Lay it on me

There is something refreshing about reading poetry cross-legged on a balcony, the chill of a cool summer breeze goosebumping your arms. Especially when you're reading Irving Layton.

He is honest, brutally so. And not so verbose as to seem falsely poetic. The words in his poems punctuate every feeling, punching you in the gut with vivid emotion.

And he even advises as much in his poem 'After Auschwitz.' Here's part of it:

My son,
don't be a waffling poet;
let each word you write
be direct and honest
like the crack of a gun.

His poems send chills of eerie understanding down my back, cause heavy sighs to be swallowed whole.

My favourite little poem of his is 'Absence':

Love,
I make a silence
out of your name
and dip
my hands into it.

A poem best pondered in the dying days of summer.

Post-9/11 fears played out on a real stage

I was waiting for my friend who was in the bathroom when I witnessed a prime example of our bomb plot fears playing out.

A security guard swaggered over to a black bag sitting on the floor, no owner in sight. He grabbed a newspaper, rolled it up, then began shaking the bag open with it. A group of employees gathered for their lunch at the next table laughed and said, "Should we be leaving?"

"Nah," the guard replied, still shaking the bag open. Another guard stood sturdy beside him.

Then he bent over, slipped a loaf of bread out, and asked, "Must be a stolen loaf, and they just left it here. This from your shop over there?"

A woman grabbed the bag, turned it around. "No, not mine," she said.

That was it. It could've been worse. In fact, there's a moment at the beginning when I wondered if I should walk away, just to be safe.