Be Strong: Fight For Your Vision

You have to fight for this life, fight for your vision. Fight to stay alive and creative and breathing, filling your two lungs to capacity and then letting the air out in giant breaths of poetry; breathe in that life is good, life is good, life is good. Be grateful for each breath and feel life moving through your body; breathe out the great breaths of poetry, speak love, speak the words of your vision that keep you alive, and in all things it’s a fight for your vision, your voice, your love for this life.

John V. Morrissy and the self-named Morrissy Bridge in Miramichi, NB

John V. Morrissy, a former cabinet minister in the New Brunswick government, and later a Member of Parliament in Ottawa, can be seen in this photograph (seated, middle of three in first row, handle-bar moustache). Later, John Veriker Morrissy was a Member of Parliament (for the Liberal Party of Canada) in Ottawa. His son, Charles J. Morrissy, followed him in a political career, and also served as an M.P. in Ottawa.

The Morrissy Bridge, that John V. Morrissy named after himself, across the Miramichi River joining Newcastle with Chatham, NB. We always heard about family (especially Dr. Herb Morrissy) living in Newcastle. The bridge was built, prefabricated, in Lachine, Quebec, not far from where I live, and later installed in Newcastle.

E.R. Morrissey

A portrait of Edgar Morrissey, 1940s.

Edgar Morrissey and (possibly) his first car... maybe late 1920s.

Edgar Morrissey with his banjo, now owned by his great grandson Jake Morrissey. 1930s, early 1940s?

A cover photo for The Spanner, the employee magazine of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, of passengers in one of the new, comfortable passenger cars. E.R. Morrissey on the right side, five rows back (enlarge to see more clearly).

2226 Girouard Avenue, old photos

Stephen Morrissey and his grandmother, Edith Sweeney Morrissey, around 1953; taken on the back porch of 2226 Girouard Avenue in Montreal.

Between Chaston and Green (two)

Between Chaston and Green (one)

A door off rue St. Alexandre, near St. Patrick's Basilica

A Montreal Goddess

Baby Jesus at the Oratory

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A Street in Morningside Heights in NYC

Morningside Drive

The View from Morningside Drive, NYC

Poetry in Motion, poetry on the buses

It was April 2004 when Poetry in Motion was launched at Paragraphe Books, located on McGill College Avenue. Organized by several local poets, poems by Montreal poets were displayed on buses.

This is the launch of Poetry in Motion at Paragraphe Books.

Here is Linda Leith, founder of Blue Metropolis, at the Poetry in Motion launch.

Here is Mohammed Togane in one of the buses displaying his poem. I reviewed one of Togane's books years ago, the review can be found at the Reviews section of www.stephenmorrissey.ca.

Visiting one of the buses...

My poem, "because reality is too much", in the display bus.

CFCF channel 12 filming the poems for that evening's news.

A bus, parked outside of Paragraphe Books, in which the poems were displayed, with the Poetry in Motion advertisement displayed on the bus.

The Eye of God

Cutting-up Atlantis (Ten)

This has been given. 1. The position… the continent between the gulf of Mexico on Mediterranean upon the other. civilization are to be found. of Atlantis occupied is the one hand and the Evidences of this lost in the Pyrenees and surface at the period of projections.” the first, or that known as Casian and Carpathian, or and which lies now much in and much in the rolling Northern portions were then polar regions were then more of a tropical and would be hard to describe into the Atlantic Ocean. an inhabited land and very portion of this country, then all in the ocean; only the regions that are now and Arizona formed the as the United States. That formed the outer portion , Yucatan and America. portions. . . that must have a portion of this great Indies, or the Bahamas, are be seen in the present. If the made in some of these mini and in the Gulf Stream may be even yet determined.” 2. This has been given. the beginning, or in the Garden of Eden, in that the desert, yet much in lands there. The extreme the southern portions, or turned to where they occupied semi-tropical regions; hence the change. The Nile entered What is now the Sahara was fertile. What is now the centre of the Mississippi basin, was the plateau was existent, or portions of Nevada, Utah greater part of what we know along the Atlantic Seaboard Morocco, British Honduras There are some protruding at one time or another continent. The British West a portion of same would especially, or notably in through this vicinity, these 

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Cut-up of an original text on Atlantis, by Edgar Cayce

Cutting-up Atlantis (Nine)

Many lands have disappeared and disappeared again and At that time, only the Tibet, Mongolia, Asia and Europe; that of the Peru in the southwestern of (present) Utah, Arizona, hemisphere then in the Sahara and the then entering the now region rather than flowing the Tibet and Caucasian Sea; those in Mongolia in the plateau entering the souls then in the earth plane and three million existence from the present million (10,500,000) years earth plane as the lord of in five places then at reasons, the five spheres, nations.” of man’s earthly indwelling , many have appeared again during these periods land now known as the Sah and Norway appeared in southern Cordilleras and hemisphere and the plane Mexico in the northwestern ____________________________________________ 

Cut up of an original text on Atlantis, by Edgar Cayce

Cutting-up Atlantis (Eight)

In the country, you must not be surprised I ought to warn you, that you must not be names given to foreigners. I will tell you to use the tale for his poem, enquired into early Egyptians in writing them down had he recovered the meaning of the several them into our language. My great- which is still in my possession, and was Therefore if you hear names such as are used I have told how they came to be, began as follows:— Yet, before proceeding further in the surprised if you should perhaps hear the reason of this: Solon, who was intending the meaning of the names, and found that translated them into their own language, names and when copying them out again grandfather, Dropides, had the original carefully studied by me when I was a child. in this country, you not be surprised, introduced. The tale, which was great Now the country was inhabited in those artisans, and there were husbandmen, and apart by divine men. The latter dwelt by all that they had as common property; nor anything more than their necessary food. A yesterday described as those of our Egyptian priests said what is not only were in those days fixed by the Isthmus, extended as far as the heights of Cithaeron the direction of the sea, having the district Asopus as the limit on the left. The land raised remnant of Attica which now exists may by various classes of citizens;—there were there was also a warrior class original set, and all things suitable for anything of their own, but they regarded they practised all the pursuits which we guardians. Concerning the country that in the direction of the continent they and Parnes; the boundary line came down in of Oropus on the right, and with the river as the best in the world, and was therefore able from the surrounding people. Even with any region in the world for the 

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Cut-up of an original text, Critias, by Plato

Cutting-up Atlantis (Seven)

primeval men of that country of the gods, that they distributed the and made for themselves temples and for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat in a part of the island, which I will centre of the whole island, there was a plain and very fertile. Near the plain again, of about fifty stadia, there was a mountain there dwelt one of the earth-born Evenor, and he has a wife named was called Cleito. The maiden had already died; Poseidon fell in love with her and inclosed the hill in which she dwelt all larger and smaller, encircling one another; he turned as with a lathe, each having its so that no man could get to the himself, being a god, found no difficulty land, bringing up two springs of water the other of cold, and making every I have before remarked in speaking of the whole earth into portions differing in extent, instituted sacrifices. And Poseidon, receiving children by a mortal woman, and settled them describe. Looking towards the sea, but in the which is said to have been the fairest of all and also in the centre of the island at a distance mountain not very high on any side. In this primeval men of that country, whose name was Leucippe , and they had an only daughter who reached womanhood, when her father and mother had intercourse with her, and breaking the round, making alternate zones of sea and land there were two of land and three of water, which circumference equidistant every way from the island, for ships and voyages were not as yet. in making special arrangements for the centre from beneath the earth, one of warm water and 

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Cut-up of an original text, Critias, by Plato

Cutting-up Atlantis (Six)

who had no eye to see true happiness Such was the natural state of the country by true husbandmen, who made husbandry of a noble nature, and had a soil best in heaven above an excellently attempered on this wise. In the first place the Acropolis night of excessive rain washed away the earth there were earthquakes, then occurred third before the great destruction of Deucalis Acropolis extended to the Eridanus and the Lycabettus as a boundary on the opposite with soil, and level at the top, except in one under the sides of the hill there dwelt artisans the ground near; the warrior class dwelt by Hephaestus at the summit, which moreover garden of a single house. On the north side erected halls for dining in winter, and had common life, besides temples, but there was they made no use of these for any purpose; and ostentation, and built modest houses in in the lost island of Atlantis; and this he following reasons, as tradition tells: For many in them, they were obedient to the laws, seed they were; for they possessed true and with wisdom in the various chances of life, they despised everything but virtue, caring lightly of the possession of gold and other neither were they intoxicated by luxury; but they were sober, and saw clearly friendship with one another, whereas by lost and friendship with them. By such a divine nature, the qualities which we have but when the divine portion began to fade much with the mortal admixture, and the being unable to bear their fortune, behaved grew visibly debased, for they were losing who had no eye to see true happiness ___________________________________ 

Cut up of an original text, Critias, by Plato

Cutting-up Atlantis (Five)

Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded sacred registers to be eight thousand years ago, I will briefly inform you of their particulars of the whole we will hereafter themselves. If you compare these very laws the counterpart of yours as they were in the of priests, which is separated from all the several crafts by themselves and do not and of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen in Egypt are distinct from all other class themselves solely to military pursuits; looks to the unchangeable and fashions the pattern, must necessarily be made fair only, and uses a created pattern, it is not fair or called by this or by any more a question which has to be asked at the world, I say, always in existence and? Created, I reply, being visible and all sensible things are apprehended and created. Now that which is created a cause. But the father and maker of all this him, to tell him to all men would be down from above on the fields, having always which reason the traditions preserved here are The fact is, that whatever the extremity of mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes either in your country or in ours, or in any other were any actions noble or great or in any other down by us of old, and are preserved in our nations are beginning to be provided with letters after the usual interval, the stream from heaven leaves only those of you who are destitute of a tendency to come up from below; for the most ancient. they are in some way related to them. To great honour; he asked the priests who were and made the discovery that neither he nor mentioning about the times of old. On one antiquity, he began to tell about the most Phoroneus, who is called the “first man,” survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he reckoning up the dates, tried to compute speaking happened. Thereupon on of the Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never any among you. Solon in return asked him mind you are all young; there is no old tradition, nor any science which is hoary been, and will be again, many destructions greatest have been brought about by the innumerable other causes. There is a story, Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For unprovoked made an expedition against the city put an end. This power came forth out of Atlantic was navigable, and there was an island you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island and was the way to other islands, and from these opposite continent which surrounded the true of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow a tendency to come up from below; for the most ancient. frost or of summer does not prevent, in lesser numbers. And whatever happened region of which we are informed if there way remarkable, they have all been written. Whereas just when you and other and the other requisites of civilized life, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and education; and so you have to begin

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Cut up of an original text, Timaeus, by Plato

At Blue Bonnets Racetrack, Montreal (One)

A Sunday at Blue Bonnets racetrack here in Montreal was always fun. Even for someone like myself, with little interest in gambling or betting on the horses, it was fun. A table at the Centaur Restaurant, the breakfast buffet, being with CZ and our friends, Patrick and Linda, watching the races and planning which horse we'd bet on next; studying the race forms, how many races won, how many lost, how much money made for the owner. Then excitement of winning $50.00 and then losing $25.00. Going home ahead. Friends winning $500.00! And just people watching--and being with people that are different from my usual life--watching through my binoculars the horses and then walking around the other areas of the track, taking photographs, more people watching, and being out on a Sunday afternoon when there was nothing else to do and the track only a few miles from where we live, the famous (for us) Blue Bonnets which the government bought and renamed Le Hippodrome de Montreal, and equivocated on its future and considered a future off-island location before closing the place down. Blue Bonnets, an enormous building and usually less than half empty, and eventually a combination of changing demographics and the government running the track has lead to its recent closing. What a piece of real estate they're sitting on! And the fact that most people aren't interested in going to the track anymore, not here in Montreal, not when you have the casino, Loto tickets, and online gambling. Remember when the only lottery was the Irish Sweepstakes? It was a simpler life then. You can't reinvent the complexity of a track culture, you can't reinvent this again when it's gone; we all lose as the diversity of life is reduced. When it's gone, it's gone for good. In just about every way, diversity and complexity make life a lot more interesting.