I’m inspired by Nanaimo artist Dale Schultz who takes daily walks with his dog Indy. Dale posts photos on facebook of what he sees along the way: an abandoned couch, close-up details of a brick wall, a fallen leaf on pavement. Lately, while taking walks in Victoria during the week, I’ve been taking photos too.

The new shoe caught my eye hanging on a pole on Oak Bay Avenue. It still has the price sticker on it. Did it fall out of someone’s shopping bag? Now that it’s Labour Day, is too late to wear white shoes? What is the title of this story?

The white bowl made an unexpected appearance on top of a brick garden wall.

The cards were strewn across an intersection. Fort Street and Stanley I think it was. I stopped to take photos and wonder if someone was watching. Maybe they were creating a film of reactions to these scary “Deckmaster” cards. I actually picked one up to take with me and it was Claustrophobia. There’s a frightening image on it of someone buried alive.

We usually draw cards to us that reflect what’s going on for us at the time and although I didn’t feel buried alive at the time, I did feel somewhat claustrophobic during my first week at Vancouver Island Lodge – away from home, my usual routine, my friends, partner and cats.

Walking further along Fort Street near Cook, I visited Chronicles in Crime. It’s a used bookstore full of crime fiction, detective novels and several Patricia Highsmith novels, not easy to find. A few doors down I stopped into Sally Bun and had a cup of tea in their back garden. That was a totally unexpected little oasis in the midst of the busyness of Fort Street.

Besides these photos, I’ve been collecting “found poems” for a collection of poems I’m calling “Lost and Found.” Here’s an example:

Lost: Cat Named Floyd

White, black and brown, part tabby.
No collar.
Last seen June 19, could be anywhere
on the island by now,
very shy, please call 247- – – – –
with information.

Found: Dog Collar

Orange/Red 20”
Taylor Bay beach area.
Text to claim as my phone
has poor reception.
778 – – – – – –

Those were ads in the Gabriola Sounder Classifieds, August 4, 2014

Poems can also be found in the midst of novels. This “found poem” is a description of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, New York, 1911 in The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman (Scribner, 2014).

In deference to their grief,
he turned to photograph a clutter
of personal trinkets, hair ribbons,
purses, love letters, combs, all floating
like debris in the drenched gutters,
scattered over the cement like confetti.
But every object seemed to have a soul
as well, a throbbing heart, a remembrance
of small pleasures and true love.
There would be sixteen engagement
rings found on the pavement by morning.

I like creating poems with found words from magazines. Here are a couple of examples:

I rather like this horoscope for Cancer, my sign, which seems to fit in with this collection of found things:

HOROSCOPE
by Holiday Mathis

CANCER (June 22-July 22)

Think of your thoughts as a kind
of worship, and every time you think
of something, you are paying a kind
of homage to that thing.