Category: poetry

Conversation

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Text Me

he’s behind bars

so the streets are safer

yet I still say

text me when you get home

these streets will never be safe

 

all those years 

when I never worried

about more than someone getting wet

waiting too long for a bus

 

all those years

when this was happening

men lured into a van

expecting a lift home

not a fight for their life

 

I’m feeling retroactive fear

regret

for dangers I never knew existed 

for men coming and going

from my house

from my arms

making their way home

at night

 

some who have in fact

disappeared from my life

moved on

I presumed

but now I’m not sure

 

I know he’s behind bars

but the streets

will never feel safe again

so text me when you get home

I’ll text you when I get home

I find it unsettling to revisit the Terra Cotta poems. Some were written during the manhunt. This one after the arrest. I live a relatively protected life – not quite a cocoon but one at a distance from the downtown core where my immediate physical risks are minimal. I feel much safer walking the my east end streets at night that I do walking along, say, Jarvis at night.

Many of the killers victims were met on-line – which is where I do meet men – geography only plays a role when travel is involved. So it is not unlikely that I could have met this man. It isn’t even impossible that we did have some on-line contact but I’m clearly was not the ‘type’ he was looking for. Being a non-drugger, sober, white queer offers some protection 🙂

I knew men who knew some of the victims. One who was sure there was something going on before the police acknowledged there was something going on. I’ve been told that the killer went to some recovery meetings in his hunt for vulnerable men. I mention these things as context for all the Terra Cotta pieces. I felt I had tom write something about this, about the way the media responded to the man hunt.

It impacted the community is many ways. This piece reflects one of those ways. Our concern for friends & lovers whom we cannot protect. The text request was a way to offer connection to friends – not necessarily just fwb. I always make the request when one of guys who drive to my place head home. Even when men are ‘out of the closet’ they may not be out about who they are seeing. If they have an accident I may never know unless family alerts every # on a cell phone that so & so etc.

 

The fact that this guy is behind bars hasn’t changed the culture in which what he was doing was so easy to ignore. The indifference to crime/assault against the LGBTQIA community hasn’t changed as a result. It may have started a ‘conversation’ but let’s face it talk is not a change.



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Way To Go Week One

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Finished the introductions to both the book & the workbook. They echo each other. I find a few things to contradict but for the most part I choose not to argue & push on. I dislike the ‘informercial’ brag – so-so did this & now has two best-sellers, has a movie, an exhibition – the implication being that if you don’t get these results you are doing something wrong.

I appreciated the reinforcing of my thought that we mistake negative thinking for being realistic & positive thinking as delusional. This came up in the discussion round the use of affirmations – to think ‘I am never going to get anywhere’ is clearly factual, whereas ‘I am a productive writer’ is an egotistical brag not a fact.

Starting doing the week one tasks, as suggested, in long hand!! So I am following at least one of the suggestions, as I do my morning pages on my desktop. I do most of my writing via keyboard. The ‘Way’ theory is longhand slows the brain down to sort things out carefully – my theory is the faster I write the less my editor steps in & the more I am open to the flow.

My artist date last week was part of my morning walk – a stop at, I kid you not, Glory Hole Donuts – Gerrard E/Coxwell. These are not your average donuts. Not exactly out of my comfort zone either so future might take me more out of my routines. In winter I’m less inclined to go places where I’m trapped in my winter wear but I have been eye a few sort of trade shows that could be diverting. The ultimate artist date will be DC this June 🙂


The poems I’m currently posting on Mondays are thing I wrote in 2008 & am finally going back to take a look at – raw dough some of which needs carefully unravelling to translate from my typo or spell-check typo to English. This is sort of an an artist date with my past self.

F-Bombs Away

is there an emoticon to say 

what one doesn’t want to put into words

some cute little animated gif

that’ll take the sting out of the unspeakable

out of the unprintable

to remove any real pain

but says it all anyway

 

the vulgarity that curdles the bold

the sacrilege that shakes one’s belief system

reduced to a shruggy face

so that no one is offended

except those offended

by the sweet correctness of our times

where we dare not overstep

boundaries of taste

drop the f-bomb too much

or the deadly c-word

 

this fear of having people realize 

that we are as crass and boorish

as we are afraid we are

better to keep that self out of the public eye

off the printed page

unless that unguarded text moment

gets retweeted

shows up on You Tube

 

there has to be a way

of being offensive

without being offensive

without swearing 

making idle hand gestures

caught on cell phone videos

 

we are always on our toes

being as daring as we dare

pushing enough to let people know 

we can push

and that they should be grateful

we aren’t going as far as we’d like

that we could make them really uncomfortable

but aren’t out of politeness

yes politeness 

not out of fear of reprisal or judgement

without shooting them or ourselves 

in our pretty little heads

we want respect not dismay

for saying just the right unkind insult

https://wp.me/P1RtxU-2f6

March

March 5 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre

March 13 –

April
April 3 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Season 6 finales Buddies and Bad Times Theatre

May

Richard III – Stratford Festival

June

June 25-26-27 – Capturing Fire 2020 – Wooly Mammoth Theatre -Washington D.C.
 capfireslam.org 

July

All’s Well That Ends Well – Stratford Festival

Hey! You can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee

at Ted’s Bulletin in Washington DC

at 2020’s capfireslam.org – sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet

Star Trek Subtext (Feb 20.12)

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Got out to Plasticine Poetry Sunday night. I haven’t been to a reading event for nearly two months. Not since I hosted Plasticine in December. I guess that’s part of the aging process – my unwillingness to bundle up warm and then drag myself out on cold wet nights to spots where there is barely room to sit at a table, let alone have a place to pile winter clothes. Paupers offers a bit of space for that in their booths so one doesn’t have to sit the entire night wearing the parka that you don’t want to throw on the floor.memole15

No mic cord for the first set of open stagers & feature. But the room was good for hearing without microphone – though first feature Lynn McClory did have to move to centre of the room. Her set was, for me, a bit dry. I’ve never been a fan of poetry about language – her works captures emotional distancing with abstractions, language play and broken phrases.  As much as I like phrases such as ‘deftly indifferent to the photographs’ I’m not sure how one is deftly indifferent. I did enjoy the irony of her closing piece about the Silent Majority.

During the break I connected with Adam Abbas – he did a great pean to Cathy Petch when he hit the open stage later. Also enjoyed running into and then sharing my booth with one of the Toronto Erotica guys. Thanks also to the organizers for cake to celebrate the recent launch of Cathy Petch’s book “Late Night Knife Fights” – which is already into it’s second printing.PC070014.JPG

Jim Nason started the second set – he read from his recent book “Narcissus Unfolding.” The pieces had a strong sense of place – the ocean, a back alley – that felt grounded and were emotionally inviting to me. Images like ‘the terrible flame of your father’s hand’ made sure I bought a copy of his book.

Final feature was Beatriz Hausner. When I featured with her at Plasticine a few years ago she read several surreal pieces about sewing the perfect man & that book  – “Sew Him Up” – is now in print, so I bought it. The pieces she read from it were infused with a warm Latino sensuality the reminded me of my favorites Lorca and Arenas. She read some pieces from ‘Raccoon’ that were rich with magic realism balanced with powerful emotional response to the life and death of Amy Winehouse – a book I can’t wait to get.

I managed to get into the first round of open stagers – read a couple of comfortable older pieces. As usual the open stagers run the gamut of pure Canadiana nature poetry to closing with a Serge Gainsbourgh song.

samples

Here’s one of the pieces I read:

Star Trek Subtext

an all day Star Trek marathon

the original series on Blue Ray

weird space plants

funky 60’s retro-futurist sets

Kirk Spock Bones Sulu

(Sulu who knew you were

the real queen of outer space)

we had nachos   salsa

bags of sea salt-n-pepper chips

Hawaiian pizza   fried chicken

diet coke   real dr pepper

a 90 inch plasma TV

Trek in all its never to fade glory

as each episode started

we did a soprano unearthly dance

every time Scotty said

‘I’m giving it everything we got captain’

we’d eat chips as fast as we could

when Uhura said

‘we are experiencing interference’

we saw who could burp the loudest

every time Kirk took off or tore his shirt

we removed an article of clothing

(Strip Trek)

every time the fate of a culture

was decided by a kiss from Kirk

we made moony eyes at each other

until someone said ‘phasers on stun’

each time human emotions

were a puzzle

we asked deep personal questions like

‘who has the bigger dick

Chekov or that guy

with his face painted black and white?’

when any alien said

‘what is this thing you earth people call kissing’

we gave each other alien tongue baths

every time Spock said ‘illogical’

we did the Vulcan grind meld

by the time the marathon was over

it didn’t matter

that neither of us really liked Star Trek

we’ll never forget this Star Date One

…..

When I got home there was Sulu – George Takei – on Celebrity Apprentice – though I don’t think I’d want of these contestants to make me a sandwich.

dish

The Right Price

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samprules2

Working through the  227 Rules For Monks.

Who knew the simple life could be so complex.

The Right Price

Nothing was the right size. He stood in the centre of the hotel room. The windows were too high to look out of and were too large for the room. Standing on tip-toe he could get a brief glimpse of the high-rise across the street.

It strained his neck to keep looking outside. His suitcase took up half the bed. The bed would clearly be too small for him to stretch out on. The desk was more like ledge. There wasn’t enough room under it for his legs. Not enough room for the top for his laptop to open properly. The chair back came half-way up his spine and offered no support when he leaned back.

The wall-to-wall carpet wasn’t quite wall-to-wall. One one side there was a bare angle of concrete floor that hadn’t been covered. The sink in the bathroom was so low he had to stoop to get his hands under the taps to splash tepid water on his face. There was no cold or hot just lukewarm. The shower stall door didn’t close properly so water splashed out on the floor when he took a shower.

Nothing was the right size except for the price.


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Not to mention it

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The Not To List

Not to sew a robe for anyone

Not to ask for an excuse

Not to wear a hat for a funeral

Not to tell the time for a year

Not to clean a room for a photographer

Not to ask for another chance

Not to fix a sandwich for a questioner

Not to erase a mistake for a reporter

Not to fix a noose for a saxophone

Not to give a shit for logic

Not to hope a day goes by for a minute

Not to worry a teabag for example

Not to make space in a crowd

Not to mention it again

Not to question the powers that be

Not to complain about a bad photograph

Not to be culpable

Not to make that bed again

Not to ask them why why why

The 227 Rules For Monks cover every aspect of their life – from how much fabric can be used to make a robe, to how to walk into a room. Many are variations, refinements of the one before it. So I guess half their time is spent memorizing these rules the rest in enforcing them 🙂 

We live in a world hemmed in by rules almost as restrictive & unevenly enforced. If one is in the right social class they can get away things that others can’t i.e. rape, spousal abuse, homophobia (that list is even longer the the 227 Rules.)

Watching ‘The Crown’ I realized the rules of etiquette for interacting with the Royals was equally as ‘refined’ right down to what honorific is appropriate for different occasions & from different people – Presidents as opposed to other Royals. ‘Your Majesty’ or ‘Your Royal Highness’ aren’t equal & one never says Mrs. Mountbatten or Queenie.

Oh, yes, then there’s the rule where, when dining with the Queen, one must stop eating when she stops & go on the next course but cannot start eating it until she does. One monarch was such a fast eater, often dishes where barely smelled before the new one was served.

So this is a list poem that consists of things ‘not to do.’ Some off which almost make sense, some of which come from my experience with others. I have a good friend who is a real photographer (unlike me who is a point & snap). He wants things as they are as opposed to magazine tidy. Same when he does portraits – ‘Don’t smile.’ 

Some of these rules have a ‘subtext.’ ‘Not to make that bed again’ is about getting out of bad relationships. Unlike some of my list poems this one doesn’t develop a narrative line as it progresses, it lacks inner logic (who give a shit?) The first rule is a direct reference the the 227 Rules. My usual rule is photos & blog content aren’t directly linked 🙂



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The Furnace of Art

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I’m going through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way again – this is definitely the 2nd time with someone else. First was, alone, was way back in the mid 90’s, then a few years later with a friend in recovery. I’m going through it again with the same friend. I may have done some of the exercises that first time because I starting doing morning pages in the mid-90’s as I result of that first reading.

The next time we worked through everything. Now some 20 years later it’s time for this version of me to give it another go. I found it productive then & hope to again. In recovery meeting soften go through the same text, a step at a time, endlessly because repetition is the mother of learning. No one is too well to get better 😉

I still have my paperback of the book but opted to download a Kindle copy for reading in transit. I’ll went to Indigo & bought the workbook – that’s right I went into a book store ! & bought a book ! I did check a couple small indie stores first but they didn’t have the workbook. I discovered that there is now a ‘Creativity’ section full of books to free the mind – a step up from New Age, I suppose.

So far I’ve read through the introductions. Cameron makes no secret of her recovery & the role that it played in her ability to explore creativity. I remember when I got sober I was afraid that without booze to fuel the furnace of art that I’d never play the piano again 🙂 I thought I wrote better after a few drinks – I still have some of notebooks & can read my handwriting for the most part. I was certainly in touch with melodrama & self-pity after a few doubles.

Evanescent Extra

it didn’t last long

the look

beguiling inviting

for a brief moment

passing him on a subway platform

me getting on 

him getting off

eyes catch

not long enough to snag

our heads turn 

but the doors close

am whisked away

 

the moment memory 

has a hold of me

a face that needed a shave

sloppy quick half smile

eyes I think I remember 

moment too short to get color

dark hair dark eye browns

skin coffee 

or was that just subway lighting

or memory dimming already

 

I carried that glance 

as long as I could

I didn’t check my phone 

didn’t look for other faces

savoured that intimation

or am I reading

something into those eye

maybe he was glad

I was the only body 

between him and getting off

a half smile of thanks 

to the transit gods

that allowed for his easy exit

but no 

he did turn a bit towards me

as the doors closed 

he did follow me 

as I was ripped out of his arms

did he have arms

 I’m pretty sure he did 

but all I have is that face 

the unshaved line of his jaw

half a smile

short hair

yes I think he had short hair

or was he wearing a tight toque

 

funny how a glance

can take in so much and so little

would I recognize him 

will it be one of those faces

one can’t quite place

like extras in movies

in a subway scene

just out of view

out of focus

filling in a background

so my life 

doesn’t feel so empty 

https://wp.me/P1RtxU-2f6

March

March 5 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre

April
April 3 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Season 6 finales Buddies and Bad Times Theatre

May

Richard III – Stratford Festival

June

June 25-26-27 – Capturing Fire 2020 – Wooly Mammoth Theatre -Washington D.C.
 capfireslam.org 

July

All’s Well That Ends Well – Stratford Festival

Hey! You can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee

at Ted’s Bulletin in Washington DC

at 2020’s capfireslam.org – sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet

Lee-ping Lounge Lizards

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The lee side starts with Brenda Lee: The Definitive Collection – maybe not all the hits but enough for me. ‘I’m Sorry’ is a classic, melodramatic, over-the-top song as she sings her codependent heart out. Her gumbo rock is fine & she survived being a child star quite well too. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree is a season fav too. Her life was no ‘normal’ there’s been no movie bio 🙂

Now to the cocktail lounge with an mp3 collection that includes. Julia Lee: And Her Boyfriends. This is an lp to cd transfer. I bought the lp based on the sweet cover – a portrait of her in a mink. The songs are ‘suggestive’ i.e. My Man Stands Out. Her voice is sexy & she knows an innuendo where she sings one. With her is Risky Blues – an lp compilation of even more suggestive songs ‘Big Ten Inch (record).’

Here too are a couple of lps by Blossom Dearie: Once Upon A Summer Time, Cafe-apres Midi. Blossom is on the less raunchy side of nightclub singers. A sweet, light, playful voice she is worshiped by jazz singers. her material pulls mainly from Broadway with some jazz standards thrown in. You can almost hear the cocktail shaker in the back ground.

The opposite is a pair by Mable Mercer: Sings Cole Porter, Merely Marvellous. I first heard her on a jazz magazine sampler singing Ballad of all the Sad Young Men. Mable has a nice alto range & is relaxing & fun. She doesn’t push jazz boundaries. Emotional without showing off. her material is similar to Blossom’s with a dash of more modern stuff – ie 59th Street Bridge Song.

More show-offish is Jane Morgan. I have the wonderfully over-produced Jane In Spain, & Time. Jane has a classic clear night-club voice. Spain is a delight with its hitch Latino flourishes of castanets & some of the songs, Granada, are ‘Spanish’ sung in English. Time is more diverse & ‘modern’ with songs like Moon River, Tammy given the nightclub treatment.

Final Lee is Peggy Lee – an inspiration for all the above – she started as a big band torch singer whose career changed with the times. I have in various mp3 collections: Beauty and the Beat (w: George Shearing), Latin Lee, Ole Lee, Fever, Christmas Carousel, Is That All There Is – her  Some are standard issue lie Latin Lee but all are elevated by her delivery. Her Christmas Carousel is one of my seasonal favourites.

Chocolates

this is the week

when the universal currency is

hearts & flowers 

chocolates & regrets

traded with eager expectations

I’ll give you a glimpse of this

if you give me a glimpse of that

I’ll put up with your doing that 

if you allow me to do do this

I’ll treat you like crap 

love you & put up with your crap

because you love me

 

we exchange these representations

of our willingness to continue 

our little patterns of regret dispute 

in the name of tender loving 

compassionate cooperation

because our relationship is perfect

bouquet trade-offs

of explanations for reality

how far we compromised 

our teenage ideals 

for our forty-year-old realities

 

so many of us

are still ruled by bitter teenagers

who didn’t get the pretty girl 

or great guy we idolized in high school

we still cart that fractured dream

around as a measure of what we want

as if we’d stop some teenager 

in the street today and ask 

‘is this the one for me’

not that a stranger 

can actually to talk 

to a teenager in the street today

without getting charged for something

but that’s another story

another compromise

to protect us from one another

so where was I

 

ah yes

the new universal currency

of regrets fears retribution 

being more satisfying than love

who wants to see things flow 

without the elegant 

encumbrance of expectations 

without the sunny 

undercurrent of resentment

mental telepathy doesn’t work

and it is your fault

I should not have to tell you 

what I want

you should just know

from the way I wear my hat

oh right I don’t wear hats

well that should tell you something

 

it tells you I love you

https://wp.me/P1RtxU-2f6

March
March 5 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre

April
April 3 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Season 6 finales Buddies and Bad Times Theatre

May

Richard III – Stratford Festival

June

June 25-26-27 – Capturing Fire 2020 – Wooly Mammoth Theatre -Washington D.C.
 capfireslam.org 

July

All’s Well That Ends Well – Stratford Festival

Hey! You can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee

at Ted’s Bulletin in Washington DC

at 2020’s capfireslam.org – sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet

Undercover

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samprules2

Working through the  227 Rules For Monks.

Who knew the simple life could be so complex.

Undercover

I wanted to throw

the math book across the room

the brown paper didn’t cooperate

as I folded it over the cover

one side was too big to fold

the other too small to cover

I tried to slide the book

so everything was even

so it would be neat tidy

the real cover protected

I wanted it to look as perfect

as the book my mother had done in minutes

 

I lacked her eye hand coordination

perfected by years of knitting

of dress making

I couldn’t even colour between the lines

now here I was

with a pair of scissors

a roll of heavy brown kraft paper

attempting to make covers

for my school books

as requested by the school

if the books weren’t kept tidy enough

we would have to pay for them

I wasn’t even supposed to write on the books

not even to underline

couldn’t dog ear the pages

 

the book refused to fit

I managed to get it wrapped

taped the corner to keep it in place

I didn’t care that it was bunched up

that there was a crease 

on the back cover

 

I tried to slide myself

through grade school

high school

so everything was even

so I would be neat tidy

bland as brown kraft paper book cover

a cover that never quite protected

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True Love

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True Love

 

she shows me

the new backpack

that her boyfriend had bought her

for her sixtieth birthday

he was so pleased with the colour

her favourite green

she hates it

but she didn’t tell him that

it’s not the right fit

on her shoulders

like the wonderful red parka

he bought her for Christmas

she loves the colour

but the zipper doesn’t work right

she has to zip a little 

before putting it on

 

I guess he’s from India

as she imitates his accent

I like so much to give you things

she’s grateful to receive his gifts

but will insist

that in future she go with him

when he’s going to buy 

a surprise for her

she asks me

if that sounds reasonable

 

I’m not sure

why she’s asking me

or if she’s showing off

that she has a boyfriend

who buys her things

Another true life adventure – well adventure is over-stating the incident. The ‘she’ is a recovery  acquaintance. We don’t constantly talk about the futile battle of life 🙂 Life if full of small pleasantry & learning to recognize & share them is a part of becoming life-sized. Though sometimes I do wish some people would develop a better sense of boundaries 🙂

The conversation here is about the trivialities of life, relationships &, for me, control. Not that I haven’t received gifts that didn’t quite suit me but I’ve never thought, I’m not going to give specific directions on what I can be given – “here’s a file of my sizes, preferred colours, flavours & if your gift doesn’t fulfill these strictures I’m not interested.”

I found the conversation amusing but found myself thinking that here was someone who may never be pleased with anything so I’d better not give them more than a handshake. I’m also is favour of boyfriends as any age. I rarely talk about my own romantic adventuring though – as accepting as many people are they don’t need to hear me brag about my active sex life.

 

So the piece ends with me projecting a bit on her about the nature of ‘brag.’ But it also reflects that fact that what people tell us isn’t always in the content of ‘what’ they say but the ‘why’ they say. The subtext. Am I telling you about the randomness of ‘ordered on line underwear’ sizing (some countries large is medium in North America) – to find a better place to order or just to let you know I like underwear & that I order it on line. (btw I do know the right underwear size for all my boyfriends).


Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee at Capturing Fire 2020 June 25.26.27. – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet 

The Porch

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Welcome to an occasional new Monday series in which I’ll take you on a tour of the art pieces in my house. Many of you will never darken my door but that’s no reason not to see past it. Plus you may hear more about these pieces that my regular visitors ever hear, or want to hear 🙂

 

Starting with the porch – which some of you have seen in my Christmas photos. The first thing you’ll see, besides me letting you in, is this wonderful oil painting. It consists of marvellous cliches & is clearly from an assembly line oil painting factory. It has misty mountains, waterfalls, cascades, a quaint cottage in the pines, & a rough path to the cottage.

I found it on one of my morning walks. I took a few photos of it then & it was still there on my way back. The frame was included so I couldn’t resist it & brought it home. It is perfect for the front porch. If you take a close look you’ll see why it was tossed. There is a slit in the canvas – about the size of a knife blade – over the secluded cottage. I think of this as a breach of the time-space continuum. I love this painting & love the fact that is is found art.

On the window ledge by the front door is this hand-carved wooden African fetish that is intended to scare away evil energy. The tag say ‘two warriors.’ I’ve had this so long I don’t remember where it came from – maybe a yard-sale? It may have been a house-warming gift. My partner found it too grotesque to have on the living-room mantle piece so it has been in the porch protecting our house for decades.

On the other side of the door is a bookcase whose shelves are cluttered in endless knick-knacks. My favorite of which is this lamp from the 30’s. It has the remains of its original paint job & still works. It is La Canadienne. It was a Christmas gift some 30 years ago. I’ve been tempted to have it reconditioned but decay has its place. Linus is a period bobble head. The cow is a creamer. The poodle on a log is a future Hot Damn! prize. The random holes on the frame are from stapling the Christmas fabric that hides the shelves from the prying eyes of Santa’s elves.

Our Lady of the Flowers -a boxed St Teresa plaster icon. This goes way way back when I was living in Cape Breton. I found it in an antique store in Halifax  in the mid-70’s. I had to have hit even though I am not Catholic. I have been told that these were in Catholic grade schools at one time. There would have been a little shelf handing at the bottom for candles or for votive offerings or for holy water – depending on the school. I keep in in a darker corner of the porch out of too much direct sunlight.

I remember buying it & carrying like a doll as it as too large to bag & to delicate to toss in a suitcase. I was stopped on the street by a group of Russian sailors who recognized the Saint. They spoke little English but their thick Russian accents made me weak in the knees. Laudamus Te indeed.

White Shirts, Bullets & Ballots

after that first day 

I swore not to wear 

a white shirt ever again

 

too many of the doorbells 

we rung had been rung 

too many times in the past 

by religious pests bringing 

the word of salvation

we were bringing 

the word of vote 

to the people

 

we had been warned

that the white shirts 

wouldn’t be effective 

but we felt 

we had to present a clean-cut 

non-threatening image 

if we wanted people 

to become aware of their rights

 

white shirts proved 

not to be the way to go

so we were allowed to wear 

what we wanted 

as long as 

it was clean and non-political

we couldn’t sully our approach

with anything that might be seem 

to sway the people

the way the other parties did

with guns

https://wp.me/P1RtxU-2f6

March
March 5 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre

April
April 3 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Season 6 finales Buddies and Bad Times Theatre

May

Richard III – Stratford Festival

June

June 25-26-27 – Capturing Fire 2020 – Wooly Mammoth Theatre – Washington D.C.
 capfireslam.org 

July

All’s Well That Ends Well – Stratford Festival

Hey! You can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee

at Ted’s Bulletin in Washington DC

at 2020’s capfireslam.org – sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet