Biographical Notation, VII

Ryan Bird is an author whose full, Christian name is accepted by Microsoft Word’s Spelling and Grammar check. His name is not branded by a single, squiggly, scarlet underscore. Therefore, Ryan Bird is evidently amongst the same non-squiggly-literary-ilk as Michael Ondaatje, David Eggers, and Alice Munro. So go suck on that, Jeanette Winterson, you scarlet, underscored hack! Behold his talent, here.

Biographical Notation, VI

Ryan Bird has one homophobic bone left inside his body. It is his left femur. On the record, he respects the values of his left femur. But off the record, he thinks it spends too much of its time alone in the dark with its values. Read a poem for Pride Day, here.

Biographical Notation, V

Ryan Bird is slated to direct the most expensive, Canadian comedy of all time. It’s a canonical retelling of Sodom & Gomorrah, only with cannons. Plus, in this version, the protagonist will be named Hamilton Ontario. Also, the setting will be in the GTA. Oh yes, & when Hamilton’s wife turns around, she will turn into a pile of dried maple leafs that want to tell everyone about this darling little Bubble Tea place. Read a review of it, here.

Biographical Notation, IV

Ryan Bird now comes in over-the-counter strength. Although now capable of affecting a wider audience, he has been cloned to resemble futuristic blister packets. He is also forcibly bred with experimental appetite suppressants by his ruthless Pfizerian overlords. This process is not nearly as sexy as you might think. Read the sordid details, here.

Biographical Notation, III

Ryan Bird loves to tell this story: On this exact date, ten years ago, he was at a Ticketmaster booth. He was buying his way into a alternative music festival. It was scheduled for Canada Day. They were sold out. However, he did get to see a drunk David Carradine, star of Kung Fu, & Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, kicking Skydome. He was seven years away from starring in Kill Bill. 'God damn it', bellowed David Carradine, 'I’m David Carradine!' Read another anecdotal poem, here.

Biographical Notation, II

Ryan Bird has never once wavered in the face of awkward silence. Admittedly, he once boarded-up his mouth with ill-gotten street-signs. Sure, he’s also made love to himself with his eyes closed ever since the fifth fucking grade. Not to mention that he limits himself to just one lone dump a week, taken on the night before the Sabbath, with a glass of port and a mentholated smoke. I guess what I am trying to say here Old Man is, well, happy belated Father’s Day. Read your present, here.

Biographical Notation, I

Ryan Bird is not ashamed to say that Aretha Franklin, on occasion, has moved him to sing: You make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like a natural woman. However, he is quite ashamed to say that Charles Bukowski, on occasion, has moved him to sing: Oh the long tailed filly & the big black horse, do-da, do-da, come to a mud hole & they cut across, oh de do-da day. You may find some of his poems, here.

The Break Room (part two)

Jasmitha said, “I am so tired, I want to open up my shoes.” Then she laughed. “But I am afraid.” She made a face, and then said “that lady will catch me with open shoes.” Jasmitha laughed some more. “She always catches me feeling better.”

“You mean, Stella?” I asked, slightly distracted. I was busy reading Breakfast of Champions, so I sort of had bosses on the brain. I was also considering a potential wall-hanging made out of the novel’s illustrations. I figured it would have great potential as a conversation-starter.

“Yes” said Jasmitha, who kicked slyly kicked off her shoes, and sighed. “Stella makes me breath hard, but I like her. She taught us about how to do things on our first day.” She paused a moment to laugh. Her left nostril made a silent, little bubble. She didn’t seem to notice the nose-bubble.

“And there were so many words,” Jasmitha continued, “her words were making my heart come out of my mouth. It went like plop.”

“What does like plop mean?” I asked.

Jasmitha smiled mockingly, and said “I thought you were supposed to be smart.”

Found Song

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The Break Room (part one)

It was during one of my most stressful moments, the sort of moment just before the gases in my stomach are harnessed into a burp, that Jasmitha asked me, “what does fragile mean?”

“What’s your name again?” I asked. “Jasmitha” said Jasmitha.

“Well, it means easily breakable.”

“True, true” said Jasmitha.

She went back to reading her horoscopes. We both kept reading, but I was the only one digesting anything. Jasmitha hadn’t eaten yet. “What does limbs mean?” she asks.

“L-I-M-B-S?”

“Yes.”

“Well, pretend this is a trunk,” this was me making the international sign for trunk “and these things,” which I then indicated by performing the international sign for things that grew out of things “are limbs, which are things that grow out of other things. When we are specifically talking about trees, then in that case it means that those limbs are called branches.”

Jasmitha said, “right, right.”

“But pretend for a moment that this is not a trunk,” I said “pretend we’re talking about your body.” I did not make the international sign for body right then, because I thought this explanation was already quite self-explanatory. “Then that has what we call limbs too,” I continued “they are the arms, and the legs. People in Canada call these arms and legs, limbs.”

“You mean they are like roots?” Jasmitha asked.

“Well, they are like roots, but above ground.”

“Above ground roots,” laughed Jasmitha “drink up the air, now, little roots. Drink, drink.” Jasmitha continued her laughter.

A Letter to National Geographic

Dear, National Geographic

The Mouth Breathing Manatee
is one of the rarest forms of Manatee.
They are known to roam the fashionable
coastline of the United Arab Emirates.
These buoyant wonders live upon
a hearty diet of natural sea foam,
& lucky pennies tossed into the waters
by carefree, European paddle-boaters.
Aside from their colossal lung capacities,
they also possess a gift for choreography.
In short, they communicate through
the twin languages of faith & dance.
To our human senses, the actions of
these Mouth Breathing Manatees
appear to be just bankable enough to
generate Pixar lots of holiday revenue.
Therefore, I strongly urge you to hop
upon the Mouth Breathing Bandwagon
as soon as possible. That is, unless
you wish for your fine magazine
to soundlessly slip into documented
obscurity; you don’t want your fine
magazine to slip into documented
obscurity, do you?

Sincerely,
Ryan

June

The beautiful girl
put down her chocolate phone;
sunshine makes things melt.

A Letter to Hathor

Dear Hathor,

Do you remember when you asked me: Which Egyptian god would you be, & why? Well, I’d like to finally go on record: I want to be Duamutef. I know he’s not the flashiest of deities, but he’s been on intimate terms with death for a very long time. He is known as the god of funeral proceedings, see, & his job was to guard the extracted guts of noteworthy mummies. Recently exhumed hieroglyphic records suggest that Duamutef cared for his gut-children a great deal. There is also proof that he went so far as to craft earthenware jars for them to live in. As far as we know, Duamutef never decorated these jars with images; however, there is proof that contemporary artists often decorated their walls with his image. His image was that of a jackal’s head perched upon a mummy’s body. He looked like integrity personified. So Hathor, when you consider my childhood dream of owning a used record shop, you’ll probably find my choice of deity to be a complete no-brainer. Come to think of it, this choice may actually have a complete brain of its own. Anyway, I'm sure that whatever kind of brain it turns out to be, that it is safely nestled within the confines of a laminated sleeve. I’m also sure that some clerk has dutifully filed it under "F" for Folk, or maybe, under "B" for Blues. I miss you baby, so please come back home.

Sincerely,
Ryan

A Letter to Bay Buchanan

Dear Bay,

Someone said something about
not understanding each other,
& the sound of a slammed door
made me look up from the potted
green of my cat grass. Meanwhile,
a black jackhammer yammered
away at a patch of grey, obliging
sidewalk until the pavement
retorted with spurt after squirt
of drinkable water. The TV blared
from within my study, & I heard
Wolf Blitzer stomp out of the
Situation Room leaving both you
& his trademark beard behind.
For the record, Wolf is currently
outside my window. He is cleaning
his face, & pouncing on a yard full
of June bugs. He looks quite
contented. Meanwhile, the
abandoned beard refuses to
discuss immigration reform with
you, but instead, stubbornly insists
on knowing who designed your
fisher girl costume. You proclaim
that the beard looks bedraggled
& kind of French. Meanwhile,
Wolf creeps back into the green
room, & silently leaves a broken
skylark in your makeup bag.
For the record, Wolf did not break
this skylark, he merely thought
you might like to dance the
tarantella around it, until you
came back to your senses.

Sincerely,
Ryan