An arts and culture aesthetic that is blue.
Lady on fire, things are getting crispy.
The flames are ascending,
And the cold is only weakening.
The rage of those fingertips,
And the voice—crackling.
I am your own pyromaniac,
Feeding you, burning everything.
Suffer the dance of flame,
Burning wildly—it won’t abate.
Okay. I laugh as it rages on,
Perspiring, dancing, and alight.
Burn and burn again.
Oh, how you glow.
Lady on fire,
Rage as you desire.
Photo credit: Ellen Barrett
Light falls across a surface.
Shadows appear.
Leaves create patterns.
Images form.
The moment exists.
Later, the scene fades.
Details blur.
A mind holds fragments.
A shape remains.
Color shifts.
The event changes.
The day passes.
Routine repeats.
Action follows action.
Memory registers.
A brain stores impressions.
Time moves.
The past recedes.
Ordinary things become lost.
Only hints remain.
A feeling lingers.
Specifics escape.
Recognition occurs.
A source hides.
A mind constructs a story.
This story becomes memory.
Actual experience disappears.
A manufactured version stands.
Truth erodes.
Photo credit: artist unknown
Taking the train.
Approaching Bridgeport Stn. A nice scenic journey. I highly enjoy travelling by train.
Shivers.
The steam from my breath.
You know, I miss my winters. I miss the cold sun. I miss the clouds draped over the sky, the frosty branches, the unspoiled snow where you could feel the crunch beneath your boots.
I miss how, when a wild blizzard hit, I’d wake up at 5 AM, put on two layers of pants, and embed my feet in that layer of white. I’d make little snowballs, pile them up, throw them against a fence just to hear the BOOSH!—God, I loved watching them explode. And I remember rolling those snowballs into big, bigger boulders, building a snowman all by myself.
Oh man, the fun. Another thing I loved? Forts. I used to build forts right out of the snow, with ceilings. I’d invite my friends in, and we’d read comic books, play on a Game Boy—man, that was awesome. We’d take off our jackets, climb up a high hill, and slide down.
God, the amount of fun.
We haven’t had a winter like that in ages. I don’t think we’ve had a winter like that in 20, maybe 25 years. It’s all getting warmer. We were lucky this year to have even one weekend of snow. But if you really want to experience it nowadays, you have to go into the mountains.
Snow ain’t coming where I live anymore.
Photo credit: artist unknown
Cloud Nine.
Everything’s coming up for me,
I feel nothing but happiness, glee.
Even the clouds in the sky
Cheer for me, they shout, “Oh hi!”
In this moment, I am free,
Feeling my best—happy to be me.
Even birds sing me their song
As I laugh—we get along.
I’m on cloud nine.
The grass is green, the wind’s alive,
It swoops, it swoons, it twists, it dives.
Sunshine bursts—citrus bright,
Freshly squeezed, a sheer delight.
Each day’s a happy song
About Cindy Wai Chung Wong.
And the spell—oh, can’t you see?
She casts, she blasts—boom!—on me.
I’m on cloud nine.
Photo credit: artist unknown
Swaggering across the horizon—
A dream, a vision,
A dazed and languid lullaby.
So many hopes arise,
A mix of vapor and sunshine,
Floating, floating, floating on by.
Soaring high, take flight
Into ghostly white cotton candy,
Floating by on top of the world.
Photo credit: artist unknown
A quiet spot.
Just a place in my neighbourhood with foliage. I come here when I need a break. Nothing happens and I like that.
Marine Dr. Station.
A little place where I can grab a bite, watch a movie, buy cough medicine. I love watching people walk by.
Rainy day.
It’s coming down thick,
Soaking streets so heavy and slick.
All the buildings drenched,
Like a thirst that’s never quenched.
It’s relentless and won’t stop,
Drumming rooftops, steady drop.
Invasion from the sky,
A flood of gray where dry hopes die.
Places I’ve had religious experiences while smoking regular cigarettes.
The alley.
In the hollow of the night—
everywhere brick and shadow,
brick and shadow.
I inhale from
a cancer stick,
smoke billowing,
moving to the sky—
a thin prayer upward.
It’s all gone now.
But the scent lingers in my clothes.
I can’t get rid of it.
Flame again,
brief—
ash falls on concrete.
Silence now.
A cold truth:
here, now, there is nothing.
Not a thing,
but also everything
all at once.
Time is slow,
but it’s a thief.
Photo credit: James McCarthy
German Hell I.
That’s the title of this photograph.
Typically, I prefer to write based on images that inspire me. But this one confounds me. I feel the need to discuss it more as a critic than as someone moved by the art.
What makes it so confusing? Well, I’m from Canada. It snows here all the time. In Vancouver, where I live, it rains more than it snows, but if you head east for an hour or so into the mountains, there’s snow everywhere. I’ve never thought of snow as hell. I don’t understand why it would be. To me, snow is almost healthy—it means a fresh intake of water. It doesn’t come all at once; it dissipates, melts, and nourishes the land. It gives life. So how can snow be hell?
And isn’t it odd to call it that? When we think of hell, we think of fire and brimstone. Yet here we have snow, cold and quiet. But still, I kept wondering: Why is this called German Hell?
Is it about monotony? The photo is certainly monochromatic. But monotony, to me, isn’t hell. It can be boring, sure, but as I get older, I find myself treasuring it. Hell isn’t monotony—it’s the unexpected, the chaos: a cancer diagnosis, a car crash. That’s hell. Moments of joy are wonderful, but if you had them all the time, they’d just become another routine. Joy only counts as joy because it’s exceptional.
So where’s the hell in this picture? The only thing I can think of is the buildings—specifically, the apartment buildings. But I’m not German. I don’t know the cultural context behind this architecture. From my perspective, these buildings seem fine. Minimalist. Simple. Affordable. If Vancouver had more housing like this, I’d probably be thrilled. Shelter is better than no shelter, especially in a snowstorm. People can freeze to death out there.
The photographer is a student. And when you’re a student, especially an art student, you see the world through a limited lens—a 20-year lens. Some context is missing.
I grew up in low-income housing. My mother, a single mom, couldn’t always afford groceries or new clothes. I went to school in tattered shoes—my only pair. Teachers scolded my mom for not buying me new ones, but she simply couldn’t afford them. This was in the ’80s. At the time, I thought I had it bad. But then I met people from truly impoverished places—places with no rule of law, where social housing doesn’t exist, where you’re lucky if you know where your next meal is coming from, if there even is a next meal, if no one steals it first. In some countries, children don’t even get to have a childhood—someone with power sweeps in, kills their family, and forces them into an army. That’s hell.
So if this—this quiet, snowy scene—is “German Hell,” then German hell seems kind of nice. And whatever German hell exists now is surely better than German hell 80 years ago. Or even 40.
I’m not trying to criticize the artist too harshly. Maybe I don’t fully understand their work. Maybe this place is deeply personal to them, linked to some traumatic event. Who am I to say? I can only speculate. But at the same time, the artist wants us to see this and connect with it. They want us to feel something.
And I do. I like the art. I like the mood, the snow, the buildings, the trees. I like the temperature of this photo.
But the title? German Hell?
That’s where they lost me.
Photo credit: Nico Waldemar Dabek
Ice-locked field.
Bare branches
etch silence
against a sky
of deepening blue.
Breath,
a ghost
in the frigid air.
No ripple,
no movement—
only the hush
of snow settling.
The cold
reaches into bone,
heavy
and endless.
Photo credit: artist unknown
A gnome.
I used to see these guys more often. But I haven’t seen a gnome in a home or a garden for awhile. I wonder where they went.
Clouds.
One of the most unique aspects of clouds is that they’re an organic phenomenon that doesn’t exist only on Earth.
In fact, they almost certainly exist on other planets. For example, planets in our own solar system that likely have water clouds include Jupiter and Saturn. While water clouds aren’t immediately detectable on these gas giants, it’s believed that beneath their thick gaseous layers, they do exist.
There’s also water ice on Mars—or at least strong evidence of it. It’s highly likely that Mars once had even more liquid water, which implies the presence of clouds in its past. And then there’s Uranus and Neptune, about which there’s a lot of conjecture. Some scientists believe these planets contain supercritical water oceans.
But it’s not just our solar system. On the exoplanet K2-18b, we know there’s water vapor—that is, clouds. The same goes for Kepler-138c and Kepler-138d, which many believe to be largely composed of water.
Now, keep in mind: just because water exists doesn’t mean anything organic is present on those planets. It simply means that a critical component of organic life exists elsewhere in the universe. And there’s still so much we don’t know.
For example, if life does exist on other worlds, how is it fundamentally different from life on our own? And how does water impact life on those planets—if, in fact, life is out there?
Photo credit: artist unknown
Float…
Lighter than air…
Touched by the wind,
calm, full of atmosphere,
oxygen and hydrogen,
as though it’s all a dream.
Heaven—
the strings of harps,
each pluck a droplet
falling, falling,
falling,
falling.
Image credit: Khalil Lima
Organic.
I love plants. No brains, but they have a certain intelligence. Wherever they may be, they find a way to live.
Big sky.
You walk outside, and the sky swallows you up—eats you whole—as though you’re being slurped beyond the wide horizon. Wide skies, deep skies.
The sky is above you, around you, vast beyond measure. What you see is just space, obscured by sunlight. Space is the place.
What’s kept you here until now is atmosphere, gravity, the spinning, the revolving, the hurtling.
Maybe you should go back inside and close the door.
Credit: artist unknown
Ride the Sky.
Ride the sky like lightning,
A night comes thundering.
These days, no end in sight,
Chasing shadows, chasing light
I feel a shiver,
Dusk is coming.
My eyes dazed,
Eardrums thrumming.
Wow hoo, oh hoo hoo,
Like a wolf—beware my bite.
I hunger to the quick of night.
Beer to buzz me on,
Another one to get me gone.
Chase ghosts in big parades,
Lost lovers I serenade.
Quick, quick—
My heart beats quick.
Black fire,
Burn and lick.
Wow hoo, oh hoo hoo,
Like a wolf—beware my bite.
I hunger to the quick of night.
Tombstone thoughts
As phantoms talk.
Thoughts pitter, patter,
Knock, knock, knock.
Blood warm,
But soon grows cold.
These crossroads—
A soul is sold.
Ride the sky like lightning,
Ride the sky.
Photo credit: artist unknown
I like this plant in front of the brick wall.
But why is it here? Whose decision was this? And why did they care?
I have questions.
It’s getting colder.
And I can feel it biting at me because I didn’t dress for the weather. I left my coat at home—I don’t know what I was thinking. Downright irresponsible.
When I get home, my wife is going to ask why I have no color in my cheeks. She’ll tell me I need to take better care of myself, that she can’t be the only one looking after me. That I have to take care of myself because our child needs a father.
And when I tell her it was just because I forgot, she’ll say, You can’t forget. Then she’ll give me that look.
Photo credit: artist unknown
I don’t know, what am I looking for?
What is anyone looking for?
I think most of my time is spent trying to thwart whatever bad decisions comes to my head.
Don’t get drunk.
Don’t take a flight to some strange destination without telling anyone my whereabouts.
Don’t get into a fist fight with some guy I’ve only met a minute ago.
I’m doing a somewhat good job. The only substance I plan to imbibe in is water. I’m at home. When I feel aggression, I do push-ups.
I have plans. Big plans. I hope God isn’t laughing at my plans. Because those plans, they can mean nothing—things can change on a dime.
What am I even looking for?
Photo credit: artist unknown
Boxes in the sky.
A cubed area of space
can be yours
but only for a set term,
and you better have insurance,
or else.
Photo credit: artist unknown
Monument.
Nothing is permanent. It’s all ephemeral—just different degrees of it.
And that’s fine. It’s all fine.
Photo credit: artist unknown
Echos of winter.
I found this sticker of a snowflake on a window. It’s since been removed. An inconsequential memory, but a memory of winter.
