"When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky."

Oh love, come to me.
Come and be my friend, walk with me.
Lay with me and let me be yours.
Take me in. Into you.

I have been longing for you but you are so cold.

I know
I blew it all.
But you
You fooled me and kept your own instead.

I made a promise to you and on Saturday I will make it again.
An "I do". And "I will".
But not for you.

I had a dream last night, little bird.
I had to walk past all the women I have been with, and see their eyes.

I didn't mean pain and was just waiting
for love
to come to me.

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."

"Do you want to know where I have been?", she asked.
"No", I said.
"Do you love me ?", she said.
I whispered, "Of course, yes".

When we kissed it was like magic and I almost fell out of my chair; I think I even cried some.

"Do you trust me?", she asked, and no, I did not.
But I said ,"Yes", anyhow.

I told her I was not the way she wanted a man to be. I did enjoy the company of a woman or two; maybe three.
She didn't mind and I kept on being me.
I didn't know any better.
There was tension like that until I bought it, my first car.
A 1959 Cadlilac Eldorado; a black one.

I left that, too, after I had made my choice.

I disappeared into the night and nobody knew about it. At first I went through Mexico, but then I slipped into Guatemala and nobody checked my documents there. I was away and with broken heart I did wander. I wept then, at Tikal.

I remember that she said, "I will never stop loving you".
She said that before I left.
"Somethings", I said "you'll never forget".

After that when I left and stopped remembering her I just stopped.
I quit.
I never touched or loved another woman.
I quit it all and slipped into myself.

I love you.
I always will; always.

-Love Sid
xoxoxoxox

"In that moment, Govinda realized that his friend was leaving him and he began to weep."

It had been four years of constant farewells. I think that is something that can not translate very well. After leaving my friends and family the last time, again, the feeling was subtle and numb. Not that it was without sadness, it had just become routine; the hugs and back patting, the see-you-soon.
In Edmonton it was sweet and warm and drunk while old friends felt joy together again. Sometimes it was sad, too, to see things which had been missed so achingly, to do things which used to make me feel like a man. The sudden wave of being liked and loved and invited was almost overwhelming. I had not felt that way in a very long time.
The only time it rained while I was in Edmonton was on the morning I was loading my truck. I chose to use ratchet straps, which were tighter and more assuring than rope. A good trick is that they need to be given a full turn so that there is a visible twist in the strap. The wind on the highway will make a straight ratchet strap flutter and hum loudly. It might even begin to wear on the integrity of the strap itself. The rain made the loading and tarp-strapping unpleasant and counterproductive, as the rain would pool in wrinkles on the tarp and when I shifted the tarp the water would dump onto the cardboard boxes.
That morning it rained. The three weeks previous had been clear and hot and the Alberta sky was huge, dizzying to follow from horizon to zenith to horizon. It was delightful to escape the heat by simply slipping into the shade. The humid summers of Japan were heavy and relentless. Even the air conditioned rooms, when there was one, were foes. The danger was always catching a chill after being outside and sweating profusely. August in Alberta was easy and casual. It only rained once while I was there.

"Angel in a devil skirt Buys me a shirt..."

It has never troubled me too much that I can't write, nor have I been bothered by it.
The thing I hate the most is that when I level or plumb a wall I can't pin the plates in straight.
It could be the house
but usually I know it is just me, out by 5 or 6/8ths.
It's tough like that. It's enough to make me crazy and sometimes I just follow the grain of the 2x4 from factory end to my cut, just to focus.
Foundations and frames are funny like that, frustrating but necessary.
Fucking up is not really an option.

I thought about my friends tonight. My lovers and those with whom I share love.
I think it was about 8 p.m. when I packed in the Hilti. Nail guns are a challenge, for me.
But nailing, it's so real and instant with them.
A gentle push and it is in, deep. Although the recoil, man, is something to deal with.

I was drunk this past weekend and didn't do much but when I took that tool-belt this morning, strapped it on and went to work, well, there is no better feeling. The weight of my hammer, offset by the weight of my tape, knife and some duplex nails, shit, it just feels perfect. Not to mention that I could crack a walnut between my biceps; it feels good. I feel like a man.

We did some framing and then took a break.
I told my older brother about this site, to read the things I write here.
He said nothing.
I cared not, too. It just felt good to share these thoughts.
And I fear not the judgment of others; regarding carpentry or life.
I hit nails straight, I walk the same.

I love you.

I took this picture of The Queen of Mexico for you.

Goodnight.

-Sid Heart
xoxoxoxoxo

It rained all morning and even after I took a bullet to the heart it kept going. I thought it would end with my death but it went on. I was French, even, but it mattered not. I fought for the Empire. I died for The Queen, too. My family hated me for it but I knew it was bigger than all of us.
I was building Canada.
The farm I left would go on. My rifle, $18 dollars worth, was collected by my regiment and sent home, thank God. I think my father kept it

It felt like a sneeze, when I was hit. A sneeze that is kept in at the base of the lungs and the final shake was my soul escaping to God. But there was no light for me. There was just quiet eternity.
I died for you. I died for my wife and two girls and I did it because it was the right thing to do; to fight, to win, to stop this all. And I stopped, too.

The feeling of it all, the rain and the smell of mud and smoke, was like when I hunted with my father as a boy. We took the horses North every fall just before the snow came. We came back with some deer and my mother was always happy. I loved her in those final moments. I saw it all and knew that I was not going to see it again. It was warm and sweet, dying like that. I wasn't afraid and knew that I would get to leave these Belgian trenches finally.

The mud tasted of poison. When I fell and caught some of it in my mouth I could taste it as they used chemicals, mustard. I thought that the taste of earth would disgust me but I in fact didn't mind. It was the chemicals I noticed the most. But I only noticed them shortly, as my life seeped out.

I hope you are proud and that I didn't shame you. Dying was easy, I just let it come and didn't cry out.
I didn't even pray, although God will forgive me because I couldn't keep those thoughts together. They were like shards of a broken window pane, scattered and chaotic; broken, and I was no longer in control.

I love you and I wish that I could have stayed, but the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, I guess.

I should have shaved that morning but there was no time as the enemy came at dawn.

Don't forget me. Don't cry, too.

I remember seeing a picture once of the Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In this picture there was young woman tenderly holding a baby and smiling. The woman had on loose, flowing clothing. She had beautiful and long chestnut hair. The baby in the picture was just small and mostly covered by a white blanket. Maybe the baby was smiling, too. They sat together like that the smiling woman and the baby on a carpet or shawl or scarf, or some fabric like that. Directly behind them was the side of a maroon van with the side door open. It looked like an Econoline.

There was a tarp erected from the side of the van outwards, to provide shade for the woman and the baby seated in the sun of the Kill Devil Hills, that small desert. Smiling.
That photo was taken in the summer of 1973, two years before the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam.
I was four months old in that picture. My mother and I were waiting for my father, who was sailing off of the dunes, hang gliding. I loved that picture but I can not find it anymore.

I had just finished my second day of eight hours straight-armed-hauling, no pulley, five-gallon pails of wet pea-gravel up a 12 foot wall and then dumping it behind me, on the other side of the frame. We were building a swimming pool at a country club in West Vancouver. We had finally met grade and were done. But it was funny because I imagined that I was a slave in ancient Egypt, building for life. It made things seem more interesting as I envisioned a large statue of Horus, and my blood and sweat and strain and loss would make that statue. I also imagined how the pool would look in one year, with aqua-yoga classes, or whatever. But I also thought of when I was a boy and loved the pool at Kinsmen in Edmonton.

The country club is on the side of a mountain in West Vancouver. The land is beautiful. In the morning I love the smell when I am standing by the tool trailer. It isn't construction, but the smell of the cool air rushing down the mountain as the sun rises. It smells like 5 a.m. camping, before the fire. It makes me feel new, too.

I like the work. I am on a roof, there, framing, chipping concrete, zip-disking rebar and sometimes smoking a Marlboro.
I get to look out over the mountainside and down to the water. I see the ships go out and the birds are curious as the trees stand close to me, dwarfing me even when working on the second floor.

After the last bucket of pea-gravel had been filled, lifted and dumped, I carefully stood on the top of the frame at the deep end of the soon pool. Above the pool there is a large circular window that looks North up the mountain. I did my best to lean back a little without falling and out of that window I saw the para-gliders coming off of the peak of the mountain. They flew beautifully and seemed to just keep catching the same updraft as they flew from side to side. I didn't watch for too long because I was tired but at the same time I wished I was there, too. It made me think of that picture in Kill Devil Hills.

I wish I were Bill Benson.

I cried reading Bill Benson once.
It was after Toronto had lost in the playoffs; the final Canadian hope. The lone sentinel.
Bill watched the game in silence and when it finished and they had lost and Canada was done he walked out of his home and just flew away. It was beautiful. He just lifted his arms and was gone. I wanted to fly away, too, after that.

I was alone and drunk in the North of Japan. Bill Benson and I connected that day.
I was filled with a deep love for him that I had never noticed before, it just kind of crept up on me like that.

I saw that even he was as heartbroken as I and I loved him for showing me how he escaped it all, how he wanted to just go away.

I also wanted to fly away, to you, though.
I wanted you to tell me that it would all be alright and that I was good and that I was your bluebird and that we would have next year; we'd do it next year.
I needed solace and from seven thousand kilometers away Bill Benson gave it to me.

I wept and strode, hurriedly to the bathroom at school. They wouldn't understand why a comic would make me cry; they wouldn't understand the beauty and truth in that.

I smoked cigarettes and cut work, I told them I didn't have the stomach for it that day anymore.

When I went home that night I undressed and donned my Oilers jersey and drank two litres of sake.

I wish I were Bill Benson so I could fly away, too, from defeat, from anguish, from failed hope and sick hockey teams.

Thanks, Bill.

-Love Sid
xoxoxoxoxoxooxox

"I don't like work--no man does, but I like what is in the work, the chance to find yourself."

The beams were put in over the past few days. The crane would hoist them, one by one, and place them in their anchors which were bolted into the concrete. When the beams came in, the Ironworkers would guide it in with a series of hand-signals and ropes. Then they bolted the beam in place and it looked beautiful, against the morning sky. I loved the perspective and I thought that it looked like spread fingers, hand opened.

The Ironworkers started at 6 a.m. When it was coldest on that mountain, just before sunrise, those men put on harnesses and strapped themselves into the JLG to finish the ends of those beams and bolt in the remaining plates that went on the ends of every single one of them. They woke up at 4 a.m. every morning, made lunches for themselves, quietly so as not to wake the kid(s) and wife, took a thermos of coffee while stepping quietly even in steel-plated boots caked in dried cement, and they left to work. They were building an annex to a country club.
They had to wear harnesses and use a lanyard to prevent themselves from falling to certain death among the hardened concrete run-off and the exposed rebar, 15 meters below.
They did that so that rich people could have a new place to swim and run on an electric mill that kept them in place.

I had just arrived at 6:30 and still had 30 minutes to go before I began my day. I was in the pool again, but I didn't mind as I imagined myself becoming muscular and smiling slyly when I glanced into the mirror when getting into the shower. Which is funny to do, because I then will laugh at myself as I turn on the shower for being so vain. The first few cubic feet of water from the shower are cold from laying dormant in the pipe, and that usually makes me forget about the mirror and the shapes on my body.

I left early today. I told the foreman I had a dental appointment. I told the others the same when I gathered my tool-belt and headed toward my truck. We joked and talked about the price of dentistry, why it isn't part of the Health Care plan as it is generally regarded as essential anatomical equipment.

I felt guilty to tell them that I was going home to change and going onward to an interview for a government job behind a desk. I could have never told the Ironworkers that.

The interview was great. I got the job, if I want it.
I don't know if I do.

I thought about those beams stretched out like a Japanese fan tonight. Like fingers or paths. In that perspective, they spanned out in different directions, always further apart, and further, too.
I thought how my life is like those beams. All at once, in every direction and getting further from the other as it proceeds down the line of sight.
But the bolts on the beams are what I can't put in. I just can't align it level or flush.

I am going to bring some hot coffee for the Ironworkers tomorrow. They could teach me many things.

"The mind has to be empty to see clearly."

I felt bad about myself for a while today. I felt as if I had made a mistake somewhere, and I couldn't see exactly where. I was trying to trace the route like a road map, except I couldn't even find the road I was on, nevermind the one I had deviated from.
I couldn't understand it and I felt badly. I felt like I had cheated myself of something but couldn't recall what it was.

I had the diamond saw this morning and was going through 1/8 inch corrugated steel. The sparks were incredible but I couldn't see and was constantly cutting wide. I rolled a cigarette and waited while the sun climbed over the mountains in the East.
Mt. Baker is imposing, even from that distance.
I was happy when the sun rose and I could see where I was cutting.
When the Fraser Valley had filled with mist and the deep chill began to lift I could see the chalk lines and paint markers for where the glue lam beams were.
I cut well and felt good. I forgot about feeling lost and the sun warmed my back there on the roof of the Hollyburn Country Club.

I worked with Lee after that and we built box-frames for concrete pads that would house air units, etc., on the roof.
Lee showed me how to build a chased-frame today, where the nailed end of each 2x4 overlapped the following 2x4; 'chasing' it.
Lee has been sober from meth and heroin and booze for two years and lives in a recovery house with 13 other men. Lee is a carpenter and the handle of his hammer is wrapped in white electrical tape. He laughs a lot.
Lee called frame-chasing "chasing the dragon". "Get to work, fuck. Chase the dragon". He would yell that with the flash of white from his hammer coming down on the 3 inch common nails he used and swore by.
"Chasing the dragon is fine, fuck, but if a big gust of wind comes along you are fucked" he said, "You wanna get the job done you use a fucking 100cc rig. You don't miss when you go for vein, fuck".
I liked that Lee told me about his fall, his bottoming-out as a man. There was no apology in his stories or his voice. He knew what had happened and he spoke freely as the judgements of others meant nothing to him. He already knew.
Lee reminded me that I felt strongest when I was picking myself up.

I liked working with Lee and he was a good teacher for me today. His words would switch between work and addiction, heroin and 2x4's, life and carpentry.
There was warmth in his voice when he told me about building frames or smoking meth; there were warnings and suggestions for both.

I forgot about feeling bad today when Lee showed me that I hadn't missed anything, I hadn't lost anything. I was where I wanted to be and I was there through pure will on my part.

“What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?”

"To live is to hurt others, and through others, to hurt oneself. Cruel earth! How can we manage not to touch anything? To find what ultimate exile?"

I cut off part of my finger today on the table-saw. It didn't hurt, it was so quick and clean. I thought it was just a nick but then I saw the blood.
After the doctor and the stitches I knew that it was true.
That metal had taken a part of me. I had sold my labour and it had cost me part of my body.
There was no blame to place but upon my own shoulders. I did it in a hurried moment, trying to be fast and correct.
It ended up as neither. It was bloody and crooked and even slow. Especially slow as we drove to the hospital and it throbbed and bled.
I passed out in the Ford F-350, bleeding and starting to shiver. I just felt cold and wanted to go home.
I suddenly missed my father and understood everything.
It wasn't as though I had lost my finger but it was enough.
I didn't cry. I kind of wanted to but I giggled instead, the way I do when I am injured. I laugh like a fool; bones broken or spirit crushed, laughing.
I lost a part of my body today and I guess I feel a little sad now about it. I miss it, it was mine and I didn't take care of it well enough.
I'll be more careful in the future, I guess.
For now, I am wounded and I feel badly.
I miss you, finger-tip. I'll think of you often and even hide my hand in my pocket, feeling shame for neglecting to care for you.
I bled today and I lost my finger-tip.
I thought of you and how I felt when I left.
I bled then, too, when I got drunk and drove and sped through those red lights in the Japanese country side, praying for a crash.
I am sorry for everything and I am sorry like I am for my finger.
It was once a part of me but through carelessness I lost it.
I miss it and it hurts.
I have 9 more, though, so fuck it.
Tomorrow is tomorrow and judge me not as I am just a man.
I will learn to respect that which is stronger than flesh, someday.

"Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies. Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again."

That's Sumiko on the right and Fumika on the left. I met them at the Sapporo Beer Festival. They worked as office staff for Toshiba, out in the stix, like Nopporo or something, I forget. But I do remember that Sumiko invited me to her apartment, Fumika came too. When we got there, we just drank beer and laughed. I did my best to explain "truth or dare" in Japanese and they were quickly into it. After an hour we were all drunk. Fumika kissed me once as a dare and then Sumiko had to match it. It was fun. I was hard and wanted to fuck.
They wore their summer yukata all night. We laughed together and did stupid things. I tried to balance an open milk-jug on my nose. After a while longer I dared Fumika to touch my cock. She took three drinks before she tried. Fumika was embarrassed, I could tell; her cheeks were flushed and her mouth hung open. Soon we all kissed.
After we had sex I got dressed and wanted to go. Sumiko wanted to exchange numbers and email, Fumika slept and I resisted and crept out into the black night.
I drove home that night, drunk as fuck, but I was so pleased at the random love I had encountered. I thought of it all night, and the next day too.
I love yukatas on the JR from Sapporo to Tomakomai.
I'll go back just for that, that headiness.