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Saturday, February 28, 2015

She is high on our radar, Mr. Harper.

Here is a new demo version of "Every Day She is Gone." Not as emotional this time. Same old story, though: On December 19, 2014, Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, responding to requests for a national inquiry into the disappearance of thousands of women, largely First Nations' women, said, "… it isn't really high on our radar, to be honest."
This song is a response slow in coming. A slow reply. Not a great recording, and probably not a very good song, but something I needed to do. Share if you like.

Monday, February 9, 2015

Remembrance Day

Here is a longish poem from _Even the Weapons_ that speaks to midnight vandals, cowardly Prime Ministers, Canadian Tire, and the planned exploration of Jupiter's moon Europa:
Remembrance Day
i.
But that was last night.
Early in the morning, maybe,
and it’s snowed for hours,
heavy like the first snowfall,
and I am sitting in the courtesy lounge
at the dealership garage.
The television is a box of prehistory
irradiating the plastic room, my walk-in closet
with eight chairs, garbage can, and table
coughing its magazines to the floor.
There are three of us waiting:
one woman is sending her mind
with her thumbs into minds far away;
and a man like an outlaw in the corner,
white ropes from his ears to a box.
He calls someone, speaks like he is
alone in the room; without shame,
he says his name is Mark.
The television now: The Prime Minister
just before his holiday
enters the mass, the band plays
O Canada. “There will be no commentary,”
the announcer says.
ii.
A cellphone bleats with the ring of a sheep
and her thumbs begin. The showroom is murder
with pitch and pinch, a sale and loss,
accusations, and the television
broadcasting its silence beneath their faces,
the oldest living soldiers.
Cannon fire begins and ends
in silence, a moment’s peace
in the pockets of war.
I run in out of space, weight
dragging on too much self.
Summer holds the door
open for winter to pass.
We practice for war
and pray to war
and take our war
anywhere we find it.
The cannon’s shout is prayer,
robes wounded with poppies.
We have become an I-am-not-
self-recognizable blip of light.
More bleating. The man named Mark
is called away.
In last night’s dream the shovel
scraped the back step.
I dipped the blade into a puddle
that once had night on its face,
buried the blade in earth
like a gift to the Earth.
Wash it away. Wash it away.
New winter, let me speak.
iii.
And boom! I am back to the place I forget.
In the lighting section at the Canadian Tire,
proving I exist when the bulbs snap
on as I pass down the aisle.
The merfolk of Europa
are not thrilled with the drills
and buckets, the broadcasts
of chainsaws, the canned
slaughter of forests we are
about to send.
I broadcast you, your rare science,
and dream it was just like this:
in the lighting section
of the sky’s broad lens.
You’d think me a bird,
and you might not be wrong.
Think me into something.
If you leave me unthought,
who will stand for Europa?