A knock sounded at the door. Like a starved woodpecker. Like a hestitant Jehovah’s Witness. I limped to the door. Peeked through the spy hole. I saw two women. Like Jehovah’s Witnesses. But they weren’t carrying satchels. Or, huge purses. I opened the door. Two brunettes. One about five two. The other five six. One…
I still remember the strangeness of listening to the theme from M*A*S*H (the movie) in the darkness of the huge cinema on Calgary’s 16th Avenue. It was the Summer of 1970 and I must have watched it with my ex-wife but I don’t remember her presence. I sat, as if alone, in the dark struck…
Epilogue as Prologue I died three times, that sixty third year of my life. The first time I died it wasn’t my fault, really. It was his fault. My doctor’s fault, that is. He had prescribed Morphine for my pain. I cleary remember him saying, “Now you know you to be very careful with this…
My wonderful landlady Dragita gave me a book for Christmas 2010. It was a miniture edition of Rick Warren’s “The Purpose-Driven Life”. I didn’t read it right away, figuring it was the usual fundamentalist Christian bullshit. I don’t remember when I actually first read through it. The book has 40 ‘chapters’, 40 being a significant…
Does this happen to you? You get so fixated on working toward a goal that you don’t acknowledge or notice the progress you’ve made. Happens to me all the time. I could blame my perfectionism, which would be true to a degree. Or, I could blame being overly focused on the goal, which would be…
I just received a piece of writing advice: “You can’t think your way out of a writing problem, you need to write your way out of a thinking problem.” Herewith submitted for your approval the poem that resulted from that advice. The clock ticks. Counting away the seconds Till the end of me and…
What do you call a project that is 365 days late and $ 300,000 over budget? A typical systems project. When I was a Systems Analyst — Yes Virginia, I got IT skills — at Imperial Oil Limited (Exxon North) we faithfully followed the Pied Piper of Project Management so we could avoid becoming victims…
Frequently, when I am overwhelmed by emotion I write poetry. It helps sort out my feelings. Recently I have been overwhelmed by grief and pain because of the death of 2 friends. I hereby submit: Death in it’s many guises lurks near to me. I am not afraid of her for I have survived…
His name was David. He was a good looking man in his forties, always well dressed with a regal bearing in spite of his disability. He was likely taller than me but I would never know that, for that first time I met him he was confined to an electric wheelchair. I never learned by…
I do not fear death. Yet, death dogs my heels. Of course, since Death is the final outcome of life. I used to believe in eternal life: the notion that I would return after death and forever live on a refurbished planet, watched over by a benevolent God. I am not sure what I believe…
