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.