Where I’m From

A poem
by Chris Hibbard

Where I’m From

I’m from the loins of good stock.
From Lennon and Marley and Dylan and Hendrix,
A rock and a hard place and other clichés
I’m from optimism and dreams, romance and foolishness
Metaphorical mountaintops and the bottoms of bottles
From Ireland and England by way of Ontario
The school of hard knocks and educated by Life
Not the game nor the cereal, and not the magazine
I’m from social activities and privately public office
The tip of a pen, not the barrel of a gun
One tiny spark of an idea – a forest ablaze
Love under moonlight
I’m from little brother syndrome and baby boy blues
Mandatory Sunday School sentencing
The pages of paperbacks and overdue bills
The ends of the earth and the centre of the universe
Even the bottom of the sea
I’m from treble, bass, and volume control
Cassette tapes and vinyl
Bongo drums and guitar strings
From Russia with Love, from Here to Eternity
I’m from Tarantino, the Death Star, Zip-Zow and Zing!
Kerouac and Kipling, Kafka and Keats, Koontz and King
Rolling Stones and Billboards and Calgary Heralds
From puppy paws and bird calls, kitten whiskers and fish tales
From karma and fate and other coincidence
Accidents planned and pregnancies not
I’m from mistakes I have learned from and ones I repeat
Punctuation and grammar and run-on sentences
Picnic baskets and slingshots, Frisbees and walking sticks
Soft sandy beaches and minnows in nets
T-shirts and ripped jeans, sneakers with grass stains
Callouses and sunburns
I’m from trampolines and tent pegs, back seats and old habits
Jeopardy, chess, tile rummy and cribbage
Bad posture, good manners and Halloween treats
From point A to point Z on a Long Winding Road
I’m from the loins of good stock

Welcome to The Kitchen Sink!

Hi there. This blog is devoted to all manner of creative writing and is updated daily. This means investigations and analyses; poetry and prose; reviews of film, literature, and music. This means dramatic writing, introspective writing, unique and original writing. This means politics and passions, hobbies and recommendations.

I invite each of you to provide comments or criticism, suggestions and feedback at any time. I would also like to invite you all to submit your own original content. Simply e-mail me or insert your copy as a comment. Please include your own ‘byline’ information, copyright information and/or author’s note so you can be credited for your own work. More voices mean more variety. Let’s fill this Kitchen Sink with all the beauty and originality it can handle.

Sincerely,
Chris Hibbard
chris.hibbard@uleth.ca

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A daily poem #70 – September 1, 2009

A poem
by Maya Angelou

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

A daily poem #69 – August 30, 2009

A poem
by Dylan Thomas

Sometimes The Sky’s Too Bright

Sometimes the sky’s too bright,
Or has too many clouds or birds,
And far away’s too sharp a sun
To nourish thinking of him.
Why is my hand too blunt
To cut in front of me
My horrid images for me,
Of over-fruitful smiles,
The weightless touching of the lip
I wish to know
I cannot lift, but can,
The creature with the angel’s face
Who tells me hurt,
And sees my body go
Down into misery?
No stopping. Put the smile
Where tears have come to dry.
The angel’s hurt is left;
His telling burns.

Sometimes a woman’s heart has salt,
Or too much blood;
I tear her breast,
And see the blood is mine,
Flowing from her, but mine,
And then I think
Perhaps the sky’s too bright;
And watch my hand,
But do not follow it,
And feel the pain it gives,
But do not ache.

A daily poem #68 – August 28, 2009

A poem
by William Butler Yeats

Byzantium

The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor’s drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night walkers’ song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.
Before me floats an image, man or shade,
Shade more than man, more image than a shade;
For Hades’ bobbin bound in mummy-cloth
May unwind the winding path;
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.
Miracle, bird or golden handiwork,
More miracle than bird or handiwork,
Planted on the star-lit golden bough,
Can like the cocks of Hades crow,
Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud
In glory of changeless metal
Common bird or petal
And all complexities of mire or blood.
At midnight on the Emperor’s pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.
Astraddle on the dolphin’s mire and blood,
Spirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood.
The golden smithies of the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity,
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.

A daily poem #67 – August 26, 2009

A poem
by Lord Alfred Tennyson

All Things Will Die

Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing
Under my eye;
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing
Over the sky.
One after another the white clouds are fleeting;
Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating
Full merrily;
Yet all things must die.
The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
For all things must die.
All things must die.
Spring will come never more.
O, vanity!
Death waits at the door.
See! our friends are all forsaking
The wine and the merrymaking.
We are call’d-we must go.
Laid low, very low,
In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;
The voice of the bird
Shall no more be heard,
Nor the wind on the hill.
O, misery!
Hark! death is calling
While I speak to ye,
The jaw is falling,
The red cheek paling,
The strong limbs failing;
Ice with the warm blood mixing;
The eyeballs fixing.
Nine times goes the passing bell:
Ye merry souls, farewell.
The old earth
Had a birth,
As all men know,
Long ago.
And the old earth must die.
So let the warm winds range,
And the blue wave beat the shore;
For even and morn
Ye will never see
Thro’ eternity.
All things were born.
Ye will come never more,
For all things must die.

A daily poem #66 – August 24, 2009

A poem
by William Butler Yeats

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My county is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

A daily poem #65 – August 22, 2009

A poem
by Sarah Teasdale

Barter

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children’s faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit’s still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

A daily poem #64 – August 20, 2009

A poem
by Walt Whitman

Beat! Beat! Drums!

Beat! beat! drums!–Blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows–through doors–burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation;
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Leave not the bridegroom quiet–no happiness must he have now with
his bride;
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, plowing his field or gathering his
grain;
So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums–so shrill you bugles blow.

Beat! beat! drums!–Blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities–over the rumble of wheels in the streets:
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses?
No sleepers must sleep in those beds;
No bargainers’ bargains by day–no brokers or speculators–Would they
continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the
judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums–you bugles wilder blow.

Beat! beat! drums!–Blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley–stop for no expostulation;
Mind not the timid–mind not the weeper or prayer;
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man;
Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties;
Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the
hearses,
So strong you thump, O terrible drums–so loud you bugles blow.

A daily poem #63 – August 18, 2009

A poem
by William Butler Yeats

Before the World Was Made

If I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity’s displayed:
I’m looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.

What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I’d have him love the thing that was
Before the world was made.

A daily poem #62 – August 16, 2009

A poem by
William Butler Yeats

Beggar to Beggar Cried

“Time to put off the world and go somewhere
And find my health again in the sea air,’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
“And make my soul before my pate is bare.-
“And get a comfortable wife and house
To rid me of the devil in my shoes,’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
“And the worse devil that is between my thighs.’
And though I’d marry with a comely lass,
She need not be too comely — let it pass,’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
“But there’s a devil in a looking-glass.’
“Nor should she be too rich, because the rich
Are driven by wealth as beggars by the itch,’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
“And cannot have a humorous happy speech.’
“And there I’ll grow respected at my ease,
And hear amid the garden’s nightly peace.’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
“The wind-blown clamour of the barnacle-geese.’

A daily poem #61 – August 14, 2009

A poem
by Maya Angelou

Touched by An Angel

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

A daily poem #60– August 12, 2009

A poem
by Pablo Neruda

Love Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

A daily poem #59 – August 10, 2009

A poem
by Shel Silverstein

Cloony The Clown

I’ll tell you the story of Cloony the Clown
Who worked in a circus that came through town.

His shoes were too big and his hat was too small,
But he just wasn’t, just wasn’t funny at all.

He had a trombone to play loud silly tunes,
He had a green dog and a thousand balloons.

He was floppy and sloppy and skinny and tall,
But he just wasn’t, just wasn’t funny at all.

And every time he did a trick,
Everyone felt a little sick.

And every time he told a joke,
Folks sighed as if their hearts were broke.

And every time he lost a shoe,
Everyone looked awfully blue.

And every time he stood on his head,
Everyone screamed, “Go back to bed!”

And every time he made a leap,
Everybody fell asleep.

And every time he ate his tie,
Everyone began to cry.

And Cloony could not make any money
Simply because he was not funny.

One day he said, “I’ll tell this town
How it feels to be an unfunny clown.”

And he told them all why he looked so sad,
And he told them all why he felt so bad.

He told of Pain and Rain and Cold,
He told of Darkness in his soul,

And after he finished his tale of woe,
Did everyone cry? Oh no, no, no,

They laughed until they shook the trees
With “Hah-Hah-Hahs” and “Hee-Hee-Hees.”

They laughed with howls and yowls and shrieks,
They laughed all day, they laughed all week,

They laughed until they had a fit,
They laughed until their jackets split.

The laughter spread for miles around
To every city, every town,

Over mountains, ‘cross the sea,
From Saint Tropez to Mun San Nee.

And soon the whole world rang with laughter,
Lasting till forever after,

While Cloony stood in the circus tent,
With his head drooped low and his shoulders bent.

And he said,”THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT -
I’M FUNNY JUST BY ACCIDENT.”

And while the world laughed outside.
Cloony the Clown sat down and cried.

A daily poem #57 – August 6, 2009

A poem
by Dylan Thomas

A Process In The Weather Of The Heart

A process in the weather of the heart
Turns damp to dry; the golden shot
Storms in the freezing tomb.
A weather in the quarter of the veins
Turns night to day; blood in their suns
Lights up the living worm.

A process in the eye forwarns
The bones of blindness; and the womb
Drives in a death as life leaks out.

A darkness in the weather of the eye
Is half its light; the fathomed sea
Breaks on unangled land.
The seed that makes a forest of the loin
Forks half its fruit; and half drops down,
Slow in a sleeping wind.

A weather in the flesh and bone
Is damp and dry; the quick and dead
Move like two ghosts before the eye.

A process in the weather of the world
Turns ghost to ghost; each mothered child
Sits in their double shade.
A process blows the moon into the sun,
Pulls down the shabby curtains of the skin;
And the heart gives up its dead.

CKXU Summer Spotlight!

First on the station, First in your heart!

Check out my newest broadcast, CKXU Summer Spotlight every Thursday from 4:30 – 6:00 p.m. MST, for an in depth look behind the albums of some of your favourite artists.

So far we’ve looked behind the scenes at The Weakerthans, Ben Harper, Tool, Isis, Beck, Dave Matthews, The Roots, The Chemical Brothers, Ani Difranco, Matthew Good, Queens of the Stone Age, Radiohead, the Beastie Boys and more….

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A daily poem #56 – August 4, 2009

A poem
by Lord Byron

She Walks in Beauty

She walks in Beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

A daily poem #55 – August 2, 2009

A poem
by Andrew Lang

THE BALLAD OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF

Who suddenly calls to our ken
The knowledge that should not be there;
Who charms Mr. Stead with the pen,
Of the Prince of the Powers of the Air;
Who makes Physiologists stare -
Is he ghost, is he demon, or elf,
Who fashions the dream of the fair?
It is just the Subconscious Self.

He’s the ally of Medicine Men
Who consult the Australian bear,
And ’tis he, with his lights on the fen,
Who helps Jack o’ Lanthorn to snare
The peasants of Devon, who swear
Under Commonwealth, Stuart, or Guelph,
That they never had half such a scare -
It is just the Subconscious Self.

It is he, from his cerebral den,
Who raps upon table and chair,
Who frightens the housemaid, and then
Slinks back, like a thief, to his lair:
‘Tis the Brownie (according to Mair)
Who rattles the pots on the shelf,
But the Psychical sages declare
“It is just the Subconscious Self.”

Prince, each of us all is a pair -
The Conscious, who labours for pelf,
And the other, who charmed Mr. Blair,
It is just the Subconscious Self.

A daily poem #54 – July 31, 2009

A poem
by T. S. Eliot

Hysteria

As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her
laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were
only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. I
was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at each momentary
recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her
throat, bruised by the ripple of unseen muscles. An
elderly waiter with trembling hands was hurriedly
spreading a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty
green iron table, saying: “If the lady and gentleman
wish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and
gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden …” I
decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be
stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might
be collected, and I concentrated my attention with
careful subtlety to this end.

A daily poem #53 – July 29, 2009

A poem
by T. S. Eliot

Mr. Apollinax

When Mr. Apollinax visited the United States
His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,
And of Priapus in the shrubbery
Gaping at the lady in the swing.
In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor Channing-Cheetah’s
He laughed like an irresponsible foetus.
Otis laughter was submarine and profound
Like the old man of the sea’s
Hidden under coral islands
Where worried bodies of drowned men drift down in the green silence,
Dropping from fingers of surf.
I looked for the head of Mr. Apollinax rolling under a chair
Or grinning over a screen
With seaweed in its hair.
I heard the beat of centaur’s hoofs over the hard turf
As his dry and passionate talk devoured the afternoon.
“He is a charming man”–”But after all what did he mean?”–
“His pointed ears … He must be unbalanced,”–
“There was something he said that I might have challenged.”
Of dowager Mrs. Phlaccus, and Professor and Mrs. Cheetah
I remember a slice of lemon, and a bitten macaroon.

A daily poem #52 – July 27, 2009

A poem
by Dylan Thomas

Lament

When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale tit,
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey’s common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave
All the green leaved little weddings’ wives
In the coal black bush and let them grieve.

When I was a gusty man and a half
And the black beast of the beetles’ pews
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of bitches),
Not a boy and a bit in the wick-
Dipping moon and drunk as a new dropped calf,
I whistled all night in the twisted flues,
Midwives grew in the midnight ditches,
And the sizzling sheets of the town cried, Quick!-
Whenever I dove in a breast high shoal,
Wherever I ramped in the clover quilts,
Whatsoever I did in the coal-
Black night, I left my quivering prints.

When I was a man you could call a man
And the black cross of the holy house,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of welcome),
Brandy and ripe in my bright, bass prime,
No springtailed tom in the red hot town
With every simmering woman his mouse
But a hillocky bull in the swelter
Of summer come in his great good time
To the sultry, biding herds, I said,
Oh, time enough when the blood runs cold,
And I lie down but to sleep in bed,
For my sulking, skulking, coal black soul!

When I was half the man I was
And serve me right as the preachers warn,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of downfall),
No flailing calf or cat in a flame
Or hickory bull in milky grass
But a black sheep with a crumpled horn,
At last the soul from its foul mousehole
Slunk pouting out when the limp time came;
And I gave my soul a blind, slashed eye,
Gristle and rind, and a roarers’ life,
And I shoved it into the coal black sky
To find a woman’s soul for a wife.

Now I am a man no more no more
And a black reward for a roaring life,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of strangers),
Tidy and cursed in my dove cooed room
I lie down thin and hear the good bells jaw–
For, oh, my soul found a sunday wife
In the coal black sky and she bore angels!
Harpies around me out of her womb!
Chastity prays for me, piety sings,
Innocence sweetens my last black breath,
Modesty hides my thighs in her wings,
And all the deadly virtues plague my death!

A daily poem #51 – July 25, 2009

A poem
by Dylan Thomas

THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.