One square of chocolate

One square of chocolate
will make a Basset Hound go crazy.
Not die, not get sick,
just go crazy, and stay that way
for a little while.
So bear that in mind
next time you leave your purse
with one square of chocolate in it
on the floor.

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Awkward love

The baby’s crying.
She holds him away from her body,
tall and fashionable, the garment of unconcern she wears
unable to fully cover
the awkward, awkward love she feels.
She puts the baby back in his carriage,
handling him anxiously, a fragile preciousness,
and a lifetime of distance between mother and child
begins again.

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Dead sea scroll

What you write goes out in the world.  Whether you like it or not, it travels.  Mostly not very far, but sometimes very far, very far indeed; and when it does, you no longer can stop others from reading into it what they want to see.
“No,” you can say, “no, that’s not what I meant.  [...]

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Podcast podcast podcast!

Complaining with Kay, Episode 24.5, Literary Supplement: Lullaby for Gus.
In this episode:
- Melancholy Inventory
- Tie the knot tighter
- Lullaby for Gus
- You don’t have to put on a show.  You’re already my friend.
Link.

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Melancholy Inventory

Today I did something I’ve been putting off for weeks.  I wrote the third of my opera libretti (librettos?  whatever), the one about Edith Sitwell.  Here’s a little excerpt, in the style of Facade:
Melancholy Inventory
The gilded bee
The satin sea
The black sun rising over me
The honeycomb
The marksman’s tomb
The exit from the morning’s womb
The sheep-like crowd
The laugh [...]

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Tie the knot tighter

This poem is part of my response to Kathryn Joyce’s chilling book Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement.  I’m not sure about the semi-rhyme structure – I may rewrite it into fully rhyming stanzas.
Tie the knot tighter
With love, humility, trepidation
Innocent-hearted they met at the altar
To take on that weight, that heavy expectation:
man and wife, a [...]

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You don’t need to put on a show. You’re already my friend.

You don’t need to impress me.
You don’t need to make me laugh.
You don’t need to be smarter than me,
You don’t need to know about nuclear physics or Schonberg.
You don’t need to be tall or be good at chess,
You don’t need to be psychic or in touch with God.
You don’t need to be anything but yourself;
You [...]

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Complaining with Kay, Episode 22.5, Literary Supplement: Soldier.

In this episode:
Soldier
“I lied about my wedding ring…”
Two-page story
Sax solo
Music:
“Egyptian Song” (Rupert Davies, arr. and performed by Benjamin Mueller-Heaslip
My dorky piano rendition of “Dream a little dream of me”
Link.

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Soldier

Only a small thing, hardly worth mourning
Your unnoticed fallenness outside my door,
To the world you are nothing, worth less than nothing,
Just one thing, soon replaced by one more.
But to me it is momentously foolish.
A waste and a reason to wonder why.
And I think, who has taken this power to decide
When so minor a thing as [...]

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Complaining with Kay, Episode 18.5: The Literary Supplement

I read some little things I’ve written – some prose poems and one, um, poem poem.
“On one of the streets near where I live…”
First Love
Ground State
“Will you say to yourself…”
Music in this episode:
“Kornblumen” (Richard Strauss, performed by me and Ben – recorded live at Hart House last November)
“Fleurs” (Francis Poulenc, performed by me and Ben [...]

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