Wednesday, May 8, 2013




Cedar Park

I was waiting, gazing,

out the front door of my hotel at

orange poppies swaying beside a tan rock,

when an bright orange cab parked in front and

the driver got out, sipped his water and stood

waiting; revelation ?
 
a brief glimpse eclipsed,

a moment first lifted to the faceting light

then dropped to the floor of the world.
 
                                                  Guy




Friday, November 9, 2012

Wendolene

  
just here

a small dog, paw on my leg

where has she got to?

Saturday, September 29, 2012



LenĂ© Gary from the blog Counting Petals was kind enough to send me 
the following link to a site displaying spine poetry, the process of creating 
a poem by making a stack of books and reading the spines. I actually 
found this  to be a fascinating progress. It was almost a physical manifestation
 of the process of editing a poem described in Ted Kooser's wonderful 
book The Poetry Home Repair Manual in which ( my interpretation) 
you might move the first line to the end or vice versus or remove
 lines entirely even it is the best single line in the poem or the line that was 
the original impetus for the poem if it prevents the overall
 poem from jelling. I have done this in my own work and felt 
it helped and I removed and rearranged books here for
 the same reasons. I also think this would be a great way 
to get your creative juices flowing before you own writing.
So here are my versions of spine poems. I suspect I will
 create more. Since I used my collection of SF, horror, fantasy and 
poetry  the poems may have a bit of a morbid cast
( insert Vincent Price like evil cackle here ) enjoy.





Thanks Lené


A Wine of Wizardry
Whispers in the Night
Stories That Could Be  True
Death is a Lonely Business
And Afterward, the Dark


Reluctant Voyagers
Pilgrims Through Time and Space
Other Dimensions
The Hounds of  Tindalos
Shambling Towards Hiroshima
Disclosures in Scarlet


The Wind from a Burning Woman
Her Smoke Rose up Forever
Beyond Remembering
Only Begotten Daughter

Monday, September 3, 2012

 
 
Crows are back, Carrack Carrack
The great phalanxes of autumn slipped back unheralded until today,
now they make the aspen tremble, with their heavy bodies, strident calls.
 
Silent  magpies assemble, white chests still gleaming with the rime of winter,
watching these noisy posers, who carried spring home on sleek black wings.
Spring is back, Carrack Carrack
 


Wednesday, August 22, 2012





Finding Beauty

" Our kinship with Earth must be maintained; otherwise, we will find ourselves
trapped in the center of our own paved-over souls with no way out."

                                                       Terry Tempest Williams
                                                               Finding Beauty in a Broken World

I would never disagree.
I understand the world needs another weedy lot covered with satellite dishes,
signs extolling all you can eat lobster and 24 hour hamburgers. I know our cities
are sheltering atolls in the wilderness busily excreting their coral rings of big box
stores, car lots, and airport hotels to welcome the weary traveller. And I know this
is both proper and inevitable, who am I to stand in the way of the organic growth
of the inorganic.

But when you have the asphalt ready for the next mini-mall. let me know so I can
descend into the excavation past the condoms, cable lines and storm sewer
pipes. There I will lie down among the grooves left over when the last glacier
peeled clean the world. And let me take with me the unneeded, the unwanted,
the dispossessed fox, the back porch skunk, fast food gulls and the crow with
the broken beak. Cover us with the hot mess and let the world wake us
when your done.

Guy


Friday, April 13, 2012





Eye, Fly, Awry in this Landscape of Words,

They say don’t feed the birds, you encourage
dependence, promote non-native species.
who knew, it seemed such a harmless lark.

And what is the result of my two week vacation,
starvation throughout Brentwood stretching to
Dalhousie and Charlewood, or is it more widespread.

They do fly after all and we go through a lot of seed,
will they be dropping in Shanghai and Topeka,
and if not mass starvation, perhaps delinquency.

The whole of bird society breaking down, begging,
sexual license, belling cats, downing power lines
pushing each other into the air intakes of jets.

Or could it be positive, native species returning
Bluebirds, Martins sundry Warblers all jostling
wildly for the vacant nesting boxes and bird baths.

Maybe we should think big, Passenger Pigeons,
Carolina Parakeets, Labrador Ducks, who knows
what these misplaced Weaver Birds were up to.

Maybe we will see the great brown spurts of Bison
moving out of the river valleys with their attendant
packs of Grey Wolves and lumbering Plains Grizzlies.

And if I stop feeding the sleek Black Squirrels
that hang like misshapen fruit from my feeders,
what can I get for that?

                                                                                      Guy


                                                                     

Tuesday, April 10, 2012




by Max



The Cat Wishes to Use the Pen


To write doubtless,
about the space under the rug where he keeps things and
the spot under the coffee table where he also keeps things
including himself, dreaming of jungle, he would like to
immortalize lurking unseen.

Unless he wants a drink in which case he will write
of the white porcelain tub where he sits demanding
a drink from the faucet. Or yowling through the house
until someone follows him to his dish to witness
the wonder of a feeding cat.

He would include a triumphant inventory of the
clawed furniture, the red leather chair, the sofa, the
good  Lazy Boy. The declawed cat broke lamps but he
is all about fabric, sweaters, wedding dresses,
comforters and of course the good Lazy Boy.

He would surely write about laying across a warm chest
with one paw extended purring happily. But there will be
no mention  of the small white dog who sniffs his butt,
let him write his own poem.