Anyone reading this blog in Calgary, please join us at the EMMEDIA gallery for some glitch music by Adam Tindale and friends from the Alberta College of Art and Design, and animations by runran.

I stopped by the Kasbar lounge yesterday for the Raving Poets‘ opening night, dusted off an old cutup from trAce days and gave a reading. Thanks to Gordon McRae and the RP band for making space at the last minute, and thanks to the audience for listening to my awkward delivery. The cutup deserved better. I blame the wine.

Tracings #1

We all have opinions,
affiliations, the next opportunity.
I stay up nights increasingly brutal,
stare at the screen and sigh.
Unpostponable blows multiply openly,
words empty of social consciousness.
How often do writers think?
As the world turns,
turning and burning.
Perhaps we don’t notice
the bodies piling up.
Constructing extravagant barricades,
we deserve Empire,
the disenfranchised
milling on the sidelines.
More than anything, I have failed.
At this point, expect nothing.

How to proceed through words?
So much writing because a person is a writer.
Sputter and write pain: unbearable.
Sunflowers overexposure the ear.
No words can be kind.
Dominate a cafe, perhaps.
Imagine a faraway country,
independent, misguided.
Imagine a piece of ourselves,
rich, varied, green and wet.
I desire. I am ashamed.
I worry in the night.
I worry money.
I consume my worth.
Forget the romantics,
give me heart,
fierce love poems.

Tracings #2

first section

Lend me your commonality,
strictly-speaking and finally.
Robin Hood gave a speech.

My hat is not a pear shape,
or meaning anything.
Grammar isn’t viable

See what I mean?
Degeneration scares me.
I notice the mannequin
in the mental ward.

What of my public struggling
to construct eccentric grace,
catch a nice round experience,
trade knowledge to other clues.

I suspect the universe, a secret plot.
I suspect the hokey-cokey.
Assume my concern,
be prepared to stick around.

For a long time it was just
a few lines exhorting
to totally no avail —
almost anything.
Nostalgically, mangoes.
No wonder I feel so out of it.

Speaking of bad writers
(the vast clique) –
how would I know?
I am a malcontent,
the squeaky wheel.
Don’t pay for the rhythm of words:
Hey-Ho, a bear claw to go.

second section

People backchannel yak-yak.
Everything to everybody –
wearisome devolved individuals
delivering specifications.
Perhaps this is just me
spending too much time
in front of a computer,
pixellated around the edges.
I sense the presence of a person
truly and carefully unremarked upon,
hungry for a login/identity.

Choose any given moment,
you are more than a tool,
a state of mind,
a third party intruder.
Reconsider the system,
inform the membership,
start a new topic,
send a cool gift.

I am writing at the cellular level,
reaction as an explosive.
I’m ripped out of context,
shuffled daily, much used –
currently with extremists
who prefer arguments.