind dumpsters
with lids open like
jaws, he reaches his arm
inside the mouths,
fingers groping
for a bottleneck
he listens for the clink of glass.

apartment windows with
blinds open flicker
like so many candlewick flames
illuminated by paper lamps from ikea,
there are cacti on the ledges,
spider-plants overgrown, a cattail
twitching here and there
a figure passes,
the west end sighs with
merlot on its breath,
blowing vancouver’s
famous cherry blossoms
from their limbs -
there are haiku poems
strolling the beach
looking for vacancies
and rent-control

more closet poetry

2009-03-20T00:12:00.000-07:00

Closet full of
old clothes and the
fabric hangs like
empty skin -
a wool sweater holds
the shape of 1998
while 2001 is a black
perfume-laced cocktail dress,
a cigarette burn in silk.
Some flat-footed summer of 1997
is birkenstock sandals,
too-small shorts and cotton T’s.
Northern BC is a corduroy jacket
with a poem folded in the pocket.
And she is a pair of jeans
with threadbare thighs.

moving

2008-11-24T16:50:00.000-08:00

through the archives,
i step around boxes of
packed things, even my note-
book is sealed in sellotape and all
the pictures are off the walls.

pulling things out of their hiding places:
old clothes (much too small now)
wince in the light, like small
animals pulled from their holes,
while photos of a little girl
wither at the corners
when the dust has all
been blown away
there’s just naked carpet
and imprints of the furniture
i had slept in

The Archives - Cam and I

2008-11-23T16:11:00.000-08:00

The Family Christmas Picture for 2008

2008-11-23T16:04:00.000-08:00

october

2008-11-01T21:43:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!

2008-11-01T16:00:00.000-07:00

Zombie Apocalypse!

2008-11-01T15:51:00.000-07:00

St.John's, NL

2008-10-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

Halifax, NS - Photo Credit Jesse Habre

2008-10-09T11:20:00.000-07:00

Lunenburg, NS

2008-10-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

Peggy's Cove, NS

2008-10-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

P.E.I.

2008-10-08T19:52:00.000-07:00

Quebec City, QC

2008-10-08T19:47:00.000-07:00

Old Montreal, QC

2008-10-08T16:15:00.000-07:00

Ottawa, ON

2008-10-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

Toronto, ON

2008-10-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

Niagara, ON

2008-10-08T15:11:00.000-07:00

Winnipeg, MB

2008-10-08T15:07:00.000-07:00

Jasper, AB

2008-10-08T15:04:00.000-07:00

Hello friends/family,

2008-08-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

Here I am, St. John's NL.

Kicking off a 2 month walking trip I managed to stub my toe in the shower on the morning of Day One (before I even had a chance to sniff the salty, Easterly winds) and lost a toe nail. That's right, the 2nd toe on my right foot is missing a nail (well, currently it's hanging on by band-aids, but I suspect that will not last long). It's funny, all the shit I've prepared for -- sea sickness, flu, menstration, fatique, lonliness/boardom, natural disaster, heat and cold -- did not include stubbing my toe in the shower and crippling myself. My heart was broken this morning, more so than my foot. I watched the toe swell and bleed, the nail lift right off. I've never lost a toe or fingernail, and what a fine time. But, life goes on! While I may have a significant hitch in my step, it makes for a good story, and I am still mobile and upright! I have a great pare of Berks which have caused me little pain, and I spent the morning and afternoon effectively limping around all of hilly downtown St. John's.

I went on a boat trip around Signal Bay and Cape Spear, watched 30 tonne Humpback whales breaching and teasing our vessel, met some amazing people, ate some great cod, drank some beer and then drank some more beer, and touched 7 of the 45 bars on George Street. Vancouver's "Entertainment District" looks like a library compared to this place on a Tuesday night -- and with less violence (none).

I must say, adjusting to traveling alone has been at the forfront of my (so far breif) experience. While it has not been negative, but rather quite positive, I am very much looking forward to the company of familiar people. At least I have not compromised anyone with my slow and steady limp!

I have a mean sunkissed face at the moment, and the blush of the sun expresses my breathless excitment. While I am experienced in living near the ocean, the Atlantic proves to be more salty, volitile and eroading than I had imagined. The taste of sea salt is thick on my lips, and in my hair/clothing.

The Banbury House has been great. I'm looking forward to a most excellent breakfast tomorrow and then, checking into the City Hostel and being with people who are a bit closer to my own age.

I feel so excited and able-bodied, despite my recent upset. Hopefully the problem will not ail me too long. It doesn't really matter anyways. I'm here, I feel great, and look forward to seeing all the places of this great country, which have remained untold to me so far. Canada.

Please feel free to call and email me. I hope to hear from you all.

Best,

Heather

K&N's Wedding

2008-08-09T01:57:00.000-07:00

2008-07-31T14:08:00.000-07:00

summer evening garden haiku

2008-07-31T13:20:00.000-07:00

star gazers open
in pink twilight while the day-
lilies drift asleep

getting back

2008-07-31T10:21:00.001-07:00

needing a reason to sing
she seeks open minds and
green places where
voices are optical
through tall grasses,
cut by a sinking sun
red on the backstory
then pink between webbed fingers,
a clicking metronome
counting days in july down to
august (turned 26 / now she’s on doubletime)
she speaks poetry loudly into
empty wine bottles
and on the return claims one dollar
thinking the canada council
is really paying out big this year
mainly, though, its about
finding a restaurant close to the office
where they serve cheap sangria in pitchers
and the locals are lesbian enough to
make her envious of short hair
and cramped living quarters –
everything north of Vancouver
becomes a pulp-scented winter cloud
and (against her better judgment)
she falls in love with soft water,
a good lather, and an orange cat
shedding his coat, permanently.

Moby: He would kill me if he were any bigger

2008-07-27T15:08:00.000-07:00

paper girl

2008-07-27T05:12:00.001-07:00

she hands out papers at
the base of the stairs at
the skytrain station, main and terminal,
her fingertips black smudges
her bag heavy is
slung over her shoulder,
weighted with newspapers – “The Metro”

she is easy on morning eyes,
with a slight figure, brown sweater
and jeans, a purple shock of hair
now faded in the purple glow of 6am –

in the wintertime she is there in
toque and coat, sometimes
the newsprint blackens her
face in places where she has
brushed a stray hair,
where her fingers met her lips.

love, the maple tree and your 2nd storey window

2008-07-05T17:30:00.001-07:00

he is sleepless at dusk

walking home, feet lighter

than yesterday under the last light,

street lamps hum before they

click on and glow orange dusk

particles which he stirs with his

passage through their pools.

from an open window, her voice leaps

and catching itself on the branches of

the maple tree at her sill, it slides down

with ease – a singing voice,

not perfect but sweet enough

to turn his eyes up

and drink in her showering silhouette,

the running water a drum while

she sings “here comes the sun, doo n’ doo doo,

here comes the sun”

he leans into her light,

open-mouthed and floats upward,

toes lifting from the pavement, he

reaches limply for the maple tree

and the leaves graze his fingertips

as he passes over the canopy

and disappears.

The Thompson

2008-06-25T16:24:00.000-07:00

Quesnel

2008-06-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

WRA

2008-05-22T10:53:00.000-07:00

Watching a film on the

development of the Irish Republican Army

with my father on a lazy Sunday –

two brothers are divided between

north and south,

having started with the same cause.

In the end, one puts the other to

the firing squad and I say “look at

the foolishness of men” and

my father says “they are fighting for freedom.

Perhaps if women had fought for

their emancipation, it wouldn’t

have taken so long.”

And while I am angry at first

and say, “men are not a

system of government to overthrow,

they are everything

and how can we fight

our fathers, brothers, children”

there is another part of me

lost in the front lines of a

women’s battalion, women in arms

with uniforms and medals and

all the play and stage of war,

they are defending the city of ladies.

the silence after poetry

2008-05-22T10:34:00.000-07:00

is it 10 seconds or maybe 4

the time spent in the

aftermath, the time it

takes for a poem to

leave the room having

arrived with arms folded

a poem always leaves

unguarded, open-palmed,

the last sentiment a

bird fluttering indoors,

it looks for the nearest exit

2008-05-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

2008-05-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

Checked out this yet:

Poetry Foundation

30

2008-05-17T13:59:00.000-07:00

At the close of May we

sit in deck swings and

wave, limp-wristed

at thick bees as they tumble

near our lemonades.

You say, “in the winter”

with a sun-ripened

tone and the first hot day

looks full of promise,

the sounds of lawnmowers

and yard work rising

all around us.

ecila

2008-05-09T20:06:00.000-07:00

2008-05-09T19:58:00.001-07:00

Excavation

2008-04-27T18:04:00.001-07:00

I first found them

in boxes pulled down

from the storage during

spring cleaning.

Opening the cardboard,

they were in bright colours,

floral and paisley patterns,

t-shirts from Hawaii and

Expo, 1986. I met my

young parents (19&25)

by slipping into slim-fitting

bell-bottoms and a green

halter dress purchased in

Honolulu circa 1975,

the scent of cigarettes and

imported beer still hanging

in the threads.

green timbers

2008-04-12T12:07:00.000-07:00

Walking through the urban forest, I can still hear the rush of traffic just outside the mossy boundary of the birch trail. In this forestry reserve I think of the ecological miracles we made as projects in grade school; a sealed Mason jar with a piece of moss in the bottom, left to the sun, eventually becomes a tiny ecosphere. This is the urban forest; a Mason jar of damp and living green in the middle of the city.

In the midnight hours the urban forest is a meeting place for fevered sex sessions between men. Even in the afternoon I can see where they have been. The branches just off the birch trail have been hastily broken in many places, making a small fresh trail to a spot where the leaves and detritus are stamped down. The urban forest holds the secret meetings with respect and dignity, as birds chirping in the afternoon hide the residual air of guilt/delight and pain/pleasure, and the imagined sound of scuffling and hot breath on cold skin.

everybody sing

2008-03-20T17:05:00.000-07:00

She missed her bus again

2008-03-20T17:03:00.000-07:00

Prudence is being blown down 152^nd by a strong wind, her hair and perfume whipped around her person, like a silk scarf. The traffic barrels passed her; all clatter and speed in the light autumn rain. She has her hands plunged deep into her coat pockets with the wool collar turned up. Her canvas shoes are soaking and the water has crept up the back of her jeans leaving the wet denim dark all the way to her mid-calf. Passing the kingdom hall she reads the crooked letters on the board “God answers all knee mail.”

Tossing

2008-03-11T00:48:00.000-07:00

1 am I am dreaming about the future//

as a teenager I would roll onto

my back and driftwood into tomorrow

when 5 years was long distance--

like sailing around the world in 90 days

(we know that the earth is round because

boats sink on the horizon)

now the future is a to do list and its’ so up

close that I’m wondering if

maybe it is actually now

The Evening Train

2008-02-25T19:10:00.001-08:00

Patience, Prudence and Hope are waiting on wooden benches at Pacific Central, Train and Bus Station. Prudence is plaiting Hope’s long, wiry hair into small ropes. She ties the frayed ends in rubber bands. Patience sits still and upright, her canvas bag under her arm she is thinking about how much she detests Jack Kerouac, a tattered corner of On the Road just barely visible in Hope’s coat pocket. The depot echoes deeply with the sound of a child crying from the farthest westerly side of the building. The Amtrak is late. Many eyes are trained on the giant four-sided brass clock, suspended from the cathedral-like vaulted ceiling’s center. Their ears are somewhere east, anticipating the clatter of a two stroke, 16 cylinder Engine down the line.

Untitled

2008-02-09T19:59:00.000-08:00

tea

2008-02-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

dainty sandwiches fit
perfectly into thin fingers
over thin lips/
it's very very important
that the crusts are all removed

everybody salsa!

2008-02-09T19:49:00.000-08:00

Patience is heavy set and slow moving. She has wide hips that sway and a gentle way about her person, you know, soft spoken. Olive skin and green eyes, she smells of garlic and her sure-footed steps make small quakes when she passes. Patience is always well-dressed. Prudence is small-boned and bird-like, her cheekbones angular, her arms like white ribbons. Hope goes by unnoticed, she is plain and powdery. She stirs the air and a frosty dust settles over everything.

Patience, Prudence and Hope
walk into a bar

(all good jokes start with a bad bar)

Patience hastily downs
a quart of tequila
and starts makingout
with Prudence – she cups
Patience’s breast in
her left hand as
Hope looks on mortified,
heads turning, the three of them
glide to the center
of the bar and
the dance floor closes around them.
Patience grabs Hope
by the hand and
twirls her ‘round and ‘round –
Prudence thinks it’s all
a bit too much
and requests a KD Lang song,
“Constant Craving” but
the crowd is calling for
the Rolling Stones and
the weight of their
demand crushes
Patience and her
delicate/simple Hope – Prudence
being the only one left standing, one
ribbon hand wrapped around the DJ

moleskine

2008-02-09T19:28:00.000-08:00

she has a heated center

2008-02-09T19:09:00.001-08:00

expanding into all her

corners - she bubbles

like cider with

candlelight life (a flickering

glow) careful to keep dark

all her darkest parts

For Heather and her Sister

2008-02-04T21:02:00.000-08:00

Petals open like small hands
the yellow fuzz of pollen
warms the centre and
while flowers
just cannot be forever
they live in generations.
Soft soil holds seed pods
in a damp embrace and
the children of flowers
are turning inside them,
green tails push against
the brown skin --
all roots begin in the dark,
while flowers end in the sun.

sweaters

2008-01-19T19:06:00.000-08:00

brown

2008-01-19T19:00:00.000-08:00

handfuls of brown
i am finding soil everywhere –
under my bed,
tracked through the hallway
it holds his footprints,
it holds the carrots and potatoes
in their darkest hours

damp like a body
soil fell from under his nails,
he brought it 8000 miles
from his home and we all planted there

i’ve heard people
put it in jars / dirt jams from worldwide –
a cabinet of brown preserves.

steve sleeps in an old house

2008-01-19T06:52:00.000-08:00

well, we were all there
and you had a broke-down car
and his care was somewhere between
and the house was old,
in that broke-down kinda way
which makes everything pretty like
children's toys in disorder

there was a wind-chime on the porch that
didn’t make a sound
so I tied a knot in the leather and
the noise went
click clank ding tink tong

6 am is still dark, you know
in that broke-down kinda way
and he said “christ –
you sound depressed,
in that broke-down kinda way"

breakfast for you and me:

2008-01-12T18:26:00.000-08:00

2 poached eggs/dry toast

i’m slicing oranges for your eyelids while darkroasted coffee percolates for your voice is a ground bean in the morning for toes quiet on melted butter tipping over lands with a dripdrip on the linoleum
morning with you is a cat purr and everything at your place has already been exhaled all sweet skin and refined sugar / i love the way you leave the jam outso it’s never cold in the morning

the morning train

2008-01-05T17:46:00.000-08:00

new year's eve

2008-01-03T19:50:00.000-08:00

7 am is still dark,
shrugging off
a low/slow moving valley fog
rolling like liquid
off commercial drive
slide east 1st and return
to the fraser,
it sneaks into (river) bed

This is Seasonal

2007-12-30T05:54:00.001-08:00

Winter is charlie brown trees, humble piano
and dinners with old friends.
Sometimes I wish that things just didn’t
join up so nicely –
the ends of life touch
and there’s no escaping yourself,
especially during the holiday season
when we are locked together
in spiced rum and chocolate
talking about ten years ago --
yeah it makes you sad, but Christ, we had fun.

Happiness and cheer is all minor keys
and smoke lifts in blue swirls while
the snow falls in white ones,
a full belly and an extra 5 to 10 pounds –
please tell me not to be so hard on myself.

V for Vote

2007-12-16T10:50:00.000-08:00

The Chateau

The Winter Garden comes to Surrey

2007-12-13T12:02:00.000-08:00

Mid March through April Being Best for Planting

2007-12-13T11:50:00.000-08:00

I am longing to dance
in a hall where young womyn have
hair wrapped brown and black
in ribbons and the
music is sharp sharp
with click click
of booted heels
belt buckles clack together
when the dancers meet in
the middle

old womyn are there too with hair
tied back in gray bunches – wide hips:
they dance with men
whose limbs have brittled,
clothes made of cotton for better breath
and movement

But those places are country places

and here

we forget/forgo the things
which keep our feet so close
to the ground
I forget how to blush/flushed cheeks
in the small white twinkle lights
of a country dance with feet shuffling
and heels clicking to the suck suck
in of breath and sheepish adolescent love
which shirks through a field of corn,

harvest moons hang low
and neil young is so circa 1980

this is moses

2007-12-07T18:54:00.000-08:00

I know blogging about your cat is pretty lame, but c'mon, this is gold. What a rat face.

jammaker

2007-12-03T19:01:00.000-08:00

who remembers how to jar
peaches and jams and all the
sweet summer things that stick
in your hair

i want to be the jammaker –
followed by bees in the
blackberry season
when mason jars bump together
in the warming pot (clink)

the kitchen is filled with fruit sweet heat
and the thin zipping sound
of tin seals spinning against glass –
while people walk in and out,
strawberries between fingers
and bees in the turbine of their paths

Dezenber

2007-12-02T15:29:00.000-08:00

Corn Maze

2007-11-29T15:49:00.000-08:00

Untitled

2007-11-29T15:46:00.000-08:00

2007-11-03T20:47:00.000-07:00

made of tin

2007-10-27T03:54:00.000-07:00

2007-09-14T03:40:00.000-07:00

long beach, long legs

2007-08-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

crafty!

2007-08-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

gay inc.

2007-08-06T21:08:00.000-07:00

2007-08-06T21:04:00.000-07:00

at the carpenter shop

2007-08-04T13:48:00.000-07:00

floors and green buttons

2007-08-04T13:41:00.000-07:00

geist

2007-07-24T11:48:00.000-07:00

Check out the writer's toolbox from Geist. There's some great stuff rattling about in here, including some "warm-up" exercises, dialogue, diction and grammar tips. All free!

taiga

2007-07-21T21:02:00.000-07:00

37 degrees in
the rainstorm, my remembering
lifts in plumes: steam off
the rainforest which is quick
to forget
the roil and roll,
the slide
down muddy banks
bumping knees and elbows
on all the roots we planted.

postnorthernism

2007-07-19T17:50:00.000-07:00

i saw prince george,
on the destination display
of a greyhound bus
just pulling from the yard,
a foggy morning holding
the whole scene together

just barely hanging

in dew drops and exhaust/
in wheezing air brakes

on main street

i saw prince george
in the reflective windows
of a skyscraper

and then again
in the Serpentine
when it’s waters rose up
and the red sun of evening
was absorbed into
a bell pepper farm on hwy 10

i saw prince george
in a brown cloud of starlings
choking over english bay

mom & dad

2007-07-06T14:28:00.000-07:00

growing up with flowers

2007-06-26T18:09:00.000-07:00

Opening like pale arms
the whitepink // the greenblue
of my petals

of my unfurling leaf hands

1989
was the year of flowers &
peachy worms writhing
in dampblack soil
tree roots bump upward,
elbowing through the ground,
they tear at the fabric --
the grass breaking open like
skin abrasions bursting
with twisted living root --
the back yard in august
as green as
an open mind .

They were florists then,
my mother and her sister --
the basement door open to the yard
& the swollen plants, mid-bloom,
the cement cool under small feet
which tiptoe around buckets
of stemmed roses,
baby’s breath humming
in clouds of cream-coloured buds
while tiger lilies yawn with
open jaws in the orange heat

bodies'ntheburbs

2007-06-24T21:56:00.000-07:00

2007-06-24T21:54:00.000-07:00

been the garden

2007-06-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

light bent

2007-06-22T16:33:00.000-07:00

2007-06-17T10:28:00.000-07:00

She liked him because he was simple and generous in bed. He turned her breasts over gently in each soft, salesman hand while he called her “darling” in breathy gasps. She figured he liked her because she was a woman, and that was easy enough for her anyway.

He was impressed by her presence; the slow way she dressed in the morning and applied lotion to her body, the quiet whirring of her breath in his ear, the sweet, warm smell she left in his sheets and on his clothing. They met at a big staff party for a company neither of them worked for. She had come to bartend as a favor to a friend. He had come to hook up the audio equipment.

Before the party she watched him sweat as he held two cables in his hands, looking puzzled and unfitting in the large empty space, a disco ball swinging high above his head. He had those sad knees that stick out of khaki shorts all knotted and knobbed. His course black hair was graying near his ears and she suddenly saw him as an old man, pouring a ritual glass of scotch. She sliced lemons and stalked straws while he reclined in the dimly lit den of her imagination.

2007-06-01T16:38:00.000-07:00

2007-05-29T21:14:00.000-07:00

contact

2007-05-13T13:02:00.000-07:00

It’s a human thing on public transport at rush hour
when the course hair of your arm touches mine,
conversation is the spicy smell that rises between
and around us while we avoid meeting eyes.

2007-05-10T20:25:00.000-07:00

clamitis

2007-04-22T18:27:00.000-07:00

snow drifts on the columbia icefield

2007-04-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

A Womyn's Place

2007-04-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

There are womyn in the kitchen
stirring pots & breathing rosemary
while chopped garlic
awaits the pan -- they talk
of children growing older, the body &
how they feed & clothe it --
they are wearing earrings their husbands bought,
& wedding bands around their fingers –
there are womyn in the kitchen,
heels clicking on hardwood.

hockey night in canada

2007-04-16T15:42:00.000-07:00

places between places

2007-04-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

looking

2007-03-18T23:15:00.000-07:00

breath flutters in in in like
moth wings powdered
sugar sweetens
the lips.

her hand in a hip pocket w/
a so cool mien,
my gaze is a casualty
in her confidant line of vision

come summer

2007-03-06T23:43:00.000-08:00

i play craggy love songs

from my bedroom and twirl

the idea around my index finger --

girlishly falling into the hollow

of a jumbo country guitar and

thoughts of watermelon, tanned legs;

a southerly attitude toward traffic jams.

2007-02-18T13:19:00.000-08:00

all in stages

2007-02-12T21:06:00.000-08:00

everyone get abbreviated

2007-01-24T22:17:00.000-08:00

yeah baby do something
sexy like handslap curled
lip and eyes that look from
the corners, short skirt and
all that girly stuff, you know
what i’m asking for mussed
hair & a foggy disposition:
you have the right to remain
silent
but red is a screaming colour
and she’s wearing it all over
her mouth.

check it out

2007-01-17T22:30:00.000-08:00

I salute The Canada Counsil for the Arts.

Here is why.

her guilt and shame

2007-01-15T15:44:00.000-08:00

i.
it thickens between her shoulders
a fist at the base of her neck
with muscle closed tightly inside

ii.
like dropping sushi, chopsticks crossed
in error she laughs awkwardly with red face
and nothing but a thinsoiled napkin
soaking up pools of blacksalty soy

iii.
turning over and over
at restless midnight with
a scene from the day stuck
repeating how she said “it’s just my way”
too proudly

iv.
standing at the door monday morning
her brow furrowed in consideration
of red shoes to work which
may not be appropriate