The Slow Storm

“Slowflakes,” said Jakie, soft but clear, pointing out the window from his high chair. His mother smiled, but he was right. Slow flurried overnight and all next morning. The news came on late and said the roads were full of slow, cars trickling along at four miles an hour. Schools were closed because children would never reach them on time. Instead, Jakie’s sisters built a slowman in the front yard, pondering each handful, tenderly gnawing clumps of slow off their mittens. Their mother asked them why the slowman had no eyes. “They’re shut cuz he’s sleepy,” they said, and yawned.

Image: SireneTzukiDark.

To the People: Another Apology

I apologize for finding his apologies tedious, disingenuous, and meaningless.
I apologize for his lies, excuses and false denials.
I apologize for his do-what-I-say-not-what-I-do “leadership”.
I apologize for his claim he had nothing more to hide.
I apologize for his hypocrisy.
I apologize for him clinging to office like a limpet mine.
I apologize for thinking he’s only sorry he got caught.
I apologize for all these apologies, but as the man himself has said, “the past is the past and we must move forward... I know I have let you down and I can’t do anything else but apologize.”


Image:  CBC

A Failed Photograph of the Night Sky

It began at 3 a.m. as another failed experiment. She wrote her shopping list on the back in hard lead pencil, sighed, and shoved it into the pocket of her tweed skirt. That day, she handled more invoices for the Milliken account, stubbed her toe on the filing cabinet, and – it must be confessed – nodded off into an inchoate dream, in which tidy rows of figures became gentle, supple shadows. That evening, when she took out the list, she saw a few lines had appeared on it from nowhere, suggestive of a figure. Over the years, she watched her emerge.

Image: Edgar Degas, Danseuse ajustant sa bretelle.

but can you touch

                                                      a praying mantis?
       can you smell rain or snakes or cancer?
       can you see russia from alaska?
       could you hear music as it’s playing on the moon?
       could you see mars last night or tuesday
            or taste spinach in a smoothie?
       should you feel guilty killing zombies?
       would you feel
                                       getting shot
                                                                in the head?
       oh: you. should you now be inclined to censure,
       you who touch your chest on bench press,
       you who hear from your ex-boyfriend everyday
                                      (that’s a lot)
       i suggest that you drink heavily
       i suggest that you tread lightly
       i suggest you let a praying mantis pray.

Image: Mantis.

Dans l’estomac de la Loire

The river swallowed
her, turned
her into a bolus, slid
her into a slow stomach in
 the middle of pre-primeval Nantes.

    And waited.

      Time churned, silts settled,
       her tender toes now tap twenty
        thousand leagues beneath
        the Jules Verne Museum beneath
        a dancing salon named
         Sea of
          Dreams.
            Her serpent twines
              expectant near her cunt – ou,
                       disons-nous, near the école élémentaire
                                    named after Gustave Roch, scholar
                                        of surfaces topological until he
                                          died untimely in the coils
                                           of tuberculosis . . .
                                           Her nipple
                                          perks the Palais
                                          des Sports de  Beaulieu,
                                            where Real Madrid played
                                                PAOK Thessaloniki
                                                    in a beautiful ’92
                                                       Eurocup
                                                        game.

Image: le jardin, by Max Ernst. For other stories it inspired,
see Magpie Tales.

Sparks

Passing through the smokers out behind the Dufferin Mall, I caught the scent of that old round table lighter in my grandmother’s apartment, or maybe the Zippo my dad let me play with because he never did get around to refilling the thing . . . a whiff of the fuel, the smell of flint against steel, and the chime of metal on metal when you snapped it shut. Except that this one belonged to a younger man, who had taken a pass on those disposable plastic jobs for something more substantial, flipping it open just out of the corner of my eye.

Image from Found Walls.

Backache, Scotch and Chickpeas (Breakfast with the Linguists)

My breakfast of Backache, Scotch and Chickpeas is, according to Richard Lanham, a paratactic list like Veni, vidi, vici, i.e., a list that makes the reader do the work of figuring out how its elements connect. Deborah Tannen would point out how the three elements run parallel in containing k sounds and in being two-syllable nouns, “and” being the linguistic equivalent of Hamburger Helper. Roy Peter Clark tells us that once a list runs to more than three elements, it starts feeling endless, whereas trinities – like Carrie-Anne Moss’s adorably fucked-up little sweaters in The Matrix – do the trick. Slainte!

Heavy Horses

Until last night my exposure to Prog-Rock was limited to enforced snippets of Rick Wakeman and weedy, gravitas-rich Pink Floyd liner notes. Then Sherry and I went to the Jethro Tull concert. She was fabulous; attuned to every trill and tempo change like a true Ian Anderson aficionado. Thirty minutes in I realized why I preferred a post-Gabriel Genesis, an epiphany exacerbated by the demographics of the average Tull fan. This is where Comic-Book Guys go to die and given the arduous ascent to Massey Hall’s upper balcony, I was amazed that these whiskered mastodons had the energy to air-flute.


Image: Popular Mechanics (1952)

Taken from the Spine

bloodletting & miraculous cures
behind the scenes at the museum
alone of all her sex
paris was a woman
loitering with intent
to kill a mockingbird –
the door into summer.

salt fish girl
salt fish girl,
interpreter of maladies,
when fox is a thousand
always
never let me go.

fugitive pieces
tender buttons leaving earth
eight cousins, tender is the night
the children of men voyage in the
dark green shadows, white whale, ammonite
a mouthful of air taken at the flood
tales from the thousand and one nights
the book of small fugitive pieces
charms for the easy life.

Wait! Now, go back to the beginning and touch each line in turn. And, if you like this sort of poetic puzzle, make sure to check out For 20 weightings.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Fortune Spy

In 1806, Jane Taylor didn’t have Google Translate to help her write “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Finnish, Armenian, and Hindi translations would have let her daub it with wistfulness: Twinkle, twinkle, little star, I wonder how you are doing.
     Adding Gujarati, Maltese, and more, she’d have had MI-5’s first coded message: Sparkle, twinkle, little star, somebody doesn’t know the enemy’s paying. You are a Solitaire in the heaven across the world.
     Or, the world’s first fortune cookies: Star hotels are a little festive for this. Put your trust in enemy ships being constructed. In a specialized world, enjoy fresh air.

Images: Margaret Tarrant, Daily Mail, Unravel a Gift.  

Sorry, Margaret Atwood

So, Margaret Atwood has joined other Canadian feminists in calling for the anthem to be edited back to its original. I like Margaret (and feminism), but I have to disagree with her. The line in question reads “true patriot love in all thy sons command.” They want it to read “in all of us command.” But being commanded to feel true patriot love is a bit much. Feelings can’t be commanded, and I’m not big on the whole patriot love concept either. Sorry, Margaret, but I’d rather just stick with an anthem that sticks that one to the sons.

Image: Canada's Walk of Fame.

Being in love with a bear

It’s awkward being in love with a bear 

First off, what can you say to the parents? 

You can say, “He’s dedicated to work 

’Cause, Dad, bearhood is no song and dance 

No beer, no skittles, no coffee breaks

Eating offal from seals takes real stamina.” 

You can say, “Daddy, at least he’s white and 

Remember what you said about Angelo 

Yes you did too say that and I was so 

Ashamed I wouldn’t visit you for months and –”

Yes, such arguments divert the parents 

But truth told, being in love has got to be 

Awkward, standing hair on end. 

Image: Catrin Welz-Stein.

HEY! (The already-outdated kimchi taco chant)

HEY! is the new hi rooibos the new chai

gluten is the new egg yolk fake’s the newest fur

kimchi the new taco and gambling new tobacco

for hipsters the new yuppies labradoodles their new puppies

sigh for rhinos the new dodos clap for katniss the new frodo

winning hunger like a new board game but HEY!

HEY! it’s the new hi syria’s in the news why
war is lame the new retarded like wispy bangs the new cross-
     parted
HEY! they’re the next hi and netflix the new sky’s
got ben the latest batman wearing cheetah: the new black. HEY!

Image: Steamy Kitchen.

The Falls

At the age of four, Sarabeth Harcourt let her best toy, a squeaky dog named Benji, slip over the railing to Niagara Falls. The experience transformed her. She became so listless, her mother sometimes turned the lights off in a room, not realizing Sarabeth was there. At 16, Sarabeth continued to sit in the dark, indifferent even to a toothache. Her mother took her to the dentist nonetheless. There, Sarabeth saw a pale, freckly boy emerge from the dentist’s room. “The nitrous will wear off soon, Benji,” the dentist reassured him. “Okay,” the boy squeaked. Sarabeth fell tumultuously in love.

Image: OLX.

Getting Sick in the Dark Ages

The Dark Ages were a strange and earthy time for sickness. You could suffer from “dew-worm” (ringworm). Your sudden pain could be from elf-shot. Your cure could come from sheep dung or stale urine.
     Should a time machine ever thrust you back, here are 10 words from Old English Leechdoms (ca 1150) that might be good to know:
     tarse – penis
     lant – stale urine
     fast – constipated
     attery – venomous
     share – pubic region
     clock – a stomach sound
     sigalder – charm or incantation
     to fnast – to pant, or breathe fire
     gound – foul matter secreted by the eye
     treddle – sheep poop (this word evolved toward “turdyll”).

Image: Terra Vim.
Definitions: OED Online.

A Real Doctor

“Huh,” said the technician and left, which wasn’t exactly how Maggie thought pre-natal ultrasounds worked.
     After half an hour, an intern stepped in, nodding hello furtively. He looked about 16 and shifted the ultrasound wand around like he was learning to drive stick. “Huh," he said.
     “Isn’t my baby okay?” Maggie asked.
     “Baby?” said the intern, wearily. “That’s an island inside you.”
      Thankfully what looked like a real doctor arrived just then. “Diagnosis?” she asked, calm and crisp.
     “Island," said the intern, uncertainly adding, “The bridge looks manmade."
     “Huh,” said the real doctor. “I’d say archipelago.”
     Maggie began to scream.

Image (and additional stories inspired by it): Magpie Tales. 

Orchard Kiss

Marianne had been having another spell where she could not stop talking about what life would have been like in the city. She was laying on the chesterfield with her eyes jammed shut, but her body like a bird in a shallow grave, and Clyde no longer knew what a man could say. He remembered their first kiss, years back. They’d heard a train whistling, past the orchard, and Marianne broke off the kissing to say how romantic it’d be, being on a train, going somewhere. Maybe he should’ve thought clearer back then, but her hair had smelled like quinces.

Image: The Garden of Eating.

The Terminal Bouquet

Dialling Yolanda’s number made his hands jitter but this time, she hadn’t hung up. He told her he’d changed – he’d started listening, started being there for people. He’d pick her up at the airport, he promised, her and her newborn baby, leave work early, borrow a carseat, anything for an old friend.
     He bought her roses, the same pink as when they’d started dating. In case she’d think he was pushing his luck, he laid them atop of the stroller, saying, “Pink for your baby girl!”
     “I told you I named him Sebastian,” Yolanda hissed, flinging the bouquet down.

Image: Ron Thompson, who first caught this bouquet here.

Barcelona Bouquet, Part V

Last call at my gate.
      Eyes closed, concentrating, I heard the click of heels on marble. She’d returned! Wearing a short skirt, she knelt carefully to gather the bouquet in, straightened, and spotted the fallen petals...
      No – he’d come back. He stopped over the flowers, glanced round (everyone looked away), and stooped to pick them up. Then he examined them closely, his expression unreadable. Unseen beneath his feet the petals turned to pulp...
      No. It was the gate attendant. I boarded, leaving the case unsolved and worse – uncategorized. So which one was it: crime of passion, or the lack thereof?

Photo by Ron Thompson at Barcelona Airport, August 2013
See how it began here.

Barcelona Bouquet, Part IV

They called my flight, but I made no move to board: the mystery wasn’t solved.
      Callously abandoned? Why drop the bouquet there? Dump it in a trash bin, there’d be no questions then. Besides, it had landed with some force – witness the two detached petals splayed like corpses on the cold-slab floor. The physical evidence connoted passion, not indifference. Was there a phone call, a letter opened, a penny finally dropping from some comment made in passing?
      The flowers were pink, not red. It could still be a case of careless haste. 
      My stakeout continued, though time was running out.

Photo by Ron Thompson at Barcelona Airport, August 2013
See how it began here.  See the conclusion here.