This space

This space

Gradual manifestation of warm

We chose it for the windows

And the Lazy Susan

Wood panelled doors, floors, cupboards, and more

My grandmother would’ve liked the decorative covers on the light switches

There was an aim

Unstated but cemented

We’d hoped to be peaceful together

In our first attempt at the long-haul

Notes in lunches

Sketches on the whiteboard

Hallway hockey with Wicket the Cat

I’ve worked at coming home in many spaces

But cowered to some degree add every interval

If I stretch out here I am not afraid for my life

We’ve made progress there

And in the earthy tone furniture

Also in bringing out grandma’s China on any day

She would have liked that we use her tea pot to make hot Toddy’s

There’s supposed to be two people owning the space

But we’re shy to build a blanket fort just yet

And the humming of the fridge always makes it feel like it’s not ours

Ours would be silent

And sea foam green

And ours would have a purple hallway

Why not?

And ours would constantly have records playing

We forget the player’s there in the corner by the cat tower!

And ours would smell of roses

Not the previous tenant’s patchouly fetish

And ours would be filled with dogs

Not limited to our precious kitty

We’re Link in the Temple of Home

Finally finding the Compass but nowhere near the final test

I know will wake up one morning in the same bed in a different house

With the same cat by a different window

With the same hum from a different fridge

And assume we are dreaming

But for now the floor is hard,

The walls are vertical,

The cat is never quite at ease,

and we are not yet home.

Written by: Sarah C Louise

Dodo

Surrounded by yellow patterns

Shaking night and day

The healthy are on prescribed for their madness who see the sun as gift and delight

We creep in streets and in malls, in schools and in offices

At least for myself I can creep more freely, unbound by punishments dodo knew

Locked up in cages, unoccupied, like larks pride from forests for a grotesque study

I can profess in my world the honest horrors of existing in shackles and face praise for my bravery

How I wish I could have creeped beside dodo, who would’ve understood why the pattern moved

Neither her nor hordes of others were blessed with families with ears and hearts behind their walls

She remained languid in her chamber, views of Ponoka between bars, with grandchildren who carried her image through nightmares and regrets

What was her tournament?

Absence of a pen?

No paints to colour time?

No stage to raise her hands?

She could’ve been free, making her husband pass out and creeping over him without delay (at last!)

Dear innocents! Madness is but a clear view!

The walls are putrid! Society too!

We shouldn’t know cages when we carry bigger truths

The key to depression’s door is acquiring value

Dodo was a prophet with no soapbox for to stand, but if I could have known her we’d have creeped hand in hand

Or perhaps I’d prefer not to say what could have very well been the case: despite our similarities perhaps I would’ve feared her face

I’d like to think that if I made it to Ponoka’s mental hospital we would have sat together and talked about it all

Written by: Sarah C Louise

Sleeping through the Revolution

Noiseless number

Minute space

Waking from dreams of edited moments

Laging Saturday

Without the needed space for grounding.

Already, I see the next three years

And I’m tired.

Breadth of thought is the direct decendant of peace

And yet madness is familiar as the Friends theme song.

It is too easy to take a break

And whisper “oh no” as months snap by

Beers and movies

Shows and pizzas

Body unlived,

Wasted, unexercised.

Drained from last-minute McDonalds-lunches.

Spirits feed on air!

But these windows can’t open,

Repairs cost too much.

My heart needs a boost of trust

Art waits for me,

longing for my care,

Colours crying in impassioned outbursts

DRINK ME UP I’M HERE TO DRINK IN

But my imaginings of their ferocity are more exhausting than the trek to get there.

Laziness, poison of the earth,

beauties and riches require effort!

In wallowing I die early

Calling crows to feast quickly,

Begging for purpose I’m too weary to find

Loathing my empty, exhausted mind.

Birds and Pretty Cells

These houses

Warm, with windows evenly dispersed

Experimenting with yellow-tones on stucco

The possibility ot reach out for the hand of a neighbour from fourth-story windows

And chimneys that never chanel smoke

They look idealic

But their polished railings are warts

Perfect house numbers are perfect festering wounds

When they chopped down their trees they ripped out their hearts with a smile

When they filled the facade with imitation stones they boxed themselves in laughing

Yet all I can hear here are birds in ancient branch runways

Chattering about berries and wind

Thriving in what remains

A nest to every canopy

And an obvious absense of plaguing polution (otherwise known as homo sapien)

None with a window cracked to admire the sunday song

None with a camera ready to capture the miracle cleaning

None tending to tired Christmas waste obstructing actual joy

Just the birds and pretty cells

Somehow filling the same street.

Written by: Sarah C Louise

A Morning’s End

Is work my murderer?

A tournequet digging into my spirit?

Thos parts are scraps now for crazed dogs

I seem to recall

Faint as ocean horizon

The energy was sharp!

Tangible.

Without withstanding time as a factor of capacity.

I would dream worlds.

My limbs are forgotten.

Stiff in brain.

Over-operation.

I built some buckets for collecting memories

They knock overy at times though!

Would  I ever know passion from my spirit again?

It feels like the myth of Utopia:

Nice and nothing

My vision burns with fatigue

After sleeping 12 hours

Hot and hindered

I used to be unusual!

Now I have netflix in my schedule!

And can lose a day looking at the sun.

Will life ever burn lead-white?

Will dreams ever actualize the way my lover lays with my in the night?

Will I ever have anything to say ever again?

This is the sort of problem that makes doctors laugh and babies cry.

This is the sort of horror which makes global warming a project instead of a crisis.

This is the fire that kills

The sore that festers

The thought that poisons.

I suppose the cure could be poetry,

If I can keep this up.

I can dig through store toward daylight

I might be able to slash shadows into pieces.

There could also be a revolution if I eat vegetables instead of hashbrowns.

The thing that truly dampens is options.

anything can happen or has happened.

So much occurs or can occur.

And yet I start my stale day with familiar toast and comforting coffee and words I wrote in four other books.

What makes this time different is that I am older

And I give one shit less

and have seen myself dig through metal before instead of stone.

And came across true love when I was certain I had not had loveable in my DNA

And pushed through on projects slightly after hvaing nothing to show.

Maybe my time is going to be later

Once I’ve dug through time itself

Or maybe my time will come when wormies make a feast on my flesh.

Or maybe my time is now

With this pink pen and this page and this toast and this coffee and this wondrous through that my skill of managing is my power,

Because, through all of the awful days, art has somehow prevailed.

Against all odds, Sarah C Louise made art, and some if it rocked the wave-lengths,

And some of it met only tired minds

But at least she didn’t stop

No matter how much she longed to be devoured by nothing

Thanks for Poets, all

Thank you to the efforts of the dead or currently aching, who wrote in their times of possibility, instead of exploring the various ways the dead can be living.
I wonder at all the caves of disparity and confusion that exist beyond my own ancient network.
We suffer especially from being led astray: past grottos of glimpses of prizes into yet another stinky bog of unpaid exhaustion.
We hold death’s warty hand unknowingly, because the touch is familiar and appears steadying,
and art is the only medicine for operative removal:
One passage of Angela Carter releases its grip;
One phrase of William Blake casts the demonic clutch forevermore;
One story of Margaret Atwood teaches us of the methods for revenge;
Then, one passage of our own buries it deep under lively soil.
And in its stead, we are free to roam amongst creation as creators,
An occupation we must claim defiantly me as our predeceasing Giants graciously accomplished.
Thank you to the gods of words, love, air, night, mystery, wallowing, and song.
I buried my death in the alley last week and will never again feel wrong.

Written by Sarah C Louise

Would I had the time

Would I had the time
I would make my stories of recent trips to Sobeys
Such thrilling adventures
That J.K. Would call to collaborate.

Would I had the time
I would design a character
So soft and vulnerable in their actions
That readers would weep to see the name in print.

Would I had the time
I would craft a mystery
So haunting and ravishingly twisted
That readers would awake in hospitals clutching the printed copy of my devising!

Would I had no debt
No bills
No plans
No demands
I would write all the necessary qualities of the perfectly imagined world
And that would be my legacy.

But for now I have prices to change, shelves to stock, orders to ship, and customers to assist in finding all the right tools for them to go home and produce their masterpiece.

By: Sarah C Louise

The Visitor

The woman didn’t have a steady hand, made clear from her wayward eyebrow liner. When she approached the house her eyes were so cemented to the steps that she did not notice me, with coffee and story, sitting on the porch.

“Hello” I said, forming comments about the realtor, the house, and my tenancy, for it seemed a logical conclusion that she may have been hoping to receive a tour of the interior. “You must contact the realtor” was what I decided to say, which sounded kind and firm in my thoughts; just the sort of impression I could feel proud to have had on a stranger.

“Oh, there you are”. She really only saw my toes but seemed much relaxed.

“You must contact the realtor”, I said, rather curtly.

“Oh no, that’s not why I’m here. Have you had any good news recently?”

This was the largest pamphlet for the Watchtower I had seen. They seemed to hire realistic marketers. Each illustration was accompanied with a line of text, such as: “So, who is God?”.

“I’ve received many things like this and I’m not interested”, I answered, with a smile to make up for my tone. I could never achieve the right balance.

“Well, you see, good news would be things like no disease, no war, no famine, and these are all things that the Bible promises”.

Suddenly it appeared that her eyebrow liner was very specifically drawn as it was. The quivering line, the smokey colour. She was a very unsuccessful demon. Her mouth was too affected for further hesitation, but I decided to smite her words before they were able to be remembered.

“This does not interest me but thank you for coming by”.

Her gasp was ghostly: “Oh yes, well, thank you”. The stairs seemed perilous with the defeated woman descending. When she landed, her cement eyes reached her shoulder: “it’s a lovely day to sit and have your breakfast in the sun”.

She confessed to a corruption, out of some rooted respect.

“Yes, it is”. This time I found my balance of tone. I sipped my coffee with patience.

Stony woman, her satchel weighted with pamphlets, approached the neighboring house, pausing briefly before ascending the wooden steps. There was a hollow rumble when she reached the top.

I did not dare look (though I am short in my attention and tall in my curiosity) for I sensed her eyes through the minuscule gaps within the neighbors’ Cedar tree. She glared through the branches with a yelling gaze, but I prospered. It was a pathetic battle, from where I sat, but for her meant the world of her existence. I pitied the preacher, for what does it say of one’s God when one’s world can be so easily discounted.

By: Sarah C Louise

Stories are Stories of Stories

So much is hidden in houses where windows have been jammed for years,
The freshest winds of monumental change can be blocked out by doors and fears.
Yet stories that are hidden are discoveries of life that are thrown in a box for storage.
The mould takes hold before deciphering is performed, rotting the tutelage.
The holiest lesson one can teach us how everything went wrong.
The greatest moral is that everything means everything, and nothing at all, especially to those who can’t listen to words on a page, or touch the flames of a song.
The compass points to faraway hills, where the path will lead to disaster;
The stories tell us that facing those storms will make learning our master.
For which we are needed, all of the time, to grapple and question and plead.
When learning is all one abides to, then learning is all that they need.
Stories are stories of stories,
And they show us how creatures survive:
They fuck up and learn and fuck up again,
Cause this is how one stays alive.
By Sarah C Louise.

What to trust

Policies are polite
For they seek to clarify
Yet immediately they turn a stone and uncover an impossible hole.

Rules are regal
For they are walls to house the heart
Yet they block the brightest sun and the wildest of winds which give the beat competition.

Guidelines are gallant
For they push and pull the doubtful
Yet doubt is one step off from truth and a guide is an ancient in the present.

Freedom is a folly
For direction offers flow a steady route
Yet there is no cleansing without widening windows and direction never lasted in the face of nature.

So I will walk where I desire
To the insistence of my knowing
And build myself a map
Of the directions I’ll be going

Written by Sarah C Louise