Poems

sturgeon

i twist and gasp

open and close my mouth

searching for air

whenever a sturgeon is caught in the rainy river

i know

the feel of strange hands touching my body

the struggle

to be free

To the Ladies

Wife and servant are the same,

But only differ in the name:

For when that fatal knot is tied,

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

Saskatchewan Indians Were Dancing

60s pulled us from starvation into government jobs

antiquated Indians in Saskatchewan danced for rain

Manitoba Indian doings were hidden for a jealous

Rejected Text for a Tourist Brochure

“I saw my land in the morning

and O but she was fair”

- M.G. Smith, “Jamaica” (1938)

I

Come see my land

Come see my land

The Listeners

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses

Sorting through Documents at Dawn

three crosses appear

on the tv screen

following a

sweep of my hair

that felt like your hand

maybe i dreamt it

but i so badly

Not Horses

What I adore is not horses, with their modern

domestic life span of 25 years. What I adore

is a bug that lives only one day, especially if

it’s a terrible day, a day of train derailment or

CV

A ruthless catalog of sorrows:

years in front of the screen, diplomas before jobs,

and languages—all that torture—now ranged under Languages.

Where are all the wasted days? And the nights

But I’m No One

for M. Maylor

Dear Anne Carson:

My friend read me the poem where your mom

said that the dead walk backwards.

You thought this myth arose from poor translation.

mcPemmican ^TM1

first you get the grease from canola buffalo

then you find mystery meat

you must package this in

Love poem

The woman I love

braids her hair. She’s Eve

and Eve means breathe, to give life,

my wife, from Eva by way

of the Hebrew havah. At dusk

I unlock her hair

With the Dying of the Light

I recited to him,

                      Now as I was young and easy,

and in the cough-afflicted wheeze that was left of my father’s voice,

Exculpatory Lilies

Good Friday, the day they delivered

that sad bouquet, was the day our cat

ran out on the road and failed to look

both ways. I’d stashed the candy eggs

under the sink, in their pink raffia nests,

Before the Birth of One of Her Children

All things within this fading world hath end,

Adversity doth still our joyes attend;

No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,

TREATY 8

queen of great britain and ireland, by her commissioners the

honourable david laird, of winnipeg, manitoba, indian com

from Quit Dying to Die

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

A Hymn to God the Father

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,

Which was my sin, though it were done before?

Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,

Lord of My Heart’s Elation

Lord of my heart’s elation,

Spirit of things unseen,

Be thou my aspiration

Rondeau

Jenny kissed me when we met,

Jumping from the chair she sat in;

Time, you thief, who love to get

Chicago

Hog Butcher for the World,

Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

Player with Railroads and…

Fire Watch

Hello, listen, I’m on a field phone, do not speak until I say “over.”

Repeat, don’t talk until I say “over.” Over. Do you understand,

Unspeakable Acts in Cars

It’s the first day of summer and we’re so happy

To see the sun and the satchel of colours it schleps

All those dark kilometres. The sky is so blue

And the sea is blue and the small islands in the sea

The Colonel

WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD is true. I was in his house. His wife carried

a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went   

out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the

The House on the Hill

They are all gone away,

The House is shut and still,

There is nothing more to say.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

On High

There was busy air there, air

seething through the leaves so,

from farther up, the tree-line shone

like a single scintillating polyhedron.

Still, though ravens and wrens flaked off the top,

La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

To an Athlete Dying Young

The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering by,

All About My Grandmother

Wheat daughter, prisoner of sneaky pigweed, mother

to the five corners of the world and your three hectares,

beak-nosed carpenter’s wife and the potter’s lover,

Fear of Snakes

The snake can separate itself

from its shadow, move on ribbons of light,

taste the air, the morning and the evening,

Last Visit

Now I set out across a minefield,

space having taken all I owned, I’m starting over

from a point where every pebble may explode

beneath my shoe and the flowers blaze up

behind my body as I gasp for air,

Application Form

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Use only permanent blue or black ink.

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please explain.

We Have No Need For Scientists

We have no need

for scientists to

tell us things

we already

know

like the

sea is

rising

and the

water is

getting warm.

Not Waving But Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought 

Invitation to Love

Come when the nights are bright with stars

Or when the moon is mellow;

Come when the sun his golden bars

Drops on the hay-field yellow.

Come in the twilight soft and gray,

January, 1795

Pavement slipp’ry, people sneezing,

Lords in ermine, beggars freezing;

Titled gluttons dainties carving,

The Young Sun’s Greeting

The young sun’s greeting

On my bed, your letter’s glow

All the sounds that burst from morning

Blackbirds’ brassy calls, jingle of gonoleks

Your smile on the grass, on the radiant dew.

Spacetime

We Twitter, Tinder, Tumblr through eternity. Loquacious

text messages flit from fingertips, waves of data spill

through our skulls. Every cm² of oxygen overflowing

Claim Laid

This is a prayer for the dead and dying - 

and those that may never know a life on the outside

I hope your sins don’t meet you at your grave -