The Symphony of SortsI have a symphony, of sortsoutside.My window, openfor the whileof summer,sendsbold sounds of some small childwith brand-newlungsin here.There are birds,as in any song of nature.There are cotton clouds,busyness,intentionup and down the street.I was napping,sinful in my disregardof wakeful living,my boreddisdain.Sun with air cheers the musty corners buttoday,I am sotired.

May 26, 2026

I am in pain, people. Ouch. The pain has at least a little to do with being out of shape, lack of exercise, abuse of the body in one way or another. Well, perhaps it could be traced more to an unwitting abuse of the body.. that abuse which time and lack of knowledge inflicts. The direct, hands on abuser was in fact, myself. I was young, I felt good, I was healthy so I took no precautions. I used my physical self to make money. I sold myself. Oh, Lord.. I do wish I had been a different kind of prostitute. That might have been fun for a while. No, I was the usual kind of wage-slave prostitute. I spent long hours humping away in a hard environment, with chemical mist in the air, physical challenges, loud machinery, no sunlight. At one point, in the long ago past, I even machined beryllium without any sort of breathing protection. The kind of machining I was doing allowed tiny particles of metal to rise up in a thin cloud, ready for the breathing in. Turns out that the metal is vigorous in it’s ability to cause lung cancer. Yikes. That was then and this is now. Now, there are regulations that attempt to keep folks away from the thin clouds of harmful stuff, away from the loud noises, away from chemical mists. It is too late for me.

I am almost elderly, at 75 and I am in pain. Ouch. What now?

Currently, I have a shoulder that is complaining. This makes my day more difficult than I want it to be. The shoulder is loud. He cries out, periodically and louder when I want to move my arm or sleep. I try to play piano, I try to play guitar and both things aggravate the shoulder. Doing laundry is a misery. What did I do to deserve this? The answer is: I lived. Repeated stress from using the shoulder, over 75 years, has brought me to this point. There are other things that have accumulated over time. Repeated consumption of more calories than I needed made me fat. Being fat made me less eager to go walking, less eager to keep doing. It kinda looks a little downhill from here. I don’t want to believe that, to let go and surrender. Nope. My tendency is to blame myself for the road I travelled to get here. I won’t accept that I just did what was there to do, the best I could, with the knowledge and maturity I had at the time. Nope. My bad. My naughty. My better start making reparations!

So. Sympathy? No and I won’t be going to the doctor yet. Maybe, after six months of constant pain, I will consider it. The challenge I face is to ignore the pain and/or sit it out for now. I still have desire enough to play music, to sing – so I guess I will have to put my nerve-endings on over-ride and push through a bit. One thing I need to do, though, is to not blame myself so much when I just want to sit in the rocking chair. Staring out the window, with my shoulder raised just right relieves… I shall allow me to do that for a while. No, there isn’t a lot of time left to learn guitar or piano or to sing and sing the way I wish to do but… I gotta sit down for a minute. The book (and typing) the guitar, the piano, the possibility of romance all will have to wait. I am on pause, trying to remain ready to re-start.

I have to realize both that I am wearing out and that I still have a bit of material left on the calipers, a little gas left in the tank, a little bit of smile to give. After all, I did make the church folk laugh at my naughty joke about King Charles being a queen (until we get the books reprinted). I have some miles to go before I sleep. Oh, by the by – I am excited about some new music I found. Two little hotties (Gen Z or X or something) who cobble together really nice, inane pop tunes that satisfy, thoroughly. They go by the band name of Ray Bull, check them out. Also, the fellow next door is handsome and mighty bed-worthy. There is that, still.

Ouch, damn.

May 18, 2026

Oh my dears…

It is reflection time.

We are being chipped away at by His Royal Highness Of the South. An orange glow pervades world-wide media. An evil grin lights the sky. The man I speak of is not well or at least probably lacks empathy, I am not a doctor so cannot be certain. The fact being one man (actually three men) can interrupt the daily lives of 7 billion men, women, children is extraordinary. This one, the particular orange one, is a danger to the earth, to every beast thereon, to every nation. His cohorts on the other side of the world are no better. Putin and XI with their lesser-scale hoodlum friend, Netanyahu have the world by the sweet cheeks. On we go.

There is nothing to do at this point, save speak up, speak out, vote. I don’t hold out hope for the 2028 mid-term U.S. elections but I intend to try, that much I can do. Anything else that would be effective is beyond my scope, beyond my moral code. It is now time for us to ignore as much as we can. Social media has to be allowed to languish, that is difficult but must be done. The algorithms do not mean us well. The toe-in-the-water dip into so-called artificial intelligence is an equal partner, if not a prominent driver in our upcoming demise. Gotta let ‘er go. Naught can be done. Say-o-nara.

Now, for the real bits.

Let’s sing some stupid songs about love and birds and dogs and cats. Let’s watch old movies or new ones that lift, distract. “Hail Mary” is a good choice… Any of the almost slap-stick Bette Davis films are fun to watch now, with their melodramatic anti-heroines. Let’s have more Ray Bull home-made pop music and ditch the anger, the roughness of Drake, of Kendrick Lamar or the slick business and money only hollowness of Taylor Swift or Beyonce. Let’s dance and laugh with Lady GaGA. Let’s admire Banksy for the right reasons. Let’s write our own poetry, sing our own songs, make stupid tik toks and show them to our friends? Let’s go for a walk with a friend or two or lover or two. Let’s get out of the house, away from the TV, away from the kings for awhile. Those folks are burning it all down but Jeff Tweedy and Wilco have a new record out, Robert Plant is doing it for the love of it and he is damn good. Play your Willie Nelson records, your Tony Bennett, Celine Dion. Hey, drag out some Smokey Robinson, too. Play your guitar, play “How Much is that Doggy” on ukelele and really enjoy it.

Drown the Banshee with sunlight,

open the window. Cheers!

Whom Do You Believe

Rich and endless Bob Ross blue,

with dotted dumpling-shapes

is ceiling, anyway,

a limit

over ant-farm day.

The teacher’s mouth reveals

how water vapour

scatters light

in atmosphere,

makes it glow a certain colour,

offers up a boundary,

conceals the dark and million

stars – oftentimes, the moon

from me.

I have seen

some pictures and

suppose it true.

I trust the puzzled scientist.

Three books of books

discuss the odd,

with bold intent

convene a studied clue

toward where we come

from,

where we go

and what we’re passing through.

I trust the ancient sacraments, too.

Second Class

(Father has a business, strictly second hand…)

Second Class

Oh gosh. It happened again. Darn. I met someone, we started chatting… he says to me, “How about if we have dinner?” I say…”..Oh, yeah..” Then, after we set a date, exchange phone numbers, I start to think this could be something to pursue? Maybe. MMM. Then, as the date comes around, we are chatting and he makes it clear that his interest is platonic, exclusively. The de-gassing is subtle but real and I make a sound like some balloon that is retreating to its original shape. Ha. In my head, I had us in the south of France, married, a couple of goats and a windmill for energy…grapes growing, les fenetres s’ouvrent… etc. Sigh.

This scene reminded me of the last ‘date’ I went on. It was a Plenty of Fish arranged date. I was early and nestled in at a comfortable table with a nice glass of iced tea. Then, in strides my appointment. He frowns, visibly, sits down and immediately states that he is not looking for anything, not sex, not love, not friendship. Sigh. I have to tell you that my picture on the app was up to date, I looked no different in person. I just didn’t have that certain glow, in person? Yeah.

Second class

Oh gosh. New folks showed up this evening at choir practice. Much excitement, names shared, status shared… turns out one of the new folks ‘reads music, can sight sing well’ according to them. Uhoh. My brief turn as star singer at St. John’s is over, just like that. Sigh. Yeah.

Second class

I struggle, I rehearse, I argue with myself…I still can’t play to my satisfaction after more than ten years of piano lessons. It/they is/are complex, the reason/s why. I am never satisfied that I have applied myself properly (a hold over from youth, when a thing I couldn’t do well was because I didn’t try hard enough). No, actually, I am not very good. The arthritis is a real thing, it really does slow me but the inability to play is deeper than just that. I don’t want to believe it… but I think now that music is a thing I don’t do well and can’t do well. A ‘friend’ once told me that those who can’t play well shouldn’t play. This same friend once cancelled a song circle that I was part of ‘because too many total amateurs were soiling the event’. Yikes. Singing isn’t great, piano isn’t great, guitar is also not great. I suppose that it is possible I am expecting too much, too soon but when? When and how do you develop the confidence to hit the right position consistently for clean chords, clean notes? I can strum, but that doesn’t cut it. I can almost play easy piano but that doesn’t cut it. I can sing in a chorus but that isn’t enough. Sigh.

Second class

I was sort-of passed over as a soloist in both of my choirs. It was subtle, but real. It may have been accidental but it reflects the fact that I am not thought of as a quality singer. I am not a quality singer. Shit. Why does any of this matter to me? Why do I insist on perfection? Well, I don’t feel important – that is why. I am second class, always. It bothers me. I don’t know how to let it go. I could and should let it go and just do what I do. I can’t. There is a woman who does Facebook reels at her piano. She has an odd clothing sense and only plays chords in both hands on piano. Still? She plays more reliably and more relaxed than I do. She is successful to herself and far less than perfect. Somehow, I cannot relax and let people see me bashing away at a half-tuned piano. I am not sure what the source of my self consciousness, my perfectionism is. Was it growing up second class in a small town?

I said something to a friend of mine that really cuts to the core of how I feel about my music-making. I said, “Unfortunately, I have eaten fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” Yeah, I know what is good music-making and I ain’t there yet. When? I am getting long in the tooth and too fat for the piano bench.

April 17

Oh my. The writer/singer/songwriter/guitar playin’/piano playin’ has come to an interesting point. In very recent days, my efforts at art have been remarked upon, spontaneously, by persons whose opinions I know I can trust. A singer, a great singer, a trained singer, a music knowledge person that I know very well – just up and spoke the complete truth about an audition I did that didn’t go as hoped. Ha. (I sucked. It was interesting though, I got a sort of smile from the adjudicator that reminded me of the rejection post card you get from the New Yorker ((at least the one I got)) – very correct, non-judgmental, kind but firm. ‘Don’t call us and we won’t call you.’) This friend with the solid voice noted what courage it took for me to audition in the first place, noted my mistakes in matter of fact tone and gave me honest encouragement in a delightful way…then, as almost a passing thought reminded me, “You sounded good.” I wasn’t great but I can trust that it sounded ok/ wasn’t an embarrassment anyway.

Then, a new friend read deeper into my website stuff than I ever expected or realized would happen and mentioned something from a blog post of a while ago. My style, my voice was mentioned. The offered idea that I should be more bold with my voice than I am now struck me. I think I understand voice in ways other than I did before. I used to think it was a thing you worked at, now I am not so sure. I think now that your voice is a thing you just have. Sure, it is influenced by what you see, hear, read but my fear that I don’t work at voice hard enough evaporated. It is there, someone else heard it.

So. Rather than being a failure, I realize that I am just getting started. I am a modern Tillie Olson, or Malvina Reynolds? At my advancing age, I am just getting started? at what I wished to do and honestly have been doing all along. Shit. Time is almost up and I finally figured this out. Gotta stop and think on that a bit. Yikes. All of this new knowledge means that I am free, sort of. I am out from under. Burden-less. I don’t have my favourite nay-speaker on my shoulder any more. He is gone, dead as the latest cousin, the latest dear friend. There’s no time for evaluation now, only time to do and so much is to do. Well,

elbows up,

shirtsleeves up and ‘awaaay we go’.

P.S. Tillie Olson was a writer whose career was sidelined a bit by life and family obligations. She wrote the most marvellous short piece called, ‘I Stand Here, Ironing’ and a book called, ‘Silences’ which centres on how women are often stepped over or set aside in the very male-dominated world of art. How they are expected to do other duties and the guilt they must deal with when their souls are art.

Malvina Reynolds was a woman who came to the folk music world, very late. I believe her first record was released when she was 70? or so. She walked up to Pete Seeger at a show he played and asked him how to get into folk music. He later revealed that his first impression was, ‘Lady, you are just too old’, then he heard her songs. She wrote ‘Little Boxes’ and ‘What Have They Done to the Rain’, look ‘em up.

Horizon Is Illusion

Slap-lapping water, with

a little imagination,

can float the solid earth

we stand upon,

watching a loading boat.

Hungry, an eager ferry is big enough

to carry several cars, but

seems a shade too small for that

close-up.

Fresh-painted steel appears of grander stature

when the captain’s tower

takes an hour,

sinking at horizon,

near the witnessed,

teasing tips of an island’s stranded trees.

This boundless, timeless lake

that we depend upon,

can float you, them and me

with all our things and destinations,

none of which are what

or where dream says they’d be.

Accidents

Big water slaps two shores

and the birds don’t care,

one shore being as another

for those who travel without

documents.

I am paused to wonder,

how some are perfect-built for

flying and splashing about,

web-footed and well-oiled.

The feathered creatures

do not notice me

nor do I see myself,

though our shared water is mirror-glass still.

Recounting this scene,

some will bear witness to what’s divine,

others, accident.

That shores are bounded separate by design

can be no question.

Man’s conniving hand is on that one,

grubby and greedy,

but who/what drove/drives a man?

Was he accident?

and I don’t mean of the kind

brought me to the world,

or maybe?

Hello?

We are standing outside a bar that would be dingy if it weren’t so clean.

This is a dim building but tidy.

Inside, the floors are swept and the glassware gleams.

We are waiting for a man called

Henry S. Woodworth or Paisley or Brownley or

some other two syllable last name.

A cab slides up, eager but I wave it away.

Mary is smoking. No one does anymore.

I think she was in a movie I saw recently? Pamela was not.

Pamela is phony blond and bored. She is sturdy.

I marvel at the state of things, this peculiar evening,

then roll over and open my eyes.

It is the cleaning lady and I am late

out of bed.