Over the past month my TOpoet.ca following blog grew to 455! The WordPress map shows my hits in January have come from 91 countries around the world. Mainly USA & Canada with Bangladesh (হ্যালো) & Malawi (Moni) in the top 10. The most viewed was my post on board Games, https://topoet.ca/2021/01/15/games/ with Ghost of a Chance https://topoet.ca/2021/01/02/ghost-of-a-chance/ close behind. My persona fave is Burned At The Stake https://topoet.ca/2021/01/25/burned-at-the-stake/.
My Tumblr following is at 300. Twitter 230 followers.
Picture Perfect is moving along with 52 sections, about 78,800 words posted so far, with 111,000 approx to be edited, then posted. I generally try to keep the sections at about 1500 words.
I found another cache of old short stories & starts on others. They were in the file cabinet that I use to store Bushwack posters, photographs & articles I had cut from magazines. I haven’t really gone through these files in the 2000’s beyond searching out the posters I designed for my theatrical productions.
I remember writing some of these stories but in some cases have forgotten the contents. I also neglected to date many of them but there are clues that place them in decades, as opposed to actual years. Some are in dot-matrix printout – we stopped using that in late 80’s – early 90’s – which puts them back into the early 80’s Some are typed or carbon copies – which puts them back into the 70’s, 80’s. Lack of technology dates them – no cell phones, computers or even answer machines. I’ll be serializing them for including them with my music collection post – the music collection is essential an archive too, so it is a fitting pairing.
Stay-at-home covid19 lockdown has ‘forced’ me to start clearing out our basement. When you have a house stuff collects in the basement. Stuff that is now finding the light of garbage pickup 🙂 The shop vac is getting workout. Bye-bye cobwebs. It is so gratifying to see things carted away, sometimes taken by scavengers before garbage guys can pick up them. There’s enough to keep me bust for another couple weeks. The best way to spend a couple of morning hours indoors when the wind chill drops to -20C.
Day and Night
day never holds me
as fully as the night
in light there is always
a part that doesn’t get revealed
doesn’t get illuminated
turn as fast as I can
part of me is always in shadow
<>
light is not the total lover
it always leaves one part untouched
night covers all
holds me in toto
comforting tender complete
caressing even where I cannot see
I was submerged and protected
no night burn for me
for being too long naked in its glance
<>
if I had to make choice
between night and day
as to which would be the better lover
I couldn’t decide
day brings flowers
night brings stars
both return despite
my placid display of cliches
tender is the night
bright is the day
as one retreats
to make way for the other
I am saddened
I want to hold them both
straddle those slippery moments
when one gracefully steps aside
<>
they do not fight
to see who will be next
there is no resentment
that I have taken each
in their own time
that I give myself equally to them
give myself without question
without doubt
so do not make me choice
<>
when I die
will I go into the light
or merely roll over
into the comforting dark
