Michael Blouin - Writer

goodreads.com

2012-03-11T09:14:00.000-04:00

There's a Wore Down Trust giveaway contest over at www.goodreads.com

Books on iTunes

2012-03-09T10:25:00.001-05:00

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/chase-and-haven/id442987622?mt=11

Ottawa Review

2012-03-01T14:16:00.001-05:00

Another Review

Chicago Review

2012-02-25T17:38:00.001-05:00

Chicago Review

http://www.cclapcenter.com/2011/07/your_micro-review_roundup_20_j_1.html

Book Giveaway

2012-02-17T07:18:00.000-05:00

Over at goodreads.com there's a Chase and Haven giveaway going on - register to win a signed copy!

Open Book Ontario

2012-02-16T17:11:00.001-05:00

http://www.openbookontario.com/news/desk_michael_blouin

Store Is Open

2011-11-29T18:21:00.001-05:00

The new bookstore for www.michaelblouin.org is now open for business. Shop for autographed versions of all titles. More merchandise will arrive as it becomes available.

THE STORE

michaelblouin.org

2011-10-10T20:52:00.002-04:00

WELCOME to the new domain name for Michael Blouin, ReLit Award winning author for Best Novel 2009, shortlisted for the Amazon First Novel Award, the Lampman Award, the CBC Literary Award and winner of the Diana Brebner Award from Arc Magazine. All titles currently available from Amazon, the publishers and your local independent bookstore.

Dragnet Magazine

2011-10-10T19:24:00.000-04:00

New Story in Dragnet Mag

http://issuu.com/dragnetmag/docs/dragnetissue003/1

CARE

2011-10-10T19:15:00.000-04:00

http://writerswhocare.blogspot.com/
FIFTY PAGES FOR FIFTY DOLLARS: That's the 50/50 Project.

How does it work? Working with CARE INTERNATIONAL, Writers who CARE: the 50/50 PROJECT will allow anyone who makes a donation of $50.00 to submit 50 pages double-spaced of a work-in-progress for a 1-2 page critique by one of the participating authors.

unfolding.ca

2011-08-29T04:21:00.000-04:00

"Michael Blouin is a mad scientist, a poet who believes that tweaking words, like memories, can help make sense of a random world. His prose cocktails leave you with the sense that the earth has shifted yet wondering when the explosion happened."

bookclubbuddy

2011-08-12T09:35:00.000-04:00

http://www.bookclubbuddy.com/2011/08/wore-down-trust-by-mike-blouin/

Branch Magazine

2011-07-14T10:49:00.000-04:00

http://branchmagazine.com/

New Review

2011-05-31T17:17:00.000-04:00

National Post Review

2011-05-17T07:09:00.000-04:00

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/05/13/book-review-wore-down-trust-by-michael-blouin/

The First Review

2011-04-29T20:37:00.000-04:00

http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/salon/article/1398254

Video Launch

2011-04-29T20:31:00.000-04:00

Writers Festival Launch

2011-04-29T20:29:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvi1HLOouw8

Cool Reads

2011-04-01T17:00:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDYeoXM1LUU&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

New HD Video

2011-03-21T07:03:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-4Px9E9pJI

New Music Express

2011-03-19T10:54:00.000-04:00

http://www.nme.com/movies/trailers/id/_qiJu539g64/search/movie

Zab Cover Design

2011-02-25T06:10:00.000-05:00

The cover for Wore Down Trust

(by Zab Design)

Launching in April at the International Writers Festival, Ottawa.

New Book Trailer

2011-01-26T18:36:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qiJu539g64

Promo Postcards

2011-01-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

On Twitter

2011-01-23T18:47:00.000-05:00

http://twitter.com/#!/blouinm

Book Trailer

2011-01-10T20:29:00.000-05:00

The First Trailer

2011-01-09T20:12:00.000-05:00

The Blurb

2011-01-03T18:46:00.001-05:00

Wore Down Trust incorporates poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, biography, vodka and the blues in an examination of desperation and perseverance. Utilizing a blues format, the narrative strings through the lives—pre and post death, real and imagined—of American country singer Johnny Cash and Canadian poet Alden Nowlan. Long haul trailers thunder past. Ice chimes in the glass. There is much in what we want that we do not know. A careful hand in a sharply cuffed suit. An ankle dove tattoo. Walking down the road but going nowhere.

A rough hewn but finely honed testament to loss and redemption in the lives of three men (Cash, Nowlan and "The Author") Wore Down Trust is a postmodern postmortem of hope, aspiration and mortality, told in voices that ring from the American south and Canada's east coast, in a four bar, roadside lounge arrangement encompassing lost dreams, early morning smoke, late night lamplight and words that hang alone in the evening air.

the first house didn't have any windows
she hung blankets
whatever she could find
they made the best they could
she hung blankets
they made their way the best they could
you could find her heart on any map
the soft breeze
not stirring

Pre-Order Wore Down Trust from Amazon

2011-01-03T17:22:00.000-05:00

Pre-order Available

Pre-order Wore Down Trust from Amazon before the release date of April 28.

Wore Down Trust

2010-11-06T18:58:00.003-04:00

Wore Down Trust

Final author's draft left yesterday for Toronto. Book Trailer in production with Ottawa's Otherkin Productions and Toronto's Liminal Arts. Original music by bluesman John Carroll.
You haven't read a book like this. Yet.

Wore Down Trust drops in May 2011.

CBC Literary Awards

2010-02-27T22:45:00.003-05:00

"fidelity" made the cut to 2010 finalist. Nice. 6,000 entries this year. Nice.

Happy

2009-09-21T17:21:00.001-04:00

That Chase and Haven is ReLit Award Best Novel in Canada 2009.

Agent Representation

2009-09-16T17:31:00.003-04:00

Pleased to report that Westwood Creative Artists will now be my exclusive worldwide agent for fiction. Click on Agent Representation above for a link to them.

Awards

2009-08-29T15:57:00.005-04:00

I'm back! Haven't had access to this blog for months. My Coach House novel Chase and Haven is a finalist for the 2008 Amazon.ca First Novel Award and shortlisted for the Re-Lit Awards! There'll be a new book early in 2011 with Pedlar Press and a new novel to follow that. I'm in the process of signing with Westwood Creative Artists as exclusive agents for my work.

The Books

2007-12-28T13:24:00.001-05:00

Click on "The Books" to order!

On facebook now, well... yeah...

2007-07-05T01:17:00.000-04:00

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=649885147

Alden

2007-06-03T14:52:00.000-04:00

in May 1975

Alden Nowlan
met Johnny Cash
in Fredericton
true story
and it is not
documented
exactly what was said
but both men
having been
demonized
sainted
and given up, for dead
saved
and hammered out
I imagine
what was said,
it might have eaten
up the darkness
for a bit
what is recorded
is that before anything much of interest could happen
the Prince of Wales
entered
no kidding
and started to discuss
beards
he was growing one
and Alden’s was prodigious
the only recorded words were regarding beards:
Charles: My mother doesn’t approve I’m afraid.
Alden: Well Sir, what mum does?

sorry I couldn’t
have been there
if only to stop Charles
from elbowing his way
into the room
and preventing
any interesting words
but then
every poem

is an apology for something.

ommission

2007-05-10T10:31:00.000-04:00

so we’ve all of us
come
through difficult times and if
not
you shouldn’t be here, should
not
be reading this
now

and we’ve all of us walked
past
others we could’ve carried and
sunk
in water we could’ve walked
on
in water we could’ve

walked on.

this just in... coffee good!

2007-04-16T13:38:00.000-04:00

landscape with coffee

I’ve never written
a poem about a bird
but plenty do

in the snow and rain
there was a robin
on the patch of remaining grass

there is
among the faithful
a beautiful deafness

I wasn’t crying
the bird stayed still
and the tree

and we don’t know
where the rain
goes

we’re told that it slants
into the ground
and becomes us

I turned and made the coffee
everything is a habit
even the things we don’t do

I wasn’t crying then
not
really

but I did drink
the water
from the ground

I called for a blessing
over the washing
of my hands

who knows
why
we want what we want?

Once. again

2007-04-03T10:21:00.000-04:00

we drank too much
we stopped the drinking
the sky was blue again overhead
a beautiful offshore breeze

we wandered
and your amber skin
warm still from the sunburn

we never saw our answer
Oh I said that. I said that.

translation, then

2007-03-25T11:33:00.000-04:00

she is to me
as coffin is to corpse
don’t mean that in a bad way,
look:
all encompassing
warm
enveloping
protection from the elements
refuge
from those who would point
stare
comfort maybe
comfort, yes

and in it
for the long haul

look, I don’t mean to be dark

just am.

All Set

2007-03-16T10:46:00.000-04:00

more or less all set, for now

what matches
power lines
dark tops of trees
flights of geese
snow falling

sound of trucks out on the highway
her red rubber boots

a young girl
stopped, looking up.

a little new poetry

2007-03-13T11:23:00.000-04:00

firmament

well, so her breasts
swing toward you
in the early morning

her stretching legs
we can talk
about discretion, morality

but

Congratulations - it's March!

2007-03-03T14:14:00.000-05:00

the dark blonde arrives

all it takes is something
beautiful you know
to set me off again
they say that Beethoven
who ate only noodles and cheese
potatoes and fresh caught fish
was apparently made mad
by the moon

that is one glorious dissipation

I don’t know
I sit with the party still
raging around me

it is March
a horseshoe hangs to the clapboard
of this house, tilted up,

so the luck won’t run out
heaven so far up
that you can’t get there from here

a new song and the roar of the room
begins again around me
I’m not sure just where this house is

or who owns it,
the fellow emptying 24
into the fridge, or the bank

things don’t get better, just different
and then she enters
kicking the snow from her boots

shaking the Christmas tree, still up
she strides into the room
filling up the corners

and at the heart of each counted soul
some reverence, some pain

a little panic.

let rest

2007-02-03T15:39:00.000-05:00

comes home upset
stands in the kitchen
shaking

she’s killed a small dog in the dark
impact of fur
blood matted fender

and you tell her
probably not
probably scared

still running

you both know it’s a lie
but the right one

then tea

then bed

locking the door
leaving the light on

and not sure why.

some of my new novel

2007-01-09T21:48:00.000-05:00

it's called two boys carrying a box through a field. going somewhere

and I would like to know what you think of it.

provided you really like it of course.

*

Puccini. That was the name of the guy who wrote the music. And the words too probably. They were in Italian. She always put it on when she did the dishes. She got him to put it on. She didn’t even have to tell him anymore. She stood at the sink looking out at her reflection in the little window full of black as she waited by the sink for it to fill with hot water. As soon as the dishes were cleared from the table he went to the living room and kneeled down by the gold metal rack on the floor. There weren’t many records. Puccini was always the first because they played it everyday. Madama Butterfly. On the cover there was a picture of a lady with sticks coming out of her hair and she had a fan. Great Recordings of the Century. Sir John Barbirolli. Inside there were two records in paper sleeves and he was careful each time he took one out but he hurried all the same because she liked to be able to hear the music as soon as the sink was full of water.

“good,” she’d say when it started on time, “…good.”

It took a while because there was always something wrong with the water and sometimes his dad had to prime the pump and swear a lot. He lay the hard black vinyl on the green felt and clicked the lever to make it go around. Then slowly and carefully he lifted the heavy arm and swung it over and slowly and carefully lowered it down onto the first spinning groove where it crackled and popped and then the music started. Just before the music, if you lay on the carpet underneath the hi fi you could hear somebody cough and somebody say “shh”. You had to be underneath the hi fi to hear that though. He always thought about the person who coughed and the person who said “shh” and them not knowing probably that they were trapped like that forever. Like they were in glass like a paperweight.

By the time he made it back to the kitchen she was usually started in on the dishes and in the winter he could watch the steam rising from the sink. He liked the music. It was loud and far away and it made him think of places that were far away and what the people did there. They would not be like the people in Grenville County. Not like the Bun Man. They wore suits and dresses all the time and they walked on big boulevards in big cities and their steps were always light and their shoes were always clean.

Everywhere
must be full of flowers,
as the night is full of stars,
go and pick the flowers!

That’s how they would talk to each other. At least that’s how they talked in Madama Butterfly. You couldn’t understand them on the record but if you looked at the book that came with the record that’s what they were saying, or singing, to each other. Nobody he knew ever talked like that. Except for his mother sometimes.

Never
settle for anything,
less than wonderful,
when you set about your day!

she said. He never told her about Larry or Travis picking on him or Billy. She didn’t need to know. If she did she wouldn’t be able to enjoy her Puccini. She’d think that she had to do something about it, and there was nothing to do.

Usually he lay on the kitchen floor with his head by the fridge to listen and sometimes his dad would have to get into the fridge for a beer and he’d say

“they kick you out of the fridge for drinkin’ too much milk?”

or

“practicin’ to be a doormat?”

or something like that. Then he’d get his beer and open it and wink down at Ray before he left again to watch television or read the paper.

Sometimes Ray would grab a pile of newspaper and use it like a pillow on the floor. Or if there was nothing soft around he’d lace his fingers together and put his hands behind his head. When she ran more water he’d close his eyes and listen. When he heard her pull out the stopper and heard the water tornado down the drain he’d get up and get the dishtowel from the cupboard and dry the dishes while she made his lunch or ironed some clothes.

On that night he was still on the floor waiting and the best part of Madama Butterfly was just beginning when he felt a big heavy noise because his mother had just come crashing to the floor. She must have been holding a pot full of water because he got splashed with the water and suds. When he got to her there was something coming out of her mouth. At first he thought it was soap suds but it wasn’t. Then he saw that her eyes were rolled back in her head and he started to cry because his dad wasn’t home and he didn’t know what to do and then he found the number to call written on the wall next to the phone and he called it and as he was talking to the man on the phone he could see his mother twitching and relaxing on the floor and her skirt all wet and her hand grabbing at something like it was trying to get to the pot on the floor. Grabbing and relaxing. Grabbing and relaxing. Getting nothing.

Later he realized that this was the moment that his world became smaller. Like somehow the dark outside the window had got in and was pooling around them there on the linoleum floor. Sticking to them like molasses. But like it wanted to hold onto them. Like it wouldn’t ever want to let them go.

*

Ray’s twelfth birthday happened while his mom was in a persistent vegetative state.

So she wasn’t at the party. Ray’s dad made him a strawberry cake. Strawberry wasn’t Ray’s favourite but he figured strawberry was probably on sale. They got most of their food on sale. But something went wrong and the whole middle part never went up when the rest of the cake went up. It was like a crater. A birthday crater. It was like a bowl made of cake dough. It was like something trying to be a cake. It was like somebody was thinking about a cake and then they were called away to the phone before they finished thinking and this cake was their thought. Ray didn’t care. His dad just used extra icing to fill in the hole and icing was the best part of cake anyway.

“how’s the cake?”

“it’s good”

Suzie and Billy were there. He got some comic books and chocolate bars. They played records and then they played Monopoly with his dad. Suzie ended up with the most money. It was a pretty good party. He could tell his dad tried hard to make it good. He even barbecued hot dogs on the hibachi by the back door. He called them tube steaks. Nobody knew what that meant but they didn’t care.

“who wants another tube steak?”

They all did.

They had potato chips and cheezies and the hot dogs and cake and pop from the Poppe Shoppe. His dad called it the Poope Shoope. Nobody knew why but they laughed anyway. Poope Shoope. Ray woke up in the middle of the night and threw up over most of the bathroom. Turned out that Billy did too. Too much icing. The puke was all pink. Ray didn’t know if Suzie threw up.

There were some things you didn’t ask girls.

*

His dad was always getting ideas for sayings that could be printed on t-shirts. Every time he got a new one he’d tell Ray about it. He thought someday he would start a company selling the t-shirts. One idea was:

RAISED BY WOLVES

Ray though that was pretty good but he wasn’t sure how many people would buy it. Another was:

YOU ARE HERE

“like on one of those map signs at a big mall you know, but on your shirt, because no matter where you go that’s where you are, and so’s the person reading your shirt…”

Ray thought that one was good too and thought people might want to buy that one. There was another:

I HAVE MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES

SO DO I

ME TOO…

Ray was actually pretty impressed that his dad had come up with that but then he saw somebody wearing a shirt that said that and at first he was angry that someone had stolen his dad’s idea but then he thought that’s probably not the way it was. Then one day he had his own idea for a shirt:

STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP
STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP
STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP
STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP
READING MY SHIRT.

He thought it was good because it was kind of funny on its own and then it was also funny because by the time the person got to the READING MY SHIRT part they’d have to stop reading anyway because there’d be nothing left to read. He was going to tell his dad about it so he could use it if he ever started the company but he wasn’t sure that his dad would get it and he knew he wouldn’t want to try and explain it. Then one day after his mom went in the hospital and his dad hadn’t said anything for a couple of days they were driving somewhere and Ray said:

“hey, did you get any new ideas for t-shirts?”

and his dad said nothing and then he said:

“yeah…we could do a MY WIFE’S IN A COMA WHAT’S YOUR FUCKIN’ PROBLEM shirt”

they drove along for a while and then he said:

“guess we wouldn’t sell too many of those though eh?”

then he lit a cigarette

“sorry Ray” he said.

Billy

The next one was the 1970 Stanley Cup deciding game. Bobby Orr. Winning goal in overtime. Bobby Orr. The Hart Trophy, the Ross Trophy and the Norris Trophy. Most Valuable Player, Scoring Champion and Best Defenseman. No more bag ties for people. He used the bag ties for the hockey sticks and made the players from a paste of flour and water. That way he could paint them. It was a lot more realistic. The black, yellow and white of Bobby’s uniform. Twenty nine years between titles for Boston. He couldn’t get the expression on Bobby’s face like it looked in the newspaper. He looked more like a potato than a Hart Trophy winner. But it was pretty good. It was great. He painted the cardboard ice white and the goals from an old fishing net he hoped his dad wouldn’t start looking for. He made the boards from old cigarette packs cut up. DuMaurier. Players. DuMaurier. Players. DuMaurier. Players.
Then he put himself and Ray and Suzie in the front row behind the Boston bench, After the game they’d go out with Bobby for a beer.

January Poem - sorry about the darkness...

2007-01-04T15:42:00.000-05:00

bone true

consider these things;
lives quietly lived
on the edges of despair
lonely pleasure
the contemplation of hope
dull January sunlight

all of these things;
girl, boy
reverence, night
a heavy winter sweater
slowly rising
sliding white moon skin

only;
why don’t you love me
anymore?
my face is tired from smiling
and your hands lie

empty.

lost and found

2006-12-29T15:04:00.000-05:00

This picture doesn't
have much to do with
this poem but it's
kind of nice for New Years.
Have a happy one!

my poem

this is the one that I’ll keep
not send out in the mail
tight in manila envelopes

I’ll keep it in a drawer
in a winter forest of other papers
propane bills and receipts

we were at the stop sign to the highway
last night, my daughter and I
and she said “Whoaa, did you see that?”

and I had; a shower of red in the night
cigarette butt sparks tumbling from a passing car
so I explained what it was

not a very small meteorite
not a sign of something marvelous
about to happen

told her that many things can seem miraculous
until they are explained: cures, optical illusions,
sawing a lady in half…

but that we grow older
see many things
understand

lose some degree of magic, I suppose
trading away beans
for knowledge

then I realized that what I was saying was only a part of it
and quickly told her about the big hand of God
how it came down

this morning the room is cold
the silvery shadows roll across the ceiling
in a non straightforward shifting

and I’m feeling kind of friendly
with everything that’s lost
or broken – that cannot find its way.

disparate, yet together

2006-11-27T22:05:00.000-05:00

for Beth and Stan

Last night I ended up going to the reading. Stan read from his latest book and he’s a big enough writer to carry that whole room in his pocket. Which he did. And Beth, well. She really is something. Michael Winter read too. Really is that tall. Thought of you. Thought of the woman in front of me who was obviously there alone. Thought of you again. You know how I am. Thought of the way your smile forgets to stay plastered. Remembers to fade. Fades. Anyway, I came home. She had long white fingers which in another poem by someone else could easily be described as alabaster. She was drinking a Kieth’s. Those fingers casually around the long neck of the bottle. Her draped coat over the seat smelled of the warmth it was accustomed to hiding. You, on the other hand,

are forever. This morning I woke up and you showed me the jacket you and Tara had picked out for me. Corduroy with pockets for notebooks and pencils. I could put a hoodie under it like Winter does. It will become care worn. It’ll cover the rags and bones of my heart. I’m not handsome really – but I’m not unfortunate looking. There are nights I feel older. And miss things; stubby bottles… Howie Meeker… your halting laugh. The snow that yesterday fell from the apple tree has once again become water. It is still fall then, though late now. Not quite winter yet. Mo took me out for a game of two square in the driveway by the shed. The ball is shedding its leather but its still good for a game. “You’re in King!” she cried after a successful bounce.

Which meant I took the winner’s court. But I heard “Urine King!” which was still pretty exciting.

I’ll wear any sort of crown.

There’s a spot down by the Legion Hall. If you sit in your car in the dark long enough you can track the steady movement of the earth by watching the slow stars measured against the stretched phone wire. I do this. I will do this now in my corduroy writer’s jacket.

I will marvel at the stars; their art of making hope, from dead light.

And I hope that this poem finds you. Well. And living, like me,

this extraordinary life.

new poem

2006-10-29T15:39:00.000-05:00

the dark blonde arrives

all it takes is something
beautiful you know
to set me off again
they say that Beethoven
who ate only noodles and cheese
potatoes and fresh caught fish
was apparently made mad
by the moon

that is one glorious dissipation

I don’t know
I sit with the party still
raging around me
it is January
a horseshoe hangs to the clapboard
of this house, tilted up,
so the luck won’t run out
heaven so far up
that you can’t get there from here
a new song and the roar of the room
begins again around me
I’m not sure just where this house is
or who owns it, the fellow emptying 24
into the fridge, or the bank

things don’t get better, just different

and then she enters
kicking the snow from her boots
shaking the Christmas tree, still up
she strides into the room
filling up the corners

and at the heart of each counted soul
some reverence, some pain

a little panic.

check it out, then go buy it!

2006-10-11T18:20:00.000-04:00

http://www.antigonishreview.com/bi-146/146-contributors.html

safe

2006-10-09T09:25:00.000-04:00

the way we had been…
I’m saying the sad lives,
the impoverished lives that we led
I’m saying it had to end
saying that now
we do other things
mostly
we
wait
standing
watching
learning slowly to be

astonished
grateful

and it is all different for us now
as if somebody
had snuck in
while we slept
before the light
and changed our hearts

changed us.

questions from my children
I now listen to,
do my best

to answer.

go here now

2006-09-26T18:39:00.000-04:00

http://apostropheengine.ca

especially if you write poetry
but then if that's so you've probably already been there
'cuz I'm the last to find these things
but it's cool though eh?
cool in a geeky Canadian poetry techy kind of way...

but still cool...

2006-09-23T17:50:00.000-04:00

a couple of new poems on a related theme...
there's really only one theme anyway...

true

we argued about Don Quixote
whether to take it or leave it behind
where it fits in relation to post-colonial theory
we are within the one per cent of couples who can argue this

not amongst the ninety nine who have better things to do

it was my father’s favourite book
and he won’t be reading it anymore
no more windmill tilting
you thought it would depress me, having it around

as he lay on the gurney the floor tiles flashed by

then with the warm night at the window
just the night
the bed just a bed
and you not in it

this life so strange

he clung to it, this life that he had
finally we gave up arguing
it was pointless anyway
your skin has a magic all its own

you so utterly destroy me.

requiem

the news came by phone in the evening
and we had to go out to pick up her brother from basketball
“there’s some bad news,” I told her, “…about your Grandpa… ”
explained that a coma
was like a long sleep
and maybe not waking up
we held hands across the dark grass to the car
I estimated that it had taken twelve minutes from receiving the news
to beginning to form this poem
and felt guilty, a bit
but it’s not who I am,
it’s what I am

when my uncle died
the dark tumor in his head had him searching the bed
for razor blades
fingers searching blindly

she held my hand a little tighter

anyway,
Brian,
loved old movies
his family

a good man.

in true the words: the warm night at the window just the night are from Ray Souster
in case anyone's counting
also a good man, I think...

demons

2006-09-11T20:18:00.000-04:00

This day seems like a good one for the examination of demons. Here are some of mine anyway:

(my) demons

and this life,
so strange and unyielding

running is the thing
really running
you put on that extra
burst of speed I mean
and you think…

but they’re fast

so fast.

perfect companion

2006-08-28T15:26:00.000-04:00

we went to see Miami Vice
there wasn’t anything else to see
at the Cineplex
but I can tell you
don’t
you’ve seen it a hundred times and better

I’m not a tactful man
but it got to the part where this guy was almost killed
and I said:
I’ve done that
the part where the guy loses the girl
I said:
that too
guy talks down a suicide
yep
then the part where the guy was pinned own by a bunch of guys with assault rifles
they almost killed him
you bet
also there
I went for popcorn

in line I got to thinking
in the ads for other movies before the show
there was a guy said:
my mom’s gonna die
other fella said:
it’s gonna happen to all of us
act accordingly…

that was good
-best part of the movie was the ads…

on the way home she sang with the radio
reached her hand through the wind to the moon

we are wonderful things, aren’t we
and isn’t it marvelous?
That sometimes something simple
like a little piece of music
will keep us turning

from the dark.

summer's a great time for field trips...

2006-08-26T10:39:00.000-04:00

discerning distance

things are looking up
most of that pain is gone
yes, for the most part
things are fine

and these poems of mine keep coming!
I call them little adventures
five dollar vacations
though few of them bring in so much as that

we went to Upper Canada Village
my daughter and I
she measured her little fingers
against the hand made iron nails

and the gunblock tower
she noted
as we sailed away in the boat
got smaller, and smaller, and smaller

and every day now there’s
something

just as lovely...

there’s the soft assurance of great things coming.

new

2006-08-23T17:01:00.000-04:00

Thought I'd try a little experiment writing direct to the blog. It's a little unsettling given that there are blogs with titles such as How Do You Like My Hair and New Cake Recipe ( actually those might be old poem titles ) and a blog doesn't seem to be something you can trust like, say, paper... but here goes... in real time at this end ( you're on your own...)

Listen

just a note to reach you
and to tell you
when you were painting your nails on the porch today
all that red polish
and the stains on your arm
like you had been cut
and wounded
as I know that you are

just to let you know
all these little ragged lies of mine
will just return to the earth
in the end
there's an old war movie on now
in the next room
fella just said;
"there'll be no heroes this time..."

yeah.

There, that's it. A poem in real time, no edits. Which may mean of course that it's no good. But if I don't go ahead and post it now that would mean I'm no good. 'Cause I said I would. So there you go. Nose to the window. Foot to the floor.

See ya around!

isn't it romantic?

2006-08-22T18:33:00.000-04:00

hey check it out - a poem that rhymes! Never written one before so today seemed like the day... just for fun...

discernment
a bedtime rhyme

the bed in which a woman
lies and softly sings

is made of wood and fabric
coiled and slackened springs

the night itself is weighted down
with sin and other things

to which the bed is rooted

the woman though,

has wings.

poem

2006-08-21T11:45:00.000-04:00

this has long been one of my favourite poems -
surprisingly not one that I wrote...

To A Frustrated Poet

This is to sayI know
You wish you were in the woods,
Living the poet life,
Not here at a formica topped table
In a meeting about perceived inequalities in the benefits andallowances offered to employees of this college,
And I too wish you were in the woods,
Because it's no fun having a frustrated poet
In the Dept. of Human Resources, believe me.
In the poems of yours that I've read, you seem ever intelligent and
decent and patient in a way
Not evident to us in this office,
And so, knowing how poets can make a feast out of trouble,
Raising flowers in a bed of drunkenness, divorce, despair,
I give you this check representing two weeks' wages
And ask you to clean out your desk today
And go home
And write a poem
With a real frog in it
And plums from the refrigerator,
So sweet and so cold.

-Richard Ellman

no one listens to poets

2006-08-19T17:03:00.000-04:00

no one listens to poets anymore
or
ever should

Spanish girls are pretty when they play the guitar
French girls
are pretty all the time

so this is the way that it is;
a woman takes off her clothes
I think of the saviour
I think of death

somewhere, something

opens.

unlucky

2006-08-15T20:48:00.000-04:00

step one:

find a window with light
late morning light
diffuse, ethereal

step two:

sit

step three:

make an examination of the paper
it is 100% vellum bond
see how it catches the light

step four:

think several disparate thoughts
which you are able to hold in your mind simultaneously
Arkansas, feathers, anatomy
archaic dissertations on love…

step five:

digress – on a large scale

step six:

begin again

step seven:

what time is it now?

step eight:

walk away
make coffee

step nine:

basement needs cleaning

step ten:

consider one striking image
a thought;
the way that she carves her life from everything around her
and her skin, her bones, her pink tongue

I tell her I love her, but
I’m pretending
most of the time

step eleven:

read it back, finish it

step twelve:

clean the basement

step thirteen:

finish it,
just finish it

walk away.

Variations III

2006-08-14T21:05:00.000-04:00

The new issue of Variations (the clean your face issue) is out including me and some guy named rob mclennan. Very nice zine out of Sarnia (Biblically speaking; can anything good come from Sarnia? Apparently, the answer is yes). Melissa Upfold comes from there and publishes the zine through the san ria printing company. She is a young writer doing, well, just what a young writer should do. Some of it is getting done at:

http://thisisvariations.blogspot.com/
http://bringtousthesea.blogspot.com/

on the day that it happened

2006-08-12T21:52:00.000-04:00

Horoscope - Cancer - today’s Globe and Mail:
you are probably fed up with having to behave
in a civilized fashion
and will most likely do something about it

I dreamt of sinning with my wife
which would be difficult to do
but we’d manage

I harboured some impure thoughts
people could see it in my face
they pretended not to notice

I wore my hat
you know the one
nobody wears hats, anymore, well, the hell with them

thought about what Shelley said
about the desire of the moth
for the star

and sought permission from heaven
to forget this thing that’s been on my mind
and heard nothing back

I realized that when I wake up tomorrow the grass will still need cutting
I remembered that there’s an old car show down at the park
and I said c’mon, let’s go

so we walked amongst the triple waxed hoods
we got some popcorn
I forgot how good popcorn can taste

I thought that in the morning
I will wake next to a sleeping woman
and in that, can call myself blessed

and I realized that what’s been nagging at me, it’s not that bad
and will most likely be washed

away.

listen Ray

2006-08-11T12:13:00.000-04:00

some of those people you write about
with the hands that shake till noon and are stained at the ends
they came by the garage sale on Saturday and bought that couch
the one that I had warned the neighbours away from
the one the cat used to live on
I talked them down to five dollars and they came back with a trailer
I helped the guy to load it
and she was worried that the trailer might rip it
so I threw in the tarpaulin and the rope to hold it down
her white face and fluttering hands
threw in some cushions which were lying on the grass
and then the trailer fell Ray
one tire miserable in the heat
so we got everything into my truck
the sad couch with the cushions
and I drove following them down the concessions
helped unload it right to the living room
and watched them wave in the rear view
and now I'm driving for a while Ray
just driving
no where particular

When I am fifty miles on
they will still wave
like that
chicken wire fence eaten through the cow chewed bark of the trees
standing in the sun
they will still wave
like that

This then
unapologetically
is
the way that I see it
this chronology with its big and little stories
this standing in the sun

the way that it is

some nights I reach for my wife in the bed just to keep myself from floating away

and what I mean to say

that I should pray more often

and the days are just so pretty lately
that we should all be

laughing.

this is only

2006-08-08T13:06:00.000-04:00

but you look at the pictures from when I was a kid
and you can see
there was more space between things
then
things were more spread out
you look at any picture
of a man and a car back then
and you can just tell
there's more air
in that sky

anyway

dad called again today
there's a problem with
the phone
it's too far from the chair
and if he needed it in a hurry...
so we took the jeep into town
put a longer cord on the phone
he watched from the velvet blue recliner
and I told him I'd move the chair closer to the phone
I'll get up he said
No
I lifted and slid the chair with him in it
because I know what's involved
in getting up
his amazement
at my strength
mine
at his
lightness

I plugged in the phone
Well
I said

looking at the shelves of books
family Christmas pictures
but pictures and papers turn to years
and then the years are gone
and what looks like one thing
may well be another

we were sitting at home in the afternoon
my daughter and I
and I told her of her grandfather's weight
the surprised look on his face
as he swung through the room
maybe I shouldn't have told her
she lost her grandmother
last year
her eyes swam suddenly
and she hugged me with
I'll say it;
ferocity

a deer fly drifted through the afternoon
settled
the sound of its wings
finally
dying
too

and tonight
when I held you
my hands were pale fires

even the stars
were a mess.

This has been a test
of the emergency poetry system
it has only been a test
if this had been a real emergency
this poem would have told you

what to do.

universal truth for the western world

2006-08-05T23:57:00.000-04:00

consider the lilies of the field

this is a poem, you can trust me…

we do, she and I
we consider the lilies
we watch Treasure of the Sierra Madre with the sound off
we think about cigarettes, I do anyway
and we talk
the kids sleep
the boy snores, which is what keeps us up
in this Montreal hotel
we can’t afford
always stay in the places you can’t afford

the lights down Sherbrooke
always order what you really want
when the place costs more than what you’ve got
because you won’t be back
I always enjoy things more in retrospect
two kids on the elevator; maybe seventeen, eighteen, they’d had a few beers
they were from Jersey so we talked about that, I said I’d always found people in Jersey really friendly, because I had
they said that may be so but don’t go back now because the government’s all screwed
I don’t know what they meant
one asked if I was from Canada – I said I was
great city he said, weaving off, great city…
thanks… we like it… I brought the tampons back to the room, not easy to find at one in the morning and in French too, turns out it’s the same in French
so anyway…

a little jazz in the street
sunlight off the steeple this morning

one thing I can tell you is this
all poems aside
the only thing standing between you and happiness

is you.

novel excerpt

2006-08-04T09:46:00.000-04:00

This is an excerpt from the novel I'm currently working on. It's called "two boys carrying a box through a field, going somewhere". In my head it's almost finished but on paper it's got about a hundred pages to go. Tip of the hat to Stuart Ross and Jon Paul Fiorentino who both visited this blog last night. They are fine writers. You should read them. You should read this:

Mrs. Hertzog told him the testing showed that he had an extraordinarily high IQ. She asked him if he knew what that meant. He told her that he did because it seemed to him that someone with an extraordinarily high IQ should know what it meant. People walking in the hall. You didn’t hear that word that often. Extraordinarily. Extra ordinary. More ordinary than usual. Taking the attendance to the office. Their feet soft clacks on the floor.

Shake it in the air like you just don’t care he thought. A snow fence is not something that is beautiful. Snow can be beautiful. It can be. A snow fence is just a snow fence. Orange plastic and the parts which are not orange plastic. Those were the holes. There were things that could be beautiful and things that couldn’t.

“congratulations” Mrs. Hertzog told him.

The holes were not really part of the fence. But it wouldn’t be the fence without them. Everything made up of the stuff that it is not. A dog is a dog because it is not every other animal it could conceivably be. Partly because of that. It was a matter of elimination until you got to the fact of it. It wasn’t an ashtray either or a fire truck either. So there would be a God then because it was only partly because it wasn’t every other animal that it was a dog. Only partly. Something else made it a dog. The something that made it something in the first place. Dog ate the cat. Cat ate the rat. Rat ate the cheese. The cheese is me.

Mrs. Hertzog smoked. She didn’t seem like she was a happy person. Ray couldn’t tell why. But the smoking was part of it.

“you should be happy” she said.

I am just a poor boy he thought. A poor boy I will always be. It didn’t matter that his IQ was less than most people’s. He was smart enough for what he needed. Billy said he was a smart ass. Suzie was better than him at math. He could see all the pictures in his head but she could get the right answer out on the paper. The pictures just got in his way most times. If the question was about a triangle he could see a pyramid in his head and repeat it over and over in a row that got smaller and smaller and went on for ever like in mirrors and each pyramid was the same dimensions but they were each smaller because they were further away. They were each the same distance away from each other and so each one was smaller than the one before it in the same way that it was bigger than the one following it. The change in size would follow the same ratio. But if you were looking in a mirror at an angle then what you saw wasn’t accurate. That meant that it wasn’t what you were really seeing at all. That was called parallax. He read that in a book in the library. He could see all the pyramids in different colours and he could think about the possibilities of pyramids and what it was like to think about them and how it was different than thinking about spheres. It was like a different colour in your head. By then though Suzie had the right answer on her paper and had handed it in. Ray got a lot of F’s unless Suzie let him see her answers. Suzie had a dress that was round at the bottom like it stood out from her legs as if there was something under there pushing it out from her. He doubted that there was anything there doing that. It must be the material he thought. Purple blue persuasion.

These are small things. A fly. The balls of dust that got stuck under his bed. A problem if you had a bigger problem. Suzie’s voice sometimes. Other times it was quite large. When she whispered something in class it was small. Mrs. Hertzog is watching. What do you have for lunch? Do you want half my sandwich? A ball of dust was not small to a fly. A fly was not small to a spider. To a spider a fly was breakfast lunch and supper for three days. Spider ate the fly. Sat down beside her. Sat beside Suzie. Eating her lunch. Her small hands.

broke down

2006-08-03T14:09:00.000-04:00

I just bought my eleventh car
and I will love her, poorly
like all the rest
the Volkswagen I left by the side of the road
the for God's sake Pinto that should have gone sooner than it did
the other Ford I traded without looking back
the Jeep I let rust out
the other Jeep that just sits there still
the Bronco that
suddenly
failed amidst steam and dropping oil
rattles
that was her failure, not mine
but this one!
I love her!
She's red you know
unlike all the others
and you should see her
really you should
she hums
and heads turn
they really do, and they should!
and when she made that little noise
that little engine cough from nowhere
just now as I drove her home
just that little noise that says "I will fail you too..."
all I did was die a little
then bent my mind to the goal
the task at hand
get her to the driveway
the rest is our history together
she's just a car yes
but if you could see her
just see her
there in the driveway
gleaming red in the sun
small and fast and a little bit too expensive
(I made sure they worked that part into the deal, that's an important part of the deal)
she's a little bit like heaven
yes

a little bit like that

c'mon by sometime
and I'll be happy to take you for a drive
we'll put the top down
point the car straight down the road
and not look back.
We'll be careful
this time
I'm a little sad
but eager

everything's new
come soon.

be bim bop

2006-08-02T10:04:00.000-04:00

not that it matters
but
I've had guns levelled at me by police
six at a time
fingers on the triggers
been in the crosshairs
of sharpshooters
had knives pointed at me in anger
I've been pushed off of balconies
stared down by angry psychotics
shot off of highways at a hundred k
pulled a suicide out of the path of a semi
felt it brush my leg
had my blood replaced
carried out on stretchers
arteries slashed
nerves cut
twenty two stitches
four surgeries
been written off
airlifted out
"he may not make it", they said

but I'm still here
and I'm not going to lie to you
the Koreans make this dish
it's rice and vegetables and pork in a bowl
a single quivering egg cooking on the top
and if you haven't tried it
you should

before you go.

late night talking

2006-07-27T22:46:00.000-04:00

incongruous

so she came after me with a knife
I don't know if she would've followed through
bless me
she was angry enough
it was a steak knife
serrated
like a sharpened feather
so I grabbed it by the blade
firmly resolved
stupid
but that's what stopped her, I think
my willingness to take the cut
to watch my fingers
fall

look, none of this stuff is pretty
none of it matters now
and it does get worse

but I was sitting here at the bar
there was silence in the room
and I thought of the way the phone rings sudden in the darkness sometimes
like God
I thought of the blood red sky
sharp knives

and that way that you kiss me

like you know the places
I've been

and then you kiss me

anyway.

when we push on the big questions - they just break

2006-07-25T19:26:00.000-04:00

...so don't be pushy.

Read this:

Let people hold onto these:
Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.

- Lao Tzu

speaking in tongues

2006-07-25T00:30:00.000-04:00

there's a black and white picture of a street in Grozny
this is during the Chechen war
1995
it's winter
there is very little that is white in the snow street
it is grey from the passage of tanks
the remains of a Russian soldier are barely distinguishable
he has been run over by the huge treads
he is like dark laundry in the slush
pressed completely flat
there is a boot
there is a hand
by itself
lying open

when a woman lies in the sun
on her side
there in the grass
she has no control over the form her hip takes
how it swoops up,
around
the white cotton
tightly
stretched

there's an ongoing music

none of us mean to provoke

look at this page
you can put these things together if you want
or leave them alone

I can't take responsibility

then there are those cell phone images from the London bombings
Kings Cross station
dark indistinguishable figures moving down a tunnel towards a light
bodies
forming a line

what do you make of that?

and this life burns so pretty

2006-07-20T09:40:00.000-04:00

on these quiet evenings
I look up into the starless skies
surrender myself to dark infinities

let my mind rest
on good things

other things are going on
in other places
pleasant things
desperate things
things are happening
far away
right now
a family is watching fireworks
a young woman is receiving an alarming diagnosis

right now
I am making a tomato omelette
I can't be held responsible
for the rest of it
you have to get the timing

just right.

there.

Pedlar Press article

2006-07-19T08:49:00.000-04:00

Found an article about my publisher by my editor. You can find it too by clicking the Mercury Press link and following it to Word Magazine. The article 's called Peddle to the Metal.

history

2006-07-19T00:48:00.000-04:00

before screaming television
electricity
sandwich bags
cancer
Ulysses
wavelengths
productivity
trembling uncertainty
metal pipes
bold examinations
animation
obsalescence
plastics
the democratization of information
seismography
psychology
Charlie Chaplin
composite construction theories of identity
the loss of the miraculous
record players
cultural studies
ventriliquism
holocaust deniers
a generally held understanding of the moon

mp3s

my great great great grandfather settled on three acres of shorefront on the Ile d'Orleans
free of much that we now know
and I imagine he would have stood
from time to time
in the tall blown grass by the open river
looking out

this was before modern
or post-modern

but there was still seduction
simple movements
and a great many things

to pass the time;
the rich textures of spring
- longing
his fingers not knowing

what to touch next.

moments not found in the memoirs of great men

2006-07-18T22:47:00.000-04:00

she’s had her first kiss
and I’m not supposed to know
but I do
she’s thirteen
not supposed to talk about it
but I do
she’s thirteen
it happened in the schoolyard
a place where many things happen for the first time
and then are lost

in cars too
there’s a picture I like
stamped KODAK along the sheared edge of colour
JN 1967, it says
it’s me, with my head hanging out of the back window, like a dog
I remember my sister almost climbing out the front window to take it and both of us catching hell from my dad
what if a bus came by? A truck?
he yelled
cut you in half!

she tells me about it finally
after a great deal of prompting
she knows, probably, that her mother has told me already
that I hate to be left out of any triangle
so we’re sitting in the car
in the driveway
and she gives me details
not too many
I’ll tell you:
his name is Jim
he has hair on his forearms, just light hair
and he has strong wrists
smells of peppermint
apparently
and he kissed her
then she felt gilded
that’s what she says, and I think she’s got the wrong word
giddy? I ask
but no, she says she felt like she was lightly dusted with gold and that she’s felt that way ever since

and I become the boy in the picture then
expectant, eager, full of the moment
fingers pressed tight into the chrome

waiting for the bus

the truck,

in case you were wondering.

dark

2006-07-18T22:02:00.000-04:00

is it particularly dark in the sky tonight or is it just me?

probably me.

just checking.

hey!

2006-07-18T21:29:00.000-04:00

This blog is primarily to self publish poetry as it comes and track the progress of my new book words of a minor poet as it is readied for publication ( pedlar press, Toronto ).