the thoughts of forrestasaurus

Reflection

2012-01-16T07:15:00.000-08:00

The Right Place to Go
Reflect off Glass to get Louder
off velvet to get softer
Curved surfaces
parabolic places
Sound follows source when reflected from corners

corners

corners

Forrest's NFB Night Cookies

2011-10-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

Canadian films: A Matter of Fat by William Weintraub, Crapshoot: The Gamble with Our Wastes by Jeff McKay (though maybe not the best for cookie consuming), Paul Tomkowicz: Street-Railway Switchman by Roman Kroitor. By no means is this an especially thoughtful or exhaustive list. Enjoy

Ingredients

1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup plain yogurt
2 tbsp water
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp sea salt
2 tsp ginger or pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp cloves
handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips
handful of raisins

Preheat your oven to 350 C. Get out a pan, spoon, wooden spoon, measuring stuff, and two bowls.
Mix brown sugar and butter together in a medium sized bowl. Add yogurt and water.
In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. Add them to the wet ingredients. Mix it all together.
Add your chocolate and/or raisins. Mix them in. Grab your spoon and scoop out your cookie dough. Put on a cookie pan. Press them down a little bit so they aren't so fluffy.
Bake for 8-10 minutes.

Stemplot for Dataset Fall

2011-09-18T18:09:00.000-07:00

Where I'm Going

2011-07-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

Countdown

2011-06-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

We are nearly finished
and soon we will
step out, into greyish light
coldness nipping the wet air.

Your nose, my nose
forward, inward, sensing.

We left mother at the end
the road was long
we fell into the ditch and saw
a mossy stone
a path beginning
longing toward the wooded green.

We left mother at the end
we are nearly finished
soon we will
step out, into greyish light
wet air

Where is mother?

We left at the end
we are nearly finished
we will step
into greyish light
wet air

(whispers, whispers)

We left
we are finished
we will step into light
air

Everett Ruess and my Father

2011-06-19T10:53:00.000-07:00

That young vagabond said
he always tried to look
not take
nature and its best swallowed him
all the way to his heart and lungs

until he decided to forget breathing and
beating
his way out of the wilderness

It took what he did not
unfair, isn't it?

looking out the window
I notice bright green tips on the branches
of an old black spruce
layered if I imagine one dimension
on bright green tips of summer clad poplar

cottonwood, oak

Am I taking enough to be safe?
safe from the gravity held within those black trunks
bursting out each spring and withering each fall

I always try to take enough
to beat my way by foot out of the wilderness
but also I do not take
and sometimes I lose myself

finding light and air infused with ghosts
rather than dust
I squander one after another breathing moment with silence

minutes found, unharmed, changed

2011-05-19T06:48:00.000-07:00

Once, we followed him to the quanset
little plaid shirts on boy and girl
feet rubber shod avoiding nails
lost socks toe nestled.

It was all dusty all grey all casted shadows
we did not notice then
I feel a thousand sensations in this memory
yes, heart explodes at the thought
we brought voices
cast up more dusty cloud
sat in old bucket seats bereft
kicked a pile of old scrap and wood
followed him back before dark.

in hand thoughts haunt us in
only these twenty or thirty years
all dust all shadows all grey.

Before there were lockers: I still feel guilty about stealing K's Jasmin necklace from her coat hook when we were in gr.2

2011-05-06T10:08:00.000-07:00

In the Peace where the prairie's grand

stands the best school in the land.

A special place for you and me

filled with fun activity.

We learn about life and the golden rule at Beaverlodge Elementary School.

The kids are HOT the teachers are cool at Beaverlodge Elementary School.

At Beaverlodge

...

(excerpt from the actual anthem at Beaverlodge Elementary school, sung by all at assemblies circa 1990's)

August/October

2011-04-17T08:18:00.000-07:00

A red breasted robin, brown headed and fair

wandering door to door singing

husky voiced, low night air

Before worms begin to rise up and out

warbling sky turned to ringing

still night under wing singing singing

singing

...

Last october it rained and rained

The sky drained down, the ground became a black heap rolling over and out. I was wearing cracked white reeboks soaked through stepping in odd time crookedly weaving through

ruts and battlefields glistening with worms

who had slithered up to the sky only to find water and then when trying to get home again found only wells where holes had been.

They are bloated and I dread to step upon them, even one of them more because I am afraid of carrying them around on my feet than of desecration. God cares for worms in theory, in practice they come and go drowning in the rain, trampled underfoot

I even remember them revealed, caught, fed to birds by children throwing rocks over playing counting games.

2011-04-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

Charlie Yuen

2011-03-26T07:13:00.000-07:00

Charlie Yuen was over six feet tall. He sailed to Canada from China when he was 13, lived in San Francisco with an uncle for a while, and then drifted up to British Columbia alone.

He ran a crew of Chinese workers on the CPR in 1881 and laid the Kicking Horse portion of the track. He made no records of his experiences there or elsewhere, he was considered illiterate. I wish we could sit down with him today and ask him about his life - apparently he could remember anything.

After working on the rail he made his way to Alberta where he started as a cook and labourer at Bow Valley Ranch for W.R. Hull. If you or I could visit the Ranch then, it would have been Charlie coming out to greet us in long strides, setting us up in our rooms, and offering up breakfast.

Early on in Canada Charlie wore his hair long so that he could return to China. He had a wife and children there and returned a handful of times with a long absence until 1938. On this year, when he went for the last time to end his days in peace, he was not able to find his family - they had been scattered during unrest.

People say he died there of a broken heart and his soul came back to wander in Canada.

To me he is handsome, tall, remembering everything of his children's eyes, his days hammering steel in the mountains, the waves of the Pacific Ocean - right out in the middle of it, no one around but a lonely ship in the wind. He might sit in the light of a Prairie evening, listening to the grass in the Bow Valley moving, looking over East to see the faint outline of the Sweetgrass hills, a sacred place where so many other spirits roam.

(information collected by Georgeen Barrass from an interview with Mr. and Mrs. Hoschka, Calgary in Salt of the Earth by Heather Robertson, 1974)

2011-03-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

My uncle works at a gas plant in rural Alberta, this is the setting as I imagined it. Cold, smokey, white, shards of brown grass.

Between Home and the Texas Gate

2011-03-18T07:18:00.000-07:00

On this back road we take off our shoes
walking with gravity pulling forward
at the bottom skirt a hole of mud and water
up on an atv track between two grassy fields
our toes are poked by scrubby sticks until we move
back on the red soft tracks of road
playing evasion with small insects pestering our necks
looking back making sure that sound wasn't a
black bear
or a moping moose out from its deciduous forest
spotted with evergreens the trees squeeze closer and closer
we walk silently as friends do, feeling the coolness of shadows burst
the gate and its phantom black angus are still ahead...
our shoulders are the first to know it is time to turn back
head back up the hill, slip into our shoes
kick a pine cone ahead of us down the driveway
come back another time.

End of the Powerline (2)

2011-02-26T07:27:00.000-08:00

I've seen no other trees with memories like these
trees spread thick across the ground.
They are a yearly or so cause for chainsaw sounds and crunching of leaves under bark -
ants running frantic under the weight.
Heavy snows mean the drive is showered in still
branches hanging low with cold water driving all west and east
as we continue mostly south, unbroken snow.
Created old and living, the forest moves in the wind
honestly, consistent, pulling everything into it.
Trails broken by animals, creatures of habit
more than I could imagine
until I traced their well worn paths that afternoon in autumn
curving around brush, past inevitable fireweed and into the beyond, farther than I had meant to go that day.
falling over the tracks of what I had as a friend and laying
under the stars I found I was crying for home
harmonizing with coyotes, feathering the sky with our northern lights, sounds.

East to Winnipeg, West to Moose Jaw

2011-02-23T06:46:00.000-08:00

Hansen's, sales & services

2011-02-11T07:50:00.000-08:00

a stair scented with oranges
piled at the bottom in a pyramid, leathery and shrunken
a mirror reflects their colour and
it is hoped the buddha appreciates it from his spot nearby.

Two ladies live on the second floor
between their jewellery store and the
grey sky, today they sit quietly
from seven until late afternoon and look out
the green window at passersby
pushed close by the median and by each other's hurry.

The bakery one block away sells everything half-price
after 5:30 and I wonder if the ladies ever go there or
how many times they've been.

The Powerline

2010-12-01T12:52:00.000-08:00

It is the end of the powerline
do you know where we are?
I am asking myself. I have been here before.

I found my seventh grade shadow behind the trees planted
along the road
she was cowering with her toy compass and sorels tied up tight
I tried to coax her out into the light

My headlamp burned bright
a blue winter night broken
by it's whisper "come here beautiful"
You're my baby memory
it's okay to come along with me.

The darkness of the woods closed in behind her
enveloped her until only
her eyes remained
she told them

shimmer, glisten like a deer's
I heard a branch snap overhead and
snow fell softly on both of us
I moved

close as I could in the chaos of the moment
heavy imprints of crest fallen snow mimicking mine and her
footprints

our noses touched exchanged warm air
she turned and bounded away her mane a windy dream
droplets of winter dew settling
on my cherry cheek.

Winter winter winter
secrets and silence.

2010-11-09T07:54:00.001-08:00

This blog still exists,

I just haven't thought of anything lately.

-forrestasaurus

Eutrophe

2010-10-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

Do you think it's always flooded like that?
I've seen people kayaking all around those trees over there.

Family and Strangers

2010-09-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

Both sets tell us stories.

p.s. new poem below too. Check it out, let me know what you think.

Make your own image

2010-09-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

Well soaked
it was a night of whiteness
tile tile way what I mean back to me.
Hearing an echo is the shortest
way to truth.
When I listen
I hear echos
and here lay helpless to
hear.

Edit this.

2010-08-29T15:04:00.001-07:00

The square-ass front of an old ford
is staring me down,
a hood
what's under there? I'm not sure.
Probably not literacy
Probably not Empathy.
Maybe, though.

It's always been time
for me to banish bigoted assumptions -
like why don't I want to smell this street?
I'm afraid of the immigrants,

not.

I'm not sure when garbage pick-up is
in this neighbourhood.
Immigrants are good-guys
as often as anyone else is.
I was just testing you
with my
previous

statement.

Name Plate

2010-08-23T09:48:00.000-07:00

Your arms are just long enough
to set your brother down in his grave.
You could never have known
why you grew as you did and made it
when others did not.

Pride and sorrow are paired
and we all know the sweetness of
their taste.
Time after time we go along
view the past body-heavy
was-being of another and kiss
our mothers goodbye.

This I have learned
from you and the day I saw
you set your brother down.
down.
down.

First Days

2010-07-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

Jesus, Jesus a child is born
it's November and it's
damn cold.

2010-07-20T13:36:00.000-07:00

Empathy is Fiction

2010-07-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

Coping wanders over; means that I
go to work in the morning with
a nice hairdo
and get there
with a shitty one.

Someone stops on the side of the road
beside where I am
walking
and says "you're a looker,
where's the grocery store in this town?"
Keeping distance, I point down to the end
The road yawns upward, I say something
about turning left.

My computer screen replays
the incident until lunch time
I've written three pages of
poems about my dad.
I found Martha Scanlan
singing on stage at
the Internet.

In the washroom I'm a fluorescent
a ghost-faced something, coping with
whatever it was I left this morning
last night
a dream, a loss, a change.

As a Child I Felt the Same

2010-06-28T09:45:00.000-07:00

I've been walking around these days
long evenings and afternoons
mornings even longer.

So far, I have found two eggshells
one in the grass at my father's house
another marooned on the cement six blocks from
where I live.

Picking them up is compulsory, to me.
Showing them like treasures to my
loved one I imagine a conversation:

see, what I've found is wonderful,
small, blue this time. I love you.
I couldn't help myself.

The second shell bounced inside
my sweaty fist, I could feel the shadow of life
as I ran back
home.

Past the Meadow

2010-06-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

The twilight woods are humming
older tunes than I thought to know
a breathing wall of intensity, mosquitoes, owls,

come out owl, fly past with your wings outstretched
in the dark where silence can never exist
and where quiet is the sound of
millenniums rushing past
water over a fall
driftwood pacing at the bottom in a pool.

The Sounds

2010-06-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

green translucent leaves fluttering
above high
high high high
black barked trees reaching over to
other tree arms lacing in and out of
grey air.

I can't stop too long
looking up neck all the way back the leaves invade
if I stay someone will stop and stare
I will lose my soul to the
tops of the trees
fluttering leaves
so beautiful, lovely things up there
wading through
grey water pulling forward through gates and gates.

The sound is the greatest part
go listen and you will see what I mean.

Twitter 2.0

2010-05-26T13:05:00.000-07:00

Library Question: Armed with a bit of knowledge about what Twitter is all about, share your thoughts on this fast growing online phenomenon.

Okay: When Twitter first emerged I ignored it because I didnt think it would be useful. As it turned out, I worked at the Library at the time and was told I had to start up an account and figure twitter out whether I wanted to or not. So I did. thenewfamily is my twitter alias for, well, your favourite folk and roots band. Twitter has landed us with one awesone gig so far!

It didnt take long for me to be in love with twitter at work- mostly because I was sitting at a computer all day and had a lot of time to check it. Now that I am not in front of a computer all day, I have to "remember" to check twitter and tweet about our sweet music and how you should book us for your venue. Still, its fun to check it once in a while, and I do learn a lot about what is going on in my chosen community that I wouldnt otherwise.

LibraryThing 2.0

2010-05-18T09:19:00.000-07:00

This week's question is about LibraryThing - a sort of book-sharing site. It is similar to GoodReads, and a way to get recommends in your reading area of interest, have conversations with other readers, etc.

I found the site easy to navigate. I think the recommends are fun, although I would never just go read a book that some stranger recommended to me. Just because someone likes Maupassant's "Afloat" doesnt mean that they like other great books too. Although, you can guess by the handy user-reviews how legit their taste is.

The Zeitgeist page is fun - a bunch of statistics about top authors etc. J.K Rowling is number one (wasnt that craze over a long time ago?) and Stephen King is number two. After those two eminent persons, the list (in order) proceeds as : Terry Pratchett, J.R.R. Tolkien, Neil Gaiman, C.S. Lewis, William Shakespeare....

Nora Roberts is above Charles Dickens, Stienbeck, and Dostoevsky. You can guess what I think of that. Margaret Weis is last of all. Sorry sister.

One of my favourite books EVER has no conversations, reviews, or recommends for it. Reason enough to join LibraryThing?

The Closer to the Border

2010-05-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

The General store
the general story
A windy hotel at the edge of a cliff, a
swimming pool
I think I swam there. Outside. That spiky kind of dry country grass outside
failing to be green
failing to provide

Its dry here
if you walk far enough there's
paintings on the wall
you've got to walk for hours through
crags
rocks
bugs
stillish air.

A low-lit farm
with round windows
a girl making wookie-cookies
"have you had a wookie-cookie before?"

Im a little girl
Experimenting with a camera
perspective tricks and costumes
in plaid hat,
striped short-set.

A thick summer night after watching comets soar overhead
waking up and seeing a
salamander in my mother's hand. I dont want to
hold it.
brown, small. I wish I had felt it.

All the way there,
listening battery-dependent to a discman
in the middle-seat of a grey van.

We rolled into town out of gas.

Productivity Tools 2. Oh

2010-05-12T16:32:00.000-07:00

This week's assignment is about productivity tools such as Google calendar and Google documents (very handy things). Overall, I am making this short, and would just like to agree with my fellow library blogger Local Area Network.

About Creation

2010-05-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

You say you can see
my shape perfectly
I am married, not a mother
give me peace in this room.

Futures hang kept tight
in a plastic bag upright
I am married, not a mother
we are in a balance.

Fish swirl inward fins
lit by bubbled gin
sideways looking through a glass wall
my shape in the light.

Giving

2010-05-08T08:04:00.000-07:00

What can I do
to be kind to you
I put a bottle on the wall
5 cents to you my man
5 cents to you

Flickr and Youtube 2.0

2010-05-04T18:23:00.000-07:00

I use flickr sort of. I have an account with pictures in it that I rarely log into. I set it up to get a slideshow on my weebly site, which I also rarely use.

I set up weebly in case I ever need a "website" to give someone who is interested in my work. It is a little cooler looking than just the basic flickr, while at the same time using your flickr files. I actually forgot about the site for a while, and so there is nothing recent, no real continuity.

I use youtube more often than flickr. Youtube is useful for finding videos of music and music performances. It is also useful for watching short films and clips from films for the sake of demonstration. One day, I hope to find a video of The New Family on youtube that has been put up by an avid fan.

I found a youtube contributor that I like, check it out here.

Someone I know told me that they look up cat videos on youtube because they wish so badly that they had a cat in real life. (throwback to the google streets phenomenon?)

RSS feed 2.0

2010-04-30T12:35:00.000-07:00

This week's Library 2.0 question:

Were you able to successfully set up your RSS feed? If not, where did you run into problems? If you were successful, does this make information-gathering more convenient for you?

Answer:

I looked at bloglines (an RSS site) as suggested by the Library assignment post. I found the user interface to be really hideous, and I didn't want to sign up for an account. I realize that RSS can be very useful (I love the blog updates on the right side of my own blog), but I don't feel that blogline is something I want to use.

Applications are great for some people, but not for everyone!

If It Was Black, I remember.

2010-04-24T16:03:00.000-07:00

I am standing, under the owl now.
The ripe black branches of his spruce reach down and pet me
dripping fragrant oil on my palms, knees, and forehead.

I am the dog on this street.
A spruce's best friend.
and silently noble with
black shining eyes and ears listening.

Never as well as the owl,
I nurture awesome jealousy and think
of the night I saw him standing still
then drop out of his tree, drawing a great arch in the lower-air world.

Google 2.0

2010-04-22T18:34:00.000-07:00

Google has many products, and one of them is gmail.

Another product is Google Scholar - useful when in school. BUT don't forget to use your actual academic library! Shelf browsing (while you can, before your High Density Library comes to campus) is an invaluable way to find a topic.

Google streets is my favourite google product/internet time-waster. Sometimes, when I miss being places, or with people I love I visit their houses on Google Streets. I "walk" down their street and stand in front of their house and look at it. Usually, all streets are in a state of perpetual summer. A friend mentioned that he visited certain places so many times on Google Streets in preparation for moving, that when he actually got there he had trouble truly being in the real experience. I.e., when he was really on the streets, he felt like he was seeing it through google.

I have noticed that some of Calgary's downtown streets images were taken when the Stampede Parade had either just left, or was going to pass in a few hours. There are (were) bleachers lining the streets.

Ireland.

2010-04-16T13:13:00.001-07:00

Down a darkened field we run.
I can handle the mud.
I can take a foot sinking into
a trough of wet muck
for one second until it moves back up into a grey still air-between-world and then stamps down again into another trough

---guest photographer David McGregor

Social Networking 2.0

2010-04-14T08:13:00.000-07:00

First of all: Sorry Sorry Sorry - this week Library posts outnumber real ones.

This post is about why social networking sites are so popular. To do this, I will sort of talk about why some sites are used:

According to my mom, the main reason to use facebook is sharing photos. For her, it is easier to put photos on facebook and let people know they are there, than trying to upload photos to emails and send them. Good reason? I think so.

I use facebook just as an extra email account. It has some added bonuses - I like being alerted to events that I might want to attend, and being able to post news stories to my profile for other people to read.

I use Twitter on occasion - I got a gig for our band The New Family out of using twitter actually. It was great - all I tweeted was "we play the kind of folk-roots you like" with a link to our website and BAM a gig served itself up on a platter. I like how I have access to a world of strangers who might - while sitting bored at their desks - find the little tweet I wrote useful.

Forrest

Water Fowl

2010-04-06T17:07:00.000-07:00

Real Work Mixes With Fake Work 2.0 II

2010-03-29T16:56:00.000-07:00

The second question for my esteemed workplace, the Library is about Delicous. Have any of you ever used Delicious?

I use it when I am at work constantly, and when I am at work, I think it is great. Delicious is a way to bookmark all the best informational/interesting web pages you come across in a place where you can also organize it by tags.

Now, I know what you might be thinking - you can easily bookmark on your computer without Delicious (on an apple just press Ctrl D to bookmark a page!) Why go through the work of setting yourself up somewhere else?

The beauty of Delicious is that you can access your bookmarks even if you are on a computer other than your own. Great? Yes, probably. Necessary? Well, that's up to you. My example of another possibly unnecessary seeming technology is Blogs.

Do you remember when blogs first came out some lonely years ago? They were these wierd sometimes heard-of things where interesting people gained followings and had their views blanket the information world. It was a lottery of intellect. Whether you gained followers, or remained in obscurity was a matter of (nearly) pure chance. I started one up. I wanted in the lottery. I trudged through the months of transition when no one knew what a blog was and came out here on the other side, in a world where blogs are awesome. No one asks me what a blog is anymore, or looks at me with a puzzled face when I finish telling them.

To close, I don't have a delicious account of my own but if I was someone who used my blackberry or I-phone to surf the net (Im not, by the way), it would be awesome to be able to have the bookmark to Eggs on Sunday at my mobile fingertips. Or, say I travel a lot - Im in a lonely hotel room, Im in Vancouver, I want to go to a concert, and I can't remember what that site about music event listings was called. If I had my Delicious set up, I could get there lickety split. Pollstar. A funny sort of name for what it is.

I guess those are advantages of storing information on Delicious. The disadvantage is the temptation to bookmark everything and have a ridiculously huge collection of pages tagged in a really stupid way so you cant ever find what you want anyway.

Self Pity Statements

2010-03-26T15:39:00.000-07:00

I cannot serve myself.
I am not self-serving.
I tried
I tried
I tried to be.
I am trying I tried I am trying I tried to be.

I can't I can't be.
I wish I could

I, m e
I, s ing
I t [comes down to this:]
r ed [light] [stop] [dead]
!r o b[bed].
I am, I tried, to be.

Real Work mixes with Fake Work 2.0

2010-03-22T16:36:00.000-07:00

I have to create a blog and use it for work. Im going to just use this one if that's okay. Occasionally, I will have to do certain things on the blog, also for work. Today, I have to answer one of two questions:

2. Which aspect of Web 2.0 are you the most intrigued (or scared) by?

Im intruiged by the possibility of taking interaction for granted. My friends, family, and followers interact with my internal universe by commenting on my blog, but I often don't "have time" to respond. Also, interacting online, sometimes removes the need to bring up conversations in-person about content.

Other thoughts about interaction, blogs, web 2.0 whatever....

A blog is more easily interactive with readers than a book, but I still dream of being published in print. Why?

What is with people thinking blogs and wikipedia are always reliable sources of information?

This one is a bit unrelated, but since I am putting things out there....I will never publish a comment that is actually an ad. Even if you start it by saying "I like your blog...".

My Angel Met Me Today.

2010-03-19T19:01:00.000-07:00

I dont know why I am doing this - what can I say?

Cayenne is good for your arteries.
It clears them out.
Ginger capsules are good too, I make my own I am 91 and I have no
trouble
with weight.

I read about Primal Therapy in the '70s.
My father molested me
on the prairies of Canada.
We were pioneers.
He beat my mother.
I went to primal therapy.
I screamed my childhood out on the floor for fifteen years. I realized what I needed to.
I still do. sometimes.

I believe in the afterlife, and I will tell you why:
My dreams are full of things that I
had never thought of
and don't understand.

My father came to visit me in my dreams
he was a nice man
I didn't have to hate my father anymore
I believe in the afterlife.

I moved into a new house and laid
on the couch and woke and a ghost man was standing at my feet
and a ghost girl was standing by my face
and a checkered, woven,
sweater covered her shoulders.

Have you counted seconds on the clock before?

My father told me, in a dream, about some tiny keys he had.
We were at a table, just like you and I.
I didn't know what he meant.

I can recite poems from now until tomorrow morning, love.
I remembered a poem from school about the tiny keys,
I knew what my father meant.

Thank you for talking with me today. My friend
is over there reading magazines.

My name was .... by the way. What was yours?

Housedom.

2010-03-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

Staring at a squash
orange, grey light, beheaded only one night before
We left its body out.
It sealed its own wound. It is a super
squash. It seems to be looking at something.

Out the window? Grey light.
Out the window grey light.

Drying cutlery, why am I hurrying?
I am afraid of putting a fork where the spoons live. Unrelated.
The drawer is only partially open, I must work by memory.
I am slowing down, I put a spoon where the forks live. I slow down and start thinking about knives.

Squash, what are you looking at?

Grey light out the window.
Grey light out the window.
Grey light out the window.

Walking by a Thinker's Spot

2010-03-14T18:56:00.000-07:00

Hello big man
up on a tree, under the cloudy sky.

I can see from the deep blue ocean overhead
that it will smell like worms,
like dirt, and time underground (or else rain) soon.

It (the smell and everything with it)
will come
sliding down, sky slithering, wafting

clouds funneling into sewers
a common phenomenon
clouds are in the sewer
under my foot

I don't need an airplane Mr. Man,
to understand the sky,

See you later, good-bye.

En Garde Sons and Fathers

2010-03-12T18:36:00.000-08:00

I Might Be Missing, But it Feels Alright

2010-02-24T10:31:00.000-08:00

I lost my way
down in a valley
maybe a harbour.
There were no signs.
Someone said there used to be a
path leading to the nearest town
but all I could see were tidal plains and ocean sands
exposed sometimes and hidden other times
perhaps the tide was also
hiding me.

I Remember The Feeling, But Not The Line

2010-02-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

I read some poems on my lunch break
I kept my sandwich half in the bag to catch the crumbs
I didn't get the poems
I hated the moment
I kept reading.
I set an apple core on the table.
One line - one line came out of the mirror and
I understood, for my own purposes.
I remember the feeling now,
but not the line.

The Next Time I Say I Love You

2010-01-29T18:23:00.001-08:00

Folded in blue
it is a cannon ball.

The world sees it turn
in front of 3 billion eyes,
every nation fallen to pieces
the debts a distant memory - no one remembers anymore.

Just the blue cannon ball, invades thoughts of survival.

After six years
it begins to fold red, something like
liquid blood after it hits the air.

I told you I love you I love you I love you
under the red light of the cannon ball moon
I couldn't remember what I would have said nine years before
No one remembers anymore.

The Light

2010-01-25T13:56:00.001-08:00

You know, everything I have told you?

I made it all up.
I had to.
I am sitting in a white room,
out the window is a white world.
Every blue, violet, yellow, red -

Me, I
imagined
them all.

Nutritional Info I.

2010-01-22T08:54:00.001-08:00

I lived inside grapefruits
the first twenty years.
Curled up in the acidic sweetness of an orange-pink stomach
lining, I read through scapes of soft pustules.
I reveled in the bohemian image, the
calorie-wise, superfood surroundings I had happened into.

I painted like a painter,
I sang like a bird.

The Bow

2010-01-19T14:09:00.001-08:00

I have drowned, and in this next life I am
swimming beneath the cold surface
of spring-thawed rivers. I swim
down at angles of my choosing,
my belly drawn black, leaving behind
brown rocks
they are always covered in silt, and grease.
I usually hear nothing
and to remember that,
I look up at the rippling grey sun.

Duck's feet get tangled in my floating, swirling hair.
I drag them down with me, gently I promise.
I begin a farm among the rocks.
Even underwater, an egg is good for me.

I used to walk over the bridge, I think. In any case,
I see the feet of homeless river-side tenants slip in and out of the water.

Ten years ago a cigarette butt made a small psssssss - I heard it once in my entire life. So far.
I will remember it forever, as if I had seen the green ray.

Fourteen

2010-01-07T10:10:00.000-08:00

The legs are stiff - white washed like bone under the florescent
bus stop lights.
Next to them, a wall of transit maps and safety pamphlets gossip like hens in the cold air
- a hustle of humans waves deeply to keep warm like kelp in an aquarium forest.

The legs are pressed together at the thigh - the thighs are pressed together- and the knees respond by kissing tenderly. I haven't seen you in ages,

we are always so far apart - they say - we need to make more time for each other.

Any finger could draw a line down the legs in a film of frost. Like,
a name in a bus window carved in uneven letters, the cursive, nothing more. The finger would navigate over goosebumps and remember the sensation for however long it took for the number 1 to come. Then it would come and the girl - the legs -, and the forest would step on and disappear.

The Thought Cloud

2010-01-03T10:48:00.001-08:00

I like to believe that every body in these apartments is dreaming big things.

New Year's Day

2010-01-01T09:38:00.000-08:00

Things slipped and the tires went over a line,
I over-compensated,
Im not experienced enough to put
my knowledge into
practice.

Don't jerk the wheel - I knew it
Don't hold the brakes - I knew it

Still we got to the gate on time
We had to run though
I was running with a child.

Calgary's Got Style

2009-12-26T07:57:00.000-08:00

The news:

Photographer and writer, Forrest McGregor, has misplaced her digital camera. She was relying on it in lieu of her film camera which is completely broken. Now she must rely on her literary inklings for all postings. Or old photos. Efforts are underway to recover or repair the cameras.

In the mean time, Forrest has been sighted on the calgary's got style blog. She agrees with the blogger's caption and is grateful that they included her thoughts.

Guilt

2009-12-20T11:29:00.000-08:00

There is a sheet of ice
on the corner of my sidewalk.
I know it is there, it is burning into my conscience. I see
the old lady two doors down walking past
in her small black boots and small black jacket
an unsteady heal
I cant stop thinking about how the salt is in the garage, and
I cant get in the door.

The Bridge at 8:47a.m.

2009-12-11T13:58:00.000-08:00

I thought - winter sounds like this.

A crappy seashell I found on North Beach cupped over my ear with traffic riding bumpers cyclists dinging bells, no leaves, no trees in the wind, just mascara frozen to my eyes, and frozen forehead, night time in the afternoon, self important flags flapping coldly, remembering the late night t.v. fuzz seen that time I imagined something - noise of the snow as it falls on a silent street.

Plastic Shovels outside the wall of a warm, low-lit inner room. Neighbour nosing about your not-so-great rental rate - breathing droplets of water into the air that hang restlessly, wishing they were helium instead. A gushing drain falls into the kitchen sink and the warm suds feel like nothing at all - i wish I could feel suds. I wish I could eat them like snow.

It is winter anyway, this is what it sounds like.

Science is Real

2009-12-06T09:44:00.000-08:00

Watching you floe
floe
you are poor I know
poor, I know you know.

Hey floe, take a minute and sit
on your living room chair
Look closely at the lint stuck to its side.
Look out the window across the backyard
see the neighbours' shadows in their, kitchen.
Take a minute, save your life
go on go.

Important information for those in bed

2009-12-02T12:56:00.001-08:00

The Bone Eaters:

in ten years or more. Bone eaters meet in a gallery.

love your hip pads, and wrist brace
Hey, I know why you are here. Me too. I didnt know

I didnt know.
Everyone told me.
I didnt know .

Bone-less-bone

Hey you, calcium fanatic

you are an eater
and starving at that.

Hey girls,
when are you going to get a break
one way or another
When? not you, that hip pad, wrist brace is fantastic.

Pure sex.

A break comes anyway, on a snowy day. A small patch of ice
a rush for the train
a fractured wrist
a chance to take a break.
Break off only as much as you can chew

this time
last time.
Honest ones. Be honest

I am a contractor

2009-11-29T11:01:00.000-08:00

I am building, every day.

Crucifix

2009-11-15T08:54:00.000-08:00

I have become aware
of myself enough to become
aware of death
and to become afraid
and to wish that I was
not afraid.

Lion Gate

2009-11-10T19:40:00.000-08:00

Cars sound like rustling leaves
below me, under
the bridge of stone
the leaves roll down the centre
on, by and over the line

shaking in the trees,
a hawk has made himself known
and the memory of a great white owl
silently flying
wide -winged overhead follows me
as
the trees reflect yellow in the river, small
rapids,
no tides
just flowing forward out of the mountains across the prairies and to the sea. I think.

Ages

2009-11-08T09:01:00.000-08:00

I have my first ever roll of real black and white back in my hands. It is fantastic. I never want to go back. Also - the library has scanners and negative scanners that I can use at my leisure. I have the secret staff unlocking code.

The ultimate advantage?

The scanners - as you may notice - are not 100% quality. I am forced to keep moving

2009-11-02T09:48:00.000-08:00

I have been rejected by all the publications that I have submitted work to so far. I have all the good luck I need to finally succeed now.

All that's left to do is get some more stamps. and go back to work.

Unpaid Leave

2009-10-29T10:13:00.000-07:00

I want self to remain one
with a body

I sit with the body.

The man goes to
work all day
I watch a film-like representation
through my eyes
and wave goodbye

frantically
insanely
meditatively

I am shaky with
nothing really
real
reality.

my overcoat too
is not obtainable -I shiver.

a cloud above me is thundering
large animals running across a plain
are moving home to another home.

Paddling

2009-10-24T07:11:00.000-07:00

I am going to a digital photo expo today - this being shortly after I decided that digital photogoraphy isn't the way to go. These are digital, and the ones I took in film are probably terrible. Still, I am converted.

White Christmas

2009-10-18T20:18:00.000-07:00

2009-10-10T07:39:00.000-07:00

stand around

2009-10-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

2009-09-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

I just changed the "Industry" line in my profile from "STUDENT" to "NON-PROFIT".

I feel very strange. But also accomplished.

Top Left

2009-09-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

I thought I would make something out of the ragged remains of my youth:
I started with a bent over morning
and taped on regretted crisp air.
Searching for a place to hide a button-hole I found death in a nest
low in a tree.

The lowest low, the deathliest death.

I thought I would make something grand out of these remains, but
like in other stories of gruesome remains

all they are good for is lamp
shades.

The shades have a use, and it is to dim the feeling of present
in this room.

I am embarrassed sometimes
in this room where I play with the past, the so long ago.
It is ridiculous
for me to make something out of gruesome remains

Although when I look at these shades
I feel something
it is strange how the deathliest death looks
when light is shining through it
or how low light becomes in the dark

Pretending

2009-09-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

A manthinks that he islostbut I havefoundhim in the dark I have captured his soul with a lensofcanons.

Long awaited, Morning.

2009-09-17T19:47:00.000-07:00

There is resistance

in all of us
and at the same time,

nothing carefully surrounds us
and
A gnat flutters gently along the wall
exposed by the yellow
of a single bulb -

a lesson in
resistance

Why leave a story

2009-09-12T09:36:00.000-07:00

Now I remember Roman
He told me
he wanted to bring himself
home.
I asked him when he was going to get there
I left the room,

Morning came
and a man
statue
was found in the orchard
leaning on the bath
the birds long gone
with the summer.

So Proud

2009-09-10T17:39:00.000-07:00

A man leaning
on a lamp
..............ost
melts into it -
starting headfirst
black hatted head
becomes metal
and the afternoon drags it
on
and the sun is warm on my shins
as I watch him disappear.

I had been looking for that man -
but why?

Rolling Stones

2009-09-03T17:47:00.000-07:00

If I had a donkey I'd ride it
I'd look at things
mostly the same, likely.

See, a dragon's head stuffed under-arm
watch empty shoes sit next to grey, twisted
toes, crossed legs, sitting grass, bags...

Imagine there is a film camera
held by me behind me, capturing this ride under
a "men working overheard"
roof of protection.

Mostly the same's how I would
look at it -
except...behind black and white
contrast of the light
seared onto film would,
I
see it entirely different.

"Where's Forrest?"

2009-08-28T17:10:00.001-07:00

I was here, as it happened. My face was in "huh?" combined with "this sucks" mode.

The road

2009-08-22T08:59:00.001-07:00

I had a leather purse
sawed by a thin finger - open
like my stomach under pressure
in a dream-
open.

I bounded up a mountain side
where thick trees glistened black against
the falling sun,
falling
falling
I, emptying
glistening.

Treasures spilled from me
the ones my sister told me
about -
the treasures of my family.

The Ward

2009-08-15T07:48:00.000-07:00

Roman, as he was

Slid out of cotton sheets, foot by foot entering the cold

Of a thirty thousand morning.

What he felt

Insignificant wonderings at the frost hiding in the smallest corners of the window pane

Outside the orchard blossoms held fast, strong, old.

The orchard here - and we know elsewhere - had no place anymore

Yet it survived

Like the Roman, Roman the man of this dream.

A click of a door a creak of the stair

Out

Into the crisp cold

A Roman nose wetted by frosty blossom scent

Remembers where his father showed him to

Count –

One pear

Two pears

Enough pears to become rich.

Roman, as he was

Knelt behind a stone bath and crossed his chest

With care

Rested head became once dead

And we will leave him there.

One more short

2009-08-13T20:15:00.000-07:00

This morning I was on hold for AIRMILES travel booking. The hold music was....the theme song from Twin Peaks. 8:00a.m.

2009-08-12T07:12:00.000-07:00

David got Werkmeister Harmonies and El Norte into the Calgary Public Libary catalogue. Congratulations Dave, what next?

And Joel Plaskett, And Neko Case

2009-08-10T17:13:00.001-07:00

David and me got the cheapest tickets to the Folk Festival this year. We drove to Edmonton and back twice in order to go every day and night. It was my first music festival ever, and I have learned that I was right in thinking I am not so cut out for stuff like this energy wise, but at the same time I have to keep doing it to survive in the world. Especially now. Whatever that means to you, think it. One more note on me: I was wearing a bandana because my head was getting sunburn under my hair, not because I think bandanas are cool.

We went especially for Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Steve Earle channeling Townes so right it was like he was there, and Tift Merritt.

We discovered especially: The SteelDrivers, Sam Baker, Slaid Cleaves.

I also had the pleasure of crossing paths with the live music of Chuck Brodsky again after doing coat check at a show of his in Grande Prairie Alberta years ago (completely ignorant of who for), and to have Dave become a fan too. He is a good musician to have stumbled upon as a teen. And probably a good guy, from what I can tell.

Greased

2009-08-05T05:36:00.000-07:00

First Week "itis"

2009-08-03T13:58:00.000-07:00

I have a job now, and desperately hope that picking up the mindset is avoidable:

Predictably, an office is the strangest place I have ever lived for the working week. I actually felt it necessary to ask my librarian whether to "call" someone to ask a question, or to simply walk the one office door over and ask in person. Meetings are scheduled without personal interaction of any kind - we send little computer signals to each other and then magically appear in the same room at the same time, days later.

The data projectors are in the Third Floor workroom. "a.m." and "p.m." are actually written A.M and P.M. at all times, and no "nd", "st" or "th" shall ever follow a date number. Arial, size three is an acceptable font/size combination for computer postings. The accepted poster/flyer template are found on the internal server under Marketing, and Public Documents.

Coffee politics are a big deal, and always have been. I went out for a "downtown" work lunch Monday, and "downtown" morning coffee on Wednesday. I didn't pay for myself either time, due to some code of buying lunch and coffee that I will never feel totally comfortable with.

My toe was hurting me, and it felt like my nerve was about to explode. A few days later I realized that my office chair was too high, keeping my feet from touching the floor. I assumed this was the problem, lowered it, and felt better by evening.

Which leads me to tell you that I have another blog - CPL Headline News. Yes, it is important and yes, if I step on any toes accidentally via my News editing choices I will receive a prompt email from somebody that I will probably never see. (oh, and yes I did sneak my own photos onto the photocontest headline. Ha!)

I am a photographer and poet. Luckily, I also think the Public Library is important and good.

Distraction

2009-07-30T18:41:00.000-07:00

We wade

through thick grey, oh,

thick

We do not breathe

We gasp

exhale screams for dry

heavens

a lever, clump, green

wobbles in the atmosphere-

from here-

a clot of sky weed

We think to

reach

and find we are up to our knees in earth-water

when We thought

it was all still hanging

overhead.

An Short by a Thief

2009-07-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

My first attempt at writing prose that did not end up as a poem. It's yours, nearly unedited. Also, it is a continuation of the boundaries push that is going on.

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

Sophie told me that her mom had three hot glue guns in the closet. She had four hundred or so glue sticks for them, and she had never once made anything with them.

“Why does she always have to be like that?” she told me “She just never grew up, she was always causing more trouble than us kids”

I knew what she meant. Not that it mattered for much.

“anyway, that’s not really important. What I really want to talk about is Clarke”

“Who’s Clarke?”

“huh?”

“Oh, never mind I know now – thistles right?”

“Whatever… anyway he’s strange, don’t you think? I mean he’s a nice guy and everything, but I just don’t get it, he’s friends with anyone. Anyone. Even that Wilkinson guy that wanders around smoking”

“Why does it matter, if Clarke is weird. Not like it matters. And besides that other guy is alright. I’ve seen him with my auntie birdie – he makes her smile about nothing sometimes and that matters. You know?”

Nothing. I looked over at the line down the centre of the street.

“ Well, even if you don’t know, I do”

The shadow of the old maple came over us as we passed, and the conversation seemed to obey light like it was solar powered. We sat under it, like we always do and began picking at the grass. I thought - Who cares if Clarke is weird, how does she even know. Everyone around here has something about them. I know it because I’ve been here three years and never had the feeling wear off. The moment I got to this town it rubbed its pace, its dust and its French fry smell on me. Not to mention the smell of old hymnals – the kind wrinkled wives read but don’t know what they are saying anymore, anyway. Everyone’s got something.

“Why do you think my mom’s gotta be like that E? Why’s she always gotta have her own stash of corn pops and give us cornflakes, and always fill drawers full of stick glue?"

She didn’t stop pulling at the grass, until she was done and then she just sat there with her hand on a little pile, looking at it. God, I hated it when she called me E because my name was Linda and it made no sense for me to be “E”. I felt an ant on my leg and did nothing. I leaned my head on the tree even though that was probably where they were coming from.

“I have to go, my butt hurts and there are ants here”

I said after a few minutes of solar silence. “Besides, I see Matt coming and you know how he is”

She didn’t know how he was- I knew that because she didn’t know how anyone or anything was. No, I had to get out of the shade.

“See you later…”S””

I knew that she could see the next block where I stopped. I knew she saw me walk with Wilkinson around the edge of the grocery towards Findlay’s flax field. I couldn’t help it. The dust here has a mind of its own and it was all over both of us.

All over.

2009-07-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

Good morning/afternoon (etc), friends

I will respond to you all soon. I want to let you know that I have not forgotten you.

Forrest

2009-07-22T14:50:00.000-07:00

I have been around long enough

too see this happen.

The Review - limited time only

2009-07-20T08:16:00.000-07:00

Volunteer Review: The Night is a Mouth by Lisa Foad

Lisa Foad’s The Night is a Mouth is an exploration of sexuality, abjection, and relationships that places readers between enlightenment and profanity. Despite the reality that those most interested in the stories created by Foad would be teen girls, the audience who will read The Night is a Mouth is an audience of older women who are willing to be caught up in confrontational stories of past youths. This is because Foad’s writing is far more graphic and complicated than normal for younger readers. Other audiences for the book would be small pockets of diverse adult readers interested in shock, angst, and a darkly creative sense of nostalgia.

My response to The Night is a Mouth was to read the collection as a mass of recycled words and ideas, which must be assembled into art. Foad’s highly graphic writing is sexually and emotionally confrontational, but through smart vocabulary and form she allows the reader to avoid the pornographic. Graphic images and disorientation are given the ability to stand on their own in a creative sense by the poetic style of prose used to convey them. Vomit and sexual abuse, old food and filth are the images of choice, spread throughout the pages of the book along side ideas such as a glass eye representing self-doubt, and an unidentified city. In order to assemble these scraps and survive the text, a reader must remain detached from the visual and resort to gathering internal ideas. I was coaxed into creating a personal challenge - to debate the merit of what I found in Foad’s writing and to take a side. This opportunity to assemble personal art is an interesting and arduous one since assessing legitimacy is difficult for anyone when it is linked to art. This is because art holds within it the ability to be both permissible and debatable simultaneously. In part due to the difficulty of this debate I was rewarded: while Foad’s ideas remained unclear – trapped by the nearly selfish inward gaze in her writing - my own ideas on the subject of art became pronounced.

Overall, The Night is a Mouth is a contained and extremely descriptive work, but it lacks stamina for justification, and external perspective. Thus, while being an expertly crafted collection of words, ideas, and form its worldview remains bleak, independent from the subject matter and lacking transcendence from the internal. I would recommend this book for those interested in objective study of Foad’s writing and chosen genre, but at the same time I would weigh the recommend carefully even for this purpose. The stories in The Night is a Mouth have great importance as far as exposing abuse, loneliness, relationships, family etc, but the nature of their telling does not make them healing for a reader who can identify. My question regarding this type of literature is, where does “good art” that is not necessarily “good for you” fit?

2009-07-19T14:19:00.001-07:00

I have got thick,

translucent, viscous thread.

A spoonful, stretching

the love of bees -

and also my love

I smell it in.

White, golden

Sunlight

Pedal Steel

Overcome, I am

a young girl and the tree lays around me

combs

distant rails are surrounded by deep, deep grass.

I have not been there.

I am in buckets -

my father straining

dead bees from the white flood-

remembering the childhood of the girl.

Seeping thickness in the air

the love of bees, here.

2009-07-15T12:56:00.000-07:00

Re:

visiting

again

again.

Hope

2009-07-14T18:33:00.000-07:00

Shade drips across my lap

I sit on another bench and wade over yesterday's

disastrous beginnings.

I kneel for a moment and I breathe in the ash of a

Burned, fired street.

The City has been

And the City is no more.

I remember what I can.

Progess

2009-07-07T10:59:00.000-07:00

I think Matthew W and Jon C first commented on this site August 6th, 2008.

I also believe that the post "Bob and Barb" is my greatest achievement out of all writings posted up to that date.

It is strange re-living my own, long artistic evolution in the space of only a couple days.

Mom thanks for your encouragement even when I was writing ... simplistically. It is intense reading back so far in the past and seeing what I made you feel. With words - wow.

This side....

2009-07-03T18:51:00.000-07:00

Your skin has found

- on me -

a home.

Now, I know a man's chest -

the heaves it takes

the way shadows pass

over male skin moving lungs.

Being a man is

different than I expected.

Now I feel I am the image in created -

my breast has new meaning.

Alas, I must remember that

I am not Abraham.

I am only a man

I am man's skin another

I am no man at all.

But you - keep on you

who has given me an eye

to hold many images.

Keep on, and your skin shall return to you.

I will not hold it back

from your back.

You who's tall children stand.

Remain

and your given skin shall return

my watching eye will remain.

I am not a man.

2009-07-02T18:50:00.000-07:00

the "Vagabond for Beauty"

2009-06-30T07:28:00.000-07:00

I had a dream in which Jon, told me that my blog "isn't what it used to be". Following this, I submitted poetry to magazines. I don't know what else happened because my dream switched to something else.

I found a Biography on Everett Ruess yesterday while I was creating a section for Literary Criticism at work ( A book on Derrida is not a biography of Derrida, etc).

I think I am going to buy it, which is not a huge decision, as it is....$3 or $4. Everett looks like Matt Wilkinson and paints like him too.