Honourable Mention - Best Country Album

An Outsider's Heart was voted "Honourable Mention - Best Country Album" in the Ottawa Xpress Magazine 2008 Reader's Poll. Thank-you Ottawa!

June 1

Cards

...I tell you the green olives made me go hungry. But my hunger is not up to you...

June 2

Museum

...The poor old pecan tree was in rough shape. It couldn’t have grown a pecan if it wanted to...

June 3

Distant

...Quietly reminding me, without knowing you are saying anything...

June 4

Stoop

...Small planes used to fly over the potato and cabbage fields...

June 5

Ticking

...He told himself it was “art nouveau” to make himself feel better about his treachery...

June 6

Across

...Someone says they’d run a coffee shop and bake all the muffins they sell...

June 7

Mindless

...One of them spent two summers as a factory worker...

June 8

Bars

...The jailor dragged me back inside. I did some kicking and screaming as he scraped me down the cobblestone corridors...

June 9

New Cold

...It aint a list of the reasons why we first loved each other...

June 10

Mars

Then I notice the cards you gave me

June 11

Window

...The veranda prevented any light from reaching the first five feet wide of earth...

June 12

Pro

...He produced a little tackle box and started an impromptu show n’ tell...

June 13

Ice

...I was simply there by myself. I was free. Or was I?...

June 14

Over

...Noone was thinking about her the week before...

June 15

Disappointed

...And that some common dandelions would grow...

June 16

Crumbs

...It was another one of her “sunny side up” statements...

June 17

Vanished

...I see you staring off into the distance silently...

June 18

Slice

...With red sugar gel lettering on top...

June 19

Haven

...And near brushes with irreversible disaster...

June 20

Written

...Possibly even thinking of me, on my birthday...

June 21

Choir

...I found a variety of snake oil and self-appointed shawmen...

June 22

Social

...Surrounded by fences covered in ivy...

June 23

Level

...I wasn’t all wrong about you...

June 24

Away

...It’s welcome sign is weathered...

June 25

Lists

...All of these motionless tasks were your path...

June 26

Occasional

...its flickering made it impossible to focus my eyes on...

June 27

Downstairs

...A colour print out of David Bowie is on the bulletin board...

June 28

Next

...There are condors out there...

June 29

Library

...Because they were only things, “other people did.”...

June 30

Stillness

...I had cut corners in terms of “wait times.”...

Chew Fast

...Forget walking by your door. That’s not nearly as upsetting as tasting the taste of seven years ago. I don’t think they’ve even changed the recipe...

Many Bills

...We fought back against, skeptics and fatigue. Feeling oppressed. Pushed back the impossible onto it’s heels and made it take notice of us. Even for a short time. It didn't split us in to. Nearly did. I shake my head...

Confessions

...Well, if you think of how a person has to feel about another person for them to want to tell them the very secrets of their soul. If you think of it like that...

Confessions

...Well, if you think of how a person has to feel about another person for them to want to tell them the very secrets of their soul. If you think of it like that...

Fires In Fields

...The air began to smell with the most beautiful fragrance. All of the ladies of France would throw their crystal vials off of their dressers into the cobblestone streets and yell, “We’ve been robbed”, if they could smell all of the apples of long ago...

Or Go Hungry

...Run over this bridge with me. The bridge I’ve walked alone. Thinking of another love. While you sat with another love in real life. Forget those miseries. Those crow bars prying open the door to our sacred love...

Creaking

...Creaseless young faces. We used to look at them as we kissed against the wall. They are all gone now. To research bacteria in test tubes. To pursue folk rock careers in Winnipeg. To wear the occasional tie and sit in a carpeted cubicle...

Kitchen Counter

...Can I greet you with the branches of a 1000 year old tree. Lashed by a hurricane as it watched all of the other tress around it fall?...

Morge Make Up

...“I really like the Oil of Olay Daily Best cream. But I can’t afford it. So I was thinking of trying a cheaper one.” “Well just try this dear. Do you like samples? This one protects from uv rays.”...

Idling

...The old man probably isn’t thinking about all the jobs he’s had in his life. All the hours of his life he sold to construction companies who needed drywall put up. All if the neighbours who offered him $50.00 to fix their backed up toilets...

Reading Aloud

..."Thank you to Elizabeth and the other program officers who finance my operation. I view myself as a Sheppard of Canadian content.” Crunch. Man, those Ms. Vicki’s chips were sounding good...

Line Up

...“Well people who go to counseling for years miss the point a bit.” “What’s the point?” “To sort out a specific problem and get on with it.” “Oh.”...

Occasional Lace

...I stand in the Bay on stained department store carpet that’s been walked on by 25 years of women buying themselves a bra to help them with their “grieving process” with one man or the other...

Glimpses

...They told me this joke last time I saw them. I had hoped there wouldn’t be a next time. But since the person I love disappears for weeks on end - ...

Ruins

...Wondering how many of the doves that came to rest in my hand were actually real. And how many were just the rushes of air from my lungs on my hands as I sighed laments composed of one silent note...

Lessons Learned

...What could be worse? I didn’t even get a taste of your mouth. But yet I have to deal with awkward silences and “Are we there yets?” racing in my mind faster than dinky cars down the railing of a childhood staircase...

Sound Bytes

...I hug your back as you sit on the bar stool. Your back is hot. Someone's tale of making it big in the music business has kept you waiting so long that you’re half asleep...

Clearing

...When we were walking back to the house, suddenly I looked ahead and saw you walking in front of me. Your body was laughing. He had lifted off of you. A shadow banished by Natives who are skilled at ridding people and rooms of evil spirits. You were there alone. Suddenly naked and free. Though fully clothed. I didn’t mention it because I thought I might seem weird...