Otherwhere

A place with postcards, coffee, overpriced chocolates,
lettered corridors and numbered gates. Uniformed
faces behind desks, ready to scrutinize
the photo that doesn't look like me.

Have I been here before?
I recognize this carpeted tunnel,
low doorway, identical seats
upholstered in blue. I've looked out
through these tablet-shaped windows before.

Outside is a flat white country
with roads scratched on its surface,
patches of tree-growth, rivers
in slow deliberate curves,
all receding beneath us.
We are not there. Our here
is a motion toward
some other where.

Hock Shop

in the reverent hush of capitalism's cemetery
dust and locked cabinets await you

sweetly sing the bells whether you come in
or out, the Judas jingle of coins traded for fear of

going hungry in a time of need, of missing
an opportunity to trade up or pay

rent. I brought my children to visit you
looking not for a deal, more a voyeur's view

of where dreams come to die. jingle dresses
silence themselves in cabinets, horse saddles

sweat themselves free of blanket, stilled by a mare
gone to dog food. this hand-beaded purse

didn't have enough money to stay with its'
owner. she blotted lipstick on one corner

to mark it from all the others. electronics
and gadgets, flat screens and amps. the first

birthday I was with their father, twenty
dollars and a family allowance cheque bought him

a guitar he still plays badly. outlasting us
in fidelity, it stays in tune better than he does, but I

think it misses the hard-luck cowboy
that left it for another. the cash register rattles

open and signals another transaction: this is where
cynics buy second wedding rings.

German tourists get basement-bargained
regalia for knock-off pow-wows.

millefiore 8

what if I told you
what if I told you each
what if I told you each little
what if I told you each little flower
what if I told you each little flower cast
what if I told you each little flower cast glass
was
his
kiss

here
here
here

here.

New machine

Thanks!

millefiore 7

each time, each precious
centre, a little storm
hot, white, fire, burst

à maman

petit-point
beadwork
music
and words;
lines
and flowers
and shapes
and curves.

tiny stitches
tiny flowers
tiny artworks
in the frame
careful threadwork
careful tension
careful framing
j'ai fait la même

The bolts in the hubcap weren't stripped

Thanks!

Lake Manitou (for Andie)

Lake Manitou (Lake of the Gods)

together we float         praying          

for another life   another body                       

one that does not ache

this land reverberates  its skin stretched tightly         

drumbeats echo           when quiet you can hear

the sounds of the buffalo       

and a time when the land still spoke

heavy with salt a medicine wheel waits          on the other side         exiled 

written words have no place here       only prayers     raised hands

            this land respects no map        its shifting its own

the water calls Manitou           Manitou           pulls me closer

to some memory of before    of bones    of ancestors            

            and in behind my eyes I feel

knotted hands hold sticks not stones  burnt sienna skin

its undoing lost in the wind    it sings             Hiya    Hiya    Hiya

there is no sinking here                       only copper water   once sacred

            now the sky outside    cannot touch     our skin         

                        what little I know    of home    of water        

I am here but part of me is always there                     bone to bone

my marrow still sings your songs        recalls your name Manitou   Manitou

millefiore 6

molten violets, new May
the centre of soft,
so soft, clean, brilliance

Paskwa Mostos

mostos ostes pokes her fuzzed
head through dry grass. the prairie
purples with crocuses searching
for their makers - it was said
each bloom represented the birthplace
of a baby bison.

paskwa mostos for a thousand
and a thousand years you kept
the Plains peoples strong and tall
and the government duly noted
the correlation. holocaust
of an ecosysemt, piles of bones

being shovelled into trains, sent eastward
lest your skeletons enrich the dirt, regenerate
your bodies atop the crocus. the plains people
herded and corralled in their prisons
of grass. sometimes I lie
on the ground near an old rubbing rock
and feel the earth singing your
travels, see the dust rising

in the east as you come home
trampling down barbed wire,
grid roads, caragana windbreaks,
grey-slanted outbuildings already tipping
into the dirt, piles of farm bones

ready to be shovelled into trains,
sent eastward to the people
who crushed you into the dust
you once raised in herds more
numbered than the stars, mirrored
in the fastest-flowing of rivers. paskwa mostos

they say you will return. I see
this promise in each star of paskwa ostes,
bison bellybutton, each spring crocus. sunset
and sunrise you are just
over the horizon. my eldest daughter dreamt
you ran over our roof, after standing
on one another's shoulders. sometimes
our walls shake.

Fridays

8:55 Take the boy to school.
9:05 Ride the no. 10 downtown.
9:20 Arrive at the Y, open a locker
in the second aisle, stow backpack and coat.
Say hello.

I know her code by now.

Weird today, isn’t it? Who are all these people?
 Is there a holiday from school? (these chicks make me feel so old!)
I’m sure glad to see you here!
(at least there’s one face I know)

She tells me— voice lowered—
I have to take these pills four times a day,
or I’d die (a solemn nod, blue eyes wide)
I had a seizure and it damaged my brain.

It was so hard when it happened,
she says. I couldn’t go out,
I couldn't find my way home.

She’s in gym clothes. I'm ready for the pool.
You’re such a speed-swimmer,
you and that other guy!
and I've given up trying to change
her mind. I smile, promise to show them
how it's done. I’m glad 

to see her, too.

In courtroom # 8: what won't burn

a bone
this is bone
also bone
also a bone
part of the skull
a bone
bone
bone
a bracelet
in 125 we see this oval shaped item is a carabiner
it had an inscription on it
this is a metal ring
surrounded by remnants
from possibly the contents of a purse
the end of a zipper
powdered makeup tins, my wife has something similar
a bone, bone
piece of a metal chain which is probably jewellery
buttons
some fabric
fabric

her spirit
tears on upturned faces
her spirit, her spirit, her spirit

Stock

     pinch

fresh or dried     seed

with leaves

         enough to cover

you

      discard skin and bones.

               strain the

good hand

everyone loves     strong     

          chickenback

tied in a knot like a pretzel

Source: Whole Foods for the Whole Family

Thanks for your comments. 

I made a few tweaks on this one. 

matted blue

acrid-laced spring

gravel shoulders

            seeds fleeced

            a highway robbery

hope hangs

on season’s lip

            a white shirt pinned

                                    to a wash line

plastic safe-way bags

flap in the breeze

            matted blue

a slipper skips foot loose

            (nothing fancy

                        or free)

bagged white ghosts

            smug sock-puppets

                        wired to dance on

            winter-worn fences

shuffle in ditches  

sun-seeds snapped

or matted in trash

this frost-bitten April

           

            spring hangs her head

Hallway medicine

Thanks!

A Slow Spring

winter throttled hard at her neck, trees still brownly bare in mid-May
but today I sat outside, sun warm at my back like a longaway lover
frugally I ordered the bottled water, but instead paid three
dollars more than the most expensive coffee
I told myself it was surely a magic potion
a homeopathic tincture
an alchemic brew
on reading the label the shapely blue-tinted bottle
was infused with inspiration in four elemental ingredients
which is surely why I'm writing this poem

millefiore 5

hiss gas,
white hot blooms,
selenium, gold,
cranberry glass

Greyhound

snow on the ground in Dryden

i skirt the Wendy’s in my Birkenstocks

trudge to the Extra Foods

aware of my clothes in messy layers 

unwashed hair

bring the clamshell salad back to my seat

opened with a pungent scream: onion

added to the notes of sweat potato chip

morning breath on the stale air

two or three bites in i see my lunch is mouldy

and the bus pulls out

nothing to eat again I take a drag

on a three-days-unwashed tea mug

open another book

Making sheep

Na so, Oma smiles. Her swollen

knuckles enfold an apple, and she

peels the skin, red

and ready. Her twisted fingers

slice the fruit toward her belly,

bleeding juices on her dress.

She lays down spotless

shearlings, Schaefchen –

baby sheep she calls them,

and they follow one after

another, silent

and sound, herding

worrisome thoughts,

sweetening rumination.

(This is an oldie, but I'd love opinions on whether it has enough poetic weight for inclusion in a collection about my grandparents, or whether it's just a sweet personal memory.)

Homestead

The roof sloped, and that was why I felt safe:
it was like a tent made of house. Aunt Belle's
cooking wafting up the narrow staircase, adult
laughter as I read old novels from the 40's, snug
beneath a ragged quilt and sheets worn soft. When
the lights went out, my door swung open with a banshee
moan, and the collie who was a twin for Lassie
slunk across tile, flopped on my feet.
The dog I couldn't get, was my dog while we stayed.
Feet warm, I read until dawn edged the half-moon
window. Trixie the collie slipped out at six
to avoid a scolding, my first late-night liaison
unknown to adults, age seven. This went on forever,
the summer of eternal novels and a harvest never
quite finished, one day as the next except for
the time my brother tarred the neighbour's chickens.
Why we got to stay I don't remember, but ever after
it was my farm when I was accused of being a townie.
The only land still held in our collective families.
Part of me still lives there in that bedroom, untouched
by anything but the true story of Annie Oakley and her gun.
Part of me knows the farmhouse lies empty, boarded windows.
The same part knows Trixie was shot that summer, after growling
at a young cousin who reached for her bowl.
I never forgave the shooter, or the food bowl, or the cousin.
I never forgave the dog who warmed my feet and broke my heart.