Bela Lugosi Laughs!

 

Naughty but Nice: Scandalous Victorian Postcards!

 

I love Victoriana, and these ads and "naughty" poses just breathe the attitudes of the times. I think women had to wear corsets to anchor those huge and voluminous skirts, but - in this case, sometimes that's all they're wearing.

My cat is ready for his closeup! Bentley's in the picture

This is an old video, I confess, but it's a goodie. It actually looks as if it has been planned, the way Bentley both mirrors and claws against the images, as if he can climb right into the screen. 

November 14, 2025: my journal entry

November 14/25  

I don’t want to write here! Why can’t I just “be’? 

I’d do music, but it’s hard to listen to now. It just hits me differently. It almost goes TOO deep. I had a piece just STUCK in my head and had to try to drive it out. Just gloomy, a dirge. I don’t know if listening to something else will help. 

I just remembered the other time I couldn’t do music – during the most wretched part of 2005, when I couldn’t even read. I just couldn’t, it tore the skin off me. So what’s this about? Do I HAVE to find out? Why can’t I just relax? 

I seem wired to “resist”. 

(Later) I guess I have to, here. I just do. Certain things can’t be stopped, and maybe shouldn’t be (?). I’m past-tripping WAY too much, but can’t seem to stop it either. My health? Facing – what? Today was not good, but I did lie down around 3:00  and didn’t get up  until 4:30. I don’t even know if I  slept, but I was SO comfortable, so warm, and for once nothing hurt or pulled or tingled or ached. So what’s THAT about? Never mind, I had it, a sanctuary. I still feel weird in a way, noise in my ears, the sore in my mouth, the ECG (?). Blood on my pillow every night. Blood. Some of it quite gory and red, but is it out of my mouth, my ears, my nose, WHAT? I’m still having it. 

It’s  a time of change in the family, for sure, the breaking up of longstanding patterns of life. I’ve become used to a quieter way of life, but I still have my creative interests. They surround me, literally, and I am able to share them. But I just looked up the Margo letter and discovered it was 2012 – way longer ago than I thought. Almost 14 years. I do think of her sometimes, but her life had stagnated so badly, she was so bitter and limited and seemingly clutching it to herself, that I couldn’t or wouldn’t go on with it, absorbing all her toxins. She didn’t seem to KNOW. And compulsively searching for rooms to rent in Vancouver, while in the next breath saying she would “never leave her husband” – what craziness is that? She lost her way and did not even seem to notice, and I was her support system, a safe person to “vent” to, but what about it was lifeward and positive? NONE OF IT. At that time I was just writing the Harold book and the grandkids were quite young, so I was in the thick of it. Now - .

I have now, a simpler life, but I want my health back. I am tired of fighting back despair and the black  feeling that I’ll die soon. I don’t know, up  to now they haven’t  found anything, but I still have that thing on Wednesday – my sense of time is screwed up there, too, as it feels like I must have done the rheumatologist way BEFORE the surgery, but it was only six months ago, about last May. I have no  idea why I even need to go back, as they didn’t really give me anything to manage the pain of this. What more can they do? I don’t want more tests, more xrays, more bloodwork, another specialist. . . I still have to see someone in February, but am trying not to think about it. What more can they tell me? If I don’t have cancer, if I’m NOT going to die, I still have a kind of PTSD from the hospital and everything that happened around it. Scenes replay, and they are horrible beyond belief. 

So at least I got in a good nap, whether I actually slept or not. It always  seems like I don’t, but then when I check the time, it’s always a lot later than I thought. What matters is that I finally got warm, relaxed, comfortable, and that seemed like a miracle in the middle of all this hell. Yes, it has been and continues to be hell. I don’t see the future, but I don’t  want to feel there isn’t one. I keep wanting to toss off this black lid that keeps squashing me down. Hey, I don’t have cancer (do I?). They haven’t found anything. I may have discomfort, low energy, whatever, from being literally gutted. My worst fear now is that it will recur and I’ll lose my whole colon and die anyway, with a disgusting bag of shit hanging out of a hole in my abdomen. 

That’s real. 

I feel sort of stoned now, but I haven’t taken any THC oil and don’t  want to. I was FRYING last night, the nerve was sizzling,  and I assume the oil did it. I still take the Tevas, but I don’t know why. They don’t help the pain much at all. The codeine may well be affecting me. I don’t  want to take the cholesterol pills for a while, in case it’s that, or an interaction. 

But the last year has been horrible, and it came out of nowhere. Another new year is coming up, and while it doesn’t mean much of anything, just the numbers changing, I try to make sense of it and try to be more hopeful. But it will depend. 

The surgeon said six months to a year, and it hasn’t been a year yet, but a year since the hell began and the rug was jerked out from under me. I may well have a bad anniversary reaction, which is maybe what I am having now. 

My online life, well, it’s not much of one, and I don’t like Facebook, though it seems to be the only way to find out my dearest friends are dead. The Bohdan thing is still bothering me, and it’s disturbing to realize that he seemed to have no sense of personal boundaries at all. Yes, he was European and all, but - . To say it was inappropriate is an understatement. And it all ended in the early 00s. More than 20 years ago, but now he’s dead, and I wrote my tribute and need to get on with it. He was old and sick and kind of deluded, but wasn’t he always? 

Christmas looms, and I don’t want to think about it. We’re not doing a turkey, and I don’t think anyone needs to. I assume Shannon will go to the Patersons’. If we can have our lunch thing, it will be enough for me. I don’t know about Jeff and the kids. If he does have us over, I don’t expect anything fancy. Just being together is “it”. I know how things, people can slip away forever. SO MANY PEOPLE I loved are dead now! One by one, they just died, and I did not always know why. I do not have close friends or any friends at all, really, but my friendships were so draining that part of me is relieved. If I DID send Margo that letter, it’s honest and well-written, but I don’t think that is what I sent her. I spared her feelings while suffering myself, as usual, as always. 

A certain other person keeps barging into my mind, and I do NOT know why, as it’s irrational as hell. I’ve even left comments and things on Facebook, critical of him, and I do not like him and see him as a self-pitying, dried-up old stick, a joyless person who does not ever laugh or even smile, and who supports Palestine in a way that makes my hair stand on end. And then there was all that moaning about the Prince Harry debacle. My God, I cannot believe I subjected myself to all that, and the horrible warnings about my comments that were completely unwarranted. 

I am trying very hard just to post things and not pay attention to views. My old ones (old OLD, but YT changed the dates on them) are getting comments, which is weird, but it turns out YT is NOT  sending out notifications at all. I tick the box, then it greys out and disappears. I am tired of sending “feedback” (useless!)  and even paper letters to GOOGLE, like throwing them in the ocean (or directly into the shredder). 

Anyway, I am tired now and hope I sleep well without taking ANY of the oil or THC gummies or whatever. I  am afraid of withdrawal if I just stop the Tevas, which have been of very limited value anyway.

I’m seeing Xmas stuff in the stores and even hearing the music, which makes me want to scream, but  we CAN keep it simple if we want to. The most I want to do is our usual lunch thing, and if Jeff wants to do the dinner, fine. He has NO IDEA how to cook  anything, however. Maybe he should make pasta? I think he can do sauce. But it’s the work. The 50 years  unsung, and no one really giving a crap except to take, take, take. 

That is how it is. 

 

The longest troll description in history!

Vintage 1964 12 inch Dam Things Est. Iggy Normus Troll Doll Toy New Outfit AS IS

trollheaven

(1153)

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US $66.99

ApproximatelyC $93.83

Condition:

UsedUsed

VNTG 1964 12 inch Dam Iggy Normus troll doll toy in AS IS condition, came to me as a rescue troll: 

Vintage 1964 Dam Things Establishment 12 inch Troll Doll Girl Toy in AS IS condition. She has been personally named Monique and she is ready to find her forever home. Please be sure to check out all her pictures!  Monique was originally a rescued troll girl doll with some obvious vinyl issues which will be mentioned why she is an AS IS troll doll in detail. She came to me in her birthday suit so I felt inspired to dress her in something splashy and exciting: new filmy and sparkly aqua colored, ruffle style, gathered dress, layered underneath with matching aqua tulle and sparkly yellow gathered underskirt. I have added a large, bright yellow colored satin bow pinned on top of her head and a yellow rosette attached to top of her gathered dress, Velcro closure on backside. Unfortunately her turquoise satin shoes are a bit too small to fit her wide/long troll feet so one of the shoe laces has been tied into a bow and is hanging from her right wrist that includes her very own Little Tykes graduate 3.5 inch Dam/Norfin troll doll tucked inside of the shoe. Her Little Tykes Dam/Norfin troll has blue fun fur hair and amber plastic eyes that have become cloudy with time. Her original amber glass eyes had numerous air bubbles and honestly looked a bit blah with her very pretty turquoise Icelandic sheep fur and new aqua dress so she has new beautiful replaced blue glass eyes, no cracks. Monique has her original turquoise Icelandic sheep fur in very good shape overall, ever so slightly frizzy/fuzzy but nice and full overall. Monique is in AS IS condition because her previous owner(s), likely a child who did not know better and (possibly had too much time on their hands) put noticeable shallow pin size holes sporadically on her nose, on one of her cheeks, on both of her ears, her right ear pin hole is pierced slightly a bit deeper right where you would put an earring), and around and above her eyebrows. Also, there are several noticeable pin size holes on the front of her body, two on on her tummy and upper armhole and on both of her hands. There is also a very noticeable 1/4 inch length, slightly penetrated, raised vinyl scratch causing slightly discolored mark on the right corner of her mouth.  I have no idea how this occurred by previous owner(s) but it is best to point it out, see close up pictures. Monique is stamped, Dam Things Establishment on the back of her neck and the bottom of her feet, hard American vinyl, jointed head only.  She has airbrushed, rosy cheeks, there are several little noticeable cheek rubs, overall very nice vinyl coloring.  On both sides of her waist where her armpit is has some very slight vinyl cracks, a very common occurrence with 50 something vintage Dam Things trolls. There may be some vinyl discoloration, very minor spots or stains and can be expected after 50 some years.  Other than what has been mentioned, there are no other observable chew marks, spots or stains that I can see.  Monique overall, is in good, but obvious played with condition with AS IS considerations, she is a 1960s 12 inch Dam Troll Est. troll in her all new party dress, designed to enhance her very best troll features with all her boo boos mentioned and in troll ready display condition.  Please feel free to ask any and all questions, I aim to please! I am always happy to combine shipping!  I hope you will consider checking out my other troll auctions available!  Please add me to your favorite sellers list and thank you again for taking the time to check out my trolls available on eBay.  

BLOGGER'S NOTE: Never have I seen a longer or more detailed description of a troll for sale! She is pushed as a "rescue troll", whatever THAT means (and some of my purchases look to be in need of "rescue"). It goes on and on, continually telling us she is sold "as is" (to avoid possible requests for a refund), and while most  listings say very little, or even nothing, this is a kind of masterpiece of selling. BTW, the shipping charges are $55.32, so you'd have to fork over roughly $150.00. Not a bad price for an "Iggy Normous" troll, but there are so many caveats here that I don't think I'd go for it.

I hope someone buys her! But it won't be me.

CORSET LADIES in GLORIOUS Victorian Advertisements!

OK then - is it right to repeat stuff? I find myself going back to some old obsessions, and really enjoying it. But am I posting anything original?

I am REALLY trying to dump Facebook. I don't know what it ever did for me, and no one ever - ever - EVER read my blog posts or watched any of the videos I toiled over. No one cared. The one time I got a huge response was when I wrote a stupid little piece about wearing pants to the mall that looked a little like pajama bottoms, and two old ladies twittering over it. I could not believe the OUTPOURING of emotional support! It went on and on, people I haven't heard from in years. As if they thought I was devastated beyond repair. HOW STUPID can you get?? 

So it's back to the things I love. I'm still struggling with health issues, and now I know I will be for the rest of my life. But everything checked out: no cancer in my colon; no cancer in my lungs; no cancer in my kidneys;  and finally, after a particularly nasty needle biopsy, no cancer in my thyroid. I can coast for a while, except for the endless bloodwork needed to "monitor" things. 

I thought I'd be feelng a lot lighter now, but I'm not. I'm purposely pushing away the dreadful thoughts I had for months, a year actually, as it's just  about exactly a year since all this hell began.

So next year? There's nothing magical about a year - it's just a way of reckoning things, keeping  time, like in music. Both Bill and I have struggled, and still do. The specialists, tests, scans (ultrasounds and interminable CT scans) are wearying, in that we have to drive all over the lower mainland. Perhaps that's why I am feeling so drained?

But I really enjoyed putting this slide show together, and it was totally absorbing. I got the images from  a now-defunct site called LISA - Long Island Staylace Association. The ads really are gorgeous, time capsules, a celebration and of course an exaggeration of the female form.

Is this my girl-crush side coming out again? Who knows. But who cares. So long as I can be absorbed in my creative work, which I have all my life in spite of all obstacles, I want to tell myself it will all work out right.

😃Futurama! SELF-DRIVING CAR of the Future: a 1950s look at 2025!😮

One of my favorute "retrofuturistic" videos, in which a family of four zooms along a Jetson-style highway in a self-driving car. Not only that. . .a guy sitting in a tower tells them where to go and what to do! He recommends a "honey" from some cheap hotel, proclaiming "automatic sleep-control" and "predigested food cooked by infrared!" Yes, in 1956 this looked like a good thing. No mention of some crazed autistic zillionaire threatening world domination. It all looked great, with no drawbacks, of course.

HEALTH UPDATE: So I got sick. . . . Now what?🤔

I went back and forth on this a lot, then decided: hell, I can share all sorts of other things on my channel, and I've been at it 12 years and have 23,000+ subs. . . so can't I share this? Yes, I can, but part of me is sure it won't lead to anything good. I often criticize people for "oversharing", and let's face it, the internet is forever. But this has been hard, and it has been lonely. I don't want to alarm my kids and grandkids, so they have to get the short (sanitized) version of things. But a couple of times in the hospital, I came close to dying, and I would have without timely intervention. 

That changes you. It really does. These days, just getting out to birdwatch is a blessing, but I also tire a lot more easily and have to parcel out my energy. I just got home from a needle biopsy that was most unpleasant, but I got through it fine and now have to wait the usual week-to-ten-days to find out if my thyroid is malignant or not.

If so, what's next? I'm trying not to anticipate or go on the internet too much. My other fear is that, even though the surgery seemed to resolve the problem, my bloodwork was all over the place, and the problem could easily recur somewhere and not be so treatable.

Another thing that made me NOT want to post this was that it will likely get the dozen or so views I seem to be getting these days. Not sure why, as YT is SUPPOSED to notify my subs if I post, but they aren't as usual. They get after me for things that are absurd or nonexistent.

I don't need the stress, and I have to say, I wonder at how I have stressed myself all my life - is that a factor in my health suddenly caving in like this? I saw another YouTuber giving health updates, and in his mid-30s he had heart failure, open heart surgery and a stroke. I don't know much about his medical history, but I saw myself in him somehow - the way I never feel I've done enough, achieved enough, or gotten enough recognition for the things I HAVE done. I wondered about all that stressing and striving, and saw myself doing the same thing. 

But right now, I have to rest and eat (it can be hard to eat when you're not hungry), and wait it out. Minus  a quarter of my colon, my digestion will never be the same, nor will my energy levels. This is a permanent condition, and will likely get worse. Not a cheery thought, but I did decide to go ahead and make/post the video for my own sake - I watched the video 3 or 4 times before posting it, and the main thing that bugs me now are those little lights dancing around my glasses from the light on my ancient camcorder. 

But maybe they're magic fairies sent to protect me! I also felt Bohdan's presence during the procedure, as if he was somehow watching over me.  Losing him has hit me harder than I realized, as it brings home to me once again how everything can change in an instant. I did see him about a year ago, and there was no way of knowing then that it would be for the very last time. 

NONSONGS and NEOPSALMS: Part 2

 

Part two of an excerpt from a much longer book-length manuscript of poetry (Nonsongs and Neopsalms) that never saw the light of day, though some of the poems were excerpted and published in various literary magazines. These were written over a long stretch of time and represent multiple mental and spiritual transfigurations.

                                       

Delivery

This is a strange

Horse I ride, feet

Pointing up, all bloodless and blue

On a long trail of ether.

My brain swims in a vault of chrome

through the removed murmur of voices

and a distant

Clinical clanking.

I will emerge now, slick and

purple as a baby.  The surgeon’s eyes

Crinkle over the mask.

Hands cool as paper, hands that have never

Handled a snake, patiently suture

All of my holes.  The work is true.

Emergency waiting room

Which is worse:  the spilled

smell of

accidents

or the sound

of magazines

slowly

growing older

in this

ticking house of death?

  

Sorry

My heart unclasped

One day in your office,

Suddenly, all in a shot, the catch

Broke loose, andit

Fell behind a pile of files.

I did not mean to;

It was an accident of gravity.

Earth reached up and pulled it down.

I stood dizzy,

My centre lost, the core

Riven.  It felt silly

to lean over like that.

My face grew hot.

There was no way to put it back.

The space had grown over already;

The fall had changed me.

I left that place different,

Looked outside.  The light

Hurt my skin.  The world

was a new color.

I wiped my eyes, and kept on walking.

A small place

in my chest

Grew still with singing.

loom (a hymn of gratitude)

God sings

As she works.  My, my.  A merry

tune:  Bach; birds.

This weaving

of flesh fibres, new nerves

stretched across dead pain, Awakens

the ache of joy.

How it tingles!  Deft hands move,

A shuttle.  Darting threads,

A gleam.  A sense of fabric.

Substance where there were holes.

The moths driven out.

I will hold now.  No secrets will

Spill through.  The bag is

Solid; it nests

All the marbles.

  Somedays

Somedays, the harshness of nostrils

Bus-lurching crowds, rudespeak

of news-seekers, is too much for me,

I need to nestle, to throstle,

wrestle with the renewal

(of your mint-melting

inner adagio)

The bus vomits; I catch hold of things

again.  Taking charge of the crowd,

grabbing thumbs

manipulating the traffic

pulling the world with a pair of

pliers

It’s no good any more:  I need your dependable

light somnolence:  the old silk robe

of your being

(I need to

wear you

like

hair)

 Crown (For Joshua)

It’s purple out today; no mistaking

it.  Purple sings

The imperial air.  Where

roses were lost, that dimension

They were sucked into/I traverse

(as through a secret panel

or revolving door)

to the Other Side, where essence of roses

Smells.

Purple wings shot through

with veins – with skeins of slaughter

We know the price:  the smell of

(blood and roses)

Purple sings the imperial air.  Where

roses are hidden/purple roses

that spill

 You-riff (a favorite)

If mint ice cream could be made flesh,

(moreover

                Gershwin’s

                                   (innocent

piano keys (not the    (inanimate:  but the

        (hot

very (act of playing) teeth, a fine Mary-

morning

(could be a bald spot:a hunch of shoulders)

                                                                 (all

then I guess this Everywhere where we  (call

the universe/this minimouse, into the Here

would be exhaling you/expressing you

daily,

in daily bliss, dally, bless blush 

       

              doily

in gaily, /  earthshivering

Maymess triumphant, in Gerard Manley Hopkins’

hosiery/then, I guess your

Bashful tigersmile’s a paean to

“Great Chocolate!” eyes  (a-bleeding

                                         (monument to

(hooting hyaena’s

                            laugh’s a plainsong to)

  Lean into it

Haven’t they played this song before?

It’s pain, and it has been on my radio

For weeks now.  Let’s settle down

(my yoyo:  the tiny precious blue one,

has been asleep for days; some dream

told me it had died,

             (spring died,

That it   (would not be back again.)

“But an astral yoyo”  (this is

an official statement) broke loose

between our tromboning eyebeams,

our Sprung-together selves.  You are

an Arctic expedition; I a mere

can of Spam, better than eating the dogs

but less tasty than your bunkmate

           Everything stopped breathing

There was a gown

Made of apricots,

Woven from

A dream of bees, a smile

so drunken it was breathed by

Mother Teresa; I was saturated.

Then you came along like an

Old saddle, your walk as

wobbly as

Copland’s cowboy.

Was I expected to just

                                                           (go on)

breathing again?

  Mary Alice

I sing of Maryalice,

nun as sweet as she

(tied up in the AA meeting/back to back

with Ray the pervert, the man

with the gun in his pocket

Fisheye Red, Lazy Sprockett, and the kindly forever prostitute)

A dizzy harrumph, and Mary Alice spoke

of life/in an abstinent/dry convent

Not even the sacrificial

Wine/A sober nun!  I longed

to anoint

her

/        screwed brow

with the oil of self-congratulation the raw

Bursting sanctity of very existence.

Her voice was frail as a Gramophone,

her hug like rails,

her print dress (out of habit?) disdainfully

Particolored.  I wanted an umbrella

to shield her bent crown

from the raining destruction of reality

  

  Buzzed

Your hive was a hum of

Cortical surprise; a splendor

                                (golden fuzz)

Of psalms:  a salty                        of Bee

being.  Such passion

in the apiary!  Such dizzy repro- (se-?)

Duction!  Bee

attitudes frighten me.  I will pick

the salacious hairs, the

haloed laughter of swarms

From my bee-blurred eyes.

                                                

Three-part invention

(a) indigo eyes

I am the salt

you are the sweet

hair/

        My heartsprung

(horse) of the air,

au clair

ah! care,

         clover

to the/stables,

We.

     Drenched with the scent

of hens of hay

                    dear

of tree:  your/odor

(of salt

(of sap

(of sea

b) cunningerotic

Lip, let me laugh

You.  Set the salt

Sally, sashay down

The hay of my mind.

Seashorn,

feverworn

hairborne:  Your

face a chiming, a

Brining.  The

(stainglassed

seahorse

of your

                                          (voicy

                                      (ice

c)     Fifth chakra (for ray lynch)

a blues tunnel

blamed open

pitched down

to the base of the soul

Mermaids spinning

in your throat, Dear

heart:  shining vessel,

opened for a song,

shut open,

Wept for a penny

disabled

    the

by/(dreaming

      (door

  

Three more haiku

I.     Back road

                                             

The way unspools, retreating

           from a back window:

           Unreeling

           vision.

II.               Spiral

               Higher I mount, and higher.

               I look down.  The screw

               Turns deeper.

               I climb.

 III.           Final exam

              Horses explode from the gate.

              Pens surging forward –

              Furious

              focus.

                            

NONSONGS and NEOPSALMS Part 1

 

Herein, some poems I wrote during various times in my life, pretty much as they went down, unedited. A few of them even got published in the likes of Prism International and Room of One's Own, but my book-length manuscript (Nonsongs and Neopsalms) didn't fly because my style was all over the map. As are these, but I'd still like to share them. For the sake of flow, I won't break these up with my customary images. This ran so long I had to divide it in two parts.

What Happens in September

all the acorns of my brain rioting

           out of a little hole in the top of a tree

I can hear them rumbling

(like Frost’s apples) from long away –

Squirrels whiz in a double helix

         around the black tree/each

                                  tail-frisk

bright as a fizzing synapse

The smell of English walnuts

       and an old old box made of dusky wood

                just opened after fifty years in

                                                         the attic

Chestnuts on the ground like the

eyes of fractious horses

that gallop through

                   a seethe of

                                surf

I am six, scuffy-kneed, collecting

chestnuts to string or sell on the street

or Sixty, dimmed but simmering still,

hair gone to milkweed,

skin with the smell of dried apricots

and used aprons/still on the

wheel of Four, the wheeling and

reeling,

rocketing year.

Bite the plum

Naked is as naked

does:  as clear as

Your eyes are,

your clothing is

that much

       /clearer,

dearer still the scent

             all man,

of you,/inestimable.

I should never

Take you out of that box,

Never sample those

 dark

/chocolates,

      too

for / dear you are,

the Arabian horse

of my childhood

(standing still only to be

petted).

Notice me!  I am more

than a

Brain on a stick, but

an  (all-breathing

       (Non-fiction       /woman.   To break

this cellophane

  (that heatshrinks your

legend),

would it be a rupture,

an insertion, an

arrogance of the ovaries,

Or a sweet inevitable,

        angel driven  (deep)

my  /                                 into

the moist cake of your heart

   

              as
You are  /  removed as

an engraving of a dybbuk,

I can stroke your image

only,  Never get your

smell/or feel your hair

Never grab it –

                 up  in

Let it dry/to a soft

Black wrinkled fruit –

The juice that never

had a chance to

run down my

                          chin

will gleam in those

glacial blue

eyes:

Will spark on your

skin –

Spring-loaded

April’s where I live,

         the place my heart opens

                   rose-burgeoning, shinyleaf-new

a smell of bursting peonies,

           bumble-dizzy bees bumping

                       butter-and-eggs

swollen buds thrusting

          in the lovesick air.

Leaden, laden, leavened, lavendered, loaded,

one big quivering nose, a moist surprise

hatched out in the nest of my body

April Pegasus-leaps

        in my pulse,

sun-shot                    Pan-piped

       heady, relentlessly

tender,

recklessly

sweet.

Three haiku

                                              

I.      Gift

         Snow, just one slow flake, settles

         subtle as a breath

         Lighting on

         my tongue.

II.     Trail

        

         Beside the still railroad tracks,

         A hot sun.  Song of

         Cicadas. 

         We ride.

III.    Back road

         

          The way unspools, retreating

          from a back window:

          Unreeling

          vision.

bridges (a Vancouver haiku)

                                    

latecity nightsky –

spill of black/Silk skirt:dancing

spritesparks/arcs of pearls

Fall

The antique

smell of

autumn

it charges me it

startles my nose:

leaves all turned

foxy,

shuddering into a

crumble of old

iron at my feet

in a great sustained

hallelujah of praise         /ancient trees are

praying up:  their frail arms

worshipping wide

                                               (some are

redheaded, some

blonde, a few

undecided, as if they

might make a change

at any time) The wind

shifts around like a

salesman,

                yellow of denture

full of rude/surprising charm

The antique smell of

autumn it changes me it

(startles my nose.    then all at once

an old old woman grundles

by/do I know her?

She is me   do I fear her?    A study in

black/clad with

a scent

the

lush whiff of

life-in-death

Violin

Falling into amber,
a buzzing blur of
honey and blonde,

strings as veins, a coursing, rush of taut

bliss, stretched across a

hollow core

of yearning:    Heart-bulb

                           lush

will vibrate as  /  hips of wood

shine like patient still eyes

and ochre sounds tease, tug

at hunger, reach, reach.

Fingers and strings kiss and

come apart, kiss and come apart,

The frail box eems in a subtle

pullulation, shy as a girl, lush as a

wild                           and

   /      whiff of mink:/                                all in a stillness

the bow sighs, sighs like a deep

diver, soughing the life in

this creature of tree, this female

fleshed of the organs of nature –

and all nature, all in a murmur

of intimate pain,

                           hewn

draws from this/heart of nothing

(this wood-held dusk, this

stirred scent of stored petals

this great warm handful of love)

a shining:  a chiming, a brining,

a pool of dark wine

spilled from the lustre of flowing eyes,

a seeing, a speaking, this songswept

woman of wood.

shiatsu

               

playing down the roots of my spine

like fleshly xylophone:    each vertebra

                            oceanic

humming with dim  /  secrets

                                                   ever

                     Every snake I have  /  handled

entwisted along the cord.    I am

awake now,

chorded by blunt fingers

strummed in the blood

which courses deep vermilion

in the sub-tectonic plates of my pelvis

The gut-song heaving upward

like a straining lifter, triumphant –

Selah, she is new!  (set loose

                                                 pure

in a slippery arcing dolphin of  /  prana)

splashed

in amniotic

baptism:

Behold, her crown.

Yes; or The Chagall Bride

    

                                     (i)                                         

i pray myself

Awake:   the smudge and

drudge of day

bleared by the bliss

of existence

a leaping fish of Be/the singing

blood that cries

 I am

                                          (ii)                                         

(i insist on you

the way I insist on

Yes:

an E. M. Forster yes

close beside the

everlasting “why”

                     (like man

and wife

why answers

Yes in an endless

                 “I do”

             

Poem on my fortieth (for my secondborn)

  

and bliss flicked

through, too, (quick)

like the flip of an

eyelid,

         /just

when did it pass over,

an infant surging to

      burstingly              woman?

a  /                beautiful  

when lost it I,             gone

                         these/

days, these days, when

               violet

did the  /  plum become a

           dead-

(small/sweet)

driedthing

She went by, my dayspring my

firehorse of a girl, life fiercing in

       glace-blue

her/          eyes:

        fleetingly                    this Astarte,

too/danced, Fred Astaired/                     toddle

turned to whirl as (slowly

my age

pulled ripe skin down

like the rind of old

fruit).

              Love fresh and juiceful

 when?/

       passed  into a darker

hymn, quiescence. 

The juice of jigs, all

         hard

that/ sex, gone by

too.  Ova will

        soon

dry/to peach pits

dessicated as hair.

                                   mainspring/

(She, my spring, my/

offspring, spurts still

                                   with

    that warm

juice,/sucked hard out

                 howling

of  my      /      heart)

                                                        

                                                      Guitar (for Keith)

  

How could I tell the way, tender as a lute,

his voice plays me,

especially over the wires, in the place

Without faces, a coiled, blue

Secrecy?  Sound strums off

 the tips of my fingers.

Some chords are stiff,

Almost hard; slick and shining,

stretched in iridescence

over my ringing ears.

My smile bars the strings.

The warm seal

Breaks; the peal

(spreading like a fugue

inside my chest) makes an

Easy, reaching harmony.

There are worlds beneath the words,

This overarching pattern, high

as a cat’s back; caught by the spreading

Nest of my hair.

  

                                               Bird in the hand

My bird in the

hand,

My bright dollar,

 blonde head

 Hard as a dime,

there in your

trench coat streaming

with spring, wet

as new robins

           or

Downy as stamens,

                          all

I would suck up/the

merry contempt in

your sleigh-bell

eyes,

Pepper my salt

with the wit of your

wounds,

Dive into the

iced-over pool

 of your

 voluptuous

 disdain.

Unbegun

I sense a tightly curled potential in an

alternate self/I have never met:  is it me or

thee?

What do you call the sound before the wind blows?

(and)

How many wolves precisely hide behind

the icebound pre-flood of your

unmelted eyes?  How would they bound,

unbound?  How does a glacier

feel when it groans and cracks like a

cannon, all its

                       sluicy sperm released?

How to judge the fertility of what has

not yet happened,

an approaching train rocketing backwards

into the sucked-back pre-time of imagination?

Would you smell like shredded wheat,

like gunfire, like an impending

surprise?  Would I be able to touch

you, at least with my mind,

or would all my juices, sunparched, bleached with shock,

frizzle away to the nothing in which it all began?

      

blue popsicle (for J. G.)

I live in your throat, curled

with a cat

 sleeping in sounds

 that drift daily/supple man-

music

What flavor?  I cannot

fathom/Yet shaking my head at you

(underwater) with surprise.

Joyborne, my heart smiles

(chiming) in sleepytime

                                          tune – is it

magic yet?/Dark out

now, I palm the

 chocolate

of your voice.  Dandle me:  cat

in a basket

 breathing our lonely, our smilenest in larksilent

candlesmoke - 

                                                 pomegranate wine

I sip at

your smile;

fire        light

 dances on your teeth

cat 

               

 on a hearthrug oh; comfort.

  

Close with you, on the sofa

(tight) breathing

in unison

                                                Succulent

rubies.   Heavy

with spice; promise

(of bursting kernels

shared on a back step

I’d stain my shirt)

                     
                   

                                                           Tryptich

  

I.                   Lover

    What is the song of you?

               Electric; blue

               A spurt of brimstone in the dark.

               I snatched your eyes

               from the fire,

               They lit the coals

               of my desire

 

               You’re

               sharks,

               you’ve turned my being

               to steam and sparks.

 I.            Tin man

              

                He walks through

                robot days,

                listening to the echo in his chest.

                Quicksilver tears

                spill from his liquid eyebeams

                to fuse his jaws in place

                And then one night it rains.

                Waiting

                for the tender mercy of an oilcan,

                he holds his rusted axe aloft

               

                Frozen in mid-chop.

 I.                    Skater’s Waltz

    We slice in new ice

               Keen figures with bright, honed blades

               carve in the virgin white

               Harsh cuts that cannot be erased.

               I let you go.  I trust you

               to move gently on my twinkling plane,

               You loose my hand

               to let me spin across your space.

               We slice in new ice

               Keen figures that cannot be erased.

                                                 I would say

  

I would say that you are springtime,

That lambs

could not be lovelier: laughing bells

Of eyes bright with seeing,

the shining, shone of you.

I would say that you are a

Renaissance painting

of a beautiful woman:

So restored

that the paint gleams; its sheen

Fresh from the brush; its wetness

smelling new.

I would say that you are living

Water:  I see tiny

perfect selves, suspended

upside-down in the silver

Merriment of your eyes.

If true, then I would say that you are

Not my brother; but some other; some

me not yet thought of; next year’s

Reflection

cast lightly (God’s amusement)

over waters

rendered still.

                                                              

                                                     

                                                           Gina

 sweet shy

dark girl          I’ve seen her

here before

  she always wore the best clothes

(silvery things/bangles

feathered skirts

necklace made

from the teeth of a wolf)

now I see Gina in the ward

kitchen.        Still beautiful

big-eyed

part Cree          her hair tied back

she shows me the tracings of

partly-healed               gashes

sewn back together in

a gridwork

                                                                 hands/

on her arms,                                                 wrists.

She must be twenty or so

No one comes to visit

Once she had a boyfriend

but he got sick too

                                           

                                                                    

  fantasy

I dreamed of a petting zoo 
with live men in it

all naked in their splendor

some

fuzzy, some smooth

all smelling good

of dark leather/gull feather

spanish heather

eating their golden chest hair

like shredded wheat

and leaving whenever we feel like it

could we name them?  No,

that would be getting involved.

But we’d remember their

sad eyes at noon

(feeding time – go feed the bulls)

some luscious sea-blue, some rich as

melted chocolate.