cake

bought myself a rifle and a batch of johnny cake
gonna take it to my aunt next morning at just past eight
gonna take it by her house sittin there by the lake
i bought the thing cause i don't know how to bake
can handle a pan or pan a handle
but i know how to shoot a grouse or a nice heavy goose
somethin that i don't hafta guess
but i think i'll stay away from that johnny cake

wabaseemoong

highway 17 does go
through kenora and keewatin
a land of ancient bliss
greening forest hidden by the mist
take the highway 17A
to pass it by
take it west to get to manitoba
or go the east and get to thunder bay
nothing much to see in here and there
just lakes and things grow there
winding highway
where did i take you wrong?
where did i miss the turn off to wikwemikong?
i must be pretty lost, cause the sign says i'm in wabaseemoong
oh where did i go wrong?

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