Postcards From Gravelly Beach

While summertime camping alongside Owl Creek and charging the recorder with the rays of the sun, Dave reads a short story written while on the road with ole dead Grandpa called “So the Legends Go” – a portrait of life one morning in Navajo Nation in 1987 – accompanied by adolescent observations and musings. Accompanied … Continue reading Arizona with Ole Gramps – Postcard #57 →

From Halfmoon Bay on Vancouver Island, Dave gives it up for zen poet hero Gary Snyder and recounts beat history from The Old Ways and logging culture from Myths and Texts plus poems about hitchhiking, girls, baths, clearcuts and the Buddha plus original freeverse poetry.

Alongside raging Lynn Creek, Dave remarks about boulders which are indeed interesting as the sign pointed out, then reads a haibun about books and statues on a curly maple shelf, and poems about buying hardware and fruit in Bucerias, mysterious curves and clouds, and solace for weary delirious travellers, while Wm. Lenker sings the traditional … Continue reading Chronicling Interesting Boulders – Postcard #55 →

From a skunk-scented perch along Mosquito Creek, Dave spiels about feverish dreams in a Mexican clinic, personal archeology, mirages about the Wonder Hotel, and reads verse about late trains, dammed rivers, watching ships, and men in white coats walking past. Take your vitamins for: Post-apocalyptic Skunks and Fevers – Postcard #54 (128k mp3, 16:35, 15MB) Read … Continue reading Post-apocalyptic Skunks and Fevers – Postcard #54 →

Visiting the Woodshop on Steamboat Island amidst hayfever and national holidays, Dave and Wm. Lenker exchange spontaneous musical freeverse tales of Pennsylvania, Agana Harbour (Guam), Jericho Beach (Vancouver), and Lake Crescent (Washington) while wounded Samson howls along. Weigh anchor for: Howling at Land and Sea – Postcard #53 (128k mp3, 17:51, 16MB) Note: Photo by DaveO on … Continue reading Howling at Land and Sea – Postcards #53 →

In a collection of transitory reminiscences, Dave O rolls on from rainy North Van by taxi down venerable Granville St. down the spine of to YVR with indigenous dioramas. Then travels by plane to Gatwick Airport, continuing via train to Victoria Station, then by another taxi to Piccadilly Circus passing notable London sites along the … Continue reading Taxi Flashbacks Towards Gatwick – Postcard bonus →

From a Lougheed skyscraper comes an improvisational reading with guitars – first more ocean-inspired works from Tristan Corbière, Victor Hugo and Dave Olson into a freeform spoken word account of trip down the Pacific Coast highway to a haunted roadhouse with sequoias growing an inch a day. Roust yerself for: Skyscraper Stories about Oceans and Forests … Continue reading Skyscraper Stories about Oceans and Forests – Postcard #52 →

Stamp your envelope for: Letters from Russia on Santa Cruz Free Radio (.mp3, 57:07, 26MB) Blurb DJ Snailmail and DJ Anon discuss Letters from Russia with writer Dave Thorvald Olson on the “WriteNow! The Art & Action of Letterwriting” show, Dec. 2007 on Santa Cruz Free Radio – low-power unlicensed station – also streaming live. … Continue reading Letters from Russia on “Write Now!” show – Santa Cruz Free Radio (2007) →

Starting at the Steamboat Island Woodshed, Dave rambles salty original freeverse with Wm. Lenker on banjo and traces personal poetic lineage winding through French impressionalist/symbolist and Brittany sea-coaster Tristan Corbière (prefaced by Victor Hugo). Then – as sleet, slush and hail beats down on the Mosquito Creek studio skylight – rolls into the beat American … Continue reading Banjo Sea Shanties and Beat Train Rambles – Postcard #51 →

An aural montage of past new years’ evenings featuring Dave O reading from Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” next to crackling cabin woodstove on Pender Island (note scratching dog and someone with a stuffy nose), followed by a latenight freeverse message to Napoleon, a languid tale recorded in a garage about a bewildering New … Continue reading Poetic Ghosts of New Years Past – Postcard #50 →

Wrapping up the White Poppies for Remembrance series with a narrative late-night wander through Westminster, London, DaveO meanders past military monuments, victory squares, cenotaphs, palaces, royal parks, war museum, war chambers, riot fences, war protesters, churches, parliament and finishing at St. James park for a sitdown under a weeping willow to consider monarchy, individual rights … Continue reading Meandering Past Monuments of Remembrance – Postcards #49 →

Back home on the North Vancouver porch, Dave reads from Clay Mcleod’s essay Why I Don’t Wear a Poppy while sending peace and resistance towards the decent lieutenant Magnum in Iraq and the Philippines along with earnest comrades at arms and peaceful strangers in war torn lands. Plus he admonishes the Canadian Legion for blocking … Continue reading Peace to Soldiers and Strangers – Postcard #48 →

A story about Iraqi resistance fighters and their personal motivations by a young writer called Waiting in Baghdad is the crux of the next White Poppies for Remembrance episode – read from the homeporch with a Welsh mining lantern and firetrucks rolling past. Written by Chris K, a player on a dave-coached in-line hockey team … Continue reading Waiting (and Resisting) in Baghdad – Postcard #47 →

Taking a Remembrance Day respite to enjoy a conscious discussion with ‘Trigger’ at Vancouver’s New Amsterdam Cafe, Dave O listens to the consequences and conditions of space, in tangible and gestalt senses, and reviews the paradigm shifts of Vancouver’s downtown Eastside ‘four corners’ – once one of the grandest intersections in the British Empire. Later, … Continue reading (Meta)Physical Conditions of the Environment – Postcard #46 →

Part 6 of the “White Poppies for Remembrance” series considers the opportunity cost of the lost human potential while at the Victory cenotaph in downtown Vancouver – along the way, troubadours sing about Providence, Joyful(ness) along with spontaneous percussion-scapes and city bus brakes. DaveO examines the value of life with Gord Downie‘s swift deconstructions of … Continue reading Awakening to the Dawn of Potential – Postcard #45 →

Finding Victory Square in post-ceremony calm, Dave settles onto a bench for lost sailors with some bagpipers to chat about John Macrae’s “Flander’s Field” poem and mull the tension between remembering noble effort and embracing jingoistic behaviour. This conundrum is evident in snippets of an essay by Stephen Osborne – The Poem and the Poppy – … Continue reading Pondering Flanders at the Cenotaph – Postcard #43 →

Part 3 of the White Poppies for Remembrance series (recorded Nov. 2006) features reading from the Dhammapada by Siddhartha Gautama while waiting for the Seabus heading towards Victory Square. Along the way, Dave talks about conscientious objection and military service evaders in Canada, mercy and the state of the downtown eastside. Page France sings Chariot, … Continue reading Buddhas in the Trenches – Postcard #42 →

Part 2 of the White Poppies for Remembrance series finds Dave O eating oatmeal in North Van before heading downtown Vancouver to check in on Remembrance Day remembering activities. While having a bite to eat, he explains the mission of the White Poppies for Peace (a Peace Pledge Union project) folks based in the UK … Continue reading White Poppies on a Rainyday Coat – Postcard #41 →

Down on Lenker’s farm, Dave O checks in on the animal inventory and riffs his own freeverse poetry about canyon exploration, a groaning generation, and tense search for authenticity and truth – all re-mixed with Bill’s Pennsylvanian poetics about frost heaves and nurturing life accompanied with his salty guitar jamble. Then, in the woodshed, Dave … Continue reading Geological Storytime with Sheep – Postcard #40 →

Embarking on a White Poppies for Remembrance Day series, Dave reads the role of King Agamemnon from the Oresteia by Aeschylus written in the 6th century BC. The King returns to Argos by chariot, with a captured royal concubine in tow, and tales of plunder and pillage after defeating Troy… and is then met by … Continue reading Vanquishing Grecian Warlords – Postcard #39 →