WEDDING RECEPTION IN WINNIPEG
The house was old and beautiful
the guests were rich and mingly
A boy from the farm leans against the mantle
leather-bound Leaves of Grass open in his hand
Anyone bothering to notice might have thought
“Why doesn’t he try to make some friends”
He and Walt smile
HERMIT ENVY
The thing about being alone
is finding someone to lie to
about how good it feels
PRACTICE
This morning I am practicing being a ghost
Thinking of all the people I can’t quite touch
all the thirst I can’t quite quench
Waving my hands, reciting my poems
saying ….. see me ….. see me
SURVIVAL
There are wolves
everywhere and closer
Your parents are busy flailing
at the snarling snouts and dripping fangs
Busy wrapping their own
and each other’s bloody wounds
While you curl up, cold and lonely
in the bottom of the sleigh
thinking, I’ll die if someone
doesn’t pick me up and hold me soon
CHINESE RESTAURANT
Sorry John Donne
but some men may be islands
or castaways
in small prairie towns
fifty miles by bad road
from any other of their race
Tall walled booths along one side
twisted-wire chairs and tables too
my father and his friends had coffee
I think mine was cream soda
We may have eaten there
but I don’t remember
certainly at five or six
I would not have imagined
that we were as strange to him
as he was to us
All I ever knew
of the inner man
was the pungent foreignness
of the old two-holer out back
Fast forward six years or so
to small town of Mossbank
on the South side of the lake
A chubby twelve year old
sits in a low walled booth
with his best buddies
and another Chinese man
in another Chinese café
serves up vanilla cokes
(when vanilla still had alcohol)
and marks our tabs with Chinese signs
I asked him what my three mean
Big – Small – Happy
LONGING FOR FAMILY
I was an only child
the second of five
We were often in
the same house
sometimes attended
the same schools
churches too
and are searching
for each other still
WINTER NIGHT – PRAIRIE
Coyote joins me
howling at the moon
Much lonelier to appear
in a million city eyes unseen
RIPE BERRIES
Sometimes when I drink I think
that I could live inside like other people
It looks so warm and so safe
and I want so much to be there
But like a bird flying on ripe berries
I sober up against the pane
JUDY
Judy was a beauty
tall and blonde and shy
early this month she decided to die
The soft wise eyes, the curling lashes
all now ashes
We have been friends for twenty years
hugs and coffee when in town, cards when far away
And always the latest poetry
She said it was important, and it touched her
in places nothing and no one else could reach
Three years ago
I put my neck in a green eyed noose
I sent no cards, I did not call
I do not know if I could have saved her
though touch and poetry have been known to
I only know I hate what I did and didn’t do
I only know that she drowned out there alone
I only know it was a long time since I had thrown her a line
I’M BACK
I went away but I’m back
I’ve met the Queen
but I’m back
I’ve worked and grown till I dropped
and learned till my ear wax popped
I’m better and kinder and wiser
with an armful of gifts
and I’m back
Oh dear, isn’t anybody here