sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet
Shoes Spurned
sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet
Tag: shoes
sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet
Size
Size
my mother
cut my food
until she figured
I had the ability
to cut it myself
like learning to tie my shoes
I don’t remember
when that transition
to independence
happened
<>
I do realize
that somethings can’t
be cut down to size
they have to be taken
in bites or licks
like ice cream
melt in the mouth goodness
<>
but not all goodness melts
not everything needs to be bitten
to enjoy
though sometime
it enjoys being bitten
even if it is too big
to fit into the mouth
its worth trying
to get as much of it as one can
<>
sometimes
as a kid
I would stuff
so many small pieces
in my mouth
I couldn’t chew them properly
I couldn’t swallow
at least now
I know much is manageable
I have a big coffee mug. It holds 2 cups of fluid – 16 oz. – half-a-litre. I have a travel mug that holds a litre – usually coffee. The big mug is for my morning coffee, which I drink while reading in my study, which is upstairs. I would fill the mug nearly to the rim & carry it upstairs. The problem was that the motion would start a wave momentum in the mug so that no matter how carefully I carried it it would spill. I tried different ways of holding it, walking slowly one-step-at-a-time, pausing to calm the waves.
I started pouring it into a travel mug so the lid would contain the spill. But I’d end up with two mugs to clean. One day the solution came to me: stop filling it to the max! Oh my, having less isn’t easy for someone who feels ‘enough’ is a good place to start. Why not settle for 15.5 oz? Less was worth it just to remove the stress (& stains) of carrying it upstairs without spilling it. The question of size was settled with a simple action.
This is another piece about the nature of more, of the size of things. When I cut my food I still cut it the sizes my mother would cut it, though there are some foods that really don’t need to be cut much – a pizza into slices, maybe, but I’m not one of those who then cuts those slices into small pieces to eat dainty with a fork – a hand-to-mouth experience.
In some cases even if the food can’t be eaten in one piece, it doesn’t have to be cut by hand but by biting – apples, bananas, a box of chocolates (lol).
It’s also a bit about memory – those things we do today that we learned as children some of which were practical – tying shoes, brushing teeth – some of which weren’t that practical: racism, sexism – which perhaps our parents weren’t aware of teaching us. Lessons that are now hard to un-digest.
Look At Me
Look At Me
does this fit
does it look good on me
do I look sane in it
does it turn you on
do I look educated in this
does it suit the occasion
will it get me laid
can it open doors for me
will it need to be ironed
can I wear it in public
will it turn heads
does it make me look old
look desperate
does it come in other colours
maybe a size larger
does it make up for my lack of style
do I have the guts to wear it
does it wear me
will it last longer than a glance
is it why you want me
am I anything without it
can it be replaced
can it replace me
excuse me
while I slip into
something a little less demanding
I loved ‘What Not To Wear’ & the stylists philosophical/psychological stance on the value of dressing in ways that enhance our self-esteem. But it is easy to mistake appearance for self & count on clothes take the place of the person. When I was featuring or doing an open stage I dressed as if I meant to be there & I know the power of the right shirt & the right pair of shoes. But also know the right shirt will not make a bad poem better.
This piece is a list poem – some items are our expectations of what we expect from appearance – how clothing can curate people’s perceptions of us. I’ve seen articles on power-suits, dress for success, jeans that will change your sex life. Yahoo is full of headlines like ’60 year old looks ultra glamorous in …’ ‘XX wears daring string thong to gala’ ‘Who are you wearing’ has taken the place of ‘How did it feel to be nominated’
An actor friend of mine said that they never really captured a character until they found the right shoes. I understood that. I also know people who dress defensively to deliberately put people off rather than inviting them in – one moaned about always attracting creeps but when suggested the way they dressed was doing exactly that I was told not to be so superficial.
I’ve always been amused how people who reject ‘lookism’ end up looking alike. Sometimes wearing clothes that say ‘don’t judge me by how I look’ & who judge others by how they look.I always wants that Taxi Driver scene: ‘are you looking at me’ to end up with DeNiro snarling ‘do these jeans make me look psychotic?’
Attention Span
The smaller the font the faster your eyes will tire & the faster you’ll fall asleep, even if you don’t want to fall asleep. This is one of my Kindle lessons after dozing off & reading the same passage three times before I realized I was dozing off & reading the same passage again (did you just nod off reading this 🙂 )
I’ve found that over the years my attention span for certain things has changed. An hour of TV, at one time, is more than enough passive participation for me – I can manage that hour a few times scattered through the day. Sit down for longer than that to watch something & I’m up after first half-hour for a snack 🙂 Seeing theatric productions can be torture – trapped in the dark & I can’t even check my cell phone! Yikes.
Even household tasks are broken down into ‘bites.’ I could have cleared out my basement in three days of work – a few hours in the morning, another couple after a lunch break. But I opted to do it over a month or so, of a little over an hour sessions, a couple of mornings a week. Make that 90 minutes to include getting the vacuum out, etc. I did it piecemeal & got it done. I can’t imagine going to a day job, wether in an office or working at home, for six or seven hours at a stretch.
When working on editing, or writing new material I find a focused hour, twice a day is all I can manage for the physical part, the mind never takes a break. Movies get watched in 50 minute bites. The only time I see a film from start to finish is with my Saturday movie guy – recently we’ve been watching the Tudors – two episodes at a time.
The one thing I do for the longest stretch of uninterrupted time is sleep 🙂
Kentic (March 2008)
the faster I move
the less I weigh
the faster I talk
the more I get to say
squeezing out not taking in
the less I take in
the less there is to carry
the less I carry
the faster I can move
<>
stay in motion
moving targets
get shot at more
but they get hit less
I avoid straight lines
darting back & forth
spinning out into controlled curves
tumbling when necessary
moving too fast
for moisture to stay
for sweat to bead
drier than dry
<>
l becomes like a wake
when I am not awake
I don’t move in my sleep
I am like death
so still
not even my breath can be seen
sleep is for the weak
and I am weak
it is my frailty
the need to keep moving is
fuelled by the sleep of righteousness
<>
only the pure of art
can move as fast as I do
can slip the sling of gratification
to be like a sun beam
faster than the speed of
found you this time
no one finds me
no one holds me
<>
I’m not slippery
just too fast to be caught
too nimble to be confined
free of all encumbrances
except the envy of those
who want to be free
who feel that to trap this flash
is the only way they can bottle
their own timid energy
their own fragile pleasures
the resolution of not catching me
isn’t enough to satisfy them
that’s all they’ll ever get
<>
words of understanding
aren’t enough to slow me down
I don’t need to be understood to be free
I don’t need permission to disappear
before your very eyes
into a mist of mystery
who was that unasked man
I don’t need an invitation
don’t have to wait for opportunity
don’t make them for myself
don’t stay long enough
<>
the flame flicker wind
darting around me
singes then gone
out like a light
out the window
out out out
washed clean
not a trace of me
not even in memory
<>
the secret of my success
to be so fast I am not memorized
not recalled
not even a vague discomfort
beyond the spark of envy
for the moment of realization
the faster I move
the less you care
let’s keep it that way
Autonomy
In Week Eleven of The Artist’s Way Julia Cameron says: ‘The idea that money validates my credibility is very hard to shake.’ I’d take this even further but substituting ‘money’ with ‘suffering’ or ‘childhood sexual abuse’ or ‘conformity’ or ‘pick your own.’ There are so many sets of standards to measure validation that one can always find one that deems them not deserving. Maybe its the nature of ‘credibility’ that needs to be examined. Perhaps validation & credibility a manifestations of co-dependency – the need for a sense of self defined by outside forces.
I know we are ultimately defined by our culture’s standards but that is no reason not to question or even resist those perimeters. Sure, making money as a creator is a good thing, I’d love to get paid for blogging 🙂 Very few poets I know earn enough $ from their actual poetry to made a decent living – they struggle for grants, teach creative writing, edit for other writers. But that’s a rant for another post 🙂
Watched an amazing interview/biography of Toni Morrison. One of the things she talks about is writing for the white-gaze & when she stopped doing that her writing took on a a different sense, she was freed of needing to satisfy that gaze. This resonated with me as an issue of autonomy. In looking over my archive & greater depth than ever I see how much of what I wrote was written for the heterosexual-gaze.
Work that I pushed to make universal so the emotions were human, as opposed to being specific to me & my sexuality. Not that there isn’t an intersection of those emotions but I was suppressing direct gay sexuality to be more accessible, acceptable?
When I stopped suppressing my gay-gaze my poetry became more personal, more honest & so direct that my performance opportunities declined. I was a bit disappointed but who cares, right? My writing is what it is. I once had an agent tell me my sex scenes were too explicit. I guess was not writing for the heterosexual-gaze anymore 🙂 Autonomy 🙂
One of the tasks is another list of dreams but dreams in different categories – health, possessions, leisure, relationships, creativity, career & spirituality. Wishes with no thought as to practicality. This was a challenge in the light of the covid pandemic – every list included covid resistance, vaccine in first spot. It’s hard to dream of a future with this sort of threat – much like the 60s fear of nuclear holocaust that coloured our lives. But I survived that holocaust & I’ll survive this one.
Beyond Instinct
1 – ode to didgeridoo
<>
we are invited to travel
along a river of breath
chatter fades after the first vibrations
as we immerse in the deep C
notes below the harmonic of hearing
dark trilling the mud mind
the ear canal overfills gently
no room to hear anything more
a wordless dialogue in sound
digs us deep from the moment
into pre-animal instincts
the music before birth
beyond notes seeking a sharp landing
<>
2
<>
someone asked me
where did these words
‘dark trilling the mud mind’
come from
<>
I wasn’t sure what to say
I’ve spent to many years
deconstructing the dictionary
there was nothing left to say
there is no where
there is no way to take you there
I’m lost in this horizon
setting you straight is beyond me
can’t tell where I’m coming from
not quite sure where I am going
but I know I’m here
caught in a fulminating flux
by a power greater than myself
something I’ll never understand
as long as I open the the experience
there is no logic to capture
the freedom of the flow
the where words come from
isn’t up to me
anything I say will only disappoint
or turn into my weaving
some self-indulgent web
a wordless dialogue in sound
to lead you to my bed
in an attempt to humanize myself
so you see the me beyond the dictionary
July 2007
sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet
Distant Dances.02
Dances of Apocalypse 2
Hornpipe
one more morning
is all I need
to fill my sails
to sooth my lost feelings
with Neptune sensations
ripped from the quaking mound
of the Virgin’s first child
Hornpipe because this is a short piece with sea references & Biblical allusions. Jesus filled the sail of the fishermen’s boat when needed to sooth their fears. Was I wondering what would rip me feeling from me? Melodrama mistaken for depth:-)
Cakewalk
Japanese pagoda
growing in Rome
or was it Venice?
all jade fragile
amid marble columns
awaked by murky waters
steaming morning haze
when we roll off our pallets,
to silky cool
onto the the polished mosaic floor;
looking to the chiming clock,
listening to the pigeons fly.
open for daylight
onto freshly fallen snow
mingling white with the Pines,
or were they Spruce?
high in Smokey Ridge
deep in Twin Rock Valley
Cakewalk – not sure why this one ended up with this title. A piece about displacements, paradoxical dreamlike images that travel from Japan to Rome & end up in Twin Rock Valley – which is in Cape Breton. I had friends, draft-dodgers, who had bought a farm in the hippy get-back-to-the-land phase. The waking up to fresh snow is a real moment Maybe the title refers to the fact that back-to-the-land was no Cakewalk for them.
Minuet
fame and fortune are not goals
merely drugs to opiate the system
to deaden the feelings of futility
of creating in the face of destruction
<>
let the pygmies of Paris eat me alive;
make them scourge the meat off my bones;
let the sniper with his random pulse
find me accidentally in his sights;
put the final, fleeting, flash blow
into someone else’s hands,
take the responsibility from me,
I handle these things so badly,
even when I remember what to do.
<>
the moment of truth (never now)
comes slow, to disturb the calm
to strengthen the desperate feeling
that destruction charges with energy.
Minuet – polite little dance – much like the dance of expectations, no wait, expectations are rarely polite. I grew up in the shadow of nuclear destruction, war in Vietnam, war protests & racial strife in the USA. Kennedy shot by a sniper. The randomness of violence was pretty far removed from me in Cape Breton but it was felt. Why create when we can annihilate the world in a moment?
Quadrille
impatience is the problem;
the waiting should be over
yet it persists in hiding,
making me lust in secret wanting;
words merely fall,
not for insight
but only to pass the time
before the curtain finally goes up.
Quadrille – this word makes me think of cotillions for some reason. The piece, as I see it now, is wanting to be an adult, ‘lust in secret’ is the itch to be out & making conversation to hide that fact. Like waiting for the plane to land – you want the flight to over.
The Last Waltz
bed-ridden, guilty-disappearer
alludes carpets backwards
into ember sparkling through cozy air,
crackling crystal cut perspectives
reflections held too closely eye-ward
making a pyramid of ink blotches
stretch out
turn in
till there is no border to be fought
only a multiplicity of images to sort.
<>
Nov. ‘73
The Last Waltz – the final piece in this sequence is both an invitation to look back before you go on then a warning that there’ll be even denser imagery to deal with in what follows. In looking at these I see a foreshadowing of of images to come with references to Africa, Japan, Egypt, Canadiana, water, music. When I first wrote these I was not conscious of these patterns. I also see various influences of pop lyrics, as opposed to ‘serious’ literary ones.
I do have a limited number of the original Distant Music chapbook for sale for $25.00 each (includes surface mail postage). Send via the paypal above along with where to send it.
Crazy-makers & Way.02
Into ‘week’ two of the Artist’s Way. ‘Week” as the book is done in weeks not chapters. I’m giving myself two weeks to do each section. Week One was okay, no great revelations but confirmations that the process I started with it decades ago has been productive. Some of my negative self-talk comes from more recent years that from my past. perhaps though it is echoes of that past bs that had seeped in.
Week Two deal with crazy makers as a way of avoiding creativity. Oddly enough one of my biggest crazy makers, no longer living in Toronto, had a major crisis as I was starting this Way chapter. A crisis that included: partner cheating, wedding is off, moving in with parents. Oh my! We exchanged a few texts as I was walking & I refused to be drawn in. I did say ‘you’re a survivor’ – supportive enough. I didn’t offer sympathy, advice or a plane ticket to Toronto :-). Two days later & all is ‘well’ with him. He sees it all as bipolar in love. I didn’t ask for details.
I know how not to invite crazy-makers too deeply into my life. Julia talks about how we use these situations as distractions or excuses & as a way to score points for being good, helpful, self-sacrificing saints.
Today, thanks to recovery in a couple of 12 step programs, I’m okay with people thinking I’m stoic, uncaring & uncooperative. Productivity is more grounding than codependency.
I’ve taken myself on some fun artist dates. Simple things like a walk through the Williamson Ravine – made a trek to take pictures of the Dollhouse on Bertmount, near Queen & Jones – it is actually mentioned on Google maps. Stopped after the doll invasion at Bobbette & Belle for an artist cupcake. I also consider Hot Damn! an artist date, even though I am there with several people I know, I’m pretty much by myself as one of few (if not the only) gay white cismales over 60 in the house.
Blind Sided
I’ve looked at this from all sides
taken your view
my view
the outsider’s view
the long short jaundiced
rear view
it doesn’t matter which side
I’m the one in the wrong
even if it is your fault
that I’m in this position
it’s still my fault for looking twice
when the first glance
told me all I needed to know
I shouldn’t have taken a closer look
& let you pass me by
but what’s a man supposed to do
opportunities like you
don’t come my way everyday
not that this was my last chance
but it was as good a chance
as I’ve had in some time
a stroke of luck
so here I am
the guilty party once again
someone who said what he shouldn’t
at just the wrong time
for the greatest effect
those names we called each other
were only meant to hurt
I didn’t believe them for a minute
but you did
I’m just not as sensitive
one of my faults I know
cold heartless me
I’m too quick to react
when my buttons get pushed
I should never have showed you
where those buttons were
never let your toothbrush
in my bathroom
never let your socks under my bed
never say never again
it’s all my fault for making peace
for being the placater
I should have let go
when I first had a chance
rather prove that by holding on
I was really really serious about us
I had lots of opportunities
to escape but I stayed
things will be different next time
I should have defended myself
the second time
changed my view the third
but I didn’t
to make sure you realized I cared
that I could be forgiving
now I’m looking from all sides
inside outside top bottom
head-to-toe
the way I looked over you the first time
everything held the eye
I didn’t have enough eyes
to take it all in
no eye to a future
I knew it would come to no good
I would end up the heatless prick
once more
I had to see if this time would be different
you wouldn’t be like all the others
you weren’t
trouble was I was like all the others
you told me that over and over
every man you meet treats you this way
I was no better than any of them
for once
I’m glad you’re right
glad that over is over
trust me it’s over
I won’t make that mistake again
I won’t take it lying down
standing up bending over backwards
or any which way
if that’s what it takes
to be true to you
I’d rather be a liar
because it doesn’t matter which side
the view is from
I’m the one in the wrong
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
Way To Go Week One
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
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
See You Later, Calculator
See You Later, Calculator
his look
calculated my worth
the cost of my shoes
was the measure
of his interest
his respect would be gauged
by the tailoring of my shirt
by the cut of my jeans
by what he could see
and what he saw
clearly wasn’t up to his standards
which were clearly
the only ones that mattered
not that he was superficial
by any stretch of the imagination
he could discuss Hegel
he knew the Chinese poets
but would discuss them
with those whose status
was equal to his
my shoes just weren’t up to it
even though they were new shoes
even though my sheets
were freshly washed
they just didn’t have
the right thread count
to support my point of view
as far as he was concerned
once again
being poor pays off
In summer, one of the men I see, wears flip-flops & will take transit wearing them to my place for play. The thought going nearly barefoot on Toronto’s public transit, even walking on the sidewalks, fills me with, I want to say loathing, but with trepidation. For one thing I hate flip-flops on men, in particular, anywhere other than pool side. This digression serves a prelude to my writing of this piece.
I do judge people by their footwear. I’m not as calculating at the ‘his’ in the piece though. I’m willing to overlook footwear if the wearer is otherwise presentable. One gets used to staring at shoes in transit to avoid actually looking at people. But the wrong shoes can unbalance a nice look. I avoid snap judgments. For me nice means shoes in decent shape in accordance to the rest the attire. Construction worker with battered Kodiaks is fine – stilettos with sweats is trashy 🙂
But I have meet people like the protagonist of this piece. Some are clerks in men’s wear stores who gauge their service, or lack thereof, according to my wear. I’ve encountered participants at various workshops who do the same thing. The better tailored the shirt I wear the more respect I get. I know the power of the button.
I’ve also met men who gauge prospect sex partners by thread-count. One man I saw briefly took great pleasure in talking about the amazing penthouse condo one of his conquests lived it & the man’s satin sheets. No satin in my house, at least not for bedding. He did know the Chinese poets & was ‘impressed’ when I pulled out an anthology of them to check out his favourites. I was not impressed.
Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee in Washington at 2019’s capfireslam.org – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet
The Beginning of Wisdom
The Beginning of Wisdom
silence
is the beginning of wisdom
silence
often passes for depth
so I’ve learned
to keep my big mouth shut
not even speaking
when spoken to
delaying the opportunity
to opine
to give others the chance
to say enough to hang themselves
I’m well hung enough now
so there’s no need
to show that off by hanging myself
by having you
hang on to my every word
what gets imparted by my silence
isn’t my problem
it’s a real silence
it claims to be no more than that
it echoes your expectations
not my implications
if I have nothing to say
I do just that
if I have something to say
I keep it to myself
I’m not thoughtless
just thoughtful
not going to take up your time
so you have more to use
to display the breadth & depth
of your profound
expansive
realizations
I am wise enough to admit
that
I am merely saucer
to your bottomless well of endless wisdom
This pārājika deals with modesty, not claiming to be more than one is – which in our culture is seems antithetical to the need to oversell ourselves constantly. This sort of easily exaggeration: it wasn’t just a bad movie but one of the worst one has ever seen. Enough just isn’t enough. If it is you are clearly settling for less, compromising for comfort & are probably boring. Intelligence must constantly be proved.
Actually I’m really speaking about myself – at least at one time – with the compulsion to establish my insights – often insights into things I knew nothing about anyway. Cynicism is a ‘fun’ way to entertain without needing to have a more complex grasp of anything.
I’ve have learned the lesson that ‘silence often passes for depth’ – what is he thinking? can be even more satisfying that telling people what you think, or even letting them know you think nothing. If someone is sure I’m thinking something, when I’m not, I don’t tell them otherwise. I keep my big mouth shut.
Some this comes from not caring that much what people think of me anyway. I let my shirts do the talking as they are frequently more memorable than anything I’ve ever said. Hey, may be this piece needs a rewrite ‘tailoring/is the beginning of wisdom.’ 🙂
Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee in Washington at 2018’s capfireslam.org – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet
TOpoet 