I am exposed

Like a thorn

Jutting from a branch

Strengthened in the elements

Sharpened in the wind

I am a warning

Before the world

Approach at your own risk

This one draws blood

the streets out front
they’re filled with strangers
as the annual gathering begins
it is prairie small town high art
a showcase of community
food and fair ground fun
a contrived chaos
filling main street
from dawn to midnight
shoulder to shoulder
city-dwellers mix
with excited locals
excited to complain
excited to enjoy
just plain excited
and it will end
as fast as it began
we’ll be back to normal
a town that feels abandoned
after 5 pm
a town that feels asleep
just the way we like it
even if we’re won’t admit it.

You are a camera

Observing the world

The blue, the green,

Every person

You’ve ever seen;

You are an audio recorder

Capturing the sounds –

Cars in the distance

A dog barks somewhere

As a jet flies overhead

And a motorcycle

Accelerates

Away from you

In the ever-present

Static of the wind;

You are a sponge

Absorbing the people

That pass through your life

Remember the laughter

Let their crying

Spill over you like water

Until you down in it;

You are a record of influence

Played before am audience

Until the silence of the finale

Sends them all away.

sometimes i seek the quiet
the spaces in my head
that are walled off from the world
hidden rooms of contemplation
that get lost in the noise
that disappear in anxiety

but
they are still there
waiting for me to find them
waiting for me to run in
that i might close the door
and lie upon the floor
to stare at the ceiling
and think
of nothing

these are the rare moments
when i can softly remember
my capacity to carry the weight
grows in the silence

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

It’s been my voice
It’s been my words
That have moved before me
Like a ship’s sharp prow
Slicing through water
Tearing apart the darkness
And sending cowards scurrying –
cockroaches before the light
Running into a field filled with lies
To hide in the winding weeds
Compromising character
Like it hadn’t really existed

Never shut up,
Never back down,
Root out truth
Like the dying in a desert
Digging for a drop of water;
Refuse to carry the weight
Of a world dressed in falsehood
Strip it bare, strip it bare
Whatever it takes.

Purple is the crown

That rests on royalty

Like amethyst atop

Or orchids rising in the sun

Demure and drawing the eye

Of every silent passerby

It is a magenta star

Stealing across the sky

Suiting a select few,

A breathtaking beautiful view.

Privacy is overrated

I live my life

Naked and bruised

Bleeding on everyone

But

It becomes a problem

When I tear the clothes off others

And parade them before the world;

My shame is my own

To hang on the line

Like so much laundry

Drying in the sun

For all to see.

It should be enough.

I knew a guy,

Talking to him,

It was like

Walking through a minefield –

One wrong move

– BOOM –

One wrong word

He would explode

“Why would you step there!!”

As if others planted the explosives;

He was a landscape destroyed,

Wrecked by his own devices.

Abandoned.

People stopped walking there,

Until he became the trenches of WW1

Haunted and forgotten.

One can be surrounded
And completely alone

Or

One can be alone
And overcrowded

But

If I’m to be alone
I’m glad it’s with you