Toilet Paper

This morning, elbows on knees
I gazed at a roll of it,
Wondering what the ancients did.
Long ago. Way before toilets even.
And which came first, the toilet
Or the paper?

All we really know is that
Everywhere, ubiquitously,
There is some -- or so we hope.
But it is even beyond hope.

Apostrophe

Life’s one.
Remember how long we were confused about it?
Do you? I recall asking
Your opinion of the Fall.
You argued for myth, and I stuck to
Fact. So much, I damn near convinced myself.
The serpent was not even a snake, you said.
And I asked how you knew this.
I was there, you said.

1. The drive is often the best thing about traveling.
2. I love a good snuggle with my husband when I'm cold.
3. I often use pasta when I am cooking.
4. I'm reading Little Women right now; I love it.

Looking Behind

I

Especially on quiet, satiated evenings it will happen.
Walking down the street I will suddenly stop
And turn toward a sense of myself approaching me.
Not of being followed or stalked, but quite the opposite.
The impossibility of pursuit. As though I alone exist
And my steady apparition.

II

The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright & The Taliesin Fellowship
By Roger Friedland & Harold Zellman.

I hate being too busy.
Really hate it.
And lately I feel that I have been too busy to write anything about the great books I am reading.
For instance, I just finished reading Ken Follett’s World Without End.
Loved it. Did I write about it? No.
Before that, Laura Kipnis’s The Female Thing: Dirt, Envy, Sex, Vulnerability.
Terrific book. Did I write about it?
NO!

Just wondering…
Have you ever gotten involved with a book like for instance

OK, let’s be serious here for about three minutes.
I AM THE WORLD’S WORST COOK!
Don’t even try to compete with me on this!
I CAN’T COOK STUFF!
And I’m OK with this.

The First Time

What would you say to my
I love you?
For the first time.
We once wondered.

Tell me to take it back?
Rewind the tape? Or
Say it again? Louder?
As I recall, there was indeed
An echo, but never louder.
Not once did you hear it
Louder, than the first time.

To My Princess

I’ve heard he rides quite well, and in the sun
his armor gleaming
Would blind you if it wasn’t for the fact
that you were dreaming.
You’ve pictured him a thousand times
and when he calls, you’re ready.
(He seldom thinks of you and when he does
you’re one of many).

Now I’m not one for armor, and my horse
is prone to shyness…
Yet every thought of you contains the words
“Your Royal Highness.”
Let someone else daydream in vain
for Kings they’ve never seen.

The Extra Ones

We are told that he chose five smooth stones.
Young, and ruddy faced, in 1 Samuel 17:40.
I would have imagined jagged ones to cause
Greater cranial damage, but who am I?
This sling was not even the type you draw back on.
It was the kind you whirl about your head.
I know, because there was an artist’s rendition
In the book my mother read, as my eyes fell shut.

So an army cowers, as the boy runs forward,
Taunting this oaf! “This day the Lord will hand you
Over to me.” He kicks the dirt and spits, “And I’ll

I have been holding back from blabbing about how much I have been enjoying the His Dark Materials Trilogy, by Philip Pullman.
I’m now on the third book, called The Amber Spyglass, and I am thoroughly enthralled with the series. I think it is fabulous, and I highly recommend it to ye all!
When I am done with this volume, perhaps I will write an essay on my assessment of the trilogy.

It was such an awesome surprise to come home after work, well, after Starbucks, after work… and find something crammed into my mailbox in the lobby. I saw the return address and wondered, “Hmmm… what would that Torontonian Nutbar be sending l’il ol’ me?”
← It’s her new book, and it’s really great.

I could not wait. I ripped into the package there in the elevator.
Let me introduce you [as if you don’t already know who I am talking about] to the coolest chick in blogland → Patricia Storms.

Cranberry Lake

An August sun baked our canoe
Where we had beached it, in the sand.
And, taking your small hand
Toward shade, I led you.

Or was it you, me,
Who followed, who led,
When gaily laughing, you said
This bunch here are portabellini?

This bunch of what? said I
Dumb as three brooms.
These here, see the mushrooms
‘Neath the tree where they lie?

How do you know this?
When I stopped you were shaken -
Thinking me angry, mistaken

Let Me Kiss Your Tongue

What happened next, I love.
No questions. You did not hesitate.
Someone may have had something to ask.
But, oh. Dearest.
In that certain darkness, my eyelashes playing horizon
Drinking, drank up the spectacle of that glistening muscle
Emerging from your full-wet lips,
On my sentence.
No clarification.

Ouija

So I turned to a road atlas, in lieu of your
Vanilla limbs. My finger along interstates
Ran and I said, These are her veins.
In blue, lakes and rivers showed their wet
Spots and again, my fingers, searching,
Sought.

Where is a park, where we can hide away?
I’m not familiar, I complained, and just then
I felt, Ouija-like, an assistance.
Here. Follow me, and
I followed, sleep-walking but never more
Awake. Here, further a bit.

You and I were in Green River.
I said I am a stranger here.

Faithless

I’ve got my own moral compass to steer by
A guiding star beats a spirit in the sky
And all the preaching voices –
Empty vessels ring so loud
As they move among the crowd
Fools and thieves are well disguised
In the temple and the marketplace

Like a stone in the river

Well, here I am on the final leg of my holidays.
Still visiting. Still having fun. Still eating.
But come Monday, it is back to the coal mines for me. Tomorrow I will be boarding a plane and flying back home. Back to my meowing Jack, and the snowbanks I left behind in Ottawa.
At the end of each year I like to reflect upon the books I have read over the past 12 months. I reminisce about each one and see which come to the forefront as being especially memorable and worthwhile.

human

i looked up.
they had made their webs
in the rafters,
these two silent architects.
so i knocked them into a foil pan
where they lightly clattered.
exoskeletons, spinning
and disoriented.
so i sprayed aerosol on them
in great amounts, until
swimming to the center of the pan
they found each other,
grappled,
and broke their own necks.
i heard it.
two faint snaps.
i did not look up

← Why is this man smiling?

I’ll tell you why!
He’s smiling because he just found out he can buy that mansion that is twice the size of his current mansion!

Your Love For Me

If you the hills chant and me in them run
To find naught but tree and shadow
Conspiring, and an owl hooting ridicule,
What will touch my face, then?

Aneurysm

This is how I want it to be. While reading Hardy
I turn to her and tell her how good she would
Look in that blue dress she did not buy today.
And I see that smirk, the one that knows
I will get it for her tomorrow anyway. But just as
She adjusts the pillow behind her head, reaching
For her fourth volume of Proust, the same thing
Happens to her. And we lean into each other,
The calico cat not even stirring at our feet
As our books fall forward.
And that candle she lit, flickers.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

I just finished reading it!
Good Granny / Bad Granny.
It’s fabulous.
I, [an old guy] love children’s books.

And as such, I am not sure who will love this book more, the kids being read to, or the adults that are reading it to them!
The latter will be snickering, and alternating between nodding and shaking their heads. The kids will just be giggling.

Well, today was back to reality.
I had six days off, and that is a rare thing for me… workaholic that I am!
My next vacation is in August.
That's like an ETERNITY away!
Ho-hum!
Must make little stones out of real big stones, until then!
I spent those six days of vacation with my best friend, and one of the things we managed to accomplish was the complete restoration of over 3,000 songs on my iTunes Library.
I lost all of them earlier this year in the Great Hard-Drive Crash of 2008!
Remember that? Remember my anguish?
Restoration was a lot of work, but fun, and worth it all.
I am addicted to iTunes on my Mac. Best invention since..... HAMBURGER!
I NEVER HAVE TO PUT IN A CD!

‘Never Again’

These feelings can’t reach the frozen core.
No, chilled and shaken… you turn from the sun
And I cry, and I wonder how one
Lengthy coolness can come from so brief a storm
You never feel warm
anymore.

These feelings don’t end where they begin.
No, spilled and taken… they never flow back
And I die, and I say for the lack
Of a better word ‘Why?’ This one way emotion
Like river to ocean…
‘Never again.’

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Tonight I finished reading a terrific book.
A Widow For One Year, by John Irving.
I am not kidding, I think that Irving is perhaps thee most entertaining and engaging of authors that I have encountered in a long while.
A wonderful storyteller. I could listen to him forever.
For most true readers, Irving is not exactly a new discovery. For me, however, he is relatively a new find.
While reading this book in several coffee-shops, I’ve noticed that the majority of people that have seen its easily recognizable cover have felt the need to comment, along the lines of the following:
“Oh, that’s a good one, huh? Are you enjoying it?”
Or…

Worms

We went worm-hunting, we did, me and you, we did.
Thing is, when a man is to go fishing, he needs the worms.
And so, my great God, I dug ‘em as though my last three lives
Depended on a damn-good basketfull right now.

I dug, and scraped, and so did you.
Until we found a few, curling and lost. Disoriented worms,

Happy New Year!
I am just sitting here thinking about New Year’s Resolutions.
Realizing that I don’t really have any. Not the normal kind, anyway.

Tonight, I finished what I consider to be an essential book.
The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath.
A novel about a woman who lost it!
As in, her mind.

Wonderfully written, even though I still do not know what a bell jar is?
My research has only unearthed that the title referenced the fact that a bell jar essentially traps something to keep it on display. And supposedly, Plath used the bell jar as a metaphor to talk about the repression of women in American society.
See… I did not get that last point at all.
But, I seem to never see feminism when it is supposed to be there.
For instance, I love Margaret Atwood.