Red Paint

onewords.

shell - smoke - halo - frame - motor - hatch - settle - engine - miss - instant - rocket - chair - paper - identity - shallow - spotlight - ceiling - alone

shell
on the beach, in pei, tiny shells everywhere, and the remains of dead crabs, and the dark sand and the blue blue ocean, looking north to the horizon, everything quiet for once. January 8, 2003

smoke
I don't. well, not with cigarettes, though sometimes i crave them, like when typing, wishing i were diane keaton in manhattan, clenching my cigarette in my teeth, or a glamorous grande dame in a café, speaking languidly in epigrams, wishing i were french. but i do burn. sometimes i think smoke should be coming out of my ears. grr.
January 7, 2003

halo
yeah, you're a real fucking saint, aren't you. where's your halo?...halos on angels and in the middle ages before they developed perspective, they look more like dinner plates. how do they stand going around with those things over their heads?
January 6, 2003

frame
"frame of reference," they taught us about it in grade 10 history though in retrospect I don't know what was so important about that particular phrase that we had to be tested on it. mr pearl, deaf principal and history teacher, redheaded, balding, clueless and defensive. frame. what's happening as the writer writes is the frame. jann arden is wailing in the background as i type, the sound of the radio frames me but you wouldn't know what was going on beyond this writing if i didn't tell you.
January 5, 2003

motor
the motorboat sending a plume of white water and waves out through the small cold lake, what an old metaphor but oh well, and the island where people had built cottages in the '50s and abandoned them to grow mossy and the tall tall rocks where in the 1970s my uncle and aunt would go diving.
January 3, 2003

hatch
open the hatch and what happens after? well, arthur dent steps out and on to the new planet. i forget its name. we could do with a new planet, though i don't know if anyone would want to go there, although people did set off for the new world, when they could, when the old world was too painful. even though it was just that, a new world, and as distant as a new planet. why isn't there room for all of us on this earth? or why can't we make room? why don't we want to?
January 2, 2003

settle
pioneers, they settled. they settled on cold new land and they settled for the harsh life, carving out a place, and they settled down with what they had and they as often as not died young and hard. am i settling? for less? hard to know. this whole world seems settled already, i'd be just another layer of human dust settling on layers already settled. i am almost settled on you, you a little less settled on me. we can settle down together, go to sleep.
December 31, 2002

engine
engine. thomas the tank engine & friends, which was on, narrated by ringo starr, one of those five-minute programs like pingu on tvo. pingu, who couldn't speak, or didn't, much like a real penguin. melting ice caps. global warming. apocalypse, brought on by engines.
December 30, 2002

miss
Southern people would call me "Miss Elinor" sweetly, just as a matter of course, but I'm used to urban Canada where calling someone "Miss" is a sarcastic thing. Miss. Mississippi, which is in the Deep South, *is* the Deep South, though the Mississippi river goes up to Ontario, but really "Mississippi" means a southern state, hot and frightening and far away.
December 29, 2002

instant
instant things are generally an abomination. instant coffee, for example. instant cameras, well, i think a real photographer would sneer at them, but i don't know. what happens in an instant is amazing and sickening but usually, usually it is something bad, death happens in an instant, births take hours, building a thing - a house, a life, a friendship, a love - takes forever and an instant's work can make it disappear.
December 28, 2002

rocket
rocket? i could never build those, it was beyond me. physics are beyond me. how to move things in this world, how to exist in this body, a body, it's an artificial thing, or maybe the only real thing; the frustrating limits of bone and flesh, when I want to be in many places, many things at once.
December 26, 2002

chair
chair. apparently one part of the brain handles images of faces, houses and chairs, and no one knows why. i can't imagine. chairs? thrones. is it a sign of our increasing vulgarity that we refer to the toilet as the "throne"? depressing. maybe.
December 21, 2002

paper
paperthin. i am paperthin, i am a little crumpled piece of tissue paper opened up again, i am a wisp, i am a nothing, soaked, wet, pasty, reduced to a sort of mush in a corner, dirty wet paper, nothing much.
December 20, 2002

identity
identify someone, from the body. what's the identity of this? too mangled to tell. you'll think i'm disturbed. i'm not, just in a morbid mood. what is your identity? why search for it? and yet we have to. find it, it's like reading the entrails of a sheep, or tea leaves, or finding pictures in the stars. do you know who i am? do you know what i am? i'll be gone so soon, so soon, and i won't leave anything behind most likely, but even if i did you'd never really know me unless you were close enough to touch me (i'm real, then you'd know) and maybe not even then.
December 18, 2002

shallow
shallow. like a teacup. like one of those very small teacups that you can crush in your hand. shallow like warm water at the edge of the lake. shallow. shallot. i am half sick of shadows, said the lady of small onion.
December 17, 2002

spotlight
In the spotlight? Huh. I love the way spotlights look on people. And I've been in the spotlight, and it's a strange experience because you can't really see anything outside of the light shining on you. You're alone. That's what I like about the spotlight: the sudden bright highlighting of ONE person, one thing, the pointing: HERE. Look.
December 16, 2002

ceiling
ceiling? like glass ceiling? my ceiling is fake stucco and really ugly. sealing. shoes and ships and sealing wax. the ceiling does the job of sealing you in. last night, as i looked up at the stars, i thought: where the hell is the ceiling? hmm. if you repeat the word enough it loses all meaning. ceiling ceiling ceiling
December 14, 2002

alone
I'm not alone. not really. or i am, but i am not lonely. this is a lonely land, but it is mine. i stand on it and i feel it, ice roots going down and down. canadian shield. canadian loneliness. this is a country/where a man can die/simply by being/caught outside. poem on the subway. deep in the tunnel. alone is going to school in the morning in the dark. toronto is a lonely city.
December 13, 2002



	onewords. shell - smoke - halo - frame - motor - hatch - settle - engine - miss - instant - rocket - chair - paper - identity - shallow - spotlight - ceiling - alone shell on the beach, in pei, tiny shells everywhere, and the remains of dead crabs, and the dark sand and the blue blue ocean, looking north to the horizon, everything quiet for once. January 8, 2003 smoke I don't. well, not with cigarettes, though sometimes i crave them, like when typing, wishing i were diane keaton in manhattan, clenching my cigarette in my teeth, or a glamorous grande dame in a café, speaking languidly in epigrams, wishing i were french. but i do burn. sometimes i think smoke should be coming out of my ears. grr. January 7, 2003 halo yeah, you're a real fucking saint, aren't you. where's your halo?...halos on angels and in the middle ages before they developed perspective, they look more like dinner plates. how do they stand going around with those things over their heads? January 6, 2003 frame "frame of reference," they taught us about it in grade 10 history though in retrospect I don't know what was so important about that particular phrase that we had to be tested on it. mr pearl, deaf principal and history teacher, redheaded, balding, clueless and defensive. frame. what's happening as the writer writes is the frame. jann arden is wailing in the background as i type, the sound of the radio frames me but you wouldn't know what was going on beyond this writing if i didn't tell you. January 5, 2003 motor the motorboat sending a plume of white water and waves out through the small cold lake, what an old metaphor but oh well, and the island where people had built cottages in the '50s and abandoned them to grow mossy and the tall tall rocks where in the 1970s my uncle and aunt would go diving. January 3, 2003 hatch open the hatch and what happens after? well, arthur dent steps out and on to the new planet. i forget its name. we could do with a new planet, though i don't know if anyone would want to go there, although people did set off for the new world, when they could, when the old world was too painful. even though it was just that, a new world, and as distant as a new planet. why isn't there room for all of us on this earth? or why can't we make room? why don't we want to? January 2, 2003 settle pioneers, they settled. they settled on cold new land and they settled for the harsh life, carving out a place, and they settled down with what they had and they as often as not died young and hard. am i settling? for less? hard to know. this whole world seems settled already, i'd be just another layer of human dust settling on layers already settled. i am almost settled on you, you a little less settled on me. we can settle down together, go to sleep. December 31, 2002 engine engine. thomas the tank engine & friends, which was on, narrated by ringo starr, one of those five-minute programs like pingu on tvo. pingu, who couldn't speak, or didn't, much like a real penguin. melting ice caps. global warming. apocalypse, brought on by engines. December 30, 2002 miss Southern people would call me "Miss Elinor" sweetly, just as a matter of course, but I'm used to urban Canada where calling someone "Miss" is a sarcastic thing. Miss. Mississippi, which is in the Deep South, is the Deep South, though the Mississippi river goes up to Ontario, but really "Mississippi" means a southern state, hot and frightening and far away. December 29, 2002 instant instant things are generally an abomination. instant coffee, for example. instant cameras, well, i think a real photographer would sneer at them, but i don't know. what happens in an instant is amazing and sickening but usually, usually it is something bad, death happens in an instant, births take hours, building a thing - a house, a life, a friendship, a love - takes forever and an instant's work can make it disappear. December 28, 2002 rocket rocket? i could never build those, it was beyond me. physics are beyond me. how to move things in this world, how to exist in this body, a body, it's an artificial thing, or maybe the only real thing; the frustrating limits of bone and flesh, when I want to be in many places, many things at once. December 26, 2002 chair chair. apparently one part of the brain handles images of faces, houses and chairs, and no one knows why. i can't imagine. chairs? thrones. is it a sign of our increasing vulgarity that we refer to the toilet as the "throne"? depressing. maybe. December 21, 2002 paper paperthin. i am paperthin, i am a little crumpled piece of tissue paper opened up again, i am a wisp, i am a nothing, soaked, wet, pasty, reduced to a sort of mush in a corner, dirty wet paper, nothing much. December 20, 2002 identity identify someone, from the body. what's the identity of this? too mangled to tell. you'll think i'm disturbed. i'm not, just in a morbid mood. what is your identity? why search for it? and yet we have to. find it, it's like reading the entrails of a sheep, or tea leaves, or finding pictures in the stars. do you know who i am? do you know what i am? i'll be gone so soon, so soon, and i won't leave anything behind most likely, but even if i did you'd never really know me unless you were close enough to touch me (i'm real, then you'd know) and maybe not even then. December 18, 2002 shallow shallow. like a teacup. like one of those very small teacups that you can crush in your hand. shallow like warm water at the edge of the lake. shallow. shallot. i am half sick of shadows, said the lady of small onion. December 17, 2002 spotlight In the spotlight? Huh. I love the way spotlights look on people. And I've been in the spotlight, and it's a strange experience because you can't really see anything outside of the light shining on you. You're alone. That's what I like about the spotlight: the sudden bright highlighting of ONE person, one thing, the pointing: HERE. Look. December 16, 2002 ceiling ceiling? like glass ceiling? my ceiling is fake stucco and really ugly. sealing. shoes and ships and sealing wax. the ceiling does the job of sealing you in. last night, as i looked up at the stars, i thought: where the hell is the ceiling? hmm. if you repeat the word enough it loses all meaning. ceiling ceiling ceiling December 14, 2002 alone I'm not alone. not really. or i am, but i am not lonely. this is a lonely land, but it is mine. i stand on it and i feel it, ice roots going down and down. canadian shield. canadian loneliness. this is a country/where a man can die/simply by being/caught outside. poem on the subway. deep in the tunnel. alone is going to school in the morning in the dark. toronto is a lonely city. December 13, 2002