guardian of a million thoughts

i woke up yesterday with this line in my head

gobbling jelly by shelley on my gluten free baguette
“feed my tochondria fat not sugar”

i love watching the Rock Shadows ladies fight for their lives
in exercise class like i am

i stop. look at it as if i’ve never seen it before, or shall again

in the memorial service for all the Rock Shadows occupants that have died this year, i overhear the congregation sing “i’ll fly away” while on the radio, a backtrack “wanted, wanted, dead or alive”

google will conquer death

nothin’ to slow me down more than pullin’ a rib out this morn
when i was hugging the dog

slightly grateful for the injury
and icing the hell out me arse

in the old days with endometrial issues
i could get stoned, miss school, read, write all day in bed
i would walk to the kitchen & think “what did i come in here for?”

now i can do that without a buzz

are you paying attention?

i’m finding it hard to write
keep getting distracted by the net
cuz’ when i write, i use the same machine

Betsy Warland doesn’t check her email
til she’s done a few hours of writing

but none of you are having that problem
or the glued to Netflix problem

if only there was nothing but beauty on tv
like Joni Mitchell’s 75th birthday party
& smart tv’s stopped spying

the prince and princess have left the castle
and the driver causing the Humboldt accident will be deported

in Starbucks, to get on wi-fi, one must give them one’s name / email

my memory of temperature began as a child
the air temperature in Apache Junction today is 61 degrees fahrenheit

it hit sixty-eight degrees during my favourite Easter at Nanny and Papa’s in Half-Moon Bay. Jane & i suntanned out on the front porch twenty feet above the eternal ocean

when it hits sixty-eight degrees in Vancouver, i calm down
Townes Van Zandt says the sun is burning out

at the pool, i pretend i’m alone
under palm fronds that lean my way like ears
clouds like lazy eyes ride the west wind, the sun
more powerful than Fukoshima

where is our ocean protection plan?

my daylight delight, wind on skin, ptarmigan (begin again) song
Joan Baez’ birds have flown

my face is dangerously poised towards the sun
in 1974, i’d skip class at Windsor
lay on foil in the snow on Mt. Seymour
to mask my pizza face

a skin tag fell out of my manubrium this week
(Nicole Brossard’s favorite part of a woman’s body)

& if you leave Canada for six months
it will take two years to see a dermatologist
where is our skin protection plan?

hands folded on my stomach on the chaise lounge
do i relax? no i write this blog. call it ‘doin’ nothin’

Mellow Mama ain’t doin’ nothin’ but doin’ nothin’. life with fibromyalgia’s like that. sitting, like eden robinson, with her feelings : old friends. trapped in her intestines : popcorn seeds

there is a lot she can’t tell you. won’t tell you. don’t tell you.

she is in her 60th year
in her vancouver bed running her lines
the whole world asleep & she pops up singing

“it’s the last time i will buy tp here
the last time i’ll make the bed
i’m goin’ back to Az with the rice i bought there last year”
& in the dream, her favourite romantic poetry prof. Rob Dunham asks her why she doesn’t work in India & her whispersecret is that Ellen D. was her gf all night long

Gaia the dog is disgusted with mama when she hears the “fff” on her lips, Ma cussin’ out the assholes driving. Gaia turns
her back to Ma, stares out the window. ma bolts for a buck
dangles her head in front of the AC. dries her hair

moody blue crows huddle on the road. not even god himself could blow the snow bright clouds that nudge the mountain tops away

a hawk above the US army freedom ranges. talons spread military choppers alarm the starlight pines & congestion relief projects but the scarlet sunset scores the sun-scalloped surface of the Superstitions. Ma sees herself spread out on the landscape like paint

bent over books
bent over boobs
boobs on tum
bob on top
on top of me
why i didn’t report
my SFU prof
on top of me
bob on top
#metoo

her groin is groan pulled
stuck at the entry point *
drives by Angel’s Ladies Brothel where the plane landed. Area 51. nothing else around for miles.

when she was just a little girl
dad told the anti-abortionists to “Fuck Off”
her mom had flowers for her, 7-up, popped-her-cherry-jello
Gramma meet her on the other side
days when it is easy to be alive

it is not hallowe’en but there are needles in the apples & bananas. she has spent most of the day magnifier on her head plucking micro-splinters out of the sides of her fingers
it could take a person down. one thorn at a time, finger at a particular angle place it, lick it, pull it, ouch! trust a must. upwelling. tears. colourless streams on a windshield

she dreams in full colour
is a purple prickly pear cactus
a rattler on the bank of the Salt River

now it is twenty degrees in her park model
narrow hallway to fold her body in
not pull her shoulders back
but hold her breath. she’s been holding it all day so far
newscasters asks folks to pick apple snails out of scottsdale waterways

a piece of fluff spooks her as it spiders across the bathroom tile & she sees faces in the kitty litter. strangers hobble by her trailer in walkers, buzz by in golf carts. ladies bob in her pool on oodles of noodles. she has become one of those gogograndparents with the tv on. she knows the authors of the books on her shelf but opens Netflix. the food party on. god bless her ‘lady of blessed whatnot’*

in the Redding newspaper: a beaver is struck by a car in Columba Park. a woman wrapped it in a towel, went for help. she will not tell us what Richard Delp was doing when she returned. the place where fire ravaged the earth this july. flames up to their doorstep.

what is that out of the corner of my eye?

girls in Tahiti don’t go to school cuz’ they can’t afford the tuition. in Target, a fella is taking a little look-see, pictures up a woman’s skirt. another woman, detained by loss prevention agents, switches the labels at Walmart. she remembers those agents calling the cops on her when she was eleven. Molson/Coors Canada are getting into the cannabis business. more people were killed in the settling of the US than in WWII. loomis trucks are being blown up in Johannesburg with the guards still in them. nothin’ really to write home about

are all the girls going to bed at night like beached
refer to the whaler’s dictionary.

there was an old lady who lived in a shoe
she blesses each swallow of water
peace is somewhere

where is home  bill bissett  time  p.160
fake poem  jamie reid  a temporary stranger p. 37
stuck at the entry point  jonina kirton  an honest woman p.6
lady of blessed what-not  amber dawn  sodom road exit p.10