Poems

A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General

His Grace! impossible! what dead!

Of old age too, and in his bed!

And could that mighty warrior fall?

Heaven

Heaven   

           is just a garden, really. 

A plot of land where you might reach down 

From: Incantation: Memory of Water

Tonight, a strand of my great-grandmother’s hair

sashes an amber beer bottle discarded by a tourist.

A white thread of my grandmother’s baptismal robe

is a bangle on a wrist of kelp

Crossing the Bar

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

Civility

Civility–died on June 24, 2009, at the

age of 68. Murdered by a stroke whose

paintings were recently featured in a

Editing the Prairie

Well, it’s too long for one thing

and very repetitive.

Remove half the fields.

Then there are far too many fences

interrupting the narrative flow.

Get some cattlemen to cut down those fences.

Chicago

Hog Butcher for the World,

Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

Player with Railroads and…

Let’s Not Get It Together

The world has become corrupted

from our hearts

to the way our gods love us

as if they know they’re already dying

and they’re determined to drag us down with them

You Are Not Going to Come Trillium

But I do come to Trillium. To the Cardiac
Short Stay Unit where you’ve been sent for the second stent, 
where free sanitizer prevents the spread of panic.

I Feel the Sun

Down a long, long corridor 

I keep walking… 

—A window straight ahead so bright it hurts the eyes, 

The Dark Stag

A startled stag, the blue-grey Night,

Leaps down beyond black pines.

Behind — a length of yellow light —

Miniver Cheevy

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,

Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;

He wept that he was ever born,

forgiving my father

it is friday. we have come

to the paying of the bills.

all week you have stood in my dreams

like a ghost, asking for more time

but today is payday, payday old man;

my mother’s hand opens in her early grave

Image-Nation 21 (territory

wandering to the other, wandering

the spiritual realities, skilled in all

ways of contending, he did not search

The Cold Green Element

At the end of the garden walk

the wind and its satellite wait for me;

their meaning I will not know

Trust Fund Witches

The Day Lady Died

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday

three days after Bastille day, yes

it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine

Sho

Some need some Body

or more to ape sweat

on some site. Bloody

purl or dirty spit

hocked up for to show

who gets eaten. Rig

Body up. Bough bow

to breeze a lazed jig

A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown

A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,

A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness,

Our army foil’d with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating,

The Wound

I.

Leaves, asleep under wind:

a ship for the wound.

The wound

glories in these ruinous times.

Trees growing in our own eyelashes

a lake for the wound.

The wound shows up in bridges

Nocturne for a Moving Train

The trees I’ve glimpsed from the window

of a night train were

the saddest trees.

They seemed about to speak,

then—

Scab Maids on Speed

My first job was when I was about 15. I had met a girl named Hope who became my best

friend. Hope and I were flunking math class so we became speed freaks. This honed our

from Quit Dying to Die

   When the doctors burrowed into my body, they unearthed a slew of tumours. Growths speckled across lungs and kidneys.

An Innocent Little Girl

The little girl is innocent

they’ve put henna on her hands

they’ve plaited her hair beautifully

they’ve put kohl round her eyes

they’ve dyed her eyebrows

Helen

All Greece hates

the still eyes in the white face,

the lustre as of olives

Fear of Snakes

The snake can separate itself

from its shadow, move on ribbons of light,

taste the air, the morning and the evening,

The Chimney Sweeper: When my mother died I was very young

When my mother died I was very young,

And my father sold me while yet my tongue

Could scarcely cry “‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep!”

The Listeners

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

voyage, oh voyage!

voyage, oh voyage!

the final fire that ravages the air

unveils the soil on which

we walk aimlessly

and tirelessly

the hypocrisy of the strong protects us

from home. I prefer leaves

“Alone”

From childhood’s hour I have not been

As others were — I have not seen

As others saw — I could not bring

from Sharking of the Birdcage ["the spirit of"]

                   the spirit of

                 your flowers is

         my favourite shelter

Echolalia

Once one gets what one wants

one no longer wants it.

One no longer wants what?

Eclipse

In every which way, I am living

for potential. I’ve mined cadmium

enough to roulette with Death

and Mars, bloodshot brute,

is swollen in my honour.

My function is action —

to pummel through concrete

First Time Smudge

It takes eight matches, a burnt thumb, and a quick Google search

to light the sweetgrass braid Mom scored for me from an elder

at work. Always use matches, she said. Spirit likes matches. 

To Althea, from Prison

When Love with unconfinèd wings

Hovers within my Gates,

And my divine Althea brings

She Walks in Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Flaxman

We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone,

Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought,

And in the forms of gods and heroes wrought

Confessions

What is he buzzing in my ears?

“Now that I come to die,

Do I view the world as a vale of tears?”

Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes

’Twas on a lofty vase’s side,

Where China’s gayest art had dyed

The azure flowers that blow;