red style rez style
indian territory
inner city red terror
as portrayed on city evening news
innuendo rumour filled myths
a nightmare from the past
and still they circle
greying seagulls in fancy cars
smelling slightly old world
picking up pieces standing on the corner
leaving a few more shards scattered on the sidewalk
lost souls working for a quick trip
out of their lives
pow wow jiving driving man
caught in a drum beat song
riding wave after wave of tobacco smoke
caressing a sweet grass sage scented woman
strutting striding turning heads
catching her secret smile
maybe it was a trick of the light
or an active imagination and wishful dreaming
but i thought i caught a wink
making a street poetry man dance
blue collar stained sunbaked windburned working face
hey buck get a haircut
reverberating throughout the southern reaches
left echoing in little deathbed watched towns
stamped on his back the mark of cain
and another word flung out of passing cars lands
and is filed away with all the rest of those silent trips
inside his mind images of yesterday criss-crossed with railway tracks
humming hydro lines and back trails full of muskeg and water
remembering each line cut by the callouses on his hands
and a memory is stored
every muscle and joint aching with each recall
street poetry
red style rez style
long haired four directions man
draws another photograph thought buried
recalling the crying tree falling
spirit territory
an image an idea a vision
i could see the past in the rings of the moon
no one no one
even rez time blues lovers
can understand my story
while trying to analyse written thoughts
with european assimilated english use
i dream in cree and north
smelling of muskeg, spruce and cedar
my fire burns into this land i stand on
from birth to death
to death to life
a circle never ending
i have nowhere else to go
my path leads not from the east or west
but from the sky
an eagle cries my story
street poetry
red rez style
nine streets past crazy
still can recognize a blast from the past
leaning against the maclaren
waiting as we always did for an offer
selling laughter for a beer on cool saturday afternoons
looking with it strolling down main
ignoring the piss on the sidewalk
neatly sidestepping teetering friday night people
making that move seen at the arena
score
saved a loonie
just nine streets past crazy
all boarded up and dying
a friend lost blood there
going out to visit
stepped into a knife instead
left a stain on the carpet
and in my heart
just an empty space
nine streets past crazy
on a saturday morning
walking with sixty
nursing a hangover
what year was that
the Brunswick had go-go girls
my dad went to see
after a long drive from grand rapids
on dust covered roads
a back seat full of kids
travelling at the speed of our screams
just nine streets past crazy
watching all day movies for a buck
stepping into nightday
street alive with brown
wide-eyed from the north
just nine streets past crazy
sitting in the darkest corner
underaged hiding in the shadows
saturday evenings
rolling drunks in the back
c-weed was beginning at the brunswick
and we’d go downstairs
into wall to wall brown
dancing
what year was that
nine streets past crazy
heard the gunshot and the rage
on open line radios
white on red on black on yellow
refusing to see from outside their skins
believing in their infallibility
and in their laws as divine
just nine streets past crazy
watching wondering
counting the number of times i was turned away
from the good street
i wandered into after losing my way
nine streets past crazy
it’s been a long ride on a bad road
made worse by unexplained detours
appearing on blind trails
snowbound
held hostage by myself and a bad road
caught in a time warp
in some northern camp
next to nowhere
and dammed up rivers
going nowhere to feed the south
snowbound
in between lifers
that made the trip and never came down
whispering to invisible companions
sitting at separate tables
inching closer to themselves
when they see you walk in
a stranger in a strange place
made stranger by lifers
still dressed in their very best polyester pants
flashback
to the city
lowtrack walking
cruising the strip
for a quick one nighter
snowbound
on a very bad road
caught in a three vehicle traffic jam
behind gardewine north
and an impatient bootlegger
trying to beat the storm to the bar
watching the end of the day approaching
snowbound
on a very bad road
not picturing the trail ahead
only the relative smoothness
of a very rough road behind us
all i want to do is howl
when i look back
and find out
they’re gaining
but i have nothing left to say
to them
that came suddenly
silently flying on water
with shiny gifts and pretty beads
full of promises
and a black book that listed our sins
them that came suddenly
breaking every rule their god had laid down
though shalt have no other gods
but he was invisible
so he was forgotten and left to wither
becoming dust through the ages
and
another legend was born
a legend of nobody
living without false dreams
and knowing his limitations
would disappear into himself
from time to time
until one day
he forgot to return
and now his body
abandoned
sits in the corner
at the end of a sterile corridor
and his message deemed unacceptable
due to the volatility of the times
gathers dust
we are wolf
hunted to near extinction
driven deeper into our past
hidden in shadows
forced to dance in secret
to a silent drum
lying in wait
in tiny spaces
set apart to be changed
unable to shape ourselves
in our past image
white on brown or death
our reward
for being here
when others arrived
we are wolf
a price on our heads
judged by old world laws
by strangers with tainted gifts
who fled the injustice
and persecution
to pass it down on us
we gave our permission
to live side by side
watching our side lose
and places were removed
piece by piece
and invisible walls rose
to the sky
we looked and howled
in anger
we are wolf
we are restless
must have strayed too far off the path
tripping over the same words as before
circled around till i came upon myself
still lost
i guess i lied
when i told that story
but it seemed so real at the time
but you found me out
and ignored me when i passed by you
even as i rambled on
trying to make it right
must have strayed too far off the path
unable to penetrate the darkness
closing in around me
hiding you on the trail
i could dream in Cree one time
my visions full of music kookum sang
echoing from the past
now it’s all jumbled and lost
among concrete canyons
full of exhaust and used smells
must have strayed too far off the path
for now i dream in white
inside city lights
the colour of youth misplaced
inside plastic bags
inhaled in back alleys
new visions manufactured by lies
struggling to find my feet
staring blankly at the setting sun
not knowing the direction i was going
or remembering the nature of the path behind me
on this day of days i’ve seen time come and go like the seasons
of youth and past dreams left to fend for themselves
and i beheld a pipe in a vision that was not mine to share with
strangers that felt the need to learn to touch to experience
the joy that was us as we travelled between the spirit world and
our own where we could feel and breathe like those before us
but we were banished from this land of those that went before
time erased our memories leaving us scattered and scarred
unable to dream in colour or not knowing the rhythm of the
season
why are we here now remembering in bits and pieces
and the night never-ending waking me from nightmares not of
my making
i scrambled from my past
stumbling in place
dancing i tried to leave
but i was held in awe by my ineptness
and you laughed and laughed
my clumsy attempts at trying to find my feet again
long ago i stopped giving thanks
and the dreams that were visions were left discarded behind me
buried with my mother in a residential room
stark naked except for a cross on a wall
making a sign of the cross and a wish
never fulfilled
we stayed behind while we watched you drive away
i wish i could slip into muskeg and spruce
encircling myself with northern lights
wolf songs and night hawks rustling the underbrush
catching the smells of the past still on me
even though my feet are concrete hardened
and my spirit tells stories of neon and blues
i am the son of muskeg and spruce
i still dance to the music of yesterday