I was working on the report that had been dogging me for the past four months. It was a simple job, really. There was no need for it to be so taxing, yet I couldn’t seem to focus. I was a consultant for a company that advised various fast food chains. I would calculate the savings incurred by slicing tomatoes to x thickness instead of y thickness. I also reported the results of studies conducted by my company’s chemists. The chemists would figure out how many additives, emulsifiers or fillers could be added to a product before it lost palatability. The results were turned into equations which could be used to create cost efficient recipes. I’ve always been good with numbers, so the job of efficiency expert was both easy and satisfying for me. I liked the process of reducing everything to its most necessary parts, but an unfocussed inertia had come over me in the past few months. (more…)
Suddenly the Bell
And the danger of rattlesnakes
As redwings take flight
There is no sign, just a turn-off. The weedy car track bumps down, down; a line of fat eucalyptus trunks with peeling plates of bark pulls my nose along. Their sweet fragrance pushes away the sweaty highway that now hangs outside and somewhere above, and raucous thoughts of my new romance back home dissipate. Like totems, the row gives a gentle greeting. Welcome to this planet of strange plants and rituals. Welcome to beginner’s mind. Welcome to Green Gulch Zen Center. (more…)
There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to
find the ways in which you yourself have altered. – Nelson Mandela
Paper boats sail between marijuana flavoured apple trees
faceless boy paper routes
ride past GRAD ‘97 etched in beer filled mountains
(more…)
CAST
WHITE A 17-year-old female character dressed in mainly stark bright white.
RED The same/similar female character at 17 ½ and wearing mainly dark maroon or blood red.
BLUE The same/similar female character at 18 and wearing mainly bright medium blue.
(more…)
Appearances can be deceiving. From a distance, the dormant, benign giant lies peacefully with no malicious thought or intent, yet I know better. Even its name, “Monashee,” meaning Peaceful Mountain, cannot fool me. It has already been a week into my cross-Canada trip, and despite a crippling pain in my knee and an overly optimistic gearing on my new bicycle, I have managed to battle and conquer its younger cousins along the Fraser and Okanagan region. I know, though, that the real battle is about to begin. (more…)
Atop the driver’s seat I perch,
sun burnt legs dangling.
Skin clings to sticky worn leather,
smells like gas and grease.
All elbows and ears
I run my hand along the tires.
Rotten apples squeeze
sweet juice between the rubber grooves. (more…)
My brother
Sleeps on couches all over town
Steals my clothes and
Only comes home to shave
And eat everything in the fridge.
My brother
Is friends with his ex-girlfriends
Dating my friends
And nobody hates him. (more…)
The old place was an acre or two of wooded land with a few small clapboard buildings set back from the road and shaded by a broad and high canopy of pale green maple leaves. We called it the old place because it was the first place, where our parents were born and learned to walk without shoes. (more…)