.

Easy is right.

Begin right and you are easy.

Continue easy and you are right.

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CHUANG TSU

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Punctured

part iv
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The fucker's dead. He’s dead. I killed him and he’s dead. Oh God. Okay, get a grip, girl. You can’t lose it now . . . can’t lose it . . . you . . . Oh God, was it really him? It was so long ago, what if I’m wrong. What if I just fucking killed the wrong guy? No. It was him. Right?

I need to stop. Rest. Get some food in me. No. No. You have to keep going. Gotta keep going. Gotta get out of Montana. Then . . . then maybe I can sleep. Maybe . . . maybe then I’ll . . .

Just then, a farmer turned onto the inner-state with his thrasher in tow. She didn’t realize until then that she’d been pushing ninety. In her attempt to miss hitting the thrasher, she nearly lost control of the bike.

She had to stop and get her shit together if she didn’t want to make a mistake that would cost her her freedom. She was being careless, wasn't she? And her face and clothes were still splattered with the dead man's blood.

It was settled. She would find a hole in the wall motel, she would sleep. It had been three days since she'd last slept. She would have to find sleep, somehow.
..

Punctured

part iii
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When Sheriff Pontieff arrived on the scene at 10:35 Tuesday morning, the area was already swarming with cops and rescue personnel and god knew who else. What happened here last night, he asked one of the officers in his command.

Well, it wasn’t a snake bite, like was originally reported.

Is that a fact? Pontieff looked around at the unfamiliar faces around him. Who the Christ are all these people, Harlow? Did you hire some staff when I wasn’t lookin’?

Well, sir, it appears that the crime took place in Carter County, though just barely. They claim the Powderville police were called in by mistake.

Christ, this must be big for them not to pawn this one off on us. And just what crime are we talking about here, anyways?

Murder, from the looks of it, sir.

Murder? Hell, why this fellow was driving off the off-beaten track, I just don’t get. But how someone else happened by and...and what, Harlow? How’d the man die? He pushed past Harlow before the officer had a chance to answer. Never mind. I’ll have a look myself.

Doc Helen saw Sheriff Pontieff nearing the scene and decided to approach him first. She knew he wouldn’t like hearing that Crier had put himself in charge of the case. Helen was the only coroner in three counties since losing most of her department's funding six months ago. Pontieff, she said.

He-len, Pontieff replied one syllable at a time. What have we got here?

Seven gunshot wounds. One through the heart, another through ..ah.. his other heart, if you know what I mean. I won’t be able to say which shot was the fatal one until we get the body back to the lab.

Holy Jesus. . . Do we know who the man is?

Yes. His wallet and I.D. seem intact. Money, credit cards. His name is . . . was Richard Onge.

Doesn’t ring a bell.

Well, that's because he’s not from around here. Looks like he took a wrong turn somewhere up in Canada.

Canadian?

Yep.

Je-sus. . ..

Punctured

part i & ii
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He stood still, taking pleasure for a moment in the cool summer breeze coming from the west. He then turned to look east, though with little hope of seeing a vehicle. This was deserted terrain. The dust gathered up then in a feverish flurry of sand that inhabited this land for as far as his eye could see. He rubbed his eyes, cursed and kicked the tire with the toe of his leather boot. That never accomplished much and it wouldn’t go far in mending the puncture in his tire. But it’s what you did when you found yourself in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to go.

When the sun started to descend on the distant mountain range, he rummaged through the old Chev for something resembling a sleeping bag. It got cold in the desert at night, that much he remembered. He’d been up and down these roads before, in another lifetime it seemed to him now. He found two blankets, one of them a heavy wool-blend Mexican throw.

He laid that one down first to keep him dry from the moisture which had already begun to make its way up through the desert sand. He sat on the blanket and took in the beauty of the orange sky. And soon after, with just a few drops left in his water bottle, the man fell into a deep sleep and he dreamt of orange stars and rabid wolves.
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puncture

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He stood still, taking pleasure for a moment in the cool summer breeze coming from the west. He then turned to look east, though with little hope of seeing a vehicle. This was deserted terrain. The dust gathered up then in a feverish flurry of sand that inhabited this land for as far as his eye could see. He rubbed his eyes, cursed and kicked the tire with the toe of his leather boot. That never accomplished much and it wouldn’t go far in mending the puncture in his tire. But it’s what you did when you found yourself in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to go.
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L'Oeillet jaune

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Il touche la fleur jaune et demande, qu'est ca fait ça?

Le petit a fini avec la question ‘quoi ça?’. Maintenant qu'il connait la chose : son nom, sa couleur, son odeur, son toucher, il veut connaître sa raison d’être dans le monde, qui lui est un peu plus vaste de ces jours.

Moi, je n'suis pas tout-à-fait prête pour cette interrogation. Je crois qu'à ma mort, je demanderai encore la même question que lui, des choses aux raisons obscures : les maringouins, le café à saveur de liqueur, les hommes arrogants, la guerre, et al.

J'hesite, et je lui dis finalement, Sa seule occupation, la fleur, c'est d'être belle. Elle est là pour toi, bonhomme. Et toi… bien… ta tâche c'est de l'aimer.

J’ouvre ma bouche pour en dire plus au sujet d’aimer, que ce n’est pas une tâche toujours facile, mais je l’avale. Il y a beaucoup de temps pour tout ca . . .
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Le ciel à Marjo

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Ya des nuages dans ton ciel, il me dit, et,
On peut faire un beau dodo dans le ciel à Marjo.

Oui, bonhomme. Regarde comme ils sont doux doux doux.
Y sont doux, il répète, et,
Va (Allons) voir le ciel à Marjo.

Le petit prend ma main et me dirige vers la porte vitrée, ou on sort pour voir les derniers rayons de soleil qui s'exclament derrière un nuage blanc comme la neige, boursoufflé de rêves d'un petit qui désire faire dodo dans le ciel à Marjo ce soir. . .
.

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Your desire is your prayer. Picture

the fulfillment of your desire now

and feel its reality

and you will experience the joy

of the answered prayer.

DR. JOSEPH MURPHY

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Slammin' Zen

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Finishing off this weekend of sharing the art of the Spoken Word with you, here's a favorite that was sent to me in June by Bryan World Productions. Very Zen-ny!




www.graffitiverite.com

Canadian Festival of Spoken Word

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nereo II narrates a letter to Santa on behalf of his beloved Philippines, too often drowned out by the tsunamis that flood its shores.



video credit: sameervasta, OCT 2006
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Heart Work, part ii: doing what you love.

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film credit: roberutsu

Heart Work, part i

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In this lovely short on Art, Robert's video features nereo II, my favorite spoken word artist. The proud Filipino-Canadian graces Winnipeg with his awe inspiring talent, who continues to touch us with his words & with his beautiful self.





film credit:roberutsu

Summer Haiku: full moon, July on the prairies

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Peak thru my window
Leap thru ripe shivering limbs
Dance upon my crown.
.

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Develop interest in life as you see it;

in people, things, literature, music -

the world is so rich, simply

throbbing with rich treasures,

beautiful souls and interesting people.

Forget yourself.

.

.

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HENRY MILLER

The 'Other' Big W . . .

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In 2003, a group of concerned Canadians successfully campaigned to get “The Corporation” into mainstream movie houses. We did this because it was our belief that everyone was in need of a better understanding of what it meant to be incorporated. Viewed as a person under the law, a corporation is a person with a dangerous amount of power and a lack of conscience, and the film aimed at spreading a bit of social consciousness into every consumer’s home.

Walmart is the world’s largest public corporation. Despite this, it still receives government subsidies and tax cuts at the expense of taxpayers, like those they employ. Its employees live well below the poverty line and the Big W is regularly criticized for its inadequate health insurance options and its sexist practices. And it clearly fails to house or feed its workers in China who make many of the products it sells. So how can it be that this employer organizes charities in its name with the clear expectation that their underpaid staff will do the fundraising for them? Isn’t it enough that they are subjected to singing the Walmart song? I digress, perhaps.

Since 2003, Walmart has made improvements towards its environmental responsibilities and they have made some attempt at sustainability as a corporate entity. It is also true that there has been some improvement in employee relations. But this would seem only to be a defensive reaction to the too many class-action lawsuits and to organizations like ‘Walmart Watch’. It scares me to wonder just how much stronger and more invasive a corporation they would be today if it wasn’t for the many concerned citizens keeping an eye on this super power.

Flourishing in its attempts to wipe out small business and townships across North America, there are those towns that have successfully kept this monster out of their streets, though not without a fight. It takes a great deal of energy to be socially responsible and there are still so many people who don’t get the big picture.

Imagine my reaction when I received a bridal shower invitation several weeks ago for a young woman who lives in Small Town, Manitoba (along with most of my extended family members) who had registered at Walmart(!). I was shocked. Yes, yes, I know that some people (100 million/day) do actually shop there, but I had never before been confronted with this predicament. It felt like I was being invited to celebrate at the McDonald's inside a neighbourhood Walmart. Surely, they know that Walmart is against my religion, non? Surely, everyone is aware that to expect a person to shop at Walmart is in the very least a social faux-pas?

Well, it was made pretty clear that my absence was deemed silly. The irony is that my refusal to walk into a Walmart is in large part out of respect for those I know and love, whose livelihood depends solely on the small towns they inhabit. In other words, I didn't attend this bride's shower because I care about her future. It would seem that having a social conscience can be a lonely business . . .
.

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Ce qui sauve, c'est faire un pas. Et encore un pas.
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de Saint-Exupéry

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Kiss the Joy as it Flies

By Sheree Fitch

Reviewed for the Winnipeg Free Press

Sheree Fitch is an educator, a literacy activist, a writer and a poet. The multi-award winning author of children’s books tries out her special kind of magic on an adult audience for the first time with Kiss the Joy As It Flies, a novel about a woman facing her own mortality.

From the start, it isn’t made clear why forty-eight year old Mercy should be so afraid for her life. And the author maintains a fashion of randomly drip-dropping information, important pieces of a puzzle provided in sparsely scattered chunks that shock us awake now and again.

Mercy Fanjoy is a teacher and a freelance journalist who pens a weekly column by the name of “Mercy’s Musings” in the maritime city of Odell. The daughter, mother, and self-made woman takes us along her winding path backwards through time, revisiting relationships lost and friendships that have survived the test of time. The family and friends in Mercy’s life are both colourful and believable. The only character that remains elusive throughout is Mercy herself.

A student once evaluated Mercy by saying “that her joy and positive attitude were suspect as well as irritating”. Her syrupy giddiness makes Mercy Beth Fanjoy – even her name tastes too saccharine on the tongue – difficult to empathize with. It is made more so given that Fitch never reveals any great depth to her everyday heroine.

Admittedly, this is the making of a good summer read. The subject matter does not deter from the chuckles throughout. And idiomatic phrases such as “feeling runny as egg yolk”, “the rhubarb flesh of breasts”, and “dust particles danced like fireflies” contribute to a language that exposes the poet as well as the children’s story writer.

Sheree Fitch is best known for titles such as There Were Monkeys in My Kitchen, and If You Could Wear my Sneakers, a book on Children's Rights commissioned by Unicef (she has been their goodwill ambassador since 1994). Dividing her time between Washington, D.C. and River John, Nova Scotia, the similarities between Fitch and her main character are evident. The maritime writer known for her perpetual smile and high-pitched laughter, and who still dots her “i’s” with hollow circles, shares personality and careers with her protagonist.

That Fitch is used to shielding her younger audiences from anything that goes bump in the night is unmistakable in her first attempt at writing adult fiction. She may inadvertently be trying to protect her adult readers from the bumps they are already on intimate terms with. What remains is a fusion of genres that defies comparison. And it makes for a light read that falls short as a true-to-life account of a woman facing her deepest fears.

In time, though not soon enough, Fitch exposes some of Mercy's underbelly. When the character is revealed as a woman capable of anger and of all those less attractive emotions that most of us live out loud on a daily basis, we are then able to connect more easily with her. As for those who inhabit Mercy’s world, Fitch succeeds in presenting characters that remind us of the humour that exists in our messy, everyday lives.

Her humour and language are both fresh and engaging, but it’s unfortunate that Sheree Fitch fails to take us all the way. Sharing a few tears with Mercy, and being allowed to touch more of her fearfulness, would have been welcome and necessary in making this tale about facing death - and life - a credible one.

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KLIMT

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Créer - voilà la grande délivrance de la souffrance,

voilà ce qui rend la vie légère.

Nietzsche

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Good Night, Lorraine. . Sweet Dreams.

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A filtered cigarette comfortably
posed in her right hand
her raspy laughter
calls those around her closer.
The small and unassuming
dark-skinned
woman coughs. again.
Well we all have to die of something, right?

It's rhetorical of course.
It is wú, even. And no answer
is expected. She hopes i will help
instead with the details of her
final hooray. Scribbled minutia:
pine or oak, silk pillow

[,shubert's ave maria
Nunc et in
hora mortis
Et in hora
mortis nostrae,]

the fuschia dress she wore
to so-and-so's wedding
last fall, her wedding ring. . .

And thus begins the fateful
purging of love and death,
of births and tears and
that time she laughed
so hard she nearly
peed her pants (remember?)
Stories shared unadorned
of a life in progress

until today.
.

Wú

The Artist

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the painter's hands are busy
dissecting a rainbow
in search of Monet's blue
and that dusk of Van Gogh's

unhappy with the canvas
he rages in red, splattered
blood on black and blue.
i fade out a pinkish hue. . .

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If the queen came for tea . . .

.

If the queen ever came for tea, I don't think she'd have a good time. Not to mention my saucer situation. I only have 5 tea cups and 2 saucers - the others broke before I ever got these 7 pieces. I'm not sure what her favourite tea is, but I could only be relied on for chamomile. Chai if she's lucky. I prefer coffee myself, super dark beans, you know? But it's not just that. See, I can't afford a new couch right now and the holes are becoming evident. I wonder if she'd think the mice had gotten to it. I wonder if she'd sit or like, come up with a gracious reason why she can't sit. Do you think she has a mobile? Do you think she might have foreseen difficulties and had someone call her cell 10 minutes after she arrived? The 'oh my, Tommy's fallen down a well' call so she'd have an excuse to leave. And I'd let her, too, you know. I mean, I know she doesn't have a well. At least, if she does, I doubt she gets the water herself cause allot of people work for her and stuff. But IF...if she did stay ...would I put on some baroque, or classic rock, or a bit of French jig music so she can share in my heritage? No. No French jig music. The whole war thing would come up and that just might be uncomfortable. So what would we do? Watch TV? Play cards? Chat about boys? Hmm. I don't think the queen would have a good time if she ever came for tea.
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run-on meeting

Homage to an unwonted hero . . .

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Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist. . .

The man who uttered these words was clearly speaking about himself, but since hearing them, I came to realize that they were just as true of me. And I have since kept my cynicism in check, aware that it wouldn't exist if I didn't care so much about the world I inhabit, about truth, and about justice.


George Carlin did much more than just make people laugh. He cared so fervently about his country, his homeland America - that would surely make a cynic out of anyone - that he dared to speak about those things he believed needed to change. And this is why he has coined so many of the phrases that remain engraved on our minds, sometimes long after we remember who it was that first said it.


The phrase on the poster of my April 26th blog is a great example: Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity. It's all that needed to be said in protest of the Vietnam war. And it is, quite simply, no less true today. The country he chose to call home his entire life did not learn from history. So many innocent lives are being lost every day with no sign of peace anywhere on the horizon.


When George passed away ten days ago, I dared to call him a hero. I received some befuddled looks, but that's okay. For the freedoms he defended via his comedy (a very effective method of communicating, I think), he did more on his country's behalf than most American politicians succeed in doing in their lifetimes. He became a voice for the masses.


The status quo sucks.

Think off-center.

I think people should be allowed to do anything they want.

We haven't tried that for a while.

Maybe this time it'll work.

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And in your honour, sweet George , I sign off today with:
Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits.

Bonjour Canada!

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"We peer so suspiciously at each other

that we cannot see that we

Canadians

are standing on the mountaintop."

PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU

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"When I'm in Canada, I feel this is what the world should be like."

JANE FONDA

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