Solar car
reuse, recycle
organic food
use your bicycle
Tesla roadster
Hydrogen cell
Solar power
compost, enjoy the smell
Franken food
plant some flowers
Harness the sun
use it's powers
Geothermal heat
grow meat in space
no animals were harmed
feeding the Human Race
Being green can be full of strife
Being green, for a continuation of life
By Tall Bill
Bill is a regular patron of the Calgary Public Library.
He seems to know everyone at the Central Branch and is often
seen around the new and notable section and the entire building in
general.
His passion for reading draws him closer to all kinds of dust filled shelves,
and at one point was the "bookie", at Grounds For Reading Coffee and Books.
When he is not reading or writing, you can find Bill randomly on T.V !
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Green Bug
It's crawling up his head so slowly
I'm sure the man feels nothing.
It looks like an aphid on steroids, long and sturdily built.
Judging by the back of his head, the man is aging elegantly,
his hair short and silver.
The bug is fluorescent green -- psychedelic,
in the language of my youth, and probably the man's.
The green bug sets off the silver nicely,
like a carefully chosen hairpin.
The bug has been moving straight up.
Now it veers right. Maybe a particular shaft
has caught its attention.
What will it do when it gets to the man's crown?
Will it bite?
Do I owe it to the man to help him shed the bug?
Should I at least alert him to its presence?
Why do I have this sense of duty?
Because I am walking behind them?
The man is dressed business. Means business.
He walks briskly. I keep pace. He is not the only one over forty in decent shape.
Red light.
I'm right behind them now.
The bug has stopped to rest halfway up the man's head.
Maybe I could tap the man on the shoulder, offer
to help.
Excuse me. There's a green bug in your hair.
Would you like me to flick it off?
I've got experience.
You'll both be fine.
Green light.
The man walks. I walk.
The bug continues its pokey journey up the man's head.
After we cross the street, the man continues straight ahead.
Before turning left, I take a last glance.
The bug has almost reached the man's crown.
By Rona Altrows
Rona Altrows greenifies her world by walking everywhere and by engaging in the act of writing, a form of production that creates few toxic by-products, except on a bad day. Altrows, winner of the 2006 City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize for her short story collection A Run On Hose, writes fiction, plays and essays as well as the occasional green poem.
I'm sure the man feels nothing.
It looks like an aphid on steroids, long and sturdily built.
Judging by the back of his head, the man is aging elegantly,
his hair short and silver.
The bug is fluorescent green -- psychedelic,
in the language of my youth, and probably the man's.
The green bug sets off the silver nicely,
like a carefully chosen hairpin.
The bug has been moving straight up.
Now it veers right. Maybe a particular shaft
has caught its attention.
What will it do when it gets to the man's crown?
Will it bite?
Do I owe it to the man to help him shed the bug?
Should I at least alert him to its presence?
Why do I have this sense of duty?
Because I am walking behind them?
The man is dressed business. Means business.
He walks briskly. I keep pace. He is not the only one over forty in decent shape.
Red light.
I'm right behind them now.
The bug has stopped to rest halfway up the man's head.
Maybe I could tap the man on the shoulder, offer
to help.
Excuse me. There's a green bug in your hair.
Would you like me to flick it off?
I've got experience.
You'll both be fine.
Green light.
The man walks. I walk.
The bug continues its pokey journey up the man's head.
After we cross the street, the man continues straight ahead.
Before turning left, I take a last glance.
The bug has almost reached the man's crown.
By Rona Altrows
Rona Altrows greenifies her world by walking everywhere and by engaging in the act of writing, a form of production that creates few toxic by-products, except on a bad day. Altrows, winner of the 2006 City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize for her short story collection A Run On Hose, writes fiction, plays and essays as well as the occasional green poem.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
VICTORIA SPRING HAIKU
Elemental rain
Silver and titanium
wet liquid metal
Chlorophyll landscape
Terraces of verdant green
Lush jungle picnic
Yellow crocuses
Peeking up through wet green grass
Rising into spring
Happy rebirth-day!
Vernal candles peek through earth
Nature’s birthday cake
Manicured fir tree
Perfect cone-shaped silhouette
Gigantic bonsai
Diaphanous boughs
Festooned with cherry blossoms
In new light - shimmer
Butterfly lighting
Rainbow-coloured landing strip
Flower petal perch
Rosebud tightly closed
Unfurling in spring sun
Fresh pre-bouquet
Victoria spring
Grey rain gives way to sunshine
I’m still going home
GREEN APPLE HAIKU
Luscious green apple
It’s no wonder Eve succumbed
Temptress, Granny Smith!
By Lori D. Roadhouse
Lori is a Calgary poet as well as a specialist in family literacy and parenting support.
She loves heading to the mountains for fresh air and solace, and also loves living near Nose Hill in Calgary, so she can feel its powerful presence and proximity.
Lori feels somewhat smug to be the driver of a Prius hybrid, now that her minivan days are over!
Silver and titanium
wet liquid metal
Chlorophyll landscape
Terraces of verdant green
Lush jungle picnic
Yellow crocuses
Peeking up through wet green grass
Rising into spring
Happy rebirth-day!
Vernal candles peek through earth
Nature’s birthday cake
Manicured fir tree
Perfect cone-shaped silhouette
Gigantic bonsai
Diaphanous boughs
Festooned with cherry blossoms
In new light - shimmer
Butterfly lighting
Rainbow-coloured landing strip
Flower petal perch
Rosebud tightly closed
Unfurling in spring sun
Fresh pre-bouquet
Victoria spring
Grey rain gives way to sunshine
I’m still going home
GREEN APPLE HAIKU
Luscious green apple
It’s no wonder Eve succumbed
Temptress, Granny Smith!
By Lori D. Roadhouse
Lori is a Calgary poet as well as a specialist in family literacy and parenting support.
She loves heading to the mountains for fresh air and solace, and also loves living near Nose Hill in Calgary, so she can feel its powerful presence and proximity.
Lori feels somewhat smug to be the driver of a Prius hybrid, now that her minivan days are over!
Monday, March 15, 2010
an excerpt from The Mother of Your Kind
Like hairs on a flytrap, the first tufts of green you walk on
spring everything closer to touch,
as dying fletchings of hoar frost on twigs
ring the future’s obiter dictum.
Words mortalize our valedictory toil,
and fill our ideas like p, with diminishing
pelvic solitude. Meanwhile, green exactitude
broadens its call. So the hand is at odds with its reach.
Warmth is an absurd irrational that easily evaporates.
You and I came here for the green thaw. The green Xbox
glow, slashed open like a spacetime prolapse,
from where Kryptonite avatars rise.
The green road sign that intimates some fifth dimension
prison break—numbness worth speeding through!
A green future that talks about green grip on green self.
It might sound in today’s talk willfully absurd.
Take a green sip of absinthe and feel the vertigo
start to unwind. Compost grass clippings to brood
another with Shiva armswings that parasol
the beat of your skittish jelly ska.
But green manure is the new feelgood.
A viable leptogene that’ll keep you thin, it
revolves and tools around this light….
Syncytializer of electrons, engine
to chloroplasts, as mitochondria are to endflakes,
row on row. Everything puddles to a whimper.
Ephemera, foolish angst, play with airs and aspects of the mind.
Picasso on a bull was no fascist.
The war waged by Cubism and Dada was a war on the apostles
of utilitarianism and fortified orthodoxy.
Across the land, away from
the thrown leprechauns at Murphy’s Pub,
beneath the stirrings of nucleated hyphae
in dirt, where owl’s clover’s comforts
keep the aspidistra waving, threads of
life spread their toes. Myceliated twitter.
Cree answers in beadwork. Blackfoot robes.
Centipedes and weevils, aphids and slugs, are
sacred pipes at the bellybutton of earth.
This grass at my feet knows the mother of your kind.
By Weyman Chan
weyman chan is a local writer about calgary, with a third book of poetry, entitled Hypoderm, to be released in spring, 2010.
he enjoys long walks in the sunshine and stops under trees to listen to what they have to say about us.
Also,his second book, Noise From the Laundry (Talonbooks), was nominated for the 2008 Governor General’s Award for Poetry.
spring everything closer to touch,
as dying fletchings of hoar frost on twigs
ring the future’s obiter dictum.
Words mortalize our valedictory toil,
and fill our ideas like p, with diminishing
pelvic solitude. Meanwhile, green exactitude
broadens its call. So the hand is at odds with its reach.
Warmth is an absurd irrational that easily evaporates.
You and I came here for the green thaw. The green Xbox
glow, slashed open like a spacetime prolapse,
from where Kryptonite avatars rise.
The green road sign that intimates some fifth dimension
prison break—numbness worth speeding through!
A green future that talks about green grip on green self.
It might sound in today’s talk willfully absurd.
Take a green sip of absinthe and feel the vertigo
start to unwind. Compost grass clippings to brood
another with Shiva armswings that parasol
the beat of your skittish jelly ska.
But green manure is the new feelgood.
A viable leptogene that’ll keep you thin, it
revolves and tools around this light….
Syncytializer of electrons, engine
to chloroplasts, as mitochondria are to endflakes,
row on row. Everything puddles to a whimper.
Ephemera, foolish angst, play with airs and aspects of the mind.
Picasso on a bull was no fascist.
The war waged by Cubism and Dada was a war on the apostles
of utilitarianism and fortified orthodoxy.
Across the land, away from
the thrown leprechauns at Murphy’s Pub,
beneath the stirrings of nucleated hyphae
in dirt, where owl’s clover’s comforts
keep the aspidistra waving, threads of
life spread their toes. Myceliated twitter.
Cree answers in beadwork. Blackfoot robes.
Centipedes and weevils, aphids and slugs, are
sacred pipes at the bellybutton of earth.
This grass at my feet knows the mother of your kind.
By Weyman Chan
weyman chan is a local writer about calgary, with a third book of poetry, entitled Hypoderm, to be released in spring, 2010.
he enjoys long walks in the sunshine and stops under trees to listen to what they have to say about us.
Also,his second book, Noise From the Laundry (Talonbooks), was nominated for the 2008 Governor General’s Award for Poetry.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
This is how
purple and black speckled beans
lying near a dull brown leathery pod
tell us only a little
about this man, this woman, who planted
the garden in april, and who today
only sit across from each other
in the silence of this room
now that it is october, and
why the dirt under their fingernails
is stuck there after all this time.
By Stuart Ian McKay
Stuart Ian McKay is a member of the Writers Guild of Alberta and the League of Canadian Poets. Stele of Several ladies- a long poem, his first book, was published in 2005. He is a two time winner of CBC's Alberta Anthology. McKay lives in Calgary where he is working on his second book, a cognate of prayer, a series of long poems about people living with disabilities. "This is how" was published in issue Number 40 of The Prairie Journal of Canadian Literature.
He wonders when it will warm up so he can garden again.
lying near a dull brown leathery pod
tell us only a little
about this man, this woman, who planted
the garden in april, and who today
only sit across from each other
in the silence of this room
now that it is october, and
why the dirt under their fingernails
is stuck there after all this time.
By Stuart Ian McKay
Stuart Ian McKay is a member of the Writers Guild of Alberta and the League of Canadian Poets. Stele of Several ladies- a long poem, his first book, was published in 2005. He is a two time winner of CBC's Alberta Anthology. McKay lives in Calgary where he is working on his second book, a cognate of prayer, a series of long poems about people living with disabilities. "This is how" was published in issue Number 40 of The Prairie Journal of Canadian Literature.
He wonders when it will warm up so he can garden again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)