Winter comes and goes
Multiple times in March
Today it wants to stay
So it has painted itself
Like glass upon the roads
Daring us to step outside
But we know it can’t last
That this is a last gasp
To freeze us in our place
So we will wait
And watch it die a slow death
To water the land with its blood
And bring us to life again
A note for those who are not aware. I am a columnist for some local newspapers in southern Manitoba. I have written for the papers since 2010 and contribute three general interest columns a month. The primary paper is The Winkler Morden Voice which you can find here and explore archives – www.winklermordenvoice.ca
Sometimes you walk in the weeds for so long
You forget how to stroll through the garden
But eventually you make your way out
And the tangle parts
Revealing a newer life
Beyond the decay
Rabbit ran in circles
All winter long
Leaving a path in the snow
round and round our yard
As if to stay in shape
Through the cold
Through the dark
Where the predators hide
Rabbit runs in circles
Through the winter of my mind
Through the cold
Through the dark
Where the predators hide
Run rabbit run
Bukowski once wrote
Find something you love
And let it kill you
But i think he got it wrong
Love doesn’t kill us
If we’re not careful
We kill love
We strangle it
We drown it
We hang it by the rafters
And kick the stool out
From beneath its feet
Setting the corpse ablaze
And tossing it from the window
As if beauty is the enemy
Not the cancer within
And we desire
A new kind of pain
Uglier than the first
I turned a megaphone on
In case I needed to scream
It would shake the piillars of earth
Sweeping across the land
Like a tsunami riding the air
Carrying away the standing armies
Encamped upon my door step
That they would drown
By the power of my voice
Leaving me free
Of their meddlesome ways
Forever
the light around you
is brighter than others
and your cast shadow
is sharper than the rest
as though you are more real
and the world is diffuse
except where you stand
like a focused, clear point
in the centre of grey mist
that cannot reach you
I love statistics.
For instance the average reader of my blog checks in at one of four key times during the day. Mornings around 10 am, lunch, afternoons around 3 pm, after dinner around 7 pm and before bed about 10 pm. Of course there are variables and outliers but these are the general peak times of day.
Most of my readers find the blog through search engines. The VAST majority coming through Google. Like 99 percent through Google. Some come through Bing or Baidu etc.
The most popular landing page is Home from which people browse. Next to that my most popular post last year was The Study Quran: A Non-Muslim View followed by I Don’t Chew My Cabbage Twice and Cooper Black Diamond #240.
This is the area I also learn of interesting new websites like blackbox.ai or Ecosia not to mention odd referrals from classroom.google.com. Actually classroom.google.com is the fourth most used referral site in the past three years. I’d like to think there’s a teacher out there somewhere using my poetry in their class.
In the past year the top 10 countries my visitors come from are – Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, India, Australia, Belgium, China, Japan and Ireland. Interesting. I love this stuff. Even as I have been writing this post I have had a visitor from Poland. Cool.
In the past three years Manitoba is the largest region from which people visit followed, puzzlingly by Virginia/D.C. (Washington). Perhaps the CIA, who knows. The top 10 cities that I have had visitors from over the past three years include: Winkler/Morden, Winnipeg, Washington, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Brussels, Menlo Park, Ashburn and New York City.
If we narrow down to just today so far the top cities from which my visitors have come include Winkler/Morden; Allen, USA; Reading USA; Warsaw Poland; and Duncan Canada. In the past week someone from Council Bluffs, Iowa has been browsing the site. Do I know someone from Council Bluffs? Hello Council Bluffs.
In the past year users by device broke down as follows: 72 percent desktop/laptop; 27 percent mobile and 1 percent tablet. Chrome was the most popular browser followed by Safari in a distant second. Firefox and Opera were in there and in a distant last was Edge (which I personally like).
The breakdown by OS shows Windows at the top of the list with about 60 percent of my visitors followed in order by iPhone, Android, Mac and Linux.
The most popular day and time for people to look at my blog this year is Tuesday at 4 pm. Hmmm.
Posts from my blog have been shared more than 3,800 times with Reddit being second only to Facebook by a sliver,
Anyhow, all that and loads more that I love sifting through like Smaug through his pile of gold. Great fun.
There in the darkening trench
He dropped his rifle and sat
Closing his eyes
To force away the pounding
Of the distant guns
To a quieter place
Deep within his head
And imagined this place in spring
With verdant green spreading
To the welcoming woods beyond
Where he and his love would walk
And for a moment
The war had gone away
And they were together
For this one joyous day
As if the conflict had never been
And a brighter future could be seen
At least for this day
This small priceless sliver
Of this rare and beautiful day
Even if it wasn’t real
It was a short respite
Some spare seconds to heal
Before the coming of death
Here I am
After all this time
Listening to the evidence
Of getting ready;
The start of the day,
The beginning of busy
And I’m glad I’m here
These passing years later
As a brush moves through hair
Then cloth sweeps over leg
Here I am
Constructing the world
Beyond this door
Out of sounds that seep in
And falling in love
Harnessing Chaos 