arctic studies

blue sea

2007-09-13T07:03:22Z

*

child with a crayon
asks how many legs
for the octopus

you say

as many that
makes it beautiful.

*

The Matches – (revisiting k.)

2007-09-07T20:12:12Z

*

My little friend in army surplus clothing walking through
the parking lot, pushing a wisp of blond hair out of his face.
A walkman in the side pocket of his coat, that’s where the clips
or the grenade may have been. He walks towards me, he doesn’t
change his pace or posture, he simply comes closer, head down,
until he is already beside me. Is someone fucking with you, kid I say
who is it. He gestures vaguely around him and smiles. Tiny bees
are building hives in his ears; that is where the buzzing sound is
coming from. There is a girl’s name on the inside of his sleeve, a bad idea
he cannot shake. Sit with me, we’ll make a cloud, I want to say.
Just sit and we’ll make a cloud that we can walk through like the
Taj Mahal. Well, the fact is we’re in grey mall parking lot slowly
emptying itself of cars. We watch them follow each other
out like lambs out an open gate. My friend takes a box of matches out
of one of his many coat pockets. It has a bluebird on it and the bluebird
begins to…well, nevermind the bluebird. He takes a match out of the box,
strikes the blue tip against the rough side, cups his palm around
the flame to protect it from the wind, brings the flame up to the
tip of his cigarette and inhales. He uses all of his concentration for this,
and I, use all of mine to observe my friend, who is there, who is
really there.

*

drug notes

2007-08-31T05:15:16Z

*

LSD

the helicopter had a twisted blade so we had to follow an unusual path through the evening sky. the pilot, grinningly insisted that the blades were completely fine and that he had made them himself from the ribs of a grey whale. He explained this to me telepathically because I couldn’t differentiate between the sound of his voice and the engine. Or the engine and my memory of scribbling in black crayon on walls in elementary school. The sky was being sliced into tiny pieces of blue paper and I thought - should I rearrange these pieces to form a self portrait? I didn’t want to but I felt it crucial that i must. When we finally landed in a clearing in an alder grove, my knees, by their own will, bent down to meet the damp earth.

.

SPEED

you talked so fast so it would be hard to
see your heart but I could see your heart
by the very speed of it beating your
heart beating like a fist into the softness
of the body around it the heart beating
on whatever it could find

.

COCAINE

how I felt when you left the room was not worth you being in the room in the first place. let me rephrase; the desperation got into the couch, you don't know what hell i went through to get the smell out. a thinning memory of chewing sour-keys with widening eyes, scratching out bad math, offended by the sudden light of sunrise coming through the curtains. How I felt when you left, Sharon. The room filling up with smoke like in a magician’s trick. Not worth you being there in the first place. Or at least that’s what I tell myself when I open the mail and there is a postcard from you; you’re in Florida lying on a white sandy beach, dying perhaps - even though you don’t mention it - I can somehow tell by the unreal whiteness of the sand and the excessive optimism in your sentences.

.

MARIJUANA

A Guide to Birdwatching in British Columbia sits
on your bookshelf, the dust of your skin and house
floats through the afternoon light. You are
trying to explain something to me about
chaos theory. It is all over my head like
spinning coins, like half remembered
music. The ringing sound, and nerves singed
golden, like wild grass swaying. Something
bounds away, too fast to recognize,
and it becomes anything, etc, beautiful, furry,
and camouflaging itself inside my own thoughts.
I know we don’t get much done in our lives, my friend,
but neither does a piece of buttered toast
sitting in a small blue plate on my lap
and who here would
deny its beauty?

.

*

anything flower (old)

2007-08-28T07:40:46Z

*

maybe in the dim
twilight you over water
the plants in your garden.
maybe someone watches you
from a window across the street
thinking that boy hasn’t moved
from that spot for 5 minutes
now and why is he
pouring water over that
toy truck? maybe anything
is a flower, and maybe time
abandons you when you
choose an absurd system of
thought over it. maybe love.
maybe you stand there -
not quite there - watering
rusted toys until you
hear distant music from an
ice cream van or a mosquito
bites your ankle and you come
back to your life. maybe
you never really come back
into your life. maybe
love.

*

run on

2007-08-24T20:05:22Z

The sentence that runs, as if from death, exhausted and sweat-beaded, torn by blackberry thorns, bloody dust on its knees, each misspelling a shudder of breath, each comma a banana peel in a cartoon scene, how it gets up and continues through the canned laughter, ringing with all it has collected and let go of, as the old man pulling the great fish back to shore, with its guts trailing out and being eaten away by tinier fish, the ringing that continues after the meaning is unraveled and lost, the music that becomes the meaning, blessed by each space between the word, each pause and intake of breath and cursing its weak lungs, all 26 letters of its grotesque body, the trust and distrust of its map-less pathway, drunken and wholly instinctual, the sentence that runs knowing the place that it will inevitably arrive, a black spot, single poppy seed, the center of an eye, a bullet hole in brick wall, a cigarette burn in a couch, the inverse photograph of a star, the head of an ant, the sentence that arrives there, amazed that in the gathering speed of its momentum it would ever stop, in disbelief of what it once was, like the rain that doesn’t know it was once the sea, the rain that falls into the ocean at night, the last drop released, sighed out, that hits the surface and ripples outward, the sentence arriving there, back into oblivion, back to the end that had chased it so lovingly towards itself.

the heart

2007-07-21T00:35:30Z

*

it hurts in the chest where you hide it
where it mumbles and paces and fears
that you will be its only home.

*

q&a

2007-04-17T00:06:45Z

so, i'm 29 now (on the 15th.) I started trying to write a small note, as i often do; a bookmark for where i am in my life. but its hard to have perspective for some reason. i think some questions would help. is there anything that you would like to ask me, or know of me? especially from the strangers. now is your chance. i will answer as honestly as i can.

raoul

(p.s. unscreened, so you can be anonymous or what have you)

Life Here

2007-03-25T17:17:42Z

*

the rain
until her hair resembles
the rain

*

dust

2007-03-24T21:21:58Z

*

that darkening Wednesday evening
learning what household dust was mostly composed of
i brushed a finger across your window sill, rubbed two fingers together,
had a thought, but then it was gone,
whisked away, I imagine,
by a kind wind
a kind of tinted light
that sometimes paints you
across the inside of my eyelids
when the inside of my eyelids are too dark and wide
that takes away the poems
that I sometimes thank
for taking away the poems.

*

caution street

2006-12-27T19:56:02Z

hey, i made a journal for my electronic music project, goodnight streetlight. i'll just be posting updates and news related to my music as well as now and then perhaps reviewing a concert or cd that i really like. its called caution st. add if you are interested.

cautionstreet

winter

2006-12-26T20:56:06Z

*

the temperature drops
below zero, the wind
snaps a plum branch,
and people who
were once in love
take each other's arm
while walking on
the black ice.

*

Blinksville (revisited)

2006-12-17T10:06:31Z

2.34 a.m. Far End of Swan Road

Officer Williams and Deputy Tate received a report of teenagers skinny dipping in Swan Lake. The youths were located at the south end of the lake and ordered to come out and put on their clothing. While writing out tickets for night-swimming, the police car's parking brake failed and the car rolled into the deep end of the lake, sinking to the bottom. Deputy Tate became very distraught, claiming that there was a young rabbit in the backseat of the car; a birthday gift for his daughter. The teenagers offered to dive in and try to retrieve the animal. After a minute one came up with a rusted telescope. Another came up with a tattered wedding dress. The last with a briefcase full of fake Rolex watches. After repeated attempts, none were able to find the rabbit. The police officers eventually told them to stop trying. Considering the unusual nature of the situation, the officers decided not to issue fines to the swimmers and sat around the fire with them instead. It was a beautiful clear night that grew long with discussions about the After-Life, God, and other similar concerns. Often there would be a lull in conversation where the only sounds would be the crackle of the embers and the soft lapping of the water and everyone would be thinking about the same small thing.

.

Reading to the Wolves

2006-10-17T19:46:56Z

*

The mynah bird watches
the lightning. Wants to take
a ribbon of it for the nest. That's
how we build our home. We let the
wolves in and read them to sleep.
Scribble on the paper, she says,
and i will tell your future. I don't
believe her, but I don't believe
anything, so I accept. We recycle the
sorrow into ship-building materials.
We design it to come apart when we
are finally safe and content in the
middle of the sea. Love is heartbreak,
she says. That's how it opens.
We go out into the dark garden and
find a snail. Then we come in and place it
upon a map, on the name of the town
where we live. Tonight we'll sleep, and
shed the excess of wood, nails, hair,
and memory. In the morning, we'll go.

*

Sleep City

2006-06-16T20:44:19Z

*

The pharmacy is also the place where you can buy your wrenches and
screws. The liquor store is a small airport. There is the Sweet
Meats Night Club around the corner from the Love Letter & Glass
Recycling Depot. At the Bakery the baker puts the bread to your
mouth and says “Life Insurance” and you are frightened but take it
anyways, say Amen. Soap bubbles drift down Main St. from the
bubble machine on the roof of the Funeral Home. The coffee shop
by the docks also manufactures the powder they put in those little red
rings for toy guns. some morning you are served the wrong drink,
spit it out after you take a sip. The cashier apologizes, says she only
make her mistakes in the early morning, blames her dreams, but
she craves them by the end of the day. We all do. The Public Library
is also an aquarium. Research for N.A.S.A. is conducted at the
Children’s Museum of Art. You go to the Auto Collision Repairs
and end up with a full body massage that went too far. You
want something so bad the desire cloaks the actual thing so you
don’t know what it is anymore. A houseplant that grows filtered
cigarettes? A cologne that repels ghosts? Easy to hand over
the money, harder to believe in what you're getting.
There you are, drained and dazed, blinking in the mall's
bright lights. You look at the other people around you, and
for each one, you imagine them naked and sleeping in your arms,
in a house floating in the middle of empty space, deep in
love, if that’s it, if that’s the thing that’s missing.

*

The Earthquake Dream

2006-06-04T21:36:37Z

*

You save up for a summer to get scar removal treatment for your arms, working a job trimming hedges and mowing lawns in the suburbs. When you finally have enough, come autumn, you decide to do something else. You buy a secondhand guitar or a bicycle instead. You pay off some old debts. The act of remembering becomes simply remembering; unarmed, a quiet walk through an old damaged city, slowly being covered over with weeds and dust.

At night, a white cat sleeps upon you, a cat whose claws were once used as the bad excuse that you mumbled when friends pointed and asked. Some night you awake from a dream with the vibrations of its purr moving through your chest.

*

Dawn

2006-05-05T21:51:52Z

*

She gets storm-drunk with me and spills out a night that had passed
many winters ago, a night she didn’t know she remembered until
she’s already speaking from there. And it not so much the
narrative – nothing much had actually happened – but the colors,
the essence, a coughing out of a series of breaths that, somewhere
in the arithmetic, had never been exhaled. She fumbles at first,
tries to hide it, but the covering only reveals it further, as a
cloud of white flour or a bed sheet thrown upon a ghost. For a few
moments I am as uncomfortable as she is, but in time the honesty
emits its dawn light, her voice becomes clearer, and her exposed
palm brings nothing but my own palm to it; a response too thought-free
and unavoidable to call kindness. I bow my head and scroll through a
thousand animals till I am the one who she feels most safe with. I close
my eyes and let the light push through my eyelids, let it fall upon
my old broken mirrors, the minutia of the ramshackle basement, and
realize it could be now me that is speaking and her listening, but
neither of us are sure of this anymore, except we know this is a rare
light, a light we usually sleep through, damp under the covers and
turning, and turning, and turning away from.

*

Lemon Ginger

2006-04-21T19:16:37Z

*

Friends who know simple medicine, those
who meet you at the library with enchanted
knowledge to see your enchanted lack thereof.
Who can advise with the physics important to
your imaginary architecture. Those with sky
blue ears who boil water for tea, who ask
what kind, as if it matters, who recommend adding ginger,
because it will help your labored breathing. Who tell you
how sunlight purples the glass over time, how gravity isn't
completely understood yet. Who says you’re doing all right, and
here is how you can cross the river without drowning. Who act as
warped mirrors; the only mirrors you can honestly find
yourself in. Joking about death in the late evenings, who know its
seriousness enough to be able to. Who bring out the
absurd creatures of their subconscious into your bedroom,
unashamed, little paws that scurry across your lap and get lost
inside your furniture. Who fashion a playground out of the discarded
ammunition and debris of this world. Who have been made beautiful
by the right amount of solitude. Who sing in the kitchen,
pour your tea, and wait for you to catch your breath.
And what you do for them - you take photographs of
their hands, drink your tea, and explain your
idea for an endless river-like aquarium.

*

"journal entry"

2006-04-15T18:47:38Z

A small glimpse; I’ve been happy these days in a calm and measured way that I don’t think I’ve quite had before. Been working part-time in a pet-foods warehouse, staking bags and boxes of dog and cat food on pallets. Mentally, it is kind of like tetris which I find relaxing, and physically…it was a little hard at first but I am getting in better shape, and it feels good to be tired in that way. The annoying radio station in the warehouse plays a lot of "90’s rock" and on the anniversary of Kurt’s death they played a lot of Nirvana. I am now past his age when he died (27) and for some reason I have made that significant, in my mind. It would take a bit too long to explain. It is cold in the warehouse so I wear a couple layers of sweatshirts and I remember reading something about how kurt, when he was younger, would wear extra layers of clothing to hide his slight frame. I like the meaning of the word frame in that context.

Before I got this job, and on my days off these days, I paint. I’ve been doing a series of oil paintings of concrete/wall corners with leaves, debris and other minutia collecting in them. I will show you when I have a few more done. I don’t have an easel so I lean the canvas against a television I don’t watch, and layer the floor with newspapers I hardly read. I don’t really know much about what’s going on in the world.

Heart matters: there is a girl I see who I call my kinda-girlfriend because she is in a long term relationship with another girl. they have a moderately open-relationship. So at first it was weird and a bit complicated but now I see it as the loveliest arrangement. m. is a dream, most gentle eyes, softest voice. We’re like best friends in a way too, she knows me well, in a way where I find myself feeling honest and beautiful when I’m around her. Also, as i was telling Elizabeth, she makes fun of me being a poet and loving darkness and such, so I emphasize that part sometimes to make her laugh.

What else - I write, you know about that. I post less than 10 per cent of what I write. The rest is much too incomplete, in fragments, or just needs some more breathing time. sometimes I feel all of this is breathing time before I finally say something, maybe ten, twenty years from now.

The city/suburb I live in is kind of ugly and unfriendly but as you know, sometimes its all about the angle of the light.

28 years old today. April 15th. Birth of Da Vinci in 1452, The sinking of the titanic in 1912, and Edward Gorey spun off his mortal coil 6 years ago.

.

nightingale

2006-04-14T05:57:20Z

*

she photoshops out
a gap in her
chipped tooth

a gap that she
can whistle
through

*

goodnight streetlight

2006-04-11T04:51:09Z

goodnight streetlight . com

for those who are interested, my musical act goodnight streetlight
has a new website. it has a bunch of new stuff, however, it doesn't
have my new soon-to-be-released album "the curfew bell" yet.
info about that will be there soon.

let me know if you find any broken links, errors etc.

xo

raoul

p.s. while i'm here i may as well link my myshame, i mean, myspace.

Fade In

2006-04-09T19:17:51Z

*

Last autumn, fog loomed for a week in my city, all
harsh edges softened, pale lights worked their way
through milky air. People and objects only existed
as I neared them, ceased to exist as their distance grew.
Could barely make out the huge red banner on the
side of the mall, facing the parking lot, that said Bait Cars are
Everywhere. There were small rains underneath each
sidewalk tree from the moisture collecting on the leaves
and branches. When I was young, this is what I thought fog was:
clouds heavy with rain that didn’t let the droplets fall, but
instead sunk down to the earth with the weight. That’s what
I thought I was walking through.

One of those half-blind evenings I heard Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You
playing on a large speaker system out the window of a grimy
pawn shop. The sound entered the street, found little that resembled
it besides the mist, but decided to stay. Everyone went about
their business as usual. Stray kids in frayed hoods palmed
money, small white rocks. Blonde girls, stumbling, spilling out
of their little sister’s clothes. A Jehovah’s Witness in a suit
holding copies of The Watchtower, trying so hard to stand
in good posture for his Lord. Everyone nervous about
each other’s eyes.

I remembered the song being one of the few that I looked forward
to coming on the easy-listening radio station at the Dairy Queen
I worked at when I was younger, sweeping the floors near the end of
the night. I mentioned it to no one at the time. A weakness for
cinema had it playing in my head whenever I thought about her,
then her…and then her. It played in my head those bus trips and walks
back from loud parties. Walking, because I didn’t have a car, still don’t
have a car, nothing for anyone to break into. Ghost-voiced,
then as now, I think its strange you never knew.

The sound entered the street, found little of resemblance,
decided to stay. I had to lean against something until
it was over. Chose a hard grey wall, tested it first.

*

light pollution

2006-04-02T01:08:26Z

*

Murmuring the little eggs of a sentence
don’t know why or to whom. There, some
that consider your tiny keychain beam
light pollution, say keep your sensitive eyes
drawn open in expectation of impossible
vehicles descending from the dark firmament.
Eyelashes like trees circling the lake, moonlit, fishhooks
in the beds of sediments. Gravity-defying and
waterwalking are not the holy instances. Our weakness
for circus magic will be slight ruin to our hearts.
Saw loved ones grasping carefully positioned glow-in-the-dark
straws. I bare my teeth at the UFOs. Joan, your negotiation
with the universe troubles me. If love is evacuated in times of
trauma, and the absence blessed, it can return. But if
replaced by unsightly sculpture - not so easy. A vacuuming
in the hallways outside your room, warmth spreading through
your whirring car in the morning frost, nightmare sediments
coaxed out the corner of your eyes. Dome of the sky an
upside down bowl of air. Offering, offering, and the silence
that spurns you. Halfway through the chaotic stream-of-consciousness
exercise, I just wanted to write the phrase I love you don’t know
why or to whom. Wonder how many, in the throes of an
unexpected death, car accident or heart-attack, have
touched the side of a policeman’s or ambulance attendant’s
face with those words? - Random, and I am sorry. If I were
to break the stanza anywhere here I will lose everything.
Dust in shafts of light, plastic dinosaurs in the church’s
sound-proof baby room, the tremble in the minor chords.
Finding this position of reverence, despite disbelief. You have no
hands in the firmament, let alone paper and pen, so, the
murmuring, the coughing fit that shapes you into a fetus, that
fills your slow descent, so, I love you is said to
simple weak air, the desperately-inhaled,
mournfully exhaled, last of it.

*

small love scene

2005-11-16T21:10:30Z

*

he said which hand
and she touched the one that
did not have the ring

then kissed his open palm

*

the guests

2005-10-06T22:19:28Z

*

in his castle
the king drained
entire rooms of
furniture and
memory. he
threw his
gold and jewels
from the balcony
as if from a sinking
ship. he kissed the
foreheads of his children
and sent them to the
movies with enough
money for several
years of continuous
viewing.

when people asked what
was happening he said
he was making room
for important guests
that would soon arrive.
‘do you think they’ll
be able to drive
through this blizzard?’
he asked. they blinked
at him, wearily. it was
the middle of july
and too humid
for anyone to be
making jokes.

in time, the guest
arrived and he
met them
at the door. they
were invisible but he
recognized them
by the cold shivers
and their thick
syrupy silence.
‘friends, friends,
come in,’ he mumbled
and showed them around
his vacant castle.
‘nice place,’ they said,
‘are we in time
for dinner?’
‘yes,’ said the
king quietly
and climbed up
onto the dining table
and lay himself
flat across it.

before closing
his eyes he
stared up at
the ceiling
where a
small dusty
chandelier
he had forgotten
to dispose of
still hung,
refracting the last
of the light
that was slowly
fading from
the room.

*

our kindness

2005-09-10T00:16:40Z

*

there she was in her
torn mosquito netting dress
saying I’d let them drink from me
all the time, if it wasn’t for the poison.
I have so much to give. I’ll even
pour some out into a saucer.
then she did. she placed the
saucer in the corner of the
room and went to sleep.
but they ignored it
and started clouding
around her body. those
horrible insects, I thought.
I walked over to the saucer and
got on my knees. I touched my
tongue to it. then touched my lips.
it was not the same. but I
was trying. I was trying
to be a kinder man.

*