STOP

The sign on the corner,

It shouts at me as I look;

FUCK YOU,

I shout back;

But it never answers,

It just sits there silently judging.

Stupid-ass sign…

And no,

This says nothing about me,

I’m fine,

It’s perfectly normal to argue

With arrogant, inanimate objects;

It’s all about that self-righteous prick,

That bastard of a sign on the corner.

Do you find yourself awake

Sailing the seas of night

Wondering at the choices

That led you to this barren place

Where no matter the length of your rope

You cannot sound the cold depths

So you just drift and drift and drift

Until an absent sun

Makes it’s long overdue return

My column in this week’s Winkler Morden Voice and Altona Rhineland Voice newspapers.

I want

C o n t i n u i t y

I want

To stream consciousness

Through sleep and while awake

Through life and death

I want to know

I am the same today as yesterday

Even through inevitable change

I want to watch the leaves

As they shiver in the wind

And to look at grey bark

Knowing how it would feel

Beneath a winter’s pale sun

Without ever touching it

That the switch gets turned off

And these things just stop…

This is unfathomable.

We remember every fist

Raised against those who stole power

Every voice raised in song

Giving word to the wordless

We remember Gramsci

And the fighters against fascism

Who lit the way with the fires,

Fires that burned down

The castles of oppressors

We remember so we might carry on

For those yet to come…

Head is on a swivel

Looking long and around

This world, this heart, this me

It is so much better

Than I thought I would see

Yet something has been removed;

It’s like that spot in my vision

From the occipital lobe “incident”

It used to be so obvious, this flaw

Now i strain to find it, which shows

We work hard to ignore brokenness

Until it’s like it never was

Because it’s tough to detect an absence

Instead we fill in the empty space

With what we think should be there

With what we want in this place.

I’ve fallen into a lot of holes

And been pushed into a few

But I’ve climbed out

Of every single one

No matter the rain

That pours over the side

No matter the depth

I’ve climbed out

But you grow claws

And your skin gets thick

Until you are not the person

You started out as

You are what people warn against

And you learn to see in the dark

In some things you

In some things me

But in this – we

It makes the difference

When you know

Which is which

To act apart

Or stich within stich

Today, Today, Today

I drove the cold prairie

Beneath a sky snow grey

Today I saw am eagle

Perched high in the bare branches

Watching, waiting, wishing

Today I saw a wolf

Gnawing bone by the road

Wild and Winter-furred

Today i saw vast plowed fields

Ready for rest until spring

Today I saw my daughter

Now fully formed and fierce

Today I spoke to my son

As he seeks truth in the past

Today i felt the endless sad

Deep inside myself

As the sun fell in fire

To the western earth

Today i saw my love

And it lifted me within

Today, Today, Today

Is over for the moment

But it will return again –

Tomorrow