Speculation on a coffee mug

My father subscribed to the old coffee mug adage, You don’t know anything until you’re thirty.

At ten years old, this infuriated me; according to coffee-stained bubble letters on the side of a little ceramic bucket, I was to remain in my lowly childhood ignorance for three times my current lifetime. I knew how to read and write, after all, and didn't that count for something?

That coffee mug’s been haunting me lately, as I count the final hours of my early twenties and try to remember back
        when being good was like colouring crayon
                inside thick black outlines
        when I had more opinions (my father’s) about politics,
                and less understanding
        when sex was bad and alcohol worse and drugs
                turned you crazy or criminal
        when religion wasn’t shrapnel

Life since high school has been an exercise in unlearning. A part of me looks forward to thirty, when allegedly I will know something.

Photo by Joe Mabel

        What belief or issue have you had a major change of heart about over the course of your life?

Spell to summon change

Snap the hitch
A slip of a stitch
The flip of a switch
The scratch of an itch

Set the gauge
A light on the stage
The turn of a page
The end of an age

Pedestrian tunnel that runs beneath the Don Valley Parkway
Photo by Steven Burke

        I like to wander through new areas of the city when my mind feels stale and I want to encourage a creative change. Is there something small you do to freshen things up when your mind gets stagnant?

Needs a project

When I’m stressed, I dream of university:
two weeks to exam time, due dates looming,
notebook pages blank and textbooks
still nestled in cellophane. There’s no air
between the ink scrawls on my calendar.

But context is essential: a grindhouse scream
takes new meaning on a roller coaster, and
an impossible academic comeback stirs ambition
after too many weeknights spent
losing Connect Four
to my computer.

Remember this game? I suck at it.

        How do you know when you're getting bored and need to start a new project (ie. you watch too much TV, eat too much, pick stupid fights with your housemates, etc.)?

Dear Joni Mitchell

I’m tracking your footprints
across eighty-eight dusty keys,
shadowing you with my clumsy fingers.
I’m wandering your labyrinthine lyrics
until they grow bored and release me
back out the door I came in.

I’m chasing you along the winding melody,
right to the edge where you leap into flight
and I skid to a stop, knowing I would fall;
my voice is greyer in its prime than yours was
when you decided to quit
and take up painting.

        Can you think of someone you admire and try to imitate, but every time you look at their work you can't helping feeling totally intimidated by how amazing it is?

Varadero

Sighing over sweet, ancient memories,
the ocean combs out her wavy locks, carelessly
spilling them across the flaxen sand.
The untroubled sky writes her love-notes
on the feathers of seabirds, and she gives no reply
except a faint, shy caress at the horizon.

Even I of the most loquacious mind
sit watching in permeating silence;
there is a kind of clarity here
such as I have never found.

        My mom says she always pictures herself by the ocean when she's meditating, and I never fully understood why until my trip to Cuba. What image(s) tends to pop up when you're trying to calm or quiet your mind?

Pop quiz

1. The tide goes out
   as it does, from time to time.
   I thought I was past the point of doubting
   its return, fidgeting as I wait,
   prodding anxiously at the beached sea-drift
   and rehearsing despair.

   I seek comfort in both reason and faith: pattern observation
   and prayers to make-believe ocean gods.



2. You can’t cage a man in a golden band
   or a signature in ink or a spoken promise before God;
   you can’t make a gift of a clear sky.

   Love is just one brand of glue.
   Routine, inertia, practicality:
   the names of monsters in my closet.



3. This is pointless musing. This is internal,
   a constellation in the winter sky that represents
   boredom and hormones. This is too familiar.
   I am the one picking at this scab
   and making it bleed.

   I’ve learned this lesson before. I remember the theory
   but not the application.

        Can you think of a life lesson you've learned in theory but have trouble applying to your actual life?

Mother bird takes a renter

Balanced on a kitchen chair, she chips away
the pink, faded wallpaper, reluctantly,
like a child commanded to disassemble
her building block magnum opus.
The stiffness in her raw fingers, wrapped tightly
around the plastic yellow scrapper, is preferable
to the stiffness of keeping clasped
a moan in her weathered throat.

Autumn has long passed, and the room is bare
as winter branches. The little bird packed up
her nest in a cardboard box and flew south.
Wet paper strips of cherry blossom branches
(like springtime in High Park, the little bird said)
curl on the papered floor like dead leaves.

The naked walls reveal their deep imperfections:
they are scarred and pale like the back of her hands.
Tomorrow she will mask them in stripes of steadfast blue,
the Clint Eastwood of wallpaper: a strong, silent type.


This poem is written in response to Poetry Prompt #112 on Read Write Poem, although I think I may have missed the concept of a "narrative wallpaper."

Cherry Blossoms in High Park, Toronto
Photo by Chensiyuan

        What's been the hardest move you've had to adjust to? Were you the one who moved out, or was it a loved one?

Ninetendo Wii

A parody of the Beatles' Norwegian Wood

I dated a nerd. He was well paid, I got him laid.
He showed me his room: big screen TV, Nintendo Wii.

He asked me to play Super Mario two-player mode.
He played as Mario, I was stuck playing as Toad.

We watched the intro, played through world one, it was good fun.
He beat Bowser’s kid, and then he cooed: “Time for world two.”

The game got too tricky, I couldn’t continue to play.
He laughed at my failure and callously sent me away.

He played through the night, ignored me all week. I dumped the geek.
But first, I robbed him blind. Got it for free, Nintendo Wii.


This parody is dedicated to Andrew, my nerd love (who is so sweet, he doesn't tease me too much for sucking hard at Super Mario, even though I really do).

This doesn't particularly relate to the poem; it's just cool/nerdy.

        What's the most vengeful thing you've ever done?

My stubborn heart

By guest poet Carissa of GimmeThatBrain.com

Moving Mountains with my mind,
Shifting rivers with my soul,
Watching movies while I’m blind,
Turning plastic into gold,
I feel like all this inspiration
Is getting a bit old.

I’m trying I’m trying.
I’m crying I’m crying.
I love you, but I don’t want to.
I’ve tried to no avail,
To stop my waterfall of feelings
With this sand castle pail.

My heart, a ticking time-bomb
That I’m trying to diffuse.
I said “heart don’t tick for him”
But the stubborn heart refused.
I’m losing all hope.
I pull myself to the side.
Tried to freeze these emotions
That are bubbling up inside.

No matter how you try,
You can’t fight a love.
It’s like building dams of paper
Trying to stop a flood.
Take that a lesson learned.
You can’t control a stubborn heart
With a mind of it’s own.


Thanks to our final guest poet this week, a fellow Laid contributor: Carissa! Show your love by leaving a comment below and checking out more of her writing on her newly launched blog, GimmeThatBrain.com.

        Have you ever had feelings for someone and wished those feelings would just go away (aw, sure you have -- everyone has)? How did you deal with them?

growing up

By guest poet Alexis

sorry i've been so distant
growing up is getting rough
the future is coming up too close to touch
my moods are quickly changing as fast as night & day
i apologize if one of my bad moods has crossed your merry way
there are many things you want to experience; to touch, to feel, to try
wanting to absorb it all before life seems so dry
i wanted to be your shield, to protect you from harm's way
you've always been the good one, most likely to share your straw
ive always been the mean one, an example of murphy's law
i saw you as a timeless classic, a flawless work of art
i was damaged goods who liked to curse and fart
the year we both turned 20 reality soon clicked in
mona lisa added a wink to her infamous grin
questioning why things change, looking near & far
the conclusion that i came to was that human is what you are
a pedestal is where i'll always hold you
and our friendship which is a bond everlasting & true

Alexis is a frequent commenter on Adelaide West, so I'm happy to have some of her own work posted here.

Photo by patries71

        How have the friendships in your life evolved since childhood? What do you miss about childhood friendships? What do you appreciate about adult ones?