“Yer not gonna die!” – Hazel Lindberg, circa 1958

That was my mom’s initial reaction to the bleeding stumps or the askew angled limbs of her five children as they paraded before her, each in turn. It was a statement intended to stop the damn screaming long enough for an assessment of damage. It sometimes worked. She was correct, 100%. We did not die, not one of us. We have, in fact, lived long and sort-of prospered, each of us to our own way. We have scars, marks, mileposts but remain. We remain and almost cheerfully. We live, for our time being, in a condition that passes for happily. Almost good. Good enough.

What did I expect when I fell out of the Mulberry tree onto the sharp prow of the sled, my nose bent off to the side afterwards, blood pouring out? Was I expecting St. Peter’s calming voice? “Have you filled out the questionaire?” When I ran screaming and bleeding into the house, was I expecting Mom to fill it out for me? Was I expecting the ambulance’ urgent wail, the bell tolling for me?

Yes, after a fashion. I was expecting something when I fell from the tree, face first onto the prow of the sled. I was afraid I would die. I was certain, having watched TV and read comic books, that it was over for me. With my nose smashed, the pouring blood, I was on my way out before I had a chance to do anything. I was going to die before I got my lifework done. (I conveniently forgot that Wil – E – Coyote always rose again.) Oh, my God! I am not ready! This is a permanent thing! I am forever changed! It is the end of a world! Save me Mom! Save me Jesus!

As one ‘situation’ led to yet another on the road to surviving childhood, I became aware how unprepared I was for any of the situations living brings. Dying, of course being one situation that living brings. (I think, these days that dying primarily happens to the living ones or things – although you might say a star is a living thing so all things die, I think even the universe and it’s time and space will). My impression of death was that a ton of blood would be involved or horrific pain or labored breathing or bizarrely upended vehicles or large dogs with glistening teeth… That is what I have expected death to at least begin with. Probably, after the initial sting, death would be as drawn out as that of any superhero or good cowboy or beloved pet (who had just saved the world and offered his life as fair trade) I ever observed. Having now witnessed a few up close deaths, a few disappearing souls, I have some new thoughts.

Maybe, death begins at the moment of birth, as if spitting out a living being is the same thing as leaving the turkey out on the counter. The turkey was alive (in a sense, if you are unaware of where food comes from or what it has to go through on it’s way to you) in the fridge but starts to change into not a turkey, a dead turkey. (If you think that death involves stinking and liquifying.) I am one of the 7 billion or so of us who have been left out on the counter. Every day, a new rivulet, a new grey spot, a more putrid odour, a less appealing visage.

We cannot put ourselves back in the fridge, that is just the way of it. No matter our fear of death, no matter our cries for mercy, no matter our science, no matter our drugs, no matter our organization of society, no matter the mom we go running to, no matter the God we plead with or try to appease…we and everything else are going to die. Zip. Done. Used up and stinking. Wasted. That we should fear this is more an outside fabrication, a thing to waste time with. What can there be to fear? Hell? Heaven? No more cherry pie? God will be mad at you and send you south?

Inside, we know fear is a waste of time – death has to happen. “Y’ might as well relax”, just like the proctologist says. What is peculiar, is that if you do relax – the proctologist visit can be a whole lot more interesting. If you do relax – getting up and going to work can be a lot less stressful. If you do relax – bankruptcy doesn’t hurt so bad. If you do relax – there is suddenly enough time to stare out the window at the squirrels. If you do relax – humming and spending your precious life hours watching tv or eating too much or not being beautiful or not being a famous author or playing piano badly can be as useful as any other activity. Nope. Doesn’t matter.

“So, Mom…you are wrong, I am going to die. Yes, Mom…you were right, not at this moment. Yes, Mom…we should calm down, wipe away the transitional blood, assess the damage, fix what we can and — carry on. Every fall from every Mulberry tree on the way toward our actual death will leave a mark. I have a bent nose to remember the tree and sled incident. I have a broken heart, a large white scar in various places to remember other incidents. Until Alzheimer’s gets me, I will not be able to erase or reverse the tape of my fall from the Mulberry tree. That tape exists. Bleeding like hell was temporary. My bent nose, permanent but that permanence, temporary. Haha. Jeez, I hope God isn’t too awful pissed off at me.

More changes but more steady as she goes, too. The covid landscape is barren as tundra yet the stock market is hitting new highs again. Curious, to me. People are grinding down to a halt financially and the housing market is still booming? Who is buying the houses? Who has that kind of money when the average home price in Canada is 400K? Well. In fact, the unemployment rate is not that severe. It stands at 8.6 % across the board. Even at it’s height, I think it didn’t hit more than 15 or 16%. That would indicate to me that 84% of working folks did not lose their job. Maybe that is where all the money for houses and equity investments comes from? Musicians, entertainers, hospitality folks and small (very small) businesses are bearing the brunt of loss. That truth I can attest from personal, first hand knowledge. Every entertainer or creative person I know is sitting on their hands and has been for a year! That’s where the greatest employment problems exist. Most other workplaces are open and running, though with differences, maybe slower output. The farms/greenhouses are rolling away as ever. The Chevrolets keep rolling off the line. We are isolated, suffering yes, but big box stores, fast food, fuel are all running as if nothing were amiss. The giant corporations are raking in the cash. It is a strange day.

I am growing more fearful of the difficult folks, the ones who have always been in the background – waving their guns and displaying their disregard for any but themselves, shouting their disdain for civility in public, for manners, for respect. They are wildly in the present, though Twitter and Facebook have clamped them down as best they can. Those folks are still stocking up weapons, supplies. Having been brought to the foreground and given the illusion that they are more numerous than they thought puts civility at risk. They don’t believe their own eyes, taking every lie told them as gospel. I actually listened to one misguided soul who was IN THE CAPITOL BUILDING waving her filth around and claimed it was Antifa? She just doesn’t have a clear view of reality.

I don’t understand Hillary’s deplorables and their desire to lock the rest of the world up. I think they have been led, this time, to believe they face a danger from the folks who have always been on the lower rungs of society. I know they must be thinking that the economic problems and social problems they are falling victim to are the fault of others – minority races, religions. Others? Yes. They don’t see that the danger they face from others is from the likes of Trump. He and the party of infidels he fronts for do not have the common man and his or her difficulties in mind. Not at all. The deplorables don’t see that. Before, when I knew them growing up, they just were wacked out. Bold, yes but on the sidelines. Now, they are front and centre — screaming at fellow passengers on a plane? fighting about wearing a mask in a store? threatening congress by charging into the capitol? grabbing the headlines and facetiming their crimes, both social and legal? Wow.

And we are locked away from each other? We are in some shit boys and girls.

Yeah. I do have some random thoughts and some observations about the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States. “Bully for you..” I hear. Yeah. “Take a number and have a seat.”

On Poetry:

For a little while (week? ten days?) poetry will be all over the place. CNN will regurgitate one or two lines of a brilliantly yellow-clad strong and fragile songbird’s work ad nauseum. Little girls will run for their ebook sellers, some will even dash into a -gasp- library. The ‘influencers’ will be rhyming like crazy, hip hop and rap will make a teensy bit more headway on the pop charts. Perhaps Dylan Thomas will be temporarily wheeled in from the mortuary halls of academe’. (Where art goes to die…LOL) Maybe even Arthur Rimbaud can struggle back? He has a definite appeal to the young and he tells their story with his tragic/romantic/emotional life. He was cute as a button, in the same way that Ms. Gorman is! I can hear the clicking of one million virtual keyboards, right now. Poetry is sexy of a sudden. Poetry is on the mind of movers, in the wiggle of shakers. Think ‘Tik and Tok’. A young, very traditionally good looking woman who reads very well and conducts herself with elegance in a public setting has been chosen Poet Laureate of the U.S. and she read to the nation, the world from her work. Just like that, poetry is famous.

My brother accused me of ‘puffery’ when I wrote that my resume could now include ‘Featured Soloist’ because my name appeared in the church bulletin. …but it was true! I was an advertised soloist at St. Mark’s! I was a feature of the program. Yes. I, too was a yellow-clad songbird for a moment. I strode up to the podium and jotted the fact down in my curriculum vitae. Puffery? Indeed not…er um. Well, yeah. In the same way that calling myself a featured soloist is puffery, so is CNN’s calling Amanda Gorman ‘the first youth Poet Laureate of the United States’. It is puffery that many of the TV newscasters swoon at the words she read. Sorry, Youth Poet Laureate isn’t a first. It is only a first because there is no such category. In fact, the young woman discussed is 22 years of age and has graduated Harvard. She isn’t a ‘youth’ anymore, really. She is young, yes but she is not a youth. Her poetry, ‘brilliant’…? Her poetry is maybe of Laureate quality but perhaps capable is a better description and puffery the word for the week. Uh oh.

I think few read or respect poetry. I used to do. I was drawn to the flame by the seductiveness of the idea of living an important creative life. Reading journals from the capitols of the art world in my distant, isolated heart of America got me caught up in a then-current well spoken of mystique. The beats were ‘in’. The poets were cool. Greenwich Village, Emma Goldman, Pete Seeger, Laurence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan – I was impressed by and took seriously. Their images, ideas and depth changed art and politics for the better, I thought. It meant something to me to wander in and be thrilled by the dark garden paths of Edgar Allen Poe or the sado-masochistic boudoir of Franz Kafka. I read Steinback cover to cover and delighted in meaning. All of those folks’ work was in the limelight of the hour. From far away and nowhere, I could sense a something extra. Intriguing. I wanted to be a part of it, the viral scene that was spreading. I knew I would be an enriched human being… if I could only understand what the H was going on. “…ah sweet mystery of life (I’ll never find thee)”.

So, the jazz, classical and folk (now ‘roots’) music that shadowed the alleys of ‘The Village’ was ‘better’, more important music than popular music. The poetry of Ginsberg/Rimbaud/Verlaines/Plath/e.e. Cummings, the short stories of O. Henry were serious art. All of that set fire to my soul. I struggled through some of it, enjoyed viscerally some of it and prided myself on my choices. I made up my mind what to expect from good, well crafted, insightful art. I developed a standard. I was drawn in by an image. That image was partly created by the popular press. That image was partly created by the elites of education. (the critics the academics) The press and the learned voices helped steer me to my beliefs about creative art. I made my analyses by that guidance.

I don’t read poetry much anymore, don’t follow music as well as I wish I did. I am a bit lazy. It is hard work to sift through the respected poets (thinking Pablo Neruda/Phillip Larkin as examples) so I am one of the masses who don’t read poetry. I know they are great, I can smell it, I read reviews, people I respect say so. Also, I can see the difference between their work and the work of folks like (new, young, fresh, capable, educated, accomplished) Amanda Gorman. I know the difference from my experience but I don’t read poetry much anymore. I don’t have the kind of deep education that you need to pack as a lunch when you travel to the library and I know it.

The fawning talking heads don’t read or, I should say haven’t read poetry, either. It is obvious to my understanding of what constitues great poetry. Those expressing astonishment at the ‘utter brilliance’ of what is an ‘all the right words’ banality reveal this. Yeah. I think ‘The Hill We Climb’ is banal. Wow. What an asshole I am. My reasons for thinking and saying so are many. A look at the text reveals a whole lotta platitudes. Oooops. My bad. ‘norms’? in an original poem that is heralded as art? Becoming light? The title ‘The Hill We Climb’ itself is simplistic metaphor. It is a capable piece and well written. True. There is another truth. The language is common, the depth a surface one that I could swim in without fear. I probably wouldn’t even get wet. Am I making stunning criticisms or an open-minded assessment? Who am I to talk, since I don’t read much anymore? Well, I used to read and I criticize my own poetry in exactly the same terms.

I would guess that the press is the birthplace and nursery of hyperbole because it is supported by advertising, kept alive on euphemism or cheerful, fact disguising claims. “New” “Improved” “Better Waste Management” (that’s garbage disposal) Shit. It is in the best interests of the media to whip up excitement, to drive the buffalo into the pound and over the cliff. That is how multimillion dollar organizations pay the bills. It is how political parties gain power. It is how art gets diluted and used. How about one little platitude more, “..putting lipstick on the pig.” The pig is still a pig and the poem is still uninspiring, no matter how it’s puffed up. This is a thing I know.

I got an ad for poetry books in my Facebook Newsfeed this morning. I ignored it, just as the many thousands or millions of other scrollers will and did. For a while there will be a rush on bookstores and a shortage of writing paper. People will see that poetry gets you the girls — for a while. The respected poets and the majestic ones will be read again — for a while.But hyperbole…calling a thing something it isn’t will pop. The spotlight will reveal cracks, faults, reveal puffery when the real thing finds it’s way out. Overstatement by the press is the first step in pricking Ms. Gorman’s poetry fame bubble. For a little while, little girls and boys across America will be drawn in to poetry. Ms. Gorman looks young, like them and is being feted. “Hey, I want to do that, I want to be her, poetry looks easy..” They will discover something they have not seen. In short time, folks will step away from believing that they, too could be beautiful, articulate, measured Poet Laureates. When Charles Bukowski starts getting compared to Amanda Gorman, folks will say to themselves, “Whoa…I don’t think so…” and go back to Beverly Hillbillies re-runs and McDonald’s meals.

Jesus or Charlie Manson

“Hello?” she swore she heard,
then,
almost in smirk,
came the word, “Hello?” again.
Elizabeth looked up from the work.
She was knitting sweaters
and nearly done one,
ready for a little break.
She rose from her expensive chair,
which relieved back-ache and
went to the diamond shaped window
where
daylight peeked in.
Elizabeth peeked out.

There is magic enough about
any single day to
cause the curious wonderment.
Elizabeth was one of those.
Sometimes,
her piqued imagination
examined the deep purple
sky’s situation,
researching what a sound of distant
thunder meant.
Sometimes,
a finished book, returned to the shelf,
included ‘additonal study’ notes
she’d written herself.
Just now, seeking informaton more,
following where facts led,
she went to the door,
actively thinking, “What’s that little,
‘hello’, for?”

She raised her head,
saw It wasn’t morning light alone
shone in,
knew there was much to know
about the type and source of such
an extra glow,
so the heavy wooden door,
usually kept closed against attack,
eased a crack.
She offered a timid “Hello?” back.

His long hair in disarray,
a booklet-bearing tanned man
stood there,
clothing rumpled like he didn’t care
what the neighbours might say.
Elizabeth’s first private thought was
“Uhg…”
then her better mind held sway
bringing curiousity to boil and buzz
away.

She mentioned, “That mark on your forehead…
what does it mean?” before realizing
he was merely unclean and
he breathed back, “Do you know Jesus?”
“uum…yeah,” she smart-alecky said,
“wasn’t he one of the Grateful Dead?”

When Memory Becomes Fact

I am in an odd mood today or possibly I am aware of my consistent odd mood. I have to do some running to catch up with myself and verify which is which. Ha. I am prepared, I have my requisite bagel and tea at the ready while my fingers fly across the keyboard, spreading the blog-tale of my days. Maybe this day, I am suffering a merry-go-round centrifugal force? At least fifty-seven ideas are on the spinning turntable of mind and as the speed picks up, they fly off in as many directions. Is that child-like? “Focus, fella…focus.” One of my ex-spice (spouses = spice) used to dismiss my odd moods as childishness with a bored air. She thought the illusory, fantastical worlds I extemporized were built as a child might build them. I am not so sure, could be. I don’t remember being a child that well so am not sure how to make the comparison. Observation and contemplation lead to the conclusion that I must have been a child once. What’s gone is first-hand, tactile information about being such. At least a particular youngster. Me.

I know I remember my Aunt telling me something I didn’t believe when I was four years old. I remember my Spouse thinking I was childish and I remember having a misunderstanding with God. It is knowledge more than memory. There comes a time, and I don’t know when, exactly, that a memory becomes not a memory any more. There comes a time when you know you remember a thing and you know the details but you don’t feel it anymore. A wisp of past becomes knowledge, a hard thing, no longer seductive or chimerical but a knock-wood firmness that you don’t re-feel anymore when thinking about it. The sensations, the sounds, the smells are gone and the fading-colour paint is finally dry. Is the dried and finished work really a memory then? Is it only a reality, just another fact hanging on the wall, imbued with nothing?

I have knowledge that my ex-wife thought I was childish. I don’t feel insulted or smell or see the room we were in that day, no memory surrounding the memory. I don’t remember what fantasy I was engaged with that caused her to roll her eyes. I have only the fact. She said I was childish. I have the knowledge of a memory but not the memory anymore.

I witness the little children at play with living, gaming with experience, entertaining wild ideas for the novelty of it. “The sun is a flower, because I say so…it is possible that the earth really is flat because Columbus doesn’t know everything!” They are feeling. They are exploding with life. I can sometimes see why my ex saw in me that half-whacked condition but as for remembering it, the doing of it, the feeling of it as a child? No. I don’t remember it, I only know it. On the surface, I am in agreement with her, that I am sometimes being child-like. I do enjoy elucidating under-baked ideas for fun. (exhilarating free associations) I am deducing my enjoyment is what a child feels but not, in fact remembering that feeling.

I know that I can make folks laugh with my inanity, my ludicrous comparisons, my sudden leaps into oblique directions. I can disrupt any conversation with a well-timed outburst. There is laughter, then I see the look my companions give each other…”Is he ever going to grow up.” I recognize that look. I have seen that look on the face of every single person I have ever met. So, then. I know my silliness reflects an immaturity. I know that it is childish playfulness. I have the knowledge of childishness and not the memory of being a playful child.

When memory turns to fact, it is sometimes a loss, it can be a kindness as well. The true loveliness of memory turning to knowledge comes from the times that immediate, cold facts, hard realities turn to memory, which in turn finally become only knowledge of memory. Memory is kind when it finally becomes fact without the ever-constant sidekick, pain.

I miss and would love to feel what I was feeling the day my aunt told me there was bogey-man under the bed. I know what I felt, I remember but I don’t feel it anymore. I was elated, gleeful and pretending to be fearful even though I knew it wasn’t true. I have lost that feeling, don’t know what colour the room was or how old my aunt was but I still have the memory of it. I have the fact.

What I am grateful for is equal to what I just said I miss. I am grateful for those inescapable darker memories having become fact. I know them. I remember them very well, will never forget but they are facts, now. I don’t have to feel or smell or touch them anymore. Good.

Someday, I will tell you about me and God…it is hilarious, really. Ha.

Many years ago, I Iistened to the U.S.’ National Public Radio news programs each day while driving home from work. It has now been quite some time that I haven’t had NPR on my radio set, haven’t listened. I changed residence and have CBC Radio 2 on a worn and stuck-in button these last twenty or so years. Many people make strong comparisons that the world view, the politics, the agendae of the two networks are much the same. I guess so, yes. I think they are. What is interesting is that my world view, politics are in tune with those of the public broadcasters — almost always. I very much enjoy (what I believe to be) balanced and in-depth reporting of events, the measured tone of the talking heads, the focus on arts, literature, culture. All of the daily programming menu seems pretty high-brow and I am a sucker for high-brows – long hair. Gimme an ‘F’ for Farley Mowat! Gimme an ‘M’ for Margaret Atwood…gimme a ‘P’ for Philip Glass. Yay!

At one time, near the end of Thursday’s All Things Considered program on NPR, they read letters from listeners. Usually, the letters were fairly benign requests for coverage of different things or praise of particular broadcasts. For the best part, they were sweet little notes and notes full of considered, intelligent observations. I always listened. One Thursday, a letter stood out for me. I no longer remember the exact details but I remember the personal comeuppance I felt. “Whoa…” I said in realization, “I am less than perfect.” The letter-writer started with a pleasant salutation and noted that he/she had been listening to news coverage and wished to offer a criticism. That’s when the tone of the letter changed, easing into a sort of “Damn you liberals all to hell!” that was ‘suggested’. The writer launched into an attack on the ‘left wing liberal’ slant NPR applied to the news reporting, accusing the editorial staff of allowing a biased representation of facts. “Wait, just one minute!” I nearly cried aloud. “You are attacking what is some of the most balanced and fair reporting there can be! How dare you be so blind! Well!!!” Two seconds after my inner outburst, I stepped back, aware that, of course I would think a left wing liberal slant to the news would be an un-biased one…I am a proud left wing liberal! Uh-oh…can it be that I, I am not righteous, not pure, biased?

Moving at a high rate of speed to today and the antagonistic rhetoric that passes for discourse, I am realizing something again. If we ever had a moment when people listened to each other, respectfully, then articulated their own, possibly different view without rancour…that moment is very gone. It does not exist in mirage. It does not exist in memory. It does not appear to exist as a future possiblity. Events that unfolded after Trump’s (obvious to all – right and left, even Fox news acknowledged that it did sound that way) call to arms on national television and public media have brought freedom of speech discussions shouting to life. As Twitter (I love that name – so appropriate for the twits who use the format) and other platforms close down on MAGA, shutting off their life-line to the airwaves, we are faced with a renewed battle. Is it denying freedom to speak when a private company kicks someone out of the club because they are saying something extreme or unpopular? Who decides what is acceptable? What is Free Speech? Is telling a lie, Free Speech?

There are so many opinions about anything. I think the sky is misty-grey today. Another fellow thinks I have misspelled gray and that, indeed, the sky is a silver-gray. I believe I am the smartest, most righteous man alive and my inner voice just laughs and laughs at that idea. I think my neighbour is real sexy, that I wouldn’t mind a little dancing toe-to-toe with him(so to speak). I say so, I say it out loud on Facebook and my relatives think I should hold my tongue, it is vulgar to notice such a thing aloud, that I should be ashamed of myself. That is their opinion and that is that. I haven’t inquired about my neighbour’s opinion, he may not well endure such a conversation. He might say, “Hey, what the..?” That would be perhaps an unfavourable (to me) opinion. There are around 7 billion, sentient human beings on earth and 7 billion developed opinions. There are 7 billion different right ways to think or be or live or believe. Think of it, 7 billion faces of the possible God! So amazing, so complex to be human.

Each of us, I believe, does have the absolute right to our opinion. None has the inherent right to make another be still or believe as one body. I may want you to either agree or be quiet but wanting is one thing, demanding, another. No one has the right to force you, force me to shut up. I have had two marriage partners and they will both tell you that I am unlikely to shut up, that I am unlikely to watch the television news without shouting out my disagreement. I do believe and know that all ideas are valid, even those deemed by a majority of coinciding opinions to be wacky. All ideas should be available for consideration, freely. Go, ahead, speak. Tell me that Adolf Hitler was a fair man and why you think so. Whatever. Grab a megaphone (Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and others), stand up on the podium and lie your ass off. I am free to disagree, free to educate myself, free to turn off the radio, free to walk away in disgust. Here is the rub. “So,” you may say, “Calling for violent overthrow of the state is Free Speech? Speaking lies in a manner that is injurious to another is Free Speech?

Currently, there is a wave of conservative media opinion that left-wing, socially liberal media are attempting to shut certain views out of the public space. I think it’s true. I am sorry to have to say so but very, very true. There are calls to shut down right wing websites, media platforms, public groups. After the actions of Trump’s mob, Twitter, Facebook and Web-hosting companies are busily shutting off the flow of effluent. (not that I have an opinion on the quality of rhetoric being denied a lectern) There is a momentum to still the social conservative voices. Folks are sick and very tired of Rush Limbaugh, of Steve Bannon, of Franklin Graham. Ted Cruz and company have worn out any welcome they may have had in the public sphere (except from their supporters, whose numbers seem steady). Is it right to shut them down with a blanket response? Hit the switch? Stop them from speaking?

No. It is not right to shut off the flow of ideas that are unpleasant, that smell of falsehood. The civil libertarians must stand up and speak. (haha) Without cooler heads we risk a lot. We are plunging into a dangerous current by shouting for the heads of the folk we don’t agree with and I believe nearly everyone is doing this. Everyone on each of the 7 billion sides is shouting to ‘lock them up’. Well. Who should be shut down? Anyone? Whose ideas should be turned off, locked out? What ideas should be rejected, en masse? Any? Yeah. Some ideas need to stop being shouted out.

My opinion is: No, you may not stand up and urge others to grab a weapon, head downtown and tear the place up. That is not free speech. That is hate speech. That is speech that deprives another of their human rights; the right to life, liberty, the right to an opinion and the pursuit of happiness. Hate speech seeks to throttle another voice, kill a different opinion. Hate speech is speech that makes an object out a human being or a group of human beings. The N-word is hate speech. Calling someone an idiot is hate speech. Calling someone a fag, a wop, a whore, etc. is hate speech, not free speech. Telling lies, stories without evidential basis that injure another or prejudice opinion is hate speech, not free speech. All of those things are what I believe Parler, Fox news, The Proud Boys, extremists of all stripes are doing. Those things are what should be shut down, disavowed, put to rest. Our problem in the coming weeks, months is that the process of making distinction between free speech and hate speech is going to be difficult. Do the groups I mentioned have a right to a day in court? Absolutely. Does left-wing liberal media have a right to a day in court? Absolutely. Do we have the responsibility to let others speak? Absolutely… but that is just my opinion. With my opinion and $5.88, you can get a cup of cofeve and a bagel at Starbucks.

Sunshine – blue skies. Our long greyness has dissipated. That is a nice word, dissipated. It applies to fog, to misspending youth and vigor, to melancholy, to a circle of friends… There are so many ways to use such a lovely little word. I like words that have a lot of applications. In the case we are concerned here with, ‘a gradual evaporation — a slow waste — a plodding dilution — vanishing uselessly — scattered’. I love it. Our long greyness has disintegrated, evaporated, scattered itself to the four corners. Without anyone being fully conscious of it or realizing it, the sun has been allowed to light the earth in Leamington, Ontario for a day. How very nice that is.

The grey has lifted, dispersed, eased away. With the grey has gone melancholy for a while. The fog has crept away on it’s ‘little cat feet’. That is good, that is a relief. Endless cloudy skies drag the spirit down, depress the soul, remind us of where and how we are living. We need a break from such drear. Break out the jugs of joy-juice, strike up the band! Give that fellow on the mellow guitar an exuberant hand! Ah life!

Washington, D.C. has dissipated for me on this bright day. The twitter-verse fell silent. Hate got a slap in the face by it’s own hand and we can breathe a moment. Maybe it would be more accurate to say ‘we can gasp for a moment’? Yeah, that. We are fish and have been hooked, scooped out of our comfortable lives at swim. Now, the struggling is finished and we are on deck, mouths open, relaxing in the sun while the next horror is prepared for us. “The freezer for you, buddy boy!”

The next horror comes not as a freezer, exactly but more in the form of ad nauseum discussion. Enough of that to dull and slow the metabolism of the mind. In the coming days, weeks, months a slew of opinion editors will rise to mark recent events. Talking head after talking head will endlessly repeat the obvious, political types will roundly and earnestly discuss prevention of future such happenings. Sociology professors, political insiders, psychiatrists will be consulted. In-depth analysis of the perpetrators of malfeasance will come to the front of the ‘news cycle’. We will see the sad stories of the ‘bad’ people. Some of that is already here in the case of the woman who was shot by police as she attempted to burst through guarded doors. Y’see…her poor business was on the ropes, nearly bankrupt. No wonder she took up with the likes of Qanon and stormed the capitol! Any reasonable person would do so.

But… it is a quiet, sunny day today. I shall go for a walk, then maybe play guitar. All of the riotous behaviour is over for a moment, the news trucks can take a break. Maybe they will purchase some ‘street-food’ from a covid-crippled vendor? Oh, yes…there is that other story. Maybe folks will go back to that one, since so many have died interim. As a rising news item (with the other analysis in the background) the spotlight will surely return to dead and dying – businesses and people. Before you know it, Trump, antifa, white supremecy, Sexy Buffalo Horns Man will all have dissipated and the covid catastrophy will rise again. In valiant effort, praises be, CNN never stopped for a moment. Theirs is a non-stop, 24 hour panic. Fox, of course continues it’s panic in another fashion with undertones of “Oh my gosh…the ‘alternate facts’ got away from us!

I am ok. Through all of this, most of us are ok. Nearly 7 billion of us survived night on earth and are up ‘n at ’em again today (whatever day that is where you are). Many hundreds of thousands or even millions died during the evening or passed out drunk in the ditches of wherever. Some were horribly treated, some suffered political pogroms or disease of other types, some died by their own hands. Some folks fell in love, some had the best climax ever. Some were laughing loud, just before the car smashed into the guardrail and flipped them into oblivion. That continued as it has for the eons we have been borrowing earth. As proof, I give you my blogging, my eating an apple, my drinking a tea, my pooping, my breathing. Even though I am dissipating (I can feel it) I continue, for now.

I wonder sometimes, about events and conditions like the ones we are traveling through and taking our brief break from. When there is major disruption, war, famine, disease, Is it earth, cleaning house? Or, horrors be, God (just like Mom said)? We seem bent on destruction as though by some other hand. Every news cycle there is a case to indicate we are dissipating, that we will be gone in a bit. I don’t think that can be denied. We are, as cloudy-brained humans, evaporating. We watch ourselves in the mirror without seeing the image. Fortunately, there are days like the one here, at my doorstep. Today, I can take a break, turn it off a second, enjoy the sunny day. I am going to. Maybe there was never crime to witness. Maybe it is simply the nature of fog, to disappear.

Grey day number 347? Ya. I never realized that just being 45 minutes closer to the lake would change my skies. Wow. With the weather difference and the giant cannery chimney, they should call this ‘Greystack Tomatoe’ not Leamington. Maybe, in a nod to the recent development of cannabis greenhouses, they could call our town – ‘My Magenta Heaven’? (For those who don’t know – our night skies are coloured magenta from the grow house lights bouncing off the clouds, unearthly).

Names are funny. The little beasts of the earth and fowl of the sky and fish of the sea don’t have names for things. At least, I don’t think they do, they don’t talk to me very much. (Well, strictly speaking, sometimes, they do talk to me and doff the tiny fedoras. It’s “G’day, Brother Hubbard” and off they go. Those are the days that I stop at one bottle of red wine.) Only we humans give names. Is it that we have to name everything in order to remember where or what it is? The creatures don’t have to do that. They remember a lot, except the squirrel who vacations in my little maple tree. He can only remember that my windowsill is where he smacks the dried treats in order to break off mouthfuls. As far as what he left where? It’s any squirrel’s guess. In spring, leftover buried stuff starts growing in the middle of nowhere.

Yes, I have never seen a cat with post-it notes all through the house. They just go where they need to go and do what they need to do, then go back to that warm place. They don’t call it a ‘warm place’ though. They just ‘prrrrt–m-ow’ and go there. I called it a warm place because I am writing this for human readers and, as might be expected, I needed to add clarity, definition. If there were a pussycat looking over my shoulder just now, he would turn to me with a “Really?” sort of expression, then saunter slowly away. He would step carefully, pretending that he didn’t see what he just saw.

Yeah, yeah. Another grey (or gray) day. I am still working on poems. They suck, I suck..what the hey. It’s okay, I think. Since no one is publishing them and I write them in a digital form, then no trees have to die for misanthropic art. Misanthrophic? Haha. Yeah, the old poems don’t like people very much. I put them in a book for safekeeping. The new ones are changing, becoming stories and I think that is a good thing. I am trying to steer away from rhyme because that is like salt. It adds a wonderful flavour but easily overwhelms meaning. I am trying to stay away from obtuse meaning also because, well, why talk in riddles all the time? Sooner, or later, the audience starts thinking about eating twinkies or having sex with Ryan Gosling and not reading you anymore. Too much work.

Last week, I watched, witnessed several murders, horrific accidents, cars flying in the air, bombs going off, a rape or two, a major financial crime, a bizarre political plot and people just behaving badly. Every day, another dead person, another investigation. I sat on the jury in a dozen kangaroo courts as the inaccurate or wildly incorrect details poured out. It is all too much. Now, I have to slow down on the TV shows. Can’t watch much more if I am to remain a high-functioning human being. The worst of this charade? The bizarre plot and the bomb were not fictional. A lost soul blew up part of downtown Nashville and well-respected constitutional lawyer Trump wobbled forth in antical action. I thought about all of it. How daily life imitates the art we feed ourselves with!

A serious part of today is: It is lockdown and lockout, a submission to l’emission as a replacement for up-close and personal. We are trapped at home with the remote. By inertia, we are drawn to the devil and his moving colours, shapes, his sounds. We can’t help but edge closer. This happens even though we have heard the warnings. It is nearly a platitude to make any remark in dismissive criticism about our television culture. If you are listening, ad nauseum shouts of “Hey, it ain’t helping us!’ fill the air as columns of smoke do from a fire. This is not a good time and not a good place to be.

It is too easy to flip through the parade of horrors and observe each over-decorated float as it passes. It is too easy to settle down amid piles of garbage. I see that ‘the vast wasteland’ is alive and unwell, unhealthy for us. My gut feeling is that the Maury Povich Show, The Nightly News, The Apprentice, Family Feud, re-runs of The Beverly Hillbillies or nearly any Netflix series have broken our culture complete. Nuance and reflection are become archaic words that no one understands anymore. We have no depth and we accept that as a way to live. We are numbing ourselves to cacaphony. We are losing faith, losing perspective. It has to come to an end. We will, otherwise.

The very last thing to do is to try getting the garbage flow to stop with legislation. Thumping bibles and threatening retribution are only a part of the play that must end. The only reasonable response to the rythmic assault is to turn away, on our own. It has to be my choice NOT to turn on the box, my choice to go for a long walk, my choice to walk away and stay away until the sellers of so-called art or so-called ideology revamp their wares. They will, it is up to our pocketbooks to dictate. The producers of garbage, need us to consume it. In this oligarchical, crowded west, we still have the freedom to choose.

Yeah. Still, leave an eye open, an ear to the ground…there may be a necessary action to take. These folks in the Brooks Brothers suits are a sneaky bunch. The best thing is to be aware but keep your distance. Don’t let the overflowing sewer soil your better selves. Keep a clean soul. This is a mirage, that plays across the large-screen…it has little to do with really quenching thirst.