Benjibopper

Labels: 2012, nova scotia, philosophy, Poetry

Uncoiling now
Letting time loose
Taking it off my shoulders

Labels: 2012, nova scotia, philosophy, Poetry

[My brother wrote a great tune for this but it's not online anymore so here are the lyrics alone]:

Went into the City
Escaped from the trees
away from the lions
chasing me

Bought a robot
to fix me drinks
sat on my porch
so I could think

Planes overhead
through clouds and smog
shut the factory down
No more jobs

Homeless for miles
but the coal still burns
Bums on the freeway
amphetamine turns

Get me out of here
Can't take it no more
Get me out of here
Trash on the rat-race floor

Went back to the farmland
put the tractor in gear
Tilled my fields
until they were clear

Cut down the trees
for my fireplace
Looked in the mirror
at a stranger's face

Worked the good earth
fought the pests
Grew me some veggies
The flowers sold best

Lonely worked the land for years
Lonely now there's nothin' left

Get me out of here
Can't take it no more
Get me out of here
This life is an endless chore

Went into the forest
back to the trees
Prayed for redemption
on fragile knees

Walked through woods
lived on berries and leaves
Wandered forever
alone with me

Went raving mad
Fought with myself
spent seven years
In a paradise hell

Surrounded by beauty
Nothing to do
No one to share
What would you do?

Get me out of here
Can't take it no more
Get me out of here
This beauty's a bore

Went into the city
Escaped from the trees...

Labels: 2005, philosophy, Poetry, Toronto

Something I wrote maybe 13 years ago:


Salamander sits in a sitting pool,
eyes bulging through the water,
trying to get some shade and being cool,
while the day keeps heating getting hotter.

Fly flies by makes waves in the air,
salamander's snack causes fodder
'cause swimming nearby with streaks in his hair,
is a pudgy little cute littler otter.

Snapping of the tongue, salamander's undone,
his snack becomes snack for the otter.

Another day at the pond
and life goes on
not for all but for some,
in the riffles and the runs,
of the sitting pool in the water.

Labels: 1998, nova scotia, philosophy, Poetry

Hi folks, I have been swamped, working on a nonfiction book called Green Souls (coming out Fall 2011). Thought I'd share a little teaser from the first chapter, see what you all think:

Michel Desjardins' first major life lesson was about excess. "My father has never liked excess," he tells me. "To be excessive is to waste, and therefore to abuse the resource."

The way to avoid that abuse, according to Dr. Desjardins the senior, is to take care of the resource yourself. Despite being a busy professional, the good doctor has always taken the time to tend his own garden and cut his own wood.

"That had a tremendous influence on me," Michel says, "though it took me a long time to appreciate the lesson."

His second major life lesson, passed down from his grandparents, was this: get ahead, find a better life than this tough one we toiling farmers have. Be a skilled professional, not an unskilled labourer. Make your fortune in the knowledge industries and take the world, not just the good earth, into your hands. Buy a bigger house and a better car.

These were the contradictory lessons that were eventually passed on to young Michel, so it is no surprise that his midlife crisis, brought on by the political defeat of his employer, left him soul-searching. Even though his father was a simple man, Michel Desjardins was raised thinking he had to do better, to carry forward the legacy of an optometrist. To get the letters of a legal professional, and to shape his city’s and then his province’s destiny in the new economy. He hadn’t taken the time to look back.

Labels: 2010, Canada, non-fiction, philosophy, publishing

It was the first draught year Ashfad had known in 20 years, since he was a little boy. Hoofed urus were hard to find, and they were all bones poking through fur that looked draped on as an afterthought. Vegetables scarcely blinked through the dry earth before retreating, as if scared of the sun’s intense heat.

Ashfad surveyed the land. It looked as if the earth had been roasted over a fire and broken into little pieces of dried clay. "Imagine," he said to Sulwood, his hunting partner, "if we never had to hunt again, if the animals would stop running from us. If they would lay down before us so we could take our pick for the slaughter."

Ashfad returned to his wife, Mersk, empty-handed. His empty hands entwined with hers, and they swayed together in slow motion. They settled for a watery rye soup and laid themselves to rest with their daughter snoring rapidly a few feet away. Ashfad was amazed with the big noises that came from such a girthless little girl.

When he finally joined his family in the somnambulant dreamscape he couldn’t quite place his family among the animals there. The urus were plentiful, fat, and prepared to absorb his spear that he might live another day. Strangest of all, they were tame like dogs. They had no fear of Ashfad, just as he had imagined it with Sulwood.

Labels: 2009, Fiction, philosophy, short story

Let us reinvent the wheel.
The old one takes us nowhere, fast.
Let us forget its existence;
let us strip its ill-gotten rubber
and beat it until its flatness engulfs
our hammers.

Let us kick its metal rims
as the rappers' gab is open-mouth muted
and they've only politics left to rhyme about.
Let our steel toes outlast it.
Let its nuts be eaten by spring's ravenous squirrels,
and its bolts be corroded by vinegar blasted from
our super-soakers.

Let there be no remnants of its perfection,
its blind efficient roll into oblivion.
Let us start anew with a wooden block,
balanced by its corner on a sealskin dome
as we drum like malnourished apes with
broken sticks.

Labels: 2010, nova scotia, philosophy, Poetry

"Why do you bring your mistakes here?" -elderly Ghanaian woman to journalist Joan Baxter






















Dam
Sunlight soil and water,
the Hank Aaron (former) homerun king sandwich.
Former: cocktailed from history's highball of fame,

left out wind-twisted in late-night Chubby Checker marathons,
an asterisk's footnote.

Could be worse:
Harder to be a fish,
whose life beats odds of exponential shrinkage
and just before the life-dream's achieved
she hits the wall.
Her estrogen-laden piscine brain's last thought:
W-T-F?!

Her mercury diet betrayed
with a concrete kiss.

Formerly: One in ten million spawn,
the (parallel universe) Pete Rose payoff.
The plants are the lucky ones.

Labels: 2009, non-fiction, philosophy, Poetry

This is a re-write of a 2006 poem, which some may have seen in its previous incarnation:



King Philosopher
Dear Manpower,
I humbly seek employment
as a Great Philosopher.

I can start begging during the fast
to be whipped by wisdom
in a street with inverted signs.
Even pop stars know:
no shameful confusion;
no prospects for upward nobility.

When wisdom whips my eye,
only then will I demand
promotions toward the industry’s ultimate.

I humbly insist that destiny decrees
I be a chosen Great Philosopher
alongside the textbook hall-of-famers
featured in Ideas of the Great Philosophers.

Even such stratospheric aspirations
cannot sate my celebrity ambition
until I parlay my success
into a reality TV show:
'What is Truth?'

A Great Philosopher’s memory is long,
Dear Manpower,
Alight this steadfast understanding-seeker;
afford me passage to gluttonous opportunity
and your staff shall be
my Season One Sophists.

Labels: 2009, nova scotia, philosophy, Poetry

The loon’s lilt is my Halloween ghost.
Its icy broken fingers caress my inner ear at night,
just as it did when I fit
into that basement box
with the stuffed animals and plastic
propaganda warriors.

Though I’ve grown and left boy-toys
in mouldy asbestos boxes,
though I’ve married and moved to city soundscapes:
the yowling ups & downs of feline passion;
the dotingly shattered bottles of downtown drunks
stumbling home arm-in-arm;
the new day confessions of the broken-hearted,
I can still hear the lake loon twitters of childhood.

And though my wife sleeps snoring beside me,
though my baby cries for milk and entertainment,
I can still feel the loneliness in that loon’s solitary song,
sung only for its echo.

It is as loud and empty in my mind’s ear
as it was when I shrank tiny in the bottom corner
of that little basement on a midnight lake
under an open window,
shivering damp and sunburnt in the autumn sun’s
breezy shadow.

Labels: 2009, nova scotia, philosophy, Poetry

Labels: 2008, nova scotia, philosophy, Poetry

White caps on black sand
on the northern California coast
where I learned how to drive with my thumbs

Green trees on sharp turns
on the way down to Big Sur
where Seeley gave his Thanks to Gravity

Foggy memories on monarch shore
on a timeout from the cause
where I learned destiny was following me

Condor dots on blind sun
on a moment to myself
where I learned how big the world could be

X spot on blue line
in between San Fran and Crescent City
where I earned a single moment of free

Closed eyes on rhythm waves
on the northern California coast
where I wondered what home would be

Labels: 2008, America, philosophy, Poetry

"Boredom...is really just another screen to deflect our attention away from the arduous yet delightful, joyous though painful process of allowing ourselves the stillness to remember what we feel and to begin assuming responsibility for our lives." --Derrick Jensen






Roadkill always makes me sad. All these lives taken for what? So we can ramble on down the road, recreate elsewhere, traversing the highway scars over the vast land, smack through the middle of someone else's home. All manner of forest creatures doing the same, rambling around and suddenly their goals, their destinations, their lives are no more.

On the way to Cape Breton a bird flew straight into our tires on a downward trajectory. Maybe it saw a mouse and, not knowing the creature's already doomed fate, went after it, joined it with a sickening thud.

We frowned at death. "That's the first time I ever did that - hit anything," she said.

I told her about the other time a bird flew into the side of my car. "We stopped and got out, walked toward it. It was just sitting there and we weren't sure it was dead. When we got close it flew away."

"Maybe this one did that too," she smiled hopelessly. We remembered the thud.

Roadkill is an understated tragedy of civilization. Another of our centuries long list of assaults on God and Gaia.



********************************************************************************



We were in an inflatable canvas canoe. Looking up into the tree at the end of the little island we saw an eagles' nest, 2.5 metres across. There were two jeuvenile eagles standing up on the edge of the nest.

What amazed me about those young eagles was that they just stood there, glancing around at the wide world, as we sat watching them.

They completely lacked ambition. They had no desire to work toward any dream. They felt no nagging guilt that they weren't labouring on the manuscript or the business plan. They didn't need to organize, tidy, or clean anything. They weren't dying to escape their one-horse town and see Paris or Bombay. They didn't even have a television to pass the hours until their parents returned. They just stood there, looking around, without anxiety or concern.

No one would judge them for their inaction; no one could hurt them.

Labels: 2008, non-fiction, nova scotia, philosophy

"For what what the world spends on defense every 2.5 hours, about $300 million, smallpox was eliminated back in the late seventies. For the price of a single new nuclear-attack submarine, $726 million to $1 billion, we could send 5 to 7.5 million Third World children to school for a year. For the price of a single B-1 bomber, about $285 million, we could provide basic immunization treatments, such as shots for chicken pox, diphtheria, and measles, to the roughly 575 million children in the world who lack them, thus saving 2.5 million lives annually. For what the world spends on defense every forty hours, abut $4.6 billion, we could provide sanitary water for every human being who currently lacks it."
--James A. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi




I loathe writing about vice. I find myself increasingly saddled with responsibility, deadlines, demands, external and internal pressures, and it's hard on my system. I can't drink anymore, can't tolerate fatty fried foods, don't have time for messy affairs even if I had the desire for them.

So forgive me if I numb my brain with occasional images of 7-foot behemoths smashing spherical material through nylon mesh, while I yell at the TV, "De-fence! C'mon!"

Forgive me if I swear at computer screens 'fuck you piece of shit you have one function in life why can't you do it?!'

Forgive me if I swear too much in general, grumble and complain and sometimes neglect the pleasantries.

Forgive me if I take work to bed and sleep in come morning.

Forgive me if I need a little caffeine in the morning, and if I come off a little cynical when you're whimsical, dreaming your dreams for two.

Labels: 2008, non-fiction, nova scotia, philosophy

This one here needs a tune:


If this is the end
let's get it right
If morning explodes
let's enjoy the night

I seen the signs
in the neon trees
If I stand and fight
be the end of me

If we're all going down
it's a sinking boat
If the water is rising
enjoy the coast

I don't wanna die
I have no choice
Terms are encrypted
in a dumb child's voice

Nobody knows
what lies under-covers
If it's disease and death
let them be my lovers

I did my best
my gods know it's true
I did okay
better than you

I asked very little
gave back twice as much
I got old
grew out of touch

If this is the end
let's get it right
If morning explodes
let's enjoy the night

Labels: 2008, nova scotia, philosophy, Poetry

“Areas of the world that are the most biologically diverse are also the most diverse in language, yet the rate of decline is greater even than that of species loss.” –Paul Hawken


I am free
of that society

Walls surround me
constructed by culture

I am free
inside my mind

You can be free
even in this prison

You can free yourself
but you can free
no one else

Walk with me
imagine pathways
past the walls
to freedom

I am free
but what good is free
If I'm alone?

Labels: 2008, nova scotia, philosophy, Poetry

“When Oscar Wilde allegedly gestured at the garish wallpaper in his cheap Parisian hotel room and announced with his dying breath, ‘Either it goes or I go,’ he was exhibiting something beyond an irrepressibly brilliant wit. Freud, you see, wasn't whistling Edelweiss when he wrote that gallows humour is indicative of ‘a greatness of soul.’ The quips of the condemned prisoner or dying patient tower dramatically above, say, sallies on TV sitcoms by reason of their gloriously inappropriate refusal, even at life's most acute moment, to surrender to despair.”
--Tom Robbins

Labels: 2008, nova scotia, philosophy, Poetry

A friend just forwarded this to me and I found it so inspiring I thought I'd share it:

In an emotionally charged talk, Majora Carter explains her fight for environmental justice in the South Bronx. This MacArthur-winning activist shows how minority neighborhoods have suffered most from flawed urban policy, and energetically shares her grassroots efforts to "green the ghetto." Click http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/53.

Labels: philosophy, politics

Recently watched a beautiful doc called ‘Naked on the Inside’ by an Australian filmmaker. It’s crazy how much pain our bodies cause us when other people tell us how we’re supposed to be, when what they tell us does not and never will match reality.

Instead of embracing what is, embracing what others are, seeing and appreciating that real beauty, we kill ourselves in pursuit of air-brushed two-dimensional fantasies. More delusions of control. Too much power, too close to godliness but never close enough.

One body type they didn’t cover explicitly was the old type. So crazy to think I’ll be old one day. Seeing my 11 years younger cousin it’s hard to believe I’m even this old, hard to remember my mindset 11 years ago. I know back then I couldn’t see a decade down the road. And still I find it hard to imagine 40, yet here it comes, faster and faster.

Hard to imagine being a grandfather, an old man surrounded by progeny’s progeny. Knowing the end is near. What must that feel like?

I become more aware of my own mortality with the passage of time. More risk averse too. No need to hasten the inevitable.

I feel increasingly out of touch with the reality around me. Television is mostly nonsensical, a parody of itself that isn’t in on the joke. How can people watch the supposedly serious garbage on TV? The news is the worst, crime shows a close second. Crime show beauty pageants.

What must the alien anthropologists think of us? How humiliating.

“Shove it up the hole in your culture.”

“Generally the more noise people make the quieter you get,” Maven observed astutely. Especially when the noise is that of talons on throat. I just can’t handle useless petty conflicts. We should be embracing each other’s beauties, appreciating what is there.

***********************************************************************

Sometimes life gets in the way. MikeyZ and I were supposed to hop a U-haul and make a cross-country cash-grab, stopping at every ex-hippy’s paradise along the way, visiting old friends and greasy spoons too. CMcC was supposed to maybe join us.

Life got in the way. There were babies to feed and jobs to secure and begin, and most of all U-haul fucked us in the form of a 250 percent price increase. It’s seasonal. This is busy season.

I have this memory of barrelling across eastern Canada, my dad at the wheel, me on the navigation tip, belting out Blondie as we rode. There was a flat tire, three days travel, half the time allotted by U-Haul’s insurance sharks. It may or may not have happened like that, but it’s a fine memory.

I wanted that journey. I wanted to bond with someone again, play my music loud and watch the road unfold, no hurry or worry.

Life got in the way. Turns out it’s cheaper to hire a moving company. They make life easy, load up your junk, haul it over, unload it too, all for a third the price, and that includes coffee runs, gas and insurance.* Saves us a trip back to the people trap. Saves us a bundle, and time too, and a lot of labour. Labour I was looking forward to, because it would have been communal, with those old-fashioned friends of a fading era. But you gotta move forward, backward never as Kwame Nkrumah said.

Life moves forward fast, and it still gets in the way.

*post-script: the moving company misunderestimated (thanks George for that word) the weight of our stuff, so the actual cost was as high as a U-Haul anyway.

"The only thing worse than growing up
is never quite learning how."
--Joel Plaskett

Labels: non-fiction, philosophy, Travel

In a finite spectrum we were yin yanged to the personifications of logic v. emotion, thinking v. feeling, and I can tell you with heartfelt thought that in my subjective opinion they are both evil, yet in this case two wrongs make some sort of stab in the general direction of truth. There can be no victor because alone their fallacy is equal, and equally incomplete.

RE-A is a brilliant mind, a mathematician who can formulate numbers to predict any observation. “A good model explains little and predicts much,” he says. “Religion is therefore not a good model.” Hence the mystery is exposed and nothing is revealed, on we march like well-programmed tin formulas, enacting our functions and understanding our purpose, not wasting efficiency on other musings.

His flipside is a cross-country stargazer who hopes to cure the woes of the third world with crystals and play; it hasn’t occurred to her that crystals cost too much and the only toys their children see are the ones we no longer want, the castoff velveteen rabbits of our teenaged rebels. She dodges and deflects the unstoppable penetration of RE-A’s critical questions and sends them out into the cosmos with capitalism’s castawaste. She dances barefoot in the garden until her body falls prey to the poor posture of navel-gazing, and her 12 organic pill-a-day habit hasn’t stopped her headaches. Her 6-month dormancy can’t quite compensate for RE-A’s over-productive tendencies to predict marketplace pop-ups and help the hoarding rich folks blame Africans for their own failings, something she fails to question in lieu of non-verbal tendencies. “Let’s paint left-handed swirls instead,” she says, “and shake off our mother’s prenatal loneliness, play with our own inner child,” the one he could never see with his x-ray machine.

Labels: philosophy, Travel