silence

more than the most exquisite music

played with great soul

I love

silence.

haiku-like?

The sadness of watching basic cable 

on a sunny afternoon

with the shades drawn.

ghosts of paris

The Champs-Elysees is a sad place. 
It is sad because of the many ghosts that haunt it. 
Of course the entire city is haunted by ghosts:
At this very moment
Jean-Paul Sartre is watching someone eat a sandwich at Les Deux Magots.

There was a time when Parisians would dress in their Sunday best
and stroll the grand boulevard and idle in its cafés.
They still do, but now they have to share it 
with businesses like MacDonald's and the Disney store.

The ghost of Ernest Hemingway watches the Champs-Elysees from a side street 
and imagines a more interesting Paris.
A woman feels his stare on the back of her head
and turns around quickly but sees nothing.
She turns back around to finish her coffee,
It cost her approximately eight dollars in Canadian funds.

li'l curmudgeon

He was curmudgeonly from a young age. It troubled him to think about what he would be like in 20 years (he was only 41) if he continued to grow more curmudgeonly as time went on. He was irritated by the smallest of things and even more so when we was tired, which was often. A short list of things that annoyed him included:  people eating with their mouths open (mouth breathers!), ticking clocks, people who touch your arm when they talk to you, teenagers, Rod Stewart (his singing), improper and overuse of the word ironic, people who harmonize the last three notes of happy birthday (a quote from fellow curmudgeon George Carlin may he rest in peace), being interrupted, whistling, parents who try to reason with their children, and people who stand in the doorway of the liquor store and thus block him from getting liquor.

He realized that it was ultimately not healthy to live this way and in fact did not care for other curmudgeons, but he was equally annoyed by and suspicious of perpetually upbeat people. Why were they always happy? Because they were storing up their rage in a tight, tight ball that would later manifest itself as a giant tumour or an American-style killing spree.

There were also the days when he would wake up already irritable before even making contact with anyone or anything. On those days the only things that seemed to give him pleasure were drinking strong coffee while checking his email or maybe buying a six-pack and rearranging the pictures in his apartment. Today was such a day.