Sunday, 31 March 2013

Too Big

I ripped my pants the other day...
I was trying to put my phone in my pocket,
and it ripped.
I guess my phone
got too fat.
I fed it too many text messages.

Saturday, 30 March 2013

Snowkids

They sent us to prison
and told us it was for learning.
We learned to fight,
learned to have sex accidentally,
and all things related. Our textbooks
were lined with pieces
of history
concerning Justin's pimples
and what Elsa did with the grad class of '02
while getting an education on rotten barley.

A good legacy.

We learned to waste time effectively,
and plotted escape routes
through the smudge lines on our
desks in Planning while
Nature hummed along outside without us.

Some of us
found prison at home,
some of us watched out the barred windows
over bald, barking heads
but either way
we were Snowkids
frozen inside
wishing we were Christmas.

Friday, 29 March 2013

I Already Knew That


"You know that toilet paper is about half the price at NoFrills."

I'm blinking, blink blink,
staring at her and wondering
what the purpose is
in telling me
that I could've saved the shop
Three Dollars
on toilet paper
when there's no NoFrills
within about a 1 billion kilometer radius?

"Oh," I say,
Staring.

I knew I'd only get 15 Air Miles out of the purchase.
I was proud of that and them.

"You know the blue tags? They only mean that if you spend one hundred dollars..."

And this is what I get
for being young
with a face that betrays
my supposed inexperience with Safeway.

"...so if we needed coffee,
towels,
toilet paper,
milk,
cream,
tape,
soap..."

I think my age is lying to them
about how much
I understand concerning
Air Miles and club cards...

"...then when you went over there to get stuff it would be worth it..."

And it only ads insult
to costly Air Miles
when it's assumed
that you have the intelligence
and blue-sticker-reading-prowess
of a dead turtle.

Thursday, 28 March 2013

Poe

We went to class,
and we analyzed him to death.
That could've been the cause of it...
I don't know. It's just how I imagined him.

Old man in a house all alone,
surrounded by black paper
and crows
and dark, stormy clouds,
probably some melodrama gothicism
inching into his bones,
every raised hand
and untrained answer
a food for the relentless ravens squawking outside the dirty windows
of his dank, dusty study
where he tried desperately to force paper
into understanding.

Sometimes I think he was closer to a psychologist
than a poet.

Anyway
He probably spent ages in there,
scratching and pulling at his wild and crazy hair
stepping slowly down, down
into the stone dungeon of his mind,
looking for something of
reason,
feeling the cold, grey walls for anything
that made sense.
- a very diligent adventurer.

And then!
Finding something,
I expect that he
would turn on his heel,
taking the steps three at a time
back up
the winding staircase
over the crumbley stone
and throw! the treasure out of the top castle window and onto the page
QUICKLY! So quickly, before it's gone!
And sighing, pick up his boots
and struggle back down to the place
where he first saw
he didn't know anything.

They always call him a writer,
but I think he was just being honest.

Trying

Try, When one desire
springs your mind
well maybe it's time
to see where it will lead you.

Leave the raging fire,
leave the sinking ocean,
leave the way you have been,
step into a new truth.

And I try, to be the one
the one who calls you, undone,
to save a little faith, i try
So maybe you could try for me,
give a little, die a little, cuz I

Try to imagine life without
nobody, nothing, just faith,
face the day we aren't perfect
Except when made thru him.

Oh Give a little more
and find what you've been trying for.
Maybe just a little bit undone...

Wednesday, 27 March 2013

Priorities

I'm gonna eat perogis for dinner again
now that I've finished learning some German.
Somehow my stomach is tingling-
Anticipation!!! as I scribble this down
before dinner
pretending to write a poem
while secretly publishing my first book in my mind and signing joyfully
"I wrote it!
Yes I did!
Myself!
I love it!"

How did I end up at the end of this poem
when all I wanted to do was cook some broke perogis in East Vancouver?
It's probably because
I'm willing to spend more on Bentlily
than I am on groceries. 

Canadian Skin Problems

Ugh, I have so much dandruff.
It's itchy,
hiding just inside my hairline
hard for me to catch.

(I think my family evolved from snakes -
I'm shedding all my skin!)

The little teeny flake inches up my hair strand
when I get crazy and scratch and tug and pull at it -
"Please come out!!"

Suddenly the skin detaches itself
and floats casually to the sink
right past my V-shaped brows and upside-down smile.

I'm so Canadian,
even my skin is snowing.

Bentlily

I just bought a book full of incredible, deliciously rich poetry called Bentlily, based off of the website Bentlily.com. There's a little sleeve on the front cover of the book that says that the author, Samantha Reynolds, wrote one poem a day (for I don't know how long), and the result is the book I just purchased.

I thought this idea was amazing, and have decided to adopt it for just over a month. So, for the rest of March and the entirety of April, I am going to write one poem per day and post it here.

If you read it, great.

If not, I guess all my documents will be backed up in case the hard drive in my papernote book crashes.

Cool.

April J