Welcome to Canada

Yesterday I met a man on the bus.
He found it offensive that we spoke Chinese in public.
He said, "This is Canada. We speak English here. And French."
He said, "Lots of people feel the same way but they keep quiet about it."
He paused.

"People are too tolerant," he said.

We arrived at his stop and as he got off he turned back, saying:

Welcome to Canada.

June viewfinder

Big:

Indecision -
That devil which poisons all
and even permeates the impervious heavens

As in the skies, so below

How can we,
     mere human,
resist?

Medium:

     green
a lush cloud of leaves
blowing in the wind like a crush of emerald waves
in worlds of foam which crest and fall
hiding pearls behind their bubbly backs


Small:

soft spikes,
fruit like sea urchins
You take after your parents
Children, don't be difficult
for Time will take you even from yourself,
eventually.



I meant to post this yesterday night but then I decided to take a nap... and ended up sleeping until 9:30 am. Oh well, I'd say that's well deserved after a busy school year. Need to refuel for exam week now.

Two Rain Poems

Apostrophe
O Rain, have mercy --
Beneath the lashes of your whip we cower;
We run for shelter, and find you have captured us,
O Rain,
in those prison cells we call schools and offices and homes.

Wet Vancouver (a quasi haiku)
Wet Vancouver,
It's 4 days till June.
Why must you torture us so?

road trip

from Chilliwack to home

Silence in the car,

the clouds above cow country accumulating in warm, pregnant layers,

far-reaching and tearful as an overprotective mother.

I blink in the backseat,

fighting sleep until

I don't want to fight anymore.

Recipe for a Reedmaker

1 part talent
2 parts strength
Cane and thread of a considerable length

A couple sharp knives
Razor blades too
The knack for stubbornness through and through

Most importantly, 9 parts frustration
And 10 parts mad -
Now hopefully your reeds won't all be bad.

It SUCKS to be an oboist. Clarinetists think the have it bad but no, they don't even know the beginning of it. I must have been very annoyed on Monday otherwise I wouldn't have been driven to write a RHYMING poem, of all things.

Scrabble

The table is set,
The board laid out,
The wood pieces thrown,
And mixed all about.

"Draw your pieces -
Begin," you say,
"You go first."
And we start to play.

The first word out:
"Sin? No, sine."
Typical.
Now onto the next in line...

Oho! I wrote a rhyming poem. Aren't you proud of me? I have no idea why I suck at rhyming so much, but I do, and as a result I hate writing rhyming poetry, so I usually never do it. I'm so proud of myself today.

Ode to a Sandwich

O delectable baguette!
In a bite, your hard exterior betrays a warm and airy heart;
Your perfectly browned and crackled crust
Reveals your delightfully delicate flesh -
O pure and tender meat!
O sweet and gentle fruit!
O heaven of taste!

A very quick very random poem from the prompt, "tell a story in the form of a love letter." I realized I've been using capital letters a lot recently in my titles. At first I thought all lower-case looked better - softer, somehow - but sometimes you just need caps.

I would like to redo this one day and polish it a more... maybe put it in sonnet form... but chances are slim that I'll find the time, especially for the likes of iambic pentameter! (O elusive meter who doth always escape me!)

nature

springtime pairs wander

in green and secluded glades

scattered with puddles

Lollipop Biker Boy

Lollipop Biker Boy,
Sugar prep lollipop boy
Thought you were smoking a cigarette
But sweetness suits you better.

Cute boy with your canvas boat shoes,
You're lucky because it rained this morning but it's stopped now
And you're dressed for the weather.

My Adonis-like Lollipop Boy,
If you would only slow down and pull over,
Lean over and,
With one foot on the curb, not losing your balance,
Stop me on the sidewalk,
You'd kiss me on the mouth
And your lips would taste sweet...

Shostakovich - a poem in code

two haikus

magnolia blooms,

like wind-blown spirits, bless this

white-petaled morning.

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almost like summer,

yet on the sands the winds raise

goosebumps on my legs.

a poem that should have belonged to yesterday

How come I didn't write this yesterday is a mystery to me. I honestly don't know why I didn't think of it then. I didn't think of it at all until I was on the bus today, after writing another poem on a Tim Horton's paper cup-holder since I had no real paper. I guess I'm getting my inspiration back. I always get ideas on the bus. You'll see the Timmy's poem eventually... I can't decide whether to post it yet since I might incorporate it into another project. This one might end up in that project too. We'll see. And in case you're interested, there wasn't enough space on the cup-holder thing so this one was written on a receipt from the music store.

Today off the train
I met you, and then we met
an earnest old beggar man with a Gandalf beard.
He seemed like a sweet old grandfather,
if a bit dusty.

I gave him the box of cookies meant for you,
And he thanked me and said
"That's very kind.
Now I have a granola bar and some cookies."

And we went on our way.
You never got to try my cookies,
and now all we have are strawberries which are a bit squished and not very filling;
But our hunger means little on a day like this -
I'll live off the warmth of your hands

sleep

It's been so long since I posted anything. It seems like all my ideas from last month ended up unfinished. Somehow I lost momentum. But now it's officially spring and I feel like it'll be coming back. A poem that was actually from last week:

There's the chill from the sheets when first I crawl into bed,
The light dance of raindrops helpless outside my window and
The blued edges of vision as night makes worlds vulnerable;

But between the sheets there is safety,
As warmth spreads from my core to extremities
And my toes become warm.
It is there in the familiarity of the pillows
And the purring of the cat curled up alongside,
A picture of peace,
Exalting in the silkiness of his fur,
Stroked meditatively until sleep pulls me away and my hand
drops

And his purrs fade smoothly away like waves on the sea
Into soft, slow snores.

a very innocent poem

for Crystal

peaked blooms of aerated cream
flower lush upon the smooth delicacy below --

Your pink flickering tongue laps kittenishly,

warm and wet,

and licks a crumb from your soft, sugar-coated lips
and your teeth like candied chalk
which nibble and bite

and
part with the sour-sweet pleasure

in spooning up the five-minute morning sin that is
buttercream and lemon

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This is a very innocent poem. It is about a lovely lemon buttercream cake, quite possibly the best cake I ever ate, that my dear friend Crystal made. She is very talented. One day she will be the top pastry chef in a fancy patisserie, which is good because I will no doubt be a poor (or poor-ish, at the least) musician who can't afford expensive cakes... unless I have a very close friend who was in on the dessert business. Lucky me!

Anyhow. Such a good cake! Oh my goodness. So tempting, so irresistible - not that I tried to resist. It was a cake that demanded a seductive poem. But really. This is a very innocent poem. If you don't think so you should have read the original version. This is the edited and censored final edition. As my other dear friend Howard says, art shouldn't be censored, but... even I wouldn't have felt comfortable posting the original un-censored draft.

another love letter...

...to a stranger on the bus. I write too many of these, although I've never posted one here before. Sometimes when I see someone on the bus or on the street and they have that je-ne-sais-quoi... charisma, I suppose, and I can't resist writing something. I'd like to meet these people in real life, talk to them, but at the same time not really because I'd be afraid of being awkward. I'd prefer to just be awkward on paper. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to write one of these and actually give it to the person. I wouldn't have to talk to them but... it would be a start. What would you feel if someone came up to you as they were getting off the bus and left you a love letter like this? Wouldn't you feel flattered and happy that someone would think of you that way? I would. Or maybe you'd feel creeped out that someone was watching you the whole time. It would depend on the style of writing, I suppose.

This is not very good, I think, but I like it somehow. I guess I'm just a creepy people-watcher.


to a cutie I never knew (this would go on the front of the folded-up paper if I ever went through with it)

Cute blond boy on the bus with brushed hair and
kind eyebrows,
You seem so humble with your canvas jacket the colour of yellowing summer grasses
And your sky-gray scarf and worn-looking backpack.

Your expression so soft and gentle,
I want to ask you out for coffee.
But I am scared -
You seem so sweet that I am afraid you'll be uninterested,
or that you're already seeing someone.
And plus I'm a wimp
And this is my stop

Stepping off the crowded downtown bus
onto a gray and puddly street,
I look back wistfully.
Goodbye, cute boy I never knew.

snippet

"stars like salt crystals scattered across black asphalt"

I was walking outside one night last weekend and, lucky me, for once it wasn't raining. It was pretty near freezing though, and as I hurried along the sidewalk with my shivering elbows tucked in as close as I could, I looked up and I looked down and that's what I saw.

I like the feel of the words in my mouth, especially "asphalt". Such lovely consonants. Not sure if this will end up in a poem or something else yet. We'll see.

prompt from Andrea Hoff - senses

a musty smell of old crumbs
cloys the dim-lit room,
having sunk itself into the stained carpet that peels away to reveal the
yellow linoleum below,
and having leeched into the plaster walls white as day-old snow
and stagnant air

the comforting, peeling scent of cracked old libraries honeyed with age

the light flickers reassuringly as I enter and
breath in
( inhale )

a scarf and a submission to New Shoots

island winter
we are smothered     cradled in

rainforest snow
     , drips,
     foams

Sleep through the icy clouds of dreams -
The snow calls forth nightmares and yearnings which grow hot in our hearts.
We eat and
     crack
cinnamon twigs

Cling to one another and air the embers.

the world cries and flutters and straightens itself
in winter
we live

seafoam snow, bright as magic

I hold in my hand a ring of diamonds that leaves me cold and poor,
So I wrap myself more tightly
and disappear into the melting peace.

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This is a poem for cold weather that I submitted to the New Shoots publication. Snow makes me feel so good, don't you think so too? Too bad we almost never have it in Vancouver. What is the point of it being so cold if it doesn't snow?

I suppose it gives me an excuse to knit. I finished this circle scarf/cowl thing on Christmas eve, well technically Christmas day since it was past midnight, after being sick for a few days and having no energy to do anything except read, watch movies and knit.

Here is my beautiful scarf modeled by my beautiful cat. His name is Pasha. I think it suits him, no? He looks very glamourous. Like a cat movie star.

 

we wait

sky is dark and damp

clouds hang pregnantly, shadows

hiding underfoot

cold feet on sidewalks

of water, leftover rain

in puddles seeping

summer poppies dead

our long-gone days are wasted

winter is heavy

water, water, but

still with the promise of snow

we wait for winter

bearing spring

This was a hard one to write. The idea is that each line (except the last one) is 3 words long, and each word can be used either as a verb or a noun. I like the end result though. 

snow drifts covering
leaf, plant, sun
icing branch, root

wind whistles... cries

love dreams float
     like water ripples
     like wave kisses

lick rain drops --
drink rain tears.
drip drop       -------whisper

rain, scattering troubles,

will voice wishes
will voice spring
bear spring