the ferris wheel

beautiful wheel
high up in the sky
twisting twisting twisting
round and round it goes
coming up each time at the same exact angle
tangible colours and sensations dot the night
bobbles of bright colours
round and round it goes
the wheel of life
eliptical journey
each day the sun rises, each day the sun sets
gently it spins its metallic braces and arms
the night sky is lit
sparkling
echoes
up
up
up
the dancing colours
of the carnival go higher and higher into the shimmering sky
soon the great wheel whirls
faster
and faster
it has become a blur of light and sound
as people in the seats laugh
and scream
as they go
round and round it goes
it is magical
it has transformed from a gargantuan hunk of metal
into
a
go
my eyes watch it spin
round and round it goes
i am fascination by its lunar journey
along its spectral orbit
it is
as though
only i can see it
i am not at the carnival
i am
somewhere
else
soon, as all of the world disappears before my eyes
i am on a flat plain of black ground
before me
the ferris wheel

As Soon As You're Born

riding off into the dying sun
seeing what's ended and what has begun
close your eyes and wish what's been done
edge of the world in the back of your mind
it's hard to live and it's hard to define
where the feeling ends and when you've crossed the line
high as a kite in an aching sky of blue
watching the clouds glide between me and you
making emotions turn to dust that is see-through
that's whisked up by cars as they pass through
leaving no trace they were ever there
just like everything else for which you care
cuz there's nothing to do there
faceless night swallowing the sky
makes you feel like you're gonna die
keep out the madness by closing your eyes
but even from them you can't ever hide
they'll come find your not matter how hard you try
surround you in the travestied web of their lies
eat you up like a burger and fries
til you come to accept that your part of their lives
something to think as you watch people die
distant sun coming up to meet the day that comes early
it should be filled with things that are plenty
something you can't count on in a land that is empty
while the glares of americans remain ever so frosty
the ones that can see past the creation of fallacy
something to be considered when your dishing out an apology
but what they deserve is no matter of humility
since they can never be expected to understand your agony
something that makes you more human than anything
nobody listens and nobody hears
nothing waiting between you and the fear

lmagery

take the road less travelled
beyond the edges of time
and time out of mind
into the backwaters of the soul
and the backwoods of thinking
nobody will meet you there,
nobody will greet you there,
nobody will be there.
sounds and echoes in the long lost wind
nothing but memories
hallucinations and deliberations are all that remain
something of the past has come to pass
become what is instead of what was
come and gone
start and stop
beginning and end
everything is turned into the opposite way
they are all beyond nothing that is everything that wasn't
black and white fade to grey
everything going backwards into the future
you can't control what is going to happen here
or what already has.
that's my point exactly,
except it isn't.
nothing i've ever said has ever been important,
except that it is.
i'm saying it isn't, so there it is
i'm saying is is, so there it isn't
everything is the opposite, except nothing really is
you're making it all up, you say
except that i'm not.
i haven't lied to you or made anything up,
you created whatever it is that you are seeing
i never can make you think or see anything
that is all of your own creation
maybe you're happy with it, maybe you're not
i don't really know
i didn't think those things for you
that's why i said everything was the opposite, and yet it isn't
because you think it's so
i'm only telling you so,
but whether you follow through is anybody's judgement,
since we can't see inside your mind any better than you can.
isn't life just the same way as what i'm saying here?
maybe it is and maybe it isn't.
i only know what i've been told.
but at the same time i know more.
that's the truth of it,
i can know everything and nothing at the same moment in time.
whatever you see you have made.
i can't see it for you.

dEAR fRIEND

learn to pacify the senses
bring the childish ideas back with erasers
quietly brand the damage that has happened here.
somewhere in the far reaches of your brain, something that remains that can never be the same,
i know you tried to break her,
make sure that nobody would realize
the mistakes you made when you went with her.
trying to blank out the past
won't help you make this tragic time pass
as you wonder what's gonna happen when everyone else finds out.
those kids, look at them
they're all yours
but this one, well that's a mistake eh?
why didn't you stop and use your head?
medical science created procedures for idiots just like you
the more the merry, not just a few
i wonder how many here would raise their hands and say....?
look at all the families here
oh so young and poor and maybe even,
lest i should stray to the side, and risk offending someone,
....abusive
alcohol and drugs and guns aren't good for kids.
well all know that
so why can't you stick to that pact
you made way back
said you'd never do anything like that
remember that night?
when the dark sky was full of light
coming down from the silver stars
and we sat around the fire
and talked about the future
and hoped with all our hearts we could make it fruitful
and i don't just mean in the bedroom either
we honestly wanted to be able to make it better
for those who we would bring
into this world
but it seems many have forgotten
those sweet words that we spoke
maybe it's the honey dripping from their lips that was really what was said
cause that seems to be what's happened in the end
once i would have considered you a friend
but someone who hits his girlfriend?
no way for me to stay,
and neither should she,
she deserves better that what you've been giving
lying and stealing and running
hoping she won't notice and take to tattling,
bring in social services,
maybe make you realize what kind of diservices
that you really provide.
and what about those kids eh?
don't need a safer life than what you make for them today
all they want to do is go play
but you can't seem to do anything but prevent that
if i can ask anything from you,
it is to stop for once second
and perhaps for me to recommend
that you take a damn hard look
at your messed up life.
and all the other lives you have ruined.

Black and White Stripes

black and white stripes on the egdes of insanity,
worlds that collide with increasing calamity,
thoughts that break the dawning enterance of reality,
what is it I've done to encourage passivity?
broken the promise of life and death,
wait umtil the condensation from your breath,
has become of the water in the ocean blue,
gone forever, just like you.
i can't think of how this has come to pass,
the constant change of emotions transfixed so fast,
it seems as though our lives have been caught in a perpetual dash,
always on the run, digging deeper into the pockets for fast cash.
suddenly you look back and it's gone,
whatever you had when nothing was done,
the hidden messages smashed as wicked waves on a hardened shore, waiting to be deciphered,
god in the machine watching as we just get higher.
magical elixers,
the power to make the what's good seem sinister,
change the face of an innocent into something that should have finished her.
glass eyes peering out from the surface of dawn,
chasing the mirages you created with your own darkness,
keeping whatever you thought you had and thought you could share through daring,
maybe now it's disappeared.
alice down the rabbit hole,
only i can see and fear the cold,
or so i've been told,
i feel like i'm wound in a carpet that's been rolled,
nothing is real, in this sea of repulsion.
myself am nothing to do with what i have and can become,
take the life of not only people but the memories of what i've done,
change the blackest night back into the most glorious day,
something i'd never thought i'd have to end this way.
the subtle joys and harmonies of love and kinship,
destroyed and maligned in this fateful place we've come to call friendship,
tailor-made to suit our own fantasy of the flesh.
caravan of god snakes over the horizon,
coming to get us whether we can see past the edges of the horizontal.
make me bleed, so that i can be free,
put me to death, so that i can see,
make it so that i have no choice but to flee.
escapism is just another way,
make the choice that you won't be able to reverse one day.
something to remove us from this earth,
ensure our place among the tradgedies of equality,
make sure that we are forever encrusted in fallacy,
a fact we know we had the time to change, but only managed to capitulate our chances,
you can watch the smoke as it dances,
maybe this it what it looks like when a ghost walks and prances.
hallucinations of what we feel in our own skin,
nothing to tell us we should be proud of the skin that we're in,
just want to disappear from the horror we have welcomed in.
maybe i can be cain, and you abel,
except we'll kill both of us since we're both so able,
no one needs us to remain among
those of humanity who call this place home.
toxic cocktail of fairy dust and pain,
something no child would ever want to play with.
maybe we can call it mental illness,
maybe we can call it drug addictions,
maybe we can call it something else to reduces the length of our lives,
and instead decide
how we want to die
and how we want to be immortalized.
look at the image you have painted for yourself in the mirror,
do you think of it as something to like or to fear,
perhaps divinity is as a far cry for us as is reality,
maybe we can just exist in an infernal purgatory,
stick our wretched bodies full of vile chemicals,
and never have to face the consequences.
since one step to the left is to enter the cave
you can never come back from there.
most call it hell,
maybe it's a difficulty idea to sell,
but i can see that the mind warping has done quite well,
all those years of abuse, misuse and repeated damnation have taken their toll.
it's time to open the door to the place we've never been before
and open the trap door that's hidden in the floor

welcome home

up along the river where the wavy grasses grow
along the shallow shores and brown muddy banks
with the bath of dusty dirt and shrubbery
and the birds whistling in the trees as you pass
the summer sun hot on your back
nobody watchin
nobody carin
black clouds dancin on the horizon
just turn the other way, don't look back
you'll never see them til it's to late
keep your eyes on the road up ahead
get ready to run
dodge the train on the tracks
keep away from the rest of them
it isn't safe here anymore
nothin left is golden
everything is broken
laundry flutters in the breeze
hanging from a crooked wire
from a wooden post to a plastic house
watchin everybody grow up
amid the rubble and the grow ops
shiny diamonds of rain draining from the sky
the tears of the creator, maybe
they say ignorance is bliss
but how can you be ignorant once you've seen this?
community despair and destruction await
all those who linger too long at the entrance to hell's gate
cheerful sun in a sky of baby blue
smilin right back at you
gentle whisper of the breeze
dancin along the twisted train tracks

Ebb and Flow

ebb and flow
edge of this world and that down below
south, take the long way home
past the houses row on row
down to the city
taken away from the village and into the proximity
big highways and animosity
selling their souls and that of others in ferocity
hoping nobody notices
hiding in the garden full of lotuses
try to blend in within the majority
though they stand out in a way of mediocrisy
hidden in their own waves of hypocrisy
the police follow them
from here to the end
something you don't wanna do to a friend
set up on a path
that they can't off
no matter how hard they try
they've been lost
something else transpires
within the cities so-called ancient spires
the dark face of something sinister
lurking within the shadows
the same colour as those gowns worn by ministers
i wonder who understands these facts
so that we can all sit back and relax
and understand the difference between carbon and income tax
don't wanna signal a relapse
guess we're just gonna have to sit this one out and pass
keep what's better hidden in the past
scare the tourists off fast
sometime ago you thought this was beautiful
come to the city and reap what is bountiful
didn't realize how things were gonna crystalize
keep me locked in as things synthesize
nothing we can do to remove these lies
cause we've been locked in by our own innocent eyes
naive children anxious to learn
unaware we would come to know to much
but now when we think we've seen enough
we're trapped in a world that's too rough
something they warned us about in elementary school
when we were all in awe and thought violence was cool
didn't even think we'd been played as a fool
something else that they'll never show you in school

Green Grass Sky

green grass high in the sky
looking back down the road
heaven and hell on the fly
travelling thru the tales we been told
silver light crossing your mind
something else to understand
can't you keep the things you find
keep yourself free from reprimand
and so we went this way
around the path
arcing along within the day
couting every fence post
god in heaven watch us over
like they said he would
make sure we're safe forever
as we have understood
somewhere behind the curtain
black like diamonds in the dark
empty as a cocktail glass
with nothing left to drink
i see a light
dancing in a circle
and it's the only thing left
of what we did create
taking all these thoughts
i hope to realize
that all we had were theories
of how to actualize
maybe it's just too bad
that what we've managed to do has failed
or maybe this is better
so now we can learn to feel
shining dollars on the counter
what they cannot buy i don't want to know
just what they do i can
the rest is all someone else's knowledge
pass down by the gentle river
going back to the valley
take our time 'cause this isn't a race
watch the sunset from the veranda
clouds swaying in the whispy breeze
green grass dead with the graveyard
accented by a sky of blue
all the roads are made of gravel

Red Car

crawling up the hill between the houses
just on the edge of the town
I saw the car
bright red like a cherry on top of a cake
shiny like a freshly painted firetruck
sitting in front on the house
it doesn't belong to anyone here I know
maybe someone's kid from the city came back
made a lot of money
put us all to shame
doesn't want people to know where they came from
not a little dusty town like this
I sat there and admired the car
I wanted one too
but then I stopped to think
where does money like that come from,
when everything's too good to be true?
maybe the bad places that adults like to talk about
in hushed voices with the door closed.
I never saw the owner of the car;
I figured it was bad to spy.
the car was still there
the next day
along with everything else
just like the day before
school with its dull lessons in the fall away from here,
christmas with its bright packages from home that we long for,
the first sunny days of spring that soon it will be another summer and we will return home.
I think again of the red car
maybe it is someone from the school
bringing that car into town
I don't know what they'd want here.

here

i can hear you
crawling up and down the stairs
back behind the kitchen
in your worn out winter boots
there's nothing else to do today
why don't we sit and while the time away
there's nothing on tv
except that which comes from far away
aren't you glad the good weather's here to stay?
maybe we can go up the creek
see some friends
and go fishing on the way
make sure we stop at auntie's on the way back
she likes to have visitors
she sits in the kitchen with charlene
and plays cards all day
i'm gonna buy some beer today
with some money
that i saved up from those jobs
i went and did painting houses
maybe we can have some fun
get some friends to join us
being drunk ain't much fun when you're alone
if you want
we could get some food in town
or maybe
just go to a relatives
i think our refridgerator's broken
the only thing left in there
is moldy bread
and a little bit of dried up lettuce
that i think came from a food bank or a potluck
someday i wish
that i could go away
maybe south to some big city
i don't know where
get away from all this place
then i think
of all my friends
and remember
what happened to everybody else
who went down to the cities
and then i think
about what my family would do
when i wasn't here
i think i'd get too damn lonely
and get drunk too much
and not go to work
cause i'd miss everybody too much
i think i'll stay here
even though some say it's hard
but i gotta disagree
cause this is where i'm from
and this is where
my people are from
so i think that i just stay.
i don't know what i should do
because we get told
to go south and get work
or go to the mines farther up north
i just don't know
those places seem so far away
it's kinda scary
goin to a place where there's nobody you know
and nothing looks the same
my uncle went to saskatchewan
and said that he never saw a forest
and i don't know what i'd do
if i stopped seeing the things i know
i don't know what i'd do
they keep coming round
asking us to come to church
go to school
get a job
go to town
why can't they leave us alone?
why can't they see we're just as happy here?
that studying foreign history doesn't expand your mind
that working for some strange goal doesn't make you better
that leaving where you're from can't help you get ahead
i just wanna do what my elders taught me
go by the land
live my life a good way
know the traditions that bind the earth
not what they teach you about in picture books
i don't belong
in the white man's town
i'll stay here on the rez
and learn my own ways
i need to understand myself
before i can learn the ways
of someone else
and i just don't know if they understand
when will they ever?
i don't want to hurt myself
or hurt you
there's just nothin else to do
drinking kills
slowly
but like i said before
there ain't much else to do
there's only so much that you and i can do
to change what's going on
i don't think that we can ever stop
the people from going and drinking in the bars
there's just too much pain to deal
they need something to keep going in the day to day
but it's sad
maybe one day it will all disappear
and leave us all alone
so that we can get back to our ways
before we had to change
and learn to live the ways of the white man
and lose the knowledge that we already had to survive
the truth is already written in the history books
there's nothin we can do bout that now
just gotta go on
and keep trying
somethings may change
while others stay the same
i wish that i could make it easier
for everyone
so that we don't have to suffer anymore
and forget about the past
even though that never seems to make the pain go away
can even make it worse dependin how you look at it
and make it so
that there doesn't need to be people chasin after us all the time
or special scary government departments
and i don't need a welfare check
and have to worry about whether i can get a job
because of the way i look and how i can't change that
someday i hope
that things will get better
and we won't have the things to do now
just to get by with life itself
but in the meantime
maybe we can find something good.

Knowledge

let there be enough time
to create crystal buildings out of glass
to shape them at whim and idea
and to mold thoughts out of mind.
within these great monoliths of architexture and physical science
i would house
knowledge out of history
written on the edges of time and the universe itself.
let there be enough time
so that erasers and repainting
may represent itself in history
though knowledge and understanding will be not lost.
let these things
come to pass under one roof
just as one family lives in one house.

house in the woods

in between the valleys
and the green emerald trees
sits an old house
carved out of cedar wood.
it's been there a long time
and has gone grey
like an old woman's hair.
there are yellowed curtains in the windows
and smoke curling up from the chimney.
at night
a small light is in
the right window.
if you look hard enough
sometimes you can see someone reading a book
inside the house.
there are never any parties
there
but people come and go
but I've never seen anyone
travel up and down the road.
there is nothing to indicate
that anyone is living there
apart from the fact
that on sunny days
there is laundry
hanging outside.

Past Christmas

plasticine clay
and peppermint spice
shadows and boxes and everything nice.
satin red ribbons
dark green fur trees
light powder snow and a cold winter breeze.
old waxy candles
and chalky cakes
twine and flowers and plastic snakes.
bright coloured paper
red and green hats
old knitted stockings and a christmas cat.
yellowed cards
and candy canes
dance in a memory of christmas that came.

something short

time goes slipping by
in an upside down bottle
as a butterly flutters past my window
i think
of all the things that could have been
that should have been
and weren't.
i think
of times and places and wide open spaces
a kite dancing around in the sky
silouetted by green boreal trees.

Proud People

a proud people once stood
on a hissock in the hill
and surveyed the land that was rightly theirs
the black hills of south dakota
and many surrounding plains
all were theirs
claimed not only through tradition but through honor and sacrifice
a strong and fearless people
who ruled the land with fair and just rule
one day to become wards of the state.
oh where did these people go?
forced off the lands they once surveyed
onto reserves no bigger than the state of long island
much smaller than what is really theirs
an outrage to their living and their dead
caused by a government which does not care
about the people or the air.
and in this vein
there will be no peace
until these lands go back
to those who really own them.
high above the proud black hills,
the clouds danced in the baby-blue sky
while far below
there lingered abuse and violence
among the people who once stood proud
among their sacred lands.

Ride the White Wave

ride the white wave
that curves over the rocks in the bay
and crashes down onto the sand below,
scooping up the driftwood and seaweed as it goes.
ride the white wave
that scatters the dust from the sand
and traces the outline of the water,
bringing in the wind.
ride the white wave
that shapes the clouds
and dapples the colours on the tree trunks,
shaping the reflections on glass.
ride the white wave
that empties the dishes in the soapy water
and rinses the thoughts,
moving feelings and apathetic tendencies.
ride the white wave
that removes memories of pain and sorrow
closing books on the past until tomorrow,
saving what's left and destroying what's not.

Paper Mache Mask

and then, out of the sparkling darkness
a face pasted out of hope,
the edges smeared and soaked in glue,
dried on a shelf during a hot afternoon,
the colours slightely faded by the light.
features shaped by loving hands,
curving,
flowing into the paper and cardboard,
wrapped by the thin outer forcefield
of craft glue mixed with water
and then dried.
still slightely tacky,
and smelling of glue,
the face carries hope on its way to you.
concealing human emotion in paper,
i leave you this gift
the only expression that you will need
on your journey.

south dakota

my brother
and i
once drove
across the bottom
of south dakota
in an old
station wagon
it was very dusty there
i don't know why
we went
he said he liked
the grasses there
he claimed the breeze
was nice and fresh
as it skittered off into
the west
i don't know why
we went
there instead
of montana or idaho
he said he preferred
the bottom of
south dakota.
the land there
was very flat indeed
with rocks
and dried out river beds
and funny looked grasses too
which stood quite still
against a brilliant sky of blue,
and beyond those little specks,
sometimes a rock or too
would the horizon crest.
we stopped and took a rest
by the zig-zags in a crooked fence,
that curved again
into the west.

The Purple Roses

buy me a kite
and paint it black
like the fur that grows on your cat
who sits up by the purple roses
that i bought for you
on a hot summer's day
in may
when the sun shone bright
and made the green grass glow
and i looked at those flowers
and thought
they looked
like the shadows you can see
in your eyes
when you tilt your head to the side
and look in the mirror
with a flashlight

winsome shadows

in the winsome shadows of the dark green hills,
covered
with thick dark fur trees,
they watched the thin lake quivver in the twitching breeze
their eyes glancing down the long expance
the sky painted on the sheet of glass.
and there they saw an eagle
soaring
high above their own heads
imprinted on the dappled surface
of the ever changing water that
shivered below their feet.

jUDY bLUE eYES

soup cans
stacked like plastic candy-canes
their irridescent glow
sprayed across her face
just like paint
age
etched away in every line
curling across time and space
words can't describe
the emotions hidden, behind those burnt blue eyes
coloured
neon, just like her hair, peroxide blond
dyed badly in someone's bathroom sink
in some hotel
on Hastings street,
where the guilded buildings gleam
with summer sweat on a humid day, they
look long shadows
at those below them.
molded lace curtains
sputter in the false breeze, that chudders up from
the thick buses below,
smelling
like cheap liquor and raunchy cigarrettes,
woven into her hair,
just like the braids she wears
put in so long ago
by somebody else, who didn't really care.

my bro

spending money buying food
no-one cares if u cant afford to pay for food
8 bucks an hour ain't exactly fun
pretty sh*tty job all in all
money that should be spent at the mall
but i gotta save it all
gonna go to college in the fall

working long hours every single day
wished i had a job like my bro
carefully saves up all his hard earned dough
already knows where hez gonna go

my little bro spends all his money on weed
it aint sh*t that hez really gonna need
uses that sh*t up like chiken feed
im just glad he doesnt use speed

i dont like school that much
the teachers there are pretty f*cked up
the kids who like it there are just messed up
seems like they do nothin to get a buck

i wish there wasnt all this insanity
keeping us down and out with poverty
aint got time to look for clarity
aint gonna take no fuckin charity

every day it gets harder to go on
watchin my older bro makin sure he can get beyond
the shit u find at the bottom of a pond

Sardine Minnow

bought a new coat
sold the old one on a steamboat
when we were goin down the rippling stream
it had a torn inseam
but the man who bought it was mighty keen
said it was the nicest coat he'd ever seen
said it was the colour of a sardine
we passed the statue of the queen
with it's heavy gleam
making the forest round look pretty green
and the water below pretty gray
with a somber glow
and just down low, I could see a little minnow
swimming in a little grotto
hidden in the granite
which was coloured russet
shiny as a silver bullet
hidden away just like a secret
coloured just like a sardine

St. Peter and St. Paul

Didja hear the story
about St. Peter and St. Paul?

Goin to Saskatoon
with gold fields in the fall

Hitchhikin with strangers
trying to get there fast.

Didja hear the song
about Mr. Fournier?

Left erelong,
Sold his family farm

Walked along,
gone to Fond-du-Lac.

Didja hear the tale,
about old Mrs. Williams?

Walking to the town,
past the old windmills

Goin to talk,
to old St. Peter and St. Paul.

government secrets

gov'ment buying time from the damn people
selling land like it's christmas presents
sending out churches to help the heathens
hoping to spread help
mission impossible
gov'ment chucking dimes and nickels at the wall
paying attention to their own downfall
keeping information to themselves
keeping the secrets up on high shelves
spreading out the settlements
watching their sacraments
gov'ment spending money on sh*t
wear the glove if it fits
making sure we all looking the right way
sending all the indians back to jail
making sure we don't know what we ain't been told
social services ain't got no money so they gotta fold
gov'ment taking taxes for entertainment
selling out to some British economist
poverty and abuse running loose
asking for helps like making your own noose
forests going down to the pulp mills
excavators diggin up the massacres
gov'ment been lyin to you all along
hidin history from those they been hurtin all along
since before dominion they been destroyin the land
makin sure everyone don't know what they banned
Kuper island is a prime example
if you want more like that we got a handful

Aerospace and Plastic Hedgerows

Aerospace is closing in
falling upside to supper through Texas
and you asked me
would I be free
to take tea
with thee?
On a Saturday afternoon
when we
have
just considered the outlines
that linger from the clouds dotting overhead.
But, like I said before,
aerospace is closing in
sending sparks through people's plastic hedgerows
that
are really
terribly
infested with badgers.