Flock

No difference between me and the blade-faced, ash-eyed working girls, except the side of the striped canvas from which we try to snare attention, solicit ooohs, aaahs.

Between shows, I slouch out of the crowd, watch the flock of grackles in tattered taffeta scratch and squawk behind the tents. They smear lips red, sip from small, stoppered bottles. Spit at their sisters, then pinch roses into one another’s cheeks.

They whistle to me and I raise one hand to my waist, half-open the palm in a wave.

Plump one means me to hear when she says: I’d like to take his measurements, and I don’t mean the inseam. Elbows her friend. Just north.

Plenty of room inside those trousers for all of us, honey, says another.

I turn my face, as if away from a campfire. Let wind cool my flushed cheeks, my smile.

March 5: St. Ciaran of Saighir

Foxy fox on the chain gang. Ginger fox.
Wolf whistles with the whip.
Badger badgers.
Only fox the jealousy of the underfoot.
Fox carries wood between her jaws,
builds the monastery and gets no credit
'cept this slinky rage. This fit
of underhanded pique. This is what
we write her down about.

But three ill-gotten shoes
is a magic number
and desire is punishable by death.

The first shoe found in the stream where she'd been
admiring herself. Some say it was the shoe of power.
In her cave she rested her head on the shoe,
on its fickle leather. She licked and stroked it and
looked on it with unforgivable anguish and love.

Then a collar. And an axe. And becoming wood-bearer.
And the two shoes imposing on her downturned sight
and kicking in her small kidneys.

When they came for her, they came to her den,
the wolf and badger were afraid and carried
amulets made from the gnashing of her ancestors.
They stuffed her tail down her throat and nailed the shoes to her paws,
carried her to the monk with the cold eyes,
oh he could look at a fox and make her wish she was dead.
He put a spell on her using the bones of her comrades
(the wolf and the fox expendable in the pursuit of a penitent)
and made her to roll over and pray.
She repented and returned the shoes
bloody and unhinged
and picked up wood.

Seasonal Orchestra

No conga line of perennials and songbirds
more a slow waltz in 6/8. Sometimes
the music fades, the score wanders.

Notation of hard buds, closed brown and grey
in one movement guitar riff to green.
A wan and diluted sun

conducts butterflies out for weeks:
spring's suicide-bombers, hoping
in vain for flowers.

Flourished finish:
an arpeggio of
swallows.

(And lingering after, violin
whine: the first
mosquito.)

SPANISH RIVER LUMBER COMPANY

Grand Trunk talk says it's the land of a thousand
lakes. Rapids and falls. An old fur trader

peddling his wares on an empty cabin’s stoop.
The last 16 acres of unspoiled forest and there’s nothing

virgin about the wilderness in the tales told
over a bottle of whiskey, his toothless

grin before he poses for a photograph
beaver skins held in his hands,

those hard-bitten slabs, dark like wet granite,
his shabby coat and too short pants —

One man’s isolation advertised
as he smiles for the camera, this golden nugget

found in a northern Eden, the Canadian lumber yard
where I’ll spend the next two climates of life

knee deep in 160 miles of water and trees,
my arms paddling for days, my boat

nosing trout, smallmouthed bass, and the daily
stops, flyfishing for a meal. An old logging dam

spills the shore with signs I paint—
rocks, severed logs, water lapping,

and one overturned canoe.

How to Celebrate Mother’s Day, part two

1.
The time I fell off my bike at 6 and skinned my neck and chin raw on the sidewalk. And she held me as close as she could until I fell asleep.

2.
At 19, I taught myself to skate again, doing laps at a local rink. And I was slowly skating backwards, hip checking all the miles I’d done on pavement, when I nearly toppled. Righting myself, breathing hard, I turned around and saw her, standing with her elbows on the boards. And she was smiling. Not because I’d fallen; this wasn’t a pratfall guffaw. No, it was pride. And I’ll REMEMBER that grin until the day I die.

3.
Because she worked full-time and raised three kids and kept house because ALL of that was somehow her responsibility. That her resentment was a nasty dog she kept leashed, most of the time.

4.
That she put up with the bulk-bin peanut brittle. Oh, wait, first we burnt toast for her...

5.
When she let us raid our uncle’s stash of old Playboys at the cabin, curious about all the naked women. And didn’t say a damn thing, just put the magazines back in the cupboard when we were done.

6.
That she didn’t just get up and leave when all THREE of us spilled our milk during a single meal. Any number of times during our long adolescence.

7.
Because she sang You Are My Sunshine while she wiggled the loose tooth in my jaw, my head in her lap. She sang it like sunshine, like sugar, like love, put into words.

Attila triomphe

Contre toute attente

la tulipe hâtive casse croûte de neige

pour saluer les passants

de la rue McMillan.

                En retour, eux,

trouvent espoir.

Spider dreams

This one's in black and white.

Man, bald like a cartoon villain,

his laugh low and humorless:

I am the spider.

This one is muted brown and green.

The bush behind the neighbor's field,

derelict van with rear doors open,

spiders pouring out the driver's window.

This one's full color, real life.

Hairless seed of a body suspended

from legs like jointed threads.

I watch its progress through the grass,

unwilling to kill it

(those grey guts smeared

on my shoe), still less to feel

that filament of a leg

on my wrist.

How to Celebrate Mother’s Day

“Warning #2. Don't bring up past issues. She may have been into drugs when you were a kid, and forgot you at school a lot, but don't talk about that today. Try to focus on the better times, when she supported one of your decisions, or when she did something silly and made everyone laugh.” – How to Celebrate Mother’s Day, wikiHow.

1.
Leave the house RIGHT now.

2.
In the name of home economics, efficiency, and Rorschach-like splatter, set off a small bomb in the kitchen at 8 am.

3.
Spray paint a loving tribute on a nearby bridge the night before. Go for a drive after dinner and see that the liquor made you write “I wuv you Momo.”

You’ll find that a brutal you-ee will stifle her contemptuous snorts.

4.
You’ve heard of vodka-infused watermelons? Get out the turkey baster and get…creative.

5.
Seriously. Don’t come home until DARK.

6.
You've been giving your father Seven Eleven-grade plasticized porn and your mother bulk-bin peanut brittle for every major holiday since you were four...why stop now?

7.
Enlist your twitter minions to call your mother every minute the ENTIRE 24 hours of mother’s day.

8.
Black roses.

Breaking

1.
Square his huge world
with rough wood, pen in even the sky.

Let him tire of thrashing,
give up sniffing for freedom.
In a day, he’ll forget the luxury
of untangling legs.

If needed, choke his will.


2.
Approach from the front
with hushed promises:
a lifetime of feed.

Whisper I’m your only friend.

Watch trust bud, flower,
let him sidle to your touch.


3.
Hide intentions in your left hand,
low, holstered along the thigh.
With your right, smooth away his wariness.

Ready the hackamore silently,
below his line of vision,
reassure -- low tones, always -- natural,
for the best, then buckle it quick.


4.
Let his dignity starve at the post,
spirit snuffed before he knows he’s tied.


5.
Saddle him with your ambition, his destiny.
Dig in your spurs until he bleeds.

flooded, iii

in the morning he stands on a mound of clay

looking over fields that will soon be swallowed up

by rivers that run through this prairie, his.

the seeds should already  be in the soil

sprouting hope

giving vision to mid-summer sheaths of gold

from the kitchen window she watches him, worried

about the man on the radio

(spouting dread with a smile in his voice!)

and the outcome of tomorrow's elections,

and with two boys still at home

she prays to the man in charge for mercy

when he returns she will pour him a cuppa

comfort the weathered lines on his worried face

tell him it will all be okay, make

love to him into the night

her spirit silently flooding with the pitter-patter of

rain that keeps falling outside their bedroom window.

fall

big men, I mean really big men,

the kind whose muscles wrap

their torsos like two-foot thick vines,

are falling, falling, heavy into the swamp,

it is a terrible thing to hear the first crack,

the tear, the roots snap from the earth,

the listing, the leaning of the massive trunk,

then hit of hard land, the man cracks,

branches pulled back, tattoo'd arms splayed.

Mother's Day, Gray

8 a.m. silent the stairs
cloud filtered light
through windowpanes
there comes a day
when all you get is calls
maybe an email,
a greeting card pinking
(in the bills)

always a mother but
retired from active duty
or grandmothered
to a new role
pleasing but distant
(like spring, or summer)

birds chip, whistle, call
bragging of a nestful

click the kettle for tea
happy mother's day, me

I just happened to be first up and it made me think of the future. I had a really nice day, for the record. Well, mostly really nice. There were a few moments. Funny qotd: "I don't see why we should honour women for reproducing. I'm only 13 but what if I wanted a present today too? See! Mother's Day should be discouraged!"

Prairie Winters are the Longest Winters

Edmonton smokers are the toughest bitches,
James Dean shadows along government brick
taking what they can get, giving nothing more,
cutting -40 with their sharp exhales.
Fuck you, global warming, we’ve got data to input.
Stacey brought Timbits & the Oilers
got a decent pick this year.
The Coliseum has new turf and the Grey Cup
should be ours this year. We’re Festival City.
We got class. We’re gonna be all right.

untitled

In Scotland, sea-side villages
full of fishermen and miserable seal-brides.
Here, were-ducks snooze
in insurance office gardens where once
there were gardeners trimming hedges
picking up
all the coffee-break butts.

In South Korea, entire days yellowed
by sand lifted from the Gobi by wind and wind and wind
and wind and dropped
on millions. Here, buses blow by,
creating curb-side simoons,
gritty instants.

In Brazil, exotics destined
for cages and corners of living rooms.
Here, rusted wrought iron full of bird
and then empty, each one a perfect mimic
of treed plastic bags
insistent ringtones
and smouldering dumpsters.

* * *

This is such a uncooperative fragment. But it's all I wrote this week. So it'll have to do...

siberian squill

unaware of the state of emergency up above

purple flowers poke their heads through the sodden prairie soil 

just because

Email your attachment

Doubts, they swing open
a door
into a room
with no
walls. They are never
entertaining.

I fall asleep knowing I have
failed my parents.

I write poetry.

In the morning, truth still
matters. So does the sun. I think of
a title: "A Hard Rock To Swallow".

The phone rings. It's you.

A door shuts.

The main difference between a poet and a madman is













.

Lasso

Twist rope into a jaw
(large enough to swallow
the calf whole, horns first).
Hemp tail limp in your left hand.

Wrist bones knitted into a honda knot,
pulse with each precise turn.
Your arm the axel, lariat the kicking wheel
of an overturned cart.

Hoop of rope level, steadily catching
lip of wind, whip-whistling,
lashing like an aspen’s arm.

You throw a hawk.
Watch it soar, snatch its prey,
squeeze.

Walking the dog

What a day--surprised a crane in a sudden clearcut
takeoff fast, not a speck ungainly.
Vole-holes and inhale juniper,
brand new long-haired dog, happy
the way only dogs can be happy with their noses buried in underbrush following the breeze
into the trees, like birdwatchers, novice spring
forest-walkers, tempted so often off path.
Ticks in the upholstery for weeks.
Tail thumping as we tweezed them each.
Happier than me running
fingers through my hair.
But no parasites go to dog heaven.
Scatter her ashes in the boreal forest,
off mossed and faint path,
tuck our pants into our socks,
and wag our tails.

The Impossibility of Fireflies

She wants to believe
in the impossibility of fireflies,
their existence a rumour
perpetuated by friends from the East
and their poetry and songs.

Briefly, she confuses them with bees
and their ridiculous honey, then remembers.

Syrup, she’s been told, comes from trees,
but she’s sucked the sap off palms
after days spent amongst pine and sagebrush
and wonders why the world
continues to lie to her. She concludes
it may as well come from fireflies
or their cousins, the fairies.

She know roads have been diverted
to appease the elves. She can’t think
of anything that could appease her.

Breath

Our baby's breath is small and white, and it smells like milk.
I used to lie, senses open, in the path
of your heavy sleep, watching your giant mouth hang slightly open,
your girlish lashes flutter tinily. Your breath
smelled of beer and Mexican food,
your skin like chiles and sweat.
It was hot. We were broke.

Her breath is sedative, a hot toddy.
It might as well sound like warm rain, the kind I wake to wondering
why did I sleep in? Because the rain is still resting its grey sleep down.
A rare mid morning, and on her face, your ample mouth puckers.
Your eyelashes on her eyes. Twitch-crack--and

up.