LAUGHING MAN

Clean shirt dear writer within, a white shirt with orange and cherry jam stains, but properly buttoned. You weren’t ready for anything this morning. I wasn’t ready for anything this morning, except a thorough sponge bath out of my new basin that overlaps my lap. My new medicine chest (I have many medicines) arrived this morning and will be installed by our carer this afternoon. Time is 2:10. Ten minutes wasted on getting started.

And here’s some time to claim about my pain is pain is pain. is too painful to write down properly. To “claim” about is a significant cognitive variance, as the word complain was the desired word, just not desired enough.

I will die. But surely not today.

“The pleasure of the text is that moment when my body, when it pursues its own ideas — for my body does not have the same ideas as I do.” (17 Pleasures of the Text, Barthes) My prose of the moment is called Pieces of my Mind/My Body in Parts, getting  its kicks in the  head, as R.K.  said. 

My brain pursues fragments with fervor, my body is rarely aware of where it is, reminded when I am wounded, or set on fire.

My anger when I shout out fully loaded with pain at the intellectuals and ani-intellectuals  who laugh at my sentences and misguided secrets deriding my punctuation,  I am reading I am reading but the chagrin remains. My cat rests like this, on the claw sharpening cardboard. Laugh  at my  filing  cabinet if you like,  I use them to  keep my dirty laundry.  

Posted in Abject Alphabet (Fits and starts), ARCHIVES, Blog, Listen Here, My (new) Left Foot, My Daily Fog, pain room blogish, Preachers' Kids, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

JUST A TAD SHORT

 

Morose ghost evades my grasp.

Tired of looking for something to read I’ve challenged my subconscious, to write a story at the very leash some flash fiction that thrives on made up and pretend stuff you know characters that aren’t like you much and you don’t much like me. So an antagonist then, not a protagonist. Tad and Lilly, which, then is then. Let’s not get caught up in glue or in blue. Tad painted race cars for a living.

So line by line the trick is I just make up a line or a sentence that for instance, resemble making doughnuts on the parking lot with the first snow in the foothills. One he painted you see connects the next paragraph which is n to I repeat not necessary. But one of hs painted cars liked doing parking lot doughnuts. 

We, that is writer 1st person her and  me, sold our house without disclosing the morose ghost with a taste for translated German and Russian novels abounding with failing writers, artists, doctors, clerics, which the original owners who were selling the house had left, having come to terms with the ghost who would have gladly moved with them to East Side New York, right close to the Mennonite Hostel their offer did not mention the presence of mostly vegetarian beatnick peaceniks.

This  was not disclosed by the estate agent who knew Mennonites where mostly harmless though they did sometime break into harmonious hymn singing at important moments when Tad and Polly Ann Sharkey where making love causing Tad to lose his erection, and Polly to lose her patience. They were selling the bed with the apartment just in case the bed itself was hexed. It was already in the guest room and might have suited the ghost. They were keen to buy a new bed from the C’mon Down Cowboy Mattress Discount store. BANG! No gun, no gunshot what just happened

Tad and Lily were rolling merrily along when the hip couple turn into a pair who believe they. can buy a mattress from a mattress clearance centre and actually improve their bedtime on the bed kind of sex. Lilly was more interested in sex in other places, where they were in danger. Tad said we’re married aren’t we? What more danger do we want? HE realized as he said it he should have chosen his words more carefully

He once, note, once; tried dress up as a priest but he didn’t know any Catholic, and Polly didn’t find including a rosary as part of the cosplay erotic. There’s a word his semi-conscious had started to bring forward. Cosplay, erotic not so much. Soon, Amazon would deliver a package of argyle socks. One for him and two for her. This indeed is the day the Lord has made. Tad smiled, he would take it from here.

 

~

 

Definitely not enough of my subconscious, semiconscious, dream conscious in here, silly bit but I am writing. I’ve decided to let things stand. Or lie down, or sit, our hang around, staying alive, though. Breathing, always breathing!

 

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INTUITION

I IS FOR INTUITION

(AND LOTTA OTHER THINGS)

INTUITION

This is your
guess the next
will be

 

OPEN TUNING

my body
my wound
so tightly
wound
around

my brain
vibrates
receiving
ideas like
starlings

murmurer
swing into
every open
neuron

 

Posted in Abject Alphabet (Fits and starts), ARCHIVES, Blog, Envoi, Health, Listening, My Daily Fog, My Life in Pieces, pain room blogish, Poems, Preachers' Kids, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

LISTEN DON’T LISTEN

HÖRT NICHT ZU

Gott du hast mir als Kind aus Wagen hoch oft gehoben.
Die Engeln singen alle Mit Trost
und Gedanken, du gibst mir nur eine Sprache zu lernen
lachest du mir auf mein Eisen Baum
so spuck ich in deine Augen! Du bist
Ubu ubu ubu und mein Wieb sagt’s dem Hund Quit it,
Quit it, und er hört nicht zu.

 

DON’T LISTEN

God, you often lifted me out of stupid red wagons
when I was a child. The angels sang in comfort and thought
you only gave me a language to learn.

You laugh at me in my iron tree
I spit in your eyes! You are
Ubu ubu ubu . My wife

tells the dog; Quit it,
Quit it, and he doesn’t
listen.

 

 

Posted in Abject Alphabet (Fits and starts), ARCHIVES, Blog, Listen Here, My Daily Fog, Pain Room, pain room blogish, Preachers' Kids, Preachers' Kids, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

WISH

For now, this poem I wrote today stays here on my website. I’ve no interest in debate, or signalling virtue, though I may change my mind. I admire Duncan Mercredi and others, who do put themselves on Facebook accepting the vulnerability of speaking publicly.
 ~
At the end of our family meetings when we were young, and I was a father, we got to say a hope and or a wish, which returned us to a good place as we had started by naming one thing we felt good about what we’d done or shared with someone else. A success story perhaps. I know I’m privileged, and because of my bodies pain now there’s not much I feel I can do.  I can practice being kind and I can make a wish. Oh yeah, there’s always reading, writing and love. 

WHAT IF BOMBS, MISSILES & DRONES
(Instead of death
instead of explosives)

Image by Allan Hessler, book available from Radiant Press.

dropped love
dropped hope
dropped water
dropped sweets
dropped tea
dropped bread
dropped coffee
dropped licorice
dropped chocolate
dropped peanuts
dropped lollipops
dropped halvah
dropped oranges
an endless list (1)
all allergen free, all sugar free,
gluten free, dairy free (2)
religion free, conspiracy free
free for everyone goodies
for everyone
a goodie bomb, or say
dropping goodie bags
brown bagged
 drifting down (4)
in soft silken
parachutes
all good things
from all over the world
with one instruction
please enjoy in peace.

[1] Please add something you think children should have in a goodie bag at any time
[2] even every fruit and nut, it’s a magic wish, people.
[3] No sponsors no politics no celebrities just a magic fleet flying kindness,
room to breathe, and stillness to everyone whether they are good or not.
[4] no kites no fighting kites no troopers not drone just a brown bag of respite and peace.

 

Posted in ARCHIVES, Blog, MANIFESTOS, My Life in Pieces, Poems, Uncategorized, What Men Do | Leave a comment

JAYDEN RYGA’S SPANAKOPITA

Michelle and me hire at least two  students every year who work as a team with up to another 2 care aides. We are both full-time wheelchair users Michelle has MS and Diabetes and I have a lot of things, most create pain. I chose to have my left leg  beneath the knee be amputated to eliminate a terrible Stage Four Flat Foot with an ankle fusion that went wrong. The surgeon’s third out of 300. Mercifully,
I am in the 30% of amputees that feel no or very little “phantom pain” after surgery. We are fortunate to have a well rounded support team that allows us to advertise and hire those we wish to do the work we can no longer  do. One of  our favourites, especially once it’s on the table, is making spanakopita. I will feature other specialities by our carers in 2024, 

Jayden, working with my shabby memory and several cookbooks and a quick check in with Jo back in Winnipeg where this was also a Chalmers  family favourite, and never used parsley for this! Dill only please which is delicious in this recipe. So Jayden (yes she is George Ryga’s grand-daughter) has accumulated a lot of sources to make it her way, the way we present it here, 

Ingredients

375 grams Feta Cheese
1 bunch fresh dill
black pepper
1 large white onion
600 grams frozen spinach
200 grams fresh spinach
5 garlic cloves
250 grams ricotta cheese
3 eggs
olive oil
one pack Filo

 

What to do
→ Heat oil in pan, once hot, add chopped onion and garlic. Once onions have caramelized, add frozen Spinach.
→ Wait 5-10 minutes then add fresh spinach.
→While cooking spinach, mix eggs, feta, ricotta and chopped dill in a separate bowl. Mix together.
→ Begin layering filo in ~ 8×12 inch pan. Add 5-6 single sheets, brushing with olive oil between each layer.
→ Preheat the oven to 350°F.
→ Combine cheese and spinach mixture. Add this mixture to the filo-lined pan
→ Top this pan with 3-4 more sheets of filo. (brushing with olive oil)
→ Bake for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown

 

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FAIR CONTROL

Revised November 21, 2023

It’s been about a month since I’ve been active on my website, and a long time since I did anything more than repost memes on Facebook. I,  there is that horrible work again a work in progress,  word, could be (a new book by George Bowering) because I’ve finished a 170 page manuscript, a hybrid including writhing (leaving it in) that looks like prose, monologues, dialogues and yes a lot 0f stuff that looks like poetry.

The shortest so far is this

TABLE FOR TWO

I sit down with pain.
It eats me. 

My body weighed in on how much my work at a desk (oh, stop! I tried to increase my daily step count but my back won’t stand for it!) and bending my knees. I have two of those, just not the left leg below there need because pain can be that bad, hurt so much you’d rather have a prosthetic. I’m worried my artificial hips are showing wear and tear after 10 years, but the pain in my red knee, might be helped by a sound wave therapy. That would be my right knee. That would be better than amputating the leg  above the knee woe doggies!

But what really hurts me the most right now and has for months is my right shoulder and my cervical spine, depicted on the X-ray.   We persuaded, that’s me and my wife Michelle Hewitt ( a disability rights advocate),  my GP the time had come that only an increase in my Suboxone would push the pain back into the station. We’re working on it, and I’m feeling an improvement, but it’s not like the ointment, salve? Diclofenac that kicks in just minutes after the topical has been applied. My body is recalibrating, to the new dose. 

A reminder I need myself sometimes,  that I nearly died just 16 months ago. My body is still recalibrating. LOOK show was exhibited in Winnipeg with Murray Toews at the helm of a large crew, 12 artists responded to my writing, whatever moved them, and sometime me dropping in images that I saw with stunning outcomes last week in April 1st week in May. I bailed. Mental Illness, with a capital I among my less visible disabilities, coming with OCD and chronic depression with anxiety, especially performance anxiety, sir I tell myself, not being there was another exhibition bit another part of the show. It’s not quite finished, we’re putting a program catalogue together delayed also by my delays, and Murray is moving forward with the virtual gallery. I could be working on that.

So 600 words, new words 

And I revised this poem again. 

Revised after lunch, October 5th, 2023. I caught the cut my editor suggested and have accepted it here. Much improved. Thanks Don! Fair control was introduced into my vocabulary and understanding by my new found psych in Kelowna.

FAIR CONTROL

 My psych understood I was after
“fair control,” not opioids to feed
an addiction. This means understanding
my pain  never goes away. Broken up prose like this
might get to be a poem someday
but now I am waiting for four pm
and my next flight of meds. You can
tell I’m in wine valley, though no more
for me since I chose to have surgeons
cut off my left leg below the knee five years ago.

I take the lowest dose of Suboxone
that gives me fair control so I can
keep the chocks blocking the pain
from getting on the plane,
 med enough for fair control to free
free my imagination/ be real, you mean
free your hands your arms and every joint
to make it possible to sit and tell the story
about what ails me one finger at a time.

that’s me I’m talking about snapping suspenders
and climbing aboard my gravity defying
writing machine and fly fly fly.

 

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The Mad Phoenician Meets Julia Kristeva

BEGINNING AGAIN
I have been writing the Abject Alphabet since the 1980s, after Kroetsch’s Sad Phoenician, I must be the Mad Phoenician I thought. I met Julia Kristeva when she was promoting a novel which I’ve since given away. I discovered my friend Peter Dueck (rhymes with dew ick) was in Toronto for national meetings as I was, I was. We were looking for something to do the evening before our meetings started, and I saw that Julia Kristeva was launching her new novel Samurai at the University of Toronto. If we hoofed it we might get to the hall in time. We did we did.

Julia Kristeva

Oh man, the watch, the ring, the teeth, Hooooolleee! So. crucify me for objectifying Kristeva. 
 

I sure did buy many of her critical texts including Power of Horror with its focus on abjection and Black Sun about melancholia and depression.  As a neurodivergent this was significant, as was the Revolution in Poetic Language. These books were sold at the top of the lecture hall in Toronto, I did not have the legs even back in the 1990s to go back down the stairs, and up again to leave.  

Peter still had the legs, probably still does, at least two of them, me one less. I was too embarrassed to send him down to the bottom of the lecture hall, and/or wave her to wait as the line was petering out, I might say, for him or me or new pro-nuns twee I’ve lost the drift, the gist the grist I flail. Her texts have been significant in my life, however unsigned. When Peter and me crossed Yonge St back to our separate hotels, we were slowed by a party, second last win before the Jays won the whole she-bang, the party already in swing!

Kristeva is still living as far as I know, her reputation somewhat tarnished for meeting with Bulgarian spooks reminding her she might be free in France, but her family was not. I read Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir. I read Barthes and Melanie Klein, all now apparently out of date (except The Plague good for another edition.) like I dreamed last night being sent away from the University of Manitoban newspaper that I co-edited for a year, and Artspace where I had been President of the Board.  And where my Look show curated by Murray Toews opened on April 29. I was too afraid. I was too anxious to go, filling the porcelain bowl with blood a shade it could be argued was haemorrhoidal or amber grease, I crapped out once again. 

I have just been reminded by looking for Kristeva’s  picture that she has been married to David Sollers for fifty years. Mymother, Susann with 2nns and Enns with 2 nns (nee Klassen) was married to my father Frank F. Enns for more than fifty years. My parents, however lived together. 

My mother’s  first photo portrait, and wallet sized. She will likely be getting used to dentures, having most all of her teeth pulled when she was 17. I draw your attention to her wrist and her finger.

Posted in Abject Alphabet (Fits and starts), ARCHIVES, Blog, Dreams, My Daily Fog, My Life in Pieces, Namedfropping, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

IF I WAS

JIMMY BANG’S IF I WAS BLUES 

If I were a sniper I would shoot myself in the mirror.

If I were a stripper I would take all your clothes off with a bump and grind.

If I were a spy I would let you know where I am.

If I were a sinner I would never be able to forgive myself.

If I were a victor I would mourn my losses.

If I was as pretty as I feel I wouldn’t touch myself.

If I were a dancer I would hold up the wall.

If I were a robber I would stick-up myself.

If I were a cop I would resist arrest.

If I were a carpenter I would cut off my balls with a box cutter.

If I were a doctor I would make myself sick.

If I were a lawyer I’d sue myself for malpractice.

If I were a gardener I wouldn’t let myself in.

If I was I would never be. 

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PEAR SEASON

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

 

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