April 21, 2012


toponym 5

the North, a medium-tall scrub
at eye level, the other layers flowing
into and out of
the poem

but for now, the moment
is this line of willows, second-growth
awareness

burned-over areas,

Labrador tea against the thigh
and a rustle of being
scrub birch, black spruce,
listening for connection

the thin tree cover wetland
buzzes away the afternoon drowse

soaks though shoes,
holds you here

April 11, 2012


toponym 4

contingencies blend and/
or collide and the root structures
                             flex with input

the political economy
of the space is a             constant
negotiation of flow

the energy of a word’s
motion across paths
of light, water,
generosity

the name of the place is
consumed: chewed and changed,
shit on the road,
washed into a gully,
reorganized

in transition moments or/
and ecotone zones the shift is
a turn and sway and knows
nothing of revolution

the needs of this area
will be met

April 9, 2012

toponym 2

maps lose us
in their          accurate
lines, boundaries of own and
out and here
there and when it was

this separation--the gap
of space and standing
             (a glance around
              for others there too
(and love         love for
you placing yourself
all your relations
defining the next
step, the next
meal          time is land

the measures are story
the place neural
           inaccuracies scrounging for survival

April 1, 2012


Blockade 4


dawn, prescient, bulldozer      |       the flow of resources go also through our mind                                           |              cardboard boxes and broken crates on fire; three white-tails further down                                  the ditch            |               first, what family’s land               | the road, the pipe, the                             terminal, the tanker, the destined port, the profit—all going away and leaving       |                              resting crouched on the ground, feet planted, listening to the sounds of small creatures,                           the air, the rich smell of hoolhghulh powering the ravine, the trickle of water everywhere,                      the place is not numbers, the place is not yours           |         a tourniquet would seem so                      enticing too                  |               enbridging v.  :   to make a leap in logic that dismisses                            all other points of view           |        “nation-building” the minister’s claim staked          |                         what else is a 1991 Civic for              |                 named Tehwehron, named MacBlo                          Brutalist in 1993              |                  this passive act of war, this bodied word


January 10, 2012


Blockade 3


|    you were there, hobo, ostrich-rider            |            a knack for being in the wrong place and a disregard for personal safety            |            can’t stop can’t slow can’t give can’t care can’t live can’t recant can’t not can’t             |            by the sign saying ‘watching for trucks turning’, by the sign that something is awry            |            the territory’s family name            |
sub-boreal spruce and balsam: picea speaking outside the frame                        |            the result is not conclusive, but the intervening language moved back south            | what is it  about the interruption of the normal?     |      wild rose cattail soapberry and raspberry
|            the first bulldozer here 1969 under Socreds     |            gravel from Chetwynd
|            asphalt   |            center line            |            is the message delivered or stopped?    | flows and system analysis concluded that the excess was not accounted for                        |   an oily patch on the way            |            the BC Access Office is where you renew your driver’s license            |            a prepositional phase            |   the reason for the media is a place to record the movement of public emotion            |            can’t go, further