Poems

Wild Strawberries

I'll tell you how it was, what she remembers:

the scent of rhubarb and strawberries in the wild

where she hid and the cries of the murdered,

they do not want to die away. If possible,

Ah! Why, Because the Dazzling Sun

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun

Restored my earth to joy

Have you departed, every one,

Great Intimacy

It is like an exquisite spider web, this world, but I

don't get trapped.

I have ceased to tie the strings of one shoe to

another in the morning,

In Exile I Draw the Tower Card

           Spruce, inadequate, and alien

            I stood at the side of the road

Let Us Be Fireflies

Let Us Be Fireflies

                          All day we

     practice morse code signals

11. Headwinds

When I began to write, I didn’t know

each of my words would bit by bit remove

things from the world and in return leave blank

“Hope” is the thing with feathers—

“Hope” is the thing with feathers — 

That perches in the soul — 

And sings the tune without the words — 

kitchenette building

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

from Exhibits from the American Water Museum

99.

From an original rock painting in Topock, Arizona, now digitized on a

wall-mounted monitor:

Before this city, the Creator pressed his staff

into the earth, and the earth opened—

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

Men in the Gut

Scrape the inside of sleep the belly wall

tasting like yoghurt cooked broccoli

its emptiness leaving something

on the tongue. Escaping the body

that wants to quit from the inside.

Sometimes a Voice (1)

Sometimes a voice — have you heard this? —

wants not to be voice any longer, wants something

whispering between the words, some

it’s rank, it cranks you up

it’s rank it cranks you up

crash you’re fracked you suck

shucks you’re wack you be

all you cracked up to be

dead on arrival

overdosed on whatever

excess of hate and love

Money

Coin Exhibit, British Museum.

Their misshapenness strikes the table in tiny splashes,

like still-cooling splatters of silver. Stater and shekel,

From Verso 4

I was nine and I stood at the top of the street for no reason except to make the descent of the gentle incline toward my house where I lived with everyone and everything in the world, my sisters and my cousins were with me, we had our bookbags…

Homage to the Mineral of the Onion (I)

In the onion, there’s

something of fire. That fire known as

Fog. The onion is the way

Badlands

Your father worked Drumheller while you ate and slept at home. 

He travelled the badlands, squatted below rocks, read books 

Helen

All Greece hates

the still eyes in the white face,

the lustre as of olives

Song

Go, lovely rose!

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows,

39

Oliver Sacks is going to die,

He tells us blithely in the New York Times.

He’s 81. His liver’s shot.

He’s blind in one eye

Though when both worked fine

Please Write a Poetry Book in Syllabics¹

i want to complicate the term sacred, she told me

to make holy

sacerdotal: priestly

sākris: to make a treaty

London

I

some towers are made of cladding

some made of ivory

some burn in the night

some built by slaves

wind rushes through coarse hair

When I consider how my light is spent

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide

Hail

Hello from inside

the albatross

with a windproof lighter

They are hostile nations

1

In view of the fading animals

the proliferation of sewers and fears   

area boys

brash talk on sidewalk

brethren to irreverence

short teeth long stories

~

aspirations high

rolling tape decks tweeters six

by nine speakers deep

America (I’m Putting My Queer Shoulder to the Wheel)

The night America took off her mask

we slept together poorly. I'd woken up early

that Tuesday, dragged myself to a gymnasium

in Jersey City to cast my vote into the void.

The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Thou Poem

Thou poem of lost attention and half try,

do you fear more the inner world or outer?

I do…

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. 

Wolf Lake

It was down that road he brought me, still

in the trunk of his car. I won’t say it felt right,

but it did feel expected. The way you…

mcPemmican ^TM1

first you get the grease from canola buffalo

then you find mystery meat

you must package this in

Famous

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,

which knew it would inherit the earth

before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds

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,

Up-Hill

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?

Yes, to the very end.

Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?

A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

Garbage Box with Black Loons

My father's speech was slurred most of my childhood — but it's a rite

of passage for many Maritime Canadians

'cause I heard from a friend of a friend that linguists say our accent

They Flee From Me

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.

I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,

A Thin Plea

(Falteringly)

Our national bird ­– for years – was – as A M Klein said –

the rocking chair

I don’t know what our national bird is now – but my totem bird is