Ariadne’s notes: The World Poetry Café Radio Show on 100.5 FM with hosts Ariadne Sawyer and Israel Mota proudly welcome Alan Girling to the show. Also featured was Alfonso Martinez Pretal with an e-poem from Spain which was read by the hosts in Spanish and English.  (http:// miralfondo.blogspot.com) The blog’s name is MIRA AL FONDO  Background music by Rene Hugo Sanchez and welcome music by Valerie Cardill. To hear this special radio show: CLICK HERE!

Alan Girling lives in Richmond, works in Vancouver, and writes in his head and in his heart. His work has appeared all over, in digital, in analog, in person, and once even in a shop window in Hamilton, Ontario. He was a finalist for the 2003 Larry Turner Award for non-fiction and winner of Vancouver Co-op Radio’s 2006 Community Dreams Poetry Contest. His short play, ‘Whatever Happened to Tom Dudkowski’ was produced for Vancouver’s Walking Fish Festival.

A simple, spoken word

Sometimes a word,
a simple word,
a spoken word,
say, the word enjoy,
is said in just such a way,
that something new unfolds, unexpected,
as if the real, the signified,
had until that moment been
an unknown, alien quantity,
never before glimpsed,
too pure to access,
too large to be encompassed.

Enjoy, he said, to all the guests,
and I saw laid out the spread of the evening:
Enjoy, yes, enjoy the roast beef,
the wine, the conversation.
Enjoy the view of the lights in the harbour
and the clusters of expressionistic paintings on the wall.
Enjoy it all.

And I wondered then if I could enjoy,
that is, in the way
the mere speaking of it—enjoy,
made me feel the possibility of it—enjoy,
and I still wonder about it,
that very enjoyable evening now past,
if I ever will reach that realm
he told me was there,
if I ever will live
the cunningly simple way of words
as they may be spoken, felt
and touch through the voice,
my own voice,
it.

 by alan girling (C)