Short Stories

shedshedshed

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 04:01:20 GMT

o! how the time passes.
.
-
__

i am currently in a very deep invention phase in my life & hope to emerge from it feeling refreshed & revitalized.
in the the last 2 weeks my heart has broken into one million pieces & i have completely lost myself in that, the good news.. because it is difficult to remember which parts are truly me - i've imagined a whole new person : stronger & way more enthusiastic than before.
the bad news is i am covered in scraps & scrapes from last few year where only light shines through, inside i feel like a sieve giving way to every levy.
and
o how
the structure turns
i am the cornerstone, if i don't keep holding the levies back i am certain that i will crush myself.

it is exciting & unique & the scariest of situation to be in
as we've always done, hold tight to the ground & stay firm in what you believe/

my sincere feeling go out to a very dear friend being prosecuted & hiding from the punishment. i want you to know that we've all loved you - just the way you are.

cherry blossom bubble bath

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:45:02 GMT

i'm packing to move a few minutes down the road - to purcells cove.
p & s continue to downsize their lives for greater flexibility abroad.
i gather some of the things that they discard b/c they remind me of them.
6 record players, 1/2 filled paint tins, notes on the backs of crosswords.
things things things & their dirty dirty power.
will i ever be able to let go?
or when will i realize - they've already gone?
right now i lump & lump at the awful piece of a thing in my throat.
there are new things on the go. i have started a small business based around sewing things for other people & i hope i can really begin to sink into that.

as per usual it is not easy.
i am seeking powers outside of myself - so please think of me.
* i will be thinking of you.

-melissa

Mmmm, piano hands!

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 04:53:24 GMT

the 1989 le baron coupe has been passed on & it was replaced with a ½ tonne chevy truck.. it feels really nice to be back in kingston, my family is content to be quieter now.
things i have yet to complete before the new year:
-complete my first comic ‘minou & the right side of her mind boys’, pen and ink with pencil crayon overlay inspired by chubby cute faced forties comics with oodles or mary janes included.
-i’m baking a lot of cupcakes, there’s a lot of deteriorating older friends from st.marys out there.
-visit places, visit people, visit, and more travel [i’d like to go to maine & new Brunswick & cape breton to name a few].
i’ve recovered a few books of writing from years past that i’d left in my parents house – they have kept so many things over the years and i’m so glad for it. i have wood from my old public school incorporated into the trailer that my dad built me as a graduation present, it really is quite special.
for now i’m enjoying running into people that once taught me, people I loved, and even some that don’t remember me at all.
i’m heading to ottawa on sat. & will be staying until tues when I will pick up my brother in law at the airport, & return to Kingston.
Last night I dreampt that I painted glasses onto my face and when a little girl tugged at me pointing to my face I said ‘those are my reading glasses’.
i do hope to see all of you in kingston, ottawa, montreal, halifax, or somewhere else along the way.
i’m still laughing at the ham of a backwoods loverboy when i asked him “hows the truck run”? “like a top”!, he replied. wow, just like a top…

tophat, whitecoat & tails

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 16:33:08 GMT

topper returns

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:31:17 GMT

the night before

Sat, 18 Mar 2006 17:50:26 GMT

the night before i was in the bath, looking out.
i rocked back trying to see over the side.
i dreampt i let pedestrians into a coffeehouse that wasn't mine & when a lady came the next day to lock up, i prevented her fr. going upstairs because i didn't want her to see all the people sleeping there fr. the night before.
the night before.
a deep heavy object rolled up along and fell into my next layer.
"so why'd they call you old timer anyways"?
i'm timing what i gots left
"and is it...."?
yeah, i think it'll be enough

not quite as good as old black joe

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 15:54:50 GMT

darlin', don't throw me the joker
it'll all come a cropper when we blow on through
put your hands on the deck where i can see them
put your eyes on my set so i can cheat them

underhandedly, we won the upper hand. aces high
up to the hilt, in our best bib & tucker
it all came so proper, the rail came on through

it all looked so blown', our hearts bustle blew

darlin', gone up with the flume
together we sachet, sweet uker & i
we've got high falutin tricks up our sleeve hems
we've got spry kilkenny cats on our tail ends

june beetles

Sun, 05 Jun 2005 03:29:55 GMT

23 cicada belly scrapes on my inner side

the first 3 were devoted to scurrying
the next to chortle more clearly
a few for looking up at teachers & apples
one for piano playing & sewing

a trying one for deviance followed
a few to be misunderstood
the next marked the yr back to being wayner's bud
spent in the messiest house

a squashed yr of hallucinations
an advancement in mathematics & a growing love of mechanics
a formal introduction with the bean
two of the longest summers spent on travel & music & love

a sinking feeling about the move which refused to dissipate
a summer of denial happily spent with an old man
the yr a cheshire cat saved me & continues to do so
metaphor obsession with anything to do with everything i had ever seen or done
set in and would not loose its grasp on the past
school's out, theres another move looming and it looks as though i may age again

not a long time

Sun, 01 May 2005 07:29:09 GMT

though i've been and left 1,000 times
i am constantly drawn to that one piece
ran the whole way to get there
and think and wait and dream
i want to go back to the part where
the lion faced the other way or
forward to where i forget
--
lady's been traded for a 1/2 tonne

woodside went down to rubble
i walked through my kindergarten ruin
preserved it on acetate
realized if i'd been tall enough to see out the windows
i could have seen my house from the hallway

effigy for efficiency

Sat, 16 Apr 2005 14:27:49 GMT

father time's weighty finger points
tapping rhythmically
he's a minutes kind of man
the Count of rotational devices
he never misses a beat

i've put a mouse trap in his clock
let the cats out of their bags
troubled by the slowing of the rat race
he winds up like a toy soldier with a mission mandate; a vow to the completion gods
each task completed in less time than the last, to the point undetectable

tracks leapt, corners cut, in the name of a greater good - misuse.
charlie chaplin had it good, because at least in his time the malfunction rate was higher

non-compliance with maximum yields
results in flip chart expanding their angle
in the blink of dotting i's
meter penalties doled
pendulum mortification tolled

put a tic tic toc
next to the insufficient not included
in next year's gene pool
divisibility devised with no remainders

in time with biological devices
i made a clean cut, scraped off all the edges and loose ends
brick by brick by brick
dot dot dot

out sitting on the learning curb
being eaten by a thesaurus
I slipped and missed the point
fell short and denied my matter and hand

i've got a sneaky cognition and
a suspicious revision
of which weapons of the weak to wear
three square miles a day
may be enough to fictionally and finally
keep it at bay

up with the window!

Sun, 27 Mar 2005 18:56:47 GMT

[theostrausse & pluta walk into a valley just north of sharbot lake.ON a large stick falls in front of them & exists stage L as a snake]

pluta: a risk is a geographic concept, you need to weigh out which areas will be affected.
theostrausse: i was always lifting up, up.
[silence]
theostrausse: inner diffuse spread around the globe.
[long silence]
theostrausse: weightless as a map flutting in the wind.
pluta: witless as a neo-spiritualist on a bend.
theostrausse: too alleviated to have areas affected.
[they pause, to see some large rocks falling down the mountain beside them]
theostrausse: no weighing out, only an ever present knowing.
pluta: ha! communication wrought on one phrase lifts. this year for spring you should bury yourself in the ground so you can grow up up... like a tree that will grow huge branches and a mass of leaves to weigh you down.
[an old man with tea bag lids and elephant folds walks up the valley past them]

unclaimed luggage

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 01:16:53 GMT

the tapedeck was embowelled to be returned to the side steep two quiet rides later.
in it went again: RGB YP B&W. PLAY>
REOWAAAAAREOWEAAAAEEEEREOWAAAAAA
circling, squee quee quee qeezed it out
objects flew everywhere inside as the sacred silver nail hammer was sought after
every bug within was smashed and squashed
---------
now the messenger has deceived me and is being used by another
danas electronic mail haxored by egalitarian
-------
cantankered by a canker
this is the last time you play the lyre, filthy milksop

a silent ride

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 00:22:15 GMT

the committee of adjustment has
just. smelled. a. rat.
the illusory bottom up roles
royce of the municipal
any shifts in policy can & will be placed
directly over that of the municipality’s
to make a stink you need to be big &
you need to be loud
suppose the rodent smelled also had a voice that could be carried?
used as a vehicle, as it was intended to be.

the spectacle is the heart of the unrealism of the real story.
it is the omnipresent affirmation of the choice already made
in production and its corollary consumption
reality rises up within the spectacle
and the spectacle is. real.
the essence, the support of the existing society
and its reciprocal – alientation
the spectacle is the nightmare
imprisoned modern society, which ultimately expresses nothing more
than its desire to sleep. the spectacle is the guardian of sleep.
the commodity who knows full to well how to seem
at first glance trivial
contains the essential movement of the spectacle
its mechanical accumulation liberates unlimited artificiality
in the face of which
living desire is helpless
we hold the simulated original
in a state of ironic suspension
adjacent to the real and the facsimile
this is a state which demystifies and falsifies, even
reveals its own techniques of masquerade
while putting into doubt any fixed referent*
*falsification for a form is a state of absorption
the more the system is systematized
the more the falsification is reinforced
fascinating precisely because it is trapped
renamed and stuck.
semantic disjunction is the process of creative mistranslation that
endows the term with its value.
a currency of literary exchange. a verbal token.

our ‘tall’ is the new ‘small’
consumption is the ‘new’ activism
the rate of incidental death is high
caring at a distance is not close and not personal
we need to historicize our lives
a struggle to position ourselves
in terms of linking North and South
chug a chug chug chug chugchug
Smoke. Makes. Prosperity.
woven outside or above the social fray
where economies are re-configured
umbilical & designer vegetables –patented
shifts through hands so big that if they gave you
high fives, they’d wipe out entire nations
learning arithmetic with your fingers
ad + ad + fad
vertisements
drawing butterflies on coca-cola cans with crayons
spelling b’s, A, B,
see oscar the grouch thrown out with the trash
under a billboard that reads ‘taters and hash’
crayola, manolta, motorola
the wheels of the bus
turn round
and round
and round
ring around a rosy
a pizza pocket full of
poser! Brown-noser!
you fell asleep in your Cappuccino
been a long week
the alphabet soup in yr
briefcase is all scrambled
cause ‘tall is the new small’
your coffee may be extra super grande
but your just a small dot on the highway

i would like to thank shortstop for her caffeinated aid on this last one.

please read with me on the german bullet!

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 22:51:17 GMT

nows the time to boradcast, they are confined-what better audience could you ask for?

su$tain_ability

Thu, 10 Feb 2005 20:18:51 GMT

if you're going to build it up
don't disguise it
in other ways
its effects are visible

develop the negative
its positive
positive
pository morning glory,
whats the story?
'tell it, show it, it'd only get lost
on delivery'

nations united
fishing line
buckled coast to coast
you cast your vote
some pulled harder than others

welcome to the apocalyptic self mutilation
where corporations reinvent the big bang
lightning market crashes

every seed pulled from the ground
every useful person to laborial freedom

cover it with growth
forests falter in saharas

pangaeaic distrust and
the heaviest plate went under
subsumed and surfaced
where the others had been displaced

Utz Mementomorir

Wed, 19 Jan 2005 00:00:11 GMT

the Taxidermist kills animals only to make them seem alive again, where a part represents the whole - under the Taxidermist's control.
dolls/mannequins/collectibles - these apparently don't start by existing. two year ago i stood before my tidy collection of dutch porcelain figurines, each with their distinct little poses. eleanor in the sun reminded me of how muriel used to stand and squint up by the old well. Every time I looked at it, held it, thought of it when other things reminded me of the figurine, I felt more attached. They had made these collections impossible to put a cap on, but i was determined to unite the scattered figures from across the world. They said that the artists make sure to send them to many dealers so as to prevent somebody investing too many thoughts in them - resulting in death.
i completed my task and in much less time than i had expected, the last piece was just beyond the border in the next province. getting ready that morning i ensured the lighting and air temperature of the collection, i was so empty of memories that gazing in at them in their little glass house was all i could do to recall my past.
i was driving my rabbit then and when i approached the post i felt lifeless [at mid twenties i began to hobble up the walk].
as her reflective porcelain eyes met mine, i fell to the floor and thats where i started to have a televangelist daydream:
"rid yourself of all of this costly technology, digital picture takers and all of these corders, sit down - clear your mind - take a load off. tell us margarette jenny, whats your story?" well, i used to have this crazy good memory, i could remember pre birth experiences, and even as far back as when my memory was first formed. goodness know, i definitely wasn't a believer, i had no idea hop to get all of this information out of there, it was getting to be like one of those gum-poles! Now as soon as I'm done doing something it's just as near that its gone, i'm surprised i remember the human language. and not to say that i'm goin all superior or nothing but maybe it'd be a step on e_evolution if we just started talkin through our heads. i used to get so worked up when i saw parents setting bad examples, or people i hadn't seen in a long time that i was in conflict with. now, i could see a crime being committed and i'd shoulder it off my back like a big ol' duck, heck maybe i have seen some crime today! i no longer avenge or revenge or have some devine right to balance the world. we're no longer living in that societies that say a pound of flesh for a pound of whatever you've taken, a colon for a colon, i'm learning to let things go!! i was always pegged as one of those 'over sensitive', 'picky' children who are always about making mountains out of molehills, now i'm just looking for enough backyard space to bury all my hatchets.
"well, that concludes con lude con con con con..............."
when i awoke i was so confused, i went directly home and smashed every single one of my little men and women. my brother, my old cat, my small house on the prairie, my corduroy bear bridge, my 5th grade teacher carrying a melmac plate, all executed in porcelain, and all gone. i realize now that placing my own memories and experiences within the pieces was conflicting with leftover feelings/memories of the maker, thats when i knew that 1/2 the things that i had commonly dreampt about while holding them were not even my own recollections.

i slept through eyelids so thick

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 06:33:53 GMT

you forgot to say goodbye
is this what you forgot?
walking along
listening to your feet drag
every step pouding away at whats left

waiting for you
i forgot what was worth
goodtimes, goodtimes, change is good

struck straight in the
tender whats left
scraped up violet muffle of a

please don't leave me here alone
i'll tell you whats wrong with the atmosphere

it was not one or three, but two - it would not go

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 01:42:45 GMT

i didn't want to rock the boat, but
those natives'd use lake ontario as a pssg
from Syracuse to Kingston
clug a lug chug, and out came blackie
off the caboose of the undergroung railway mystery

Boots'n I'd walk around chewin chives
I'd tip him, he'd wink me, we'd chinwag
then upupup went the invisible border that divided
our lake, our revenues & customs
our pantyhose, and looty
now we've got BountyBears and Depu-teapots

strangers pillar'd themselves along the highway,
where it all took place
holding signs that read, "the proof in the pudding"

contraband canadian geese pass freely
bellies full of powder

i told him we were waiting for something,
it turns out it was him
we tossed our breadheels to the nightime ducks

he fell asleep on the grass and
i smoked two cigarettes watching him and the sky

i didn't want to rock him but i did
we couldn't use the lake to cross
we could only know the other side like our
injured mexican eagles

i setout to carry him the 51 dotted lines,
all the way AROUND
Along the highway were the picketters, the highwaymen
they wore long black latex gloves for the birds to perch
the leader had the latest version of 'The Great Criticism'

tracks railed past us, plumes of steam & feathers rose around us
we boarded a sm wooden boat with no sail
....
over ten thousand birds had a piece of the saintlawrence seaway
in their mouths

Boots up and turned himself outta that little boat,
we were miles above ground - leaving behind
a lg ditch which used to be Lake Ontario

Little Piccola: Eutus we have a Problem

Tue, 26 Oct 2004 19:54:58 GMT

This one goes out to my sweet *struum*
He's playing the world's largest violin over on Down St.

baboushki baboushki babou
Bowtying his mind around this lovely little peach of it all

powpow Maxwell
weapon: cowboy flagun
manual still attatched

His picture falls from a leaf
oranging around the edges we make out the words
'big wig shoguns'
i was just
i remember
Its the driving force behind cities
have you got a mind sock
gong trolling at noon
belling the hell out of this jar, jab
who's she talking to?

cream in the middlemarch
our plan of action, our corpus chrisite
he's oogling door and how am I supposed to withdrawl
i've got big bills to feed

She Barely Fits Inside my Head

Fri, 20 Aug 2004 20:28:33 GMT

Jesse James just covered his head with his hands.

Toque or turban, fedora or fez.
Tip your hat, brims up!
Dear Mr. Boggart and Peter Lorre,
You've got rabbits, and bees in your bonnet.
Caps off your pillbox/hat
Your headpiece, your topper.
Your cranial skylight.
Measure this crown and that.
At the drop of an old chapeau [thought i was going to say hat?].
Jonathan seagull looks out inwardly,
To see a side style sailor go by.
Business men march onward with stock exchange
newsprint-pirate-foldable types.

This is my cabbie and I'll hit the high hat.
I'll play the dunce, and you be the beret flaunting artsy.
The gallopping straw cowboy number.
The bippitty boppitty bowler,
the silk sombraro.
.. A silk sombraro..?..
Hang up your head, your hat is full of wool.
A mass of velvetine vines and buds.
Oh! was I going to the outback, the panama, the safari?
A 50 gallon cowgirl converses with a slick Paddington style.

I saw a tall white pleated chefs,
Carrying platters that looked like the Wright borthers in full flight regalia.
What peak of sorcery was such haberdashery?

A felt green Robin Hood replaced by a meshing hunting cap!
The thinking was running low on steam,
trying hard to kick the monk's habit.
Puffing away, at the drop of a beat.

i felt like ren

Fri, 06 Aug 2004 20:28:03 GMT

Yesterday I went down to the walk in clinic, a long overdue visit. The 2 1/2 blocks seemed over 45 minutes. OH! lovely sidewalk passengers, why must you notice my eggyolk eyes. I see your cartoon - infinity shaped mouths, all anime. Help a comrade, would you. I never discriminated you at the Almalfi Spa or when you purchased fuel at 89 point 9...
Well I must have arrived because my feet stopped paddling and I was at a trading post, HA NO - it was a doctor's office. But the big wooden window in the wall seemed overly stall-ish. I stood there for a long time, every seat in the house was taken and desklady thought I was invisible. My chin began slowly caving into my chest, each breath getting shorter and more dramatic. The lack of oxygen was making me quite dizzy.
I clung to the fake wood making scritchchy noises, until the mass of sweat on my fingertips denied me. I slipped, I went through the wash and into my bed. Amoxicillin has never looked so red and yellow. In my dream sweat lodge I became a mix of Charles de Lint [yes, the person], and that elk shaman from his novel Moonheart.
I chortled past unhealthy valleys guarded by characters wearing t-shirts that said DDT/TNT/and... Mr. Glover. I seem to have plateaued back to the planet, and though I am highly limited in this mind frame - it's good to be back.

From American Sex Appeal to the First Fellini

Wed, 14 Jul 2004 23:08:31 GMT

Here are some recent scratches, some true, some not:
Was it today that you had all those dreams about Venice? Your lives are overlooping and the nodes are no longer visible, they keep you from telling yourself and send you back to the beginning. Parks seem to help, not mere places of recreation, these people are looking for something.
While sitting next to an older woman on a park bench I watch her eye my smooth hand. I glance to her wrinkled, veiny, turkey neck arm and reach for it. Her hand breaks off and her head turns to mine in slow motion. Her eyes raise up to me, and I start to say sorry. I get so nervous that I knock us over backward. She crashes to the earth, her entire structure shattering to bits. I can't move and the bench is covering my lower half. A piece of tinsel hangs in the tree above and I close my eyes. "There is not always enough room for Everyone in the waiting pool" my coordinates are lost and with shut eyelids I can see into my brain. Small keychains scatter in and out of view, each with a small sized photograph of every field I had ever seen.
Dammit Jimmy! You almost dream killed me again. In the cab of my 18 wheeler hauling hay down to Florida, [how did you get in there?] [and what was it about you that kept reminding me of Alex]. Open switchblade your weight sunk around me, laying on the floor of the cab, knees bent into the gas and brake pedals. I could see that silly looking pine tree airfreshner dangling from the rear view mirror & your reflection also. You were gone.
I have timed this act in accordance with the carnival in the hopes that the soldiers and the police will be drunk. I don't want to talk all reflectively or nostalgically about that construction worker. He went to Florida because Canadians think that is a good place to take a vacation. He brought back a grain, probably more than one, on his boot, and when he went to work the next day - it got mixed up into a stone slab. Then, somewhere in what used to be Prussia some small children danced around on their new interlocking sidewalk and at nap time had strange dreams about Florida - so what?

2 memories I never had

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 20:10:58 GMT

One: I don't remember that doctor's name now, and it doesn't even matter. She thought he was the B-all end-All. She kept taking the sleeping pills when what she really needed was a pelvic floor repair. I think it ended in 'with', his last name.
Two: When we moved I was in the back of her small yellow Vegga. The sun was bright, and so there was an afghan over the carrier. I saw the whole town through mint green wool.

The Line

Wed, 09 Jun 2004 12:56:21 GMT

I would like to go outside and find you watching the sky.
Looking everywhere is silly when I know exactly where you are.
I fall asleep dreaming that we read in bed, make tea in the morning. Wake up to tell you something, you are still there, good, I'm still dreaming. Talk news and plans for the day, I know what you are saying but listen more to the words. I made you a sweater, I will be waiting outside.

Dela-what?

Fri, 21 May 2004 21:20:04 GMT

I had been to Wakefield many times, but never with these two. The car swirled up the winding Gatineau roads, a reminder of how tired I was from the night before.
Adam drove the remainder of the way, his chatting back and forth to Sarah turned to whispers as I fell asleep. Dream of the echo people is what I did, I thought of Ruben and Ed's exhausting trip across the hot Arizona desert. I recalled the time I took the train across Canada with Amanda and Daniel. A series of half remembered images and things said. I dreampt more, of places that I had never been to. I was on a motorcycle going across the US, I was in Lord of the Rings as Bilbo Baggins (he was a girl then).
Spring was on its way, I looked at the upside down trees, as I awoke - stretched out on the back seat. I kept quiet so I could hear what they were saying. "Yeah, but would you really do it?". "Oh, I am completely serious, I would go right now if... if nothing actually", he replied. "Well, then lets just
go now". "Why do you assholes have to fall asleep", I retorted from the back in a sleepy grumble. They laughed and the music of Cloudead flooded my ears, we were almost in Wakefield Quebec. I imagined the three of us traveling over the covered bridge, browsing through small antique shops, and having a lovely lunch at the Black Sheep Inn. We stopped inside the town to put some air in the back tires.
It was then that we officially decided that we were going to travel farther, we paced around and got back in the vehicle heading South back to Ottawa. In Ottawa we got some groceries, Adam and Sarah made phone calls to their appropriate people so as to eliminate worry. We stopped by my apartment and I said goodbye to Esther who sleepily hung in her bedroom doorway regretting that she could not attend. And that was that. At the US border we told the customs officer that we were going to Washington on a spur of the moment, and that is why we had no luggage. We got held at the station while they examined the car, in there a Korean family [mother, two boys, father] were turned away "not allowed to pass into the United States". A lady later informed us, with regard to age difference between tobacco and alcohol purchasing, "there are laws",(pause) "states.. (awkward pause) make laws". It was not long before we were whipping down Interstate number 95.

There is much more of this to continue, I will post more on my next work break.