Love;

Front-step kisses
and drive-in back seats
and caramel-corn retreats
between two sheets-
as we laugh until we weep,
or until we sleep.

something to chew on...

not borrowed or blue, but something new...

If you could stare at something and not blink, what would it be?

What would you attempt if you knew you couldn't fail?

If it weren't for light, would it always be night?

Free speech: the ultimate distraction

Usually this blog does not serve as my arena for rhetorical flushes of opinions that I intend anyone to adopt, but kids...that time has come.

While seated in the waiting room of the doctor's office one morning last week, I attempted to occupy myself by fixating on the television, since the View was on, I changed my mind and decided to read. While sifting through a pile of Good Housekeeping and US Weekly, and almost giving in to the fact that this particular doctor's office intended only to feed on the completely useless and mundane thus having nothing for me, I was delighted to find a Maclean's magazine with dog-eared pages staring up at me.

On the cover there was a picture of an African child, ravaged by Quashicore and wearing the tired, burdened face of a terrorized war-zone refugee. The point of the picture was to draw attention to the cover story inside about the latest element of the conflict in Darfur, in the Sudan. Of the many important topics facing the international community today, Darfur is absolutely near the top of the list.

While I feel that the resolution of this conflict is vital to the people of the Darfur region, and to the greater progression of the African Union, I'm writing for another purpose. The article begins on page thirty (or so) in the magazine, and after five pages, is interupted by...wait for it...Christmas 2006 holiday gift ideas. That's right...talking about today's important issues apparently has to come packaged with an intermission to remind us of a superficial holiday, where the 'haves' get more, and the impoverished are made to feel even worse then they already do.

After ten pages of advertisements for the color availabilty for IPods, chinos, and toy cars, the Darfur article continues. I realise that breaking up a coverstory is not a new thing, or a freak occurence, as magazines have to share column inches with other important issues, I just don't think that interupting a story on such an important issue is necessary to make way for advertisements. This is surprising to me coming from Maclean's magazine, but maybe not.

The question the editors have to ask themselves is of course, 'how best can we be the servents of two masters?' Everyone educated in the 'real world' knows that publications are paid for by advertising revenue, and editors and news directors have to hold the microphone and give ad-execs a reach-around at the same time, all the while presenting hard news that stabolizes, or increases a circulation. Circus show? Perhaps, depends on who you ask. Personally, I think this time they lost sight of the fact that the readers make the magazine not the other way around.

The people at Macleans have to realize that it is actions like this that fertilize the opinion that free speech is abused, and that advertisments are a waste of ink. Don't get me wrong, I like the Coke-a-Cola polar bears, but at least that's funny. Filling up advertising space should never come in the middle of cover stories that are trying to draw the public's attention to important issues. The editor's at Macleans need to realize the entitlement to free speach goes hand-in-hand with keeping it honest.

The article was about how rebels from waring tribes are crossing into neighboring Chad and are looting the homes of people that live there. This is the reality of a continent that needs all the support it can get, and I think North Americans are not only able to give that support, but if we consider ourselves the moral and political authorities, our news outlets should help cultivate that message, and not serve as greeting cards for the 'in-croud'.

The people are the magazine, and without us, there is no magazine!

this flight tonight...

paper airplane, please come back again.
come down through the clouds,
before my very eyes.
arrive on time to my surprise, I'll meet you at the gate.
hopes and dreams have set with
the sun, as we lie awake over the sea.
Come down through the clouds,
come back to me.

New Birth

My first face
as I glanced out
in space,
and starred at the
darkness beyond
the moon.
Orbiting the earth,
became flying
only to land;
floating only to
stand.
Late into the night
continued the flight,
over the rivers, oceans
and land.
O'Ryan's explosion
gave sight to the earth,
a distant star
untainted at birth,
a new face among
the crowd.

3 fingers pointing back

verbal abuse
is no excuse,
to scratch an itch
with a trigger.

spray-paint the face,
destored in space
staring you back
in the mirror.

every you

Every night,
I stay awake and listen
To the waves.
Invade my space and crash up against my ears.
Forgot his face,
Cause he hasn’t been around in years.
He returns again to disappear,
Before our eyes, starry night
In the clear.
Every day,
I thank the Gods that you’re okay.
Does your face hurt?
From where you landed
When you were falling down.
Is this our time and place to go,
Strike the match
And watch the glow.
Fools are we,
Who lie in the sea.
Casting stares into its depths.
We float,
But we want to sink.
Down to the bottom just to make us think.
About words we’d say,
If we came back to this day.
We found you sitting near,
The drive,
Beside the stairway to the basement.
Is this what they meant to say?
Blow kisses goodbye,
And call away the stars.
Light your lovers eyes,
With a spark from your flaming lips.
Let her feel your warmth,
you're floating away
in sinking ships...

passing time and space

Kissed by the ocean,
and swallowed by the waves,
Footprints in the sands of time.
Wanderers we all,
pass under the sun,
finding the shelter we crave.

Buildings amass, and cathedrals mundane,
locked by gate and key;
voices of the insane.
Laughter forced a smile,
showed teeth of glittering white-
Be that which destroys,
or that which creates;
of Frankensteins or doves.

Dilute the real with spirit or poison,
whichever, to pass a day.
Tired and weary,
distorted and dreary,
blots of ink that link and bleed.
Passes on stages, from one to the next,
without though of danger or speed.

Lockit...

hidden
secret
under-exposed.
darkened
hibrination
slumber
repose.
moisture
blurrs
vision
impaired.
silence
occured
hearing
dismantled.
brain
down
memory
low.
tonight
one
moon,
under
the
earth
I
go.

hopeful

So let us lay here,
drowning in the fire light.
Listening to the waves meet the shore,
and part again.

This is where I leave you,
staring at the ocean.
Place in your memory,
come back to it again;
A keepsake of time,
echoing the rythm
of laughter and friends.

Sunrise so beautiful,
and tears;
What's left to recollect,
a stamp for all the years.
Voices in the graveyard,
are calling out your name.
you try to answer me,
it just dosen't feel the same.

Wear a smile

Hide away,
listen to the angry mob,
speaking in different tongues.
What will they say,
when they see the sparkle,
in your eyes;
rise up and fade away?
Last night,
won’t happen every day.
Their turn to say,
that it wasn’t their fault,
because it never really is;
doesn’t make this nightmare okay,
like the rain that won’t go away.
Tonight, tonight,
this has all been about a dream.
Things are just as they seem,
replay in my head a thousand times.
Keeps skipping on the track,
where you were lost,
but I took you back.
Read a book,
and count the pages as you turn them.
Does it add up to your disappointment?
Was this your idea,
of pain and torture.
Or will it move you from this torpor?
Isolated in repose,
you changed out of your clothes.
And dawned the features,
of a dharma bum.
Take it back,
came from a book by Kerouac.
Your mind is traveling in circles;
replay the track.
Recordings of your voice taped back,
when you wore a smile.

Subdue the fever

Give me this day, the last day of your life. Walk with me through green fields, hands holding tight. On to memories where we left them, by eyes of passers by. We’ll walk under the moon, and comment on the stars. Jets over our heads and the red ball of Mars. High atop the cliff, over looking the houses down below, our pulses raise with pleasure, on lookers from the crowd forming below. Look into the mirror of the sea. What does your reflection look like in the red light? Of scars and burns, another day spent doping up our innocence and subduing the fever. Do you know your neighbor? Can you tell him that he’s going to die tomorrow, sipping on black comedy and floor disasters. This is today, what will your death bring to us?

REM cars...

streched out head to toe,
dream's hand catches me while I sleep.
turning covers to and fro,
without question, I've decended in deep.
stars twinkle and burn, and light up the sky,
throwing glare and fragments to obscure my eye.
floating above the earth, in a catatonic state,
drops of wax fall from candles at the wake.
the sun and heavens, play the field for the stars,
we slip between them in REM cars.

this call

last night, i woke you up on the telephone.
said I had gone out on my own,
can you take this call from heaven?
I'd seen your face on a picture downtown,
were you wondering if I was still banging around.
I had cried myself a river and proceeded to drown,
but would you reach your hand in for me.

I was crying out for the attention I crave,
some people are great, and some meet their grave.
can you take this call from heaven?
Telling you about the trouble I was in,
could you take me in your arms and make me whole again.
I was wondering was it possible by now,
could we sit down and write the story of how,
you and me, and it was all that it could be.
We walked right down, and laid beneath the sea.
Can you take this call from heaven?

We were on the mountain top, counting shooting stars.
Saw the big black sky, the red dot was Mars,
got lost in the milky way.
You turned to me and with a tear in your eye.
in front of all of this, you started to cry.
And you left me wondering why.
Hold my hand, cause I have something to say,
we never knew it then, but things are better this way, and hey...

can you take this call from heaven?

a birthday message...

Covered by the stiffness of the night, I walked the streets I used to know. Every corner screamed a memory, every face brought about a name. The orange glow that leaped from the windows of the old stomping grounds seemed comforting against the breeze. I crossed my arms and tightened myself up, as the pain of memories abandoned began to overtake me.

There were lines that snaked along the street like rivers. Among them, jovial faces gleamed like gold in the sand. These were the times made special by the gentle touch of a friend, or by the telling of story experienced by all. We were laughing about it then, and each knew this feeling would never cease.

Year passes year, and before you stop to realize it, the image staring back in the mirror no longer reminds you of yourself. You've slipped, but you're hanging on, motivated by the memories yet to be made. And, for a moment that seems more pure than any other, you look over your shoulder at your friends...and smile.

demons

It's all in a dream, things are not what they seem.
The feel and pulse of a new living thing,
crawling deeply underneath my weathered skin.
It's shadow lurks beneath me when I crawl,
pulls me down to the depths where I fall.
The fog has set in filling my head,
with answers to questions I dislike and dread.
My likeness in the mirror has not one head but two,
the unsettling difference between me and you.
It's path grows for miles like a cancer,
unravelling hope, and prayers for an answer.
These things haunt me throughout the night,
between these two sensations,
is the war that I fight.

there was...

There was a field, where we would dance in the rain.
There was the porch where I used to sit, screaming your name.
And you ran away from me.

There was an image of you, vanished much too late.
There was your face, red with the ravishing color of hate.
I was your dream.

There in the meadow, when your heart skipped a beat.
There was a poem in my head, I knew it complete.
The stars provided the light.

There were good-byes and tears and over the years.
There were good days and bad days, and hot ones and cold,
and some were so much wetter.

Memories missed...

Close your eyes tight and jump from this cliff.
The memories made and the memories missed. Scream your name with silent gestures.
Their shadows dance on the wall of your epitaph.
We jumped high from this dream,
and landed in it's ashes.
This broken home stands empty.

River of Tears

a river of tears flows underneath
wind-swept bridges.
the fingerprints of small hands
adorn her ridges.
this place they came, to cool the burn
of hate, of poison, they wait their turn.
to see life as it was before
evil cast it's spell.
to quiet the screams
of a fire breathing yell.

dream stare

- a new song

I took your photograph, in black and white.
And hid behind the stage, out of sight.
It was a rush, a thrilling blur. You were never there,
I only thought you were.
Your red eyes burned right through the paper. They caught me waiting,
in the background of this dream stare.

I held your photograph, with shivering hands. And marked it on the back,
with black pen. I knew you needed me,
but couldn't do it then. Those judging eyes,
calling me again.
Your eyes burned right through the paper. They caught me waiting,
in the background of this dream stare. Took the light away from my eyes,
left me running away from the dark.

I placed your photograph, under my bed at night. My mouth was open then,
and you climbed right in. Took the words right out of my mouth,
stole the screams right from my lips. I couldn't move away,
you locked me in right from the hips. Your face was like a black hole,
and it held me and sucked me in.
I couldn't escape the merky afterglow.

Your red eyes burned right thought the paper. They caught me waiting,
in the background of this dream stare. They held me there,
while I was burned up limb by limb.