Pick a card.

Labels: ace of pentacles, cult, dream, four of swords, magic, reading, sunflower, suspicious activity here, the fool, the magician, three of wands, titles, two of cups

This is one of the first poems I wrote. Still living with my parents, I wrote after midnight in the darkness of a home office, in front of a beige computer. I was a member of an online art forum...

A few computer nerds with a penchant for word porn, before any of it was hashed out to tag trends, would gather and write to find a place in the universe where we could be a pair of heart eyes. Just a pair of heart eyes. Bleeding soul meetings were attended from Sacramento, London, Montreal, anywhere with dial-up.

Our emotions were celebrated and we tried to find more of them through a poetry community. It was the birth of my sky, made up of all these wordy constellations. Not one, but many stars guided me through some tough moments. At some point, I followed one's song to the west, but that's another story for another road.

This poem, Skinned, was written around 2001. On the mathematical scale of my growth, I was at 2+2. Perception was the main theme of the year, and remained a major traffic light for a few years after that... The fertile silence of that room was a treasure I continued to seek every time I opened a window.

This poem doesn't resurface with a nostalgic tune to take me away from my seasonal dive, it's a breath of compassion, filling my lungs with a cleansing sound. The vibration of a sun swallowed whole.

How many times will we be reborn?




More tracks on SoundCloud.

Labels: alarming truthness, artform, cult, echo, From Obscure Light, Homework, must i say what this is

My hand offered to you for the day, then passed on to another you.

Labels: about, cult

Your map is my sail.

Labels: cult, echo, one-liner

I love it when people come to me with gifts. You know, gifts they’ve received, gifts given to them for no reason in particular. Such lack of definition makes the gift mysterious and thus, worthy of exhibition as if to prove such unique intentions exists in today’s routine pursuits.

How dandy, I exclaim before the wanton eyes of the carrier, offering a chance for satisfaction and possible retreat. I let it be known that I acknowledge this uncommon act of generosity and return to my previous state of contentment. It would be too easy to assume that the reaction one would expect and want when showing off a gift would be envy. Intent behind action is never so black and white.

I love it when people come to me with gifts because it proves that on some level, they care about something. Exactly what it is they care about will always escape me. Rest assured such a detail is of no concern of mine. What concerns me is their willingness to come to me, for any reason. That, in and of itself, is fascinating.

Of course, I do love it when people offer me gifts. Who doesn’t? The ones I prefer are the small, tiny things that would usually appear in a garage sale or in a Tupperware. To step into a drugstore and buy a box of chocolates requires as much effort as gassing up at the corner station. It is such an automatic adventure. How a seemingly ordinary entity can become the apple of somebody’s eye is what fairytales are made of.

What is remarkable is the reason the transformation takes place. A simple cookie becomes a probe in the hands of an anxious scamp. A single flower becomes a loop in a chain to a gang. A quick doodle becomes a pink slip in the hands of a smug outsider.

How much time passes between the flower and the fruit? How many moons between ripe and refuse? There’s no telling, Charlie. There is just no way of telling. There’s no use in waiting in the tall golden blades like a scarecrow.

Labels: cult, Dear Charlie, social

Labels: collaborative, cult, social, suspicious activity here

a triangle summons the sky
A TRIANGLE SUMMONS THE EARTH

between two hands
none above us
none below us

i pick your clover
you roll my die

fill my cup with fresh water
i will empty yours of poison

you protect
i defend

your bridge
like my shelter

Labels: art, cult, echo, experiment, ink, notice the sign

I know nothing of art, success or society. I can hardly bring myself to get up in the morning and get dressed, let alone write theories and commentaries that could possibly shed light on anything remotely important. That said, I think art is a joke. The good kind. I think art is more important than the oscars, fashion, guns, politics and coffee.

I have a headache, I’m depressed, I need warmth. I want to curl up in bed and dream of suns.

Art, in all it's forms, starts me up. We all know how art can affect/infect people, but I can't say for sure what it represents. I think the story created by the reader, listener, spectator is separate from the artist’s story. Both are important, personal and reflective. That’s why it's so easy for fans to admire/worship musicians because they are responding to what feels like a voice that is personally speaking to them. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, how many times have you heard that a song saved somebody’s life?

Yet how much can the listener really know of what made that song possible? For all I know, that poem has nothing to do with what I think it is saying. Of course I think art can be the tool/statement that the creator wills it to be but once it is released into the wild, the chances of it returning intact are slim. Its likeness will change in every eye that falls upon it.

I see art on the train floor. At first glance it's just a scribble or stain but after staring at it a few minutes, the abstract morphs into whatever my mind can produce at that moment. A piece of art is like a big fat red dot on a map with an arrow next to it saying "You are here." Let that be translated through you, as you wish. Ingest it and spew it out like you want but don't blame the dot. Don’t blame the messenger for being too loud or too red, just move on to the next dot. So, to define art is ridiculous. Give awards to humanitarians, not artists. The way some societies are so sick with power to instill a sense of rivalry in everything is beyond me.

So there's this woman sitting at a bar and a man walks up to her and says "Be very careful leaving tonight. I just had a vision that you had an accident because of alcohol." and leaves. The woman, finishing her first margarita, rolls her eyes, pays the bartender and exits the bar. As she is crossing the street, she pulls out her car keys out of her purse and gets hit by a truck transporting a load of beer.

Labels: artwork, cult, kids in the hall, notice the sign, opinion, theory, there is no ship like championship, titles

Gil and Sarah:

- Do you trust me?
- Intimately.

Labels: cult, echo, love, science

I recently saw an enlightening interview with singer/songwriter Serge Fiori. I had heard his name mentioned before but didn’t really know who he was.

He began his career as lead singer in a band named Harmonium. The musicians reached stardom in 1977, playing large venues across Canada, the USA and Europe. At this stage, Fiori was beginning to lose the vital exchange between the stage and the audience and between him and his band mates. The audience became a sea of fans, pulling more energy out of him than what he could humanly offer. Groupies would wait for him outside his home. The interviewer added that he would have done anything Fiori would have asked him to. And to that he laughed and replied that that was the problem.

This cult following ultimately cost him his sanity. He could no longer stand on a stage without being overcome with terror. He had no place to go but within his head. The group disbanded and he was left to slowly rebuild his health, as his fans turned against him and his father passed away.

In 1978 he collaborates with Richard Séguin to produce an award-winning record. Fiori remembers how destroyed he was when he went to accept the award, he could not even properly button-up his shirt. But now and then, he still collaborates on various projects.

What took me by surprise is that a song that I heard over and over during my life, a song that is synonym with laughter, was written by Serge Fiori. In 1984, he gives us the Just For Laughs Festival theme song. Truly unexpected, nobody knows how to take it. For me, it proves to be an incredible move.

For this and for keeping to his art from that point on, working on his music for documentaries, exploring his options, I admire him, as a human being. I admire him as a fellow human being.

Labels: cult, Harmonium, music

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Labels: Cinema, cult, film, list, titles