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One of the many curiosities you'll find on this site. I may post and every new post may be on the front page. But I'm trying to move all that shit to a blog named blog, which is I guess more like a journal but then it would be under J and I'd probably overshare. V Stands for vulnerability. Hard shell, soft centre, and free provided your subscribe!
Quotation
If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience. Mao
Blender
Yesterday was tough, my first words something to the effect. “I’m signing out. I’m out of service as of now!” Then the internet went down.
Similar to Linus who goes out and it is raining and he says the usual “Rain rain go away, come again another day!” The rain stops, all of it, he gulps and runs inside slamming the door. He tells Lucy “Hide Me!” of course Lucy doesn’t believe his story so takes him outside, where 0f course, it is raining again. She challenges him to do it again. He does. Once again the rain stops., and they both run inside. The verses today, just that far. I told Michelle I had a swim liar power, (oh boy what a spell check, checking my spell with the word liar) similar power, though it was being granted rather many years after the request, living in Gimli at the time, as I am here, looking at my blender.
POWER OF PRAYER
I don’t believe in God. Every morning I pray and ask, please let me not say anything stupid today. Hasn’t worked even once. I tried downgrading the prayer a little, please don’t let me say anything stupid on Facebook. Nope, well there was the day there was no internet access in the Interlake. Must have been someone else’s payer.
I thought this was already posted on my site, but apparently not. Here it is today. I’ve also had good responses to my pear salad and my potato and egg salad.
RECIPE
Ready in 20 minutes
Serves 4 – 8 people
Ingredients
1 red onion
1-2 cans red kidney beans
1 can white kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 can chickpeas
1 red and/or orange bell pepper chopped
2 cloves garlic chopped
Few radishes sliced
Parsley and/or cilantro
Dressing
½ cup Red wine vinegar
½ cup Olive oil
¼ cup brown stevia
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
Preparation
Empty beans into colander rinse all beans and add to large mixing bowl
Chop all vegetables into bite sized pieces
Combine dressing ingredients into mason jar and shake vigorously to emulsify
Add dressing to bean mixture , toss to coat
Garnish with extra parsley and/or cilantro and radish slices
Keeps well in fridge for up to 4 days
A SUCCESSFUL ATHEIST
You have a Mennonite sounding last name.
How is it possible to believe
in nothing after every hymn you’ve sung
verses you have memorised, your father’s sermons;
Bible stories you have heard religious
paintings you have seen and seated
yourself at St. Augustine’s desk
+ under Menno’s hat. (Thanks Murray Toews)
History says anything that can last 2000 years
Shows enough strength for you to sing along
with “I know in whom I have believed.”
I have denied or declined my faith
you see there’s a problem right away my faith
how can I deny my faith
when I haven’t one; but three times I have left
the church let’s say this last time
I’ve chosen never to go back.
Obligation is a poor conductor.
Surely, I can see I can see I can look
+ see how hard it could be to remain upright, in the Lord.
You must believe
you once had a left leg,
below the knee, for certain,
you know this.
You once had two fleshy legs, now you have one.
I believe only this ~
I will breathe while I have
a leg to stand on, and one to curse
I am, he thought, putting down his pen.
His son brought him his pants hanging by their suspenders on a peg by the door.
_Wear these, Poppa. You’ll be less conspicuous. His underpants were red, his over pants were the colour of the sky in May, gray. It was raining.
_Never mind, he said closing the door. I couldn’t hear the rain again.
_Could you help me find my slippers. Have you seen my turpentine? I have some brushes could stand some cleaning.
_You’re a writer, not? Dad, We’ve locked up the turpentine. Which slippers do you want?
_ The ones from Eatons.
_They’ve gone out of business. Do you own a pair of slippers?
_I guess. I’m wearing a pair that will do. See how neatly they fit the prosthesis? Larry signed them for me, so I could always remember the pair I liked.
_Larry signed your slippers?
_No, no, let’s try a little harder. He signed my metal leg, my peg, the part my stump fits into. You see how nicely they fit?
_You just have one.
_Right, right. My left leg to keep it straight. He signed the socket.
Here let me show you.
_It’s OK Poppa, you’ve showed me before. I was just checking in. Have you got your hearing aids? I know how much you enjoy breathing!”
They both laugh, inside joke. He had nearly died a year ago. His time in hospital had marked him. He was certain they bungled more than one or two things. His lips were crooked, which they had not been BEFORE he nearly died. He put on his pants, his son offered him his arm to keep him from tumbling.
_Well I better go. His Dad had forgotten they had planned a trip to the barber’s but he didn’t have enough hair for the visit to be more than social.
_Sure thing! I’ve got some writing to do. Give me some warning I’ll be wearing my pants, so you can bring the kids next time.
Richard was beginning to think it might be time to read to his father. Or cause his father to be read to. Nah, he could still do it, at least until his Dad got that old man odour, he picked up in the hallways. Levi Lodge, what a name. Leviticus, Leviathan, jeans. He’d have to look that up, he thought, after his hybrid began to hum.
SUFFER
There will always be someone who suffers more deeply, more righteously, more rigorously, more appropriately with higher levels of pain; others with higher levels of accomplishment, achievement than me; like the amputee running a super marathon across the Sahara desert. Good for you. Good for the breath of God and good for fabulous prosthetics.
Me; how do I tell you about my puny sorrows, when even those have been commandeered by someone suffering more successfully than me and even yet from jahnt siede. Believe me, believe my pain, No matter. I agree Somebody has it worse. Sure. But believe you me when I tell you how much it hurts!
You share the story about the boy who used an axe to chop up the radiator hose his father beat him with. Pat commented on his father’s fury grown by his church and by extension, then at least, his God as he wielded the strap. Only twice did my father strap me black and blue. Both before I was sexually assaulted on holiday in 1965.
After we moved to Winnipeg in August of 1968 my parents would not believe my pain which had started earlier in summer; they accepted our rotund and jolly GP’s word that nothing was wrong. Initially the mis-diagnosis was “adjustment problems” as I was adjusting to puberty and living in a city.
After three months of suffering without belief, they did a simple test; they tried to bend my left heel to my left buttock. I screamed. I was in Emergency with a weight on my leg in no time flat. Dr Bruiser (that’s right!) pinned my hip with three four inch screws. After 3 months I was walking again, as if nothing had happened. While the pain in my hip subsided, it grew in my heart and my mind. My parents and I were through.
Similar circumstances in my ankle in 2017. FINALLY the surgeon took a closer look at a CT scan and he had to admit his attempt at an ankle fusion failed. I was the third out of 300, given the options I finally called for an amputation. But nobody laughed when under heavy sedation and an epidural block I joked; feeling some tugging, “Hey, you are pulling my leg.” Then it was gone. The left leg below the knee. My sense of humour grew, without it I would have no sense at all.
THIS IS WHERE
All I want
is to disappear
suck the disappointments
I have made
down the vortex
never to desire
never to want
never to make
give me pain
give me shame
give me suffering
cry cry cry I have towels
to wipe my cringing face
It’s dark in this hole
but I must be sitting
I find my flashlight
examine what it is
I sit on not a wheelchair
not a chair at all
but a box like in a play
with a lid and my little
light finds a crack
I pry open
the cube which
contains another box
with the word
PERSIST stamped on it
I open another box
stamped with PERSIST
inside that box I find
a heavy rock covered
with eagle shit tagged
JESUS WAS HERE
RACK IT UP
Let’s see let’s see there is nothing to see
I think we might have one in your size
Wait a minute two different poems
Focus what you look at but there is nothing boss
Nothing to see well then let’s get serious
Your feet to the fire, ah yes, FOOT to the fire
For lying about your broken your broken shoulder
Just a wise crack taking you down teaching Hubris
Hubris once again leaving so little to see Jimmy Bang
Clacking out of his sack again and again repetition
Notice you you switch persons whenever you’ve
Shit yourself bald with fear
and embarrassment
You’ve been
COMPLAINING
Shopping for Jesus, wrong store…..
These are the hanging complaints racked up according
To trash talking I imagine going against me
And brittle winds taking out my Christmas
hard cavity leaving nothing but saltwater gargle
Oceans oceans but here there is just a valley
With just enough hopler dopler to confuse my lame
ARROGANCE
Here we have arrogance in sizes large and extra large
Across the aisle here we have the cape doubling hoodie
There is nothing to it I am afraid of it like as a barking dog
Running zoomie circles around me with a take-down target
From target in polyester and lies of good working conditions
Here’s one in blue happy to say we have one in blue signed
By William Gass who ran out of well yeah, obviously but Gass.
Here we have the $999 version with a Gass signature and a complimentary
Copy of The Tunnel for free or his wowser essay On Blue being down
With a down filled comforter it is. But to sleep you huff and you puff
Crying a pig sized breakdown, a fiddler’s compassion your sister
Says, you can’t be much, but you can be kind, I’d rather “Leave it”
Shouting to the dog, whistling the Leave it to Beaver theme on the way home
One too many lines and not enough jokes.
OVERSHARING
oversharing in colours let’s see what’s left green and brown
Browns pretty hideous though
can you hear the people from outside
They are practicing ice removal
they are checking to see what life there is
I rice patch but I will not icefish for you next slide
so click click we have looked at arrogance we have looked
at oversharing and over here we have jealousy
JEALOUSY
There seemed to be a surplus of jealousy today what can we say Nobody wants to be you. On the other hand you don’t seem to want to be anybody else. Who can believe that!
You were in the hospital remember you wouldn’t wear any clothes remember you were naked naked naked naked and birthday suits well they’re harder to find if you want his capital age his birthday soon you may be on a waiting list would you like to be on a waiting list OK you could be on a waiting list 6 feet tall on a waiting list 6 feet tall
Can you hear the curtains close can you hear the curtain switch around my hospital bed ha what’s gonna happen do you think what’s gonna happen Google a good boy next live
My head is full of Lester Lester Lester by plus purbi per billing yes we’re hearing Diamond purbalingga that’s not for doing papala dingawe will skip this line I think and will start again with another
PRIDE
Hubris there that’s a good one we have a full rack of hubris you know all sizes from just a small little bit of hubris like all I’m gonna buy me a diamond ring so no normal course you’re not so I said with your eyes closed yet with your eyes closed did I say with your eyes closed of course with your eyes you’re gonna have to stop again stop again stop again you got nothing I got nothing but wishes now that’s in another department wishes yes the shelves are pretty bare for or wishes, oh Complaints, that’s a few ranks over. How did you get here?
I slipped, caught the grab bar and wrenched my shoulder. I thought it was broken that’s what it said on the first report, but not the one the doctor was looking at this is no poem
Because there was nothing too see.
Oh let’s see
RACK IT UP
NOTHING TO SEE
willowy orthopedist tends to (me) black and white film negatives (screen)racked and raised, poised above my caregiver draws my orthopedist’s attention A flash of interest, then look goes pro swivels her gaze to my power chair looks at me differently now maybe figures I come from money exploiting
my caregiver or the system
pro asks about my history picks up my chart with a look see
chronic this and chronic that every chronic chronicity
she hears me report chronic depression wrinkles her nose
as if I just farted she she sees a fat man raised up
seeking attention for his shoulder pain flash of interest,
Looks more closely again at the screen
Nothing else or otherwise to see, huh you
you don’t seem to have a fracture. You see there’s no crack for the light to get in
so quickly let’s go around round the rotator
shoulder cuff raising and moving exercises
here we go round the rotator cuff the rotator rotator cuff
There’s nothing I can see not sure
even why there was a referral to me.
E.R. probably said maybe and here’s a sling
to keep it in. Now get out she says professionally.
Note: This was last December or January and I still can’t sleep on my back because of the pain in my left shoulder.
Reading the paper with one hand
feel better or worse depending
on how you grade shame (nothing to see)
compared to pain (nothing to see). Whatever
I knew it hurt, and so did the pro.
But there was nothing to see.
But, you see, I read about the rush
At the hospital when the bus driver
With nothing to see could see nothing
In the blizzard a force of nature; his bus a force
of industry tumbling down cliffside.
I understand a longing to be
somewhere else happy and safe
not driving a busload of travelers
looking to get out of the storm
I read, nothing to see visibility zero even for God.
God can’t see them soon enough I don’t believe in God ever
even now for those on the bus tumbling into the ravine
screaming who do with their last breath
to take, no more sights to see or sounds
to hear and those remaining, surviving
will carry stories with fear and pain
nothing at all (there is) to see in their brain
who will believe them with nothing to see.
who will believe them with nothing to see.
When I am getting frustrated, impatient to find something, and the harder I look the harder it is to find I use the expression,. with a big sigh, “It’ll Turnip”
Right now I’m looking for voice recordings for Amy at ACCESS Radio. I have lots, we have lots. Can I find any, no. I hope they will turnip.
HOW MINDFULNESS WORKS FOR ME
I’ve stopped looking for what I can’t find
sounds big and important, doesn’t it
But what I’m saying is I let what’s lost
Find me. Let the lost object panic
Tear the house apart, I have
Better things to do.
