a sphere, a poem, and... we're PARTYIN'

arrive. divide the lesser evil of exhaustion, anticipation, and pure genius to come up with something as simple as the first indulgent dip in a cooler-than-it-was-yesterday lake. still arriving, recalling that breeze many years ago, that first sip of a sumptuous lounge... that slumbering chair, that part of a glowing sphere (un ballon-disco, Steph might say) that one doesn't always know or gather around. perhaps the other breezes have gone... oh, they think, the world revolves about us, our instant gracious pleasures, but here between the branches and paths that lead to a conscious beach there is no need for momentary conditions. states of mind and measure colliding like small rounded stones beneath the afternoon waves... stones, as small as perfect sand, white lace, the distant southern shore of familiar lakes enduring before sunset. arrived. My own waving, my own unwavering hope (d'accord, Steph might say), I am here. I walk slowly, and the bygone life seems as certain as a tethered road, I walk, and the people who live here, welcome me, talking openly of their poetic friends. Set free. Young again, at tables dug into weathered shores, at the prudent squint of a generous gift, at a dream, at year after year of a bonfire where the world could never end. A forest of black wood clinging to the tongue of a lake I am willing to taste... Greeting. Dreams that talk of tangible escapes. A boulder outgrown. A question, The Don might say, a quest, but why do we stand and why do we linger here? There is another place, somewhere more ancient than a gust of wind, a cloud, an old coin that was never exchanged. We all have a reason to lament! North from here, old railway lines, shouts of conducted ghosts and scenes engraved by an echo envious urban foes might allow... purchase? Paddles too, and a longing to just BE, to flower like those who have always been here. Hypothesis. Resurrection of return, familiar place and people, the creaking of an old door, 1951 perhaps, or 26, or a billion beyond time instances, the center of all flesh? or Luke the Apostle handing his child a scorpion when asked for an egg, lungs and liver heralding the absence of pain, a shaking of all hands, an atlas for the power of a sky that cannot be pretended. Greeted. The notion of all equations ceasing to exist. A chorus repeated like words under duress befelling another prophet whose armour pulsates at the highest of beats (roll of the eyes), stage (wink), pages? Lance look what the child has read! There is honour among plants, among Isabel's grooved thorns. There is beauty in the bottom bunk. There is a scintillating myth, a moral fibre cleansed of any evil that remained. Difference. Feeling the flush of a breeze when the water is warmer than the air, baptized by an eternal coccoon, garrulous worm. The serpent again. And the parable never ends, the parable "cannot get up and give you anything". And Dee says what if you were the last person on earth and you knew you hadn't long to survive, what would you do, (how would you know?), where would you go? And Dee says this is where she'd come, where Daedelus' plane would set her down, floating towards the raft, and Dee says she wouldn't want to die in a plane crash or even a single car accident. Laughter has a toe in the sand, fresh liqueur, and a dog that pees on you. A dog that yawns more than it barks, that knows you are not looking. More people too. More arms and bones and mouths, more tints of foreheads and labyrynth eyes (so blue, Steph might say). At once the table is clean and full, wine sharing its preserve, its grief and laughter uncorked, oh how time has just begun. A bottle for me, she might say. She, this time? To what end a practical dove, a guffaw! Cold air settling among the coals and luminous hearts... the moon is a likeable device, escape, and sometime later the night's bonfire flutters on and feathers to an end! day too, a saturnal peace ringing like the cool edges of outer space, degrees of serenity... creaking of doors (upstairs, bro says a concave hello). first one to rise, sun warming a square of sand where the volleyball court will settle later in the dawn, land? mist appearing like a fog, (un rêve Steph might say if she weren't asleep), eyes not opening as fully as a mindful trance, eyes like bottles scattered though not yet disposed, those half-full stray ones leaning in the sand thinking they've survived and are hidden from a relentless captor, all of the others bowing to a more mortal horizontal end. the chairs are wet. dew has a way of finding the lowest places... dew? It must be aware yet petrified by what it is, how it forms and remains, the unsuspecting wanderer, melting fleece. Jason, how cold was the Northern air? how hot the cauldron of Medea's rage? Simultaneous refreshment from grapes and Graecian woes --- single digit alarm and heat rising from the lake: all the alcohol that warmed us in the evening declares we were drunk and that no other verdict will ever exist! Dionysus, we are not guilty. We are culpable of nothing other than destiny being impaled! This is the liver, the life. These are my lungs, my running shoes and socks that I plan to wear, timing is proof enough, is a heartbeat set aside for now, like a perfect flat sea, a coastline, the delicate middle of the Mexican Gulf, an oil platform and three ducks suddenly pecking between the toes. I've watched them arrive... I've named them after three of my favorite roads (Tiny Beaches, Ul. Piastow, and La Rambla). La Rambla is the least afraid, carries a smirk and has three pecks before going for the emptiness of my hands... Tiny Beaches isn't too far behind, is peckish too, but Ul. Piastow moves much slower, seems older and stands as though waiting on guard. I return to the cottage for some bread, I run all morning with a kind-of amused glance, a sip of G&T along an appreciative shoreline. I swallow pieces of a hot dog bun, sand and water inveigle me. I return twice without the knowledge of hope or experimentation, without knowing which couch I would have preferred, which piece of meat or unbuttered grain (êtes vous heureux? Steph might ask). The panic of my abrupt discoveries would leave me, I would clean the sand, and the chairs that know desire cannot be overwhelmed by suffering. I would expect no meal, no reward. Later on someone will join me, a dog that scratches maybe, or a cultured bee hunting for something I have already poured from my loins! A queen. A worker. We are all tied to distinctions of colour, gravity, and graves. We are all destined to return, to doubt. What if, Sharon would say, that hill didn't move? I am alone. I have piled wood by the sauna, have emptied glasses and their sticky remains. What comes of nothing is nothing but thirst. We've all believed in a different god, in something more simple, one foot in front of the other? The fear is when you stumble, when a stick cuts you from below... ah yes, there is always time for a game, a seven iron or a wedge, and the disruption of a sterile factory, feathers. oh the players! They are phantoms who cannot be praised enough... watch, from here, from warm lugubrious wood, from the top of a building in one of Budapest's trampled squares. Where am I going now? home to Munich, or somewhere I haven't gone? What brave absurdity brought me this sham of a keyboard? I was talking about a god (n'est-ce pas? Steph would cajole.), I was praying for less storms, less bends in the atmosphere, yet it seems there are too many comparisons here. I am relaxed now, counting the judgements I needn't exploit: the skin on an onion that leaves no sentiment, Cebula from a foreign tongue. I don't care if anyone understands -- THIS(?), this is only an exercise, a work-out perhaps, and the weekend I describe has swam and paddled past many seas, has begun to imbibe like an afternoon amid a faraway reverent throng. What's for dinner the reader might say, how many people for your table? glasses for wine? Oh it's true, I never need understanding, I never find gold or spices like the Marco Polo of Strausbourg, the sailing spaghetti Bolognaise, but what if this meat were maddening? How many underlings would understand the underground is undergoing an undetermined and underhanded amount (of) undergrowth? HaHa, LMAO! And you thought I was only doing the crossword. 23 across: beginning of a quote by yet another American hoo-haa foreign exploder! Infamous hehe! Getting giddy perhaps, watching for the dog that likes to pee on people and chairs, only the dry ones too! 11 down: SPHERE! I'm watching Bill's shoulder as it has a projection of the horizon and his brother's helicopter rides. do you know what acrylic lightbulb just went out behind the red felt ropes of the gallery. oh my, this landscape is composure. (77 across: fleur de ____, Steph might know). There's no hiding the wind or bad roads around Eagle Lake, gravel contusions, rutted slices of the city that do not stop for a poor stranded biker, age slowing down... canine pisser, HOC gradation? I'm at a loss for that which envelopes a long forgotten answer. Return to hot dogs and not enough buns. Like they say, the early duck gets the weiner? Ha ha! It must be the moment when a beer opens and all the girls in that Slovakian pub roll their eyes. Rolling, rolling, rollin' isn't that Will in the cabin with a piece of chalk, a golf-pencil holder, extra-curricular exam! I might fail too, I'm only an expert in meeting young women with boyfreinds (you'd like him, Emese might say). Jealous anyone? Oh I could go on forever, I could go on to forget my many generous loves, how temporarily moving they became, (anything else, Sarah might say, see you at the pool). The idea is to hide one's autobiographical pride, a swamp beneath a pine forest, a poem that returns from a patch of unlamentable dew:


Running the Coast

12. Lake B****, S******dge


Don't run anymore, quiet shoreline, lure of steam,
water warmer than air, nervous hand tightening the lace
in an old shoe: one of those not used on good pavement,
(in a race unknown?).

Don't listen to the eyes: blind as a mounted bass,
a cottage dim without movement or pearl-gray light
as still as the concrete intersection from which
you arrived.

Don't let the first few steps humble vermillion toes,
a coil of bark-black whiskers swept
by an onshore breeze, a bottle half-filled with smoke
and the testament of lungs.

Don't run anymore, and make your accomplices
say, "he wasn't here when we awoke!"
Let them smile and talk openly about pets and cars,
(metal and fur), about a synapse that never fades.

Let their voices divide the echoes of grateful tongues,
bread spackled by sand or a cocktail half-gone.
Don't stiffen the legs with calculations loosely held:
how far to go, how steep the hill that hasn't been made.



Interlude. Enter Louie? It must be evening again, and the worst game of billiards this side of the Wrzesnia train station. May I leave my back-pack here and search for the woman I love? Oh how contrite is the wounding of pride, the fangs of one's longest laments. I've read old poets and reviews of poems about clotheslines and crooked necks, I've returned to the scene of my only crime... what if I didn't really love her? Perhaps the wine has fleshed me out, has discarded my sanity and the remedy of a statue dedicated to Athena. Daphne was a nymph? Myrtle mortal in the temple of the Titans... clouds descending like ivy and a chariot drawn by panthers, wet souls, (il pleut, Steph might say)... and the wind so tempting. I've devoured a collage more suitable for Graustarkian eyes, romance, I've hitched a long untenable wagon. The wheels of lust and lariats guide sincere evidence, frightening imageries perhaps, but they say we can handle it. Grab the wheel and helm... and I awake again to another day, remember that last night I was walking the beach alone, under the influence of a greater sphere, under the cogs of mischief and surprise. The early morning is not as cold as anticipated, but it's cloudy again, brief glimpses of sun are culled from the trees behind the cottage. It's windy too, very much so, out of the south and east, not a good direction for these parts I believe. I'm thinking it's Sunday and somewhere, perhaps in an earlier time zone, people are planning a weekly guidance to the church or golf course. I'm thinking they don't have ducks pecking between their toes again. "Not so easy this time," I say to La Rambla, not so fast I say to Tiny Beaches, and what's wrong, why so melancholy? I say to Ul. Piastow... and it quacks in disbelief, disavowing my supposed superiority... and I return on the wide rambling path to the kitchen of the cottage thinking all the time of J., Sarah, Sylvia and Sara, and I remember Sylvia walking along a Northumberland Street sidewalk, smiling as she confessed to once picking her nose. She was wearing freshly plucked rose coloured pumps and a flower printed dress, lilacs maybe, and we were going to meet her father at a B&B near the university. The confession ended when she stepped on a piece of plywood that had been placed across the concrete, an orange cone on one end, construction perhaps, the plywood bent concavely and tilted towards the road. She slipped and yelled, her balance altered even more by the squeal of her voice and new shoes, I grabbed her hand and swung her safely around, and we fell together onto the grass on the other side --- she was on top, not dirty, and I was wearing a good white shirt (green tie) --- for some reason I had forgotten about that til now --- and now I remember Sylvia saying (unknowingly) later that same night that her friend Sara "has the flattest chest"... I didn't respond then? Suddenly I'm back at the shoreline holding pieces of a bagel two feet off the ground. La Rambla is jumping feverishly pecking away until he has a large piece, Tiny Beaches jumps too, but his efforts are weak and low and I have to lower the bagel and drop a piece into his mouth. Ul. Piastow stands closer to the water waits until the other two disappear with their catch, perhaps he or she is the oldest? Oldest, kindest, purplest, and now I see the bottles from last night and the fire that wasn't, maybe the teeny girls were drinking smoke. Maybe the pipes were loaded... (au contraire, Steph might say), and eggs bacon and spoons have made a casserole in the darkness beneath this blanket. I'm still cold. The phlegm of the streetlights in town (across the water) is a hook for the fish that all those who leave will not catch. I'm willing to wait it out... to succeed in a different shore, context, I'm willing to eat and nap, and conjure munificence! Oh bland wall, spider web, dust from the ancient way of trousers and sandals, of cars with round giant steering wheels, a man in a cordoruy hat and a woman who works where she's not "supposed to" -- were you the first couple to kiss in the front seat? To say good-bye, "have a nice day at work", and drive off? Were you the first to grace the morning in a chorus of grave frustration? No, it cannot be, not here, not now in this driveway, this cool and windy yet soothing afternoon! Another evening bestows games beginning anew, DODGE-ball done in a bathing sweat, long skin and shadows of momentary glee... another glass of wine modelling the short ropes and sails that cover white waves.

laughings' stock!

so i know that anticipation can be a devious and dangerous thing, a double-edge sword (Rye and Ginger, maybe?) that one shouldn't over-expose. this weekend (5 days for me) should be something anticipation cannot denude... fresh pavement ahead, also limitless, stocked, coddled, driven, and sunlit rewards. oh yeah, we're going to the cottage, and... we're partying.

sentimental as she

Aha! The day is an ambulant capture, a walking paradise and not a failure as Katy might say. She? Aha, the rolling rolling randomness sleeps during another class, Geography, summer school. Hills. Climates. What a collection of cheap (yet positive) reinforcement. A building of plumes for the material projects. Smokestacks, me? I'm plumage over and over again, the cold side of the moon... over and above the belt buckle that twists in a reversible gold. I'm not so sure of what metals to make, those that sing and whittle away at time or the waves of a harbour in a distant unvisited land. A country? "I've been there," Katy might say. Oh-la-la... Okay, I have lost the life-raft and the anchor, and anything that preserves the galloping hand. Would you prefer to dream about the steamship and the crane that unloads its' hermitage-like cargo... Would you like another person's story modified by starch and shelves of cold jam? Here goes something quizzical, Katy might say...

Reached what i thought was home finally
threw my logic into the bedding of one's self,
my head doing the rest of the resting,
finally an ally? A dream resembling the pillar
and door-sign push. after that, home is not quite
home and i find a roof upon my head,
a future so... someplace in the present
i find myself wanting to contain this tenderness,
this, oh what is it called -- a feeling maybe
but if nobody ever thinks like you do
does that mean you will never fit in?
alone again
my mind lives alone...


Okay so that is what Matty (not Katy) would call dreadful. Awful. Barfatious. Spitting it out I return to reality... and the day is less glittery now: the hokus pokus of passwords and profiles seems to gild the clouds that bless this aerodromatic setting. This droning cognizance. I'm awake, aha, and Katy is a caption forgotten, a time being that never returns...

***roll of my eyes***

Okay. i was fifteen once... i was bored, and i dismissed anything that wasn't confined to the present, to the crowd around me. it was easy, and i was willing to admit that 'everything sux' (lol), besides that, I'm pretty sure I knew everything already even if I hadn't been in a car that passed the 2nd line south...bush party? my friends knew it too, at the bus stop, the arena, the classroom, but then it was probably all a waste of their fur-eeking time too eh. oh yeah, what it was? a moose? lol. i spose we all have those days, "hanging around the golf course", the mall? we thot we'd never have to learn anything really imporant, greater? -- "the sum of lesser-thans", Mr. Zeroing In On Math would say, ha, what a miserable chump he was... what to do with another nothing day? Equals what, yuuuukkkkkkkkkk! They said that guy hung himself with an electric cord, so i guess we were never that lazy (or bored), it rhymes i bet -- lmao -- like rope and penelope, but seriously whatever happened to us was just another event in a series of things destined to eliminate or postpone our perpetual boredom.... or at least deface it in such a way that we wouldn't have to think about it until it actually happened again.

a little smile for the belly dancer inserted here :)
Chad, you won't get it.

Not sure if that makes sense or if the memory of this week is just as confusing as "how many" years ago, lol. what if i just went to the mall and hung out again, old fart? supermodel? or perv? ha! our mall sux, well it does if compared to other new ones in those bigger towns, especially that thing in Kenora, lol... what did we do before it was built though? ha, the oldtimers will remember that, so will Jess and Kory, history buffs, (that's Kory with a K, OK, lol, she's a she)... I'm getting bored again, sorry this post is going nowhere, pffffffffffftttt! Time to hit the beach, play some v-ball, or ultimate on the sand-bar, i wonder who's there today, hey HOT stuff, HOT enough 4-ya? BE there, 11th or 12th concession, noon hour, ice cream? lol-LA LA LA LA-fontaine!

"there was an accident, bikes were everywhere, then a helicopter..."

`
She is only 18, so perhaps the drivers' words are enigmatic, seem lost in the fog of a greater light. Perhaps the news of this accident on a roadway in Germany hasn't affected the world like a bombing during a spectacular 'phrase-ful' day in another part of the world. Perhaps the grief is less indelible to the lens of public sympathy. Perhaps it doesn't matter to those who lament this tragedy how much airtime either of these senseless departures have recieved... perhaps, this questioning is also a way of dousing my own sadness, my unquivering fears.

Riding a bicycle -- on any roadway -- is a dangerous, defenseless pursuit, is putting the body at the mercy of society's good judgement, behaviour. Every cyclist has had close calls, inches to spare, whooshes that graze the ear... every cyclist has heard the sardonic jeers, "get your own effin' road", they'll shout, or perhaps when trying for something more clever we have yet to hear, they'll say, "nice pants lance..." and then speed away. Speeding away... "you..." not like me to be so derelict the "I" arrives here now, me cruising alone, along the slipstream of a country road, the sun behind me, the heat within, and the wind coming from the back and a little to the right... I'm nearing my home, (la maison), crawling a slight, blind hill towards the main highway... could it happen to me? A newly ordained "driver" losing control? A minivan, three kids in the rear seat distracting "my guardian angel"? A man towing a boat? Another pickup squealing its tires, the horse trailer jackknifed into a slide on the edge of the pavement, me jumping onto the soft shoulder, barely able to kick-out, stay upright, barely able to keep my heart beating below its max... the all-of-a-sudden thought that luckily passes! yes the schoolbus slowed to see if all was right, but the driver of that black pick-up barely slowed beyond the skid, he sped around the sloped corner, wheels grinding with every rev, he made a quick right turn at the next stoplight, it was red and barely acknowledged.

It happened like that, the same day the AIS Womens Cycling Team was taken out, swept into a ditch with one foul swipe... BUT me, I'm still upright, signalling a woman through yellow open doors, her hands carrying the shifting weight of a bus full of kids, I signal her to carry onward, to go, I'm okay... ready for the road again, the heartfelt finale. I ride to the same set of stoplights, turn left, feel the wind at my side and the last hill before home burning my empty legs.

New Lease on Resistance.

.
Hello grand sun!

Humid cause? I am sitting in the perch, in the craft,
and the shadow that once descended like a midnight
forum has crept away... It isn't you, my darling,
sweet star softening on a yellow sphere; it isn't you
that roughens this inflection, these strong persuasions
within the somewhere (and if) of where I began.
I'll say perhaps, perhaps, since the conceivable nuance
of tongue and teeth is a vulture waiting to arrive, like
an evacuation of permanance: the tangled run of...
hesitation, roads and vines? A question of contrasts,
of brightness, labyrinths, am I just one?

I'm not the singular wallow, the lurching of a confused
vanishing light, sunset... Three days have passed
like clouds that contest an animating breath,
your lips devouring the cause beforehand, before here,
almost four years, intelligible time racing as though
a celebration aggrieved, a lighting of candles
that needs no glass to protect "them" from the wind. Amiss,
skepticism vaunted, yet hiding beneath a gilded veil, beneath
artless oily legs. Your sign, a crossing of hands and palms,
a touch being sampled, tinges, and felonious thoughts exposed.
I'll apologize, my dear, when the drubbing resumes,
when this naked habitation edges away like hard skin
at the bottom of one's foot. This is my timid side, you'd say,
the point between my toes that feels
no impact from the greatest of steps.

Please admire the mirror and send your favoured cajolings!

the day, the dais, and Piotr Diaz, she said?

Ready. Set... am I pre-empting the cause of a post-exultant coup? The road, how will it fly? Depart. Taking care of the easy things: cards and old books, shampoo, and vague necessities that resemble a wool sweater or water-resistant gloves. She has her hands full, she says, doesn't have time to carry water, bowls of spinach salad, or even dressing made from scratch. This moving, impending move, has brought her living to a standstill, to a full and unabridged stop. Yet the expressions continue... I'm ready, she says, with a seeming unhesitance, and there another podium emerges. And there that twinkle in her voice derives a less obscurable answer, a persuasion of skin, of triumph and muscle from the lower curves of one's spine... I listen then, I follow the folds of cardboard and old warm bedsheets. I follow the voice, the lilt of silk and recognizance, the plan that she, a woman abiding in transience, the one whose lead is as simple as another slab of concrete on a suburban sidewalk, she that never loses her way, her footing assured like an evening walk... I listen then, the names of people in photos without enough light, Tanya, my best friend, she says, Peter, and that ridiculous guy from who-knows-where, another camp perhaps... I listen though the pillows leaning against an empty dresser drawer allow me a moments' reprieve, an inch of space, the lowest slope between hope and fear. What does she think when she talks without stopping? What is the catch, the equation, the loquacious hook, that which amounts to the pulpit of all bare shoulders? Is this the weight of the world? Fate revered, or the personification of blame, critiques? Momus (momentum, I would hear) was still a god reproaching Zeus for his greatest creation, man (humanus), because it had no window into its heart: that its real plans, he said, could never be truly seen.

Ready? Truth. The thought has its own repetition, a reiteration of what can or cannot be fathomed. Depth. She stands alone, unencumbered by the brevity of her own silence, the aloof siren of some emergency vehicle growing ever more distant on another street. A direction opposite to her chosen route. The city, it seems, will hold no goodbye, no parade or final embrace. And she, she prefers to leave nothing to chance, the i in "it" especially, she amends the mirrors of this rented cube downward, adjusting everything else until it is "just so"... she doesn't need the impressions of cork flying from a fine wine, she doesn't need a patch of blue sky rolling behind her, getting smaller than any blind spot could ever be. The horizon, she once said, will never determine what one actually sees!

Go? And the living goes on... the living that once stood like an unending plain, as still as a stream in the sultry candor of remorse. What guilt? She would say. What umpteenth river? Her eyes awash behind a defiant shade -- only noticing the width of the bridge or the bumps and curves that lie beyond its span... and I, I would listen then, to every thud of imperfect pavement, to every breeze of an open window, of other cars going by, wondering what direction us and them will turn, return...

operation colombo (chilean red)

'

Pinochet, limping, could put his face on trial: a life behind bars, wrinkles, propped
by the shadow of legal immunity. Innocent and sick, some say, evading taxes;
yet critics have their own health against them. The hospitals are full, too many
hearts, too many crimson slurs on the feet of absent authority. How long ago
did the chicken-bells toll, leave? (Dying like infected worms?) How old the bribes
of mammals, of scientists leaping between species? Between bamboo drums and
disinfectant that squirms within our long lost thirstings.
This Pinochet is a population, red wine drinking, seated comfortably
amid tables brimmed with salads and rice, the short fancy of annihilation,
saying goodbye with a spoon or barrel. Anything here, (whereever the here may be),
carries the smudges of a handwashed goblet, a dark chalice, a bank balance in synch
with its own confidence. Some say the end is almost inevitable, is blind to calculations,
and doesn't deviate from the master plan. Pinochet dies of course,
in jail, his carcass a swollen lozenge for the wine's incessant dread...
.
.
work in progress

on tourines, taking leeks, and tomato boredom

Not wanting to spin myself or my ever gliding words (spokes as it were) into the twists and turns of my favourite sporting event, I regard each day in July as a stage in a strange unfinished journey. I believe, more fully than desired, that the flight we have chosen, whether alone or in the presence of a "stronger team", remains within us no matter how far we try (or perhaps sometimes it happens without trying) to deviate from the intended course.

It is easy to think (feel) when one is still touring in their youth (unbeknowst as a teen per se or even in the mid_twenties echelon) that the destined end is a lot like pissing from the saddle of moving cyclone: it seems it doesn't matter where the content or spray goes... I never fully mastered this e-motion, this onion crying lack of focus, nor that of other ingredients in soup or false flats. And yet, I have not quite obtained a higher resonance for scouring the road or market for that right combination of spices, be they a riveted green, or that dry nonsensical tongue-in-cheek variety. I speak though, without hindrance, without a loss of motivation or respite. The feeling that I develop (and maybe other age-grouper chowders do too?), is of a compromise being that inches between those spaces that avoid the incessant potholes: a pot-pourri tourine without any constituent love. Sometimes, beneath the seemingly broken core, one is able to inspire...

Alas, I was once told the hills "are alive" with twists of perfection... and today the ride was right. An asparagus of wind... (urine odors notwithstanding), I was spearheaded along the concessions, all curved nose, helmet, and relaxed arms of me. I took the hill on the Cote De La Dalle, a clove of garlic and splash of curry tossed into the terrain, I flowed like broth towards Tiny Beaches Road. Sauteed leeks beefened me. Today the sun was gold and heated itself like moist enviable silk. I dreamt of onion skins... tomatoes dicing the flat falseness of giving up. The wind was hotter still. Driven like a windmill through a stainless steel hand-mixer... I boiled, yet the boiling pace of reason bubbled my metallic grill. I was cleansed of all negativity, and there was no "ending", no point in the distance where I felt the race would be done, where the last stir would stand like a signpost on the side of the road. There was no ladle resting on the ride's abiding rim.

"Any day with the bike, or a soup bowl, is worth savoring." -- a friend named Sylvia

ORDINARY ORDNANCE?

~

This post is justifiable only because the delicate layering of metal and corrosive alternative transience fuels my daily fleeing. Fleet? Today, I am here, at an exact point in momentary momentum that defies all other being... (haha, that might rhyme). Opportunity siphons the grid, the girders? Andthis meander of newly prescribed resilience is an apple core divided by a gilded brownish haze. I am at fault too. I have bitten the leather wrapped controls, and I hold close the trimmed exhaust and fetid spewing of inivisible gases... I am the tinkering wheel, the single unsexed bridge between artillery and resolution. The guilt of these debauching shifting feet knows no grappled mind... Out we go. Out. Damn brain! Limousine'd fate!

This poet is a grandstanding horizon. A small definition of gothic smog, a man and his silhouette frolicking in the assumed nature of thunderstorms. Clatters of Gods. Booms! Golden booms detecting the omnipotent everpresent shadow of the unheard ear. What follows, they say, is nothing more than progress and hearsay.

not forgetting the revolution drummed by a calculating spire

architect. light wind encasing fields of trees
and an otherwise intestinal haze. locomotion
remembered? blue spheres
denuding a soft unbreakable change,
rectangles that dangle like pieces of sky
in paintings the weather forecaster could not see.
a pink blouse. a lawyer forgiving a night of red wine
and photographs to be used in a munificent frame.
slab of concrete descending,
foreboding "center of the universe"
designed by something, (someone?),
whose technique would never yield a singular
grey smokestack. nameplate similar to words
devouring the small print on white cards,
resolution of form over content, a seagull
chewing a red and white flag beyond the green-tiered dome,
the flapped angle of remorse, or justice to a boy now hollowed
by the summers' holiday begun. a parade of leaves
felled in the gardens' suburban home. a place of unpalaced
gold. a whisper of old men walking a boulevard once held,
embraced, in the discerning upheaval of masculinity. crisp
wind twisting again, becoming erect,
grave in the mouth of gravity, teetering
amid soft flesh as though a cushion invented
in one's long intervallic sleep.

Pula -- travel locks

They moved the bus station... brought it north above the hill, they didn't tell the mapmakers or the driver of a taxi who happily collects his tip for tossing a single bag from the trunk. The knapsack is yellow, like the colour of sand beneath a street now strewn with construction.

Pula, one could say that all roads lead there, but there's only two ways in and out. Only one view to the Roman Amphitheatre too! What brings me here milennia after Jason and Medea escaped with the Golden Fleece

Member States of the Pageant Universe

`

We have gathered: a night full of breezes,
shores unsettled. We have lips that whisper
like backgrounds to a river, a voice too,
shedding in pools denied by this (or that) evolving hope.

We have substance attached to our bones,
red sand, mineral water, a flavour that gives
the sky its unending light. We have a leg
to stand on, two that walk, (gold teeth to lie through).

bereft or adrift? breadth or width?

` '

not sure exactly? perhaps hindsightedly, what the previous
poetic "tote" was trying to achieve. it began with a distinct, implacable
or shall we say distinctive intention... the Symbolic,
somewhat pointillistic approach didn't quite develop
like I thought it should.

the weekend arrives, dour, deepening realm,
unwilling to depart with foresight. and us?
they say you like to do your own thing, go
your own puzzling romantic way. lay down the statueque bikini,
let go the pride and imprinted zeros. remember the ancient children,
boys and girls carried by the seven rivers of the underworld.

meet you at the LC - 1823?
the BS - 2059? no confirmation necessary...
my love.

poetic tote for an idealistic friday morning

'

bliss? uneventful footsteps, spreading like
an assembly of emblems and roses ready
to bloom. the garden traps an immigrant
in its turnstile, flight is destined.
the field, with hydro wires and termites,
consults a lone dark window in an office building late at night.

the parrot repeats. men sweeping
in the morning on a distant roadside
do not hear, take the hamburger and fries.
frites, another language might say.
a symphony tills the edges of a skyscraper,
vinegar rubs its own self-inflicted wound.
a woman, who climbs and climbs, never looking
up or down, ascends the blade of a circumvented
helicopter. there is wind.

the fencepost potrays a raindrop
beneath its colouful wings. the immigrant
shelters a family with magazines and packages
of gum. a child reads,
listens with parrot-like obedience,
parody? then, consequence is oblivious
to knowledge, readiness they might say
in battle. a pigeon not eating green olives,
an old man descending to a park bench.
acorns shouting like parents at a hockey game.
faster, over there, get rid of it!

the ideologue (part III -- near Labin, Croatia)

. * part 3 of a poem already published in a well-respected
journal -- this is the draft version of course* . though i think
it may be retitled --- RIDE and RIDICULE

The bus cannot be painted, he says.
it is always moving, side to side, or rolling
raucously, and it rains when mouths are open,
when dips in the road elegantly flow.
"The bus", it speaks slowly, on and on
with an insurmountable flare... i'm alone now,
like another man, sitting at a window in a blue t-shirt,
twisting a cigarette package,
his adroit nervous fingers
unable to reach that greater pause. The length
of his emotions growing shorter, shredding
like a forested hillside that hovers above
a newly carved gravel quarry.

The bus cannot go faster, he says.
This highway is lodged between steep repeating hills,
is as gray as the chimney of a meek village chapel.
It moves like smoke undaunted, like three pines, tall,
sparse, peaking from the apex of a treacherous corner,
it turns like rare food in a weary traveller's stomach.
It is a bucket of conversations,
two businessmen squeezed together, (behind me),
cajoling the prospects for another seaside hotel;
a young girl, cell-phone tucked within a pillow,
promptly saying, or so it seems
from an acute angle, i'll see you soon.

the bus cannot be inert, he says. his accent,
though it is not local, replies like an autumn morning
amid a dearth of luminant steel.
The sun, slow to arrive, commisserates
with a cool fog at the end of a long canal;
the road, its agony unknown, a skeleton
stretching from century to century
to gasps of quotidian time... I am alone still,
breathing lightly, reading a map,
(an arrival plan), believing the Roman Amphitheatre
and the bus station in the city of Pula remain in the places
they always were.

buying that CAR. right now?

`
I'm not over-awed by this contusion
of fear and financial decorum. I'm
not trying to wait for any subsistence
LIKE a lottery winning, or death.

at some point I will find the dotted line,
the space where my signature is less
evasive the smile for a child
whose tears have only just subsided.

a long way from Lourdes

.
where are you going?
where do wish to go?

finally, it seems, the answer is less mutative than the flow of Westernized lead.
gold, a machine that makes your little toe feel the consolation within the wind;
there is relevance in a time stamp, in poor timing.
can you repeat the name of the place again, please?
Encore? how much money do you have? how much
can you get? I feel badly about bringing you
into this world. this province?
the taxes are worse when you cross the border. there are no fences
for finely chopped herbs, these are the products of a soft hand. a moon
that emphasizes "the light" and nothing else. gravity is a link,
a contagious spell the young will never avoid. did you pass
'that strange' baton to the daughters and sons of your friends?
do you have another generation?
i am concerned for the conscience of random summations,
for suitcases in distress. Some say,
Belinda is a dictator. I plotted a coup for the Marxists...
I flew like a cormorant. This is what they eat when the island
in Rice Lake is cleared by Zebra Mussels.

do you own the SE model?
how much did you afford?
these crackers are stale -- this jam, not as sweet.
I discovered these little locks and pop-off things
do not work without automation. i can open the garage
from the next street over.
I can discern my ability to swim
by staying in the medium-fast lane.

Someone, a middle-aged man perhaps, is accustomed
to the fit of an old-cold speedo. This fabric is gratuitous,
generous. This is a leather-wrapped steering wheel.
I paint dots, small circles, from the outer atmosphere
a score of army invaders, red and blue
like malfeasance, or habits that can only get worse.
I prefer the skies of Renaissance artists... a convertible
of the mind... are you sure you don't need these extra
options? let's invoke ourselves a little playtime.
i'll pace this anxious showroom while you make your decision.

no rushing please...
I can deal this for you in twenty minutes,
your credit will be approved. you'll be burning
fire in far-off places
by the middle of next week.
Cut down trees,
Belinda is a dictator driving
an out of gas Hummer. I've played
both sides of the leftist argument.
I've played
random consultations
with grievous enemies.

Didn't you know this would end with a question?
You walking out the glossy showroom, shaking your head
and the hand in your back pocket?

Aigues Mortes -- travel trim.

Compared to the rest of this resplendent country it may seem, at first, that this area known as the Camargue resembles the dull lowlands of Florida. Inland ponds, small rivers, marshes, even a few untidy "tourist traps" spot the minor highways and national routes. Not to say that this area (or even Florida for that matter) are tedious to the first impressive eye

They cave has relocated, beyond the walls and paths where bulls are made to walk.

Saba -- travel bangs

They wouldn't move the island or its harbour on the south slope.

have I been... away?

`

what time is your bus?
do u know the cement crumbling from this curb
does not flow into a sewer grate?
charity is a whiff of diesel-blend grass,
the sloped sides of a forgettable road.
the cold arctic airmass above us
is like a pasture accepting its long wait.

what time will u leave your office?
do u believe in the shadow of the hubcap?
i am in the beginning phases.
i am a shallow area of low pressure -- light blue
on the radar screen. the lines you see are formed
and faced by miserable glances...

commuting is an inglorious waste of one's
death.

CAFE DES CERCLES...

Boulevard de la Grotte

the clouds seem closer here,
the sun, a less-defiant harbouring,
the mountains seem undivided
(like the memory of an insufficient God,
a point above where miracles come hindered
by candlelight), a walk is only a pilgrimage
if the intent is there, trinkled offerings
remains as they were -- winding roads
of second-hand shopping, two star hotels
with celestial gritty bends... a grotto

running the coast (toronto)

` Running the Coast '


Breaks like day or hour, urban coast.
Between trickles of a gravel stomach,
panged steps, and breaths
that ripple along railings and a shore
of pebbled concrete. An unpainted mass.
Here a path with green and blue broken
lines, geese that acknowledge their own trails,
vomit, the ascended summits of small hills.
Vapours as permanent
as an afternoon grid, a long series of lights,
vehicles not moving. The twitter and curse
of a helicopter watching from above, reporting,
perhaps seeing my miles per hour
rise ever so slightly -- like a curve
of Nature that gleams amid a "mobile wind"
a sketch of breakwalls and sailboats. The setting
of bows beyond suns and an island
which the Natives wouldn't bridge or name.

Still the wind is a hurdle for those who remain
behind glass, behind land or sail, a configuration
we may never know: strength, temperature,
or era. Was it the shield of Achillees
or the fleeting skin of Zadopek? Achillees, I know,
has come and gone -- has grown, like a hamstring
stung by the hills of Troy. The achillees
comes and goes, entrusts itself to the mind,
to a cold-water recovery, a cross seperate and bare
from the rest of the body. The body saying,
"tomorrow I may not go!"
Tomorrow the forgotten moment
of dehyradation, limbo - both feet lingering
in the air... a raised white bridge where one
wants to turn around, feels the wind at their back
and another runner climbing the steps from below.

resuming the scenario --- of use and miscellaneous testing

.
I fling the fast and dying merchant a faint denomination,
ask that memory be kept like pavement
beside an rageless river --as though the yellowy lines
had buckled only once before. I pass the market
where statuesque rows linger well before dawn

i am damp and heavy and tilting towards...

...
a dry camera lens.
my head rises beyond the edge
of the film. a computer labours
behind me,
its screen is blank,
a kind of grey one
sees in a Southern swamp,
there is a bottle of water
near the keyboard,
half full with its label
peeled. i remember
high school and how my friend Erin said
that meant you were horny. i remember
the difference between then and then. we
never made it to a hotel room,
to one of our own beds

miscallenous percussions, symbols of reunion

`
`

with

so this is how we define ourselves,
with a world protected by harbours
redundant in the size of theiir shore. with
miraculous pebbles, and a conscience cleared
of all extinct currents.

this is our defense. a body of water that moves
like a crowd but doesn't nudge, that doesn't resist
the visible bottom -- or carry its hat
among the waves. there's nothing but
pleasure here,
the fortune of holidays
and weekend receipts,
hard work that once was.

this is our visiting breath,
a willingness as dry as the sight
of a neighbour in the yard, walking
slowly perhaps,
deciding which colour of siding
she'll use for her house...

the green is brighter than chlorophyll should allow *

those words are not mine, 'my title', mon bon joue!
they belong to JLo (he's a runner-poet & not the singer-cum-actor-ess).

how does two months go by with barely a thought for entering here?
I'm guessing I'm not remotely as obessessed about blogging as the people
in the article I read yesterday at maisonneuve.org. Maybe I was too
busy getting ready for the big race, big trip.

The plan was to blog from the various places that I visited,
to let the world know what I was doing, thinking, seeing.
But, the truth being what it is, I didn't even think about blogging
when I was at any of the internet cafes --- all I did was check
e-mail and stock prices :)

Perhaps it would have taken too long anyway
considering some of the charges they were asking.
The only real cheap / reasonably priced cafes I found were in Ljubljana,
Besancon, and Valenciennes.... the other ones seemed to be a bit
exhorbitant given the quality of their systems. Alas, I was able
to stay in touch and find out what I needed from over here...
not that I really cared that much,
I was on vacation after all,
and getting away is really
the whole point of being somewhere else.

from a plunging boat: body wash

.

soft breach, waves deafening their own momentum.
a bathtub that deserves a better name --- like Agamemnon
or Argos
or the bays near Pula
the amping blue Adriatic,
resistance and mist
stones garnering what's left of an empire
what hasn't been voted out.

automated fist.

.
AUTOMATED FIST
.

The mind of its own is permanent,
has tenure, stretches upward,  
an umbrella beneath a distant rain...
The mind of its own is permeable,
floats amid metallic spires,
dandles with the wind - like
a shrine's brightened extremities.

The mind of its own is pedantic,
covers itself with a simple skull,
with shadows and hymns,
and the roots of a city that once grew corn.
The mind of its own is motion,
clenching the horizon like a new moon,
like a fist admitting -- it cannot close...

a milestone... memories bereft?

It's been little more than a year now, since this breath of experimentation began, and the bark upon the brain seems a little less fixiated,  and the circles around the eyes (swim goggles, you say?)  aren't quite as clear either.  Yet I wonder (STILL I wonder), are you really planning a visit to a place called KISKUNFELEGYHAZA (sans accents, mais it sounds like --- le meme chose!)?

Input country guess here: __________________________.

I believe my first ever blog mentioned something about the Tour and that Lance was about win, well a year later and it's happened again.  Hurray, Boo!!!  No not really any of the former or the latter... to tell ya the truth the tour was a disappointing cake-walk, the cycling / action was good and I enjoyed watching most of it but the outcome was never in question.  How is it that one team is so much stronger than all of the others?  Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....  there's always a question.  So now after another year of my own internal combustions, overhead cam-eras, this blog thingamajig hasn't quite progressed as planned... it's cool and I like but it hasn't become part of my daily agenda --- perhaps because I don't have as much time to spend on such inanimate objectives as I'd like to, and also because I guess I prefer to keep things (my life, for instance) as simultaneously simple and convuluted as possible.  How can that be?

I'd like it to be more pedantic, like this afternoon a gull flew against my window, the CN tower drowned (doused?) in fog, a shroud of noise from the building of buildings below, a crane, and a fast unscheduled walk through Queens Park (thoughtful monarchs avowed).  And yet I don't want to dull or devour the reader with quotidien simplicity, perhaps there is a balance amid mundaneness and my penchant for obscurity, oh yes the fever is rolling, the great awakening, the sonic concomitant (embodied by the weekend sun -- not weakening)...

Or maybe I just want to use this forum to explore my language, my relevant voices...  maybe something concrete like the building of buildings will cement its towering authority here.  Maybe I am not a single a pane of glass...

the long wind

.
A blast of contuded oxygen?
foreign flecked assault.
Rain and dust peppering
the border between assumptions
and retrieval. Perhaps none
of the followers in this grand redundancy
need fear the pricing of information,
the breeze that rises from tills
through holes in translucent windows.
Circles of undoubt?

Seeing the White Fence

There, passed by tractors and convertibles,
hands fluttering unbeknown to a naive eye,
flickering grains of refuge
left by the breeze of teenagers - their long skin
seeking those sands and suns of independence...

or he says, ego is self-contained,

renders the unamused.
Terrible lack of animosity,
here? Post-haste me your thoughts
my dearest betrothed... felled voluptious
tree,
innocuous branching of fate
that yearns like lengthwise pavement,
a heart (is that what I really meant?)
parallel to a grey de-summarized sky.
Only humanity could go more unnoticed.
Not really sky, I should think,
or light years away... not really
justice, he said.

They say it rains when it pours,
that ditches cannot feel pain,
and freshly cut shrubs don't need
the rich impediments of a newfound spring
that they will be warm and speckled
where-ever they land --- like whiteness
on an innocent wooden fence, like a gate,
unopened, or dichotomies... ever-present
torrential streams. Blue-boxes
at the edge of a gravel driveway.

I do not check the Recycle Bin anymore
but I still adore you... how does one say

au revoir without really meaning it?

GOODBYE.
GOODER-BYE.
DO-WID-ZENIA.
Effing OFF... for now.

. HEARTfelt MIKA.

x marXist the spot... Sopot? or Hel?

*
ELeCTION dAYLIgHT
*

pourquois les références vers la Pologne?
have you seen the zagging of epitaphs?
the Great Danzigian Bay, imperial wit?
yet they say, he is here to confound,
with inexplicable (yet understandable) French
inserted like a string of modified starches,
with 12-carat mischief clenched by a democratic hand.
There is always an abrasion to communication,
a diamond-held finger cutting the layers of a golden cake,
there is remant food (nourriture) housed in strange buffets,
and votes to be served... still? somewhere else,
maybe trailing a plane that circles a city skyline
it may be written, that words and pictures cannot be objectified,
yet here, plain, invalid here, I can pretend, I understand the message,
I can say, I have heard the people and their power.
*
I suppose the resulting anger was devoured by an inconstant fear,
by red lights ascending to the tips of bells and parliaments,
to benches stripped of their blue and green,
to orange juice squeezed from Caribbean Cafes
into glasses inured with feckless spots.
These are the times when the roomy tables of the New Proletariat
are infested by the ranting of political thieves, children smiling
in the background, daughters as pure as those lonely girls
on Bikini Beach (Wasaga not discounted), daughters as dour and aplomb
as the feelings for their one inherited brother,
the ones the reporters have named (gratitude Rich?)
the one that waltzes away, tabulates,
and spends each last pellucid moment of the everyday
scouring for safety.
*
Perhaps it's also true that their long, slim hairlines,
and slender mouths, have yet to spark riotous acts in suburban grottos,
have yet to tremble beneath the poor brinkmanship of indebted contractors,
have yet to waste their gorgeous (and stubbornly generous) ulcers
on small wooded ravines that tussle the roads straddling the city,
have yet to feel a day going by that couldn't be won...
*
Later in the evenings, whilst the elder Richard
ponders an inconstitutable sky, white yet puffy,
the clock passes the time of Szymborska's Universe,
and brandy becomes a flicker of pine-scented verandah,
and that daughter with bikini entrails,
with waxed poetic legs and polished germs --- seeks nothing
but the hypnosis of a good photograph, of the ridges that linger
on rouge'd pursed lips, that cleanse the teeth
of anything leafy or green. And in those ravines
where the city is safe, unusuable 2x4's are now discarded,
a discomfiture of metal and glass bubbles towards life,
escapes its 4x4 past, opens its mouth and gazes at the iridescent stake,
with tepid indulgence it sends a shiver of momentum onto the roadway...

sadly, the sun has turned around again!

Physics, they said. Ergonomic heavens, and salutations from a smiling (solarity)
re-drawn by children in the last hours of the school-year. Hurrah! Hurrah!
What happens to the universe when the faint strands of grassy fields need
moments of watering? What happens to -----saturated------ apologies! I've
summoned myself to a momentous cause, to making the sky feel less debilitating
at five in the morning...

Sadly, un-sporadically, the day has dawned for the sun to turn, return,
to take back what it once wished was given away [like a cave man (woman?)
who decides a hut of straw is better than a cave]... alas I loathe this
celestial timing almost as much as the seventh hour of the seventh day
after finishing a marathon. One thinks then, what's next, is this Recovery
all that I've waited for?

Contagious congratulations (con-graduations) to the true Pillars of this post.
Les enfants (not really enfants, are they?) who move forward into the next biggest
challenges of their lives... to our f****ite (careful, Uncle) niece who's roamed
thru Nice, who is very nice and kind (and loves her Frances). Congratulations on
your awards and accomplishments, and get ready for all the new challenges and
successes of high school: those next "best years" of your life (at least until
university or unitl your 35 anyway)...

To our f*****ite nephew who's climbed the hills in Vaduz, who once said, the last
step's a doozie!. Well, (to paraphrase Bob Cole) I can tell ya, the next step
IS a doozie! Have fun in London with school and athletics, and remember that from
here on it's not one's talents that are not so imperative: it's all about Hard Work
and Determination!!!

the resulting fire was conceded to the onrushing foam

Mon Etape,

où disparaît-il ?

ocean sphincter - say what? quoi? qui-vas-la?
okay juvenalia, sumpsimus retort, a bientot, "GO --- a-way!"

from AFM (EP, pg 138-9)

SONNET OF ESCAPE

Even the body's resistance transforms
a sky delivered without sight, eyes lean
with the weight of blood, gray-worn mountains,
or a Winter's breast disguised as motionless ice.
Sleep prepares for the pulse of dusk,
for clouds contoured like bells or parliaments,
like humanity bleached and absolute.
Even the heavy hollowness framing the body's
absence passes further than the protection
of a glacial shore. Beyond the valley melting
in its own distant remorse a solid singular stone
flickers with gravity, hue, and a fountain
of vacant colour straining to perceive...
Here, a narrow ray of flesh, a mineral
as grateful as any ore, unveiled, remaining
ever so briefly, like a spark
only those who've never been free - could feel.

track & field reality: happy, skippy, and a little bit jumpy...

~*~*~

Today then, with a little conjuring from the wind,
and a little disguising from an adjustment in attitude,
the brave issuers of joy
will prevail. Today, the stops
and starts of hammers and nails
will not cause the world to concede its pain.
The swishing of moisture that once was home
will subside like oil in a field of unused locomotives...
nature has its way of returning the grain, the miniature
grroves that seize the day. Never mind the arses in AVPs,
the cold filaments of their egos...

I've never met an emergency that couldn't wait.

And mon ami Pat, congratulations on your ninth place
jump. it may not seem so ascendant right now
but perhaps, in the middling years it will become
more inspirational (optimistic?).

Get this day over with.

Flush!! (a soldiers' armour in decline?)

+*+

FATIGUE and EQUILIBRIUM

for no-one in particular (again!)

*+*

At the sign beneath the airport
which says no smoking or firearms,
walking amid dust and reconciliation,
a mysterious gray passport draws no attention to itself.
From its eyes comes the conduct of a bland ocean, whispers,
while the limited carrying of foreign words ascend
like resolute ramps, like a conqueror whose downfall
from an endangered disease never felt more imminent...

Yet before the hero understands the ambiguous guard
staring at a stage made for a many-headed Paris,
the true face of dying light looks, not only of Athens
or Rome (or the views of an Empire
in decoration and narrative),
but of mysticism against those scenes through which
the blinds of another 'better life' seem transparent.

My favorite act in this perception
is a narcotic we've called enviroment,
as practical as a cannon
or a television screen: (easy to inflame).
Yet the one who engraves this flag-induced participation,
this cynical escape of gallantry, yields nothing more
than the staggering last stamp of a cause that resembles
a curse.

the making of...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

this is the making of
(the making of)
this poem. watch me now,
hands wringing with the inserts of time,
inked feet smiling so smugly - as cool

as an unwashed phrase.
eyes tickled by the tap
tap-tap of the ocean,
the crossed beginning

of toes,

of triumphant teeth, a melange
du jour in the body's movement.
watch me now, as I was then,
in the making of, in the "ness"
of me -- tribulations

of veins and vesseled
ingredients. the tap
tap-tap

of camouflage,

uncoloured dreams -- this is
the making of (the making of),
who says you can't eat your own cake?

the no-lookers

^

had it been the just gods wearing sunglasses,
the baggy shorts that loom with shadows
covering their knees. had it been the repository
of sandals amidst the sand-splashed cross-walks...
imprints, laughter and the dogma or climate,
perhaps here the pavement would never be dry,
the glossa of insects would hang from the roadside,

a sudden turn of fashion.

it was the past that crept by, while we,
the peasant cloaks divided our words
with photos of descendants whose time
had yet to flee their hearts.

heatin' up in there.

at last summer, real warmth and sun.
enough to make the zig-man happy. Moi aussi, running
without tights, or a vest, imagine. Who'd ever thought
we fell such freedom.

good luck with your exams. Mika................

UWAGA!

For some reason this is my new favourite Polish word...
it means attention, ATTENTION en francais, I think it might also mean
"look-out", beware, or take notice --- but that's just my guesses.

If, (when), I start my own little publishing thing, it will be called
UWAGA Press, and it will go hand in shovel with my other as-yet
begun operation ------ GuiltyAsThin Productions.
This replaces my former favourite Polish word --- Przsyprazsam (sp)
and of course the belaboured Prszypraszam Press, which along with
meaning "Excuse Me!" has yet to find its beautifully translateble
self.


Okay, so how about I write a poem now, perhaps I'll call it...

Change Due

Belly Dancers wriggle into the background,
a man whom I know, or more correctly,
who is from my town - lets twenty dollars
drop from his lap, his fingers are stretched
and uneven.

Somewhere -- in a corner vestibule
there is only the cold silence of a newspaper...
there is waiting,

`~`

april is a cruller month

if, one goes by the institution of advertising, one might believe that Maple Crullers
will soon be available at our most infamous Canadian institution. perhaps, not
disproportionatley so, the bark that carries the thirst that is gradual and addictive,
has never been greater.


me --- you would think after a month of blog (Quebecois?) abstinence, I would
have something less innocuous to put here. Maybe tomorrow.

not working hard enough

~~

I guess it is sometimes difficult to asses what is meant by "hard enough"
and of course, one needs to know what one is referring to... in this case
it's all about The Novel, that which is titled --- The Line of Control.

Seems like I need an extra few hours a day in order to get anything done,
perhaps a bit more energy too --- since all of the training and extra time
at the office are making me prose-lazy. That being said I have finished the
poem below, here is the latest version:


Descent and Extinction


Sagacity, when aloft, exchanges oxygen for fate. Heat.
The wheels of a jumpy airplane, lowering. At some point
everyone wonders, what will happen when we land?

Perhaps it is these clouds that are colder than the stillness
of snow-lined fields (in suburbia) — colder than war
for the sake of war, without marked runways or rhetoric.

Sometimes, as a distinct entity, or even as a whole,
we are caught within the white and black of our own ammunition
and we wander from moment to opaque moment…

Up here, without the natural selection of wounds or respiration,
reason seems like the hostage of a latched door,
an aisle, a rounded plastic window — partially fogged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to March mes amis. It's warm and grey here
yet I managed to bike outside on the weekend (in February,
in Canada -- wow who'd have thought).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Cheers, MIKA!

confused? or inebriatedly fogged?

--

pourquoi,

home? for an ex-change...

............................................................................

altitude and extinction

Sagacity, though soft, exchanges oxygen for fate, sweat.
The jumpy wheels of an airplane, lowering. At some point,

everyone wonders --- what will happen when we land?
Perhaps Jupiters' clouds are colder than we could ever imagine,

like the stillness of copper green domes (in February),
like war for the sake of war, without marked runways or rhetoric.

Sometimes, as a distinct entity or a whole, we are caught
within the black and white of our own ammunition,

and we wander from each moment to another moment - without sight
or natural selection. Up here, solitude seems like a codicil of thought

and waste, like the envied hostage of a latched door,
an aisle, a rounded plastic window ---- partially fogged.


*****Okay, so it is not the most uplifting shit to begin the week.
Sunday evening. Evening out the time between hope and happiness.
I have returned to that so-called reality, to TO. Soon I suspect,
I will be on the road again, Spain, vacation, property, properly....

Madrid, part two!

Things are fine here. The siestas are welcome, though I'd rather exercise.
I've re-written the poem for X that was included before. Remarkable timing I must say...
I hope, mon ami, you understand Y, you say you remember but I have my doubts.


Past the Church, a Bridge

for no-one in particular — anymore…


The perception of steps beneath a steeple, us,
a rainy morning in August
and the doors are black and wet, closed.
God's will, you say, believing that everything happens,
(must happen), for a reason…

Yet the traffic beside us on Bloor Street
is another truth we cannot discuss,
is just cars passing exhaust
and silent directions. Right, right, then left,
then a yellow light and a chance for collision.

Everything here is defined by wide lanes,
by the yielding of stems and branches to the viaduct,
where, in the wind, we walk, pause,
with the jitters of subway trains going east and west,
with a way that reason cannot avoid.

...Madrid!

working at last, researching, after a few days of not knowing the reason I was here. It is hard to enjoy such a beautiful city when one is a little jet-lagged (four hours in London will do that) and hasn't heard from Ms. Whyte as to the planned order of business.

alas, I did settle down in the hotel / apartment room (?) where they've put me. Luckily I'm not that close to any of the museums and I could waste a few hours travelling there and back. Will write more once I believe I've found what I'm looking for, or when something interesting happens and I get my Spanish legs. I did go for a little run today but the traffic was a little hectic until I reached the park.

I didn't get lost either! Cheers, MIKA.

one of many corrections for X

X
X to the power of
X minus y
X squared

'deel' is spelled DEAL!!

I thought you had a better understanding of mathematics, derivatives, hope?

In light of understanding, or lack thereof, and in the presence of an equation that no longer makes sense... here, coincidentally, is a poem I wrote on the day of your... rescinding. X-it, if you must.



Below the Bridge Someone Holds a Sword

for no-one in particular — anymore…


The perception of a step beneath a steeple, us,
a rainy morning in August
and the door is black and wet, closed.
God's will, you say, believing that everything happens,
(must happen), for a reason…

But the traffic on Bloor Street is another truth we cannot discuss,
is just cars passing exhaust, and silent directions.
Right, right, then left,
then a yellow light and a chance for collision.
Everything here is defined by wide lanes,
by the yielding of grass and trees to the viaduct,
where I walk, pause, in the wind,
in the jitters of subway trains going east and west,
in a way that reason cannot avoid.

hooray for the USA?!

Well at last, Dubya MD, has requested an inquiry into the case of the missing WMD.

But that's not the reason for this title. Would you believe an American Journal (academic) has accepted some of my work... c'est vrai!!!! Au revoir.

MIKA

remaining grounded...

No shadows here, 718 am, another grey dawn accumulating in the western hue of the city. between the dusty blinds of this unofficial perch, 8th floor cublicle, blay and boored, or is it dazed and bored... the distance from here to that smokestack on Mimico Bay seems a little trite this morning, a little farther away than it ought to be. what would we all give for the exhaust of '...six weeks from now?' Warmth, sun, a break in spring, god willing the noise of melting will ascend from the pavement and the grasses, the trails that gather runners and dogs, a flight, an imagining of asymptotic mammals. The weekend that was has passed too quickly, too dimly, perhaps another moment of sun was needed, another hour, why is there always a limit to daylight...

On Saturday one of my many good friends from the Group, errr... Gang of Eight (in the no-longer-so-small Town) got married... a January wedding you say? How antidotical? antipodean? But yeah, with the recent plummetting of snow and temperature it was definitely crisp and white, and a wonderfully rambling event and amusing time. Details? Type-o's?

To begin, I'll avoid any mention of the 2hr 45 minute drive on friday night, snow, wind, slush, traffic! Horrendous conditions, they said, every ten minutes on the ones. I won't disclose my purple hair either (Thanks Jen!) or the person who called in sick, one and the same, he scoffed. For the second part, mon ami, you are absolved, short notice and all, it must have been (was) my fault. Reticence is terminal, so I won't mention anything sentimental or sappy either, love you!. I will tell you I picked up my new black suit the thursday before, looks good, looks well, looks "slimming", ha ha, nice tie too, one too many fashion shows or what? Go away. Not to worry, not to wear.

Love U!

Mrs. H telephoned (rang, I suppose), requesting a lift to the church, seems she was bumped in the rear by an officer of the local constabulary, slick roads, slight grade, slow cornering... a Minardi perhaps. I obliged of course, not waving good (du) bye at the bottom of the crescent, is this a new green car do-you-buy, you might say? I mean do-buy, doo-bee, you ask? Rolling on. Parked nicely, sidewalk view, a neighbour to the big dark ice-snow dump from the front tire of a F150 monster, blue, black, shadowy. Small steps. Now we're inside, much jocularity and hanging of coats, now we're seated, now we're not... must be going to the front row, alas I remember that my phone might ring again, perhaps in the middle of the cermeony of crowns... the vows, perhaps with the toddled march of the ring bearers (or as they call them in the city to the south of us --- BARRIERS!) Oh yeah, the phone is ringing... is that you my dear Jen? What? It's okay.... really... you can't make it, not feeling well... I understand, I'm sure the guys will go lightly, no razzing necessary. Empty palace, empty place... LOVE you, STILL!!!!

Alas I am putting the cart before the bride (just kidding Kel, you're a beauty, and always will be!), returned to my seat, escorted, cajoled, meekly sitting, at peace, Grrrrrr.... moments later nothing has happened, a few more moments later annnnnnddddddddddd nothing happens... waiting for the sky to clear, waiting, alors I think a ghost has appeared. Nope it's only the groom, paler than a white russian on Christmas Eve. There were grander entrances to follow...

finer en-chantments. No the priest is not singing entirely in Greek, servant Archie... servant Kelly... one, two, three, and plenty more children... or something like that. The ceremony was actually very nice - a few kids were a bit unruly, a few chuckles from the groomsmen but all and all very painless and very few tears since most people weren't sure what was happening. Besides it was all over in a matter of an hour, Not Bad at all.

If I have time I will bring you to the reception, (not a bad unintended pun, I must say).

needing a break? new black suit?

I believe you. I believe the word doldrums was created perfectly...

condensed, but uninterrupted.

Save the thinly-veiled domes at the end of grand European Avenues --- there are no machinations of beauty or despair which are hemmed or lengthened depending on the architect's eye, the rule - as it were, laying flat and level, is to construct the candidature of sight and function. A line here, rising, or perhaps a suspended jaunt, where does it go? where does it end?
Magic and majesty aren't always apropos!

up to.........coupon........................... date!

today, a veritable January ruse. minus 30, minus the wind. minus a blanket of fresh unfluctuating snow and of course that genuine smokestack steam floating south-west across the building-tops. as insoluable as fear or rest, and contrary to the consolation of last nights' workout, regime, and to a lesser degree (ha ha) the revelations from golden publishers.

If they ask, how curious these cold myths? this blatant information, chilled apostrophes' --- akin to the heat of instant implication... (Bracketed Aside: I have perused the wealth of facts and the wealth of figures, the bon mots, perked ears, and I've coerced the cristalized crossing of these macro-economized vacillations, and the issue of 4th quarter earnings, up $5, an analyst might say, their disclosure not premeditated. But no, not yet, I can't reveal all that I'm worth [I'm thinking of the bigger picture], the larger ebb and the higher flood...), I must retort to them, is 8 percent really enough? Indoors. I go...

Gladly, my achillees is improving. Yesterday a 4K warm-up.
2x1K, 2x800, and 4x600 (not too hard I thought, but according to Rachel's 'spinner timing' I was moving pretty good). 2K warm-down, stretching, weights and core strength exercises. Happiness. Relief. Until the next laps -- MIKA out.

scuba DUDE, too!

Returning to TO was a bit of a letdown as the tropical wisdom that sluiced within me seemed to postpone a lot of my Christmas spirit (even if I was humming Feliz Navidad, Caribbean-style), not only that but we had to say goodbye to Eveline of AT, a Chilean marvel, and to endure 4 hours of waiting at the airport in St. Martin ---- everything hot and closed since it was late in the evening and there were no breezes, clean empty benches, or beers to be found (unless you were seated near TC, that traveller of Wobbly Legs and Stuffed Carry-On Baggage fame). Air Transat, invariably late, invariably incommunicative, actually provided a nice plane, something a a lot newer and roomier than what we flew down on, although they did try to detain Herr Ziggy a few times on the way through the ticket line, boarding pass check, blah blah blah, how many times do you wish to see my identification? It's here somewhere... Now I know he is quite the ringer for a terrorist and I KNOW security is of vital importance to us all but anyone wary of the anti-cyclonic "Pops' probably needs a different modus operandi. Greetings Gustav of Gestapo --- red alert red ALERT!! Your papers. Code Orange! ummmm... excuse me Sir but you won't be allowed on this plane even though you've shown us your passport three times already and boarding pass twice! Bewildered Tiger, Uncomfortable Tiger? Draggin On... Pause. Pause. But Miss I'm with him, he says. And yes, that's been said many times, fingers pointing, eyes belaboured -- upon me, innocent me, nodding, and certainly it's almost always true --- they are with me, and I am innocent, but alors - perhaps this kerfuffle only added to the levity of such an exhausting farcical ad-venture (return?)... here we were already more than an hour late and now they were implicating "US" (Pops and me) in any further delay. [Note: we found the troublesome boarding pass moments after take-off, but by then they didn't care about it, want it, acknowledge it.]

Alas, the flight / ride home was decent despite the pluggedness developing within my ear. The roast beef hockey puck sandwich wasn't as bad as first feared, the cranberry juice was good. I slept for a bit and managed to awaken on descent - my inner ears a little turbulent, and painful, considering I couldn't equalize! Celine I'm trying my best, really. Please don't make that quizzically disappointed face.

Early morning (it was after 230 when we gated) was spent waiting for 'the luggage', carousel 8, then 7, do I hear 6? There's a problem with the... loudspeaker? But then, soon enough, we're driving to Midland in a fashionable late-night snowstorm, as tired as I have ever been. And the only time I've ever actually felt I might fall asleep at the wheel. Did I mention I had been out partying the night before with the cousin of my friend (the above mentioned TC) until about 3 in the morning and then had woken up at 630 and decided to go for a run in an attempt to cure my hangover. No nap the rest of the day either, although I did get to relaxing at the beach in the afternoon, horizontal, with The Girls. On the highway I managed okay, weaved a little, here, there, but didn't crash, and so we arrived "home" to white-glazed fanfare around 540 am. Sleep! Sleep!

That night we celebrated Our Girl's 13th birthday (nice gifts) and then it was back to work for a few fresh unpleasantries, neffing job. Inbetween I smiled of course, sanguine and toothily, and did enough shopping to pass through the festive occasions, and to make the receivers of said shopping a lot happier than they might have expected to be; apres ca it was 10 more days away, north again, to celebrate something, everything, the ear-thing, babysitting?... oh my doesn't it seem like eons ago that my vacation was born... Where's that confounding beach? Those mystifying girls? The sun, the breeze, gravity, Lauren --- Inspiration!

Au plaisir mes amis ------------------ MIKA*

a real SCUBA dude -------------- now!

Ahem! One of my few faithful readers (DawGmanStaR?) has politely questioned my whereabouts, so without being unseasonably affected (afflicted?) I reply with an update into my intriguing blissful observant life. Firstly, happily, I have been on holidays... away from the terminally unwell people at the coff-ice!

And so it goes - a week in the Caribbean with sunshine, sand, 3 lovely sisters from Scarboro, Murray, Martha and family, and an inventively scorching fellow nick-named Ziggy (aka POPS!). There was also a gaggle of older party-ers, one of whom, shockingly, was / is the cousin of a good friend from Midland. But now, not to be dismissive of all the above character, I must confess that the most shining moments of this trip belonged underwater with my French SCUBA instructor Celine, tres belle, red bikini, et tres patient... it being my first time made it all the more entertaining, pellucid, salient! SO what did I sea (ha ha ha) at the bottom of the reef? Well there was a shipwreck, rusty cannons and all, there were lots of little fishies, well-schooled and stripey, a funky spiky sponge that Celine stuck to my palm, and even an octopus crouching within a small crevasse. I tried to take a picture of said mollusk however I only caught a glimpse of Celine's arm, ummm, lovely instructor, isn't that a rip in your wetsuit? ----- well done. All in all, I suspect, I did pretty darn good down in the stuff of the deep, in the weightless foreverland... okay so it was only 40 feet and it wasn't that high-pressured, but I did receive a fancy certificate and a nasty ear-infection for my effort, which was probably my own fault since I knew I had a little sinus issue when I went. Live and learn I suppose, but still I recommend taking to the sea for anyone who has never done so (and is not afraid of open water).

Another exhilirating happening was a day cruising the island of SABA, the Unspoiled Queen of the Caribbean, although I suspect there may be private islands (like Richard Branson's of Virgin fame) where things are even less blemished. Returning to SABA ---- which is located just west of St. Eustasius and Nevis, and is home to about 1500 people -- it has one viable port, under re-construction, from which there is one main road and a seemingly endless narrow climb, the vehicle coming up has the right of way, they say, and once beyond that first hill there, still, isn't a flat spot in sight. And though a section of The road that couldn't be built, as they call it, is relatively smooth, the only true level area is at the oh so precipitous airport, where cliffs welcome both ends of the runway. Naturally this place is called Flat Point!

The tour of the island was quaint, elaborate, and somewhat meandering --- Vince was a decent friendly fellow, taxi driver / guide, a Saban (or is it a Saber?) all his life, seemed to enjoy talking about plants, this is breadfruit, and this a ***** tree, He also enojoyed picking up his wife, then dropping her, and the groceries, at home. It's too bad we never took a picture of him or Paula from Detroit (our touring companion), or that I didn't even think about it. Too bad we never got a picture of the Medical School either, or the Glassblower where certain splendid presents were bought. Now all that is either charming or cute but I'd have to say the best part of the whole day was hiking to the top of Scenic Mountain, approximately 890 m (over 3500 feet) and the highest point in the Kingdom of the Netherlands... they say there are only 10-15 days a year when the mountaintop is in clear view, but this day couldn't have been better. From the top I could easily see all the islands nearby, even St. Martin! Absolutely brilliant!!! It was supposed to take about 50 minutes from where I started to get to the peak, however I used it as a chance for a workout, it was humid and sunny and the rainforest became harsher the higher up I went but still I managed to run, dash, jump, to the peak in less than half an hour. Well Done SCUBA Dude!! On the way I passed a few people going up who had started the climb a little earlier, a couple from Germany (how much farther?), a pleasant steady climber from Ohio (Michelle, I think her name was), an even-keeled older fellow who wasn't sure how far up he should go? I said, it's probably only going to get harder...

Then again, I'd have to say coming down was the hardest part. Always is, allons-y. The taxi's leaving at 1330, and I wouldn't want to miss lunch. Win, win, wind, warm breeze, I remember.

just a quick notation

to let everyone know I am still busy and alive.
Planning many exciting new things, executing present agendas,
but never re-living my past denouements.

Let's go!!!! Mika

alternative value, meteoric theft...

what's that you say? four inconspicuous words now conjoined in a blithely unplanned title. In some way that is correct, I use this method as an exercise in writing, some would say it is an exercise in relieving writer's block (but since I don't believe in the ill-fated WB then I can't / won't admit that). The above title was attained by randomly picking four words from the MSN Canada home page and then putting them together into a somewhat cohesive idea (ideal?) ---- but now the trick is to make a real poem or story from this idea:

*************************************************************************************

As you can see the results are a bit blank now... but there is no need to panic, at some point I will edit this again and you'll see what happens to this row of bon mots.

seriously inured...

On a monday morning, procuring fate, I pledge not to peel your hopeful succulent Valencia orange with such sterness or solemn quailing (is that a word? or perhaps, just a bird?). Yet another revelation came to me on a deep grey Sunday afternoon, I said, smiling, (not a smirk either, but a real smile), and it was then that I realized that perhaps I've had the wrong attitude when it comes to my pursuit of writing and / or my quest of athletic achievement. And I think it is best summed up by a chortle and a giddy wink of these bottomless blue eyes, and it is here that I say, "don't be so damned hardened or severe."

There should be no disillusion in the efforts.

Yesterday the narcissistic yet lovable Julia paraded her cheerless confident "cold" into the cafe where we drank herbal tea and perused the latest edition of The Fiddlehead (a literary magazine from those wily valleys of New Brunswick, especially wily this issue - see page 77, wink!). Her illness, a minor detraction from her usual poised personality, she said, would not deter her from a long day at the library and even a mountain bike in the brisk late-autumn late-afternoon. She's a soft-tail you know, not a roadie or a tri-gal, so she doesn't always appreciate the quibbles of the pavement. Yet she passes above it all with the glazed spinning of a sanguine championness, and I, awe-filled, slack-jawed, straight lipped, rough and raw renegade???? had an instant of epiphanic manifestation; And so I now vow, in all consequences of living, to beam instead of frown.

Do you think perhaps it will make an optimistic difference?

the blue arrow

Is this the sign? Is this the shape and the colour that I remember? Is it you, the one that arches across this glazed screen like an unforeseen cloud enveloping a pre-winter escape?

Once, when we were acquiescent and still, we huddled in an embrace that only a divinity could inspire... and you said you could hear a voice, and what you heard you thought was the residue of the darkness that had separated us, and you thought this blindness might return, that the light and all of its colours weren't real, that the messages you felt like hearing would be taken away, obliterated like a mud-hutted city beneath a flood of poignant, carpeted bombs. Yet you dreamed... and I swore to you within that dream that I wouldn't let you be fooled, and I told you how inevitable it was that we would find each other again, and you said you knew it was only a dream, and that what I said was just wistful and sentimental, and you wanted to clutch something more real, and you wanted to grab hold of that which passed above you: an arrow so blue it couldn't have come from either of our skies...

what is that, a yellowish-gold and radiant circle?

I believe I actually saw the sun this morning... there it was, alone, and rising abashedly above the indurate buildings on Bloor Street. And there I was shivering in the first real signs of wind chill, that which crawl beneath one's neck. Oh to be somewhere warm, shirtless, somewhere in the midst of ordinary sweat, somewhere along the coast...

another Klima

So, this is not a reference to the former left winger Red Winger (shoots left, right Irving!) what did you say, A Player for Owen... who? alas Pan Irv, I have no idea what number Petr Klima was, an odd one I think (37, 39) or something uncommon... mais, I digress, this Klima I refer to is a book called A Summer Affair written in the early 70s, and revised, it says, in the mid 80s. I think, on the whole, I like this book better than the first one, although parts of NSoA (see previous entry) were more brilliant... anyway I'm also attempting again to read Anil's Ghost, Ondaatje, and even though I'm only 30 pages in I feel it will be a struggle to finish. There seems to be something less tragic in it even though it's all about tragedy, however I will try not to quit...

Onto other more important news, like my own literary career, it is, how you would say stalled? trodden on? although some more positive-minded people might say it is stable, or even a punctilious calvacade towards pasture... Louis? Yeah so, my manuscript was rejected again, even though it contains, many fine things, thank you, I know. I guess it is now time to spray the infield --- let bygones be bygones, let sonnets become sonatas, ponies become peonies, accents turn into ascension --- enough! what's with all the equestrian references? It must be time to ride off into the dark grey horizon that has plagued my city for the past week, at least it hasn't rained yet today. Perhaps tomorrow my thoughts will be a little more pellucid, clear... long live your endurance -- mes amis, Mika.

Youth?

why now? why the perpetual question in italics? perhaps the birthday season is upon me, and i'm even par for the front nine at Midland, I'm awash in the ponds of vainglorious delights that survive another year, in suffering in that way that most of us north americans would never admit too, in having nothing and everything at hand, the simultaneity of this wealthy and unwarranted paradox. a tree, a stretch of green grass, some fallen leaves, and an SUV, capiche?

so that book I mentioned in my last entry is by J.M. Coetzee, it was okay, okay --- maybe it was a little better than okay but it wasn't noble or novel that's for pretty sure. anyway, i've moved on to a Czech writer named Ivan Klima, and I must admit a lot more attachment to the characters' sentiments in this No Angels or Saints, even though they don't work for IBM or want to be famous poets. I think there is something in the slavic ethic that allures me... inures me? eludes me? denudes me? confuses me? J.

still injured, but should be able to run by saturday. still writing... see ;~]

WEAKNESS

my achilles heal is my achilles heal,
it stings in the morning and hurts when I run,
after twenty minutes the pain disappears,
or perhaps it migrates to another part of my body,


a work in progress - of course, like any marathon...
cheers, mika

ah ---- ha, apples and orang-atangs

no, not the skin of the vertebrate that reminds one of a coconut, or those pesky pen-tanger teenagers good at marshy volleyball and late night poker runs... but the elements of daytime that make one remember what brought them to wherever they are. Speaking of which, I haven't blogged much lately, sometimes, amid the foul mood of this cubicle I say why 'blogger', but then I'm not so crusty and disheartening all the time (ain't that right Sara?). And truthfully I've been too busy here (doing endless amounts of piddly shit) and I've been swimming, water-running (injured achillees), some cycling and lots of circuit-ry ---- good for the abs and the core.

I've also been reading a book called Youth by *******, it's about a South African in London (early 60's) who wants to be a poet but isn't very good, he says, (okay so that doesn't really relate to me), worst of all he gets a job with IBM... dull, dark, hardened IBM ---- how about that for coincidence... he also has a series of meaningless (pathetic, he says) affairs... I can't decide if I like the writing or not, parts of it are pretty dry but I'm still reading and it's only 170 pages so I suppose it won't be long until the end.

that's all from the pendulum that is downtown toronto - live well, Mika

user name and password

was i born with a password?
an innate sense of secrecy and misconstruing, am i that complex? am i the garbled snow on a sideroad north of the Mazovian Plain, am i the grit of the blistering sun in the Atacama?
Could it be so simple? my name ---- ***********

untitled (#1) (envy? nahhhhh!!!)

Sunday in the city, cool, windless, with the welling of a feeling that time is like the sun's warmth... an ever-present lingering at some place, beyond the shade of museums, oak trees, and grey office buildings with grimy facades. Beyond the incessant rolls of a stoplight'd street, half-filled yet seemingly empty. And yet time is all that we know, how we define what has happened, will happen, or is in the 'plan' of happening... perhaps it is a process... or a race?
Yesterday I spent the day at the AC, did a spin, did a circuit, ran for an hour, and met one of my tri friends at the pool, she had raced a duathlon earlier in the day (and well she was only the first-place woman, about 15th overall) and there she was doing a little swim workout in the afternoon. How does she get the energy? The race was short yes, but still I'd probably have napped, and eaten, and napped again... I'd say she has a touch more grit than I do, perhaps it's metabolic destiny, or just will... and I say this not out of envy or spite but with a genuine feeling of amazement.
Time to focus and time to find that determination... cheers, MIKA

hurricanes and gloom?

some days do not deserve the ineptiness with which they arrive? today, everything which could possibly happen to screw up my work-day has; alas I am not one to whine so I will only say good-bye, time to go running and wait for Isabel's rain... salut - MIKA

guy_ulf

no it's not a story about a guy named ulf, or even sammy wilson --- but a long day on a short course with too many half-wedges and stupid dinky holes, too many missed putts... and perhaps more imperatively too many R&G's. Still it was great to get together with most of the gang of eight, drink too much and remember why we'll always be friends. And the best part is that I'm not that hungover and I was able to participate (aka ride my bike) this morning in the annual Terry Fox Run for cancer research...

And well, in regards to the previous post suggesting my golf game may improve via osmosis ---- it seems that none of my sister's touch around the greens rubbed off on me. I need to practice a bit more, okay a lot more, as I lose so many strokes the closer I get to the pin.... hyperbolic cheerios to all, Mika...

gal-f

so i took a mid-week holiday and caddied for my sister at a two-day tournament in toronto. the weather was perf! warm and sunny with a great breeze, however the golf was not quite so-brilliant... mainly because the course was very difficult (Bayview) and the greens were unbelievably fast and the pin placements treacherous. whoever set it up on that first day was a real masochist... and likes 6 hour rounds because everyone is trying to figure out "what the hell's going on" on the greens, or perhaps they just don't appreciate the different skills in women's golf.
not wanting to sound like I'm devaluing anything or anyone else in the tourney I can say that my mercurial souer didn't really get going until the back nine in the second round: par-par-birdie-birdie-birdie... some incredible putts that her caddy (aka ME) read marvellously, and she could've made a couple of more on the way in too!!!! But at least she survived a sudden yearning for the fence and someone's backyard (from a bunker no less -- SCULLY!), and held it together for a one under 35 and the best back nine of the 2nd day. Alas she finished about 24th overall out of 55 or so, but it was all great fun and so much better than being at a desk in a cubicle-d office, where I am right now counting the minutes until the weekend... cheers, MIKA.

p.s. teeing off at 10 tomorrow... maybe some of her sublimeness will help me.

running on...

Mes amis, if you're ever a little bored with your running and can't seem to get motivated for a workout I suggest trying something similar to the one we did last night with Kevin:

Long warm-up jog.
4x400 on 3 minutes (very controlled pace)
4x400 on 2 minutes (up tempo) 4 minutes rest
3x400 on 1:45 (hard) jog + 1 minute rest
3x400 on 1:30 (hard) maintain the pace through all three as there is very little rest.

Of course one must modify this depending on ones' running level etc, and it's best to do it with a group or at least one other person, but if no one is available then psych yourself up for it and reap the benefits of an amazing feeling once you are done.

stride on - mika

e-race this, end of summer -- what the __________?

how can it be - that the time of year my teacher friends deplore is already here? I must agree it is not my favourite long weekend of the year, however one mustn't stew over things one cannot affect. Let's hope the sun stays with us until tuesday!

so I have to give the race in Parry Sound last weekend a mixed review... nice setting, decent course, but a little disorganized and chaotic. on the first run we went totally the wrong way -- someone, a disagreeable teenager probably, changed the direction of an arrow on a sign about 2 km into the run --- and we ended up on the bike course much to the surprise of a policeman, whom I think was quite unfamiliar with the idea of triathlon and / or duathlon. He then managed to point the lead group of 7 runners (me included) even further the wrong way, of course by this point there was no right way so it really didn't matter which way he pointed... much confusion, and whistling and then we all turned around and I went hard all the way to transition to try to gain some of the spots I had lost... so this caused me to have a bit of trouble for the first 5k on the bike, although I did pass a couple of people who proceeded to draft behind me... still I never felt comfortable on the bike, went hard but seemed to lack the lung capacity that was needed (perhaps the sore throat of the past week had a bit of influence). anyway it was a long (26k instead of 25) undulating course, very windy too, and onto a fairly busy highway that wasn't closed to traffic. one close call but nothing to cause me such great anxiety. Len Gushe passed me just before the hill at the turnaround, and I actually almost saw him go by me. silver bullet! envy!

the second run was only 3 km and I ran decently but not great... there was a guy about 300m ahead of me out of transition and I slowly began catching him on the out leg. then I saw Sam and the other 2 leaders coming back from the turnaround. when i reached the t/a point (located at the bridge where we went the wrong way on the first run) the sign had been blown over, yet "duathon turnaround" was still visible --- I was quite surprised by this because the person I was chasing and the 2 others who were inbetween had not returned on the path. I said to myself, "how did they miss this?"and started heading back to the finish. I finished 4th overall but didn't push the last half since there was no one ahead of me or behind me, and it was only a training race... and I didn't feel all that great. But in two weeks there will be no excuses or reasons for not pushing it.

'train on' mes amis --- MIKA!

running on viruses, powers, and the artificer's light...

okay, okay, if it's not the heat, the air conditioning, or the threat of rotating... blackouts, then it's some worm or worms flowing through our network, infecting laptops mainly; but now it all seems somewhat under control. Another weekend, another race... down-town Parry Sound on Saturday, so if you're nearby (drinking at the cottage say) come and watch us race - starts at about 430 pm.

To keep you occupied until then here is a snippet (sp?) of prose (poetry?) about my tuesday running group experience...


High Park Intervals

A summer Tuesday without rain and we gather at the edge of parking-lot sunshine, twenty or so runners waiting to get away… The people ambling towards the park restaurant just look, walk — and look, and that's what we enjoy: silence, envy?
Our workout begins with most of us talking, brief reminders of how we are. The trails, this night, are warm, soft, still humid, yet two of our women scold themselves over what they'd chosen for lunch, then my own Chicken Curry enters the conversation and I feel all the evidence of my living gets stored within my bowels. Above us, the clouds we had thought disappeared return — though not as violent, and a yellow haze looms in the city, and somewhere in our pack a pair of asthmatic lungs is already beginning to burn. We ascend the hill towards the one-way road and there is a baseball diamond bordering a bikini-clad pool. The pitcher has long white socks — is a SAINT, the batter taps his shoes, steps out of the batters' box, and behind me one of the men says, I hear endurance athletes take longer to reach orgasm. And another one asks, is that good?
The hill seems shorter on the way down and I don't bring water because I once trained with an Ethiopian named Yifter. We reach our grassy clearing where it seems a perpetual picnic is held, and there's always one kid who wants to run beside us. There's always a parent shouting the name of Ashley, Nigel, or Cody, and the kid looks at us and says I can run faster than all of you.
In the clearing we rest before the true workout begins. I don't know what time it is because I lost my watch on the long weekend, yet time doesn't seem to matter as much as my heart-rate — 160 after the first hill. I know this because I've felt it many times: it doesn't matter how many miles you've gone it's how many more there are 'til you race. And I remember I haven't been as focused as I used to, and I haven't been thinking about any philosophy, god, or church: I haven't been to a cathedral or synagogue in seven years. That was in Worms and the woman who brought me there is now married and living in Chicago. (My brother went to Chicago in June for the US Open, yet some people say, golf isn't a sport!)
I hear Rachel breathing hard behind me: we circle "the lake" in tandem though it is actually a pond — robust, grey. But tonight I won't let a woman go past me, and at the end of our loop I am slightly ahead, yet my arms are heavy, lumbering, and the coach says relax your shoulders. Then we rest again for three minutes, and sweat drifts across every ounce of our skin — and everyone but me seems to need water. The coach whistles again, once for us to go fast, twice — slow, and I think this must look funny to anyone watching and I wonder if a dog trainer would be impressed. At the end of it all a woman on a bicycle asks us where "the restaurant" is, three of us point to a road going up and she mutters, the hill, the hill…
Our coach says he once ran a final 300 in 40, then he talks about Yifter's finishing speed, and no one seems to understand how fast he really was, and no one would understand him because he only speaks sentences in Amharic. Yifter the Shifter says words like fast, fast! and faster! And I remember he once tried to tell me there are no blueberries in Ethiopia: he laughed and I didn't know what he'd meant, yet I assume we've all had fresh blueberries and ice-cream, and we've all smoked hash in a concert parking lot. We've all banged our heads and headed home without knowing…
The subway train is air-conditioned and my wet shorts are soaking the seat, a man with a clenched hand gets on at Keele Street and the skyline of a city at sunset disappears. The man walks by me with his fist close to my right eye, stops, and grabs the railing. At the last tunnel there is an exit, a staircase and another man sleeping in the orange light. Upstairs, the pizza is dry, not as hot as it should be — and I eat as I walk along a side street because the beggars and fire-trucks are too noisy on Bloor.
And I wonder why Milosz didn't write: a long row of runners' crawls along a weed-lined path. And I wonder why a woman in a green blazer is carrying two car tires out the back door of a frat house, I wonder if she has a big enough trunk. Then I see my apartment building on the corner of St. George Street — I see someone standing at the front entrance.

when we last visited here...

there was no State of Emergency and I had suggested it was just another day in the Big Smoke... well how wrong was that? 4:12 and... poof, if you live in North America then you know the story --- the computers went down (instead of 'the lights went out'). So now I'm assuming everyone has survived Power Outage 2003, and that Monday has brought back some form of normality, i.e. lights on, air conditioners alive and well, appliances running, computers ticking, and everyone doing their consumer-y best to conserve energy. yeah right. I must admit the outage had little effect on me, other than giving me a friday off... an extra afternoon at the beach as it were.
Firstly I walked home (only 9 minutes from where I work) thinking the outage was only a local one but as I passed each non-functioning stoplight and building without power I figured, hey something's going on... so I called my parents and they reported that their power was also out and they live 2 hours outside of t-dot. I then tried calling other people but the phone network was overloaded and I wasn't able to get through. Once I reached my apartment I decided that the best thing to do was to go for a run, thursday is usually my long slow one... very dedicated don't ya think! There were lots of people on the sidewalk by this time and they looked at me a little strangely as I passed by them... the only other runners I saw at this time was the UofT dudes at Churchill Park. It was very hot and humid and not the best hour of my running life but then it didn't need to be since I was racing on Sunday. I arrived home to find the lights still out, had a quick and cold shower and went outside to see even larger streams of people on the sidewalks, and lots of other people gathering on patios drinking themselves into a different state of emergency... I suppose that isn't such a bad way of coping since I've heard it took some people over 5 hours to get home during the rush. Anyway, I managed to find dinner at the Cora Pizza - they were still making some za despite the oven-y heat in their little eatery... went home, tried calling a few people but they were either not there or I could not get a connection. Fell asleep amid the peace of non-electricity and woke up at eleven p.m. when my little but effective fan came on (telling me I had power again)... isn't that a rough evening?~}

still essential even though I didn't have to work on Friday, Mika

another day another workout...

yesterday - went to the AC / Benson pool at about 445, it was crowded, about 8 people in the fast lane, 3 of whom shouldn't have been there --- managed to avoid all the obstacles and put in approx. 2700m some quick, some kick, some long stuff, (with lots of rest since I'm racing this weekend), then went upstairs for an hour of spinning, started slow but felt great by the end...
so yeah, another day another workout... what would I do without it?

stock and awe

question ---- did you ever buy Nortel? or should I say have you ever bought Nortel?
have you averaged down, or did you get in at the bottom? It's still a risky play, they say.

I won't tell you what I've done... unless I end making some doo.

revelations?

early on a Wednesday morning... would one expect something so divulging, perhaps not! But today walking along the fashionable (i.e. urbane) side of Bloor Street I encountered 3 people (of varying colour, persuasion, etc.) who were "asking" for money, I wouldn't say begging ---- since holding an old coffee cup at an angle to one's belly and glancing at you without saying anything as you pass by seems to me to not constitute begging ---- Now being the bearer of a somewhat social conscience I contrast this with the friends in my training group from last night, who arrive in nice cars and / or with fancy bikes (I have one too so this isn't a critique on anyone who is either successful or has money to spend on things they will use), and as we warm-up by jogging we talk about travelling to far-off races, or going looking for overpriced houses in this city... or adding this or that component to an already brilliant bike... and in comparing "us" to the person who is standing alone on a mostly deserted stretch of sidewalk --- glazed by the dawn glare of office buildings, i think back to the first time I was in Poland shortly after the fall of communism and most of the younger people kept telling me what a good thing it would be to have people working for themselves so they could spend their own money and make their own future, and the older people weren't as sure because even though they didn't like a lot of what communism stood for they felt that everyone was treated the same, and had the same things, benefits, health care, and were always looked after in some way by the state (though "taking the vodka" wasn't necessarily a most glorious means), and I don't remember as many street people in that first visit as I saw in my last... and now, since I was there in 2000, I know how different Poland is compared to the first time I was there, and the changes seem so much bigger than those in my own country, city, town, and yet the similarities of Canada to Poland are becoming nearer, and I think and I tell myself, "yes it is getting better, it must be getting better..."

apologies for any disjointedness but I am also working as "we" speak. carry on, live well, be kind - mika!

idea for a poem

crow, at st. theresa's track, saturday afternoon

here, grass burning without smoke, oval lungs,
and filters of humid air descending into town.

on three sides - homes, music, bottles, and smoke
of another kind, nostrils reeling...

so that is the beginning, not bad for a monday morning: but where does the crow come in... hmmmm, yes appropriate question. perhaps you'll see this poem build, mould itself, or perhaps it will end up in the landfill of recycled ideas... with the seagulls... au revoir mes amis!

mysterious disappearance

So where I have been? Off gallavanting with another blog? Not exactly. The long weekend (extended by vacation days and charity golf) saw me doing what I like to do most... running, biking, swimming, partying, beaching, sailing, partying, beach volleyball-ing, and visiting my favourite lake / cottage. Now reality (as much reality as there is on Friday morning) has set in and I'm working on many things besides being here working... my website (where you might have come from), my poems, my manuscript, and a couple of new story ideas... one of which stems from how I lost my watch on Friday afternoon ---- a short lapse into dimwittedness. Alors, time waits for no one: clever or otherwise. Later - bro, sis, mq