Time for an Update

It's time for an update.

I've been in school for over a month. Admittedly, I was a little intimidated as most other students had university degrees, and in some cases, masters degrees. So far I am happy to say I am holding my own and doing fairly well. I am happy to be back in school. Money is tight, but I'm used to that anyway.

It's unfortunate my time for poetry readings and time to promote RDRR is lagging. I'll really have to work on this as much as I can, even though I go to school full-time and also have a job.

I'm on my way to Peterborough this weekend. That's my hometown. Other than a one-day visit in late July, I've made a trip in mid-March and early June. That's it for this year. I'm excited to be headed home for Thanksgiving. I'm also excited to check out the debut of my good buddy Paul Longhurst's band... I think they're called Revival or something. The band features most of the original members of the now departed Shitreign, who I believe I've discussed somewhere on this blog before.

Hourglass

I can’t tell the difference
between the top or bottom,
the beginning or finish
of the hourglass.
I was born with little depth perception.
The bottom of the slide never seems to come.
Or perhaps I’m just walking a giant magnetic hill,
with its peak too far down.

A doctor prescribed pink-tinted glasses,
thinking they’d help me see better.
I don’t like what’s coming, though I still don't see it.
A 12 or 18-wheeler?
It’s not going to make a difference when it runs you down.
That photo in the local tabloid
of the man burned and bloodied.
I didn’t recognize
the name,
yet I still shuddered.

I can’t see where I’m going
but the feeling of my stomach dropping is not comforting.
I can’t see the top or bottom of the hourglass,
But know one way or another,
sand is falling.



I did receive some really bad news today, on a personal note, which I may or may not choose to post here until after the news is made official.

Exciting Announcement about Rochdale Rhymes and Readings

Rochdale Rhymes and Readings will return on April 2 at the Regal Beagle, 8 pm., 335 Bloor St. West. Features will be two fine spoken word artists in Rahul Gupta, aka, That Brown Bastard and Mike Smith, aka White Noise Machine. There is the usual pass the hat admission, but the open mic has a twist. We will have the second annual Awfulest of National Poetry Month contest. The worst poem will win a prize. So many poets have told me they can win this one. Come try to prove them wrong.

Indigo Sucks for Poetry

So I was at the Indigo in the Manulife Centre today. I was looking in the poetry section, which is small and not so organized to begin with. I could not find Sachiko Murakami's The Invisibility Exhibit. I could find absolutely nothing by Naomi Shihab Nye, whose work I'm fond of. I did purchase Souvankham Thammavongsa's Found from 2007, a book I've flipped through many times but have not owned until now. But I find it sad that at a major two-storey bookstore, poetry is so disregarded.

Poetry and Stuff

I am really excited about tomorrow night (Monday). I am part of an event called Bye Bye Bush. The event features sets hosted by four different hosts (James Dewar, Edward Nixon, Dave Silverberg and Yehuda Fisher with an open mic set hosted by Jeff Cottrill). I am reading on Nixon's set. It takes place at Cervejaria at College and Ossington Streets. I was originally reluctant to get involved as a) Bush is/was not my president and b) there isn't much worth celebrating. However, I am happy an opportunity for change and thus hope for better days ahead in North America is coming.

Also Rochdale Rhymes and Readings takes place on Jan. 29th as we move to the first Thursday of the month (though obviously this is not the first Thursday). Lara Bozabalian, one of the first features at RDRR, as well one of my favourite writers anywhere, Edward Nixon (yes, him again) and Dayle Furlong will feature. It goes down at the Regal Beagle, beside the Bata Shoe Museum on Bloor St.

Bob Snider

Last night I saw Bob Snider at the Free Times Cafe here in Toronto. He doesn't get credit for being the songwriting genius he is. He's definitely the most underrated songwriter I know of. His words are genius. I'll even go out on a really big limb and say there's a possibility he's the best songwriter Canada has. But I wrote a poem about last night.

Bob Snider
The ink bleeds blue
all the way through
this book with a 30 cent pen
found on a shelf at Honest Ed's.
And there's a bookstore with the family name.
Tonight I saw a genius among men.
His body and face would give other ideas.
One may see him and say,
"sorry no change,"
though the book displaying his genius
is available in the store with the Mirvish namesake.
I saw the man in a Jewish cafe tonight.
Bob Snider was his folksy self.
Thrilled he could share his genius with those who cared.
I hadn't enough money for his book.
A beautiful woman wearing a tattooed sleeve,
a beautiful woman, seemingly in and out
told me to go to the point of the books purchase,
which is across the street
from where the point of this pen began.
She offered to share her fortune cookie.
She loved fortunes and hated cookies.
I had my own fortune,
but I can't find it right now.

4 Poems, if You Call it Poetry

These are four poems I've written in the last week. One was about going to an NHL hockey game, sitting in the rich people's seats and watching a man and his date for the night. One is an attempt at writing erotic love poetry. One is about overhearing a conversation with a trio of people outside a pub. One was written while very bored at work on an incredibly slow day, trying to just relax and even meditate and being unable to due to distractions. Enjoy.

Mike


The Hockey Game
And she was holding his hand.
I’ll never know if it was about love or money,
or just a love of money.
And maybe she had all the money
and had a thing for older men.
We sat behind them, Mel,
watching a horrible hockey team play masterfully
in $180 seats given away as easily as a puck from McCabe.
Toskala was great.
Tlusty was grand.
Antropov was fantastic.
For a period of time,
the second period to be exact,
we were fixated on two people in the rich people’s seats.
You whispered,
“Do you want a trophy wife when you’re older?”
People so rich they only hung around for the middle of the game.
Or maybe a bartender knows they never left.
They took the subway home, after all.
Guess who sat beside them?
Fighting a smile was never so hard.
The Leafs will only polish golf clubs this year,
but someone in front of me, has a trophy.

Chocolate
I do want to feel you. I do want my toes to run up and down your legs. I want to feel your skin under bedsheets after midnight and at the rise of sunlight.

Yet, the reality is, I’m greedy. I want more. I want more like a cocaine addict wants more. But I seek something fulfilling. I want you to playfully pull my sweater and pants up and my hat down over my eyes, blinding me to everything but your world. I long for the one who seeks joy proudly prancing around naked, unashamed of all the blemishes we have and never talk about, only trying to let them heal and never covering them up.

I long for something as sensual, beautiful and erotic as us feeding dark chocolate to one another, naked between the sheets in the pitch black of night.


The Spitter
Two lovers and a third wheel
stepped out for a smoke.
The third wheel is a spitter.
"Stop spitting! That's gross!"
Yells the woman.
Her lover kisses her and says,
"Spitting's not gross, swallowing is gross."
The woman yells,
"I know, but he's just spitting saliva!"
The stranger you're ignoring now knows something about you.

Unable
With eyes closed,
I have no idea what awaits me.
I have no idea if an ear-rattling alarm
will abort my trance.
I know I have yet to reach it.
An annoying external voice
holds my head open,
stopping my mind from entering the surreal.
I want to hear, "fucking right, fucking right, fucking right,"
no more.
A wedge between my ears will not allow me to relax.
I cannot enter a dream state.
My meditation is going nowhere,
pre-empted by the sounds
of "Fucking eh, fucking right, what the fuck's that about?"

March 8

A blizzard blasts my eyelids.
I stumble through mountainous snowdrifts
and almost leave a print of my face in one.
"Suck it up," one man tells me.
"This is summer in Sudbury."
I'm now warm in the pub
where they hand out
mint-flavoured lifesavers with meals.
Where the days counting to St. Patrick's Day
change from nine to eight two hours early.
Where a lousy pub band plays music.


I know I am sick, morbid and selfish, when I tell you,
dying tonight wouldn't be so bad
if I had to die young.
I'm in the 27s, though I ain't so famous.
Deathclock once said I'd die on a March 8.
There's a blizzard in the window.
I'm alone on the other side.
The man beside me was here for two pints and leaving.
He's on his fifth and close to gone.
Dying on a Saturday when the world is dead.
I love life and seek to find what tomorrow feeds me.
Yet the rush of death is a once in a lifetime experience.