The Ladies’ Love Oracle

It will be too glorious.
Go to your ruin, if you will.
It is needful that he be very good; yes, in spite of delays.
He will love you for a month.
Yes, at a country ball.

Wait, you will congratulate yourself,
Do not be uneasy.
You would be wrong by appearing frank and open.
Your least virtue.

No, my fine lady; be upon your guard.
By a more careful toilet, without doubt.
He’ll be handsome, like your present one.
The future will teach you it.

You ought not to hope. Why not, if you love him?
Yes, from midday to midnight.
Could you do without it?
Many things are opposed to it.

By a skillfully-managed intrigue
Don’t wait for it, you’ll only lose time.
Yes, a hussar. Yes, all except one.
Thy wit equals thy beauty.

Continue to ignore him.
You must renounce the world.
Handsome body, but deformed mind.
He smokes his segar and forgets you.

Count no more upon it.
It is useless.

(Answers to oracle questions in Madam Le Marchand’s Fortune Teller and Dreamer’s Dictionary, 1863. Submitted by Lori Hahnel)

Sweet poison

When I first started selling wild honey
the price was extremely high. Then someone
in Korea ate too much and died.

This year’s harvest: quarter of a teaspoon.
You have a few minutes before
you are overcome with an urgent need
to defecate, urinate and vomit.

After the purge, you alternate between
light and dark. You can see and then
you can’t see. A sound, jam jam jam pulses,
like the drone of a bee hive, in your head.
Then you lose all motor function.
The paralysis lasts for a day or so.

Normally we have to see a doctor
to get bad things taken out of our bodies,
but the honey does this for us.

(From a National Geographic photo of wild honey caption)

One of my hermits is moulting

What should I do?
Nothing. Moulters already
have to suffer from stress.
Disturbing them will make it worse.
Place a cave over them
to provide darkness.
Most will harden.

How do I distinguish a dead hermit?
Look for a claw in the shell.
The eyes should be hollow
and translucent.
The eyes of dead hermits
are dark in colour, just like
when they were alive.

How long should I wait?
You are better digging
up a dead hermit
three months later
than stressing one to death
that was alive and could
have surfaced on its own.

Why is my hermit being lethargic?
This is normal behaviour.
Offer protein and calcium.
There is not much else you can do.
Sometimes they experience
difficulty shedding
so they give up and drop.

(From Hermit Crab Paradise, April 2016. Submitted by Linda Goulden)

A visit

Every place on earth should be like this; unexpected.
On a good day, you can see forever.

Restful sleep for a windy place.
Tranquility is a marvelous experience
sound of meadowlarks in the morning, music
for the body.
Breath and love are everything.

This is sort of my home town.
Where my father went to school,
took piano lessons.

I had stitches on my hand in this place –

Nice to be back home,
to see the old schoolroom and
place where I was born

Different than I remember it as

Hope we weren’t too much trouble.
Thanks for the beer.

(You will remember me by the broken chair)

(Guestbook entries at the Convent Inn in Val Marie, Saskatchewan, noted in 2006. Submitted by Shannon Bruyneel)

Spring is here

I’ve just been amazed at how rapidly
the last few weeks have flown by – like
tiny little birds not like
Canadian geese
who are like the B52s
of the Avian world.
I have more bird poop
on my car recently.
Spring is here.

(Email from my boyfriend. Submitted by Debby Thompson)

I NEED A PHONE!

I NEED TO USE THE PHONE!
NO ONE WILL LET ME USE THE PHONE
Did you try the Shell?
YES!
Did you try the motel up the street?
YES!
I NEED A CIGARETTE
NO ONE WILL LET ME USE THE PHONE!
What do you need the phone for?
I NEED TO CALL MY PHARMACIST BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!
Your pharmacist?
YES!
I NEED TO USE THE PHONE!
NO ON WILL LET ME USE THE PHONE!
CAN I HAVE A CIGARETTE!
Sure. Here you go.
THANKS!
I NEED TO USE THE PHONE!
I NEED TO CALL MY PHARMACIST!
DO YOU HAVE A LIGHT!
Yes, here you go.
I NEEEEEED TO USSSEE THE PHOOOONNNNEEE!
Well I’m sorry I don’t have one.
WHY WON’T ANYONE LET ME USE THE PHONE!
I NEED TO CALL MY DEALER!
CAN I USE YOUR PHONE!
DO YOU HAVE AN EXTRA CIGARETTE!
I NEED TO USE THE PHONE!

(Conversation with a lady near my job at a Family Services office in Surrey. Submitted by Wanda Kehewin)

Of Monarchs and Milkweed

With the cacophony
of Interstate 35 traffic as a backdrop,
Tyler Seiboldt stands
on the side
of the freeway

with three other researchers,
all
scanning the ground.
Three ragweed, Seiboldt says to the group.
Litter one adds, Julian Chavez,

a research assistant
in the environmental science department.

Their seemingly indecipherable utterances
are the start of two days’ study
of plants along the interstate

from San Antonio
to Laredo
and back again.

(From Of Monarchs & Milkweed. Submitted by Ash Connell)