Here, at the edge of myself,I stand and look up. Clouds loosen their pale weightacross the blue,folding and unfoldinglike slow-spoken names. A grey seam passes through them.Then white.Then a brighter openingwhere the sky shows throughas if it has been waitingall along. The noise of the daywithdraws.The ordinary worldslips a little farther away. I do not … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – “The Quiet Above” – Greying Wisps, v.4
T.A.E.’s Book Review – Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is a deceptively small book with the moral weight of a tragedy. Its scale is intimate—two migrant labourers, a few days on a ranch, a single dream repeated like a prayer—yet its implications are expansive, reaching outward to the economic desperation of the Great Depression, the fragility of masculine … Continue reading T.A.E.’s Book Review – Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Revisionist Poetry – “Greying Wisps” – Greying Wisps, v.3
I stand stillwhere the earth holds me,and the sky opens abovelike a thought not yet spoken. Clouds drift there—grey-cuffed, white-bright,soft bodiesunfastening themselvesacross blue distance. The world lowers its voice.Even the noise of livingthins to a murmur,and I find myselfinside a hushlarge enough to hear. The clouds movewith no labor at all,as if the wind were … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – “Greying Wisps” – Greying Wisps, v.3
T.A.E.’s Book Review – Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat is often mistaken for a light comic novel, but its apparent ease hides a more delicate design: it is a fable about friendship, poverty, appetite, and the human need to belong without being possessed. Read closely, it becomes clear that the author is doing something more than telling amusing stories about … Continue reading T.A.E.’s Book Review – Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
Revisionist Poetry – “At Eye Level with the Sky” – Greying Wisps, v.2
I stand rooted here,a small upright witnessset beneath the turning heights. Clouds drift overhead,soft as torn wool,grey combed through white,their slow shapes changingagainst the blue. From this far edge of thingsthe world grows quiet.Its grinding noisefalls awaylike dust settling in still water. The clouds pass onwithout effort,without complaint,crossing the open field of my sightas if … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – “At Eye Level with the Sky” – Greying Wisps, v.2
T.A.E.’s Book Review – The Craft & Art of Bamboo: 30 Eco-Friendly Projects to Make for Home & Garden by Carol Stangler
Carol Stangler’s The Craft & Art of Bamboo: 30 Eco-Friendly Projects to Make for Home & Garden is, at heart, a book about persuasion: it asks the reader to see bamboo not as a decorative novelty, but as a living medium with history, utility, and aesthetic dignity. The revised and updated 2009 edition presents itself … Continue reading T.A.E.’s Book Review – The Craft & Art of Bamboo: 30 Eco-Friendly Projects to Make for Home & Garden by Carol Stangler
Revisionist Poetry – “The Grit-Singers (A Blues for the Mineral Dark)” – Ghostly Stones, v.5
The stones—They don’t just stand, they heave.Tired gods with marble jaws and spines of jagged grit,twitching in that yellow fever-light,that rot-light of afternoon and ash.See the names?Carved like hexes into the skin—that pale, dying, limestone skin.The rain has licked the letters loose.The sun has kissed the marrow to ruin.They’re keeping watch.Yeah, they’re watching the quiet … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – “The Grit-Singers (A Blues for the Mineral Dark)” – Ghostly Stones, v.5
T.A.E.’s Book Review – Make It in Clay – A Beginner’s Guide to Ceramics by Charlotte Speight & John Toki
Make It in Clay: A Beginner’s Guide to Ceramics reads less like a glossy craft manual than like an apprenticeship compressed into a book. First published in 1997 and revised in 2001, it appears as a spiral-bound, 224-page guide by Charlotte F. Speight and John Toki, aimed at a “simple, beginning studio situation.” That phrase … Continue reading T.A.E.’s Book Review – Make It in Clay – A Beginner’s Guide to Ceramics by Charlotte Speight & John Toki
Revisionist Poetry – “The Dead Still Sing in Granite” – Ghostly Stones, v.4 (Revised while listening to The Doors)
The stones rise up like tired gods,marble jaws, granite spines,standing crooked in the fever-lightof afternoon and ash.Names are carved like spellsinto their pale and dying skin,names the rain has worried loose,names the sun has kissed to ruin. They keep their vigil over the buried ones,the sleepers under six feet of silence,the vanished kings, the broken … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – “The Dead Still Sing in Granite” – Ghostly Stones, v.4 (Revised while listening to The Doors)
T.A.E.’s Book Review – Reclaiming Style – Using Salvaged Materials to Create an Elegant Home by Maria Speake & Adam Hills
Reclaiming Style is less a conventional interiors manual than a persuasive meditation on what a home can mean when it is built from memory, repair, and intelligent reuse. The book promises to take readers “behind the scenes,” and that phrase is exact: its drama lies not only in the finished rooms, but in the scavenging, … Continue reading T.A.E.’s Book Review – Reclaiming Style – Using Salvaged Materials to Create an Elegant Home by Maria Speake & Adam Hills
The New Renaissance Mindset 