Writing Out Loud
...to Keep My Head Above Water and Maybe Figure Some Stuff Out. I'm playing out lines of thinking, not positing truths. Let's play. (see timelesspitch.com and whichwrites.com for writer CA Ives)
Tender

Friday, May 26, 2023
In case you wondered what the hell they're thinking
Thursday, May 25, 2023
Right Here
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CAI (a self-portrait with Midjourney) |
So much of love is proximity
would you love me
if I were closerif I were right there
would you care to know
me deeply truly madly as I am?
Would you see what no one sees and
BAM!
be mine?
Or pass me by as too familiar
not quite special
close to home?
What if I were right there?
Would you love me then?
Here I am.
Saturday, April 15, 2023
Too much
Filled past full, overflowing a dance between nothing and over the top, a constant ensmalling, perpetual dousing, ongoing constricting, trying so hard to be enough but not ever please never
too much
Monday, February 6, 2023
Pretty enough
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My Mirror (CAI with Midjourney) |
The body I got is a middling model, nothing special. Normal. Pretty enough to stand out in a room with only a few pretty girls, but overlookable if there's a beauty or two around. Prettier than plain. So I spent the first half of my life feeling average, not unattractive but nothing special, imperfect in unattractive ways, while at the same time, finding out I was still pretty enough to attract the unexpected and unwanted attention of Men. Not the prettiest girl in the room, but maybe the prettiest one he thinks he can get somewhere with. Or, a colleague who suddenly notices I'm prettier than he thought, and changes how he sees me to sexualize me. I felt like hiding whatever beauty I did have, so it wouldn't be dangerous, while simultaneously wishing to feel desirable, beautiful, attracted to. Being young really sucked my life force in so many ways in a woman's body.
Now I am not young, not pretty. I'm beautiful in a way that shocks me in the mirror. Not because I am more beautiful now than I was, when I was young and pretty enough, but because I am better at seeing beauty, my beauty. Better than most people. I can see it, now. I'm startling to myself. I see myself like I see a photograph - the humanity, the unique structure, the expression. My eyes meet my eyes.
Maybe I feel the safety of the cloak of age and imperfection - for most men, I have strayed beyond comparisons of female beauty or sexualization into a neutered territory of aunt, teacher, "older lady." Maybe I am not as afraid to be "maturely beautiful" as I was to be pretty, because I know most people won't even see me at all.
Maybe I just stopped feeling like other people's opinions had any relevance at some point. Maybe I shifted my standards, shifted my view from my deviations from the beauty standard to just seeing what's there. And what's there is more than enough.
Pretty enough for me.
The Universal desperately wants to know itself through life. That's the purpose of life. As me, as you, as them, as grass, as molecules, as bacteria, as dogs. Desperate isn't the right word - passionately? encompassingly? yearningly? The Universal is being itself. We are cells in that body.
The Universal takes joy in knowing itself by being.
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The Universal takes joy in knowing itself by being from Midjourney |
Earth is a tender morsel, a tiny delight that fills the mouth.
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
god knows
Friday, October 7, 2022
Spending time
Tuesday, October 4, 2022
Ordinary Magic (A Maverick Missive)
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Lacey Decorations (CAI) |
is this world's ordinary not extraordinary enough
for you?
how would one miracle more be a cure for your incessant longing?
it's true,
but in that sneery way he has of always being right
so right away I turn away
unwilling to quite accept his flayed refrain
its insult contained in the idea that I could
- like taking some kind of potion -
that I should
twist my heart and mind and notions
refine myself until I feel
- actually feel -
complete and joyously ecstatic,
bearing witness
to only ordinary magic.
Tuesday, September 6, 2022
Life's funny that way
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All is light (CAI 2019) |
Thursday, September 1, 2022
The taste of love
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
An Open Letter to The Kids in the Hall
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The view from the cheap seats |
Dear Kids in the Hall,
My awe is rarely inspired, and here I am, standing on my front lawn, with awe all over my face. No, I wouldn't ever say that out loud. My kids would just CRINGE!
Kevin McDonald is actually my second-favourite. No, I can't say that, it begs too many questions with no easy answers. But he is my only celebrity sighting in real life.
Jennifer Whalen, where is more Baroness Von Sketch? Where is more of you? No, that's not about you guys. But seriously!
Guys - let Jennifer moderate!
Dave Foley, you totally missed us in the crowd. We were the only family who were all wearing Kids in the Hall T-Shirts. Parent fans AND teen fans. The holy grail. I had your face on my chest, even! You came two rows behind, then, gone. Instead, we the audience got two-part questions and weird vendettas, plus people who put their hands up that they've dreamed about you guys when it's not a dream, exactly, but... WE would have said nice things about the new season and asked something fun. Your loss, my friend. But my gain, because if I'd tried to talk my kids would have died of mortification. Anyway, you should have let Jennifer do that part and maybe screen the questions... No, strike all of that, it sounds so whiny and lame. Notice me! Notice me! You didn't notice me!
My 15yo and I watched the new season together and it was amazing for them to see your bodies as comedic instruments. Plus, the more full-frontal they see, the less mystique there is. It's an education. Eesh, I can't say that!
I was really anxious when I heard you were doing another season. I was afraid you'd fall into the traps. Now, that sounds like I didn't have faith in you! I had high hopes but tried to keep my expectations low. I didn't need to. You blew them away. Who am I to have expectations? Sitting here in my cheap seats beneath anyone's notice?
This new work is a progression, a deepening, an achievement. As if my opinion matters at all to these big stars, all tanned and content and aging well! Like, oooh, this random middle-aged woman with frizzy hair thinks our work is a progression! What a relief!
Hey, guys. Big fan since day one. Huge impact on my life. Love your work. Thanks.
Okay, that stands. But is it really worth saying?
Better not raise my hand.
Sincerely,
CAI
Addendum Sept 18
Since you guys have been so much on my mind, after years of not having any space there at all, it's not surprising that I did, in fact, have a dream. In my dream I had just woken up from a dream and I went into the kitchen area of a B&B, where I guess I was staying with my in-laws, who were having breakfast, and I came in and said, I just had the weirdest dream...and before I could finish, Mark walked in, in a bathrobe, to get breakfast. This made sense to me. I exclaimed, hey, it's so weird you're here, I was just about to tell them that I had a dream about you! I was about to say, I had a dream about Mark McKinney and he said I wasn't funny!
Mind you, I don't remember actually having that dream, that's just the dream the dream me remembered having. I dreamed that I dreamed that Mark McKinney told me I wasn't funny, and then I told Mark McKinney about that dream. It wouldn't have made for a very coherent story, in any case. :)
Sunday, May 8, 2022
Futile flailing
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As above so below (CAI a long time ago) |
When I read The Time Traveller's Wife (which I hated, btw), the thing that struck me about all those miscarriages is that she kept trying. I had one miscarriage and it devastated me in a visceral way. It kept me from letitng myself feel ready to love another pregnancy until it was at a point where it might live on its own. I was lucky, my next two pregnancies produced two amazing humans that I am honoured to be raising. But if I'd had another one, I think there's no way I'd keep trying. I would reconcile myself to a childless life before going through that again.
But I may be wrong, based on how I live my life. Because when it comes to my creative birth, all I have are a series of miscarriages - projects began with love, holding such promise and my heart, but unable to make it past the first trimester because of money (mostly), time (also mostly) and energy (see time and money). I had a stillbirth project, nurtured and loved over a dozen years, taken to the brink of birth, only to die off due to lack of oxygen. Or, money, time, and energy. Or, Covid. I grieve.
Now I have a new project struggling in the first trimester, and I can't help but notice, I'm exactly where I've been for 15 years. I changed every single thing about my life, but somehow all the fundamentals are exactly the same, and I am in precisely the same place even though it looks completely different. No closer. Further off, because I don't have the joy or hope of a new project, just the drudge-dread feeling that I've been here too many times and I know how this story peters off and lets me down. My hope starts sounding hollow to myself. I can't even bring myself to talk with people about my project with excitement; in fact, I sound a little dejected, as though I'm embarrassed to be seen with it, as though it's already failed. Like what I'm trying to do is too big and also, no one will even get it, and anyway, I will probably never finish it or even get it past prototype. So.
And the weird thing is, I am still fucking writing it.
Monday, May 2, 2022
Silent Agreement
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Community (CAI 2021) |
In relationship, chosen or imposed, we encounter difficulties and irritation with other people. Some personalities simply don't work well together, and for the most part, we choose to build relationships with people where that isn't the case. But we all have plenty of relationships, between work, neighbourhoods, and family, where our lives are entwined with people who have personalities that we find difficult, or who don't like us.
When difficulties and irritation arise, there are two groups of responses - to address, or to ignore.
If we choose to address, we risk conflict, so we often choose to ignore.
If we ignore, we are responsible to LET IT GO. If we ignore and do not let it go, but instead add it to the Pile of Resentments, the pile will grow until it is too big to ignore. It is an important step of maturity to learn to Let It Go. For real. Truly. Not pretending to, not being the bigger person but secretly holding the resentment, not telling yourself you've let it go when really, you're still holding on. It involves self reflection. It involves employing empathy and compassion. It involves curiosity about the other person and caring about them. It's work. Work we do when we are in relationship with someone.
When we are stuck entwined with people we aren't well matched to, where it's hard to get along, we can assume a silent agreement between us, to use the years we will be entwined to better know each other so we can find more parts to respect and like; to use a thought-filter that gives the person affection and compassion; to actively look to build empathy for that person's experience; to give that person space to be themselves even when it's uncomfortable; to recognize where we're imposing expectations on that person and creating our own disappointment; and on, and on. Relationship happens over a long period of time. We will have many opportunities to practice these things, stumbling together with the trust that we are building relationship. Many chances of difficulty or irritation are bound to arise. We are bound to each other, so we must face them together.
If our silent agreement is in place, the decision to address or ignore is made in that context. I may ignore a lot of things, and let them go as best I can, over time, and try to keep my resentment pile from growing. I may address important things, so that we can talk about what I'm feeling and what might help, risking offense, risking conflict, because the relationship is important enough to be worth working through conflict, with the silently agreed-to goal of mutual understanding and the silently-agreed rules. I can actively try not to blame them, to look more fairly at my own part, be willing to deal with that.
But what I can't do, what a relationship can't withstand, is Ignoring AND Holding On. Because that is a breach of the silent agreement. That is a failure to apply the rules of mutual understanding to the situation. It's a failure to keep the resentment pile from growing, and it will lead to Big C Conflict instead of the small conflict that could have prevented it, because the Conflict will contain all our resentment, everything we failed to Let Go because we failed to do our own work in the relationship by working on our own thinking.
I think the silence of the agreement is the first part of the issue.
Friday, April 29, 2022
This wokening snowflake has boundaries and won't be gaslighted.
I’ve been horrified to see how the quickly the bully culture co-opts and destroys language before it can be useful in people’s growth and healing. The victims finally have a language and the bullies don’t like it.
When I was growing up I didn’t have the words for how I was bullied - gaslighting! Now I have a word that captures the sinking feeling of being shown how wrong your very instincts must be, again, to feel that you’re being harmed in any way when the person you admire, even love, is telling you that it’s all in your head, that what you remember didn’t happen, that what you know isn’t true. Gaslighting. That’s a thing, it’s not my imagination, there’s a word for that! What a relief, to have a way to name it quickly, that nebulous, slippery set of symptoms that don’t quite add up to something you can prove and put a stop to. Thank you. Now I can see it, name it, recognize it, consider it and not dismiss my inner knowing.
Think about all the insults - Snowflake! Liberal! Woke!
Like considering yourself unique and special is laughable. Like being open minded to new ideas is despicable. Like paying attention to the experiences of other people means you’re not authentic.
We had those words, finally, a way to shorthand very important, key learnings on a journey of personal growth, and they have turned them to insults, actions to be avoided. While we, ever the victims, put our heads down and tried to avoid their fists.
The bullies are doing to our language what they do to everything we love about ourselves. They belittle and sneer. They turn our words into weapons of shame, just like they do our differences, because they are bullies. They use whatever weakness they see to get an upper hand, feel strong, and sway the stupid, following sidekicks to do the same. Whatever reasons, whatever work they’ve done in their lives to grow up so this manifests in more socially acceptable ways (such as controlling a conversation, talking over someone, belittling their experience, teasing them about their stutter or appearance, laughing when they make a mistake, telling people not to be so sensitive and it’s just a joke), at the end of they day they have a bullying personality. So they will bully. They will look for weakness and poke at it, and they will look for strength and try to take it, turn it to weakness, weaponize it against us. To feel in control. For whatever fucked up reasons have fucked up their minds, hearts, and spirits that has NOTHING TO DO WITH US. For these reasons they don’t even know, they have successfully been stealing the words we use to describe how their behaviour affects us. Ooooh, whiny snowflake, did someone step on your BOUNDARIES and then try to GASLIGHT YOU? Boo hooooo hoooooo. They are silencing our voices, or worse, getting us to pre-emptively silence ourselves. They are undermining our ability to describe our experience.
Anyone who sneers at another person who is trying to describe their experience is an asshole. Even if we love them. So don’t mind if I don’t let them decide what words I use to describe my experience.
Tuesday, April 5, 2022
Ein offener Brief an die Fab Fünf (Queer Eye Deutschland)
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
Reaching for the pot from the fry pan
CAI & CDG, sometime ago |
My guardian, my pimp, you left me here to navigate this plane alone, and I may never forgive you.
I already have. You never left.
Far enough to let me breathe becomes too far to keep me whole. Oscillation drags us down.
What is left? Left to do, now, what can be done, what will doing do, now? Left is right. Can we right what's left now?
When will you lift the heavy you use to hold me down? You say, that is death. You may be right. I may be left here yet. I've waited for the time and the time passed without coming. I've waited for the means but that means I'm always waiting.
What do I want, anyway? A quite life, to waste away the days breathing life and playing? Yes. Yes. Yes. And loving and making. Not doing. Not doing and taking and doing some more. But don't we all? Want that? Doesn't everyone want peace?
Why should I have heaven while others live here in hell? How can I make my peace while the world burns?
Listen to Happy Rhodes. https://youtu.be/kCu5rPSQdDE
Friday, December 10, 2021
(Open Letter) to Joan Cusack
Thank you for being a touchstone at every point in my life. You appear in more of my favourite movies than any other actor. You consistently choose films and characters that offer insight and range; you are completely your characters and completely yourself. You work with your brother which leads me to think you have genuine affection, which warms my heart and gives me hope. You seem like a person who cares deeply and also doesn't give two fucks, which attracts me like honey. I would know your voice anywhere, I pick it out all the time, and it's like a little gift, a reminder that you're out there, in the world, existing and creating beauty and curiosity around you just by existing, every time you unexpectedly show up. I even kind of remember you in movies that you weren't in, but should have been. I can reimagine every movie I've ever seen, and every movie I ever will see, with you in it. You always belong. I love that you're real.
Friday, October 29, 2021
Misted
Sometimes I catch the mirror
Thursday, October 28, 2021
An Open Letter to Catherine Keener
Monday, October 4, 2021
Doing anything is hard
Friday, June 11, 2021
Open Letter to Canada's Prime Minister
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(creator not identified, found this on https://www.change.org/p/carolyn-bennett-o-canada-our-home-s-on-native-land) |
Sir,
You must deal with the truth of Canada’s nature and relationship with the First Peoples. From killing Old Growth forests to missing and murdered women, from residential "school” to prisons where too many of the First Peoples are confined, from poisoned drinking water to eroded territories, from the RCMP to the OPP, I've barely begun the list. The truth is that our entire economy and society was never paid for, and can't be paid for. Subjugation and eradication haven't done their evil job, the First People are still standing, asking for the partnerships we promised. We are no longer the brutal people who first peopled this land. We know better. Know better, do better.
We can't do land acknowledgments and then arrest land defenders. We can’t pollute drinking water and not provide drinking water. We can’t claim respect and absolve their murderers and abusers. Canada should be a land of integrity.
Two things you can do right now:
1) Call off the RCMP from Fairy Creek.
2) Find all the bodies of children murdered by the insane residential system, and do something about it.
Then, enact every recommendation from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report http://www.trc.ca/. Take every first and next step possible. And then the next. For as long as it takes.
Canada is amazing, but I can't feel proud of my country because of these failures. We need to get on with the hard work of building a partnership with our environment and our First Peoples so that seven generations from now, our descendants are still here.
Maybe in a few generations we can heal the wounds and build trust, but not until we start. The first step is to acknowledge a pattern of behaviour that is not working and is, ultimately, killing us. It's time to get healthier. Be honest, be clear. June is Indigenous History month. We can never fix the past, but there's plenty to do in the present.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021
Divvying up the pie (last slice)
The entire world economy is currently worth $87.55 trillion dollars. There are only 87.5 trillions in our entire world economy. Please note:
Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world with a net worth of $107.1 billion. will be the first billionaire to become a trillionaire in 2026 at the age of 62.
Xu Jiayin will be the second billionaire to turn a trillionaire in 2027 at the age of 68.
Jack Ma, will be the third man to hit one trillion Dollars net worth in 2030, at the age of 65.
Ma Huateng, also known as the Pony Ma, will become a trillionaire by the time he’s 61 years old in 2033.
Mukesh Ambani, is expected to hit one trillion by 2033 by which time he will be 75 years old.
Bernard Arnault will probably become a trillionaire by 2032 at 84 years old.
Mark Zuckerberg will be the youngest person to make a trillion at the age of 51 years in 2036.
Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft, is also set to hit a trillion in 2040 when he will be 83 years old.
Michael Dell will have made his first trillion by 2043 by when he will be 78 years old.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin are both set to hit $1 trillion by 2051 at the age of 77 years.
That's 11. Of 87.5. Owned by 11 guys in our lifetime. In their lifetime. And forever after tied in inheritance, never again part of the world economy the rest of us share. We're down to the last pass on the Monopoly Board and there are only about a dozen people on Earth who will win if we keep letting the systems run us.
(source: Business Insider India, October 3, 2019, "Here’s how long it will take the world’s richest billionaires to become trillionaires.")
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Disposable
Unfinished & Tangled: A self portrait (CAI 2020) |
I am not disposable.
But maybe I am. I guess I am.
I haven't earned the right to know where I stand
to trust where I stand
I haven't earned the true esteem of a friend
When people look at me they see
what? not much. Not much here to see, to be
If I try to share what's here, I impose
If I don't, I withhold
and it's not very interesting, anyway
Never enough, always too much
Alone, in the end,
alone again
even among friends
still
alone.
Sunday, February 21, 2021
Crow's taunt
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(strange bird created by CD Good) |
On our first day here, we saw a fox
large and orange and confident, trotting, just off
in the distance, and I thought,
we are closer to nature
we will have to watch the pets, I thought
but in the silence since
no animal has crossed my line of sight
all is quiet, day and night
save one, rare crow who sometimes shows his wings
flying off, he sings a croaking taunt my way
saying, see, you are alone
even here
you are alone
Friday, January 29, 2021
Gash
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A gash in the sky |
knicked open clumsily
Friday, January 8, 2021
Frozen in place (lyrics, can you hear a tune?)
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Frozen in Place (CAI2020) |
I thought that I would matter
But I don’t
I thought my words would gather
But they don’t
I thought I’d be important, a person who decides
I thought that people would be drawn to the truths I’d write
I thought my life would keep unfolding with the next surprise
But it won’t.
I thought the years held promise
But they don’t
I thought my dreams would fly
But they won’t
I thought that hopes and effort could give my visions life
I thought that recognition would reciprocally arrive
I thought the world would see me in my wonder if I tried
But it won’t.
Unfolding years resign me to the loss and dread and fear
Try again? Why try again?
To speak when no one hears
No spark, no lift
Each try falls flat, depleting precious stores
Hope recedes unyielding as failure takes its course
Do or don’t, whatever, it never was a choice.
I thought one day I’d matter
But I don’t
I thought my works would gather
But they don’t
I thought I’d bring some clarity, and people would respond
I thought my tribe would find me and together we’d expand
I thought the world would strive for peace and I would take its hand
But we won’t.
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
Purgatorial oppositions
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The Grey Zone (CAI 2020) |
I enjoy meat. I hate eating dead animals. I love sugar and cheese. I hate being overweight.
What a funny pergatorial planet, where everything is available but all of it bad for you, except what's good for you but unappealing. That's just its nature. I mustn't let it bother me so.
Integrity's balance doesn't mean the oppositions are balanced equally, and it also doesn't have to mean choosing to exclusion. Integrity can sway, swing, lean in a direction. It must, to offset and create movement. Otherwise we just teeter in place until we fall.
Thursday, December 3, 2020
Freeloading
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Freeloaders |
I get tired when people warn that you can't guarantee a base level income because people will get used to "sucking at the teat" and won't work. I believe they believe that, but it doesn't matter because they are hypocrites. Those with significant means have been sucking at the teat of other people's desperation, need, skill, talent, and knowledge for all of capitalism's reign. They just don't want to share it. The whole point of the entire miserable, exacting, system is to improve the quality of life. Create stability and prosperity. Allow for the pursuit of one's purpose or, dare we, happiness. That's why we, as a society, agreed to it all in the first place. Lots of us never agreed. Now, finally, automation is here, but instead of increasing our pay and decreasing our hours, you're just dumping us wholesale or finding all new ways to exploit us. No, un uh, that's not how this works. Social benefit commensurate to profit. As the common resource owners controlled by a government of resource stewards, we stand entitled to dividends through wealth taxes and limitations on corporate profits, returned to us as cash to do with as we see fit. If we want to work hard for the system, we will, because humans are work and play animals. They work when they find work they want to do, or work that matters to them that needs doing. If we want to earn enough for a "better life" however we define it, we can. But if we're going to build an entire economy based on exploitation with the promise that we are working towards equitable opportunity for all, Canada and then, beyond, at least some of those profits need to create the kind of stability that lets humans feel peaceful enough to avoid intoxicants, seek education and purpose, take care of each other and themselves, and participate without fear that failure to accept exploitative practices could put all of that in jeopardy. It's only a pipedream because the people in charge choose to make it so, and the vast majority don't question the systems or choose to push governments to provide a minimum standard, because they think that the "freeloaders" will suck at the teat. And around we go. You'd think that it's about time some of the freeloading went around, that hard working people got more than just hard work, fear and promises. But time is funny, because it never does seem to be time, and suddenly we live in the world of opposite, where people refuse to accept it when what's good for them is also good for everyone, and that it goes both ways. The species is doomed to repeat the same tragic patterns, every generation in its own way. In a system designed to funnel most of the resources out of the system and into a special, VIP space where a few have everything and more, while the rest struggle and devolve, we have come improbably far, an improbably high number of times in human history, and that is a hope I hold tight.
One thing today in this direction, check in on myself for where I limit my imagination of what's possible on Earth by what has been built by evil men.
Is that all I can do? Probably not, but it's one thing.
Sunday, October 18, 2020
The same Sky
Friday, October 2, 2020
Try, try again
Do you understand the extent of what you've done?
What makes you think? What makes you so?
Taking another go!
at a meaningful life.
Saturday, September 19, 2020
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Another day another proof
What makes it most laughable, of course,
is that sex with demons won't affect your body
at all
but your spirit
on the other hand
may enjoy
the change of pace.
Monday, May 25, 2020
Hard days come
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Destructive Doing |
Most days I just look away from it
the fear
the truth
that my efforts are worse than waste
because they cost more than nothing would have cost
took more than nothing would have taken
and gave nothing back that I wanted
just pain and futility and more certainty that whatever I try
next
will end the say way
in nothing
and I can try to see it from another angle
I can tell myself another story and turn my cheek but it doesn't matter
because the ends are the ends
the means remain unjustified
and I'm not even sure what I'm doing here
in the end
after all
anyway
I can't remember what I was thinking
to have tried and tried again
I reach back to myself and find only an empty
sad naiveté
a story full of plot holes and pointless, endless dialogue
saying nothing at all.
I can't even feel sorry for her, that me
she invites my disdain more than my pity
why did she ever think
anything she did might matter?
how much delusion did she eat for breakfast every day?
spoonfuls, bowlfuls
of sugar-coated sand.
Don't try to reassure me
I mean, what's the point?
But you won't. Anyway.
Because there's no reassurance to explain away the facts
there's no story that makes it all fine with me.
It's not fine with me.
The good bits and pieces don't counteract my failure.
The idea it was a choice
is the farce
that deflates all attempts, in any case.
I'm not even allowed to feel what I feel
while there's something to cling to, some consolation to grasp
to invalidate this knowing and let you feel comfortable saying that
I'm wrong
even though, I think on some level you know,
I'm not wrong at all.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Blame
How long has Hope made me wait in line
for a turn that was never mine to take?
how many times has she beguiled my mind
to build another house of cards to break?
caressed my heart, relaxed my guard
led me down the garden path again
to trip and tumble over cliffs of pain?
Now she scratches at my door
crying, my dear, I'm sorry
you must admit,
you have only yourself to blame.
Thursday, April 9, 2020
Distortion
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The Grief of Loss of What I Never Had (CAI2019) |
Overblown and underwhelming
what comes through me, into reality
bears little resemblance
filtered by pretentious words and inadequate skill
into bits and pieces too heavy for the wind to carry
too heavy to float
sinking to the bottom, mired and drowned
but even so, still, too light to hold meaning down.
My silly gifts revert to impositions of confusion
suspicion, a twist of discomfort that forgets its name.
Again, and again.
Better, maybe, better to be still
swallow the bitter pill and let it
gag the truth before it spills through my clumsy hands.
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
Winded
Monday, April 6, 2020
Needed
washed over
lost
in the sea
it's me, it's me
that's missing
who will notice I'm not there
why should they care,
anyway
as long as they get what they need
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Gratitude (a prayer)
Reality (CAI2020) |
Thank you, Mother, for the lesson they can't ignore
A warning, clear and stern
with no wiggle room for doubt
thank you for the lightness of the sentence
a lesson, not a punishment,
not yet
thank you for sending us home
for tearing so many holes, all at once
so we have no choice but to stop
take stock
and rebuild
Father, please protect us
keep us well and safe and warm
loved and sheltered from the storm
a wish for all
a wish for life
May I fortify my best
may I pass this test of my humanity
flying with the colours
being with the memory
of now.
Friday, March 20, 2020
Yes
Indefinite, not infinite (Maverick Missives)
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Indefinite Wisdome (CAI 2019) |