Category Archives: Uncategorized

R.I.P. Ursula K. Le Guin ~ 1929 – 2017

Ursula K. Le Guin was one of my favourite authors. I will miss her keen mind and great storytelling.

By Hook Or By Book: Book Reviews, News, & Other Stuff's avatarBy Hook Or By Book

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Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker. Photo by Beth Gwinn/Getty Images. 2001

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I don’t know how many of you have heard, but literary icon and one of my personal idols, Ursula K. Le Guin passed away yesterday afternoon. She was the first woman to win the Nebula Award and Hugo Award for Best Novel, for her 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness. She went on to win these awards several more times throughout her career. This prolific and gifted writer wrote twenty more novels, and according to the New York Times, “a dozen books of poetry, more than 100 short stories (collected in multiple volumes), seven collections of essays, 13 books for children and five volumes of translation, including the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu and selected poems by the Chilean Nobel Prize winner Gabriela Mistral.”

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Ursula’s novels made me realize that fantasy wasn’t always just about wizards and…

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Chronic Illness and Self-Acceptance

This has really hit home with me at the present time. I would like to thank the author.

Tina Frisco's avatarTINA FRISCO

Living with a chronic illness is a challenge at best. If the illness is devastating but not recognized by the medical establishment, convincing ourselves life is worth living becomes an uphill battle.

Lucie Stastkova Art Photo Courtesy of Lucie Stastkova

In the year 2000, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness that presented as a drop-dead flu. I’d been symptomatic since in the 1980s, but early on, flareups were few and far between. Innumerable doctor visits always produced tests with negative results. Over time, symptoms increased in severity and duration until they became immobilizing and constant in 1999.

I knew my doctors thought I was malingering. I felt invalidated yet knew damn well something was wrong. I lived in fear of a dreaded disease not being detected in time to be treated. Simultaneously, I wasn’t sure I wanted to live. By 1999 I was nearly bedridden; in debilitating pain; overwhelmed by fatigue; suffering…

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Ancestral

I never knew my Grandpa.

We have only a faded daguerreotype.

But we kids had found out what we weren’t supposed to

Through fortuitous eavesdropping.

He had just gone into his barn one day

And done the deed with his own shotgun.

Then, when I was twenty,

My troubled old Dad said a thing

All alone (he thought) “I wish I was dead”

We were not very close,

But that was when I grieved for him the most.

Dad got his wish, within a year.

Then, an older brother, a generation apart,

A figure we so looked up to,

Suddenly so sad and lost.

His wife, at her wit’s end, slapped him hard

And said snap out of it.

I blame her not, for she knew not what to do.

These kinds of things were not talked about.

She was not angry, but desperate.

And now I, in later life,

Have been visited by this haunting heredity of the family tree.

I knew not, for the first while, what the trouble was,

But can now liken it to a dark drop of ink

Instilled into a glass of clear water,

Muddying into uniform grey.

There are things, though, that I have

That these others had not.

We know what it is about.

We may talk more openly.

We seek help and are encouraged by some.

And we can feel blameless, when they could not.

Another Scrapped Suicide Note/Nathan McCool

So much expressed here.

braveandrecklessblog's avatarBlood Into Ink

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Jesus isn’t waiting for me anywhere. I nailed him

to a tree. A long time ago. And hell fires are extinct to me now. I can no more believe 

in them than I can the idea that mercy was

coming for me and just lost its way. 

I write this in a field – Gaia’s emerald hair is

what leaves this paper water damaged.

I am not crying now or even fighting tears,

for once.

If you could see me now you’d know 

that I’m smiling. Like I never have before.

I do not know if we really take anything with us 

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Degrees of home

Have you ever felt

That you can never go home again

Or that you have never ever really been home

In all your life?

Perhaps some other world ,

Some other life,

Is missing you.

I stood alone, still a boy

Enthralled by a Master’s painting

A scene at once unfamiliar and beckoning

It was of an old mill, but that mattered not

It drew me

I wanted inside

I don’t know why

It felt like home

A long time I stood

A tall man in a grey suit

Asked if he could help

I stammered, confused,

Looked from him back to the painting

He smiled,

Put a hand on my shoulder,

Walked away.

Older now,

I imbibed with peers

That which was unwise for me

It changed my mind

Changed my mind

I looked back with longing

Even to homelessness felt before the Old Mill

For now I was so far away

So far away

I did not want to stay

Just like the boy I was at ten

Who climbed the highest diving tower

On a dare

I, who had never even been

In the deep end.

So desperately afraid

But poked and prodded

By the jibes of the bullies below

To walk the plank.

I must take the plunge.

I must do it.

I cannot go back.

What came of it?

The boy of ten grew into something else,

Within and without

And the bullies scattered,

Sensing trouble.

But now this self wrought wrong

This play for peer approval

Had brought me to a wrong turning

And I was

So far away

Too far away.

Yet more cat trouble

the one that has me treat-trained
sits in its worn out spot on the floor
every day, same time
it has now developed
a professional smirk
a badge of accomplishment
shall I acquiesce yet again?
am I but a human yo-yo
spun into the Sleeper
then drawn back for endless repeats?

meanwhile, back at the ranch,
the brother and sister laze on the lounge
they are having a lick fest-
you do me, I’ll do you
I watch in amused fascination until
they seem to come to themselves
and realize where they are
and what they are doing
the licking stops, the eyes go wide
one hisses
the other gets a choke hold on him
the claws and teeth come out
there is a high pitched scream

I wonder what I have done
to cause this magic moment.

Marking time

when we are in joy
when it’s as if we purr
with a good book and hot coffee
when our longed for break comes
the time subjectively speeds

in moments of displeasure or pain
we watch the second hand tick tick
tick us off
the time subjectively slows

me, I have a conundrum
it is a period of mandatory displeasure and pain
a payment for past purchases of pleasure
and so, I wish for father time
to quicken his pace
and perhaps just touch on the salient points
of this rough patch
but of course, that done,
it brings me only closer
to borrowed time.