A Giant Cause
This was a possible one-way adventure, I knew that. I knew the dangers I would pass and the challenges I would be faced with would possibly be of epic proportions. The slide into the determined hopelessness of a suicidal yet necessarily successful task was familiar – Frodo’s feelings as he carried the ring through the dead forest of Ephel Duath on his way to exploit the energy found through the crack of doom. One of the smallest of the bi-pedal sapiens undertaking the species’ most important task.
Meaning
Whether we acknowledge it or not, we live in a world full of messages, a world full of stories. I believe that we live in a time where stories have permeated our society to a degree that has been the most explicit in history. Every picture we see on the side of a bus, on a billboard at the side of the highway, or on the television during our favourite TV show tells a story. These stories influence our lives in deep ways.
Myth: Your Action Helps the Cause
There is a myth, not unique to the halls of Laurier or the streets of the Waterloo community, that activism is a thriving group of engaged students working and creating beneficial changes in the world. Yet it has been my experience that this myth is largely false, as activism is often too rooted in dogma to effectively influence the change that it wishes to manifest in the world. This article will serve to illustrate where activism has fallen from reality to myth and hopefully, by addressing the myth, begin the process of transformation.
Whose Story Is This?
Once during the first grade I decided that it would be funny to tell a girl that she was the S-word. I was quite surprised when my outraged classmate ran off to tell our teacher who in turn summoned me to her desk. Skeptical at my proclaimed innocence, the teacher said something to the effect of “Erik, in some families the S-word is just as bad as the F-word or the B-word”.
The Elder Speaks
The fire flickers lazily, casting shadows across the tribe assembled. It is a cool evening beneath a clear sky. An ember pops, punctuating the silence of their clearing, while a standing Elder drinks long and deep from his cup. The sky wheels, completing its slow procession above him and even the forest sits silent, intent on hearing his words.
And the Moral of the Story Is
I love telling and hearing stories. Stories are beautiful, and entertaining, and create relationships between people. When I hear or read a good story I feel like I am a part of something, I feel less alone and more complete. I feel nostalgic, or deeply content, or sort of sad, but in a good kind of way. My love of stories started when I was a kid; I grew up as a product of the bedtime story.
Childish Things
Perhaps it’s a symptom of the perverse materialism of our culture, or the rigidly logical behaviour that we are taught to expect and demand from our world. Perhaps we simply have too much else to do with our mental time. Whatever the reason, the result is quite clear: the legends in our lives step much more lightly today than they once did.
What My Life Story Should Be
Why do we tell ourselves school is the most important thing in our lives? My marks need to be good, so I can graduate, so I can have a degree so I can get a job so I can buy a car and a house and buy things to fill it. Then I will have entered the real world and be taken seriously. Who cares if right now I miss all the beauty around me and I don’t make time to take care of myself?
Up Yours, Children!
Some may disagree, but what
I tell you is true…
Children are no more than
factories of poo.
Untitled
Most casualties in the battle of the voices will be invisible, even to the combatants. It is only pieces of us that die: our dignity, integrity. Factions coalesce together around coercion, hero worshiping star fuckers and propagandists. Intimidators normalize rotted relationships, fostering corruption, bulldozing the places that we really live.
Settle Me
Flying flags with arms in hand
Network lies many don’t understand
This land has been taken for good
22% is all that may remain
We have taken to amassing wealth
In a form that may deprive all
Build them up to the highest heights
May we watch these walls fall
Two Mirrors
When I was a child, the upstairs bathroom of the house I grew up in had a large mirror as well as a mirrored medicine cabinet on the wall adjacent to it.
I used to sit on the bathroom counter, open up the medicine cabinet door and, with amazement, watch the resulting optical effects,
continually wondering what was at the end of that tunnel of repeated-ness.
Untitled
Live a life already designated
Spelled out to the last T
We thrive on the stories of God
Writhe as we imagine our future
A double sided smile so sickening
Do we know who we really are?
The Knight of the Stone Duck
We are the Queen’s exiles, you with
Unblinking eyes and motionless wings,
Bill open in an infinite quack.
I see how life is for you, sir!
Little better than a garden gnome
Powerless against those who left you
To the travails of every season
To crack and weather like any old stone.
Your Wooden Room
Do not give form to the demons on the floor.
Do not give way to the devils in the corner.
The shadows with vulgar speech that dwell shifting in each
hollow corner of my room
