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Author Archives: kelticking

End of Summer Blues

Every September I begin to feel the depression of the onslaught of winter. Not that I mind winters so very much. Once the temperature begins its descent to zero and climbs to 20 during the day ( well it does sometimes) I begin to shudder.

I hate -30 or below. Temperatures of -5 or -10 can be tolerated. You put on an appropriate jacket with a hood to protect from the wind and you’re good to go. Unless of course there is ice underneath your feet. When you’re eighty years old and wracked with arthritis struggling with uncertainty in footing is dangerous. And so there lies the rub. Winter can be ok but dangerous.

So I hide inside, dust off the treadmill, and vow to write six pages a day. In two to three months I have another novel completed. Arthur Slade created a writing platform on his treadmill so that he could exercise while he wrote. An attempt, I think, to lose some of the weight he had acquired while sitting at his keyboard. I don’t know whether he was successful or not at losing weight that way. I’m not that ambitious. But I may try this winter to spend more time on the treadmill. I certainly intend to finish the third novel but a fan was looking for a sequel to Can Madness Be Far Behind? when I said I was working on the next novel. This one is far removed from that sequel but I am now looking at writing the sequel in the Spring after I have finished the horrific thriller biography of a sex crazed gentleman. I don’t have a title for it yet not even a working title. Unusual, I know, but that is where I am in the state of things. Winter is coming! Brrrr!

Books for sale:

Books for sale:

The Mute Eunuch and Other Tales From Mars from Amazon.ca or signed by the author

A collection of poetry, essays, and short fiction, including the novella The Memoirs of Dr. K.

Can Madness Be Far Behind? from Amazon.ca

Novel about a woman who returns to her small home town in Saskatchewan after running away to Calgary as an immature, pregnant teenager. Now mature, educated but depressed after being abandoned by her husband and in need of shelter for herself and her teenage son she gets home only to have her mother collapse with a stroke soon after her arrival. Mayhem continues.

Monday, Monday…

For some reason that old Mama’s and Papa’s song came to mind. Why? Because it’s Monday or because we are featured with no idea of what the rest of the day will bring? 2020 has been like that. No idea what tomorrow will bring. We can plan; I’ve got chicken out for supper and I’m thinking that my wife will be here to share it with me like always, but…

What butterfly effect might alter that known universe?

November 18

Nice day. The blizzard is slowly slipping away to ancient memory territory. The snow is still here but the graders have removed much from the street so the fear of getting stuck as Donna backs out of the driveway has lessened. I don’t go out. Covid just gives this introvert more time to hide in his basement. I’m not Joe Biden. And I don’t go to the basement anymore either. Donna has moved my office upstairs. Although I’m walking again, stairs are still extremely difficult. But hiding in my basement becomes a metaphor for shutting myself in the office where I am writing my second book. After I do my emails and check Twitter, and look for pictures of sexy looking twenty-somethings. Although I have to admit 40-somethings are looking sexier. Enough of that talk. I have to admit I was always more impressed with a woman’s brain than I was with breast size or ass-shape but first impressions do have an impact and intelligence is not noticeable at first.

Apology

Sorry that I haven’t posted for a while. I have been busy trying not to die too soon. Then having recovered finally, ready to start partying, and Covid19 lurks around very corner.

Fine I say, as I swallow an immune suppression pill that has been subscribed because I have an immune system which has decided to operate at ultrafull strength. Bad enough that I have had to deal with diabetes since 1980 something but since about 2015 a couple of autoimmune skin conditions have made their appearance. The one succumbs easily to high doses of prednisone but so does my body.

Just thinking…

Two days after my birthday. Feeling no older. I am getting tired of listening to somebody whine that he won an election that he obviously lost. I empathize with him. I too lost an election that I wanted to win. It hurts. You go from being somebody important, at least to some people, to being totally ignored. The press no longer call you and ask for your opinion. People pass you in the street with little acknowledgment. Dogs piss on your leg if you stop walking. It is not pleasant, but the world returns to normal and you get on with things. Important things, you spend more time with your SO, and if you try hard it can become quality time. Then, you wonder why you didn’t work harder at keeping that relationship primary in your life. In my case my wife , the mother of my children, and my support system.

To Donna, Thanks kid.

Support your local poet

Support your local poet. Buy a book or make a donation.

The Mute Eunuch and Other Tales From Mars. $20.00 CDN

e-transfer to arjay@sasktel.net with your address

OR Amazon.ca or .com

New Stuff

I’m trying to construct a new look. Please be patient while this social media newbie struggles with new tricks for an old dog. My birthday today. 78 years old.

I LOVE THE AMBIENCE

I love the ambience of Halloween

One eerie night a year

Leafless trees stretch and gently scratch the moonlit sky

Gothic sentinels oversee reincarnated ancient rituals

Pale moons chase scared shadows into sacred corners

Dry leaves rattle across vacant pavement

Skeletons from discarded graveyards

Through streets laden with goblins and hobgoblins,

witches,

ghouls and ghosts

Jasons and Freddy Kruegers, and Disney posers

and a host of unimaginative greed mongers,

I wander.

Cries of Halloween apples

ring hollow in the ears of those

who know the ice-in-the-bowel fear of an undone zipper.

Later

At the party

the hostess ( airhead ) introduces the me she knew yesterday

a lithe redhead says she knows me but doesn’t recognise my face

I insist I’m not myself tonight

Satisfied she explains her philosophy

I think I am a fridge because when I close my eyes

the lights go out

but when I open them

they come on again.

I speak seductively about open-womb surgery;

she delivers a discourse on midwifery.

It is halloween and the scariest thing in the room

is this long legged redhead without costume.

I offer to take her home

On the way she insists she is a witch

I laugh incredulously

I chuckle, chortle, I even guffaw!

Until she puts her hand on my knee and I turn into

a motel

where I ask the desk clerk dressed in black

for a room with a deja view

Not again? he inquires.

In the morning I awake

alone … and afraid …

fear is not having someone to hold.

Roy’s Act

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