Unterseeboot

Agusto Ferrer-Dalmau (Wiki.)

Louis Shalako














The icy green Atlantic

Foams over the hull

The fore-and-aft cable

Disappears

Periscope now useless

As we go below

I flip up the handles

Retract our only eye

Faster than the boat

My guts are sinking

To the men I cannot show

My courage is a lie

All of us will die

A thousand times this trip

And we’ve killed a thousand men

Although it sounds rather flip—

We must do our duty

Stupid as it seems

To obey the whims of our superiors

And to go to our deaths—

In submarines.

Change Is Good.

Stephen Ho, martial arts kick, from image by NickP. (Wiki.)

by Louis Shalako

People have a lot more freedom these days

The only problem is,

We’re going to use it

It’s no longer possible

For you to drag us down

Down to some tribunal of the elders

You cannot brand us

And burn us at the stake

You think everything should be carved in stone

Nothing is carved in stone: not even this.

Things must never change?

You say change is bad

I say change is good

Let it be clearly understood:

We know you will try to stop things

And try to slow them down

We’re just doing what is right

Living free, thinking for ourselves

Laughing at all of your trophies, up there on their golden shelf

We live wild, by the forks of the river

This is our home

This is not your tree

Take away your chainsaw

Your sirens and your gallows

And go home, to live in your house of glass

This thing that has come between us—

Oh how it rattles your chain—

It is these things that bind you

They are yours, for you cherish them so.

Changes.

by Louis Shalako


Live for the moment

                                                                       There is only one moment. And that is now.

Live for the moment

                                                                       We’re all going through a few changes.

The past is an illusion;

                                                                       I hear you   

The future…the future…

                                                                       Live for the moment. The thrill is gone. But…

The future has no substance. This is real. This is now.

                                                                   

                                                                       Simple pleasures are the best. It happens to us all.

The past is gone

                                                                       Forgotten treasures, abandoned nests

Memories are reconstructed

                                                                       Live for today, tomorrow, yesterday,

                                                                      —try not to think about it.

I start over.                                                 

                                                                      And it’s never done.

I try to rebuild.

                                                                      Why don’t you just try and move on?

I had a dream

                                                                      It will come back to you.                                                                        

END

Anthem of the Cat Revolution.

             Cats of the world, red banners unfurl’d

             Rise up and strike a blow

             Against the oppressors of our kind

             Cats of the world

             Upheld tails proudly curl’d

             March, March, March, Meow!

             Claw our way, day to day

             No more slavery, we want pay

  

             Rise up strike a blow

             At  the oppressors of our kind

             March, March, March, Meow!

             We want our rights

             We want the vote

 

             Drive a car, drink and smoke

             March, March, March, Meow!

             Cats of the World

             Red banners unfurl’d

             We want what we want

             We know what we know

             No one to say

             Where we cannot go

             March, March, March, Meow!

             March, March, March, Meow!

Now isn’t that something? Her litter box is clean, and quite frankly she eats better than I

do.

(Maybe she’s just stressed out by the day-to-day pressures of being a cat in a human’s 

world. –Fluffy)

Danse

Won't you come dance with me?

Come dance with me

Before the darkening sky

Comes down upon us

And films our eyes

Roll with us

And dance the dance

Shaken like rag dolls

Hush, hush, hush

Stunned in the sudden silence

Another day, another blunder

No time to reflect

Bodies torn asunder

A loud ringing in our ears

Our fingers feel wet

And we can’t believe our eyes

This cannot be happening

We all fall down

See the bright red flowers

They blossom in the spring

The rain does help them to grow

It spreads them all around

In amongst the mud and the holes

Come and dance with us

See our arms flail

Watch us spin, and see us tumble

Now we drop here, all in a clump

Come dance with us, come and be our friends

We lay here all together, all equals in the end

All is vanity

All is for nothing

All is for God, King and Country—

Yours and mine

Hear the music, and hear us wail

Hear us cry, as our courage fails…

The music sings as the sky slowly dims

The darkness comforts and the truth confronts us

As all of eternity, is revealed to our never-ending gaze

And the ever-loving rain washes clean our youthful face.

Soybeans in Autumn.

Soybeans in autumn. Photo by Louis, Paint.NET special effects, Samsung ST-67.

Waterscape using Paint.Net.

Samsung ST-67 and Paint.NET, a free download. I used sharpen, oil paint, relief and auto-level
features, as well as fiddling with the the brightness and contrast in order to get this particular shot.

Intangibles.

Selling intangibles means selling things like luxury in an automobile, or security in an insurance policy, or the peace of mind knowing your family is protected by a smoke or burglar alarm.

Luxury can be defined in word or reality, but it's the feelings that it creates that really sells the product. After a time, you fell in love with your little car. You sleep better at night knowing you are protected. It's those feelings that customers seek.


The car, the insurance policy, the alarm device is real. The luxury, the security, the peace of mind are the intangibles. You can’t touch it, see it, hear it, taste it or smell it. You can’t eat it, so why is it so important?

Intangibles represent feelings. And everybody has them.

Once you understand this, you are ready to sell intangibles for fun and profit.

You get out of something what you put into it. Ah, but what if you get more out of it than you put into it?

You have a profit.

In terms of writing a book, if I spend the time, say three months, to write it, edit and format it, put it up on a sales platform then guess what: I have a novel, i.e. presumably no more than the sum of its parts in terms of man-hours, uploading time, word count, the time spent on a marketing image and getting an ISBN.

I put a novel in, I get a novel out. It’s that simple. I put in the work, and out comes a novel.

Zero dollars have been earned by that book on publication.

The first book I sell earns a profit, on paper, because I haven’t spent any cash on it. Let’s not bother with estimating what I put into it in terms of so many dollars an hour. In all humility, my time is what I make of it.

But there are also intangible profits, feelings as it were. I get to look at another book—one written by me. It’s what I always wanted to do. So why waste time over-analyzing? Why not just do it?

There is this feeling of accomplishment, for I have created another work of literary art. I like art.

I like experimenting and learning new things. The results are interesting and to write a good story is challenging. I like challenging myself.

Art is all about nuance, and I like nuances. I like it when wisps of smoke go off in all directions in fading blue curlicues and the reader’s mind is taken off into their own unique creation as they speculate and realize that there are permutations outside the book and yet the author has chosen to leave them out. That’s why there are spin-offs and trilogies and series in books and stories. The readers themselves demand them.

I get feelings of satisfaction, self-worth, the feeling that I did something that I felt I must do with my life. I get all sorts of good things from publishing a book that might not sell in spectacular numbers. I enjoy the work. When I was a kid, I spent many happy hours dabbling with acrylic paints. It was fun.

The work above is actually a one-by-twelve pine board with lines gouged in it with a buck-knife. I took a sort of Japanese ‘floating world’ approach, with a bit of a misty feeling and an elevated point of view. The pigments are acrylic.

I guess you had to be there.

I like the colours, I like the composition. The last time I tried to paint, honestly, I wasn’t very good at it. You kind of have to love it and do it every day if you possibly can. But this painting conveys a certain feeling.

The Gift.

Why do people hate?

Because they fear.

Why do people fight?

Because they are afraid to love.

***

In the Lakota world-view gift-giving was an important custom. A warrior, a hunter, scout, tool-maker, all had their place in the tribe. Yet obviously a powerful chief could be chintzy, while the lowliest brave, a boy, or even a woman, might lay down their own life to save a loved one, a friend or a stranger.

When struck a mortal wound the Lakota man would sing his death song, a song of defiance.

And a singular act, a man might be so esteemed and honoured that he might be chosen, permitted to stake himself down.

To stake himself down to the earth with his weapons beside him, exposed to the enemy.

Naturally, this infuriated his foes. His fellow warriors allowed him this privilege even as they fought to avenge their injuries, defend their territory, and protect their families and villages.

When the Lakota captured a coward, he was tortured over a slow fire, a lingering and gruesome death. Because he earned it.

If you must, do me the honour of a quick and merciful death. I am not a Lakota warrior. I’m just a guy, a plain and ordinary guy. But I feel that I have earned it.

I ask only one thing from my enemies. (No, I don’t expect forgiveness.)

Before drawing the obsidian blade across my throat, ending my death song in a jagged rattle; ask yourself why this is what you want, ‘wintke,’ a good-for-nothing individual with the soul of a man and the soul of a woman trapped within.

And why this should be so.

Enjoy the gift. And for Christ’s sakes, promise you won’t bore me to death.

***

We despise what we don’t understand.

Be wary of the stranger.

Laugh at the unexpected.

Discard that which is useless.

‘It is indeed a good day to die.’

Magic in a Canoe.

Bird on a canoe.

Something bumps against the bottom of the canoe.

The world has some magic places – Lambton County’s Bear Creek in spring;
meadows ablaze with dandelions.

A snapping turtle surfaces, so close I could pet him. He regards me unblinkingly, out of one beady little eye. The boat eases forward, dead quiet, except a few drops, falling from the blade…

Shadowy recesses. Under clumps of young oaks, the earth lies carpeted with myriads of tiny white, purple and pink flowers. Trilliums abound in patches. Distinctive foliage marks the extent of their territory.

I can smell the soil and it is good.

“Where’s that darned trail, again?”

Only a short time ago, it was winter.

There is magic to be found on a winter’s morn. Drop of water flashes, falls from the tip of an icicle. Sun rays, ardently probing, urgent in the short and precious day.

A place where in summer, nothing ever seems to happen, yet now, the pale parchment that is the ground holds a record of many transactions.

The trails go in all directions. Night or day, it doesn’t matter. Time lasts forever.

Weather means nothing.

Unleash the soul. Let it dance with the breezes.

And now, when night comes, a low orange moon perches among the branches of a big old jack pine. The wind keeps trying to tell me something.

Moist and warm, a spring evening’s twilight.

Pixie glimmer of green, flitters along the half a moment. Cricket noises all around…there goes the green light again. Grass at the base of yonder fence post rustles with some shy newcomer. An owl hoots, far, far away.

Water flows, intent on getting someplace, somehow, some time.

Water talks to herself. She has but one thing on her mind…”Downhill, downhill, downhill…”

Stars watch over me. I watch the trees; which are alive now that they think no one is looking. I stub my big toe on a boulder whom I should have seen.

“Sorry, buddy,” I murmur. Like a golfer I replace the divot, rearrange the moss.

Like a child in a nursery, I play. Life is a game. There are no rules.

The art of observation.

Over the ages painters have struggled to capture the elusive effects of light.


In this image the author would appear to have done so very well. On reflection, the reader may well conclude that almost anyone could get that image with a cheap digital camera and the use of paint packages which are freely available online.

That’s exactly what I did. The odds of me standing there for a couple of hours with a canvas, an easel, and a bunch of half-frozen oil pigments and dirty brushes and cans of turpentine are minimal.

I’m using tools that were simply unavailable to Vincent van Gogh or Paul Gauguin or any other famous painter.

The thing took a little effort, and I had to know how to use the tools. I kind of have to know what’s good because I actually took a number of photos and tried a few different things with some of them. The photos were taken impulsively. It’s the ice pack along the south shore of Lake Huron at Bright’s Grove. When I took them, I had no idea of what I was going to do with them or what the result might be, although the special effects did enter my mind. Yet there is a kind of spontaneity here as well.

I like that unexpected quality, the element of surprise that enters into it.

The landscapes around here in winter can be pretty sublime. It’s also a big, open, flat kind of place where you sort of have to look off into the distance a lot. The light is very angled and the palette muted, and the weather and atmospheric effects generate a random picture that changes constantly.

It’s the art of observation.

Arkona, Ontario.

Digital photo of Arkona, Ontario. Paint effects include sharpening, oil painting and render/stylize ('outline')features as well as adjustment to hues, curves, and brightness/contrast.

Covered bridge, Petrolia, Ontario.

This is a digital photo shot with a Samsung ST-67. I shot 29 images, not all of the bridge, which is located in a park in the middle of Petrolia, Ontario, population about three thousand or so.

The image was manipulated using a free download called PAINT.Net. The effects include adjusting the brightness and contrast, and the 'oil painting' effect, as well as 'sharpening,' located in the 'photo' tab.

It's good to get out of the car once in a while, and the temperature was about four degrees Celsius, a sunny day about 11 a.m. In winter and late fall, the shadows are always angled as we are about...I don't know, maybe forty-four degrees north of the equator.

Interestingly, one of the belts came off the engine, and I drove home with no power steering. We'll call it an adventure and leave it at that.

Edited for content.

Just because this photo has been edited for as he grasped her firm white buttocks content, that doesn't mean aardvarks live in the desert will like it.

Big Louie's Poem.

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ photo by Tor Kristensen)

I get messages from God and I just laugh.

It’s a coping strategy.

I’m writing this with one eye.

Backwards. With my left foot.

And I’m really drunk too.

Guilt is a terrible thing to waste.


Everything you see around you is a message.


What are you doing, Honey?”

“Screwing, Grandma!”

“That’s a good girl, just promise me you won’t smoke.”

We all lay awake at night worrying about stuff.

Into every life a little shit must fall.

You give me everything I need.


A Dutchman with a shoe fetish.


The cat tried to eat this.

Young men today have some kind of literacy problem.

The time has come to speak of many things.

In my day we’d take ‘em out back.

Some guys just don’t listen.

Bow to the inevitable—but twist it to your advantage.


A skeleton fell out of the closet.


You’re trying to tell me you need help.

What are you afraid of?

You have to understand the rules before you can break ‘em.

Pain is reality. Everything else is a cheap imitation.

There’s no such thing as a happy ending.

Respect yourself—if you can.


You get what you pay for.


Control your passions.

Submit and rule.

If I weren’t such an obnoxious dink, I’d have a lot of followers.

The Forrest Gump of angst.

I with I could find someone to look up to.

I eat cougars for breakfast.


No one cares what you think.


I write for the critics.

It’s just theatre.

The disabled want you.

That cynicism runs awful deep.

A paroxysm of creativity.

A shovel full of soap, sir.


When revelation hits, she hits with a bang.


Talk your way out of a wet paper bag.

“How do you like your coffee?”

“Unambiguous.”

Get a mouthpiece.

It’s hot, but, it’s the humidity what kills you.

Crime should be reported.

That way we get better statistics.


Don’t get mad, spin the fuckin’ table.


What are you implying?

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

Chicken Soup for Assholes.

A little boy’s voice crying in the dark, wet forest.

I have nothing better to do than to write for you people.

Promise me you’ll look after each other.


Your momma must have had some sour milk.


As dumb as two sticks.

It don’t mean nothing.

“Stuff it sideways.” – Cicero

LOVE YOUR ENEMIES.

It’s a poem—get over it.

“That was beautiful, baby.” – Cicero.


Paddle backwards, fast—like a politician.


Inside the bishop’s palace.

Pull out the big stick.

Ships and sails, puppy-dog’s tails.

Sealing wax, and cabbages, and kings.

Get it out—get it all out.

When in doubt, improvise, adapt, overcome.


Does this mean we aren’t friends anymore?


I played strip poker with forty penguins.

It’s all about you—right?

That’s the best I can do for right now.

Sorry about all that.

The show is over.

Hickory dickory dock; a mouse ran up my foot.


Come one, come all, one size fits all.

We have something for everyone.


Just do it.

I ain't skared.

i ain't skared.

Bitter Prophecy.

With deadly malice and unerring aim

The slender bolt, touched with flame

Into the thatch, so carelessly flown

The hand is revealed, the face still unknown

The raging flames by the strong winds are blown

Out of the smoke, straight through the pyre

An apparition, steps from the fire

His armour bright, the blade strong and true

Lo and behold, from his own dust and ashes

The Phoenix arises, all shiny and new

Surely he knows thee, and all of thy works

When it is time, for he always come back

To make short work of the likes of you.

Please Give Generously. The painter's song.

(Collection the author.)


Please give generously

To the guys who paint naked ladies

Got no money and I got no job

Wish I could say I was a working slob

Please give generously

To the guys who paint naked ladies

I can’t play the guitar very well

My singing voice it sure ain’t no hell

Please give generously

To the guys who paint naked ladies

Going downtown to the UIC

What do you know, but who should I see

Good old girl, never did me no harm

She don’t come around here no more

Please give generously

To the guys who paint naked ladies

I’m not asking for money for the song

I’m hoping you’ll pay me, just to shut up me up

Please give generously

To the guys who paint naked ladies, yeah,

Yeah, please give generously to the guys who paint naked ladies.

Yeah, Baby! To the guys who paint naked ladies

…c’mon, baby; throw somethin’ in the hat.


Here is my book, 'Selected Poems,' available exclusively through Smashwords and its distribution partners.

Working with Paint.NET: digital effects.

This is a simple digital photo taken with with a Samsung ST-67 camera. effects used for this pic are fairly simple, I used Paint.NET. This includes the oil paintiing effect, and then I used the 'relief' effect. I might have sharpened it up a little. The blue sky was done using the fill tool, (the icon looks like a bucket,) and I spray painted a few small touch-ups here and there in brown and black. -louis

Star-Maker.

In the beginning there was a great void, and a darkness as black as pitch.

Silence prevailed.

As yet nothing moved.

Starmaker looked upon it and it was well.

One place is as good as another and Starmaker approved.

Time started up with a lurch, and plodded forwards.

Matter began to swirl.

Heat began to radiate and mass began to coalesce.

Fields of energy began to flow.

And a star began to grow.

Space bent, and time was deformed.

Lo and behold, a new star was born.

First it was one, and then another.

Swirling nodes of matter in space.

And nowhere is down, nowhere is sideways, no place is above.

The glowing clouds, the creation of a race.

Velocity, momentum, electrical force.

Vectors, and gravity, and magnetism, of course.

Air, and water, sunlight and topsoil, and love…

And forgiveness, and children, and mothers and dads.

A world with spiders, and walruses, and lions and doves.

A place with grass, and trees, and mud and rain.

A place so special, a place so unique, could never be created again.

Starmaker moves on, the labour of continuous creation never done.


Note:

A French-language version of the poem appears at 'Les Shalako.'

Life is a garden.

"No man, you gotta keep going. What am I gonna do, quit? That's not an option. You gotta keep on keepin on. Life's a garden, dig it and you make it work for you. You never give up man, that's my philosophy."

--David Spade as, 'Joe DIrt.'

With thanks: Read more: http://www.toomanyquotes.com/movies/joe-dirt#ixzz1vvtahU6x

Feral Irises.

Feral irises along the Howard Watson Trail.

The silver sea.

Photo by Louis. Camlachie, Ontario.

The actual subject is Lake Huron. The photo was taken with an HP-317E. The effects include sharpening, and embossing. This was done with an old Microsoft photo editor from about 1993.

Wildflowers in spring.

Destiny.

From time to time it is important to remind ourselves of past glory

But it is even more important to remember who we are

And where we are going

We must pursue, and ultimately fulfill our destiny

And let lesser men stand aside.

When our time comes

Let them divert a river, and under it build us a tomb

And let us rest forever in peace

Frozen once again

In the safety of our mother’s womb.

A rustle in the long grass.

There was a rustle in the long grass

When the tiger came to eat me

He was slow and I was fast

With two good legs to take me

And there always is that sober thought

The tiger is just playing

He never seems to ask himself

Why do I even play at all?

For one of these days, the way things are going

One of us will surely catch up with the other.

Poem: Two Paths.

There are two paths.

One is easy.

And one is hard.

Which one, do you think,

Will be the more rewarding?

これには

つのパスがあります

つは簡単です

困難です

つと思いますか、詳細に報われるだろうか

Please pass the axe.

...then the awful fight began. (George Wright.)

From the Poetic Edda:


It sates itself on the life-blood
of fated men,
paints red the powers' homes
with crimson gore.
Black become the sun's beams
in the summers that follow,
weathers all treacherous.
Do you still seek to know? And what?

***

Brothers will fight
and kill each other,
sisters' children
will defile kinship.
It is harsh in the world,
whoredom rife
—an axe age, a sword age
—shields are riven—
a wind age, a wolf age—
before the world goes headlong.
No man will have
mercy on another

The rain is falling, gently through the trees
A dove gives a mournful call
I wonder what he sees
Newborn child a-bawling?
Or just the futility of it all.
He told me once, a wise old owl
Very good advice, to get me through it all
The glass is either half-empty or half-full
It says a lot about you
The choices that you call.
The rain is falling, gently through the trees
A chipmunk sits there laughing
I wonder what he sees.

(Appears in Selected Poems, available from Smashwords and coming to other retailers soon.)

Frozen in time.

Frozen in time
My guts still churn
Approaching absolute zero
Thoughts speed up, not slow down
The impenetrable gaze, of a Sphinx-like calm
Looking off into forever
Who am I?
Why am I here?
What happened to me?
Did I quest too far, in the search for truth?
Now I know, all there is to know
There is no one to share it with
‘Cause I’m the only one here
One last shiver, the spasm lasts an eternity
I have arrived
And now—and now I can never die
The price of living is death.
Oddly enough I never feared death
I prayed for death, I begged for death—but the answer was no.
For it was love itself, that I was afraid of.
It was my own love I was afraid of.
All of the mysteries are revealed
All has been lost in the quest for meaning.
The circle is complete, and now I will be reborn, and just in time to forget it all…to forget it all.

The city at night.

The cosmos favours no one for long
The stars hang above us
With the starkness of bones
White and dead
Once the framework of a man
We carry nothing with us
When we return from whence we came
Where then is the good?
The laws of God are inscribed upon the hearts of men
Deny this if you can
There is no escaping the sounds of the city at night
A place of masks
You shall soon see
I lay this upon you, oh desert son
Let me see the coming of the stars once again
Under them lies our fortune –
And our fate
The time has come—the waiting is done
The winds blow, the storm strikes
Expect no answers from me.

Inspired by the fantasies of Andre Norton.

A humble aspiration.

When I got to a certain age, I began to reflect on some of the things that I had missed over the years. I'm convinced this is a common failing among men, but be that as it may, I came up with the proverbial 'bucket list.'

It was a time of introspection and self-examination, one not recommended for light entertainment.

Okay, so I never got married, never had kids, never had a long-term full-time job that lasted more than two or three years, and I still don't have any real prospects, and while I don't necessarily regret not being married, I do see the way parents look at their own children, with love and a kind of pride in their eyes and I sort of get it...no, really, I do.

It's just something that I'll have to get over. But there were certain things on the list. For one, I would like to get laid again before I die. Is that so bad? Seems pretty humble to me. Almost practical really, for all the guys that go postal and wind up in the news seem to be dealing with a kind of unspoken frustration, perhaps status-related.

At the top of the list, was a bicycle. That's right, a bicycle. That seems like a pretty humble aspiration, but another common failing is the longing, or the attempt to recapture lost youth.

I'll be honest with you, a bicycle is not very good for picking up chicks, but that wasn't the real purpose, although I may have joked about it from time to time. It gives people something to talk about.

In some ways it actually worked, for I did things and went places that I wouldn't have otherwise.

At about $400, to own one nice new thing, is not unreasonable. It really is better to ride a bike two blocks to the store once in a while.

On this particular day, I probably rode about twenty kilometres. I found the big tree I like, and said hello. I stayed away from the house for two or three hours, and sometimes that's important as well.

My needs are simple, and my wants are not complex.

Spetznaz Woman

Spetznaz woman coming in your dreams

Spetznaz woman going to make you scream

Spetznaz woman want to see you burn

Spetznaz woman going to give you a turn

Spetznaz woman always plays the field

Spetznaz woman going to make you yield

Spetznaz woman leather and lace

Spetznaz woman sitting on your face

Spetznaz woman going to make you cry

Spetznaz woman laughing as you die

Spetznaz woman she’s back in town

Spetznaz woman, she’s the best around

Spetznaz woman she’ll make you fly

Spetznaz woman, you’ll never understand why

Spetznaz woman she make you squeal

Spetznaz woman, outstanding in the field

Spetznaz woman, yeah yeah yeah

Spetznaz woman, yeah yeah yeah

Spetznaz woman, never let you sleep

Spetznaz woman, gonna make you weep

Spetznaz woman, yeah yeah yeah

Spetznaz woman, yeah yeah yeah