Mountain Highway - Dave Thorvald Olson’s Writing Notebook

My Ingersol Rand representative
seems to be
born to drive

“I’ll gain success
by making friends
with numbers,”
exclaimed in a backslide

sure a bit rough around the edges
and often high on LSD
air tools look more splendid
displayed in meaty catalogs

greasy prints, overalled
hauling backwards now
wailing down Granville
dodging cabs
playing chicken with buses
pylons flying
a mob soon gathers

(tbc)

Comfortably lonely, cabin porch
hard back book
foggy overslept hard back chair

backpack hangs on
a wooden peg
empty
but for deja vu

trembling hands
loosening clothes
fingers slipping
underside the clasp

coarse canvas dream
and well oiled leather boots
with high arches
moving away from here

even before painting
the rooms onto a circus tent
the tall poles cantilevered
and kids with summer suntan lines
on open feet

saguaro sunset scenery
flash by in a clackety-thwack 16mm print
Grandpa coughing, me
jotting down unessentials,
collecting pottery along the way

the movement is key i recollect
while stopping still and
tucking my boots
under a hearty mantle
of foreboding calm

the space between
night and light
when bats dive like
fiery planes

battles over borders
foggy lines on faded maps
drawn by someone else
away for reasons
forgotton, arbitrary
false

rusting wreckage
overgrown by by jungle vines
reclaiming tools of sadness
seeking a final vestige of dignity
from deathly, slow grip

woodpeckers clamoring
waking bats firebombing
until sunrise

–
Lk Crescent 2004

One way these tracks
run directly into the elevator
then somehow into Mt. Hood

turning east
stopped by a wooden fence
with a dam behind
Columbia daunted
but roiling

stunted but strong yet
regressed to measures, velocity
and potential
the water spreads thinner then gold
every fiefdom wants its piece to bridge,
tame and dam

rocks and measurements
observe the folly
silt builds behind
water cools ahead
moving
beyond memories
of what wasn’t left behind
of drowned villages
and artifacts uncovered
entombed and enshrined
only the tugboats come close

barge drifting
silos wait
trains slip past
Columbia slows

Trying to say
kind words,
“surely room for all”
waiting on the 15 Cambie
amidst dig and cover
moving one truck
at a time
one sinkhole

the battle-ax reserves judgment
“she jumped the line”
and continues,
“and people may be left behind!”
in fresh tarred reflected heat

Wonder and gaze to avoid the disagreement
She chortles,
“You must never wait here -
before now”

noting the stop moves most days
edging around impending tunnels
i aim to say,
“i’ve stood at each stop twice -
each day” recalling drizzle, sun and hail
but missed the chance
when we all fit aboard

standing up already
prepared for something
classified as an unlikely event

“in the unlikley event” suggesting a guffaw
in less official communication …

an owl might
watch even if
nothing to see but
ripples, clouds
& forgotten identity

Coastal Starlight
2 hours late
dropped into darkness
late after waiting

i could wait until tomorrow
but i’m ready to leave today

Nine dollars for small bottle
of California merlot
drinking into blackness
cabin eerie tranquil
knowing the commotion
inches below

in love with the girl at the deli

buying 100 grams at a time
to peek under
her cap

pigtails poking
as running the slicer
ordered it shaved
to take more time

hiding to shyaway her eyes
so i can’t read her mind

i change my route
from time to time
to think about
the neighbourhoods

switched Cambie 15
for Main Number 3
or Fraser if i don’t mind
cutting across Kingsway

skirted schoolgirls Xavier-bound
headphones sweater
in rows

downtown exchanges
spake in broken halts
sometime gleaming
often rain
occasionally sleet, hail or ice

noble bus driver (probably steve or curtis)
said he might
scoop me up when running down
the catch up hill since they roll a minute or two earlier now

might be later he says
cause it might be slow
doesn’t ask me for a pass
7:54 on 29th and
st. andrew’s and the rainy
mountain side greenbough morning

yourself at the solid bottom of the grandest canyon
stark faced with the most ancient of conveniences

meandering up permitted
towards
groundswell 100degreeday waterfall afternoon

on the briefest flat of the trail

and I’ve seen the best minds of my generation
sequestered in cubicles
rained on at bus stops
shook down chained to chainlink
arrested as imbeciles
in front of trucks

snuck into basements calling pharmacies
bartering for satchels
complicated crafts to conceal the energy and guile
i’ve seen them lost in mountain valleys to finda wilderness with
payment box, vending machines and another inspection
for your protection

get found into
catacombs, from the pulpit he pontifys
a litany of assigned refinements
conceived to temper and curb

intellectualism is akin to unemployment
academia the enclave of those fundable or cynical
wait, stand, line-up and learn move along already
i’ve told you what’s wrong

doesn’t mean ‘free’ to roam
not the liberty to pursue
happiness

{TBC}

It’s been snowing here all fucking day. Only about 3″ but it is
really heavy. Just got through shoveling the walks. Where is Spring?
Ellen is a chicken whisperer.

{by Ed}

Across cobbled rainy road i am alone in the vancouver night i draw closer one is a cardboard cutout of clint eastwood in a spaghetti western kit - poncho - flat wide brim - wide brimmed hat

Another a sculpture, weathered and supported, attached to the building in some manner.  HIs get-up is classic hollywood western - stetson, chaps, boots with painted spurs.  The whole sculptured man’s paint chips, rotting, revealing the manner of plaster or such he is constructed of.  The creases of jeans and bend of elbow of checkered shirt, chipped and eroded as water drizzles settles in the crook and meets the fringe of the leather vest.

The 3rd stands naturally - somewhat slouched - the belly is larger, the shirt more like a sweater - the hat more expressive with a oft-colored trim setting out against the streams of light drifting through the mannequins, saddle, sawhorses, slogans and such not in the window. the middle one draws on a cigarette and exhales.

As for me, moving across a intersected choice of six options.  Alternatives, and me loose , easy and baked, drift slightly south into irish heather - steadying, make way to conservatory room, far back.  White painted bricks along one wall save for standard beer mirrors - Guinness, Kilkenny, Harp, Bass so on … Rest of room is irons and glass - the floor rough, raw alley cobble, old as the city - red-bricked and sloping here and there.  the window behind me is cracked open but all are drafty, wooden and blue or green and all would be open in summerly times - now meditative dripping - needed cool air now.  Perhaps one may enter direct from the mews - popping in to the midst of music or drafts from the courtyard behind after leaving lover or friend with a wave to disappear - I imagine the proper hat to wear. I am not sure.  Long benches, wooden and freshly painted a blue which i want to call charlotte or to match a shirt i had in third grade if i can find the slide.  tables are tiny with smaller stool as though expecting tiny folk.

Pipes and gas lamps confuse which is in and outside.  As most times, i order a dark beer.   Then a cocktail on the menu with absinthe.  I ask as though aloof and tired with woolen coat, clunky leather shows, stitches fresh and hide pebbled, corduroys salvaged from a bad dream.  I’ve earned a moment.  The fellow with perfectly trimmed sideburns and uncommon tan brings cocktail. “Cheers!” he offers incidentally or instinctively.

Hi-ball glass w/ straw.  Elvis Costello sings then Joni Mitchell, the Van Morrison.  I don’t use the straw, drink from the rim, sweet, liquor pungent and smooth - I set it on the strongbow coaster.  2 couples and a table of 3 women all of all talking quickly and personally - i hear indiscretions, incidents and sentiments, apart from the miscellania.

I must be invisible again.

Last one out
close the door
to my heart

The Janitor hums, sweeping the last of the hallway flotsam info a dust pan, tippinginto the trash barrel with wheels, apparatus to hold spray bottles holding fading solutions, rags, extra trash bags and brooms.  Checks the double glass doors leadingoutside to the courtyard where people eat lunch and flirt on sunny days.  Dark now, crispy leaves skate along benches, colliding with ashtrays and disappearing in tostairwells. Beyond the wooded area, late delivery truck downshifts, aching the sigh of a man lonely for a hundred years.  Shuffling the hall, turning off each light inturn, flickering while closing each door.  Supplies into closet, change smock for jacket and scarf.  Squinting into the tiny mirror attached to the towel rack, hesmoothes hair and puts on a driving cap with half ear flaps folded up and walks outside.  In the shadow, someone somewhat familiar waits for him.

Leaning figure
Gracious in silhouette, leaning
Against grey primer fender

Delicious dreams
I mumble in my sleep
no memory

Fever - coming on stronger now. Gaining now for three days, delirious fits andsleepless tossing, frantic at random hours. Mind you, body never shivers, mind flashes burning pictures of moments. Some I remember might be called a dream but for the anguish. Too real for a nightmare, the pain, the fever, the malaise gains vigor with each grating snapshot. The unfamiliar seeps with fear, I don’t know howit will end. Each episode so far ends with me waking called waking only in that my eyes crack enough to register light or dark. I twist, fall back into the soaked feather bed drifting, one moment racing a woodencar down bumpy hill, children holler in cub scout knickers, proud with badges, another moment running hard, leaping onto pillars fleeing a unknown enemy ormaybe moving towards one, leaping higher columns tumble into oblivion, my feet slip, slide falling, falling next floating in a long abandoned warlord’s damp stronghold dungeon, somewhere atop a Teutonic hill slope, the moon shows the shackles through window slits. Warm and next a campfire warming feet and drinking from a flask as I mumble - fading eyes see nothing but white robes walking by from time to time.

Memories sequestered
Releasing now
As tea steam

Clear drops
on muddled windows
muddled thoughts

Saskatoon, snow drifts over wheat fields, kids skating in toques, playing shinyhockey until mom calls them to eat St. Jacob’s soup and thick heels of sourdough bread. “I got this yeast starter when your pa and I married,” she says to no child inparticular. Driving home, the road straight in snow chasm, walls pushed high by plows. Wipersscrapping, Am radio crackles minor league hockey scores, exclaiming local boys traveling by bus all night to play in Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Fort St. William, John, Albert or James, Moosejaw, 100 Mile House or maybe Moncton, New Brunswick for the Memorial Cup.  Acclaimed for dedication, perseverance, valor; intangibles - heart, character - playing in rinks named for citizens, soldiers and towns.

Rolling east
O’er muddled roads
Grinding towards remembrance

Room close dark
dark, listening - white noise
and windchimes

From my perch, survey the still life before me - a didgeridoo leaning against a wormwood bookcase, 4 thick shelves made from free form curly maple looking like slabs of bacon, books stacked horizontally for easy reading of titles on spines; Ulysses, Siddhartha, Tolstoy, Salinger, Dr. Seuss, a stack about Everest, old Edmund Hillary grinning under shaggy beard and leather edged goggles. BhagavadGita, with dead,bald smiling, reincarnated onto the dust leaf resting, leaning next to Don Quixote, heavy in four volumes with hand-cut pages, raised ink, tissue protects the engravings.A collection (complete) of TinTin the intrepid reporter (Belgian I think), his dog Snowy and ornery ole Cap’n Haddock. More adventure than John McPhee, him traipsing from Alaska to Bangladesh - lonely freighter pulling out of dark harbors, a thousand iron feet long tended by six - maybe eight scattered souls. A Russian Matryoshka doll - endless stream of smaller beings, a lighter from Belikin - the state brewery of Belize, a metal Sierra Club cup, engraved with highest peak in Nevada and a date so long ago that I look at a photo to remember - me, head in clouds, wearing a sweater I forgot I ever wore. Picture is snowy, the tin cup stained withheat, left holding coins from here and there, a yo-yo, and buttons fallen off of trousers.

Room collecting stories
To tell you
Some other time

My Declaration

As for me, I choose to forge my own place in history, to determine by own ends rather than subject my precious life for the exclusive use of any man – monarch or otherwise. Without my freedom to be what, and who, I choose, I have lost all!  No matter how insignificant my life’s work, at the least my life is of my own choosing and my labors, at my own volition.  My action, my loves, my thoughts will determine my life’s significance, and I will not surrender to fate’s whims.  I alone will live this life and this value I will not compromise.

Henri Lafleur, Russia 1812

November 27, 1812
Near Berezin Bridge, Russia

My sweet Genevieve,

It has been a journey of horrific proportions since I last was able to chance a letter.

The cold is equaled only by the depravity of desperate humans in its numbing pain. And yesterday, my friend Maurice joined the untold thousands of dead - scattered, abandoned aside the muddy cart path, deep-rutted in the frozen earth.  Littered with wreckage - dead horses, men frozen solid, eyes gaping, boots taken.  Many stumble barefoot roasting frostbitten toes by their final fire.  Pillages of war dumped - no weight or relic worthy of any carrying. Golden candle sticks, Persian rugs - objects of decadence, objects of art, holy relics - deserted now.

One must survive by wits and cunning and in that, my dear Maurice helped me along so much.  He appeared one morning (though there is little difference between day & night – just walking and not-walking), with a sturdy walking cane for me!  He was the one who coaxed me each dreadful day as we trudge into uncertain horizons.  Oh the peace he feels now, free of this madness!

As I sit looking down from the hilltop, watching as thousands fall dead - by bullet, by Cossack sword, or pushed into the icy river with the mob pushing across.  For me, there is little chance of me making my way across the bridge, not alone, not without help from my friend.

Surely when the officers have crossed, the bridge will be destroyed like so many broken dreams - leaving the Russians and French separated as we began.  I will not rush to death, rather for me, I will have the courage to determine my own fate to stride purposefully and resolutely, free of heart, clean of conscience, ruling only my sovereign self.

For you - for the days we missed together & the years in which we‘ll never part - I will find a way to survive. For the thousands of dead faces I have seen, and for Maurice, I renounce this war but pledge that I will not let this tragic madness defeat me.

My dear Genevieve, look for me in the spring, my return will be later than hoped.

With love, freedom and conviction, Henri