the sky is full of Alberta
that stalwart cloak of green
that DEW line shielding the eastern provinces from the
aerial assault of off-gassed methane
igniting in one long curving line and taking with it our
hopes for a safe and happy summer
as the sweetgrass dreams of grassy inland oceans
are buried by the silty ruins of the last great extinction
Canadian
privilege
is
being
able
to
reflect
on
North
American
culture
as
if
you’re
English
(2023)
I wrote this on a day when market forces want me to say “Happy Mothers Day.” Being a contrary such and such, let me be the first to wish you a Happy Choosing-not-to-be-a-mother-if-motherhood-wasn’t-what-I-wanted Day. If you need to mother someone, it helps if you start with yourself.
they
said
my
eye
was
red
because
I
had
a
blocked
tear
duct
because
I
hadn’t
cried
enough
lately
and
I
said
how
the
fuck
is
that
possible?
(2023)
This poem is part of an ongoing dialog with identity and self-knowing. I’ve been buying a lot of new Canadian poetry at independent book fairs and am struck by its precision. A descriptive poetry, emotional but not instructive the way I find a lot of modern poetry can be. The poetry I like the best says “here we are, you and I, and this is what that’s like for me.” And the “you and I” can be anyone: you and everyone, you and no one, you and the world, you and yourself.
You maybe don’t have to love yourself. You can maybe just be satisfied with yourself and that will be enough for now. You don’t have to love toast but you might happily eat it every day. The heart is a muscle and all muscles need training. Even when the heart is metaphor for the locus of all your emotions, it must still be trained. If you want to move mountains, you start with one stone.
It is possible to exercise love for all creation by annihilating the self, but the empty vessel is itself a conceit, an opportunity only afforded in a society of abundance. If we are all Buddhists, who fills our begging bowls? Most of us must wade through the muck of our attachments–to spouses, children, parents, life–but to do this well requires an open, active heart. Brave-heartedness, the will to show love despite the countless reasons not to, will be key to our survival in the coming decades. Shallow, angry thinking cannot save us from our selves. We need more and stronger love.
We need more tears.
they sold the lot on Main St where they never built that high-rise
but good luck building anything in this economy
the air is too hot
the scent of cigarettes boiling off the other passengers
as I wonder what’s the point of poetry
what can we make from words?
what words
still let themselves be made into anything?
I told her I only read poetry
that reading a whole book
takes years
the feelings stacked one atop the next
gravy over cake
no differences between sorrow and a theorized joy beyond the writer’s means
a poem is a mouthful
a minute’s grace
a massacre in millimeters
the barest bruise
a slap in the face
remorseless
starving
true
if only all truths were so easily digested
instead of sticking in your gut
dragging you along with them
to end up inside out
yet in writing poetry
we feel that same laceration
spilling ourselves
spoiling the calm completion of a blank page
for nothing more than one vain moment’s proof
that we existed
(2023)
For A.K.
I still have your tiger
I’m using your name
you damned firecracker
you fool
give me your doomed, your damned
your born to die
I love regardless
headlong
patiently
what we have lost
we cannot know except in the having
a circuit shorted
milk spilt on a
watercolour. this smear
was a garden
this one the house
(2023)
you
do
not
understand
how
hard
i
am
trying
to
just
stay
alive
(2023)
how did we let it happen?
this televised delusion
spectacularized demons who accuse us of their crimes
while they are still committing them
like a schoolyard bully asking
why are you punching yourself?
and we reply politely
offer counter points of view
and they laugh and call us snowflakes
and we let them
let’s go on strike
whenever someone uses a lying word like
snowflake
cuck
those people
those queers
those…aw, but we can’t say that word no more
go on strike
walk off the conversational job
demand better conditions
or walk away
“I don’t owe you my time.”
“You call it an opinion but to me it sounds like hate.”
“We work together. We don’t need to be friends.”
“You’re talking about people I care about.”
“How could you believe that about another human being?”
do not do their labour
don’t scab yourself to their delusions
refuse to negotiate on the definition of your selfhood
or the selfhood of others
their lies have no authority in the court of your self-worth
they are the ones in prison
they have built the walls themselves
and here we are outside
you and I and all of us
together in the garden
loving
free
(23/03/2023)
I originally thought of calling this not-quite-a-poem “You Fuckers Wanna See Some Cancel Culture?” but sometimes short titles are better.
I also acknowledge that many of us live and work in unsafe places and cannot ‘walk away’ without causing ourselves immense harm. It’s perfectly acceptable to strike by simply not dignifying the offending party’s remarks with a response. A blank stare can work wonders when someone’s fishing for a laugh.
His bare red arms crossed over his t-shirt clad chest
the boy wears his parka
hung by its hood from the back of his head
for no force on earth will make him
admit to these two girls that
he is cold
(2019)
I heard they have a plan in America
to replace all the human beings
with self-driving cars with neflix subscriptions
in a landscape of drive-thrus stretching from
sea to sea
the most efficient system ever
to eat their own people alive
“thank god for the river or those people from down south would overrun us”
she said, watching them pull three point turns
in the parking lot of homeland security
that night after we’d blown the rainbow bridge
cruelty has purpose
the violence just is
a live grenade in a hospital lobby
a ship on fire
all hands on deck
“I don’t understand why you’re so unhappy”
he said when I showed him where the swimming pool tiles had cut my face
like I was meant to thank him
that was the day we lost Bruce
what did you expect
a guy like him
getting lost in his own neighbourhood
though all the houses do kind of look the same
a wall of tanks
shedding sparks on the way to put out a fire that isn’t burning
(2023)
come! thou stalwart edge of dawn
and break this calcified intrigue
which day denies
a sightless sigh into the sweating sheets
break, o break the sky
creator
all things you made
unmake
encase me so that I may break as well
dissolve
dissolve
dissolve
dissolve
(2023)
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