Bedtime Song

"Have you ever
stuck your ring finger

way inside your
belly button?

It smells the way I bet
Europeans did, in

the Middle
Ages."

My Reading at Strong Words

I will be reading at the Strong Words reading series, on Monday, February 4th. The Gladstone Art Bar is located at 1214 Queen Street West. The doors open at 7:30, and the readings begin at 8pm.

The Grownup Table

One February 4th, this poem will appear in Blue Skies Poetry.

An Orthographic Comic Strip

A Scramble Sonnet

-after Olena Ingerova

you are a worthy adversary.
a hearty roadway surveyor.
daresay a wary rover youth.
hardware your ovary yeast.
hydrous avatar a eye worry.
yo a earthward rays voyeur.
a headway rotary surveyor.
vote a roadways hurry year.
your arrayed a washy trove.
awry you a adversary other.
you ray the rearward savoy.
very your headway a resort.
rosy a warhead voyeur tray.
a very arrowhead artsy you.

Hey, You Have More Success Than I Do

I almost forgot, my poem Hey, You Have More Success Than I Do, appears in the newest issue of Quills Magazine.

Maureen the Mink

This poem will appear in the upcoming issue of Misunderstandings Magazine.

The Moveable Feast

You may read this poem in the upcoming issue of Octopus Beak Inc.

Robots Don't Kill People, Adam & Steve Kill People

This poem now appears in the newest issue of Bent Magazine.

A Word Ladder for Lewis Carroll

Cult
Colt
Bolt
Belt
Bell
Hell
Shell
Sheal
Leash
Least
Last
Lass.

Help, My Dean Koontz Collection Is On Fire

Yesterday, God watched a boring CBC mini-series.
It was a coming-of-age story set in rural Saskatchewan.

God felt a wind at his back, and briefly considered
smiting every paved road between Toronto & Avonlea.

He thought that maybe smiting the prairies into a
theoretical Blank Slate might make them more entertaining.

In the end, God let this destructive impulse fade away.
He was in a much more mature headspace nowadays.

For a while though, he was a bit too fond of The Smiting.
Unbeknownst to him, God’s childhood was full of

negative associations that impeded his consciousness.
In truth, he didn’t like to dwell on those days, so instead

he switched to ABC & caught the season premier of Lost.
The show was in the middle of a John Locke flashback.

In the flashback, John was popping wheelies in his
wheelchair, cackling madly, and pouring camping oil

all over his father’s Dean Koontz paperback collection.
‘I’m doing this to get over you,’ shrieked John.

‘The Lost creators sure have Daddy issues,’ God said.
‘Plus, Locke’s being pointless; those books are super

bestsellers, and his con-man Dad can just buy more.
And then Dean Koontz just gets richer, while Canadian

melodrama remains embarrassingly under-funded.’
God suddenly felt too emotionally invested in Locke,

so he flipped back to the CBC out of filial obligation.
‘I’m too self-aware,’ God said. ‘This is no way to live.’

A Letter to Dr. John Mann

Dear Dr. Mann,

One day a prickly pear looked into a slightly smeared mirror. It found itself to be ugly, the pear I mean, not the mirror. It found itself on vacation, and in the bathroom of an Australian pub. Behind the prickly pear, the bidet was going ape-shit. It was spraying water on everything. The bidet kept screaming, “Bless this, bless that. And that.” Some of the toilet water hit the prickly pear, and it made the prickly pear wet. The errant wetness made the prickly pear look smooth. Suddenly, the prickly pear felt beautiful. It went out and hit on every non-prickly, domestic pear left in the Australian pub. In short, the prickly pear got a lot of action. Between you and me, Dr. Mann, that pear got more than its share of “down under”, if you know what I mean. Apparently, after only a really short time, I think 3 days, or something, there was over 60 million acres of newly sprouted prickly pear orchard across the continent. This new boom of bastardized pears was a cancerous blight upon the great Commonwealth of Australia. Many outback ecosystems faced extinction, but you cured it, Dr. Mann. You found a way to keep the prickly pear population in check. You were awarded the prestigious M.B.E. by none other than Queen Elizabeth II. She made the award herself. It took her six days, two pounds of brass, an alchemist's workshop, a philosopher’s stone, and seven different brands of glue-on sparkles to create it for you. As far as awards go, it was a pretty good one.

Sincerely,

Ryan