window

shaky with lack of sleep -
a number with my bullet on it.
orange juice, for healthy brains -
a picture with my swallow on it.
my house waits across the way -
a soul with my space in it.

everything from
everything -
infinite in
infinite out
a humour with God's window in it.

real time

This'll be the first actual journal-type entry for me... funny, there's this feeling that no one's listening. I need some friends.

Well, I do have a few good friends, and a good and true family (that's Ma and Pa on the left getting set to do some kissin'.) In all there's 7 of us kids, a good bunch. Ma and Pa are heading toward their mid-80s, and happy to be here. Lemme think... 16 grandkids, 9 great-grandkids, I think. Way to go, us.

Okay, it's getting late, I have to get gone. A tiny start to an introduction. I have a lot to say, and hope to get to it all.

Day One

(excerpt from Win A Whistle)

I turned away from the lectern, finished. Gaily started to take me by the arm, and as I looked at her I saw that she had been told at least a bit of what had, and what was now to happen. I could only touch her cheek, brush her forehead with a kiss, and whisper low and soft, wordless, that I loved her.
The tears were coming freely now, held back while I had talked. It was certainly time for them. Like the caress of a velvet glove in the center of my mind, *i love you.*
I looked to my left, at my Joy, holding young Freddy by the hand and resting her head on the chest of the stranger, Zeb. *i have to go now, my darling girl. you are ready, huh?*
*yes, Daddy, quickly, please. the whole place is going to start raining tears, you know?*
Summer, always at my side during times of ceremony, silently shared a quick image, flashing fast and complete, leaving me breathless as always. *my baby, thank you. thank you for my life. i love you best, of course.*
Summer laughed low at this old joke; she always did.
*Paul, it’s time.* This was loud, turning me around as if a pair of strong hands had grabbed me, rough and irresistible.
I had believed in the last few days that I would certainly be ready when it happened. I was tired, I was finished, I was complete.
I was old, dammit.
I’d thought that at this moment I’d rip the concorder off, that damn clip I’d been wearing for so long.
*no, leave it on.*
Again far too loud. "Uh, can you take the volume down just a bit?" I said to the empty space just in front of me.
*it’s Angel, you old fart. c’mere.*
And, in a shimmering, dust-like silver and gold cascade that instantly reminded me of that old "Star Trek" transporter effect on 2-d half a century ago or more, Angel stood before me.
"Oh, my," came out of me as I gazed at my eternal partner, recognizing her at once. "So that was you, at the party, thirty or forty years ago..."
Raising her arms, covered, as was the rest of her, with something that looked like intricately varied chain-mail, she said out loud, "No more talk, no more speeches, old man. Come to me. You’re mine now, now and forever."
I walked forward, into her arms, and....

(The foregoing is taken in part from a transcript of the constant-recorder of Paul Arthur Macintosh. Written and released by Gaily Pauline Mann for publication in book form only, in memory of her great grand-father. Available as part of Gaea and Me - A Final Look, copyright 2050, Gaily Pauline Mann and Peter Macintosh; Mindale Publishing, Morden, Nova Scotia, CanAmerica. All proceeds from sales to UniNet SysTech Est., a non-profit organization.)

Win a Whistle (excerpt)

Depression is such a dangerous, insidious thing. I have been so deep in despair, so self-involved and alone, even while surrounded by people who loved me, that hardly a day would go by when I didn’t at least think of the drugs I had on hand, and often would find myself standing at the kitchen counter counting them in a blue-gray funk, ensuring that I had enough on hand to put my lights out should I decide that day that it was finally time to stop my mind, kill once and for all the terrible, unbearable malaise in thought and feelings that had turned the world around me so terribly dark and colourless and, ultimately, empty, a void from which hope, that single most important element necessary for the continuation of life, had been washed away. While I cleaned my military issue 9 millimetre after going to the range to pop a few off, shitty thoughts of just reloading the thing and eating it would come fully formed in my mind, leaving me shaking and gasping for breath. I understand suicide, because I know despair so intimately. According to my dictionary despair is defined as the "loss of all hope."
When hope is gone, everything is gone. And a lot of us finally turn full circle, and realize that it’s gone, and decide that it won’t come back. And to go on without hope is like wandering lost in the woods in wintertime, watching it getting dark and cold and realizing you only have jeans and a light sweater on, and finally sitting under a tree and going to sleep, knowing with a certainty that even if you do wake up in the morning, you’re still going to be lost and that it’s only a matter of time until you die. Survivors are the ones who still have hope, and hold onto it, and live despite all odds. Those who die are the ones without hope.
In conversation I’ve often called those who commit suicide cowards or fools, but it’s not that simple at all. I consider myself neither, yet I tried once. Despair and loss of hope pushed me, and I finally, simply, couldn’t push back. Such a terrible, dark thing, and, my God, so unbearably sad. Because ninety-nine percent of the time, we all come back to hope, we all find it again, if only we can hang on.

turn away

while I talk
please don't turn away
let me - just let me talk.
I'll tell you of youth
and dreams and babies
love and sharing
and the ground we look at
as we move past these things.
memory as hope as life -
a skyful of blue promise
quickly clouding over -
light fading
no notice taken;
you turn away,
you who haven't yet the need
to gather dreams as hope
and to wrap yourself in memory.
you turn away.

looking all around I find
just myself
in the emptiness
and stand in silence
waiting for you to come back
holding these dreams and memories
close.

Epilogue

from Win a Whistle

26 May 2147

She sat on her porch watching the sun set, drinking a glass of sherry in quiet celebration of the one-hundred and ninety-sixth birthday of her father. She was one hundred and three years old, and very, very tired.
*Heather -*
She sat up as straight as her old spine could manage and gathered herself. She remembered that voice so well from when she was tiny and her father held her and told her stories. *Daddy?*
*I've come to get you, my darlin' girl. your work is finally finished here.*
She stood and held out her arms, eyes closed and a beatific glow to her face.
And Gaea took her into Her bosom.

pathways

having been drunk
for most of my adult life
but sober these past few years
i've discovered pathways where
in reconstruction
my brain finds new roads
rebuilding
repairing the results of
damage done in drunken debauchery
and awake
conscious
and at the least aware
i'm startled now and then
when a new pathway opens up
new territory - no survey as yet
and my endorphins in reconnaissance
discover - just in time
that someone's already
been there.

4U3 - you know who you are.

from "Win a Whistle"

Summer and Joy stood some ten feet apart, facing one another in an attitude of waiting, anticipation like ozone in the air. Chris had taken a seat with a clear view of the two women, his temporarily batty sisters, watching with a bemused smile on his face.

"C’mon, Summer, do something - it’s my birthday; try it and let’s get back to the party... and you shut up, Chris, or I’ll come over there and smuck yuh."

Chris said nothing, having learned long ago that his big sister wouldn’t hesitate to do just that if he gave her any lip. Proud of Joy and her discipline in the martial arts, he’d seen for himself more than once that she was easily capable of completely disabling someone twice her size with an economy of effort that was as beautiful as it was startling.

As often happened when together with his sisters, Chris looked at them both and marveled at their differences, their contrasts and their obvious beauty, obvious even to him as brother whose job it was to try and keep them at least a little humble. Like his father, Chris had them titled in his mind: Joy as Love, Summer as Beauty. Not that either was the more beautiful or loving than the other. It was a moot point as to which sister was prettier, or more dedicated to that wonderful principle fast becoming so important in their world, Love. He let his mind wander a bit and thought of these two dynamos he was privileged to call ‘sister’.

Joy, the oldest, compact and round in all the right places, he supposed, perfect face framed by waves of thick chestnut hair with dark blond streaks - she’d been demonstrating a new kick and was presently standing in the ready position that was second nature to her now, toes turned slightly inward and body a bit side-on to Summer, relaxed but ready, always ready. A small pin on the breast of her sweater attested to her world champion status in last year’s full-contact karate tournament in New York. A hobby, one that made her the strongest woman Chris knew, pound for pound, anywhere.

Summer, two years his senior, and the most beautiful (if it was possible for him to pick between the two) woman Chris knew next to his wife. Hell, he’d heard it said that she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and he could hardly argue, looking at her now as he thought: Mom’s coloring, like me, while Joy got Dad’s darker hair and brown eyes. Me and Summer with Mom’s blue eyes and fair skin, Summer’s hair blond, mine sandy brown. I can well understand why men say they can’t look at her too long without getting a bit goofy. Tall, maybe five-eight, long body dressed in customary black, model-thin, her tattoo peeking out of one sleeve of the clinging gown, her only other adornment a tiny gold peace symbol on a chain around her neck, a gift from Dad. Long, long golden hair, thick and straight where Joy’s curled, and that face... yeah, my sister Summer is very beautiful, big blue eyes known to reduce any and all of the very coolest of men to stutters and cold sweats - even Dad sometimes blown away by her, his old volubility out the window whenever Summer decided to turn up her personality an increment or two.

My sisters, God love ‘em. Let’s watch this and see what happens.

"Don’t close your eyes, Joy. If this works, it should be visual as hell... Aunt Jeri and I have been practicing, and it’s really something when it works."

"Okay, Summer, but let’s go, there are people here -"

"Dad and Freddy can handle them. Shush now, look at me. Chris, keep your eyes on the space a couple of meters above the floor halfway between us."

Chris would later try to describe to his father what happened next, but couldn’t find the words, while Paul had laughed and said, "About time I showed you a few things, my son," and Chris finally understood how Paul had gotten away from those thugs that had taken him for three of the scariest days the family had ever experienced, Dad held in an old apartment in Toronto surrounded by SWAT and damn near every peace officer in the city while negotiations dragged on for his release. Chris had been there when his father had walked out of the building, arms in the air, yelling, "It’s me, you assholes, don’t shoot. The crazies are upstairs, sleeping." Sleeping, shit, they hadn’t wakened for forty-eight hours. Dad had been questioned, and questioned again, and finally ended up giving a small demonstration at RCMP headquarters, supposedly causing more than one officer present to soil themselves.

Subsequent digging concerning what had actually happened in that dirty little apartment had finally got this from Dad; "Ah, son, I just got tired of trying to reason with them and put a whammy on them. Eddie helped, from a distance. I’ll show you sometime."

What Summer showed them the night of Joy’s thirtieth birthday was something... wondrous. Ultimately indescribable, certainly. Chris would tell a friend later, laughing and shaking his head, "Well, you know, you just had to be there."

Summer said, "Since it’s the three of us, I’ll do a memory, something with us when we were kids, before Dad moved out. Mom and Dad and us as central focus; the surround is the joy I remember - I’m never sure how that part will turn out. It feels something like creating one of Aunt Jeri’s paintings out of the molecules of air in front of me. Bad way to describe it, I know. Wait... here, see, look, feel, can you get a sense of the power here?"

A tumult of colour, a man and woman and three children, dancing, laughing.

Joy grunted, loud, and sat down in a lotus, hands to her cheeks. The image danced and swirled there, then disappeared with a small popping noise as if someone had snapped their fingers.

"Alright, now, just for a second, here it is as if we were in a roomful of people and I wanted only you two to see it."

"Oh, sweet Jesus," Chris said as he fell off the chair and hit the floor, rolling -

image, centered and brilliant, mom and dad, and i want to sit with daddy
Joy and Summer singing and dancing mommy comes in and supper ready
daddy picks me and Summer up and we bounce and laugh to the table
oh it’s so nice
oh please Summer stop please -

"Stop!" Chris yelled, on his back on the carpet. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Joy curled up in a ball, small sounds coming from her. "Summer, stop, please."

"Pretty neat, huh?" Summer said. She walked over to Joy and helped her stand. "Happy birthday, sister."

Chris walked over and gathered his sisters to him and held on.

"Oh, my, I gotta fix my makeup," Joy said. "And maybe I have to change my underwear, too."
And they started to laugh. They were a little while longer getting back to the party.

prologue....

excerpt from Win A Whistle, a work in progress:




The boy sat down on the rock shelf and settled into tying a daredevil spinner and a couple of weights onto the line on his father’s Zebco rod. This was his favourite spot, old Willie had shown it to him, before he died. Old gumboot Willie, and his Indian motorcycle, drunk as often as not, but a good fisherman. So was his Dad, but he worked a lot and didn’t have much time for fishing just lately.
He cast just over by the beaver dam, reeling in right away so as not to get snagged, not using a baby floater. His Dad was a fly-fisher, and the boy envied him his easy way with that long rod. He’d tried, and ended up snagging the back of his head, with his Dad laughing at him from the front porch. "Better stick to cast-fishing, boy." Dad was his hero, big old cow-milking muscles on his arms, kind of scary-looking except when he was in uniform.
The boy eventually pulled a few perch from the water, and threw them back in, along with a stupid sucker that gave him no fun at all. He sat down, and after sneaking a floater on the line, with one of the good night-crawlers his Dad and him had shocked out of the ground after dark the night before with a car battery and steel spikes, he ate the sandwich his Mom had given him as he ran down the porch to fetch the creel and worms from the shed. She’d been holding little Peter James Jr., his baby brother, in her arms. Petey, a baby he’d probably die for, if he had to.
As he sat, and tried not to think of the show he’d seen on TV last night, all about nuclear weapons and the cold war, whatever that was, he saw the line twitch, ever so slightly. Hey, got a hungry one eatin’ my worm... Then the line twitched again, and again, this time bending the rod he was holding in his left hand practically double. Ah, crap, if this’s another sucker...
I forgot the damn net - holy cow, here he comes, and he’s fighting like a bastard. Whups, Mom’d take a switch to me if she heard me say that one. Holy cow, holy cow, he just jumped, he’s huge, God’s sake. Why the hell didn’t I bring the net, shit, shit, shit - laughing now, can’t help it, I’m swearing worse’n Dad - here that bastard comes again, rainbow, holy cow, I got him, holy shit, lookit him...
Later that night, his Dad measured the trout, and it was 15 inches, nose to tail, and 5 and a half inches back to belly. He traced it out on packing paper, and told his son he’d make a frame for the tracing and hang it on the kitchen wall, right over there by the old oil stove. His big sister Rose sniffed and said, "So long as you don’t put it near my copper-tooling." Maggie thought it was great, and little Kim Elise hugged the boy, then stepped back and said, "You stink, Paul."
"So do you, baby-pants."
Later that summer, he taught Kim and Maggie how to spit like a boy, sharp and not a drop on the lips. Rose got in trouble for driving around with a guy in his car, and his Dad got real drunk and got in a bad fight with his Mom. And the boy went fishing, a lot, and caught perch and eels and suckers and now and then a good sized trout. He shot a chickadee with his BB gun, and never took a shot at an animal again, his heart was so broken, not even when he went hunting with his Dad in the snow and the trees and the hush of late fall and early winter. He was a gentle boy, and he loved to walk in the woods, and loved to listen while his Dad took him up trails and pointed to trees and said, "Birch. Alder. Maple. Oak."
Boys grow up. This boy did, and in his late teens a thing happened to him. He dropped acid and saw his girlfriend’s face turn to a skull. And he lost himself, then and there. His soul ran away. God said, "We’ll have to leave this one alone for awhile, he has so much to learn."
And he never went fishing again.

i and I

Dark says, "Apart you are."
Mind says, "Think of that."
Gaea says nothing -
she sleeps here now.
Heart says, "Hurt me no more."
God keeps His counsel
as always.
i light another
and ask I,
"am i really alone?"
I says, "Yes, my love.
you are."
Dark says, "I told you so."

smoke

there's a world in my mind
that doesn't exist;
the fear of some things
in the fuel of a fired-down kiss.
the too long away from
six other faces too alive
to be recognized,
as my particular paranoia
stares back at me from the mirror.
the fire's not burning but
killing smoke stings my eyes
as I look for you -
your names though
escape me.
my eyes tell me that
your beauty lies in the soil
of my fingertip rescue search -
not a line of life in the world
that begins in smoke.

treehugger? me?

excerpt from Wish You Were Over There, a work in progress:


...In all the walks I’d taken there before, I’d never run into anyone else, which was part of the magic the place held for me, how when I was walking the woods were mine, there just for me. I rarely even ran across a fresh footprint, adding to the illusion that these woods were known only to me, three or four acres of unspoiled young forest just behind an enormous, modern medical facility with its brick and polarized glass.
When I was down the slope and out of sight of the hospital, I hunkered down beside a fair sized oak and put my arm around it. The trunk was about a foot and a half in circumference, the top swaying a bit in the fine breeze of the day. I rested my head against it, and turned a little so that I could wrap my other arm around and join my fingers on the other side. I closed my eyes and could feel, and hear, the top gently swaying with the wind, branches rubbing with its neighbors. I stood and faced the oak, my sneakers buried in late-fall leaves, my body pressed full-length along the trunk, my arms taking up more strain and my forehead dropping down until it touched the bark.
"Oh, Gaea, oh my Mother," I whispered as I felt the strength of the tree, swaying ever so slightly with it as the wind moved the top branches and that movement came down into the trunk more as small vibration rather than motion. I began to feel as if I was being hugged back as I hung on, making small whispering sounds, and knew that I had to let go soon, that the feeling was too intense, too sudden for me to be able to handle right then. I released my grip and once again hunkered down, still leaning against the trunk and feeling a bit out of breath. There was a secret here, I knew that, a secret that I could call up anytime that I wanted to remember those times when I’d been intimately connected to all that surrounded me. And there had been so many times like that, depression forgotten and me and the universe sharing secrets that I was certain everyone else must know but were for some reason not talking about. This sort of paranoia was always the beginning of my psychosis when approaching hyper-mania. What I felt this time was a profound, peaceful serenity, a fleeting glimpse of the sanity behind all the insanity of previous psychotic interludes. I had felt, while holding on to that wonderful, strong connection with the Earth, some primordial truth, some gift that I could carry with me when I reentered the concrete and brick world where my son struggled and talked through his own darkness. A gift that I might share with him, and with my daughters.
I walked away from that tall, strong tree, feeling satisfied and ready to face whatever the day brought. Carrying my truth, as I had so many times before, knowing I could never find the words to describe it, but knowing that that didn’t matter. It had never mattered. Truth is truth, and those who know it, and feel its power, can never help but share it. How this sharing is accomplished is never a primary consideration. Happiness, that free benefit of truth, radiates with a will of its own. I’ve forgotten, so very many times, that nothing is mine unless I give it away. The tree, the power and the connection of that tree to the universe, told me that. And, if and when necessary, the tree will tell me again.

lyric...

...and you and I know
that this road don’t go back there
anymore...
I never knew so much time was passing
and who’d’a thought
we’d be haunted by dreams?
Dreams of love
so true and everlasting -
that’s just about
as far as we go from here...

- John Hiatt.

Space and Time... a manic perspective.



1994
We live in a box of space and time, here on Earth, powered by the sun, spinning away through the galaxy and eventually through the Universe, which belongs to no one but God. He has given us minds to think with, and senses to perceive with, and so we have tried since we were monkeys in the trees to shrink space and time to manageable increments, eventually coming up with clocks, and yardsticks, buildings and calendars.
And so, we divided, as best we could, space into measures of inches and miles, and time into blocks called seconds, and minutes, and so on. We lived comfortably in this box, sparing ourselves the chore of examining the infinite and blowing our minds a lot, as it were. If ever we wanted to further reduce, or expand, this box we built, we discovered wonderful, terrible substances and ideas, hallucinogens and philosophies, religions and sciences. And so we struggled with it all, and searched for the truth of things, or ignored it, as the case may be.
Here’s the thing... space and time are not units, nor are they measurable, except to aid us in political and geographical organization. History must be recorded, and measures of time are quite necessary for that exercise. The fastest and farthest must be recognized, hence space must be sliced and diced and worked at by physicists and acid heads. But, space and time are infinite, and unmeasurable.
And, strictly speaking, one exists, and one doesn’t. Various philosophies, if studied with a mental microscope, will leave one believing that either: everything exists, or: nothing exists. Well, space is definitely there, as far as I’m concerned, else I’d visit all my sisters and my brother and my parents and my kids and all my friends all in the same day, then go to Jupiter for a round of golf.
Now, time, on the other hand, isn’t. Or rather, it is right now, but it wasn’t, and it ain’t going to be. Let’s climb out of our little box of time, find some space for ourselves, and think about this for a minute.
Let’s say we’re all human, and therefore need a reference point... okay, let’s make time exist only in this moment. This one, and then there’s a space, and then another moment. We can visualize time, if we like, as now, or a zillion nows lined up previous to, and following, this very now, right now. Time as now, this moment, and artfully represented by, let’s see, little blocks of wood for every moment that comes.
Okay. Now is a block of wood. It’s the same block of wood as it was a moment ago, except it’s got a small chip out of it, or a mosquito has landed on it. Then there’s a space, that wonderful space between moments, that exists actually between thoughts. But that’s another story... then there’s another block of wood, mosquito gone, piece of dirt where the chip was. Then a space, then another block of now - all the blocks that came before are gone, except in our ephemeral memory, which doesn’t strictly exist except in thought.
Same for all the blocks of time to come. They don’t exist, they aren’t there, they haven’t been made yet. So, we have Now as a block with substance, that we can grip and hold and love. But, immediately, as we measure time, that’s gone, and another takes its place. And so on. And that’s the finite part of infinity. Right there, right Now.
So, to take it to its logical next step, time is a series of blocks, all lined up. The past is irretrievable, and can only be affected in the present if we’re willing to work on it in the now, to work on our memory of the past and say we’re sorry, or thank you, okay, so let’s got on with it all. The future is definitely up for grabs, and can only be affected, again, by what we do in the moment, and from such moments come plans, and dreams, and life. We learn (past), we do (present, and what a gift, a present, it is!), we benefit, we fail, we live, we die (future, scary damn place if you try to live there.)
I am alive, now. I have been alive for an infinite number of moments. An infinite number of moments from now, absolutely unforeseeable to me, I will stop, I will shuffle off this mortal coil.
But - my life, our lives, touch infinity all the time. Because, although we suffer, although we cry, here and now, we can make that last just for this moment, and we can decide in the space between our present and the moment hurtling at us at the speed of thought, to close our eyes and go anywhere else we like, anywhere else we’d like to be, and spend as many moments there as we choose. That’s called meditation, and it’s a pretty good invention. And infinite time and space wait for us there.
So, yesterday is gone. Tomorrow doesn’t exist, except in dreams and nightmares. Though the past has caused us all so much pain, we can live with it, because: 1. We have to. 2. We can. And, 3. We choose to. We have permission, from the ultimate Higher Power, to choose to live, in this moment.
There now. That’s how I like to live, anyway. I remember, and I fix what I can. I try to foresee, and I beware the consequences because I really have no final say in things. What I can control is Now. Not necessarily the here, but the now is mine, completely and exclusively, an enormous gift from God.
Thanks for space, and thanks for not inventing time. You’ve always been the Best Provider.

compass

sometimes i think i'm going
out of my head
only to find signposts
showing me the way back.
at times the very thought
of leaving reality
has me looking at the ground
for breadcrumbs.
i think
all things considered
normal's a compass needle
pointing to sane
and i've just got
no sense
of direction.

for Mellie

perhaps it's in the morning
struggling up from whatever dream
stretching my way out of the entanglement
of summer slumber
knowing I'm still here
to begin another day
thanking whatever forces there may be
for letting me open my eyes once more.
it's likely then, reaching for my glasses,
that maybe, just for one small second,
I hesitate to ponder the wonder
of this my life;
how it's all managed to sneak by
and happen
leaving me standing a bit off to one side,
frowning and laughing
crying and just being...
then sitting up, waking fully,
maybe such thoughts are lost
amid the wondrous whispers
of my sleeping baby daughter,
and my joy
at simply being here to watch her.