Moving House

Steve pointing you at the new page

So it's official: amo vitam is moving house. From today on, Steve and I will be found over at Wordpress, at amovitampress.wordpress.com. However, I hope that I'll succeed in pointing www.amovitam.ca at the new site, so you can just get at it with that address. But all the old content will stay around over here; so if you feel you really can't do without the borscht recipe that's posted here or another reading of one of our poems, they're not going anywhere.

If you've had a subscription to amo vitam via email, you can continue getting the blog posts into your inbox by hopping over to the new site, simply clicking the nice little button in the top right corner of the "Home" page and putting in your email adress. In fact, please do so right this moment! That way you'll never have to miss any of our oh-so-erudite-and-amazing posts. Especially not the forthcoming announcement!

Life, the Universe, and Moving House. See you on the new page!

Rose

delicate petal
languidly sleeping
in elaborate shadow.
lazy red whisper

x

x

x

x

x

x

x
rose.

(from the archives, 2005 or '06)

To Every Thing There Is a Season

March kind of got away on me. It's a really busy season; my head is full of thoughts and my soul and body too tired to process them all. But then the other day I heard this poem read at a gathering, and I was reminded of how much I love it. It brings up the image of a pendulum, swinging slowly back and forth, ticking away the times.
There is a time to every purpose under heaven.

SEASONS

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war,
And a time of peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Rain-drenched crocus buds. Spring is here.

Midwinter

MIDWINTER

A little bit
Of the receding sun
Now gilds the hills
Across the lake from me.
Midwinter's day
Draws to its early close,
Dusk paints the world
In silver-grey.
Against the frozen blue
The golden light of lamps
Begins to shine from living rooms,
The warmth of family meals
Scenting the air.
The cat
Purrs on the couch.

26. 12. 2013

Hope

HOPE

My cat hurt himself and I don't know what to do.
The government of one of the most powerful nations on the earth seems to have gone crazy.
A young man I know of broke his neck, and no one knows if he will ever walk or use his hands again.

But
today
a baby came into the world.
A small
ordinary
baby boy
with a button nose
a tiny chin
dusky eyes
(which want to stay shut most of the time
if the photos are to be believed)
and a lip
that is
a perfect Cupid's bow.

Hope
is greater than
fear.

10.10.2013

Holy Sonnet X

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke;  why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more;  Death, thou shalt die. 

(John Donne)

Refrigerator Art

Because I didn't post a picture last time, this week you get two. It's Art (note the capital!). Refrigerator Art, to be precise, because that is its locus. No, not its focus - what that is, I leave you to decide for yourself; just the locus - the place where it's at. Or where it was when I created it - Art is transient; it's all been moved around since then. Art is also in the eye of the Beholder. That's called Reader Response Criticism, or something. Probably something.

So here you are: one Poem, entitled "Midsummer Night's Ball":

Midsummer Night's Ball

And then, there's a Sculpture (note capital!). No, not a Sculpture really - an Arrangement? Oh, I know: it's a Visual Poem (note: TWO capitals!). It's entitled - ummm... how about "Untitled"? That means you can pick whatever title suits you. Go for it. (Incidentally, they're little bendable magnetic guys which I picked up at the San Francisco airport, in the SFMOMA gift shop. Aren't they cute?)

Untitled

Life, the Universe, and Refrigerator Art. Magnetising, ain't it.

Hyperbole and Oxymoron

This is highly symbolic (sim-BOL-lick).

My son brought home a poetry exercise, and he had to give an example of hyperbole. Now, I know what hyperbole is, pretty much - but what I don't know is how to pronounce it. Is it HIGH-per-bowl, or high-PURR-bolly?

Well, thank goodness for Google; it has the power to prevent the unspeakable embarrassment of mispronounced literary terminology. And that, just now, was hyperbole, the "unspeakable embarrassment" part. High-PURR-bolly, as it turns out - go figure.

You really need a pronunciation guide for those things; there's no way you can guess whether the individual terms are pronounced the way you think, or put the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle. I was doing the fancy pronunciation on "oxymoron" - called it ox-IMMER-on; it sounded so much more literary that way - until someone looked at me funny for it and said "Is that how you pronounce that?" Seeing as she was an English BA who had actually gone to a brick-and-mortar university for her degree, unlike me who got hers from a distance ed school and learned all these words from books instead of live people, I thought she might have a point, so I looked it up. And to my great chagrin is turns out to be an OXy-MOR-on - you know, as in "bovine draft animal of low intelligence". It's from the Greek words for  "sharp" and "dull", so an oxymoron is a sharpdull - a contradiction in terms. And a moron, it appears, is a dullard, i.e. not the sharpest knife in the drawer (and that, in turn, is a metaphor. MET-a-for, not met-TAF-er. Sigh.).

English is not the easiest language to learn to speak by reading it. I got laughed at once, when I hadn't been in Canada all that long, for calling an executive (ex-ECK-you-tiff) an exe-CUE-tiff. Well, excuse me, they execute power, don't they? They don't ex-ECK-ute it, they exe-CUTE it. Cute, I know. I was making the mistake of applying logic to the English language. Hah. Silly me.

Life, the YOU-ni-vurs, high-PURR-bollies and OXy-MOR-ons. When in doubt, look it up.

You Can Only Do So Much

Poetry. Magnetic. Yup.

You can only do so much. You know? Several of my friends are gearing up for this year's Christmas art show at the local gallery. I missed the deadline. Well, really, I let it intentionally slip by. I didn't have anything ready to put in, unless I was going to offer them a few pieces from last year, including a couple they had rejected then. But you know what? I just didn't feel like doing the art show this year. I'll go and admire my friends' work, and maybe even find some new artists to admire, and then I'll go home and enjoy the fact that I didn't have to stress about getting artwork ready for it myself.

It feels a bit weird, though, not doing it this year, because last year's show was a resounding success for me. I sold more pieces than I ever have before in my life. You'd think I'd strike the iron while it was hot, wouldn't you? Or, as it were, strike the clay while it was cold, wet and squishy. (When it's hot, you don't want to go near it, let alone strike it - the glaze firing runs to 1200°C, it melts everything up to and including some types of rocks.) But, well, I've got other things on my mind. And the whole thing about last year's show was that I did it purely for fun. The pieces I put in, I'd made for fun; participating in the show, putting things together for submission, that was fun; and when I sold stuff and got a cheque out of the deal - hoo boy, you bet that was fun! But it was bonus fun, not the point of the exercise.

Whereas right now - what do I do for fun? Write weird magnetic poetry. Or rambly blog posts. And watch my favourite movies, reread my favourite English authors, develop crushes on Lord Peter Wimsey, Inspector Alleyn, Edmund Bertram and the actors who play them, and occasionally cook or bake something good to eat that's not the same-old-same-old thing I make so often it bores me to tears (or causes tears, anyway; the large amount of chopped onions required might exacerbate the boredom-induced lachrymosity).

The thing is that what passes for my work right now, namely my grad school studies, actually requires a fair amount of creative thought and effort. And I have only so much of that creative energy. When I need to write essays for school, or even, as is the case this week, stories and poems (which qualify as fun, or at least creative satisfaction, in their own right), my capacity for "getting things done" is pretty much used up.

It's a little embarrassing at times when people ask me if I have "done any pottery lately" (or painting, or soap-making, or insert-any-of-the-dozens-of-hobbies-I've-had-in-the-past), and I have to answer, quite plainly, "Nope!"

I've composed a lemon cake on Saturday, though, does that count? It's quite delicious. And baked a few poems. And I think I almost figured out whodunnit in "Death and the Dancing Footman"; that takes time, too, you know? I think it should count. You can only do so much.

Life, the Universe, and Good Things To Do. Sometimes you need to get choosy about what you spend your time on.

Presently

The cemetary under the cedar trees

PRESENTLY

I didn't know
she had been gone a year
this little old English lady
so tiny and so sweet.
"Mrs C., your hold is here!"
"Thank you, dear,
we'll come down presently!"
I did not know.
But here she lies
under the cedar tree
next to her son
of whom
I also hadn't known.
Her husband
small and slight
and such a gentleman
left to himself.
I'm sure he'll meet her
presently.

Written at the cemetary, 22.9.2012

Peaches Behind a Void

Me, contemplating some luscious fruit on the kitchen counter: "Peaches. Peaches! Should I have a peach?"
Son: "Yes. Have a peach. As long as it isn't behind a void."

What he was referring to is, of course, this:

Life, the Universe, and Peaches Behind a Void. Ah, the power of poetry.

Poetry of Various Descriptions

There's magnetic poetry:

...and gustatory poetry (blueberry, if you must know):

... and horticultural-culinary poetry (the large orange-red flowers are nasturtiums, which tastes like watercress, the small red ones scarlet runner bean blossoms, which taste faintly of beans, the blue flowers borage, the leaves of which taste like cucumber with prickles on them, and the yellow petals calendula, which don't taste like much of anything but look pretty. And the green stuff is lettuce. Dress with vinaigrette, consume.).

Life, the Universe, and Poetry. It takes all kinds.

UNTITLED (Happiness)

When you can feel
the turning of the earth worm
when you can hear
the dissonance of the spheres
you never can have
the happiness of others
that comes from the contentment
of living life at ease

Yet
you can have
the keen and piercing pleasure
at the vast jewelness of stars
you can find voices
with the butterflies
and drown in ecstasy
at ocean's roar

And sometimes
you can even hear
the spheres in harmony.

(amo, 3.8.2012)

Coffee Shop Poetry

So I was in the coffee shop this morning, waiting around for the opening of the bookstore that it shares the building with. And I committed a Random Act of Poetry. I blame it on April being Poetry Month. Here it is, for your edification, in its barely polished glory (identifying details have been obliterated to protect the nocent).

COFFEE SHOP POETRY

Paper sleeve

on paper cup
(where "paper" is a somewhat
metaphorical term).
Holding four dollars' worth
of hot milk, sugar and
Earl Grey.

Four.
Flippin.
Dollars.

Double it, and I could get
a gallon of milk, a whole
package of tea, and a kilo
of sugar.
But no paper cups,
and not a single
paper
sleeve.

17/4/2012

Life, the Universe, and Poetry. I'm sure there's a lesson in here somewhere.

Poetry

So there I was, standing in my kitchen, weeping as I was contemplating the beauty of poetry. (I was also chopping several large onions at the time, but that's entirely beside the point). So I thought I would share some with you (poetry, not onions). How about something by The Bard, say, Sonnet 116?

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds...

And then, a few hundred years later, there's this:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea...

If you think that the guy who wrote that must have been on drugs, you are, of course, entirely correct (if somewhat of a philistine). Coleridge was addicted to laudanum, a mixture of opium and alcohol, the 19th-century painkiller of choice. But you don't need to be high to appreciate lines like this:

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran...

I haven't got the faintest notion what "mazy" might be, but it sure sounds lovely, doesn't it? Truth be told, I really don't "get" Kubla Khan, actually, but that's perfectly alright. I love it anyway. It's rather like a semi-abstract painting: there are recognizable shapes in it, weaving in and out of the colour-motion on the canvas; it's beautiful, even if (or perhaps because) you can't tell "what it's supposed to be".

There's just one thing I wonder about: Why Alph? Why not, say, Bert? "Where Bert, the sacred river, ran..." Has a certain ring to it, don't you think? No, actually, me neither.