I am one funny dude. Yes. Complicated as all get-out and twice as queer. Queer being a useful English word that has been wrongly abused, twisted and wasted on the tongues of intolerance. This has happened to Queer in the same way it happened to Gay. Fairy is a close third but that one turned into such an insult that even the offenders blanched a bit.
Over time, Fairy has resumed most of it’s original meaning in part because the ‘other’ meaning was too awful. Time has turned a tiny twist and a person can now almost say Fairy without it’s having a capitalized meaning, an association that catches the eye/ear before any other can settle there.

I am curious now. I just noticed that these words ‘gay’ and ‘queer’ are imported into American English from the Brits. This is, of course true of all English words but somehow, certain words were spit out when the persons who carried English with them hit the sands of the eastern coast and southern United States. They are now British English first and American second, as most that is useful in the English language. My English-born friends readily use all of these sorts of words in common, everyday speech. In Ameri-speak, words of that colour are the exclusive province of the posh folk. Posh is, itself, a word reserved for ‘posh’ folk to use. Posh is posh, as calling your workmates ‘colleagues’ is posh. Even calling your workmates ‘workmates’ instead of ‘buddies’ is posh. Posh is disrespected. Posh is upper-crust, posh is ‘them’. Posh is the enemy.

I think there just might be a serious problem in Americans of the middle-north continent. Is it possible that, in the effort to revolt against Great Britain, certain of the U.S. residents began to eat themselves linquistically? A snake-state that so hated it’s own origins-tail as to begin eating it, word by word? I know that the frequent and easy mispronunciation of French words which appear in English is no accident. The so-self-called Americans despise the French even more than the British. As a result, chaise longue became ‘chase-lounge’ pretty quickly and envoy became ‘n-voy’ in a similar amount of time.

The degradation towards homosexuals, British and French people is equal in America. It can be seen readily in the misuse of language in violent ways. America has a serious problem. The problem is one of terrific intolerance. That problem has been on parade in America since the country’s inception. The puritans who were half-driven out of England for their judgemental interfering have built a whole country on belittling and subjugating others. Those folk used, abused and suppressed black folk, indigenous folk, Irish and Italian and Chinese folk as well. The ‘melting pot’ and individual freedoms of religion and self are the lie of America. Those things were always tongue in cheek.

What is interesting is that the lie of America is now it’s near undoing. The U.S. Constitution speaks of liberty and justice for all but the courts and politicians have always held one hand behind their backs, with fingers crossed, while standing under the wall-mounted plaque that says ‘In God We Trust’. Now, Marjorie Taylor Greene (posh spelling, by the way) and Trump (adulterated from it’s original German) with company are rearing up their ugliness without even a whisper of shame. Those folk and others of their ilk (posh word) would have America be a sort of great that it always and never was. They bring intolerance into the open, and bury the constitution’s false promise. As a result of that burying, the country is in a state of flux. Things could go very badly. Very badly.

Things could go well, also. With luck, the current crop of conservatives might be driven out of the North American continent as well as their forebears were driven out of Europe. Fairy came back to us as a useable word, maybe the American Lie can come true? I don’t know. Ya know what? I am feeling pretty queer this morning, isn’t that odd?

June 1, 2021

On June 6, my ex-husband will be 62 years old. He will be an old-codger then and have another year further to look back on. He will be one of any number of human souls who made it to the final act portion of three-act living. I beat him there. My dad beat me, so did my mom, so did my older brother. So did Mum. None of my immediate ones beat me by a mile, as I did not beat my former spouse by much…9 years ain’t a lifetime, is it? (unless you are a mayfly but that’s another story) All the creatures get to this part, if they are lucky or unlucky, some things do really depend on point of view and circumstance. We all share that much, point of view and circumstance, along with eating food and fouling a place afterwards, moving to the next place. In between, there are lots of stupid things we deliberately do or don’t. I don’t know why the power that is, was and will be set things up like that but that’s the way it is, was and will be.

In the movement that stars and planets, moons and daffodils perform, there isn’t a heck of a lot of use in looking backwards or forwards. Looking forward is not much use when the inertia of light speed is pushing you. “So step on the brakes, see what good that’ll do.” or “Shit..well, we hit it before I could say ‘Look out!'” For the stars and planets, backwards is a mighty long way and impossible to revisit. How the heck do you slow down and turn around? As humans, we can’t revisit where we have been, either. That place we were has changed, it isn’t there any more. We do try returning, of course. We aren’t all that smart, are we? We look back in our minds or actually try physically returning but the place has moved on. Other feelings live there now. They are different. We look back, evaluate but what good does the looking back do? (Maybe it offers a warning for the looking ahead part, I don’t know. The shit of it is, things change. What not to do in future becomes something different.)

I don’t think the daffodil or the cat looks back to evaluate anything. Maybe they do, secretly but the appearence is that the last moment does not matter, nor does the next. Does the pussycat reflect on his foolishness in jumping to the toilet and discovering the seat was open, not closed? Does he wring his paws with angst? Nope. (He does shake them a bit, I am witness.) I think the pussycat is focused on where he is going more than how he almost splash-dived to get there. He is in the moment of jumping, calculating trajectory and such. No time to look much further forward and you can’t look over your shoulder while traveling forward at speed. Even being human and so-called superiour, we can’t look back and forward, simultaneously. It is nicer to stay in the moment and possibly avoid that old lady who is crossing against the light. Not the one two blocks ahead, the one RIGHTHERE! No sense to end her last third prematurely. Probably get a lot of flack from those who depend on her pension. “Dammit, Grandma…now what?”

The daffodil just grows as much as he or she can, leaning or reaching in the direction of sun and water. For the lovely things, it isn’t possible to do anything except accept what comes their way and what space they are in. Not at all useful to look back toward the seed and the bee and the endless repeating story. And forward? Nossir, not much use looking forward when you are rooted by genetics and molecular biology to the spot you are in, a victim of or plaything of sun/water/wind.

I could have regrets and I could have fears. Oh my gosh, there are stacks of events now to reflect on. I was a spendthrift, a drunk, a jailbird, a bad lover, a wandering husband, a mean little snot. Oh yeah. I have the next few minutes of future as well. The stove could blow up? Donald Trump could become King Of Everything and end world hunger, strife. That could happen. The sun could explode, accidentally. I might have a heart attack when I get my TV cable bill and all that pay-per-view naughtiness comes to roost. The past and future, the regret and fear are real things but what drawer is best for them? Do I really have space to keep them? Do I need them? Aren’t they in the way? Don’t I stumble over them all the bloody time? Are they really useful to cling to?… (But I love that one, the dark grey…That is the time I was bad to my dear old Mum – I think I will keep that regret a while, even if it only fit for a moment and was forgiven long, long, long ago.)

I woke thinking about water and erosion. Reflecting on what I woke thinking, I think more.  How many kinds of erosion might there be, how many kinds of water. I woke thinking about the sea, in particular,  the sea and rocks, sand, gravel, waves both lapping and crashing.  I have been to the ocean and seas in several places.  I visited the gravel beaches of southern England, I stepped out into the Atlantic Ocean in Florida and in New Jersey.  I walked along the shore in western Newfoundland and in Vancouver, British Columbia.  I lost my breath watching the Bay of Fundy tide rise, quick and so deep! I walked along the sand at Schevenegen In Holland and I visited the Pacific Ocean again in California.  I have seen a Mediterranean beach in Greece, Adriatic beach in Italy, Caribbean beaches in Mexico and Florida. Those are wildly different places but in every case, it is rock being broken, shaped and ground to sand by water and fellow rocks.  I am amazed and grateful that I have been to all of those places, seen all of that power, observed magnificence.  

Who knew that a little boy from Grass Lake, Michigan would ever see the ocean?  Who knew I would witness power?  At the shore of my hometown’s namesake lake, there is very little erosion and few rocks.  Most of that little town’s erosion comes during a heavy rain and we had to bring the sand in by truck.  Grass Lake is a wide spot in a creek, really.  It is shallow, mucky, reed choked and full of life,  full with nearly stagnant water.  Mosquitos, minnows, pike, perch, frogs, water beetles, dragon flies and a million little birds disquiet any calm summer day.  Erosion might be a dream of the water, there. Yeah,  the water probably wishes it were an ocean, lifting rocks and smashing them  to bits, making as much noise as all that wildlife.

I have been a few other places and seen other erosion.  I have been a lot of places, really and seen lots of erosion.  There was wind erosion in Arizona and Nevada.  The desert sand shaped towers out of rock there.  Where there were hills, sand pushed by wind scraped away the loose stuff and left the hard core standing. Wind is powerful as water.  Combined with the rock they push, water and wind smash everything eventually. It is as though someone? or something? had said, “Let there be small stuff out of big stuff and let the smooth stuff make it so!”  Ha.  

Of course, I am leading up to something here, aren’t I?  “Let there be small stuff made of big stuff and let smooth stuff make it so….”  

See you in a bit.  Lots to do today, I am enroute for Niagara Falls and the Day Of One Thousand Musicians.  Yep.  999 musicians and one poser.  I will have the guitar and I can play some of the chords, so I am going to stand in the park and make noise.  I will make noise like the ocean and the rocks and the wind.

There is tired
and there is tired…

an old woman leans, is patient, observes from her second floor railing. The straightened steel is a haunting black that’s just dry, not enough time has ambled through the barnyard yet. There has been nothing extra for healing yesterday’s burned out truck so it sits, without tires, immobile. Rusted fenders and multiple small punctures are a reminder to look close at things. Otherwise, this is a hushed paradise of green and the remaining family sell blended lavender to tourists. Life is almost as usual but the tourists are too quiet, too respectful. They buy a hand-made sachet, aware the contents must be disposed of before climbing on a homeward-headed aircraft.

This woman casts a vague sigh in no particular direction. She is between tasks, the sort of tasks an old woman can still do. A little washing up, a bit of cooking, a sweep or two at encroaching dust are manageable. She takes her time, she rests a bit. There is only a little work, a little time, a little breathing, a little bit of heartbeat left.

May 17, 2021

I am not alone angry. It sure looks as though everyone has a degree or so of anger, waiting at the ready. In my particular case, since I have unrealistically high standards, anger wants to spill right over. It’s boiling, fed by the flames of politics and bad behaviour. I am disgusted. I am more than disgusted. I am so thoroughly disgusted that I am disgusted with myself: for slipping up, for bad habits, for lounging around sighing, for not doing the things I know bring me pleasure, for not feeling joy in living. I can’t go out and sing, can’t go to a restaurant and eat too much, can’t hang with my buddies, can’t have folks over to dinner, can’t travel to a distant hotel, can’t, can’t, can’t. I am feeling it.

I struggle to stay in my lane, folks. At the present, it is sometimes nearly more than I can do to remain civil in a public setting when a fellow idiot lets go of their tenuous hold on reality. I try to wait my turn at the traffic circle, a fool cuts me off and speeds into the distance, grinning like The Joker gone from his medications. They let go their better sense and go for it. It. Whatever ‘it’ may be. I very dearly wish to let go as well.

At the marina today (where I have to go since I can’t go to Starbucks) a group of ‘older gentlemen’ parked their damned lawn chairs on the sidewalk, instead of the grass. Now, I (or anyone) need(s) to walk around them. It’s rude and they just don’t see it. The odd thing is that they probably see me malfunctioning as well. I could see that snort of disapproval on their faces. Are we all seeing only rudeness, disobedience from others? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. We have skewed glasses on. Skewed and distorted lenses of television, radio, internet talk at us and fill us with dread. We have a shit-coloured view. Politicos, talking heads, the constant rape, murder and mayhem that masquerades as art — all conspire. They are like decibels. When one person sings, then another chimes in. For each additional person chiming in, there is approximately a 3 decibel rise in overall level. Each 10 decibel rise is a doubling of perceived volume. …so, 4 people screaming about something is about twice as loud as one person screaming.

The pandemic is testing us. Yeah, we’ll make it through. We will make it to the other side because there are still enough reasonable people. There are still enough people who grit their teeth and wait patiently. There are still enough people who don’t flare or flame out and succumb to the base nature of a human being, the need to kill what offends. “If thine neighbour offend thee — pluck him out!” Our numbers dwindle. Fewer and fewer of us are going to take this sXXt lying down! Nossir!

May 11, 2021

My first completed and printed book arrives today. How nice. I think I have just about enough copies to distribute amongst those who really would like one. I will keep one here to look at occasionally. I will keep one for the reason of vanity? No, I will keep one more to prove that I can finish something. There is a need to demonstrate to myself that I am real, I can write — however bad or beautifully. I am hopeful that seeing my work in a printed, bound and organized shape will help steer me into finishing other pieces. Poetry book number two is underway and can use a bit of coaxing to get it smoothed, finished. The so-called novel is in rough draft form and may stay that way until my heirs and assigns can deal with it. Ha. Today, I am a pen-man, waiting for a package of value. All of this excitement makes me feel like an honest writer. A real one. That is how I felt when I sat down yesterday to finish a part of a requested piece. I thought, “Yeah…I CAN do it!”

So, a finished book is part of the writing game I always wanted to be in. When I think of those who played piano from age 12 and now are very skilled, I am always amazed. I admire that sort of dedication. I think, “Well, that person has always been an artist!” That I started writing at 12 and continued to do so for the better part of the following 58 years is an experience I tend to disavow, discredit. I, of course, am not an artist? I have not always been an artist? What? did I never learn how? A strange circumstance, since I wholly believe that the doing of a thing is quite a bit more important than the learning how. Practice, they say, makes perfect.

Why the limits? Why deny what I am/have always been doing? For the big and famous folk was this so? This feeling of fraud? …and further, why do I choose writing poetry as a hobby (if that is all it amounts to)? I don’t see that I necessarily have any burning need to communicate and I don’t think I have anything new to say. Isn’t that curious? Why be a writer? At the core of it is, while I don’t think I have anything important to say, I do love to say..I do love to just talk. I talk out of my hind side mostly, but talk is what I do. Those around me, in my ‘inner circle’, might well agree. “Yeah, he’s a talker for sure…”
Cheers.

May 10, 2021

Joy

Each time I hear Beethoven’s musical setting of the Friedrich Schiller poem ‘Ode to Joy’, I think the same unlearned thoughts. I have the same unlearned feelings. I opine in the same unlearned way. I see the final movement, the 4th as a summation (I guess that would be correct). The other movements of the 9th symphony DO describe joy, imo. They describe what seems to me to be the ideal of joy, the illusury qualities of joy, the common view of joy. The rest of that symphony wanders about on the hillside or teases delicious harmonies, explores in joyous ways, discovers worlds. The music of the fourth movement is not about joy. It is about desperation. It is shouting into it’s lyric, “Damnit, Joy! Come to me! I feel you not!” That is my sense of it. I think I pretty much stand alone across nations and times but I stand by my opinion. That particular section of the ninth symphony of Ludwig Van Beethoven is not about joy. It does not feel joyful to me. I don’t get it.

The music referred to as Beethoven’s Ode to Joy is strident. It is purposeful. It is determined. It is a near march. It is defiant. It is argumentative. It casts away my accepted concepts of what joy is. It is anything but joyful to me. Since I feel that way, I begin to wonder about the nature of joy. It is possible that Beethoven’s idea of joy was quite different than the ordinary. It is possible that my idea of joy is quite different than the ordinary. It is quite possible that I have missed that boat of common experience. Maybe, it’s me…?

I know that it must have been more than difficult for Mr. Beet-o-wan to find anything in his experience of life that would describe or illustrate joy. I can easily imagine that, a person left with only music (your solitary soulmate/friend) and losing the tactile element of music by becoming deaf? would you – would any human being understand joy? How? How is it possible to step outside that sort of pain? Imagine: you had an abused childhood with little opportunity to explore and become, you are forced into a regimented and punishing schedule on the piano (a difficult instrument, folks), you are beaten, isolated, dehumanized. You are left alone with the tones and the intervals of tone, alone with rhythm, alone with caesura. Those things are at the outskirts of your daily existence, your survival. Perhaps they come to you in dreams or subliminal sensation but they are not a living part of your waking life. They are around the edges of everything but still away. Or, perhaps they remain, those elements, but they become something personal to you and foreign to the rest of the world.

…or maybe not. Maybe I have missed the point. I often do. I am often admonishing myself to sit down and be quiet, allow the adults to talk. “Be still, child.” I might, indeed be listening to music that is ‘above my raisin’. It may, indeed be that I should, “speak the way yo mouth was born”. When I hear ‘Ode to Joy’ and hear it’s defiance, perhaps I misunderstand. It is possible that the very defiance I witness, hear IS the nature of joy. Maybe sweetness and light has nothing to do with it. Maybe joy forces itself out of the limb, into the branch, along the branch, out into magnificent green! Maybe joy casts off the yearly cloak of frozen white with fervor, not sublimity. Maybe the forceful bulb squeezes the tulip out and upward. Ah…maybe joy is not as sublime, as peaceful, as quiet as is described by many. Maybe. Hmmm. Maybe, when Beethoven wrote his additional text to the poem, ‘Oh friends, not these sounds! Let us instead strike up more pleasing and more joyful ones!’ he meant it? Jeez, I feel dumb again. LOL

April 28, 2021

Unique. Being human is an odd state. Being alive is an odd state of affairs. Eating, breathing, drinking, reproducing, pooping… and talking, dreaming, thinking, planning, understanding, confusing things. Love. Hate. Anger. Disappointment. Impatience. Eagerness. Desire… I know a bit of being human (which I am), I do not know of, must equivocate on the state of being an animal or a plant. I am not the forest primeval. I wave not as grain. I swim no sea. I do not purr in the window or call out to a mate with a three tone chord from a secure tree limb. I am human. I think about things and suspect that the creatures, the flora do not.

Last week’s surprise snowfall did not seem to upset the little maple tree. Even though her branches were half-leaved with tender green, the maple shrugged off an unfortunate circumstance and soldiered on … soon as the snow melted. My cedars did not fare so well. There is a bit of sagginess to one branch, whose fate is not at all certain. Other green and newly growing things did escape the heavy whiteness…lucky souls. There are three Rhododendron plants near the door who chose not to flower ahead of the snow. Those gentle pink blooms chose today, instead and are quite happy, thank you. A very large bee is grateful. I saw him, humming about his work among the glories this morning. I was not nervous, he ignored me and I him. I was not stung and he was not smashed to the waiting, hungry clay by my hand.

I hear that man was born of clay and will return to such post-haste. Man was born by the miracle hand of some divine energy. Shaped and molded man stood up and walked across the Eden earth. The woman walked as well, it is said. Adam and Eve were the names of the two, handed down over centuries of tale-telling and inaccuracy. My suspicion is that the names were actually ‘Seven of Eight’ and ‘Eight of Eight’, there being mistakes made in the first versions. The last, most recent two were variations on a theme, one inny and one outy. They, also had mistakes in the wiring somewhere. This mistake caused an error that involved a snake and some fruit of a certain tree. The whole business was pretty sordid and had lasting repercussions. Poor snake has been unable to live the whole thing down.

Were these updated, yet flawed two – halves? like the queen bee and worker? Queen bee and drone? (I think of this, having recent witnessed the large bee at his tasks.) Are the fabled two of equal status? Our society puts one above the other in importance ranking because it (our society) stems mainly from the male (less labour intensive side) who wrote stuff down and made the rule book. (The male having time to do such things, while he was relaxing.) Still, who does the most work? The most important work? Does the worker bee rub the pollen off and provide the most needed essence to the colony? Does the queen rain down juices, elixirs that bind all and is therefore most essential? In the case of A and E, of whose body was the alleged rib truly drawn? The tale telling appears inaccurate. Our witness, in the here, in the now, in the human, is that what is called woman does all of the rib-sharing. Seems that could be called most important? In the known bee world, the queen does a vital, important work, the actual spraying of pheremones, the dancing hypnotically but the worker does the rest. So, in the buzzing world, it is She Bee who cooks the goose of additional metaphor and sets it on living’s table. It is She who endures and is Mother. Yet…without He Bee, where would She be?

All things have oddness of existence, somewhere and somehow. Life sprays from, is born of, seems most to be mother’s fault, mother’s production, mother’s baby. Yes. The busy he bee I see is not a complete, lazy innocent, however. In humans, the skinny neighbour who drinks in the backyard and simply drops the empty cans where they fall had no contributing role to play when the belly of missus swelled? The flower waits for Mother earth to turn her cheek toward the sun before it lives — even though the seed came from elsewhere. There is, amongst the stars and geese and birds and bees and humans and trees an odd balance. In the case of reproduction and fueling living, there are two sides. There is yin and there is yang. There is Mother Earth and Father Sun, there is Queen bee and Worker bee, there is yes and there is no, there is ‘Should I stay or Should I go?’ There is an even, or perfect, oddness.

I have a mother, today. It is the Mother of All Bad Attitudes. From this mother, all of today flows. Anger, resentment, fear, loathing… all flow from the Mother Of Bad Attitudes. Hmmm. Politics, being who I am, the little frustrations have all built up on a Covid Wave. There is also the other source/half of that wave, Father Time and his instigation. These two disparate folks contribute to the moment’s flow. Fortunately, once contributed to, the moment changes of it’s own. The moment moves. The moment is the child of Mother Earth and Father Time, of Queen and Worker Bee, of ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ but the moment is liquid. The moment is malleable. The moment is alive. If I step back from Mother Earth and Father Time, floating on moment…the whole picture is easier to understand, becomes perfect. I chillax, shrug off the late snowfall, buzz around the smart blooms and get on with it. There are two sides. A bad attitude wraps into a sixty-nine with a good attitude and the whole thing spins slow. Sometimes, sometimes not, then again.

Feathered creatures work the water,
while I watch.
I am eager to observe their day
and have left the busy street behind
to enjoy a moment’s stay.

At random, sometimes in pairs,
these (terns, I believe) sudden swoop and dive.
A colourful kite might do the same
when a tied on rag tail is
too short to control sway.

Watching the birds, I remember
a farm field fading from usefulness
where weeds rose victorious
and a fragile, stretched paper
kissed grey clouds, far away.

Who is it teases
out endless string, invisible,
from some tight wound ball (the way I did)
’til each of these birds I see seem
separate, unbound of earth, in free display?

My heart beats to a finite order,
riding ancient rhythm
that stretches now, thin and tight as string
but I choose to fly, choose to dream.
I am the sea-bird, doing what I do each day.

March 19, 2021

It is Monday and the things I wait for have not arrived. I will crank the rocking chair up to 5 on the scale and will wait again Tuesday. In the time between, there is much needs doing and this day is not proving productive yet. I have already sent the best part of a brilliant morning spinning down the pipe, flushed by a silver handle. I did have a lovely conversation, looked at someone’s art (very nice, I am envious of that ability), drove to get a tea and bagel then consumed said tea and bagel by the water’s edge…It’s been busy and I have been avoiding the writing that needs doing.

A therapist once mentioned to me that I am actually not ‘bad at everything’, not ‘less than everyone’. He said, “You are remarkably skilled at procrastination, you are an artist in the field of conflict avoidance…some people try to please everyone but you succeed at it most of the time.” Hm. Yes, I guess. I was just imagining a scene where I (with my arm dangling by a thread of skin) say, “Sure, I will reach the top shelf for you!” So. I suppose it is true.

The person I cannot please is typing in his kitchen at the moment. That guy is a real hard case. Grumpy as all get out, right from the first light of day! He avoids, yes. He criticizes, finds fault, measures, compares, always comes up short. Always. I suppose, on the day Mr. Grump let a smile crack open the inner countenance, there might be a movement. The escarpment would notice…Guelph would rise even higher…Niagara wouldn’t be ‘on the lake’, it would be ‘in the lake’. Haha So, for the benefit of our world…keep the status quo, Mr. Grump. Don’t change, who knows what might happen.

The interesting point about the unknown future result of change is, in my example: While fat is not necessarily an aim, or that sloppy poetry is not necessarily an aim, It is also possible that a person who is fat anyway or writes sloppy poems starts to change. It is possible to relax instead of tense up when the extra helping of pie rises to it’s final destination. Said fat, writer person may hear the ridicule, the clucking of tongues and in the moment – forget them. “Mmmmm….pie. Mmmmm…poem.” What would be the cost to fitness or the world of literature? What would happen? 1)a fat person would remain fat, 2) a bad poem would be written, 3)the judging world would judge, 4)the person at the centre of controversy would enjoy his pie, lick his lips, lick the fork, smile….and write more poems about it! It will be under-developed poems that blur the rules of English grammar in literature, written by a fat person who is smiling. A fat person who is smiling with traces of blueberry at the corners of his mouth. Ah, life….

Yes. No need for agonization, regret, recrimination. Just do, just get it done, just enjoy. Sure, try harder sometimes but be a pussycat about it, snooze when the mood strikes you…the world goes on, it struggles through without your agony, without your perfection. You are happier, you spread more happiness. Sigh. Gosh darnnit, you little ol’ pie-smeared fool!