Tag Archives: Photography

Solastalgia (tanka)

4 Replies

IMG_1215 (2)

 

Solastalgia (an alternative etymology)

solas in Gaelic
means light, solastalgia,
a longing for light

hidden under a bushel
at the end of a tunnel.

The challenge over at earthweal is to “Write a new poem on the theme of Solastalgia” which is “a form of emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change.”

 

 

Machu Picchu (poem)

16 Replies

 

Machu Picchu

I

Backpacks
bucket lists
smart phones
selfie sticks
altitude pills
attitude pills,
sun hats
sun block
Lonely Planet Guidebook,
don’t drink the water
don’t eat the salad
no ice please
this is our tribe
this is our tribe.

II

The Incas long ago
left for the valley
to grow their quinoa,
wheat and corn
but we keep coming
to look for something
that may have been left behind;
we are a benign invader
a tad earnest maybe
mild-mannered to a fault
but hand us a weak wifi signal
and we go ape-shit.
There are those among us
who have already abandoned
the physical world –
I see them
sitting in restaurants
heads bowed and thumbs
working beneath the table
connecting by radio waves
to a digital stream
of consciousness and banality.
I am he as you are he
and we are a river of electrons.

 

Photos by Marie Feeney

This poem was originally published in The Galway Review.

Taking part in Open Link Night over at dverse

Pigeon (Anthropocene Poem)

33 Replies

sunrise-4

 

Pigeon

Early December,
downtown Vancouver
and it’s raining
more than the usual
cats and dogs,
it feels like the city
is trapped
in a giant car wash.

All year long the weather
has been acting like a child
that hasn’t been taught limits.

Three months of summer drought.

We woke up one morning
and white ash from forest fires
covered the deck,
and that evening down on the beach
we were treated to
a red ball sunset
worthy of Beijing or Mumbai.
The Indian guy in the coffee shop
told me it made him feel homesick.

Something’s happening to the frogs.

The Oregon spotted frog is Canada’s most threatened amphibian,
I saw that on TV program called
“Canada’s Most Threatened Amphibians”.
Also threatened is the northern leopard frog.

Sea stars have sea star wasting syndrome

We’re losing song birds, bats and bees

The world is an orchestra
and the string section is leaving
one by one.

Anthropocene
Anthropocene
Sixth Extinction,
soon there will only be us.

******
At the corner of Georgia and Granville
a pigeon waddles through a puddle
created by a blocked storm drain

and I’m thinking:
Who’d be a pigeon on a day like this?
Who’d be a pigeon at a time like this?

 

The theme over at dVerse is “soliloquies”, I think this sort of fits!

Also taking part in Open Link over at earthweal ( a new blog which is well worth checking out)

 

The Land Called Where You Are Not (poem)

12 Replies


The Land Called Where You Are Not

that place you will never go
it can be one hundred miles away
it can be a stone’s throw
but there is one thing that is sure
there is one thing that you know
in the land called Where You Are Not
you will always be a no show.

 

(I located my inner Seuss over Christmas)

Taking part in Open Link over at dVerse

Bones of Contention 2 (poem)

3 Replies

img_0168 (3)

 

Bones of Contention

Bones to pick
bones to chew on
Anderson, Chris and Don
but there are no metrics to measure by
so the discussions drag on and on
and the screen splits into two heads
and the screen splits into four heads
and the screen splits into eight heads
a pundit arrives
a pundit leaves
a pundit gets indignant
a pundit gets emotional
a pundit gets that gotcha smirk
there is talk of smoke and fire
there not been one without the other
and I see this distraction of pundits
this deflection of pundits
this confusion of pundits
standing looking at the horizon
across an open plain,
oblivious, while behind them
Rome burns.

Peripatetic Blues

15 Replies
  • IMG_0167

Peripatetic  Blues

The signs along the highway
are leaking semiotic fluid

psychotic cacti strike a calculated pose

linguistic lizards parse the parched desert floor

Slim’s feeling demotic,
neurotic, anecdotal, over-used
he’s looking for a sanctuary
the fisherman and the shoes

he’s got those my way is  the highway
peripatetic  blues.

 

Taking part in Open Link Night over at dverse.

Slim’s Sudbury Vacation ( a poem and a post-poem interview) 2

2 Replies

IMG_1385 (3)_LI

 

The Stack

And what a

beautiful

plume we have

here, Nigel,

 

a plume with

time on its

hands, look at

it loping

 

across the

sky like a

giant Chinese

dragon, let’s

 

hail a cab

to find the

plume’s end, where

the last wisps

 

of vapor

drift upwards

and a blue

mist hangs, yes,

 

there it is

in the sky

to the west

stalking the

 

cars in the

parking lot

outside the

big box mall

 

while the sun

bawls and the

sky gets all

indignant.

 

Post Poem Interview 

You played well out there tonight, Slim.

Slim: Well, you know it’s not about me, it’s about the poem, I’m just part of the process.

Are you suggesting that you are perhaps some kind of conduit linked to some higher power, some higher resource.

Slim: No, I am just mouthing platitudes, isn’t that the idea?

Quite, so I am sure everyone is wondering, who is Nigel?

Slim: He’s my cousin.

That’s a very English name.

Slim: That’s hardly surprising, he is English.

Do you call him ’Nige’ for short?

Slim: No!

It sounds like he could be a member of one of those floppy-haired synth bands from the eighties, you know, like Soft Cell or Human League or The Pet Shop Boys. Didn’t XTC have a song about a guy called Nigel. Is he in a band?

Slim: He’s a welder.

Does his hair not get in the way?

Slim: He’s bald, where is this going?

(mumbles) somewhere slow or nowhere fast. So tell me about the structure of this poem.

Slim: I took the 3 syllable line, 4 line verse , I have been using, and applied it to a poem that I was never happy with and it worked, at least it made me trim a lot of the fat and I came up with a better poem, I think?

……….what? Sorry I nodded off there for a bit. Well, I’m sure you are itching to get back to the dressing room and join the rest of the lads in a lukewarm bath of diluted sweat.

Slim: Can’t wait!

 

 

 

Thom Yorke takes a walk on Halloween Night(2)

15 Replies

IMG_0194

 

Given the week that it is, I decided to bring this poem back from the dead…..

 

Thom Yorke takes a walk on Halloween Night

The dead move slowly
through the graveyard,
they are few at first
but as they pass
each row of headstones
grey fists punch
through mounds of earth
in a manic salute
and the throng grows
and the throng grows
and the night howls
and the fog curls
and a thin cloud
bisects the moon
and at the edge
of the graveyard
is an old well
and at the bottom
of that well
is a little boy
and that little boy
is crying for help
and that little boy
is Thom Yorke.

Taking part in Open Link Night over at dverse !

 

Gravity, Don’t Fail Me Now.. (gym gnostic 2)

4 Replies

 

IMG_1181 (4)

And your gravity fails and negativity don’t pull you through….Bob Dylan

Know your gym……Slim Volume

 

gym gnostic 1

two geezers
pink and steaming
towelling down
after a shower
discussing gravity
how it is not fixed
how it decreases
with distance from the earth’s core
how, if one was to climb to the top of Everest,
since weight is the product of mass and gravity
one would weigh less at the top of Everest
and Slim’s thinking
this is one fucking erudite conversation
and he wants a piece of it
so he points out that
one would regain that weight
on returning to sea level
and one of the geezers replies
yeah but you’d probably burn 10,000 calories
climbing up and down the fucking mountain
and a nearby jock encased in breathable fabric
says shit, I’d burn that in 40 minutes on the rowing machine
and Slim fires back wryly
keep telling yourself that
and the locker room erupts in laughter
and in that moment
basking in the unbearable lightness of banter
Slim defies gravity and levitates
above the bacterial swamp
that is the locker room floor.